The Way of Truth Will Be Bla..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. We're going to continue with our study through the second letter of the Apostle Peter, given by the spirit of God to one of the apostles of our Savior. And today, beloved of Christ, we're going to be meditating upon verse two in the second chapter of Second Peter.

Verse two. In which we are told by the apostle that many that is many people will follow their sensuality, that is their sensuality of these false teachers. And because of them, the way of truth that is Christianity will be blasphemed. That is the verse that I want us to meditate upon together, beloved of Christ and friends. And as we always do, we're going to be reading an extended portion so that we will have the context of what we're going to be studying and meditating together.

So, beloved of Christ, let's read together with much reverence and paying much attention to each one of the words given to us by the Spirit of God through the Apostle from chapter one, verse 16. all the way to the end of chapter 2. So, Beloved of Christ, with much reverence, paying attention to each one of the words given to us by the Holy Spirit, with hearts that are filled with reverence and awe as we have His Word in our hands. Let's read together this portion of Scripture. So this is 2 Peter 1, verse 16, all the way until the end of chapter 2.

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty, for when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased, we ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic war more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Knowing these, first of all, that no prophecy of a scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of men, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

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 asleep. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell, and committed them to change 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 sensual conduct of the wicked. For as the righteous man lived among them, day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over the lawless deeds that he saw and heard. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. 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 the wage for the wrongdoing. They counted pleasure to rebel in the daytime, They are blots of blemishes, revealing in their deceptions while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice and steady souls. They have hearts trained in greed, accursed children.

forsaken 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 for his own transgression. Speechless donkeys spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. These are waterless springs and misdriven 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. for 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 glorious word of our Lord and Savior, beloved of Christ. What a fearful chapter filled with judgments of God upon those who profess to be teachers and prophets of the Lord and who indeed are false prophets and false teachers.

I've said to you many times that together with 2 Peter 2, the book of Jude and also Matthew 7, the Lord speaks there also about the nature, the effects, the operations and the reality of false teachers. And what a fearful chapter is the one that we have just read. Not only that is filled with warnings against the reality of false teachers, but also filled with warnings for those who are within the context of that which profess to be the Christian church. Fearful warnings, beloved of Christ. And let me submit to you that unless we know what is really and genuinely at stake, we will never pay genuine attention to the warnings of Scripture.

If you do not Understand, or if you do not genuinely believe what Scripture says, and when Scripture is warning us as believers and as Christians and as the church of Jesus Christ, then I submit to you that those warnings will be empty of power in your life and you will be diminishing the power of what it was meant to be given to you. If you do not believe what is written, then you're going to be like the fool that will build his house upon the sand and not upon the rock. Just as beloved of Christ, the soldier that thinks that war is not a serious matter and therefore does not prepare for war is more than likely to die in battle. So are we when we do not consider the seriousness of the warnings that are given not only to the world, but also to us, the church and the congregation. Just as the farmer does not consider the seriousness of the storm that is approaching, and therefore he does not take care of his crops, and then he loses everything for which he has labor.

So is the Christian that does not pay attention genuinely and carefully to the warnings that are given to us in Holy Scripture. Just as the sinner, the lost sinner, who does not consider the eternal, the eternal consequences of hell, and then he finds himself presenting with his works and his filthy rags of unrighteousness before the Lord, on the day that his soul is brought to bring accountability before the Lord, so is the Christian. who does not pay careful attention to the warnings that are given to us in Holy Scripture. When we do not consider genuinely with faith in the heart the seriousness of what is at stake, Then we become to ourselves the greatest false prophets, and our conscience, as I said last week, becomes the greatest false prophet that says to us, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Beloved of Christ, may the Lord give us ears to hear His word as it is written.

ears to hear His commandments and His sayings as it is written. Because when a person hardens his or her heart and soul to the commandments of God, then that person reinterprets that which God has said in Scripture, just to fulfill his own or her own passions. And what we have here at stake in this passage of Scripture in 2nd Peter chapter 2, Beloved of Christ, is eternity. is the eternity. It is the eternal destination of the soul of a person.

