Discerning error

--- Open your Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 2 this morning and buckle up for this chapter, huh? This is a lesson like no other, but I learned so much this week from this chapter, and I really am excited about it this morning. And I just want to remind us as we enter into this, remember Peter believes that the Lord has shown him he's about ready to pass off the scene, and he has such a pastor's heart. He cares so much about the body of Christ, he cares about the sheep that he knows personally, and so these warnings just gush, you know, from him. And as the last words that we had read in the previous chapter were talking about the godly prophets, and Peter was saying that they spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. That was who they were listening to, they were carried by the Holy Spirit, and the godly prophets wrote things for us to have and to glean, and now the opposite that he's talking about in contrast is the false prophets here. And so we're able to get a contrast, and false prophets, false teachers, those who pull people away have always been with us. Remember the first days of Moses, as he's leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, there were troublemakers among them, and those that were causing dissensions, and that's exactly how Peter starts in verse 1.

So now as we go approach the next verses, we're going to start a series of examples of God's judgment in the past, and whenever I see if statements followed by a then statement in the Bible, a series of ifs, and then I get super excited. Those of you who are organizers among us, you're like, yay, I can make a list, I can make a chart, this is going to make sense to me, so let's use this to make a list and a chart. As Peter explains this in verse 4,

We can rest that God knows how to rescue the godly in situations and how to keep those who are unjust, unrighteous, until the day of punishment. I thought it was a good dovetail with what we had heard recently in our study of 1 Corinthians, that it's not really our business to judge the unrighteous, right? To judge those outside the church. God will take care of that, and he knows how to, and Peter gave us examples of how God did that in the past. Three examples of God judging the ungodly, the unrighteous, and then two examples of God saving righteous people out of a desperate place, and I think about a couple weeks ago, we used that quote from Johnny Erickson Tada, she says, God has delivered you from the only type of suffering that can harm you. He's already delivered you from the only type of suffering or judgment that can harm you. So even though there will be false teachers in our midst, they don't know Jesus, they don't abide with him, they even speak evil of the way of truth, God will be the judge. He knows how to judge. But we can be encouraged to follow the Lord even when so many people around us live a life as if there will be no judgment, because the Lord knows how to rescue the ungodly. So we can live in a hostile world apart from those knowing that God is watching and he knows. And these two examples of the righteous that were rescued, it was Noah and Lot were the two examples. And as you read those words about righteous Lot and his righteous soul, did you kind of like tilt your head a little bit and think, I've read Genesis before, where is this coming from? Did you, did you, you know, what's the deal? And I don't know really the answer to that, but here's something that I think we can take away from it. Noah was a man certainly of exemplary character. It's one of our first Sunday school lessons, right? Noah obeyed God. And so Noah represents someone who had exemplary character. And perhaps for us, Lot represents someone that is the weakest of the saints. Still righteous, but very weak in his character, the weakest of the saints. And that caused me to kind of think through this fact that it is not the intensity of our faith that makes us righteous. It is the object of our faith that makes us righteous. And maybe you sometimes sink under the feeling like, there I went again, or I'm not strong enough, or I'm so weak-willed, or, you know, I cave to this and that. Maybe righteous Lot should be a great example for us, that it's not the intensity of our faith, although we want to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But when it comes to the switch on-off, righteous-not-righteous, it's not the intensity, it is the object. And so for us New Testament saints, knowing Jesus, we're saved by his grace. And we could be a pill of pills, and through the Holy Spirit, someone might still write about us, and righteous Sue, in her righteous soul, you know? So that's all I have to say about Noah and Lot. Okay, now as we go on, I kind of feel like we have this most wanted poster that is being unfolded for us, and I kind of feel like Peter is saying, here's the poster, here's the characteristics, look at these guys, study them, watch out for these guys, okay? These are the characteristics of the false prophets. And I wonder too, we began this chapter talking about false prophets, who were either purposeful, like they had designs on persuading people away, but look at those examples that Peter just gave us about other types of ungodly, like the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the people in the days of Noah. And I don't think they were all false prophets in the strictest sense of the word, where they were passionately and purposefully trying to move people away. And so I kind of feel like as we go through these characteristics, okay, here's what I'm getting at. In the same way that both Noah and Lot were righteous because of the object of their faith, one was intense in his passions, one not so much, what about the ungodly? Some are intense in their passions, they are false prophets, false teachers. But some are just merely without Christ, they are ungodly. And they might not match all of these characteristics, they might even seem like good people in some ways on the outside, and yet they are still in that category. So I don't wanna maybe limit these characteristics to merely the false prophets, because the ungodly, those without God, those who have chosen to disobey the word may also fall into that. I don't know if that made sense, we better just keep reading. Verse 10 says,

