The Fate of False Teachers (Part A)

In this paragraph that we're going to consider this morning, Peter will tell us that God is not fooling around when it comes to judgment. He has already dealt with the fallen angels and will continue to deal with them. He has dealt with those during the days of Noah, and then there were those in Sodom and Gomorrah whom he also has judged. He has given examples to mankind that we're going to see. And when it comes to judgment, he is very serious.

We begin a brand new message with Pastor Rick today called, The Fate of False Teachers, taught from 2 Peter chapter 2. We are in 2 Peter chapter 2 and we will read verses 4 through 11. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, He did not spare the ancient world but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly, and delivered righteous Lot who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. For that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the ungodly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. And especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels who are greater in power and might do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. The fate of false teachers.

Oh, that's who he's talking about. He's talking about what's going to happen to those who mess with God's word and mess with his people in the process. The false prophets, the false teachers. And he had warned that they would be in the churches as the other apostles had warned, and that they would make themselves rich off the people, that they would exploit the people, that they were out for themselves. And so the church today is sufficiently warned from the scriptures, yet false teachers still infest churches and they are supported. And I don't know that anyone can give a logical explanation for this other than just disobedience, just not settling for what God has clearly said, objecting to it in some form.

Supposing that they can improve upon it. In this paragraph that we're going to consider this morning, Peter will tell us that God is not fooling around when it comes to judgment. He has already dealt with the fallen angels and will continue to deal with them. He has dealt with those during the days of Noah, and then there were those in Sodom and Gomorrah whom he also has judged. He has given examples to mankind that when it comes to judgment, he is very serious, and the judgment will be very hard if you have sided against God willfully. And because false teachers breed false believers and damn souls in the process, they have lined themselves up for this judgment. And so that is what, again, we're discussing this morning, the judgment of God on those who are opposed to him. Now these false teachers and false followers, they make up the false church.

We're living at a time in history, according to what information we have from the scripture, we're living at a time in history where the end times is upon us. Antichrist, the antichrist, the beast, the man of perdition, the lawless one, who is likely alive already and an adult, he will find himself a false church willing to support him, and he will take advantage of that. And then, of course, he will turn on that false institution also, and it is the apostate church.

There's no one church. It will be those who continue to attend church services on Sundays, or whatever other days, but really have no interest in Jesus Christ and his word. Much of this is successful because lies unlock feelings that truth would never unlock. And there are those that want it that way. The truth just won't do certain things for people. It won't make them feel comfortable in their sin, for example. And there are those that they'd rather have a feeling that is pleasant to them than to hear the truth and be corrected by it. And if you prefer such thrills over truth, then your judgment is just.

God is blameless, as always. Now it's important before we look at verse one that we go back and look at verse three, because it's so important what he says about these false teachers. He says, by covetousness they will rip you off. They will exploit you. They will take advantage of you. They will do you harm. That's what that means, by covetousness, because they want something.

They're willing to abuse you to get it. He continues, he says, with deceptive words. Well, how are you supposed to know those words are deceptive or not? Well, you should be familiar enough with the scripture to identify that this is not consistent.

This does not match. This does not go along with what I've been reading in the scripture. If I don't have a strong sense of discernment, I have the Word of God. And if I don't have the Word of God available, which some people don't, I can pray.

I can call out to God to make up for that which is lacking. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words. For a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. So Peter says God's going to get them.

Otherwise, our sense of justice would be violated if they just got away with this forever. And, of course, there are those that don't want to hear that there is a judgment of the wicked, a final judgment of the wicked. They want to believe in the universal fatherhood of God, that he's everybody's father, he's all loving, he doesn't harm anyone. These people are not under the influence of heaven, but they are under the influence of hell. Admit it or not, like it or not, believe it or not, that is how it is according to God's Word. And we are not supposed to apologize for knowing this is true to people. We're not supposed to back down and try to fit their views of God and eternity and all these things with God's view. That would be mingling them together.

That is leaven. Well, let's look now at verse 4, continuing about these false teachers. He says, It's a better translation of that word in its application here. Since, for since God did not spare the angels. So Peter says God judged them, the fallen angels, and he would judge the false teachers.

Now, chronologically, he's going to list, of course, the fallen angels, those who were alive in Noah's day that suffered the flood, and then the Sodomites of Sodom and Gomorrah. And his purpose is to stress that this is not a game. Your faith is supposed to be very serious. It is supposed to be built off of truth.

