Good morning and thank you for joining us once again for the Bible Believers Radio Broadcast. My name is Pastor Mike Wheeler and I'll be your host for the next 30 minutes as we study the Word of God together. Now this morning we're going to be taking a look over in 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 2, and if you can make your way over there in your Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 2 and follow along with us while we give you some verses of scripture that you can look up for yourselves and you can read them for yourselves, and you can get some understanding out of the Bible through the Holy Spirit of God, and He can teach you and guide you into all truth. And that is part of the job of the Holy Spirit of God, is to guide you into all truth. So now while you're turning over there in your Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 2, let me invite you to visit our website at www.bbbcnc.org. Once again, that's www.bbbcnc.org. And you'll find all the information that you need on that website to be able to get in contact with us. If you'd like to know what we believe, we have a statement of faith listed on the website there that you can read about. and you can find out what we believe. And if you have any questions about our ministry, or if you have any questions about salvation, I invite you to send me a text message, or an email, or give me a phone call, and I will answer your phone calls if you call. Give me a phone call, I'll be glad to talk to you about any of those questions that you may have. Okay, now this morning, let's look over there in 2 Peter chapter two. In 2 Peter chapter two, and let's look down at verse one. And last week, we kind of started this chapter, but we didn't get very far. So let's start there in verse one. It says, but there were false prophets also among the people. So there were some false prophets, even as there shall be false teachers among you. So it says that there's going to be, shall be in the future, there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord, that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And it says in verse one there, it says, but there were false prophets. So in this world, there are false teachers, false prophets that lie about the scriptures and they will say, thus saith the Lord. And the Lord never said that. There's many people who say something that God said this or God said that. Well, doesn't it say in the Bible somewhere that God said this? And it really doesn't say those things in the Bible. And then there are many false prophets who will absolutely just lie, completely lie about what Jesus Christ said or what the Bible says or what the word of God says. and they will try to use you and deceive you in order to make merchandise of you. Now we're gonna look at many of those things this morning, so if you can, follow along with us as we try to show you some things out of the Bible about some false prophets. Now, no false prophet thinks that he is a false prophet, okay? So now there are some things that we can look at to show you that they are false prophets and they look at us in a strange manner, think that we're heretics because we believe that the Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice. And let me ask you a question, why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we as a Christian Look at the Bible as our final authority in all matters of faith and practice, not my opinion or not what I think, not what somebody has taught me, but what the Bible says. The Bible should be our final authority. You know, the Bible declares about itself or in the book of Luke that it is the key of knowledge. So now if this book that we have in front of us, it is the key of knowledge, then we should look inside this book and find out what the Bible has to say about things in this life, how that we are to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and then we should be familiar enough with the book to where that when somebody comes along, we have enough spiritual discernment to tell whether or not they are telling us the truth or if they're lying to us. And I know that that's, you know, some people are very naive, especially whenever it comes to religious matters, biblical matters, matters of Christianity, matters of church. And they're very naive and they're, you know, they're very conflicted between opinions. And they say, well, how do you know that you're right and somebody else is wrong? Well, the reason I think that I'm right, and it's not that I'm right, it's that the Bible is right. And I believe the Bible by faith that it is correct and it's God's book. And so there's some things to watch out for as far as false prophets are concerned. There's some prophets out there in the world who absolutely do not have your best interest at heart. There's preachers out there that are preaching a false doctrine. Last week, we went over a couple of verses about a false Christ, a false Jesus, a false spirit. We went over all those things and showed you over in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, how that there are people who will preach a false gospel. Now, I wanna give you some, you know, just some things to look out for. And I've got this written down in my Bible as a side note, just some things about false prophets. And one of the things is, is a false prophet will say that science is the highest authority. That science, something that can be proven, science is the highest authority. And it shouldn't be. Science is something that man researches and looks up and tries to find out, and they do it in their own intelligence, and they try to give their opinion, if you will, of matters that they've discovered. And you say, that's not science at all. Well, there is a false science, you know, science falsely so-called in the Bible. And so there are people who absolutely have some false science. So these false prophets, they will push science above the authority of the scriptures. Then another thing about a false prophet is they say, peace is the greatest thing that you could have. Above all things, you need to have peace. You know, at holiday times, at Christmas, you know, it's glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, goodwill toward men. and they push that peace process, you know, and we gotta have peace, we gotta have peace. And that's one of the things about a false prophet is they're always pushing peace. And there's not gonna be any peace on this earth until, now listen to me, there's not gonna be any peace on this earth until Jesus Christ sets up his rule and his reign here on this earth for a thousand