The Danger of False Teachers Today

In the summer school is going to start another week and things will start getting back to normal, I think. And we've been looking at second Peter. It's really a timely message for our day in so many ways. And in this passage, we're going to look at today in second Peter chapter 2. I'm going to read to you from Acts 20 and you don't have to turn there, but I'll read it. This is Paul's last words or he thought we're going to be his last words of the church at Ephesus. He met with the elders of that church and began to encourage them regarding what they were going to face in the future as they shepherded the flock of God at Ephesus. And he gives them these words of warning. These are the leaders in the church and he says to them in the middle of verse 18, you yourselves know from the first day that I spent foot in Asia how I was with you the whole time serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews.

How he did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solidly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold bound in spirit. I am on my way to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me there except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city saying that bonds and affliction await me. I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself in order that I may finish my course in the in the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God no matter what it costs. And now behold, I know that all of you among who are not preaching the kingdom will see my face no more.

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God beyond God for yourselves and for the flock. Notice it's in the context of the fact that he has taught them the whole council of God. He has taught them the word of God the gospel and all of its implications in the fullness of scripture. And he says therefore be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own selves men will arise speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore be on the alert remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to and monitor you with tears. And now I commend you to God into the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Now you'll turn over to second Peter if you're there second Peter chapter two listen to these words of warning from the apostle Peter. To these Christians to whom he was writing who been scattered about and he gives them these words of warning but false prophets also arose among the people just as there will be false prophets false teachers rather among you who will secretly introduce destructive paracies even denying the master who bought them bringing swift destruction upon themselves and many will follow their sensuality because of them the way of the truth will be maligned and in their greed they will exploit you with false words their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not a sleep.

God did not spare angels when they spent the cast them into hell and committed them to bits of darkness reserved for judgment and did not spare the ancient world that preserved Noah a preacher of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. And if we can give the cities of Sodom and Gomal to destruction by reducing them to ashes having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter. And if he rescued righteous lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men for what he saw and heard that righteous man while living among them felt his righteous soul torment a day after day with their lawless deeds. Then if all these things are true the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

And especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. In this passage what we have is Peter's warning to the church the church is in the first century and by applications certainly a warning to us because these days of common they are still here. And it's important for Christians to know about those who pedal spiritual poison because they're all about us and in fact they invade our homes now than ever before because of their ability to propagate air in the name of Christ. And when this poison is ingested the New Testament says it is more serious than when a person takes poison into its physical body it does greater damage. Sometimes drugs are sweetened to the taste so that you can take them a little easier and children sometimes will get a hold of those kind of drugs and take a great deal of them and do great damage to them.

Or if you spill an antifreeze on your driveway and your dog comes along and discovers that it tastes sweet you can lap up plenty of that antifreeze and kill himself. And a lot of this air that is propagated in the truth is sugar coated it seems very appealing it appeals to us in ways that sometimes are very difficult for us to stand against. In fact John MacArthur read an introduction of a book regarding some false teaching that is spreading through the church today said these words in this introduction. They do it by intimidation trickery rise and most powerfully evolve teaching that appeals to the common less of humanity. After all who would not like to believe that health money affluence and success are ours for the claiming.

In a culture that is selfish materialistic and proud the health and wealth message is bound to be popular. People with itching ears heaped to themselves teachers who make the promises they want to hear. Meanwhile the tolerance for sound doctrine is dangerously low. I think everybody knows who pays attention to the state of the church today knows that we are in all time low and in biblical understanding there is more biblical illiteracy among Christians in today's church in America than ever before in the history of the church. Yeah we have more resources. You can go online you can go on the web and get on a good search engine and put in the words John 316 and you will find thousands of sources that will unlock the meaning of that passage and many many many of them totally distorted.

We have so much material today for studying the Bible so many helps so many things to help us and our biggest problem is we simply don't read the Bible. We don't immerse ourselves in the Bible we don't come to understand the Bible so we can recognize air. You all are aware of the fact that when they train people in banks to recognize counterfeit they simply teach them to recognize the real thing. The best thing that we can do to prepare ourselves to stand against air air that can penetrate the lives of the unsuspecting and immature that will destroy their lives that will make them unfruitful in the things of God. The most important thing we can do is to know truth to know what the truth is. I want to show you what Peter says in this passage.

