The Impact of False Teachers..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Let's open up our Bibles, please, to 2 Peter. By God's grace, we continue with our study on the New Testament, and this time we're going to be doing it in 2 Peter.

Beloved of Christ, the portion of the Scripture that I want us to think about together, it is actually a complicated piece of the text. that is found in verse 13 all the way through 19. So the Lord might have mercy on us as we try to expound this here. It is the portion of the scripture starting with the second statement in verse 13 in chapter two, in which the apostle is going to say that they, the false prophets, counted pleasure. And then he continues all the way to verse 19.

And what we're going to be discussing this afternoon or this evening, beloved of Christ, is that which false teachers do in the church or that which false teachers do to the church. Again, that which false teachers do to the church or that which false teachers do in the context of the church. And as you know, second Peter, Chapter two and the Book of Jude and Matthew, Chapter seven, those portion of the scripture address the topic of false teachers in the context of the church. So I want us to meditate upon that what false teachers do to or in the context of the church. And when I got it, we're going to try to do that from that portion of the Scripture from verse 13, the second statement there all the way through verse 19.

Now, as I have said in the past, beloved of Christ, When we're going through, say, computer chapter two, you can feel not only the instruction, the desire of the apostle to give instruction to the church, but also you can perceive the urgency, the emotions of the apostle. So he's not only given instructions to the church of the things that false prophets are and do, and those things that we should be careful about. But also you can see the emotions of the apostle there. And for that reason, it may be a little bit challenging sometimes to get the instruction that the apostle is trying to give us. So relying on the one who gave his life for us.

so that by dying upon that cross, being resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, being vindicated, so that by the same Spirit we will be made alive and we will be able to hear His word. It is by faith in that person, Jesus Christ. beloved of him, that we approach this portion of Scripture. And as we always do, I'm going to invite you to read together with me the whole chapter two, paying careful attention to that portion of the Scripture there from verse 13 to 19. And then Lord willing, if he extends our days and we are able to gather here next week, we will finish chapter two.

So let's read, paying attention to each one of the words with a reverent heart, with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 2 in 2 Peter. This is the words of God. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not sleep. 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 lot, greatly distressed by the essential 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 unheard. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the ungodly under punishment until the day of judgment. And especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones. Whereas angels, though greater in might and power do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as they wage for the wrongdoing. They counted pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in the deceptions while they feast with you.

They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts strained in greed, accursed children. Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked of his own transgression.

A speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. These are waterless springs and mist driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.

For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returned to its own vomit.

and the soul, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire." Amen. This is the Word of the Lord. Beloved of Christ, brothers and sisters and friends, as I said in the beginning, the portion of Scripture that we're going to be addressing is that which starts in the second statement of verse 13 and goes until verse 19, in which I want and I have the desire in my heart to communicate to you that which false teachers do to the church. that which false teachers do in or within the context of the congregation.

It's very important, beloved of Christ, that we understand this. This is a chapter that, as I said, is filled with emotion from the heart of the apostle. And he gives so many things, so many characteristics of false teachers. But today I want us to focus on what they do to the church or what they do in the context of the church. And in a sense, beloved of Christ, the simple answer to that statement, if that was going to put as a question of what is that which false teachers do to the church or within the church, the simple answer to that question or the simple answer to that statement which you are to put in your heart and which you are to collect in your soul when we're thinking about false teachers is that they bring false teaching.

As simple as that. What false teachers do to the church or in the context of the church is that they bring into the church false teaching or false doctrine. That is what they do. Now, beloved of Christ, this false teaching or false doctrine, as I have defined it in the past, it is anything that deviates from the sound doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything that deviates from the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is considered to be, according to Scripture, heresy or a false doctrine or a false teaching.

So that which false teachers do in or within the context of the church is that they bring in false doctrine, which is that which is contrary to the word of God, the word of the gospel. Now, beloved of Christ, there is a reason why sometimes we do not see the weight, the spiritual weight of that statement. Let me just put it in perspective. The Lord Jesus Christ, as he is quoting Moses in Matthew chapter four, he says that men shall not live by bread alone. You know that verse, right?

That men shall not live by bread alone, but he will live by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. That just as the physical body of humanity depends on bread to exist and to endure, So the spiritual being of humanity depends on the spiritual words that come out of the mouth of God. Beloved of Christ, life eternal depends on the Word of God. The Word of God is that which gives, sustains and preserves eternal life. And false teachers do not bring the Word of God to the context of the congregation.

In fact, they bring something that is opposite to the Word of God. If we were going to compare that to natural food, false teaching is to bread, saying natural food, what poison is to bread. So beloved of Christ, What false teachers do to the church is that not only they do not bring the word of God, which is that which is required for eternal life, but beloved of Christ, they bring to the church poison that is utterly unable to save souls and edify the Christian. Don't get distracted by someone turning down the hurricane. Be with me.

