True or False

2 Peter 2

No one answer outloud… picture favorite false teacher, got em? tv, YouTube, pastor of last church you attended No one thought of me or Colton did they?

I don’t want them to be…

INTRO: Today’s message is not one that will have us racing to the altars. At least I would hope not, given the subject matter. Instead it’s my hope today that our look at this chapter would help us increase in our understanding and perspective of discerning between truth and deception… between reputable and questionable… between light and darkness. And if it’s applicable, consider how we need to realign our attention to different voices or influences in our daily life.

What is a false teacher? Here in a second we are going to look at our text and get clear scriptural direction on what a false teacher looks like, but before we do that I think it could be helpful to clear our minds of some commonly misused identifications of a false teacher. So let’s do a little true or false.

True or false? A boring preaching is a false teacher?

True or false? A pastor who doesn’t run great board meetings?

True or false? A preacher who makes a mistake or speaks in error upon occasion?

True or false? A preacher who has a large following?

True of false? A preacher who has a small following?

True or false? The pastor of the previous church you attended because you didn’t like how they lead(LED)? By the way the enemy loves to point out flaws to you in church leaders because he wants to keep you from getting rooted in community. Btw you don’t have to wait for the enemy to tell you about my flaws, just come talk with me and I’ll share them with you.

True or false? A preacher who has alot of money?

True or false? A preacher whose approach to the supernatural makes you uncomfortable?

True of false? Any preacher that is screaming at you on tv, youtube, tiktok etc?

Not saying any of the people I just mentioned couldn’t be false teachers, but these ideas in and of themselves aren’t what makes them false.

Let’s take a look at what scripture says here about their characteristics. We will start in verse 1 then move around a little bit. 2nd Peter Chapter 2 verse 1.

2 Peter 2:1–3 “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.”

Now look down at verse 10 with me.

2 Peter 2:10–16 “This is especially true (speaking of what will happen to them from the previous 6 verses, which we will cover here in a second)… this is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.”

Let’s go through the list from these 10 verses to see what a false teacher looks like.

Awareness

Secretly introduce destructive heresies

Denying the Lord

Greedily exploit you with made up stories

Follow the corrupt desire of their flesh

Despise authority

Arrogantly speaking evil of angels

Blaspheme about things the are ignorant

Carouse (drinking and partying) in broad daylight

Eyes full of adultery

Seducing the unstable

I worked through this list this week in an effort to see if we could bring some practical application towards what a false teacher looks like. And I’ll share what I’ve got here in just a second, but let me start with this. Oftentimes I believe that as Christians we can read certain passages of scripture and want so badly for them to apply to us that we can stretch our situation to fit around the passage. In other words, maybe in my current context the sin that is being named isn’t as apparent.

I personally don’t have any pastor friends that I know are blatantly guilty of the list we just considered. Isn’t that good? Now i don’t know that it’s not secretly true of them because only God knows the heart.

But… I do have friends that have been told they don’t teach a denominational doctrine with the skill that they should. I’ve heard pastors condemn other pastors for letting people wear merchandise with church logos on it, because Jesus cleansed the temple of money changers. Btw if this concerns any of you, I think we’ve lost somewhere around $732 selling church merch since I’ve been here. I’ve seen the lyrics of songs certain songs torn apart by youtubers as if Colton believes that every time he sings he’s personally causing miracles to take place.

Now I’m not downplaying the importance of being a skilled communicator of the word, or the reality that we can bring more focus to money than what we are really here for on Sunday morning, or examining and considering what we are singing, but what are we chasing?

We have religious leaders who are twisting scripture in order to participate in sexual misbehavior with those under their watch, not just secretly, but in many cases openly.

We have teachers that say you must exhibit certain spiritual gifts to prove your salvation.

We have pastors that have stopped naming sin with a concern of offending people rather than being concerned with offending God.

So let me distill all that in to three simple warning signs.

False teachers… Use the name of God to permit themselves to sin

False teachers… Use their authority to require more from you for salvation than God does.

False teachers… Use their position to sell you a soft gospel that will attract those who don’t want to give up that sin that remains in their life. About 1000 years ago, indulgences were once sold where we could essentially pre-pay for our payoff sin with cash money. Even today it is common that we see religious practices of people being require to do penance, or basically some type of “make up” for their sin. Don’t get me wrong if you are mean to people, and you confess it, it would be good if you were then nice to people. But your works do not absolve you of your sins. Your repenting of your sin to Jesus whose blood was shed for you does that work.

Be careful of those who preach their opinions as exclusive truth.

For example, I think it’s best to not have a social media account, but I don’t think you are evil for having one.

I like the style of worship music we sing here, I don’t think churches that worship differently are wrong.

If we aren’t careful we can get so carried away chasing down “false teaching” we might find ourselves taking on a spirit of criticism that overshadows our desire to live in the light, which we were called to do.

Avoidance

So what’s our role in the arena of false teachers? Well first and certainly most prominently, don’t be one. Don’t ever use God for your own agenda with others. Agree with God about His agenda and then work to help carry that out. By the way, God’s agenda looks a whole lot like one more for Jesus.

