The danger that they deceive the people of God. Peter reminds us that this has happened in the past. Walt's prophets, he says, arose among the people, which was a way of him pointing to past days from his time, the Jewish people, ancient Israel. If we had time this evening, and we don't, we could go back to Deuteronomy 13, where Moses warns that this is a possibility.
There would be false prophets who would come and would even show wonders and signs, and warns the people of God, of Israel, regarding them. We see examples of them through the Old Testament. One of the better known, perhaps, would be those prophets that arose in the days of King Ahab. You may recall that time when Jehoshaphat, who was the king of Judah, the southern kingdom, went north to see King Ahab of the northern kingdom, called Samaria, or Israel.
While he was there, King Ahab convinced him to go to war against Syria, or Aram. There was a piece of ground that was in dispute. So Jehoshaphat, who was a godly man, basically, was very foolish and aligned himself with this ungodly, wicked man Ahab, who was the king of the northern tribes of Israel. But Jehoshaphat wanted a word of a prophet before they went out to battle, and so Ahab called in his prophets.
These were probably not the prophets of his dear wife Jezebel, the prophets of Baal, but rather other prophets who were prophets in the name of the Lord. But they are very clearly men who were willing to tell Ahab anything he wanted to hear. They were probably on the dole of Ahab. That's how they made their living. So their leader, whose name was Edekiah, and the others who were with him, promised Ahab, oh yes, God's going to be with you in this battle. Go out, go out, go to it, wipe him up.
And he went so far as even to make himself a set of horns, and he demonstrated how Ahab would push the Arameans out of the way and would have victory over them. But Jehoshaphat still wasn't satisfied about this, and he pressed further if there might be a prophet of the Lord. And Ahab most reluctantly called another prophet who always spoke against him. A little wonder. The other prophet was a true man of God, and his name was Micaiah.
And at first Micaiah gave sort of a tongue-in-cheek answer, oh sure, go on out, you're going to win. And Ahab recognized immediately the sarcasm and rebuked him, and tell me the truth. So he did. So he put him in jail. So much for true prophets of God. But the warning went out to these false prophets, and especially Zedekiah, the leader of them, because of their false prophecies, they were going to die. That prophecy came true.
Throughout the history of Israel, there were false prophets who arose and who told the kings and others what they wanted to hear, what pleased them. This was true right up until the very end of the kingdom of Judah. And Jeremiah, who was a prophet at the end of Judah, 250 years after Micaiah and Ahab and Jehoshaphat, Jeremiah the weeping prophet wrote in his book in chapter 5 regarding the false prophets and the false priests of Israel.
And he said, the greatest tragedy is my people, God says this, my people love to have it this way. The people wanted to hear these false prophets because what they had to say pleased them. It tickled their ear. And Jeremiah weeps about that, as did God. Historically there were false prophets among the people of God, and Peter says there shall continue to be false teachers who will arise. And how will they deceive the people of God? Well Peter tells us it will be through heresies.
You notice that word in verse 1. Heresies, that is a word just brought right into the English from the Greek. It means choices, choices. It refers to a chosen belief. The New Bible commentary revise says, it is a wrong belief deliberately chosen by a man rather than a right one revealed to him by God. A heresy is something someone chooses to believe which is false over against something that is right that he knows to be right but which he rejects.
Heresies is a word that is used in the New Testament of religious parties and sects like the Pharisees. They themselves are called heretics, Acts 15.5. It's a word that's also used of factions based upon false doctrine such as here or in 1 Corinthians 11.19. Likewise, it is used in that context. Now what Peter is saying is that false teachers will deceive the people of God. How? By giving them choices. Choices to believe something other than the revealed truth of God, heresies.
And he describes these heresies. He says they are destructive. That means they are ruinous. They bring darkness and damnation to the soul. He says furthermore about them, these false teachers will secretly introduce destructive heresies. Interesting verb. Very, very picturesque. Literally it means to slip something in alongside of something else. To smuggle would be a way of saying it. Peter is saying these false teachers are not going to be so blatant as to give all false teaching.
They are going to wrap it up. They are going to smuggle in beside some good their heresy. That's most common in our day for people to use Bible language but to redefine the terms. So they use the same language that we read in the Bible and we think they are talking the same thing that we believe but in fact they have redefined the whole system. That's smuggling in heresy. It's a covert activity. It's a picture of someone who is creeping along under cover in order to bring damnation to people.
Now what is the motive? Why do these false teachers do this? Well Peter is very plain, very plain spoken about it. He says it is for personal advantage. He says many will follow their sensuality. These false teachers are motivated in the first place by sensual lusts. The word is used back in 1 Peter. Just look back there quick in chapter 4 verse 3.
