2 Peter 2, and we'll read from
verse 1. But there were false prophets
also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
among you. who privilege 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, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken
of. 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. For if God spared not the angels
that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into
chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, and 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, And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes,
condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto
those that after should live ungodly. And delivered just lot,
vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. for that righteous
man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous
soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
short reading from his word. As the people of God, as worshippers
of the Lord Jesus Christ, Let us always endeavour to be quick,
to turn our minds, to redirect our thoughts to the Lord Jesus
Christ in every aspect and circumstance of our life. Something happens. whether it's
in the workplace, whether it's in the home, whether it's in
our families, whether it's to do with our relationships, whether
it's to do with our schoolwork or whatever it might be. And
suddenly we find our minds distracted, we find our concentration drawn
so often into the immediacy of the challenge that is before
us. but let us not be too long, too delayed in whatever our challenge
is to remind ourselves that the Lord Jesus Christ has this in
hand, that the Lord Jesus Christ knows what he is doing, that
we might wisely read the challenges that we face in life that we
might be able to discern the signs of the times and the events
that are going on around about us in this world. that we might
understand those events in the light of the fact that God's
words and God's ways and God's works are being fulfilled in
this day and will glorify his name. I've mentioned it before,
I have a friend who says, we know what men are doing. The
question is, what's God doing? And that's what we always have
to be thinking about. What is the Lord showing us in
this moment? What is the Lord teaching us
in this day? What is the Lord doing amongst
us as we see the unfolding of his providences, whether that's
personally, whether that's congregationally, or whether that is in the wider
world around about us. Let us be the people who by the
grace of God can say to every incident, I shall interpret you in the
context of Christ's love towards me. To be able to say to every
fear, I shall view you in the light of Christ's promised presence
with me. To be able to say to every doubt,
I shall test and examine you against Christ's faithfulness. And be able to say to every disappointment,
I shall arise and stand upon my feet, for though I see it
not now, there is wisdom and purpose and glory in this disappointment
for me. And may that confidence, our
confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, though it be tried and
tested, prove to be dependable and faithful. And may he enable
us thereby to daily discover his closeness in the face of
our challenges and the hardships of this day. For as he says to
us through Hebrews 13 five, I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. Now why am I saying this to us
this morning? Why am I opening up our thoughts
by endeavouring to take our minds to such matters? Well, for this
reason. I believe that the elect of God
I believe that the people of God, the true church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, those who are regenerated by the power of God the Holy
Spirit and brought into the experience of the grace of God through the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, are the most
blessed people on the face of this earth. If you're a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, you are amongst the most blessed people on the
face of this earth. But you're also amongst the most
tried. I believe that you are the most
wise in spiritual understanding. Of all the people in this world,
with all of their religion, with all of their spirituality, you
are the most wise in spiritual things. And you are the most targeted
in spiritual conflict. I believe that you are the most
secure in the Lord Jesus Christ. and the most prone to wander
from God. The Lord Jesus Christ has personally
warned his church and people. False Christs and false prophets
shall rise and shall show signs and wonders to seduce if it were
possible even the elect. Such is the potency of the seduction
that the evil one is able to foist upon our society that every
single person would be deceived. Accept that it isn't possible. for the elect to be deceived. Not because of our smartness
or our wisdom, not because of our insights or understanding,
because the Lord Jesus Christ preserves us. And so the Lord
warns his people that this is what is going to happen, false
Christs, false prophets. And that is what Peter is doing
in this second chapter, in the opening verses of the second
chapter. He has written to the believers
this epistle, and he has spoken about the preciousness of the
possessions that we have. He has spoken about precious
faith. He has spoken about precious promises. He's spoken about the
knowledge that we have of the Lord Jesus Christ and the way
in which God gives good gifts to his people by which we are
enabled to reflect the fact that we are under new management. that we live a life that is dedicated
to the glory of God, yet in the midst of a world which is hell-bent
on shaking its fist in God's face. And Peter is warning the
people that despite all the blessings that they have, despite all the
good that has been shown to them, yet they will be troubled. They
will have difficult times and those difficult times are going
to be in the church. Sometimes talk about the church
as if it's some sort of great big worldwide recognized group. This is the church. This is the
church. And Peter is telling us that
if we are the Lord's people, though we dwell upon these great
foundational truths, these great principles, yet we will be troubled. And Peter is warning the elect
here of the inevitability of false teachers coming amongst
us. He says, as there were false
prophets amongst the Jews, so there will be false teachers
in the church. Prophets were the men in days
gone by in the Old Testament times that brought the Word of
God from God to the people. They had a special anointing. They were set apart. But like
these vagabond Jews that we read a little bit about earlier, that
didn't stop people amongst the Jews in days gone by from putting
themselves forward as reputable, venerable, trustworthy, prophetic
spokesmen for God. And while prophets were the people
of a bygone day, so teachers are that people for today. And
what does that tell us? Simply this, that Satan will
use whatever means God uses in order to replicate and frustrate
the preaching of the word of God. He'll counterfeit. faithful ministry
in order to slip in a lie. He'll imitate a faithful preacher
in order to confuse the congregation. He will exploit the fact that
we are in our humanity prone to have likes and dislikes. and rather than simply seek the
word of God to say, well, we prefer this or we prefer that.
