Let us turn to Second Peter, Chapter One. Second Peter, Chapter One. We're going to read the first three verses and seek by the grace of God to get some food for our own souls from this portion that becomes an introduction to this second chapter. which basically deals with departure from the ways of God. And let us read these first three verses. You'll notice that the first word is the word, but. Now this portion forms a contrast to that which we had at the close of chapter one. At the close of chapter one, we had a great statement, one of the greatest in all of Scripture concerning the importance of the word of God and its inspiration. That holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, which you have at the close of verse twenty-one. But now he adds, But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privilege shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with fainting words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. May the Lord bless the reading of his words. In the first chapter, the apostle sets forth the nature of the new life which God imparts to the believer. In verse four of chapter one, we're made partakers of the divine nature. And then Peter stresses in this chapter, chapter one, the very nature of that life, being made a partaker of the divine nature, and there's only one way that can be done. It is birth that determines nature. Nature is determined by birth. A dog is a dog because it was born a dog. It can wish to be a cat. It could even try to climb a tree like a cat, but it will never be a cat because it was born a dog. And this is what our Lord meant when he said to Nicodemus, you must be born again because that which is born of the flesh is flesh. and it will never be anything but flesh. Mr. Hill gave me a tape a number of months ago that was exceedingly good. In fact, I've given thought to using it some Sunday night, just listening to it. But this is one of the best tapes I've ever listened to on the new birth. He doesn't call it that, but he gives so much information on it But it is a great tape on the new birth. He points out that there are five kingdoms. There is a mineral kingdom. There is a vegetable kingdom. There is the animal kingdom. There is a kingdom of man. And there is a kingdom of God. Five kingdoms. And there is no way for the mineral kingdom to ever come up to the vegetable kingdom. In order for it to come up, the vegetable kingdom has to send roots down and bring up the mineral kingdom into the vegetable kingdom. And for the vegetable kingdom to come up to the animal kingdom, the animal kingdom has to partake of the vegetable kingdom for the vegetable kingdom to become part of the animal kingdom. And so it goes. And for a man who by nature is flesh, For him to be part of the kingdom of God, God has to reach down to man and bring man up. It's the only way it can be. It can't be anything else. And that's what God did in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The scripture says that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. And it's through the condescension of our Lord Jesus Christ. his willingness to become one of us in order that he might lift us to where he is. And that's why the new birth is necessary. You and I may wish to be in the kingdom of God, but wishing will never make us any more than a dog wishing to be a cat will never become a cat. You have to be born for birth determines nature. And you see, Peter says we've been made partakers of the divine nature. Now the fact that God would give us his nature. You think of that. It's tremendous when you consider that God became one of us. He partook of our nature. God became man in the person of Christ. But that he would give us what is of himself. in order that we might be partakers of the kingdom of God. That's divine grace, friends. And that's what our Lord Jesus did. So you see, a vital Christian life is characterized by stability because it is based on the sure foundation of God's revelation. God's revelation is his word. And he has revealed his word to us. That's chapter one. But now chapter two. This is a logical unit, chapter two. The whole of it is a vigorous arrangement of false teachers with their Christ-rejecting heresy. There are three sections in the Word of God that are parallel in this respect. The words of our Lord in Matthew chapter three, those eight woes. portion of the little epistle of Jude and second Peter chapter two now the transition from chapter one to chapter two is natural in chapter one the fortifications of the Christian life have been built we're made partakers of the divine nature and we're given all things that pertain to life and godliness so the fortifications are built Chapter one, the armor is put on. Verse ten, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. The weapons have been provided. If you do these things, you shall never fall. And then it's time to meet the enemy. And in chapter two, we meet the enemy. Now you think of that sequence. When the fortifications have been built, when the armor has been put on, When the weapons have been provided, then it's time to meet the enemy. So you see chapter one equips the believer. Chapter two presents the dangerous enemies that the believer is going to face in the world. Let us notice a number of things in these three verses. Verse one, the presence of false teachers. We could ask ourselves a question as we read this verse. Does history repeat itself? The answer is obvious. It does. There were false prophets among the people. There will be false