The Lord Knows How to Rescue, 2 Peter 2:1-12 (July 17, 2016)

The Lord Knows How to Rescue, 2 Peter 2:1-12 (July 17, 2016) 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. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 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 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 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; 6 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; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 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, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 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 PRAY We are working our way through 2 Peter this summer and if I were looking for an occasion to give a hellfire and brimstone sermon, then 2 Peter gives you lots of chances for that. All through chapter two Peter tees preachers up perfectly to just go to town and yell at their people. One pastor I know compared 2 Peter to those old drivers education movies they d make you watch before you got your license (I don t know if they still make you watch those movies). Movies with titles like Blood on the Highway. Their purpose was to scare kids into being good drivers before they ever got behind the wheel. And so you read 2 Peter with all its warnings and grim descriptions of judgment, and it s easy to think that s what Peter is doing, as well. Peter s letter does contain warnings, but his message is more redemptive and hopeful than that. Peter wants to write the churches about a particular threat to their well-being: the threat of heresy. Heresy is another word for false teaching; heretical teaching is a message that goes against what the Bible says. Three things: first, why heresy is so destructive. Second, how to spot those who would teach heresy. Third, how God will preserve you through false teaching. 2016 J.D. Shaw 1

First, why heresy is so destructive. I can imagine someone here this morning, especially if you re new to or skeptical of Christianity, thinking, If I wasn t tempted to tune out of the sermon today because of the tone of the passage, I am now that I know the topic. I mean, heresy? That s so antiquated. It makes me think of witch trials and inquisitions and burning people at the stake. Why in the world should I listen to a sermon on that? Aren t we past all that? Actually, no not in Christian doctrine, not in the church, and not even in our culture today. Every society and culture has certain teachings, certain ideas, that, for them, are heretical. For example, if you have a high-profile in our world a politician, a successful business person, or even a sportscaster on ESPN and you tweet the wrong thing, you say the wrong thing about same-sex relationships, there will be a social media campaign organized within minutes, with thousands of people participating with one goal: to burn you at the stake! The burning will be metaphorical, I hope, but it will happen. Why? You spoke heresy you propagated false teaching. Our culture has a certain narrative to it, and part of our cultural narrative includes the idea that sex isn t just for one man and one woman inside of marriage anymore. And to speak against that new cultural norm is heresy, it is unacceptable, and you will be punished for it. So heresy is not some antiquated topic we see new examples of people in our culture punished for heresy almost every single week. Heresies are everywhere. Now, why are people so quick to point out and punish heresy in our culture today? Ironically, because they believe exactly what Peter believes about heresies: that they are destructive. 2 Peter 2:1: But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies Heresies aren t neutral. When false teaching is tolerated, it doesn t just sit there, inert. No, heresy goes to work and is incredibly destructive. The only way to live a life that is healthy, that has the minimum amount of stress and the maximum amount of peace and joy and happiness, is to live a life in accordance with the truth. In our culture today, we are told that sex is just an appetite, it is unhealthy for an adult to suppress that appetite, so basically we should allow and even encourage consenting adults to engage in sexual activity whenever and however they feel like it. So any teaching to the contrary, like the Christian teaching that sex is only for a man and a woman inside of marriage, must be pointed out, ridiculed, and, if possible, punished because it is viewed by our culture as absolutely opposed to the happiness and well-being of everyone. So, back to our text for today, what was the heresy Peter was so determined to warn his churches about? Read all of verse 1: 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 2016 J.D. Shaw 2

destruction. 2 Peter 2:1. The heresy is denying the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Denying, specifically, that you were bought by Jesus Christ. What does that mean? The Bible says that in Jesus Christ, the creator God, the God who designed us, became a man. He lived a perfect life, in perfect accord with God s design for human beings. He never did anything contrary to the truth. And we needed Jesus to come, because we are sinners. We haven t lived in accordance to the truth. And here s the thing about the relationship between sin and the truth: you can t just hop into and out of living according to the truth. You can t dabble in sin for a while and then design to go back to living in perfect accord to the truth. No, once you ve sinned, you re a slave to it. Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. John 8:34. And of course slavery to sin is incredibly destructive. So God had to come and redeem you from your slavery to sin. He had to purchase you out of sin, break the power of sin over you. And he did it through Jesus Christ. Jesus lived the perfect life in according with the truth that you needed to live, and on the cross he died the death that comes as a result of living as slave to sin (though he himself never sinned), and if you trust that Jesus did that for you, that he bought you out of your slavery to sin, then you can live according to the truth, and you know what Jesus said about the truth. 31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:31-32. And if you don t believe that, if you refuse to believe that Jesus sought you and bought you, then you re inviting destruction in your life. You re not living in accord with the truth, so of course destruction will follow. You say, How? How can refusing to believe in Jesus bring destruction? Here we go. I ll just give you one example. In Deuteronomy 15, we read that in ancient Israel there was a law that every seven years all debts were cancelled. No matter how much money you borrowed over the course of six years, in the seventh year all debts were forgiven. And everyone says, That s my kind of religion! Sign me up for that I can live with that. God even goes so far as to say this: Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, The seventh year, the year of release is near, and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin. 10 You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Deuteronomy 15:9-10. See, God knew how tempting would be in year six to say to yourself, I can t afford to lend any money this year, I ll just lose it next year. So he specially says not to do that. How could anyone be that generous? Deuteronomy 10:18-19: He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 2016 J.D. Shaw 3

19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. The only way people in Israel could be that generous with their money is by remembering that God had bought them, redeemed them, out of slavery in Egypt. Only when you see how generous God has been with you, can you then feel like you can afford to be radically generous to others. But two chapters earlier, chapter 13, and two chapters later, chapter 17, God says that if a false prophet rises in Israel and begins to spread heresy, you cannot tolerate him. In fact, in ancient Israel, you had to kill them. So, we love the parts of the Bible that talk about generosity but we hate the parts of the Bible that talk about punishing heresy (or we think they re too harsh). But don t you see? You can t have one without the other. The only way anyone could be radically generous loan someone money knowing full well that in a year the debt would be cancelled is by believing and trusting the God who bought them! But if you start believing the heresy, that Jesus did not come to buy you, then you won t be generous. Is there anyone here today who doesn t want to be a generous person? Is there someone here today who wants to be greedy and selfish? You cannot be a radically generous person without first living in accordance with the truth, that you have been bought, you have been purchased, with the radically generosity of God through the blood of Jesus Christ. Who doesn t want to be a generous person? Who doesn t want to be a person of integrity and honesty? Who doesn t want to be completely faithful to their spouse? It s all possible through the gospel of Jesus Christ, but heresies, precisely because they work against all those great things, are incredibly destructive. Therefore, we must be on the lookout for them, and those who teach them. We must be on the lookout for false teachers. Not to kill them this is not ancient Israel, the church and the state are separate, so there s no more death penalty for heresy. But we still need to spot them and make sure they are not influencing our lives and the lives of those whom we love. Second, how to spot those who teach heresy. Peter says in verse 1 there will be false teachers among you. In Matthew 7:15, Jesus says, Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Because they are in sheep s clothing, we can be sure they will be hard to spot. Unfortunately, they don t show up with a sign around their neck that says, Yo! I m a false teacher. No, they are in sheep s clothing, so outwardly they look like everyone else. Often they are not selfconsciously hypocritical people, but they sincerely believe they are teaching and doing the right thing, helping people. Peter is not warning Christians here against the teaching of cult leaders or of other world religions. Those aren t wolves in sheep s clothing. If a teaching comes from a cult or a different religion, then Peter would say, Of course, you don t listen to them. He s not 2016 J.D. Shaw 4

