Untrustworthy Preachers (Part B)

False teachers are not just those who win, you know, people to their side.

Unless you say it this way, what side is that? Eternal condemnation, hell, separation from God. Those are the stakes.

We're not talking about winning a debate. We're talking about where you're going to go if you believe these people. Why do you believe them? Satan sows his weed seeds amongst the wheat. We know this, as Jesus warned in Matthew 13. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 2 Peter.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today Pastor Rick continues in 2 Peter chapter 2 and his message called Untrustworthy Preachers. Endurance means you take the hits. There's nothing else you can do. You just have to take it. And as a Christian, you find out you can ask God to remove a certain this or that from your life, and He does not.

Then you have to take it in Christ, trusting Him as a faithful and loving Father. So the antidote for deceit is love of the truth. Not the truth. The love of the truth.

What's the difference? Well, if you just have the truth, but you don't love it, that's the recipe for apostasy. Apostates had the truth. They just didn't love it.

You have to love it. That's what we're taught in the scripture. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, Paul comes right out and tells us that there are those that did not have the love of the truth and they suffered for it. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power. Signs and lying wonders bookmark that with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

There's nothing about that that is difficult to understand. But instead of love for truth, some love sensations and feelings and thrills over facts, over obedience. In other words, the feeling shuts off the truth. That's why they like signs and wonders.

They want to be wowed. Ooh, I like that. Tell me more. But it's a lie.

That's okay. It feels good. And no wonder Satan uses lying wonders. And no wonder we find him using lying wonders through antichrist to deceive the planet. If possible, said the Lord, even the elect. Many professing believers lap up baseless and thrilling words. God's men have always locked horns with Satan's counterfeits who infiltrate groups of believers. In this day and age, you know, for an hour or so, we come in and we kind of just leave everything else.

We've reduced the distractions as much as humanly possible. And there are so many that I'm not coming back to that church. And then they'll go sit under watered-down teaching. They're setting themselves up. They have said, my priority is not God's word.

My priority is my comfort and being catered to. I don't know that they always mean it this width. I've thought it out yet that far.

But this is what's going on. And God's men have come along and have always told the believers to stand upright, discipline yourselves against these things. We all struggle with this or that. None of us are super-Christians.

None of us, not one. But we are all called to try to be. And Jesus said, be perfect like your Father in heaven.

How high of a bar is that? The throne of God. Isaiah dealt with them. Here's Isaiah chapter 30, speaking about the ministry he was involved with. He said that God's speaking through him, of course, that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of Yahweh, who say to the seers, do not see. That is the prophets. And to the prophets, do not prophesy to us right things. Speak to us smooth things. Prophesy deceits. Get out of the way. Turn aside from the path.

Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. You see, this is lampooning. He is, this is satire. He is saying, oh no, you won't come out and say this. But this is what you're doing and you know it and God is onto you and you better eject.

You better pull out of this crashing plane. Jeremiah had to deal with them quite often, of course. Jeremiah 5, the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule by their own authority. They're not subject to God. They've taken their own themselves. They become the culture. He continues, and my people love to have it so.

What is up with that? Why does God's people like to have this? And then he says, but what will you do in the end? How are you going to stand before God when judgment comes? Six, identifying biblical marks of false prophets. There are others.

Not an exhaustive list. Through signs and wonders, they lead astray after false gods. Deuteronomy chapter 13. Every Christian should read Deuteronomy 13. Number two, their prophecies don't come to pass. Deuteronomy 18, verses 20 and 22. They contradict God's word. Isaiah 8, verse 20.

They bear bad fruit. That would mean it's immoral, it's unbiblical, it's not true. Matthew 7, verses 18 through 20. All men speak well of them.

All men in the culture, of course. This is what ecumenicism is. Can't we all just get along and hold hands and pray? It doesn't matter what god you pray to and I pray to, we'll just all pray together.

Oh yeah, we like that. Applause from hell. Number six, they deny that Jesus, the one and only Christ, has come once for all in the flesh. First John chapter 4, verse 3. Ah, well Jesus is not, you know, he didn't really, they begin to attack him. Those are just six. It only takes one to be a false prophet.

If you get two out of three, no, it's just one. Peter continues, he says, even as there will be false teachers among you. So he's saying there's nothing new about this. This is the one topic that we can approach with little restraint. It's because it's such an obvious thing, the fires can, you can just stoke the flames in the boiler, get it hot, because this is about damning souls.

False teachers are not just those who win, you know, people to their side. Unless you say it this way, what side is that? No condemnation. Hell. Separation from God.

