Yeah. That's the way to look at it. God has charge of all. All right. Well, turn with me, if you would, to 2 Peter. We're in the second chapter, and we'll read verse 1, and then we'll get into our lesson. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for the blessings of being in your house. Thank you for each one that's here and those that are online. Father, I do pray for those that are not able to be here due to illness or previously hindered due to work or whatever it might be. Lord, I do pray that as we look into Your lesson today and each of our lessons that we would glorify You in presenting them, that they're Your words, not ours, that You have guided and directed in all things and would edify each one of us. But Father, most of all, we want to glorify You in all these lessons, and we do thank You, Father, that You do give us the warnings as we see here that we'll have false teachers amongst us, and Father, we'll run into them. until you call us all home. And Father, we do thank you now. Thank you for taking care of us, protecting us, taking care of our minds, and making sure that we are focused on you. And we ask this all in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Yeah, I guess, Charlie, we should put, when that song comes up, always stand. Oh, thank you for passing those out. I forgot last week the outlines. to keep up with what we got going. The first portion, we just finished this up. I left you with a question to think about. We were discussing that here false teachers, it says also are the false prophets also among the people even as there shall be false teachers. And all down through history we've been challenged by false teachers, sometimes they help us keep us focused and keep us studying. Today, especially, we have a challenge of that. This is, I guess, a question that's directed to pastor in one way to think about it. What procedures might help a church put in place to identify false teachers who desire to spread their beliefs among the church's teaching ministries? And I know, I'll speak, maybe I'll speak for Pastor. I know he makes sure that, he kind of checks us out beforehand. But, yeah. And attend on Sunday nights, because we're going through them. But that's the first thing right there, is if you truly want to teach and to be able to be part of the ministry, is to read and understand those articles of faith. because they're so very important. And that's not the exhaustive list, by the way. I mean, our exhaustive list is listed right here. And, but the whole of it tells you what is expected of each one of us. If a person is teaching that, you know, the fact that if they don't believe in those articles, then obviously, and they sneak in, and I don't think pastor's gonna be easily persuaded because false teachers can be spotted when it's discerning. Asking for a testimony of somebody, and pastor's very thorough about who he wants to stand up here in this pulpit. He just doesn't open it to anybody. I don't know if you've paid attention in the news and stuff. There are churches around this country Oh, if you're a famous person, they will put you right in the pulpit. And because they're not going to be teaching from the Bible, they're going to be giving some political speech or some point of view that might not be in the Bible. Then again, there are those that do. But the fact that we have a doctrinal statement is important. There are churches out there today that if you go to their website, you cannot find a doctrinal statement. You might find out what they teach by going in and listening to some of the lessons that they have, their sermons, but by that time, it's like, okay, do I really want to check this place out? I mean, the doctrinal statement is the very first part of it, and of course, you go to the website, they list what we, you know, right up front. We are a fundamental, independent, Baptist church. We believe in the King James Bible. We teach from the King James Bible. Think ours might even say, we do traditional hymns, too. I don't know if that's there or not, but some churches list that. Sadly, there are a lot of churches out there that will add somebody's teaching in their type of style, because people are looking for that. They might look for so-and-so's style or teaching, or they'll follow such-and-such. But it's important, the doctrinal statements. If a church is not willing to print them, then I'm going to avoid them. And it's so very important, I believe. If you can't state what you stand for, then what do you stand for? This, and again, this is just from the book that it's talking about. It says requiring those who want to teach to be a member for at least six months. And I think pastor has, looks, a year at least. You know, because you want to see how they are. And that's going to be evident. There's some people that come here that have a, you know, with a great letter of recommendation. The preacher might say, oh, this guy, person, when they were there, they taught this and this, they did this, they did that. So they come with a resume, essentially. But he wants to watch, wants to make sure. I don't know, how long was it before you let me stand up here? Eight, 10 years? He wanted to really check us out. No. Well, sometimes, you know, you get in these positions by default. Well, who else is around here? You seem to be okay. I don't think I've presented too many heresies yet, have I? Okay, a short leash. Yeah, we're stuck up here in front. And the door back there, there's no side doors around here, so we're stuck in front. But, you know, and really what it is is determining and faithfully following the scope and sequences of the church's educational ministries. Of course, ours isn't as extensive as some churches are, where they actually have a whole department set aside for education. We have a whole department right here, teaching every one of us. That's the department. But really, pastor thinks very seriously about who he puts, where he puts them, and that's a burden on his shoulders. You know, he's going to be held accountable. Thankfully, not me. But those of us that teach, yeah, but those of us that do teach will be held accountable for what we