He says first of all that God wants you to understand that this danger is very real. This isn't just fodder for a sermon to the local church. This is a very real danger that we face in the church today. Air of every kind. The truth of God, the truth of the gospel being distorted so that instead of building up the saints it destroys their effectiveness and their fruitfulness in the Christian life. It destroys churches, it destroys movements and it's important for us to understand what this danger is. If you notice what Peter says is that just like false prophets arose in the Old Testament among the people of God. I want you to turn with me to Jeremiah 23 and notice Jeremiah's description of these false prophets.

It's actually God who is warning through Jeremiah. But listen to what he says. Jeremiah chapter 23 verse 16. The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah and the Lord says to Jeremiah, do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility. That's a word that describes idolatry. The great mass of false teaching in the church today. Teaching this sometimes doesn't sound so far off. The biggest problem with it is it leads people into futility. That is idolatry. They speak of vision of their own imagination. How many times have you heard preachers on TV tell you that the Lord spoke to them, appeared to them this morning and gave them this message to them for you.

But he says they speak of vision of their own imagination. Not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, the Lord has said, you have peace. To those who don't bother neither to the Lord, they say, you will have peace. And as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, they say, calamity will not come upon you. God is not like that. He doesn't bring judgment. But who has stood in the council of the Lord that he should see and hear his word? Who has given heed to his word and listened? The oldest storm of the Lord has gone forth and wrath, even a whirling tempest. It was swirled out on the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has performed and carried out the purposes of his heart.

In the last days, you will clearly understand it. I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I want to tell you, you can say that about many today who claim to be sent by God. God is saying, I did not send them, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, then they would have announced my words to my people and would have turned them back from their evil way. And from the evil of their deeds. Am I a God who is near declares the Lord? Am I omnipresent? Am I in your midst? And not a God for our off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him? Declares the Lord? Do I not throw the heavens in the earth? Declares the Lord? I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesied falsely in my name saying, I had a dream.

I had a dream. Well, Robert said he had a dream and with Jesus appeared to him, and he was, I forget how tall, 100 feet tall or so, and told him that he wanted him to build this massive medical structure that was going to cost millions and millions of dollars. And that if he would build it, that God would give him the cure for cancer. Now, he propagated that over the airways and people sacrificed sort of things, gave from their heart to this man who built a hospital and that hospital today has gone bankrupt, of course, and no longer belongs to the oral Roberts organization. He claimed that God that Jesus appeared to him and gave him a dream and said, if you tell those people that they don't give so you can build this hospital, I'm going to kill you.

Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing that Christians believe this garbage? Isn't it amazing how gullible we are as the people of God? Why is that? Well, it's been true since the time that Jeremiah wrote this letter. A man stands up and says, I've been sent by God. God has spoken to me. And the message that I bring to you is directly from God. And somehow we forget to be Bereans. You know what the Bereans did when Paul went to Berean, began to preach the gospel from the Old Testament. And it says they examined the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. All you had to do was read Jeremiah 23 when all Roberts made such a outlandish statement. And you would have a biblical, godly evaluation of this kind of action.

How long, God says, is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesied falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot my name because of bail. I mean, these guys run in packs. The word of faith movement is a group of men who have banded together and teach a message that's so unbiblical and so destructive the hearts and lives of believers that it's hard to even talk about. When you sit and listen to some of this garbage that comes out of their mouths, you wonder, God, how do you let this happen? Well, notice what he says about these Old Testament prophets.

He says their teaching was filled with flattery. They flatter people. They make them promises. They appealed Robert Tilton. He is primary purpose. He got his, by the way, Robert Tilton, if you've ever heard of him, he's not too big anymore because he was exposed, but he used to get on TV. And people wondered, where did he come up with this method? Well, he came up with a method by watching a local real estate sales pitch in his city. And he discovered how to make a pitch to give people to give money to him. And he discovered that the most vulnerable people were poor people. That poor people were willing to give, if he could simply promise to them, if you give, you will receive 100 fold. And he built millions of people out of money.

