Satan has his no-truth zones in churches now.
He's had a few of them now, he's getting more. And those in these no-truth zone churches, they like it. The love of Scripture protects us from Satan grabbing our theology and our souls. You love the Word of God, you love His truth, even though it's perplexing sometimes, disappointing sometimes, but you still know it's true and you love that it's true.
You will be shielded. We continue with Pastor Rick in 2 Peter chapter 2 today and his message called, Untrustworthy Preachers. Calmers going to the stake being burned, he signed, you know, he recanted, he denied the faith and then he took it back. When he's being burned at the stake, he puts his, that hand that signed the document in the fire. Burn you, burn you, he says to the hand.
He was not being apologetic, he believed what he believed, he got his act together in the end. Well, back to this, he says here, and brings unto themselves swift destruction. Take somebody like Mary Baker Eddy who created the anti-Christian cult, Christian Science, anti-Christian, but they use Christ's name in it.
How deceptive, they creep in like that. We're Christian scientists, you're not. There's nothing to do with beakers and flask and vials, though they are vile in their teaching. Well, she lived to be 90. You say, where's the swift destruction there? What is that on the scale of eternity? To God, that is nothing. The doom, the doom was there and only she could stop it if she would but repent, which she did not.
And I should add, lest someone corner me as far as we know. Well, Jeremiah again, I mean, Jeremiah has some tough spots in it for sure that make it difficult to just casually read through, but there are sections in it that are quite profound. And most of the book is. Anyway, God had told Jeremiah to make a yoke with bands and go and tell the people that they would go off to captivity and stay there for their 70-year time. And he was to illustrate this sermon with this yoke, not a real yoke, that would have been heavy, but he had what he needed to make his point. Well, this didn't sit right with the culture because they believed God was going to come in two years, said the false prophet, Hananiah. In two years, God would deliver the people. Jeremiah said, well, I wish it was true, but it's not. Anyway, we pick up the story in verse 15 of Jeremiah 28. Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah, the prophet here now, Hananiah, Yahweh has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore, thus says Yahweh, behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die because you have taught rebellion against Yahweh. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month. There are quite a few people that died at the word of Jeremiah, false prophets, because that's our topic this morning. The Holy Spirit has said, false prophecy, pastor, preach on false prophecy.
That's the text before us. No delicate or tolerant handling of false teachers is found in the scripture, and it should not be found in us either. Sadly, those who love false teachers don't appreciate having it pointed out that the teachers that they love are false.
You take Joyce Myers. There are people that tip over at you saying, this false teacher, don't listen to that stuff. She's not the only one. There are globs of them out there. We're not going to bring a list in here and read them off to you. We see Christians not return to the truth because the feeling of lies is just so delightful. May we stand guard against it and learn how to love truth more than anything because Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth.
So such skewed priorities are fertile ground for false prophets. Verse two, we've got there. We've arrived at verse two.
And I'm going to pause here. On a topic like this, with the Bible saying so much, the challenge is to not flood the message with scripture references to the point where we can't keep up and digest them and take them in, distill what they have to say. But they're all over. Paul says in latter days, you know, in latter days, the heresies, the false teachers, the false doctrines, the apostasy, this is going to increase. Verse two, and many will follow their destructive ways because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.
And that's where Peter just says it. They don't like the truth. They hate the truth.
They blaspheme it. Prophecy fulfilled. You could say, Peter, we're seeing this in our lifetime.
It's never been an interruption to it. False prophets need false believers. They go together. We're not just saying, okay, you've got false prophets there. Yeah, does anybody following them? Yep, well then you've got false believers too. What use would Satan's lies have been if there was no Eve to listen to them? But there was an Eve to listen to them. And an Adam to tolerate them.
Don't reduce that. It is one of the biggest parts of this morning's message. The toleration of false teachings.
Now we don't take out a sword and chase somebody with it or try to do any physical harm to someone. Our form of violence against lies has to do with us rejecting them at all costs. No, I disagree with that. No, that's not true. I don't believe that.
I believe God, not you. I don't care if it hurts your feelings. I wish it did not, but I care more about what God feels. This is being intolerant of false teachings. Not giving an inch, a centimeter, a speck. Nothing.
They get nothing. And I think that those who love the Lord and His truth, I think we get it very easily. Personal ambitions and preferences, priorities versus God's preferences, God's priorities, God's ambitions.
Those things blind souls. When you've got other ambitions, I don't mean that we all struggle with, well, I want to do this and I don't really want to do that. It could be, you know, I don't want to go to church today.
Just something like that. I mean, we have that. But when it gets out of control, when it begins to knock down truth, when someone says, yes, I belong to a church that doesn't believe the Bible, but I like the people there. You like the wrong people. You need to find other people to like.
They'll like you back. Do you believe it? False followers will follow false teachings. You know, the bless me, pastor, but don't you dare correct me.
It's everywhere. I mean, you just can't tell someone in, you know, who comes into church, hey, we'd like you to wear a shirt. Oh, I'm offended.
Something like that. Well, you should be offended. God bless you, offended one. We should not be surprised at how many support the false church, those that think very little of what the Bible has to say.
