Mike Bickle addresses the dangers of false teachers within the church, emphasizing the importance of loving and standing for the truth of God's Word. He warns that many believers may fall away due to a lack of love for the truth, which is a significant sign of the end times. Bickle highlights that false teachings often promote a comfortable, broad path that leads away from the true, narrow way of Christ, which is rooted in the Sermon on the Mount. He encourages believers to be discerning and to commit to the truth, even when it is unpopular or challenging. Ultimately, he calls for a return to the authentic teachings of Jesus and the apostles, urging the church to resist the allure of falsehood.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, and Lord, we ask you to bless the speaking and the hearing of your word. Lord, we love you. We love your heart. We love your ways. We love the things that you stand for, the things that you fight for, the things that you are committed to. We say they are the very best and the choice things of the earth. We are not those that draw back or ashamed of your truth, but we love your truth. We delight in your law, O God, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. 2 Thessalonians 2. King David and the psalmist and several different psalmists talked about delighting in the law of the Lord. And delighting in the law of the Lord is not just an issue of loving to read the Bible in our quiet time. That's certainly part of what he meant, that we actually delight in reading the word in our private lives. But delighting in the law of the Lord or delighting in the word of God or in his precepts, I think of Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 are kind of the two famous psalms that emphasize our delight in the law of the Lord or in the word of God. It also means that we take a stand where God stands, that we're not ashamed of the truth as God presents it. And what I mean by that is that I find this is a struggle in my life, in the body of Christ, and undoubtedly in your life that some of the things that God stands for are troublesome. And as much as our minds are unrenewed, they're embarrassing. And they seem too extreme. And we have a temptation to, you know, kind of hide the Lord kind of in the back room of the house called the church. And when the neighbors come over, we don't really want them. You know, he's kind of like the alcoholic uncle who's visiting, you know, you just kind of put him in the back room and the neighbors come over because he's going to make a mess. And we want to present the Jesus of the Western culture and not necessarily the Jesus of heaven. Because the Jesus of heaven, he made a mess of things from the paradigm of popularity when he came to the earth the first time. I mean, they did not like him. The religious community did not like him. The unsaved community did not like him. I mean, some did, but the majority did not. Believers and unbelievers did not like him. Well, he hasn't changed and he's not ever going to. And as the church is coming forth in our nation, there is, I believe, a significant amount of wrong teaching, wrong focus, wrong emphasis that's going on in the body of Christ because the Jesus of Scripture is troublesome. He's embarrassing to our natural sensibilities. And it's just easier to tuck that part away and not face it and certainly not proclaim it. And yet as we get closer to the coming of the Lord, the Holy Spirit is really making this issue come to the forefront. And I find it, as a man who loves God by the grace of God, I find it troubling even in my own soul. I say, Lord, I am going to take a stand, but I need help. This is more intense than, it's easy to do it in the midst of the, you know, a few friends in unity around fellowship and we're going to go for it. But when we get out there right where the rubber meets the road, sometimes it's not quite so, we don't delight in the law of the Lord in the same way that we imagine we do. Because it's more than our quiet time delighting in the Bible. It's that we will stand for it and believe it's the best way. It's not one of the good ways. It's the only way and it is the best way. It is the way of truth. It says here in 2 Thessalonians, talking about in chapter 2, verse 3, we looked at this the other day, it says, let no one deceive you by any means. For that day, talking about the second coming of Christ and the rapture, it will not come unless the falling away comes first. We understand that there's a great falling away in the church that's going to happen alongside a great harvest as well. Both of them will happen simultaneous. But there is a great falling away. Big enough, I mean, it's significant enough that it's one of the major signs of the coming of the Lord. It's not a subtle falling away that we can't quite tell if it happened. It will be very pronounced. It will be very recognizable to those with a living faith. It won't be a thing that kind of sneaks by and we go, I think the great falling away was last couple decades. I think, I'm not sure. Some say it is, there's a debate in the land. As long as that's the case, it hasn't happened. He says that the day of the Lord won't come until the great falling away comes first and the man of sin, the Antichrist, is revealed, the son of perdition. Those are the two great signs that will be so obvious to the faithful that they cannot miss it. Then he goes on to describe the Antichrist. Verse 4, he opposes and exalts himself above everything that's called God and that's worshipped. He will sit as God in the temple of God that's in Jerusalem. He will, the temple will be erected. Right now, the temple doesn't exist in Jerusalem. It will be rebuilt before the Lord returns and this man will walk in there and sit in it and claim to be God. He will show himself that he is God. He'll have, not only will he claim it, he'll have many, many signs and wonders. Verse 5, do you not remember that when I was with you, I told you these things? As I pointed out the other day, we looked at this passage. Paul was only in the city of Thessalonica for three weeks. It says in Acts 17, only three weeks. And within a three-week period, he led these new people to the Lord. Some of them, I mean, the old believers are three weeks old. The new believers are one or two days old. I mean, he's gathered this group and he goes, within a three-week period, he goes, I established the Lord's coming. The antichrist is going to be raised up and there's going to be a falling away before it all happens. He goes, you remember, I told you all of these things. Now I can't imagine a new believers class that puts those things in it as a priority. Well, Paul thought it was a priority and he goes on and he says, verse 8, he says, now the lawless one, that's the antichrist, will be revealed whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and he will destroy by the brightness of his appearing. And the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders. And he will come with all unrighteousness. And here's the key phrase, deception, deception among