These false prophets are headed into destruction, swift destruction. They have been set apart, according to Jude, before the foundation of the world for this condemnation. He has pleased the Lord that they will be set apart from this gloom and darkness. And we are told in this verse 2 of this chapter 2 that many will follow in their sensuality, or that many will follow in their destruction, that many will go after their ways, that many will follow after the things that they do. Beloved of Christ, if the warnings of Scripture are not substantial to our hearts, Then we might be like the person just building something upon the sand, as I said before.

We might consider that God, who did not spare the faithless church or the faithless congregation of the Old Testament, will spare the faithless congregation of the New Testament. When Paul says that just as God did not spare the faithless congregation of the Old Testament, he will not spare the faithless Gentiles. preaching to ourselves crooked and false doctrine just to please our own ways. If we do not take and we don't consider the seriousness of the warnings that are given to us in Scripture, we might be like the ones of Hebrews chapter 2 and 3, that they do not pay careful attention to the words of the Lord through whom he has spoken to us, different to the prophets through whom God spoke to the fathers. telling us that we are to take heed of this salvation that we have received from Him.

And we may make those warnings empty of meaning and of power to our souls. If we do not consider with seriousness, beloved of Christ, what is given in Scripture to us, we might be just simply assuming that we are not to pursue peace nor holiness when the author of Hebrews says that we are to follow holiness and we are to pursue peace because without holiness, no one will see the Lord and that we are to take heed lest we fall short of the grace of God. You know that that is in your Bible, that we may fall short of the grace of God. Those are fearful words and God did not speak carelessly. He does not speak idle words and sound doctrine.

It is not only just to take the doctrine that belongs to your theological camp, as if a theological camp would have the answers for everything. but sound doctrine is to take a scripture as it is by the power of the Holy Spirit and the illumination of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because that concern that the author of Hebrews had in chapter 13, when he was speaking about those who do not pursue holiness and fall short of the grace of God, is the same burden that the apostle Peter has in this second letter. Go to chapter 3. He says in verse 18 of chapter 3, as we have mentioned it many times, this is the burden of the apostle.

He says, verse 18, "...but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, growing the grace, a grace that is given, a grace that comes from above. And then we are instructed to grow in the grace. We are instructed in Hebrews chapter 13, not to fall short from the grace of the Lord. And implicitly spoken by the Apostle Paul in Galatians chapter five, that a person falls from the grace.

Are we to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? It's a warning given and that warning is preceded by the heart of the apostle in verse 17. You, therefore, speaking to the church and to believers, Beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care or take heed that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. Beloved of Christ, I'm just reading a verse and the Spirit of God through the Apostle says to the church that we are to take heed lest we are carried away by the error of lawless people. And as we know, these lawless people are false teachers.

If you do not see the Genuineness, the power of the warnings of Scripture, then when you read the verse that we have just read in chapter 2, it's going to be a conversation, a talk or a verse that you believe that applies for the person that in the best case scenario is in a different church or something that is not for you or for us. Yet the scripture says in that verse, beloved of Christ, that many will follow in verse two of chapter two, that many will follow their centrality because and because of them, the way of the truth will be blasphemed. The only thing that I want to do with you, beloved of Christ, is that we just see the text, that we expound the text in scripture by the spirit. what the text is actually saying. And from there, I want us to answer a question.

Why would many people follow the sensuality or the destruction of the pernicious ways, as your translation may say, of these false teachers, of these false prophets? Examine the text, and then from there, answer the question of why would many people follow The sensuality, the pernicious way, the crooked ways, the destruction of false teachers. And then perhaps from there, if the Lord allows, I will give you an exhortation or two. Beloved of Christ, my beloved brothers and sisters and friends who are with us. We are told here that the false teachers have followers.

that these false teachers who had been ordained from eternity past, and just as there were false prophets in the congregation of the Old Testament, and there will be false teachers in the context of the church, that these people have followers. And just as the false prophets and the false teachers we said last week are not genuinely in Christ, they do not have the operating power of saving, enduring, ultimate faith, so do their followers. They do not have saving faith. We're speaking with people or speaking about beloved of Christ, people who seem to be Christians. people who seem to speak the things of Christianity, people who apparently, when you look at them and externally, they seem to be walking in the ways of the Lord.

