Talking about false teachers tonight in 2 Peter. And as soon as we get into this text, you'll see why I picked this one. Once again, 1 Kings chapter 22, and I'll begin reading at verse 20, at verse one, sorry. Excuse me. Three years passed without war between Aram and Israel. In the third year, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel. Now the king of Israel said to his servants, do you know that Ramoth-Gilead belongs to us, and we are still doing nothing to take it out of the hand of the king of Aram? And he said to Jehoshaphat, will you go down with me to battle at Ramoth-Gilead? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, please inquire first for the word of the Lord. Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about 400 men, and said to them, shall I go up against Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall I refrain? And they said, go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. But Jehoshaphat said, is there not yet a prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of him? The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. He is Micaiah, son of Imla. But Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. Then the king of Israel called an officer and said, bring quickly Micaiah, son of Imla. Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, were sitting each on his throne arrayed in their robes at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria. And all the prophets were prophesying before them. Then Zedekiah, the son of Chanaanah, made horns of iron for himself and said, thus says the Lord, with these you will gore the Arameans until they are consumed. All the prophets were prophesying thus, saying, go up to Ramut Gilead and prosper, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. Then the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, behold now, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. Please, let your word be like the word of one of them and speak favorably. But Micaiah said, as the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak, that I shall speak. When he came to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth Gilead to battle? Or shall we refrain? And he answered him, go up and succeed, and the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. Then the king said to him, how many times must I adjure you to speak nothing to me, to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? So he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord said, these have no master. Let each of them return to his house in peace. Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me but evil? Micaiah said, therefore hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne. and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right and on his left. The Lord said, who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And one said this while another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said to him, how? And he said, I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. Then he said, you are to entice him and also prevail, go and do so. Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets and the Lord has proclaimed disaster against you. Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near and stroked Micaiah on the cheek and said, how did the spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you? Micaiah said, behold, you shall see on that day when you enter an inner room to hide yourself. Then the king of Israel said, take Micaiah and return him to Ammon, the governor of the city, and to Joash, the king's son, and say, thus says the king, put this man in prison and feed him sparingly with bread and water until I return safely. Micaiah said, if you indeed return safely, the Lord has not spoken by me. And he said, listen, all you people, to join me in prayer. Oh, gracious Lord, thank you so much for your word and for all you have to say about falsehood and false teachers. I pray that we would learn all we possibly can tonight at the hand of your apostle Peter. I pray that you would help us to grasp the warnings that he's given the church in this chapter and just that we would grasp it and understand it and be on the lookout for it. Thank you, Lord, we praise you in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. Well, I've got a little picture here. I've kept this in my office pretty much from the first day of my ministry here. I love this, and I want to get a new one because it's got some water on it and it's a little damaged, but it's a picture of a donkey, okay? And here's the caption, and this is by John MacArthur. When I preach, I'm just a conduit for the word of God. There's nothing special about the preacher's personality that makes the truth more potent or effective. If he chose to, God could use a donkey to communicate his message. The only thing that matters is that the message be clear and accurate. So that is where I focus all my energies. If you've ever, sometimes if I get a little insecure, I might ask somebody, how was the sermon? Was it clear? That's the first thing I want to know. Did you understand it? Did I muddle up the argument? Were you able to follow it? And that's what I'm longing for is you say, oh yeah, I followed what you were saying. I got it. And then I want to be accurate to the text. If I've accomplished those two things, then I feel like it was a good sermon. This week I had an opportunity to watch a video. I actually only got about halfway through it, but it was a Q&A session from the Strange Fire Conference, and I couldn't believe it. That's already been seven years ago, because all the dates on it was 2013, and I thought, I thought that was just two or three years ago. What happened? It was amazing. Some of the clips that they showed of the pastors and church leaders doing some really bizarre things. It's frightening what's out there. Not anything according to the scriptures. And then it gave the panel an opportunity to interact and talk about what was true doctrinally. If you get a chance, peruse it. It is interesting. Problem is people respond to them by the thousands. All of these churches, our stadiums are packed with people following