Thank you for directing your internet connection to this sermon audio page for Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You can learn more about ChristOPC by visiting our website at www.christopcatl.org. ChristOPC meets for worship each Sunday at 11 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. Our sermon text this evening comes from 2 Peter 2, verses 1-3. 2 Peter 2, verses 1-3. You hear now the holy, inspired, and inert word of our God. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemes. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation is not from long ago, and their destruction is not asleep. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. As we've been working our way through, the book of 2 Peter, chapter 1, really draws our attention to the positive teaching of the Apostle, the Christ upon whom you are to believe, the life in which you are to live, and the place you learn it from, from the teaching of the Apostles and the word of the Old Testament scriptures. And it is that teaching and that word, if you remember from last week, that is a light unto your feet, and a lamp unto your path. It illumines your life. It illumines the world that is a dark place such that you can walk faithfully as a Christian, with your eyes set to the kingdom of Christ's marvelous light in the new heavens and the new earth. If you've ever asked yourself, how do I know what the narrow way is, Well, the Apostle Peter answers us in the previous paragraph from ours this evening, that you must run to the word of God that illumines that narrow way. Because the scriptures give us, as we confessed a short while ago, everything that we need to know concerning our salvation. And they give us all the information that we need to live a life of righteousness and holiness. before the Lord of glory. The scriptures, the word of God illumines the life that we are to live as faithful Christians. And if you could summarize all of that teaching from chapter one, I could put it in one simple sentence here. That true doctrine from the word of God promotes godly living and ends with, as Peter put it back in chapter one, verse 11, an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. True doctrine from the word of God promotes godly living and ends with the kingdom of heaven. Well now in chapter 2 verses 1-3, as the apostle shifts his attention from teaching you about the life you are to live illumined by the word of God, showing you the path to the kingdom of heaven, keeping your feet from slipping and falling, he shifts in chapter 2 verses 1-3 to deal with the opposites. To instruct you, beloved in Christ. not about the true doctrine from the word of God, but the danger of false teachers. And if the chapter one is about true doctrine from the word leading to godly living, whose end is the kingdom of heaven, then chapter two verses one through three deal with false teachers, who so lies from their own self, which leads to licentious living and ends in destruction. True doctrine from the Word promotes godly living which ends in the kingdom of God's marvelous light in Christ. But false teachers come with false words that lead to licentious living and end in destruction. That's what we see here in these first three verses. We'll see it in four parts this evening. First, considering the false teachers and their destructive heresies in verse one. How they have many followers in verse two. how they have false words of exploitation in the first half of verse 3, and how their end is condemnation in the second half of verse 3. So first considering how there are false teachers among you here in verse 1. Well the first part of verse 1 here connects us back to chapter 1 verses 19 through 21 where the Apostle Peter has told you to go back to the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament that do illumine your life and guide you upon the path that you are to go. But as he has done so, he shifts in chapter two to deal with the false teachers among you by giving you an example of the false prophets among Israel. And he makes a comparison here, doesn't he? Just as there were false prophets among them who came saying they prophesied the word of the Lord when they had not prophesied the word of the Lord, so also there will be false teachers among you. And if I could catalog for you The brief idea from the Old Testament, especially Jeremiah 23 that we read a short while ago, about the teaching of the false prophets, or how the Old Testament treats the false prophets, I would say these three things. First is that they were never sent from God. Simply because they say they were sent from God doesn't mean they were. The Lord tells us in Jeremiah 23, if they had been sent from, if I had brought them up into heaven and commissioned them as my prophet, they would be proclaiming my words. But it's not true. Simply because someone says they represent God, simply because someone says they're teaching the truth of God's word doesn't mean they are. There is such a thing. as false prophets. But a second thing that we saw in Jeremiah 23 that these false prophets do and this is programmatic of their teaching throughout the Old Testament is that they promise peace when there is no peace. They go to those, especially the kings of Israel, who were living lives of wickedness and sin, and they would instruct them, saying, carry on. Keep doing what you're doing. There will be peace here. There will not be any condemnation coming from the Lord. No judgment in the form of the exile is coming. Peace, peace. Telling the kings the words that they wanted to hear. Nobody, even those today, likes to hear words of judgment, but those words that tickle your fancy, that tell you, you know what, everything actually is going well in your life and you should be proud of yourself even when you shouldn't. Those are the words of those false prophets. But for those lying words, remember what Jeremiah said, they will be condemned. Their destruction, as Peter says here, is not idle. So they're not sent from God. They