Beloved of Christ. This is the Word of God. Beloved of Christ. The life of a person, the eternal life of a person depends from the Word of God. And here that I'm not saying that depends on Scripture.

I'm not saying that depends on a preacher speaking on behalf of God. I'm not saying that depends of a prophet, but depends on the ultimate source of that word, which is God himself. Your soul every single day depends on the fact of God speaking to you. You see, I can be here preaching, reading a scripture as it is written, yet God may not be speaking to you. We have to go over that oversimplified perception of God's Word in which you simply read a statement aloud and that is equated to the Word of God.

When God speaks to a person, that person is utterly transformed. When God speaks to a lost soul, that lost soul is saved. And when God speaks to the soul that has been saved, that soul is edified. the Word of God. It is absolutely necessary for your spiritual life.

You can spend the rest of your days on this earth pretending to be Christian, pretending to do the things of Christianity, reading Scripture, reading theology and reading books and all of these things, yet having God not speaking to you and transforming your soul. If you're going to get something, get this, that your soul depends on God's Word. Because just as we need bread to survive every single day in our physical body, we need the Word of God to live and live eternally. So what false teachers do to the church and what false teachers do within the context of the church, it is greatly, greatly against everything that is holy and a blessing to the church. It is very detrimental now the word comes to my mind.

is very detrimental to the church. Very detrimental, not only to the context of the church, beloved of Christ, but to every single soul. You see that every one of the person or the people that are here are an eternal soul. They're going to have to give an account before God for the lives that they have lived and for their position before Christ. The same reality is for the person who is outside of this building and for the person that is seated right now, listening to a person who claims to be speaking on behalf of God when he or she, in the worst case scenario, is a false prophet, a false teacher.

Don't you have compassion for this? The life of a soul depends on the word of God being spoken to that person. And even right now on this planet, every single nation, every single time, whatever Christianity has reached, sadly, most of that which is called Christianity is in the path of false teaching, of false doctrine. Hundreds and thousands of souls receiving from the words of men that are self-seeking and from women who are self-seeking, not the word of God, but the word of men." So important then it is for us, beloved of Christ, to understand that just that simple statement, what false teachers do in and within the context of the church, with a little bit more depth from this text.

If you're going to get only one thing, the thing that you should get is that false teachers bring to the church false teaching, and that false teaching is absolutely powerless to bring salvation and to edify the soul. Indeed, what it causes is contamination. It is poison. The one that is on the way to salvation, then false teaching is going to deviate that person. And I don't care if your Calvinistic understanding is offended, but that is what false teaching does.

When false teaching is proclaimed, our soul is deviated from the path of salvation and our soul is not going to be edified. This is the seriousness, beloved of Christ, of having the word of God. And again, or no, again, let me just say this. When it comes to the word of God, it is only two categories. You have the word of God or you don't.

You have the truth of God or you don't. It is not like with food, that you can have good food that nourishes your body, but still you also can have food that is not so good, but still you can live on it and endure until the rest of your life, even if it's not good food. When it comes to spiritual matters, It is either the truth of the word of God, or is not. And that which is not the word of God, and that which is not the truth of the word of God, will not edify the soul of the Christian, will not bring salvation. And when we deal with destructive heresies, as we are doing here in 2 Peter chapter 2, then those heresies will cause the opposite, kill the soul, destroy the soul.

Just as the false teacher is on his way or her way to destruction, then those who receive the poisonous words that come from his or her mouth are also following the way of destruction. You see the seriousness of this blood of Christ. So the only thing that I want to do, because the apostle is going to present the argument or he's going to, in a sense, present what what the false teachers doing in the context of the church, making many allusions to the Old Testament and making allusions even to what they call illustrations and analogies and all of those things. And I'm not very good at understanding all of those things. So I'm just going to try to present to you very simply, very simply, that statement of that which false teachers do in the context of the church, namely bringing heresy, so bringing false teaching.

And I want us to see it from two different perspectives. Why do they do that? Why do false teachers bring false teaching or false doctrine to the church? Why? That is the first thing that I want us to analyze from this passage of Scripture.