those who perish. And here's why his deception will work among the people who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, but they might be saved or they might be delivered. Verse 11, because to be saved and be delivered is an often interchangeable concept in the Old and the New Testament. It could mean physical, being saved physically and spiritually, or delivered physically and spiritually. In this context, it's talking about spiritually, being saved or delivered from the deception. It says, for this reason, God will send among them a strong delusion that they should believe the lie. That's a troubling concept, that they all may be condemned who do not believe the truth, but had pleasure and unrighteousness. Well, the point I want to focus on, there's many important points here, is in verse 10. It says, the reason that many are going to be swept away by deception is because they don't love the truth. They don't love the truth. And the love of the truth is something that is increasing or it's decreasing in our lives all the time. We are growing in the love of the truth or we are diminishing in the love of the truth. And he said, Paul said, that this issue of loving the truth is going to be the central issue, because the folks that fall away are those that have a genuine faith in the Lord. Some commentators want to reduce the falling away to people. Well, they had church membership, but they were never really connected to the Lord. No, they were really connected to the Lord. And they really denounce Him. It's really going to happen. And it's one of the two great signs of the times that Paul the Apostle mentions in this chapter. Now, there's many other signs, but these two are so big and so prominent and so important that nobody who is faithful with the things of God will miss them. They will be pronounced. They'll be huge, these two signs. And again, they have, neither of them have happened yet. There's always a bit of falling away taking place, but not the, what I call the eschatological falling away, the end of the age, the eschatological, fancy word for the end times. But there's a great falling away of people that are in the church right now. And the issue is they do not love the truth. Now, in our commitment to love the truth, we may, in loving the truth, there's a commitment. There's a commitment dimension. There's a human dimension to it. And there's a grace of God dimension because we receive the love of the truth. Meaning the love of the truth is the work of the spirit in us. We can't just produce it. We receive it. However, we can make decisions in our hearts that position us to receive it more readily and to grow in it in a more deep way. And that's a decision that we have made. If not a majority, if not every one of us in this room, we have made a decision. We are going to love the truth. And whenever the truth as revealed in the word of God gets in the way of what the church is preaching, what the church is preaching, the body of Christ is preaching many things that are not according to the love of the truth. And we make a commitment in our heart. We are going to love the truth as defined by the word of God, the old and new Testament. We're going as defined by God. We will love it. And whenever it contradicts our traditions, our religious, our Christian traditions, whenever it contradicts the main flow of what's popular in the church that multitudes are applauding, whenever it is in conflict with what's dear to us, we're going with the word of God. That's the decision we make. We make that decision and then we receive the love of the truth. It's not a one-time deal. We receive it. We love it more and it grows in us. We don't make that decision. The passage we looked at the other day in 1 Timothy 4 verse 2, Paul talked about, he talked about the falling away again in that passage as well. And he said that, he said that what happens is men and women of God in the church are, they're speaking lies and hypocrisy. They're speaking the word of God in a way they know is not true in order to get the applause of men. And their conscience becomes seared as they tell lies about the word of God. And our conscience is increasingly seared or it's increasingly tenderized with love of the truth. It's going one direction or the other. It's a process. It's not a one-time deal. It's not like one day you wake up and you love the truth. The Spirit's wooing us into the love of the truth. We make a decision. We fill our mind with the word of God and when the conflict, the points of conflict come, where the truth is inconvenient, where the truth is unpopular, where the truth causes us trouble, even amongst people in the church, we stand for the truth. The love of the truth actually grows in us more. Or in the conflict we back away from it. Boy, this has got, this has led, my stand here has caused people to get mad at me. I think I'll just kind of go undercover for a while on this idea. Like Nicodemus, if you remember. John chapter 3. He was a man who loved the word of God and he was a mighty teacher in the nation of Israel. And he came and he, to Jesus by night, knocked on the door and he looked around. He goes, hey, I really want to know the truth, but I'm not prepared right now to take the hit for it, because you really might be the truth. I'm not sure. I kind of think you might. You've really got my attention, but I want to come by night because I don't want to pay the price for it. I might, but I'm not sure yet. And that's where I believe many in the body of Christ are. They're in that Nicodemus stage where they, they do love Jesus. They, in that general sense, they really want him, but they're not sure if it's going to get them in trouble in their church affiliations and in their networks. They're not positive they'll pay that price, but maybe they'll, you know, fellowship at night when nobody can see them and get around and say, I believe, I believe. But when the day comes, they won't stand for it. Now, the problem with that is that if we do that again, the verse I mentioned a moment ago, 1 Timothy 4, 2, we're speaking lies. We're speaking opposite of what we know to be true. Paul called it lies. It's hypocrisy. It's not that we're tricked. We actually know it's not true, but it's too unpopular, but it sears our conscience, which is the opposite of this, this passage. Instead of the love of truth growing, the love of the truth diminishes in us. And then it goes on and says this really terrifying statement in verse 11, that God is going to send a spirit of delusion. And what that means is, does it mean that God is going to deceive people? It's not what it means. It means that people who choose in the early stages of the process, that they don't want to stand for the truth. They've rejected the love of the truth. They positioned themselves this way. The Lord is going to allow them to be emboldened in their wrong ideas. So they go all the way one direction or the other. When it says that the Lord sends a delusion, it means that he's going to allow them to be convinced in the deception that they chose. So the