years. That is the only time we as a people, a human being is going to realize peace. It's when Jesus Christ, the author of peace, is gonna set that peace up here on this earth. Some people, you know, a false prophet will say it's okay to criticize the Bible, but not somebody's faith, and I don't believe that. I don't think you ought to criticize the Bible or correct the Bible. I believe you ought to believe the Bible by faith, and don't try to change it, just believe what the Bible has to say. They teach that capital punishment is cruel and unjust. They're very fleshy, and they have their opinions about certain things, and they're very liberal in their opinions, and they push that capital punishment shouldn't even be something that we should discuss. They think that guilty feelings, you know, if you do something wrong, if you sin against God, they say that guilty feelings are nothing more than a mental problem, and they'll love to give you a pill to take care of those guilty feelings. I'm gonna tell you, if you have a problem sleeping, it might be because you're lost and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, or it might be that you might be saved, but you're away from the Lord, away from fellowship, and the Lord's dealing with you. Did you know the Bible says, So if you're right with God, if you've got everything, you know, in good fellowship as you possibly can, and today you may be in great fellowship with the Lord and tomorrow you may not be. But if you've got everything as close as you possibly can and good fellowship and you're not, you know, you don't have anything between you and the Lord as far as your fellowship is concerned, then when you lay your head down at night, unless you've got an illness or you've got some sickness or something, or you maybe have sleep apnea or something, you should be able to get a good night's sleep because your conscience doesn't bother you. But if you've done something wrong and you're guilty, then yes, your conscience should bother you. And it is not a mental condition. And it's not a feeling or an emotion. It is a fact. If you are guilty, you're guilty. It's a fact. If you don't believe that, look over in Leviticus chapter five and read verses one to five. Some of the liberals, you know, and I'm not talking politics. I'm not talking, it has nothing to do with politics. When I say liberals, I'm talking about somebody who is liberal in their preaching. Somebody who thinks that it's, you know, God's just gonna just pass over all of your stuff and not require any accountability on your part. That's what I'm talking about when I say liberal. They think that you get your full punishment in this life and that there is no punishment after this life. But if you are lost, there is an eternal punishment for you. And it is a place called hell. And it's a place that used to be preached about, but now nobody wants to talk about it. And that place is still there. And they say that all truths are relative. There is no absolute truth, but I disagree with that completely because I believe if you have a King James Bible, you have absolute truth that God gave you all the words that he wants you to have. And there's three things that they say is okay. And that's, you know, evolution and science and getting everybody together. And now if you're an evolutionist, then you are not a Bible believer. You can't be both. The Bible teach creation. It teaches creation in Genesis chapter one. It teaches that God created. It doesn't teach that God just put everything out there and then things just began to evolve. And so you've got to be real careful whenever it comes to listening to certain people. And nowadays there is a plethora of Bible teaching. I'm going to put Bible in quotes, just air quotes, you know how the young people do that. And I'm putting Bible in quotes, Bible teaching. And now there's a lot out there on the internet and a lot on the, you know, YouTube and things like that of different people preaching and teaching, but you've got to have some spiritual discernment to know which of those are right. And I believe if you weigh those words that those men say against the Scriptures and make sure that the things that they are saying are aligning up with the Scriptures, then you're probably okay. But if somebody's going contrary to the Scripture, then what you have there is a false prophet. And there are many, the Bible says, there are many false prophets in this world. Look over, if you would, in Matthew chapter 24 for just a minute. Matthew chapter 24, and it's not just a few and they're out to deceive you. They want to deceive your heart and teach you incorrectly so that you'll follow along with them. Notice there in Matthew 24, look at verse four, and it says, and Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you. So now from that verse, you should understand that it is very possible to be deceived. It's very possible to be deceived by false teaching, by false prophets, by false teachers. Notice there in verse five, it says, for many shall come in my name saying, I am Christ and shall deceive many. So there's going to be many, not just a few, there's not just one or two on the outskirts of things, but you know, as well as I do in our lifetime, if you're, uh, you know, as old as I am, I was born in the sixties. If you're as old as I am, you know, in our lifetime in the seventies and eighties, where heard all kind of false teachers and false preachers. and false prophets. Now we're gonna use the term false prophets because that's what we're talking about over there in 2 Peter 2. And you know that there was many of those men and women that were teaching incorrectly. They were lying. And in many cases, it was so that they could make merchandise of you and get more and more money. Now, because of all that, a lot of people have a bad taste in their mouth about Christianity. And because of these false teachers and these false Bible preachers preaching these doctrines of prosperity, which is not biblical at all, then there's many people who have been duped and deceived and they've given money to false prophets and their ministries. And now there's a, you know, there's kind of a hesitation for people who want to do something right. There's a hesitation with them because they're afraid that somebody is going to deceive them. So it's very important that you that you should know something about the Bible. Now while we're there in Matthew chapter 24, look down if you would, down in verse 10. And it says, and then shall many be offended and shall betray one another and shall hate one another and