Poison In The Pulpit: What God Wants You To Know About False Teachers - 2 Peter 2:1-2 Series

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Introduction God Wants You to Know about False Teachers

If you walked around on a seminary campus and took a survey to find out which branches of theology students are most interested in, you’d get a variety of answers. Some are really into eschatology—the doctrines of the end times. Others specialize in pneumatology—the study of the Holy Spirit, or angelology—angels and demons. But of all the topics in Scripture, which ones do you think God wants us to be most interested in?

How could we know? Well if we go by how often God talks about each subject in Scripture, then one area of knowledge that would be way up high on God’s list of important topics—a topic that God clearly wants us to know a lot about, to have a high level of interest in, and really be well-versed in—is a topic that probably not one student on your survey would have mentioned in his top ten. It’s the topic of false teachers. In both Old and New Testaments, there are many long passages teaching us about false prophets and false teachers. You can tell how important this is to God by how much real estate in his Word he devoted to it.

Matthew 7, 23, 24

Acts 20

2 Corinthians 11

Galatians 1

2 Timothy 4

Titus 1

1 John 4

The entire book of Jude

And in Revelation, we’re told of an ultimate, final, end times false prophet. (Rev.16:13; 19:20; 20:10).

God wants every reader of Scripture to get at least a minor in the topic of false teachers. There are so many passages. And the longest and most detailed one in the New Testament is the chapter we begin today—2 Peter 2. Every word of this entire chapter is about false teachers.

It’s an interesting chapter because it’s only information. There isn’t one command in the whole chapter—not one imperative verb. Peter isn’t going to tell us to do anything. He just wants us to know a whole lot of information about false teachers because of how dangerous they are. I’ll read the first three verses and that will give you a feel for the whole chapter.

2 Peter 1:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false[1] teachers[2] among you. They will secretly introduce heresies of destruction, even denying the Sovereign who bought them–bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring ridicule on the way of truth. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

Okay, so this is a topic God wants you to know a lot about. If it’s not an area of interest for you, it needs to be. God clearly wants it to be.

So what is it specifically that God wants us to know about false teachers? Well, as usual, the verses are densely packed. That’s how Peter writes. But I think we can organize everything he teaches about them in this opening paragraph under 5 headings, and they all start with the letter D. We’ll look at the first 3 tonight and save the other two for next time. The first D you probably already noticed because he repeated it three times in the first three verses: Destruction.

Their DESTRUCTION A Judgment Marathon

2 Peter 2:1 … They will secretly introduce heresies of destruction … bringing swift destruction on themselves

3 … their destruction has not been sleeping.

That word “destruction” could be translated “damnation,” because it’s used throughout the NT to describe the final, eternal punishment that’s coming on the wicked.[3] So the phrase “heresies of destruction” means their teaching sends people to hell.

But this word also includes temporal consequences for sin in this life because the path that leads to hell passes through a lot of hellish valleys along the way. False teaching brings all kinds of destruction into your life now, and final damnation in hell.

And if you think Peter repeating that word “destruction/damnation” three times in three verses is a lot, brace yourself because Peter’s just warming up. The whole chapter is about nothing but God’s judgment coming down hard on the false teachers and the people they influence.

After this opening paragraph, Peter devotes the whole next section to giving proof after proof from the OT that you can count on God to mete out punishment. He sent angels to hell, he destroyed the ancient world with a flood, and burned Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes as an example of what he’s going to do to all the ungodly. That’s vv.4-9. Then Peter turns back to the punishment coming on the false teachers.