September 5, 2004
Service Theme - "Our God Is Faithful"
2 Peter 2:1-22
A Graceless Gamble
I. Introduction
A. Illustration - Peter James Lee, one of 60 Episcopal bishops who voted to approve the appointment of Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire, said this: (NEW SLIDE) "If you must make a choice between heresy and schism, always choose heresy" (as cited on PreachingToday.com).
B. Context - As that whole Episcopal church situation has shown, truth is taking a beating in our society and even in our churches. Now it's easy for us to say, "Well, they tend to be liberal so nothing like that could ever happen to us." I'm sure that's what God-fearing people in every liberal church said when things started to go downhill. Truth is incredibly important in every aspect of our personal lives and of our church. So what's the deal with people who don't teach the truth? What's going on with those who seem to be Christian yet don't teach the truth as God sees it? Why would somebody claim to be a Christian and yet ignore the plain truth of the Bible? Let's read 2 Peter 2:1-22 and find out. I know this is a long passage, but it's important that we read it all. I'm reading from the New Living Translation.
III. Scripture Passage
E. 2 Peter 2:1-22 (from the New Living) - (NEW SLIDE) But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach their destructive heresies about God and even turn against their Master who bought them. Theirs will be a swift and terrible end. (NEW SLIDE) 2 Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of them, Christ and his true way will be slandered. (NEW SLIDE) 3 In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction is on the way. (NEW SLIDE) 4 For God did not spare even the angels when they sinned; he threw them into hell, in gloomy caves and darkness until the judgment day. (NEW SLIDE) 5 And God did not spare the ancient world - except for Noah and his family of seven. Noah warned the world of God's righteous judgment. Then God destroyed the whole world of ungodly people with a vast flood. (NEW SLIDE) 6 Later, he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into heaps of ashes and swept them off the face of the earth. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. (NEW SLIDE) 7 But at the same time, God rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a good man who was sick of all the immorality and wickedness around him. 8 Yes, he was a righteous man who was distressed by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. (NEW SLIDE) 9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while punishing the wicked right up until the day of judgment. (NEW SLIDE) 10 He is especially hard on those who follow their own evil, lustful desires and who despise authority. These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at the glorious ones without so much as trembling. (NEW SLIDE) 11 But the angels, even though they are far greater in power and strength than these false teachers, never speak out disrespectfully against the glorious ones. (NEW SLIDE) 12 These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, who are born to be caught and killed. They laugh at the terrifying powers they know so little about, and they will be destroyed along with them. (NEW SLIDE) 13 Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They revel in deceitfulness while they feast with you. (NEW SLIDE) 14 They commit adultery with their eyes, and their lust is never satisfied. They make a game of luring unstable people into sin. They train themselves to be greedy; they are doomed and cursed. (NEW SLIDE) 15 They have wandered off the right road and followed the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved to earn money by doing wrong. 16 But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice. (NEW SLIDE) 17 These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as clouds blown away by the wind - promising much and delivering nothing. They are doomed to blackest darkness. (NEW SLIDE) 18 They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With lustful desire as their bait, they lure back into sin those who have just escaped from such wicked living. (NEW SLIDE) 19 They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves to sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. (NEW SLIDE) 20 And when people escape from the wicked ways of the world by learning about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up with sin and become its slave again, they are worse off than before. (NEW SLIDE) 21 It would be better if they had never known the right way to live than to know it and then reject the holy commandments that were given to them. 22 They make these proverbs come true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and "A washed pig returns to the mud."
IV. Get Serious About the Truth
A. As I was wrestling with this Scripture and praying about what to preach today, a problem arose in our personal lives. It had to do with David's schedule. David's been involved in band since the fifth grade, so he has a lot of time and effort invested in his musicianship. We as a family have a pretty good financial investment in band as well, by the time you factor in the cost of his instrument and supplies and band trips. So when David called Kim Tuesday morning and told her that he didn't get band, we were a bit upset and are working to get band back into his schedule. Now it would be easy to label the high school staff as insensitive or uncaring, but that wouldn't be true. The real problem lies in a difference in perception - how we view reality. Whoever did David's schedule perceived that another class was of greater value to him than band. But our family perception, the true reality of what makes David who he is, views band as much more important than other classes. Why do I share this? To make the point that no matter how we view reality, what our perceptions are, there is always another standard in any situation that IS reality.