And once we have analyzed why they do it, then I want us to think about how they do it, how they bring false teaching or false doctrine to the context of the church. And then if by God's grace, we're able to understand those two things and the role of what the false teacher does in the context of the church, then at least we will be better prepared than many, many, many Christians, not only to have discernment within the context of the church, even to discern the words that I utter, but also to have discernment of the things that happen outside the context of the church and to have compassion for those souls and rescue them from fire, which is what Jude says, right? So, beloved of Christ, before we get into answering those things, why the false teachers bring false teaching into the church and how they do it, let me remind you of a couple of things that I've mentioned in the past that are going to be very important for us to get into this study. And the first of those things, which I hope that is clear in your mind and that you can clearly see it, not from the things that I've said, but just very clearly and plain in the scripture, is the reality of false teachers. Verse 1 of this chapter that you have in front of you says that just as there were false teachers or false prophets, better speaking of the old covenant, there shall be false teachers among you.

That which you owe to remember, so dear eternal soul, is that God has determined that not there may be, not that there is a possibility, but that there will be false teachers among the church in the context of the church, there will be. And that is a reality. So that means just quantitatively speaking, from the truth of Scripture, that not every single person who on this day is behind a pulpit, open his or her mouth, supposedly on behalf of God, is a preacher or a messenger of God. And we will be very naive, I think is the word they have in English, we will be very silly to believe that everyone who stands behind a pulpit, just because they have a Bible in front of them, and just because they speak Christian words, that they are speaking on behalf of God. The discernment of the church has to go greater than that silliness.

We are to acknowledge that Scripture says that not everyone who professes to be in Christ, generally speaking, is in Christ. And that not everyone who says that speaks on behalf of Christ, as a preacher, or as a teacher, or as a pastor, or whatever, that not everyone who says so is indeed a messenger of God. But because the Bible says that there will be false teachers, that means that there are even now, right now, false teachers through the world opening their mouth, pouring poison onto the soul of eternal souls. who are going to have to give an account at some day. Some of those souls, beloved, as they finish church or whatever they call church, they're going to go home and they're going to die as they are going home or that night or tomorrow.

And they're going to have to give an account. And they did not have a man or a person that will tell them. that Christ is the solution for their souls, that works are to be put aside, that faith in the Savior is the only way to salvation in the biblical Christ, the Christ that is portrayed in Scripture, not a man-made Christ of the inventions of men and the traditions of men. false teachers are a reality for the new covenant church. The second thing that I want you to have in your mind, beloved of Christ and friends, is that just as there is a reality that there will be false teachers among the context of the church, There's also another reality which is very scary.

And that is that many will follow them. That is what Apostle says there in verse 2. And many will follow their pernicious ways. Many will follow their sensuality. Many.

Many will follow them. Many will go after the ways, the destructive ways of these false teachers. Many will follow them. The number is not few, the number is not some, it's many. Many will follow them.

Many will choose the food that is not the eternal word of God, but rather they will choose the poisonous words of men that are powerless. Beloved of Christ, that is happening right now, as we are doing church here, happily and together. This is happening right now, as many souls are receiving gospel that is a different gospel, receiving a spirit that is a different spirit. Not that there is another gospel, the apostle says in Galatians, but the same apostle says in 2 Corinthians, that there is another gospel, that there is another spirit. Beloved of Christ, that is the reality of this.

So why? Why false teachers do this? Why false teachers fill their mouths with words that are not the words of God, are the words of men which do not have the power, do not have the power to give life to the lost, not to edify the soul of the saved. Why do they do it? Well, the apostle in a repetitious way, in a sense, has told us that already.

And that is because of their nature. lost or better, false teachers are lost in their sins and trespasses. They are dead in their sins and their trespasses. Never, ever believe. And I know that many of you will not.

But if there's any one of you who still think that, that there is a false teacher, as it is described here in 2 Peter 2, that at some point was saved. false teachers, those who bring in destructive heresies to the church, those are not saved. The apostle says in verse nine, for instance, if you want some evidence of the many times that the apostle has said this, that in verse nine or very in verse 10, he says that the false teachers are those who indulge in the lust of defiling passions. Those defiling passions throughout his scripture, are given or are understood as the passions of fallen flesh. They indulge.

They derive pleasure from the passions of the flesh. They are blasphemous according to verse 11. They despise authority. They don't care about authority. They are blasphemous.

And if you want more evidence in verse 12, as we discussed it a few weeks ago, they are called irrational animals. Creatures of instinct born to be cut and destroyed. These are false teachers, beloved of Christ. They are dead in their trespasses. Not a hint, not a drop, not the most minute visitation of saving faith.

They are utterly death. Death will not have decrease. That is a wrong adjective or adverb. Simply death. They are dead in their trespasses.

These are false teachers. But they are not only in their sinful flesh sons of Adam. These men and people, they are reprobates. You see the repetition through this chapter of the judgment of God that is not idle, that is kept and is reserved for them, even in the portion of Scripture that we're going to be addressing today or that we are addressing today. It is said that their judgment or darkness is kept and reserved for them.

