Satan Is Using Preachers to Brainwash You

I want to ask the question of everybody: is your life being shaped by lies? That is a question I want everybody to stop and think about. We have people in churches that literally live together, have sex together, and aren't married. We have people in churches that literally believe homosexuality is something that God is okay with. False teachers will come along and say it's okay, don't worry about it, grace covers, you can kind of live just like the world lives and everything's going to be fine. We have a problem. I had a billionaire look at me just in the last 6, 7 months. And he said, John, why aren't pastors and preachers in America addressing all these things? Why are they only saying things that aren't really relevant to the very critical things that are happening in our society? And I had to look at that billionaire and say— Hey everyone, welcome to the John Bevere Podcast. And Arden, it is a pleasure having you on today.

It's always an honor, Derek.

You know what I love is all the comments that we've been getting about the podcast, about how much people love that you're on it.

I mean, I just like asking you questions, so that's why I'm here.

Oh, I love you. Uh, I mean, you brought up some things in the last podcast. I was listening to it again, thinking about it again, and I'm going to bring it back up today because just excellent examples. But hey, we're rolling through 2 Peter, and I think 2 Peter is a book that really deals with today. I mean, it's almost like Peter got transported in time 2,000 years later, and the Holy Spirit said, now write and address what's going on in the United States of America and around the world, and especially in Western cultures. And that's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with a Western culture right now that, hey, the Christians back in the days of Nero, they were put in the circus, they were torn from limb to limb, they were crucified, they were lit on fire to provide light for Nero's lewd parties. And the church grew, the church got stronger, and the devil figured something out. The more I persecute the church like this.

Yeah, the more it's gonna grow.

The more godly it becomes, the more holy it becomes, the more passionate it becomes. Let me devise a way of presenting a gospel that will allow people to live like the world. Yeah. And still be saved.

Yeah, void of suffering.

Which is, yeah, but the big issue is live like the world.

Yeah. So you blend in, you don't get persecuted.

You don't get persecuted. That's what you're saying. You don't have to suffer.

Yeah, you don't have to be ashamed of what you believe. You don't have to feel uncomfortable. It's just, you can have everything that you want, but yet not.

In heaven too. Yeah. And yet he doesn't care that we got massive churches. He doesn't care that we've got churches with attendance over so many people. And this, yet this seems to be the emphasis today. How big is your church? How many people are attending? And don't get me wrong, that's not evil. I don't think that's evil.

No, God's all about numbers.

Okay, yeah, 'cause numbers represent, one number represents an individual who Jesus died for, okay? However, when that becomes the totality of I'm successful in communicating God's word, now we're easily set up for flowing into error And the thing I see about 2 Peter and the thing I see with Jude, because you gotta look at Jude and 2 Peter because they're both written in the same decade. Jude is the Lord's brother. And then we know Peter is Peter, right? They so mirror each other, but both of them emphasize that these false teachers wandered off the right path. So they started on the right path. I think it's interesting when you look at Peter, 2 Peter, you've got 3 chapters. The first chapter, he sets up how to live godly. He sets up the true importance of the gospel. Second and third chapter, he talks about false teachers. I mean, and look at this, the very, this is the second to last verse of the book. Second to last verse, so this would be chapter 3, verse 17.

Skipping ahead.

