Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our
Father, we've gathered here once again on this beautiful day that
you've given us. We've gathered here to worship
you in spirit and in truth. to be taught by our father. We pray that you would make thy
presence known among us this morning. I pray that you would enable
me to rightly divide the word of truth, to give unto thee the
glory due unto thy name. And our father, we've gathered
here as thy family, to sing your praises, and to thank you, to
thank our Heavenly Father for all the blessings we have,
and especially for saving our souls in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for Him, the greatest
gift. Enable us to grow in grace and
in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to be all out committed
to him. Help us, Lord, help us this morning. We need that help. Christ's name
we pray, amen. Now after Peter in the first
chapter had said that he was going to continually Keep them
in remembrance of the things that he had taught them. Keep
them in remembrance of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is our hope. Christ is our hope. Our faith
is not our hope. Christ is our hope. And he, Peter
says, I'm going to keep you in remembrance of this, but there's
something else he points out to the church and to us, to the
church throughout all ages. And that's the presence of false
prophets, false preachers. He tells us, you will always
have them. They will always be present. Wherever there is a
true gospel preacher, there will be many, many false preachers. And some of them will come very
close to the truth. Scripture says if it were possible, they
would deceive the very elect of God. If it were possible,
if God allowed it, you and I'd be deceived. We'd fall for it. And we need to keep that in mind.
We need to keep in mind that the reason we don't fall or false
doctrine and follow false prophets is by the grace of God because
He keeps us. We are kept, it says, by the
power of God through faith, through believing, believing the Lord
Jesus Christ and believing on Him. And this chapter contains
a description of these false prophets. You know, they have
their fruit, and the Lord said, you'll know them by their fruits,
by their converts. You'll know what they're preaching. You'll know who's getting the
glory, whether it be man or whether it be God. It's who gets the
glory at the end of the message. It's who's getting the glory,
either God, the Lord Jesus Christ, or man's getting the glory, one
way or the other. And he says, you're gonna know
them by the doctrines, the teachings that they bring. And here's another
mark. You'll know them by their covetousness.
They're very covetous, greedy. Paul called them one place, greedy
dogs. They're greedy, covetous. And you'll know this by their
means, their methods and the end of what they're after. Now,
there's nothing new here. But Peter's writing to them and
to us is nothing new. Because he says in verse one,
but there were false prophets also among the people among God's
people. There were false prophets. Even
as there shall be false teachers among you. There will always
be some false teacher. I've seen this over the years.
I've seen him rise up. I've seen him, you know, when
I was at 13th Street growing up under Henry, I've seen him
come and go. They're going to be among you,
who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord
that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
And many shall follow their pernicious ways." You know, anybody can
get a following. Jim Jones can get a following.
He can get you to drink the Kool-Aid. That's true. Anybody can get
a following. I thought this morning as I was
going over this, the ministry is, I guess it's the only thing
that I know of where any jackleg can come along and say, God called
me to preach. I'm a preacher. God's called me. That doesn't
mean, just because you said God, a man told me that one time.
He said, God called me to preach. And I said to him, no, he didn't.
Because I knew the gospel he believed was not the gospel.
God's not calling a man to preach under a false gospel. And he
was offended by it, but I told him the truth. God did not call
you to preach. God doesn't call false preachers
and teachers, and he doesn't do that. But many shall follow
their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall
be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall
they with vain, fictitious words make merchandise of you, your
merchandise, whose judgment now of a long time lingers not and
their damnation slumbers not. Judgment's coming, it's coming,
but he tells us here there are false teachers and preachers
in the true church. There's tares among the wee.
In every congregation where there is a true church, there are tares
among the wee. That's sobering, isn't it? You know, when the
Lord said to the disciples, his disciples, you know what he said?
He said, one of you are going to deny me. Not one of them said, well, not
me. You know, every one of them said, is it I? You know, every
time we read the scriptures, we ought to apply it to ourselves
first. Let's not apply it to somebody else first. Let's take
a serious look at it in relationship to ourselves first. Is it I? I don't want to deny the Lord. I don't want to do that. But
there'll always be false prophets, false preachers, false teachers,
tares among the weak, goats among the sheep. In any congregation,
it'll happen. Sooner or later, it'll happen.
