Discerning the Shepherd: Protecting the Flock from Predatory Teaching

• False Teachers and Predators 00:05:29 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor identifies predators among God's people and introduces the need to identify them through character rather than just teaching ability.
• Character vs. Ability in Leadership 00:05:49 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor argues that qualifications for church leaders focus on character and personhood, not on teaching skills, degrees, or eloquence.
• Animal Instincts in False Teachers 00:08:16 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that false teachers are like irrational animals driven by instinct and appetite rather than spiritual insight or reason.
• Judgment Proportional to Influence 00:12:00 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor asserts that the judgment of false teachers will be measured by the extent of the spiritual deception and fallout they caused in others' lives.
• Hedonism and Sinful Freedom 00:16:06 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor describes how false teachers use the concept of spiritual freedom as a license to pursue hedonistic pleasures without shame or restraint.
• Sin and Church Fellowship 00:19:07 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that false teachers assume their sinful lives should not hinder their leadership or participation in church fellowship.
• Characteristics of False Teachers 00:19:07 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor outlines five characteristics of false teachers: they pursue sinful lifestyles without shame, assume their sin should not hinder leadership, are continually looking for victims, and are dominated by animal instincts rather than biblical insight.
• Church Accountability and Discipline 00:21:04 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor argues against the modern trend of allowing unrepentant leaders to remain in ministry, citing Paul's instructions to Timothy and the Corinthians to publicly rebuke or remove leaders who continue in sin without genuine repentance.
• Contrast Between False and True Teachers 00:34:52 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor flips the script to contrast false teachers with true teachers, highlighting differences in motivation (feeding off people vs. feeding people), evaluation (spiritual fallout vs. spiritual fruit), and response to sin (embracing it vs. confessing it).
• Evaluation of False Teachers 00:35:23 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor contrasts false teachers, who are judged by the disasters and harm they cause, with true teachers, who are judged by the fruit they encourage.
• Attitude Toward Sin 00:36:03 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor contrasts false teachers who embrace sin without shame with true teachers who confess sin without blaming others.
• Leadership and Disqualification 00:36:17 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that false teachers assume sin won't hinder their position, while true teachers understand sin can disqualify them, noting that false teachers often prioritize reputation over the flock.
• Motivation of Teachers 00:37:11 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor contrasts false teachers who seek victims to lead astray with true teachers who seek to lead people to Christ.
• Protection of the Church 00:39:57 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor frames the warning against false teachers as evidence of Christ's deep love for His church, urging leaders to be careful as they serve the bride of Christ.

• Sermon Illustration 00:00:00 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor recounts the story of Jim Jones and the People's Temple, detailing how a pastor with an impressive resume of social good became convinced that mass suicide was a holy act, leading to the death of his entire congregation.
• Sermon Illustration 00:09:52 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses an analogy of watching squirrels and birds to illustrate that false teachers, like animals, are driven by base instincts and immediate desires rather than rational thought or moral consideration for others.
• Sermon Illustration 00:13:20 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor traces the lineage of false teaching from Harry Emerson Fosdick to Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, and Joel Osteen, illustrating how the 'felt needs' and 'positive thinking' movements distorted the gospel over the last 125 years.
• Sermon Illustration 00:30:43 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his courtship with his wife Marcia, describing how he broke up with her multiple times due to 'cold feet' before finally proposing with a diamond chip he saved for by working odd jobs like raking leaves in the rain.
• Sermon Illustration 00:32:55 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses an analogy of a jeweler displaying small diamonds on a black velvet cloth to illustrate how the 'dark character setting' of false teachers makes the truth of true leaders stand out more brightly.
• Sermon Illustration 00:27:09 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor recounts a story of a young woman in a singles group who was abused by her father and later sexually assaulted by a pastor in her former church who used counseling sessions to groom her.
• Sermon Illustration 00:37:37 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the historical example of Jim Jones and the People's Temple, detailing his sexual misconduct, the congregation's surrender of sanity, and the eventual Jonestown Massacre, to illustrate the consequences of following a false teacher who deceived his followers.

• Pastoral Charge 00:07:52 ▶️ 📄
  > Open the Bible to 2 Peter chapter 2 and underline key words while listening.