this nonsense. It's really sad to know that. And doctrines of salvation get blurred and obscured and it's just partial truth is still error. It's still enough to get someone damned. Telling them partial truth is probably worse than telling them the truth. I mean worse than telling them falsehood, that's what I mean, I'm sorry. Partial truth is still error. We looked at some of that this morning. Is Jesus really the only way of salvation? Some would say he is for me, but other people may find God through other ways. This sticks in my mind. We had a discipleship lab at Masters, and they were talking about a group of men had a conference with a very well-known speaker, J.I. Packer. And they ask him, you know, what does it mean to be saved? And he indicated he was very sensitive to his wife's Catholicism. And it's like the gospel was not, it was true for him, but there might be other ways. And my response was, if someone is entertaining that there might be other ways to be saved, do they really themselves believe it? Because if I ask all of you, I hope you would tell me, if I said, how many ways are there to be right with God? And I hope you would say, one. There's only one way. It's got to be through Jesus. It's got to be through the shed blood of Jesus. There is no other way. And I mentioned that verse, and I'm going to say it again tonight, John 14, 6, you know, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. It's very exclusive. It's only by Jesus, and that's it. There is no other way. So we're looking tonight again at this false teaching principles from 2 Peter. Peter is given an entire chapter over that subject and it's apparent that he had trouble with false teachers back then just like we do in our day. And the answer of how to combat falsehood is the same today as it was then. We have to know the Word of God. We have to know it, we have to understand it so we can spot error when it comes. We have to know it ourselves. When we sanctify Jesus as Lord in our hearts, It's like sometimes when we're concerned about, well, what will so-and-so think if I tell him that? The better question would say, what would the Lord Jesus say if you don't? We need to be more passionate and concerned about what he would think and what he would say. We hold high his word. Well, with that in mind, I'm picking it up tonight at 2 Peter 2, verse 10. We're in verse 10, 2 Peter. Tonight I want to look at three characteristics of false teachers so that you will not fall prey to their error. Let's pick it up here at verse 10. And especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. And this is where I'm picking it up. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties. Whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They countered a pleasure to revel in the daytime. There are stains and blemishes reveling in their deceptions as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children. Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but he received a buke for his own transgression for a mute donkey speaking with a voice of a man restrained the madness of the prophet. Three characteristics of false teachers so you will not fall prey to their error. The first one is realize that they scorn true authority. They scorn true authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesty. They're bold, they're arrogant men, they don't tremble. The root word here is blasphemeo. It's a word that we often translate as blasphemy. It's normally translated that way when God somehow is offended or spoken evil against. Here it's indicating an insulting kind of slander to belittle the angelic majesty, so it's not translated as blasphemy here. But who are these angelic majesties? This is important. Who are these angelic majesties when they revile angelic majesties? Well, literally in the Greek, it's the glories. But that leaves the question, who are the glories? Be easy if we could say, well, it's the holy angels. But then verse 11 wouldn't make any sense, would it? Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile the holy angels, whereas the holy angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them. So it'd be the holy angels rebuking their holy angels, so that doesn't make any sense. So that can't be right. The only position that makes sense is that these angelic majesties are actually demonic. Somehow, even in their fallen condition, they bear some kind of dignity or authority that needs to be respected. The false teachers of Peter's day were so bold that they could insult and slander these fallen majesties, and they weren't even fearful of doing so. They scorn true authority. In contrast, even the holy angels won't do that. You see that? Verse 11, So they don't even dare bring a reviling judgment. Peter says, And when John saw a holy angel in the book of Revelation, he fell down at his feet to worship him, and the angel immediately told him, do not do that. I'm a fellow servant of yours. Worship God alone. These angels are greater than anything we see here on earth, but they would not dare bring a reviling judgment against one of these demonic authorities. In case you're wondering about this, I think Jude is much more clear, so I want to turn over there to look at Jude, verse 8. Jude, verse 8. Actually, probably to get the context, it would be good if we went back to verse 4 and just got a running start at it. Jude verse four, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt subsequently, destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they, in the same way as these, indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way, these men, also by dreaming, defiled the flesh, and reject authority and revile angelic majesties. But Michael, the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. Now, Michael isn't mentioned all that often. He is mentioned in Daniel chapter 10 and also chapter 12. And he's the one bringing a message from God to Daniel. He's also mentioned here in Jude, and then he's also mentioned again in Revelation 12, 7, where he says that Michael will lead the host of heaven and all the angelic host against Satan and his host in a final great battle. So that's coming, and Michael is a central figure