Well, yeah, because I want you to listen to this. Peter says, You already know these things, dear friends, so be on guard. Now listen to his words, be on guard, then you will be not carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. So you can see Peter, 33% of his book is dealing with, hey, this is the purity of the gospel. I will make sure you know about these things until I die, and even after I'm dead, I'm gonna make sure you know about these things in chapter 1. But then he takes chapter 2 and chapter 3 to talk about what's gonna try to pull us away from those true things. That's why I believe he starts out 2 Peter 2:1 with the word but. He's just talked about godly prophecy, godly preaching of the gospel, and he says, but there's going, just as there were false prophets in Israel, there's going to be false teachers among you. Now, the thing we wanna make sure is that He said, "There will be false teachers." He didn't say there are, there will be. Now, why is that? Because Peter doesn't even know he's writing the Scripture. Paul doesn't even know he's writing the Scripture, okay? Yet God knows. And I believe a false prophet is somebody that comes along and looks at the king and says, "Hey, go up on the battle, you're going to be victorious, you will come back alive," when in reality, the true prophet came and said, "No, that's a bunch of baloney. You're gonna be killed in this battle." You look at Jeremiah, "Hey, submit to the Babylons and you will live." You look, the false prophets are going, "No, Israel will succeed." the kings will prosper, the people will prosper. So it's all about predictions on the false prophets. But when you look at teachers, false teachers, they pervert teaching. That's what we're gonna talk about today. The question is, are we believing lies? I mean, that is a question I want everybody to stop and think about. Are you believing a lie?

And I think that would worry a lot of people. 'Cause obviously this is so much of what you are standing on and putting your faith into. And then so much of that is you putting your faith into individuals that are your models that you're wanting to look up to, that you're taking their words and you're hoping, hey, this is how I wanna live my life. And that's a scary thought that that might be a false teacher.

I remember when I was in our theology class, it was a year after I got saved. At Purdue University, and it was an extension course from a major, major biblical university. And our professor, who was renowned, stood up and said, "75% of our doctrine comes from men, 25% from the Bible." I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what?" I said, "I'm putting my eternal destiny in what men say that get together in a group?" I mean, the Pharisees were getting together in a group, and Jesus said, "You shut up the kingdom of heaven from men." And I remember I sat there and I went, okay, The Bible is going to be the final authority for me. So let's review what's going on here.

Can I say that too?

Absolutely.

'Cause I think that was a really big point that you just said. The Bible is gonna be the final authority. I think that is our key problem is so many times we're like, well, this person says this, this person says this. Where I think when it comes down into these kind of crucial topics, that is, hey, we need to have understand where we're standing on these things. The biggest thing and the most important thing that you can do is go to the Bible. You can take what people are saying and be like, okay, that's a great argument. That's a great understanding of that. But if you don't know what the Bible says, if you aren't looking at the different scriptures that it's talking about that specific topic throughout the different chapters of the Bible, then you're just gonna be swayed by whatever anyone else says. And so it always has to come back to what the word of God says.