• Pastoral Charge 00:29:53 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor commands the congregation to remain spiritually vigilant and not ignore the signs of false teaching.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] I can remember hearing the news as a college sophomore it would be referred to as a massacre at the center of the news was their leader a false teacher surprising everyone on the outside world and no one expected a tragic turn of
[00:00:25] events like these the vice president of the United States had earlier written that this pastor was an inspiration to everyone.
[00:00:37] The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare had written, and I quote, he knows how to inspire hope.
[00:00:46] This pastor was committed to people in need.
[00:00:49] He'd counseled prisoners and juvenile delinquents.
[00:00:53] His church had started a job placement center, provided housing for senior citizens, established homes for mentally disabled, built a health clinic, an animal shelter, a vocational training program, and more.
[00:01:09] He had personally secured free legal aid for the poor, had built a strong drug rehabilitation program, preached from the Bible, claimed to cast out demons, do miracles, perform healing.
[00:01:29] His resume was impressive.
[00:01:30] his charisma attracted a large following his church grew to more than a thousand people and they were all dedicated to impacting their community where's this congregation 50 years later the entire congregation is dead literally deceased their pastor had become convinced that
[00:02:01] the government was going to take away their right to worship. He convinced the church that suicide would not be an ordinary suicide, but it would be a holy act, a revolutionary act of defiance against the government of the world and their entrance, a noble transition, he called it,
[00:02:24] into heaven. His name was Jim Jones. On the day he decided was the right day to have everybody to go to heaven. He summoned his congregation to the pavilion in the center of the community that
[00:02:45] they had built, where they had all moved, to be a model community to the world. As they gathered, somebody turned on a recording device. He sat in a chair in the middle of the pavilion speaking
[00:03:03] in soft, soothing tones about the dignity of death and the certainty of all of them gathering on the other side, a large vat of cyanide-laced Kool-Aid had been prepared.
[00:03:20] Then on his cue, parents first gave their children a cup to drink, all 300 children.
[00:03:32] Then the adults, men, women of all ages, leaders, followers. In 44 minutes, it was all over. The congregation, the leadership, the pastor of the people's temple Christian church were dead. I can tell you, beloved,
[00:04:04] the devil couldn't have been happier. He's a destroyer and a deceiver. And let me tell you as well, the news media, and I can remember it, they ate it up. They ate it up. It became just
[00:04:22] one more narrative to discredit the gospel, to discredit true Christians, the true church, true followers of Christ. Now, while the stories since then, and they keep coming, as dramatic as mass suicide. The news keeps surfacing, doesn't it? One new chapter, it seems,
[00:04:55] every week. False teachers with the victims who followed them, churches misled, cults created, one more hypocritical leader exposed as an embezzler or an adulterer or a drunkard or a thief who defrauded Stowell.
[00:05:18] These stories are as current and they have been for 2,000 years since the church was created.
[00:05:29] There are predators among the people of God.
[00:05:34] Predators in pulpits, predators in pews, among the parishioners.
[00:05:41] And Peter wants to equip us to identify them.
[00:05:49] Has it ever occurred to you that the qualifications for leaders in the church given to us in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1 have nothing to do with how well they can teach?
[00:06:04] They have nothing to do with how well they can conjugate the verbs from the original languages.
[00:06:09] They have nothing to do with their degrees in school.
[00:06:12] They have nothing to do with how eloquent they are in speaking.
[00:06:15] They have nothing to do with how brilliant they are in writing.
[00:06:18] No, the qualifications all have to do with what kind of person they are.
[00:06:25] What kind of character do they possess?
[00:06:29] You see, beloved, there is a relationship that we need to observe in order to be protected from predators, the significant relationship that exists between false teaching and false living.
[00:06:46] Sometimes it's obvious.