There were two women who took him to federal court because he wrote words of prophecy and sent it to their homes to their husbands. And their husbands happened to be deceased. They had died of the disease that he had received the word from the Lord that they were going to be raised up and healed if they would simply respond to this letter and give some money to him. You see, these are ravenous wolves. These men teach with flattery. They aim. Their aim is deception. Their motive was profit. Their lies were filled with immorality. He said they're driven by their own sensuality. And their conscience was dulled. How do they do it? I remember hearing oral Robert's daughter-in-law, former daughter-in-law, he used to be married to her son, Richard Roberts, who's still kind of carrying on that whole Christian show.

And she told in her little book, I think it's called from Desta Ashes, she tells in this book about the modus operandi of this whole operation and how they used to what they believed was that the injustifies the means if they have to lie in order to propagate the ministry, then you have to be willing to lie. And she said for over a year, her and her husband, they were in the midst of just waiting to get a divorce and they would appear on the TV program and look at each other like they were deeply in love and sing songs about Jesus and the love of Christ. And the whole time they knew they were just waiting the day when they could get separated from one another and go their own ways. But she thought that's what she ought to do because, of course, this is the ministry of God.

I want to tell you, God isn't that hard up. God is not so weak that he has to use us when we are unusable. What a motivation to keep your hearts. Now, the danger is very real in our day and these false teachers, Peter says, are going to, first of all, be deceptive. Look in chapter 2, verse 1. He says, just like these prophets in the Old Testament, there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce. In other words, they're going to be deceivers. They're not going to come in among us and wear t-shirts and say, have you hugged your false teacher today? They're not going to tell you who they are and what they are and what they're up to. It's going to be deceptive. They are going to secretly introduce doctrines that are unbiblical.

They're going to bring in their heresy and lay it alongside of truth. It's amazing how you can lay a little bit of error alongside of truth and it doesn't look that bad. And secondly, he says, they are going to be deceptive. These are harmless heresies. You know, there are things that we disagree on. Bible teachers, I have some good friends that teach the Bible, preach the Bible every week and we are close and we get together and we talk about things and we have some differences in our understanding of scripture. But these are on things that are non-essentials. But these heresies that he says that they will bring in are not harmless heresies. They are heresies literally heresies of destruction.

These are opinions which lead to the destruction of true faith. Notice the one doctrine that false teachers continually and consistently attack is the doctrine of Christ and in particular the cross-work of Jesus Christ. Some of those off-the-wall stuff that you will hear on TV or some of these health and wealth preachers is a total distortion of the biblical teaching of the atonement, the work of the cross and how Christ pays for sin on the cross. You know what's so dangerous about a lot of this stuff? The danger is that because false doctrine is brought in, it displaces truth and we have to have truth in order to live and thrive and grow. Our children need to be taught truth. We need to understand truth if we are going to grow.

And so if we bring in something that is not quite truth, maybe it doesn't seem that bad. It's just some pseudo-spiritual fluff instead of biblical meat. Listen to this story. Back in May of 1983, Charlotte Huddleston died after breathing argon gas mistakenly pumped into the oxygen system at Fort McClellan's Noble Army Hospital, making here the third victim of this mixup. Apparently the five-foot white tank of odorless non-toxic argon resembled those that usually contained oxygen. Now listen, although the argon didn't poison anyone, it wouldn't poison you to breathe argon. It displaced the oxygen supply and suffocated its victim. That's what's happening in these movements where this stuff is being propagated and taught.

Thousands of people gather in the name of Christ to listen to teaching, which is nothing but argon gas who will not sustain life, will not feed the soul, but simply need believers astray. Benny Hinn propagates stuff that's so off the wall and I cannot imagine how he gathers thousands upon thousands of Christians to listen to a man who says the Trinity is made up of nine individual persons. Or who says that Jesus appeared to him and told him in a dream that God had originally designed that woman would have children out of her side. Now where do you get this kind of stuff? It's got to be dreams. It certainly isn't the word of God. He said, he has told this story on several occasions that he frequented the graves of Catherine Kurman and Amy Simple McPherson to get the anointing from their bones.

I want to tell you, that's not Christianity. That's mysticism. That's Eastern orthodoxy. That's, I mean, Eastern mysticism. That's all kinds of stuff, but it's not Christianity. It's not the gospel. And so this stuff is propagated and taught and in the context of incredible music and singing and laughter and fun. And what people are ingesting is stuff that will not feed this all or produce growth in their life. And so what happens? They have no discernment. They have no discernment. I grew up in a segment of Christianity that because we were open to God speaking and not having to check it with the Bible, people could say things that were so off the wall and that they said it in a certain manner.