Yet just as those false teachers were deceitful, entering into the church secretly, those followers of those false teachers are also not having genuine saving faith. This is very important, beloved of Christ, and the important thing here and the warning that I need to give to you is that when we're speaking about these followers of false teachers, I'm not speaking about the people who clearly are not Christian, but rather those who externally are very, very, very Christians. Those who in the outside have manifested virtues, characteristics, properties, and attributes of that which Scripture considers to be a genuine believer. Remember the warning and the fearfulness of the passage in Hebrews chapter 6 from verse 4, speaking of the apostates and speaking from those who are false, that those people would have manifestations even of the work of the Holy Spirit. They have been enlightened, they have been partakers of or they have tasted better the heavenly gift.

They have been partakers of the Holy Spirit and they have even tasted of being partakers of the powers of the age to come. You can read that in your Bible, in Hebrews chapter 6. These are manifestations of a false teacher that are also presented in the lives of those who follow those false teachers. And that to me, I don't know if for you, but that to me is fearful. just to consider that there can be a person who does not have genuine saving faith, a person who has been ordained to be condemned, a person whose darkness is reserved and kept, whose chains are waiting for him or her, that a person can have external manifestations of the workings of the Holy Spirit, being enlightened, partakers of the Holy Spirit.

They have tasted the war, even partakers of the powers of the age to come. Yet these followers of these false prophets are not genuine believers. That is the warning. And this is the important thing that we have in our mind. Beloved of Christ, the fearful thing here is that we know from Scripture that many people will depart from the faith.

We are told in the parable of the seeds that Satan can come and steal the word that has been implanted in the heart of a person and that person will fall from the faith and that person openly and clearly will deny the Lord Jesus Christ, not only with their words, but openly with their mouth, they will deny Christianity, that some will depart from the faith, that some will go from being Christians to be enemies of Christianity and enemies of the Lord. But the Bible also says, that many will depart from the faith, not so much externally, but following people who profess still to be within the context of Christianity. And that is the type of people that we have here in chapter 2. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 4 that the Spirit expressly says that in latter days, that in the last day, many will depart from the faith. following doctrines of demons and following deceitful spirits, that they will depart from the faith following doctrines that are erroneous.

So, beloved of Christ, the Bible considers a departing from the faith, a person who has moved from sound doctrine to heresies, fake and false teachings of these false people, false teachers. And that is the type of followers that we have here. It's not that they are leaving Christianity and they're becoming atheists, which you can clearly see that they have departed from the faith. It's that they are leaving sound doctrine and they are conforming to something that externally continues to call itself the faith or Christianity, yet the Bible considers them to be followers of false teachers. And the fearful thing of this is that the passage tells us how many.

You see there? You have the word there. It says many. It says that many will follow. It says many, not few, not some, but rather many.

And in the parallel passage in which the Lord Jesus Christ speaks about this precise matter, in Matthew chapter 7, the Lord speaks of these many with exactly the same word, instructing His disciples to enter the narrow gate. You remember that passage, right? Enter the narrow gate." Why? Because wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be going into it.

But narrow is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads to eternal life or to life, and few there be who find it. This is the type of many that we have here in this text. I'm not even building or elaborating on it. I'm just simply quoting verses Beloved of Christ, the same Lord Jesus Christ is speaking of these many in the context of false prophets there in Matthew chapter 7 from verse 15 to 20. After that, he says that in that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name?

Didn't we do mighty works in your name? Didn't we cast out demons in your name? Many, many doing things of the Lord. Many, many prophesying in the name of the Lord. Many, many putting the name of the Lord in their mouth.

Yet the Lord will say to those people, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye workers of inequity. Depart from me, because I never knew you. And this knowing of the Lord is that which is the common reality for the false teacher and for the follower of the false teacher. that they had all of these external manifestations, even of the Spirit of Christ, that we were casting out demons, that we were doing all of these spiritual things, that we were speaking all of this, yet they were never, never, generally and truly known by the Savior of this world, the precious Lord Jesus Christ.

