- Man, this evening I'm preaching on the subject
of false prophets.
This is the false prophet chapter of the New Testament.
It's probably the best chapter on this subject
that delves into detail.
And then also there's a parallel passage
in the book of Jude.
Right before Revelation,
you have that just small one chapter book of Jude.
And the two are what is known as a parallel passage
where they cover kind of the same material
in the same order,
deal with some of the same subjects.
And so it's helpful to kind of compare the two
and study them together.
Before I get into chapter two here,
I wanna show you the end of chapter one
because if you look at chapter two here,
it starts with a conjunction,
but there were also false prophets among the people.
And so the also there and the but
is kind of pointing to something that was just said.
So if we back up just a couple of verses into chapter one,
we see that the discussion at the end of chapter one
has to do with what our most reliable source of truth
is, what can we be the most sure about today?
Is it what the church says?
Is it what traditions are?
Is it what we feel or when we look deep inside our hearts
and we just kind of know intuitively what the truth is?
Well, no, according to the Bible,
our ultimate source of truth is the written word of God,
the scripture.
Now, Peter tells the story here in chapter one
about how he was in the mount of transfiguration
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
He heard a voice from heaven saying,
"This is my beloved son, hear ye him."
He saw Jesus transfigured with Moses and Elijah.
And I mean, that's gotta be a pretty amazing experience
to actually be there for something like that.
We can read about that in Matthew chapter 17.
But then after telling that story, he says in verse 19,
"We have also a more sure word of prophecy."
A more sure word of prophecy.
I mean, what could be more sure
than hearing a voice out of the sky
saying, "This is my beloved son."
I mean, I guess you can take it to the bank.
That's the son of God at that point, right?
Well, not according to Peter.
He says, "No, we have a more sure word of prophecy
than just what we saw or heard or experienced."
He said, "Whereunto you do well, that you take heed,"
verse 19, "as unto a light that shineth in a dark place
until the day dawn and the day star rise in your hearts,
knowing this first, that no prophecy of the," what?
Scripture.
Now, what does the word scripture mean?
Well, if we think about the word script,
it is a written down thing that you read from.
Like, for example, you can think of an actor
reading from a script.
You could think about script meaning handwriting,
but scripture is the written word of God.
That's what that word is specifically referring to.
And it says that no prophecy of the scripture
is of any private interpretation,
for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God, talking about the scripture,
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
So what is the more sure word of prophecy?
The more sure word is the prophecy of the scripture.
The prophecy of the scripture is more sure than anything.
Peter says he'll trust it even more
than what he even saw and heard and observed.
Why is that?
Well, probably because our memories can be fallible.
We can remember things wrong
or we can think we saw something or heard something,
whatever, I dreamed that or whatever.
But the written word of God is something that never changes.
We can take it to the bank.
We know for a fact it's true.
20 years later, 30 years later, our memories may fade
and we may question, I don't know about you,
but I've had wild things happen to me in my life.
And then years later I'm like, man, did that really happen?
Because it's just so crazy you wonder,
did that really even happen?
And you doubt sometimes even things that you were there for.
That's just the way the human mind works.
But you know, the one thing that is just so consistent
is the Bible.
You know, it's written down, it's carved into stone,
year after year, decade after decade.
I was born into a world where the King James Version
was just the monolithic English Bible translation,
the par excellence English Bible translation,
and it was everywhere, it was at every store,
everybody knew about it, everybody heard it,
it was everywhere.
And then, you know, here I am, 44 years old,
it's still everywhere, it's still the big one,
it's still the most read Bible in America,
30 years from now, 40 years from now, 50 years from now,
it's still gonna be there,
and it's still gonna say the exact same thing.
You know, I was born, I'm gonna live, you know,
that unless Christ returns in my lifetime,
I'm gonna die, and just this unchanging Bible,
just the rock is always there.
I mean, that's great.
That's something that you can really trust.
So now let's think about that in light of chapter two.
Now that we understand that foundation,
if we roll into chapter two, it says,
"But there were false prophets also among the people."
So you've got good righteous prophets
that gave us the written word of God,
but then, back then, you also had false prophets,
and God weeded those things out
and made sure that they didn't make it into our Bible.
All those weird, apocryphal writings
and junk that didn't make the cut, that didn't make it in,
there was false scripture, false prophets, and so forth.
But then he says,
"Even as there shall be false teachers among you."
So in our present day, we are also gonna have corruptors,
false teachers, liars, false prophets, and frauds.
They've always been around.
They always will be around.
And what the Bible is telling us is that the thing
that is the most sure is the scripture, the written Bible,
and then that's what we can use to test everything else.
Because how do we know which current present day teachers
in 2026 are legit and which ones aren't?
We test them with the more sure word of prophecy.
Because more sure than what I say
or what anybody says what the Bible says.
Therefore, my preaching and anyone else's preaching
can always be tested with the Bible
because the prophecy of the scripture
is the more sure word of prophecy.
And you know, this is a foundational thing
that maybe we as Baptists take for granted.
But when you walk outside these doors
and get out there out of the Baptist world,
you know, a lot of people, they don't think this way.
You think Roman Catholics think this way?
You think that other denominations all think this way?
No, there are some out there that they don't get it.
And they're like, what are you talking about?
Sola Scriptura, what?
You know, they don't understand what we mean
when we say that the word of God, the written word
is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice.
But you know what?
I believe that because the Bible teaches me to believe that.
The Bible explains that is the most trustworthy source
of truth, the Bible, okay?
Current teaching needs to be measured
and tested in light of the Bible.
So the Bible says in verse one,
but there were false prophets also among the people,
even as there shall be false teachers among you
who privily shall bring in damnable heresies,
even denying the Lord that bought them
and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
So these false prophets, they creep in,
they don't just come wearing a sign
that they're a false prophet
or that they love Satan or something like that,
but they creep in and the devil himself
is transformed into an angel of light
and his ministers are transformed
into the ministers of light, the Bible tells us.
And so they will secretly bring in heresies.
And then it says they deny the Lord that bought them.
Now, what does this mean?