If they were in a certain kind of frenzy, if they seemed to have the anointing and they could say these things and people would gobble it up as though it was truth, even though it was in direct contradiction to the word of God. And they became so vulnerable, they couldn't discern truth. They couldn't discern truth. If you ever heard of A.A. Allen, A.A. Allen was a Pentecostal evangelist who was incredibly successful and the man was a debutsched, immoral spot. He was a drunkard. He died of an overdose of alcohol and a San Francisco hotel room. And yet thousands of people would come. I went to one of his meetings. It was the most amazing thing, the way he could work a crowd. And the absolute absence of any substance of biblical truth and people would latch onto it.

Now in our circles, we're probably not as vulnerable to those kinds of things. I think anybody who's taught the Bible, and you take the Bible seriously, when these kinds of things come flowing through the church, people at least say, wait a minute. Now what biblical foundation could you possibly lay for this approach? Do we have discernment? Paul writes to the Philippians, and Philippians one, he says, I want you to grow so that you will be able to discern things that are excellent. So that you can tell the difference between truth and error. Because error destroys people. It destroys lives. It destroys fruitfulness. And people's lives because they're filled up with this stuff. But it's also infectious.

In verse two, Peter says, and many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be maligned. They'll spread their infection. In fact, they work hard at propagating it in every way they can. They publish slick material. They do mailouts. They manipulate, propagate, merchandise, whatever they can do to get this stuff out. And they'll cause the way of truth to be blasphemed. When believers follow this kind of error, the way of truth is blasphemed. The way of truth is blasphemed. People watch this stuff, and the people of this world have more discernment than the people of the kingdom sometimes. But we'll look at this and say, boy, that's pure manipulation, isn't it? And you have Christians, professing Christians who sit under this stuff and eat it up.

In Titus chapter 2 verse 5, it says, the way we live can cause people to blaspheme God. The way I live my life, the way I respond to the truth of the word of God, can cause people to blaspheme God because I reflect the reputation of Christ. And so for people who get caught up in this kind of stuff, and they're lives to be controlled by it, will be disrepute upon the gospel and the person of Christ. Notice in chapter 4 of 1st Peter, chapter 4, 1st Peter, verse 14. If you are involved with the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But by no means, let any of you suffer as a murder or a thief or a evil doer or trouble some meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed.

But in that name, let him glorify God. For his time for judgment to begin with the household of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel? And if it is with difficulty, if it is with nothing short of the power of God that the righteous is saved, what will become of the Godless man in the center? Peter is saying, look, you're going to suffer as Christians. But don't suffer as evil doers. There's a lot of stuff that goes on among Christians and they are criticized for, and there's no way we can defend them. Because what they are doing is suffering as evil doers. And then he says, not only that, but they will be exploitive. Notice, verse 3 of 2 Peter, chapter 2, verse 3 says, and in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

Because they are full of greed, they will use false words to exploit you, to sell you, to market you. Their judgment from a long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. Listen to this. More Cyrillo, on one occasion, informed his audience. Listen to these words. This is on a recording. You're not looking at more Cyrillo. You're looking at God. You're looking at Jesus. He went on to say, would you surrender your pocket books to me, unto me, say of God, and let me be the world of your pocket books? Yay, so be thou obedient unto my voice. Now, what do you think his motivation is? What do you think motivates a man like this to reach into the pockets of people in the name of God and extract their money?

Well, Peter says, it's pure greed. They have been on that circuit who go on telling people how to handle their money. The primary way you handle their money is you first of all start giving to their ministries, and then God will start blessing you. If you have to put it on a credit card, so be it. They'll take credit cards in their meetings. You only give to one of these ministries? No problem, no cash. No money in the bank, you got a credit card? They are exploitive. Fast words, he says. They will use you for their own profit. They, quite literally, what it's saying is they'll tell you a bill of goods. Do you know where this comes from? They will make merchandise of you. It comes right out of Ezekiel 28 describing Satan as he led a third of the angels to rebel against God.

