to walk circumspectly in this evil generation, and that we might be faithful in our walk for God. We ask this in our Savior's name, amen, amen. 2 Peter is about danger in the church. And Peter confessed that his days on earth were coming very close, that the end of his life was near, and he was preparing his people to stand against future opposition, the onslaught of false teachers in the New Testament. Now this was not only Peter's burden, it is remarkable actually when you start looking for it, how each writer in the New Testament drew the line and gave warning that after their departure in the next generation or even less, these false teachers would arise. Paul said in Timothy chapter three, one, this know also that in the last days perilous times shall come and evil men will wax worse and worse. And then the apostle John, whom we equate as the apostle of love, the one that you would expect to major on the positive things, He gave extra solemn warnings. In 1 John chapter four, I think it would be good to just turn to that and read it, it's not far away here. So 1 John four, beloved, believe not every spirit. And so there are going to be voices in the world that you are not to believe. And to do that, you're going to need discernment. And to do that, you're going to exercise judgment. Now the modernists, the liberal of today, they misquote the Lord Jesus who said, Judge not that ye be not judged. And this is one of the most disarming of Christians in the area of discernment and wisdom. by telling people you're not to judge lest you be judged. Now of course the Lord Jesus was referring to the hypocritical judgment of the Pharisees who had beams in their eye and they were criticizing those who had little specks of dust in their eye. There's no comparison, that is hypocritical. But the child of God, the Christian, is called to exercise true judgment. By their fruits ye shall know them. By their words ye shall know them. And we are each to pray that God gives us that discernment to know the difference between the truth and a lie. And here is John in 1 John 4, and he is warning, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God. Now, we need the tools to do that. And as we study 2 Peter, that's really what we're gonna be getting, is getting the tools by which we discriminate between truth and error. between the genuine messenger of God and the false prophets which are gone out into the world. Now John goes on. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does the opposite but confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God. Now John was addressing a heresy that was already active in his day and which would become stronger and stronger, and these were the Gnostics. And one of their platforms was that Jesus was not physical, that he did not have a physical body. And of course, John is saying now to know the difference, they that say that Jesus has not come in the flesh is not of God. But everyone that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, he is of God. And then he goes on to say in verse three, and this is that spirit of antichrist, where all of you have heard that it should come, that it should come. And even now already, Is it in the world? Now these are first century writers. John was the latest of the writers. And already, and those, what we would call the first century explosion of the church, there was also alongside of it, the seeds and the growing of heretics, heresies were beginning to abound. And then 2 John, and I think you'll know that these little epistles are also epistles of warning. In 2 John chapter one, verse seven, for many deceivers are entered into the world. who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Then the book of Revelation warns us about the antichrist who would come and bring persecution upon the church but also work by counterfeit. And so any keen student of the first century preaching and teaching of New Testament Christianity would have had their ears bent as antennas to be warned and to be watching for these deceivers and to seek to recognize them even when they come. Now Peter does exactly the same and he makes the warning that if you don't watch, if you don't learn to try the spirits, and to recognize the evil versus the true, you're going to fall. Now to back that up, I'm gonna bring you to 2 Peter 1.10. It talks there about making your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, ye shall never fall. And then at the end of the epistle, 2 Peter 3.17, if therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware, lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness. Now I think we have all seen enough of promising, professing Christians who made some testimony of conversion and of their interest of being a disciple of the Lord Jesus who have been led away and their testimony has been ruined Now only God is the judge of a man's soul, whether they're lost or saved. But as far as their usefulness to Christianity, they're done. They'll never serve God again in this world, because they have become an enemy of the faith, or as in many cases, they've become so warped in their thinking, that they will never again preach or teach or stand for God as a living example of a balanced Christian. Now I'm using that word balanced again. And balancing the wheel is very important. You go into a cyclist shop, you'll see the wheel on the table, and they're able to rotate that wheel and they're trying to get it balanced. And if you're on a bicycle, we need to make sure that that wheel is well balanced, no warp in it. Indeed, this is an example I got from the Reverend Ivan Foster many years ago. It only takes one warp in the wheel to destroy the wheel. you throw it away. Any attempts to try and straighten it and patch it and fix it is usually futile. And it happens to professing Christians too. And if they are not on guard, if they get caught up with heresies and false teachings, they're going to be warped and thereby ruined. for the cause and the testimony