teachers among you. You see, false prophets were among the people. False teachers shall be among you. Now this is in accord with the teaching of our Lord in Matthew thirteen. In Matthew chapter thirteen, in the parable of the wheat and the tares, Our Lord taught there that while he has gone back to heaven, the kingdom of God is going to be a period in which tares are sown among the wheat. There's a presence of that which is true, the wheat, and there is presence of that which is false, the tares. It reminds me of a story that the late Dr. Barnhouse told of this carpenter. in Hungary, who was very skilled with his hands. And what he did, he made out of wood, he molded with a knife and some wood, some kernels of wheat. They looked just like the wheat. They looked exactly like kernels of wheat, and he threw them among the wheat. And then he couldn't tell which was which. Until... He put them in water. The kernels of wheat sprung forth with life because there was life there. But the imitation pieces of wood just remained. You see, there is a false among the two today. Our Lord said, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall inherit the kingdom. Only that one who does the will of his Father who is in heaven. So when our Lord taught that there would be tears among the wheat, Peter is just echoing in a different way the message that our Lord gave in Matthew chapter thirteen. Now when he says there were false prophets among the people, according to Deuteronomy chapter eighteen and verse twenty, the mark of the false prophet was the absence of a divine calling. He had no message because he had never been called of God. That made the difference. A sham prophet, according to Deuteronomy eighteen and also chapter thirteen, who presumptuously claimed to be God's spokesman, inevitably offered a false message that could not be trusted. The false prophets during the days of Jeremiah were crying out, peace, peace. and telling the people everything is all right. And Jeremiah, the true prophet of God with a broken heart, he cried out to the people, we're going to be subdued by the Babylonian army and we're going into captivity. But the false prophets were believed. And here the lone voice of Jeremiah was not believed. And friends, we have a picture of this today. We have people today who cry and lobbying groups, whether they're in Raleigh or in Washington, it doesn't make a difference. They cry with a loud voice to have their own way, but a lie told by a million people never makes it the truth. Jeremiah stood alone. The false prophets were many. Elijah unmarked Carmel, First Kings chapter eighteen. He stood alone. The prophets of Baal and the prophets of the groves were four hundred and fifty each. But who was right? Who was right? Elijah was. So you see, it boils down to one thing. A hundred years from now, what is really going to matter in your life? The very thing that should matter tonight, a relationship to Jesus Christ. The only thing that's going to matter a hundred years from now. It doesn't matter how much money you had a hundred years ago. It doesn't matter how many cars you drove or even what kind you had, whether it's a German Cadillac or an Englishman. It doesn't matter. Those things don't matter one bit. It doesn't matter what kind of a home you lived in. A relationship to Christ is the only thing that's going to mean anything in that day. So we ask you, what is your relationship to him tonight? You see, that's what is most important to know this. The pseudo-prophets in Israel, oh, they constituted a distinct group in relation to the men who are mentioned in the first chapter, on the last verse of the last chapter, the prophets who were holy men of God, who were moved by the Holy Spirit. The pseudo-prophets who were the false prophets were not moved by the Holy Spirit. They did not speak for God. They spoke out of their covetous nature, for they made money by what they said. We'll come on to that a little more. But now notice it says there were also false prophets among the people. That expression among the people. make clear that the reference is to the false prophets in Israel as distinct from the Gentile world. The false prophets weren't among the Gentiles. They were already deceived. The false prophets were among God's people. Satan's army is not out to attack the world. Satan's army is out to attack the people of God. They're among the people, God's people. What in order to deceive? You see, no one would have been deceived by that bag of wheat the Hungarian carpenter had. If the wheat would have been great big chunks of wood, no one would have been deceived. But the fact that he made them exactly like the wheat, that he couldn't even tell the difference, he even deceived himself. false prophets among the people. Now he adds, just as there will be false teachers among you, it underlies the fact that there is such a thing as satanic counterfeits. Satanic deceivers. Someone has put it like this. Wherever God erects a house of prayer, the devil builds a chapel there. You think it over. Wherever God erects a house of prayer, the devil builds a chapel there. Now, there is a distinction between false prophets and false teachers. We have no prophets today. He didn't say there will be false prophets among you. He says there will be false teachers among you. We have teachers today. We don't have prophets, but we have teachers today. In other words, the words, there will be false teachers. It signifies and presents the scene as still future when Peter wrote. Now, Paul does the same