you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Peter, and I'd like to do two things. First, I'd like to apologize for the fact that some of my expressions were not particularly edifying in the last lecture, and I'm sorry about that, and I hope it didn't retract from the content of the lectures. I don't make excuses when I apologize because that makes the apology fake. And I do apologize. So please accept that. Secondly, I'd like to kind of put us in our context where we are here in Second Peter. In a sense, the heart of the of the book is this chapter that we have this evening about false teachers in the church and so on. But we're in the midst of really a very carefully laid out letter, it seems to me, talking about the preciousness of true faith and the treasure that true faith is and so on. And so the apostle wants to make certain that he leaves a deposit for the church so that it can continue to hang on to that faith, to be steadfast in the faith, as he says in the second last verse of the book. He says that you do not fall from your own steadfastness. And he makes a very powerful statement when he says, we did not follow cunningly devised fables. He could see modern liberalism coming with its idea that the Bible is just a bunch of made up stories. And so he wanted to make sure that people understood they had seen what they reported. And then he does an interesting thing. And when we look at the beginning of verse 19, the Greek expression there is possible to have two understandings. One is that the vision makes the prophetic word more sure, which is the Greek word more sure, or the word makes the vision more sure. And so when we, and if you look in the Old King James, you'll see that the translation there is that the word makes the vision more sure. And when we interpret scripture where you have an expression, and it's possible to translate a couple of ways, you have to use a couple of other principles. You have to use the grammatical principle. Now you've got the expression. And then you have to use the historic principle. Where does this fit into the history of revelation? And thirdly, you have to use a theological test. And when you look at it and you ask yourself, what about a vision? What if Peter and James and John had not had this vision? Would the word be less sure? Visions do not confirm the word of God. In fact, what did Peter do? He blew it, as our speaker said last night. He got the interpretation wrong of the vision. He thought that Jesus was equal with Moses and Elijah. Jesus is Moses and Elijah's God, you see. And so I lean very much to the idea that what happens here is the prophetic word is a more sure word than the vision. Because the prophetic word is what establishes the vision to be true. And that's the introduction to our chapter. See that? And that's why it's very important that we follow the word of God. And he's talking about the Old Testament here at this point. that we followed the Word of God very carefully because the holy men of God did not speak from their own hearts. They were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, literally it says they were carried along by the Holy Spirit when they wrote. And so what is it that is inspired about the Bible? Is it the thoughts of the writers? Peter says in 1 Peter that they didn't, the writers of the Old Testament often didn't understand what they were saying. They wished they could. What's inspired is the words. The words themselves are God's words. That's what we mean when we talk about verbal inspiration. God chose the words. And we need to understand that so that we don't try to get behind the word. That's one of the great errors and sins of liberalism. Why did Paul write what he wrote? Doesn't matter. You see? It's God's word. And God said what he meant, meant what he said. And so we need to be very careful about that. So we're here at this point where we talk about false teachers, and then there are two very large subjects that come up, and one is the second coming. And he says, what kind of people should we be? if we know that the world is going to be destroyed with everything in it, and that a new heaven and a new earth are going to be created. And God even tells us there why, in verse 9 of chapter 3, the world keeps going, because the elect are not all saved yet. Notice that this is written to true believers see that and so when he says God is long-suffering to us word He's talking about believers The believers haven't all been born yet, nor have they been gathered by the preaching of the word, but when that job is done And God will choose that, as Brother Flux said this morning. God will choose when that happens. No human being will choose that. And the whole idea that we can second guess God is, again, another foolishness. But then the world will end, and not before. And of course, the world will be destroyed. And then he says, in verse 14 of chapter 3, Beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found in him in peace without spot and blameless. You see, in other words, what kind of people we should be. We should be holy, and we should be moving on. We should be hastening on. When we do mission work, when we do evangelism, when we simply do the work of what it means to be a Christian, part of that is hastening on to the second coming of Christ. And we need to have that attitude. We need to be people who hang their futures not on this world, or on this life, but on the second coming of Christ and the new heaven and the new earth as the ultimate end of every Christian. Well, as we come now to this third lecture in the series, and we talk about false prophets, I think it's very important to understand that this is a thread that goes through the New Testament. It's not something new with the Apostle Peter. Jesus talked about that in chapter 24 of Matthew, and he talked about the things that were going to happen between his first and second coming. Some people think that these are things that tell us