Let's go ahead then and turn to Psalm 45, and we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 9 as we begin our call to worship this morning. My heart is overflowing with a good theme. I recite my composition concerning the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. You are fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured out upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword upon your thigh, oh mighty one, with your glory and your majesty. And in your mighty and your majesty, ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness. and your right hand shall teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The people's fall under you. Your throne of God is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. All your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces by which they have made you glad. King's daughters are among your honorable women. At your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir. Let's pray together. Father, we praise you because you are a God who desires for us to know the truth. Your word actually tells us, Christ says, that you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And your word tells us that you are a God of truth. Father, we pray, Lord, that you would help us to really live our lives with the truth of your word as the foundation. We confess before you that so often we stray and our thinking is moved by things that are in the world and temporal values instead of really saturating our thinking with your word and your truth. And Father, today I pray, Lord, that as we open your word up in 2 Peter, that you would give us the discernment and the understanding of how to identify truth and how to identify error and the destructive nature of false teaching. Lord, may we be not only a church that is the pillar and ground of the truth that you want us to be, but as individual Christians, I pray, Lord, that as we as we interact with people, as we see things on the television or on the internet, that we would easily detect error, quickly detect error, and stay very firm in the truth. And we pray, Lord, as we worship you this morning, that you would help us to do so in a way that pleases you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Father, we thank you today for your mighty power. And we see often, Lord, in your word how your power is displayed simply by your word, how it spoke all of creation into existence. And we know also, Lord, from your teaching that your word is truth. Even Jesus, when he prayed for us, he said, to sanctify them by thy truth, thy word is truth. And Lord, we come to you today in gratitude because this world is dark and this world rejects your truth. And even as we are, to be honest, our hearts would naturally want to reject your truth. I pray, Lord, that we would be people who are that have gratitude for the truth that you have given us. Your word is a light unto our path and a lamp unto our feet. We would be in such darkness, Lord, without your truth. Oh, how we need it every day. Of a truth, Lord, we often Look to ourselves and we look to other places for guidance, but Lord, help us to be people of your word. Help us to be a people that not only recognize truth, but also live it out in our in our daily walk and our responsibilities and in what we seek to do. I pray, Lord, that we would be examples to others of what it is to live by your truth. Lord, we need help to do this. We cannot do it on our own strength. And so, Lord, I pray that you would help us to be those types of people who Lean on you independence recognizing every day that that what you've called us to is not a hard life, but honestly an impossible life without your presence and help and strength and grace Lord I ask that That you would do a great and mighty work in each of us who are here that belong to you. I pray that you would even use the message to come and the passage to come to to ingrain these truths in our hearts. That we would continue in that step by step process, that growth into the image of your son. Well, we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Reading from today's passage will be 2 Peter chapter 2, verses 1 through 9. And read along with me, if you will. But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly 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, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood of the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who would 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 temptation and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. We are continuing our study in the book of 2 Peter here, and 2 Peter is, in this chapter, Peter is now really going to deal with the problem of the false teachers of that day. He really hasn't mentioned them so far in our book. In the book, we've mentioned them, but he hasn't too much alluded to them, but not mentioned them directly. And now he is going to do that. Let me just review for you just kind of where we've been so far, just so we get a flow, we understand where Peter's coming from and what he's trying to do here. First, we really establish in 2 Peter, he really establishes what is at stake. In verse 4, if you'll just kind of follow with me, chapter 1, verse 4, it says, These false teachers were teaching in such a way that it was keeping people from being able to partake in the very thing that God saved them for. the partake in the divine nature and what it meant by that was that to become more Christ-like is how we experience what God intended for us and the false teachers, how they were teaching, were taking that away. We'll be reminded in a few minutes of what that is. Then secondly, we noted in 2 Peter 1, that what was at stake was apostasy and uselessness, and