And these false teachers, they're going to come in with their own
teaching, their own system of theology. their own take on the Word of
God. I'm not giving you my take on
the Word of God. I sure hope I'm not. And you
better hope I'm not. And you pray that I don't. I
pray that I don't. This is not our take on the Word
of God. And I've had somebody, I've had it said to me, well,
this is how you interpret it. No, I don't. This is how the Word
of God is interpreted. The Word of God, as I told you
last week from this chapter one, Scripture interprets Scripture.
You cannot build a doctrine on one Scripture. Scripture interprets Scripture.
So if we're going to talk about any doctrine, Let's have at least
two or three scriptures to back it up. At least two or three. If not, leave it alone. But they
bring in their own damnable doctrine, their own heresy. And they're
contrary to the Word of God, even, he says here, even denying
the Lord that bought them. Now that's to an untrained, untaught,
to an untaught person, spiritually. It sounds like that those who
have been saved can be lost again. But here's what it is. Here's
what this is saying. Even denying the person and work
of Christ whom they claim has saved them. As I told you before, I had a
man tell me once a pastor of a church. He was the pastor.
I was where I was going. He said the Lord died for Judas. as well as Peter. That's denying
the Lord, he claims, has bought him. He claims that his sins
paid for by the blood of Christ, but he also claims that Judas'
sins were paid for by the blood of Christ. That can't be. You
see how foolish that is? And yet many of them, I was the
only one that left there when I heard Henry. The rest of them,
they swallowed that hook, line, and sinker. They just said, yeah,
amen. They said amen to that. That's
not so. That's a lie. That's damnable doctrine. That's
heresy. Jesus Christ didn't die and put
away the sins of anyone that winds up in hell. That's the
truth. Truth is hard on its flesh, isn't
it? It's not hard on you and you and I who believe. It's not
hard on us. We love the truth. But truth
is very hard on this flesh. especially when it comes to religion.
You know, you could tell a drunk, he's nothing but a drunk, and
most of them go, well, that's obvious. But you tell a religious
man, you're wrong. You got a fight on your hands.
You're lying on God. You got a fight on your hands.
It makes him angry, but they bring in this damnable doctrine,
this heresy. And it doesn't have to be a complete
180 degree turn. It can be very close. I was watching a man for just
a short while. I didn't want to listen too much
of his foolishness. And he says, why I'm not a Calvinist
anymore. Well, and he went through, I'm
not going to get into it, but he went through this whole list
of things. And I thought, you're just so blind. The very things
you're talking about are the very truths of the scriptures
you're denying. You don't realize you're denying.
And then you got those who are four-point capitalists. They
deny particular redemption. You see, it's just a little twist.
They can't stand the fact that God Almighty is sovereign and
God Almighty saves whom He will. Because if it didn't, no one
will be saved. You will not come to me that
you might have life. You'll not have anything to do
with me. Christ let another come in his
name, in him you'll receive. I don't care how foolish it is,
you'll receive him. But when Christ came in his name,
told the truth. He was despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He came
into the world and the world knew him not. He came to his
own and his own received him not. They turned thumbs down
on him. They said, you're not, we'll not have this man reign
over us. It's only by grace that we can say, Lord reign over us.
It's only by grace that you and I have bowed to the Lordship
of Jesus Christ. It's only by grace. But they
bring in this damnable doctrine. Here's how you can tell the difference
between God's preacher and false preacher. God's preacher will
always give Christ his glory and redemption. He'll always
give Christ his glory, the glory that belongs only to him in redemption. If this is true, if this is true,
Christ has done all that he can do. Now the rest of it is up
to you. Where's the final glory in that?
It rests on you. You get it. You get it. But for someone to say that,
they don't know who Jesus Christ is. And they don't understand
that by saying that, how foolish they make God look. That God
would take his son, and draw out his sword of justice and
execute justice on him, and then leave the final result into your
hands. By nature, we have a natural
enmity in our minds. We absolutely hate God by nature. We hate him by nature. That's
why they crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. They crucified him because
they hated him without a cause. They despised him. He's despised
and rejected. He wasn't just rejected. You
know, you can reject something and not despise it. But they
despised him and rejected him. God's preacher always give Jesus
Christ his redemptive glory and false preachers don't. They don't. They leave the end result in
your hands. Here's how we try the preaching of the gospel.
