Sketching False Teachers (Part B)

So, we must be careful. Don't be gullible because people will squeeze from you as much as they can to line their pockets and really have nothing to do with God's truth and God's word. We don't need a book on dieting, we need a book on obedience and we have one. It's called the Bible. And I'm all for a book that preaches the word, that comments on the scripture that is in line with what the Bible has to say. If there are little bits of that that you don't understand, that's not the key.

The key is what you do understand. And what we do understand from reading that revealed word is that God will judge the unrighteous and He's not fooling around. And because God delays His judgment does not mean it's not coming. And so many human beings live as though because they've gotten away with something so long they're going to continue to get away with it. Or it won't be so bad.

They are wrong. The day when the Lord crucified me. The day came when I met Jesus Christ and everything stopped. everything changed.

I was handed a filter. To filter out all the things that are false and wrong, given a roadmap and sent to work and so have you who have come to Christ. And if you're here this morning, and you've not come to Jesus, you're going to either listen to the world, the devil, or your own self, or you're going to hear the voice of God and respond to it, as others have. And you, by some, will be hated for it, but it's worth it. It's worth being hated for Jesus Christ, so long as you're upholding righteousness.

He continues, Peter does. As those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. And again, we're in verse 13. He's speaking about these false teachers who flaunt their sin without hesitation.

They do it in broad daylight because they have no shame, shamelessly immodest. Well, how many now do we see who are sexually perverted in pulpits, broadcasting it, upholding it, promoting it, jamming it down the throats of people, and whole congregations gobbling it up? Zephaniah the prophet said, the unjust know no shame.

Zephaniah 3, verse 5. There are spots and blemishes. These are undesirable marks on a body, even the body of Christ.

And remember, these are part of the love feast of the church. They've embedded themselves. They are here amongst us. I don't know that they're here amongst us in this congregation, but they are here amongst us in Christianity. And here he says, they are spots and blemishes. Those are, again, unwanted emblems.

I think Peter is linking this. Not only, there's a spiritual element with this in the offerings. When you brought a lamb to be offered, it was not to have a spot, a natural defect, or an acquired defect, either or, a spot or a blemish, when you offered it to the Lord. In other words, you couldn't bring your hand-me-down to the Lord and say, well, I got to make room in my garage. How about give this church?

It's useless to me and anybody else, but I've donated it, nonetheless. God said, I'm not into that. But I think it's a little bit more here also with what Peter is saying. And even if he is not meaning it, the Holy Spirit points it out because of the leper. The leper had a spot that was to be investigated. And once it was confirmed this was indeed leprosy, there was an entire process for that leper to go through to be quarantined, separated from the body, and hopefully restored at some point. And so when Peter says, these are spots and blemishes, this is not good, these people. You don't want this on the body.

You want no parts of this spiritually, physically, or in any other way. Jude, who echoes so much of what Peter is saying, when he gets to, he's going to say the same thing, but the word he chooses for spots, he says spots and blemishes, the word he chooses for spots is phonetically similar to Peter's word for spots, but has different meaning. They sound like the same word. So he's making a play on the words. He gets his letter and he writes, he gets to what Peter said, and he sort of soups it up.

He makes it go a little faster. And the word he uses means the rocks, and it's used in shipping. You don't want to hit the rocks with the ship.

That's not a good combination. And he is saying, Jude is, they will cause you shipwreck. Peter is saying, they'll cause you leprosy and separation spiritually. Jude says, that's right, shipwreck, for those of you who may not get it.

And it's just a genius of the scripture. It just continues to roll on with such nuances as that. Corrousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you. Reveling, having a good old time while they're doing evil.

Laughing it up, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck. While they're populating hell as fast as they can with their new recruits. We'll come to more of that as we move through the rest of the letters till we get through Jude. Paul says this, having the same concerns. He says, and do not become idolaters as were some of them.

Speaking, of course, of those coming out of Egypt with Moses. He says, as it is written, the people sat down to eat, drink, rose up to play. Party, have a good time in the name of religion. Just don't be obedient to it. Oh, you can be obedient to parts of it because we need that. But not all of it. And that is what gives the heretics the power that they have.

They have been allowed to embed themselves like poison ivy in a flower bed amongst the righteous. I'm hesitant to name names anymore. In earlier years, I enjoyed it because it needed to happen. But now I feel that when I name names, it becomes more of a distraction. Those who need to hear it say, oh, but I like that one.

And then they turn on me and not listen to what is being said and what is actually happening. So I don't know. Do I name names? Now the righteous will say, yeah, name them.

Go ahead, line them up. But the weak, they're not ready for it. But there are heretics that sell books and make a lot of money of it. And a lot of, maybe some of you sitting here have them on your bookshelves.

Or maybe at one point you did. They make a lot of money off of selling books about the Bible, which are not true just because they garnish it with a verse here and there. All someone has to tell you is, it's God's way.