the way to avoid that from happening was to be actively involved in spiritual growth. And you remember that list, with all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and all those things in that passage. God wants us to be very much engaged in our own spiritual growth with diligence. And what is at stake if we are not doing that in the way that God intends is we come to a place of uselessness, and leaving the faith. In 2 Peter 1 verses 8-11 it says, For these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things, the growth of the Christian, the growth and discipleship and all that, that list of things that we looked at. He who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things, you'll never stumble. And then finally, What we looked at last week was that the Word of God is constructed in such a way that it is verifiable and completely reliable. Even Peter, along with James and John, witnessed the glory of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. which was a fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy and demonstrated that what is still prophesied to come would come to pass, the very coming of Christ, and that we ought to gain our understanding of life and truth from the Word of God. It's verifiable, and the way that it's been constructed in such a way is to demonstrate the fulfillment of prophecy in the Old Testament, which gives us confidence that the future fulfillment of the coming of Christ will occur. And so Peter, before he even really addresses these false teachers, he wants us to get across these three very important things. Realize what's at stake, number one. Number two, focus with diligence on your own spiritual growth in Christ to avoid a life of fruitlessness and uselessness. And then number three, your foundation is found in the word of God and it's verifiable and trustworthy because of what Christ has done in coming to earth as the living word and letting three apostles see his glory and how it was all brought to fruition shows us that this book is no ordinary book. It is verifiable and reliable and we need to place our full faith and trust in it. Now we come to Peter and wanting to really deal with these false teachers. He says in verse 1, He makes a connection now between the false prophets of the Old Testament And there were many, weren't there? You could just think through the Old Testament. How often were there prophets of Baal that influenced Ahab, for example? Or many other times throughout the Old Testament you see these false prophets. And what did God say to do with them? He actually said to put them to death. He actually said he had very, very severe things to say about these false prophets. Well, what Peter is saying is just as there were false prophets in the Old Testament, there are false teachers in the New Testament. And the people that he was dealing with in this passage were not people that were giving brand new revelation, they were misinterpreting what was already there and twisting it to make it something different. And so that is an important distinction, but one that he says their destruction, and he's going to say this in this passage, throughout this passage, that the destruction of the false prophets are going to demonstrate the same kind of destruction that's going to happen to these false teachers. They're really doomed for destruction. Now there are three things, we don't know exactly a lot of what these false teachers were teaching. We could gain a few things from Peter himself, from 2 Peter here himself, this book itself. Number one, they postured themselves as having an angle on the truth. Like they had sort of a special, they didn't say they had special revelation, like false prophets do, but they did say, you know, we really know what the Bible is saying. We understand it. Really, in opposition to what the apostles were saying, we got an angle on this. We really know. We really understand it. And I think we can give you a more insightful, better understanding than what you first got from Peter or Paul or the other apostles. So they claim to have sort of a hidden knowledge. Secondly, they were tempting them to be free from the law in the sense of being free from the demands of holiness. In other words, they were giving them a license to sin. They were saying, there's no real accounting of anything, there's not going to be a judgment, and that leads us to the third point. There's no literal coming of Christ in the future. If you look at the New Testament, you see the coming of Christ as associated with the fact that there's going to be a reckoning. There's going to be, for the believer, there's going to be an assessment of what we've done with our lives, the stewardship of our lives, and how we've taken the grace of God and used it in our lives for Christ's work and His advantage, or have we just squandered it and wasted it? Or for the unbeliever, the fact that there's going to be a reckoning for their sin and a punishment. Those things are associated with the coming of Christ, and by saying there's no literal coming of Christ, They're also basically saying there's no time to look ahead to where there's going to be a judgment or a reckoning of what has happened. And if a Christian does not have any looking ahead to the fact that there's going to be an assessment of things, then he is very likely going to end up feeling like he has a license to sin. And these people, as we're going to see in 2 Peter, Not only did they say, you have a license to sin, but let's prove it, they were living very licentious lives. Now with all of that in mind, we come to 2 Peter chapter 2. And there's a particular problem that he's going to address, and you might think he's going to deal with the teaching, the false