Lord's never responsible for them being deluded. But since they have chosen to go that way, he says, I want you to go all the way that way, because I want there to be a conflict in the earth that tries the body of Christ. The body of Christ is going to be tried globally by the Lord, allowing an evil empire to be raised up, the Antichrist, with powerful signs and wonders and false ideas with billions of people buying into it. That is going to purify and train and try the body of Christ. That reality in the earth will bring the body of Christ to a level of purity. We will make choices for truth at such an intense level that we will actually walk in the love of the truth in a way second to no time in history. And God's going to allow there to be, I don't know the number, but some billion or two or three, a large number of people who are fully convinced the other direction, the wrong direction. They chose it. The Lord says, now that you've chosen, that I have need of thee, because I need there to be a strong presence, a strong adversary in the earth that my that my pure bride or my bride will be purified by contesting with, by contending with, by resisting and holding the line against. And that's the Lord's, one of his main strategies in the generation the Lord returns. It's the only time in history where Ephesians 5, 7, 5, 27, one of the great verses, it seems so grand you can't hardly believe it. Ephesians 5, 27, that the Lord's going to have a time when the church will be spotless and without blemish. The body of Christ worldwide, worldwide will have no compromise in it. That is absolutely unthinkable to me. I mean, it's good unthinkable, but I'm going, Lord, that surely you don't mean no spot and blemish, because it's not just the church in eternity, it's the church when the church is presented to Jesus. Well, there's going to be a conflict in the earth that's going to produce a church globally that has no compromise in it at all. But the issue is this issue called the love of the truth. In our hearts, even now in these early days, and what I mean by the early days, I believe there's people on the earth this hour that will see, that are alive today, that will see the coming of the Lord. Again, it may be some decades down the road, but, and I, and I, and I sense it will be, but the Lord in these days now is wanting people to decide to stand for the truth and to proclaim it. Not just to stand for it in their personal lives, but to actually call people to the truth. To call the body of Christ to the truth, not just call unbelievers to it. Obviously, we want to call unbelievers to it. It's called evangelism. But there is great need for the church of the Lord Jesus in the western world to be called to the truth. The body of Christ in our nation has much truth, but there's much mixture in our midst. Let's go to 2 Peter chapter 2 now. 2 Peter chapter 2 is the handout that you have. I just basically have the, the verses, and I, and I put with them the parallel chapter of the Bible. The parallel book of the Bible happens to be just one chapter. It's the book of Jude. 2 Peter 2 and the book of Jude, which is only one chapter, they are parallel. They, they, they carry the same themes, the same emphasis. They have some distinctive points. And when you study them together, and incidentally, we're going to look at this subject tomorrow night, and so if this is kind of like, well, this isn't really where I'm at, just, well, then tomorrow night isn't the night for you, because we're going to continue in this same theme. The reason we're continuing in it is because the Lord has really captured my heart. And I, I'm, I'm just caught up in this reality that the main problem in the body of Christ in our nation today, the number one enemy is false teachers among born-again people, born-again believers who are teaching falsehood in the pulpits. That is the number, it's not the only enemy in the church. It is far more powerful than the pornography coming out of Hollywood or wherever Europe, you know, far more dangerous than many other things. And that's what Peter said. It's the presence of these men who are in their midst, who are not recognized as having air. They're born-again believers. They don't have horns. They're not leading the false religions of the world. They're not Jehovah witnesses or Christian science. They are in the love feast. It says in verse 13 and 14, they are in your midst. They're in your fellowship meals. They are teachers. Many are following them. We're going to look at that word many in a moment. They are popular. Many are following them. Verse 13, they, they're at the fellowship dinners. They're leaders. They have a popular following. But Peter goes on to say, and Jude says the same thing, they are secretly or subtly, subtly is, is I think that the, the, the weight of what Paul, Peter's saying. It's subtle. They are introducing ideas that are destructive to the true faith. And he goes, and you don't even know they're in your midst because you don't have discernment and they're leading you down the entire wrong path. And 2 Peter 2, oh, we're just going to look at a few verses tonight that people says, especially in verse 20 to 22, at the end of it was he ends the chapter. He says, believers that are redeemed that have escaped the corruption of the world are being swept away by these false teachers. And they're actually these people, verse 20 to 22, it gives the, it gives the kind of the end of the story here. They end up denying their faith under the weight and the power of these false teachings. Let's, let's read this. This is a, one of the most, 2 Peter 2 is one of the most threatening, heavy chapters in the whole Bible. 2 Peter 2, that's not a chapter you've spent much time in. And it's not one that we kind of, you know, really like to point out because it doesn't kind of, it doesn't excite people to hear this, but I tell you, it is, it is essential to the health of the church in the generation of which the great falling away is coming. Well, it's essential all through church history, this chapter is. But this is, these false teachers, they are a danger to the health of the church, to the vibrancy of the church, to our pursuit of intimacy. But it's more than that. They are a danger to the salvation of people in the body of Christ. I realized that that's a big controversial subject. Can a true believer lose their faith? I'm absolutely convinced a true believer can lose their faith. Nobody can snatch a true believer out of the Lord's hands. Nobody, there's no power of hell. There's no, you know, group of demons or people that can take you out of God's hands, but you can tell him, no, I do not want your way anymore. I told some of the other day, I said, I'm a firm believer in eternal security. They said, what? Sounds like you're not. No, I go, absolutely. I'm a firm believer in eternal security for whoever wants it. If you want eternal security, that's what first Peter chapter two, verse nine says, the Lord knows how to deliver you. If you want deliverance, he knows how second Peter chapter two, verse nine says