Never known by Him. And I don't know if that is fearful to you, but it is fearful to my soul to know that there is going to be people not only that have done all of these external works and manifestations of Christianity, but that there's going to be many who will receive from the mouth of the Lord I never knew you. Be part from me. He workers of inequity. You see, this is a spiritual matter.

This is something that goes into the soul of a person. The person cannot do anything at all in order to be in union with Christ. It is everything by pure grace that comes from above in which a person is visited by the Holy Spirit of Christ. And then that person is vitally united to the Savior to never be separated from Him. That requires the workings of the divine court.

That requires the workings of the one who is seated in the throne in heaven. Nothing can be done by humanity in order to accomplish this state of being known by the Lord. And it's only in that little word, beloved of Christ, that eternity is defined, that eternal destination is defined. You are either known by the Lord Jesus Christ, spiritually speaking, Oh, you are still dead in your trespasses and you're known by Adam. You're still belonging to the Adamic race and not to Christ.

You're still dead in your trespasses. You're still in union with the one who's seen and who was the means by which sins and disobedience enter into the world. That is the type of people that exist in this world, those who are known by Christ and those who are not known by Christ. Because when we understand that, beloved Christ, we understand what the apostle says, that these many will follow the sensuality or the destruction or the pernicious way of these false teachers. And if you put your eyes there in the text, you will have that word follow.

But I want you to think about this, beloved. These people, these followers of false teachers, how closer can a human being to the truth? How much closer can a person, a soul be to God himself? You see, we go on Fridays to Brisbane to go and preach the gospel to people that, geographically speaking, are away, let's say, from the truth. But these people are within the context of the church.

These people are within the context of the preaching of the word, the truth of the gospel. How closer can a person be to God himself that even this person is within the context of the bride of the Savior? that the workings of the Spirit are being manifest through the lives of the people in whom or within whom that person is. How close that could be, yet they have chosen not to follow God, but to follow the sensuality of these false teachers. And that word that you have there, follow, does not speak so much of an action, but rather of a being.

Not something that they actually do, but something that happens in them. You see, this follow is not so much following after the example of the steps of a person, as if I would go to one place and I tell you, just come and follow me. But rather, the follow that we have there in the text speaks of a conformity to the ways of the false teachers. Just as the apostle has said that we have not followed cleverly devised myths, and then he concludes that they have been carried along by the power of the Holy Spirit, that they were not moved by these things that were contrary to the Spirit, but indeed they were moved by the Spirit. This is what we have there in that follow.

Something that speaks of conformity. And because these followers of false prophets were not in union generally with Christ, they find it easy to conform themselves to the sensual, pernicious, crooked, sinful, wicked ways of false teachers. Beloved of Christ, We are followers. I think we read what I read this morning or perhaps someone said today that why you just read it actually that we to that which that which we do is that what we are enslaved to. And a person that has not been redeemed by the grace of God and taken out of our sinful nature, that person will remain enslaved to the sins and the wickedness of our own nature.

So for that person, it will be more appealing to follow men, traditions of men, systems of men that actually follow the Lord Jesus Christ, whom they have not known and they have not been known by Him. So beloved of Christ, we have these many followers. following the ways of destruction. And remember that we have spoken extensively about these false prophets. Their destination is condemnation.

Their final point of arrival is destruction. Their final point of where they are going is hell. And we're told, beloved of Christ, that many within the context of what is called the church will follow these people. We are to understand and we are to see the weight of that statement, not only for our soul, but also for the souls of those who are around us and to take it seriously when we read this type of warnings and that type of statements given to us in Scripture. Now, beloved Christ, the result of these following these false teachers is given to us also in the text, that these followers of these people will are conformed to their sensuality, to their crooked ways.