present. So it's so very important. And that's why coming here, it's, you know, one, it's a privilege to be able to teach and to present it. But Peter is, pointing out here how important it is that their appearance, the appearance of false teachers. We already gave you, talked about the signs last week of them. And false teachers, we're gonna come into the next point is their denial, but when you think about the appearance and their presentations, fall right under the denial, they will bring in things very subtly, and it might creep in and sound really good, sound and be presented, and it all depends on some people. There are folks out there that are bringing up doctrines that have been done away with years ago, but they're bringing them back up, because what does Satan do? He's got his tools that he that he goes back to every time. What did he do with Eve? He looked at the pride of life, the things that were just presented to them and looked very ideal. He did the very same thing to Christ when he took him up into the temptation. And what did Christ do? He took him right to the scriptures. And he pointed things out, you know, when he was hungry, you know, spending 40 days without food. I don't think I could go a day without food. But Jesus was able to do that, and yet Satan figured he was weak, and so he would present things in such a way that he would prey on what he assumed, and that was his problem, he assumed, on his weakness. And Jesus took him to scripture every time, talked about the bread. Man doesn't live by bread, but the word of God. And that is the one thing that is going to exist when everything else is completely destroyed, the word of God. We're going to see him in the flesh, but it's pointed out that we want to be careful when it comes around there. And to do battle with them oftentimes is fruitless, because they're so caught up in what they believe, the only thing that we can do is take them to scripture each and every time. And they want to mislead us with lies, and they make those lies sound really good. They claim to be God's spokesmen. They may open up their nice King James Bible and show you from Scripture where they believe and just rip it right out of context. That's what has to be very careful. Satan, again, he's very subtle. He can take God's Word and he twists them around and makes them sound so good. And they may seem plausible. It's interesting. We always have these little colloquialisms that sound really nice and sound like they come from the Bible. I think it was in Blue Letter Bible, J. Vernon McGee went through a list of, well, do you think this is in the Bible? I can't remember some of them, but he lists them and goes, oh, that's not there. Just the way they're presented. Maybe we'll come up with a list and talk about them sometimes. But some people will use that as if it's gospel. build their ministry around something. Or they'll take one piece of scripture and make a doctrine out of it. And they'll make it so that it sounds so good. And Peter was fighting this. Jesus was fighting this as he was training the apostles. Paul fought through it. All of the authors of the books of the New Testament, and even as it went in the Old Testament. Satan was doing his best to counterfeit everything that God had. And so it's very important that we stay aware with it. And when we look at the next part of that is their denial. And it says, who privily will bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them. Denying that Jesus Christ died on the cross. and that he died to secure our salvation. They were trying to make it, and we've run across their doctrines of, you know, fainting on the cross, and then he, one person made it to where he fainted and went into the grave, and then when he was, When he came up out of there and the stone was rolled away, he left and married Mary Magdalene and had children in Italy or something like that. You know, just damnable heresies. I mean, when you think about that. And yet, we see in scripture, he was seen by 500. He was seen by each of the apostles. So, you know, he's a pretty good hoaxer if he can do all of that and still set up another lifestyle, but yet we know He is sitting on the right hand of God, interceding for each and every one of us, and with the Holy Spirit guiding us so that we can be aware of some of the false teachers. Second Corinthians 11, 13 through 15 says, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. They will look and act like they are taught very well. Sadly, today, a lot of our colleges are training people to be that way, to bring in the deceitful things. That at one time, they stood for what the gospel said. They stood for the scriptures. They stood for the inerrancy of it, that we have the preserved word. Now they're teaching, well, you know, that might not be what it really is. You know, that King James Bible, that's just another translation, just like these other ones are. And as we go through there, even the newer ones, they're better than that one and just trying their best. Again, like we've stated before, they're trying to usher in a Christless church so that those in the tribulation time will just buy this lock, stock, and barrel. And there'll be a conspiracy of why all of a sudden these people that we're studying and teaching from the Bible are no longer around them. and knowing that, oh, well, maybe what they said was true. And it might open their eyes, but others, it's going to harden them to the point where they are just completely blind to that. And no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is of no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works." And they'll come in. They're going to come into the church. They're bringing those false doctrines in. We're seeing it today in so many churches where They may teach a salvation gospel, but then you look and see what they're doing with, they're not discipling people. They're not thankful like here where we hold each other accountable for what we believe. Hearing a testimony from somebody and crying with them when we need a bit of a help, but not trying to brush things under the carpet, so to speak, to let, you know, identify sin when