It says the very language in that text is he sold them a bill of goods. He merchandise them. He convinced them for his own self-aggrandizement. And these who do the same thing in the church today are following in the path of Satan himself. And how do they do it? He says notice in the text they use false words. Phony arguments design not for helping you, but for fleecing you. Rodney Howard Brown, who's a guy that was kind of the propagator of the laughing revival and the Toronto revival and traveled all over. If you would listen just to the substance of what he said, you wonder what in the world is going on the minds of people sitting under a guy like this. The reason is it's pure flash and noise and excitement and emotion and nobody listens to the substance of what is being said.

This man blasts themes every time he preaches. Phony words. And then people say when they are someone tries to expose their distortions of truth and the damage they're doing in the lives of people. People say but they're so loving. I know them. They're so loving. Well Jim Jones told the last thing he said to the people that he talked into committing suicide was how much he loved them. And they followed him down that path. Is the danger real? You better believe it. The danger is real. The New English Bible reads this translation verse this way, perdition waits for them with unsleeping eyes. Is Peter being on Christian when he says they're headed for judgment? No. What he is doing is being very Christ like because he loves the lambs of Christ and they're being destroyed by these false shepherds.

We're trying to destroy the lives of people. It's amazing to me how this false doctrine almost always ends up at the heart of it distorting the truth of the atonement, the person of Christ and the atonement that Christ accomplished for us. The man named Charles Caps who is also one of these name and claimant health and welfare gospel propagators says in his one of his sermons that Jesus was the product of God's positive confession. Jesus came into existence through the positive confession of God. This is the key. He says quote. This is the key to understanding the virgin birth. God's word is full of faith and spirit power. God transmitted that image to Mary. She received the image inside of her.

The embryo that was in Mary's room was nothing more than the word of God. She conceived the word of God. That's blasphemous. That is absolutely blasphemous. And people sit under this and have no ability to discern not only the absolute insanity of it. But the blasphemous nature of it. Kenneth Copeland said Satan conquered Jesus on the cross and took his spirit to the dark regions of hell. Copeland's description of Christ or deal in hell is nothing short of chilling. That is Jesus allowed the devil to drag him into the depths of hell. Where do you find that one? Anybody know where that's found? Satan drags Jesus into the depths of hell. He allowed himself to come under Satan's control. Every demon in hell came down on him to annihilate him.

They tortured him beyond anything. Anybody ever conceived. For three days he suffered everything there is to suffer. The situation seemed hopeless. As Jesus, and listen to this description, he gives of Jesus in hell being attacked by these demons. He may see it, poured out little roomy spirit. It's down on the bottom of that thing and the devil thinks he's got him destroyed. But he explained, Satan fell into the trap. He took him Jesus into hell illegally. He carried him in there when he did not sin. God found the opening he needed. That root of the living God went down into the pit of destruction and charged the spirit of Jesus with resurrection power. Suddenly he twisted death rack, spirit began to fill out and come back to life.

Jesus was born again. The first one from the dead, the word calls him, and he whipped the devil in his own backyard. Man, I can't believe it. I can't believe a man could stand up and say that publicly and Christians sit in chairs and listen to that and not somebody stand up and say, that is heresy. But it's going on all the time. And Peter said there would be teachers like this who would come among us in the last days and they would totally lead God's people astray. They would fill their hearts with our God instead of oxygen and instead of growing, they would abandon the path of truth. The second thing that Peter says in this passage is that God is doing something about this. God takes this serious.

God takes this serious. I know a lot of people think you should never say, never name names and never say anything negative about anybody who is in the quote ministry. I don't think that's true. I think Peter named names, Paul named names, Jesus named names, in fact Jesus confronted air to the face. And Peter tells us here that God takes this seriously. God isn't winking at this kind of distortion of truth that flows in the church. In the Bay Area, we have a man who's not a, not from a Pentecostal background or charismatic. In fact, he's anti-charismatic, anti-Pentecostal. And he is propagating and he has stood for reform theology for decades, given his life to propagating it in the last few years. 1994, he wrote a book and said Jesus is coming back in 1994.

He was 99.999999% sure. And so some of his followers sold their possessions, gave it away and got ready for the coming of Jesus. Jesus didn't come. Well, here we are, 2002. And guess what? He figured out what went wrong. He was right. It was 1994. But what he didn't take into consideration is that that was the end of the church age. But before that Jesus comes back, there must be the ladder rain. And so now we are in the tribulation period in the ladder rain. And guess what? The church age is over. And all of you are sitting by sitting in this building today, participating in the life of a local church. And so now he's telling people everywhere, leave your local church. The spirit of God is not there.

God is not going to say people through local churches. The only way God's going to say people is through ministries, why family radio? Isn't that amazing? I believe he's a dear brother in Christ, but I believe he has passed off the path of truth. What he is teaching is error. He is leading people. I hear him. I hear him talk to people who have abandoned their local church as a result of this teaching who believe what he is propagating and it's error. Does God take error seriously? You better believe it. Notice what he does here. He gives three examples of what God does in response to error. Three different illustrations. The first is the angels that he judged. A group of angels he judged because of their pride and rebellion.

Notice verse four. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. What a statement. The angels who are judged because of their pride and rebellion he says he cast them into hell. It's quite an expression here. It's like a red light that comes on. The word cast them into hell is a word that you only hear. It's a word that comes out of actually, this is the verb, but the noun form of this comes out of Greek mythology, the word partarist. Partarist was a place in Greek mythology, the lowest hell. It was a place where the worst people and the worst gods went to and were held captive. And Peter takes that word and he uses it to describe the place that this group of angels that he's speaking of because of their pride and their rebellion against God's rule where God has put them.

He has literally partarized them. He has put them into a place where they have bound and held for final judgment. Now we know this isn't all the angels because there are fallen angels everywhere. We're told in scripture. Peter is talking about a group of angels that were involved in a particular rebellion in the Old Testament. In fact, in Jude, Jude chapter six and much of this is found in second Peter in Jude chapter six. This is how Jude describes the same group of fallen angels. He says in angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode. He has kept an eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Now in both Jude and second Peter, he connects it to the flood, the judgment of God in the earth, the flood.

You go back to Genesis, you see that these angels who recall sons of God there somehow in some way attempted to so pollute the human race, to so lead the human race into total rebellion against God that God would not be able to fulfill his promise of Genesis 315 that through the seat of the woman one would come who would crush the head of Satan. Now whatever that is referring to, whatever role those angels played because of their rebellion and pride because of their refusal to submit to the authority of God, they are bound up and cast into Tardarus. God takes this kind of stuff seriously. That's Peter's point. The second example he gives, second illustration, is that the world of Noah was judged because of their fearlessness and disobedience, fearlessness in the sense of having no fear of God before their eyes.

And they're total disobedience. They're described in Genesis 6 as thinking only and always of evil day and night, day and night. If they would have had cable TV, in the time of Noah, there would never be anything on TV that was not corrupting. There would not be anything that they ever were exposed to that did not encourage them to be an outright rebellion against the living God. And he said he brought judgment upon them of course through the flood. And then in verses 6 through 10, he gives a third example, a third illustration of God's judgment upon those who go astray, those who highhandedly are living in disobedience to God. He says, Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sensuality. And of course in the thing that finally precipitated the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't just their rampant immorality.

It was their attack on the work of God through those messengers that he sent into Sodom to deliver lot out of that city. Notice these words, it's kind of strange when you read this because if you know anything about lot, if you know anything about how he lived in Sodom, how he got there, if you know anything about the condition of his life when the angels came to get him out of the city, they had to drag him out. He didn't want to leave. And yet listen to this description. It says, and he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes having made them an example to those who would live on Dali thereafter. And if he rescued righteous lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men, by what he saw and heard, that righteous man while living among them felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds.

Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. And especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. This description of lot as righteous is almost puzzling. He was weak. He was morally depraved and we seem drunk and providing through his drunkenness, he brings about an immoral relationship with his two daughters, two groups of people that oppose the work of God and the people of God. His heart was so deeply embedded in Sodom that he had to be dragged out of the city when the angels came to get him. Time again that sympathize that his rescue was entirely due to the unmerited favor of God.

He's called righteous for two reasons in this text. Now this is encouraging to me that he's called righteous for two reasons. First of all, he's called righteous because he accepted God's intervention for him. He accepted it. God intervened and pulled him out of the city and he accepted it. He went with the angels. And secondly, he was tortured by the sin around him. Being tortured by the sin around you is a sign that you've been born again. Being tortured by the sin that so permeates the world view that has captured the minds, the world views, plural that have captured the minds of people around you. That exclude the truth of a God who created this universe and who rules over it and to whom we owe absolute obedience.