thing in First Timothy chapter four. He speaks of false teachers who are going to bring in dandable heresies. You see, First Timothy chapter four. And Peter was aware that there were false teachers at work in certain areas of the church in his day. Because in Acts chapter fifteen, Peter was involved with those who had brought in false teaching. And they were confronted by Paul there in the Jerusalem council in Acts chapter fifteen. You have the same truth in second Corinthians chapter eleven, where Paul was confronted with false teachers and evil workers. So it was at work. Satan was at work in a very real way in various parts of the church. But those to whom Peter is writing, he says there will be. It was still a future thing. Now I want you to notice the essential features of false teachers. And you have this in the end of verse one. They privily bring in damnable heresies. Second, they deny the Lord that bought them. And third, they bring upon themselves... swept destruction. Notice the three things. They secretly introduced destructive heresies. Now the verb secretly introduced means to bring in alongside of. Here's the revelation of God, the word of God that God has given us. Now there are those who secretly bring in alongside of the word of God and say this is just as good. So you can have the Book of Mormon, a damnable heresy. You can have Ellen G. White's accounts, damnable heresies. You can have the works of Mary Glover Patterson Baker Eddy, damnable heresies, and the thought and then the Greek text. The verb here means to bring in alongside of, or you can take the Masonic books, It's brought in alongside of. And usually when a person who has been brought into that order, when you have to make a choice between the teachings of the Word of God and the Masonic order, it falls to the Masonic order. You follow it through. Destructive heresies. They secretly introduce. They bring it right in alongside. You see, they bring in something new. And these new teachings become an addition to the divine revelation that God has given and which the church has received. You see, what God has given to the church, he cries out seven times in the book of Revelation. He that has ears to hear. Let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. And what the Spirit has said to the church is what is revealed in the New Testament. He that has ears to hear, let him hear it. So we have the word, they will secretly introduce destructive heresies. That's the first thing. But second, we have destructive heresies here. Or heresies of destruction would be a better way of translating it. Heresies comes from the word to choose. In other words, you have to decide what you're going to do about this thing. And it's a calling for people, join my group. And a person who brought something in who said, you have to make a decision about this, join my group, became to be known by the word heretic. And a heresy came to be known as that which is false because it is brought about by a school. that fosters its own opinions rather than the word of God. It's an interesting word. The problem is these heresies cause divisions. More than that, they are often substitutes for the truth. There's no substitute for the truth. A friend of mine has a sign in their home when you go out the door. It simply says this, the truth will do. I like that sign. I looked at it a few times. I won't tell you who it is, who hasn't. But anyway, it says the truth will do. That's a great sign. You see, these are substitutes for the truth. The truth doesn't need a substitute. You see, this is a substitute. in contrast to what you have in verse two. Now look at verse two, the end of verse two. By reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. The damnable heresies of the false teachers is in contrast to the way of truth which is in accordance with the word of God. The third thing that we notice is they deny the word that brought them. The word Lord translated here is not the normal word. That is translated the word curios. But it is the word despotis, which is the word from which we got our English word despot. And it means one incomplete authority. In other words, here are people who can be known because they deny the redemptive work of Christ. and you can always tell a false teacher by what he thinks of Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? What did he accomplish when he died on the cross on Calvary's Hill? This is the whole crux of the matter. They deny the Lord that brought them, and they bring swift destruction upon themselves. Now in verse two, you'll notice the success of the false teachers. This is one of the most amazing verses and it should be studied and studied well. The success of false teachers. We often get discouraged, don't we? Because you work day by day, you can put in sixteen hours a day and you seem to accomplish so little when it comes to spiritual things. And yet look at the success of false teachers. Now we should take heart from this. It doesn't mean we should relax our efforts. But we should realize where the battle is. And we should realize how important prayer is. And we should realize how important the gospel is. Notice the second verse. And many shall follow their pernicious ways. In other words, false teachers have a widespread following. Isn't that amazing? Our Lord said, Strive to enter in at the straight gate. For straight is the gate, and narrow is the way that lead us to life, and few there be that find us. And in contrast to that, he said, wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And