many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. Notice how it keeps on saying many and many and many because there's a lot of them. You know, we're living in a generation of fast knowledge. You have knowledge at your fingertips. I'm not saying it's correct knowledge, but you have knowledge at your fingertips. And anything you wanna look up or anything that you wanna find, you can do that just by a click of a button. Just by taking your finger, your thumb, and clicking on go to search something, you can find out all kind of knowledge. Now I'm not saying it's right knowledge, but all kinds of knowledge. Okay, now because of that, because people have been given these devices and they use these devices to look up short little quips and short little sayings, men and women have become very ignorant concerning words. And what you have in a Bible is you've got words, lots of them. In my Bible, there's 1,365 pages. I mean, that's a lot of pages. It'll take you, an average reader can read through their Bibles three times a year, no problem at all. But there's a lot of words in that Bible. And do you know the Bible says this, that God says this in his book? He says, seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read. You know why he wants you to read? So you're not deceived by those many false prophets that are gonna arise and they're gonna deceive many. And because of that and because of iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. So now there's many false prophets that are preaching and teaching false doctrine. Now let's look back over in 2 Peter 2. Now this is very important. If you are saved, you gotta be on the lookout in your heart. Now, you know, you wanna spend some time with other Christians and get to the place to where that you're around other Christians, so it is a protection for you. So you can discuss the Bible and discover things out of the Bible and decide for yourself what's right by the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. But you need to be around Christians so that you can grow, you can grow up. You can mature up as a Christian so that you are fully mature and you're going through all those stages of growth, but it's gonna take the Bible to do that. Now notice there in 2 Peter 2 and look at verse 2. It says, but there were false prophets. Notice there it says also among the people. They're not out somewhere else. They're right there in the middle of you. They're wolves in sheep's clothing. I'm sure you've heard that before. If you've been around church services at all, you've heard that. And you know that at some point you have ran into those wolves in sheep's clothing. Now look over in your Bibles to Jeremiah in the Old Testament, Jeremiah chapter 23, and look down there in verse one, and we're gonna show you some of the things that those false prophets do. They will come along and they'll say, thus saith the Lord, and the Lord didn't say it. And they'll come along and they'll say, well, thus saith the Lord, you know, and God didn't say anything about it, didn't even think about it. Notice there in Jeremiah chapter 23, look at verse one, it says, woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastor. Notice there against the pastors that feed my flock, ye have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doing, saith the Lord, and I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries. So now God's not gonna put up with this stuff forever. It says, whither I've driven them and will bring them again to their folds and they shall be fruitful in increase. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the Lord. So now there are many false prophets and what they will do is they'll feed themselves, but they will not feed the flock. And what you need to get under is you need to get under somebody that's going to feed you the word of God. Not something that makes you feel good, but something that gives you the truth of the word of God. And you need to be around Christians that are listening to the word of God, trying to find out what the truth is, the truth of the scriptures. Do you know the Bible calls this Bible right here that's in front of me, it is called the scripture of truth Notice there, if you would, back over in 2 Peter 2, so you should be engaged in searching the scriptures to find out what the truth is. It's more important than the evening news. It's more important than your soap operas. It's more important than anything that you can do in this life is to search the scriptures. For in them, you think you have eternal life. Now listen, if you search the scriptures, you're gonna find out some things about Jesus Christ. You're gonna find out some things about God. You're gonna find out what Jesus Christ did for you. Now notice there in chapter two of 2 Peter and look at verse one, it says, but there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily, now we know what privily is, that's just private, shall bring in damnable heresies. And what they'll do is they'll bring in damnable heresies and they'll make you feel good about them. So you listen to them. They'll flatter you up and tell you how wonderful that you are. And they'll tell you all these good things about you and how much they love you. And then they'll lie to you. Now look over in your Bibles to 1st Timothy chapter five and notice down there in 1st Timothy chapter five and look down in verse, 11, talking about the younger widows, it says, but the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. And with all, they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house. You see that? From house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also in busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. So now what they do is they do that privately. They do it privately. They sneak around and they tell false doctrine and they tell false teaching. Look over in your Bibles to Romans. Look in Romans chapter 16. Romans chapter 16 and look down in verse 18. It says, for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches, you see that? Good words of peace and fair speeches of how much he loves you and how special you are and how great you are, trying to build up the flesh. And you know what they do? Deceive the hearts of the simple. Now you don't want to be deceived. You can deceive yourself, you can be deceived by a false prophet and you do not want to be deceived. The reason that people are deceived is because they want to be deceived. They do not want to know the truth. I mean, whenever you go to the doctor, honestly, you don't wanna hear the truth about your condition. You don't wanna hear the diagnosis of something