Spiritual Error is Rampant - II Peter 2

Misinterpretation of the scripture is rampant in today’s society
This whole second chapter was written to warn us about false teachers.

I was born and raised in the northern edge of rice country and that means there were a lot of flat lands, low elevation, swamps and big mosquitoes. How big were they? Some could stand flat-footed on the ground and eat out of a wagon bed. Well, nearly. In flat country, section lines run straight and most roads follow the section lines. When it is rice country most of the timber has been removed and one can stand at a cross-road and watch traffic traveling east and west for several miles in the distance.

The level land orientation as a youth gets the credit for me being able to have an inherent knowledge of direction. In all my travels down through the years I invariably knew when I was going in the right direction. The things that have caused some problems along the way are the mountainous areas. Mountains form an obstruction that prevents long range sight, and after I go around one side of one mountain then up and over another, I have lost my direction. Living on the river has not helped. Roads on section lines that always run north and south help. Little Red River that takes the water from the water shed west of Clinton to the White River at Georgetown forgot to stay on sections lines and is deceiving. Water running down is not always running south. The truth is that it is running almost due west as it passes my house.

When we lose our way while traveling the interstate, state, county roads or unmarked pig trails, it will hardly ever be disastrous, although it is always an inconvenience. There is always more than one solution and something will usually work. We can check the map again; watch for known road signs or remembered landscapes, and we could stop and ask the man at the gas station or even a policeman. Finally, the extreme option could be to just go home. [If you can find the way]

When we loose our way along life’s spiritual journey toward heaven it becomes a more serious matter. There is only one bible sign that points in the right direction. There is only one spiritual message with the correct directions included. And there is only one dependable messenger [Not a cop] but Christ. Finally, the extreme option found in earthly travel—of just going back home is not available—we must go on home even if it is the one that is in a bad location with no electricity or water. The sad truth is that our culture today has many fine-sounding slogans that are delivering deadly spiritual messages. It makes no difference who the author is, or what church or spiritual group is sponsoring and approving the message—Peter labeled these messages as deception by False Teachers [2: 1-3]. Some of the phrases you will hear come from the New Age movement and other Liberal groups and cults and here are just a few of those I have heard in recent years.

· “It may be true for you, but not for me.”
A. Truth is truth and applies to every one.
· “All roads lead to God.”
A. Only one road and it is narrow and only a few find it.
· “All that matters is that you believe there is a God.”
` A. The Devil believes God is. We must believe IN god, repent & trust.
· “All that matters is that you believe in God.”
A. We must believe IN, but also repent, trust, submit to and live for him.
· “It doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you are sincere.”
A. What if you sincerely believe in a God that does not exist?
· “Truth is relative.”
A. Truth is constant, and never changes and does not depend on what men think.
· “Absolute truth is fiction.” [That means you can play-like it is truth]
A. Absolute truth does exist as surely as God does. He is truth.
· “A literal burning hell does not exist.”
A Then where was the rich man when he begged for a drop of water for his tongue?
· “A loving God will not send good people to burn.”
A. That is true. God gave man freedom of choice; and so man decides…he makes his own choice to accept Christ or burn in hell. It is not God’s will that any should be lost. He gave his Son to prevent it.

There may be some who sincerely believe one or more of these errors to be truth—but they are heading in a tragically wrong direction. Each one of us…each individual has the responsibility to recognize spiritual error and stand for spiritual truth. Some of you may ask the question: “How can I know the truth?” Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Therefore, all you need is to know Jesus as your personal savior, and there is only one book that contains the instructions that each person must follow. That book is the Holy Bible which is the inspired word of God.

The insight that Peter had regarding the growth in the numbers of false teachers is a miracle in itself. He told us that the motivation behind the growth in false teachers is greed; and we know that one of the strongest influences toward sinful living and false teaching is the greedy desire of man for wealth and power. I hesitate to name individuals and ministries that are subject to question when it comes to preaching truth and nothing but truth for no other purpose than to lead sinners to know Christ, grow God’s church and glorify our Lord. Peter introduced this subject for our good and I believe that we should carefully examine any leader or movement before we become a part of the movement or support it in any way.

We have examples of many false teachers who have promised freedom and delivered slavery and death. One church story that is still hard to believe was started here in the USA by a pastor said to be an inspiring preacher and teacher that preached about God and even claimed the power to heal and perform miracles. The first most unbelievable thing was that he decided to move his church to another country—and most of his congregation went with him. This should have been the warning that they were following man and not God. Then 780 members of the Peoples Temple Christian Church trusted this false teacher [pastor] Jim Jones and joined him and each other in drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide poison and all died in vane. False teachers can and do exercise unbelievable power to control the minds of his/her followers.

The Dali Lama, exiled from his home land, has refuge in Chicago where his followers have constructed a throne for him. This was in the Arkansas paper, two weeks ago. He was said to have assured everyone that we are all headed for the same place. This is one of the most common errors being taught by false teachers—they will tell you that all roads lead home. If you believe this and live in Heber Springs—the next time you are in a hurry to get to Little Rock, take highway No. 5 North—you will save time and gas money.