These words that are used by the apostle Peter in first Peter to speak of our salvation, that is kept reserved for us in heaven. It is utilized here for these false teachers about their darkness, their judgment, their gloom that is to come, that it is reserved and kept for them. They are not only dead in their trespasses, but they have already been appointed or designated, as Jude said in Jude chapter 1 verse 4 or 5, designated unto this condemnation. But beloved of Christ, the Apostle Peter is not tired to speak about the falling nature of the false prophets, as he has done it many, many times. He will continue to do it.

And in the portion of his scripture, he continues to do so, to speak of the falling nature of the false teachers and the false prophets. Why does he do it? If he has already mentioned and make it very clear that they are lost in and dead in their trespasses, that they are sons of Adam, that they have never experienced saving faith. Well, beloved of Christ, because of his urgency to speak to the churches about who they are. This is the heart of the apostle, pointing the eyes and the hearts of the congregation to these men that are irrational animals, dead in their trespasses.

They are sinners. And because they are sinners, they operate according to sinful passions. But every time that we see this continual repetition in the intention of the author, there is a deeper intention that goes beyond even the consciousness of the one that is writing. And that is the intention of the spirit of God, because beloved of Christ, brothers and sisters and friends, every time that we see descriptions of falling nature in a scripture, even if they are attached to false teachers of which we hope and we pray by God's grace that we are not, Every time that we hear descriptions of fallen nature, it is a description of the nature to which we belonged in past tense. But beyond that, beloved of Christ, lest you may see this only in the past, there is a remnant of sin in you that is still partakes of the passions of that nature.

Every time that we as Christians see descriptions in the text of the Bible that speak of falling nature, even if it's for false teachers or false believers or whatever, they speak in a sense to characteristics and adjectives of the falling nature that we are still our partakers. So the apostle Peter is going to give us an insight in verse 14 in his qualifiers and in his allusions of this nature of these false prophets. And he is going to give us an illustration that is taken from the body. He's going to give us an illustration that is going to speak of the eyes and the heart. that which is central and core to the being of every single person, that which is very internal, that which rules the soul of a person.

Even the Lord says in one of the gospels, I think that the eyes are the window, perhaps is the word they have in English, the window that speaks or tells you that the soul that by seeing the light of the eye, you can see into the soul. or the heart being the core of the soul of the person, even sometimes the heart utilized and used, changing with soul or with the spirit. The apostle is going to use that allusion, that illustration in verse 14 to speak of the fallen nature of these false teachers, also of that which is remnant in us. He says that the eyes of these false teachers, beloved of Christ, are full of adultery. The eyes of these false teachers are full of adultery, insatiable for sin.

They are not partially filled. They are full with adultery. They should be faithful and should be fixed to one goal or to a person. Yet the eyes of that person or the false teacher are constantly deviating from that which they should be fixed and established. So they are all the time adulterous eyes.

The eyes of this false teacher or the person that professes to be a teacher or a preacher of God should be focused on the person of Jesus Christ and being faithful to him. Yet the eyes of this person, it is full of adultery and faithful eyes easily deviating from that which should be placed. And the same spirit that in the case of the false prophets is taken by fullness and incompleteness, is the spirit that sometimes attacks the flesh of believers. The eyes, your eyes, beloved Christ. How much adultery do you have in your eyes?

How easily they are deviated. from the object that will make faithful eyes, that will make them faithful eyes. How quickly are your eyes and your spiritual eyes removed from the one to whom you should be faithful? Or are they indeed full of adultery? They are full of unfaithfulness, because that, as in the case of the false teachers, speak of the condition of the soul insatiable for sin, because their eyes are easily taken, insatiable for sin.

They are fed not with the person that should be the object of the passions and the heart of these men, but rather they are constantly filled by the object of their adultery. And therefore their passions are always designed to be fef, insatiable for sin. They can never cease from sin. They are fed with sin and they want to continue feeding on sin because their eyes are adulterous eyes. And not only that, my beloved Christ, their hearts are trained with greed, covetousness.

And here the apostle is pointing us to two of the sins that false teachers will be easily taken to. Sexual immorality and greed or covetousness for money. Desiring to have more. Having this strong passion in their heart to have more of what they have, more of what they deserve. Greed in their hearts.

They are trained in greed and in covetousness. Their hearts have been exercised. They have partaken already of covetousness and greed. And they loved it. And they have not left that place.

That speaks of their fallen nature. That's why the apostle concludes with that very strong statement there in verse 14. Accursed children. Accursed children. What a terrifying insult or qualifier, accursed children.

