Good morning. All right, we're
going to be in 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter 2, and our text is going
to be in verses 1 through 6. 2 Peter 2, 1 through 6. Now before we begin in chapter
two, by way of reminder, we notice that Peter spends a lot, a great
deal of time in putting the brethren in remembrance, in remembrance
how that God has put them in Christ and that God has provided
all things necessary for life and godliness in his son, Jesus
Christ and then he goes on to encourage them to grow in the
faith that God has given them and he says in verse 5 in 2nd
Peter 1 5 and beside this giving all diligence add to your faith
and then he sets forth all these examples of these examples of
how the Spirit grows His children in the grace and the faith of
our Savior Jesus Christ. And notice how Peter, when you
read chapter 1, he's so faithful to put the brethren in remembrance
of Christ. He's showing how God does everything
for the believer. And he says in verse 13, 2 Peter
1 verse 13, Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle,
to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. what he puts
them in remembrance of is how that God has committed unto Christ
all things necessary for their salvation. He says in verse 17,
for he received from God the Father honor and glory when there
came such a voice to him from the excellent glory this is my
beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And so we see how That's
from the Mount of Transfiguration when the Lord revealed to them
and showed them, don't look to Moses, don't look to the prophets,
hear my son Jesus Christ. I provided him for you to hear
him because he is the way of salvation. He provides salvation
for his people. So Peter's telling them, brethren,
you do well to take heed to hear him too. Just as God revealed
to us to hear him, you do well to hear him as well and wait
upon him till the Lord reveal him in your hearts. Till the day dawn and the day
star arise in your hearts, which he said in verse 19. And then
he speaks of the prophets, how the prophets foretold of Christ
that he should come, and how they were moved by the Holy Ghost,
and that the Holy Ghost revealed to them and showed them what
Christ would accomplish for the people. He said in verse 21,
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
And what distinguishes the fact that it's the Spirit, the Holy
Spirit of God, speaking through us? What distinguishes us from
all others? Well, the Holy Spirit will always
speak of and always glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't
speak of and glorify, or he doesn't speak of the flesh in a glorified
way. He doesn't exalt our flesh and
speak about what we can do. He declares and speaks about
what Christ himself has already accomplished for his people,
and that our life is in Christ. He's always directing us to the
Lord Jesus Christ. As Christ himself said in John
15 26, but when the comforters come, whom I will send unto you
from the father, even the spirit of truth, which proceeded from
the father, he shall testify of So the Spirit always speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's how you know when
someone is speaking by the Spirit of Christ or speaking by another
spirit, either in their flesh or another spirit. If they're
speaking of Christ and glorifying Him and what He does for sinners,
it's the Spirit of Christ. If they're speaking about what
you now need to do to earn favor with God, it's another spirit. And it comes very subtly times
so now in chapter 2 in verse 1 in the beginning of verse 1
Notice what Peter says he says there were false prophets also
among the people even as there shall be false teachers Among
you he's saying they're not led of the Holy Ghost. These are
false Prophets and if they're not walking by the Spirit of
Christ, it leaves only one other alternative They're walking in
the flesh And when you're walking in the flesh, you're just you're
susceptible to any spirit You're susceptible to to anything that
these other evil spirits would would say In Romans 8 5 Paul
said for they that are after the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh But they that are after the spirit the things of
the spirit now turn over to Romans 8 Romans 8 and that's where we
we just read that verse from and what we'll see is that all
that the false prophets speak of is what they know. All they
know is the flesh. And that's all that they can
speak of are fleshly, carnal things. And that's not where
you want to be. You don't want to be walking
by the flesh because the flesh is corrupted. And the flesh doesn't
do those things which please God. And it cannot do those things
which please God. But in Romans 8, verse 12, It
says, therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh,
to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh,
ye shall die. But if ye through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as
are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For
ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but
ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba,
Father. So these other spirits, which
turn you back to the flesh, that's the spirit of bondage, because
now we're doing things in fear, and now we're doing things to
earn a favor with God. We're walking by the flesh under
another spirit. But the Comforter, when He comes,
He shows you what Christ has accomplished for the believer.