In my opinion, the most dangerous of all false teachers are among the big name T V Evangelist that are promoting their personal ministries and that are not affiliated with any church body or movement that has any right or power to monitor the ministry in any way. With no attempt being made to rank the most questionable ones operating big-time, I simply suggest you think twice and hard before you send your hard earned money to promote any of the following: Note: The spelling of the proper names are guess-work, as I did not have time to search for proper spelling. If they spend more time begging for your money than they spend preaching…watch out!


Duplantis: This is a personal ministry based in Louisiana and not responsible to any denomination therefore free to use all monies received at his personal discretion. One of his egos is ownership of private jet planes with personal pilots. His message to his people is that if they will stuff his pockets and continue to make his lavish life-style possible, God will put two cars in their garage.

John Hagee: Claims to have been a Southern Baptist until he learned better. His ministry is not affiliated with any source that would be able to offer any kind of reasonable audit control. He has extensive knowledge of the Bible and was able to set himself up as a leader of people that can help them all become prosperous as he is. One of his greatest accomplishments is that he was a poor boy—done well, by requesting a huge plantation in Texas which God has blessed him with…using the gullible “Partner’s” money as capitol. One of his greatest interests is that he must sell more books and other personal writings.

Oral Roberts: Is one of the first to tell everyone about the importance of “Seed-Faith.” Now, seed are very important. No seed…no corn, or beans, or watermelon, not even a tomato and everyone knows that. Well, you gotta plant “Seed –faith in order to reap a harvest from God. These seed are made from paper [good grade] and green, and must be engraved with the words—“In God we trust”. And they gotta be planted in Tulsa Oklahoma soil in order to grow into a university and keep the family flying high. And of course, it doesn’t require a board or any kind of controlling officers to decide who will be the next pastor in charge of the church or president of the university…Oral can and did make that decision. All you need to do is just plant your “Dollar seed” in Oral’s pockets.

I listened to Joel Olsten this week. Someone asked him what denomination he was and he didn’t know. They asked if he was an evangelical and he admitted that he didn’t know what an evangelical is or was. He got his position as pastor of the largest church in North America from his dad. He doesn’t account to anyone and runs the whole show. [Note: Many of these very important pastors refer to their weekly programs as … SHOWS.] One good point…Joel gives an alter call at the end of each message. Many…in fact, most of these big timers do not have time to give an alter call.

Ed Young in Texas is a young modern preacher. He uses cantaloupes, fancy sports cars and bass boats to get your attention. He has a big church and needs money. keep growing, He does use the Bible some and quotes scripture and really does put on a pretty good show.