that second coming is very near. But Jesus, when he talks about earthquakes and famines and pestilences, he says they're the beginning of sorrows. They're the characteristics of the age in which you live. And he says the end is not yet. So we want to be very careful not to fall into the trap of thinking Oh, Jesus is coming tomorrow because we have famines and earthquakes and pestilences, you see, in various kinds of places. And so we want to recognize this. So scripture gives answers to these questions in a way that we need to listen to so that we don't fall into the trap of thinking. And human beings are Invariably self-centered we want to be there when Jesus comes again Whether I'm there or not it's not important at all you see I'm Jesus will come when God it's good and ready and whether I'm there to watch it. It's not important I'll take part in it because I'll rise from the grave. By the way, I don't care how many flowers there are at my funeral. I want to walk out of my grave. We want to recognize that's what God tells us, you see, that we will walk out of our graves and rise into the heavens to meet the Lord as he comes to the new heavens and to the new earth. Well, as we look at these things, therefore, in 2 Peter, we need to recognize that there's a very close parallel between particularly this chapter of 2 Peter, chapter 2, and the book of Jude. And if you look at my title, which is somewhat indicative of the theme of what we're talking about here this evening is earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the Saints. That's what he wants us to do as a result of knowing this thing of false teachings. Now we also have to recognize, and I think I mentioned that the other night, that These, Paul, and Peter, and Jude, and others in the New Testament talk about persecution as a very dark cloud. They don't mention any particular persecutions. Now, in Acts, you have some persecution in Rome. And evidently, the apostle Peter died in that. Paul probably was convicted of being a Christian and put to death for that earlier. But in any case, those are traditions and we don't really have the facts, so we think that's probably what happened. But the important point here is What is going to happen? And what's going to happen is and we'll read that chapter together now chapter 2 of 2nd Peter But there were also false prophets among the people even as there will be false teachers among you Who will safely bring in? destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words. For a long time their judgment has not been idle and their destruction does not slumber. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned and cast them down to hell and delivered them into the chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, and a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example of those who afterward live ungodly, and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. For that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh and the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. But these, like brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness as those who counted pleasure to carouse in the daytime. There are spots and blemishes carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you. having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. But he was rebuked for his iniquity. A dumb donkey speaking with a man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds carried about by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. For when the Lord, or when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lust of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption. for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb. The dog returns to his own vomit, and a sow, having been washed, to her wallowing in the mire. In other words, they never were real Christians in the first place. And so we have to realize that there's an outward knowledge of biblical truth that really doesn't take a hold in the heart, and that corrupts people. And they become false prophets and false teachers. What I'd like to do as we look at this this evening, I'd like to look first of all at kind of the heresies, the false teachings that are there. And the old King James uses the word damnable, which means condemnable. They are to be condemned. They're not just destructive. but they are to be condemned under the judgment of God. And that's what an awful lot of the chapter says. These things are condemned by God, and God is able to save up these prophets for destruction and all those kinds of things, just as he saves up the believers to escape those destructions. And so we want to recognize that these heresies, these false teachings, are convicted of condemnation of a hellfire because of the terrible things that they do. And then we want to talk about what were some of those things. Well, verse 1 says, there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you. In other words, this is nothing new. It's nothing surprising. Don't be surprised at this. who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." Remembering the last verse of the chapter, it would mean that they would have a head knowledge of the fact that Christ died for their sins, but it didn't really happen, and they didn't really believe. And so they bring upon themselves swift destruction. But what we have to understand is this is denial of God. And we need to recognize that that is the essence of total depravity. When Paul gives a list in Romans chapter 3 about, you know, the sins of mankind, and he says we're guilty of them as well. There's none who does good, no not one. We have all together gone out of the way and so on. The last verse there is verse 18. of Romans 3 said, there is no fear of God before their eyes. There is no respect for God. And we talked about that a little bit the other evening, but it's very, very important to see that. I don't know how to count numbers like this, and I really don't