And when we stumble, and when we see the corruption of this
flesh, we cry out to the Father. Abba, Father, Daddy, have mercy
on me. Help me, Lord. Turn me from the
love of this flesh and turn me to your Son. Help me to walk
by His Spirit. Help me to walk in a way that's
pleasing to Him. And it's not done in fear and
in bondage. It's done in love, in peace,
in joy, in reconciliation with the Father and the Son that He's
provided. So Peter's showing us in chapter
2, he's saying that there's false prophets and they're speaking
damning heresies. And they're damning heresies
because those who hear them and follow what they're saying never
come to a knowledge of Christ. They're always being turned away
from Christ. They're always looking away from
him. And the reason why it's so damning
is they're denying the provision of God they're denying the rejecting
the one that God has provided as the means of forgiveness for
his people he sent his son to put away the sin of his people
and if you turn from Christ and you look to your own works in
your own flesh then you're not looking to the one that God provided
who is the only one that can put away our sins. So we look to Christ and we want
to know Him. So our title this morning is
The Holy Spirit Speaks of Christ. The Holy Spirit Speaks of Christ.
He's going to testify of Christ. And we'll consider these false
prophets and we'll look at them in three divisions. Their description,
their impact, and their end. Although we're probably just
going to get to their description this morning. Well, let's look
at verses 1 and 3. 2 Peter 2, 1 and 3. He says, but there were false
prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false
teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies,
even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves
swift destruction. Verse 3, and through covetousness
shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose
judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not. So the first thing that we see
here that Peter shows us is that there shall be false teachers
among you. And he tells us this so that
we're not alarmed when we see it. We're not surprised when
we see that there's false teachers. And, you know, oftentimes Many
people look at, they begin to notice when they begin to get
religious or they begin to seek things of the Lord, they take
notice of the fact that there are many different denominations. There's many different denominations. And that can be very troubling
to somebody because they're wondering, well, if God is true and Christ
is the way of salvation, why are there so many different denominations
and variations and people that see things differently? And I
know as a young person, not sitting under the gospel, when I looked
at these things, I tried to reconcile them. I tried to find some sort
of a harmony and find a way to make sense of it all, some logical
sense. And in doing that, all I did
was create confusion, confusion for myself. And it really didn't
lead to any truth. It just led to error and lies. And we see that in, I suppose,
the Unitarian or the Universalists, they try to harmonize or say
that there's many ways to God, but that's not. They're speaking
in confusion, and they're speaking by a spear of confusion, because
we'll have one person stand up and say things according to this
religion, and then we'll have another person stand up the next
time and say things according to that religion. And all it
is is confusion. There's no unity in that at all. It's just confusion. It doesn't
lead to Christ. It doesn't show us the provision
that God has provided in his son. And Paul wrote this to Timothy. He said, now the Spirit speaketh,
in 1 Timothy 4, 1 through 3, he says, the Spirit speaketh
expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from
the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils,
speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared
with a hot arm, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain
from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving
of them which believe and know the truth. Now, when you read
that, the first thing that usually enters your mind is to say, that
sounds an awful lot like the Catholic Church, because they
forbid priests to marry and the nuns to marry. And they had days,
like Friday, where the families didn't eat meat. They would abstain
from meat and they would eat fish instead. And I know that
because I grew up with many Catholics when I was younger, and they
implement those things. But the Catholic Church is very
blatant in their denial of trusting Christ alone for salvation. The
Catholic Church comes right out and says, you're saved by Christ
plus all these works, plus all these traditions, plus doing
this and doing that for your salvation. open about it, and
they were the first to, maybe one of the first to go off into
these other spirits and their teachings, but they've become
very subtle now. They've become quite subtle now
where they, you know, teachers will come in and they'll They
maybe for a time speak of Christ, but they turn you away from Him
looking to your experiences, looking to something in the flesh
that you need to do to sanctify yourself or to improve upon what
Christ has done or to keep yourself there in the faith. And so they
lay out different methods and teachings whereby people feel
comforted in their ability to do certain things. But in the
end, they're not going to be comforted because they're trusting
in their works and they're not trusting and resting in Christ.
