In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij begins looking at characteristic behavior of false teachers in 2 Peter 2:10-22 so that true believers will be committed to teaching and living the whole Bible. In part one, Pastor Babij identifies three propensities of false teachers in 2 Peter 2:10-14:
1. False teachers have a propensity to be prideful (vv. 10b-11)
2. False teachers have a propensity to be unteachable (v. 12)
3. False teachers have a propensity to be controlled by unblushing lusts (vv. 13-14)
Full Transcript:
Let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to 2 Peter. We are continuing to look at this section of Scripture.
Let’s pray. Father, we thank You so much for bring us here today. We thank You that we have the Word of God. I pray Lord the Word of God would work in our hearts and our minds in such a way that would give us discernment to know what You want for us, to know what the truth is, and even Lord to be able to detect error when it comes our way. When we are confronted with it, we would be ready. And I pray the Lord that You will continue to bless our congregation with wisdom, with knowledge, in the true knowledge of Christ, so that we would bare fruit to Your glory and honor, especially the fruit of the character of Christ in our life. So Lord we give ourselves today to Your service. Make us ready to receive the Word of God. And I pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.
2 Peter chapter 2, we are going to be looking at verses 10 to 14, and I’s like to read that. It says:
and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children;
Now in the last few messages, we have been given a glimpse of God’s sovereignty, that the Lord knows how to reserve the unjust for the day of judgement to be punished. The Lord will deal with sin and ungodliness justly, fairly, righteously. When Christians become more familiar with and understand God in His sovereignty from what Scripture actually teaches about it, they are then informed that the Lord, past present and future, rescues and brings judgment upon people. That should be an encouragement for us and a hope for God’s children, that God knows how to rescue the godly and He knows how to keep the unrighteous under punishment. Now several observations from last time concerning God’s sovereignty and rescue were as follows: that our good sovereign God will always provide us a way out. God provides grace sufficient for all circumstances. Also, our good sovereign God will provide His righteous ones from committing apostasy. And how does He do that? He does that by us rightly dividing the Word of God and our desire for maturity.
It’s like what it says in chapter 1 of 2 Peter, in verses 5 through 8. We are to be adding to our faith these virtues. It says:
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
We’re to be adding to our faith those things. And then then down in verse 10, it says at the end of the verse you will never stumble if these things are growing and being added to your faith. So Noah and Lot, they lived among wicked people and they did not fall into apostasy. The Lord held them and kept them.
Then our good, sovereign, and powerful God will rescue His godly ones out of the ultimate judgment and destruction that is coming. Remember, Noah and Lot were delivered out of ultimate destruction. So the promise here in our passage, before we look at where we are going to look at this morning, is that our loving Lord will not allow sin and evil to harm us in any vital or eternal sense. The Lord knows how to deliver His children from the power and the polluting and the condemning effects of sin and evil. The Lord knows how to save His children from ultimate judgment and destruction that is going to fall upon sin and evil, the evil and the unjust and the unrighteous of the earth that is coming. That is for sure. So therefore the Lord is on His throne, controlling everything, working His plan no matter how wicked the world becomes.
This should result in that God’s children can fully trust what the Lord has done in the past and in the present and will accomplish in the future. The Lord is the same yesterday today and forever. He does not change. He will not change His plan. So this is what God does because He is a just and a righteous God. We can never get around the fact that God is a God of justice, that justice is a part of His character. As the Scriptures already indicated to us – for all His ways are just, a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.
Now as we head towards our text this morning, you would think that the Apostle Peter, having dealt at some length with false teachers, that he has said enough. But that’s not the case, which reminds us that false teachers and their teachings are a far greater and deeper problem than we often realize. Scripture commands and exhorts us to test the spirits. Now why do we do that? 1 John 4:1 says:
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
And regrettably there are false prophets. There are evil spirits. There are demons. There is a devil who is crafty and shrewd. And he can transform himself into an angel of light, just as the Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 11:
No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
Now, saying all that is that we are and we ought to be growing in discernment as believers. Discernment can be illustrated as I heard an illustration once of a person traveling and he comes upon a merchant. A merchant is selling pottery, but many times wicked merchants would have pottery that is broken. So they would take the pottery, fill it with wax, then repaint it, and then sell it. But most of the time people don’t test pottery on the spot. They would go home. They would fill it with liquid and they would find out that the wax would melt and all the liquid would fall out of there. That was the picture. Instead, they were to hold it up to the light when they learned that was taking place and see if there was any light that shined through the wax, so they can see that it was not a sound vessel.