say false words, especially proclaiming peace when there is no peace and their end is their own destruction. And that's a pretty good summary of what the false teachers are going to do among the people of God today as well. Because these teachers are not going to be those who faithfully shepherd Christ's flock. They're not going to be those who faithfully proclaim God's word. And they are ultimately going to be condemned for their particular actions. But I want you to recognize, beloved, that Peter is giving us a stern and profound warning here, because he tells us that the false teachers are, notice what he put here, among you. He does not say that there are false viewpoints out in the world, although there most certainly are. He draws our attention to a danger on the inside, a danger from people that rise up in the midst of Christ's church, even our members of Christ's church, say that they might believe upon him, and yet their teaching and their life do not coincide with their confession. You know, the among you here in the first part of verse one, I think is clarified by a later phrase where Peter tells us that they deny the master, hear this, who bought them. See, Peter is saying that these false teachers, they're actually members of the covenant community. They are members of the church, perhaps even those who have acquired a pastorate and are teachers in Christ's church, and yet are teaching false doctrine and are leading to false living. You see, these are, if we can use an example from the parables of Jesus, seeds sown in rocky soil. that for a while it looks like they are growing, perhaps even growing quickly. And it looks like they have a true profession of faith. But at the end of the day, when the cares and concerns of the world come up, their faith shrivels and dies. But they are still teaching in the midst of the church. They stand proclaiming what they believe to be the right thing, but in fact stands against the true teaching of the word of God and a faithful witness to the life you are called to live. See, these false teachers are among you. They live in the midst of churches even today. And at times, even within the context of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church as well. But these false teachers that the apostle is warning you about, these false teachers who come and sow false words among the people of God, they're not teaching things for the proper purposes of nourishing and building up the flock of Christ in their faith. But instead they come and they bring in not the truth of God's word, But rather, what does Peter say here? They secretly bring in destructive heresies, nefarious in their intentions. While they have themselves moved away from the truth of who Christ is and what he has done for you, they now seek to lead the rest of the flock of God astray as well. Having departed from the narrow path of righteousness illumined by the word of God, They now seek to take others with them. Having their own lives destroyed by their sin, they seek to lead others away in sin as well. And specifically, notice what they bring in. They bring in heresies. I'm sure many of you have heard the word heresy. I'm sure some of you have at least a concept of what it means. Do you know its most basic meaning is actually a sect or a faction. It's a term that refers to a particular group of a people. In fact, even the Christians in Acts 24 and verse 5 are called the sect, literally the heresy, of the Nazarenes. And later on, it's also used by the Apostle Paul to talk about those who would sow factions and divisions in the midst of the church in 1 Corinthians 11 and in Galatians chapter 5. It is a term that draws our attention to particular groupings of people, but groupings of people that have a specific teaching. That's why in other places in the book of Acts, you'll have them have this term referring to the sect of the Pharisees or the sect of the Sadducees. Because it's a particular set-apart group within the larger that has its own sets of teaching to them. It draws our attention to that these false teachers who are among you, who are bringing in these destructive heresies, part of what they're doing is sowing division and dissension in the midst of the people of God. that part of their false teaching is that they seek to sow discord in the church of Jesus Christ. Their falsehood, the goal behind, one of the goals behind their falsehood is to divide what Christ has united by his spirit. But an interesting thing about the destructive heresies that these false teachers bring in is that for the Apostle Peter, It's not just something they say, it's also, perhaps even more so, the life they live. You see, when we think of heresy, we automatically jump to the false teaching. But Peter, while drawing our attention to the false teaching, connects it to a false mode of life. See, we hear the teaching where he calls it false words in verse three. where they speak loud boasts of folly in verse 18, and specifically, they deny the second coming of Christ in chapter 3 and verse 7. But repeatedly throughout chapter 2, he draws our attention more and more to their mode of life. He says in verse 2, they follow their own sensuality. In verse 13, he says, they count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. In verse 14, he says, they have eyes that are full of adultery and are insatiable for sin. In verses 18 and 19, he says, they entice by sensual passions and are slaves of corruption. You see, doctrine and life are not separate. What you believe leads to the way you live, either for good or for ill. True doctrine coming from the word of God promotes godly living, promotes a godly life. It calls you to be diligent, to make your calling and election sure, as Peter said back in chapter one and verse 10, but false teaching. False words, loud boasts of folly lead you onto a different mode of life, not one of righteousness and holiness in the Lord, but one of licentiousness and sensuality, one where you live for yourself and for the fulfillment of the desires