There's nothing wrong that to have been a son and then being an accursed children, having been the object of the love of a father and then being the object of the curse of the father, accursed children. These men who profess to be in Christ and speak on behalf of God, yet their souls are taken completely by their passions of Adamic race. They are slaves to that sin, their eyes full of adultery and their hearts trained in covetousness and greed. Beloved of Christ, to that point and to this extent, the fallen nature of those teachers is very similar to what we already or the remainings of the fallen nature that we still have in us, because we also deviate sometimes in those ways. But beloved of Christ, the apostle is trying to make another point here, and that is that the falling nature of the false teachers takes a level that it is of utter, utter fallingness.

And that is given to us in verse 13. Because, beloved of Christ, think about what the Bible teaches about fallen humanity, and what the Bible teaches about depravity of the soul, and what the Bible teaches about the sinful condition of everyone who is born in Adam. The Bible says that there is no one good, that there is not even one, that there is no one righteous, that no one seeks after God, that everyone has gone astray, that everyone has fallen short of the glory of God, and that everyone is unable, apart from Christ, to please the Lord, or to submit to the law of the Lord. Everyone who is outside of Christ, who is dead in their trespasses in Adam, is utterly unable to do so, and that is everyone. But the Bible also teaches that those people who are in their flesh, that they will never come to the light because when they come to the light, their deeds will be exposed.

So fallen humanity. and falling nature by nature will never want to come to the truth of a scripture that it is proclaimed and that is meant to be within the context of the church. Why? Because the wickedness and the unrighteousness of sinful nature is exposed. So they will run away from the light of Christ.

Whatever is the means of providing that light of Christ, the preaching of the word, the reading of Scripture, the context of the church, falling nature will always take a person to run away from the light. Yet we are told. The false teachers who have been given over to their passions, as we discussed perhaps three weeks ago, the fallen teachers of false teachers and false prophets who had been given over to their immorality and to the passions that are ruling over them, that they counted pleasure. It says in verse 13 that they counted pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you.

They counted pleasure. They think about it, they process in their mind, and they come to the conclusion that is valuable for them to take their deceptions, their false teaching and their false doctrines, and not only bring them into the church secretly, as verse one and two says, but rather, once they have brought their destructive heresy secretly into the context of the church, they practice those things. Openly, in the daytime, the fallenness, the wickedness, the unrighteousness and the sinfulness of false teachers is a different degree, beloved of Christ. They do not have the testimony of their conscience anymore telling them that that is wrong, but rather they have been given over now to make that which is contrary to nature, something that is natural within the context of the church. They feast with you in the context of you, it says the apostle, the church.

These people counted pleasure to bring all of these grotesque things to the context of the church. Thank you. In the context of the church. Beloved of Christ, when you are committing a sin and when you know that you are committing a sin and when your conscience is convicting you by the grace of God, You bring that sin before the Lord and you repent in faith and you are partaker of the forgiveness of the Lord. But there is a portion of your flesh that does not want anyone to know the sin that you have committed and the wickedness that you may have done and you may have caused.

And you don't want to bring that to light, not even to confess it sometimes, lest you will have The intention inside of you to be and to partake of those things in front of other people. Because there is a testimony in you either by the conscience of the grace of God or the Spirit of God that convicts you and prevents you from that. But the false teachers, beloved of Christ, in their fallenness and in their wickedness, they counted pleasure to bring to the context of the church. And what is more devastating to me in this, and I was supposed to say that in the end, but what is more devastating to me, beloved Christ, is that they do it within the context of the church, that they do it within the context of professing Christians. that their deceptions, that their enticements, that their passions, that they have brought into the context of the church secretly as something that is opposed to truth.

They have brought it into the context of the church and they have managed to perform and to do these things in the daytime openly while they feast in the context of the church. And it seems that the church here is feasting with their false teachers. That is the power of poison in a congregation. That slowly, slowly, as poison is given to a person, to a soul, it is a matter of time that the one that is bringing the poison, secretly destructive heresies, that that poison will make its way into the soul and into the mind of those who profess to be in Christ and in front of the one that is speaking. that then what he does or what she does is not only accepted, but people partake of it.

That's why you have churches throughout this planet and throughout this world preaching from the pulpit about homosexuality and the acceptance of it, even within the context of the church, not as a sin that is to be repented of and that is to be, that we are to die to, that we are to be born again. So then you find churches speaking about abortion and destroying life as something, if it's something that it is compatible to Scripture or to the decree of the Lord. You have churches partaking in all types. You have been in churches more than I have in my life. You know better than I do.

Doing things that go contrary to what is written. And then teachers and pastors have managed to secretly bring those deviations from the truth. And not only that, but to practice them within the context of the church in the daytime, openly. Their deceptions, their enticements, all of their poison has now made its way into the context of the church. And they have zero conviction of sin before the Lord.