care about numbers, but a tremendous number of people in the United States live as if there is no God. And that is just, that's the worst thing you can do. That goes back to the Garden of Eden. You'll be as gods, knowing good and evil. You're going to be your own god. You're going to decide right and wrong for yourself. And isn't that what we teach our kids at least in the public school? Do your own thing. That's the last thing I should do. What does Jesus say to me as a Christian? He says, if you want to be my disciple, deny yourself. Deny that sinful self, then take up your cross and follow me. And the cross of Christ is our sins. And our cross is our sins. It's not my sick grandmother. It's my sin. It's recognize your sin and take that up and deny that. Denying myself means denying that sinful self. And we need to recognize that that is absolutely essential to Christianity. Now another thing that these people do, and that's in verse 2, many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. In the early church, there was a lot of rejection of Christianity. The Christians were called atheists because they didn't believe in all the gods of the Greeks and the Romans, and so on. And today, we don't believe in the gods of the pagans around us, and so we are evil spoken of. Our way is evil spoken of. You can't, we had a case in Nebraska where when the judge sentenced a sexual deviant, he used the Bible. And the whole thing went to the Supreme Court and they threw it out. You can't use the Bible. You can't use Christian ideas to say to people, you should not have done that. And so we need to understand that it's something that is always a great sign that things are going bad in a society when it's certainly unpopular. to be a Christian, to mention Christianity, to pray in public, or any of those things. And we need to understand that. And as a part of that shame, what happens is licentiousness takes over. Licentiousness is lawlessness, giving ourselves permission to commit any kind of sin. And Jude talks about that. He says, certain men have crept in unnoticed too long ago, were ordained for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of God into licentiousness, license to sin. And freedom in the United States today has changed from freedom to serve and honor God to be freedom to sin. And the government guarantees that there will be no punishment for those who practice all kinds of sinful things. We do everything, of course, and you know those as well as I do, from murder babies to have people who refuse to bow to God's plan for the family. God says it's not good for a man to be alone. We're going to pick up on that in a little bit. But the point is that licentiousness gives people liberty to sin. And the Supreme Court plays like it's God. You know, and that's crazy. And they're a fairly deviant bunch themselves, if you really study their own private lives. And so the idea that these people are going to decide right and wrong for the people of our nation, and particularly for Christians, is simply licentiousness. It's simply the idea that there is no real right and wrong. There is no real law. And so again, they deny, by doing that, they deny our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And we have to recognize that. They are enemies of Christ and of God and of the Christian church, rightly so called. And we have to recognize that. We are not living on a beach, even in Florida, when I'm on the beach in Florida. We are living in a world where we are going to have to fight to maintain our own faith, and we're going to have to fight to maintain a testimony. so that we can speak openly and honestly, whatever it costs. And we have to do that, by the way. We have to speak openly and honestly, whatever it costs. And so we need to see that these people need to be recognized for what they are. And the apostle Paul has a very interesting piece of scripture in 1 Timothy chapter 4. And again, he says the same thing. The Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times, that's the times in which we live between the first and second coming of Christ, some shall depart from the faith. Notice they come out of Christianity. They shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits. These are lying spirits that are trying to get you to sin. That's what a seduction is. And the doctrines of devils, of demons. Now, that's interesting. He starts that chapter by saying, these people are going to depart from the faith. They're going to speak lies and hypocrisy. And they're going to pass on these lying doctrines, and they are the doctrines that come from the devil himself. What are those doctrines? The next couple of verses are rather surprising. and commanding to abstain from certain foods, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God, it's good and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. And we need to understand, what's this world out here for? It's here to be received with thanksgiving. The third part of the catechism is on thanksgiving. And thanksgiving specifically for salvation is absolutely necessary and important. but thanksgiving for everything. What God has given us, nothing's to be refused, and things are good for the purpose that God gave them for us, and therefore we need to use them with thanksgiving. And then he says in verse five, which I don't have there, it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. The word of God and prayer are the two major essential elements of worship. Sanctified means set apart, dedicated to a person, a purpose, consecrated. Worship has the power to consecrate our whole life to God. And we need to do it that way. We need to worship with thanksgiving. What does the psalm say? Enter into his presence with thanksgiving and into his house with praise and so on. Why? Because that's what worship is for. It is to give thanksgiving to God and that thanksgiving then sanctifies, sets apart, Our whole life, that's why one day in seven is a