of your own flesh. And both of these things, the teaching and the life Peter describes as destructive. They bring harm to the flock of Jesus Christ. And so when he's calling us to be attemptive to the reality of false teachers among you, bringing in destructive heresies, we need to be on our guard both against false teaching, but also against the false life. One who not only teaches false doctrine, but who lives in a way that denies the gospel of Jesus Christ. Isn't that what Peter says? When he's getting to the core of the content of their destructive heresies, he says that they even deny the master who bought them. They deny the master, beloved. in both their teaching and in their life. In their morals and how they seek to live and the content of what they say, they are denying the master, Jesus Christ. In fact, the closest word to this in the New Testament or the closest verse to this in the New Testament comes in the book of Jude in Jude verse four. Where Jude says in verse four, I hear the similarity with 2 Peter 1, that certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were destined for condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. See, what does it mean to deny our master and Lord Jesus Christ according to Peter? And according to Jude, it means that they either deny, disown, or renounce the name of Jesus Christ, or they contradict the teaching and life of Jesus Christ. You see, denying Jesus can either be an unfledged rejection of who he is and his work through their teaching, or it can be a contradiction of what Jesus taught in the life that he calls you to live. And this is getting into the true nefarious nature of some of these false teachers, isn't it? Because there are those who go about, both in the Apostles' Day and in our day, who use the grace of Jesus Christ and the reality of the gospel as a license to sin. And they might even sprinkle in some things that sound true doctrinally. They might say, Jesus has paid the penalty for all of your sins, past and present. And they might add a little therefore. Therefore, just go about living however you want to live. Don't you know that you have full atonement in Christ? If you have full atonement in Christ, therefore go do whatever you want to do because all you've got to do is come and make a confession and then you're good to go. But that's denying the Master, isn't it? It's denying the Gospel. Are we to sin in order that grace may abound? The apostle Paul asks and he answers with the emphatic, by no means, in Romans 6, 15. You see, these false teachers, they come not simply by denying core things about the doctrine of the church and our belief in God. but especially to lead you down the broad load to destruction that is a life that is not lived as you are called to live. And I think that's what Peter says here on the front end of verse one, that they are bringing upon themselves swift destruction. We're going to get to that again here at the end of verse three, but he wants to draw our attention here in verse one to the reality that they're denying of the master, either through outright teaching or through a life that does not conform to the teaching of Jesus Christ. The end is not life in heaven. but rather swift destruction. Remember, Jesus himself tells us about those who honor him with their lips, but their hearts are far from him. These are the false teachers. They might say some of the right things, but they say it with a view toward licentious sinning, with a view, even as we'll see here in a few moments, to exploiting and coercing the people of God. But how will the church respond to these false teachers who come up among them? We often like to laud ourselves and know that we'll always do the right thing at the right time. But Peter's warnings become a little bit more dire, I think, in verse two. While there are these false teachers who deny Jesus Christ by either their doctrine or their life, he continues to tell us that it's not few but rather many who will follow their sensuality. Many, he tells us. Many who decide to follow the teaching of these false teachers specifically out of a desire to live the sensual life that these false teachers allow them to live. And doesn't the Apostle Paul make the same warning in 2 Timothy chapter 4 where he says, the time is coming when people will not endorse sound teaching, but having itching ears that will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. You know what Peter just said, or remember what Peter just said at the end of chapter one? We do not bring you cleverly devised myths. No, we make known the power and coming of our master, Jesus Christ. But these false teachers who deny the master, many will follow them. We must be wary, beloved. of the desire to have a ministry marked by numbers, to deduce from numerical association the fidelity of the church of Jesus Christ. So we have become obsessed today, haven't we, with the idea of making an impact or having influence or so on and so forth. Well, we often evaluate people and evaluate the work of the church by the number of people that are in the pew. But the Apostle tells us that many will follow the false way. Many will be gathered around the false teachers and their desire to promote this sort of sensuality. Narrow is the way of life. and few are those who tread upon it. But broad is the pathway to destruction. And these false teachers are making their way, infiltrating their way into the church of Christ, trying to sell the flock of Christ a faulty bill of goods to lure you away from the truth and to instead live this life of sensuality. You see what they're saying? If you just believe what I believe, then you can live however you want to live. Set free from not the reigning power of sin and misery, but the tyranny of needing to be righteous and holiness before God. Don't you know that you can just live whatever type of life you want? Come on! You can do it. You can have a life lacking of any self-restraints. You can live a life of full licentiousness, doing whatever your heart's