2 Peter 2:1-10 - "Guarding Against Deception"

2 Peter 2:1-10a - "Guarding Against Deception: Recognizing and Rejecting False Prophets"

James Long, Jr. 

Steadfast Living in an Unsteady World / Deceit; False Teaching; Judgment; Discernment

Dive deep into 2 Peter 2:1-10a, understanding the dangers of false prophets, God's judgment on the unrighteous, and His promise of deliverance to the faithful. Find clarity in today's times with this powerful message.

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Sermon Outline:

• The Rise of False Prophets (2:1-3)
• ‌God's Past Judgments as Evidence (2:4-6)
• ‌God's Promise of Deliverance for the Righteous (2:7-9)
• ‌The Characteristics of the Unrighteous (2:10a)
• ‌Application for Today's Believer

ABOUT JAMES AND LESSONS FOR LIFE

Are you longing to find answers to the deeper issues of life? Join Dr. James Long, Jr., a pastor, counselor, and university professor with over 30 years of experience. Hear James as he tackles some of life’s biggest questions and helps us find God’s solutions to life’s struggles. Learn the power of living by God’s grace and for His glory. Experience the joy of forgiveness and freedom found in Jesus Christ alone. If you are in search of freedom, you will love being part of this conversation. Subscribe, and enjoy the show!

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Transcript

James: 0:26

getting opportunity to preach is a huge responsibility and an awesome privilege to be honest with you. It's a heavy weight'cause you stand in a pulpit and you say in essence, thus says the Lord. You are taking God's word and you're observing what is there. You're interpreting what is there, and then you're trying to apply what is there. And as I look at the congregation right now and those that are watching livestream as well, I am responsible for what I share with you to make sure it's true. Now, scripture actually says that we who teach will be judged more strictly because we are held responsible for the flocks that God has given us. So I want you to keep that in mind every time I get a chance to preach. That's heavy on my heart. But even more so today as we look at this passage that they've just read. I want you to imagine it's not very hard to imagine given where we have been in the last month with the floods that came through. But I want you to imagine standing on the edge of a town, watching the torment flood waters coming in to a town. It causes erosion, it causes destruction, and it even takes lives. And then you wonder how did this devastation actually come to being? Now, the genesis of this calamity happened well upstream and before that we, what we were witnessing here, it's happened well upstream, small actions or neglect that laid the foundation for the disaster that we see in front of us now. Now. Similarly, I want you to consider that the era that we live in is full of confusion. It's full of chaos, it is full of corrosion. The world that we live in is increasingly conflict filled. And maybe you're feeling that every day when you hear words that are said, maybe words around you or words in the TV or in the movies that challenge your faith. They produce conflict in your life. And maybe you wonder, how in the world did we get here? How do we get to a place where the struggles that we have are apparent? It is interesting. A writer said that there was a series of actions that brought us to the spiritual brink. I really like these. He mentioned that first there's a desensitization that we are desensitized. First. Second, he said that things have become normalized. Third demonized, fifth legalized, or fourth legalized, fifth idolized, and then some penalized. So desensitized, normalized, demonized, legalized, idolized, and penalized. These actions really have led to the drift that we have from a Christ-centered, cross centered word, centered spirit-filled God glorifying model. That was a bedrock of our lives and a bedrock of our culture that has now eroded. A lot of it, I believe, has come through the media and a lot of it has come through entertainment Hollywood and what we see on TV very much every day. Neil Postman wrote a book a couple of decades ago, I believe, and in the book he said that we have a tendency to amuse ourselves to death. And what he was getting at is that his am this amusement, the entertainment driven culture, has slowly and insidiously reshaped our convictions and clouded our moral compass. And the line between where a devout Christian is and a worldly individual has blurred so much that you do not see a distinct difference between the two. Oftentimes churchgoers members, even tragically, church leaders are starting to look more like the culture and less like God in Christ. And there's a significant segment of our church that has become so seduced by the American dream that they have redefined the gospel in its tenets. We used to hear Christ alone is the foundation, but now what do we hear? It's Christ plus something. Christ plus wealth, Christ plus health, Christ plus prosperity, Christ plus good work, good works. And what ends up happening is that this adulteration of the American American society, has now led into the biblical truth. And our righteousness isn't on the basis of our salvation any longer. It is the or righteousness that we have is not being shown in our salvation any longer. In fact, it's the worldliness that we see. I want you to think about that landscape, that