And Satan exploits division in order to fulfil his own purposes
and undermine the church of Jesus Christ. And Peter's warning the
believers that this is the case. And he says, the effect of the
coming of these false teachers into the midst of the church
is that many, see that word in there? That word frightens me. Many shall follow their pernicious
ways that lead to destruction. Many shall follow. The way of
truth, the gospel, will be maligned by these people. It will be misrepresented
by them. Good will be evil spoken of. And the elect will be exploited
for the gain of these people. And these false teachers will
enrich themselves off of the backs of the sheep of God. and our precious faith will be
soiled, and our precious promises will be undermined, and our grace
will be tried by our flesh, our peace will be disturbed by the
confusion And these frequent warnings that
are given to the church by these apostles, sometimes it seems
towards the end of their lives, to my mind, expresses the increasing
fearfulness they had for the well-being of the people of God
as they drew close to the end of their own ministries. And it's frequent in all the
apostles' writings. Paul, James, John, Jude, they
all write of these things. Especially of the presence of
false teachers in the professing church of Jesus Christ. False
doctrine, lies that would be preached, but with such subtlety,
with such sweetness, with such eloquence, that they would not
be detected and discerned for what they truly were. What Peter is telling us here
is you need to be careful what you hear. You need to be careful
what you read. You need to be careful what you
watch. You need to be ready to test
those things that you are hearing by the word of God and by the
things that you have been taught. careful who you give allegiance
to, because our doctrine, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
is not negotiable. It's not truth that can be diluted
or that can be surrendered, but it must be maintained and it
must be upheld. So the Lord Jesus Christ himself
says in Matthew 7, 15, beware of false prophets, which come
to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. That just means that they look
plausible. They look good. They look as if they're fine,
but looks are deceiving. In Jude, the little book right
at the end of the Bible before the revelation of Jesus Christ,
we discover Luke also beginning his little epistle with a warning. He says, there are certain men
crept in unawares. who were before of old ordained
to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our
God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord
Jesus Christ. Their actions were subtle. They
crept in unawares. They grew up in the fellowship. They were part of what was going
on. They came in with such subtlety. that they were not discerned
for who and what they truly were. Now let us be aware that we are
not talking here about the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the regenerated people of God, because what the Lord tells us
is that the elect will not be deceived. So this is unbelievers,
this is people who have got a different agenda and yet for the sake of
their own agenda, they exploit the gospel, they exploit the
church, they exploit the word of God. And we distinguish between the
true church and the professing church. We distinguish between
those who talk the talk and those who walk the walk. There are
those who give out that they are alive, but they're dead. Who know the language of the
Bible, who know the language of Christianity, who know the
doctrines, and yet they have never had the experience of regeneration
in their souls. The church at Sardis was a prime
example of that. It had a name that it was alive,
but it was dead. The angel to the church, he said,
it's dead. And when we look at the experience
of the New Testament, and I grant it, it's only something like
50 years or so, the extent that the period of time from the Acts
of the Apostles, 50, 60, maybe 70 years. But when we look at
that period of time, there are multiple individuals identified
and named by the apostles who were troublesome to the church.
Simon the Sorcerer was one of them, Diotrephes was another,
Elimas, Hymenaeus, Philetus, Alexander the Coppersmith, All
the Judaizers that came around and tried to undermine the Apostle
Paul's ministry in Ephesus and Galatia and Thessalonica. People
that he had to write his letters to the churches defending his
doctrine and speaking against those false teachers. And even Judas himself. was a
false teacher because the disciples all taught and yet here was one
who was black in his heart and a betrayer of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Why is it that the Lord allows
such things to happen? Why is it that the Lord brings
such challenges in amongst his church, in amongst his people?