of the Lord Jesus. And so true gospel ministry is not just about making fun for Christians. The church is in a battle, and we are to equip the saints. That's what church is about. That's what we should be doing here tonight, equipping the saints so that tonight, this week, a year from now, 10 years from now, God will prepare you to withstand the evil and the heresy that may come along. Now we're living Close to 2,000 years from Peter wrote these words. Something less than 2,000 years. You just think of the number of heresies, false teachers that have gone out into the world. Now I don't have the facts and figures on me here, but I did a little bit of research on this on that happy instrument called Google. And if you type in Wikipedia or something like that, cults, false religions, you will get lists and lists and lists of them. Now we probably know a fair number of them in the English language, but if you were to research the number of false teachers and preachers in lands like India, These are men who rise up with some idea that people should follow them, and usually they're an aberrant spinoff of some ancient religion. But religion is power, and religion can be money, and many, try to use religion to their own ends and to their own purposes. In our country, the United Church and the Anglican Church has led the way in some of the most perverse, wicked sins that are actually listed here for us in 2 Peter 2. It talks about Sodom and Gomorrah. The United Church and the Anglican Church has now become a leader in promoting and advocating lifestyles that are, to say the least, non-Christian and will bring the very wrath of God upon them. How do they do it? They don't do it by going out and starting a new church. They don't do it by going out and starting a brand new religion. They hijack existing Bible gospel ministries. The compromise of the United Church in 1925 when they merged together with Methodists, Congregationalists, And something over 50% of Presbyterians, they came together to form the United Church. It was based on a compromise to start with. And that was 1925. 20, 25 years later, their seminary was a hotbed of liberalism and modernism. And the pernicious lifestyles that are now in the open were in the closet among clergy. And of course it took until 1988 until the United Church allowed the first openly declared homosexual to be a minister in the pulpit of a church. And these are people who are in the church and they use the church to their own ends. and to promote their own ways. Closer to our own church, I read a fairly long paper by a Reformed pastor, and he advocated that the ecumenical way was the right way because denominations is wrong. It's wrong for the Lord's church to be divided into groups, denominations, or segments of people. And he advocated that all Reformed Protestant-minded people should be working together to build a one united church confessing the divisions and the errors and so on. Let me say that person's living in absolute dreamland, because in this day, the call is not to unite. The call is to separate from worldliness, false doctrine, and to stand for God to hold His truth. Now as we come to 2 Peter 2, I have to ask you this, are we ready to heed these warnings? 2 Peter 1, near the end there said that we are to take heed. Verse 19 of chapter one, we have also a more sure word of prophecy, we're unto ye well that ye take heed. Now if we're not taking heed, it'll go in one ear and out the other. It will not impact our lives and how we live and how we stand for God in a church. And if we are not given discernment and understanding of the apostasy and the decline that is happening in our day, we may as well join the rapid decline that's all around us. As we come to 2 Peter, There are six main things, and I'm only gonna preach one of them tonight. You notice that there is the expectation of false teachers, verse one. But there were false prophets also among the people. Now that's referring to the people of the Old Testament. Because Peter was just there referring to the prophets of the Old Testament. They were moved by the Holy Ghost. They were those who wrote the scriptures and have given us the word of God, that more sure word of prophecy. But there were among them also false prophets among the people. And so while God had given true prophets, writing prophets, who have given us the scriptures in their day and generation, there were also false prophets In the same way, Peter is saying, as you seek to be true to God in the New Testament, there will be the false. And so that gives us the rise to the expectation of false teachers. Then there is the popularity of false teachers. It says in verse two, many shall follow their pernicious ways. And that leads to the problem of false teachers. By reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. The tables get reversed. This is the tragedy. Because many follow the false and they get the majority, then the small group, they look to be the hold back, the problem, instead of the blessing. The motivation of false teachers, covetousness, money, riches, gain, covetousness. The means that they use, deceit. And then their end of false teachers is destruction. Now I had laid out that outline and I thought, that's a great outline to preach in one meeting. You get the beginning to the end. But there's no way I can do it tonight. And so I'm just going to preach the first one, the expectation. of false teachers. Peter lays it out very squarely here. He was laying a foundation in chapter one, and now he is preparing the minds of his listeners, his readers. I want you to be on guard, and I want you not to be surprised. by the rise and the multiplication of false teachers. I want you to be ready for them. However, he had to explain that though there were holy prophets whom God moved by the Holy Ghost to write his word, he had to lay out there were also false prophets. Now the false here means pseudo. That means they are false. But they don't come with a tag on their back and