Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last week we saw that false teachers were using their influence in underhanded ways to gain wealth for themselves fleecing the flock.

In the process they can clearly be found out for they deny God’s truth and the outcome is that they bring destruction upon themselves and on those who follow them.

We have again read the passage in 2 Peter alongside its near identical part in Jude.

This week we come across the sins of false teachers.

2.10 and Jude 8

They have absolutely no fear in speaking bold words without power.

They have contempt for authority and we spoke about government authority this morning but they have no fear in speaking against leaders in the Church because they want to extend their power and influence – we find such a man written of in

So, here in this passage we find that power has gone to the head of Diotrephes to the point that whenever Christians come along he does not accept them, maligns them and then excommunicates anyone who will have anything to do with the Christians.

2.11 and Jude 9

But such do not stop there they continue in their delusion of greatness by presuming that they can say and do whatever they like without consequences or inviting trouble towards themselves – they speak evil of dignitaries – and in Jude we discover that these dignitaries include Satan and other angels – they just assume that all things will go on as before and think that they have gained enough clout and influence with people lifting themselves up in their sight.

But we need not go far in Scripture to find what happens to such in:

These false teachers were so full of themselves in their boldness and arrogance but even angels who are much more powerful would not dare stand up to them without the Lord’s say so.

Somehow they think they are stronger than demons for the imagine that they are all-powerful.

They are incredibly presumptuous.

I have met people like this who think that all demons will bow down to them casting them out of everyone and everything.

But you cannot treat the ruler of this world, who is Satan, who is the prince of the power of the air and his host flippantly.

Angels tremble but bare human beings do not.

2.12 and Jude 10

We, of course, do not have any such people in the Churches today, do we?!

The way that both Peter and Jude speak is that these people serve people best once their dead comparing them to animals that are food for human consumption.

But these teachers are like animals that cannot be controlled or tamed and will destroy themselves in the process.

William Barclay: “To put it quite simply and bluntly, the glutton destroys his appetite in the end, the drunkard ruins his health, the sensualist destroys his own body, the self-indulgent ruins his own character and his piece of mind.

The man who dedicates himself to these things is seeking for pleasure, for a while he may enjoy what he calls pleasure but in the end he ruins his health, wrecks his constitution, destroys his mind and character and begins the experience of hell while he’s still upon earth.”

God will then destroy what is left:

And such is the destination of such people.

They presumptuously think that God will forgive them but they have reaped a worse situation for themselves by being teachers leading others astray.

2.13-14

2.15-16 and Jude 11

And Peter and Jude point to history to show what is the end result of false teachers.

Balaam is mentioned by them both.

You can read the whole of the story of Balaam in Numbers 22-24 and Numbers 31.

Balaam was a prophet who used his abilities to profit.

He was told by God not to go to Balak who wanted to hire him to curse the Jews.

But he went anyway, we pick up the story in:

He then went and God caused Balaam only to bless the Jews and not curse them as he was being paid to do.

You’d think that this is the end of the story so why do we find in Revelation that Jesus has some things against the Church at Pergamos to do with the teaching of Balaam?

What do we find is Balaam advising Balak to bring in some of the Midianite women to entice the Israelites to sexual immorality and worship of their gods.

We read this in

So, whilst Balaam could not curse the Jews he was very clever and got God to do it instead by causing the people to commit adultery and idolatry.

Balaam did everything to gain money even though he had heard God with his own ears and been warned by his own donkey speaking with a man’s voice and should have been fearful of God for himself – but he was still a false prophet, a false teacher – his greed overtook him and he knew enough to know what would arouse the anger of God to curse His own people.

And indeed 24,000 Israelites died as a result.

Balaam must have known that to do this was to invite God’s anger against himself.

The end result of Balaam is found in:

Balaam and people like him will only find that there are consequences in going up against His people which is terrifying – they have eternal torment to face.

2.17 and Jude 12-13

Why has Peter exploded in such a fury on these false prophets and false teachers?”

And the answer is because he is a pastor.

Because he has been given by the Lord Himself the task of shepherding the Master’s sheep.

When Peter receives his second calling into the ministry after his defection, which calling is recorded in John 21, three times Jesus said, “Feed My sheep, feed My lambs, feed My sheep.”

From the very outset, Peter was called to be a shepherd who fed the sheep.

And he is utterly irate about false shepherds who are feeding poison to the sheep.

John Owen.

“It is incumbent on pastors to preserve the truth or doctrine of the gospel received and professed in the church and to defend it against all opposition.

This is one principle end of the ministry.

And the sinful neglect of this duty is that which was the cause of most of the pernicious heresies and errors that have infested and ruined the church.

Those whose duty it was to preserve the doctrine of the gospel entire and the public profession of it have many of them spoken perverse things to draw away disciples after them.

Bishops, presbyters, public teachers have been the ring leaders in heresies.

Wherefore this duty, especially at this time when the fundamental truths of the gospel are on all sides impugned from all sorts of adversaries is in a special manner to be attended unto,”

Indeed Paul warns as I do I about such people and though Pastors like me do these things I find it amazing, even now, that churches still fall into error.

Paul says that this will be the case even though Paul has warned but plainly such advice is ignored:

These false teachers are not hidden from our sight – they take into their grasp those who have not taken on board the teaching of Scripture and those who are double-minded, those who do not have their minds and hearts set on the Lord Jesus.

Surely this is a warning for us to put in place those things that will protect us – and you know that I can only say that prayer and Scripture is the only way to do this but Paul is more full in his answer for this is how to deal with the devil unlike the false teachers’ presumption:

We have been given the tools needed to overcome but we are each responsible to do these things for ourselves.

A story is told of a man who, resisting the cost of oats he fed his mule, decided to gradually substitute sawdust in its diet.

Everything went fine for a while—but by the time the mule was satisfied with sawdust, he died.

The same is true spiritually.

The changeover from truth to error is sometimes a slow process, and the people don’t always know the difference.

But, before you know it, they are dead.

History has shown that once a school or church compromises its position and sells short the fundamental doctrines of the Word that there is very little chance of their going back to retrieve that which they originally adhered to.

Actually, there is not one known instance there been an apostate body that returned to the right ways of the Word of God.

We have to watch our own hearts that we are not enticed by the world, by false teachers, or by our own desires.

These people come in unawares but it is only in putting on the armour of God, by being a people of prayer, and by being a people of The Book, the Bible that we will find them out.

Every one of us can be deceived by such people – for they will seem like good Christians, for a time, and then their teaching and actions will reveal who they are but maybe not before they have already caused damage to the Church.

We cannot say we have not been warned.

Benediction

Bibliography

Blum, E. A., & Wax, T. (Eds.).

(2017).

CSB Study Bible: Notes.

Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

Helm, D. R. (2008). 1 & 2 Peter and Jude: sharing christ’s sufferings.

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Leadership Ministries Worldwide.

(1996). 1 Peter–Jude.

Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.

MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014).

John MacArthur Sermon Archive.

Panorama City, CA: Grace to You.

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 19:16 13 July 2019.