That's how you find out. You know, you go into, what do you think about the Bible? What do you think about the scripture? What do you think about, is it God's word to man? Is it the voice of God?
Yes or no? The gullible and the vulnerable, they're not so hot on the scripture. Because truth, again, is not that important to them.
They have other things that rise to the surface and lure them away. And how your friends treat God's word and how you respond to that says something about you. Now, again, you may be married or living, you have children who don't agree and we still are to be loving and kind, but on this topic, we're not to back down, no matter what. I'm not going to agree with someone so they can like me. You know, you've heard me say as a pastor, if a pastor is running a popularity contest, you don't have a pastor.
You've got a celebrity. It's no different with you when you preach the gospel in the workplace, in the home, in the school, wherever you find yourself. If you're running a popularity contest, you can't preach it. Because our message is not popular.
People won't like you. They may fake it, but what we want them to do is respect us. Because so long as that respect is there, the chance for conversion is there. But when they don't even respect you because they've identified that you don't believe what you claim to believe, then the witness is no longer credible and the problem has become prodigious.
It is large. And so watch out for the sensations, discernment. Discernment is supposed to sound the alarm, to take heed. Remember Peter said, you do well to heed the word of God, to pay attention to it.
Hopefully we will separate from the emotionally, the religiously emotional who seek the signs and wonders and unite with those who love truth. Peter says, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. That's pretty heavy speech. To say that someone is a blasphemer. A blasphemer has contempt for God.
Boil it all down and you get to it. A blasphemer says, God, no, no, I don't believe you. You're lying. I can say to God, Lord, I don't like your methods, but I cannot say you are wrong. I feel like saying that sometime because I'm so sure of my silly self. I'm sure if he just gave me that job, if this just went that way, but I don't have perfect knowledge and he does.
I do not have perfect understanding. He does. I submit to that because he is Lord. He's not my equal. He never will be my equal.
He is always far above me. And Peter says here, because of this behavior, these heresies, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. The truth is worthless to this group and false prophecies.
Why should any of us even want to have one? Because the true prophecies are so rich and attractive and valid and powerful. But there are those who still want to remain in Christianity even though they don't believe it and they give an opportunity to Satan for unbelievers to feel justified in rejecting Christ. Paul dealt with this in Philippi. He said some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife. They're not true believers. They're causing trouble, but they are also putting the name of Christ out there. Well, at that time, the name of Christ was not out there as it is today. And for these people who were preaching Christ from envy and strife, who would want to be in their shoes on Judgment Day? It's not a little sin to say, ah, that's not a big deal.
It is a very big deal if you're the one that's guilty. How are you going to stand before God? And he says, you held me in contempt. J. Vernon McGee writes, I believe that God permits a lot of the cults and isms in order to draw away from the true church that which is false because those who are phony will go after that sort of thing. This is exactly what Paul said would take place, 1 Corinthians 11 verse 19. For there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
You'll see the weed seeds begin to sprout amongst the wheat. And this is what Vernon is saying. God allows these so we can make a distinction between that which is false and that which is true. Lovers of truth will not use lies to spread the truth.
Who would have a problem with that? Lovers of truth will keep from unity with those who see truth as an obstacle. How many politicians see truth as an obstacle?
So they cover it up or they spin it. Lovers of truth will proclaim the truth in love but truthfully regardless of the culture or anything else. And the lovers of truth are mindful that the end of God's truth is holiness. That's the goal. It has a goal to it.
It's not we just love truth, God's truth. It's going somewhere. It's going to the throne of God.
It's going into an eternal life in heaven. And so even the apostates, their teachers today when we see apostates who once taught the Bible or claim to, we see when they desert the truth they begin to endorse the most foul behaviors that you can find. They have backslidden like a dog returning to its vomit. I mentioned to you that Peter would not let up and that's coming when he makes that reference in the latter verses, chapter 3. Verse 3 now. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words. For a long time their judgment has not been idled and their destruction does not slumber. I wish I didn't take so much time. I couldn't wait to get to this verse.
I forgot about it because the other parts were so good. By covetousness, that's a guarantee, they will exploit you. This was the way of Balaam. We'll get to that in verse 15. Anyway, the word covetousness here, it emphasizes a craving to have in this context in a bad way. He says they will exploit you.
The Greek word is to buy and sell, to trade you. Congregants become money making items. Take a salesman who is not an honest salesman. Every person that walks through that door to him is either going to buy something or he's not interested in them as human beings. They're there to be a sale. Now, of course, if you're in sales, that's your livelihood you're supposed to sell to people. But not to the point where the sole purpose of that other person is for you to get in their pocket.
Who likes a pushy salesman when you say I'm not interested and he just doesn't let up? Anyhow, they will exploit you. I prefer the old King James translation of the sentence. They will make merchandise of you.
That's right. You will become just a source of their income. That's what they're reducing you to. So the pastor doesn't look at you as one of the sheep, one of the members of the flock of God, as a child of God, loved by God whose blood was paid for your soul to make it to heaven. Pastors should look at people as those who God loves, not as somebody who can put something in the offering box.
