We're headed back to 2 Peter today, 2 Peter chapter 2. I want to look today particularly at the last part of verse 3 and then down through verse 10. Last time we looked at the first three verses of this chapter, talked about the reality of false prophets, how that they are in the world, have been in the world, and remain in the world, and will continue to remain in the world. How that places us in a position of needing to know and to identify who's a false prophet and who's not, who's teaching the truth and who isn't. And today I want to speak to you what Peter brings to bear after speaking of the reality of these false prophets. And I want to speak to you today about the judgment of false prophets. The judgment of false prophets. And by that I mean the judgment that they will encounter, not their own judgment, but the judgment that will be leveled against them, according to what Peter writes here in 2 Peter. Let's pick up verse three. And the second half of this verse really begins the thought that I believe is connected with the thought that continues through verse 10. But he says, and in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. And if he rescued righteous law, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, For as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Peter now having told us, told us through the writing that he wrote in this letter, that false prophets are a reality, alerting us to their presence. I think we all know that they are real. We all have heard them. We all hear them probably daily in one form or another, whether we would label the people we're hearing as false prophets or not. People telling us things that are untrue. People telling us things that are false, that will lead us down the wrong path. There are many of them out there. There are a great many of them out there. And Peter reminds us of that, and now he moves in this next section of Scripture to tell us about the judgment that awaits them. False prophets often appear to not have a care in the world. They're usually smiling. They're usually living a life that seems very blessed. They're usually the person on the TV that looks as though they've got their whole life in order. They're well-dressed. They're well-fed. They're well-apportioned. Their contacts and their connections are important people. They look as though they again have no care in the world. They seem to have the world by the tail. They're confident in their lies. They're confident even in their wicked living. And confident even in what Peter just said in their exploitation of other men and women. They're confident in this thing. This is with whom we have to deal. And I know that many times it's difficult for us to to confront this reality, but this reality that Peter outlines about these false prophets, something that we are all benefited to remember. These false prophets enrich themselves by feeding off of the desperation of men and women who pay them to soothe their consciences, to tell them what they want to hear, perhaps. As I thought about that, I thought, you know, a starving man will eat just about anything. A starving man will eat just about anything, and I think a man starving for spiritual food will do so as well. Vulnerable to the false prophet, the one who has not found God for himself or herself is at risk to be taken in by these false prophets. And these men and women seeking meaning and purpose and seeking a soothing of their guilty consciences, they will not only hear and listen to the false prophet's words, but they will willingly hand to him their financial, their money, their financial well-being, they'll hand it over. Because they're starving to hear what He is willing to sell them, which is a lie. False hope. False ideas. And in this, the false prophet, I think, I can imagine what he or she thinks about this. The false prophet believes they will never face justice for their behavior. We look at these false prophets ourselves sometimes and we wonder how they get away with their exploitation of men and women and their rebellion against God. How did they get away with this? How can it be that men who perpetrate such lies and lead people down hopeless roads and leave them more empty than when they found them because they've taken from them hope, and beyond that, they've taken from them material wealth, and they've taken from them the things that they believed they could be given by them have been taken. How is it that these false prophets get away with this? They seem year after year after year to get more and more enriched and more and more popular. How can this be? And we wonder about that. Well, Peter tells us. They're not getting away with anything. And this should be a warning sound to any, to us, about these false prophets. They're not getting away with anything. Peter states in no uncertain terms that their condemnation, that they're heading to that condemnation, it's as sure as it has ever been according to Peter. this last half of verse 3, their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. Despite appearances to the contrary, the false prophet's judgment is coming. It is as sure as it has ever been. And this should be sobering to anyone who would proclaim something contrary to the word of God. And again, this is a false prophet about, this is a warning, I should say, about false prophets. To you and to me who may, hopefully we don't fall into that category of somebody who is a false prophet. Well, this scripture is for us as well because this warning is as much about the false prophet as it is to the false prophet. It's a