The Fakes

Introduction

Mark Landis knows fakes because he creates them.

Landis is an art forger who could pull the wool over the eyes of the sharpest art critics in the finest museums. Thirty museums fell under his spell. Since he never asked for money, he never went to jail.

It looks like those who know reality best can be fooled by fakes as well as the neophyte.

And it happens to Christians.

Most Christians boast, “I would never fall for a false teacher. I know the Bible.” And we indeed know the Bible. But why, if we know the Bible so well, all are susceptible to the spell of the spiritual spellbinder?

If the truth was so prevalent, why is error so readily available?

It is something that Peter has to address. In our last lesson, he emphasized the inspiration of Scripture, and it is a valuable source of truth. But where the truth goes, error tags along.

Teachers can present enough truth to sound reasonable but change enough truth to become dangerous.

For Peter, the world is and will be full of charlatans claiming to have “the true message from God.”

To keep his audience from falling under the influence of those peddling fake teaching, he has to describe the teaching and the teacher because it sounds so much like it might be true.

Discussion

A Red Sky Warning

In coastal areas, weather can turn. When it becomes mean, it can kill. When it looks like hurricanes will blow in, forecasters raise a red flag warning. It is the signal to watch out. Danger is coming.

That’s what Peter does, raise the red flag and wave it in front of Christians.

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” (2 Peter 2:1)

History’s annals are littered with peddlers of falsehood. From the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel to Simon the Magician, to the gnostics with their strange philosophy of dualism, the church and truth remain under assault.

What can you see about false prophets?

They come from within.

In the history of Christianity, false teachers started out as Christian. They were faithful church members who were trusted.

That is what makes them so deadly. As Paul would say they come as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” You can’t tell simply by their claim of Christian fellowship.

My grandparents went to a church in California that was “stolen” from the members. One day, a couple of nice, well-dressed young men came to church. They were graduates of a Christian college. They knew preachers we knew. Yet, they were parasites to drain the lifeblood from that church.

We don’t trust outsiders but those like us, who use the language, know the facts…we will trust them.

They bring novel ideas.

Peter says they “secretly bring destructive heresies.” They are like termites, working within, quietly sowing seeds of discontent with what is done.

Peter uses the word “heresies.” It comes from a word that means “chosen.” They have chosen to believe something and are promoting what they have chosen as truth.

It is a clever sleight of hand. False teachers use enough truth to sound truthful but introduce their own ideas, interpretations, and methods. By doing so, they smuggle in new ideas that, once accepted, lead in the wrong direction.

The problem is that it is hard to spot because it is so subtle. Common words are used in new ways. Phrases like, “we need to appeal to the current times if we hope to win people to the Lord,” pop up in their talk. They don’t want change, simply growth.

In this way, the dangerous teachings creep until it chokes out the truth.

Christ takes a back seat

In the time in which Peter wrote, the creeping issue was gnostic philosophy. It viewed the body as evil and the spirit as good. Out of that, a complete idea of the nature of Jesus developed.

Jesus as a man could not be the Son of God since God did not touch evil flesh. This caused all kinds of mental contortions. Jesus was a man who seemed to be God. Or Jesus was a man adopted as the vessel, but at the point of his death, his divinity left, and it was just a man on a cross.

It doesn’t take much thinking to see where that leads. Jesus, the one who was born of Mary, raised in Nazareth, baptized by John, could not be God’s son.

Hence, Peter says that they “deny the Master who bought them.” When Jesus is reduced to a mere mortal, the atoning nature of his death vanishes.

Sadly, at some point, the person of the prophet replaces the power of Christ. When clever explanations stand as “interpretations” of the plain sense of Scripture, the counterfeit gospel gets accepted.

And all of this happens so slowly and without rancor that no one notices someone stole the church.

The Teachers

Are these teachers coming with horns on their heads? Do they breathe fire or change shapes?

No, all false teaching comes in a human form as normal as you and I. But, Peter says that if you pay attention, you can see their traits.

Jesus said, “by their fruits you shall know them.” Look carefully at the bud as it emerges.

What are they like?

They are Sensual.

Peter starts describing the characteristics of these teachers.

“And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.” (2 Peter 2:2)

He describes them as sensual. Their lives display unbridled living without boundaries or thresholds. Personal lives are a sham. They may appear pure in pulpits, but their lives are “no holds barred.”

We’ve seen it happen. Preachers who preached on Sunday conducted affairs with widows or others. Their children suffered from their abuse, both physical and mental. When challenged, they react with anger and a cool dismissiveness to destroy the reputation of another.

Church members take their cue. Whatever he does, they feel emboldened to do. Then, immorality cycles through the body.

The world is watching. Peter says this lifestyle brings the “way of truth” into utter contempt in a community. Blasphemy is nothing less than destroying the reputation of someone or something.

In one town, the church preacher stole all the money from the treasury and took off with his lady friend to parts unknown. For several years, the church shrank until it finally closed its doors. The black eye was just too much to overcome.

False teachers are never concerned about the church, only about themselves. If they can get what they want at the expense of the church, so be it.

They Greedily Exploit

Peter goes on with his sketch of these peddlers of falsehood.

“And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” (2 Peter 2:3)

These are men who want what they want when they want it. They use any tactic to get it. If they need to play on emotions, they will do it. If they need to talk a widow out of her pension, so be it.

The focus is self. They line their own pockets from the goodwill of well-meaning members.

Their thirst for wealth is insatiable. Everything is not enough.

In the 1980s the televangelist became the poster boy for false teachers. Men who could talk a polar bear out of his fur coat filled America’s airwaves. The Jim Baakers amassed huge fortunes while emptying the pockets of the poor.

Even today, some so-called preachers advance the thought that “God will make you rich if you give it all to me.”