And I want you to see how the apostle uses this language to speak to us of crooked ways with the way of truth. Very interesting what he does to the Spirit. It says to us, as we had explained before, that these false teachers will bring secretly into the church, they will bring destructive... heresies and I said to you that a heresy was something that was crooked from the way a deviation from the way and these people will follow the ways of those false teachers who are teaching crooked ways and because of that the way of truth will be blasphemed put your eyes in the text there because that's what the apostle says that just because of these people following these false teachers that because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. That it is when these masses and these many souls are following deceivers and false teachers and false prophets, and they are following these doctrines of demons and these sensual doctrines and spirits, that because of them and the workings of these false teachers, the way of the truth that is Christianity and those who are in the way of Christ will be blasphemed, or that slanderous comments and slanderous speaking will go against the church."

When I read that, I was, first of all, thinking of these beloved of Christ, that for the world, they are completely unable to make a distinction between who is who in that which professed to be the Christian church. that when someone says that it is Christianity or the Christian church for the world that it is what the church of Jesus Christ is and they do not understand between who is who and what did you do for them this is just what Christ is and the second thing that I thought it is how seemingly unjust it seems to be for the genuine bride of the Lord that they will receive accusations and slanderous comments from or through those who are doing that which is crooked and that which is not correct. Why would the Lord allow that His bride, who is pure, those who by grace through faith have generally inserted into Christ, baptizing to the Lord Jesus Christ, those who have been generally saved, why would the Lord allow that His bride and His people, the way of truth, will be blasphemed, persecuted, and that this type of statement will be uttered against them through the sin and the condemnation of those who are not generally in Christ? Why would the Lord allow that thing to happen to His precious bride? Why would the Lord Jesus Christ allow that these slanderous comments would be uttered against the bride for whom He died?

Well, the Apostle Paul or Peter better gives us the answer to that in his first letter. And the simple answer to it is that it is a blessing for the church to endure suffering unjustly and relying completely on the justice, not of the world, but the justice of the one who is coming to just justly. put your eyes in the world to 1st Peter so you have to see that with your own eyes so that you will see the preciousness of this statement. The apostle in 2nd or in 1st Peter chapter 2 speaks about suffering of those who are in Christ that is an unjust suffering. He says in chapter 2 in verse a 19 after he has given the instruction to servants to be subject to their masters he says in verse 19 for this is a gracious thing When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly."

Just pay attention to that statement, beloved Christ. It is a gracious thing. It is a blessing. It means when mindful of God, that is not considering the one that inflicts persecution or suffering upon you, but just when mindful of God, One endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it when you sin and are beaten for it you endure, but when you do good and suffer for it you endure?

This is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow his steps. If there was someone who suffered unjustly, that was the Lord Jesus Christ." And that's what the Apostle says in verse 22, "...he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to Him who judges justly." The Lord allows the suffering of those who are genuine believers, those who by grace through faith have been inserted into the person of Jesus Christ by the workings of the Spirit, because when they are mindful of God and they endure and just suffering, just as the Lord did, they are not only conformed and follow the steps of the Lord Jesus Christ, but this is considered to be a blessing and a grace that comes from above. completely insulting and opposite to the intellect and the ways of the flesh, that the One that saved us is calling us to endure suffering and tribulation and persecution, even when that is unjust. That's why the apostle continues and calls us even in verse 11 of that chapter 2 or in verse 12 of chapter 2 he says that we are to keep our conduct among the gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers that implicitly unjustly They may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation."

And then in chapter 3, the same apostle says in verse 13 of chapter 3, Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

Beloved of Christ, it has pleased the Lord that there will be false teachers in the context of the church. And it has pleased the Lord and in His perfect decree and in His perfect mind, He has pleased the Lord that there will be people who will follow those false teachers. And the Lord has ordained also that the church will suffer through the slanderous comments that will come to the church. through the unrighteousness and wickedness of false teachers and those who follow them, because He is the One that purifies and keeps and preserves His own people until the end. And, beloved of Christ, that we are to consider all of these warnings with much seriousness and with a heart that is enlarged by the Holy Spirit, receiving all of these words.