Very interesting verse in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 19. Here's what it
says. There must be also heresies among
you. There must be heresies among
you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. See, what we're talking about
here is the tares and the wheat growing together. We can't rip
one out because we'll end up doing damage to the other. But
we have to be aware that there is that element within the church
that is always going to be prone to heresy and we need to be ready
to defend against it. It is the doctrine of the church
that distinguishes between what is true and what is false. It is ultimately coming down
once again to this great principle that we began this general epistle
of Peter's talking about, the knowledge of God and the Lord
Jesus Christ. We have to have a knowledge of
God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, friends, we cannot be
believers in this world and coast on the coattails of somebody
else. We need to be people who have
a knowledge of God and the Lord Jesus Christ so that we will
not be deceived. We need to be people who understand
what the Lord Jesus Christ has done on the cross, why he came,
We need to know what the language, the vocabulary of the Bible is. We need to appreciate what atonement
means, what redemption accomplished, why propitiation is important. These are central, foundational. These are the very warp and woof
of our Christian understanding and it is these truths, this
knowledge that will protect us. as we have to contend with those
who come in with their damnable heresies. How do you know a false teacher?
That's what the apostle is here warning against. He says there,
Were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall
be false teachers among you also, who privilege shall bring in
damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and
bring upon themselves swift destruction. So how do you recognize a false
teacher? Well, the apostle gives us some
help here. He says, they're amongst you. They're amongst you, right? He's showing us where to look.
He's not talking here about Islam. He's not talking here about Mormonism. He's not talking about some esoteric
or obscure religious idea that we would just so obviously know
was wrong. He's talking about the Reformed
faith. He's talking about the fact that
these false teachers will profess the same kind of doctrines that
we profess, have gone to the same kind of colleges, read the
same kind of theology books, and they will be able to speak
the language. They will be from amongst us.
Here's another way in which they can be discerned. They're as
subtle as serpents. You can't quite get a hold of
them. They wriggle a lot. They're not
clear and emphatic about what they're saying. Or if you hold
them to account on one particular thing, they're like our politicians. They know how to spin an argument. Deceitful as the devil. That's
what the word privily means, they're sly. And, he says, they preach damnable
heresies. They preach heresies that lead
to damnation. That means that they challenge
the central truths of the gospel. And we're given multiple expressions
about how this might be, but ultimately they're denying the
Lord Jesus Christ. They're denying the efficacy
of the death and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now they
might subvert his humanity. by making some sort of claims
about the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world
and what he suffered, what he endured, what his body was like,
what he felt. Or they might challenge his divinity.
And they may say, well, yes, we believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but we believe that he was a created being. Or have
some form of words which, over a period of time, will start
to undermine the true identity of Jesus Christ. They may doubt
His eternality. They may doubt His power. They
may doubt His ultimate success on the cross. They may cast aspersions on the
completeness, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, or
in the sufficiency of His blood, or the efficacy of His sacrifice. They may suggest that more is
needed in order to truly enter into the knowledge of God and
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and to be possessors of the righteousness
of God. Peter is saying that's how these
people will be identified because they are undermining the work
of Jesus Christ. And that's what Peter means when
he says, they are denying the Lord that bought them. This is
not saying that these individuals were redeemed when the Lord Jesus
Christ died on the cross. It is simply saying that they
have been brought into the professing church. They have a claim to
be the Lord's people. And yet that profession is undermined
by the very fact that they deny the very thing that they profess.
They say that they were bought by the Lord, but they deny the
purchase. They deny the reality of the
things that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished and fulfilled. And
we can see that in so many ways. We can see how the gospel We
have a number of phrases that we use trying to distinguish
our gospel from the gospel so called that is out in the world.
And we sometimes say that we believe in free grace or we believe
in sovereign grace. And the reality is that all that
happens very often is that we cloud our explanation by bringing
in words that people really don't understand. And yet we feel the
need to do so to endeavour to distinguish between the false
gospel, so called, that is out there. Paul says it's not another
gospel at all. But these are people who deny
the Lord Jesus Christ. They deny the power of his death. They deny the completeness of
his work. Hebrews 10, 29 says, they are
treading underfoot the Son of God. They've counted the blood
of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing,
because it doesn't achieve that which the Lord God says it achieves. And they have done despite unto
the Spirit of grace. You see, this is what happens
is that you start to unpick this perfect covenant purpose of our
God. And very soon you are undermining
the eternal love of the Father, the efficacy of the blood and
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of the application
of new life to the individual. And you start talking about man's
free will. And you start talking about God
desiring the salvation of everyone. And you start talking about common
grace that is available to everyone. And offers of eternal life that
people have to choose and accept and decide for. And suddenly
you discover that you've got a whole Pandora's box that is
just overflowing with questionable ideas. because they have undermined
the Lord Jesus Christ and the sufficiency of his work. Anyone who preaches that more
must be added to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ in order
to secure salvation, or righteousness, or justification, or grace, or
peace with God, is a false teacher of damnable heresies. And they
will lead men and women to damnation because that's where they are
going themselves. Salvation is all of God's grace. It is a gift of grace. It is
at God's sovereign discretion. It is exclusive of man's free
will. Man's free will does not come
into this equation. It is God who gives the gift
of faith. He makes men willing in the day
of his power. He enables men to trust in him. He generates a need. He causes
a hunger and a thirst after righteousness. But the initiative is always
with God. And if we ever take that initiative
out of God's hand, then we are preaching a damnable heresy. It is independent of good works.