And it's not just one or two scriptures. It's the overall counsel of the word of God. And that's why I love the Berean Christians. The Bereans, they heard the Apostle Paul speak. I mean, come on. Can you imagine if the Apostle Paul was like speaking in Dallas, Texas next week? They would have to rent out Texas Stadium where the Cowboys play and then do screens everywhere for all the people that would come and listen. Yet the Bereans were wise in that the fact that they looked through the scriptures, they searched diligently through the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. And I wanna encourage everybody in this podcast, all right? You're gonna start coming and maybe listening because you're enjoying walking through a book of the Bible like this. Hey, you need to search out what Arden and I are saying. You need to diligently search it out. You're not gonna make me mad doing it because I try with all my heart. I pray with all my heart. You do the same, Arden, that we are bringing the truth of God's Word. God forbid we ever mislead somebody because we're preaching lies or because we're, well, we'll get into it in a minute. But let's just say this again. Just because Peter says there's going to be false teachers among you doesn't mean there's not gonna be false prophets. Jesus said in Matthew 24:11 'And many,' listen to the word many, 'false prophets will rise up and deceive many.' So he's talking about the time of his second coming. He's talking about our day. He's saying there's gonna be many false prophets and the people that are misled are gonna be many. The word many there is the Greek word polis, polis. It sounds like police force, but it's polis, all right? That word means a vast number. So I need to stop here. Right here on this. We need to pause 'cause this is big. Many is the Greek word polis, polisi, okay? That Greek word literally means many in the sense of a great number or a large sum. And some dictionaries say most or over 50%. So let's kind of say it like this. If I have 100,000 coins and I have 1,000 coins, that's, 1,000 is many, but in comparison to 100,000, it's not many. That's not what that Greek word means. That Greek word means like you got 40,000 coins out of 100,000 coins, or you got 51,000 coins out of 100. So we gotta just stop a minute here. We gotta breathe here and think about this. Many, meaning possibly majority of, quote, Christians are gonna be misled by these evil teachers. This is something serious. And I think this is why Peter spends 2 chapters out of 3 and Jude spends his entire book talking about this. And they're talking about our day because they're referencing the time period of when Jesus is going to return. So they foresee, because the Apostle Paul says the same thing, that there's going to be deception. Jesus says 4 times, be careful that you're not deceived. He talks about deception 4 times in just Matthew 24. This is serious. So in the New Testament, we've got false prophets— apostles talked about, 2 Corinthians 11:13. False prophets, 1 John 4:1. John said it this way, he said, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits. How do you do it? The word of God, whether they are of God, because many— again, he says many false prophets have gone out into the world. We've got false teachers, Acts 20:29, 2 Peter 2:1. We've got false Christians, 2 Corinthians 11:26 and Galatians 2:4. Now, it's very important that we say this. You said it, I think on the last or the first podcast when we started talking about this, there's 3 different scenarios we can face. Yeah. Number 1 is a true teacher. We want true teachers. Number 2 is a true teacher, but he's teaching something wrong. That doesn't make him a false teacher. It just means when he hears the correction, he has a teachable heart and he repents or she repents, right? And then we have the false teachers. So just because somebody is teaching something that is not perfectly in line with maybe an outlying portion of scripture, and we'll talk about this in a minute 'cause we're gonna talk about teaching in this podcast, okay? Doesn't necessarily make him a false teacher. And I think by the end of this podcast, everybody's gonna be able to understand, okay, This makes a person a false teacher. This doesn't, okay? In what they teach.

Which you already just said, I think a key thing just for them to understand is humility. What you said there.

Yep. That's always key. You know, so listen to what Jude says. And Jesus said, you'll know them by the way they live, by their fruit, by their actions. All right, so Peter says in verse 1, there were false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly, So these guys are really good at what they do. Teach destructive heresies, even deny. Now this one trips people up and it's worth reviewing, the master who bought them. You say, dude, no way am I ever gonna listen to anybody who denies Jesus Christ. Well, Jude addresses this even better. Jude says, hey, I wanted to write to you about salvation, but I can't. I gotta talk to you about what's more important. Now this is interesting. Peter takes 2 out of 3 chapters. Jude says, I wanted to write about salvation, the wonderful things, but I've gotta write about faith. False teachers that are gonna come in among you. He spends his whole book. So Peter spends 2 out of 3 chapters, Jude spends the entire book talking about this. So this is why you and I are taking time on this. Jude says, I say this because some ungodly, why? He said, I wanted to write to you about salvation, but I gotta write to you to fight for the faith. What is the fight? I say this because some ungodly people have crept into your churches. So again, we see the word, cleverly or crept, right? They creep into your churches unnoticed. So somebody comes into the church and says, Jesus Christ is not Lord. Is any church in Jude's day gonna accept them? Is any church in our day gonna accept them? They're gonna go, get out of the pulpit, get out of this building, right? Okay.

I hope not.