So what are the characteristics that we see? Indulgence in, refuse to submit to authorities, proud, bold, willful. Let's talk about some of those. The defiling passions means a longing, especially for what is forbidden. A longing for what is forbidden. Despising means to think against authorities and that is a characteristic of the false prophets and perhaps the ungodly, to think against authority. It makes sense because don't you feel like we're in such a lawless world, a lawless society? And I think back to 1 Peter, what are we told about children in the kingdom, the body of Christ? What should be our attitude toward authority? Submit yourselves, therefore, to the governing authorities, but yet those without, those ungodly is despising authority. Bold, daring, presumptuous, prideful, willful. And then Peter compares them to a few things for us as we enter into verse 12. The first comparison is to irrational animals, creatures of instinct, he says. And you know in the animal kingdom, one thing that separates animals from humans who were created in the image of God is that ability to reason, that ability to rationalize. So that's why he says irrational animals, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters which they're ignorant and also be destroyed in their destruction. Suffering wrong is the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you. And I'd just like to read that verse out of the New Living Translation because I feel like a dynamic equivalent translation may help us just place this into our own cultural perspective. It says their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. And so Peter is making a link here while they feast with you, while they eat with you. And I don't think he's talking about just at the dinner table with food before you. He's talking about them being among you as they are among you. And it reminds us that the ungodly do make their way into our midst. And if not into our midst, into our midst as the Christian church. And that's not necessarily wrong or bad. In our culture, our church experience is such that we want people who are not yet born again to come into our midst. We want them to hear the word of the Lord, to let it wash over them, to hopefully be convicted of sins, to have a respect for coming judgment, and to see their need for repentance. That's a good thing, right? We want the ungodly to come into our midst. But the church, our church gathering, not the church that we talked about in 1 Peter, the called out ones, our church gathering is different than the body of Christ. The body of Christ is those who are born again, born into the kingdom. Now you are part of Christ, you are in Christ. But yet in the church, we have people who are born again, we have people who are not born again. And that is our experience. And that's something for us to be mindful of because Peter mentions it here, while they feast with you. And that is one reason you should pray for your leaders, ministry leaders, elders, pastor, because there's this little sharp edge that they walk with desiring for those that do not know the Lord to come in and be absorbers while yet restraining them from being influencers. It's a very delicate thing. But that's what we do in the church. We want people to walk in and absorb the word of God and maybe to become born again and enter into the body of Christ. While yet those same people, we want to restrain from influencing because then we run into the problems in this passage. So pray for your leaders. It's not an easy thing to do. And also to be mindful yourself that we do have people that come into our midst and we want so much for them to know the fullness of life in Christ. Second thing that Peter compares them to is Balaam. And he says in verse 14,

which is kind of interesting because after the comparison to irrational animals, then Peter reminds us that it was an irrational animal that had to restrain Balaam, the prophet, from doing, you know, what he was about to do. But in the book of Numbers, we have the story of Balaam and the king of Moab wanted him to come and profess a curse over the children of Israel. So he hires him and Balaam goes and he was right. Balaam would not, the Lord would not allow him to curse Israel. When he opened his mouth, blessings came out. And so the king says, let's try another mountain. Maybe that will work better. And, you know, it never did work. But, and so at first you might think, well, Balaam was a pretty good guy because he says, well, I can't, I can't say anything God doesn't tell me to say. But you know what? After that whole excursion, then Balaam says to the king of Moab, well, that didn't work. God wouldn't let me say anything to curse him, but I'll tell you what, I know how to get at him. You take all your pretty girls and you just send them down into the midst and you can persuade Israel. You can entice Israel through sensuality and through intermarrying with your girls. And so he was truly a false prophet that, that exactly like it's saying entice through his greed, enticed the steady souls or the unsteady souls. The third comparison is in verse 17. We'll keep reading. Peter says,