saying, I'm a false prophet. They don't come with a name declaring that they're apostate or that they're going apostate. They claim to be prophets. They claim to be the messenger of God. And of course, they have to be weeded out. Now in this second chapter, there is a big example of a false prophet in the Old Testament. Verse 15, his name is Balaam. And to be quite honest with you, no matter how many times I read the Old Testament account about Balaam, I end up pulling my hair. It is the most confusing, convoluted story of a false prophet in the Old Testament. And on top of it, the donkey that he's riding on has more sense than he has, because the donkey will not go forward and speaks the truth, while Balaam, he is paid wages to tell a lie. But for some reason, God stops Balaam and does not allow him to curse Israel, and Balak who hired him gets mad with Balaam. But it says here in verse 15, that which have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bozor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Money, money, he was a hireling. He was paid by Balak to curse Israel, and he did it for the money, and he got on the wrong side, and he became an enemy of God, and he is a big example of a false prophet in the Old Testament. Then when you look in the days of Jeremiah, when he took a very lonely stand in the city of Jerusalem warning that God was not pleased with the idolatry and the ungodliness of the people and he was going to bring judgment, and of course they shut Jeremiah up and they allowed the false prophets to have their freedom and to win the day on a short term. And those false prophets encouraged the people in rebellion against God, and they did untold harm. And all the while, God's man, God's prophet was shut up. Now, Peter's point is that you can expect it to be no different in the New Testament. Do not expect that just because we're now living in the time after Christ, When yes, we do have a fuller revelation of the gospel, and the cross is history, and there's been Pentecost, and an explosion of the church, and it's spreading around the world. It's no longer contained out to Israel. It's going into the various nations of the world. But do not expect absolute purity. Do not expect that there's gonna be no confusion, and that we'll be free from men who will claim to be teachers sent by God. Expect false teachers. Now that has to be drummed into us. That has to be drummed into the young people of our church. That has to be drummed into the rising generation. Expect false teachers and then be equipped to recognize them and to stay away from them. And in every age, This warning applies. And I think we can agree tonight that in the particular present spiritual climate in Canada, a Christian needs to be well equipped to know what is true and what is error. Now expect false prophets. You also need to expect them in the church. You'll notice how Peter puts it here in verse 1, but there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, among you, in the church. This is not the world. This is not the anti-Christian spirit and the world in rebellion against God. This is a problem within the church. And this lines up with what Paul the Apostle said in Acts 20. that he preached to them for three years with tears, and he warned them that after his departure there would arise wolves that would seek to devour the flock. The Lord Jesus also warned that there would arise wolves in sheep's clothing, so they don't come as a whirling, they don't come as serving the false gods of the world. They claim that they're serving the true God, even the Lord, and they make some profession of Christ. They make some profession of the gospel, but they are the enemies of truth. And so we need to be equipped that we don't just drive by a church and say, isn't that nice to see a church on this street? And there's another church on that street. How many churches did you drive by before you came to our church tonight? There are many churches. But the gospel is not preached. The Lord Jesus Christ is not honored. And false prophets have come in and they have cunningly, craftily, taken out the very foundation of the truth from under the church of the Lord Jesus. And so the Christian is called to exercise great discernment. Try the spirits. Do not be put off by the foolishly applied slogan, judge not that you be not judged. And someone will say to you, who are you to judge? I'm a Christian and I have a Bible and I'm commanded to judge and to make some assessment whether a ministry, a preacher, a teacher is declaring the truth or whether he is promoting a lie. That's also why we have church membership. We cannot allow everybody that walks through the door to become a voting participant in the church and take the church in a new direction. Well, one might not do it, but a group of 10 or 20 might. And the pressure they bear, they might take the church in a totally new direction. That's why we have a confessional statement, the Westminster Confession of Faith. That's why the regular preachers in this pulpit must subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and our elders too. We seek to be on guard against those who come in with warped ideas of what the Christian message is, and we're to hold those doctrines and to preach them soundly. that we may guard men against the error and build people up in the truth. Now thirdly, we're to expect false teachers, we're to expect them in the church, but also expect them to work in a wily manner. It says, there shall be false teachers among you who privily, privily. Now that word means as an aside. They don't do it, you know, here's my doctrine, it's all written out in a beautiful statement, and it's the doctrines of devils. No, they come in and they introduce these things as an aside, but they are harmful and they lead to what Peter calls here damnable heresies. Heresies means divisions. A heretic is a person who departs from the truth and leads people off in some segment or grouping. A heresy is linked