Many of the souls that have been poisoned will be convicted of those practices and leave that places. But these pastors, beloved of Christ, preachers, teachers, taken completely by their covetousness and their love to self, they have no contact anymore with a conviction that comes from the Spirit. Their consciences are zeered. So they have now the power to do this openly. That is why they do it, beloved of Christ, because their nature is fallen and they have been given over to the corruption of their souls.

And we should be compassionate, beloved of Christ, Not only with that situation taking place, but with the many, many, many souls that are seated under the poisonous preaching of false prophets and are not only receiving the poisonous teaching, but also being taken in poisonous and deceitful practices that go against that which God has appointed for His bride and for His church. That's why they do it. But how they do it? How do they do it? And the apostle is going to give us that answer in verse 15.

And please pay attention to this. In verse 15, the apostle will tell us how they do it. He says, forsaken the right way, forsaken the right way, they have gone astray. These false teachers who in their falling nature do not have any type of shame in their faces to bring not only destructive heresies, but to make them a practice in the context of the church as they feast with the saints. They have forsaken the right way.

They have abandoned the right way. They have left behind the right way. They have put aside the way that was to be followed. the right, the correct, the straight path that is to be followed, and that is to be walked, and that we are supposed to endure in. They have forsaken it.

They have abandoned it. And this is when the apostle is going to give us another allusion to the Old Testament. But for us to understand what is forsaking the right way, I'm going to point you to another portion of the scripture that is very easily give us an understanding of the allusion that the apostle gives. So come with me to Acts chapter 13, because in Acts chapter 13, beloved of Christ, we will have the Bible explaining what this forsaking the right way means. And it will give us a bridge into understanding the allusion that the apostle will give of Balaam, the son of Beor.

So if you come to Acts chapter 13, you remember as we went through Acts chapter 13, or the whole book of Acts, as Paul was starting his missionary journey in Acts chapter 13. And as they were departing, you may remember the story of a false prophet. A false prophet, that apostle with Barnabas, they found in Cyprus. You may remember the story of this false prophet. So his name is Iliamas or Jesus.

You may remember that story here. We're going to find. the expression just literally as is given in say, computer chapter two of forsaken the right way of speaking of the right way with an illustration that will help us understand what the puzzle does in, say, computer chapter two. So read with me carefully, desiring to understand these matters. Beloved Christ in verse four in chapter 13 of Acts.

So being sent out by the Spirit or by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had John to assist them. And they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos. They came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named by Jesus. So here we have an example of what Apostle Peter is speaking in 2 Peter chapter two, a false prophet by Jesus.

He was with a proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. He heard of this message and he called them so that he would speak the word of God to him. Verse 4, But Elymas, the magician, this is about Jesus, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Basil, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, fool of all deceit and villainy, will you, pay attention, will you not stop making crooked the straight path of the Lord? The ESV doesn't help me there to make my point, but they were exactly as they are in 2 Peter 2.

Will you not stop making crooked the right way of the Lord? Elias, but Jesus, with the coming of Paul and Barnabas and John, as they were preaching the word of God to Sergius Paulus, they were or he was going contrary to that. And the fact that this false prophet was going contrary to that was in the mind of the apostle to make crooked the right path of the right way of the Lord. the right weight of the Lord as He's proclaimed in the Word of God. Remember what I said in the beginning?

It is not about a scripture. It is about the Word of God. The Word of God has been given to us in the scripture, but it's about the Word of God as the Word of God is given to His people. This man was not opposed to scripture. There are many false prophets that use scripture to advance their agendas.

False teachers and false prophets are against the truth of the Word of God, and false teachers have forsaken the right way of the Word of God. So just as I have used the example of an Old Testament false prophet, Elias Bar-Jesus, The Holy Spirit, moving Peter in 2 Peter 2, uses the example of an Old Testament false prophet, namely Balaam, the son of Beor, who will not speak the words of God, but who was a hypocrite in his heart and who was pursuing wrong gain, who will want to come and receive that which Balak, the king of Moab, was going to give him. A false prophet who was not pursuing the words of God, but was pursuing his own interest, his own game. And the Lord, knowing the madness of the prophet in the Old Testament, will send a donkey, a female donkey. I don't know if you read that in English, but it's a female donkey.

In Spanish, we have a word for a female donkey. will come and speak. The prophet, the supposedly prophet cannot see the angel of the Lord, but the animal saw the angel of the Lord, and he is rebuked by the words of the female donkey. Because the heart of the false teacher, beloved of Christ, is not on the right path, is not on the path of the Word of God, is on the path of self. And that's why the Apostle Peter gives the illustration there in 2 Peter chapter 2 of Balaam, an Old Testament false prophet.

