Beware of Apostates Coming from Within

Transcript

GR 1962
09/18/2016
Beware of Apostate Coming from Within
II Peter 2:1-3
Gil Rugh

We are returning to 2 Peter. We broke off after chapter 1 so it is a good break with the beginning of the new chapter although the letter flows since it was written as a letter; it didn’t have chapter breaks and verses but that helps us find our way through it.

Interesting letter because it is the Word of God given to Peter but it’s of particular interest to us because Peter writes it in what we might say is in the shadow of his impending martyrdom so that in that sense it is a letter like Paul’s second letter to Timothy where Paul is imprisoned in Rome and says the process that will culminate in his martyrdom has already begun. And there is something about those closing chapters of an individual’s life that holds a special interest to us.

When I read biographies I always start at the end and read how they died. Then I go back and read the rest of the book. So it is interesting to look at 2 Peter and Peter in chapter 1 noted in verse 14: “I know that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.” So there is no doubt on Peter’s mind where he is. Christ has revealed to him at any time now you will be giving your life as a testimony for the Gospel that you are preaching and so Peter says I want to take the opportunity to keep reminding you so that verse 15: “I will be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.” So that is what he is doing here. Telling them the things that are on his heart and the burdens he has. This is not a gloomy letter but it is a serious letter. In that way the Word of God is serious but it’s not gloomy. It is not discouraging. It talks about suffering, trials and difficulties and as Peter moves into chapter 2 he is going to be talking about the problems they are going to face, these people, after he has been executed and that is his concern that when he’s not there to provide that encouragement, that strength that they will hold on to the truth of God and be faithful. But it is not meant to be discouraging because we have read the last chapter of the last chapter and we are victorious and we end up in glory and enjoying all that God has promised to those that love Him. So we don’t find these matters gloomy but they are serious and God intends for us to take them seriously.

One of the writers on this book, 2 Peter, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preached a serious of sermons that were put into print. He did that in 1946 and 1947 and people talked about we need more unity, we need more doing things together. He noted at that time, “The greatest tragedy as I understand the New Testament is not the disunity of the church, it is not the fact that the church is divided into groups and denominations, it’s not that we are not all one organization but that all the sections are preaching a false message and there has been a departure from the truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.”

And that is the seriousness that concerns Peter as we come into chapter 2. When the church loses his grasp on the truth and its Biblical perspective it begins to expect things in the world that are contrary to what God has promised. You know the Scriptures are clear that as a result of sin mankind is under the judgment of God and the result of that judgment is that men and women are turned over to the control of their sin and the pursuit of their sinful desires; that is Romans 1 and God turned them over to their evil desires.

So we are not surprised. We are not amazed as we see the wickedness that seems in abundance in the world. We say, “Well it seems to be getting worse.” But we expect that as well as the Scripture talks about the deterioration that will go on culminating in the worst of times, not the best of times for this world to prepare the way for the kingdom that will bring God’s glory to the world.

One of the last things Jesus said to him on His last night with them before His betrayal, “In the world you will have tribulations. I am telling you this so that you can have peace, My peace. In the world you are going to have trouble but don’t be discouraged, I have overcome the world.”

So we have the two things going on, the peace that Christ brings to our life and the confidence and assurance of knowing He is at work. It is His purposes that are being accomplished in the best of times and the worst of times and the tribulations that come in the world are not things that overcome us.

Lloyd-Jones also wrote, “The New Testament picture of life is that it is the scene of a mighty, terrible, spiritual struggle and conflict. Everywhere you are given a sense of crises, a sense of judgment. Life in this world according to this Book is the scene of a mighty, terrible conflict between two vast powers and they are both spiritual powers, God and all His forces on the one hand and Satan, the devil and all his forces on the other. The result is that there is never any easy optimism to be found in the New Testament. There is no vague, general superficiality. All along its message is one of preparing us for this conflict, of enabling us to realize the nature of the conflict.” So something written many years ago by a man committed to the Word and we find, yes, that is true and we don’t want to lose our perspective on that either.