Is this saying that they're saved?
No, because the Bible makes clear these people are damned.
In the next couple of verses,
it explains their damnation is coming and so forth.
What does it mean the Lord bought them?
Well, here's the true story.
Christ paid for the sins
of every single person on this planet.
Saved and unsaved.
Okay, we don't believe in this foolish Calvinist doctrine
of limited atonement that says
that Christ only died for certain people
or that Christ only died for the elect.
No, the Bible says he's the savior of all men,
especially of those that believe,
which means he is the savior of those who don't believe,
meaning that he's the only savior there is.
He's everybody's savior.
He died for everybody.
He offers salvation to all,
but it's not gonna do you any good
unless it's mixed with faith
in the person that's hearing the message, right?
So the word preached doesn't profit
unless there's faith in the hearer, okay?
And so the bottom line is that Jesus Christ,
the Bible says in Hebrews 2.9,
tasted death for every man.
He died on the cross for everyone.
For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son.
That's everybody, that's the entire planet,
that's the whole world.
It says, so that whosoever believeth in him,
that's a smaller group, isn't it?
Big group, the world.
God so loved, did he just love whosoever believeth?
No, he loved the world.
He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son
that whosoever believeth, smaller group,
should not perish but have everlasting life.
So here's the thing, it's available to all.
He died for all.
He has paid for the sins of all.
He has paid and it's bought and paid for,
but if they don't receive that gift through faith,
it's not gonna do them any good.
They're not gonna be saved.
They're gonna go to hell.
So these false prophets, the Bible says
they're denying the Lord.
They don't even believe in Jesus.
They're denying the Lord that bought them.
So did Jesus die for these people?
Even though they're false prophets,
even though they're damned,
even though they're going to hell,
yeah, Jesus still died for them
because Jesus died for every single person.
He bore the sins of the world upon him, everybody.
And he says that whosoever will,
whosoever wants to may come.
And so it says that they will privily bring in
damnable heresies denying the Lord that bought them
and they bring upon themselves with destruction.
Here's just a little side note
because obviously when it says
they privily bring in heresies,
part of that is just a reference to the fact
that they will try to make it seem
like they're not doing that
and they're kind of just secretly slipping in
bad doctrine and so forth.
But you know another thing that we can learn from this
is that false teachers and false prophets
and false religions in general
will often have secret esoteric teachings
that they don't publish.
Now here's the thing,
we as Faithful Word Baptist Church
and just as Baptists in general,
we don't hide any of our beliefs.
All of our doctrines, all of our beliefs are public.
Every sermon is broadcast to the world.
There is no doctrine that I secretly believe
that I just haven't revealed
'cause you guys just aren't ready yet, you know,
to get into the real deep stuff
or the wild things that I really,
but you should hear what I really believe.
No, everything that I learn, I share with you.
And I like what the Apostle Paul said in Acts chapter 20.
He said, "I kept back nothing that was profitable from you."
Anything that's helpful to the people.
Well, guess what?
All scripture's profitable.
That's what the Bible says.
So if there's anything the Bible teaches,
I'm gonna get up and teach.
Now I might have an opinion about something
that has nothing to do with the Bible.
I'm not necessarily gonna get up and just tell my opinion
about every subject or something like that,
or every mathematical fact I learn.
I'm not gonna share that with you necessarily.
But if there's anything spiritual, biblical, religious,
that I know, that I believe, that I learned,
you better know I am teaching it to you
from behind this pulpit,
and it's gonna be a public service,
it's gonna be openly preached,
and these sermons are broadcast to the world.
And many times over the years,
people have said, you know,
oh, I don't know if you should broadcast your sermons,
and maybe we shouldn't broadcast the sermons,
because it just brings persecution,
and problems, and so forth.
But here's the thing, it also reaches millions of people.
So it's worth the trade-off.
Yeah, you could just hide it under a bushel,
and have a lot less problems in your life,
and that's what a lot of churches are doing, by the way.
And, by the way, when you're naming your sermons,
you know, what's the date today?
Can't even read, I watch without my glasses.
February 8th?
When you're calling your sermon, February 8th, 2026,
you're probably not that serious
about getting the message out, you know?
And I understand that sometimes that's just a temporary name,
but it's funny, you know,
these churches will just publish sermon after sermon
with a title like February 8th, 2026,
because they're not really interested
in getting the message out,
and broadcasting it to as many people as possible.
Man, I want as many people as possible
to hear the truths of God's word.
Is that gonna cause problems?
Sure, is it gonna bring persecution?
Sure, but that's the whole point,
is to get the word of God out.
Jesus said what I tell you in the ear,
preach it upon the housetops.
But what you'll find is religions like Scientology,
you don't even find out the weirdest stuff
until you've donated a certain amount of money,
and you reach a certain level.
I believe it's level three in Scientology,
where you get to the really weird stories
about other planets and aliens and all the wild things.
And then of course Mormonism is the same way.
You know, you've gotta go through the process,
pay your tithe, be a faithful member
to get married in the temple.
You have to earn the right to get,
and then when you get married in the temple,
you get exposed to all these weird satanic ceremonies
that the average person had not seen
until now we have tiny little cameras,
people are slipping them in there
and publishing it to YouTube.
And I've watched the whole thing on YouTube.
And so now they're being exposed
for their Luciferian practices
and just outright worshiping of Satan.
And it's because of the fact that they hide that stuff.
Right?
And they don't just tell you,
"Hey, we're from the church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints.
Did you know that you could become
your own God of your own planet?
Did you know that our God came from a star called Kolob?"
They're not gonna tell you about that stuff
because they hide that stuff.
And so any time somebody is hiding the teachings,
the doctrine, that is a red flag
because people who are preaching biblical truth,
there's no reason to hide it.
And you know, we've even had people
that have attached themselves to us
and hung around with us in the past
that started preaching weird damnable heresy.
And then we start calling out their heresy.
Their answer is to put their whole channel on private,
hide all their videos.
Even church in the old IFB,
password protecting their videos.
You have to have a recommendation from your pastor
to unlock the videos, to watch the esoteric teachings,
'cause they don't wanna be held accountable
for what they're teaching and what they're preaching.