Now, beloved of Christ, let me just jump to the next verse, because this is what I want to show you here. What is the core situation of false teachers? The core situation of false teachers is that they are substance-less, if that is a word. Or in other words, or in other terms, is that they lack the spiritual substance that is necessary to speak the Word of God. The living water that comes from the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the water that washes in regeneration, the water that comes from the lips of the triune God and saves us and redeems us.

That is the water that these false teachers do not have. So they are called clouds without water, or springs without water, or they are clouds that are driven by a mist, or they are mist, they are driven by a storm, whatever translation you have. They are carried. They are like clouds that you expect that they come and the water is going to come because the land needs it to bear fruit. But they only come and they have the appearance of having water.

But inside of them, there is no substance. They look like they say the things that are supposed to be said, yet they lack in their well. Their well is empty. The Word of God is not in them. They are waterless springs and mist driven by a storm.

For them, the ones that do not have the substance that is required. Beloved of Christ, I hope that you have understood that you do not need my words to be edified. You do not need my words to grow in conformity to Jesus Christ. You need the Word of God. You need the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the best thing that can happen to this church is that every time that someone says that he's speaking on behalf of Christ, that he's not putting so much emphasis in raising the voice of moving or sweating or things like that, but that he's speaking indeed the words of God. That he's speaking the words of God and that the well in which those words are deposited are wells that are eagerly awaiting for water. There are wells that desire the water. That is not the ways that the preacher speaks, or the efforts that the preacher makes, but are the words of God. To the best of my ability, I can raise your emotions for the next hour or so, and then they're gone.

Only Jesus Christ can transform your soul. Only Jesus Christ can give you endurance in your soul. Only the words of God can do that unto your soul. When everyone is killed here and you remain alone, that you can say, Christ, I belong to Christ. When your dad, your mom, your wife, your husband, or whoever you depend on is gone, you can say, I depend on Christ alone.

Because that which is in your well, it is not the traditions of men. It is not the effort of a preacher to bring a well-articulated sermon so that you may say good things at the end. It is, beloved of Christ, the word of Jesus Christ spoken to your soul. I don't want to be a cloud without water. I don't want to be a mist that is ridden by a storm.

Not because I want you to have a high reputation in your eyes. I don't care. Just because I want to give an account before my Lord and not to be found like the master with a stricter judgment. The ones that want to be a teacher with a stricter judgment. I want to have water in my well.

so that when my mouth is open, there's water that's coming out of my well, and that is going into your well, because false teachers are substance-less, if that is a word. They do not have the substance. They can work a lot in their charisma, in their looks. They can work a lot in their lights and in their churches and in their programs. They can work in having a beautiful, healthy, fit wife that calls pastor.

They can work on all of those things, yet their wells will remain empty. Because the water of God is not obtained by the strivings of men. The water of God that saves souls and edifies the Christian is not obtained with the effort of men, with the intellect of men, with the much study. It is the hand of God upon you. It is the hand of God upon you, visiting you, coming to you, touching you, transforming you, opening your eyes.

Do not be scared. It is God being with you genuinely. That is when the water is filled in your well. Because beloved, what comes next is what terrifies me the most. These people speak loud boasts and literally what it says that they speak oversized words.

And literally what that means is that they can utter all type of words. But what they say does not correspond to the substance of what it is in it, in them. So they may scream and use adjectives and all of these things and sweat like I am. But the words are loud and all of these things, they do not have substance. loud voice, loud boast of folly.

What breaks my soul is this, that upon studying this, I realize of another character in this story that I have not mentioned, that is not only the genuine church, you, the church that the apostle is writing to, is that only the false teachers that are within the context of the church But there's another character in this story, if that's the way that you say it, and that is those unsteady souls that they are described in verse 14. Verse 14. Unsteady souls in verse 18, they entice, it says again, by sensual passions of the flesh, those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. There's another character in this story, in this passage of the scripture. And if you have not paid attention to anything of what I've said, pay attention to this.

There's another character in this portion of the scripture, beloved of Christ. And these are unsteady souls. These are those who are enticed. How on earth will a false prophet succeed in bringing not only heresies secretly into the church. But beyond that, taking those heresies and making them practice in which when he's feasting or she's feasting with a congregation, that the congregation does not kick that person out of the church.

How on the world on this planet will be a biblical church that allows the practices of a false teacher To be conducted in the daytime, right? It would be another thing if I am secretly bringing a destructive heresy that you don't know and I'm not practicing here. At least you will have the benefit on you that I'm doing secretly. But how on earth a false prophet and false teacher that feast in the daytime with a congregation will be able to do it more than once? The only way, it is if those who are seated in the chairs or on the floor, because there are churches in the world where people sit on the floor, have unsteady souls.