If money is involved, cast a jaundiced eye toward the teacher. He is in it for himself, not his students.

They employ deceitful language.

Peter says that they used “false words.”

Many times false teaching enters on the back of reliable words. They know we trust words like evangelism, love, faith, devotion, and commitment. They use the language and change the meaning to fit their message.

In recent years, churches have been led astray with phrases like “ we cannot reach the current generation” if we don’t do something totally unbiblical.

Do we not want to reach the current generation? Sure, who doesn’t?

But then, the false teacher says, “the only way to do it is to change what we do.”

We need to be more cautious of those who want to twist trusted language to an ungodly purpose.

The Judgment

It sometimes appears that false teachers escape consequences. Peter wants to dispel that idea.

Using the concept of “if this, then that,” Peter employs three allusions to situations known well by his readers.

The Angels

He starts with one we don’t understand.

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;” (2 Peter 2:4)

This is one of those strange ideas lost on us. Part of our difficulty is that you cannot find the historical record of the anger being cast into hell. It is not like the flood or Mt. Sinai.

Some think it refers to the events in the early verses of Genesis 6 where the “sons of God married the daughters of men.” As the theory goes, they teach mankind to be evil, and God throws them into hell.

It appears that man had no trouble coming up with evil on his own without the help of the angels. No early Christian writer accepted it as anything but legend.

A better explanation is that this is a reference to a book in wide circulation at the time, not inspired but was read as commentary. The book is the Book of Enoch.

Enoch tells it this way:

“And he said to Raphael, “Bind Azael hand and foot, and throw him into the darkness; open the desert that is in the Daduel and throw him there. And place under him the rugged and sharp stones, and let darkness cover him. Let him live there forever: cover up his appearance and let no light be seen. For in the day of great Judgment he will be led away into the burning. The earth that the angels removed was healed. But reveal the healing of the earth so that they may heal the blow, so that all the children of the people may not be destroyed with the whole mystery that the watchmen ordered and showed to their children.” (Enoch 10:4–7, LES)

It is important not to get lost in whether it is Scripture of not. Peter employs this much as Paul quoted pagan poets. It shows how serious God is with evil.

He cast the angels in Tartarus, a place referenced in classical mythology for the subterranean abyss in which rebellious gods and other such beings as the Titans were punished.

Peter is making a point. No one escapes the judgment of God.

His second is more understandable to us.

Noah

“if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;” (2 Peter 2:5)

In Genesis 6, the story of God’s punishment on mankind occurs. Evil became so commonplace that to keep man from destroying himself wipes mankind off the face of the earth.

The only one saved was Noah and his family.

Peter points out that all who went to the false way perished, but only the faithful ones survived.

If God punishes the wicked and saves the righteous, why will that not be true here?

Lot

The final allusion is Lot and the plight of Sodom and Tomorrow.

“if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);” (2 Peter 2:6–8)

Again, there is evil and righteousness. The righteous Lot lived in Sodom and was worn down by the constant exposure to the unbridled sensuality of the city that included both rape and homosexuality.

Yet God rescued Lot while destroying Sodom and Tomorrow. The cities were turned to ash, a phrase used by a Roman historian to describe the conflagration of Pompeii at the mercy of Mt. Vesuvius.

Again, God punishes wickedness but rescues the righteous.

All of these point to a single idea. God will not spare the false teachers because he has always treated evil with disgust.

But Peter ends our lesson today with a promise.

The Promise

Peter does not want to paint a picture of gloom and despair.

“then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,” (2 Peter 2:9)

If he can punish the wicked, he can rescue the godly from their furnace that tests their faith.

In this promise is a veiled admonition. Don’t listen to the false teachers. In the end, they will find the fires and you will find the reward if you remain faithful.

Why maintain faithful constancy?

One is because it is right to obey God rather than man. Times come when we have to make choices of staying in the crowd or standing alone.

The second is consequences come from both. God will destroy the false teacher, for he has willfully turned his back on the truth. Yet, he will protect the faithful even in their travail.

Conclusion

We all believe we are immune from this danger. Yet, those stronger than us have been sucked into teaching.

I once knew a preacher who knew the word and taught the word accurately. But then he attended a luncheon.

The speaker enthralled him with a church growing beyond bounds. He told him how he could disciple others to follow Jesus and replicate themselves. It was going to be the best evangelism he had ever done.

And he was sucked in. The speaker that day was an evangelist for the Boston church, a part of our fellowship that exercised sect-like mind control. It got people in and would not let them make choices. They followed the head guy, or they would feel the sting.

How could someone who knew Scripture so well fall so far? Because he missed the warning signs. Here are three from today’s text:

Does the teacher and his message promote Christ or himself?

Platforms are aphrodisiacs for many leaders. They enjoy being followed, praised, congratulated. They long for the foyer handshakes and the pats on the back.

But when personal loyalty to the preacher is on par with believing Christ, it is a dangerous sign.

A godly teacher will point you to Jesus, not preen himself.

Is the teaching plain and understandable or confused and complicated?

One of the ways to confuse people is to ignore what the plain text of Scripture says. Instead, it dabbles in interpreting prophecy and dealing with confusing symbols and ideas. Soon, this speculation replaces obedience. It is about knowing the codes of Revelation or Daniel.

If the plain and simple are not heard, be careful.

Does the teaching elevate the church or tarnish it?

Sadly to say, many Christian leaders care more about themselves than the churches they serve. The world is watching.

Is the reputation of the church enhanced by the teaching? Or do people say, “if that’s who you are, I don’t want any part of you.”

If it is the latter, run away…it is dangerous.

Peter is not finished but has only scratched the surface.

But for us, be on your guard. Question every human teacher. Be skeptical of methods used by others to promote the agenda of the teacher.

After all, one day, judgment is waiting for us all.