OK. We don't have to investigate any further than that. You said it. It's God's way. Years back, there was a book, Eating God's Way or something like that. What is that?

I could tell you he has good manners. I know that much. The communion table is eating God's way. But I mean, how do you just make that all of a sudden? Christians, you need to eat this way. Again, people would buy it. And what about the one back to Eden? I can't even find Eden. I mean, we're not the same. The same people don't exist. Adam and Eve in Eden did not have the digestive system we have.

Not entirely. It was corrupted by sin. And God was so serious about keeping them out of Eden, he set a cherubim there with a sword, going in every which way to keep them out. I know there are those that think that the Jewish diet is the way we're supposed to eat because it's in the Old Testament.

I disagree with that. I don't think the Bible teaches that at all. And I think, in fact, the New Testament comes along and just dismantles that. The reason why the Jews were forbidden from eating so many of the foods they would have liked to eat was because they were to be separate, different. Because other peoples were eating this food and living just as healthy as they were, dying at the same age.

I mean, just even to this day, you can find people that eat the most atrocious things and they live into their hundreds. So we must be careful. Don't be gullible because people will squeeze from you as much as they can to lie in their pockets and really have nothing to do with God's truth and God's word. We don't need a book on dieting. We need a book on obedience.

And we have one. It's called the Bible. And I'm all for a book that preaches the word, that comments on the scripture, that is in line with what the Bible has to say. But many, many churchgoers cannot be content with the simplicity and beauty of our faith, and they lust for spiritual thrills. It's just not enough that a man would stand up here and say, thus says the Lord.

No, they want more. And they become tired of hearing truth. You know, just trying to be a church is very difficult because you have so many Christians coming from other places that don't want to just be a church and trying to bring it here and make us like them so that they can leave us like they left the other one.

It's a cycle that is not very nice. Acts 2 42, they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and prayers. There is a template for the church. Acts 2 46, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. Simplicity of heart with gladness.

That, to me, is attractive. But dissatisfied churchgoers with the system of the New Testament, they will be picked off if not careful. Listen, Revelation 2 14, but I have a few things against you, Jesus wrote to the church, to the apostle John, because you have there those who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. You have harbored in your church bad things. And you're quite proud of it. And you're doing it in my name. Now, just the other day, I believe God has given me a topical. And in my own devotion time, just pouring it out on me. I felt I still have to prove it and prepare it if it is indeed his word.

But one of the outstanding parts of it was this. Christians do not understand that churches are better off without those who are offended by what God has to say. They think that the pulpit has to be watered down so that these can be appeased. Never mind what God has said, we don't want to offend them.

We're better off without them. And they think that somehow this is counter love. It is not.

It is total love. And you practice this with your children. You teach your children. There are people that you say to your child, you're better off in this life without certain crowds and certain groups.

They'll get you in jail, the hospital, or the cemetery. Well, why not practice that when it comes to the church? And this is not what's taking place. And that's why we have this stampede of churches in full blown apostasy everywhere now. It's like another one bites the dust. Now they're promoting homosexuality.

Another one just went down. Now they're promoting ecumenicism. What fools are good with this? And they go back and put the money in the offering plate and continue to pump life into that dead thing. And a man like me stand up and say anything about it, and I'm somehow the villain. Well, I'll be your villain. But I'd rather try to side with the Lord Jesus Christ and not take away from anything he said for anybody than to line up with some dumb culture standing off to the side waiting for that bus that goes to hell.

Revelation 20. Do I sound angry? I'm not. I'm really a good boy. So let's walk it back a little bit. Maybe if I spoke like this, you'd love it. I'm speaking the truth in love.

Thank you. I told you I got that signal fast ball. Revelation 20. To another church. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you. I don't ever want to hear Jesus say that to this church. I have a seven-stem lampstand menorah on that back table. It's not for you.

It's for me. I look at that lampstand, and I am reminded I don't want the Lord to come take it. And so when he says, you better repent, or else I'll come and take your lampstand from you. I didn't want to be like the Church of Philadelphia where they didn't have to hear that. The Church of Smyrna did not have to hear that.

It's doable. Revelation 20 says to verse 20, nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel. Man, you allow this.

You think you're better off with her there. You allow that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat things sacrificed to idols. What?

I mean, who does this? The Church of Bragamas, the Church of Thyatira, they were doing these things. They were harboring these types of apostates. So when Peter sketches out his teaching on false teachers, they were already in the church while the apostles were still alive.

Years later, oh, 30 years later at least, when John comes along and receives his message, they're still there. And the church is quite proud of these people seeking to be accredited by the intelligentsia. Verse 14, having eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin enticing unstable souls, they have a heart trained in covetous practices and are accursed children. Having eyes full of adultery, they are determined to hunt women, married or unmarried.