I preached some sermons that got me
in hot water over the years.
And I remember talking to a particular pastor
and he said to me, "Oh, well, if it makes you
"feel any better, I preached pretty much the same thing
"last Sunday night as you did."
But he said, "I would never put it online
"cause I don't want the persecution."
Well, thanks a lot, buddy, because you're kind of
just leaving me out there hanging in the wind here
because I'm out here saying this stuff,
and if everybody was saying it,
then I wouldn't be getting all the flack.
We could kind of spread the love a little bit
because I'm telling you, it'd be nice if other people
would take some of that flack
and we could kind of all share it equally.
So beware of private teachings as opposed to just
open teachings that are taught publicly
and broadcast online, et cetera.
Also, there will never be any charge to listen
to the preaching of Faithful Word Baptist Church, right?
Because again, we want it all to be free.
We're never gonna put it behind a paywall
or something like that or copyright the preaching
and try to get royalties from someone.
I mean, it's absurd.
It's God's word.
It should be freely available to all.
So they will privily bring in damnable heresies.
It says in verse two,
many shall follow their pernicious ways
by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
So let me ask you this, do these false teachers
that have crept into Christianity,
these false, do they have a few followers
or a lot of followers?
Unfortunately, it's not a small problem.
They will have huge numbers of people following them.
And then what happens is,
because many people will follow them,
the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
Here's another way of saying that.
They end up giving Christianity a bad name.
If there's some televangelist
that's embezzling millions of dollars,
then people just think what?
Oh, that's how Christians are.
That's how pastors are.
That's how preachers are.
When you have these pastors
that are out there committing moral sin or whatever,
photographing booty at Trader Joe's
or they're out there just committing adultery,
running off with the secretary or whatever,
that gives Christianity a bad name.
By reason of these people,
the way of truth is evil spoken of.
Now, unfortunately, not everybody who as a pastor
falls into sin is a false prophet.
I don't want you to misunderstand me
because even great men of God can fall into sin.
Like we saw this morning with David,
he was a man after God's own heart.
He loved the Bible,
but he ended up falling into grievous sin.
So it's possible for a good pastor
to go into grievous sin.
We don't want to automatically assume
that because someone falls into horrible sin,
that they're a false prophet.
Not what I'm saying,
but what I am saying is that false prophets though,
they're deep into a bunch of bad sin, period.
Okay.
So there's kind of like two kinds of scandals
that you're gonna run into.
There's the good preacher who got backslidden,
let the flesh take over, got into something shady.
And then there's just the rotten pastor
who's just rotten the whole time.
And so of course he's just gonna be total scum
behind closed doors.
The Bible goes on to say in verse three,
"Through covetousness shall they with feinted words,"
feint means like pretend or fake, right?
"Through covetousness shall they with feinted words
make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time
lingereth not and their damnation slumbereth not."
And so they're gonna make merchandise of you.
They're in it for the money.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
And so they're just looking at you as a customer
and they just wanna get paid and they're in the ministry
for all the wrong reasons.
Look what the Bible says in verse four,
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned,
but cast them down to hell and delivered them
into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment
and spared not the old world,
but saved Noah the eighth person,
a preacher of righteousness,
bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly
and turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes,
condemned them with an overthrow,
making them an example unto those
that after should live ungodly."
Now, what is he saying here with all of these comparisons?
He says at the end of verse three,
"Their damnation slumbereth not.
Their judgment now of a long time lingereth not."
He's saying, "Don't worry, these people are gonna get
what's coming to them.
False prophets are gonna be punished."
'Cause it can be frustrating
when you think about all the false religion out there.
I don't know, the religion that irritates me
more than any religion is Mormonism.
Number one most annoying religion of all time.
But, you know, everybody's got their preference, I'm sure.
But here's the thing, man, sometimes I'll just think like,
man, I just wish Mormonism would just be definitively
just exposed online and people would just realize
it's a fraud and it would just close its doors
because it's just so obviously false and wrong
and you just wanna shake people sometimes.
But it's comforting to know that, you know,
God is gonna take care of things.
We don't have to worry about it.
We don't have to get all stressed out
and grip the steering wheel real tight
when we pass the Mormon temple or something like that
because we just realize God's gonna take care of it, right?
And then he's kind of proving that point by saying,
well, look, did God take care of the angels that sinned?
Did God take care of the old world in the days of Noah?
Did God take care of Sodom and Gomorrah?
So he's bringing up these examples
where God took out the trash
and he poured out his wrath big time in these different ways.
He's saying, look, if he poured out his wrath
in those situations, he's gonna pour out his wrath
on these false prophets and false teachers as well.
You don't have to worry about it.
He turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes.
He condemned them with an overthrow,
making them an example
unto those that after should live ungodly.
So it sounds like to me, in 2026,
Sodom and Gomorrah is still an example of that sin,
of how God feels about homos,
how God feels about sodomites, right?
Because think about it, when this is written,
this is about 2,000 years after the events
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And he said, hey, that's an example for us today.
Well, guess what?
Now it's been about 2,000 years
since 2 Peter was written, still an example.
Now, what in the world does Sodom and Gomorrah
have to do with the discussion about false prophets?
Okay, because first he brought up, he said,
the angels that sinned, right?
The angels that sinned.
We would call these like fallen angels or demons.
Okay, devils.
And these false prophets are like that
because if you think about what does the word angel mean?
The word angel literally means messenger.
And if you think about it, these fallen angels,
basically, if you think about like a false prophet,
he's like a lying messenger.
He's like a bad angel, right?
Because if you think about it,
the preacher is like a messenger bringing you the message.
And so the bad preacher is like a bad angel,
bad messenger bringing false things, lies, and so forth.
You know, he spread out the old world,
but he saved Noah, the eighth person.
He brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.
He turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes.
Now, here's where we wanna cut over to Jude
and make a little comparison here.
So keep your finger here,
and let's go over to the parallel passage in Jude,
and let's get a more clear understanding
of why Sodom and Gomorrah is even relevant
when we're talking about false prophets.
The Bible says in verse three of Jude,
it says, "Beloved, when I gave all diligence
"to write unto you of the common salvation,
"it was needful for me to write unto you
"and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend
"for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."
That's funny, a lot of people,
they want us to preach about salvation all the time.
They want us to just preach about Jesus on Sunday morning,
Jesus on Sunday night, Jesus on Wednesday night,
and those sermons are great.
And we like preaching about Jesus
and preaching about salvation.
But here's the thing,
Jude said, "Well, I wanted to write to you about salvation,
but guess what?
It was needful for me to write about you
and warn you about false prophets."
So you say, "Oh, why don't you preach on Jesus?
Why are you preaching on false prophets?"
Well, here's the thing,
I wanted to preach about salvation tonight, you know,
if I could pull a Jude right now.
You know, I wanted to preach a positive message,
but it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you.
So I can say it was needful for me to preach unto you tonight
and exhort you that you should earnestly contend
for the faith.
We're in a fight, we're in a battle,
and so I need to tell you about the enemy that we're facing
and it's important, it's necessary.
That's what he's saying.
Look at verse four, why do we have to, you know,
interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast on salvation?
Why?
Because certain men are crept in unawares.
Doesn't it sound like they're
frivolously teaching damnable heresy,
like we saw in second Peter two,
who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
And I hope you can see all of the similarities
with second Peter two,
just jumping right off the page at you.
He says in verse five,
I will therefore put you in remembrance,
though you once knew this,
how that the Lord having saved the people
out of the land of Egypt,
afterward destroyed them that believe not
and the angels which kept not their first estate.
So notice he's given some different examples,
but some of the same examples as 2 Peter.
The angels which kept not their first estate,
but left their own habitation,
he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness,
under the judgment of the great day,
even as Sodom and Gomorrah.
And the cities about them in like manner,
giving themselves over to fornication
and going after strange flesh,
ain't that the truth,
are set forth for an example,
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, right?
God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah.
It's a picture of hell fire
that they will face for all eternity.
But here's where the tie-in comes.
Verse eight, he says, "Likewise."
Now what does likewise mean?
Likewise means in the same way or in a similar way.
These filthy dreamers defile the flesh.
Now what is he saying?
He's saying, look, these false teachers,
these false prophets that creep in
and they bring in damnable heresy
and their damnation lingereth not
and their damnation slumbereth not.
He says, these filthy dreamers, they defile the flesh.
What does defile mean?
To make something unclean.
They defile the flesh in the same way as what?
As the same way as Sodom and Gomorrah.
So he says, Sodom and Gomorrah gave themselves
over to fornication and went after strange flesh.
And in like manner, these also defile the flesh,
like Sodom and Gomorrah did.
So these people that are teaching heresy,
damnable heresy, false teaching,
they're the lowest of the low, according to the Bible.
And they are involved in perversion,
just like the Sodomites were involved in perversion, okay?
These are perverts.
And when you think about politicians,
there are also a lot of weird perverts, right?
Going to the Epstein Island and involved
in all that weird garbage that's all coming out now.
And here's the thing, religion and politics
can kind of be similar in this regard
that they will sometimes attract people
who want to get into these things for the wrong reasons.
Some people get into politics
because they really want to make a difference
and they actually want to fix things
and they have integrity and it's important to them
that they are true to their principles
and that they do the right thing.
And those politicians are kind of rare,
but we like them when they come along.
Well, it's the same thing when it comes to religion.
You're going to have a lot of people
who get into the ministry preaching
because they just really want to preach the gospel.
They really want to get people saved.
They really want to make a difference.
They really want to get the word of God out there.
They want to serve Christ.
Okay, but then you're also going to get people
who are in it for the wrong reasons.
They get into politics because they want to be schmoozed
by all the lobbyists and they want all the whining
and dining and the gifts and they want money
and power and fame.
Well, guess what?
A lot of people could go into the ministry
for the same reasons, money, power, fame.
They could build a big mega church,
get huge salaries coming in and be famous
and they're a TV preacher, radio preacher,
and they got the private jet and they've got
all those things and then they're just the fame
of just people adoring them and they're like a rock star
amongst their crowd and so forth.
And so you can see how religion could attract
some of the best people who really want to do something
good for God, but it also attracts some of the worst people
into the ministry who are the scum of the earth,
who really just want to preach for filthy lucre.
They just want money, power, fame,
all the wrong carnal reasons that they have.
And so some of these really bad people,
the Bible says they defile the flesh like Sodom and Gomorrah,
meaning that they're reprobates, right?
Because the people in Sodom and Gomorrah are reprobates.
I don't have time to go into the whole Romans one discussion,
but you know, if you don't know what I'm talking about,
go read Romans one, that's your homework,
figure out what a reprobate is.
But the Romans one reprobate and the false prophet
are often one in the same person.
A lot of these false prophets are reprobates.
They cannot be reached, they are done.
And therefore it makes sense that they would defile
the flesh in a sick way.
The Bible says that they likewise defile the flesh,
despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
Now, what does it mean to despise dominion?
Well, let's go back over to the parallel passage
in 2 Peter 2 and get this with a slightly different wording.
Parallel passage in 2 Peter 2 says
that God delivered just Lot.
Now that doesn't mean only Lot, that means righteous Lot,
like just as in justice.
So it says he delivered just Lot.
And Lot was vexed with the filthy conversation
of the wicked.
So Lot's a guy who lives in Sodom,
but he's actually a saved man.
He loves the Lord.
So he's living around all these weirdo perverts
in Sodom though.
So it says he vexed his righteous soul from day to day
with their unlawful deeds by seeing and hearing.
So, you know, this is like we're out in the world
and we see and hear sinful things, gross things,
and it bothers us and it irritates us.
And so Lot is in like the filthiest, worst place.
So he's just getting exposed to all these horrific things
and it really bothers him.
But unfortunately, it didn't bother him enough
to get out of there and stay away from it,
which is what he should have done.
So he vexed his righteous soul from day to day.
He was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.
And then it says in verse nine,
the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly
out of temptations and to reserve the unjust
unto the day of judgment to be punished.
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh
in the lust of uncleanness, right?
Again, remember the people,
they defile the flesh like Sodom and Gomorrah.
And watch this, despise government.
Now, what did it say in Jude?
They despise dominion, right?
So the word dominion means like lordship, literally.
Authority is what we would say.
They despise authority.
'Cause dominion comes with a Latin word dominus,
like the Lord, okay?
So they despise dominion.
They despise authority.
And then another way of saying that
is they despise government.
And what that means is they despise being governed.
It's not saying that they don't like our current government.
They despise the Republicans or the Democrats.
That's not what it's saying.
It's just saying they despise government in general, right?
They don't want anyone telling them what to do.
They hate all forms of authority.
And we run into a lot of wicked people like this
where they hate authority.
And you don't ever want to get to the place in your life
where you hate authority.
And I'll tell you where this often starts
is with people's parents.
Because before you even know who God is,
you know an authority called your mom and your dad.
That's kind of the first authority
that you run into in this world.
I mean, you're born into this world
and before anybody explains to you
that there's a God in heaven,
before anybody explains to you
that Jesus is the son of God,
before anybody tells you about the Bible and so forth,
you're not even necessarily old enough
to comprehend those things as a baby,
mom is telling you yes and no.
Those are some of the first words you're gonna learn
is yes, no, don't do that.
That is your first exposure to authority, okay?
Mom and dad.
And then as you grow up, you learn about God,
who is our father in heaven.
So we've got our father on this earth
and he's our authority.
And then we've got our father, which is in heaven.
And then as we go through life,
we end up having other authorities
usually brought into our life by our parents.
Like our parents will bring in some kind of a tutor
or a teacher or they'll sign us up for a sports team
or a music lesson or send us to school or something.
And then we're faced with these other authority.
They'll bring us to church and then the pastor is up there
and he's telling us things.
And so then we have all these numbers of authority
in our life.
Ultimately, we get to be 16 years old.
We go out, we get a job.
Now we have another authority figure.
We have the boss at work, right?
And then you ladies, you grow up
and if you actually marry a real man,
then you have an authority now.
Your husband, the head of the household,
the man of the house, you know?
And so in our lives, we are faced with having authority
at a whole bunch of different points of life.
And like me, I'm at a place in my life
where I don't live with my parents anymore.
Obviously, I'm the head of my own house now.
I'm the pastor of the church.
But you know what, there are still times
when I end up submitting to authority figures.
If I take a class or something,
or if I go somewhere and participate in something,
there are times when I end up submitting to other people
that are authorities in those different situations.
It's just, you're never going to get away from this,
is what I'm saying.
And obviously, the biggest authority
that I deal with every single day is the Lord, right?
Because as a pastor,
that's what I'm thinking about all the time.
I'm thinking about, what does God think?
What does God want me to do?
What is the work of the Lord that I'm going to do today?
And so I'm constantly thinking about that authority.
I'm dealing with earthly authorities.
You're dealing with earthly authorities, right?
And then you've got just these rotten people
where the Bible says they just despise dominion.
They despise government.
They hate government.
They're self-willed.
And they don't want to submit to any authority.
And this comes from ultimately hatred of their parents.
And then the hatred of their parents
leads them to hating God.
And then they end up just hating all authority.
And you and I know that there's a huge segment
of our population that is like this,
that just cannot be corrected.
And they can't make it in the workplace.
They can't make it in school.
They can't make it anywhere.
They're constantly butting heads with authority
because they hate authority.
And it's not the authority's fault
because they hate authority in general,
not a particular authority.
And you can lie to yourself and say,
"Well, if I just had better parents
"or if I just had a better husband
"or if I just had a better teacher
"or if I just had a better boss at work."
You know what, you're lying to yourself
because people who actually respect authority,
they end up finding a way to make it work
with even the worst authority figures in their life.
For example, look at Jacob.
Jacob has the worst boss that you can imagine, Laban,
changing his wages over and over again,
ripping him off, not giving him a fair share.
And look, I've had some bad bosses that lied to me,
cheated me, and so forth, and you know what?
It's still our job to just go to work, work hard,
do the best we can, make it work.
And you know what I found is that God blessed me
in the long run, and every good thing that any man doeth,
the Bible says, the same shall he receive of the Lord,
whether he be bond or free.
God looks down and he sees you submitting to your parents,
even when they're being unreasonable,
submitting to your husband, even if he's unreasonable,
submitting to blots at work, even if he's unreasonable,
God sees that, God's gonna bless that,
God's gonna take care of that.
The Christian attitude, the just attitude,
the righteous attitude is to have a proper respect
for authority, honor thy father and mother,
servants be obedient to them that are your masters
according to the flesh, wives,
submit yourselves unto your own husbands.
I mean, on and on, the Bible tells us this
over and over again.
That is the Christian attitude.
The unjust, wicked, rotten attitude
of false prophets is despising of authority
and they will encourage rebellion
and they will encourage people to despise authority.
Some of the worst scum that's online
are these little shorts that my wife sent me
the other day, one of them,
where there's this guy is on there
basically telling a wife to rebel against her husband
and telling her to leave her husband.
And you'll see these influencers
where these women will call in
and they complain about their husband
and whine about him.
And these guys are claiming to be Christians.
And I mean, I heard this guy talk
and I wanted to strangle him through the screen.
And I'm thinking to myself like,
there's no way this guy is saved.
I don't even have to ask this
what this guy's salvation doctrine is
because the guy was like pure evil.
He's just pure evil, just telling women,
leave your husband, you know, don't obey your husband.
You don't have to obey.
He's bad and all this stuff.
And I was so pure evil.
I just thought like this guy's a false prophet.
Like I bet you if I wrote the guy's name down
and went and researched it,
we're gonna find the wrong salvation doctrine.
I'll bet you, you know, we'll take bets after the service.
We'll figure out the odds and everything.
And we'll, you know,
we'll have somebody hold onto the money.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm not into gambling at all.
But the point is gambling is a sin by the way.
So I've done whole sermons against gambling.
It was a joke.
But the point is that, look, you can take it to the bank.
When you have some evil person out there
just promoting rebellion to millions of people,
just teaching rebellion, just teaching women
to leave their husbands and to hate their husbands
and despise their husbands, you know, the guy's trash.
And probably what he's trying to do is just,
he's what's called being a white knight.
He's simping for real, okay?
He's simping because what he's probably trying to do
is go out and commit adultery with a bunch of women.
So he goes and oh, he's Mr. Understanding
and he gets it and everything.
I guarantee you that that evil, wicked piece of trash
is full of adultery as well.
How do I know that?
Well, what does the Bible say?
Just jump down a couple of verses,
it says in verse 14, having eyes full of adultery
and they cannot cease from sin.
Beguiling unstable souls.
That's the stupid people who call on the phone
and ask for advice from a guy
who's not gonna tell them what the word of God says.
He's gonna tell them to defy the word of God.
He's gonna make a mockery of what the Bible says
in Ephesians chapter five.
He's gonna make fun of Titus chapter two.
He's gonna make fun of first Peter chapter three.
And he's gonna beguile those unstable souls.
Why?
Because his eyes are full of adultery.
Because he wants to manipulate that woman like,
oh, you poor baby, I would treat you right.
You know, there's nothing more disgusting
than some single guy online telling married women,
oh, I'm not even married, but if I were married,
I would treat you right and whatever.
Who's seen that kind of junk before?
I mean, it's all over the place.
You have these guys that, oh, I'm not even married,
even I, it's like, shut up then if you're not married.
Shut up, bozo.
Right, like, oh, you've never driven a car,
you don't know how to drive?
Yeah, tell me how to drive better.
Explain to me what I'm doing wrong behind the wheel, right?
But you got these little whining, little crybaby,
little males that basically are just like,
oh, you're so mean and oh, you don't know how to be a husband
and oh, I would just treat you so right, baby,
and everything.
They're just a bunch of adulterers is what they are.
They need to shut up and mind their own business.
You know, the adults are talking here
and husbands have the right to run their own household
and have their own wife and run that house
according to the word of God.
And those things are dealt with within the home
and the man is the authority.
And if anybody's gonna take outside advice on this
needs to come straight from the Bible.
Needs to be consistent with the Bible.
And you know what, we need to listen to a man of God
who's actually married to tell us these things.
But no, the false prophet hates authority,
teaches other people to hate authority,
teaches other people to rebel against authority.
His eyes are full of adultery.
He can't cease from sin.
He beguiles unstable souls, the Bible says.
And heart they have exercised with covetous practices,
right, love of money again, that's what he's in it for.
Or not just coveting money,
how about coveting your neighbor's wife?
Here's the thing, I'm the pastor of the church, okay?
Being the pastor of the church gives me authority
as far as in the church.
But you know what it doesn't give me?
It doesn't give me authority in your home.
Like being the pastor of the church
does not give me authority to come into your house
and start getting in the way of your marriage
and telling your wife, well, you need to obey me
and listen to me and your husband's wrong and you know.
No, I'm out of balance at that point, you know?
I mean, look, the bank manager is the bank manager.
I expect him to have authority in the bank,
but I don't expect the bank manager
to walk across the street
and start telling everybody at the grocery store what to do
and to walk into the residential area
and start coming into homes and managing the homes.
No, he's the bank manager.
I'm the pastor of the church.
That means I'm the church manager, the church overseer,
the church bishop.
It doesn't mean that I have the right
to go into your home and take over.
It's out of balance, out of control.
And so we wanna make sure that we keep those things
in their proper place and not covet authority
that we don't have.
I'm totally happy with my house and my family
and my situation and I have enough to say grace over.
I don't want to talk about what anyone else's wife
needs to do or go to her house and start rearranging things
and giving her, that's none of my business.
Not interested, not my problem.
It's up to you to fix that.
Now, look, if someone comes to me and gives me advice,
I'm going to give them biblical advice.
But you know, here's the thing, people come to me for advice
and sometimes they don't take my advice.
And that's okay because they don't have to take my advice
because I do not have the authority to rule anyone's home
other than my own.
You know, I'm managing the church here.
I'm going to rule my own house.
You rule your house.
You are the king of your castle.
And I'm not going to come in and take over and say,
oh, no, I'm going to tell you what to do.
You know, I'm going to override your parents.
I'm going to override your husband.
No, that's out of line.
And so they've got eyes full of adultery.
They're covetous, probably coveting their neighbor's wife,
coveting finances.
They've forsaken the right way and gone astray.
Verse 15, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bozor,
who loved the wages of unrighteousness.
Again, love of money just can't stop coming up
in this discussion, but was rebuked for his iniquity,
the dumb ass speaking with man's voice
for bad, the madness of the prophet.
These are wells without water.
Clouds that are carried with a tempest
to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever.
Just again, in case there was any doubt
these people are going to hell,
these are unsaved false prophets we're talking about.
It says the mist of darkness is reserved
for these people forever.
We're talking about going to hell.
But it's interesting, it says that they're wells
without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest.
And so the idea here is that they don't really have
any true substance to their teaching, right?
Because in order to effectively teach the Bible,
you gotta be filled with the Holy Spirit.
You gotta be saved in order to effectively
preach God's word, okay?
So that's, you know, you gotta have the well of life
springing up inside of you.
You gotta have that Holy Spirit.
Reminds me of the song we used to sing
in Sunday school when I was a kid.
♪ I've got a river of life flowing out of me ♪
Who knows what I'm talking about?
♪ Spring up the well ♪
Splish, splash!
You know, the well springing up.
He said these are wells without water, why?
Holy Spirit's not there.
So they can get up and go through the motions
of preaching a sermon.
They can go through the motions
and maybe imitate other preachers
and be very scripted and write everything down
and get every word prepared
to where they can sound convincing.
But they're a well without water.
And if you go to a church like that,
if you listen to this kind of teaching,
you're not gonna get what you need as far as refreshment.
You're not gonna get the nutrition that you need
from that kind of feeding.
Because they're wells without water.
And then he says they're clouds
that are carried with a tempest.
So basically, the wind is driving these people,
meaning that they shift with the times.
So the false prophet, he just wants to be popular,
he's covetous, he wants money,
he wants all the women to like him,
especially the married women
so that he can commit adultery with them.
And so, you know, he's just gonna go
with whatever's popular, whichever way the wind blows.
You know, so if we're supposed to love and accept sodomites
now, well, then that's what he's gonna teach and preach
because that's the day that we're living in, you know,
or whatever the doctrine, he'll shift it,
he'll become feminist, he'll teach whatever social gospel,
whatever's popular, and look,
if it's popular to be conservative, he'll be conservative.
You know, if he thinks he can win over the Fox News crowd,
then that's what he'll do, you know,
he'll get up and become a Fox News style Christian.
He'll do what it takes
because he's just carried about with the winds
and the tempest, just blown, tossed to and fro.
You see, the true Bible teacher is anchored
in the word of God, he's got the sure word of prophecy,
and he doesn't care what the trends are,
he doesn't care what people say out there do,
it's just right's right, wrong's wrong, we don't care.
If it's popular, we'll preach it, in season, out of season.
You know, it's funny, we always talk about preaching
being instant in season and out of season,
and I'm always thinking like, man,
it feels like my preaching is just always out of season,
you know, 'cause I've been pastoring for 20 years,
and I'm just thinking like, okay,
the Bible said be instant in season, out of season.
I don't even know why that in season part's even in there,
because I don't even know what he's talking about,
because it's never in season.
But then, over the last, like, year and a half,
all of a sudden, a lot of the stuff I'm preaching
is actually in season now.
And I never thought my clothes would come back in style,
but it's happening.
And so, now all of a sudden,
stuff that I've preached for years
that's been super unpopular,
like preaching the truth about Israel and the Jews,
and preaching against the sodomites and stuff,
that stuff has been out of season
for the last couple decades.
Now, all of a sudden, it's getting popular.
And what the Bible is saying is, you keep preaching it.
Now, when it's out of season, the temptation is,
well, I don't wanna preach it
'cause I don't wanna get into trouble,
or I don't wanna make people upset,
I wanna be popular or whatever.
No, no, you preach it,
even if it's out of season, you preach it.
What about when it's in season?
Why would there be a temptation
to not preach it when it's in season?
Well, you know, part of it could be
that some people just are just contrarians,
and they just wanna be counter-cultural,
and they just wanna go against whatever people are saying,
and just always just be at strife with every man.
You know, call me Ishmael because, you know,
my hand is just against every man,
and every man's hand is against me.
But here's the thing about that is that, you know,
we preach it, whether it's popular or not popular,
you just keep preaching it.
Just preach it right, preach the truth.
I'm not trying to purposely offend people
by just being different for the sake of being different,
just being a shock jock and just getting up
and saying unpopular things or something.
No, no, no, it's not that.
It's just that I said unpopular things
'cause they were true.
And if they're popular, then I'll say popular things.
I don't care.
It's not wrong for me to get up and say something
that's trendy or popular if it's true.
You just be instant, in season, out of season.
You preach the word, you preach the truth,
you stay consistent, and you don't be like
these false prophets that are just carried about
of a tempest, blown whichever the wind tosses them.
It says in verse 18, "For when they speak
"great swelling words of vanity,
"they allure through the lusts of the flesh
"through much wantonness, those that were clean
"escaped from them who live in error
"while they promise them liberty,
"they themselves are the servants of corruption
"for of whom a man is overcome
"of the same as he brought in bondage."
And interesting, we don't have time
to unpack everything in this passage.
I don't have time to do justice.
It would take a long time to go through
and really talk about every point here.
So let's just kind of just wrap this up
and just kind of summarize what we're looking at here
with false prophets, okay?
We started out in 2 Peter chapter two
and the first thing we saw was, okay, chapter one.
The word of God's the final authority.
The written word of God, specifically the scripture,
which is the written word of God.
That's our more sure word.
Everything else is tested based on that, right?
That's the first thing we know.
Number two, we see that there are going to be
many false prophets, many false teachers.
Not a small problem.
They're a dime a dozen.
They're all over the place.
And in the Bible, in the Old Testament,
you'll see like one great prophet of God, like Micaiah,
and then you'll see like, oh,
here's hundreds of prophets preaching lies.
Here's Elijah over here.
And then there's a hundred preachers
who believe like Elijah, but they're hiding in a cave.
But then you have 850 that are just
straight worshiping Satan.
And so, you know, it broads the way
that leads to destruction.
Many there be which go in there at,
straight is the gate and narrow is the way
which leads into the life and few there be to find it.
So false prophets have always been a big problem.
They always will be a big problem.
And when we think about these false prophets,
we test them with the word of God, okay?
And the Bible says they're gonna be teaching false doctrine.
They're gonna teach heresy, okay?
Sometimes they're doing it secretly.
They're crafty.
Sometimes you don't catch them right away.
Sometimes they might fool you in the short term
by mimicking good preaching.
But then, privily, they'll bring in the damnable heresy
through the back door.
But then also, along with this,
we have a rotten lifestyle to match the rotten doctrine.
Because anyone who will get up
and lie about the word of God
and teach things which they ought not
for filthy lucre's sake
and just be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine
just for money or worse
so that they can take advantage of people
and abuse people and commit adultery
and do all these things
is obviously the most rotten type of person.
And so what we understand is that rotten doctrine
and rotten lifestyle go hand in hand.
So just take it to the bank.
These people that are just teaching these horrible lies,
they're bad people.
They're not just like,
"Oh, they got a little mixed up, a little confused."
You know, the Holy Spirit's ministry
is to guide us into all truth.
It's funny how everybody in this room here
that's a saved Christian.
It's funny, we're all saved.
We have the Bible and we have the Holy Spirit.
How come we didn't end up being damnable heretics?
How come we're not bowing down to an idol somewhere?
How come we don't believe
in workspace salvation or something?