sin's there. These other churches, no, that's okay. You can do these sorts of things and you look around and there's every flavor of person in there, but yet there's no accountability. That's a lot of what comes out of the new churches when they teach this. You might hear the gospel. You could get saved through that. but you're not going to hear much more than that. You're going to hear, oh, well, now you need to do this and this to help maintain yourself, and on through, or, oh, you know, you need to be doing this and this and this and this, and just adding to things that are part of salvation, they'll try to tell you. Galatians 2, verses, and that because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who will privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, and that they might bring us into bondage. There are churches out there now that will, if you haven't been in church for a while, they're gonna park themselves on your front doorstep and find out why in the world you're not in church, and why haven't you been paying your tithe. Why don't you just, some organizations actually send an envelope out to you saying, hey, you know, you haven't been paying. Here's an envelope, quickly put it in. A few places, they've got a kiosk out front where you can just stick your debit card in now and pay into their church. Or, we have tickets available. Just go to www.whateverwhateverwhatever.com and get your tickets. Oh, they're free of charge, but we ask for a strongly advised donation. You know, that type of thing. And so, you know, of course, they'll deny it. We say, no, no, we don't require people to pay to get in. Well, that is what there is. But they create destructive doctrines, doctrines that actually cause us to get our focus off from the Lord Jesus Christ. They turn us away and give damnable heresies. They're teaching things that definitely are counter to Scripture. That's why it's so important. When you hear somebody preach, man, that really sounded good. Make sure your Bible's open when they're teaching. And often they'll be teaching out of New King James or maybe The Message or something like that. And you open it and they take a look and see what they're doing and how they're using it. You know, there's a way to use the New King James so that you can teach somebody. But I tell you what, it's not going to teach like this one. I think somebody went through and did a count of some 60,000 corrections that the new King James did to the King James Bible. And I was reading the other day from, I think it was, somebody talked about the translators and discussed about, you know, well, King James has been, you know, revised four times. No, it's just new additions coming up with things of spelling errors that came in. Because when you were hand, when you hand set the first printings, guess what? You're going to find some errors in there. In fact, we just got some Bibles from In God We Trust or something like that. I think a Lee Green one. As we're going through there, I'm finding where they missed capitalizations of Christ or where they might have misspelled a word. And this is with a computer. But they found, this one person said there were 400 corrections and they didn't do anything with doctrine or change any verses but found specific spelling errors? Or how many of you have ever seen the original printing of a 1611? Do you know that it was written in Gothic, the Germanic? And S's and F's looked a lot alike. There were V's look like U's and U's look like V's. Can you imagine trying to read that? You know, it wasn't until just, you know, a few years later they went to the Roman where what we currently have now. And people go, that was a revision. No, it wasn't a revision. It's just, look, clarifying, making sure that you can read them. Standardizing spelling. In fact, you can go through here and you can find several spellings that are changed. In there. Did it change doctrine? No. And those are something that's very important to think about. But yet, these newer, well, we want to call them perversions, but they're translations that were supposed to improve. They actually did more damage in reading. They took our King James Bible from a fifth grade level of understanding to putting words into where They completely changed the whole meaning of a word from tree to defining, you know, the Latin version of that tree when it just said tree. They threw in there something of some other type of tree. You know, well, that was the only kind of tree that was in that area of something or other, whatever. But now you've got a college level. So confusion, creating it. But the false doctrines, and oftentimes, When false teachers come in, they're coming in with their opinions. We had a group that came through here, and the pastor basically took it on. They were trying to tell us that our tracts were preaching works, because it was this person's opinion on how it was written. He had a nice little discussion about that as a group, and they found another church to go to. But that's what happens. They get in, they bring their own opinion, and it might be one that was centuries old, years ago, and brought it back up. One that's going around today is that the church is Israel. Some people are still teaching that even though when you really study you find out why Israel is placed on the shelf for a bit. The church is here. When the rapture occurs the church will be taken out and Israel will be the focus during the tribulation time. It's not a good idea to have the church and Israel on earth at the same time. It's so very important. They're trying to teach, though, that we replaced Israel and all the promises to Israel are given to the church. No, we're going to be up in heaven. And oh, by the way, Pastor pointed out that when we get to heaven after the rapture, guess who won't be in heaven? Satan. Nice thing about that is we're up there learning what we're supposed to be doing when it comes time to the millennial kingdom and all that. Satan's down here raising havoc on earth. He's down here trying to do what he thinks he's going to do to destroy what God has. But those heresies will come up and most all of them are contrary to