Truth that includes a sovereign and loving God who is holy and just and pure and so many other things that are good and wonderful unless you are opposed to him. And he continues in verse 4, And that's what they did. God wasn't amused. He didn't say, well, you know, I'll just look the other way. You know, you'll have that with free willed beings.

He does not do that. It was treason, high treason against God Almighty, and he did not ignore it. It was a crime.

It is a sin. And compared to us, the angels had it made. They were in the presence of God. They were in the realm of God. It was not a faith issue with them.

They could see with their eyes that God had given them. And yet, led by Lucifer, they moved against God. Therefore, there is no salvation for these fallen beings, and there is no salvation available for Satan.

They are done. And their current sphere of activity is wherever people are. Now, not all of them. Some of these fallen angels are so mean and wicked, they have been locked away. Others appear to be free to harass and contribute to the damning of souls. They hate people.

Make no mistake. The underworld, the spiritual realm of fallen beings, they hate every single human being, including the ones they use. So a character such as atrocious as, for instance, Joseph Stalin, they didn't like Stalin because he was doing what they wanted him to do.

They hated him too. These are wicked characters. And nobody should be unclear about this. They will not be allowed to be in the eternity that God has purchased with his blood, but his son, for his saints, those who love him back, and want to obey, and want to follow, even though we fail. And so, tirelessly, they lie to mankind, all mankind, all the time. And when they mingle in truth, it's to set up human beings for a greater lie. And they feed the lower self, they tempt, they lure, and they destroy. And we Christians need to understand that is what we are fighting against. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

It is a hard ball, you could say. Jude, who writes a parallel letter, it is as if Jude read Peter's second letter and was so moved by it, he couldn't get it out of his head. And so when he wanted to write a letter to the church about salvation, the Holy Spirit brought him back to the points that Peter was making. And so Jude, in his sixth verse, he says, The angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

He speaks, Jude does, as though that day is going to come, because it is going to come. And he also speaks that these angels, they did not obey. Now, there are those that take this verse and all they inject into it all sorts of sexual activity with the angels and humans, and it just, I'm not going to get into that this morning. I do not accept that. Fortunately, there are others who don't either. And there are good men of God who take that view, but it creates too many problems that cannot be answered. It's better to just take it as it is. But anyway, if you're familiar with Genesis' sixth story, then you know what I'm talking about.

Otherwise, you'll have to get one of my CDs on Genesis 6, maybe. All right, well, but cast them down to hell. Well, that's not good. Tartarus is the word translated hell. It's the only time that Greek word tartarus shows up in our New Testament. And it's not the equivalent of gahana, which is the final, you know, the lake of fire, the hell that awaits Antichrist and his prophet and those who have rejected Jesus Christ.

Tartarus is a sort of a holding compartment in the underworld. In the Bible, there is Sheol or Hades, and before the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, when you died, those souls would go to Haiti or Sheol, and it was separated into two compartments, one for the wicked and one for the righteous. And of course, when Christ rose from the dead, well, when he was crucified, he descended and he led captivity free. The righteous he brought up to heaven, so he told the thief, today you will be with me in paradise, not in Sheol. And so the other place translated hell in the New Testament, the abyss, another confinement area for evil spirits. A strong angel will snatch Satan and throw him into the abyss for about a thousand years, and then he will be released, and then he will be judged again and thrown into the lake of fire. And so Tartarus is the wicked, for the wicked in the underworld, the fallen angels, not human beings, going by what Peter is talking about.

It is a deeper compartment. And the fallen angels were sent there before any human beings died and went to the underworld, Sheol, this happened before that. So it was created for them. Jesus tells us that hell is created not for human beings, but that's where they will go should they choose to reject him. Perhaps, perhaps in his private talks with his twelve apostles, Jesus revealed things that are not in print, that we have no record of, and much of it may have been just for them. It was not unlike Christ to reveal things and say, this is just for you. The Mount of Transfiguration, for example, he said, don't mention this right away, you have to wait. For Daniel, he said to Daniel, shut up the book for now, it is closed, it's sealed. Even John in the Revelation, he said, don't write this. So it's not unlike Christ, God, to withhold information from the greater part and give some to the lesser.

And you say, well, why? And I think that the Lord revealed things to these men to keep them, the leaders of the church they had to be in these early ages. It was not so much of a doctrine issue because we have everything we need there, but it was more of a strengthening of his servants, speaking to them.