And creep into your churches unnoticed saying, now here's the key. It's what we're gonna talk about teaching today. That God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. Now, they say it either directly or indirectly. They imply it or they say it directly, okay? The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago. They have denied our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. How have they denied him? Titus tells us. Paul's letter to Titus tells us. Paul says, everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure, "But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt." So now we're talking about corrupt, false teachers. "Such people claim they know God." That's how they can creep into our churches. "I have a relationship with Jesus." "God our Savior." "God manifested in the flesh." "They claim to know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient." So now, Peter goes on to say, "Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality." Again, the word many means a large number, a great number of. If I've got 100,000 coins and I take 100 coins, that's not many. But if I have 100,000 coins and I take 60,000 coins, I take 40,000 coins, 40,000 isn't the majority, but it's still a great number. That's the Greek word polis. All right, now notice they will follow their shameful immorality. Arden, the way we live speaks louder than what we say, correct? That's why the Bible tells us to consider the outcome of their faith in Hebrews 13:7 when it's talking about leaders. It says, hey, follow the faith, but first of all, consider the outcome. What was the result of their faith? Did they finish well? Or did they finish corrupt? Right, okay. So Jesus says it, beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit. That is, this is the New Living Translation, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes? In other words, Jesus said, if somebody's living a very corrupt life, don't sit there and listen to them and let yourself be taught by them. Because the first sign is the what? The ungodly lifestyle.

So you're saying, don't just listen to them and be like, well, they've got some good stuff to say. I can pick out the little bits and pieces pieces out of it, and then I can ignore this part right here, right?

That's really good. That's like trying to pick grapes from a thorn bush. Yeah.

It's dangerous.

The thorn bush, it's got roots in the ground. It's a bad bush. It's an evil bush. And you're trying to find some good fruit on it. Yeah.

And you're eventually going to get pricked by it. It's like no matter how careful that you are, I mean, I think about every time I try to grab a rose or something like that that's out in our garden, I can be very, very careful when I'm weeding and trying to get through those. And I always end up Somehow hitting a thorn.

That's just so sore. I've done it too. I hate that.

So I think that's really good because I think there's a lot of people that will continue to be going deeper onto an understanding of a teacher and thinking, well, yes, I agree with some of these things, but there's this side of their lifestyle that I don't agree with. And I love that we are able to look for people that are fully Transparent with the word, transparent with their lives. I think it's hard though for this generation to really find a lot of those teachers and preachers. And I know there are definitely, there's a lot out there, but it feels like you get so much of just snippets of different teachers on social media that it's almost hard to find fully like, this is a great person to be listening to because Maybe one thing is that they are very guarded on social media. They're very particular about what's getting out there. So, I mean, how do people navigate that where so much of your information is coming through online and it's pretty much tailored to whatever it is that they want you to see, whereas you don't see, I think, you know, when you had a pastor, you very clearly can see their lifestyle. You're involved relatively within their life. You'd probably see their kids. On any given weekend, and you know how they live, but when it comes to social media?

You know, that is a really good question. I hear it filtering through what they say once in a while. You can tell if you listen, you get little hints of, "Well, I was watching this movie, you know, on, let's just call it a movie." I was watching Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones. Okay, yeah, that's a good one. Or I was watching, you know, Rhapsody with that singer of Queen, I remember I actually had somebody in ministry tell me, "Oh man, I've watched it 3 times." It took me 2 weeks to get the filth out because I was so respected. But I was like, "Okay, I'm having trouble with this." And so, you can hear it filter through. But it is a very good question. I mean, Jesus chose 12 that they might be with him. They saw him. Getting up early in the morning, going up to the mountain, praying. Peter having, and the guys having to search him out. Where is he? He's praying. Do you know what is written historically about Jude? Okay, so this is one of the books we're talking about, Jude, right? His knees, this is what they said about Jude. His knees looked like camel knees because he was on his knees so much praying. Okay, so now when you're watching somebody and they're spending time praying, spending time reading the Bible, I mean, you know how much respect I have for you boys? 'Cause I get up, you know, we're on vacation and what are you guys doing? You're sitting, we were just on vacation last week. You're sitting at the table reading your Bible. You got a 1-year-old running around, but yet you're still locked in, right? Your wife knows, I'm gonna watch him. That's why we had you around. Yeah, yeah, I'm around, I'm kind of helping 'cause I was up earlier and then I noticed that you watch him and then Christian gets in the Bible and it's like, that resets us, that renews our mind. That keeps us from being corrupted by the world. Hey everybody, spiritual growth doesn't happen by accident. That's why we here at Messenger International are passionate about equipping you with resources to help you grow in your relationship with God. One tool we hope you'll take advantage of is our free MessengerX app. Inside MessengerX, you'll get access to dozens of full-length courses, sermons, audiobooks, and more, all available to you at no cost. Whatever your goals, whether you're looking to discover your calling, develop deeper intimacy with God, find freedom, or improve your relationships, you'll find resources on MessengerX that will help you get there. Download MessengerX today, create your free account, and dive in. Now back to the podcast.