that's really bad. You're just soon to be ignorant about that stuff. Because you know how the old adage is, ignorance is bliss. But you need to know the truth. If you're gonna correct something, you have to know the truth about it. And if you don't know the truth, you're not gonna be able to correct something. Well, it's the same way in God's book. If you don't know the truth of the scriptures, you're not gonna be able to correct those things that are wrong in your life. If you've got a false prophet, a false teacher, a false Bible teacher, preacher, that's telling you that the way you get to heaven is by living a good, clean life and keeping the golden rule, then that guy is a false prophet and a false teacher, and he's telling you something that's going to get you in trouble one day. Now, you see, right now, you might live a good life. You might be a clean, moral person. Whenever you die, there's gonna be an accountability of those things that you did in this life, and if you don't trust Christ as your Savior, you will, unfortunately, I wish I didn't have to say this, but I do, you will go to hell and you will spend eternity there. So now one of the things that you gotta be very careful about is the truth that's in this scripture, how you treat it, how you listen to it. If God shows you something out of it and then you reject it, then you see you've hurt yourself, you've harmed yourself by doing that. And you've gotta be very careful whenever it comes to this truth. Now look there in 2 Peter chapter two, look at verse one, it says, but there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies. So now a heresy is a false teaching. And let me show you what a heresy is aimed at. It's a false teaching. Look over in Galatians chapter five. It's aimed at your flesh. It's aimed at making you feel good. So now these false teachers, they know how to say good words and fair speeches to you to make you feel good so you can feel good about yourself and tell you how wonderful you are, but they're deceiving you. Notice there in Galatians chapter five. Now notice the heading of this in verse 19. It says, now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. So now Paul, the apostle, he's gonna tell you what the works of the flesh are. It says adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions. Notice this, heresies. You see, heresies is a work of the flesh. It's a work of the flesh, it's something that makes your flesh puff up. Do you know what the Bible says? Look over in your Bibles in 1 Corinthians chapter eight. 1 Corinthians chapter eight. Now what your flesh wants is it's like a, It's like a marshmallow, you know, it puffs, it's just puffy, it's full of air bubbles, you know, it's just puffy, fluffy. And then when you eat it and you get it in your mouth, you know, and you mash the thing down, there ain't nothing to it. Notice there in 1 Corinthians 8, look at verse one, it said, and I didn't say it wasn't good, I just said there ain't nothing to it. Notice there in verse one, it says, now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that all have knowledge, knowledge puffeth up. but charity edifies. So now the flesh loves anything that puffs it up, that builds it up, that talks good about it. The flesh does not like it whenever you put it down. You know, in this generation that we're living right now, it's gonna be very difficult to tell somebody that they are not as good as they think they are. Some people they think that they are artists because they drew a stick figure and somebody convinced them that they're an artist because that was a good stick figure. And it's going to be very hard to convince people in this generation with all this social media that they use nowadays to convince them that they are no good. And what you need to do is you need to get in the Bible and see what the Bible, the Bible's, how it assesses a human being and how it looks at a man. Do you know the Bible says that all flesh is as grass? I mean, that's not a very high opinion of something, you know, that we think is so great. Our flesh is no good. And so now to what a false prophet and a false teacher will do, just like a politician, a politician appeals to your flesh. They appeal to your fleshy nature, and they try to convince you of something, and they will tell you anything that you wanna hear, just like a car salesman will. Will this car last for 10 years? Absolutely, they tell you what you wanna hear. Listen, I used to be a salesman. I know what it's like to tell people what they wanna hear. But now I'm not a salesman anymore, now I'm a preacher. And now I know how important it is to tell people the truth. Notice there in 2 Peter chapter two, And look down there at the end of the verse, it says, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction, and many shall follow their pernicious ways. All that pernicious is, that's just peculiar and destructive. And many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. So these false prophets, they speak evil of truth. And that's not what should be presented to you. You need to know what the truth of the word of God is. And I was talking to somebody today at work, you know, and we were discussing sizes, you know, and weight and how much people weigh and all that stuff. And, and he mentioned about himself. He said, man, he said, I've got some weight to lose. And I said, Ooh, that's pretty rough. Amen. He said, yeah. He said, truth hurts, truth hurts. And the truth does hurt. When you look in the mirror and you see that you're not what you used to be and you put on a few pounds, truth hurts. It's not easy to take that truth, but until you get that truth, you're not gonna be able to fix anything. Now, I sure hope that you will listen to what the Bible has to say. the things that the Bible has to say about you and you will listen and take heed to the warnings that the scripture gives you. And you'll follow what the scripture says, you will listen to the truth of the word of God, the scripture of truth. And you won't follow these false prophets whenever they start preaching their false doctrine and their false teachings and their heresies, you won't follow them. You're gonna make the decision that I'm gonna follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we sure hope that the radio broadcast has been a blessing to you this morning, and I hope you've gotten some instruction, some help out of it, that'll give you some courage and some encouragement for down the road. Please join us again next week for the Bible Believers Radio Broadcast, and until that time, may the Lord bless you as our prayer. Good day.