Perhaps the greatest danger to the church does not come from the outside, it comes from the inside. And that is what Peter is going to address in chapter 2 and the church gets continually caught off guard, off balance, unprepared, surprised by these kinds of attacks. You know we think of the outside, of the time when many were saying communism was a great threat to Christianity, then it is secular humanism and it is this and it is that but as we come to look into the Scripture we find that the greatest danger and damage can be done from within as the church is infiltrated by false teachers and false doctrine and that attack from within becomes a great danger.

2 Peter chapter 2 is one of the strongest enunciations of false teachers that we have anywhere in Scripture. It is paralleled by the little one chapter book of Jude which basically covers the same material as chapter 2 of 2 Peter. It is going to talk about the false teachers, their characteristics, the assurance of judgment coming for them but first Peter wants us to understand they will come up in the church. So the first three verses of chapter 2 focus on that subject, the rise of apostates within the church and the impact they will have.

So he picks up in verse 1: “But false prophets also arose among the people.” He is talking about the Old Testament. Remember Peter is writing to Jewish believers. Peter having his prime focus as the apostle to the Jews and he is writing to Jews scattered outside the land of Palestine who have become believers in Jesus Christ but are now facing the trials and difficulties that will come to them as Jews who have placed their faith in Christ to become part of the church and churches scattered in different places and what they will be facing. In the Old Testament false prophets were present in Israel.

Come back to Deuteronomy 13 and we are not going to look at the passages. We have done that on other occasions but just come to Deuteronomy 13, the fifth book in the Old Testament, the five books of Moses that begin our Bible, Deuteronomy chapter 13 and we begin the chapter, “A prophet of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or wonder and the sign or the wonder comes true.” Now you know there is no way no issue of dealing, well how could someone give a prophecy, tell you something is going to happen and it really happens if God wasn’t leading them. Well the warning is, if there is such a person who claims to be a prophet, a person that God has spoken to in dreams and he gives you a sign or wonder and the sign or wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you saying, and here, “Let us go after other gods whom you have not known. Let us serve them. You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to the dreamer of dreams. The Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him and keep His commandments, listen to His voice, cling to Him and that false prophet shall be put to death.”

So the ultimate test is not the presence or absence of miracles. The ultimate test is conformity to the Word of God and what God has said and faithfulness to the God who has made Him known.

While you are here just turn over to chapter 18, verse 20. “The prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.” Then he gives an example. If he gives a prophecy and it doesn’t come true God doesn’t make mistakes and he didn’t come from God. so he gives a prophecy that does come true but it is not consistent with the character of God and worship of the true and living God he has to be removed and he gives a prophecy that doesn’t come true but it’s intention would be to lead you to other gods and the fact that it didn’t come true shows he is false. So preparing the way so that as you move into the prophetic books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, you find sprinkled through we won’t take time to look at the verses but false prophets arising among the people and often the people listen to the false prophets and reject the message of God through His true prophets. Jeremiah was plagued by that. The book of Zechariah speaks to that.

Here’s what one writer says: “Concerning these false prophets their teaching was flattery, their ambitions were financial; their lives were dissolute. Their conscience was dulled and their aim was deception.” That is the conflict.

So come back to Peter, 2 Peter. That is the way it was in Israel’s history, Israel being the nation God had chosen, the people that were entrusted with His Word. The false prophets arose among the people to corrupt the Word. What is Peter’s concern? False prophets also arose among the people. Well that is obvious. We can read the history, we see it; “Just as there will also be false teachers among you.” That is the danger. He doesn’t just say there will be false teachers. The false teachers in the Old Testament arose among the Jews. Of course there were false prophets in the pagan nations but the real damage is done to Israel from within and he says there will be false teachers among you.

So his concern is that these teachers that will come up among the believers and initially they are accepted by fellow believers. They wouldn’t be able to infiltrate among believers and have that influence if they didn’t give the appearance and have the claim of being believers. The devil is the great counterfeiter.