Who would say, no, there's no way, Jesus, those guys, they wrote down everything Jesus said. Well, John even tells us, I mean, we could fill the library books, there's just too much, it's just too much. And so what that does for us is it causes us to try not to overstate things, try not to talk about things we don't know about. This is what we know about the fallen angels, it's not a lot.

But it's enough, and we really don't need more. In fact, some Christians need less spiritual information because they're so moved by that which is sensational, they're not attracted to that which is just hard truth and necessary. Well, he says here that he delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment. And there they are in the abyss, not all of them, but many of them. Verse 5, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly. God's truths were wasted on that generation because Noah preached it. Noah is, aside from his family of seven others, he is the most unsuccessful preacher that we know of. If you just take the information at face value because you have to also factor in, well, there may have been people that Noah preached to that died before the flood and they received the message and were righteous, so you can't block that out.

But for those living, evidently, he was not very successful. That is an encouragement to preachers of the gospel, which you should be also if you are a born-again believer. You are one who is ready to preach the gospel any chance you get. Any time the Lord opens the door, it is your calling, your purpose to preach the gospel.

I mean, there are preachers from pulpits and there are preachers of the gospel, which we all are. He says here in verse 5, but saved Noah. Now, it's translated one of eight people. It's closer in the Greek to he saved Noah the eighth, just like that.

In fact, the older King James Version has, I think, a more accurate translation. It says, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness. You say, well, what's the significance? Well, it draws attention to Noah.

It puts the attention on him and you say, why? Because he was such a righteous man. The Bible makes it clear that Noah was an outstanding character. And in his day, the people all around him were so vile, they weren't fit to live according to God any further. Noah was not one of them. The Lord Jesus put his seal of authenticity on the whole story of Noah, the global flood, the ark, the whole thing in his preaching in Matthew chapter 24.

He treated it as a historical fact, not a fairy tale. And where it mentions him as a preacher of righteousness, this Noah, again, perhaps the most ignored preacher of us all, someone has to say it. That's what that word, preacher of righteousness, is about.

Someone's got to tell it. Righteousness does not come natural to us. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are foolishness to him.

It's the spiritual man, the one that is born again, the one that hears the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God and submits to it. And so God speaks through preachers to the conscience of sinners. This sharing of the faith with conviction is what leads to conversion.

Of course the Holy Spirit doing all of the heavy lifting and we being the instruments that he uses. Romans chapter 10, Paul telling them that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? You see it's not magic.

There are miraculous exceptions but they are very rare and we do not count on those. We have orders to be preachers of the word of God, to be familiar enough with the scripture, to be able to tell people why we believe in what we believe. And here of course as Peter is talking about, the Holy Spirit preached through Noah. Well what do we know about the Holy Spirit and his work with sinners? Well Jesus tells us in John 16 that he shall convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment to come.

You have to have all three because if you have not judgment to come why do I even bother to listen? It's that fear of pain eternal that makes me pay attention. It's that thing that makes the person say, I do not want to go to hell. That's the one that God can begin to work with. And this Holy Spirit who is God the Holy Spirit is here now, right here with us. And Satan has succeeded in telling many people that there is no judgment to worry and men tend to like this because they then feel that they do not have to face this awesome God.

They're not accountable. Man can write his own rules and sign off on it and that's good enough. And God disagrees with that. When Peter says bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly, that means God made a clear distinction between the ungodly and Noah and his family who were righteous. He judged the wicked and he saved the righteous.

That's what God does. In verse 6, Peter continuing, now he moves from the fallen angels and from Noah. He's going to really hit this next one.

It's not me hitting it, it's Peter. He has much to say about this next group. In verse 6, turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly. Making them an example. An example that they do not want to accept.

But we do. He underscores the judgment of God. He even says it in such a way that it gets everyone's attention. That he turned it into ashes.

That's quite severe. The Bible is clear about the immorality associated with these two cities in particular. The brazen homosexuality. This sort of gets, I mean, all sin will damn a soul. A person can be a liar, an adulterer, a murderer, or just a rejecter of God.

You know, there will be, there are people who are moral as men go. They follow the culture, the rules. They do not outwardly violate others, and yet they reject Christ. They won't make it into heaven by that standard. But this particular sin, well, there are two types that I'm going to boil it down to this morning, concerning those who are into homosexuality. There are those who struggle with the sin, and they do not fight for its acceptance. They have found themselves caught in it, and they are struggling to get out of it. Then there's another group that does not struggle with the sin. They are ready to destroy anyone who would dare not honor this sin.

This was the case in Sodom and Gomorrah. 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 2 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.