desires, because everyone knows that whatever your heart's desires are, it's rights for you to do. Peter is warning us that this is a poison pill coated in sweet chocolate. Luring people away with sensual desire is really taking the people into a trap that leads to their death. So what is the antidote to this false teaching? What is the antidote to this sensual life that the false teachers are promoting? But to taste and to see that the Lord is good. The apostle Peter throughout all of chapter 1 has really been presenting before us the grace and majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's been presenting to you all the things that pertain to life and godliness that have been given to you from God Himself, who has called you to His own glory and excellence, as He says in chapter 1, verse 3. such that in them, because of the work of God, you have escaped the corruption and the corrupting desire of the world that is due to sin, that is no longer part of who you are. The Apostle Peter is saying, do not give in to the false teachings of these false prophets and false pastors, but instead, listen to the true word of God and diligently pursue godliness. Seek to add unto yourself virtue and knowledge and steadfastness and godliness and brotherly affection and love. Increase in godly virtues. Pursue the life that Christ has called you to live. Let what you confess with your mouth and how you live and your life match with one another because that is the way that Christ has ordained for His church to live. And while many, many, the apostle says, will be wooed by their false words, will be wooed by the sensuality of these false teachers, it's not as though the rest of the church is not harmed as well. Because while many are wooed away by the false teachers and following their sensuality, he also tells us here in the second half of verse two, that because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. These false teachers who lead many astray. They bring reproach to the gospel. They bring reproach to Christ and they bring reproach to you. The way of truth that is tread upon by all who trust and rest upon Christ is blasphemed because of these false teachers. It does great. and terrible harm to the church of Jesus Christ when these false teachers gained their platform and seek to lead people astray. The name of our master is slandered in the church of Christ, is reproached by those in the world. And this is why the apostles, Regularly teach that the elders of Christ Church need to be well thought of by outsiders in 1st Timothy chapter 3 verse 7. And that Christians generally are to walk properly before outsiders in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 12 or why Peter himself will charge you to keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they seek to speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation in 1st Peter chapter 2 verse 12. That by doing good you shall put to silence the ignorance of foolish people and first Peter Chapter 2 in verse 15. To live a life having a good conscience so that when you are slandered. Those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. First Peter 316. See when people. Reproach you. Because of the actions of others. The easiest response is to get mad and to get defensive. But the proper response is to live a godly life that Christ has called you to live. And living that life is the answer to those who would seek to blaspheme the way of truth. Because living righteously, living a holy life, living a godly life before the Lord, also means that you're living rightly before men. That is true, and the apostle Peter deals with this in 1 Peter 3, that there will be those who reproach you precisely because you are living a righteous life before God. And for that, we say, fear God and not man. See, this seeking to live righteously before outsiders, it's not a fear of man. but it's righteous living before men that silences the mouth of evildoers and sets you free to the life that you are called to live. You see, your task as a Christian, when you are blaspheming from those on the outside, is not that you have to go get on social media and go on a blasting campaign, torpedoing anybody who has ever said anything wrong about you. It's the simple life of fidelity. It's a life of righteousness and a life of holiness. And it is that life that silences the evildoers and promotes righteousness in the Church of Christ. Well, if that's how people respond, why do the teachers do it? And how do they do it? And Peter gets into this in the first half of verse three, where he reveals to us the motive and the method of false teachers. You hear the motive that he says here at the beginning of verse three, that he says of these false teachers, in their greed, they will exploit you. Why do the false teachers do what they do? They do it to exploit the people of God. In fact, they do it in order to satiate or satiate their own greed and their own desire for power or prestige or perhaps even wealth. You see, greed here, while it is particularly a term about self-enrichment, it's not exclusively a term about self-enrichment. It's also about self-aggrandizement. These are people who love a platform. who love followers and are gonna say anything they need to say to get a crowd in their midst and perhaps to get a larger paycheck to boot. Their teaching is ultimately extortion. It's to take something from the church of Jesus Christ and to gain that for themselves. They teach for their own gain. They don't serve the church, they use the church. In fact, in the Old Testament, the Old Testament often uses a particular class of animal to describe these false teachers and it's that they're predators. Roaring lions and ravenous wolves seeking to devour the sheep. There are wolves in shepherds' clothing. Those who go around saying that they teach the truth of God, but in reality, they are exploiting the church of Jesus Christ for their own use, for their own gain, and for their own glory. And the tool that they use are lies, false