erosion as we look at Second Peter one. Now. Now Peter has just started chapter one by talking about this immense salvation that you have and that God has given you everything that you need for life and godliness. And then he talks about living a life that is going to honor him step by step, adding virtue after virtue so that you look more and more like Christ. And he talks about this wonderful salvation in that when you do that, you can confirm your salvation and confirm your election. And then he goes into the fact that Christ is glorified. Peter said, I saw the transfigured Christ. I saw this God who transformed right in front of me. I saw his glory and that glory that I saw, which is a poor taste of the glory that's going to come. And then he talked about the prophetic word. He said, it's in that word that God inspired human authors, 40, perhaps human authors over approximately 1500 years, writing 66 books inspired those authors to give you his word so you could see the glory. I'm a eyewitness, Peter said of his glory. And then I've given you the word. The God has given you the word that is a glory filled word. Christ-centered, cross centered, word centered spirit-filled God and glorifying. But then he begins chapter two with a big but watch what he says. But false prophets have arose among the people, just like there will be false prophets among you. So I'm gonna look at this passage in four lenses. First, the dangerous deception of the false teachers, the dangerous deception of the false teachers. That's verses one through three. Second, we're gonna look at the damning destruction that has happened in the past, and that is promised for the future. And that's verses four through eight. Then we're gonna look at the divine deliverance. God's promised deliverance for those that are in him. And then finally, we'll talk about our discerning duty. What are we called to do? So dangerous, deception, damning destruction, del divine deliverance, and discerning duty. Let's pray as we begin this time. Lord, as I look at this passage, Peter wrote this 2000 years ago, but he could be writing it today. The chaos, the confusion, the convictions that are there in the world, and believers, at least claiming to be believers, espousing the same things that the world is espousing. It just, it doesn't make sense. Believers looking like the world in their morality and their behavior. It doesn't make sense. And Father Christ is diminished and pushed down in people's eyes and he's not reverence and he's not exalted. And Lord, please forgive us for as a body of believers, whoever do that in our lives. I pray today that we would start to be able to see what a false teacher looks like. I pray that we would hear the warning of their destruction. I would pray that we would bask in the light of your divine deliverance for us, and I pray that we would discern how we are called to live. For your glory and honor, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay, so let's start with the first verse, first three verses. We're gonna be talking about the dangerous deception, and as we look at this dangerous deception, I want you to consider four things about these false prophets. There's probably a lot of things that you could pull outta here, but they are four things I want you to consider. They're message, their methods, their morality, and their motives. So let's start with their message. We see it here. It says The false prophets have arose among the people. So that's the first thing. Now, the book of First Peter was primarily looking at the attacks that were happening outside the church here in second Peter. He's talking primarily about what is happening within the church that people within our own congregation are espousing things that are godless. And he says here that these false prophets are among you. And what they are doing is that they're doing several things I want you to consider. First, they come before you in such a way is that they are speaking lies and deception. It says here that just as these false teachers among you were secretly bringing destructive heresies. Now this word heresy is interesting because back in this, in biblical times, this word heresy, now we think of it as false doctrine and godless doctrines. But in this time, this word heresy actually just meant a sect, a faction. It was a small group. So the small group broken away from the larger group. It was not necessarily destructive at the times. And the fact is it's just separate from our group. But I think what Peter is talking about here is even further than just a separation of this group. It is a separation from truth. And you'll see it as we continue here because these false prophets, these false teachers are among us and they're sowing seeds of destructive heresy. The destruction that they were laying out is a destruction that is attacking the truth that we are called to guard and to preserve. We'll see that in the Book of Jude when we get to that in about a month. And what we have is we've been given the gospel truth and we're called to protect it with all that we have. But what was happening here is that these people were coming in and they were taking. Elements of the truth. And they were sowing seeds of other worldliness into it and was creating heresy. And what it was doing is that destruction, that message was proclaiming a message of Christ Plus or Christ minus in essence. In essence, they were two elements that would