warning to you and me as believers in Christ so that we might rightly see them for what they are. that we might not be fooled by what appears to be outward prosperity and power and position. That we might not be fooled by this. It's not enough to not be a false prophet. We must not be taken in by them either. And that's, I think, what Peter is talking about and proclaiming and writing to these people that he loves dearly. And he's saying to them and he's warning them about the false prophets. Do not be taken in by them. Their judgment is sure. They're headed for it as surely as they've ever been headed for it. And it is, of course, too, we don't want to miss, it is a warning to the false prophet. And that warning is this, very simply, your judgment day is coming. Peter here uses three historical instances of God's judgment as evidence for the certainty of God's judgment against the false prophet. He begins in these verses, these next few, providing for us examples of God's judgment against sin, God's judgment against false prophets. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell... That is Tartaros, by the way, in the Greek. It's actually a pagan reference to hell. Not the Hebrew Gehenna. But Peter writing says that if the angels who sinned God did not spare, but committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. He's saying to them, listen, though the false prophet may appear to be getting away with his false teaching and may appear to be enriching himself and to be doing a very good thing for himself and being very successful in his endeavors, he says to them, his judgment is coming. And then he begins and he references these three instances The first of which, listen, God didn't spare even the angels who sinned. God didn't let them off the hook, so to speak. God did not overlook the sin of the angels. For man, sin began with Adam. We know this. For man, for humankind, for our flesh and blood, sin was introduced into our race through Adam. But sin had its origin. in the angels, Lucifer, Satan. From the very first sin, then, God did not look the other way. False prophet won't tell you this. Not today. Perhaps they will, and they'll use it in twisted But from the very first, Peter says, listen, the false prophets condemnation is sure. It is steadfast. It is coming. So do not be taken in by them. He is pleading with those who follow Christ. Do not go the way that they would lead you to go. Their judgment is sure. It is coming. And he begins with this reference to these three instances where God did not look away from sin. And it started at the very beginning with the first drop of sin God did not ignore. God from the beginning has been consistent with His response to sin. And He will continue to be consistent to the end. Even the angels, Peter says, that sinned. God didn't look the other way. Don't think for a minute that God is looking the other way. He sees it. But not just the angels. He said in verse 5, when he refers now to the flood of Noah, if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. If he didn't spare them, the whole world save eight people. In Genesis chapter 6 verse 5, this is the condition that God saw the world in when he brought the flood. This is God's view of wickedness and sin. And I think it's important for us to continue to understand this, because if we distance ourselves from a biblical understanding of sin and a false prophet, we will distance ourselves from the truth of the gospel. And in Genesis 6, verse 5, this is what God saw when He looked at the world. Verse five, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God looked out into the world that he had created, and in another place there it says that it repented God that he had made man. We won't get into all of what that means, but we can say this with a certainty, God did not overlook the sin. God did not look past the unrighteousness that men had allowed themselves to compound in the world. He looked out in the world and all He saw was the wickedness of man. God did not overlook the sin of men and women when nearly the whole world was full of it. In Genesis 6-11, now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence. And you know, anywhere where the false prophet's words are heeded, violence often is the result. We know that God's judgment did not come immediately upon the world. Even in the instance of the flood, Noah was a hundred years building the ark. The judgment had been pronounced, and yet time was given for people to heed the message that according to Hebrews 11, Noah was proclaiming. They had time to repent and to reject the false prophets of their day. We know, however, again, that that judgment did not come quickly or immediately upon the world, but it did come. it did come upon them. And I will tell you today that those sin seems to just be rampant among our day, and even perhaps in our own lives, and yours, and mine, and others, we think that we get away with these things. God's judgment upon sin is sure. It's either taken care of in the blood of Christ, or it will be taken care of as you face the wrath of God apart from the pardoned blood of Christ. During this time as these men and women and these false teachers during Noah's day were going about, we're told the men and women went about their lives ignoring, perhaps even openly denying, no doubt they were this crazy man named Noah. denying what he was saying, rejecting the message that he had said. And by the way, Noah was just proclaiming a message that these people, many of which had hurt all their lives, I believe, because it wasn't