That is a picture of discernment, that we are to hold up everything to the light of Scripture. And the light of Scripture has to reveal what we’re being taught, what we hear, what we read – is it from God? We have to test the spirits in that way. We are given the ability by God through the Holy Spirit, that is the spirit that dwells in us, to examine and test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Because we have received, according to Scripture, not the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God. 1 Corinthians says that. We do this, the discerning part, not based on sincerity or based on honesty, but based on truth and error. How do we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error? Again, the apostle John in 1 John tells us that, where he says the verse 2 chapter 4:
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
In other words, is the person’s teaching in conformity with the apostolic message? Does the person base his teaching upon the Word of God? Is he willing to not only submit to the Word of God but live according to the doctrine of Scripture? Does he possess a willingness to listen to Scriptural teaching and then even abide by it? See, it’s not a matter of how one feels or an experience one had, or that a person has great excitement and energy for spiritual things or much assurance that they are following God. None of that is proof of the Spirit of truth. If someone dismisses the true and the clear teaching of Scripture, that person is considered to be contemptuous in regards to the Word of God. Therefore, they have the spirit of error and they have the spirit of antichrist.
If you go back and think of what John’s statement means – that you know the Spirit of God, that every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. What does that mean? It means you have to get the person of Christ right on all regards. Anytime you examine a cult, the first thing you do is find out what they say about Christ. I guarantee you might as well give up your study after that, because you’ll find out that if they get Christ wrong, they get everything else wrong.
The Lord Jesus Christ has two natures – the divine and the human. Yet there is one Person. Jesus is not just a man like every other man. Jesus was not just the founder of one of the world’s major religions. Jesus was not just a great teacher and a good moral example. Jesus was not two persons, as some say – Jesus the man and Jesus the eternal Christ. No, John says that Jesus Christ – one person two natures, two natures in one person. Jesus claimed to be more than a man. Just think of John chapter 8. We find Jesus confronted by religious leaders of His day. And in the course of their debate, Jesus claimed to know God in a way they did not know God. Now them hearing that, reflecting Jesus’ claim and their resulting rage, the text that Jesus quotes actually says:
Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Therefore they picked up stones to throw at him.
Why did they do that? Because Jesus claimed to be God. I am the great I am. Jesus lived on earth and was worshipped as God because Jesus is God. He is God in the flesh. So what people are saying about Jesus and how people are living that claim to know Jesus is very significant. Yet at the same time, people could perfectly be orthodox and yet deny the faith. Now we must believe the right things. Apart from truth, we have nothing to stand upon. Correct doctrine is vital and is essential, but it is not enough. The ultimate of our profession of Christian faith is our loving one another and our loving God, the Father Son and Holy Spirit. For the epistle of 1 John says in chapter 4 verse 7:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and know God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
I say all that for this reason – this is what the false teachers and the ungodly do not do because they cannot do it. They could have a head knowledge of the truth, but no regeneration of the heart and no supernatural work of grace having been formed in their souls. So what happens at that point? Then the lusting of their flesh will prove to be too strong for them. They’re believing false doctrine. They’re letting demons into their life. They have to resort to the flesh and the flesh becomes too strong for them.
As our text will bring out this morning and expose, the Scripture that we ended with last time concerning a group of false teachers who teach freedom to live according to one’s passions as they choose and the freedom to live as their own Lord was this: 2 Peter 2:10. The second part of the verse says:
and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.