happen back in this time. Either there was a legalism that would happen in this culture where people believed that if you followed the law God would be happy with you. So legalism it talked about as the Pharisees, the Judaizers, all of these type of people. What they did was, if you follow the rules, God will be happy with you legalism. There's a second element that was in the Christian Church of License and what it was is this, that if you believed in the gospel and if you believe that God has forgiven you of all of your sins, and if you believe in His grace, then you could do whatever you want and God will be pleased with you. So you could either follow the rules to make God happy, legalism, or you would do whatever you want, live a lifestyle of whatever you want because you've already been forgiven. And these were the two things that were in the culture. And it's the two things that we have today. You will have churches today that will speak constantly of rules, and not focus on Christ and talk about your behavior as though your behavior earns you heaven. But there are other churches that will say, you can send all you want and do whatever you want, and God is still gonna be happy with you. And both of those were eroding that church of the time. And that is, those are the two things that are erode our church. So the message that they were proclaiming was not a Christ-centered message, that if we were to boil the gospel down, if we were to boil salvation down, what does it talk about? It talks about the fact that God is glorious and that he's the creator. And that we have rebelled against him and we are sinners and we have suffered the consequences. That rebellion'cause it has affected our relationship with God, it has affected our relationship with each other. It's affected our relationship with the world. And we desperately needed a savior because we are constantly adding judgment upon ourselves. And then Jesus Christ, the second person in the Trinity, fully God took on humanity and became truly God and truly man. He came here incarnated in the body of Christ. He lived a perfect and righteous life for you. He died an effectual death for all those that would trust in him. He rose victoriously from the grave, he ascended into heaven and he's coming back to reign and rule. Those are essential. But we have churches today that, and churches in this time that distorted from that message. So the first thing he says here is the fact that their message is to be deceptive. It says that they come in and they are teaching falsely. There's a second thing I want you to consider about their dangerous deception. It's not just their message, but it's their method. Watch what it says here. It says, but false prophets also arose among the people just as there were false prophets among you who secretly bring their destructive heresies. So their message is godless. Their message is not Christ centered or cross centered, but their mess, the methodology is secret. They're manipulative. What they do is they come in through cunning as scripture talks about, they come in as wolves, clothed as sheep. We think that they're one of us, but they are godless. It's like Judas was among the disciples. None of the disciples caught on the fact that Judas was a rebel. They didn't catch it. In fact, when Jesus said that one of you will betray me, they looked around and they said, is it me? Is it me? They couldn't figure out that it was Judas because on the surface, Judas looked like one of them, but underneath the surface, he was rebelling against Christ. See this methodology, Satan is not Satan's smart. He's never going to come up there and say, let me tell you, I'm gonna teach you deception today. Go into the church. The bulletin on the church says Deception being taught today. How many of us will go to that church? Godlessness. Pricelessness will be taught today? He doesn't advertise it that way. He puts it and cloaks it in such a way that you and I may believe it, that's his method. It's secret. They, these false teachers come among you and they're doing these things in secret. It's the third thing. It's their morals. It's not just their message. It's not just their methods. It's their morals. How they live their lives, their lives have deviated from the truth. But these false prophets of roses among you, just as those were false prophets among you, who secretly bring their destructive heresies, even denying their master who brought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction and many will follow their sensuality, very honestly. Sensuality, emotionality. And here, in all likelihood, it's probably talking about sexuality is just followed in these leaders and then followed among the people that the sexual ethic of the world and the sexual ethic of many churches is no different than the world that is out there. I know this is probably uncomfortable, but the reality is this, we have been co-opted by the world. There are probably people in this church that are having sex outside of marriage. There are probably people that are tempted to look at pornography as pornography has just taken a reign in this culture. They probably, people in this church that struggle and people that you know, that struggle with same sex homosexuality and believe that these things are right. And what ends up happening is that the slow erosion of life, what ends up happening is over and over again, the slow erosion has now gotten