And so would you say that we should put more of an emphasis on the people and the teachers that are around us rather than social media? 'Cause I think that's like a big thing is if I ask someone like, who do you love? Who do you really look up to? And who are you reading? Oftentimes it's these people that they don't have any kind of relationship with. It's not their pastor. It's not their, oh, there's an amazing, you know, guy that's been mentoring me that has been pouring into me that I know of. It's more these people that are distant from them that they feel like I'm being discipled by this person. And I know that we, of course, as ministry, we're, we're discipleship ministry. So all of our courses and all of our teaching is, is held at a, through technology. And I think that's very effective, but I think, I think we've put so much emphasis on it's only through virtual that we miss out on some of the most transformative relationships and people that you should be being poured into are the people that are gonna be around you as models.

And this is something I've been actually thinking about a lot. I mean, where is that discipleship element when it comes to— so many people are listening to podcasts. I mean, I listen to podcasts. The reason I'm doing podcasts is I believe in it.

We believe it's gonna disciple people.

But I do, and I wanna say this, I've got 4 pastors, senior pastors, that sit on our board, and they confront Lisa and I when we need to be confronted. I mean, they actually, at one point, they were looking at us and they said, "You guys are getting a little testy with each other. We want you to go through marriage counseling." And we did. And it was like 2 days where the marriage counselor, who was so godly, literally, I felt like he ripped my soul out and put it back in, you know? And he exposed a lot of things. And we, you know, we have a board member, we have a couple, they'll come in a day early for board meetings sometimes for one reason. To have dinner with our children, with you, with Addison, because they're like, "Okay, how are John and Lisa really doing?" And I'm okay with that. I'm totally okay with that. I want oversight in my life. I don't ever want to become so well-known in ministry that I can't have oversight in my life. I don't see anybody that doesn't have oversight in their life. Paul goes to the council in Jerusalem and listens to what they have to say. You know, you look at, You look at people that finish well have oversight, people that are godly that oversee them. It's great to supplement a podcast. It's great to supplement, you know, a television program.

Yeah. Or a book.

Hardly anybody watches television anymore. Yeah, a book or a course. A book, a course. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, we wouldn't do what we do if we didn't believe that was what God called us to do. But, you know, I do believe it's so important that there's somebody in your life, somebody that you, will tell you no, somebody that will confront you if you're doing something not godly. They'll look at you and say, "Hey, what are you doing looking at pornography? Okay, we're dealing with this. You're gonna be accountable to me every single day. I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna say, 'Did you look at it today? Have you been meditating on the word?'" Because David said, "Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you." I just heard the testimony the other day of a guy said, "Pastor, I just love so much." One of his closest friends, one of the most disciplined men who served in our armed forces called him and said, "I gotta fly and come see you. I am bound to pornography." And he said, "I was absolutely shocked how disciplined this man is." And what he did, my pastor friend, is he said, "Hey, meditate on Scripture. Bring it down, up, down, up, down, up." And do you know the guy called him like 3 days later and said, "I am completely free." He said, "I started having the desire when I was at the airport leaving you." And he said, "I started meditating on the word." And he said, "It immediately displaced that desire." And he said, "That's what I'm doing every time it happens." He needed, he knew who he needed. He needed somebody that would, even though he was in the military for 20 years, somebody who would confront him and say, "Hey, stop it. Let's get the truth into you." And so yeah.

I know I took us a little bit away from what we were talking about.