Back up to 2 Corinthians again. Again we will just pick a sample passage from passages that we could look at right now. We will see others as we move along. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 3: “I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of the devotion to Christ. If one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached or you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.” You say, “Well how do they do that, why would they do that?” Because they don’t just come in and say “I am a false teacher, I am a false apostle as in this period of time. I want to preach to you a different gospel.” They come in and “I just want to help you understand the truth” and some of these agreed with Paul. Remember the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Paul’s letter to the churches at Galatia? Judaizers come in. They didn’t deny that Christ died on the cross. They didn’t deny that he was raised from the dead. That is important. It is not enough. And there is the trap. Going to help you understand that God’s intention is to incorporate His Old Testament law and requirements into the work He has done in His Son, Christ so that we have a complete and full picture and God’s work in our lives, well now it is a little more confusing. The devil is doing a counterfeit. You don’t make a counterfeit look like Monopoly money, funny money. You make it look real. Now you get the idea that they are preaching a different gospel. Well, that’s why he had to start with Galatians. They come preach a different Gospel but it’s not a variation of mine but they are not claiming that I have a different Gospel. They are claiming that they have a more complete Gospel.

Down in verse 13 of 2 Corinthians 11: “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workers (now note this) disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. And their end will be according to their deeds.”

And that is where Peter is going to go in this discussion. Judgment awaits them but they do great damage and it’s always difficult among ourselves if someone comes and is teaching error but they claim to be a believer, they seem to love the Lord, they seem to be “good people” and you know we end up saying, “I know they are sincere” and the error infiltrates, the damage gets done. So that is the concern.

Come back to Peter. He elaborates on this. “There will be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies.” That word translated secretly means to bring in something alongside something else. And so it can carry the idea of underhanded. You brought it in alongside something else so that it is not obvious what it really is, so secretly.

Turn over to Jude, the little book of Jude. Just before the book of Revelation. So you leave Peter and go through the epistles of John and you hit Jude and Jude in verse 3 said “He was going to write a letter about the salvation they shared in common but I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints for certain persons have crept in unnoticed.” That is what Peter is talking about, secretly. They weren’t recognized to be false teachers. “They are marked out for condemnation. They are ungodly persons. They turn the grace of our God into licentiousness, deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.” That is going to be Peter’s next statement.

You say, “Well, this is serious enough. It ought to be picked up quickly.” But they infiltrate and then they are accepted and then it’s you know, do we want to be doing battle within among ourselves and one thing and another and confusion is the result.

So come back to Peter. “They will secretly bring in destructive heresies.” Now you know we have the completed Scripture. What a blessing and you understand even though the people who received this letter from Peter didn’t get a copy to take home. Writing materials were expensive, they were rare. Peter’s readers and the others of New Testament times had to discipline themselves to listen carefully as this letter is read. We can take our Bibles and open up and compare what is being taught with what is said here and go back and forth and reread it and look at it carefully. They had to grab on to it and be ready to sift out error. You see how much greater responsibility we would have. I mean what error. You can go back and reread it again and read it again. They had to have it read to them. What if you just came and I read you 2 Peter then you left? You didn’t get to take 2 Peter. You didn’t have a copy of it for yourself. Then you had to have in your mind you couldn’t let your mind wander because I missed a whole section. Now if our mind wanders we just go back and reread it. So the seriousness of it but the fact that they didn’t have their own copy to take home doesn’t excuse them from the responsibility. So if you read about the disciplined minds that people had to listen and follow and be able to develop. Even the writers from earlier times talk about the vast amounts of Scripture that people have taken into mind. What a blessing we have.

“They will secretly introduce destructive heresies.” A heresy is basically an opinion, a school of thought that comes to carry that strong negative idea because often when something, a new school of thought is brought in it is error, it is contrary to the truth.

Back up to Titus chapter 3. We will just take this one example. Titus chapter 3, verse 10: “Reject a factious man.” And that word translated factious is the same basic word we are translating heresy in Peter that we carry over the Greek word heresy. It is just transliterated basically over into English. Here it is translated “factious man.” He is a man bringing in heresy, contrary opinion or teaching or thoughts to the truth. So after a first and second warning he is not open to be corrected. A believer can get confused but when he is being corrected and the truth has been pointed out he responds. Someone who doesn’t respond to that and the man who is perverted, sinning, self-condemned. So that is what is being brought in.

