It seems these days that the truth is something which depends on how you decide to define it. Some politicians would define truth as any statement which people will believe. And so, despite the fact that you have no intention of lowering taxes, as long as you tell everyone that you will, that is truth.

And of course truth is truth as long as it seems truthful at the time. And so, when you tell the country on national television that you never had an illicit affair with another woman, that is the ultimate truth, until of course you decide to reverse your story under oath when you're before the House ethics committee. And now that becomes the ultimate truth.

The irony is that people will still believe such a person and conclude that the truth doesn't make any difference as long as it doesn't effect their pocketbook, or because they happen to share the same ideological and philosophical position. And so, truth becomes relevant.

The same is true in the spiritual realm. False teachers can make up the truth as they go as long as they tell the people what they want to hear. And if it's shown that their truth was false, then they change the rules or alter things to accommodate themselves.

But as we saw last week false teachers have always been around and they will continue to be around to the end. But the point Peter is making is that the truth of God's word does make a difference. In fact, it makes an eternal difference, because the wrong message kills. And the false teachers are blind leaders, though they would try to persuade us they are in the light and see clearly.

These false teachers are setting themselves up in the Church and leading many astray. Again, notice what Peter says in the opening paragraph of this second chapter.

2PE 2:1 "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.
2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
3 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."

Secretly introducing destructive heresies is a covert act of deception. It is not giving the truth, it is hiding it while putting in its place those things which would promote the false teacher.

When Peter talks about a destructive heresy he is saying that its outcome will destroy. That's what I meant when I said that the wrong message kills. The Greek word for destructive is apoleia and it means perishing, ruin, destruction, and carries the idea of the destruction which consists of eternal misery in hell.

That is what wrong teaching does. It leads people to hell. There is no partial truth or altered truth concerning the Gospel which can safely bring people into a right relationship with God. All roads do not lead heaven. And this is exactly what our Lord Jesus warned the people of in His days on this earth.

MAT 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
16 By their fruit you will recognize them. ..."

This is part of the discourse of our Lord that we know as the sermon on the mount. Just before Jesus preached this sermon He had called Peter along with three others to follow Him. Peter was there to hear this sermon and it was one of the first teachings he received from Jesus. Peter undoubtedly was recalling our Lords words when he is writing this letter warning of false prophets and teachers.

But notice how far these false teachers have gone in not only not giving the truth of the Gospel, but actually teaching those things which are clearly false and contrary to the truth. He says, "They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them -bringing swift destruction on themselves.

They have denied the Lord who bought them. This is how insidious falsehoods are. Do you suppose anyone in their right mind would actually jeopardize where they would spend eternity if they knew that a wrong teaching would send them to hell?

This is how deceptive falsehoods are. And yet, these false teachers chose to go down a path which would lead to destruction. They have no one to blame but themselves. As people who were in the body of Christ they had access to the truth and yet for sordid gain they decided they would use the truth to their own advantage as they bent the truth.

Keep in mind that "they did not set themselves up as opponents of Christianity. They set themselves up as the finest fruits of Christian thinking; and so it was gradually and subtly that people were being lured away from God's truth to other men's private opinions, which is what heresy is." (William Barclay)

They were not spiritually minded, they were fleshly. They didn't accept the importance of the truth, otherwise they would never have rebelled against the God who gave it. But how can a believer ever really deny His Master and Lord?

This is a portion of God's word which has led to some confusion. In fact, this is a portion which some people use to verify that a true believer can actually lose his or her salvation. They say, after all, 'these people were bought with the blood of Jesus Christ and now they are going to suffer destruction as they lose the salvation purchased for them.'

But is this actually what is being taught? Not at all. A couple of things are going on here. First, these false teachers were undoubtedly claiming that Christ purchased them. They were boasting that they did indeed belong to the Lord. How else are you going to gain the confidence of those in the church?

The second thing is that there is a sense in which Jesus Christ did purchase them. Remember, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Did Christ come for part of the world or all of the world?, a few sinners or all sinners? To answer this we need the whole counsel of God's word, because it would be very easy to pick and choose bible verses to support your position.

The truth is that God chose His people in Christ before the foundations of the world. But it is also true that Christ desires that none perish. How do we reconcile the Sovereignty of God and human responsibility? Well, as we've said on numerous occasions, these two teachings may appear to be diametrically opposed, but they are not. They may appear to contradict from our human perspective, but not from God's eternal perspective.

And so, to suggest that Jesus died only for the elect is to miss the point of the all encompassing effect that salvation could have. To deny a segment of the world the possibility of coming to Christ through His redemptive work is to deny the universal scope of His love toward mankind.