to a point where we actually believe what the world says is true and it's not. And so as we hear that slow erosion over and over again, the morality of the world starts to look like the morality within the church and it creates a major damage. And I ask you to consider is your life and is my life one finger out, three fingers point back, are our lives looking more like Christ and his word or my more like the world? And if my life and your life is looking more like the world than what we need to do is to go back to the message that we're holding to and the methods that we're following, and is our morality following a Christ centeredness it, it saddens me. It really does. How many times I sit down with Christians who will say that the homosexual lifestyle is just normality? That James, you've gotta stop being so judgmental. You gotta stop being so puritanical. You gotta stop being so old minded, James, because that is not the way it is. And they talk about evolution and that the evolution has come in and that we are more wise today. It's like more wise than God, more wise than his word. But if you do not know the word, you will find yourself captivated by the world and it will take you down a bad destruction. Now, that's not to say that those that have fallen to those sins are not people that God can draw to faith and transform them. He drew me to faith and he drew you to faith if you know him. But we have to acknowledge that sin is sin. If you're ever going to point them to the savior, if they don't believe that their sin is sin, they have no need for a savior. The message, their methods, their morality, but then it tells us what the motive is. Verse three, and in their greed, they exploit you with false words. Their condemnation is from old and long ago, is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. It talks about greed. I. They, they've gotten to a place where they have liked this life and they've gotten comfortable with this life As they've gotten comfortable with this life, they find themselves over and over again going after the sensuality of this world and the destruction of this world. And what is ending up happening is this, that God is saying that they are putting materialism and they're putting the worldliness as the greatest thing in their lives rather than Christ. And so what do we see? We see the message of this group is a message that is godless, christless. Instead of thinking about their master who has bought them, they are making something other than God. They're covert, they're subversive, they're subtle, they're nice people on the surface, but they are manipulative. I wanna go back to a phrase that I skipped over denying their master who brought them. And it's interesting that as you consider this, These are people that sat in a church. These are people that pro profess Christ as their Lord and Savior. And it's interesting that the commentators differ on this one phrase denying their master who bought them. Some of them will say that this is a person who has lost the faith, who truly was a believer and has denied the faith. And they've lost the faith. They've lost their salvation. And the problem with that is that other scriptures deny that Jesus Christ says that I came here to give you eternal life and everlasting life. He says that whoever's in my palm of my hand, nobody will ever snatch out. He says in Romans, nothing will ever separate you from the love of God. In Philippians, he says that God has begun a good work in you and he will complete it. In one Corinthians one, it says that, who will sustain you to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is faithful by whom you were called into fellowship with His son and Jesus Christ, our Lord. Or in one Thessalonians five, it says that, may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus, whose calls you is faithful and he will surely do it. So I, I don't believe very honestly that this is a group of people who are truly saved, that have lost their salvation. I believe that it was, is somebody sitting in a church just like Judas, who professed faith but never possessed faith, and a person that professes faith but doesn't possess faith will eventually when seeds happen, they will start to erode in their lives, will fail. The dangerous deception, their methods, their message, their methods, their morals, their motives. Second, I want you to consider their damning destruction in verse four through eight. It says this, for if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to this change of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, and if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserve Noah, a herald of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. And if by turning the cities of Sodom even more into ashes, he condemned them to his extinction, making them an example of what will happen to the ungodly. And if he rescued righteous law greatly distressed by the sensuality of the wickedness, for as a righteous man, lived as a righteous soul over the lawless dets that he saw and heard. Then. The Lord knows how to rescue the Godly from trials. What he does here is interesting. He begins by giving you three examples of God's punishment. Then he gives you two examples of God's preservation. We'll start with the three examples of God's punishment. The first one is found here with the angels that have sinned and that they are now in chains. You see it here for if