[00:06:47] sometimes it takes a little longer to surface bad doctrine goes hand in hand with bad living bad character which is why the apostle Peter's warning of false teachers he says nothing about how well they teach he says everything about how wickedly they live now Peter's going to provide
[00:07:21] in this list. By the way, I warned you, this list is a chapter long, and we're only halfway through it. And we'll get through it, Lord willing, before the rapture. But let me just give you
[00:07:35] five more characteristics of predators among God's people. So let me invite you back to 2 Peter chapter 2. Open your copy of the Word. Get ready to underline a few words. Let me break down his
[00:07:52] description of these predators and the five characteristics. Here's the first one, and then I'll read the text. Number one, their thought patterns are dominated by animal instincts rather than spiritual insights. Now, Peter writes in verse 12, but these, referring to false teachers,
[00:08:16] like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant.
[00:08:34] We'll stop there for a moment.
[00:08:36] Peter is comparing false teachers to animals, animals that need to be caught and destroyed because these animals in this context are predators.
[00:08:46] they're governed then like these animals by animal appetites and Peter writes here they blaspheme that is they reject they talk down on they view themselves as high as if not above the authority of God and his word so they're going to be quick to tell you their revelation while never giving
[00:09:10] you gods. They pursue whatever they want. This is the animal instinct, the life of the flesh.
[00:09:21] There's no spiritual conviction. There's no moral restraint. And Paul, Peter here is effectively writing, they have no more ability to think rationally about their lives, about their future, about what they're doing, then that bird that I watched yesterday sitting in my recliner,
[00:09:52] you get my age, that's one of the fun things you do in life, or the squirrels, we feed them too, by the way. You know, just watching them, their antics, none of them are out there going, you know,
[00:10:02] I wonder about my future. No, they just wonder if this guy's going to give them some more walnuts.
[00:10:07] It's about it, about as far ahead as they can think. They're not thinking rationally. They're not reasonable. They're not contemplating their moral decisions. I really ought to share these walnuts with my friend, the other squirrel who didn't get here in time. No. You know, Peter
[00:10:24] writes that as if these people have lost their reason. We would say it today, they've lost their minds. They're insane. Where's their sanity? That's the idea. They're unreasoning. In Titus chapter 2 Paul writes that the wisdom of God's word gives us sanity you ever notice he says it
[00:10:53] allows us to live sensibly that is literally to have a sound thinking a sound mind how to think rationally so to abandon the word of God means you abandon sanity you become irrational and the
[00:11:15] reason then people live so badly is because they think so unbiblically especially false teachers like animal predators they're dominated by their base desires rather than biblical doctrines now let me give you the second characteristic here with this one Peter just sort of fast forwards
[00:11:45] the tape to show us their end. So let me give it to you. The judgment of false teachers will be measured by the fallout they caused in the lives of others. It's going to be meted out
[00:12:00] to match in proportion to their deception. Notice what he writes in verse 12. They will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the paycheck, as the wage for their wrongdoing.
[00:12:19] So you have another implication, as we've already learned in former studies, of the degrees of punishment in hell. In their final judgment before God, the greater the influence they had, the greater their judgment for misleading.
[00:12:38] Some false teachers mislead a handful of people.
[00:12:44] They distort the gospel, the word of God, and mislead a thousand people.
[00:12:50] Some mislead tens of thousands of people.
[00:12:56] Some of the largest congregations in our country over the last 125 years, if you study church history as I have, recent church history. Now, of course, they're enhanced, they're enabled, they're promoted by television and media coverage. Some of the largest churches over the past century have been pastored
[00:13:20] by false teachers who use biblical terminology but have different definitions, who ultimately dilute and distort the gospel. You go all the way back to Harry Emerson Fosdick in the 1920s and 30s, exiled from his denomination as a heretic. Johnny Rockefeller Jr. liked him and told him,
[00:13:46] if I build you a church, a sanctuary, will you preach in it? And he agreed and began to preach.
[00:13:53] He built him a beautiful sanctuary on the Hudson River. And every time Fosdick preached, it was packed. He was among the first in contemporary Christianity to preach to what he called felt needs. I give my students an expose on Fosdick because they're still doing it. He said,
[00:14:13] who cares about something written 2,000 years ago when you need to address the felt needs of the congregation? He was the first to introduce the idea, at least in modern church history, of the power of positive thinking, and he became famous for it. Then came along his protégé,
[00:14:36] a man who followed his example, by the name of Norman Vincent Peale. And then came his protégé, Robert Shuler. And then his protégé, who went to Shuler to be trained by the name of Joel Osteen.