in that. So Michael is one of the highest angels that's ever mentioned in the Bible. And so we must have some kind of respect for his authority. And yet the point of the passage is he wouldn't even dare rebuke Satan. He said, will the Lord rebuke you? So the idea of all kinds of people running around saying, I rebuke you, Satan, in the name of the, you know, all the things that's going on and like that, it's really not scriptural at all. And I'd like you to help me head off something in our church when sometimes, you know, that song, we just love it. I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, right? Great song. Down in my heart, down in my heart, I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. What about the verse that says, if the devil doesn't like it, he can sit on a tack? That has bugged me for years, because that is rebuking an angelic majesty that we have no authority to do. And we shouldn't be singing such a verse. If we want to say, how do we fight Satan? We do it the biblical way. We resist him, and he'll flee from us. We say, the Lord rebuke you. We turn it over to Jesus. But we don't do it. So that's just a personal conviction. I don't like that verse of that song. The rest of the song is wonderful, but just don't sing that verse. Our instruction comes from James 4.7. I already said it. Submit, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. So we're to resist him. No, I'm not going to do that. I will obey God. I will do what God says. God says to do this and then I'm going to do that. I'm not going to listen to you. That's resisting him. The Apostle Paul had a serious problem. Second Corinthians 12, seven through nine, and because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffen me, to keep me from exalting myself. And I know everybody wants to know what the thorn in the flesh was. I can tell you, it says he's a messenger of Satan. So to speculate further, I don't know what to say, but it could have been his eyesight. I've heard all kinds of arguments on that. But the Apostles Paul said it was a messenger of Satan. And here's a case where Paul did it the right way. He says, concerning this, I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. In other words, Peter, no. It will stay with you. That was, I'm sorry, I said Peter. This is all about Paul. Getting my apostles mixed up here. But that was Paul. Most gladly, therefore, this is Paul's response. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses that the power of Christ may dwell in me. So this demon was being allowed to torment Paul for at least one purpose, to keep him humble. See, sometimes God lets things stay in our life to nag at us and stuff to keep us humble and to bring a resultant greater good that is for his glory and his kingdom. We gotta remember that. If somebody came along and tried to bind him and send him away, he might find himself opposing the very purposes of God. The holy angels respect demonic authority. They turn to God to deal with them, and that should be the way we do it too. We don't listen to them, we don't follow their deceptions. We resist them. Other than that, let God deal with it. The false teachers revile these angelic majesties. You've heard of them, I'm sure. They scorn true authority, but the text says they'll be judged. They'll be destroyed like dumb animals. Look at verse 12, back in Peter. But these, like unreasoning animals, well, I said dumb animals, but I think unreasoning animals is a pretty good equivalent, isn't it? Peter is comparing false teachers to animals. Unreasoning animals follow instinct alone. They have no capacity for reason. He says they're born to be captured and killed. They revile where they have no knowledge. In the same way animals will be destroyed, so will these false teachers, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. So how do you get around the extremely vivid picture that Peter is creating here? This is powerful. This is very powerful. Something to be very worried of. They will be destroyed like someone might kill a stray cat. If you're sensitive to cats, I apologize. One of the things that comes up in a context like this is simply, do they know what they're doing? Remember in our scripture reading, the prophet was certain that the spirit of God was working through him. Remember that? or I don't know if I'm saying it right, but he was the main character in that reading. He sure thought he had it right, but he didn't. I think the false teachers of today are making bad decisions to reject God's word as the ultimate authority, and they rely on experience and their own intuition to guide them rather than a detailed exegesis of the word of God. And that's where they're making their big mistake. They're deceived. How can we tell the difference? Well, let's quickly look at 1 Thessalonians 2.13. 1 Thessalonians 2.13, keep your place there at 2 Peter, because we're coming right back. This is what you and I have to do. This is what we have to, how we respond to false teaching, and we have to be diligent. For this reason, we also constantly thank God that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs, performs its work in you who believe. So how do you know the difference? How do you know the difference between falsehood and the truth? You gotta know the truth. You gotta be a studier of God's word. You gotta grasp it and understand it. You need to be in it. Constantly learning. False teachers scorn true authority and you need to be able to spot that. They undermine the Bible and its message and those who teach it faithfully. The only way you can spot that is if you know the truth. Okay, the first characteristic of false teachers to beware of so you will not fall prey to their error is they scorn true authority. Secondly, they savor falsehood and immorality. They savor falsehood and immorality. They have no shame. See that in the middle of verse 13? Suffering wrong is the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. I think Roman culture would allow almost any form of decadence as long as it happened at night under the cover of darkness. They let Burton and everything go. They love the falsehood and to them it's luxury. Peter is saying