teaching, but he isn't going to primarily deal with that. He's actually going to deal with the character of these people. And he's going to deal also with their future, what's going to happen to them, and it's for a very important reason. The reason is, is that they seem to really be prospering during the time of the writing of this. In other words, these Christians that Peter is writing to are being tempted to leave the faith and follow after these false teachers because they were really successful. They were really prosperous. And the apostles, on the other hand, really weren't. The apostles were being persecuted, the apostles were living pretty poor lives, the apostles were suffering, and these people were successful and prospering. And one of the great problems for the Christian is when a Christian sees in the world people that are doing evil or people that are not even attempting to follow after the things of God or to do right, and they seem to be rewarded for it. And then people that seem to be doing right, they seem to not be being rewarded for it. In fact, they seem sometimes to even be having a worse life as a result of it. And what Peter is going to do here is he's going to say, look, you've got to understand that this life is not what you need to be paying attention to. It's the next life. It's the judgment. It's the fact that these people are going to be judged. Mark it down. Understand that their future looks really successful and real prosperous right now, but there's going to be a day where their future is not going to be that way. It's not going to be prosperous. It's not going to be successful. They're going to be under judgment. That's what you need to be looking at and follow the people that are not going to be under judgment and the people that are actually going to be rewarded for their service and faithfulness to God. Peter is really going to try to get this across in this passage. Before he does this, before he really, really emphasizes the destruction of these false teachers, he is first going to describe who they are and what they're doing. We're going to see then, first of all, here in this passage, that God is going to deal with these people by identifying them as false teachers, by identifying false teaching. And this is going to then become a very, very helpful way for us to learn how to identify false teaching as well. And you say to yourself, well, you know, I'm no scholar. I don't know Greek, I don't know Hebrew, I haven't taken any systematic theology classes, I really don't understand how to discern these things. And can I just tell you that Peter is going to give you some tools to use that are really interesting. He isn't going to give us here an apologetic on how to deal with this. He's actually going to identify the character of these people. And we're going to see this very clearly, and not just the character, but their tactics. How are they deceiving? What are they doing to draw people into false teaching? And let me just say this, just like there were false teachers in the first century, there are many, many false teachers in our day and age. Many. In fact, if I would suggest to you that among the people in the United States that name the name of Christ, I would actually suggest that the majority are false teachers, the majority. I don't know if you realize that, but if you think of all of the churches, of all of the denominations that would actually say, yes, I am a Christian, and maybe even would say, I am evangelical, I hold the gospel, But yet, many of them are actually false teachers. And we're gonna show that as we go through this. And I think this will be very helpful for us in discerning what does false teaching look like? What are false teachers and how can we avoid them? Understand that this is built on the truth that this is what is reliable. So now, okay, we're gonna turn our attention to false teachers, and we're gonna look at them and see what is very, very unreliable and what we ought to be watching out for. So the passage says this, but there were also false prophets among the people, even as there were false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who brought 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." What we're going to see here is there are actually five tactics of false teachers in this passage between verses 1 and 3. Five tactics, and today I'm actually listing all five of them. We'll go through one at a time. I want you to see these five tactics of these false teachers that really are being influenced by Satan and the world. Would you notice, first of all, number one, they have a secretive approach that divides. They have a secretive approach that divides. Look at the passage again. It says this, even as there will be false teachers who will secretly bring destructive heresies." Their approach is one that is secretive. The word means to come in from the side. to, it's like to ambush somebody from the side. This was very different from the teaching of the apostles and the teaching of Christ. Christ's teaching was very upfront. This is the way it is, I am describing it to all. The apostles came and they preached, they went directly to the synagogues and they preached very much upfront and very much, you know, here is the truth. But as the apostles in the New Testament are teaching and preaching the word of God and the gospel, these people are kind of coming alongside and sort of saying, really? Are you sure about that? Is that really the way it is? Who does that remind you of? Satan himself in the garden many, many, many years prior where God says this is the way it is and Satan goes, is it really? and that's the kind of thing that they were doing. There was sort of a sideways secret approach. Now, it didn't