to dividing men and women, taking them away from the main stand of the truth. They don't advertise themselves as false prophets. sometimes use great subtlety of words. They will use many of the same words that the church uses, but they will pour different meanings into those words. They might use evangelical, they might use Christian, they might use Bible, church, and use all of those terms. And of course, when a Christian hears those, we're so excited to see some new person that's interested in the truth that we could take every word and say all is well. Martin Lloyd-Jones points out that very often in the history of the church that decline and apostasy happens in three stages. There's the grandfather figure who builds the church and who preaches the word soundly. There's the father figure who holds to the moral values of the church but doesn't have a heart for the gospel. And then the third generation, the grandson, has neither a heart for the gospel nor a heart for the moral values of Christianity. And it only takes a short generation, two or three, to see a ministry go from sound, solid Bible, enthusiastic teaching to a people that don't know their left from their right, what is true, what is error, and is heartbreaking. As I said in my introduction, we all know one, two, or more that we have watched with promise who have fallen prey to false teachers, and it greatly, greatly grieves us. Who would have thought that the compromise of the Canadian United Church in 1925 would have led to the state that that denomination is in today? It is fearful. Now, I know young people, you're going to be saying, 1925, that's an awful long time ago. My father was born in 1922. I'm not old, but I have children that are now adults. I should say Beulah and I have children who are now adults. The test is what they're going to do with the Word of God and what they're going to use of the light that God has given them. I read of a conference that was in Vancouver last July, July 2015. It's called Gay Sexuality, A Gift from God Says Head of the United Church of Canada. Gary Patterson's home congregation to host Spirit Pride Conference in Vancouver. Now this was published Friday, July 10th, 2015. And there's a reference here to a man called Allison, I don't know him, but Allison says, the conference is taking place to both celebrate the accomplishments of LGBT people within the United Church and to facilitate community among LGBT people of faith. That makes absolutely no sense to me. But these people want to hug the externals of Christianity, seemingly to justify their lifestyle. They are hijacking the church to their own evil ends and have destroyed the light of the gospel within the church. And you can see how they use the terms faith. They call themselves people of faith. They would call themselves Christians, church people. And they deny the very gospel itself. And so expect them to be crafty. Expect them to be subtle and even dishonest with the truth. That's what Peter says here, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies. What a strong language he uses, but we're to expect it. And all these years later we see it all too vividly before us. Next point I make is expect them to be heresies that divide the church and destroy souls. These are not little things that Peter is talking about. These are not mere little diversions, but these are errors that destroy souls. I think of poor people who maybe they live in the community and they take an idea, I'll try out this church, and unwittingly and unknowingly they just go in there, drink it all in, and they think they're Christian. They think they are walking right, that this lifestyle must be okay, so many are doing it. It's, after all, advocated from the pulpit of the church. And a generation grows up drinking in these pernicious doctrines. And instead of that church leading them and pointing them the way to Christ, to the cross, It's pointing them right to hell. This is the evil, the dark, desperate situation of the church being hijacked for another end to do the devil's work. Now, verse one, you'll notice that they destroy the hearer. They also destroy themselves and bring upon themselves swift destruction. There is no mercy for them. Romans 1 says, God has given them up. I do believe a homosexual can be saved. He can be converted. But that is a very serious line to cross, and these people enter into a realm of darkness that we don't even want to know about. It is so dark. It is so disturbing. And it is as if they already are branded for hell. Damnable. Destruction. Denying the Lord that bought them. Now I had left this to the end of the message, but maybe I need to clarify it right now. Why would Peter say the Lord that bought them? if they are going to be lost and they lose their souls. What we often use in the Bible is what we call the judgment of charity. We exercise it each time that someone comes into the church, and if someone speaks to me before or after the church and says, I'm a Christian, I want to worship the Lord, I'll give them the right hand and say, well, you've come to the right place, we'd love to see you, it's a great thing to have you here, and I hope the Lord will bless you. And of course, we get to know that person more intimately, we may realize that they have an agenda. They have another idea in their mind. And while they spoke at first of being committed to Christ, they've really got some cultish notion. They've got some of these damnable doctrines in their heart and mind, and they won't give it up. They've come to promote it. So while I would have at introduction said, brother, welcome, I would have said that person's a Christian. But over time, he proves to be false. Now in that sense, when we refer to a person whom we don't really know much about, that we accept them as a Christian, we say Christ died for him. But when there's a hidden agenda, And he is a phony, pseudo, false, as all of us, as right here in this passage, false teachers. Well, my first assessment may not