Growth is Intentional - II Peter 1:1-11

Most parents are very concerned about the intellectual growth of their children, and will go to just about any extreme to see that thy begin school at entrance age or before if possible. I will never forget my most extreme example of the point at hand. It was in the late 1950’s while I was employed as an elementary principal. You must realize that this was before Arkansas elementary schools included kindergarten and first graders had to be six years old to legally attend public school which usually started in mid August each year. First graders would register in the late part of the spring and were supposed to bring their birth certificate as proof of age. There were always a few that would not have the certificate, and this gave them the summer months to obtain the certificate before opening day. One parent registered the cutest little black headed doll, and promised to obtain her birth certificate. The experienced first grade teacher was suspicious that the child was underage and tagged her enrollment forms. The summer passed and the expected proof of birth was never received. The doll showed up the first day of school with no certificate and the parents were called…the mother said that she did not have the money to waste on a birth certificate. As principal, I ordered the certificate and when it came to the office it confirmed that the child was barely four years old. Most parents complained when their children would barely miss the deadline. Much has been learned about how fast children can learn at a lower age. Kindergarten for five year olds is now mandatory and many schools offer pre-kindergarten for four year olds. It is sad, heart breaking, when young parents may be overly-concerned about the intellectual training for their children but remain completely unconcerned about their spiritual training. They will sue for the right of the child to receive public education—but will refuse free training to improve life spiritually. GROWTH IS INTENTIONAL. There are three areas of growth in a child—they are physical, mental, and spiritual…and they are all INTENTIONAL. That means that neither will be successful without some interested person [parent preferred] intending or making an effort to see that success does occur. Without proper food the body fails to develop properly and may die. Without proper instruction the mind is impaired and may be wasted. Without concerned role models including parents, teachers, and Christian friends starting at an early age—every child is at risk. It is appalling to concerned Christian people when they stop to realize the lack of emphasis that is place on spiritual teaching in comparison to intellectual teaching. If my calculation is anything near correct a child with perfect attendance at church and in school will spend about 30 hours a week in school and about 3 hours a week in spiritual training…that ratio is 10 to 1. Think about this for a moment. Do you feel that our priorities are in the right place? We all will agree that is important for a child to master the three R’s…but is it ten times as important as know how to live? In verse one Peter says he is writing to all people both Jew and Gentile, and then in verse two he prays for our grace and peace and he indicates that it comes through our knowledge and understanding of God and Christ. This means we must learn…and we learn by study which requires teachers… and Peter warns against the false teachers that are cropping up even as he wrote. We must realize that our ability to grow, in strength and goodness does not come from within ourselves—but, it must come from God. Our grace and peace is ours but it is not in us…it must come through our growing knowledge of Jesus our Savior. Many want this grace and peace but are unwilling to put forth the effort to obtain it. It only comes through our true knowledge of God. True knowledge comes only through study and prayer. You must want to pray and study. It must be your intent to pray and study that you may grow spiritually. That is what the title of this lesson means…you will only grow intentionally…and it will never be accidentally. The same concept regarding his power is found in verse three…his power is not from within us, we only have access to his power when we study…it comes through knowledge and knowledge comes from self study under good teachers…and Peter warns us that these cannot be ‘false teachers.’ Verse five tells us that we must have more than just faith. Peter says that we should add to our faith things like goodness and knowledge and self-control and perseverance and godliness and kindness and finally LOVE. Baptist likes to say that we are saved by faith and not works, that we could boast about. That is true. However, James tells us that “Faith without works is dead.” Is this a contradiction? No it is not. The works must me added to our faith…not to save us but to show that we are saved. Look again at what Peter is saying. We are saved by faith…But then we must add to our faith [not to save us but to prove that our salvation is alive and working]…he says to add goodness, knowledge, self-control…and finally Love. If we are saved by grace through our faith—and we are… then why are some additional works necessary? Look at verse eight and Peter makes it very easy to understand. If you possess these qualities [knowledge, control, perseverance, and love] the more they increase, the more they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive. One can say they have faith…however works like these prove they have faith. When you say you believe in God is that the same as saying that you have faith in God? Not really. The devil believes in God, but I doubt that he has faith to believe that God will save him, Faith must be more than belief in certain facts—faith must result in positive action, growth in Christian character and a positive practice in moral discipline and if it does not produce these works it will die see [James 2: 14]. These were the days when immorality was rampant and the false teachers were saying that works have nothing to do with spirituality. False teachers were saying that self-control was unnecessary, because deeds do not save the lost or help the believer. It is true…good deeds [works] will not save a person but they are important for a saved person to look and act like Christ and serve others. True faith goes beyond what one believes. Faith becomes a part of what we do when and if our deeds are righteous. Salvation does not depend on good deeds but it surely will result in good deeds—and when it does not…it is questionable. Peter realized that there were a bunch of complacent believers that were willing to listen to any teaching that tickled their ears. They wanted their salvation and their immoral lives and wanted to believe there was no conflict. Peter told them that they needed to examine themselves to see if they were indeed saved. He was literally saying that he could tell by their life examples and deeds that they were being misled. Are there any false teachers around in the twenty-first century? Oh yes. There are so many that we have more problems than the early Christians had. I worry about this problem…no wonder the bible warns that “few” will enter the narrow gate as compared to the “MANY” that will find the broad road and wide gate. There is no doubt that the number of false and non believers today will far out number the confessed believers…and many of them will hear Christ say—“Depart from me I never knew you.” Please continue to study…to show yourself approved…by God.

Introduction to Second Peter

Any time you start to read a book, any book, in the bible or at random from the library, the first thing you should do is find as many vital statistics about the book as you can. Who wrote it? It’s purpose. When and where was it written? Etc. For this reason, I think we should survey some of these pertinent points that will help us to better understand the primary lessons taught in Peter’s letter.

First Peter was written just before the time that Nero, the Roman Emperor went completely crazy and started persecuting the Christians about A.D. 63 or 64. His first book was written to warn the churches that impending dangers were ahead and that they would find their persecutions increasing. In this book, 2 Peter, his main purpose is to warn Christians about the false teachers that would increase soon and to tell them that their only way to survive would be to grow in their faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and that this could only come by their intensive study of the word. It is now about AD 67, he is in Rome, and he may have heard rumors that Nero was out to get him—at least he knew that his time was limited so he wrote what was on his heart that he thought might be of help to his readers.

In the first verse there is a subtle reference to the people to whom he is writing. Read the first verse. Peter is a Jew and considers it a privilege to be one of the God’s original people. God called Jews “My people.” Look! He writes “To those to whom there has been allotted a faith equal in honor and privilege with our own.” When Christ came the gentiles were added to the house of his chosen people. One verse in the NT reads—“If my people will humble themselves…and pray…I will hear…” It is plain to see that both Jews and Gentiles are now considered as his people. As I said, this fact is subtly hidden by Peter here…but there is no doubt in my mind. Back in 1 Peter 2: 10 he said: “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” He is reminding us that at one time we were not ‘God’s people…only the Jews were.

Peter was probably in Rome at the time of the beginning of the great persecution by Nero and wrote this book while he was living there. Later in the persecution, Peter was executed there in Rome. His decision regarding his execution confirms the high regard he had for his Lord. He chose to be crucified with his head down because he did not feel that he was worthy of hanging there in the same position as Christ did. Now we will move on to the subject chosen for our study today. Growth is not accidental.