I don't care, this is what these podcasts are about. I believe it's Holy Spirit-led, Arden. So anyway, I made a mistake on the last podcast. So can I edit myself? Tell everybody I made a mistake. I said the 3 characteristics of a false teacher are, I said, they're greedy, they despise authority, and they're rebellious, okay? Like, that's wrong, because despising authority and rebellious is kind of one in the same. They're immoral, they're greedy, and they despise authority. Both Jude and Peter talk about this. The main characteristics of a false teacher: immoral, they're greedy, okay, and they despise authority. And we're going to talk about that eventually, okay?

Talk about those three. 'Cause there's a lot that you could say around those things.

Oh, we're going to. So now that we've reviewed, let's set up what we're gonna talk about here. I wanna ask the question of everybody. Is your life being shaped by lies? Is your life being shaped by false, or what the Bible says, evil teaching? Now, evil doesn't mean, horns and a cape and a pitchfork. The spies who were leaders, and when I say the spies, they were the 12 leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel. They all go over to look at the promised land. And the Bible says 10 of them came back with an evil report. That evil report caused millions of people to not inherit their destiny. So the question I'm asking again is, Is your life being shaped by evil teaching? So evil, again, doesn't mean pitchfork. It means twisted, it means perverted. It means it will ultimately lead you off the right path. Listen to what Peter says in 2 Peter 2:2, "Many will follow." Stop, stop, stop, stop. Many. Again, I want you to hear the word as it could be 40 to 51%. It could be 40 to 60%. This is what we're talking about. Will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. So what we're going to focus on here in this podcast is their evil teaching. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. Of course, they bring reproach on Christianity because they have twisted the scripture. That's what a false teacher is going to do. Now, what do they do? How do you really identify? Because 'cause we don't want people saying, "Oh, that person believes in the rapture, and rapture's not even found in the Bible. He's a false teacher." No, he's not. Okay, so how do we distinguish here? These false teachers will pervert or twist the core. I can't emphasize this enough, the core teachings of Jesus Christ.

Which, can I go back and say what we were talking about, the thorn bush? Is I think that's when the core teachings are being missed or being twisted. So again, I wanna make sure people understand what we're saying is it's not, hey, this person says something good, but they stand a little weird on the rapture, and so I gotta throw everything out. It's no, it's the core teachings that is the emphasis.

[Speaker] Right. So in essence, what a false teacher is going to do normally is they're going to minor on the majors of scripture and they're going to major on the minors.

That's good.

Okay.

I love that.

Now I got scripture to back that up. Jesus said to the Pharisees who were false teachers for their generation, you strain out a gnat and you swallow a camel. What is he basically saying? Well, guys, you pay tithes of your garden herbs. You are so particular about paying your tithes because y'all love money. But he said, "You've neglected the weightier matters of the word of God." So that means there are matters, the word of God, there are matters that are more weighty than others. And the matters that they neglected were mercy, justice, and faith. He said, "These, the first ones you should have done. You should have kept the minors." But he said, "You should have majored in the majors." Okay? So now let me give an example of people who minor in majors. All right? People that get so hung up on women preachers. You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. Paul said, I don't let a woman teach or usurp authority over a man. Yeah, you can find 3 scriptures written to the Greek churches about that. But I also know that God also said your sons and daughters, your menservants and your maidservants, which means men and women, will preach under divine inspiration. I want to— I have actual comments from social media. You ready for this, Arden?

Yep.

So this was written to my wife. You shall not stay silent when the highest of evil is happening. Do you know what the highest of evil happening is? Here it is written. I've got it. Women speaking and exercising authority over man in the house of worship. Yeah. So here's Here's somebody that is floating close to becoming a false teacher. Now I'm not saying she is, and this is a woman who wrote this. I'm saying that she just said the highest form of evil. So that's like the Pharisees saying the highest form of evil is not paying tithe of your cumin in your garden. That is not the highest form of evil. The highest form of evil Jesus was saying is that you don't love these people, you're greedy for money, You're twisting everything for your own personal advantage. That is the highest form of evil. So here's the person. Now, I'm gonna show you why this is so wrong. Here's God saying, on Sabbath, you're not supposed to do any work. I mean, those people would go out and they'd look for the manna on Sabbath, and it wasn't there, and God was angry. Just because they went to look to pick up manna, right? Here's Jesus and his disciples walking through the cornfields on Sabbath.