Now, beloved of Christ, let me just simply ask you, or let's ask ourselves and answer this from Scripture. Why would the Lord allow that many will follow false teachers? Why would the Lord allow that many professing Christians who are within the context of the church, who have external manifestations of the workings of the spirits in their lives, who have been enlightened by the word, who have been partakers of the powers of the age to come, who have received or been partakers better of the Holy Spirit? Why would the Lord allow that? People will be followers of these false teachers.

Why would he allow that through this following of these false teachers, the church will be persecuted and slandered and they will suffer? Why would the Lord allow these particular things? Well, the Lord gives us an answer there in 1 Corinthians. If you go to 1 Corinthians, you will see something very interesting. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 first.

And in 1 Corinthians, with the example of the church at Corinth, beloved of Christ, we have a principle here that is given to the church and in general. And that is that when we do not follow the doctrine that is sound according to 1st Timothy chapter 6, the doctrine that is in accord with the Lord Jesus Christ, the doctrine that is in accord with godliness, the doctrine that corresponds to the whole words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we follow something that is crooked. And even if it's very close to that which the Lord said is still a deviation. And in the example of the Corinth Church, we have precisely the manifestation of that principle.

Yet, even though they may have not fallen into destructive heresies, as we have in 2 Peter 2, they did deviate from the sound doctrine and the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, and hence, the Apostle Paul sees the need of call this church to be united because of the manifold divisions that were among them. Yet we are told in the very beginning of this letter that these were saints, that they had been wholly set apart, but they were also called to be sanctified. And we're told in verse four of chapter one that the apostle gives thanks to his God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus in every way you were enriched in him in all his speech and all knowledge. This church of the Lord Jesus Christ had everything that was required, everything, every gift until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ was given to this church.

Yet, from within the church, some divisions started to happen. And that is what we have in verse 10. The apostle says, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, of course, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and there be not divisions among you, but that you may be united in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by close people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is this, each one of you says, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, I follow Christ.

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Beloved of Christ, the ways of the Corinthians had been already crooked. They had departed not only from the whole counsel that was given in the person of Jesus Christ, but there was already manifestations of divisions in the context of the church.

And the apostle, through the inspiration of the Spirit, will say something that is fearful. Because if you go to chapter 11, after he has given many instructions to the church at Corinth that pertain to unity and how they were supposed to pursue unity in the church, then in chapter 11, in verse 18 and in verse 19, we will hear and read of a fearful reality, beloved of Christ. Verse 18, for in the first place, When you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you corresponding to that which was said in chapter one. And I believe it in part. Now pay attention, careful attention to verse 19.

For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. There must be, not there might be, no, it could be, but there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. And that word factions there is actually a derivation or a derivative, perhaps is a better word, of heresy. the heresies of false teachers, so deviations from the truth, simply deviations from the truth, that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. And beloved of Christ, I don't know what that makes to your soul, but to me brings lots of reverential fear and also lots of weight from what Holy Scripture says.

Because now we have a statement of absolute certainty. There must be factions among you. Now, I want you to think about this, that God has ordained, even if you go back to chapter 2 in Peter, so you can see it with your own eyes. Pay attention simply to the text and in the two or three verses that we've read in chapter two, see how many times the apostle through the inspiration of the Spirit uses the word will in certainty of what is going to happen in the future. It says in verse one, but false prophets also arose among you.

just as there will be false teachers, not just as there may be, or just as there could be, but just as there will be false teachers among you, who may or could secretly bring in, no, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves with destruction." And verse 2, And many will, nor could follow them, or may follow them, but many will follow their sensuality, or their crooked ways, or their distraction. And because of them the way of the truth nor could, or may, but will be blasphemed. And the Spirit of God does not speak careless, idle words through his holy apostles and prophets, but rather what we have here is the absolute certainty of what God has determined from the life and the future of the church. And that this is to happen, deviations from the truth and factions among those who call themselves to be Christians and the church is so that their The genuine ones may be discerned or recognized."

