Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. With so many voices seeking to influence us, how do we know who to listen to, who to follow? The Bible warns us against false teachers, but without discernment, we can be easily deceived. Thankfully, 2 Peter 2, 10-16 lays out for us the character of false teachers. Pastor Rich unpacks how effectively the passage describes lying voices around us even today, and he warns us about the pitfalls we face when we entrust ourselves to lies. Let's listen in to this message titled, The Character of Liars.
This is part 2 of the message, which was first preached on September 10, 2023 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. And it says here in the text, like irrational animals. What does he mean by that, Peter, when he says like irrational animals? They are simply following passion. That's all they're doing. They're simply following things.
That's all animals can do. And speaking with authority, albeit ignorantly. This is important about this. It's not like Peter saying we shouldn't be passionate about what we do. But he says, listen, we as human beings created in the image of God have the capacity to reason, and in the exercise of our faith, it requires reason. I like what Carl Truman says, because people think, try to find that there's a difference between faith and reason, right? And he says a blind faith in reason with no place for the transcendent is both politically and culturally dangerous. But he also says this, religious fanaticism unchecked by reason is also culturally and politically dangerous. And it's true.
This is what Peter is warning us about today. So their discourse, the discourse of false teachers is arrogant. Secondly, their discourse is pretentious.
It is pretentious. They have an air about them of wanting to help you and serve you, but actually what's really going on is they are using you for their personal gain. As it says in the text, verse 13, reveling in their deception while they feast with you. Truly, yeah, there's an air of spirituality. There's an air, whatever spirituality means, right, for them, and a lot of this is robed in biblical Christianity, ostensibly. Looking back in verse 3, it says they exploit you with false words, meaning they're using people. They twist scripture for selfish gain while joining you at the Lord's table.
It talks about the feast, or Peter could be referring to the love feast at the Lord's table. So there's an air of spirituality, and yet everything they do is for the purpose of using you for their personal gain. And again, he makes it clear that he does not think very highly of them because he calls them blots and blemishes. It's not a very nice thing to say, is it?
But he speaks with the authority of Christ because he's an apostle, and this is written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Blots and blemishes. In other words, what he's saying is these people are like parasites. They are not contributing to the flourishing of humanity. They're not contributing to that at all. They are presenting false hopes and expectations. They're only contributing to their own flourishing.
At least they think they are. So not only is their discourse noticeable in those ways, but also their desires become very evident of these false teachers, the desires of these false teachers. Number one, they are self-indulgent. Verse 14, they have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin, eyes full of adultery. Whatever they pursue in ministry is the pursuit of gratifying selfly passions, fleshly passions, I should say. And they do it under the guise of ministry.
What they preach and what they practice are incongruent. Their public lives are very different from their private lives. And they are in positions of influence to gain opportunities for sensual pleasure. And those opportunities abound. When you're in a position of influence and people are just following you, and many of them blindly following you, the opportunities for sensual pleasure just abound.
There's way too much of that going on. So their desires are self-indulgent. Secondly, their desires are self-preeminent. Again, verse 14, they have hearts trained in greed.
Hearts trained in greed. It says that they are forsaking the right way. They do not, in other words, they are forsaking the right way. They do not, whatever they, in their lives, they do not actually reflect the character and purpose of God.
It's a tragedy. And he cites the biblical example of Balaam in the Old Testament, Numbers chapter 22 to 24, where he engaged in greedy ministry. And because of that, he caused others to stumble. What does it mean to stumble?
To stumble is like to trip up to fall away. It means you fall away from Christ. It's the New Testament idea of being offended. And by the way, we use that word way too much.
We use it way too much. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean you're offended. If you're offended, you're confessing to having stumbled away from Jesus. So be careful how you use that word. Christians use it way too much.
And I'm offended, no I'm just kidding. But Balaam did that. In his greedy ministry, pursuit of central pleasures, he caused others to stumble away from faithfulness to God. And in the pursuit of that, this is one of the great stories of the Bible, he was rebuked by what? An animal. A mute animal. I love what Ed Blum writes about this. He says, ironically, the dumb animal had more spiritual perception than the prophet.
And by the way, he's using the word dumb as an animal that can't speak, okay? Don't be offended by that. Here it comes down to this. False teachers are what I call personal kingdom builders. The realm of spirituality and even Christianity and even evangelical biblical Christianity has way too many personal kingdom builders. With way too many willing followers.
It's distressing to me. You can build a church, a big church, in no time. You've got to have three things. High energy music, a dynamic preacher, and an awesome kids ministry.
You've got those three things and you will mushroom a church. Thankfully, some of them are really doing well at teaching the truth. Some of them are not.
We need to be very, very discerning. But there's way too many personal kingdom builders and this is what false teachers do. They are pursuing a kingdom for themselves. Now, it is said something very, very interesting here in this text that I want you to notice. It's forsaking the way they entice, they entice unsteady souls.
Think about that for a minute. That word there it's used, it's like a fishing word to entice. When you go fishing, what do you do? You have a hook, right?
Because that's really the main thing. You're not being kind and giving a fish a worm. You're not thinking generously about the fish, are you? You want to eat that thing. You want to consume it. So you have this hook, but you have to make the hook look attractive. So what do you do?
You put something on it that the fish likes. That's what this word is, to entice. Because someone wants to consume you. They want to use you for their personal advancement. That's what false teachers do. Let's talk about some ways today, practically speaking, this is not an exhaustive list, but let's talk about some ways that false teachers entice listeners today.
Number one is sensationalism. It's emotional manipulation. They make something look fantastic. And people are drawn to that.
People are drawn to energy, right? But a lot of it is emotional manipulation, so beware of things that are glittery and shiny, ideas and things. Have discernment. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these, you know, but think about these things, okay? And do some personal evaluation.
Am I falling for any of this? Secondly, they energetically affirm. They are energetically affirming. In other words, these false teachers can be really good about making you feel good about you. Now that's not to say that my job is to make you feel bad about you, okay? But I want you to know God well. And the better you know God, the better you understand yourself.
But false teachers are more important about you feeling good about you. Thirdly, a way that false teachers entice is sometimes by using what they would call the miraculous. The miraculous. Something is apparently miraculous and wow, it works and sometimes we're surprised that hey, he said something and something seemed to happen or he did something or she did something and something seemed to happen. And they want you to believe that they have special abilities or a special connection with God of some sort. 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. .