always seem that way. It wasn't as though it was always where they were. It wasn't like they were in hiding. They were very, very much prominent, but the way they did it was sort of a sleight of hand, sort of a secretive kind of, not a, we are absolutely opposing what the apostle said, but no, we're questioning. We're not questioning in a way that's honest, we're questioning in a way that's intended to put doubt in the minds of these believers. So he says they are secretly approaching, and the word heresy actually means a divide, divisions. What was happening in the church was now there were becoming divisions based upon a different way of believing, a different system of belief, and primarily what seems to be the issue is whether you believe in the actual bodily coming of Christ or not. If you did believe in the bodily coming of Christ that the apostles were very clear about, that told everybody about very directly, Christ is coming again. He's coming in the clouds. He's speaking very literally, very physically about the coming of Christ. And we see that throughout the New Testament. And you had this other group of people over here that were saying, He's coming, but it's not physical. You're not really going to be able to see anything. It's just a spiritual kind of a thing. Now that's false teaching, very clearly. And it was separating people. It was dividing people. It was a way to create division. In 1 Corinthians 11, verse 19, it says, and there must also be factions, that word factions, the same word, among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. It says this that even deny, now what are they doing here with all this? They're denying the Lord who bought them. Now that is an interesting phrase, actually, for a couple of reasons. The word deny means to deny or to reject. In Matthew 10.33 it says, for whoever denies me before men, him will I deny before the Father. It's the same word as that. Or in 1 Timothy 5, verse 8, it says, but if anyone does not provide for his own, he especially for those who are the household, he denies the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. It is this rejecting or denying. And it's interesting, it says, the Lord, and this word Lord is not the same word Lord that you usually think of when you think of the word Lord that's translated in scripture. It's actually the word master. It's a different word, usually referring to a slave master. And slavery is not the same thing as slavery in the history of our country. It's a different kind of slavery, but basically a bond servant or a bond slave back in the first century. And it's talking here about a master who bought them, who redeemed them. The question then becomes, were these false teachers saved or not? Were they genuinely redeemed? Were they Christians that now actually left the faith or not? And my best answer to you about that is that I don't see this as conclusive one way or the other. It could very mean very much mean that the offer of redemption was clearly given to these teachers, and maybe they accepted initially but didn't have actual saving faith, and now they're rejecting it. It could mean that. Or it could mean that they did actually truly accept at one point, but now they're leaving it and they're rejecting it. Of course, if that's occurring, then they're going to eventually be under the chastening of hand of God. I think the former is more likely. I don't think they really ever came to Christ in the first place. I would base that on some of the judgments that they're going to hear, some of the condemning language that's going to be said about them. It would seem to me that they never came to Christ actually, but the offer of redemption was made for them, and they are now turning from that offer. And he's warning them, he's warning these true Christians, don't turn from the offer as well. So they're denying the Master who is offering redemption to them. And it's going to bring, it says to them, swift destruction. Now the swift does not mean fast in the way that we think of necessarily. It doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to be destroyed the next day or something or the same day or something like that. God's timeline is so different from ours. What it's saying is it's sure. It is imminent. It's going to happen. It's sure it will happen. Their destruction is going to happen because of the direction they're going. That brings us then to number two. They teach that Christians have a license to sin, and they reject the way of the truth. They teach that Christians have a license to sin, and they reject the way of the truth. Now, notice what the passage says. It says this, Verse 2 actually, it says, and many will follow their destructive ways. Now that word destructive actually means sensual or even sexual. It means that the word destructive there is a different word than other places using the word destruction and it means sensual. What they're talking about are these false teachers are falling into all kinds of sensual sin. And they are directing other people and drawing other people into that same kind of sin. They're saying, basically, they're saying, hey, look, you're saved by God's grace and you're free to sin. You have a license now to sin. And there's no coming of Christ, there's no reckoning of your behavior, there's nothing happening that's going to be an assessment of how you've been a good steward of God's grace of the future. They're rejecting that idea at all, and they're basically saying, you can do what you want. And you know what? Do you know how many people are deceived by that? Here's why people are deceived by that. If you can get somebody to feel that they can do what they want and feel good about it, you will deceive many. That is a very