the Lord knows how to deliver the godly if they want to be delivered. And so anyone that wants eternal security has it. But eternal security is not guaranteed to somebody that had a true confession of faith. And that's what Peter's talking about. He's talking about the dangers in the body of Christ because of false teaching in the church, not the cults outside the church. Most believers, when they think of false teachers, they think of the cults and the false religions outside the church, and they entirely miss the warning that Peter's giving them. We are thinking of again, the Jehovah witnesses and the Christian science or whatever group is out there, you know, the multitude of groups, the false religions in the East. Now, obviously they are false teachers, but those are not the ones that have a huge following in the body of Christ and the ones that are popular at the fellowship dinners of the church. And these are truly born again people, which we'll see in a moment. The reason I feel energy about this, well, number one's in the Bible, but because we're looking in all the wrong places to guard ourself from false teachers. And we need to be looking in the right places. I'm not trying to produce a spirit of suspicion. I'm trying to produce a spirit of caution and discernment awaiting us in our lives that we want to know the truth. We want to love it. We want to spend our days and our evenings and our free time filling our mind with truth. So not only do we love it and understand it, but we are faithful messengers to believers and unbelievers of the truth in an hour of coming darkness. So Peter is helping the body of Christ to recognize their number one enemy. And the number one enemy of the church is in the church. It's not the false on the outside. It's not even the growing lust and all the things that are happening in the world. Those are bad, but those are not the number one threat, the body of Christ in our nation has. It's what's coming out of the pulpits. That's weakening the people's spirits. It's weakening their faith. Another passage I'm going to point out, and then we'll get right into this is, uh, uh, I mean, uh, the famous passage, we all know, uh, Matthew chapter seven, verse 13 and 14, Matthew seven, 13 and 14, that Jesus said it sermon on the Mount. There is a broad road, a broad way that leads to destruction. This is the very destruction that Peter talks about several times in chapter two, he talks about destruction. Jesus talked about the broad road, the least of destruction and many go down it. Then he talks about the narrow gate or the narrow road that leads to life and few find it and stay on it. Few find it. And I don't know what percentage few is, but I, here's the weight of it is that we measure truth. We measure truth, of course, by the word of God, but in a more specific way, more specific than just the word of God as a general standard, we measure the preaching of the gospel and the preaching of truth by this. Does it produce a commitment and a hunger to live the sermon on the Mount lifestyle? You know, the sermon on the Mount is Matthew five, six, and seven. Does it produce an awareness? Does it produce a hunger and does it produce a commitment to live the sermon on the Mount lifestyle? That is Matthew five, six, and seven. That is the definition in context of the narrow road or the narrow gate and the narrow road. Jesus said few people are going after the narrow gate and the narrow road. And the narrow road and the narrow gate is unquestionably the sermon on the Mount. It's the very sermon he's giving. The broad road is that which makes us unaware and uncommitted and unfocused on this lifestyle before Jesus. And I have no interest in being negative for the sake of being negative. I'm more interested in being truthful for the sake of God's pleasure. I want him pleased. I want to teach in a way, not whether I get a whole bunch of people applauding or not applauding, I want to teach in a way where in a minute and a half from now when me and the Lord are face to face, there's going to be a minute and a half from now, maybe a few decades, maybe longer, maybe shorter, and maybe that's all a minute. It's a minute from now I will be face to face. And all that matters about my teaching ministry and yours, you don't need a pulpit to have a teaching ministry, you might be one-on-one teaching. All that matters is that he's smiling when he reviews it on that day. That's the only thing that matters about your teaching ministry, whether it's writing, preaching, or singing. All that matters is that when you and him talk about it, he smiles. If that works, I win. If that doesn't work and multitudes are applauding, I totally lose. And so do you, whether you're teaching one-on-one through song or written word or whatever. And the broad road is the non-Sermon on the Mount lifestyle that has the name of Jesus all over it. But it avoids the narrow road. That in one sentence is what I believe false teaching is. It's a presentation of Christianity that in which people are unaware of and uncommitted to and unfocused on the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle. They don't have to use the word Sermon on the Mount. They don't even have to use the verses, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, because you can find those principles all through Genesis to Revelation. I don't care where you find them. You might find them in Psalms or Ephesians. You can find them anywhere you want. But it's that lifestyle. That is the definition of false teaching in the body of Christ. There is the false teaching outside the body of Christ, you know, the false religions. I'm talking about false teaching within the body of Christ in one sentence causes people to be confident with God with no awareness or commitment to the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle. But they're confident with God. That they're flowing strong. Unthinkable. Sermon on the Mount was Jesus's summary statement. It was the constitution of the kingdom of God. It's the basic premises of life in the kingdom. There is no life in the principles. And so I want, and so when Paul, Peter here talks about false teachers, that's what I'm talking about. Talking about people who produce confidence in other members of the body of Christ that things are going well in God with no recognition or no commitment or awareness of the Sermon on the Mount. Again, and using the term is not the biggest point. I mean, you don't have to say the Sermon on the Mount in order to preach on it. One other passage I'm going to give you that you all know is Hosea chapter four, verse six. Hosea 4, 6 says this, because of lack of knowledge, my people perish. The people perish for lack of knowledge. And the knowledge that they lack is the knowledge of God's heart. And it's, it is his heart of love and mercy, but it's also what he requires in terms of living in a life of agreement with him. There's a lot of folks that are even saying yes to the message of intimacy. They're going, I want to go with God. I want to know his heart. I want to go with