They're going to stand before God in that day and say, look
Lord, everything that I did in your name, and he'll say, depart
from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you. Because they
didn't rest in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now Christ himself
even warned us of false teachers. He said in Matthew 7, 15 through
18, he said, So they come in the name of God and they come
speaking of righteousness. You ever notice that? Especially some
of the most crafty teachers they have an appearance of being
very godly, very religious, and very high in their doctrine of
things because they incorporate the law. And they're looking
to the law to improve upon what Christ has done, to sanctify
themselves, to create a certain holiness for themselves. But Christ tells us what to look
for. He says in verse 16, there in Matthew 7, He says, Ye shall
know them by their fruits. And you think, well, wait a minute.
If they're doing good works, how am I going to know the difference
between one person doing good works and when I do good works,
trusting in Christ? How do I know them by their fruits? And he says, do men gather grapes
of thorns or figs of thistles? And that immediately tells us
what they're doing is they're turning you away from Christ
to the flesh, which is cursed. Just like the dust, which is
cursed to bring forth thorns and thistles to Adam, that by
his labor, by the sweat of his brow, he would now bring forth
fruit. The same thing, if we turn a
sinner to their flesh, to the law, to try and work a righteousness,
to try and keep themselves holy and do that which God commands,
we're turning them to look for grapes and figs among thorns
and thistles, because all this flesh can produce, it's dust,
all it can produce is thorns and thistles. We're not going
to be able to bring forth anything that is good, so Christ says
you'll know them by their fruits. They're turning you to your own
flesh and not turning you to Christ. If they were my prophets,
they would speak of me and they would glorify me and show that
I have done all things necessary for your salvation. They would
point you to Christ. Even so, he said, every good
tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth
evil fruit. This flesh can never be improved. It's wicked. It's corrupt. It's
evil. It's in darkness. It can't be
improved so that it can never bring forth that which is pleasing
to God. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. So it's got to be by His Spirit,
the seed of Christ. This flesh is the seed of Adam,
which is corrupt and disobedient and rebellious against God. That
which Christ has created in us is His Spirit. It's incorruptible. It does not sin. And that's where
the fruit is born to God, to glorify Him. It's born of Him,
of His Spirit, and speaks of Him. A good tree, which is created
of Christ, cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit. So this flesh will never bring
forth those things that are pleasing to God. We walk by the Spirit of Christ
so that we see the lusts of this flesh. We see those things that
are not profitable and not convenient and don't glorify Christ and
we don't want to. But we don't walk according to
those things because we don't look to the law to understand
how to walk before Christ. we look to Christ to understand
how to walk according to his word and we trust him that he's
done all things and so that he delivers us from the corruption
of the flesh in that he shows us, not by the law of Moses,
but he shows us that these things aren't profitable, they're not
helping anybody, they don't lead to peace and comfort and joy. And so he, by the spirit, turns
us from these things that lead to death and are corruption.
It's a work by his spirit. And Christ also said, many false
prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. So don't be surprised
when you see all these different denominations and all these different
teachers and all these different religions out there in the world.
There's no surprise about it, because Christ said that these
things should be, that they would come about. People who don't
believe, people who do reject Christ and don't trust in Christ,
they often use that as an excuse. They look at the different denominations
and they look at the different religions and they use that as
an excuse. But Christ himself and his apostles
all told us beforehand that these things would be. So don't use
that as an excuse for your unbelief. Now Peter says, but there were
false prophets also among the people. And he's saying even
before Christ came and before the apostles, there were false
teachers already among the people. If you turn over to Jeremiah,
Jeremiah 23. We read 23, 16 and 17. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto
you. They make you vain. They speak
a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord.