Doesn't matter. Praying upon them, not praying for them. Unlawful passions and attractions that are not being salted. You know, you can have, you can sense, oh, man, that's not right that I want such and such a thing. So we begin to take steps to salt it, to arrest it, to keep it from spreading.

These don't. Sexual attractions are an enormous problem in Christianity, in churches, in pulpits, everywhere. It's always been a problem, but it is becoming more so in these end times because of the vehicles that have not existed in past history, which are here now, that just cause so much havoc. He says here, and cannot cease from sin. That is an addiction. They are addicted. Now, there are Christians that are addicted to things from time to time, and they hate it, and they're fighting it, and God understands, and he's going to work with you. These have no such ambition to repent or change. They are fully given over to their sin. And he points this out. We see something they want.

They must have it. They have no internal inhibitors to prohibit them from going after what has been forsaken because it is damaging to others. He says, enticing unstable souls. What about that clause sticks out to you, that they're enticing people or that there are unstable souls to be enticed?

That's a foot race and a photo finish to see which one. Well, it's going to be a tie, I think, but these are those who seduce the unstable because the unstable have a foundation that's not that good. That's why they are unstable. When a building has a poor foundation, it becomes unstable and is condemned.

Well, hopefully before it topples. Ephesians 6, put on some of the armor of God. Yeah, we know that's not what it says. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. He's going to seduce.

He's going to deceive and trick. 2 Corinthians 11, 3, Paul's heart. I fear that somehow the serpent, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Aren't you busy enough trying to preach the gospel, do your devotions, come to church, serve in the church, then to have to add to that junk cheap thrills in the name of God?

We have enough to do. The simplicity of the faith means we live it. This is how we go and how we do it.

It gets complicated because of our flesh. Listen to the wife speaking to her husband. The pastor would not let me bring in this stuff into the church, this program, this Bible course.

He wouldn't let me do it. The husband, rather than saying good, that's what he is supposed to do. He is supposed to shield the church, protect the church. He has a rod and a staff for those purposes. He has the authority for those purposes.

He has been called and appointed and established for those purposes. Rather than saying, that is good, my wife, often the husband will say nothing, nothing. He's afraid. He wants to keep the peace, but he doesn't want to keep it with Christ. He won't stand up.

This is endemic. This is what Adam did. Adam should have said, are you crazy? I'm not eating that.

He did not do it. And here we are. Or the husband will do this, I can't believe it, and come to the defense of his wife as she goes against the Lord. We see this all the time.

I wish I could say, it does get old, but I wish I could say I'm fed up with it. I don't have that luxury. You don't either. Christian life takes work. You've got to work that field constantly. We live in a society where the animals don't usually dictate the rhythm of the pace of life as it does when you live on a farm. You've got to get up and feed the chickens and the mice or whatever it is they do on farms. And here we just, instead of going out to the flock and grabbing an animal and butchering it, we go up to the supermarket and just purchase it, butcher it already. Where am I going with that? I don't know.

I was on a roll, but I lost it. Anyway, they have a heart trained in covetous practices, trained. They have invested themselves.

To train is to keep at something, over to drill it in, to just do it again until it becomes just almost a reflex. And this is what they're doing with their covetousness, their wanting, their greed. Peter has got their number.

He knows who these boys are, as do the other apostles. Heart trained in greedy practices. Lies about God bring death to mankind.

That's what they do. The truth about God restores life to mankind. But false teachers don't do it. Now, can anybody get saved in the presence of false teaching? Absolutely, because God can overrule. And we've seen this in the scripture, where God overrules what the wicked are doing.

Balaam is one. He went to curse the Jews. He couldn't get it out. He kept blessing them. God has got that ability.

That does not let the guilty off the hook. The mercy of God, we'll get back to that in his dealing with Balaam in a minute. He says they are a cursed children. How much stronger can the language be?

It cannot. This is anathema. This is saying they're damned to hell. They are condemned by their own choices. He's pounding these false teachers.

He's not letting up. Jesus said the field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the weed seeds are the sons of the wicked one. There is a wicked one, and he has offspring. Jesus said to the religious intelligentsia elitists, you're like your father, the devil, the father of lies. From the beginning, and so are you. He pounded them too. Who would dare say to Peter, tone it down.

I mean, come on. How are you going to get the seeker to come to your church, Peter, if you're talking like this? Who would say to the pastor, when you come to the false teachers, go easy? I don't think any born again, sane believer would say such a thing. Verse 15, they have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. These, they were in the faith. That Greek word forsaken means you were once there, and you're not there any longer. It's used when Jesus left Nazareth, when he left Capernaum. That's the way he left it.

He was there, and now he's not. That's all we have time for on today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. You've been listening to Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia, as he teaches through the book of Second Peter. If you'd like to listen to more messages from this series, or if you'd like more information about this program, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. What a great way to keep God's word with you wherever you go. We hope you'll tune in again next time as Pastor Rick continues studying through the scriptures, right here on Cross Reference Radio.