Those are the two things that are going to set them apart. Peter actually expounds what that means all the way to the end of chapter 2. Peter wants to expose these false indulgent blind leaders so that there is no mistaking their character, which should cause true teachers to clearly stand out in stark contrast to false teachers. So false teachers knew the truth. However, they turn from the truth. So they are true apostates. They are professors in word, but reject the authority of the Creator and actually deny His redemptive offer and purchase in Christ Jesus. They say no to the One who has the power and authority. And it’s not like they were ever genuinely saved at all. So false teachers are clever, but their lives deny the message. Knowing God is a central theme in the letter of 2 Peter. The false teachers claim to know God as they brought doubt into the minds of those who did know the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Now today, if you pick up particular items, you’ll find sometimes listed on a can or a bottle or container – no GMOs. That seems to be a big thing today. As humans increasingly gain knowledge and control of nature, we have learned to manipulate our food supply at a genetic level. This has brought great fear to many who are concerned with where the stuff in our produce aisles is actually coming from and what they’ve done to it. Many people recognize that when we make changes in the most fundamental level of our food source, the implications are vast. When DNA is altered, everything that springs from it and everything that touches it can be altered. The teaching of the church is like seed. It goes out to produce fruit. False teaching is so dangerous because it represents humans actually modifying the seed of truth that God has given to the church. The only result will be fruit that harms rather than gives life, fruit that actually destroys and doesn’t produce what real truth produces. So maybe we should down on some books -no genetically modified truth should be on certain books that are popular today in Christian circles.
So for the rest of chapter 2, the apostle Peter wants us to gain a clear description of false teachers so that God’s children can quickly identify and dismiss their teaching and not follow their ways. So the character and conduct of these false teachers need to be exposed. This third point of discerning the propensities found in the character of false teachers is what we’re going to start to look at this morning.
And what is the first thing of the three character flaws, at least today that we’ll look at? The first thing is this – they have a propensity of being prideful. Look at verses 10 and 11. In other words, pride is a very blinding sin coupled with strong self desire puffed the head with self-righteousness and arrogance. Of course it tends to be blind to everything else. Now this sin has been around forever. It was Satan’s sin – the sin of pride, the sin of arrogance. But notice in verse 10 how this is laid out and described. It says that according to these false teachers or the character of these false teachers, they are daring in verse 10. Daring is the first word he uses there. In the New Testament, this word is used in a bad sense to mean arrogance or presumption or an audacious person – a person who is not restrained by a sense of shame. So he usually decides against what is decent and right. He’s not driven by the the will of God. He is driven by self will.
That’s the second word he uses in verse 10. This person is self-willed. That means that they do things only to please themselves. They are their own pilots. It’s used of a person who has no idea of anything other than pleasing himself. Nothing matters but gratifying his sinful desires. He lets nothing stand in the way of his pleasures, nothing. No one stands in the way of his pleasures. Now how daring and arrogant are these false teachers? Well look at the rest of the verse in verse 10. It says they revile angelic majesties. The word revile in the Greek is blasphemeo. It means blasphemy. They blaspheme supernatural beings, heaven dignitaries. They speak evil about them and insult them.
Translators were having to decide – is it talking about good angels, evil angels, or both? That’s why you have the NAS translated angelic majesties. The NIV translates it celestial beings. The New King James translates it dignitaries. And the ESV translates it glorious ones. But the ESV actually comes directly from the Greek because he says glorious ones or angelic powers, angelic beings, majesty’s dignities. And I believe in this case it is referring to demon powers, evil angels because of what it says in the next part of the passage in verse 10:
they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.
In other words, false teachers reviled demon powers, but God’s good angels refused to do so. So false teachers, rejecting Jesus as Lord, results in an arrogant disrespect for other authorities. The audacity of false teachers who disrespect demonic powers and scoff at supernatural beings, disregarding that evil angels still were created by God even though fallen. So good angels, greater in power and strength, refuse to bring from the Lord a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings. According to the epistle of Jude, which we read this morning, these good angels actually show three things in their character. They show respect. They show restraint. And they show reverence, for they knew their place. In other words, judgement is God’s department. Not even angels are given that department. In fact, just flip over to Jude chapter 1 verses 8 and 9. Notice what it says:
Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties. But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
So they committed, these false teachers, the sins of arrogance because everything they do is about themselves. They are ruled by self interest. But I believe we were warned in this passage not to speak about people in a hypocritical or judgmental way, leaving judgement to the Lord. There are some things that we cannot fully discern. we are to expose their doctrine. We are to expose what they’re teaching as error, but sometimes we can’t go further than that because we have to leave judgment ultimately to the Lord because the Lord will judge those particular things. We cannot. So there is a boundary upon what we say and how we judge things. We have to be careful about that or we’ll be slandering people in a way that’s dishonoring and not correct.