God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast'em into hell and committed them to the chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. There's a lot of confusion as to this section here. Some wonder if this point is going back to before the fall of humanity where Satan apparently fell with a number of angels. It's talked about or alluded to in Isaiah chapter 14 and Ezekiel chapter 28, and that this fall of the angels has occurred and that some of those angels were apparently taken and put into custody until the final judgment. That's possible. There's another possibility of these angels that God did not spare as found in Genesis chapter six. And just before the flood, apparently some angels may have taken on human bodies and then had sexual relations with women here on Earth and created this group called the Nephilim at the time. Either way, whether it's the disobedient angels before the fall, or if there were angels that really took on human nature human body and had sexual relations with women, which Jude, we'll talk about that in about a month, seems to allude to. If that's the case, these angels will be judged and God judged them by putting them in this holding place. Hell, it could also be, it's called Hades or Gehenna. It is also called Car Tartarus. And it's a place, a final place, not the final place of resting, but it is a prison cell that they're held to till the final judgment. And what Peter's doing is he's arguing from the greater to the lesser. He's saying that if God was willing to judge angels, don't you think he'll judge false prophets? He then moves to the second judgment that he talks about here, the flood. Verse five. If he, God did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness with seven others, he brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly. So what he's saying here is this, that there are, there was a judgment of the angels. One, there's a judgment in the flood, if you remember the universal flood for almost a hundred years. Noah is building this arc, and as he's building this arc, day after day, he is preaching to the world. That judgment is coming. And people saw the arc being built. And what did they do? They laughed at it. They mocked him. They said, there is no judgment coming. And then eventually it rained and it rained, and the world was wiped out because of the judgment of God. The disobedient angels, the flood in Noah's day. The third judgment is found in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah. In verse six, if by turning the city of Sodom Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction by making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. If you know the story of the city of Sodom and Gaura, there's probably heavy sexuality, godlessness that is in this city. And this city has been condemned by God. And if you remember Abraham was trying to bargain God. God, if there's 50, will you save the city? If there's 40, will you save the city? If there's 20, will you save the, if there's even 10, will you save the city? And God says, if there are even 10 in that town, I will save the city. But there weren't 10 righteous people in that town. And God destroyed that town and lot just got out. So what God talks about here is this, that there's this past destruction that you need to know the defiant angels from the past, the doomed world. In Noah's day, the decimated city of Sodom and Gomorrah. God has given you examples from the past, and he promises that the false teachers will be judged as well in the future. He moves from the dangerous deception, the damning destruction to a divine deliverance. This is where it's so hopeful. Look with me in verse five. Now, back in verse five, he said this, for if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved who? Noah and seven others, his family, I. And what he did was he preserved them through the flood. He warned that the judgment was coming. Noah believed him. In fact, his preaching to the world, nobody else believed him, but his family believed him. And the seven of his family got into the ark with him and they were saved. In essence, the ark looks to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus. God has been telling us from the beginning of time that we will be judged, we will be judged, and you will stand under a curse and you will stand under condemnation. But I will give you an ark. And the ark is my son. Every sacrifice in the Old Testament pointed to his son. And this arc, this beautiful arc pointed to his son, that everybody that runs into that arc will be saved. And those of you that choose not to get into the ark, those of you who choose to laugh at the arc, diminish the arc, despise the arc. You may feel at peace right now. Peace. Peace. But there is no real peace. He gave one example of Noah's preaching in the day. Now if Noah's life, you sit there and say, Noah, man, you got outta the boat and you got drunk right after getting outta the boat. You don't seem to be a very righteous guy. It doesn't mean perfect. It means a person that has trusted in God. As I look in this congregation, there's not a perfect person. I'm not a perfect person, but it's the fact that we recognize our sin and we run to the Savior. We run to the ark. This is the second person that's even more questionable, is lot's. Life is a mess if you know about Lot,'cause lot kind of Swin tried to swindle his uncle or his cousin Abraham, by taking the