And they grab it.

And they're taking, or wheat fields, and they're taking the wheat and they're eating it. And the Pharisees are furious because they're rubbing wheat and walking through the fields on Sabbath. Now, what is it said about Pharisees? The Pharisees would watch Jesus closely to see if he would make an error. So a watchdog, a false teacher, is always gonna be looking at people with the filter of, "I wanna find out what they're doing wrong." Okay? We wanna believe the best in every person, but we can't be ignorant, and that's why Peter has to write 2 chapters, okay? Now, here's Jesus justifying his disciples by saying, "Hey, David," He ate the showbread that was only lawful for the priests. And he ate it. The Sabbath wasn't made, man wasn't made for Sabbath, Sabbath was made for man. Okay, so here's Jesus himself doing this. Now, I wanna remind everybody of something the Apostle Paul wrote in the book of Philippians. So here's Paul writing to the Philippian church. Now I want you to listen to this. I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that's happened to me here has helped to spread the good news of the gospel. So here's the major. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I'm in chains because of Christ. And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and are boldly speaking God's message without fear. It is true that some, now listen to this, it is true that some are preaching out of jealousy and out of rivalry. In other words, they're competing with Paul. They're trying to become bigger preachers than him. They're preaching out of jealousy because he's getting all the attention, right? He said, "But others are preaching about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the good news." Now listen to this, Arden, this is amazing. "Those others do not have pure motives." They got bad motives. "As they preach about Christ, they preach with selfish ambition, not with sincerity, intending to make my chains more painful for me." But that doesn't matter. Whether their motive, now listen to this, whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way. Okay, now he's saying these people are preaching to make his chains even worse. They're preaching out of envy and jealousy. But he said, I'm just praising God the gospel's being preached. Now here's somebody who says the highest form of evil is a woman preaching because there's 3 scriptures she's taking totally out of context from the Bible.

This lady is.

She doesn't have the heart that Paul has. She has the heart that the Pharisees had.

Yeah.

Okay, she's all up in ends because of jealousy and envy. And to make my chains worse, Jesus is being preached. Why isn't this woman saying, I don't care if it is a female, Jesus is being preached. Here's another one. Listen to this. And who hates the truth? This was written by a man. I wanted to get a man and a woman. This is all off social media. And who hates the truth? What's that?

My mom's account, people saying this to mom.

Yeah, this is on mom's account. And who hates the truth more than women preachers when the Bible clearly says that women should not preach? Bible doesn't say women shouldn't preach. It said your sons and daughters will prophesy. Yeah. Okay, so here he is. Does he have the heart that Paul has? Praise God, the gospel is being preached. He wants to shut up probably 60% of the body of Christ, 'cause it's probably 40% men, 60% women. He wants to shut up, this woman wants to shut up 60% of the body of Christ. Okay, that's not the heart of Paul. That's not the heart of Jesus. And so these two would be like floating over into evil teaching. All right? Okay, here's another one. When's the Lord going to return for his bride? People are all up, oh, they talk about rapture, they're not true believers because rapture is not in the Bible. I don't even want to go there. Yeah, we're going to talk about this because Peter talks about the second coming. We'll talk about it, just stay tuned. In a future podcast, we're going to get to this. And you're going to hear John Bevere is going to say for the first time publicly what I believe about the second coming of Jesus and the rapture, okay? But people divide over that. People divide over Oh my gosh, that person had a sip of wine. I saw him do it. He's not a Christian. Well, there were people that ate meats that were offered to idols. Didn't mean that they were worshiping those idols. And that person having one sip of a glass of wine didn't mean he was a drunkard, 'cause it is a sin to be a drunkard. But you can't show me anywhere in the Bible where it says it's a sin, a sin to have one sip of wine. Now, I don't wanna do it. I don't wanna cause people to stumble, do it in public. I don't want, I don't think we should be doing it public. I think we should be exercising wisdom. Because we don't want people to stumble.