He says, For the time already passed is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the gentiles, the desire of the gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, corrals, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. Peter says, You believers, time is already over for you to have lived like that and to carry out the desire of pagans, people who don't know God. Seen the course like the unsaved people of sensuality. The word refers to shameful ways.
That's how the NIV puts it. It's debased sexually immoral practices. Peter says that these false teachers are motivated in part at least by unbridled lust, just plain old raw lust. And through their manipulation of people by their teaching, they are able to accomplish this end. Secondly, he says that they are motivated by selfish desires. Sensual lusts and selfish desires. He says, In their greed they will exploit you. Greed. The desire to have and to possess overwhelms them.
And so they will exploit you, says Peter. The King James puts it, they will make merchandise of you, which is a great way to say it because the word is a commercial word. It means to commercially take something. They will exploit you commercially. That's how he says it. And what will they use to do this? False words. The word false here is a Greek word that we've brought into our English language and we say plastic. That's a Greek word.
So you see that Peter's being very plain about how the false teachers work. He says they mold their words. Their words are like plastic. They fit their words in order to use you and to exploit you. Edwin Bloom says, With fabricated stories they fleece the sheep. The point is that they make up stories, they use language, which will exploit the listener for their own personal advantage. Someone has defined this, well-turned words.
They are masters of deceit and manipulation by their language and the stories they come up with. And so you turn on Christian television talk programs and you hear about people who have died and gone to hell. And God lets them out of there and says, well you can go over to heaven for a while. And they go to heaven. Now God says, now you go back to earth and tell people what it's like. Plastic words so that they can exploit you.
The kinds of stories you hear in some of these talk programs are just unbelievable. The problem is too many people do believe them. They're deceived. And that's exactly what Peter warns about. He says, don't be deceived by people who are actually out for one thing. And that is for their own personal advantage. To exploit you as the people of God. Now a second work of these false teachers, not only do they deceive the people of God, they deny the Son of God.
Notice that he says that they deny the master who bought them. There are two crucial doctrines in those words. One is the doctrine of the deity of Christ. He says they deny the master. This is an unusual word. It's used only two times in the New Testament of Jesus. It is used here and in Jude verse 4. The word is despot, which to us in our language today has a negative connotation, but in that day it simply meant a sovereign Lord. So what they do is to deny the sovereign Lord.
They deny who Jesus is. They deny his deity that he is God come in the flesh. How do we know that Jesus is God come in the flesh? Well Peter has already explained to us in chapter 1 that there is fulfilled prophecy. There is the voice from heaven that gave testimony of him. In addition to that we can talk about his own claims to be the Son of God, the fact that he accepted worship of himself, that he was raised from the dead and by that openly declared to be the Son of God with power.
But the false teachers deny the master. They deny the sovereign Lord. Who bought them? The second doctrine is the atonement of Christ. They deny that. That we gather around the Lord's table to celebrate the atonement of Christ, his sacrifice. But those who are false teachers want nothing to do with it. It is interesting that Peter says that the master bought them too, these false teachers. That phrase has given Bible students lots of sleepless nights. What does this mean?
That the Lord bought them. This word bought is the word redeem. It means to buy in the marketplace. It is the same word that is used in other places of redeeming people who are God's chosen. It is hard really to force any other meaning upon this or any lesser meaning. What this probably is and I think is, is an argument for the sufficiency of Christ's atonement. That in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ there was sufficient merit even for those who deny him.
It is not that they are going to be saved. His atonement is only efficient for those who believe in him. But it is sufficient even for those who deny him as blatantly as do these false teachers. The denial of either of these doctrines, the deity of Christ or the blood atonement of Christ places one in the place of damnation. One cannot go to heaven. One cannot be saved and deny the deity of Christ or the blood atonement of Christ. They are essential fundamental doctrines of the Bible.
I was talking with a friend this last week who was involved in a church plant here in the Twin Cities somewhere. He told me that the pastor who is leading this new congregation made it very plain to him and other people who were up front in the church leading services that they were not to talk about the blood of Christ. He says it is offensive to people in our day. It is offensive to people in our day to talk about the blood of Christ. Don't talk about the blood of Christ.
That gives me shivers to hear someone whom I know to be an evangelical make a statement like that. Dear friends, there is no remission apart from the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true it may be misunderstood by some today and indeed it is offensive because it says very little about the worth of man. It doesn't exactly exalt man to talk about the necessity of a Savior who would die and shed his blood that they might be forgiven.
Let us never be ashamed to talk about the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would hope that God would close the doors of this place before we would ever say don't talk about the blood of Jesus. Those who are false teachers deny the deity of Jesus and deny his blood atonement. They may use the language but you investigate and you will find out somewhere there is a chink in their armor when it comes to those two doctrines.
The third work of the false teachers that we see in our text is that they defame the truth of God. They deceive the people of God. They deny the Son of God and they defame the truth of God. Peter says many will follow. We have to keep reminding ourselves because of the kind of a day we live in that popularity does not guarantee orthodoxy. The one who has the biggest bandwagon is not necessarily the one who is preaching the truth. Peter says many will follow these false teachers.
The biggest crowd is not necessarily evidence that one is preaching the truth of God. Turn over to 1 John chapter 4 for a second. Look at verse 5. A whole series of verses here regarding false prophets and the fact that we are to test them. Then in verse 5 John says, They these false prophets are from the world, the world system. Therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them.
The world loves its own prophets but woe be to those who follow just because the teacher has a big crowd. Peter says the way of truth will be maligned because of these false teachers. The way is an expression that describes our faith. It is used in Acts 9 and other places as an early name for the Christian faith. The way, the people of the way, it has been abused today by cults. But in those days it was a significant expression talking about the Christian faith being the way to God.
And here he says the way of truth will be maligned, evil spoken of, blasphemed because of these false teachers and their followers. What they do will be done in the name of Christ. And therefore the vices of these teachers will cause others to blaspheme God.
You think of the trials going on in Louisiana right now between television evangelists and the lewd accusations being thrown back and forth from either side regarding the sensual, lustful conduct of those men who claim to preach Jesus Christ. Makes you sick to your stomach. And I tell you the press and the media are having a heyday with this sort of thing. And the way of truth, the way of Jesus Christ is being blasphemed because of men like that. They defame the truth of God.
But as we think of that, let's just remember our own lives too. It's important how you and I live because we also, by our conduct, communicate something about Jesus. We do. And therefore let's do nothing ourselves that will bring blasphemy to the name of our wonderful Savior. False teachers have always been present among the people of God. They are sown, actually they are sown by Satan like tares among the wheat.
And our Lord tells us that we are to test the spirits, that is the words of these prophets, these teachers, we are to test them by the Word of God. And we are not to blush in appropriate times and ways even to name them as enemies of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I remind you that Paul was not embarrassed at all to name Hymenus, Alexander, and others who were false teachers in his day and their names are indelibly written forever in the Word of God. They are marked men.
And there are times when you and I also need to name those who are enemies of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in order to warn the people of God. We need to beware of false teachers. We need to check the teaching we hear by the Word of the Lord. We need to examine as much as we are able the motives of those who are proclaiming to us and we are to observe the lifestyles. Beware of false teaching, says Peter, because it will thwart your growth as a child of God.
It will take you on a side trip, a shuttle away from the way of truth. Beware of false teachers. We come tonight to the Lord's table to celebrate the Son of God and his sacrifice on our behalf. I would like for us to bow in closing prayer and then we will sing a chorus a cappella and then we will observe the Lord's table together.
Father, we need discernment in our day and I pray for that, that all of us may be discerning —not judgmental in the wrong way, but certainly discerning—so that we might not be led astray. I pray that we will become so acquainted with the truth that we will immediately sense when there is something false being presented. Remember us in our walk that we might not be tripped up by false teaching.
Lord we worship you tonight because you are the Master, the Sovereign One, who in truth has bought us with a precious price. We offer thanks to you for that. Let's sing together. He is Lord, He is Lord. He is risen from the dead, and He is Lord. Every need has a fault, every fault confesses. That Jesus Christ is Lord. And our Lord we offer thanks to you for your body, sacrificed on our behalf, broken, that we might be made whole.
As we partake of the bread tonight, we do so with gratitude, remembering. Amen. This that we hold in our hands represents the body of Jesus, which was broken for us. He said to us that we should eat of it in remembrance of Him. Let's share it together. Sing this chorus with me. Lord we thank you for that price that you paid, but nothing else could suffice.
Tonight we acknowledge our redemption, that we are not our own, but we are bought with a price, and we partake of this cup with gratitude, remembering. Amen. What a price He paid that we might enjoy a free salvation. The cup that we have in our hands represents the blood that Jesus shed for us, and by this He sealed the new covenant on our behalf. Let's drink it in remembrance of Him.
As we sing number 465, you may want to dispose of the cups and also prepare yourselves as the Lord leads you to participate in the benevolent offering. Someone will be at the door to receive that from you. Just the verse that talks about that day when we will see Him, the one whom we have worshiped and celebrated tonight, the one that we have remembered. We are told in the Bible that we observe this Lord's table until He comes, and there is a time when we will see Him face to face.
That's what Fanny Crosby wrote about in this hymn, 465. Stand with me as we sing the first verse of it.