When the fruit of those mindsets comes through, you see it on TV, you see it at the movies, you read it in books, you read it in the newspapers, you see it all around you. When that bexes your soul, it's a sign that you've been born again. Are we tortured by the sin around us? Can you sit through television programs that present rebellion against God in favorable light in such a seductive and attractive way? Can you do that and never flinch? Does it kind of boil up in you? Does it vex your soul? That's what it did a lot. Now we like a lot, these things torture us but we keep living in Sodom. More and more we adapt to our life, the futility of the idolatry of the age. It becomes our pastime. We embrace it.

We become like permanent residents. The word in verse 8 here, living is a word that means a permanent resident. He had become a permanent resident. He settled down and felt at home in Sodom. Do you feel at home? Do you feel at home in a world in a culture that is an outright, total rebellion against the true and living guy? You really shouldn't. You should get your roots down. You should build homes and have jobs and live in the city and do the work of the gospel and advance the kingdom that you shouldn't feel at home. We really should be singing that old song. This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through my treasure's laid up somewhere beyond the blue. Where's your treasure laid up?

Where your treasure is? That's where your heart is, Jesus said. What is it that I look to that's the most precious thing in my life? Is it my big screen TV? Or is it the promise of being in the presence of Jesus Christ? Is it the promise of him coming back and establishing a kingdom where righteousness is going to cover the face of the earth, living in his presence? It's an important lesson here. God won't keep you from having temptation, but he will deliver you. That's what Paul is saying here. God, this is what he's doing about headlers of poison that seek to fleece the flock. He's reserving the ungodly for punishment, and he is reserving the godly for deliverance. You know what? You don't have to go to seminary to discern false doctrine.

You don't have to know Greek or Hebrew. You simply have to read the Word of God. You just need to read the scriptures. And when you hear stuff that sounds off, then you want to be like the Bereans and go to the Word of God, get you a good concordance, and find out what the Bible says. And when somebody stands up and says, thus say at the word, and then begins to propagate things that the Bible does not say, that contradict the Word of God, then you can discern truth from error, and false teaching from truth to teaching. I want you to know, I believe that Christians are more vulnerable today than they ever have been in the history of the church to false teaching, because it is packaged so well.

It is marketed so slickly. And a lot of it isn't that it is such great error. It is just spiritual fluff. It's just wand over cycle, babble, pop cycle, babble at that. And sprinkled with a little biblical terminology, but that you won't grow. Spiritual fluff will not bring growth in your life. The only thing that's going to bring growth in your life is when you feed upon Christ through His Word. When you come to know the truth about Him, you embrace that truth, and then you live your lives out of that truth. Would you stand together with me? We're going to close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, it is a sobering and, in all honesty, a painful thing to look at the kind of error, the winds of doctrine that blow through the church that are so destructive, that in some way seems so innocent, but that robbed people of truth, that rob your lambs of truth.

I think about all the young bullied churches that don't teach the Bible were influenced by ministries that are propagating error and distort the Word of God. As Peter says, they put it on a rack and they twisted all out of shape. I pray, O God, that we would be a place that propagates truth. I pray your hand would be upon us that we would love truth, that we would promote truth, that we would embrace truth, that we would come to know it and understand it, and integrate it into our lives and pass it on to our children. Father, please help us to be discerning as Paul prayed in Philippians 1. Help us to be discerning. I pray that we would be able to see error because we know truth. We just pray you to help us to grow in the faith.

To grow in the faith. Jude says if we're going to keep ourselves in the love of God, one of the things we must do is we must build ourselves up in the most holy faith. O God, I pray you to help us to be faithful to teach young believers how to do that and to practice it ourselves, to have integrity, to not market ourselves. But to proclaim Jesus Christ and crucify. O God, please guard us, watch over us, and fill us with resolve to walk in the truth, to support the truth, to propagate the truth, both here and around the world. I thank you for the missionaries you've given us that I have great confidence in because they love truth. I pray, O God, that you'd help us to have a significant part in the propagation of truth here and around the world we pray.

In Jesus' name. Amen.