effective draw. Here, do what you want and don't feel guilty about it. and you will draw many people, and folks, there is a very important lesson there. If false teachers are appealing to what you want, and you're drawn in because, oh, I can actually do what I want here, And I can not feel guilty about it. And I don't mean what you want in the sense of doing good things that you want. I'm talking about sinful things that you want. Be very, very careful about that. And notice what it says here. They reject the way, the singular way of truth. Now, here's what's going on here. This license to sin is a word that I just think I need to use the word. It's a word that is a sort of a complicated word but I think you need to know the word. It's the word antinomianism. It is a very, very common thing that happened in the New Testament and during the time of the New Testament and a very common thing that happens today. Antinomianism is a word that means law or rules. Antinomianism basically said there are no rules, there's no law. Now on the one side you have people back in the first century, you have it now, where people say, hey, the Christian life is about no rules. It's an anti-law, an anti-morality. Hey, there's no rules. And on the other side, you have people that are legalistic, legalism. Those are people that, okay, we actually gain God's favor by our laws and rules. These are the two extremes that you find in the first century. Galatians, it's legalism. Second, Peter, it's antinomianism, license, licentiousness. And folks, if we're not careful as Christians, we can fall to either extreme. Okay, I am self-righteous and I gain favor with God by doing this, this, this, this, this, this, this. And that's legalism. But if we're not careful, folks, we'll go all the way to the other extreme where we now have a license to sin and that is wrong as well. and that will lead us into error and sin and uselessness and fruitlessness as well. Both of these extremes are wrong, but what Peter does is he doesn't make these two the opposite. He says the opposite of this license to sin is truth. Do you see what it says? It says, you're following the ways, it's kind of a play on words, you're following the ways, the destructive ways, versus the way. Now, when he says the way, this was a term that was used a lot in the New Testament. Christ said, I am what? The way, the truth and the life. And that phrasing became what was very, very common in the first century. In fact, if you read through the book of Acts, you're gonna see that term a lot. The way, the way, the way throughout the book of Acts. of Acts. And you find it also in places like Matthew chapter 7 verse 13 through 14 where it says, enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it. But narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life and there are few who find it. The way is the minority find the way, not the majority. And that's going to come into play in a few minutes as well. The majority are going in the broad way, many ways, including sensual ways. And he is basically saying that licentious behavior is the ways of these false teachers. And they are, by doing that, they are rejecting the way. the way being Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 24, verses 13 through 16, it says, nor can they prove the things which they now accuse me, but this is, I confess, Paul's talking here, according to the way which they call a sect. So I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things that were written in the law and the prophets. I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept. They there will be, There will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. And being so, I myself will strive and have conscience without offense toward God and man." Paul says, this is the way. Now he says in this passage that they're blaspheming the way. And the word blaspheme can be used in a couple different ways in the New Testament. But in this case, it's talking about speaking evil of the way. See, here's what was happening back then. These false teachers were saying, that narrow way That way of those Christians who are just, that is so narrow. And they're speaking evil of the way of the apostles. You can live how you want. You can do what you want. You can have license to do what you want. Don't be like those apostles. Their way is narrow. They began to speak evil of the way, and they began to draw people to the ways. And by doing so, they're rejecting the truth. They were teaching Christians to have a license to sin, and they were rejecting the way of Christ by doing so. Now, the next tactic is that they are driven by covetousness, and they appeal to covetousness. Now, we've already alluded to this, but we see clearly in the text that it's brought out in verse 3. By covetousness, they will exploit you with deceptive words. For a long time, their judgment has been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. By covetousness, they will exploit you." Covetousness, now the question then becomes, okay, first of all, what is covetousness? Well, covetousness is wanting what God has not provided. Essentially, that's what covetousness is. If you look at the Old Testament, you find that that was the avenue by which idolatry came. In the New Testament, Colossians 3, it actually tells us that covetousness is idolatry. It's the avenue of idolatry. When I want what God has not provided, and I pursue what God has not provided, that is the path to idolatry. It's the way to idolatry. Now he says it's by covetousness. And so the question is, is it saying that the motivation of these people is covetousness, these false teachers? Or is it saying that they are appealing to the covetousness of others? And what I would say to you