that these guys are so bold, though, that they revel, not at night, but in the daytime, boldly in front of everybody. Peter is saying these guys are so bold, they revel in the daytime. Revel has the idea of carousing or being self-indulgent. They do this stuff right in the daytime. They have no shame about it. They don't try to hide it at all. They love their deceptions. Peter calls them stains and blemishes. They revel in their deceptions. They love the falsehood, and to them, it's luxury. I see it often. I know Rob Bell had this characteristic, I believe. Today, they often express how oppressive it was to be raised in a traditional church. That's what he did. Oh, this is just, it was finally such a breath of fresh air to get out of that. Later, to realize that the Bible was really a product of man and he could see God in new ways and reimagine or repaint the faith, how liberating, how much freedom they feel. Reveling in their deceptions. The whole time they're feasting with you. That word here can be translated either as carousing or feasting, and it seems like feasting fits a little better, but they're both right, actually. They feast like they're your best buddy. But the whole time they love falsehood and want to lead you into it. Continuing on, Peter says they love immorality. Now Peter doesn't have mercy on these guys at all. And we shouldn't either. We need to be just as intolerant of falsehood. We aren't talking about a fellow believer who's having trouble with the doctrine. or striving to express a truth and gets it wrong. I mean, one example a guy gave is a woman was struggling with the virgin birth. Well, you dig into the story a little bit and she was young in the faith and just learning about Christ and the virgin birth was a difficult concept for her. But it wasn't like she was rejecting the truth, she just hadn't been taught and she had to learn. We want to help people with that. We want to help people to learn. We're not talking about that. We're talking about mature, or supposedly mature teachers that should know these things and are teaching to undermine it. Peter says they have eyes full of adultery. Their eyes never cease from sin. They are immoral men and their ministries will normally downplay sin and its seriousness. I just about did this. I was about ready to... I had a list I was developing. I was going to name off to you all the ones I could think of in the last ten years that fell to immorality. It's quite a list. And they were big name people that had big ministries, started huge churches and everything. They normally downplay sin and its seriousness. They entice unstable souls to follow along with them. Like enticing a fish to bite the hook with a bait, these guys entice people to follow them into their immoralities. So that echoes on today too. When a teaching can say that sin is not a problem and tell people not to worry about it, I'm I'm not sure about Joel Osteen today, but a few years ago he would say that boldly, that I'm not concerned about sin. And I don't know how anybody could be a true teacher of Christ and not be concerned about sin. That's huge. Today he's couching it in different terms, and I'm not up on the current where he's at currently. I don't think he's still, he's still a false teacher, but I'm not sure what he's saying right now. So I read, I listened to one video and I thought, that's not, doesn't sound like him. So I got to study him a little bit more, but again, he's one that has been false teaching for some time now. Moving on to verse 14, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children. Now it's just a matter of degree how blatant they are about their immoralities. They savor falsehood. Sin is not an issue for them. This is all cleverly done, but many false teachers fit this profile even today. The biggest one that's happened in my lifetime, December of 1980. 1980 was the year I graduated high school. And that was the year Jim Baker had his tryst with Jessica Hahn. I don't know if you remember that. You'd have to be almost 60, I guess, to remember that. But that was big. The PTL, Praise the Lord Club, and Jim and Tammy Baker, that was huge on television. And they had an empire. They built that multiple, that big theme park. And my goodness, there was no end to their wealth. And they were on TV promoting all this stuff. And then he had that affair with Jessica Hahn. And they couldn't shut her up. And they ended up losing everything. By the way, he went to prison, served his time in prison, got out and started another TV ministry. He's on the TV now. And just in the last couple months, the attorney generals of, I wanna say Alabama, I'm not sure, but they brought charges against him and said, you cannot promote your curing. He has some chemical that'll cure COVID-19. and he's selling it to everybody. I'm thinking, he didn't learn anything in all that. He's still doing the same thing, trying to build people out of their money. It's really sad. So that's just happened in the last couple of months. If you Google it, you could see Jim Baker and the COVID-19 scandal. And the attorney generals of certain states, I want to say Alabama, I could be wrong on that, but they're telling him, stop promoting your wares. So how many people have been fooled out of their money by that guy? He's just one. He's just one that I mentioned. I mean, they're endless on the Christian stations. And unfortunately, I think unbelievers sometimes get their opinion of us through that. And that's sad. That's really sad. Okay, so the first characteristic, they scorn true authority, they savor falsehood and immorality. Now thirdly, they seek riches above righteousness. I guess a lot of these overlap, don't they? But moving on to verse 15, forsaking the right way, they've gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Baal, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Now you guys remember this account and this picture that I have is talking about that account, but Balaam was told by the Lord, I mean this king wanted him to curse Israel. And the Lord told him, you will not curse Israel. And so he wasn't able to do it. He ended up blessing him all the time anyway. And his donkey at one point actually stopped and crouched down and told him, rebuked him. Read the account, it's amazing. In case you're wondering, Numbers chapter 22. So what did Balaam do? He couldn't curse Israel, so he skirted the whole issue and he gave advice and got the women of Moab to commit adultery with Israel. and got Israel to sin and got God turned against them that way. Couldn't curse him, so he did it that way. Still a false teacher. So it's truly an amazing account. And that's what Peter's talking about right here. Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Baal. And here's this king just pouring out money to him. How come you won't curse Israel for me? And he said, well, I can't, because God's told me not to curse him. But he loved the wages of unrighteousness, but he received a rebuke for his own transgression for a mute donkey speaking with the voice of a man restrained the madness of the prophet. But then he eventually found a way through adultery to get Israel in sin so that God would punish them. Peter says their heart is trained in greed. Some see the ministry as a way to get wealthy. All right, I haven't done this in a while, but it's still true. All you gotta do is turn on the Christian Station, and within minutes, you'll be introduced to the latest financial scam. Now, I gotta be careful, because there are a few good ministries on there that are worth our time. But that's just it. They're very few. Most of them are these kind of scams and fundraisers and all this stuff trying to build people out of their money. It's not really good doctrine at all. They're very well done with excellent marketing techniques, but it really comes down to fleecing the flock. We don't want to harm the good ones, but at the same time most of them are bad And I usually tell people don't even bother looking at that station My professor used to say yeah, you got to turn it on once in a while to find out what the rate latest heresy is But I don't know I haven't watched it for years now Have good discernment if you do watch it I know most of you feel the same way about that station and it's We've got to be on guard. Peter says that false teachers are trained in greed and are accursed children. Verse 15 says, they have forsaken the right way. You see that? Forsaking the right way, they've gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Baal, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. They will compromise to gain wealth. So apparently this Balaam was a known prophet of hire. I pretty much already explained that so I can move on. So what did he get them to do? This is the verse that I'm coming to. Numbers 25.1, while Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel. That was all at the urgings of the same Balaam that we're talking about. So even though the donkey warned him, and he knew God would bless Israel, and they would ultimately defeat Balak the king, that knowledge didn't stop him from opposing God by opposing Israel. He went ahead and did it anyway. Even though he knew, that was a case where he knew full well that he shouldn't be doing this, and he did it anyway. He couldn't curse them, but he could tempt them with immorality so God would reject them and punish them, and that's what he did. Did it for money. So, point is, money is always a big issue for false teachers, and they like to revel in it. Okay, tonight we looked at three characteristics of false teachers. They scorn true authority, they scorn the Bible, they scorn those who believe in the Bible, The big spirit of our age is to belittle those who don't buy into higher criticism as uneducated and ignorant. The real issue is simply believing what God says. They savor falsehood and immorality. They love the falsehood and herald it as freeing and liberating. They claim it leads to so much a fuller life. Well, I guess as, who was it that said that sin is pleasurable for a season? I think that was Solomon. False doctrine will release those who have been so misled by the traditional church, they say. Devoid of truth, this all leads to damnation. They seek riches above righteousness. Wealth and power are usually at the heart of all false teaching. So what should we do? Peter has devoted all of chapter two, I'll probably have at least one more sermon in that to get to chapter three, but chapter three is what we're rushing toward and that's what we see as the remedy to all of it. Chapter three, verse one and two. This is now beloved the second letter I'm writing to you in which I'm stirring you up by sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. That's the remedy. That's what's going to keep you out of false teaching. And that's what Peter is heading toward, but he's got a few more arguments to make against false teacher before we get there. How do we combat false teaching? Remember the words spoken by the prophets, cling to the words of Jesus spoken by his apostles. So we'll look at that soon. Well, was it clear? Were you able to follow it? If not, I do need to hear about it, because I do want to be clear. Let's go to the Lord in prayer, shall we? Gracious Lord, thank you so much for this evening. Thank you for this time that we can look into your word. Thank you for the warnings that you've given us about false teachers and their methods and their motives, and it really shouldn't surprise us all the things that are going on. But I pray, Lord, that you would help us to be alert, help us to watch for it, help us to be quick to protect our church, help us to be quick to protect our families, our children from falsehood, so that they won't be taken up by these errors. Thank you so much, Lord, for the wisdom that we find here in your word, and especially here as we study 2 Peter. Thank you, Lord, I pray for these people. I pray that you would bless them as they leave here. I pray that you would strengthen them. I pray that you'd give them a renewed fire and zeal in their heart. I just pray that you would let them be enthused about your word. Grant them that they would set aside time to spend with you in your word and to pray. Pray, Lord, that you would make us strong in you. that we may know you and the power of your resurrection. Thank you, we praise you in Jesus' name.