Sabbath day. We dedicate all of our time to God. A tithe is one-tenth of what God has given us. That dedicates all of our money to God. Not just that which is in the collection plate, but that which remains in our hands. As one of our pastors said years ago, he said, I'd rather live on 90% with God's blessing than 100% without. And interestingly, and I got to go one more verse there in 1 Timothy, verse 6, and Paul writes to Timothy and says, if you put the people in mind of these things, you'll be a good minister of Jesus Christ. Isn't that interesting? Simple. All you have to do is teach people how to use the world thankfully for the glory of God. It's a focused thing, of course. That's not all there is to being a preacher, but it's at the heart of what we're doing. We're trying to teach God's people to use the world for the glory of God and the ministry of the word and of prayer are the essential elements that make that happen. And we need to understand that. So worship is certainly not self-centered. And of course, nowadays, people go to church for what they can get out of it. That's exactly backwards and upside down. The question is, does God get out of it what he designed it for, which is a thankful, obedient heart? We listen to the word of God according to Psalm 95, Obediently, today if you obey his voice, do not harden your heart, David says in Psalm 95. And so worship is listening obediently to the word of God. and responding to God in prayer, whether it's prayer led by a leader or whether it is prayer in our own hearts. Sometimes we introduce a worship service with a personal prayer of preparation, and of course then personal prayer at home and personal reading of scripture, really of the same character. We need to understand that. so that we are not going to get what we can out of the worship service, or use it as a smorgasbord, or to get the idea that it's just there for our salvation. That's what's wrong with the Roman Catholic approach, and it's man-centered. The whole purpose of the Mass is to cleanse your soul from sin, kind of, but it's centered in me. And Ulrich Zwingli, when he came, he was a Roman Catholic priest by the way, he came to Zurich, Switzerland in January 1519. And he put away the mass and made the word of God the center of the worship service. And he preached through the book of Matthew out of the Greek New Testament. And people started becoming Christians. And there was a revolution in Zurich, Switzerland. It was just an amazing thing that happened. It turned that city right side up. And the nuns and monks left the monasteries and married each other. There goes Genesis 2.17. And the Swiss were a fairly free group anyway, but they encouraged business and especially trade for prosperity. They weren't afraid of that. And a lot of very good things happened because Zwingli preached the word. And we need to be very careful not to give the impression that the sacraments are part of our salvation. In the Roman Church and somewhat in the Lutheran Church, the sacraments are part of the doctrine of the application of redemption. We call that soteriology, which means just saving stuff in Latin. But in the Reformed Church, they're in the doctrine of the church, in ecclesiology. No one was ever saved by taking a sacrament. The sacraments are there as an ordinance by which God strengthens our faith. As the good pastor said this morning, they are pictures of Christ, not the kind of pictures people draw, but the kind that God draws. Representation of the blood of Christ in a cup of wine. Representation of the body of Christ in bread. Why? Because what you eat and drink becomes part of you. And what it's saving is union with Christ. See that? We're united to Christ through faith. That's symbolized in Lord's Supper. We're united to Christ by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. That's what's symbolized in baptism. But how does faith save us? It doesn't replace works. It's a gift of God anyway. It's not a bargaining chip that we come to God with. It's God's gift to us for our salvation, but faith is the action of man. Regeneration is the action of God, and we need to understand that. And so there are two sacraments that symbolize or picture our union with Christ. Eating and drinking, because what you eat and drink becomes part of you, and you become, you know, you are what you eat, which is true. And so if you eat and drink Christ by faith, and that's what John 6 is all about. And he says very clearly there about the physical presence of the Lord, he says the flesh prophets are nothing. The Spirit makes a life. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life, but some of you don't believe. That's Matthew 6, 63 and 64, and we need to understand that. So how are we united to Christ? By believing His Word. We eat and drink Christ by believing his word. You see that? And so Jesus says to the disciples, will you also go away? People were leaving because they couldn't get, they said, Jesus is going to make Catholics out of us. We're going to eat and drink him physically. But he's going to make cannibals out of us. We can't receive that kind of a thing. And Jesus said, are you also going to go away? And Peter got it right this time. He said, where are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have come to know and believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." We're not leaving. Now, Peter left in his sinful character when the chips were down and Jesus was going to be crucified. Anyway, so we need to recognize these heresies are there and the answer to them is the biblical teaching that we are to marry, that we are to abstain from food, and so on. And I think I made enough comments on that the other evening about everybody doesn't have to be married right away by the time they're 18 or whatever. But we do have to recognize that we need to raise our children to be servants. And you'll notice that when Paul talks about husbands and wives in 1 Corinthians 7, he