The truth is everyone of us are guilty before a Holy God and deserving of eternal punishment. And yet everyone of us are commanded by God’s word and given the opportunity to come to the Lamb who purchased so great a salvation for the whole world.

1JO 2:2 "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

ROM 5:18 "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men."

All men must repent. Therefore all men conceivably are covered by the blood. Jesus points this out in JOH 6:27 "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."
28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"
29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

Is the redemption there extended to all men? Absolutely! But just as Joh.3:16-17 states: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

In light of this and many other passages it is quite appropriate to say, as does Peter in our text, that these false teachers were bought by the Master. But it does not mean that they embraced the Master by faith. And so, like anyone who denies the Lord through unbelief, they will perish.

In fact, we know this to be the case. And yet, all that actually belong to the Master, our Lord Jesus Christ by faith, cannot perish. They cannot be lost. Why is this? Well, we would have to do an entire study on covenants and particularly the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ to get the exhaustive picture.

But, the short of it is that if Christ chooses us and calls us, as Peter clearly brings out in his first letter, then those whom He causes to be born again will in fact be born again. If we are truly born again through faith in Christ, or made new creatures in Christ, it is impossible to be unborn, or to no longer have a life which is from above.

And the major reason for this is because the One who died for us is the same one who holds on to us. We are His children and He has no intention of letting any of us go.

JOH 6:39 "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

Have you ever lost anything? Have you ever misplaced your keys? We have a black hole in our house where all of these types of items end up. It's amazing how you can lose things like T.V. remotes , or keys and watches.

I like that one commercial that used to be on T.V. which actually showed how these things disappear. I don't even remember the product they were selling, but they had a secret camera strategically placed in the living room. The next thing you know Bigfoot is sneaking into the room to steal things, along with ghosts relieving this house of their objects.

We all lose things. But you know what? God never loses anything. "I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."

ROM 8:38 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Were these false teachers in Christ? If they were there would be no way Peter could say they will suffer destruction. What does this say about these false teachers? Well, first of all the text tells us. They are false. Not only false teachers, but false Christians.

Keep in mind what our Lord had said. Remember, we quoted Him earlier in MAT 7:15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
16 By their fruit you will recognize them. ..."

Simply because false teachers appear to be sheep does not mean they are. Those supposed sheep who have no intention of following after Christ, but only want others to think they are Christians, for ambitious reasons, are in fact wolves. What do wolves do among sheep? They eat them.

When was the last time you ever heard of a shepherd going out to shoot his sheep? You shoot wolves who want to eat your sheep. The problem with wolves in the church is that sometimes they are hard to find, because they have clothed themselves with the trappings of life in Christ, but like the Pharisees they are full of dead men's bones.

Now we don't shoot wolves in the church, but we certainly warn the sheep to steer clear of them. And one of the ways to steer clear of them is to recognize them for what they are. This is what Jesus meant when He said, "By their fruit you will recognize them. ..."

Their fruit is not only the way in which they behave, but also their actual teachings. Whatever comes from them is their fruit. And so, we don't need to wait for them to begin acting like pagans or wolves before we expose them as wolves.

If they teach that Jesus Christ is not God, or that He was not born of a virgin, or that His death on the cross was not sufficient to pay our debt these would be obvious clues you've got a wolf in your midst, even if they appear to be a "godly" person. But notice the effect they have on the church.

2PE 2:2 "Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute."

Who are the "many" here in our text? Quite possibly true believers. Well, how can a true believer follow false teaching and the teachers who bring it? Well, why in the world would Jesus Christ Himself warn of such people if the possibility didn't exist?

I've known true believers over the years who have followed after false teachers and their teachings. I've known many of these same people whose lives were turned upside down because of it. Bad teaching produces bad lives. How many times have you heard me say that?

The fact is it's true. Even Paul had to deal with this in his ministry when he wrote to the church in Galatia.

GAL 1:6 "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel -
7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ."

Did this mean that these particular people left the faith? Not necessarily. It simply means that they were going after false teaching which would not only effect their walk with Christ but would have effected their ability to bring the truth of the gospel to their communities. And isn't that what Satan wants?

The fact that Paul is writing to them is testimony that our Lord doesn't leave us without the truth and does what He needs to do to bring us back to the truth. If we are true believers in Christ, false teachings will never lead us out of the kingdom of God, but they will certainly effect our ability to faithfully represent our God and Savior in this world.

That's why Peter says that those who follow after them will bring the truth into disrepute. It's interesting to note that the word "follow" in the Greek here is exakoloutheo, and it means to follow out or up, to tread in one's steps.

The picture here is placing your feet in the footprints of the one you're following. The only way you can tread in one's steps is if you've got your head down looking at the ground. Where are our eyes to be? On Christ, seeking those things above, not on the footsteps of men if they are leading us astray.