scripture when you take them there, you ask them the question. And it's always interesting, you could be very polite and say, by what authority do you come up with that opinion? And if they can't take you to scripture, then ignore their teaching. Just don't even confront them on that, because it's not worth it. They're just gonna find a circular way of coming about and trying to prove you wrong. And it's notorious amongst people that We've got some college education, something that really needs to be true. So why would false teachers go so far with their false teachings as to deny Jesus? Anybody got a thought on why they would go that far? Brother Dan? If you don't know Jesus, how can you proclaim Him so they don't deny Him because they don't know Him? Exactly, they don't know Him. So they're going to try every way possible to make it sound like you're the person that doesn't know. You're the hick, so to speak. You've got the backwoods idea about this. And they want to make them sound spirit. Yeah? Yes. Yeah. To make Jesus, well, he was human, but the fact that he was doing everything as a human and that which would make everything in the scriptures a lie. We know good and well that it's not. We can do that on authority. I mean, if a person studies, you can go in and say where Jesus was pointing out his understanding of the Old Testament, why he put authority in the Old Testament, why he taught that before Abraham, I am. Not I was, I am. Yes. Oh, yeah. And when they when they deny that and you know, like, well, some churches, you know, the Mormon Church, good example. They want to make Satan Christ's brother. They also said that we could be as gods also. So therefore dropping the deity of Christ completely out, denying the God, denying that we can be equal with God. The only way we can be equal is that we're going to be a son, but we will never be equal to the Father, ever. We'll never be equal to Jesus Christ, either, because He's the only begotten. We're the adopted into the family, but we're given everything that's there. Any other thought with that? Why would they do that? Really what it comes down to is they sound like they're in the authority. They sound so boisterous and authoritative. And they do it in such a way that makes you try to look down on us. Because, oh, you believe that thing? That's a crutch. Why do you believe that kind of stuff? You smile and say, well, I'll show you right here in scripture. That's the other reason for staying, is to refute somebody when they get you pinned into a corner, for instance. And who knows, they might say, well, you know, wow, I can't argue with that. You know, you are right, and I'm really sorry for what I was teaching. Some people have actually at that point made an honest profession of it, but deep down, They think that they're right. They think that they have the right to be able to tell that, but when you go back to the authority, to go back to the standard by which our faith and practice is, that's the final authority, not a man's authority, it's God's authority. It says that their heart of their heretical teaching is the denial of the redemptive work of Christ. That's what they're trying to deny because they want to make it, as Brother Charlie said, make it human, humanize everything. And it's such, it's so sad when they present that, that they deny the Lord by what they believe and by the way they live. That's the other. If you watch them when they start making these denials, watch them and see what their lifestyle shows. You'll find that a lot of these people that are denying Christ are trying to live a lifestyle as if they are the ones in absolute authority. we quipped about churches that are these mega churches and some of the things that the leaders of these churches live in, while most of the people that are supporting that are living essentially in poverty, yet they're living a lifestyle of a king and making it to where you obey me and continue to take care of me, kind of like the, kings of Israel would do. They would live a life that's way above people, but yet the others, they would deny them anything else. And it's so sad. Christ's death delivers us from the eternal ruin of our sin. They don't understand that, or they won't accept it. Mark 10.45, it says, For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. 1 Timothy 2.6 says, For there is one God, one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. And by his death, Christ brought us to become his property as our master. When we asked him to save us, we became his bond slave. Well, that's what it came down to. So in reality, we need to let him guide and direct us. not to be told by another man what to do, not to be enslaved as Satan does to the lost. He's got them so enslaved things. Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And then when we were in 1 Peter 1.18-19, Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. That's what the Catholic Church does. They place traditions over the Scripture because, oh, these traditions support the Scripture and therefore that's more important than the Scripture. That's what they'll try to say. So they'll say that the Pope is infallible, although now I think they're trying to say, well, you know, really isn't infallible until he dies, then we have to believe him. But then they do things like, oh, this guy was a liar, so we're going to excommunicate him, pull the bones up. rail on him while the bones were there and say, see, he's not answering the questions, and then throw him back in the ground. You know, whatever, those weird things that they do. And it says, verse 19 is, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot, he was the only one that could save us from our sin. But man doesn't want to do that. The lost man wants to think that they have the ability to be able to make their determination. Well, they do. If they don't do anything, it's already determined for them. So there's nothing they can do except ask the Lord Jesus Christ to save them. And they can do that right up until the last breath. But after that, their life is determined. And the whole of their denials of the salvation of Christ, trying to make them sound like