says, the wife doesn't own her own body, but the husband does, and the husband does not own his own body. We are each other's servants. You need to recognize that. A good husband and a good wife serve the Lord in part by serving each other. And they are partners in serving God. It's very important to look at your marriage and say, what is the contract about? The contract needs to be, we together are going to serve the Lord our God and Savior. That's what the contract needs to be. And that's what you find in Ephesians chapter 5. That's why it's in Ephesians chapter 5. Wives be in submission to your husbands. Husbands love your wives. What for? Why did Jesus love the church? He gave himself for it, to cleanse it and to make it a beautiful church. We are the bride of Christ. And so we live as the bride of Christ and as husbands and wives in this life, we serve God in that partnership. Well, Peter goes on here and talks about the character And he talks first of all about covetousness. Through covetousness they shall with faint, that's false words, make merchandise of you, whose judgment now for a long time does not linger, and their damnation does not slumber. So we need to understand that. When preachers are worried about their own personal fortune, and this is a very dangerous thing, and it is very, very common. And we need to be very, very careful. I made a brief speech at Synod this year, and I said, what we need to learn is that we give the church as much as we can and take from it as little as we can. Jesus said, I didn't come to be served. See that? The minister is not somebody that the church serves. He's not the master of the church. The master of the church is Christ. And the minister, if he's a good minister, is a servant of Jesus Christ and a servant of God's people. He serves them with the word of God. He serves them with the authority of the word of God. And their job, as he teaches and reads the scripture, is to listen obediently to that word. These people have forsaken the right way, Peter goes on, gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor. What did Balaam tell Balaam? I'll fill your house with jewels and gold if you'll only come and curse these Israelites. And finally, of course, Balaam goes and then he finds his donkey talking to him. Which is saying, who is the donkey here? And so we need to recognize that if we have a minister who's covetous, we got a problem. If I'm a minister, and I have to say, the Lord has prospered my wife and myself in raising five children, and we have never lacked for anything. And we have more than we need. And that's because we never made that an issue. The guys in Vermilion the last year said, we're not going to give you any more money because you wouldn't spend it anyway. I said I might put it in the offering. Oh, well. But the point is that's not the point. Now these guys are bad cats. Look at point B, spouting lying promises, having eyes full of adultery. It doesn't ever fail that this is in the description of false teachers, that they are sexual deviants, that they just can't do what Paul says, the husband of one wife. You have to be dedicated to that principle if you're going to be a faithful minister of God. You have to be able to be a one-woman man. And otherwise you're going to fall flat on your face and you ought to. And I think we just have to understand too often this is the case. And so they beguile unstable souls. Paul says they like captive silly women laden with sin. People kind of get the idea that the minister is a cut above everybody else, and a lot of times he's a cut below. But in any case, and so they become victims to the minister. And so, ladies, you have to be very careful about the minister. Treat him as a brother. The Bible says to him, treat you as a sister. love the ladies of the church as sisters, love the young men as brothers, honor the old men, respect the old men in the church. That's a very, very important thing. And so we want to recognize that God has righteous relationships among human beings. And one of the things that, as I said, a minister has to be a one-woman man. They speak great swelling words of vanity, the allure through lust of the flesh again, that same kind of thing. licentiousness, wantonness, in other words, doing anything we want to do if it brings pleasure to me. Those who have clean escape from, who live in error now. While they promised them liberty, they themselves are servants of corruption. Of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. Ask the question, who am I serving? Jesus says, if you're serving sin, you're the servant of sin. And if you are the servant of God you are going to be the servant of God man is not made to be a free What's the right word pray free loader? He's made to be a servant and he will serve something and it will be good bad and ugly or whatever and but he's going to serve something. And we need to understand that because it is so easy to think, I am being independent and wise and neutral and I'm an agnostic or whatever. And it's foolishness. Everyone is a servant of someone and that someone needs to be, must be God. They're presumptuous. One of the things you find out is people who despise authority. And that is a very common sin, again, sometimes too often among Christians. But when we look at the makeup of our society, there is so much despising of leaders, of governors, of various kinds of authorities, family. I had a cousin who went to a Presbyterian college near Chicago and there was a German woman there who had a communist cell and she said, you can never go home. She eventually told her parents they had to be liquidated when the communists took over. That got pretty bad. But you need to understand that people who despise authority and he says, self-willed. They want to run the show. And Peter uses, as you notice in point D there, Peter uses fallen angels. He uses the flood, wiping the slate clean. Sodom and Gomorrah to describe God's judgment on such rebellion. And