intimacy, but they're not, they have to say yes to the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle as well. Or the intimacy is only an illusion. It's only something it's a, it's a fading dream that they never get their hand on. There is no intimacy apart from a commitment to walk out the lifestyle, the Sermon on the Mount. And having preached on intimacy these last years, I'm watching more and more people rise up and, and with a twinkle in their eye, which I like, wow, this is that. And I say, you've only heard the advertisement, the advertisement of intimacy with God. And even the, the, the, the, uh, uh, verbalizing it to others is not the same thing as pursuing a life of intimacy. Liking the concept and even telling people about it is not the same thing as doing it. And you can only do it in context to the narrow road. There is no intimacy apart from a life committed to the narrow road. Now there's many failures. I have many failures. You have many failures. It's not an issue of failing, and therefore you're a hypocrite. It's an issue that when we fail, we declare war on the issue that we failed and stumbled in. As we declare war on it, we have confidence because we're still on the pathway of the Sermon on the Mount. Being on that pathway doesn't mean you attain to it at every, every hour of your life. It means that you're focused on it, you're locked in it, and when you hit a wall and you stumble and you fail, you rise up, you call it sin, you take responsibility for it, you don't blame shift it, you repent of it, you push delete, and you go hard again. But you have to rise up and go after it again. 1st Peter chapter 2. In Roman numeral 1, prophecy, Peter gives a prophecy, Paul gives the same prophecy. In 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 1, he said, in the last days, many are going to fall away, and people are going to pay attention to false doctrines. In the last days. That's 1st Timothy 4 1. We looked at it the other day. Here, Peter gives a similar prophecy. He said, but there will all but there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you. Now those false teachers were present in Peter's day, but he's prophesying towards the future as well. Now we know they were present in his day, because in verse 13, they're eating the feast with Peter says, they're in your fellowship dinners right now, you know, we have the big, you know, the potluck dinner deal, you're all coming together, they're sitting with you. And many people are following them. So Peter had this presentation of its yet future. And yet at the same time, it's happening in that day right there that Peter was addressing. So it's happened all through church history. But beloved, I assure you, this thing will escalate in the final hours of the coming of the Lord. They will be among you. Again, it's not that we're not talking about the the false religions of the world, we're talking about the Eastern religions, we're talking about teachers among the body of Christ, look at the next phrase, they will secretly, you might put the word in subtly, verse overtly, bring in destructive heresies, it'll be subtle. Meaning they're not going to, you know, gather on Sunday morning and pull out a chart and say, here are the heresies, they're not going to announce the heresies as heresies. They're going to introduce them secretly. Now, here's the question I want to ask you, when does this happen? Or did or did Peter give a false prophecy? Obviously, Peter didn't give a false prophecy, it's happening. But as I interact with people, I go, where's it happening? And they only would point mostly to the cults and the false religions. I go, no, it's in the body of Christ this is happening. Where? And most people that I interact with do not have a grid for this being a condition of the church within the church. And therefore, whatever is big and is applauded in the body of Christ is often rejoiced in by the majority. Whatever is exciting and big, I mean, multitudes are coming, the ministry is growing, the books are selling. We think, well, you know, maybe there's something with it because the size and the momentum of it. And it's like, wait a second, size and momentum of a truth do not constitute it as truth, because lots of believers are excited about it. He says this, he goes, there will be false teachers among you who secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them. These are men who have been bought by the blood of Jesus. These are not people outside of the faith, they are in the faith. But they deny the Lord. And the way they deny the Lord is by their lifestyle and by their teaching. They deny the Lord by their lifestyle and they deny the Lord by their teaching. And in one sentence, it's a lifestyle and a presentation of truth that is contrary to the narrow road of Matthew 7, the Sermon on the Mount. It's the broad road. They live it and they preach it. They do preach a road, it's just a broad one. They do preach the way of the Lord, but it's the broad one. He says, they deny the Lord who bought them and they bring upon themselves swift destructions. Now look at verse 2. And many, many, they have a large following, many will follow their destructive ways. Now again, these are not eastern religion. These are people who are in the love feasts. These are people bought with the blood of Jesus and they're being celebrated in the church and the false religions aren't following them. Many will follow their destructive ways. Here's why. Because the way of the truth, now remember we talked about the broad road and the narrow road? There's a broad way and a narrow way. Well the narrow way is being blasphemed by them. They are mocking the necessity for the narrow road. They mock it. And mostly they call it legalism. Legalism is a danger. It's a serious danger. I don't find that much legalism among believers I know. I'm talking about across the whole nation. The problem that legalism has been a great problem in the body of Christ and it still is today. The biggest problem is licentiousness. There's two problems. There's two extremes. One extreme is legalism. People trying to earn their favor with God through their religious deeds. But the other one is licentiousness. They have no, they have very small regard for the commands of the Lord. Those are the two different ways in which the grace of God is denied. And legalism is a problem. But I find that most people that use the word legalism, they're in licentiousness. They're in compromise and any requirement that challenges that they call cry legalism. And it's not the truth. Now he goes on, verse 3, and he really gives you a tip off of where this is going. He goes, let me talk about these false teachers. Again they're bought with the blood of Jesus. They're born again. They're in the church and they have a following in the church. Some of them are mega ministries. Not all mega ministries are are false. I'm not remotely suggesting that. But here's what you can tell. Verse 3, by covetousness they exploit you with their deceptive words. It's one of the great tip-offs. They present Jesus