is the answer is yes. It's both. These people are very covetous. They want what God has not provided. They want their own gain. They are doing this for their own gain. And they also are appealing to the covetousness of the people they are speaking to, and they are saying, don't you want this, this, and this? I have this, this, and this. Don't you want this, this, this? And they're tempting them by covetous. They're appealing to their covetousness. Folks, do you think this is happening today? It absolutely is happening all over the place. This is extremely common today. Folks, this is exactly the opposite teaching of the apostles. The apostles, when they taught, the disciples that Jesus commissioned to teach the truth, Paul says this, he says this, he says, For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. But we have been approved by God to entrust with the gospel, even so we speak. not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time were we flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness." That's going to become later important, the flattering words. "...nor a cloak for covetousness. God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So affectionately longing for you, we were pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you have become dear to us. So this passage tells us, in 2 Peter, that's 1 Thessalonians chapter two verses three through eight, the apostle Paul, that's how they came. They came loving the people. There was no covetousness in their heart. There was no desire for gain in their heart. They could have demanded things because they were apostles, but they didn't do that. And he was pointing that out to these Thessalonians. This is in direct contrast to these false teachers who were doing what they were doing because they wanted gain. They were wanting what they wanted. As a result, they were teaching in a way that would be appealing to people's ears, appealing to their thinking, and would cause them eventually to go their way. Presumably, there was probably money involved as well in that. That brings us to number four. They exploited people for their own gain. The Bible actually says now they're appealing to covetous, they're coveting themselves, and now they're exploiting to people of their own gain. Now folks, this is happening all over the place, all over this country, and all over the world for that matter, but particularly in this country. I was reading from one particular website, it's called, I think it was moneyincorporated.org or .com, I can't remember which, and it had a particular article in there and it listed all the different televangelists and what they made, what their net worth was. Kenneth Copeland, for example, is the highest ranking televangelist with a net worth of $760 million. Pat Robertson, who is not as heretical as Kenneth Copeland, but has some pretty strange things, is worth $100 million. Benny Hinn weighed in at $42 million. Joel Osteen has a net worth of $40 million. Creflo Dollar, who has an extremely ironic name, they couldn't figure out how much his net worth was because it's too secretive, but they note that he claims that he would have the ability to be able to buy a jet for $65 million if he wanted. Folks, this is happening all over our country. There are millions of people by the droves that give money to these people. They got this money somehow, and it's by people being deceived into thinking that it is absolutely a false prosperity gospel. This is what this is. They're appealing to covetousness. And there are people who will, these preachers are saying something to the effect of, if you wanna live a better life like mine, and notice I'm living a great life, and really they're living a great life at the exploitation of the people they're talking to, but if you wanna live a great life like mine, then you need to have a positive attitude, and you need to believe in yourself, and they throw God in there a little bit, and they have all of these great spiritually sounding things to say, What's really happening is these people are getting fleeced. If you've worked in the workplace for any length of time with people, if they have any religious inclination, you're going to run into people that are following these kinds of people. When I worked in both places, I worked in secular places. When I worked at Chick-fil-A, for example, people were always talking about these kinds of people. Folks, these people are false teachers and I do not mind saying their names from this pulpit. Paul actually said, mark them. These are false teachers. Be very careful. They're appealing to covetousness. Now, number five, they employ deceptive rhetoric rather than straightforward biblical truth. Now I'm going to explain what that means in a minute. You say, what's deceptive rhetoric? Just look at the passage first and then I'll explain. It says this, and it says this, by covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words. For a long time their judgment has not been idle and their destruction not slumber. They're using deceptive words. Now what does it mean deceptive words? It's talking about false words. Well does it mean they're making up words? No, they're not making up words. They are putting words together in such a way that is clever and appealing. It is by definition what rhetoric is. Folks, we need to be aware of this. Rhetoric is a way, there's a lot to rhetoric, but rhetoric is a way of constructing speech in such a way that it is very, very compelling, even though it's sometimes not true. Now rhetoric is also involved in speaking the truth as well. But deceptive rhetoric, this kind of way of forming phrases and words in such a way that they appeal to the listener and deceive them is something that's