Jude does the same thing. That's one of the parallels between the two. They use virtually the same things to say This is what's going to happen to these false teachers. But we need to recognize that is a danger. And it's one we face personally. It's one we face in our churches. It's one that we face community-wise. And it's just so frustrating to see our country turned totally away from any Christian influence or Christian power in society. and follow fables and all kinds of sinful desires and all kinds of bad ideas and there just doesn't seem any end. Yet we know that God is in control and we need to be very careful about that. We should not become pessimists. We should not become fearful. We should know that the future belongs to God and to his people. And we need to understand that. And therefore, we don't quit. We don't give up. What we do is what Jude says, earnestly contending for the faith. How do we, you and I, earnestly contend for the faith? Well, to me, this connects up very closely with number 32 in the Heidelberg Catechism, which steps out of the Apostle's Creed. It's very interesting. 31 says, why is he, talking about the article of the Apostle's Creed, why is he called Christ that is anointed? because he's our chief prophet and teacher, he is our high priest who sacrificed himself for our sin, and he is our eternal king who protects us and takes us to heavenly glory. But then it steps out of the Articles of the Apostles' Creed and says, why are you called a Christian? And the answer is, number one, that I also may confess his name. I partake in Christ's anointing. I am not a separate Christ, but I am united to Christ as a Christian, and therefore I partake in His anointing, the Catechism says. By faith, I'm a member of Christ, and thus partake of His anointing, in order, first of all, that I may confess His name. That comes up here in Peter and elsewhere again and again. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, 1 Peter 3.15, and be ready always to give an answer to every man who asks you a reason of the hope that is within you with meekness and fear. Confessing Christ is absolutely necessary. If you confess me, Jesus says, before this wicked generation, I'll confess you before my Father in heaven. And if you don't, I won't. We need to be unashamed in our confession. of Jesus Christ. Paul makes it an issue of salvation in Romans 3. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. How important is confession? Unconfessed faith is not saving faith. Wow, that's pretty important. So don't hide your faith, don't put it in your back pocket. I did that somewhat when I was in college, but I also got in a lot of arguments and on the blackboard or the bulletin board every morning there'd be a score. Lions, three Christians, nothing. Because they wanted to put me down. Well, it was, I suppose, somewhat meant in a joking way, but it said something about the spirit of man. And so we want to be very careful. And we have to test the spirits. 1 John, Chapter 4. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come into the world is of God. Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come into the world in the flesh is not of God. This is the spirit of Antichrist, which you have heard is coming into the world and is now already in the world. Boy, is that true, huh? Every spirit that does not confess Christ. Now, notice there's a positive test here, not a negative test. And the spirits are tested by what they say. Isn't that interesting? And the question is, do they confess Jesus Christ as God come in the flesh? It's not do they say bad stuff. It's too late for that. We have a positive test. We know what this godly spirit is going to say. And it's always going to center in the confession of Jesus Christ. And it's as Paul says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. So how do I contend for the faith? First, I'm an honest, open, confessing Christian. Where your car is parked on Sunday morning is important. A lot of little things like that happen. If your car is parked down in front of the coffee joint on Sunday morning, that says something. If your car is parked in front of a real good feel-good church, that says something. If your car is parked in front of one of these Calvinist churches, that says something, you see. The second thing, Jesus is our high priest and we therefore need to offer our lives a living sacrifice of thankfulness to him. And I think I've said enough this that says, what are we doing here? Why did God make me? He made me to be his servant and to be thankfully using the world for his glory. That starts with believing in Jesus Christ and confessing him. But it also then means that I have a very specific, every Christian, see, people want to have a unique testimony. We have ours in the black book. Are you a sinner? Yes. Do you trust in Christ for salvation? Yes. Do you want to serve Christ as your Lord? Yes. Are you going to be subject to the government that's this church as being subject to Christ? The Belgium Confession says you wear the yoke of Christ by being subject to the church. Now, you got to find the right church, obviously, and that's why it is so important that our car be parked in front of a true biblical church. We have to condemn sin. The third point is, as a Christian, that I fight against sin and the devil in this life and hereafter in eternity reign with Christ over all creatures. I cannot think that I'm going to reign with Christ over all creatures if I am blasé about sin. if I can just let it go. We read about a lot. He vexed his heart every day in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah. You and I live in the country of Sodom and Gomorrah. Years ago, my father got a letter from a fellow minister about, and he was like me, he was somewhat of a joker, and he gets this letter and it says, we're getting a new minister, a fellow by the name of Corn, I hope he's not a popcorn. And I dated when this man came into our church