LIVING WITH TROUBLEMAKERS

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

1.     BEWARE OF DECEPTION (2 PETER 2:1-3, 12-13a; JUDE 1-7)

2 Peter 2:1-3

1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

·         Heresy refers to a chosen course of thought or action that an individual or a group takes in adopting an article of faith or way of life that is different from true biblical doctrine.

·         The result is a separation which gives the term heresy an unfavorable connotation.

·         False teachers who refuse to obey Him demonstrate the height of insolence toward the Jesus.

 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; 3 and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

NASB

·         Teaching and conduct go together.

·         What the false teachers taught, they also practiced.

·         Instead of shunning their evil practices, professing gullible Christians " follow their sensuality."

·         Professing Christians who followed them brought the Christian way of life into disrepute.

·         People who are not familiar with the Gospel, and sometimes, even those who are, accept these " false words " and stories they have made up as being true.

·         These false teachers are like prisoners on death row; their condemnation is hanging over them.

·         God will not permit these them to escape punishment.

2 Peter 2:12-13

12 But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, 13 suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong.

NASB

·         They claim to have knowledge, but in effect live and act in abysmal ignorance that inevitably will lead to their own self-destruction.

·         These apostates are like wild animals who lack the power of reasoning that men possess.

·         They have descended to that low plane where they are hopeless and helpless.

·         For them Satan is a figment of the imagination whom cartoonists have portrayed with a tail that ends in an arrow.

·         They imagine that they are in control of their lives and thus they can even taunt Satan to tempt them.

J Vernon McGee: “I was very much interested to read recently something about a great denomination in this country, a church that down through the years had preached justification by faith. They made a survey and found that 40 percent of their members believe they are saved by their own works. How tragic it is to see that people do not understand the gospel! Many who have been hearing it year in and year out do not understand it at all!"

Jude 1-7

1:1 Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.

3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

·         He was going to write about the salvation they share, but instead he was led by the Spirit to write a warning about false teachers.

·         Regarding the admonition "to contend," the thought here is to contend without being contentious.

·         Our contending for the faith is one of the tests that Christians are privileged to bear to prove their own faith in Jesus Christ.

·         How do we contend for the faith?

1.      By searching out the truth from the Scriptures so that we will not contend with a blindfold on our hearts and minds.

2.      To be faithful to the profession of the truth as God the Holy Spirit has revealed it to us.

3.      To honor the truth by the way we live and walk in this world.

4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

·         These “certain persons”, profess to have accepted God's grace but have perverted it into a license to sin.

·         They deny Jesus Christ as their only Sovereign and Lord and scoff at His return.

5 Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. 7 Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

NASB

·         In Verses 5-11, Jude is going to give six examples of apostasy.

·         Verse 5 makes us aware of the danger of defection from the faith; this is an example of apostasy on the part of the murmuring Israelites.

·         We will see later that the second example will be from the apostate angels; the third from the beastly Sodomites.

·         God's ancient judgments were to be our warnings and examples.

·         Their destruction should be our caution.

·         We should try to make application of these experiences to our own Christian lives.

2.     BEWARE OF SINFUL LIFESTYLES (2 PETER 2:13b-14; JUDE 16-19)

2 Peter 2:13-14

They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, 14 having eyes full of adultery and that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children;

NASB

1.      The false teachers, the apostates, scorn all norms of behavior and carouse even during the day.

2.      They fail to realize that pleasure and daylight, which are delightful gifts of God, are used in the service of sin.

3.      This is harsh language that Peter uses in speaking of false teachers!

4.      Don't kid yourself that God does not intend to judge them someday.

5.      Because of their spiritual instability, they become easy prey for the father of lies.

Jude 16-19

16 These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.

·         Few people in all the earth are more unpopular and unwelcome than chronic grumblers. It is the ultimate complaint against God!

·         Desire governs conduct.

·         Lust is unbridled desire, not sexual lust, but ultimate, supreme selfishness!

·         Their one value is pleasure, and their one dynamic is desire.

17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, "In the last time there shall be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts." 19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.

NASB

·         It is all-essential to learn and to remember what the Word of God has to say. Having been told, it forearms us against evil.

·         We should not wonder if we find many scoffing at the authority of the Scriptures when those who profess it the loudest and most often use God and His Son for their own personal profit and to hide their own lusts of the flesh behind God's holy Word!

3.     BE POSITIVE IN RESPONSE (JUDE 20-23)

Jude 20-23

20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit; 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting; 23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

NASB

·         It is not sufficient to be established or grounded in the faith, but we must daily increase and grow more and more.

·         It is necessary to build up ourselves on our most holy faith because these are days of apostasy.

1.      God gave us 66 books and we are to study ALL of them, not just favorite passages in certain of the books.

2.      Stay on our knees; that is where God can bless us!

3.      We are to keep ourselves in the place where God can give us all the blessings he wants us to have!

4.      To keep alive the flame and fire of Christian hope!

·         “the fire”, In point of impotency and inability to help themselves.

·         If they are not roused up and awakened, they lie and die.

·         Some sinners are so unclean that we cannot keep company with them without defilement.

4.     BE DEPENDENT ON GOD (JUDE 24-25)

Jude 24-25

24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

NASB

·         The word "amen" signifies a hearty consent to God's promises made in His holy Scriptures.