in a way that causes money to flow back into their personal pockets and that's what's motivated them in much of their presentation of truth. They overemphasize, they overemphasize the two things that so many, well the three things that are being preached in the gospel today. Let me just say it, that God has promised all of these things. God promises us honor and money. He promises us blessed circumstances. He does promise us blessed circumstances. You can find those promises from Genesis to Revelation. Blessed circumstances. However, the majority of the blessed circumstances, not the totality, the majority are in the age to come. Beloved, we are going to have money and honor and pleasure in the age to come beyond anything you can imagine. God promises money and pleasure and honor, and I'm using the word pleasure in the right sense, in this age as well, but as a secondary focus in our lives. It's not an issue of either God gives those things to us or He doesn't. He gives them to us, but as a secondary dimension of blessing. He will give us these things, but much of the gospel being presented today is mostly concerned with getting more money, more honor, and more pleasure or more comfort. And there's large ministries, whether book or tape or TV or whatever, and the central cry is you can have more money, more honor, and more comfort now. And there is truth to it as long as it's second. When that which is secondary becomes primary, though it has truth in it, the sum total of the presentation is not the spirit of truth. I want to say that again. Though there is truth in every one and many of these things that are being presented, the sum total of it and the emphasis of it makes it opposite from the spirit of truth. And he says these teachers, he goes, I'll tell you where they're coming from. They are promising you what you want so they can make money off of you saying yes to their promises. They're presenting God to you as mostly about money and honor and comfort now. It's called the being practical. Let's be practical in the word of God. If we want to be practical in the word of God, we have to call people to the sermon on the mount lifestyle. There's nothing more practical than the wisdom of Christ Jesus. I want to say it again. God has promised us money, honor, and comfort. He has promised us that from Genesis to Revelation. But the majority of it, not all of it, don't go to an extreme the other way, the majority of it is in the age to come. Our life in this age is presented throughout all the apostles. Jesus himself is the chief apostle. Our life is presented in this age as a struggle, as a conflict, as a war against demons and wrong ideas and lusts. And we hold the ground and we resist it. And in the midst of that, we have some increase of money, honor, and comfort. Those things come. But what happens more times than not is our the gospel is reduced to a life that's mostly money, honor, and comfort. And our struggle is a struggle to get more money, honor, and comfort instead of a struggle against darkness. It's a struggle to get more money, honor, and comfort. I talk to people over the years and they talk about warfare. They're not talking about lust in their heart and lack of humility. They're talking about money and honor not being at the amount they want. That's their definition of warfare. Warfare is mostly defined in context to when money and honor and comfort is being disrupted. And warfare is mostly in the Bible about truth entering our heart and humility and purity taking root in us. Yes, there is some warfare around money, honor, and comfort, but it's secondary. It's a secondary thing. You hear people talk about, I'm going to stand for the Word of God, and I'm going to take my stand, and I'm going to go to the end and never back down. And they often mean to get more money, honor, and comfort. And I believe there's times to do that, but it's a secondary reality. We take our stand to walk in purity and meekness and wisdom, spirit of revelation, and a servant spirit. That is what we want to develop in this age in our hearts. And I tell you, I like a little bit more money, honor, and comfort, but most of our warfare and most of our stand on the Word of God is not mostly about that. Yes, that does have its place. Now, we're going to have more of that for billions of years than we can imagine. And God will give it to us now. Now, it's not an issue of going against those things. It's an issue of making them second. Not first and not tenth. Just make them second. And I find that the primary false teaching that is inundating the body of Christ in the West is a paradigm of life and of the Lord Jesus that's mostly centered around money, honor, and comfort. And these false teachers, they're exploiting the body of Christ with deceptive words. And the deceptive words is an issue of emphasis, but emphasis is not a small thing. It may sound like, well, maybe that's a little bit picky. It's just an issue of being primary to secondary. If it's secondary, it's truth. If it's primary, then it's false. And that's what I'm saying. When money, honor, and comfort is our primary emphasis in our relationship to the Lord, that is a false teaching. When it is a secondary emphasis, there can be truth in all of those things. I know some people that deny all of those things in their entirety when God wants to give them to them. And I don't find many. I find people hypothetically knowing about people that do that, but I haven't really found that many of them actually in real life. It's normally an imaginary group that we're imagining that has forsaken all those things. But anyway, I don't want to go there. I have found that, I mean, the thing I'm saying is that when those things are primary, there is a spirit of deception in the midst of it. It's deceptive words. Jesus didn't come and talk to us mostly about a life. The narrow road is not mostly about being narrow and getting more money, honor, and comfort. In this age, it's about walking in meekness and obedience and purity and money, honor, and comfort has its place. But the body of Christ in our nation, that has become the central focus of the spirit of what truth and how truth is presented. And I want to say boldly, that is a spirit of deception that is going to, it is right now, alluring many into falsehood. Because here's why. The reason this is so important, because what we understand to be truth is what we build our expectations around. What we believe God has covenanted and promised to us, and the way that God has presented it is how we build our expectations. And when our expectations don't happen right, we get angry at God. And there's millions of people that have an expectation of the Christian life that's mostly about a guarantee of money, honor, and comfort. And when it does not happen, and much of it will not happen, especially where we're going, they will be angry at God and they will be susceptible to an offer from the other side that will promise them those things. And many will fall away in the wake of that deception. We're signing up for the real gospel, and we're signing up for the real spirit of truth, and we're signing up to love the truth. Paul said, and we looked at this a few months ago, we spent a couple weeks on it, in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Why don't you go ahead and turn to that? 