Back to Peter. They are destructive because they are contrary to the truth. Error is contrary to the truth. That doesn’t mean as believers there aren’t times in a passage we have a different opinion. In some passages we realize it is hard to settle clearly but basically the Word of God has been written not to confuse us but to enlighten us. If God wrote to confuse us He could confuse us completely but then He couldn’t expect us to understand it and put it into practice.

So here we are to recognize those things that are contrary to the truth and would be destructive heresies because then you have corrupted the truth. Now you are going to be leading people down a road that will be culminate into destruction. It goes so far they are even “denying the Master who bought them.” Strong statements here, “denying the Master who bought them.”

The word translated master; we get the English word basically, a despot from this particular word. I think it is used ten times in the New Testament. It is an absolute ruler, somebody who exercises full authority and is sometimes used of one who has full authority in a household but that is the picture. He is the absolute sovereign over believers. He is the One who bought them.

These false teachers who claim to belong to Christ deny Him. He bought them. They are the subjects of His redemptive work. He paid the price for them. “You are not your own. You were bought with a price,” as Paul wrote to the Corinthians. “Therefore glorify God in your bodies.” He purchased us. That is the picture of our redemption.

Peter talked about it. Come back to 1 Peter, chapter 1, verse 18: “Knowing that you were not redeemed (purchased) with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” That is the point. He purchased us. They deny the Lord who purchased them. Something is wrong. They claim to belong to Him but they deny Him. They reject Him. That infiltrates among believers. You say now, how? You wouldn’t accept someone who as a believer they deny Christ. Isn’t that foundational to the Gospel? Then we get into shades of things. Is He the absolute Lord and sovereign? Then you go back to debates that were had over lordship and the requirement that a true believer manifested by submission to Christ. Now the reality of it is even true believers don’t live lives of perfect submission to Christ all the time because if we did we would live perfect lives but yet James reminds us “we all stumble in many ways” but none the less a true believer has a life committed to Christ, to serve Him, to obey Him and sin is when it does occur to be a glaring inconsistency in our lives.

“They deny Him” and what is going on and you can come back to Peter. He will go on. They are using the grace of God and corrupting that grace that implies that we have a liberty if you will to be libertined and live lives of selfish pleasure. We are free and you know you have both things going on. You have those who want to do, impose the Mosaic Law on believers and add all these other rules and regulations and you have those who want to oppose that. That is error. Their solution is we have free grace and now sin is not so serious. Remember Paul had to address this as he opened Romans chapter 6. “Now that we are under grace shall we sin that grace may abound?” Our sin just magnifies the grace of God. It is grace, grace, God’s grace and it covers all our sin. So even though I may sin now as a believer that is just what? I get an opportunity to tell people, I sin like you sin but God’s grace covers all my sin. Well you see there is an element of truth in that because “if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father” and He is the propitiation for our sin. But the distortion of that is that does not mean now I am free to sin and that heart, He’s changed me. I don’t want to sin and even when I as a believer sin there is a tension there, a struggle there. It is hard for a believer to enjoy sin with the abandon that an unbeliever can because the pleasure of sin is always tainted by the awareness of this is not what I am in Christ but these false teachers see, they mix enough of the truth in, “Well God’s grace will forgive and I don’t want to be under law. That is an error. We have been freed from the law.”

We used to have a person who had a different view of Calvinistic thinking, “Free from the law oh happy condition, sin all you want there is remission.” A little phrase he would walk down the seminary hall reciting to us to just, you know, prick our hearts a little bit. Free from the law oh happy condition, sin all you want there is remission. You say well if you believe that you have eternal security that means you can sin all you want. You are going to heaven. He was doing it facetiously but these false teachers are working that in.