[00:14:52] a succession of men who distort the gospel, who deny the reality of hell, who do not require the need for repentance, who disbelieve that it is faith in Christ alone that gets you into heaven.
[00:15:12] And they have influenced over the last 125 years millions of people. And Peter is saying, the greater the influence, the greater the judgment. Their judgment is going to be measured out by the spiritual deception they inflicted on others and how they diluted the gospel and
[00:15:36] diluted the influence of the true church. Now, here's another characteristic, a third one.
[00:15:43] Peter brings it back now to the present time. Their definition of spiritual freedom allows them either to excuse their sin or embrace their sin without even blushing. He writes in the middle part of verse 13, they count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, the daylight. The word for pleasure,
[00:16:06] by the way, is a Greek word that gives us the transliterated English word hedonist or hedonism.
[00:16:15] A hedonist is someone who is completely devoted to pleasure.
[00:16:22] A hedonist is somebody just entirely given over to pursue pleasure.
[00:16:29] Now, in the New Testament, it's a rare word, but it always has a negative connotation.
[00:16:34] Even though pleasure might be justifiable, it could be good food, it could be entertainment, It could be sexual relations within marriage.
[00:16:51] But a hedonist is someone so devoted to pleasure, that's all they live for, even if it transgresses God's boundaries.
[00:17:03] See, this is when food becomes an obsession, when food becomes gluttony.
[00:17:10] This is when entertainment leaves no room for the Word of God, spiritual disciplines.
[00:17:20] Churches replaced for their pursuit of entertainment.
[00:17:23] This is when sexual relations transgress the marriage boundary.
[00:17:29] See, false teachers don't care what the boundaries are.
[00:17:32] They don't really care if they're out of bounds.
[00:17:34] They have liberty.
[00:17:36] They have freedom.
[00:17:37] liberty for them is a license to sin they're going to be the ones at work or at school who tell you you know you're you're just sort of boxed in you need to loosen up a little bit you notice
[00:17:55] Peter tells us when they pursue illicit pleasure they revel in the daytime even in the Roman Empire during the days Peter wrote this. The Roman Empire looked down on anybody involved in debauchery while the sun was up. You waited until it got dark. Not them. They're not waiting. They're
[00:18:20] so brazen. They're so defensive of their sinful lifestyles, their opulence, their hedonistic ways.
[00:18:29] They're going to pursue it And they're going to just display it In broad daylight They go out of bounds Without any shame Like the leaders of the nation Israel I was reading about recently in Jeremiah's day
[00:18:50] They sin and they no longer know how to blush They embrace sin without embarrassment Certainly without any genuine repentance Now here's a fourth characteristic to help us identify these false teachers.
[00:19:07] Number four, they assume their sinful lives should never hinder their leadership in the church.
[00:19:17] Notice what he writes in verse 13.
[00:19:19] They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, note this, while they feast with you.
[00:19:32] Blots, that refers to stains on a garment, Stains from unrepentant sin.
[00:19:40] Blemishes takes you back into the Old Testament with the idea of an animal being blemished and then not being able to be offered to God.
[00:19:49] And would you notice where they're showing up?
[00:19:52] Peter says they're feasting with you.
[00:19:54] This is a broader expression than a reference to the communion table, the Lord's table.
[00:19:59] This is referring to church fellowships.
[00:20:04] We would say this refers to a potluck.
[00:20:10] And we all know what those are. They swagger into the fellowship hall with their casserole in order to get their cake. Why shouldn't I be here? Why shouldn't I be? I'm a deacon. I'm a
[00:20:26] pastor. I'm a Bible study leader. I'm a Sunday school teacher. I'm a choir member. Who are you to judge me? Who are you to tell me I can't come here? You see, a false teacher would never think
[00:20:41] that their sin should disrupt their ministry or their place in the fellowship? Why should the revelation of their sin jeopardize their calling from God? And they're quick to tell you that their calling from God trumps whatever they've been caught doing. So instead of following the
[00:21:04] Bible's charge to hold especially church leaders accountable, well, a leader's given a free pass, and of course they're going to demand that free pass. Well, let me tell you, the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy to revoke their free pass. He, in fact, says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5
[00:21:26] to publicly rebuke church leaders who continue in sin. In other words, there was no genuine repentance, so that the rest of the congregation will fear sinning. And that's one of the devastating effects of a leader caught in sin who doesn't repent of it. He doesn't miss a week in
[00:21:46] the pulpit or a week in their Bible study or whatever it is they're doing. It tells the people, hey, go and do thou likewise. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church to remove the person who calls
[00:22:05] himself a Christian from the assembly if he refuses to repent. Here's what he writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. I want you to notice this. Anyone who bears the name of brother, that is somebody who
[00:22:18] says they're a believer. That includes church leaders. If he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one, without repentance, there's no longer an invitation to the potluck or to the assembly,
[00:22:46] for that matter. And beloved, this is how far the church has fallen in our generation.
[00:22:51] The pattern now, and it seems like I get news of one every other week, the pattern of our generation is for some church leader to be exposed in some kind of grievous sin, some kind of sinful living,
[00:23:04] defrauding, stealing, embezzling, immorality, whatever it might be.
[00:23:08] They just, if they leave their church, they go and start another one.
[00:23:14] They don't miss a week.
[00:23:17] Or, and this is just as popular today, they get some kind of admission, which is very weak, or some kind of apology, and it typically explains how tired they were and how the pressure of ministry just sort of
[00:23:33] whittled away at them and how weak they were because of the demands upon them, and then they go away for three months for, quote, rest and healing. And then it's usually a group of other
[00:23:46] men outside the church who welcome him back after 90 days and recommission him back among the people he misled, defrauded. And the poor flock assumes that if they follow Christ, well, who are they to judge? Love is without condition, right? Which means let them back in without any genuine change.
[00:24:14] And the tragedy is, without genuine repentance and accountability, these people then are set up for this pattern to be repeated by the predator.
[00:24:29] And that seems to be anticipated by the Apostle Peter, by the way.
[00:24:33] His fifth characteristic follows.
[00:24:35] Here it is, a false teacher is continually looking for opportunities to add to their list of victims.
[00:24:42] Notice what he writes next in verse 14.
[00:24:44] They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin.
[00:24:53] They entice, that's a fishing term for baiting a hook.
[00:24:58] They entice unsteady souls.
[00:25:02] You could translate this, they seduce the unstable.
[00:25:07] They look for the vulnerable to take advantage of them.
[00:25:12] This expression, they have eyes full of adultery, literally translated says they have eyes full of an adulteress.
[00:25:22] In other words, what this means is these predators no longer possess any kind of moral self-control.
[00:25:31] And one commentator writes, they cannot look at a woman without viewing her as a potential object of their next adultery.
[00:25:40] That's what that expression means.
[00:25:41] They're on the lookout. It struck me as I was studying this and studying them, they reminded me of the devil, for the devil is prowling, isn't he? He's prowling around seeking someone to devour.
[00:26:03] They're hunting. Peter writes here, they're insatiable. That is, they're not going to stop.
[00:26:10] they're on the lookout for one more victim one of the best places to fish is inside the church where people are arriving hurting needy openly now transparent with others peter makes it clear that there's a greater judgment on those who cross god's boundaries
[00:26:40] and then pull others or attempt to pull others across those same boundaries that are going to face the judgment of God they have harmed his beloved they have defrauded his son's bride I remember when Marcia and I were in Dallas and I was in seminary there and we volunteered to lead
[00:27:09] a singles group I taught them on Sunday mornings and a young lady in that group had arrived and was following after Christ and asked if she could meet with us. And she shared her story with us.
[00:27:30] She had been abused by her father for many years and struggled with those memories and wanted to do the right thing, was vulnerable. And she said she really didn't know what to do with what had happened in her former church
[00:27:52] and from there she had come to ours and we asked her, you know, what was it?
[00:27:57] What happened?
[00:27:57] And she said that people in the church knew about her past and how she was trying to do the right thing and get her feet pointed in the right direction.
[00:28:13] And she asked the pastor for counseling.
[00:28:16] I knew the pastor, I knew the church.