So that was the first character flaw. Second character flaw found in verse 12 is that they have a propensity of being unteachable. This comes out in several ways. The first way is that they are unteachable because they are like unthinking animals. Look at verse 12:
But these, like unreasoning animals,
In other words, they’re lacking reasoning capacity, especially spiritual reasoning capacity. They don’t have a clue about spirituality. False teachers make claim to be in the know concerning the Christian life. However, when they speak, they speak out of their own ignorance. They have abandoned divine revelation for human reasoning, even forsaking sense and logic. And of course they have already abandoned theology. All that is left when that happens is to do things stupidly, to act like mere animals. They speak blasphemy here. That is they speak slanderously about things they don’t even understand. Verse 12, it says:
reviling where they have no knowledge,
It’s like when I mentioned Kenneth Copeland, at his church Eagle Mountain church in Texas, spoke at the coronavirus and declared it gone. Copeland commanded a vaccine immediately and then on the platform before his people at 12 noon, he says on the 29th of march – it’s over. He kills the virus. Covid-19 is done. See, Copeland prophesied to kill the virus. What is that? You know what that is? All that is stupidness. That’s foolishness. It’s nonsense. It happens over and over again. Ten months later we still have the virus. It was C.H. Spurgeon, preacher from long ago, said this – that these kinds of he calls him hypocritical maniacs that claim revelation from God when he has not spoken, declaring words of prophecy that are full of error and corruption. When God speaks, it is always perfect. It is always true. It is always infallible. It cannot be changed. Pastor Spurgeon gave this advice to those who speak from their own imagination. He says – if you feel your tongue itch to talk nonsense, trace it back to the devil, not to the Spirit of God. Whatever is to be revealed by the Spirit to any of us, it is in the Word of God already. He adds nothing to the Bible and He never will. Spurgeon is just reiterating what Jeremiah the prophet already said warning about false prophecy, where Jeremiah 23 says:
Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; they speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord.”
Jeremiah goes on to say that the Lord says, I did not speak to these prophets, yet they spoke. They prophesied. Then he says:
But if they had stood in My council, then they would have announced My words to My people, and would have turned them back from their evil way and from their evil deeds.
That’s what the Word of God does. The Word of God turns us away from sin. It turns us away from evil to what? Unto holiness, unto godliness. That is always the goal, unto bearing fruit of Christlikeness.
So they are unteachable because they are like unthinking animals, but secondly, they are unteachable because they are slaves of their animal instinct. Look at what it says there in verse 12:
But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed,
Every person has two sides to his nature. First, he has the physical – the instincts, the passions, the impulses he shares with the animal creation. These instincts are normal and good only if they are kept in a proper place. They’re necessary for life. Secondly, he has the spiritual side or the Godward side of man. Man created in the image of God has a sense of a creator, of the creation, of something more outside of themselves, something spiritual. If these two sides go out of whack, the person becomes imbalanced. False teachers are only dominated by the physical. They are slaves to their animal instincts, the basic drives of all animals, especially eating and drinking and mating and survival. These apostates’ passions and drives for eating and drinking and sex are all out of balance. Inflamed by the sinful desires to gratify their self-indulgent flesh, they are earthbound to the max. Just like some animals, they were put on earth in order to be caught and die like common animals. They think only what one feels and experiences has worth. With this view, they are people with no guiding laws, no guiding principles, which leads to no morals, which leads to no spiritual growth at all, but just indulging the flesh. They are their own captains of their own ship, like sailboats without rudders. They drift, lose control, and inevitably they capsized.
Psychologically, they would be characterized as neurotic. For example, a person who has the neurotic need for power, certain characteristics are going to be in that person’s character. First one is domination over others, craved for one’s own sake. A second thing would be essential disrespect for others, their individuality, their dignity, their feelings. Their only concern being their subordination. As long as they can keep someone under their thumb, that’s what they want. That’s their goal. So you can see that the goal is not love. The goal is not the best for that person. The goal is control. Of course they’re indiscriminate as far as they actually exalt the adoration of strength and have contempt for weakness. Their understanding of Christian freedom is God loves you and wants you to be happy, so do what you feel is good and right for you. Whatever makes you happy. You know today is follow your heart. Follow your heart, whatever your heart wants to do. Doesn’t God want you to be happy?