warning you against the teaching of the imam at the local mosque. He s not warning you against all the weirdos on television. He would say, Of course you can t trust their teaching without reservation. It s not that there isn t some wisdom in other faiths of course not. Christians aren t bigoted. We know that all truth is God s truth. But Peter would say, Of course you don t go and undiscriminatingly listen to a teacher of another faith. Peter is warning us against false teaching in the church. One implication: as a Christian, you can t associate yourself in such a way so as to provide absolute protection from false teachers. No denomination of Christians is absolutely safe. No church is absolutely safe. No method of educating your children is absolutely safe. False teachers can show up in even the best organized and policed assembly of Christians. You say, Well, that may be a problem at some churches but not at my church. Some of you may even be thinking, That may be a problem at some churches but not at Grace. If you think that, thank you for the vote of confidence, but you re wrong. Who was in charge of the churches Peter was writing to? Peter! This was the church in its apostolic purity, and these Christians had Peter, the Rock, as their leader! Yet heresy still crept into the church. Now, I m sorry, no matter how wonderful you may think the leadership at Grace is, if Peter couldn t say, Meh, you don t have to worry about false teachers, I don t think we can either. It can pop up anywhere. In 2 Timothy 2, Paul writes Timothy and says this: But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 2 Timothy 2:16-18. Paul started the church in Ephesus, he handed it off to Timothy, Paul is still alive, but already two false teachers that Paul knows by name have popped up in one of his churches. Therefore, we can never just coast as Christians there is no way to guarantee, even in the best churches with the best leaders, that false teaching won t pop up. So, what do we do? First, we must all, individually, be like Bereans. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Acts 17:10-11. All of us, as believers, all, individually, priests of the new covenant. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. So we have the ability and the obligation to search the Scriptures and make sure we know, for ourselves, right teaching and doctrine. Christian theology is not something only those with doctorates can understand. All Christians can, like the Bereans, learn for themselves and know the truth. 2016 J.D. Shaw 5

Second, you can learn to spot those who teach heresy by their lack of interest in teaching the Bible. Look at verse 3 we read there about false words. A better way to translate that might be stories they have made up. So, one thing that marks false teachers are the stories they tell. False teachers often have much to say about themselves, or their ministries, or about new truths they ve discovered that may or may not come from the Bible, or sometimes they just get up on a Sunday morning and just tell stories about anything. Some of these stories are great, encouraging, uplifting, convicting, others not so much. Some of you grew up in churches like that. These may not be bad people, they may not self-consciously trying to lead their people astray, but if they get up week after week and seem interested in talking about anything other than the Bible, that s one mark of a false teacher. You can learn to spot false teachers by their lives. One common thread in our passage for this morning is sexual sin. In verse two, we read about the sensuality, the sexual sin, of false teachers. In verse four, we read about the angels who sinned that s a reference to Genesis 6, where angels came down from heaven and had sex with human women. And if you say, Wow, I d like to hear more about that, well you ll have to wait until I preach on Genesis 6 which may never happen. In verses six and seven, we read about Sodom and Gomorrah, and if you know anything about those towns you know the men there were completely given over to this type of sin. It s all of a piece, a warning that often the lives of false teachers are known for their sin. Paul tells Timothy, Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching [or life and doctrine]. 1 Timothy 4:16. Ministers are called to watch their lives and be an example for the churches, and so it s also true that you should watch the lives of your ministers. One implication of this is that you probably a good idea to be in a church where you can actually get to know those who teach you, or at least some of them, you can see them with their wives, their children, with other people and see if the fruit of their lives matches the doctrine. You can learn to spot false teachers by their love of money. In verse 3, Peter says false teachers will seek to exploit you. I don t think I have to tell you this is still a problem today, that many, many people get into the ministry because you can use it to get rich. 99.9% of ministers do not get rich, but there are those and you probably know some of their names who have gotten extremely wealthy. It s called fleecing the sheep. These are all ways to spot false teachers, but you can take these things too far. I once had someone email me complaining about my salary. She d gone online and seen our church s budget and seen how much I make, and she said that she believed I was in it for the money and that ministers should not take a salary from the church. That s going too far. Just because a pastor makes money doesn t automatically make him into one who is exploiting you. And just because you should be able to have some insight into the character of your pastors doesn t mean the pastor can be best friends with everyone. And 2016 J.D. Shaw 6

just because the pastor didn t exegete the text with the care you would have liked him to doesn t make him a false teacher who is just up there making up stories. These things can be taken too far, but still they are helpful guides for spotting those who would lead you astray through heresy. Third, how God will preserve you from false teaching even through trials. Peter gives two examples of men who stood firm against false teaching Noah and Lot and then he writes this in verse 9: the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. Now, put yourself in their shoes. Peter says Noah is a preacher of righteousness, and he was he was literally the only man in the world who was preaching the gospel. And not only was he being ignored by everyone around him, he was building this ark on the land, with no water in sight. So you know everyone ridiculed him, and said, Noah, you are a religious nut who would ever listen to you. Lot, if you know the story, had all the men in his town trying to sexually assault his houseguests. Now, can you imagine how all alone they felt? You just know that, at least once or twice, they had to think, There s no way God is going to get me through this. You know what that is? That s a false teaching, brought about by a trial. Sooner or later you will feel that way, too, if you haven t already. You will go through some trial in your life and you will think, There s no way God is going to get me through this. Now, I m not saying you ll go through trials like Noah and Lot. Praise God, you won t. On a scale of disasters that can befall God s people, rated from one to ten, those trials were tens. Being the only man left in the world who is faithful to God, preaching the gospel while building the ark on dry land that s a ten. Having a thousand men trying to break down your door to rape your houseguests that s a ten. You ll never go through trials like that, you ll probably never experience a ten but you ll experience about a million twos. And it s the twos that will get you. For example, this past week I ve had all four of our kids to myself. My wife is on the Honduras mission trip, so I ve had to take care of everything around the house all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the washing, all the shuttling the kids around and go to work. Now, I always do lots and lots of working around the house I just usually have Mimi to help me a little bit. Like all you husbands, I do most of the work around the house. I can say that because she s out of the county, and you won t tell her. Everything s going as well as it can under these circumstances and then, Friday night, my youngest daughter starts screaming on the trampoline. I go out there and she says, I think my arm is broken. She s said that before, so I bring her in and I say, Well, let s just see if this gets better. But after ten minutes, fifteen, twenty minutes, she s still sobbing uncontrollably. And I know we re in trouble when I say, Do you want to get some ice cream? and she says, I want to go to the ER! Little did she know I was planning on finishing my sermon that night, but I can t. So, we go to the ER, and sure enough, she s broken both bones in her right forearm. 2016 J.D. Shaw 7

So, I m sitting there looking at the x-ray, and I m thinking, This is a disaster. The one time in a decade Mimi goes out of the country, we get the first broken bones ever in our family. And you know what I was really tempted to feel at a heart level? God isn t going to get me through this. What s that? That s false teaching! That s heresy! And I know this is just a two, or maybe a three, on the scale of disasters than can happen to a Christian. But you know in the moment, it feels like a ten. And you want to yell and scream and get angry and blame everyone and react badly and commit all kinds of sins in response but our God knows how to rescue the godly through trials. And he did. Praise God this passage was on my mind this weekend. My daughter is going to be fine, she s a little proud to have the first broken bones in the family, Mimi took the news of the broken bones fine. And I was able to finish the sermon last night and this morning. God knows how to rescue the godly through trials. Now, if you think, J.D., I ve listened to your sermon, and he didn t rescue you as well as you might think he has, just keep it to yourself this week. But in the trials, whether they are tens or twos, look to the God who knows how to rescue. Don t deny the sovereign Lord who bought you. Trust him, pray to him, believe he will deliver you. Psalm 34:19: Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. He knows how to rescue. Amen. 2016 J.D. Shaw 8