Well, I don’t want to be legalistic. I mentioned earlier today we have had different conflicts. Can you believe we had a conflict with people in this congregation many years ago when we put signs in the parking lot directing people where to park? We had a mini-uprising of people saying, “See we are going to legalism.” Because you tell them where to park in the parking lot to have some order? You see silly theology finds its way in anywhere.

Okay, back to 2 Peter, chapter 2? “Even denying the Master who bought them.” Note – “Bringing swift destruction upon themselves.” This is where they are going. They are going to destruction. It is imminent and it will come soon. This is the ultimate end of those who reject the sovereign authority of Christ. That doesn’t mean that a person who says something they shouldn’t say and misuses no, but a person who combines an ungodly life style and the false teaching and that, they ought to be recognized. And you don’t have to wait till it is in full bloom.

So he goes on to give explanation here. This is going to be effective. We ought not to think, “Well, it won’t happen in our church.” The reason the Spirit put it here and preserved it was for the ongoing benefit of the church. This was not something that would be unique just in the days following the death of the original apostles like Peter. What does it say in verse 2: “Many will follow their sensuality?” Many, it doesn’t say some may follow their sensuality, he says many will. Now that doesn’t mean in every congregation there are going to be great numbers of people who are deluded and deceived but in any congregation that begins to hold the truth loosely the devil will find a way to maneuver more error in and you know we don’t want to underestimate the devil. We don’t want to underestimate the opponent. It’s not other people; it’s super-natural enemies. Remember “We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers of spiritual forces that are in the heavenlies.”

Satan is no small opponent. He is brilliant. Look at how he can manage and administer this world as the god of this world, small ‘g,’ the vast religious empires and so on. He is not God, capital “G” but don’t minimize. Remember what he told Christ. I can give you all the empires of the world if you will worship me.

That if we don’t keep ourselves anchored in the truth, submissive to the truth and there is no distinction. You know that old statement, “well you have a paper pope.” You cannot disassociate the Word of God from the person of Christ. His authority is manifested through His Word. Well I am more concerned about a relationship with Christ than I am doctrinal details. What do you know about Christ apart from His Word? Even my experience with Him which is rich and precious as a believer is only clear because of what the Word says about Him. Otherwise I am left like the people in other religious systems that can talk about what they get out of it, how God has moved them and all this. How do we know their experience is not true? Well, we sift experience through the Word. Everything has to be sifted through the Scripture.

Many will follow their sensuality. Sensuality is an ugly word. It just refers to living without restraint, living without control and that is where the world likes to be, isn’t it? I mean what do we see going on in our society and in the world, more and more restraints removed. Even the most obvious restraints because now what you see with your eyes isn’t true because this looks like a man, this looks like a woman but it ain’t so because it has to do more with the feeling that is going on in a person. All of a sudden we remove ourselves from the realm of reality.

Now that is what is going on in the unbelieving world but we need to be careful in the church because remember Francis Schaeffer? Some of you who have read his writings and he has been dead for many years now but he said, “See where the world is and you will know where the church will be in ten years.” That is probably compressed quite a bit since he wrote that but the pressure of the world is constantly there and the adjustment.

So many will follow their sensuality because in a certain sense these people are saying what appeals to the flesh. Lighten up, you don’t have to have this serious commitment. God wants you to enjoy life, to have fun. You know, to have pleasure. And again, in all of that there is a kernel of truth, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less but truth mixed with error is error. You know the devil told Eve in the Garden, “Oh, you know when you eat that fruit you are not going to die.” You know there is an element of truth to that. They lived many years following that but it was a lie because they did die spiritually. “Oh, I left that out but I did tell you partial truth.” You won’t die. And then he told them another truth, partial truth. “You will be like God knowing the difference between doing good and evil.” Well, a lot of appealing things.

We underestimate the devil because we look for him in clear ways. The atheist, the Jehovah Witness, the cults, you know Islam. Are they going to overtake the world while the devil subtly infiltrates among you; the same way in our body. What does the most damage, those diseases that can infiltrate and get ahold in our body and we don’t even know what is going on but they can destroy. That is what we are talking about.

Many will follow their sensuality. This being able to have more freedom which is not real freedom but it is presented as that. “Because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.” You just can’t do both, the way of the truth.