Are you getting weary of this yet? This passage, it is wearying, isn't it? These are strong words. We talk about boastful in their foolishness, indulgent in their sensual passions, enticing, and this is a characteristic of false prophets, enticing the vulnerable, enticing the younger, enticing those who are less mature, the unsteady souls. And we who know and who are here studying our scriptures, we have our work cut out for us. As we're being enlightened to this in this passage, and Peter is stirring up our sober-mindedness, and we know that the reason we care so much about people who are enticed is we see exactly what happens here. It says, whatever overcomes a person that he is enslaved to. And we know how easy it is to become enslaved to something, and we don't want to see that happen to people. False teachers promise freedom, but ultimately they enslave people with sinful lifestyles. So, what can we do? What can we do about this? We've studied this wanted poster. We look at these characteristics, and it improves our discernment. That's a good thing, but what the Lord ministered to me this week as I read through this was just the intensity of prayer. When I read those words, and well, let me just finish the passage and we'll keep reading a little bit more about what happens to people. It says,

Now, when I read that about someone who has become overcome again, I'll bet you just about everybody in this room has a person in their mind, or more than one people, someone who once knew the way of truth and then was overcome again. We may call it backsliding. You may have other terms for it, but it is something that happens. And in the context of what Peter's talking about here, it's because they've been defiled by a bad teaching. Someone has promised them freedoms, promised them insights or whatever. And they have now gotten tangled back into the sin of the world. And so we know people, we have them in our life, we have people that line up with us. And our hearts ache. What Peter's not saying in this passage is, so there's no hope anymore. Just move on. That's not what he is saying. I believe what he is saying when he says that their current condition is, it says the last state has become worse for them than the first. I believe what he is saying is, this is a serious condition. They're in a hard place. This type of person is in a difficult place. I don't think it's hopeless. That doesn't line up with the rest of scripture to me. But it is a hard place. So those of us who are in the Lord, looking for God to use our spiritual gifts and to minister the kingdom, we look at this passage and we say, well, they're not going to change their mind because I come to them and have a little coffee date and say, did you know this, this, this, and this? They won't change their mind. This is a matter for prayer. This is a matter for intensity of prayer. This is something, if I care about someone, I need to clear my schedule. I need to be purposeful. I need to make a plan and not just say, well, there's nothing we can do but pray. And say, we will pray for this person. And that's what I did this week. I really carved out time purposefully, ongoingly in my schedule because the word is telling me here, they're in a hard place. If someone has backslidden, someone has been drawn away, and what did we start with, many will follow, many will follow. This isn't the random one in a million. I get a little protective of the church sometimes. And I saw it just this morning. I saw another article, 70% of our young people will leave the church after high school, and it makes me sink because I feel like it's an attack on the church. I feel like you're not doing your job. And I don't think that that's, I think the church is doing a good job. But look what we're up against. Many will follow. And so our task is to pray for them and to do battle in the spiritual realm that they will come out of that hard place. Does that make sense? Maybe the Lord stirred up some other things and you can share them in your group. But I just wanted to share kind of the result of that. So I did not want to leave this message on sow returning back to the mire or whatever, pig goes back to their mud puddle. So that's why in the study guide, I had to go to Hebrews and give you at least some verses of encouragement there. You have no idea how hard it was to make Facebook posts this week out of this passage and find really encouraging standalone Facebook posts. But just the last couple days, I'm going to let you do the Hebrews ones. I was really encouraged by two things. I read Jude, which is very, very similar to 2 Peter. And so what I want to read for you, and you can jot this down if you care to look it up later, I'm going to read Jude verses 20 to 23, and then I'm going to go to Proverbs 24, verses 10 to 12. And then I'll go back to Jude for the doxology. Because you know me, I always have to rearrange scripture somehow. But I just want you to just listen to this as I read through it and sort of just let it soak in and see what the Lord stirs up in your heart. Starting with Jude,

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. To the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. To him be glory, majesty, dominion, authority before all time and now and forever. That's a good way to end. Father, thank you for your grace, your goodness, Lord. Thank you for even these sobering chapters, Lord, that are good to kind of jolt us out of the things of life that we let become so important. And Lord, I just want to pray for all of us, Lord, that have people on our hearts. People in our families, people in our circles of friends that meet the description of what has happened to them once having known they have been swept away. And they're in a hard place. And Lord, I pray that you would stir up in us that ministry, because Lord, your word tells us that your desire is that none should perish. That's what we come to next week, none that should perish. So Lord, stir up in us the ministry of intercession, of pleading, of doing whatever you would have us to do, Lord, to carry those souls on our hearts. And in the meantime, Lord, help us to be firm and to do all we can to stand firm in the faith, grow in the grace and knowledge of God, and not succumb ourselves to these things that we see. So Lord, thank you and bless our time in Jesus' name, amen.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ---