In this sermon, the preacher warns against false teachers who exploit people with made-up stories and greed. He references biblical examples of God's judgment on sin, such as the punishment of angels, the flood in Noah's time, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The preacher emphasizes that God knows how to rescue the righteous and hold the unrighteous accountable. He also criticizes the seduction of truth and the manipulation of spiritual tone by certain ministers. The sermon encourages believers to be discerning and not be deceived by those who promise liberty but are themselves slaves to sin.

I want you, wherever you're sitting, wherever they've packed you in tonight, I want you to turn to the book of 2nd Peter. How many Bible scholars know what book 2nd Peter comes after? Very good. You know what? I know I'm training the people well. 2nd Peter, the 2nd chapter. Maybe the most unusual chapter of its kind in the entire New Testament. When you have it, look up at me, and then I'll know that we're together. You've got to read it in your Bible. Everybody ought to bring their Bible to church. How many have an NIV? Hold it up. If you have an NIV Bible. How many have a New American Standard? Hold it up. How many have a New King James? Hold it up. How many have a New Living Translation? Hold it up. How many have a King James? Wouldest thou holdest up? Well, I wanted to keep with you. They want to lose you? Okay, 2nd Peter 2. What I'm trying to do, look up here for one second before we read. I'm going to read the entire chapter. There's no way in one night that we can cover 2nd Peter 2. So look up here. I'm going to read it, and then what we're going to do is just highlight a couple areas. The name of this message, which you can get in tape form at the end of the service, is Last Day False Prophets. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways, that word shameful could mean licentious or sensual conduct, and will bring the way of truth, Christianity, into disrepute. In their greed, these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. These are solemn words in this chapter. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment, if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but He protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, if He, God, condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly, and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed, that word could mean tormented, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men, for that righteous man living among them day after day was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard, if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials, and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desires of the sinful nature, the flesh, and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men, the false prophets, teachers, are not afraid to slander celestial beings, yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord. But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts or animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight sexually. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning. They seduce the unstable. They are experts in greed and a cursed brute. They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam, son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey, a beast without speech, who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness. These men, the false prophets and teachers, are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Black as darkness is reserved for them, for they mouth empty boastful words, and by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error, new Christians. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity, for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them, the proverbs are true. A dog returns to its vomit, and a sow that is washed goes back to wallowing in the mud. May God bless the reading of His Word. Father, give us ears to hear, and give me wisdom and insight and anointing that only You can give, Lord, so that the people will be edified. Let everything be done decently and ordered but full of the Holy Ghost, for we ask it in Jesus' name. This is not a negative message, but this is something that everyone has to be aware of. Last day false prophets are real, and they're alive and doing well on Prophet Earth. And let's just get a summary of the chapter before we just delve into a couple areas, because I want to speak to the point, and then lead us in a time of prayer. Already so many good things have happened tonight. First of all, I want you to know, in case you fall into the love trap, that you just accept that everything that everybody does and everyone says, if they're called ministers, that's the love trap. False love. Love that doesn't discern and know that some people are full of the devil. Some people are false prophets. First of all, we notice here that their existence is confirmed. He begins by saying, there will be false teachers among you. So moving in and out of the church, and living on the periphery, are going to be people who are false prophets. Why God permits that? Possibly He lets it happen, so that which is real and true can be proven. But there will be, there are, false prophets and false teachers among the church, on the periphery of the church, on the border of the church, mentioning Jesus, looking like ministers, talking like ministers, but they're up to nothing but bad things, and they're emissaries of hell. They're used by Satan. You have to understand that wherever there is something true, there is always the false and the counterfeit. In the spiritual world, the minute there is something that's real, Satan has a counterfeit. Next to the wheat growing was what? The tares. So just like there are real men and women of God, like one that we just ordained, there will be always counterfeit men and women of God, who are false teachers, false preachers, false prophets. That always is found throughout Scripture. With true, there is always the false and the counterfeit. In Matthew 24, verse 24, listen to what Jesus said, For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. So Jesus tells us in that famous chapter, talking about the end times, that there will be false prophets who will come with some kind of manifestation of a sign or a wonder or some kind of miracle, but it will not be ordained of God, and it will be used to seduce and draw more people away from the truth. Now the characteristics of false prophets in general and a summary view of them, so that we might get some clues to their identity, is I want you to notice, number one, that covetousness and greed are mentioned over and over again in the second chapter of 2 Peter. In other words, false prophets are usually identified as money-hungry swindlers disguised as Christian preachers. But sooner or later they get to the money, your money, and they get it for themselves. So whenever you and I hear a minister, I don't care how beautiful he speaks, when it's always about money, and it's, he'll pray for you for money. He has to have an offering because he's the special man of God. Whenever there's money, money, money, money, money, money, money, you be careful, because that's the sign of a false prophet. A true man of God, trust God to take care of him, but he's not a money-hungry swindler like the crooks are that are the false prophets that are mentioned in the New Testament. When my wife and I were just not even three, two months in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and we inherited such a difficult situation, so small, so depressing, so full of problems, I was not in the ministry two months when I heard that about four or five of the congregation of 18 or 15, 18, 20 people that we inherited, four or five of them, on Saturday night, had gone to the Academy of Music which back in those days would have a lot of ministers holding meetings, a good number who were crooks, and four or five of the people went to this meeting where the evangelist had a prayer line and he would pray for the people, but the prayer line was lined up in the church, three aisles, this way, $50 prayer line, $100 prayer line, and if you wanted a special blessing, a $500 prayer line, and four or five of the people in our church, remember that Carol, they went to that meeting and got on one of the lines paying money to be prayed for. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a prophet to know that that's wrong. Can anybody here picture Jesus charging anybody to be prayed for? So, one of the things we notice here, right away, is that when there's covetousness and greed and there's a scam, and that's happening a lot in Christendom today because I get letters like this, one at least, two a month, sometimes not that many, but they come in regularly. People said, I've heard of your church, I read your book, I'd like to come to your church. I have all nine gifts of the Holy Spirit in operation. I have a tremendous anointing on my life. If you would like me to come, give me a date, I'll send you a contract. I require $5,000 to preach for you for a night, and if you send $1,000 down with the contract, we can book a date. But no money down, no date. And you know what I say to all of that? Da-da-da-da-da-da. That's when I'm spiritual, I say that. Humbug. When my father-in-law was alive, he told me of a man that he knew who would come and preach, but he would never preach for an audience less than a thousand people. That's funny. Jesus talked to one woman at a well. The second characteristic that you see is there's a seduction from truth. Listen now, closely. The goal of a false prophet is to seduce people, not just sexually, we'll get to that in a moment, but away from the truth to become followers of them. In Acts 20, Paul is talking for the last time to the elders of the church at Ephesus. Just like these men that you saw up here, Pastor Floyd, Johnson, Pastor Carlo Bogstad, Pastor Jim Cimbala, he called for the leaders of the church at Ephesus. And he said this to them at the end of his talk, I know that after I leave and gone, ferocious wolves will get in among you, not sparing the flock. Even from your own selves, men will come to the front, this is the Amplified, who by saying perverse, distorted and corrupt things will endeavor to draw away the disciples after them to their own party. So, false prophets and false teachers, no matter how they start, their ultimate aim is to seduce you away from the truth of the scripture and to make up an elite party of which they're the head of, or one of the heads of, so that you do not identify with Christ and the church so much, universal, you identify with their group, their sect, their churches. By the way, local churches can have a cultish spirit, where they promote themselves as the special church. They can't root for another church, they can't root for another preacher, they can't root for another choir, because inside of them, they have that damnable party spirit that comes from hell that says, we're the special ones, and that's what false prophets have in them. They can't root and relate to the body of Christ, they draw away disciples slowly but surely and say, if you want the deeper teaching, you come to our house, you come to where we're gonna meet, you don't mix with those other people, they isolate you away from the body of Christ and form their own sect or party. It seems like along with greed, sex and immorality go with false prophets. As we saw several times, they're talking about, they have eyes of adultery and they seek out adulteresses. Immorality and corrupt living goes right along hand in hand with greed and typifies these false teachers. Along with the fact that many times they will come up with teaching that justifies sin. They will come up with teaching that justifies sin. Instead of warning against sin, like a true minister will, they will come up with some abstract argument that will justify sin. I told my wife seven or eight years ago that after just praying one day, I felt the Lord speak to me and warned me that there was gonna come a day, I don't know how I can explain it, how I felt it or saw it, but I walked into the living room and I said, Carol, ministers and Christians are gonna start to curse. There's gonna be cursing and it's gonna be justified, like, come on, you gotta let it all hang out and talk like you really feel. But how many know filthy speech is filthy speech? And for every word that comes out of our mouth, we're gonna have to give an account. That and now drinking alcoholic beverages, those are the two new crazes spreading across America now in many church circles. And while we were in Atlanta, some of our choir members went to a church where the minister twice used profanities from the pulpit. From the pulpit. But if you would act like that, he would say, come on now, what's wrong with you? What are you, a baby going, oh, you talk, you say it, it wasn't mean, God understands. These people not only are immoral, but they make merchandise of people. They think up con games to get people's money, blessing packs and blessing formulas and buy this special ointment or oil and buy this special cross and put it under your bed and it'll save you from hoodoo and voodoo. How many know you don't need anything under your pillow, you just need Jesus in your heart? How many say amen? But you see, for the simple-minded and for the new believer that doesn't know that, that sounds right. The idea that any physical object that will protect you from anything is a principle of black magic. It has nothing to do with Christianity. We don't need any physical objects. They are proud and arrogant and self-will and this is important to spot them. They resist any authority or any kind of control. They despise, literally in the Greek, they despise dominion or government. Nobody's over them. If you talk to them and say, who's over you in the Lord? They'll reply, Jesus is over me. I get my orders from God. They come across as radical and sold out for God, but they're false. Because every true man or woman of God realizes that they need checks and balances in their life. Everybody. As the Bible says, Obey them that are over you in the Lord. They're animalistic. The pig returns to the mud. The dog to his vomit. And yet, many will follow their shameful ways bringing the way of truth, Christianity, into disrepute. So brothers and sisters, this must be a vital subject. If with all of the nonsense that they're involved in, the Bible, the inspired word of God says, many will follow their ways. Well, who are they? And where are they? And who's following them? Don't say to me, well, I don't want to hear about that because God's on the throne. Come on, wake up. God is on the throne, but God is the one telling us, many will follow their horrible ways. So you and I have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and say, Lord, don't let that spirit get a hold of me. Don't let somebody con me. They promise people a new liberty, yet they're slaves themselves because anybody who's captivated by sin is a slave. In other words, like produces like. They are slaves to sin. They're driven. They're hardened. They're sold out to sin. And even under the guise of religion, they produce sin, not godliness. They don't produce praying people, godly people, Bible-searching, tender, holy, wanting to be like Jesus people. No. They'll sooner or later produce people who will live like them because everything bears fruit according to its own seed. Their punishment, I don't know why God would put that in the Bible, such strong words, if nothing else would wake us up. Their punishment is sure. They're doomed. They're damned. And hell is waiting for them. And if God doesn't punish them, He says, then what He would have to do is release all the angels that He punished when they sinned. And He'd have to raise up from the dead all of Noah's generation who were punished for sin. And Sodom and Gomorrah would have to be put back on the map which God punished for sin. So you've got to remember, brothers and sisters, the thing that God hates is sin. And these people are sold out to sin. But what makes them dangerous is they are wolves in sheep's clothing and they're coming in the guise of a minister, of a preacher, of Christianity. But that shouldn't surprise us because even the devil goes about and disguises himself as what? An angel of light. So if you think, brothers and sisters, as I go on to close here soon, if you go and think that false prophets have a sign over them that's flashing and says, I am a false prophet. Just the opposite. They are, as the song says, smooth operator. I have no idea where that came from. Fourth service. I'm tired. Smooth operator. I was in the ministry one month when a Puerto Rican girl came to our church and told me that the minister in her church had called for a special meeting with her and knew that she was sick. And he said that God had given him a word how she could be healed. And he took her to the Old Testament where the prophet went up to pray for a child that had died and the Bible says that he laid himself on top of the boy, his face to the boy's face, his chest to the boy's chest. And I was all of 29 years old as this girl told me how this minister had used the Bible to con her into some sexual activity. I've counseled at least 20 sisters over the years who don't go to this church but have made their way here somehow or when I was in Newark who have said to me I've got a problem, I'm involved in a situation that I've got to get out of and I said to them well, I don't usually counsel people who aren't in our church why don't you go to your pastor? And the lady's eyes would fill up with tears and says that is the problem. He's coming at 2 in the morning, 5 in the morning, 8 in the morning. I wasn't one year in the ministry when over at Teen Challenge I met a minister who told me about a church in another part of city who he said he would not get near with a 10 foot pole. I was young, naive. And I said oh why? Would they teach something weird? He said listen, I just went to their conference, their big conference, holy convocation and what not and he said they have women pastors coming in from different cities and other countries in the Caribbean and they had laid hands during the week on women, single women in the church who were set aside to be used by those men by the ministers in a hotel while they were in town for the conference. This is just my little life and my little experience of hearing of these things. So if you don't think these things are going on you got to wake up. There are false prophets and false teachers out there and some are on Christian television and some are on the radio and it's their vision, it's what they feel. They're not preaching the word of God as Pastor Toledo read so beautifully from Timothy the instructions to Peter, to Timothy from Paul. Now, let's just talk about three things that are highlights and then let's tie this together. Number one, it matters obviously what you believe. Someone says, I didn't do anything, I just went to hear them. I don't see anything wrong, I haven't done anything. Obviously, if false prophets are sent by Satan and are used by Satan, they're not selling drugs initially, they're not trying to get it on with somebody, but it does matter what you believe. If truth enters your head or lies enter your head, that is a huge difference. Satan wants all of us to believe lies. False prophets and false teachers are raised up by Satan to try to put in your mind things that are not true and get you to believe them because what you believe will sooner or later come out in your life. Belief shapes behavior and behavior shapes eternity. So you and I can't glibly say, Oh, I didn't do anything, there's nothing wrong in that. It matters what you listen to. It matters what I listen to. There are heresies, there are doctrines of demons that the Bible talks about. So to glibly say, Well, nobody's perfect and he's a little off there. You can't treat error like that. Because the whole role of false prophets is to seduce, not sexually, but first away from the truth. In other words, Satan is not just in the sex business, the drug business, the alcohol business, the cursing business, the filth business, the pornography business, as we're gonna hear about next Sunday night, but he is also in the falsehood business. Getting people to believe a lie because he is a liar from the beginning and he is the father of lies. And if you believe a lie, it will affect your behavior. That's why you can't just say, Well, I'm just reading it. I hear people say that all the time. I'm not doing anything, I'm just reading it. I just went over there, I know it's not right, but I just wanted to see. These are dangerous things, brothers and sisters. It matters what you believe. And once error gets a little momentum in your head, you can be taken over by it. Now, what's important is how the word of truth must be honored and studied and known and discussed If false prophets and false teacher peddle lies and if this is the word of truth, don't you realize why the devil doesn't want you to read the Bible? Because if you don't know the Bible, how will you know a lie? Look at me, everyone. Forget gospel music for a moment. Forget hanging out. Study to show yourself approved. The Bible is like a light and if you want to know something is a counterfeit, shine light on it. When you hear something and it sounds a little fishy, bring out your flashlight and shine the light of God's word on it. And then you'll know that's junk. It's amazing. As I say at the 12 o'clock service, I was reading a book about revival. And even in the midst of revival, things can really go off because Satan is always right there with a counterfeit move. And there's a lot of revival culture like there is gospel culture and white southern culture and black church culture. And culture is culture, but the word of God is not a culture. It's spiritual truth. So in this one revival in Wales where there was a tremendous move of God, pride or something must have got into somebody's head because one of the leaders... I'm reading this book at one o'clock in the morning in my study. A man is writing about his encounter with the revival there in Wales. And one of the leaders of that revival becomes so super spiritual that he begins to act spontaneously in meetings but in a way that is not according to the word of God. So he would arrive at the church and this is as the revival of course began to peter out. He would arrive at the church and he said, I'm not preaching. There's people in the building who are not of God. And he would sit down for 40 minutes. Everybody would just wait because this is the man of God. And he'd say, no, I'm not talking. If you try to get me to talk, I'm not going to talk because there's opposition in the building. Imagine if Jesus would have done that when he spoke to a crowd with Sadducees and Pharisees plotting his murder and he kept right on talking. What humbug. But then later when he would get up he would say, you know what? Let's say there were six ministers on the platform. He would say, you know what? There's opposition again here tonight. Real mystical. And the opposition is on the platform. But he wouldn't say who. So that meant all the ministers now were under suspicion by the people. Would God do that? Would Jesus do that? But see, it sounds spiritual, doesn't it? Humbug. But he would go further. After the revival had died out and his name became famous, ministers would go to visit him and he wouldn't come down to even greet them because he wasn't led to say hello to them. And then the man writing the book says this. This is part of a lot of the culture that I grew up around at times. The man writing the book said, I got to know him and I really love him. This man was enamored with this certain minister and should have had a little bit more sense before he wrote this book. But he said, one morning I went to meet him and we had a long talk and then I saw him the next day. But then about a week later I saw him in the morning and he wouldn't talk to me. Just like turned his back on me. And he shunned me. And even when I left because I was going to go away for a few months, he didn't even turn to wave and say goodbye. Ah, but when I was riding on the train and trying to figure out why he acted that way, I realized that in my devotions that morning I hadn't really thought the Lord the way I shouldn't and he probably picked up that I wasn't in a proper spiritual tone and he would never come down and talk to anybody if they weren't in proper spiritual tone. What humbug! How many know if Jesus acted like that he wouldn't have talked with one person on the face of the earth? Come on, do I get a witness? Say Amen. But you see, there's a crowd of people who love that elitist thought. Ah, the mystical, super spiritual people who so walk with God they won't even talk to people. It's marvelous, isn't it? She's so close to God she's depressed all day long and won't talk to anybody. She seeks God. She's so close to God. She won't talk to you if you just want to chitchat about the time of day you have to discuss mysteries with her or she won't come down from her exalted position. Oh, what baloney! But how do you know that unless you know how Jesus talked to people? How do you know that unless you know how Paul talked to people? Brothers and sisters if you have your Bible, hold it up right now. Let's pray. Father God revive us in your word. Renew our minds, Lord so that we will search your scriptures and we will know the word of God even those that are learning disabled and can't read that well. Lord, help them to understand the word of God. Help them supernaturally, Lord so that when the devil comes with his lies we'll be able to refute them by the word of God. Even as Jesus said Help us, Lord, for we ask it in Jesus' name. So, brothers and sisters a word to the wise is sufficient. We got to get serious with our Bibles. Is it not amazing that less than 33% of everyone who goes to church in America now to a Christian church less than 33% read their Bible once a week. Over 66%, 2 out of 3 never pick up the Bible once in a week. In a week! I don't know about you I can't go one day without the word of God. Come on, how many say Amen? Give us this day our daily bread. And God will not only nourish us but He'll make us sensitive. Don't say to me, please or to anyone the Holy Spirit will show me who's false. The Holy Spirit wrote this book and if you don't take time to read what He wrote He's not going to help you discern anything. If you insult Him by not reading what He inspired and then you think He's going to help you in another position that's not the way the Holy Spirit works. You search the word this is what renews your mind this is what gives you a proper way of thinking and being able to discern when somebody's up to bad business. Now, listen. Remember, counterfeits are best seen in the light. And also the best way to tell a counterfeit if somebody gives you a counterfeit dollar and you're not sure just lay a good one next to it and then you can tell the counterfeit by comparison. That's why you've got to know the word of God. You've got to know the word of God. That's important to me because when I die whenever God takes me away from here or when I drop dead or whatever happens to me the best thing that could be said about me is you know what? When He died all the people in His church were reading the Bible. Then I'll be in heaven I'll be dancing around up there when they tell me that everybody's reading the Bible. So it matters what you believe. Secondly notice the subtlety now, listen the subtlety of how destructive heresies are brought in. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them. Notice the words secretly it's translated also subtly or with cunning they will introduce destructive errors damnable errors notice that these heresies are not innocuous they're not neutral they're destructive heresies. If you believe them you're going to be destroyed by them. Destructive heresies. But the word for secretly here is a Greek word that means to lead in by the side of others. To lead something in by the side of others. So false prophets and false teachers that are used by Satan do not just preach falsehood they preach truth. But they bring their error in alongside of the truth. So that you will and I will relax and we will say well they said four good things those were all true, right Joey? If the guy said four good things well the fifth thing I don't know but he said four good things so the fifth thing must be true. That's just the way false prophets work. To bring in their error they bring it alongside of something else. They don't walk in alone stand up sister, stand up sister they don't walk in on either side of me they don't walk in alone because you might notice them. They bring in some friends with them. And you go that's nice, that's nice well then that must be okay but it's not okay. So when somebody says but he said that God can heal he said God can heal Pastor don't you believe God can heal? I'm not worried about that God can heal I'm worried about that other thing he said. Someone says if he's saying I heard him in a place he said everything was you know it was all right he was quoting the Bible but how about that one thing that he didn't quote the Bible? In other words the devil is smart how many know that? Say amen. He's not going to you know false prophets don't come in you know let me tell you a lie come on everybody no it's it's the word of God it's the word of God and then a slight variation I don't repeat prophecies publicly I don't think that I know I've never done that there are prophetic utterances that are really of the Lord and then there are things that just come out of somebody's sanctified heart it's not wrong but it's really not special then there are things that just come from emotion and it gets tangled and it's wrong and then there are false counterfeit prophecies I have in my wallet I've kept it now for a few years a copy of a like three page prophecy that was given by a very godly man that my wife knew as a child he would stay at her dad and mom's house he really walked with the Lord loved the Lord humble man and in this prophetic warning that he gave in the 60's early 60's he said this that a day will come when Satan's deception will be so strong that if the people of God are not careful they will believe a lie because it's associated with other things that are true and they won't make the differentiation they'll be gullible and say well he's saying all these good things from God's word well then this other thing you know nobody's perfect and that's how error will come in and he also said that Satan will raise up messengers who will perform signs and wonders and when people see that somebody is supposedly healed or somebody's situation is altered they will then accept the message because they think the messenger has been authenticated listen let me tell you something here listen if somebody raises the dead in front of you when they get up to preach you still go to your bible and check out everything they say come on how many say amen for the bible says even if an angel comes with another gospel curse it is that angel an angel flies into your room tonight while you're sleeping and you hear a little fluttering of some wings and you wake up not buffalo wings these are angel wings and the angel begins to speak to you listen you know what God tells us to do if an angel talks to us check out everything that angel says from the word of God and if he starts to violate scripture say get out of here you filthy false