They are easily enticed. The word there is like hunting or like catching, you know, when you catch fish or things like that, that you throw the bait and then you get the fish. That is the word, what it means there, catching or enticing. Enticing unsteady souls. And this completely breaks my heart.

It says, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh, because they are lost in their trespasses, those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. You have a different translation, it will say those who have escaped from those who live in error. And I think that's more accurate because he's comparing that with verse 20, because they have escaped independently of that. Those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. False teachers, false teachers, entice unsteady souls that are within the context of the church.

with their deceptions and their passions. And the thing that breaks my heart is what he says in verse 19. They promise them freedom. These are the unsteady souls. They promise them freedom by they themselves.

The false prophets are slaves of corruption for whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved. There is a soul in that church that wants to be free from sin, that wants to be free from any of the bondage of Satan, of unrighteousness, that wants to be partaker of the freedoms of Christ. And these men do not have the words to speak to them about the freedom that is found in Jesus Christ because they are slaves themselves, slaves to the passions of the flesh and steady souls carried and taken by the wind, like waves from one place to another. Beloved of Christ, let me point your heart to compassion for those souls, but also a sense of discernment. What is happening?

How on earth there's going to be a place in which a false teacher will be allowed to advance to that extent? How come on this planet, in this world, having this book with us, A false prophet is going to be allowed to advance to the point in which unsteady souls, those who are barely escaping the defilements of the world, those who have escaped the ones that live in error, the ones that live in error are the outsiders, the lost, those who have barely make it into church. How on earth, having the Word of God in front of us and the discernment of the Scripture in front of us, a person will be not only allowed to get to that point. Do you know what that is? It is that those people, in the best cases scenario, are immature Christians that are not concerned about the word of God, but just playing church and ticking boxes and coming to church.

And in the worst cases scenarios, many people will take them to be lost people who are seated in chairs, professing to be Christians while they are dead in their trespasses, just as their false teachers are from their pulpits. So it becomes a human event. It becomes a human spectacle. It becomes a human show in which there is a dead person speaking to dead people seated in chairs, speaking about things that he does not know, because that's what Paul and Peter said, deciding to know they don't know, deciding to speak things of the law, affirming things which they do not understand. convincing people that are seated in the chairs to follow their particular ways.

I said to you, beloved of Christ, that the life, the spiritual life, depends on the Word of God. The Word of God. Know how much you have memorized, studied theology, or put books into your mind, or understood facts and events. But how much God has spoken to you by the power of His Holy Spirit. How much God has opened your eyes to see His Word.

That when you hear Jesus, you don't only read it with your intellect and with your mind, but that your soul is consumed by the sweetness of His Word. when the Holy Spirit has moved you to something that is real, not something that is external and empty. Because as long as churches are filled with unsteady souls, People are going to be like the wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind, following every single wind of doctrine, every philosophy of men, every tradition of men, which the Apostle Paul in Colossians chapter 2 calls the deceptions of false teachers. Beloved of Jesus Christ, what is needed for us to hear the word of the Lord as he speaks to us and edifies our souls is faith. Faith in that which he speaks, in that which he says.

Remember this, this abstract concept that sometimes we have it there, we see it there, and very few times we experience it. It's faith to believe the things that he says, not as truth only, but as the word of God, who he is and where he reigns and what he has done, the Lord Jesus Christ. As long as churches continue to be substance-less, as long as people continue to have wells that are empty and do not have the water of Jesus Christ. the more that we're going to be doing church in the flesh and not in the spirit. The more that we're going to be doing Christianity in the flesh and not in the Holy Spirit, the more that our soul is going to be taken by one place to another, the more that we're going to be ups and downs in our spiritual life, the more or the less better that we have the water of Jesus Christ as the substance of who we are.

the less prepared that we are going to be to face not only false teachers, but the days that come ahead. Very challenging days, not only for us, but also for the Church. Beloved of Christ, I call to discernment on these matters, and I call to compassion. How, if God has spoken to you, and if God has spoken to me, and if God has spoken through me, how on earth Are we going to handle that person that we know that even today is seated under the preaching of someone that we know that is a false teacher? How are we going to handle in our conscience if God has spoken to you indeed?

The person that is seated receiving false teaching, poison from the mouth of a man that destroys the soul. How on earth are we going to be okay with the fact that there are many brothers and sisters even right now looking for a place where to receive the Word of God and seated in places where they are not provided with it? How on earth we're not going to be moved to compassion, beloved of Christ, when we know that heresy is proclaimed and remain quiet for the sake of preserving a reputation of not having any type of confrontation? That is evidence of lack of water in our well. Because when our well is filled with water of the Lord, there is nothing that satisfies us more.

And we are willing to count it all lost for the excellency of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to remain at his feet and to receive his word to be conformed to his precious image. Amen.