God doesn't look at the good works of the individual and in
any way take pleasure from them. God's already found pleasure
in the fullness of his Son and in the perfectness. of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's all the perfectness I
will ever need. It is free from legal obedience
and bringing men and women under constraints and obligations in
order to enhance their holiness or deepen their sanctification
or show them to be good and worthy members of the church. That's
not the gospel. And yet it is what is preached
up and down the land as being the very essence of the gospel.
And if a man will not preach the gospel as Paul preached it,
if he will not preach the gospel as Peter preached it, if he will
not preach the gospel as the Lord Jesus Christ preached it,
the gospel of free and sovereign grace, then he is a false teacher
of damnable heresies, and he is to be rejected to the jeopardy
of our souls. How do you know a false teacher?
Well, there's another way of knowing a false teacher. They're
going to be speedily judged. They're going to be speedily
judged. Swift destruction shall attend the false teacher, and
history shows that to be true. God did not spare and he will
not spare the false teachers. The testimony of the Old Testament,
the testimony of the Word of God is that God brought those
false prophets into swift and severe condemnation and that
is what will happen to false teachers in the churches today. The angels that sinned are an
example they were cast down into hell and kept in chains. The pre-flood world is an example
where God slew untold multitudes by the waters that he brought
upon the face of the earth. He overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah
for the wickedness that was there with fire and brimstone, reserving
Lot and saving him and his daughters out of that conflagration. Luke 11, verse 52 says, Woe unto
you, lawyers, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge. ye entered not in yourselves,
and them that were entering in ye hindered. I think that's a
very significant verse. That's one of these verses that
I'm putting a little mark against the side of my Bible so that
I'll notice it whenever I open onto that page. Woe unto you
lawyers. Lawyers. What's a lawyer? A lawyer
is somebody that lives by the law. A lawyer is somebody that
upholds the law. A lawyer is somebody who brings
the effects and the works of the individual to bear on the
case at hand. And the Lord Jesus Christ casts
a woe upon such a person because you have taken away the key of
knowledge. the key of knowledge, you've
robbed your message of the key of the knowledge of God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, which is grace, grace. You're not preaching sovereign
grace. You're not preaching free grace. And the truths that we're speaking
about here are solemn. They are weighty truths. They
are fearful truths. They are truths which ought to
give us a little bit of a shudder down our back. Maybe I'm not
gonna send you away feeling so good today as you sometimes feel
when we've had a sermon together. Maybe a little shudder down our
back, a little shiver. Because only grace can save us
and only grace will preserve us. So convincing are these false
teachers that they would seduce, if it were possible, even the
elect. God grant us discerning grace
that we may recognise them. Who was it that delivered Lot
out of Sodom and Gomorrah? It was the Lord God. Why did
he deliver Lot out of Sodom and Gomorrah? Because Lot was Christ's. Lot had been justified by the
precious blood of Jesus Christ. Lot made poor choices. Lot in
many ways should not even have been there. It grieved his spirit
every day to be living amongst the people that he lived with.
But he had other aspirations. He thought that he might benefit
from their company. He thought that he might improve
himself from their experiences, enrich himself from their trade. But the Lord would not have him
live amongst the wicked forever. These lawyers, they take away
the key of knowledge, the knowledge of grace. but the gospel preaching
opens the door to eternal life by lifting up the Lord Jesus
Christ as the way, the truth, the life, and the very door itself. So let us reject false teaching
of all who dishonour Christ's blood and turn to the Lord God
for that full and free salvation. Jeremiah chapter three, verse
15, we read these words. And I will give you pastors according
to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. That was God's promise to the
Old Testament Jews who suffered and were beset by these false
prophets. He said, I will give you pastors
according to mine heart. And that's what we have to seek. That's what we have to pray for.
That's what we have to support. Those pastors given by God who
preach the gospel of free and sovereign grace, who stand boldly
upon these truths, who will not compromise or dilute them. and
who will not, for the sake of the popularity of this world,
deny what the Gospel says. They shall feed you with knowledge
and with understanding, with the knowledge of the truths of
the Gospel doctrines and with an understanding by which we
may take and apply those truths. and make them to be that complete
armour by which we are able to stand in the evil day. May the
Lord bless these thoughts to us and encourage us in them. Amen.