They say still unto them that They say still unto them that
despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace. And they
say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his
own heart, No evil shall come upon you. So they're lying. They're
telling them things that the flesh wants to hear. often go
into religion because they want to be comforted. They're troubled
because they understand, they have a certain understanding
and a certain knowledge about their sin and that they have
no no fellowship with God, and they want to establish that peace
and that fellowship with God. And so they'll sit under those
people that will comfort them, but they're lies. They're just
telling them, don't fear, don't be afraid, God loves you, God
loves everybody. And they tell them things that
comfort them in the immediate near term, but then they go away
and their conscience is troubled again and there is no peace and
there's no reconciliation because What are they trusting in? They're
either trusting in something they've done or they're just
trusting what the guy said up there in the pulpit. And there's
no substance to it because we need, God is holy and God is
just and he shall punish iniquity. And either we pay for that iniquity
ourselves, we pay that debt off ourselves, which will never be
paid off, or we need another to pay that debt off. And that's
why Christ was sent, to bear the burden for his people, to
pay their sin debt. And the price that he paid was
his own blood. He paid for the life of his people
by dying, by laying down himself, by being the lamb slain, the
sacrifice which God has provided for his people to put away their
sin and iniquity. Now next, notice in verse one,
he goes on to show that what they speak leads away from the
true and living God. They don't look to Christ, they
don't look to the one who is the very righteousness of God,
and they look to their own works. And so, in doing that, they call
God a liar, and they're not submitting to the salvation, to the provision
that is provided in Christ. He says, But there were false
prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false
teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies,
even denying the Lord that bought them. Now he's not speaking of
the price of blood that Christ shed for his people. He's not
speaking, he's not saying that these people had their sins paid
for by the Lord Jesus Christ and now they're turning away
or falling away from Christ. But he's speaking of it in a
providential sense, in the sense that God kindness has called
them out of darkness. They've come out from under lies
and false teachings and they're sitting there and hearing even
the very teachings that the Apostles themselves were preaching and
teaching. So they were hearing the gospel
and in a providential sense that was, it seemed anyway, it seemed
to be a blessing to them because he says to them, that there will
be false teachers among you. They'll be among you. So they're
hearing those same things that the brethren are hearing, but
they're not hearing it in the same way. They're not hearing
it by the Spirit. They're hearing it, but they're
not hearing it with the ear of faith. They're hearing it only
in their flesh. And then their ideas and their
corrupt heart are entering in and they're taking those words
and they start twisting them to their own end, to their own
means of how they want to hear them and how they think it should
go. It's the imagination of their
own heart. And they begin to twist these and have these ideas
about how God receives sinners, about how a person obtains a
merit with God or creates a hope in themselves to have peace with
God. And they do all these things.
But if you look at Deuteronomy 32, Deuteronomy 32, in verses
1 through 4, this is where Peter is he's he's he's he's he's he's
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he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's
he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's
he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's
he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's
he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's
he And then he says in verse 2, my doctrine, my teachings
which come from the Lord, my doctrine shall drop as the rain,
my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the
tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass, because I will
publish the name of the Lord, ascribe ye great Ascribe ye greatness
unto our God. So Moses isn't speaking of himself,
and he's not exalting and lifting up the flesh and glorifying the
flesh. He's saying, I'm going to speak
of the praise and the glory of God, who alone provides salvation
for his people. And he says in verse four, he's
the rock. His work is perfect for all his ways are judgment,
a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. And this
rock is Christ who is the covering, Christ who is the protection
for his people. We flee to Christ, we hide ourselves
in Christ because that's why God has provided his son to be
the means of forgiveness for his people where they go to be
delivered from the coming Wrath of God upon the workers of iniquity. And listen to John 12, 49 and
50. Stay there in Deuteronomy. He
says, for I have not spoken of myself, this is Christ speaking,
but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what
I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment
is life everlasting. Whatsoever I speak therefore,
even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. So by his perfection and his
truth, he reveals, Christ reveals to us, in seeing Christ and beholding
him, what's shown to us is that we can't work a righteousness
by our own flesh, by our own works that we try to do to please
God. We're to look to Christ, who
alone is the very righteousness which God has provided. And the
Lord's going to judge men because they love their own unrighteous
deeds. They love to do those things
whereby they work a righteousness for themselves, whereby they
feel secure and comforted by the fruits that they're producing,
not seeing that they're glorifying and rejoicing in themselves and
their own works, and not glorifying and rejoicing in Christ, who
is the salvation and the righteousness of His people. And so, back in
Deuteronomy 32, verses 5 and 6, Moses declares, he says, they
have corrupted themselves. Their spot is not the spot of
his children. They are a perverse and crooked
generation. And this speaks of what we'll
get to eventually, not today, but in 2 Peter 2.13, he says,
spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their
own deceivings while they feast with you. Listen, Deuteronomy
32.6, do ye thus require the Lord of foolish people and unwise?
Is not he thy father that hath bought thee, hath he not made
thee and established thee?" So Peter's calling them to remembrance
of what Moses had taught them and what Moses had warned them
about, that there were people there among the people that are
liars and deceivers and false prophets and don't declare Christ.