B. I use this situation to illustrate a spiritual problem. Peter points it out in this passage. Now some may accuse Peter of being a little negative, of shading things a bit. Listen to this list of (NEW SLIDE) what Peter says about false teachers, what they either do or are:
� Teachers of destructive heresies (vs.1)
� Anti the true God (vs.1)
� Doomed to a terrible end (vs. 1)
� Evil (vs. 2)
� Shamefully immoral (vs. 2) - the Greek calls it "unbridled living"
� Christ-slanderers (vs. 2)
� Greedy liars (vs.3) - the Greek says its "uncontrolled and insatiable greed"
� Condemned to destruction (vs. 3-6)
� Ungodly (vs. 6)
� Wicked (vs. 9)
� Follow evil, lustful desires (vs. 10)
� Proud, arrogant (vs. 10)
� Despise authority (vs. 10) - the Greek says they are "thinking down upon" authority
� Scoff at demons (vs. 10-11) - which is something even angels won't do
� Unthinking animals, creatures of instinct (vs. 12)
� Going to be rewarded with destruction (vs. 13)
� Indulge in evil pleasures in the daytime (vs. 13) - the irony here is that is something even the Romans wouldn't do
� A disgrace and a stain among Christians (vs. 13) - meaning they are part of the church
� Deceitful (vs. 13)
� Commit adultery with their eyes, full of insatiable lust (vs. 14)
� (NEW SLIDE) Trained themselves to be greedy (vs. 14) - which speaks to intentionality
� Doomed and cursed (vs. 14)
� Luring unstable (Greek "without firmness") people into sin (vs. 14)
� Seekers of ill-gotten gain (vs. 15-16)
� Promising much and delivering nothing (vs. 17)
� Doomed (vs. 17)
� Braggarts and boasters (vs. 18) - Greek "unnaturally inflated"
� Use lustful desires to lure people back into sin (vs. 18)
� Promise freedom from rules, deliver slavery to sin (vs. 19)
� (NEW SLIDE) Slaves to sin (vs. 19)
� Controlled by sin (vs. 19)
� Christians who have left Christ and enslaved themselves to sin (vs. 20-22)
C. What's the point of going through all that? To show a pattern. To show that these people are dangerous and that we've got to be on the lookout for them. And to show that these aren't some New Age gurus who are obviously dealing in a spirituality that has nothing to do with Christ. These are participants in the Church, people who have known Christ and have left Him but not the Church. These are people who intentionally go around trying to lead people away from Christ. These are not folks who pass along false teachings due to ignorance or immaturity. (NEW SLIDE) The false teachers Peter is talking about have one purpose in life: to destroy the faith of Christians and so to destroy the Church. They may be folks who started out okay, but they wouldn't believe the absolute authority of the Bible or the absolute Lordship of Christ, so they left Him and want to take as many people to Hell with them as possible. As preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote, (NEW SLIDE) The real danger in our situation lies in the fact that so many people see clearly what they are revolting from and so few see at all what they are revolting to (as cited on PreachingToday.com). They may not have seen it coming, but that doesn't change the truth that false teachers are dangerous folks who live to destroy faith in Christ. (NEW SLIDE) Always remember that only those who are true followers of Jesus Christ are capable of being guided by pure motives - because they have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside. Everybody else, and I do mean everybody, is guided only by their sinful nature and is subject to being twisted and turned and manipulated any way Satan desires. (NEW SLIDE) False teachers, no matter how well-intentioned they may seem, are dangerous. Period.
D. Now some of you may be thinking, "Pastor Brian, that's a bit harsh. I've known some false teachers, and they're nice people." Of course they are. Satan is nice until he has us lured into his clutches. It goes back to my example about perception. Satan has the world, including us, believing that reality is defined by our perception of our experience. The Bible says that reality is only defined by and found in personal relationship with Jesus Christ. (NEW SLIDE) The Bible is the absolute authority for our lives because God breathed it into the hearts of the human writers and they wrote down the truth as God sees it. The Holy Spirit will never tell us anything that is contrary to the truth in the Bible.
E. It'd be easy to look at this passage as just a bunch of gloom and doom, but there is a glimmer of hopeful truth in it. God will rescue godly people from false teachers. Did you get that? God will rescue godly people from false teachers. How? By using truth to overcome falsehood. (NEW SLIDE) When we spend daily time in the Bible, God's word, we build truth into our hearts and minds that the Holy Spirit can bring to mind and use to defend us against false teaching. It doesn't happen by magic - it happens by daily persistence in reading and meditating on and even memorizing God's word. The Bible is a defense that even the smartest false teacher can't stand against. He may twist the truth or pull a verse or passage out of context, but if we have come to know the Bible and what it says by spending daily time in it, then the Holy Spirit will make the lie as plain as the nose on our face. We will see it for what it is - false teaching straight from the pit of Hell.
F. Illustration - Adrian Rogers wrote, "It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, then falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is not love and it is not friendship if we fail do declare the whole counsel of God. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who was a power for God who did not have enemies and was not hated. It's better to stand alone with the truth than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie" (as cited on SermonCentral.com).
G. May God help all of us to be speakers of the truth in love, and fighters of false teaching wherever we may find it! And may all of us surrender to the Spirit's desire that we spend time in the Word each and every day!
VI. Conclusion
A. Please bow your heads and close your eyes out of respect for God and for each other's privacy. What is the Holy Spirit calling you to surrender this morning? What thought patterns or false beliefs do you have that you need to surrender to Him? Do you need to surrender some of your time each day to spend in His Word so that you can train yourself to know the truth?
B. If God is calling you to surrender some part of your heart or mind or life to Him this morning, please raise your hand and I'll pray for you. If you are surrendering to Him this morning, please raise your hand.