that many generations of people that knew Adam. They knew what God had said. They knew what God required. They knew what was expected of them. And Noah was preaching this to them, and they denied it, and they denied it, and they denied it, and they rejected it. And false prophets, no doubt, were all over the land telling the people lies. This man Noah is crazy. You don't need to listen to him. He's saying the world is going to be flooded. How insane must he be? And men and women going about their lives ignoring the proclamation of the preacher Noah. Listening and heeding to the false prophet instead of the truth. Jesus tells us about these days and he saw them because he's the Son of God. Matthew 24 verses 36 through 39, Jesus says, concerning that day and hour, and he's speaking of the day that he returns, Concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." So Jesus, in His own mind, as He remembers those days, and as they're laid out in front of Him as the divine, eternal Son of God, and He can replay those days in perfect replay in His mind, can see those men and women, He says, That day when my judgment, the final judgment, the day I return, that day no one knows. It's going to be like the days of Noah, and he's remembering it. I think in some ways, remembering, seeing all of those people as God leveled His assessment of the world, the Father, that they're just wicked. And Jesus then telling us in their wickedness, they just continued to live. He says, as in the days of Noah, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and they were unaware. They were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. This is what the Bible tells us is true. They'll be eating and drinking and marrying and just going about their lives. And they did that, Jesus said, back then. I remember. I remember seeing them. And they did that until the floods came and swept them all away. He says, that's how it's going to be when I come again. They'll be living their lives, marrying, getting married, and having children, and living their life, and going to work, and doing all the things that they think is going to bring them hope in this life. And they're going to be going, they're going to be listening to all the false prophets that are around them saying, don't listen to Noah. Listen to me because I've got a better message for you that's easier for you to take and to accept. Don't worry about this thing called judgment of God. Listen to the false prophets and you'll go the way of the false prophet and you will accompany them as they meet their judgment. The worldwide flood brought upon the earth by God in judgment for sin is one of the clearest examples in scripture of God's certain judgment upon sin. It isn't always quick, but it is always sure. It isn't always in the way in which we would expect it, but it is always in the way that God determines it. But no doubt, no doubt there were false prophets in Noah's day. Men and women who lived wickedly and thought nothing of it. Men and women who thought themselves safe. Men and women who told others that Noah's dire prediction was just utter foolishness. Don't worry about what he's saying. Men and women who believed that all the way up until the point that the floods came and swept them away and the ark had been closed for a week before the rain began. Don't listen to him. Don't listen to him, the false prophets say. And they would echo one another, and it'd be the loudest voice in the room, it seems, would be these who would say, don't listen to that man. And Noah, all the while, would simply be building his ark and sharing the gospel with any who might be at least willing to listen briefly. These men and women going around thinking themselves safe from judgment, and they're not. And Peter is saying, look, it's the same today. He's writing to these people 2,000 years ago, and it's true today. Their judgment is sure. And so I tell you today, do not be swept up by them. Because in this day, during Noah's time, no doubt, men and women were just turning a deaf ear to the truth of what God had said. These men and women too had a lot of ready material, I think, to bring to bear in their mockery of Noah. Can you hear them? Noah, what are you talking about? You're telling me that there's going to be a worldwide flood and everything on the face of the earth is going to perish? You're insane. Noah, you're crazy. So they had all kinds of fodder to bring to the battle, and yet what was true was what Noah was saying. They would sin in the night, these people, and then the next day the sun would rise, and they would believe God didn't see, or if He did, He didn't care. This is what the false prophet will tell you. Ecclesiastes 8-11 settles the matter for us, by the way. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Ecclesiastes tells us that sentence against an evil deed is not always given quickly, and so we set our hearts on evil. We think we get away with it. The false prophet does too. Peter's trying to disabuse them and us of such a lie. The false prophet will play his tune of comfort to the sinful and the condemned until the day they are swept away in the river of God's judgment. They will play their tune that sounds so good in fallen sinful ears. I urge you to pay no heed to these false teachers and false prophets in your life. the ones who might tell you things you wish were true, perhaps desperately desire to be true, but inwardly there is enough witness because you are created in the image of God, that there's a witness there, that there's something that is missing in their message. Dive deep below the surface of what it is that they are saying. Ask yourself, Some pressing questions. You who believe the false prophets of our day, ask yourself some deep questions about the idea that God doesn't care about sin. Why would God send his son to die for you if he was indifferent to sin and had no intention of judging it and eternally destroying it? Why? Why would he send his son? Why would He desire God to have fellowship with you? So long as you are indifferent to sin. That which His Son endured the pain of the cross to pay the penalty for. Why would God do this? What kind of a God do you think He is? Where in Scripture do you read of such a God? How could God be a good God and ignore sin? How could He be a just judge and turn a blind eye to wickedness? How can you trust Christ if you do not trust His stated reason for coming, which was to save lost, sinful man? If you're listening to the voice of the false prophet telling you, peace, peace, when there is no peace like they did in the days of Israel, I ask you, I beg you to listen to the words of Christ as He continued to describe what the day of His return will be like in Matthew 24. And picking up in verse 40, He said this. Haunting words. Words the false prophet will pat you on the back and say, pay no heed. But this is what the Son of God said. This is what the man, attested by more than 500, saw after he had died on the cross and rose from the grave. This is from the one who ascended back into heaven. This is from the one who's going to come back again. This is the Son of God speaking. This is not me. This is not another man. This is Jesus Christ, all man and yet all God. Emmanuel, God with us. This is what He says about this day. then two men will be in the field. One will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." This is what the Son of God has said. And so anyone who says something contrary to that, we must label a false prophet. And if we label them a false prophet, then we must see in them the condemnation that is coming to them and to all who listen to them. I want you to see something here that the false prophet will not tell you. The false prophet will tell you that God loves you and is entirely unconcerned with your sin. He'll tell you that God doesn't see it. If He does, again, He doesn't care about it. But there could be no deliverance for your sin if He didn't care about it. There could be no deliverance for Noah if there was no destruction of the world. Without the flood of God's judgment, there is no ark of God's grace. Without first accepting God's judgment on your sin, you cannot accept Him and His forgiveness of your sin. For you to accept Him, He must accept you. The false prophet makes a lot of money telling you God is not what you don't want Him to be, and is instead exactly what you prefer Him to be. He'll tell you then of a false god. Maybe he'll call him Jehovah. Maybe he'll quote some scripture, likely out of context and without mature understanding or interpretation. He'll tell you then of a false god. He'll bait and switch you. into thinking that God is something that He is not. A God that maybe you would prefer, but a God that is not real, is nothing more than a made-up story and an idol at best. A God of your own imagination and His. A false God who looks past your sin, but somehow would never look past the sins of others. A false God who loves you more than He loves others. A false God who is concerned about your earthly life and unconcerned about your spiritual life. A false God who is pleased somehow with half-hearted obedience. A God who somehow can be appeased by you stepping into the door of a church once a week. And absolutely fine with you being completely ambivalent to Him the rest of the week. This is a false God. This is not the God of Scripture. This is the God of the false prophet, not the God of the true prophet. The false God who thinks like you, feels like you, and wants what you want. Boy, he'll sell you that story, the false prophet will. And men and women have lined their pockets with millions and millions and millions, wanting desperately to believe in such a false god. And so they will flock to the false teacher. Now, with reference to the flood, we do want to bring something to bear. This is different with this second instance that wasn't with the first with regard to the angels. You see, there was no helping the angels. Upon their sin, they were eternally judged. Those who followed Satan, eternally judged. Those who stayed committed to God, eternally judged in their righteousness. But in this example, when it came to men, to you and me, there was a preservation in God's judgment. In addition to the judgment against sin, Peter references God's preservation of Noah and his three sons and their wives. While we and you and I must come to terms with the judgment of God against sin, we must not forget that God has made a way for us to be forgiven and escape the judgment against sin. Peter says, look, if he didn't spare the angels, and he goes on, if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, he preserved Noah, Noah found grace in the eyes of God. And so too can you and me. We may not want to come when we first are convicted of sin, even perhaps, or then days or months or years that follow that. And we don't want to wrestle with that sin. And we want God to be what we want Him to be. And that is like wishing that the water would turn red or that we somehow would be all that we want to be. It's wishing for things that can never happen. We must come to terms with the judgment of God