They don't speak of what God has done. They don't speak of
the true righteousness of God. And they teach instead that there's
things that we can do that please God. And that there's something
that we can do to work a righteousness to please God. And that's not
at all what we see in the scriptures. We see the Lord Jesus Christ,
that he himself is the very righteousness of God. And seeing Christ, it
reveals to us that there's nothing that we can do. Because if there
was a law given that could have created righteousness, then Christ
wouldn't have come. But the very fact that he's here
shows us that there's nothing that we can do to earn favor
and earn a merit and forgiveness with God who is holy and righteous. So false teachers, they deny
that Christ has come in the flesh. In 1 John 4, verses 1 through
3, he says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the
spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets
are gone out into the world, Hereby know ye the Spirit of
God. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every
spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist,
whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already
is in the world." So that the very fact that what he's saying
because everybody thinks well doesn't everybody believe that
Jesus Christ came in the flesh don't don't they all say that
but no they don't and what what what we're confessing when we
say that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh we're saying we're
so wicked and so vile and so incapable of saving ourselves
that it took the Son of God to leave his throne of glory to
take upon him likeness of the sinful flesh yet he was perfect
and spotless and holy and did all the will of God so perfectly
to fulfill all righteousness for his people that he should
fulfill the law of Moses and all that the Prophet said concerning
him so that he is a fit and a perfect sacrifice he is the Lamb of God
slain from the foundation of the world for our His people
and that's what we're confessing. We're confessing. I can't save
myself Lord. You've provided the salvation
in your son and that's why it says in John 333 he that hath
received his testimony this testimony that I'm a sinner and Christ
is lovely and perfect and holy and redeems his people to God
the Father and We set to our seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh
the words of God, for God giveth not the spirit by measure unto
him." That's speaking of Christ. He's the prophet of God. He's
the one who shows us the way and teaches us what we need to
know about ourselves, that we have no hope in ourselves, and
that he is the very provision of God. He is the very salvation
sent of God for his people. And he says, the Father loveth
the Son and hath given all things into his hand. And that's what
he sends his ministers forth to come and preach and to declare
to the people that there's nothing you can do. But don't fear. Don't
be afraid. Look to the Son. Look to the
Savior who's been provided to put away your sin. And he that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
because he's still trusting in his own works, he's still refusing
to hear what God has said concerning his sinful nature and his sinful
works, and he's still trusting in himself rather than trusting
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So these false teachers, they
lead men away privily. They do it very subtly. They
might initially slide the sheep food in front of you and lure
you in with Christ. But as soon as you get in there,
they take away the sheep food and they slide in the goat food
and start preaching works and preaching the law to you to say,
well, now you've got to be careful to not do this. and not do that
and you gotta start saying this and and stop saying that and
so they switch it all around so that now you're you're you're
you're no longer looking to christ and resting in him you're looking
back to the law of moses and back to your work so what you
need to you know start doing what you need to stop doing touch
not taste not handle not all these things which are to be
to perish with with with this world and so He delivers us from
that. It's not that we're without law
to God. We're not lawless people, but
it's not the law of Moses. It's the law of liberty. It's
the law of life. It's the law of love created in the heart
by the Lord Jesus Christ so that we desire Him and we love Him
and we want to walk in a manner that's pleasing to Him. But it
doesn't come by looking at the law. That's to look to the flesh. That's to beat the flesh. and
to look to try and earn a righteousness and earn a favor with the Lord. So He delivers us from all that. All right, well, we're running
out of time, but as Paul said, you know, Paul warned the people,
he said, I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. So we're resting in Christ, we're
looking to him and False prophets, false teachers are those who
point you back to your own flesh to try and reconcile yourself
back to God and to make peace with him. So I pray the Lord
will bless your hearts and my heart to keep looking to the
Lord Jesus Christ. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for that you sent your son, Jesus
Christ. And Lord, we pray that you would
send your spirit to help us to look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
to not look to our own works, to not look to the law of Moses,
to not look to our own ability to study and to look at the dead
letter of things, Lord, but help us to see the spirit of your
word which points and testifies and glorifies the Lord Jesus
Christ, that you would make him our only hope, our joy and our
peace, that we may stand before you unashamed. We pray this in
Jesus' name, our Lord and Savior. Amen.