they're the authority. And they'll do that with just, you know, making us, again, sound like we don't know what we're talking about. That's why it's very important for us to study, to pray, and to have a discerning eye and ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom. Again, like we said, something that sounds really good Take it to the scripture and see where they say, see if they're ripping it out of context. They might be using the King James Bible, and there's many out there that do, that will just pull things out of context in such a way and just work it with real flowery sounding words and make you think, wow, maybe I ought to rethink that. But take a look at that context. That's why it's so important. When they talk about that, it says, in doing so, they deliberately refuse to accept the truth. We have the truth, they don't want to accept that truth. And that's revealed about the personal work that Jesus Christ has done. This is, they're misguided, but more than that, they refuse God's truth. They will fight tooth and nail because who's guiding and directing them? Who's blinding them? Satan's trying to blind them. They want their own views and not the Bible's view. We should be looking at all of those being presented to us through the lens of the Bible and to use it. Their views are oftentimes, we mentioned, as reinterpretations which amount to misinterpretations of sound doctrine. People get in there and they Like with Paul, where he was running into the Judaizers, they go, yeah, you've got to be saved, but you have to be a good Jew. So therefore, you've got to keep the law. You've got to follow through with circumcision. You've got to do this. You've got to do this. You've got to do this. Paul was saying, hey, your traditions are good, but they have nothing to do with salvation. And in fact, he pointed out to many of them, he says, the laws that you want to keep following, they point you to salvation. They identify sin in your life knowing that you can't come to Christ without accepting Him and realizing that you can't do it on your own other than saying, Lord Jesus, save me. That's the only thing we do on our own when we get there. So the other question is, why should we be wary of a teacher who uses the words new perspective to describe his teachings about a particular fundamental of faith? We hear about that neo-evangelicalism or neo-stuck in front of, well, they're taking fundamentalists and making it neo-fundamentalism. A new perspective on there. What do you think when that comes up? Is there really a new perspective on it? Again, go back into scripture. You know, when they say that, The fundamentals of the faith are well established by normal interpretive scripture. Pastors going through our articles of faith, those are the fundamentals of the faith. If they get in there and they start asking, well, do you really believe in the blood of Jesus Christ? Do you really believe that Christ had enough blood in His body to cover the sins of everybody? Well, as a physical human being, that's not possible. But guess what? He's supernatural. That blood covers every sin of every person ever born. Pure and simple. No more. And nothing added to it. They try to point out that, oh, he was just a man. And those types of things. And they're trying to change those by pointing out some of the things the pastor pointed out about the Trinity. of the different ways that they come in. Well, you know, you're a polytheistic group. You worship three gods. You say, well, no, we don't. We worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Well, that's three. No, no, no, it's three in one. And like you said, don't ask me to explain it. I don't understand. I accept it by faith. Just like every word that's in here, I accept by faith. I can't understand every word that's there. I can't understand every concept, but I tell you what, God's going to give the wisdom with that, and he's going to show us. And that when you see somebody coming up with a new perspective, that should be a warning to us, that we need to be very careful, hold that person at arm's length, even if they're a dear friend. And believe me, that I'm sure each one of us has run into a dear friend that's come up with some sort of teaching like that. That's where you prayerfully approach them and say, are you sure about that? Let's go to scripture and take a look about it. Let's pray about that. And you might see that person change their mind and realize this is the absolute truth. This is the standard. They want to make something new out of it. The only way is a new set of eyes to look at that. Take the blinders off that's blinding them. and open it to see what God has for us to learn. And that's so very, very important. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you again for your blessings. We do thank you for the truth that you show us in your word, that we need to trust that by faith, not let a person's ideals change us from the scripture. If we know Jesus Christ is our Savior, we are taken care of. It doesn't mean that we're completely protected from some of the untruths that come out, but Father it should put us back into the scripture, be able to share the truth with somebody who's showing us the untruth. And Father I pray that each one of us as we go through this, that when we are confronted by that, We will go to scripture. We'll be able to share that with somebody and prayerfully see that person's life changed, whether it's for salvation or just getting back into alignment with God. Father, we know that our salvation can never be taken away from us, but we can tend to walk away and not lose it. but we can act as if we never have been. And that's a sad state of affairs. And Father, I know that you want each one of us to be obedient children, to stay in your Word, to stay prayed up, to share the gospel as often as possible. And Father, we know that we're doing this, we're doing it to help bring others into the kingdom. I pray, Father, now for those that are regularly doing that, give them the strength, the encouragement, and the understanding that the scriptures are never wrong. And we ask this all in Jesus' precious name. Amen.