words. the Apostle calls them here, or words that stand in direct contradiction to the Word of God. And it is important that Peter does use the term Word here because he had just been calling you in the previous paragraph to look to the Word, to look to the prophetic Word of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Let that be the lights unto your path. But here we have false words. Words that lead to darkness and destruction rather than to life in the light of Christ. Yes, they teach, but they teach falsehoods. They teach a word that is contradictory to the word of God in order that they might gain at the expense, the expense of God's people. And one of the main false words that Peter attributes to these false teachers directly in his book is that they scoff at Christians. Especially scoffing at Christians saying, as they say in chapter 3, where is the promise of his coming? He said it would come. Well then, where is he? Do you see why these false teachers who promote licentious living might scoff at the promises of the coming of Christ? It's because when Christ returns again, As the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, all are brought before the throne of God and must give an accounting for their deeds, whether good or evil. Part of their teaching to deny the return of Christ is to deny the consequences of their actions. You can live whatever life you want to live today because there will be no return. There will be no consequences. Live the sensual life, pursue the greedy false words because at the end of the day, this is all there is. But to that false teaching, Peter wants you to know that God is not silent about these false teachers who harm the people of God. Their condemnation from long ago, he says, is not idle. And while they bring in destructive words, the Apostle Peter says, their destruction is not asleep. See, the reality, beloved, is that these false teachers who come with false words, bringing destructive heresy, leading a people away by sensuality, they do far greater harm to the church than those who are on the outside. but God's judgment is sure. His word is certain that any who would dare come and harm one of his precious sheep will be brought before the shepherd of heaven and their condemnation is just. Those who dare to bring in the destructive heresies destroying the church of Christ will themselves be destroyed. The church is under attack from both the outside and some on the inside. And both of them, the Lord is saying, will end and bearing the just punishment for their deeds. Their condemnation is not idle. Their destruction is not asleep. It is coming like a thief in the night. And when Christ, our faithful shepherd returns, all of these false shepherds, all of these false teachers will be brought down to condemnation and judgment. All will be made right. Things will be brought to justice before the throne of our savior. See, there is no such thing as ultimate injustice. Yes, there is injustice in this life, both in the broader world and even in the church. But there is no such thing as final injustice. Those who would dare harm the flock of God, the Good Shepherd is keeping watch over you. He is the one who will bring them to justice, who will bring them to their own swift destruction. And so what hope is there for you today? In an age where there are false teachers even among you, sewing in these destructive heresies, leading people astray with their own sensuality, what hope is there for you today? Well, the hope for you is that Christ, the Good Shepherd, the shoot that has come from the stump of David. He, as the prophet Jeremiah declared, and we read a short while ago, will not let any of his sheep fall away. Even as false teachers come in, not appointed by the Lord himself, the reality is Christ is shepherding his sheep. He is guarding his people. He is governing over his people. And I think this is why, beloved, in verses 4 through 10, Peter carries on to give us an example of that. and how God preserves Noah in an age of wickedness and how He preserves Lot in a city of wickedness and He brings the righteous out of it and He rescues them from the destruction that was to come against the world and against the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Good Shepherd saves His sheep. And so the answer, even if you have been one who has suffered at the hand of false teachers, is not to flee from Christ or from his church, but to find a faithful under shepherd who rightly teaches the word of God, who submits himself in the teaching of the church to God's word, who seeks your good, which is living a life of faithfulness and righteousness. And as you do that, know that the promise of God is sure. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ. God knows how to rescue the righteous from trials. God knows how to preserve his church, even in the context of these false teachers. They might catch us off guard, but they do not catch him off guard. And it is God's grace. that works in you now to train you, as we read in Titus a short while ago, to renounce all ungodliness. It is God's grace that has broken the reigning power of sin over your life and has led you not on the path of sensuality, but on the path of godliness, which ends in glory. And so entrust yourself, beloved. Entrust yourself to Christ, the good shepherd of the sheep, and know that he is able to guide you to the green pastures of the hills of heaven, that he will lead you there, that he is doing good to you now, and he will preserve you through the trials. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you have given us Christ as our faithful shepherd. who leads us to your word, who promotes godly living in us and guides us to that entrance into the eternal kingdom that is our Lord and Savior. And so I pray that tonight you would sow deeply within us the hope, the hope of heaven, as we seek to grow in grace of our Savior. Have us on guard against these false teachers and cause us to live lives of godliness. We pray this all in his name, amen.