best property and then lot lived near Sodom and which was a really bad place. And then lot moved into Sodom and then Lot was actually a leader in Sodom. Are you calling me? Calling this guy righteous? Yeah. He was. Watch what it says here in verse seven, and if he, God had rescued righteous lot, not righteous in the fact that he did everything perfect, but he righteous in the fact that he stood firm and God's gospel grace. And if he rescued righteous lot and how you could see his righteousness watch, and I'm asking you, I got one finger out point back is this descriptive of your life. He was greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of this world. I wonder if we have become so desensitized and normalized that the sensuality of this world has just become so second nature. It doesn't greatly distress us. It greatly distress a lot. He saw the sensuality. He saw the wickedness of this world, and there was something within him that says, this is wrong. At verse eight, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, watch this phrase, he was tormented in his righteous soul. That word jumped out at me this week. Have I been tormented? Sometimes I things see things that pop up on YouTube or some social medias, and I'll look and I say, that is just crazy. I'll see some things and it bothers me at times. But have I been tormented for people that have been caught into this lie in the deception? He was tormented over their lawless deeds, what he saw and what he heard. So I ask you to consider in your own heart, have you done that? God promises that he will deliver them. Noah is a beacon of hope that amidst the sinful generation you can be saved. Lot is a beacon of hope in the fact that he was rescued from depravity, and it's showcasing God's protective nature for those that are in him. The dangerous deception of the false teachers. Their message, their method, their morals, their motives, the damning destruction in the past, those defiant angels, the doomed world of Noah, the decimated city of Sodom and gaura, the divine promise and divine deliverance of the righteous found in the person of Noah and lot. And then I end with this, the discerning duty for you, the discerning duty for those that are saved. Look here in verse 10, he says. And just the first part of first 10, it probably, you may not, you may know this already, but chapters and verses were put in after this is a really bad break. So that's why you'll see that it says 10 A. We're just taking the first part of 10 A and then next week, I believe it's Pastor Doug will be preaching on the end of chapter 10 verse 10, and it says this, and especially those who indulge in lust of defiling passions and despise authority. It's interesting that he boils down the characteristics of the unrighteous and the on the godless teachers, their audacity and their self nature, and their lack of reverence and their blasphemous behaviors. They are living a lust filled life, sexual life that is outside of God's design, outside of God's authority, outside of Christ authority, outside of the Word, outside of God's design. They are living this lust filled life, filled with defiling passions, and they're calling it true. And then second, they despise a authorities, God's authority, Christ Authority, the authority. Once again, this is probably uncomfortable. It's very easy to talk about a group of people that are involved in lifestyles that we are not tempted by, but how many of us struggle with, as I said, pornography, how many of us struggle with. Ungodly divorce. We just break marriages, break commitments when we don't have God's standard. How many of us are involved in sexual behavior that is outside of marriage? How many of us are failing to follow God's heeded? What he's saying here is this, that our lives in chapter one should be constant virtues that are showing Christ's likeness Holiness matters. Holiness doesn't determine your salvation, but it is a fruit of your salvation. It is not the grounds of your salvation. Your holy living doesn't make you saved, but your holy living shows that you are saved. And so he ends with this discerning duty that you and I, brothers and sisters, we have journeyed through the waters of Second Peter here. And as we come to this, we've confronted with this unsettling reality of these false teachers. These un false teachers have these twin things, sensuality and rejecting authority, and I worry that maybe that's exactly what we struggle with. Sensuality and rejecting God's authority. It's alarming that it was happening in the ancient culture, but it is alarming that is happening today, and you and I need discernment. It's interesting that the word discernment, the Greek word implies acting by distinguishing, separating and examining, distinguishing what is happening. This is true and this is wrong. Separating ourselves from the world and examining closely, the discernment that we talk about here is not superficial. It's deep divine wisdom that you need to hear. I wanna be clear on this, that It's not telling us to separate from individuals. It's not telling us that we shouldn't have un-Christian friends or non-Christian friends. It's not telling us that what it's telling us is that we should not be turning to the world as our counselor. We should be counseling the world. And so what's Paul's prayer here? Is this Paul's prayer. Is that you and I'm sorry. Peter's prayer for you and I is this, that we