However, God establishes our freedom within boundaries. The Christian is the freest person in the world. No, he can’t do what he wants. Surprisingly, the Christian is free most precisely because he or she doesn’t have to obtain by his or her own efforts his or her own righteousness. That’s why we’re free. It’s like what the apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:7-9:
I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.
This is the apostle Paul’s legacy to us. For the church, our freedom is in the righteousness that comes from God, not ourselves. Now brethren, that is freedom because it takes all the pressure off of us. Christ has done it. He has redeemed us. He has made us righteous. And then we are awakened at that point to a new reality. This is the reality – you are free for holiness. Free for all God wants you to be. Christians are saved to have freedom to serve Christ and holiness and godliness, as the apostle Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:11:
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness.
That’s where truth takes you. That’s where the understanding of the Word of God takes you. It takes you to holy conduct. It takes you to godliness. So we are to be discerning concerning the character flaws of false teachers so that we don’t follow them and live like them because their influence in the world is very great, greater than we think.
This leads me to a third propensity of being controlled by unblemishing lusts. Look at 2 Peter chapter 2:13:
suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime.
Stop there for a minute. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. Most people seek to hide their sins and shameful lusts for the cover of night. But these apostates have no regard for the normal constraints imposed by the daytime hours. It is daylight hours that makes this pleasure feast negative because what they’re actually doing is they’re reveling at the Lord’s Table. Jude brings that out. Now Solomon in Ecclesiastes makes this observation about kings and princes who feast at abnormal times of the day, which in turn become a curse to the people. In Ecclesiastes 10:16-17 it says:
Woe to you, O land, whose king is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning. Blessed are you, O land, whose king is of nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time – for strength and not for drunkenness.
So there is a time, an appropriate time, to eat. To eat for strength is the right time to eat, and it’s going to be at proper times. But this in the morning has to do more with partying and doing what the flesh wants. So feasting after a day’s work is done can be appropriate. But when it happens in the day, when carousing happens in the day, duties and responsibilities are going to be clearly neglected. That’s the case. And why is that? Because they’re driven not by helping people or loving people. They’re driven by their own flesh.
Now Jude refers to the feasting of the false teachers as during the Lord’s Table. Historically, the Lord’s Supper was a full meal. It was a solemn and a joyful time of celebrating the presence of the Lord and at the same time reflecting on the two elements of the gospel – the bread that represents Jesus’ incarnation and the fruit of the vine representing Jesus’ death in shedding of blood. It was not a time to indulge oneself in gluttonous eating and drunkenness. Like 1 Corinthians 11 teaches us, some people at the Lord’s table, because they abused it, were getting sick and dying because of that. Now Jude 1:12 it says:
These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;
Hidden reefs refer to the sunken rocks, which are hidden from view, which can run any suspecting ship aground and destroy it. Turning the Lord’s table into something deceitful is very harmful and yet that’s where it leads. This false teaching leads to dishonoring everything that has to do with the Lord.
Also in 2 Peter 2:14, notice also they lust with their eyes continually. They have eyes full of adultery. They never ceased from sin. They find it impossible to look upon a woman without lust. These men are not safe around the sheep, especially the women, because they view women as potential sexual playmates. Today we call them sexual predators. But they do have a target group. Their target group is the sheep that are not yet grounded in the Word of God. They are the ones who are unstable, who do not see through the seduction drawing them away into a trap. They are not trained in Scripture enough to be able to pick out the charlatans and get away from them. Like it says in verse 14:
having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls,
That’s their target group. Then in verse 18 of chapter 2:
For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escaped from the ones who live in error,
These people have a different gospel. They have a different Jesus. They have their own structure of what you may call theology. These false teachers were propagating a wicked and shameful and selfish lifestyle centering mainly on shameful immorality and greed. That’s what Peter brings up next. They lust for more and more. The sinful nature left to itself, it always wants more and it always wants more and it always wants more and it always wants more. You can never satisfied the sinful flesh. Never satisfy the sinful flesh. Look at what it says in verse 14:
having a heart trained in greed,
so here’s a major motivation for false teacher – greed. In chapter 2 verse 3 it says by their greed they will exploit you with false words. Peter speaks about people who are trained in greed. It means that the heart has been exercised in greed and is one that has faithfully practiced greed so that greediness becomes natural to them. The false teachers develop a habit capacity of greediness. The teachers habitually behave this way. They are well-trained in greed to keep the money coming in, and they will say anything and they will do anything. The great danger with the accumulation of wealth is that it can and it will and often does become an idol, because you trust money for security and for happiness and for getting things done.