How'd we end up here?
What am I, where am I?
How did I get here?
You know why we're here?
'Cause we care what the Bible says.
Am I just speaking for myself?
No, we care what the Bible says.
We love the Lord, we are saved,
we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit,
we hear the voice of the shepherd,
that we got the Holy Spirit every single day
when we read our Bibles, guiding us into all truth.
It's like, oh, poor little Catholic priest.
No, bro doesn't care what the Bible says.
That's why he's a Catholic priest.
He's one of these people.
And look, there is not a Catholic priest on this planet
that is not one of these people.
You gonna tell me there's a Catholic priest
that's teaching sound biblical doctrine?
No, show me a Catholic priest on this planet
who believes that salvation is by faith alone.
Not of works that any man should boast.
Doesn't exist.
And you know, I'm just picking on one religion.
I could bring up all the Imams of Islam
and we could bring,
because Islam is really just a perversion of Christianity,
a twisting of following Christ,
because they, oh, we believe in Jesus,
but it's not the Jesus of the Bible.
It's not the son of God.
You know, look, the bottom line is the rotten lifestyle
goes along with the rotten doctrine,
and often these people are reprobates,
which is why they will even commit
some of the worst type of sins that you can imagine,
you know, defiling the flesh like Sodom and Gomorrah
to those levels of depravity.
Okay, so what is the moral of the story for us?
The moral of the story for us
is that we need to be very careful as we go through life.
We need to be sober and we need to be vigilant
and understand that everybody
who's naming the name of Christ
and everybody who's teaching the Bible
is not necessarily someone that we should be listening to.
Okay, so we have to be discerning and God's warning.
I mean, why did God, you say,
why are you preaching this sermon, Pastor Anderson?
Well, here's the question.
Why is this chapter in the Bible?
'Cause whatever reason this chapter's in the Bible
is why I'm preaching this sermon, okay.
And I would submit to you that that reason is
that there are lots of false prophets and God's warning you
so that they don't make merchandise of you,
so that they don't take your money,
so that they don't trick you, deceive you,
lie to you, manipulate you.
You gotta be able to identify these people.
You gotta watch out for the covetousness,
the love of money.
You gotta watch out for the rottenness
in their personal character.
And you gotta watch out for the Bible doctrine
that is not in accordance with scripture, okay.
And then when you identify those things,
you can navigate this world
and avoid the false prophets, right.
Believe not every spirit, the Bible says,
but try the spirits whether they are of God
because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
The Bible says, many deceivers are entered into the world
who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
Look to yourselves that we lose not those things
which we have wrought, but that we receive a whole reward.
He says, whosoever transgresseth
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ,
he hath both the Father and the Son.
If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine,
receive him not into your house.
Neither bid him God's speed,
for he that bideth him God's speed
is partaker of his evil deeds.
And so we're gonna have people come to our house sometimes.
You know, the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses
and people will come to our house over the internet
or through the radio or the television
and come into our house bringing false doctrine.
We need to be discerning.
We need to know what the Bible says
and walk with God so that we are not victims
of these false prophets.
And again, I wanna say one more time
that there are people out there that are saved Christians.
They do not fall under this 2 Peter 2 situation.
Now I said, look, every Catholic priest falls under that,
but you could even have an actual saved,
born again, child of God,
who maybe even starts out as a good pastor
and maybe in the early days of his ministry
is doing great works for God.
And here's the thing, if he gets backslidden
and starts walking in the flesh
and starts living wrong,
here's the thing, he's not a second Peter two guy.
He will never be a second Peter two guy
'cause he's eternally saved.
You can't lose your salvation, right?
But you know what, here's the thing about saved Christians.
Don't miss this final point before we go, okay?
Here's the thing about saved Christians.
If they are in the flesh,
if they are not walking in the spirit,
if they are in rebellion against the Lord in their heart,
if they start going down that dark path
of getting backslidden,
they will resemble unsaved people,
meaning that they'll do the same type of stuff
that, you know, wicked people do.
And so you will even see a saved pastor
go out and commit adultery.
And obviously he should, you know,
be removed from the ministry
and he should never pastor again.
But I'm saying it's possible
for even a saved pastor to go down that road.
And guess what?
He'll probably start teaching dumb doctrines too,
because the bad doctrine and the bad lifestyle,
they end up being connected.
You know, when you are living a life of sin,
you're not gonna see clearly
what's in front of you in the Bible.
You're blinded by that.
When you're walking in the flesh,
you're not walking in the Spirit,
he's not gonna be able to guide you into all truth
as effectively as when you're filled with the Spirit.
You know, and by the way,
the Bible says that if you hate your brother in Christ,
the Bible says you're in darkness
and you don't know where you're going and you stumble
and you're in the dark
because the hatred will blind your eyes, right?
If you hate your brother and sister in Christ,
you can be so blinded by that hatred,
you get into stupid doctrine.
And look, how many times have we seen people over the years
who taught us stupid doctrine, like just to spite me?
Like, I'll show Pastor Anderson
and they'll teach some really stupid doctrine
just to kind of like sock it to me.
Like, oh, Pastor Anderson's under attack
for, you know, disciplining too hard
or disciplining too much.
Well, I know, I'll just teach
that God doesn't discipline at all.
I'll show him, you know?
And again, that's, you know,
it's people's minds are blinded by hatred
and that becomes their drive
is just socket to the bad guy, you know, in their mind.
And so I hope that this chapter, you know,
syncs in with you and you understand,
look, it's a jungle out there.
Be careful, try the spirits,
check things with the word of God.
How do I know who's right and who's wrong?
The scripture.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for the warnings about the false prophets
that are out there, Lord.
Please help us all to stay spiritual
and to walk with you, Lord.
Please just help us to read our Bibles every day
and please guide us into all truth, Lord.
And the wolves and sheep's clothing, Lord,
help us to spot them.
I think we've all probably been deceived at some point.
I know I've been deceived by false prophets at times
and got sucked in by wolves and sheep's clothing.
Lord, give us the discernment and help us to know our Bibles
and be able to catch those things
before it's eternally too late.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.