Beloved of Christ, this is a fearful matter, at least it is to my heart and to my soul. You see how needy we are of Christ? The moment that a man considers himself to be enough for the task of teaching, preaching, guiding, deciding, the moment that that man relies on himself, that man or that person has bet upon his own condemnation. It is absolutely necessary that just as salvation is of the Lord, that the constant progress and walk of the church and of the Christian will be completely dependent upon the grace of the Savior by faith. For it is not I who live anymore, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. It is the faith that saved us from the very beginning by grace, and it is the faith and complete reliance upon the Savior, Jesus Christ, how sweet His name is, the one that keeps us and sustains us until the end. Because the moment that we rely in something of the flesh, the moment that a person relies a minimum amount in the flesh, in his intellect, or in the ways of men, or in the traditions of men, that man or that person has signed already. Something that assures that person will deviate from the truth, in the best case scenario to be restored later on, or in the worst case scenario to be followers of destructive heresies, as just as we have it in Secomputer chapter 2. The glorious thing about this is that if you do not consider that you cannot do it on your own, or better, that if you arrive to that conclusion that you cannot do it on your own, that is the safest place for the soul of a person.

Because in the moment in which we realize that it does not depend on us, then it's Jesus Christ, I depend entirely on you. And we come on our knees and we come meek and humble before the Lord, not to strive, not to do things in the flesh and according to our intellect, but according to the ways, gracious, precious ways. of the Savior Jesus Christ, the One that is without sin, yet came to this world to give His life for you, for me, who know the sins that you have committed, the sins that you are committing, and He even knows the sins that you will commit in the future. He came to this world to give His life for us, to be redeemed, set apart unto Himself, baptized into His Spirit, to be united to Him, never to be separated from the hand of the Savior. Not because we are able to follow sound doctrine, but rather because the one who is sound and whole and healthy in and of himself has called us his loving bride, and has made us free from the condemnation that we deserve.

Beloved of Christ, what a glorious gospel. What a glorious message of salvation found in the person of Jesus Christ. What a glorious message of freedom. Freedom from self, freedom from own performance, freedom from having to do A gospel of grace that sustains us and keeps us until the end. Beloved of Christ, I have to finish my sermon with that which I had planned to say.

Otherwise, I will never say it. So let me just simply give you a couple of things before I finish. Beloved of Christ, if God was the one or if God has planned that this is what is going to happen. You can see the will right in the text. You can see it also in Jude, that he has ordained false prophets to be within the context of the church, that he has ordained, he will, there will be many people that will follow them.

There will be many who will be carried by these false teachings and by these false doctrines. This is not the imaginations of the thoughts of men, but that's rather, this is what God has ordained. Now, the question that I ask myself is how then God, how does he do it? How does God, what does God do so that many will actually follow? And it sounds very difficult to hear to the ears, right?

But what does happen in the story, on the history better of redemption of the church that will indeed bring this decree to fulfillment that many will follow? Let me just give you Two or perhaps three, depending on the time and how we go. Two or three things that God actually allows and does so that these people that are followers of the false prophets will indeed end up following these false teachers. Perhaps I'm going to give you three or four. So let's just see how we go.

The first one, beloved of Christ, is called tribulation. Remember the parable of the seeds, the different seeds? that one of the seed fall on the ground and then Satan came and took the word that was in the heart of people and those people will not believe. But there were another two types of seed that will go on to stony ground, right? And then it says that when tribulation comes, that they bear fruit for a temporary period of time, that they bear fruit, that they have believed and they have bore fruit better, that after a period of time, when tribulation comes, And then even he adds, when the affairs or the things of this world come, that they will fall away from the faith.

And when we speak and when we read Matthew chapter 24, independently of how you interpret the futurity or the present or the past of that particular passage in Matthew chapter 24, we are told that when the sorrows begin, that when that time comes, that many people will hate one another, and that the love of many will grow cold, and that many false teachers will appear, and that many of them will follow them. That when the tribulations of those days, or the tribulations of that type of nature comes, that many will hate one another, that many will give the back to one another, the love will grow cold, and they will follow false teachers. Because tribulation in the church is means for God to purify His church. Just as we read in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 19, so that those will be, the genuine ones will be recognized. Not only tribulation, but when you go to 1 Timothy 6, you see that money.