So most false teachers today, just as in Peter’s day, allows greed and selfishness to rule them. And what’s their message? God will give you healing and wealth and other material blessings in return for money. That’s the bottom line. But what’s going to happen to these false teachers? You know what’s going to happen? God will see to it that these teachers suffer harm for leading people astray and destroying their faith. Look up in verse 12. See, the apostates will be destroyed. Chapter 2 verse 12:
will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong.
In other words, they will receive a full payback for the wrong they have done. This is the reward they earned – God’s justice. And then the last part of verse 14 – look a little phrase there: accursed children. Now this is known as a familiar Hebrew construct – hebraism. You find it all through Scripture. Isaiah 57 – children of disobedience. Hosea 10:9 – children of wrongdoing. Ephesians 2:3 – children of wrath. 1 Peter 1:14 – children of disobedience. And here – accursed children. And why will they be destroyed? Why will God hold judgment upon them? If you look at verse 15 of chapter 2, because of this:
forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam,
We’ll look at that next time. They knew the way. They knew the truth, but they left it. They knew how to live according to God’s Word, but they forsook it for another way to live. See the apostates’ wandering was not due to them being disorientated or getting lost, but rather a willful apostasy from God and a rebellion against the lordship of Jesus Christ. That is what happened to them. These good-for-nothings don’t live according to conscience guided by right and wrong, guided by truth and morality, holiness and godliness. No, as Paul told Timothy and wrote in 1 Timothy, he says in chapter 4:
But the spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
You notice when people fall from the faith, it’s not just a vacuum and they go about doing what they think they ought to do or do something else.No, they’re lead to paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. Then he goes on to say:
by means of hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,
It’s bringing before us how serious a matter of false teaching is. So here’s the admonition for us as a church body and family – we must not get off track and we must keep doing the heart of the Christian ministry. That is we must be molding people into the image of Christ and make sure that a full and faithful teaching of God’s truth continues in our assembly, for it is the means the Holy Spirit uses to accomplish the goal of holiness, of godliness, of Christlikeness. You cannot become holy without the Word of God. You cannot become holy without the assembly of believers together, the Lord’s table, the apostles’ doctrine, the fellowship of believers, and prayer. You cannot become holy without those things. It doesn’t matter what people say. This is God’s work, so we can not stray from that.
It’s not just a job of the elders and deacons. It’s your job too. The assembly holds up the truth. We’re the pillar and the support of truth. We have to hold it up. We have to hold that light up. In the days in which we live, churches are giving up the Word of God. They’re holding it up and they said this is God’s word and then they close it and never teach it. We can’t do that. It’s all our responsibility to do that, from me to you to the elders to the deacons, it’s our responsibility. It may get tough in our days in which we live, especially in regard to truth. Everything about our culture is false. I mean fake news. I mean, how true is Santa Claus, right? Everything is like a lie. Everything. We come to the Word of God and all of a sudden you see truth the way truth is supposed to be understood. Everything gets exposed.
So brethren, God’s Word going to bring you and I to live a holy and a godly life. That means our heart is going to be changed and our conduct is going to be changed. Every day He’s doing that. Until we drop off these bodies and we slip into the presence of God, that’s what the Spirit of God is going to be doing. Let’s give ourselves to it. Let’s be what we ought to be as God’s children.
Let’s pray. Lord thank You again. Again Your word is like a spotlight, a bright spotlight that exposes evil. It exposes bad characters. It exposes the sinfulness of humanity. So I pray, Lord, let us hold fast to the truth. Let us not whatsoever look back at our old life or the world or the things we had or what we did. Let’s keep looking forward and let’s look in the face of Jesus Christ and His Word and transform us, so that we would know the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God. So we would know ourselves and how You gifted us. And then we would go out and serve people with zeal and with love. Do that in our life. Start today Lord, and continued it until we die. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen.