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[0:00] To set the context for tonight's verses, let's first read 2 Peter 1 verses 16-21.

[0:18] ! These are verses that we covered three weeks ago. So again, 2 Peter 1 verses 16-21. Peter wrote, We talked then about how a Christian's faith does not rest on clever stories or myths, as did the doctrines of the false teachers that Peter is going to start attacking tonight.

[1:30] Instead, true faith is founded on the historical facts which eyewitnesses corroborated. When Peter wrote this letter, some already were questioning Peter's eyewitness account.

[1:42] As compelling as the eyewitness testimony is, Peter said that his readers, including us, have something even better to validate our faith and the truth about Christ.

[1:52] Peter's reply to those who would question the validity of his experiences is that believers have an even better source, and that's the prophetic word more fully confirmed, as he put it, which is the Word of God.

[2:05] So Peter is telling us to check everything he says and any teacher says against what the Scriptures themselves say. The Jews always preferred prophecy to the voice from heaven, and the apostles did too.

[2:21] For the apostles, it's hard to overemphasize their regard for the Old Testament. One of the apostles' most powerful arguments for the truth of Christianity was to argue from prophecy.

[2:32] We've seen that in Acts with Pastor Mike. We also see it in Romans. We'll see it in 1 Peter 2, and even the whole of Hebrews and Revelation, because in the Word of God written, they sought absolute assurance.

[2:44] And remember what Jesus did whenever he was confronted with the temptation in the wilderness. He preferenced every answer with, it is written. So Jesus himself relied on the Word when he sought to resist the temptations of the devil.

[3:01] And as we get into 2 Peter 2 tonight, we'll see why Peter spent time reminding his readers of his credibility, but then also urged them to check what he said against the Scriptures, because Peter was showing his readers why they could be certain that his teaching was true.

[3:16] So tonight, we'll just barely get into chapter 2. We'll cover verses 1 through 3. So let's go ahead and read those verses. Again, this is 2 Peter 2, verses 1 through 3.

[3:29] 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.

[3:43] 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.

[4:00] When we started 2 Peter several weeks ago, we said that Peter wrote this letter to combat the influence of false teachers within the church. Until now, Peter has never directly talked about these false teachers.

[4:14] We've already discussed how Peter reaffirmed his eyewitness testimony, and showed us that we have something even more authoritative than that. But let's take a couple of minutes now, and just remind ourselves about what else we saw in chapter 1.

[4:28] In 2 Peter 1, verses 3 and 4, we saw that Christ has given believers everything they need for life and godliness, and has called them by His powerful grace.

[4:40] And such grace serves as an incentive for a godly life of virtue, that's summarized in verses 5 through 7. This life of godliness is necessary for entering the eternal kingdom, and we saw that in verses 8 through 11.

[4:55] And we also talked about that such a godly life does not earn salvation, but instead it gives evidence that the people are already saved. But it also is the human means by which salvation is realized.

[5:08] And then in verses 12 through 15, Peter was compelled to remind us of all of these facts. So once again, Peter asked all Christians to keep remembering the core of the gospel.

[5:19] It's very easy in Christian life, especially if there are some false teachers around, to move away from the root of the faith. And we must remember the core of the faith, so that we can recognize the teachers who seek to mislead us.

[5:33] On Sunday nights, we're being reminded of the core of the gospel during the Three Circles training, and we also see it during the Philippians study on Sunday mornings. And the core of the gospel is that Jesus, who is fully God, came to earth as a man.

[5:47] He died on the cross for our sins. He rose again, proving that God accepted his sacrifice, and then God the Father exalted him as Lord. And then, of course, we know that one day he's coming back.

[6:00] And we'll see from the verses tonight how the false teacher's message differs from the gospel core. Verses 1 through 3 split nicely into three sections, and so we'll see the characteristics of false teachers from here.

[6:14] And starting with verse 1, we see their abomination. Their abomination is your first blank. Let's go ahead and read verse 1 again.

[6:28] Peter said, But false teachers 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.

[6:42] We'll spend most of our time tonight on this verse, and we'll look at it phrase by phrase. So we'll start with, But false prophets also arose among the people.

[6:55] Notice that the phrase is in the past tense. And because of that, we need to ask ourselves to what people in the past Peter was referring. And the answer is Old Testament Israel.

[7:07] So we know that he's talking about Old Testament Israel from two different ways. First, if you scan the verses that we won't cover tonight, you'll see that Peter uses Old Testament examples in the verses that follow verse 3.

[7:25] He talks about Noah in verse 5. He mentions Sodom and Gomorrah in verse 6. Verse 7 talks about Lot. And verse 15 talks about Balaam.

[7:38] And the second way we know that Peter is referring to Old Testament Israel is because throughout the Old Testament, Israel consistently is called the people. The same wording that Peter uses in that first phrase.

[7:52] Here are just a few examples of that. Matthew 2.4 is a reference when Herod was talking to the religious leaders about the birthplace of the Messiah.

[8:03] And the verse says, And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So you see that carries over into the New Testament as well.

[8:16] And continuing on with another New Testament example, Luke 22.66 starts the account of Jesus' trial before the council. And the first sentence of that verse says, When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes.

[8:36] And then later on in Acts, Paul said these words to the people of Antioch in Acts 13.17. He said, The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt.

[8:50] And with uplifted arm, he led them out of it. So these verses and others clearly show that in both the Old and the New Testament, when Scripture uses the term the people, the term refers to Old Testament Israel.

[9:06] We know that throughout history, spiritual mercenaries have always plagued God's flock. Even in Old Testament times, they arose among the people of Israel and they spread their deceptions and caused devastation.

[9:19] You see from your handout, just a few of the cross references to false prophets in the Old Testament. We'll skip looking at those cross references, but the verses in 1 Kings, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are just some that show how common the false prophets were even in the Old Testament times.

[9:37] So let's add the next clause to our verse in 2 Peter. So again, the first verse of chapter 2 starts out, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.

[9:52] So just as God's prophets of the past were opposed by false prophets, believers are also going to be opposed by false teachers. And the difference in terminology there suggests that the false teachers among Peter's readers made no claim to being prophets, but they were actually just distorting the scriptures with their heretical interpretations.

[10:13] And even during Jesus' ministry, false prophets were a serious problem for the Jewish people. For that matter, the entire religious establishment was corrupt in Jesus' day, and the Pharisees provided the chief example of false religion.

[10:32] So Peter is telling his readers that we've seen false teachers before, and we can expect to continue to see them. So let's keep building 2 Peter 2.1 now.

[10:45] Adding the third clause, he says, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies.

[10:57] So how successful do you think the false teachers would be if they stood up in front of a church and said, Hi, I'm a false teacher, and I'm here to destroy you. And chances are, we would realize that they're a false teacher if somebody stood up and admitted to being a false teacher.

[11:14] But we know that false teachers are going to subvert the truth by bringing in destructive heresies under the covers. So these heresies will be contrary to what Christ and the apostles laid down as the foundational doctrine, and they'll result in spiritual ruin rather than spiritual life.

[11:32] So are you starting to understand why Peter took all of chapter 1 to remind us about the foundational truths of the faith? We've mentioned it already, but it's worth saying again.

[11:44] Knowing the foundational doctrines taught by the apostles and documented in God's Word keeps us from being hoodwinked by the secret destructive heresies. So now we're ready to add the next phrase of verse 1, and that next phrase is even denying the master who bought them.

[12:02] Until now, the verse has been easy to understand. The phrase we just added, even denying the master who bought them, is one of the most debated phrases in all of the Bible.

[12:16] Some try to teach that the verse is proof that people can lose their salvation, but we can disprove that in several ways, and we'll do that as we dig into the phrase. But keep this thought in mind, in other passages, the Bible is clear that when someone is truly saved, that person can never lose his or her salvation.

[12:37] And here are just a few verses to emphasize that. We've seen this a lot on Sunday mornings. It's Philippians 1.6. Paul wrote, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

[12:53] And then in John 10, verses 27 through 30, Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

[13:09] My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. So the picture here is that Jesus has all true believers firmly in his hand, and then the Father wraps his hand, metaphorically speaking, firmly around Jesus' hand.

[13:30] So that makes the believers doubly secure. So you might be thinking right now, that's well and good, but then what does the phrase in 2 Peter 2.1 really mean?

[13:41] We'll talk about a couple of possible interpretations, and we'll spend quite a bit of time on the more likely one. One interpretation is that the phrase could be better understood as denying the Master who they say bought them.

[13:57] We know that 1 John 2.19 is often used as a cross-reference to support this view, and 1 John 2.19 says, They went out from us, but they were not of us.

[14:09] For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain, that they are all not of us. And we know that every church has people who falsely claim to be followers of Christ.

[14:24] And these people eventually will be exposed as lacking true faith. But our problem phrase in the verse tonight simply says that the false teachers are denying the Master who bought them.

[14:35] You know, if Peter really wanted to say that false teachers were denying the Master who they claimed bought them, we can assume that he probably would have said it. Because we've seen all throughout the New Testament just how plain-spoken Peter was.

[14:49] So here's the better explanation of what Peter means when he talks about denying the Master who bought them. And that is this. The phrase has nothing to do with salvation.

[15:01] So that's what goes in there. Your phrase, or your blank, is the phrase has nothing to do with salvation. So let's talk about why we can be confident of that.

[15:13] The Greek word translated Lord there is not the usual one for Lord. It's a word that designates earthly masters of slaves in several texts, or it emphasizes God's lordship over people in general.

[15:29] It's used about 30 times in all of Scripture, 20 times in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, and then 10 times in the New Testament. But never does it refer to the Father or the Son as mediator or redeemer unless 2 Peter 2.1 is the exception.

[15:48] The other key word in the phrase is the word translated as bought. And this word is used some 30 times in the New Testament. 24 of the uses are either a literal or a metaphorical usage where it doesn't refer to redemption, and it's clear that it doesn't refer to redemption there.

[16:09] But it's used five times where you really do have redemption in mind, and so this leaves 2 Peter 2.1 as the only debatable text. So the majority of references in the New Testament aren't talking about salvation.

[16:24] In other words, the objects being bought or purchased are impersonal or material items such as land, oxen, food, etc. And of course, these things don't require salvation.

[16:35] And here's just one example where the word is used in a non-redemptive context. It's Matthew 21.12 where Jesus cleansed the temple. It says, And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

[16:58] So bought in that verse is the same word translated as bought in 2 Peter 2.1. And from that and 23 other examples, we can see that the word usually refers to buying something other than salvation.

[17:13] But let's look at the five examples where the word clearly does refer to salvation. The first comes in 1 Corinthians 6.20. So here's what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6.19 and 20.

[17:28] He said, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own for you are bought with a price.

[17:38] So glorify God in your body. So you can hear from verse 20 where Paul tells the Corinthians that they were bought with a price.

[17:50] And the next example also comes from 1 Corinthians. It's chapter 7 verse 23. And Paul says, You were bought with a price. Do not become bond servants of men.

[18:01] So notice again how Paul says that the people were bought with a price. Revelation has the other three examples where the word translated as bought is used in a redemptive context.

[18:15] This is Revelation 5.9 where the elders are singing a song about Jesus. And that verse says in Revelation 5.9, And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

[18:38] So here that same word is translated as ransomed. But notice that Revelation 5.9 is clear that the people who were ransomed were bought by Jesus' blood.

[18:49] So again, that's talking about a price of their redemption. And the remaining two verses where that word is used in a redemptive context coming back-to-back verses.

[19:00] And they are Revelation 14.3 and 4. And in these verses it's talking about the 144,000 chosen from Israel. And these people are singing a song about Jesus here.

[19:14] And Revelation 14.3 and 4 say, And they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.

[19:29] It is these who have not defiled themselves with women for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb.

[19:43] So you can probably guess in these verses the word translated bought in 2 Peter 2.1 is the word translated redeemed twice here. And this time the price is implied and again the implied price is the blood of the Lamb.

[19:59] And a gentleman named Gary Long said this, he said, Of its 30 occurrences in the New Testament, the word that's translated as bought here in 2 Peter 2.1 is never used in a salvation context without the technical term price or its equivalent being stated or made explicit in the text.

[20:20] And that's important because in 2 Peter 2.1 Peter makes no reference to a price being paid. And so because of that, that's why we can conclude that 2 Peter has no redemptive context in mind.

[20:33] But we've talked a lot about what the phrase doesn't mean. We still haven't talked about what the phrase does mean. And at least two options are supported by Scripture.

[20:44] One is the sense that God is the sovereign ruler of all people regardless of whether they acknowledge that or not. And Peter wrote that about, he wrote about that in 1 Peter.

[20:56] And the readers of 2 Peter would have been familiar with that letter. Listen to what he put in 1 Peter 4.5. Speaking of the unsaved, he wrote, that they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

[21:13] Unsaved people clearly deny that God is the master of their destiny. But that doesn't change the fact that he still will be the one who judges them in the end.

[21:25] And the second viable explanation here, and the one that seems most likely, is that Peter again is referring to the nation of Israel. And he's going back to an Old Testament reference there.

[21:37] And Wayne Grudem makes a good case that Peter is referring to the Exodus in 2 Peter 2.1. Because in the Old Testament, the whole nation of Israel, and even the false teachers in it, was considered to have been bought by God in the Exodus from Egypt.

[21:55] So, through this deliverance, God bought the nation of Israel, and thus Israel rightly belonged to God as his peculiar people. And we see that in Deuteronomy 32.6, which is likely the passage that Peter is alluding to.

[22:09] So, here is Deuteronomy 32.6. And that's where Moses was criticizing the corruption among the Israelites. And he said, Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people?

[22:21] Is he not your Father who created you, who made you, and established you? So, we've spent a lot of time on this section of 2 Peter 2.1 to show why we can be confident that the phrase has nothing to do with losing salvation.

[22:37] And, of course, remember our earlier lessons in 2 Peter. We saw that eternal security is one of the precious and very great promises that all believers have.

[22:48] We still have one more clause of that first verse to review, and it's a lot easier to understand. So, here's verse 1 in its entirety. Again, Peter wrote, 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, so those who introduce false teaching and deny the Lord Jesus Christ will bring swift destruction on themselves.

[23:21] And Peter used the same word for destruction there that was appended to the word heresies earlier in the verse. And this word is a common word in the New Testament for the ultimate punishment to come after the judgment.

[23:33] And this horrible fate comes either at death or at Christ's return, and it awaits all the false teachers and everybody else who is unrepentant. false teachers and the false prophets and how they sneak into the church, teach heresies, and deny the Lord.

[23:52] In verse 2, in the first sentence of verse 3, we see their motivation. Their motivation. And Peter makes it very clear in this verse.

[24:06] False teachers are motivated by sensuality and greed. So those are your next blanks. False teachers are motivated by sensuality and greed. Listen to the text again.

[24:18] Again, this is verse 2 and then the first sentence of verse 3. 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.

[24:32] The Bible is clear that many more people follow the broad way that leads to destruction than those that adhere to the narrow way that leads to life.

[24:43] And in part, we have to give the false teachers credit because they're successful at what they try to do. The false teachers are good at ushering people onto the broad way and encouraging them to never look back.

[24:57] You know, they give a message of independence, personal freedom, and self-exaltation that's inherently appealing to all human hearts. I mean, who wouldn't want that? But as we've seen, that's not what the Bible says Christians are called to do.

[25:12] Just think about our time in Philippians where it talks about those who humble themselves will be exalted. So people, though, would rather serve themselves than submit to Christ.

[25:24] And that's why the false teachers were so successful in Peter's day. And that's why they're so successful in our day, too. The word translated sensuality there is a strong word referring to habitual sexual immorality and unrestrained debauched conduct.

[25:41] He actually used the plural form of the word there. And he emphasized by using that plural form in the original Greek that the false teachers' lewdness came in many forms and extremes.

[25:53] Because they had rejected the lordship of Christ, their lives were characterized by unrestrained indulgence and lawlessness. They intentionally refused to place any restraints on their desires.

[26:07] And their behavior even caused Jude in his letter to compare their sins with those of Sodom and Gomorrah. Here are just a couple of verses from Jude.

[26:17] It's Jude 4 and then Jude 7. Jude wrote, For certain people have crept in unnoticed. Does that sound familiar that they've crept in unnoticed? Certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for condemnation.

[26:32] Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. That was Jude 4. And then here's Jude 7.

[26:43] He said, Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

[26:59] So you see it's pretty clear there that they were motivated by sensuality. But we also said that they were motivated by greed.

[27:09] But before we get to that part just look at the end of 2 Peter 2.2. It tells us the results of the false teacher's conduct. It says, Because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.

[27:22] So what do you think he's talking about when he's talking about the way of truth there? Well, he's actually talking about the gospel. It's just another way of saying the gospel.

[27:36] And Peter's main point was that the gospel would be maligned because of the impact of the false teachers. He was saying that when unbelievers see the moral effect produced by the opponents in their lives of their followers, they will conclude that what they say is the way of truth really is a way of error.

[27:53] And they will think that any message that leads to unrestrained immoral behavior cannot be from God. Moving on to the first sentence of verse 3, that's where Peter mentions the greed of the false teachers.

[28:06] And he says, And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. We've seen Peter reference that a little bit in his letter already back in 116 that we read earlier because the false teachers apparently had accused Peter and the other apostles of following cleverly invented stories or myths.

[28:26] The reality is the opposite. The false teachers have themselves exploited people and created myths and drawn from them with stories that they made up.

[28:37] And so no doubt they had asked those who followed them for financial support in their so-called ministries too. It's interesting, isn't it, that the people who are false teachers try to accuse the true teachers of doing the same things that they do?

[28:52] But to accomplish their materialistic goals, false teachers will exploit people with what Peter calls false words. And exploit their means to traffic in or to realize gain from.

[29:05] And such false teachers want to get rich from people to whom they minister. Although they claim to serve others, they're only interested in serving themselves using false words to enrich their own pockets.

[29:18] And it's kind of interesting there too because the English word plastic is derived from the term translated as false in that verse. Plastic originally had the connotation of something not completely authentic.

[29:33] And if you think about it, plastic items often look a lot like they're manufactured from another substance like wood, metal, or china. And at first glance, that plastic deceives consumers.

[29:44] And in a similar way, false teachers deal in phony doctrine and they can, at first glance, deceive their flock as well. But when you really dig into it, their theology is not really based on biblical truth, but it's only molded like plastic by false reasoning to appear genuine.

[30:02] So we've talked about the false teachers abomination and their motivation. In the last sentence of tonight's passage, we'll see the third thing about the false teachers and Peter tells us about their condemnation.

[30:16] So their condemnation is your next blink. Look at the last sentence of verse 3. It says, Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep.

[30:30] You can see I spent a long time coming up with the heading for that section. But just in case we missed it in verse 1 when Peter told us about the false teachers swift destruction, he drives home the point here in verse 3.

[30:47] False teachers may not face eternal judgment until their death, but their sentence was decreed from God from long ago. And the phrase from long ago translates one word which simply means from a long time.

[31:02] So throughout history from the very pronouncement of judgment on the serpent in the Garden of Eden, God has condemned all of those who distort divine truth. Notice it talks about their destruction not being idle and that strengthens the sobering reality of divine retribution.

[31:19] God's sentence for every lying teacher is that the teacher is actively accumulating wrath until the day that each one perishes in hell. So this should really be a sobering verse.

[31:33] And when Peter talks about the destruction not being asleep, he's really personifying the damnation as if it were an executioner who remains fully awake, ready to administer God's sentence of condemnation on those who falsify God's word.

[31:48] So as we've looked at these three verses that were written almost 2,000 years ago, we can easily see that Peter could have written these words about our society today.

[32:00] Did you think maybe about some false teachers that we have today as we were going through these verses? How they mislead people with sensuality and greed and how they get money from their flock?

[32:11] Well, let's talk a little bit about how then we can guard against false teachers today. And I took these words from Paul Gardner. He promised or summarized three things, I mean, that we should keep in mind.

[32:23] First, we need to remember that there's a difference between slight variations of teaching and destructive variants. Peter's not denying the right of Christians to disagree over matters of interpretation because we know we're not infallible interpreters of the word.

[32:39] But we have the infallible word of God that fallible Christians are called to interpret and apply as best we can. So we'll no doubt get some things wrong, but the guide for deciding what is to be right is Scripture itself.

[32:53] So any interpreter must think that he or she is not infallible. He must look to the Bible and must be humble before the word of God and desire to seek an understanding that's true and accurate as best as he or she can do.

[33:08] And the point is clear. There's a real need in the church today to see what fundamentally challenges the truth of Scripture and then to see those challenges as false. The second thing he warns us about is that there's a general naivete among many Christians that somehow false teachers will be easily recognized.

[33:28] We talked about this a little already, but Peter is adamant that these false teachers never announce themselves as imposters. And of course, to even think that somebody would do that sounds silly because if they did, they would quickly get thrown out in most churches.

[33:44] But people are easily conned by those who have an appearance of godliness, especially if they appear to be loving and caring. And maybe they want to show off their so-called spiritual gifts for all to see and maybe they're really smooth in how they talk to the people.

[34:00] But one way or another, they find a way to worm their way into the church and they secretly introduce falsehood. So really, what Peter is telling us is that it's time for the church to wake up again.

[34:10] So there's no doubt that many sections of the church at large have been wooed away from biblical truth. And some churches even say that this truth is a bit too heavy or dictatorial.

[34:23] And those people and churches even lack godliness and at worst cases, they thoroughly ignore God's word in their worship services. And that's why we need to focus so much on God's word in our worship services.

[34:37] The third thing he cautions us is that we need to be aware that new spiritualities and sex are rearing their heads every few weeks in our day and age. Some are really easy to notice and reject.

[34:50] Others are more secretly introduced. And they seem fair enough and they even have attractive qualities and they even look close enough to biblical faith that people fail to see the problem with them.

[35:02] And closely linked to this teaching by many Christian teachers or so-called Christian teachers is a better way to put it is that many ways lead to God even if Jesus is the best way.

[35:14] But when these teachings are carefully put in the term of love of God for his people and a non-judgmental Jesus who loves everyone, it's fairly easy to see why many people can be duped by this kind of teaching.

[35:30] So it becomes clear that false teachers in the church find an easy, fertile ground in which to flourish and we need to make sure we learn from what Peter is teaching us. And other apostles have warned about false teachers and the need to guard against them.

[35:46] Listen to what Paul said to the Ephesian elders in his farewell speech to them. This is Acts 20 verses 28 through 32. He said, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood.

[36:06] I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own cells will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

[36:21] Therefore be alert remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears and now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

[36:37] So let's just recap here for a second. How do we resist the false teachers and their destructive influence? Well Peter says or Paul says here that we rely on God and the word of his grace and that matches what Peter taught us in 2 Peter 1.

[36:53] We rely on God and his grace by understanding our salvation by making our calling and election sure and then by testing all teaching against scripture and once we do that then we trust God for his promised judgment on the false teachers.

[37:09] In the last two verses of Jude's letter Jude also reminds us of what God the Father and Jesus do for true believers. They safely guard all believers until the end so we should be cautious and test all teaching against scripture but we should also be joyful because we know how everything will turn out and these verses are Jude 24 and 25 and Jude wrote now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time now and forever.

[37:51] So you see from that that Jesus is able to keep us from stumbling and still present us blameless and that's reason to be thankful.

[38:03] So with that let's go ahead and close in prayer. Father, we thank you for this warning from Peter tonight but we also thank you that we can be confident that if we compare everything against the teaching of your word we can recognize the false teachers and they ultimately will have no permanent influence over us.

[38:26] Help us be cautious but also help us be joyful that you will protect us and keep us strong. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you.