[00:28:19] And he agreed and when she arrived, she knew something, immediately knew something was wrong. The lights were low. There was a candle burning. There was music. She recognized it was Karen Carpenter. Any of you old enough to remember
[00:28:39] those sad love songs? That was playing on a stereo. He invited her to sit on the couch.
[00:28:47] She sat next to her, put his arm around her and said, how can I help you? A predator.
[00:28:57] Fortunately, she escaped and came to our church, defrauding, deceiving the bride of Christ.
[00:29:14] You might wonder why Peter takes so much time to deal with it.
[00:29:21] Why describe the dark side?
[00:29:23] Why describe in vivid terminology what is even, to me, awkward at times to expound to you?
[00:29:32] It's difficult.
[00:29:34] Why take us down this dark alley and show us the sleazy side.
[00:29:41] Well, for one thing, Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wants to give us the profile of a false teacher so we can spot it.
[00:29:50] Be alert.
[00:29:53] Don't put blinders on.
[00:29:55] I can turn on the television and in 30 seconds say, that guy is a fraud.
[00:30:05] Spot it.
[00:30:07] You've been given the profile of an opulent, self-seeking, grandiose, arrogant, His word is more important than the word of God, man or woman.
[00:30:22] Secondly, he's describing the dark side because it's going to make the true leader, the true Bible study leader, the true teacher more obvious, more easily identifiable.
[00:30:33] The backdrop of darkness makes the truth all that much more bright.
[00:30:42] Let me illustrate it this way.
[00:30:43] I told you last Lord's Day that Marsha and I recently celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary some of you old-timers know we met in college we dated for four years now if she were telling the story she would tell you that I broke up with her three times but she's not up here telling you
[00:31:05] the story you got to listen to mine but it is true I had a really bad case of cold feet let me tell you. Really bad. I broke up with her several times. In fact, the last time I broke up with her was
[00:31:18] before the summer leading up to our senior year of college. I learned later that her father at that point wanted to have, quote, words with me. I'll bet he did. Well, coming back to college
[00:31:36] after that summer, you know, I just spent a lot of time thinking and praying and it just was clear to me. This woman was a woman for me. How could I win her? I needed to stop messing around.
[00:31:51] I asked her out. She was hesitant, but agreed. She didn't know it, but I had already started saving money for a diamond ring. I was doing all kinds of odd jobs. I remember the last job I did
[00:32:06] was raking leaves in the rain. I needed a really nice diamond ring. See, I was planning to propose to a woman way above my pay grade, just like you men. Amen. I was planning to propose to a woman
[00:32:28] I didn't deserve like you men. Amen. There you go, guys. You're with me. All right.
[00:32:34] You can have lunch now. I needed a diamond ring. Didn't have much money. In fact, I think what I got would be more qualified as a diamond chip. But you know, it's put in a really big setting.
[00:32:49] Kind of looks better, doesn't it?
[00:32:51] Well, I walked into this diamond jewelry store.
[00:32:55] I still remember, Ron Regency.
[00:32:57] They're in Chattanooga.
[00:32:59] I told him how much money I had.
[00:33:02] And he didn't pull out a diamond with a pair of tweezers and show me that.
[00:33:10] No, he pulled out this black velvet tapestry and this cloth.
[00:33:19] And he spread it out on top of the counter.
[00:33:23] And then he pulled out this little pouch of these little diamonds and he poured them out on that velvet cloth. And with that backdrop, man, let me tell you, those diamonds looked amazing. Wow.
[00:33:38] They sparkled with light. I chose one. I was able to get it set by Thanksgiving.
[00:33:51] Marcia had no idea.
[00:33:52] Nobody did.
[00:33:54] Then she invited me to come to her home in Atlanta for Thanksgiving.
[00:33:59] The only problem was that's where her father lived.
[00:34:07] Well, I can tell you, I got to get back to the text.
[00:34:09] There's nothing to do with 2 Peter.
[00:34:11] I'm going to get back here, okay?
[00:34:12] But I can tell you there were two Thanksgiving miracles.
[00:34:14] Number one, she said yes.
[00:34:17] And number two, he didn't kill me.
[00:34:19] I mean, this is a great Thanksgiving.
[00:34:21] All right.
[00:34:22] I thought of that as I was looking at this text.
[00:34:26] God is setting the truth of someone worth listening to against the backdrop of this dark character setting.
[00:34:41] So I thought what I'd do with the time remaining is just sort of flip the script around because really, by contrast, he's describing true teachers, right?
[00:34:50] So let's flip it around.
[00:34:52] Here's the contrast.
[00:34:52] First of all, we talked about false teachers are dominated by animal instincts.
[00:34:57] Well, by contrast then, true teachers are dominated by biblical insight.
[00:35:05] False teachers feed off people.
[00:35:11] True teachers feed people.
[00:35:16] They desire to guide others to follow the insights and truths from God's Word.
[00:35:21] Here's the second contrast.
[00:35:23] False teachers will be evaluated by the spiritual fallout they caused.
[00:35:27] True teachers will be evaluated by the spiritual fruit they encouraged.
[00:35:35] False teachers are going to be measured by the fallout, the disasters, the collision, the hurt, the pain.
[00:35:42] They're going to be judged for defrauding, deceiving, stealing, abusing, the harm.
[00:35:50] And the greater harm they've caused, the greater harm God is going to deliver to them.
[00:36:01] Here's the third contrast.
[00:36:03] False teachers embrace their sin without blushing.
[00:36:07] True teachers then confess their sin without blaming others.
[00:36:14] Here's the fourth contrast.
[00:36:17] False teachers assume their sin won't hinder their leadership position.
[00:36:21] True teachers understand that sin can disqualify them from their leadership.
[00:36:26] position. False teachers expect to be reinstated because they have the call of God. No matter what they've done, no matter how great the consequences might be, that's because they really don't care about the flock. They don't care about the integrity of the church. They only care about
[00:36:54] their reputation, their compensation, their position. Now let's flip the script on the fifth characteristic. False teachers are continually looking for another victim to lead astray.
[00:37:11] True teachers are continually looking for someone to lead to Christ. Let me just take a moment and wrap this up by telling you that had the congregation the other leadership of the People's Temple Church. If they just compared Jim Jones to the description in 2 Peter chapter 2,
[00:37:37] the Jonestown Massacre, as it's been called, perhaps would have never happened. Three years before he talked his congregation into drinking poison, he was arrested in Los Angeles for lewd conduct for exposing himself to an undercover police officer involved in a sting operation.
[00:38:05] That should have done it. Even before that, he was caught by his own church members for having numerous affairs with members of his congregation. But instead of holding them accountable, they had surrendered their sanity, and they believed his excuse. And here it is. Quote,
[00:38:29] He said, these were acts of compassion to help these women with their low self-esteem.
[00:38:39] As early as 15 years before this mass suicide, there were documented cases of adultery, sexual exploitation, sexual assault.
[00:38:53] They blindly followed him and set themselves up in his pattern as a predator.
[00:39:00] then at the age of 47 47 he convinced his congregation that had long ago surrendered any kind of sensible thinking any sanity any accountability he convinced them to follow him to heaven by way of suicide and in the end he became as peter warns here a victim of his
[00:39:26] own deception he died too i have every reason beloved to believe that some of his deceived followers were true believers. They belonged to the Lord. When they died, they went straight to heaven. When he died, I have every reason to believe he went straight to hell. And he is
[00:39:46] awaiting at this very moment in Hades, the final coming judgment of God. Here's Peter's warning.
[00:39:57] Let me tell you, beloved, this is another way of telling you how much Christ loves his church.
[00:40:05] this severe warning is against false teachers who hurt his church who deceive his bride this is another way of telling you church how deeply you have been loved and you are loved by the Lord
[00:40:22] this warning is another way of saying don't mess with his bride you know what a leader is? you know what a teacher is?
[00:40:34] I view them and myself as individuals designed by God to lead his bride down the aisle toward the altar where then everyone who's led will hand her over to her groom.
[00:40:59] If you're going to serve his bride, if you're going to teach his bride, if you're going to lead his bride, be careful.
[00:41:08] She is the bride of Christ.
[00:41:11] She is his beloved for whom he died.
[00:41:15] it. You belong to him. I preach this to you. To be warned, I preach this to me as well.