Foundations of Truth: The Impact of Lies

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. In school, you may have read the famous epic poem called The Iliad. In it, Homer tells of a brilliant ploy the Greeks used to break into the enemy city of Troy.

The Greeks sent a gift to the Trojans, a massive wooden horse. But the gift was the downfall of the Trojans for inside the horse, the Greek soldiers were hiding. See, the Trojans opened themselves up to the enemy, falling for this great deception.

But our enemy uses similar tactics, doesn't he? We're not usually tempted to believe lies that are blatantly false. Satan often wraps his lies in a cloak of truth. Peter addresses this very concern in 2 Peter 2, 1-3. He warns his readers that false teachers will secretly introduce false teachings among them. Distortions of God's revealed truth often water down his word or deny key truths within it. Today, Pastor Rich lays out the damage such distortions bring to the one who believes them. And he shares with us how to recognize and counter the subtle lies that come our way.

Let's listen to this message titled The Impact of Lies. I invite you to turn with me now to 2 Peter. This will be our text for exposition this morning. 2 Peter 1. We'll be picking up in verse 16 and we'll continue through chapter 2 verse 3. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with Him on the holy mountain. We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. Many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed and in their greed they will exploit you with false words.

Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. This is the Word of God. Let us pray. As we turn to you now, Lord, we ask that you would help us just to have a sense, a grasp of our inadequacy, our dependence upon you. As we are your people called to follow you, to walk into your ways and we acknowledge this morning that we need guidance, we need perspective. In our text this morning we ask that as the truth is proclaimed and laid out for us here that your Spirit would guide hearts and minds, would probe us, would help us to approach our time with a spirit of surrender, a spirit of readiness, of willingness to change. We thank you that you delight to shape and fashion us in this way, that you have not left us without perspective on your character and purpose. We thank you for the Lord Jesus who has made all of this possible for His love, His kindness, His truth, His compassion. So we lift Him up this morning and we pray that He would be esteemed even more highly in our hearts and minds even this morning because of our time and the bond that we share in Him through your Spirit and in His name. We pray.

Amen. In the dark and oppressive days behind the iron curtain of the Communist Soviet Union about 50 years ago there was a clarion dissenting voice. And that voice exposed the lies of the ruling Communist regime that required everyone to say and think the same thing. And if you did not agree, if you said something different, you were an enemy of the state. And the lies were all about the progress and the future glories of Communism.

Over 100 million people lost their lives for that. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was forced to leave the Soviet Union and just before he left he wrote an essay, an open letter to the people entitled, Live Not By Lies. I am borrowing that title because it is also the title of a book that I have recently read by Rod Dreher, Live Not By Lies.

Because some of the same forces are at work even today in the midst of this liberty that we enjoy. Our series in 2 Peter now brings us to chapter 2. The title of the whole series is Live as People Who Remember. Remember the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ and the identity that is ours because of it.

The freedom, the future that is ours because of it. In chapter 1 there were two mini series. The first one was Get Stirred Up. As you remember the truth, Peter said, I want to stir you up by way of reminder. In other words, Christians, listen to me. We cannot afford to slumber and drift through this life in a comfortable Christian cruise. We are called to action. We are ambassadors for the king in this dark world. We don't belong here, but we are here on mission.

We're not here just for the sake of living as comfortable a possible life as we can find. So the series was about get stirred up because Peter knew he was in his last days as an apostle and he writes with the authority and the urgency of an apostle who knows that his days on earth are very numbered. And knowing what was coming ahead then in the second part of chapter 1 of 2 Peter, we talked about the foundations of faith. How do we know that truth is true?

How do we identify it? And we have to know what truth is so that we can identify that which is not. Because it is truth that sets us free. It is God who has made himself known.

And anything that counters that will finish and fall. The adversary of our souls is the father of lies. And so today we begin a four part series through 2 Peter chapter 2, Live Not by Lies. And today's focus is on the first three verses of chapter 2, the impact of lies. The impact of lies. Look what he says beginning of chapter 2.

But false prophets also rose among the people he's talking about in history where there were prophets of God and where there are prophets there were also false prophets. Stop and listen for a moment. I've got some very important words. Just because someone is in a position of authority does not mean they are speaking truth. You with me?

Even me. Nothing original comes from this pulpit. It is our duty simply to unpack the word of God. That's where the authority lies. There will be false teachers. Just as there will be false teachers, the next two words are scary, aren't they? There will be false teachers where? Among you.

No, I'm just kidding. What he's talking about is the church, the church, Christianity, right? Those who will call themselves people of God, Christians, whatever label you want to use, they will identify somehow with Jesus Christ but they will be false teachers. This requires vigilance and discernment on our part and we can exercise neither of those if we are ignorant of the word of God.

With chapter 1 because 1 comes before 2. You understand that, right? So he says there will be false teachers among you and then he says, what do they be doing? They will secretly bring in destructive heresies. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies.

How does that happen, that they would secretly bring in? I think it has happened in the history of the church. And the way they succeed by doing it is by blending God-ignoring, self-exalting schools of thought with biblical truth. God-ignoring, self-exalting schools of thought, blending that with biblical truth. You cannot have truth that, what is ostensibly true, but it's self-exalting and God-ignoring.

You cannot have that and at the same time have biblical truth because they are diametrically opposed. Wiersbe said, it is while men slept that the enemy came in and sowed tares. We cannot afford to sleep. We cannot afford to slumber.

Jesus didn't die for us simply to have as comfortable possible of life cruising through this life until we get to heaven. We're on mission. It's hard.

It's a task. We're called to battle. Let's be careful about how we understand that because our battles are not, our weapons are not the weapons of this world. Our weapons are truth and grace. So let me talk about lies here, five truths. We're going to talk about lies, the impact of lies that we glean from the first three verses. We have to be able to recognize them. We will recognize them by understanding the impact that they have. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him. The one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.