recognize and avo avoid false teaching that is happening in this world. You can only recognize false teaching if you know what the true teaching is. And a friend who worked in the Secret Service and he worked in the Secret Service, and you may know that part of the Secret Services motto or claim is to provide protection of our currency. And the way they would train their agents is that they would take them and give them a true bill and they would have them examine that true bill, the feel of it, the smell of it, the look of it. Every little theme of what a true piece of money looks like. And when they became so convinced of what that is, then they could pick out the counterfeits very easy. That's exactly what you and I need to do. As we become students of the word, as we become students of the word, we can recognize and avoid the false teaching. But there's a second thing that we need to do in discernment, is that we need to have the promise of God's protection. We need to remind ourselves of the fact that God has given an arc, that God gave a way out of Sodom, and that God has given you a cross. Because as you see the errors of the way, and then lean on Christ, God does an amazing thing. We also need be people of diligence and discernment and prayerfulness. How often is it that you think about the things that you're hearing and the things that you're seeing and pray for wisdom? It says in James chapter one that those who lack wisdom ask God and he will give generously to all without finding fault. We need to train ourselves in righteousness. We need to connect ourselves with Christ, and we need to constantly practice His word. As you do that in the midst of the storms, you have an anchor for your soul, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the midst of the storms, you have an anchor in the word of God as well. In the midst of the storms, you have the compass of the Holy Spirit. In the midst of the storms, you have a community of believers. In the midst of the storm, you could be fortified, even as the world seems to be so chaotic and fusing, you could be fortified if you are rooted and grounded in the love in the gospel of Christ. Of, I will close with this. There are only two people that sit before me this morning. It's very simple and it's very hard. There are some people that sit here this morning who already know their mono believers and they say, this is just baloney. There are some that sit here today that believe that they're believers, but their lives are looking more like the world, less like the word. And that group of people, sad to say, are those that are outside the arc outside of the gospel, outside of freedom. And if you're hearing my voice today, there's a second group of people that are here that have trusted in the arc. They run into the arc. They've trusted the sun. They've run to the sun. Not perfect lives, but they have trusted in him. I guess I wonder today if today is the day that you know that, you know what I, I think I'm one of those outsiders. Then today would be the day that you could run to the cross, run to Christ, give up the false teaching of the world, their message, their motives, their methodologies, and run to the one who bled and died so that you could be set free. If not, I will assure you, as Peter assured, these people, that judgment is coming. And God's judgment is certain, and it's swift and it's destructive, and any of those that are not in the arc will be swept away, and any of those that are not in Christ will be swept away. I pray today that every face that I see in this congregation will be a face of those that I will see in heaven, because you will bend your knee today and trust Christ as your savior today and experience the freedom and the protection, and the beauty and the hope of gospel grace today. Would you pray with me, father, as I as I look at this passage and I, it burdened Peter's heart. When he thought about the Transfigure Christ and he saw the transfigure Christ and it was just mind blowing to him. I can't even imagine to see Christ who was here as human being and he saw Christ do some amazing things and he knew that Christ was God, but that to actually see him transfigure before his eyes and then have the awesome privilege that Peter had to become a author of God's word that you inspired him to write to other people that we study today, that must have been blo mind blowing to him. As Peter was thinking about the end of his life and he was thinking about the world that is out there. He was fearful for his church. He's fearful those for those people, that the world is coming in and maybe the world has already invaded and Peter wanted to encourage them. To trust in Christ, to trust in this word, to be Christ centered and cross centered, and word centered in spirit-filled and God glorifying Father, I know that is Tim, Doug and my passion as well, that and the elders here and every person here would know Christ and grow in him. So Lord, there are hundreds upon hundreds of people that can be impacted by the people that are in this congregation today. I pray that you would use them to sow seeds of gospel truth into the world. I pray that you would use them to connect with lives of people that may never come into this sanctuary today, but they can only do that by knowing your word and knowing your son and trusting your plan. So help us to do that by your grace and for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.