What can I get from you? Can you imagine a pastor making a house call to a widow just so he can stay in good, so he can get a lot of money from her, supposing that, well, the husband left her money and when she dies, there's going to be even more money bequeathed to the church. How vile is that? May righteous men and women never take that approach and anybody who hears this who's guilty of that kind of thinking, may they repent. Well, time does not give us to go into the history of this, but you know, there's a book, Alvin Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World. And it's a long read, but you can get out of it if you don't finish the whole, I don't know, 794 pages in the introduction.
There's still a lot in there. Well, anyway, he talks about how many phrases are in our culture that come from Christianity, the influence of Christianity. You know, Rob Peter to pay Paul, those kind of statements. Well, one of them is avoid like the plague.
That was coined by Jerome in the fourth century and he uses it in the context of what we're talking about. In a letter to another believer, he says, avoid as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business, a man who is just out to make money. That's not all men of business. Businesses must make money or else they'd stop being a business. But the ministry is not designed to suck in as much money as you can suck out of people. Unless you belong to the prosperity teaching group, Kenneth Copeland's and Hagen's and many others, those are the older ones.
I'm sure there are newer ones that don't have the fame. But anyway, you say I'm offended by that. You should be offended because you're guilty.
If you like that kind of stuff, you are an offense. If you like coming to church and you think it's okay for pastors to be preoccupied with getting from you as much money as they can get from you so they can live a high lifestyle, something's wrong. That doesn't mean pastors that don't get a salary, they need to eat just like everybody else. Ezekiel 34 verses 7 through 10. If you want to know about false prophets in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 34 is your place to go. Therefore, you shepherds, God speaking through Ezekiel to the false prophets, hear the word of Yahweh as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely because my flock became a prey and my flock became food for every beast of the field because there was no shepherd, nor did my shepherd search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed my flock. Therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh, thus says the Lord Yahweh, behold, I am against the shepherds and I will require my flock at their hand. I will cause them to cease feeding the sheep and the shepherds shall feed themselves no more, for I will deliver my flock from their mouths and they shall no longer be food for them. You see Ezekiel picks a picture of shepherds just feeding off the sheep.
Well, some of that is true with real sheep, mutton, but not with human beings. He says with deceptive words. That word deceptive is plastos in the Greek. We get our English word plastic from that word. In other words, those who invent things when they look for a word to put on it, they look to Greek and Latin oftentimes. And they found a word in the Greek that fit the material that they had developed. It's plastos. It's pliable.
It will fit into, when you pour it into a mold, it takes, it's a liquid, it adopts the shape that you pour it into. In other words, the lie, the deceptive teaching, they'll pour that into anyone who will receive it and they will, it will fit the mold. Fake words. Ephesians chapter 4, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.
These guys are up to no good. You should discern that because you love the truth. And if you love the truth, when you handle a lie, you'll know it doesn't feel like the same thing. For as long, he continues at the bottom of verse 3, Peter does, for a long time their judgment has not been idle and their destruction does not slumber. Slumber in the Greek means to nod and sleep, that word used here. And God is saying, I'm not nodding, I'm sleepy, I'm dealing with it.
As I mentioned, what's 190, 100 years in this life compared to eternity? Jeremiah 48, 10. Cursed is he who does the work of Yahweh deceitfully. Imagine trying to get people to come into your church deceitfully because you want to have a large church or whatever your motive is. First off, the Lord adds to the church. It's not the role of the pastor to recruit people into his church because it's not his church.
It's the Lord's church and he has been trusted as overseer and he adds to that church. If the truth draws them in, then let us hold as many as will love the truth. But we're not hopefully ever going to stoop to deceit.
Is that not the same with you? Are you going to try to lead someone to Christ by lying? By creating a false testimony? And I was stuck on an island and all I had to eat was, you know, and God came down and it's all a lie. You think that'd be okay to try to lead someone to Christ?
Of course not. Judgment of these wicked men might seem to have nodded, but the contrary is true. Satan has his no-truth zones in churches now.
He's had a few of them now, he's getting more. And those in these no-truth zone churches, they like it. But the love of Scripture protects us from Satan grabbing our theology and our souls. You love the word of God, you love his truth, even though it's perplexing sometimes, disappointing sometimes, but you still know it's true and you love that it's true.
You will be shielded. 2 Corinthians 2.17, I'll close with two verses and one short comment. For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as from God. We speak in the sight of God and Christ. We're not peddling God's word, trying to get people to come to church so we can get more money from them. I believe there may be men out there who do this and don't know they're doing it, that's all they've been exposed to, and maybe God will reach them, but I also believe there are a great many, they are beyond, they put themselves in the irretrievable category, they just want the loot. Micah 3.5, Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets, who make My people stray, who chant peace while they bite with their teeth, but who prepare war against Him who puts nothing into their mouths.
They hate people who don't fund them. It was happening in Israel. It's been happening in Christianity, even in the days of Peter. Those who are truly saved must make war on sin. It doesn't mean we're perfect. It doesn't mean we won't sin.
It just means we won't say about sin that it's not a sin. 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.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-03-24 10:33:16 / 2024-03-24 10:42:42 / 9