We talked about the walk of the believer in our earlier study today and walk this way, don’t walk this way. Here the same picture, the way of the truth. This is the course you are taking. The way of the truth will be maligned.

Look down in verse 15. It talks about these false teachers. “Forsaking the right way.” The right way is the way of the truth. They have forsaken the right way, they have gone astray because if you are not on the right way, the way of the truth, then you are on the wrong way. The way of the truth, the right way.

Down in verse 21: “It is the way of righteousness. For it would have been better, (verse 21 of chapter 2) for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and departed from it.” Does following a course conform to the Word of God? You know it sounds like I am repeating the morning sermon, right? But we are in a different portion of the Word but it is saying the same thing. God keeps bringing us back to this, His truth, His truth. The church is to be the pillar and support of the truth, truth, truth, truth. That is not going to make us popular and acceptable in the world. It makes us narrow, bigoted, self-righteousness fundamentalists. I say I just want to tell you the truth, the way of life, true freedom, true inner peace and joy. That is not how the world sees it.

When you get back in chapter 2, the way of the truth will be maligned; the course and pattern that the truth sets out for us and we walk according to the truth. That is the pattern of our lives.

Turn over to Jude, the book of Jude. We mentioned that we read this earlier, verse 4: “Certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation.” Now these were people who were never saved and you note what he says next, “They are ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord.” So you see they take grace and they carry it.

I was reading in a work just before I came in just reviewing something from a number of years ago, the conflicts going on among evangelicals. The person was writing to argue and he would claim to be an evangelical, taught in an evangelical seminary that “once you have trusted Christ you have been set free.” Now he didn’t encourage you to live a life of sensuality, he hasn’t gone that far but if you do, that doesn’t mean you are not a believer. If you turn into a blasphemer and deny Christ that doesn’t mean you were never saved. We have to understand the grace of God and as soon as you have placed your faith in Christ God’s grace has cleansed you and made provision for you in every area so no matter what you do from this point on you belong to Him. Now it is better for you and there will be benefits if you do serve Him.

Well wait a minute. You see we have taken a major step down the road to licentiousness. Now he’s not saying you ought to practice licentiousness or God has set you free so you should but if you do you are still a believer. Now how does that fit, if you deny the Lord and Master? Well we just take it to the next step. That is still being promoted today in materials that I get. It is amazing, so he is talking about that in Jude, these people.

We have had people at Indian Hills. I tell you of one from many years ago who was one of our teachers. I have shared this before. With one of our elders he was team teaching one of our adult classes on the doctrine of salvation. He would come in and talk to me about it and the theology he was reading, wanting to make sure he had it right. I still have the syllabus in my file. You know one day he walked in, put it down on my desk in my office and said, “I don’t believe any of this. I’ve just learned it. I don’t believe any of it and I don’t think it is true.” He walked out with his family and to this day he will have nothing to do with Christianity. How could this man be teaching this? Well, you can see how they get in. There will be other examples like that. That is why the church has to be careful to watch. You can’t tell just by looking at a person. That doesn’t mean we have doubts about everybody. No, but when error comes up, we have to be ready to deal with it. That is what Peter is saying, “Be on guard.” Now again, the other side of that is we are examining everything, everybody and you know I think they are probably… No that is not the point. But neither should we be blind to error.

So come back to 2 Peter chapter 2 and the result will be the way of truth will be maligned, blasphemed. This is a concern. When the truth gets corrupted and then the life style goes with it pretty soon the world picks it up. These false teachers then end up speaking against the truth and they are encouraging that which is contrary to the truth and then the truth loses any uniqueness in the world. We are not trying to fit into the world.

Verse 3: “In their greed they will exploit you with false words.” They are in it for their own selfish desires. You know they have their own way of thinking and the benefit they get. For some of them it is financial. We are aware of some of the health and wealth preachers and it is clear in them. But all of these false teachers are in it for their own selfish ends. We sometimes say, “Well, I don’t know why they would promote that. I can’t see what benefit.” There is no rational to sin in the true sense. But they see benefit in it. For some of them it is financial. We have many people involved in religious activity and they are doing it for what they get out of it.