many there be, that who win there are. And here, in relation to the false teachers, he says, many. In other words, many here, that word, underlies the effectiveness of their efforts. The tragedy is, Their following is not coming from pagans. Their following is coming from among the church. That's where it's coming from. And then it speaks of their sensuality. It says, many shall follow their pernicious ways. Their sensuous ways. In other words, these words here lay bare their corrupt character. and their corrupting influence. Those who follow their pernicious ways. Now their tragic impact is the way of truth is evil spoken of. Now the many who follow them are the cause for much backsliding in the church. They're the cause for it. There are a people who want to be satisfied with these things. The people who usually say, if I don't get my way, I'm going to leave. And there's a tendency to cater to them. The word of God cries out, hold the for it. There's only one thing that saves, it is the gospel. And we must be sure that we're settled on this one thing. The way of truth. He speaks of Christianity as a way of truth that is evil spoken of. You see, Christianity is a way of life that is in harmony with a revelation of Christ. It is a way of life. It is a way of holiness. It is a way of godliness. And it is characterized by the divine revelation of Holy Scripture. Jesus Christ is truth incarnate. John, verse six, he said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. In other words, a living knowledge of God results in godly living. You cannot say that you know God if you're not living godly. A godly life is the result of knowing God. They go together. Now I want you to notice quickly in verse three. the motives of false teachers. They are motives. I'm going to give you, it says here, and through covetousness, shall they with fain words make merchandise of you. Let me change the translation of that to this way. In their greed, they will exploit you with false words. In their greed, a love of money. Greed is the atmosphere which surrounds and governs their aims and their actions. Greed. The word greed is always used in a bad sense. A covetous spirit will be reflected in the deceptive methods of the false teachers. And I was amazed tonight when I read the Burlington paper, a picture of five preachers on the front page. You see, and they're showing the corrupt practices. of a certain organization. Amazes me. It's exactly what Peter is talking about. They use fained words and coveted practices to deceive. In other words, they will exploit you with false words. In other words, what Peter is doing here, he's putting his readers on notice. He says, remember, you're the fellow who they're trying to exploit. I want you to notice finally the doom of the false teachers, the end of the third verse, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. That's a strange way in the Old English the way that's put. Let me change the wording again in a better translation. Their judgment from long ago is not idle. Their judgment from long ago is not idle. God knows what's going on. In other words, what Peter is saying is judicial action has already been taken against such sinners, and a guilty verdict has been pronounced. They're not getting away with anything. Now, it may appear that they do. But you see, God doesn't sell his accounts in October. He doesn't settle all of them in April or in December. God is on the throne. You see, this expression points to the judge and his verdict. It says here, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not. You see, another way of putting it, their destruction is not asleep. And this points to the criminals and their penalty. J.N.D. Kelly, who has written on the epistles of Peter and Jude, he puts it like this. When the wicked are successful and their misdeeds go unrequited, men tend to imagine that God is asleep, but his slumber and apparent inactivity should not be misunderstood. God is not asleep. God is well aware of everything that the false prophets are doing. He's well aware of everything that the false teachers are doing. And he's also well aware of what his people are doing. Are you telling the gospel? You know we're the only people who have the right message for lost men. There is no other method or message that will ever deliver from perdition. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Are we telling the message? Chapter one of First Peter deals with the fact that we're indwell by the very nature of God. First determines nature. God has reached down and picked us up. He has equipped us to live a godly life in this present evil world. And he's given us. the commission to tell the message. Are we telling it? Now let's pray together. Our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that you have called us by divine grace. You have made us yours. And we ask that you would graciously take the word and blessed to our hearts. We realize that we're in a world that is dominated by the God of this age, Satan. You have placed us here and you have placed us here to show forth a blessedness of serving you. And while we can't often tell the difference between the true and the genuine, we would make our calling an election sure. by knowing for certain that we are among thy redeemed. Help us, O God, to be willing to face the enemy and to not be ashamed of the one thing that saves even the gospel of Jesus Christ. We ask this for thy great namesake and for thy glory and for the salvation of poor sinners. In Jesus' name, amen.