Those who stand to preach. We try them concerning the person
of Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? Whom say
ye that I am? Who is he? He is first, first
and foremost, the Son of God. He is the Son of God. He is God
manifest in the flesh. And then we try them by this.
Is he sovereign? Does he have the right to save
whom he will and leave them alone? Or does he not have the right?
Who has the right? Who has the final say-so in your salvation
and mine? Who has it? Him. And you'll not worship Him until
you realize that. He is not worshipped until He's
worshipped sitting on the throne. That's when we finally worship
Him, when we bow to the Sovereign Christ of God. No man knows the
Son but the Father, and no man knows the Father save the Son
and He. To whomsoever the Son will reveal
Him. That's sovereignty. That's sovereignty. Our Lord is sovereign. Then what
about His suretyship? If He's my surety, you know what
that means? He's responsible to bring me
home. That's comforting to me. But
he's responsible to bring me home. I'm not responsible for
myself. And that's not throwing off responsibility
either. That's not shirking responsibility.
But I do know this, that to be presented spotless and without
blame before God Almighty, that's on his shoulders, not mine. Because
I can't do it. I cannot do it. I can't do anything
without sinning. I can't even pray without sinning.
I can't even preach without sinning. There's something, you know,
because we have a nature of sin in us. We have that nature of sin. He's
our surety. He's our righteousness. You see,
salvation is not a cooperative effort between me and Jesus Christ.
It's all on Him. It's all on Him. You know, there
is a sense, there is a real sense from the Word of God, where God
deals with the whole human race in two men. The first Adam, one
God created in the garden. The second Adam, which is the
Lord from heaven. They are the two, what we call federal heads. Adam is the federal head of the
human race. God made him king of the human
race, and he failed. Jesus Christ is the federal head
of the whole elect of God. I call him the heavenly race.
He's the federal head. And in a sense, the whole of
salvation FALLS ON THE SHOULDERS OF GOD DEALING WITH THE HUMAN
RACE, FALLS ON THE SHOULDERS OF THOSE TWO MEN. FIRST ADAM
AND SECOND ADAM. YOU FIND THAT IN ROMANS. YOU
FIND THAT IN THE BOOK OF ROMANS. THAT CAN BE ESTABLISHED BY THE
WORD OF GOD. AND THEN ABOUT HOW THEY HANDLE THE INTERCESSORY
WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. HE INTERCEDES FOR HIS PEOPLE.
I pray not. Now, this is tough. It's true,
but it's tough on his flesh. I pray not for the world. I do
not pray for the world. You say, that's hard. Well, the
world doesn't want anything to do with him. You know, it says,
Jacob, have I loved Esau? Have I hated? But we don't ever
hear anybody say anything about how much Esau hated God. He's all hated God. He sold his
birthright. It meant nothing to him. That birthright meant
nothing. But our Lord intercedes. He intercedes
for a multitude of sinners that were given to him by the Father.
I pray for them. I pray for them that thou hast
given me. This is the truth. It's the truth. And then it's how they handle
his second coming. Is he coming again? You know,
all I hear, I hear more of the rapture of the church. People
wanna talk about the rapture of the church, the rapture of
the church. I saw something the other day and they was talking
about all this stuff, planes crashing and trains crashing
and all these things that were gonna go on when the church was
raptured as if it was, there was only eight on the ark when
God flooded the world. You think that would have been
noticed? You think anybody would notice eight people gone? out
of a world of a billion people, say. You think they'd notice
that? When God burnt down Sodom and Gomorrah, when God burnt
them down, how many people were delivered out of there? A lot.
How many people were said to be righteous? A lot. I know his
two daughters went out with him, but it's just a lot that is spoken
of as righteous. You think anybody noticed that?
You think anybody noticed a lot was missing the day that God
rained fire down from heaven? They act like there's going to
be this great catastrophe going on and three or four people left
on earth. It's going to be the other way around. Let's go on down through here. And I tell you this about false
preachers. In one way or another, if you listen to their message,
one way or another, they will diminish the person and work
of Jesus Christ. They'll diminish it. Just listen. Now, if there's anything that
you ought to listen to intently is when someone's preaching.
If you're going to listen to a sermon, listen to it intently.
Don't just don't halfway listen to it. Because the glory of God's
either in that message or there's a lie in it or there's a poison
in the soup. And they're known by their deceptive
ways. It says they come in privately.
Privately. They slip in. They slip in. And they try to work their own
agenda. And they slip in with vain words,
words of their own Making they're very cunning Satan was wasn't
he well Satan came into that garden You noticed you notice
the absence of something when Satan came in and he took over
that serpent he possessed that serpent and he's talking to Eve
and You notice the one thing that seems to be missing She's
not afraid of that serpent talking to her I If a snake started talking to
me, or whatever that was, if any animal started talking to
me, I mean, if any animal, if Gus starts talking to me, I'm
leaving. Or if Gus is leaving, one of
us is leaving. But she wasn't afraid. She wasn't afraid. He just slipped
in there and, hey, Eve, As God said, and she started talking
to that serpent. I mean, there's a great mystery
there. And one of the reasons why she's
not afraid, there was no sin yet. Sin's what makes us afraid. It wasn't until Adam fell, he
said, I heard your voice and I was afraid. I was afraid. But they come in secretly. They are deceptive. But listen
here, their judgment, their judgment is coming. And in verse four
through six, I'll hurry through this. Verse four through six,
we are given the example of God's judgment against such men, such
heresy. And he starts with the highest
level. For if God spared not the angels
that sinned, He starts with the angels that sin, which are on
a higher level than we are right now, or were, these were, but
He cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of
darkness. They are under this shroud. They are kept in darkness. You know, that's the way every
sinner is before God saves them. You're under chains of darkness.
You start questioning the Word of God, but this one says this,
and like someone said to me, why do you think you're right
and everybody else is wrong? I think God's right. That's what I think. But they put these question marks
over God's Word. It's because you're shrouded
in a chains of darkness, and God has to break those chains.
God has to give light, which is exactly what the next message
is. Christ said, I'm the light. I'm the light of the world. This
is how you and I are broken out of these chains of darkness and
set free. It's by Christ and the light.
They're in chains and reserved unto judgment. You know when the Lord would
cast out devils in the gospels, some of them said, have you come
to torment us before the time? They know the time's coming.
You know, it says that Satan knows his time's short. He knows
it's short. And He spared not the old world,
but you notice it's like there's two different worlds, the world
that is now and the world that was before the flood. God spared
not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher
of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the
ungodly. God's judgment against heresy, against idolatry, against
falsehood is illustrated in these verses. He says the angels, those
you know, one time they were holy and pure. You know, one
time these angels were were just like the angels who have not
fallen. They were just like they were
right there with them. And they fail. They fail. One by one, I think they fail.
I don't think they didn't fall by representative. They fell
one by one. And the ones that did not fall
are called what? The elect angels. The elect angels. That's why
they didn't fall. And then he spared not the world
of the ungodly. In Noah's day, he brought upon
them a flood. They drowned. God drowned this
world one time. And then he turned the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes. What's he saying here? He's giving
us examples of God's judgment against sin, against heresy,
against false doctrine, against idolatry. God will judge. Judgment, listen, judgment is
coming. It's coming. THERE WILL BE A
DAY WHEN THIS WORLD IS DISSOLVED, THIS EARTH WILL BE DISSOLVED
BY FIRE. IT'S RESERVED UNTIL THE DAY OF
JUDGEMENT IS GOING TO BE BURNT UP. THAT'S THE TRUTH. I BET YOU WHEN NOAH SAID A FLOOD
IS COMING, A FLOOD IS COMING, THEY'RE LIKE WHAT AN IDIOT. WHAT
IS A FLOOD? THEY'VE NEVER SEEN A FLOOD. THE
MIST CAME UP FROM THE GROUND. they it was just they when they
heard noah a preacher of righteousness he's over building an ark they're
like he's saying floods coming and then one day it came you
know they can't you know the old testament says someone's
coming someone's coming speaking of the lord jesus christ and
you know one day he came He's coming again, and one day He'll
come. He'll be here. He'll come and
get His own. These are examples of God's wrath
against sin, but then God also gives us, at the same time, His
mercy. It's mercy. It says over in Romans
that God shall reveal from heaven two things, His mercy and His
wrath. Over there in Romans, I believe
it's chapter 1. But he says in verse seven through
nine, and he delivered just lot. He didn't burn that city up until
he took a lot out of there. They didn't realize all those
homosexuals in that town didn't realize that the only reason
that town was there was not because of their freedom. It's because
God had an elects. He had a child in that city.
And that's the only reason that city kept standing. They thought
they was getting to express their freedom like this country now.
They think they get to express their freedom now. That's not
an expression of freedom. Is that really the simmering
of judgment? When you see any people or country turned over
to perversion, that's judgment. That's not freedom. That's judgment. That's just as one man said,
that's the simmering of judgment. But he delivered just lie, vexed
with the filthy conversation of the wicked, vexed with their
lifestyle. For that righteous man dwelling
among them, you know he's righteous. You know why he calls him righteous?
Because he's righteous in Christ. We don't ever read anything of
him doing anything righteous. He took his family to a place
of debauchery. He took his family from the place
of worship there when he was with Abraham to a place where
there was no worship. He moved to a place where there
was just nothing but out-wickedness. He moved his family there. He
even lost his wife over it. Whenever he left, she looked
back. She looked back at that city. It wasn't the fact that
she just looked back just to see how it was burning. She looked back from her heart.
Her heart was there. Her heart was inside of her.
Her heart was just grieved that she had to leave that place.
Her friends were there. I mean, everything she loved was inside
of her. But God delivered the righteous
lot. for Christ's sake. Lot was delivered for Christ's
sake. The reason you and I are forgiven,
we're forgiven for Christ's sake, for his sake. He says in verse nine, the Lord
knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations. He knows
how to deliver them out of trials, trouble that's coming. We see
all this going on over in Israel right now. Who knows, seriously,
who knows what this might escalate into. Sooner or later, the end
has to come. I'd just soon be sooner than
later. To put away all this debauchery and sin and wickedness and hatred
of God. That's the world. That's the
world. But God knows how to keep His
people. He knows how to deliver them.
And He also knows how to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment
to be punished. He knows how to keep them. Sobering, isn't it? That's sobering. But we need these warnings. You
know, I know how we love the promises. And I like preaching
the promises. But we can't ignore the warnings.
You know, if the bridge is out, I need to tell you. Would you
be glad if someone told you the bridge is out? Instead of letting
you just go right on down the road and go over into the river? The Lord knows how to deliver
those who fear Him and worship Him. He knows how to deliver
them. He gave us examples, Noah and
Lot. How many examples does He have
to give us? He gives us two. These are what you call two witnesses,
the witness of two or three. Let everything be established
by the witness of two or three people. Well, here's Noah and
Lot. There's two. We can go on with others. But
our God, listen, our God has a chosen people. They're sinners.
I have good news for sinners. I don't have good news for anybody
else, but I do for sinners. I do for the ungodly. Christ
died for sinners. He died for sinners. Christ has
redeemed sinners and he'll keep them. He'll keep them from falling,
apostatizing. He'll keep them, but he'll reserve,
he'll reserve these, these, uh, false teachers and preachers
Come along, take advantage of the people, take advantage of
people's spiritual ignorance and spiritual darkness. You know
when, and I've seen this, you've seen this, you take someone that
has lived, just lived without Christ their life, lived ungodly,
without faith, and they come up to die. They grab hold of
anything. They will grab hold of anything.
Just let somebody go in and tell them if they'll do this or that,
God will save them and they'll do it. They'll do it. Get all
fixed up. That doesn't fix you up. Someone
said this. There was, let me see if I can
get it right. There was one thief Saved on
a cross, there was one thief lest we despair, but only one
lest we presume. Sobering lesson, what Peter's
writing about. All right.