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We'll just take another few moments on this and then we'll finish. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, look at verse 8. Paul sets forth his version of Christianity. And this is not, I don't hear this type of Christianity in our nation. I hear it a little bit here and there, but it's an odd exception here and there. And I am really concerned that there's an enemy in the camp called false teaching, of which we're looking in all the wrong places as to where that enemy lurks. We're looking at the cults and the Eastern religions, and the false teaching is in the pulpits of our nation week after week after week, and on the airwaves saying the name of Jesus every couple paragraphs. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, here's what Paul said. We are hard-pressed on every side, but we're not crushed. We are perplexed. We don't get what's going on half the time. But we're not in despair. We are persecuted, but we don't, we're not forsaken by God, and our life is even struck down. These are tragedies in life. These are big events. But our life vision is not destroyed. We're not over. Verse 10, he presents the Christian life, always carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus would be manifest in us. And it's, it is the anointing to others, it's true, but the life of Jesus is more than just operating in the anointing of healing to pray for someone else. Life of Jesus is meekness in our spirit, it's living understanding in our hearts, it's love and purity and holiness, as well as power to minister to other people. He goes on, look at verse 16. Paul says, we don't lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing. This is just not the gospel that's being preached today, predominantly in our nation. Our inward man is being renewed, but our outward man is perishing, because our outward man knows what it means to be hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down, the verses we just looked at. And here's what he says in verse 17, here it is. For our light affliction is but a moment, it's for our 70 years on the earth. And beloved, we do have affliction, there is a war, there's a struggle, there's demons coming after us, and there's false ideas inundating our heart, because when our false ideas, when they take root in our heart, our expectations get built around false things, and that is the setting of which we get angry at God. And more people claim they're burnt out. And what they mean by burnt out is they're mad at the church and they're mad at God, which boils down to things didn't turn out right, which boils down to they had an expectation, a picture of what the Christian life is, and they haven't experienced anything close to it. That's called burnout. That's not really the right word for it. It's called bitterness. They're mad at the church and they're mad at God. And the root cause of it is they were given a picture of reality that was a false picture. And they signed up for the broad road, but the broad road really led to destruction. They did not sign up for the narrow path that leads to the anointing on the heart. And they got the broad road, but they don't have language for it. They just think they got a bad deal and they're burnt out. And what happened? They were lied to when they were introduced into the kingdom and nurtured in the kingdom. They were given a humanistic gospel with Jesus' name on it. They were given an entirely different emphasis than the Word of God gives. Here's what Paul says. He says, for our light affliction, which is but a moment, and there is an affliction in this age, it is working for us a more exceeding eternal weight of glory. That's talking about our assignment in the age to come. What God will give us in the age to come, it's coming in just a moment, is so exceedingly greater than anything we will know in this age. And the affliction and the pressing and the being struck down and warring against it, and the forming of revelation and character and servanthood in our spirit, is producing in us a response from heaven where he's going to give us an exceeding greater weight of glory. Paul understood what Jesus understood. Our next assignment on the earth, when the Lord returns and we return with him to rule on the earth, that is where our biggest assignment is. That's where our primary assignment is given to us. And we are, for a moment on this earth, determining how we're going to walk with God. And we are actually determining the some of the dynamics or the dimensions of our next assignment when the Lord meets us. The Lord's going to assign me to whatever he assigns me to in the age to come, based on my growth in purity and meekness in this age, in the midst of the conflict. Let's go back to Peter, 2nd Peter. Look on the notes here. Let's, let's look at Jude down here. Jude says the same thing Peter says. It says, Jude, a bondservant of Jesus. Verse 3, Beloved, while I was diligent to write to you concerning our common faith, I found it necessary to exhort you to fight for the real faith. He goes, it's necessary. You need to fight for the real faith because it's not easy to get a hold of. You need to fight for it to understand the true faith that the apostles taught. And I find that today, standing up for the faith that the apostles taught and Jesus taught, the one I just said just here, 2nd Corinthians, Sermon on the Mount, you have to fight for that in this hour. But I think it's a good fight. We're going to fight for the faith. We're going to contend for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints. In other words, we're going to fight for the, for the version of Christianity that Jesus and the apostles preached. It goes on in verse 4, for certain men, he's talking about these teachers, have crept in unnoticed. Now Peter calls it, they've secretly introduced heresies. Jude says it differently. And I can, and I find Jude's descriptions a little, a little more straightforward, meaning, I mean, I can grasp it clear. They crept in unnoticed and here's what they do. They turn the teaching of the grace of God. They turn the teaching, they preach on grace in a way that empowers people to live in lewdness or what translation says, licentiousness or compromise. They teach the grace of God. And the result is large numbers are emboldened to live in compromise. He says, and when they do that, they deny Jesus. When they do that, these men crept into the body of Christ. They were not discerned by the multitudes. The multitudes applauded them, but they taught in a way that caused people to have boldness to live in compromise and to feel it was okay because the majority will, and he's such a popular teacher. He must be right. Let's go back to, to Roman numeral 2 or let's, I mean, 2 Peter, which is right there on the notes. 