against sin, but we must not forget that God has made a way for you and for me to escape that. How? How did Noah find grace in the eyes of God? Why was Noah spared when that rain came and that flood came in the world? And by the way, there's all kinds of evidence that there was such a thing. I don't need to get into that, but there's all kinds of geological evidence and archaeological evidence of such a thing. We won't get into that. It's not the silly story that the world wants you to think it is today with God destroyed the world and He spared Noah. Why did He do that? Well, Hebrews 11.7, I think, tells us. By faith, Noah By faith Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. He'd never seen it. That's why it's called faith. in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this, by what? His faithful building of the ark for the day that he had not yet seen but trusted was coming. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith." Noah's faith. And it was in the promise of God to Adam and to Eve that He would send one who would conquer sin and overcome death. One who would take the wrath of God on their behalf. A seed of the woman that would come and bruise the head of the serpent. One who would take again the penalty of sin on our behalf because He believed in Him and trusted in Him. This is the faith that is still required today to make one righteous. Faith in Jesus. Trust in Christ. Faith in Him who took your place and mine on the cross as He paid the price of sin there. That's what He did on that day. picked up the sin of the world, he placed it on himself, and he went to the cross, and he paid its price. But for you to be a benefactor of that sacrifice, you must come and cast your lot in with Him and reject the false prophets of our day that say life is just about these 80 years here and then it's over. Or life is about some other false god. Or life is about this or that and it's not about Christ. You must throw your lot in with Christ and cast your hope and your care upon Him and Him alone. Faith in Jesus who satisfied God's righteous judgment against sin. God is not wrong in His judgment against sin. It is right. It is right. Faith in Christ, not ourselves. An acknowledgement of our sinfulness, an admission of that sin, and a crying out to God, the Father, for forgiveness. Send Christ to find acceptance, and to be forgiven, and to find life, and to find it abundantly, and to find peace and hope in Him. There are false prophets that would rob you of this eternal blessing today, and they'll rob you even of your physical blessings as you listen to them. Verses 6-8, we won't take much time with those. Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, it's the third example. Angels, the flood, and then he brings in, Peter does, he also remembers, God didn't turn a blind eye to Sodom and Gomorrah either. He brought His judgment upon them as well. A third example here, and another example of God's judgment against sin and His rescue of the righteous with Lot. Even, by the way, a righteous one who, by his choices, was tormenting his righteousness, as the Scripture puts it. There's certainly, I think, worse situations described in the Bible, but I think near the top of that list, Can you imagine being Lot pleading with his sons-in-law? You need to get out. You need to get out of this city. God's going to destroy it. And then to look at him and laugh. What is this that you're talking about, Lot? You haven't lived a life that's very exemplary of what you're saying now is true. He believed it. But they thought he was joking. That would be a sad situation, no doubt, to be in. Verses 9 and 10, the Lord knows how to rescue. If God did this, If He judged the angels, if He judged the world in the flood and yet spared Noah because of his faith. If He judged Sodom and Gomorrah and yet spared Lot because of his faith. If He did this, then, here's the then of the if-then statement began in the previous verses. Verse 9, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. All of these examples. are given to remind the readers of this letter that God's judgment against sin is as certain as it has ever been. It is also, though, given to remind us that in the midst of God's judgment, He's made a way for us to escape through Christ. And those of us who have escaped, who have placed our trust in Christ, who have been sealed until the day of redemption, we don't need to be taken in by the fancy and by the craftiness of the false prophet because our state is sure and their judgment is sure. The encouragement from Peter is to reject Reject, and I echo this with him if I can. I ask us all to reject the siren song of the false prophet who will tell you what you want to hear, never what you need to hear. 2 Timothy, Paul wrote about those of us that might do such a thing. just gather around ourselves things we want to hear and people that will tell us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear. And I will tell you, in the echo chambers of social media today, I don't know that this has been ever more presently dangerous to man than it is today. Just to listen to people that will tell us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear, Man has a tendency here to flock to people that will tell them these things, and Paul talked to Timothy about it. He saw it coming. Paul couldn't have, I don't think, begun to contemplate Facebook, or Twitter, or the internet, or cell phones, or any of these things, and yet he described our day perfectly. When he wrote to Timothy these words, the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to