Those are the stakes. We're not talking about winning a debate, we're talking about where you're going to go if you believe these people. Why do you believe them? Satan sows his weed seeds amongst the wheat. We know this, as Jesus warned in Matthew 13. False prophets, they are those that know the truth but don't like it.

So they've mingled with it, those things that refuse the truth, that make it no longer true, and they abandon the truth. And when I say they know it, I'm not saying they've submitted to it or they agree with it. I'm saying they are aware of it. They are aware of what God says. Saul, King Saul of Israel, he was aware of the fact that he was not supposed to go and seek counsel from a witch.

And he did it anyway. Speaking about God on their own authority, that is a false prophet. Isaiah chapter 9, For the leaders of this people caused them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed.

Not in this lifetime necessarily, it didn't go through this lifetime quite comfortably. First class to hell, it is something that happens. He continues, Peter does, in verse 1, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies. Secretly, they fly beneath the radar because they know they're up to no good. They know this is deception.

They know it's dishonest. And so they have to veil their dishonesty, substituting their opinions over revealed truth from God. Jude says it like this, for certain men have crept in on notice. In other words, these apostles and prophets, they were on to this.

They just didn't sneak past them. He says, who long ago were marked out for condemnation, ungodly men. See, there's that mark of unrighteousness that belongs to the false prophet.

They don't mind lying to you. They do not mind stealing if it gets their will done. The deception to them is a tool, not a sin. He continues, who does who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. See, when he turned into lewdness, that's antinomianism. That is lawlessness.

That is saying, oh, grace, we're under grace. We don't have to follow any laws. What if everybody took that mind, that approach, and said, well, then it's okay to kill people, right?

I don't have to follow any of the laws. Of course, we see the absurdity of such chaotic teachings that come out of hell. Their words are soul killers.

Make no mistake about it. False doctrines are destructive. That's what Peter is talking about here.

He's not, again, saying they just put graffiti on nice things. They send people to hell, the very place no human being should be. Hell was not made for human beings.

It was made for Satan and the fallen angels. And now, well, if you want to reject God, if you don't want anything to do with him, then you'll go to the same place. And of course, man not liking this says that I need to create a God that will do it my way. I need to create a God that sins like me, ergo the Roman gods, the Greek gods, who are nothing but humans on steroids and their sin and their corruption. And there was now no guilt because the gods were doing it too.

How dare they judge me? Feeling justified in their rejection of righteousness. Protection from them is found in the fields of the Lord's truth through his word, in his spirit, and nowhere else. And so when Naomi tells Ruth a verse that I've been referencing quite a bit these last few weeks, it is good my daughter that you go out with his young women and that the people do not meet you in any other field. Do not be met in any other field of doctrine than that which is given to us through the Scripture. There are minor points that we can disagree on. There are applications that you don't have to like.

I may make an application from Scripture and you may not see it because you're just not as advanced as I am. Kidding. You don't know who I am. I'm just kidding. Kidding.

It's okay with the applications. But the doctrine, the facts, when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and life, no man comes to the Father, there's no debate there. There's nothing you can do with that.

It's final. And many other such things he says that there's no debate unless you want to go into the category of heretic. Peter says, even denying the Lord who bought them. He bought them with his blood. He died for the sinner, all sinners. He died for them. All mankind is redeemed but not saved. In other words, the price has been paid.

Just come get it. Those who won't, don't benefit from it and are not saved. So even denying the Lord, refusing Christ's view, modifying his expressed views, adding or removing to them. They claim to believe the Bible while they contradict it. In other words, they lie. They are liars. They say one thing and they mean another thing. They embrace things that go against. For instance, the teaching in Romanism that Mary is a co-redeemer or redemptrix if you want to use that word.

She is not and she would call you a blasphemer for having the audacity to lump her in the same category as her savior, her maker. Peter says, and bring on themselves swift destruction. I'm not upset.

I'm excited. This is why I follow the Lord. This is why I came to him.

The truth, the doors opened up and he said, this is the truth. There's nothing like this anywhere. It is very exciting and we should never be apologetic for that in the sense of, I'm sorry, I'm so excited. I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry.

Don't take it back. I believe this. That's again, 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 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, they will, he says here and brings on 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, you just, what a, 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 these, this yoke, not a real yoke, that would have been heavy but he was, 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, that's a false teacher, don't listen to that stuff. He'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'll 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, 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, 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, we 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 cost. 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 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 that 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, 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 live in, 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, 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 it.

You are wrong. 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.