“In their greed they will exploit you.” That word exploit has a commercial background. They make you a commodity. Believers are just something to be used for what they want. “In their greed they will exploit you with false words.” And this word, false, plastid means something molded and we get the word plastic from it. Plastic is something molded. So you know they will exploit you with plastic words, false words, made up. It is like something they have created that has been formed to deceive.

You know like they used to repair cars and they put what they called Bondo in it and it was just held together. The metal was gone but it fooled you because it was done well. Then they painted it over. Oh man, this car is in great shape and pretty soon the next thing you know it is falling apart. These things that are artificial but they are contrived to delude and deceive. That is why we want to be careful students of the Word.

Where is it going? “Their judgment from long ago is not idle, their destruction is not asleep.” We need to be aware. God is at work. We say, “Why does He put up with it?” And His delay in judgment if I can speak of it in that way for a moment is taken to mean maybe He doesn’t deal with it so seriously. Maybe He is not going to deal with it. We will get in to that in chapter 3 where the fact that God hasn’t intervened in judgment and even we as believers sometimes say, “I don’t know why God doesn’t intervene. I don’t know why God allows this to go on.”

You know we have this statement: “God is slow but He is never late.” And meaning in our thinking He ought to be doing something. But He’s really right on His schedule. So their judgment from long ago is not idle and the judgment He has prophesied for false teachers that is not, you know, idle. It is not like, well that is not going to happen. Their destruction is not asleep. Everything is moving toward that end. God is on schedule and we need to remember that with the false teaching, the corruption. That is a good reminder for us in everything. Look at the world. What is going on? What do you mean what is going on? The world is going to hell and is deteriorating in preparation for the ultimate judgment that God will bring in bringing judgment on an unbelieving world and then the final sentencing to an eternal hell. We know exactly what is going on.

We are not part of this system. We are not reforming this system. This system, this world system is irreformable. The false teachers continue to be successful because like Israel, God’s people become lax with the Word and so we want to be discerning. We want to be loving. We want to be understanding. We give people time to grow. That doesn’t mean anytime anyone says something that is not correct Scripturally we are going to be all over them. We are growing. We want to help them to grow. And in our congregation there are people at all stages of growth but that doesn’t mean we are tolerant of error. People can’t teach error. Well it’s because they are growing. It’s alright if they teach error. No. If they need correction we do correct them but we do it lovingly. We explain why that is in error.

We teach the Word so the people learn to handle the Word, learn to think Biblically. Our first reaction is to sift it through the Word. We have a balance with other mature believers who are in the Word. But he is going to go on. He is going to give examples of God’s judgment on false teachers to encourage believers because you know as we talk about, the devil wears us out. That is his goal. He makes us tried of the battle. I don’t always want to be in this. But I can’t get out of it. You know why? The devil won’t let me go but “Oh love that will not let me go,” Christ won’t let me go but the devil is the relentless enemy of everyone who belongs to Christ. So I want to think there is no peace with the devil. You can’t say I will ease up here and the devil will let me go. The devil’s goal is your ruin. The devil’s goal is my ruin.

So we are going to be encouraged here. Judgment will come. We will be victorious and even though the battle and we seem like a small group and let me read you Lloyd-Jones: “If we are to do what God would have us do we must set truth ever in the first position and that even though we may be reduced to a handful we still must contend for the faith. For our one and only concern must be for the truth, once for all and forever delivered to the saints.”

And that is what the Spirit is doing – encouraging us, warning us and reminding us. Let’s pray.

Thank You Lord for the riches of Your Word. Lord, we are in awe that we are the recipients of Your salvation and in that conflict going on in the heavenlies, the spiritual forces of wickedness aligned against us we in Your grace are empowered by You to be Your representatives in the world in these days, to stand for the truth, to declare the truth, to submit ourselves to the truth and to live the truth. May that be true in our lives in the week before us we pray in Christ’s name, amen.