False Teachers and Eternity

The last time I preached on 2 Peter was a Sunday night, so most people didn’t get to hear it. So I want to recap real quick. We looked at the 2nd half of ch. 1. Paul said that he made EVERY EFFORT so that they could REMEMBER the truths that he was writing to them. He went on to describe the certainty they had in the word of God, having personally witnessed with their own eyes and heard with their own ears what God Himself uttered from heaven when they were on the sacred mountain top. So he said that you will do well to pay attention to what the scriptures say… until the morning star rises in your hearts. That morning star is one of the names for Jesus (Rev. 22:16). So Peter tells us there to pay attention (listen, believe, obey) so that Jesus is the absolute focus of our lives. He tells us that they did not originate by the will of man, (which many people today try to write them off as being just another religious book written by man), but men who were moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God (v. 21).


But then Peter goes on to tell of false prophets in the days of the OT, just as he warns US, there will be false teachers among you! In this passage Peter shows us four things. First, he shows us the False Prophets Activity, then he tells us of the Unbelievers Punishment. Thirdly, he tells us that the Righteous Are Protected, and finally, that the LORD Knows how to keep the righteous and the ungodly in their respective states of reward or punishment until the Day of Judgment.


Maybe you know of some False Prophets that existed in the past, started their own religions, or maybe you know of some today! You know of people like David Koresh who led a group of people to commit suicide. You know of people like Muhammed, who took principles of Judaisism and Christianity’s and developed a huge following out of it. You know of Joseph Smith, who later took the form of a protestant religion and has deceived millions with what you know is Mormonism. But they aren’t all. It still goes on. I have preached on Ezek. 38, and how we are in the last days, and the Bible tells us in 2 Thess. That the Day of the Lord will not come until the great apostasy, or ‘falling away’ happens.


You know of Oprah Winfrey, who claims to be a Christian, she has her own religion, her own spirituality now that she is promoting, telling people that God is within them. She is leading MILLIONS in a class called a ‘Course in Miracles.’ These teachings come for a lady named Marianne Willaimson, who in the 1960s, took dictation from a spirit who claimed to be ‘Jesus.’ The first online service Oprah Winfrey led had 2 million attendees. It was dubbed as the World’s largest mass! Her second online service, had 5 million people taking part!!! Her religion teaches that there is no sin, it tells us “Not to cling to the old rugged cross.” It says that Jesus was a good example of man who connected with the divine within, while it totally ignores the scripture’s teaching about what Jesus said or did. It rejects the reliability of the New Testament, and adopts erroneous religious teachings like the Davinci Code!


And there are other false prophets, closer to home. Many well-known evangelical pastors are beginning to compromise the exclusive truth of the gospel, and beginning to merge with other world religions, saying that we can find salvation through all of them, saying that if we think Christianity holds the only way to God, that we are “narrow-minded,” or even “bigoted.” Such statements are coming from people such as Rick Warren. You know him for writing the '40 days of purpose.’!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, this is real! If you go home today and check your copy of 40 days of Purpose, you’ll notice on p. 91 that Warren suggest saying “breath prayers.” Breath prayers are defined and also called by New Age gurus as “sentence prayers” or “centering prayers.” In these prayers you are told to choose one word or a short sentence from scripture, and repeat it over and over, slowly, with your breath, till that is your only thought, and after doing this for 20 minutes, you come to “find god within you.” Do you see what is happening? Do you realize what these people are doing? They are slowly introducing words or concepts to you from other religions so that they will be accepted and you won’t realize what is happening. Let me give you an example: ~ Do you know how to catch a wild pig?
'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat
the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used
to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides
of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, which are used
to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate
on them and catch the whole herd.



Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and
around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to
eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how
to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.


This “breath prayer” is very similar to Transcendental Meditation as practiced by the Buddhists. Some of you may recognize the process I described, what the people are doing, is that they are hypnotizing themselves, so that their mind is open to suggestion, or control from an outside source. What this does is it opens our minds to demonic control and deception. Prayer is not something that is for personal experience, nor does it take a Christian 20 minutes to enter the presence of God! When I utter a prayer, THE VERY MOMENT, I am in the presence of God. The Bible says that as a believer in the LORD Jesus Christ, I am seated at the right hand of the very God all these people are trying to reach!!! So in this you can see the start of the movement to bring the world-religions together. Can anyone say ONE-WORLD RELIGION?


Many of you know of Tony Blair, but what you don’t know, is of his spiritual pilgrimage to Africa, Kenya, I believe, to ‘find himself,’ before he became PM of the Britain. Now that he is out of that position, he has formed an organization within the European Union, that aims at bringing together all religions, so that they can survive peacefully, side by side. And one of the main characteristics that they will not tolerate is religions that view themselves as being “exclusive to having access to God”. That would include religious groups like the Southern Baptists! Now, do we say that other groups don’t have access to God because we are mean, arrogant people? NO! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, NO ONE comes to the Father, except through me.” It is not because we are cold, arrogant, bigoted people. If anything, we should be the most opposite to that description you can get! No, it is because we believe God’s word, and those of us who have laid our lives before Him have had our lives transformed!