their own passions. It's like Paul is saying, they're going to click on subscribe on their YouTube channel. They're going to click follow on their Twitter feed. Never had an inkling of the idea, but that's exactly what's happening with false teachers reaching your ears and your mind and your heart so readily. They will turn away, Paul went on to say, from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. We are living in a world today where the vast majority of people seem to be wandering in myth rather than steadfast in the truth. solid, feet firmly established on truth. False teachers are capitalizing on this like never before perhaps. Man has a tendency to judge things in the context of his own life and his own experience alone. And I know there's just some inevitability to that. We judge though things in our life based upon our own context, our own lives. And as we get older, I think we begin to shed that a little bit. But especially in our younger years, we have so little recognition of what came before us and so little acknowledgement and understanding that unless the Lord returns, there are going to be days and days and days and years and years and years that follow the end of our lives. And this world is going to keep going around the sun for as long as God determines it to go around it. And we think that we're unique and we interpret our own lives based upon our own experiences alone. And the danger of that is this. I've never seen the Lord return, so He's not going to return. Do you see the logical fallacy? You are placing your assessment of what is true based on your own judgment alone. We often see sin. Both our own and the sins of others go apparently unpunished. So we think then that sin will never be punished. The false prophet again, he profits on this tendency. I found it interesting. Funny side note for me, anyway, as I had to go back through a lot of my notes and find replace on profit, because I kept spelling it P-R-O-F-I-T instead of P-R-O-P-H-E-T, and yet I thought for a minute, I wonder if there's any kind of silliness to the fact that it's the same sounding word, the false profit, profits. He profits on this tendency. Peter paints an accurate picture here of the false prophet for us to see him or her as they really are and not as they appear to be. The false teacher is often more popular than his truth-speaking counterparts. The false teacher often lives an easier life than his truth-speaking counterparts. I can imagine what Noah must have looked like next to the teachers, the false teachers of his day, who said Noah was just a crazy old man building a boat that would never be needed. I can imagine what he looked like next to them and sounded like next to them. I can imagine how easy it was for the false teachers of their day to capitalize on man's tendency to not think past his own life and his own experience. but it was Noah who would be preserved. And all of those smiling false teachers who cried out, he is just wrong, were not heard from again when the water came. I can imagine how a lot must have been viewed by his fellow citizens of Sodom. A man that in their view held irrelevant beliefs. The man with connections to a religion that spoke of an all-powerful God who, in their view, was nowhere to be seen. But it was Lot who was rescued. And they suffered the fate of that city. I can imagine, and this challenged my imagination and I'm sure it would challenge any of our imaginations, but in a sense I can imagine the false prophet, and I say that definite article, the false prophet, Satan himself. I can imagine that false prophet, that first false prophet, as he insulted the angels who refused to join him in his rebellion against God, but it was Satan and his angels that followed him that were thrown out of heaven, not the others. Verses 1 through 3 told us there are false prophets. But false prophets arose among them. Referring back, Peter was, to the Old Testament days. But then he says, as false prophets will arise among you. And I say to us today, false prophets are still a thing we must endure and identify and understand. We're living today with these false prophets and yet we are living with them in a temporary land. We, you, and I, as human beings created in the image of God, placed upon a world that God created, called from nothing into existence, we are living today in this temporary land. We are between two worlds and two eternities. What separates these worlds and these eternities is truth and falsehood, and both have their prophets. Peter wants us to identify the false. And he's, by the way, if God continues to move us down this passage, I will not test him. We will pray and determine. But if he moves us further in this chapter, he's going to give some very specific examples of what these people look like. But for us today, we live in this world separated, and we are between these two worlds and these two eternities, and what separates them is truth and falsehoods, and there are prophets speaking on behalf of both, always have been, there are today, there always will be, until the Lord returns. Until the day that God closes the mouths of every false prophet and the angels and all his people shout the truth from everywhere. But for now, it is the false prophet who often seems to have the upper hand if we are judging by our own estimation and judgment. But know this, know this, their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. I pray that God would bring His word into our hearts in such a way gives us a soberness about false prophets. Let's have some.