But in the process of following after them these Christians are actually bringing the truth into disrepute or as the NASB puts it, "because of them the way of truth will be maligned." The actual Greek word here for disrepute or maligned is blasphemeo.

How do you suppose that transliterates over into the English? That's right. Blaspheme. To blaspheme it to speak evil of.

What is Peter saying? He is saying that as Christians follow after these false teachers and their teachings they actually cause the world to blaspheme Christ, to speak evil of our Lord. This is the objective of Satan. Nothing would delight him more than to have the world look upon the Savior as a misguided zealot who turned into a martyr, but no one you would seriously follow as God the Messiah who saves you from your sins.

Has this ever happened in the church? You bet it has. There were people in the first century, especially the Jews, who denied and taught that Jesus never really rose bodily from the dead. What would that do for our salvation? I'll let Paul answer that.

1CO 15:12 "But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep."

False teaching kills. And those Christians who follow after false teaching for a season potentially place themselves in a position of maligning and bringing into disrepute the truth of who Christ is and the salvation He brings, together with our ability to grow in Him. And instead of creating an atmosphere of unity the body begins to devour and divide each other at major points of doctrine concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

Does this happen today? Unfortunately it does. Just look at many of the major denominations. There are churches which deny the clear teachings of God's word. Some promote such teachings that would allow homosexuals as pastors. Other's question that God actually created man, but only started the process of evolution by creating inanimate matter.

The epitome of how the truth is brought into disrepute is how the gospel is changed by bringing good works into the equation to be a part of the redeeming process. We are certainly saved unto good works, but not by good works and yet there are churches, for example, who tell you that you are not saved unless you are water baptized.

Does this mean water baptism is unimportant? Absolutely not. But to suggest that water baptism is essential to securing one’s salvation is heretical. It is false teaching. What about adding the sacraments, which Rome teaches, into the equation?

They clearly teach that without practicing these sacraments, especially the mass, you have no place in the kingdom of God. That is false teaching which kills. That is not the gospel.

Does it make a difference what we teach? You bet it does. Notice what else these false teachers do.

2PE 2:3 "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."

Here Peter makes it quite clear that these false teachers are not, nor were ever, true believers. He begins by showing some of their fruit. "In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up."

What is greed? It's a desire to always have more. It's never being satisfied, and it stems from a love of money and a love of the world. This is what motivates many a false teacher. They want something from you and it's not your allegiance to Christ.

They're in it for only one thing: themselves; and they will use people to achieve this. This is what the word exploit in our text suggests. It's a Greek word which is sometimes used to describe how one might trade for something in a business sense. Like people trafficking in illegal drugs as they wheel and deal, these false teachers use people as though they were merchandise.

This is exactly why the KJV uses the phrase here in our text: "they ... make merchandise of you..."

Now, up to this point, Peter has been doing something which most of us would consider unthinkable. I mean, 'how can we judge the hearts of people like this? 'How can we know that this is their motivation?' 'How dare we arrive at the conclusion that we know that an individual is doing such a dastardly thing.'

Peter is certainly speaking of judging the heart of a person, but he is doing it in general terms. Remember, it is the Holy Spirit who is inspiring this portion of Scripture. It is, therefore, the Holy Spirit who is giving us this insight in a general sense.

We may know of false teachers who don't appear to exploiting anyone. We may know of false teachers who really "seem" to love the sheep and aren't interested in a greedy way. Every situation may be different, but the Holy Spirit is teaching that though we may not ultimately condemn such people, He will, because He does know the heart.

This section of 2Peter is meant to instruct us to be aware of what these false teachers do and why they do it, so that we will be discerning not to fall under such deception. But only God ultimately knows the heart and motivation. We must inspect the fruit, but only God can burn the tree which will not yield the fruit of the tree they claim to be, but aren't.

Does this mean we don't take any action in such cases? No. It simply means we follow the commands of our Lord to love our enemies, but not to continue to walk in their ways or allow the rest of the sheep to be seduced when it is shown that they are promoting such falsehoods.

Paul and Peter on different occasions urged the body to put these people out if they would not repent.

But our text here is describing someone who has no intention of repenting and will therefore come under a sure judgment of God. Peter says at the end of verse 3, "Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping."

This is language of God knowing their hearts and giving them their reward. This is really what we all deserve outside of Christ. Whether an unbeliever is a false teacher or not, all people deserve this judgment from God which will lead to destruction.

This is why we praise God that our judgment fell on His Son and this is why we share with the world that, though there is real and present danger of condemnation by rejecting the Son, there is also the hope that we can be brought back to a God who desires our eternal fellowship. And that comes through faith alone in Jesus Christ.

And at that point we can say with Paul, "there is therefore now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..." (ROM 8:1)