2 Peter 2, I mean, Roman numeral 2, Noah and Lot. And we'll just end with just a thought on this. I won't go into it in any kind of depth. Noah and Lot. What he's going to do in these few verses, verse 4 to 9, he's going to give three examples and Jude is going to give something very similar. And I have Jude right underneath at the parallel passage, but Peter's going to pick verse 4, the angels, verse 5, the ancient world in the day of Noah. And then verse 6, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He's going to take three examples, the angels that fell, the ancient world with Noah and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, three examples of where God's blessing was originally present, but they said no to God and they came under sure judgment. So those three examples are, are situations where the blessing of God was there initially. They said no, and they came under, here's the word, sure judgment, because that's what Peter, Peter's point is. These false teachers will surely come under judgment as surely as the fallen angels did. That's the point. It's a terrifying point. He says, those angels are the presence of God. Oh, we love you. We love you for just ages. They worship God and they said no to God. And he says, I assure you that as these false teachers have stood in God's presence, but now they're not contending for the things in God's heart, but they're bringing the people the other direction. They will come under judgment. Again, it's a terrifying chapter. It's one reason we don't look at it much. It's like, ah. Now there's another message that Peter is making. He's not only the three groups that had blessing that ended up in judgment. He's now going to talk about two other groups, Noah in verse 5 and his family of eight. That's group number one, Noah's family, eight people. And then group number two is verse 7, Lot and his family. So Noah's family and Lot's family, there was a small remnant in the midst of the hour of judgment that God delivered because they wanted deliverance. Beloved, from Genesis to Revelation, it is always the minority that stands faithful. It's not the majority. It's the minority. The reason I'm saying that, I'm not trying to, I'm not, where I'm not going with this, you know, it's us four and no more. We made it. Nobody else understands but us. We're not going there. That's spirit of pride and elitism. There's groups all over the earth. There's tens of thousands of them. It's not the majority of the body of Christ, but there are tens of thousands of these groups all over the earth. The point of it is this, in a time when multitudes are going astray, the masses are going one direction, God says, I always have a small group in the midst that will stay true. And the point of which Peter is taking this, 2 Peter 2, he's saying you want to be like Noah and Lot. You don't want to be like the angels, the ancient world that came under the flood or the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that had blessing and lost it. You want to be with the ones that are staying steady in the midst of the pressure. Because the logical implication of 2 Peter is massive numbers are going in the way of falsehood and to stand for it gets people mad at us. And Peter says, I know, I know. But Noah, there was only eight of them, the whole world. There were, you know, however many hundreds of thousands of people in the world, I don't know, or maybe a couple million. I don't have any idea. But there were lots of people and only eight of them stood steady and they were laughed at and mocked. Peter says, stand steady, even though the majority are going the other direction. And that's what he's saying about Lot. Stay steady and you will, you will be happy you did. In verse 9, he gives the summary in verse 9 of what he's really saying in the chapter. Verse 9 is the summary of the whole chapter. He says, I want you to know this. God knows how to deliver the godly if they want to be delivered. And that's not the end of the message. That's the positive side. God knows how to reserve the unjust under punishment if they don't obey him. God knows how to do both. So on one end, we say, Lord, we want to be delivered because there's darkness all around. The Lord says, I know how to deliver you. Look at Noah and Lot. Even though they were a small number, I delivered them. You want eternal security? You can have it. You want a way of deliverance? I am near you. I know how to deliver my people. Even when the majority are going in darkness, I know how to deliver my people. But then he goes on. The other part of the message is not so popular. I know how to reserve the unjust in judgment. He goes, look at the angels. Look at the people of the world. And look at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. I know how to punish the people who say no to me. And we read that and we go, oh my goodness. That's the cry of Peter. Peter's summary is this. He goes, there are false teachers in your midst. And they are, and he's going to go on later at the end of the chapter. We're not looking at now. But he says, they're going to pull many, many in the wrong directions. But God knows how to keep you steady if you want to be steady. But God knows how to punish you if you don't want to walk straight with him. And I don't mean that, again, that you see sin and immaturity and weakness in your life and you yield to it. I'm not talking about a momentary lapse where you stand up, declare war on it. God forgives. He delights in mercy. He will cover you a thousand times a thousand. But it's to the person who falls and stumbles. It has a momentary lapse. But they rise up and declare war on it. They are solid. They're secure. They're in the favor of the Lord. They don't have to concern themselves they've lost his favor because they rise up and declare war on it. So we don't want to misunderstand this and lose our sense of confidence in the Lord's presence while we're really seeking to walk the narrow road. Because we have every reason for confidence. So I'm ending with that. And so I let's go ahead and stand. What I'm wanting us to do is to not just hear it for ourselves and say, Lord, I want to love the truth. That's for sure what I want. But I want to speak it to others. I don't want to just deliver my soul. I want to be a messenger. And so do you. Whether you speak to a thousand or you speak to one, we want to speak the truth to others. And we don't want to be ear-tickling and man-pleasing because that's what's coming in these days. There's so much ear-tickling and man-pleasing. And God is worthy of people that would be fully his. And we want to be in the middle of that. I want to teach in a way where when I meet the Lord, he smiles, says, hey, that was good. You didn't brush me off in a corner. You were not embarrassed with my ways. My ways are good. Yes, Lord, I love your ways. I love your word, O God. Not just quiet time. I love what you say about truth and righteousness. I love what you say about judgment. It's good. It's wise. It's right. I'm not embarrassed about your ways, O God. Amen.