at that point. And then I went back by looking at the return address and so on. And I get up there, it's May 7th, 1943. And then I look and the return address was Sodom and Gomorrah. Somebody really did something bad in his community. And he looked at the community and said, this is Sodom and Gomorrah. And we live that way. And so we need to not be comfortable living here. We cannot be blasé about saying, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them if anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words. Again, we know what the truth is. And there are sound words, and we put them together as best we can in our creeds. And if somebody shows that those words are wrong, we're going to change them, because they've got to be biblical. But in any case, then from such withdraw yourself. Don't be part of that crowd. Reprove the works of darkness. Reprove sin. Hold each other accountable. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5 where he has He's an excommunicated man. He sums that up at the end. He says, you don't walk into a restaurant and say, are there any fornicators in here before I sit down and order? It's not my job to discipline the world. On the other hand, if I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, somebody who's called a Christian, who is a fornicator, or a covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or drunk, or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. Some people call that chunning, that's what it is. And the congregation needs to take part in church discipline just as much as the elders do. We are not to give aid and comfort as though a man were a Christian when he has demonstrated that he is absolutely not. We need to be very, very clear about that. Concerning the faith, Paul writes to Timothy, some have made shipwreck, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Paul exercised church discipline, a church that doesn't have discipline, that the Belgic Confession is one of the marks of the church. How many churches have church discipline? I would have to say 0%. I know a few that do. But when you think of that in our modern society, churches get sued for exercising discipline. Is that going to stop us from doing discipline? It should not. We have to do the things that honor God. And that means earnestly contending for the faith, which is not a one-time thing, as I say there in conclusion. It is a constant battle. that has and will go on throughout the history of the church. Only fools relax in self-satisfaction. It's not about us. See, and if it were only about us, we could once in a while relax. But it's about God and his kingdom, which are always under attack. Indeed, when any scriptural teaching is under attack, it is always an attack on God's word, and therefore it's an attack on God. We just have to recognize that. Being a Christian is not what I would have to say is an easy life. We are constantly in tension about, what do I do about this? How do I handle this? Where do I go with this? Where do I go with that? I think we need to work together and recognize that we need the church as our backup, but also as our fellowship in earnestly contending for the faith. That's not an individual thing. That's something we need each other for, whether it's on a local basis in a local church or whether it's on a wider basis in the community of churches, which we do in subjecting ourselves to a group of churches in what we call a class of Presbyterians, called a Presbytery. That is the spiritual government of the church, by the way, that the Belgian Confession talks about. We need to understand there are people who think that the government of the church is up for our decision what kind of government we want. Do we want a hierarchy or do we want a congregationalistic thing where the power for the elders comes from the congregation? It doesn't come from the congregation. It comes from God. Where does the congregation's authority come from? God. The elders may not usurp the authority of the congregation, nor may the congregation usurp the authority of the elders. Both come from God, and they are to be worked together in cooperation and tandem with each other. And we need to recognize that so that we do this thing openly and honestly with each other's support and with the power of Discussing God's word and coming to conclusions about how do we handle this that or the other thing and we just have to have that fellowship in really Looking at the world and looking at ourselves and dealing with this major problem the problem of false teaching because it's always there and We need to cleanse our own house, we need to cleanse our own hearts, and we need to stand in the world as a light set upon a hill, that men may see our what? our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. We're not here to hide our good works. We're not here to kick people in the teeth with them, on the other hand. Well, maybe sometimes. But anyway, we just need to be honest and open, and to do that, we need each other. Husbands need wives. Wives need husbands. Families need churches. Churches need other churches to work together with. And so we want to maintain these things, not for our sake, for the sake of the gospel and for sake of the glory of God. This is not a personal choice. It's a responsibility we have. And Peter waves the flag. He says, there are going to be false teachers among you, just as there were false prophets in the Old Testament. And then that takes us back to the end of the previous chapter. The holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. How do we do this? on the basis of the Word of God, the written Word of God. And Paul says, who is sufficient for these things? He said, we're the saver of life unto life. For some people, we're the saver of death unto death. How can we do that? How can we be that way? How can we preach knowing people are going to go to heaven and hell? Paul says, our sufficiency is of God. Amen. That's great.