very, very, it's very, very destructive. This kind of slight of hand with words, is something that the Apostles avoided in their preaching. Would you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1 with me for a moment? I want you to see this. Look at the contrast that is made here between the Apostles Teaching and what we just saw in 2nd Peter Paul says this for Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel not with what? verse 17 of 1st Corinthians chapter 1 not with wisdom of words Did you catch that? Brothers and sisters in Christ be very careful of someone who is smooth-tongued and who has a way of speaking in such a way that it draws you in. Now I'm not saying that everybody does that, it's a false teacher. But the approach that the apostles took was deliberate to proclaim plainly and clearly the word. He said, I came not to you with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolish to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and the Greeks foolishness. What is he saying here? He is saying that we did not come to you with eloquent speech that is crafted in such a way that you just believe. That you say, yeah, that's right, oh yeah, that's right. No, he plainly, they plainly proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ in plain language, in truth, explaining the word of God, explaining the truth of God in such a way that is plain and true. Now let me just put it in these kinds of terms to help you understand. Be very careful of the person who speaks with great emotion, but has no instruction. What you will often find in false teaching is that they are very charismatic, they are very entertaining, they appeal to the emotions, and then after they've done all of that, then they might throw in a little bit of truth. It should be the exact opposite of that, where you lay out truth biblically, and you lay out what the Bible says, and you expound and proclaim the truth of the word of God. And will that put you in a place where you want to convince God's people as a preacher? I tell you, where it is emotional, yes. This is, I don't, at least I don't think I preach in a monotone. But what first comes is the instruction. And after there's an instruction, then there's sort of a, let me really help you understand this from an emotional response perspective, but the instruction comes first. Be careful of someone who appeals to your emotions first, and then throws a little truth in there. Paul said, we did not come to you that way. And we need to be very careful about that as well. We have wrong motives. We have a wrong method. We have wrong tactics. And I just want to say very clearly that you and I have to be very careful when it comes to the truth of God's Word. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to finish this tonight. I plan on preaching on something else tonight, but I won't. I'll preach on this night and finish this up tonight. So let me encourage you to come back tonight and hear the conclusion of this. And I am over time, so I'm just going to sort of stop here and pray. Let's pray together. Father we come to you and thank you for who you are. We thank you for your truth. We thank you for your word. We thank you that it instructs us on what false the tactics and the motives of false teachers. And I pray Lord that you would give us discernment when it comes to these things. Help us to see what this looks like and help us to be able to discern it correctly. Help us to to to just be Just know that our faith has found a resting place in your word and that it would stay and remain the foundation of all truth for us. And we thank you for your word that leads us to write truth. Give us discernment in these areas and help us. And Lord, we can all, many of us can think anyway of people that have been drawn away by false teaching and drawn away by things that sound good but are not true. I pray that you would keep us from that. And we pray these things in Christ's name, amen. Hello, my name is Jim Ganam, Senior Pastor of Bethel Baptist Church. I'd like to take a minute to thank you for streaming our service. We hope and pray that it was truly a blessing to you. You know, we live in a day where we have access to the preaching of God's Word with just a phone or a tablet, or with a couple of clicks on our computer. But we really would love to meet you in person. You know, there is just nothing that really replaces the experience of being in a loving community. Here at BBC, you'll be greeted by people who genuinely want to help you to have the best experience you can possibly have. If you have a family, we can help your kids find their fun, interactive classes, and your littlest ones can get settled into our safe, fun, and well-equipped nursery. Then help yourself to a cup of coffee and join us for the main service for singing, praying, and the preaching of God's Word. Although we'd love to have you visit our church, this is not our greatest concern for you. Our greatest concern is that you know how to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In fact, I want to let you know about a resource that will help you with this. It is called The Exchange. The Exchange is an easy-to-use, four-week guide that helps people to learn how they can have a relationship with God according to the Bible. If you contact us, we'd love to give you a copy while supplies last, and we'd also love to meet with you either in person or over the phone or over a FaceTime or Zoom video call so we can walk you through this helpful resource. If you're interested in going through the exchange Bible study with us, or if you just have a need we can pray for, please call us at 410-768-4273 or email us at info at bbcofmd.org. May the Lord richly bless you. We hope to see you soon.