That money is that which moves the false teachers, that they are not content in simplicity, in the things of the Lord, but money, the root of evil, the love of money, is what actually takes them and moves them to follow these ways that are divisive and cause all of these types of things within the context of the church. passing by very rapidly through those two, because the one that I want to bring your attention to is one that is found in 1st Timothy chapter 4, when 2nd Timothy chapter 4, go there to 2nd Timothy chapter 4. And this is when you have to use a little bit of the energy that is reminding you to pay attention to me. 2nd Timothy chapter 2. Pay attention to these words, beloved of Christ.

Pay attention and careful attention to these words that we are to read. Second Timothy chapter four. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead. and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reproof, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming. When people will not endure sound teaching, but having each in ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

Beloved of Christ, are not these the people of 2 Peter chapter 2 that will follow the many false teachers? Yes, they are. The many people whose ears are itching and who are accumulating unto themselves teachers that will say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. That will speak according to their own passions. That will be so careful not to offend men.

but very quick to offend God by keeping the truth. Beloved of Christ, the time is coming in which people will not endure sound doctrine." Put your eyes in that word, endure sound teaching. Sound teaching is to be endure. Sound teaching is to be bore or bear or whatever the word is.

Sound teaching is to be carried, tolerated. And that's how far my vocabulary goes. Sound teaching is to be endured. And why would a person would ask? And this is because independently of how nice and beautiful you are, you are filled with unrighteousness.

And you are walking towards Christ, becoming like him. But there's still in you and in me the flesh. And the flesh and the carnality of my ways is offended when the Word of God is preached, because the Word of God is living and active. And it's a two-edged sword that penetrates and goes directly into your soul, separating and discerning, and you are left naked before the Lord. And that is offensive to your soul and to your flesh.

that is difficult for the flesh, so sound doctrine is to be endured. And the endurance under the sound teaching of the words of the Lord is only held and kept by the Lord Jesus Christ. Because those who have not been known by Him, they will not endure sound teaching. The word of God will be too offensive to them. just as the disciples and even John the Baptist was offended by the Lord, right?

Is it you? Is it you the one that is to come? Is it you offended by the ways of the Lord? Because the word of God is offensive to the flesh and to our ways. And therefore, the word needs to be endured.

And when the word and the preaching of the word is not endured and we pay attention to our passions, then we end up accumulating unto themselves or unto ourselves, God forbid. Preachers and teachers that teach according to their own passions, which are the passions of those who follow them, satanic, Adamic passions. So in their itching ears, they will receive the words that they want to be told and not the words of Scripture. Nobody is able to hold and to keep all of these things. Pay attention to what he says in verse 2.

Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. And this preaching of the word is reprove, rebuke and exhort. Reprove and rebuke and exhort through the preaching and to the teaching of Scripture. The one, the type of preaching and the type of teaching, beloved of Christ, that puts self to death and exalts the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one that points us to the unrighteousness of who we are and the fullness and completeness of who He is.

The one that makes it sure that we understand that we are not sufficient and that points us to the ways of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one that says that there's nothing that we can do to make it until the end. That the only way is to set our hope and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The one that tells us that we are to leave our ways behind and to fill our hearts with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. That out of the mouth of the one who is in Christ, the abundance of Christ is supposed to come out and not the abundance of the flesh.

The type of preaching and teaching, beloved, of Christ that portrays Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven. The one that portrays the Lord Jesus Christ as victorious upon the course. Cross and the one, the type of preaching and teaching that exalts Him so much that the sweetest and best place for the salt of the genuine believer is at the feet of the Savior, leaving everything behind and just moving towards Him by faith so that He is exalted in our life and that we continually die to self. So then we're able to say, take our lives and let them be consecrated all to Thee. Take us until the end.

Do with our lives what is meant to be done. But whatever is done, never, never, that we may never lose Christ. He's so good that no tribulation, no problem, nothing in heaven, nothing on earth can separate us from the glorious love of Lord Jesus Christ. The love of God that is in Him, Christ Jesus. available to the sinner, available to the lost, available to the one who is in unrighteousness, so that we may give glory to the Father through much fruit of righteousness in the beloved Jesus Christ.

Amen.