Here me well, there is scriptural direction for how we call out and manage false teaching. But a big part of my job is not just exegeting scripture but exegeting the culture and our local church. So in response to false teaching especially in a digitally driven culture in America, I believe our greatest response to false teaching is avoidance.

Ephesians 5:11 says “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” Now, many have misrepresented this verse as though exposing darkness means that we act as those who caught the women in adultery and dragged her in front of Jesus to be brought on trial.

Rather we are to understand this passage in Ephesians as bringing light to the darkness, sharing the truth in love with that person and allowing for repentance. Our goal is not to expose the sinner to the public, but instead to share the light with that brother or sister in order to expose the sin itself in hopes of seeing that person turn from the error.

There’s PART of our role, but let me get back to this avoidance thing.

We need to avoid much more than we expose. If you want to make a living exposing people you can find someone or something to expose under every rock.

We live in a culture where anyone with a cell phone can try to acquire a following. If we aren’t careful we can find ourselves going down rabbit holes and trying to decide who is false or not, maybe even justifying our wasted time in making sure they can rightly explain to others who they should and shouldn’t be listening to.

Let me tell you where my fear comes when we do this. We “quote” Christians tell someone to stay away from a teacher, tv preacher, online presence etc. and what’s first thing that person does. Well I’ll check it out for myself… right?

Here’s the problem, the more we listen to the false teaching… the questionable teaching… the more we question what we ourselves believe. I could share multiple instances of people who called out false teaching and now find themselves completely out of the church as if their unhealthy interest in those who were doing wrong caused them to question at all what was right, and soon found themselves questioning everything to the point that they just said so what’s the point at all?

By the way if you think you are immune to this remember our text today said, they will secretly introduce destructive heresies. Do you know what that means… it could happen without you knowing it was happening… to you.

We need to spend much much less warning people about heretics, and much much more time pointing them towards truth.

And Here’s why you can have peace about not having to call out every false teacher in this world… Let’s look back at our text in verse 17

2 Peter 2:17–22 “These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.””

Assurance

You don’t have to worry about not rounding up all the false teachers in the world, because they have a promised future.

Blackest darkness is reserved from them. Anyone by chance have a worst consequence than that to offer someone?

They remain slaves to the things they tell others to be free from. Anyone like the slavery they were previously in?

If they go back to sin they escaped from they become entangled in it worse than they were before and are compared to a dog eating their own vomit, or a freshly bathed pig rolling around in the mud.

In summation, all these things tell us one of two things will take place. God will judge them or they will self-destruct, so then… YOU just keep walking in the light. YOU just keep pointing people to the truth.

God will handle them, let Him sort it out. Perhaps the greatest peace I’m experiencing in my life right now is coming from that principle. God is going to take care of things so I don’t have to.

SUMMARY/CONCLUSION :

So in summary today what do we do with what we’ve heard? Like I said, probably not a run to the altar kind of message, but instead how do I redirect my thoughts or how I spend my time based on this message.

A reminder of what a false teacher is.

They are BAD BAD PEOPLE… they’re not trying to get you to decorate the church the way you want them to or make a few extra dollars. They DON’T want you to follow Jesus.

They are FEWER than we think - That’s not me trying to downplay their reality, it’s my concern that we have an unhealthy obsession with it. False means to give an impression other than what you are. There are plenty of BAD teachers, or leaders of evil. We must not confuse this with false teaching.

So what am I supposed to do about it?

I believe we are to avoid them more than approach them. Your infatuation and even dispute with them fuels them

Your goal is to get away from them, and to guard your own soul.

We need to stop following them on the instagram/youtube/tiktok

I think we like to call out extremist in hopes of distancing ourselves from the reality of certain ideas like this so that maybe we concern ourselves less with the matter. On the other hand we can’t be quick to call out a pastor as heretic for preaching something that is slightly deviant from our perception of scripture. It is no small thing to label someone a false teacher, and the truth of the matter is that while their influence is great, those with great influence are few and far between.

Some brought these less than preachers to Paul and listen to what he said in Philippians 1:15–18 “It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,”

If they are pointing people to Jesus, let the Gospel message move forward. If they are lacking in any other area let God take care of that.

Ultimately what we need to do is bring truth to light more and more than any other goal.

STAY IN THE WORD. The greater relationship with the Word of GOD, TRUTH itself. The more we will be able to discern between good and evil.

Teachers/Pastors/Preachers will make mistakes. Examine how they respond when it’s brought to light. Don’t chase teachers that have little or minimal following. If no one is following them they are nothing more than someone who is getting lost taking a walk.

Thank you for extending grace to me as I attempted to address a very challenging topic in a very short time.

Less attention to the darkness, more attention to the light.

Philippians 4:8 says “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Re-direct what you view, listen to, and think about and be discerning as you listen to how people handle the Word of God.

PRAY MORE UNITY, LESS SKEPTIC, BALANCE, STILL AWARE

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