be accurate. And that's why Peter would say, deny the Lord that bought them. Now the most serious thing is that they deny the Lord. You know, deny the church is one thing, to deny denomination, that's one thing, to deny a certain preacher or ministry, that's one thing, but to deny the Lord Jesus, that just shows you the dark, deep condition that these people are in. Now, you might say, well, it takes a very strong statement to deny the Lord Jesus. Maybe not. I think you can deny the Lord simply by neglecting him. You go along to a church and you hear the name of the Lord Jesus so minimized. He's not the central figure of the ministry of the church. They've got a social agenda, they've got programs for this and programs for that, education and information and marriage courses and youth ministries and all this, but the preaching of Christ is just about nil. Well, they're denying the Lord by neglecting him. You could go to that church for years and not know the gospel of a savior who came down to save sinners by the power of his own blood. Or you could deny the Lord Jesus by simply making him a teacher. Christ is the great teacher. And there are many churches, that's the attitude. They use the name Jesus, and they refer to Him as the Great Teacher. And they love the Sermon on the Mount, and they will take many of those beatitudes and such statement and teach them in their own way. Good advice, nice counsel, good direction, but no gospel. And so you can deny the Lord by using His name at a whole different level than in preaching the gospel. You can also deny his unique person, that he's the God-man, God and man in one person. They came from heaven in his divine nature. Divine person took a human nature and became the God-man, the mediator, the redeemer between a holy God and sinners. And I'm sure there are many so-called Christian churches where the unique personality of the Lord Jesus is totally neglected. It's just never mentioned. They are denying who Jesus is in reality. Denying his virgin birth. Denying his atoning death. many ways to deny the Lord Jesus, and therefore they do not really preach the cross. I endeavored this morning as we got into Jesus' statement, I am the bread of life, to set out how the Lord Jesus in His death is like that bread that the grain is cut down, the grain is milled, our Lord Jesus was bruised, and out of His sufferings comes life, food for our souls. And that is an attempt to preach the person, the ministry, the power of the Lord Jesus to satisfy the human soul. That is so required. It is at this point that we need to be well-grounded in the Word. For example, if your son or daughter move to a new part of the country, and whatever's taking them there, studying or work, career, opportunity, and they're going to be there for a period of time, the first thing you would advise them is, well, you need to find a good church. And you would need to say to them, now make sure you choose very carefully. And don't be naive. Don't think that just because it calls itself church or Bible church that it's going to be a godly ministry. It could be the ruin of your life if you get involved with some group Maybe they deny the trinity, deny the deity, deny the very basics of the gospel. It could ruin you. And you would want to help them all you can as a parent to guide them to find a place of true gospel worship. Now I would like to think that having grown up in the church and having heard the gospel here and having understood the doctrines of the gospel from this pulpit, that we would have gone at least part way to prepare some young person who is branching out in their life and needing to find another church ministry, that the doctrines, the stand, the truths, the warnings of the pulpit would live on in the hearts of each one. so that they would be equipped to make the right decision and be discerning. And so you'll understand that me as a pastor, unless I am giving the spirit of discernment, calling people to exercise how to try the spirits, then I would be failing. I would be failing. Nothing would do me more good than people to say we're just finding it hard to find a church that preaches the gospel in all its fullness. And so you can see that we're in a battle. We're not in a playground. We are in a battle for the souls of men and women lest they be led astray and fall. And so we're warned by Peter to grow. grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we've covered the first point tonight. Expect false teachers. If you don't have that mindset, you'll fall. You will fall prey. You will let your guard down. and you will just fall for anything that comes along that has the name tag Christian, evangelical. We've got to be on our guard. Right, let's close our meeting with a final hymn, 582. 582. We never need be vanquished, we never need give in. Though waging war with Satan, and compassed round by sin. Temptations will beset us, allurements oft aseal, but in the name of Jesus we shall, we must, prevail. Let's sing verses two and three, verses two and three of this hymn. Shall we stand to sing? He built the land, his people, by steel and fortune he. A man, united, friends come, we come from victory. And so, when our heads fall down, he faces of his power. A king from his resources, faithful in danger's hour. Near him is hidden secret ♪ Above the saints' throne ♪ ♪ Abide in us, Savior ♪ ♪ Selfless faith in the cross ♪ ♪ Relent to His willing ♪ ♪ In life perpetual draw ♪ Thank you, Lord, for your help tonight. Thank you for the warnings of your word, and as a loving heavenly Father, you warn us as we seek to warn our children. We pray that you will awaken men and women to the dangers and to the evil heresies that abound, and we pray that you'll work in grace and work in power. Oh, Lord, bless your people. Be with us in the week to come. Keep us in your love, keep us in your care, and use us for your glory. We pray this in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. So, ♪ I will follow you anywhere you go ♪