Rick Warren sits on the advisory board of Blair’s organization. And not only this, but Rick Warren, and Bill Hybels, pastor at Willow Creek, support and are linked to many of the leaders in the Emergent Church. This form of church has been very controversial, and very popular among the younger generation. These churchs deny much of the traditional hymns, that give so much theological substance to our praise. They also minimize or ignore the work of Christ done on the cross for our salvation. These are the ones who are promoting a Kingdom Now theology. The Kingdom Now theology says that God’s will is for there to be an ideal society on earth, but they disregard the teachings on the return of Christ, and teach instead that it is God’s will to eradicate poverty, fight AIDS and work toward peace. While these things in and of themselves are good, they do not teach on MAN’S MOST ESSENTIAL NEED, a relationship with the living, soon returning God! And they accept the practice of homosexuality as good and normal, along with many of the once devout protestant religions, which now ordain gay clergy, in direct contradiction of Scripture’s teachings!

My brothers and sisters, how much further do I need to go in telling you WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF THE GREAT APOSTASY!!! The Church, which once burned with flames of righteousness, has now given in to the ways of the world, Divorce, sexual promiscuity, Homosexuality, Witchcraft! And they have fallen into the condemnation of what Paul said to the Romans of such ‘religious’ people: Romans 1:25 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for 1a alie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, bwho is blessed 2forever. Amen.
These people also exploit you. The other night I saw Rick Warren interviewed by Sean Hannity, and Mr. Hannity repeatedly congratulated him on the 25 million books he’s sold of ‘Purpose Driven Life.’ Oprah Winfrey and her colleagues have made millions through their books and internet classes. The leaders of the emergent church have also produced and made thousands through books that they are putting out and conferences they hold. So through all of this, they exploit you. And you only need ONE book, TRUTH BE TOLD! But we would rather go out and read books about the Bible instead of sitting down and looking at the Bible itself, and plumbing into its riches. In chapter one of 2 Peter. we are told that grace and peace will be multiplied to us THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE of our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And this comes through reading God’s word! Hosea 4:6 tells us that God’s people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.


Secondly, Peter tell us of the Unbeliever’s Punishment. He gives us three examples of this: First he tells us that God did not spare the angels when they sinned. This is a reference to Genesis 6 where it says ‘the sons of God’ married the daughters of men, and gave birth to mutant humans called the Nephilim, which were a race of gigantic men. Peter tells us that because these angels left their proper abode, they were sent to prisons in Tarturus, a dark region of the underworld supposedly located below hell.


Peter also tells us how God didn’t spare the ancient world when he sent the flood on the ungodly people of that time. Genesis 6:5 every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Peter reminds us that God did not spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were burnt by fire from heaven. These he tells us, were shown to be an example of what is going to happen to those who live ungodly lives.


But God is faithful and he Protects the Righteous, those who have the sinless blood of Jesus applied to their lives through faith. The next thing we notice in the text is Thirdly, Peter tells us of the righteous ones whom God spared in his judgments upon a wicked culture. (*story - who preached for 120 yrs. and never saw a convert)!

We see that God delivered his servant Noah, and his family safe, through earth’s Catastrophe above all catastrophes!!! (*At the creation Museum, they had clay models of scenarios from the flood, where people had scrambled to the top of rocky crags, crying out, and you could see people struggling to swim in the turbulent waters – the flood was not a pretty, peaceful event. It was the worst devastation upon the planet that has happened up till this point. You think a tsunami of 2004 is bad, multiply that by x 1000!)


We see earlier in Genesis, when God was going to pour out his wrath on the inhabitants of two wicked cities, God knew of only one righteous person in Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham’s nephew Lot. And God brought Lot and his family out safely, delivering them from the judgment that utterly destroyed both wicked cities.


Fourthly, Peter tells us, the LORD knows how to rescue the righteous from trials, and to hold the unrighteous under punishment awaiting the great judgment. There is no alternative. There is no limbo-like state after death that is taught in the Bible. When we die, we are either taken to be immediately with the LORD, or immediately we go to a dark prison to await eternal judgment. There are no second chances.


It’s interesting that when Jesus gives his description of the end times, he says that it will be just like it was in the days of Noah. And it’s also interesting how Peter closes out in verse 10, referring to those who will be punished. He says, “especially those who follow the corrupting desires of the flesh, and despise authority.” What were the people like both in Noah’s day, and in Lot’s time? They followed the corrupt, sinful desires of the flesh, and through their wicked sexual immorality, they despised God’s authority over their lives by silencing the conviction of conscience that God had placed in them to guide them between right and wrong.


So in all three examples, of fallen angels, of humanity before the flood, and of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah, ALL THREE are examples where beings followed the sinful desires of the flesh instead of God’s righteous plan for humanity. Sound familiar? What characterizes our culture today? You see it in every aspect of our society! Just the other day, we were informed that a homosexual group of students at Cambridge High tried to put up a Rainbow flag for their group under the American flag. Folks, It’s reaching even to here! I dare say it’s in this church.


Who are you following in your life today? Are you following the LORD, and His righteous plan for your life? Or are you selling yourself short for the temporary, fleeting desires of this life, only to gain an eternal future of agony and torment? Don’t sell yourself short! You can come to God today. Today is the day of God’s favor, today is the day of God’s grace.


Friday afternoon, I came home a little early because Tara had a severe crick in her neck, and as I came in the house, the news was reporting a bus in NJ that ran off a bridge and crashed onto an embankment below. I don’t know where they were going or where they were coming from, but I bet they didn’t expect that the day the boarded the passenger bus, they would go flying off a bridge and seal their eternal destiny. Where are you going today? When you leave this site, what is your eternal destiny?