Yeah, but, but you can't in just conscience. And that's something I've really appreciated about you and Mom is you guys will never add to Scripture. It's like, yes, Scripture talks about wine, but it never specifically says you can't take a sip of wine, you can't touch wine. And I love that you guys have never used the word of God and taking things out of context or pulling it out and saying, no, this is what it says and you need to go here. But you say, look, it doesn't directly deal with it specifically to that extent in scripture. So I'm not gonna pull things out of nowhere. And you're not gonna put the bondage, but then you're gonna use and exercise wisdom within the areas that you need to, to understand this is how we need to handle these things correctly.

Don't wanna major on minors.

Yeah.

And I don't wanna add to the word of God because Revelations tells me, the book of Revelations tells me so clearly, if we add to the word of God, the judgments come on us. If we take away from the word of God, the judgments come on us. So that's how, I think that's why the Bible says, "Be not many of you teachers knowing we are going to incur a stricter judgment." And so I literally had a board member, I was writing the "Gooder God" book and I was writing about alcohol and I sent it to him 'cause I wanted to send it to leaders. I sent it to a bunch of leaders and I said, "I want you to judge this." And this one particular former board member said, "You have got to say it's a sin to have a sip of wine." I said, "I can't, I'm adding to the word of God. I don't want the judgments coming on me." Now I gave every reason why not to mess with wine, how it's addictive, how it's this, I did that, but I didn't say it was a sin. And then I thought, let the people exercise wisdom now and let them do it, but I cannot say, I can clearly say drunkenness is a sin. And if it continues, it will give birth to death. It will lead you off the path. Okay, I can say that, but I can't say taking a sip of wine is a sin.

Yeah, I love that.

Okay, so let's go to the real problem, because I think we've been going long enough here. The real problem is when we pervert the core teachings. That's where the real problem is. Yeah, this is what false teachers do. They pervert the real core. Now here, here we go. God's—

here's—

this is Jude 4. God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. Okay, Peter just went through the core. What was the core in chapter 1? Pursue, use. He says, let's just review it again. Okay, he says, hey, we have been given the divine nature. And the exceeding great and precious promises of God's Word is what develops that nature. He said, employ every bit of your faith to develop what? Godliness, knowledge, right? Virtue, right? The fear of God, brotherly love, brotherly affection, endurance, patience, right? And he said, if these things abound in you, you're gonna have a glorious entrance into the kingdom of God. And you will be fruitful, right? He said, if these things, if you lack these things, you're gonna be unfruitful, right? And then he says, hey, this scripture, it is so powerful because it didn't come from men, it came from God and it will change you. And then he comes into 2 Peter and he talks about these guys that are going to pervert and they're gonna have evil teaching. Their evil teaching is going to take the emphasis off the importance things in chapter 1, which is what? Godliness, holiness, repentance. This is where the false teachers come in. They want to leave you with the thought that God's marvelous grace permits you. Hey, we're all human, we got weaknesses, God's marvelous grace allows you to sleep with your girlfriend. Now, I look, I was so disturbed by the podcast you told me about in our last podcast. You said you watched the podcast where a guy was, it's a very popular podcast, guy sitting next to you, to his girlfriend, he was like, "Hey, we sleep together." I was so shaken up, I said, "Arden, you gotta show me that podcast." So I'm watching the podcast and you know what the guy said? When Jesus says in Matthew, all right, "Many are gonna say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? We do many wonders in your name and this.'" He's gonna say, "Depart from me, I never knew you who practice iniquity," right? That's the scripture he's alluding to. He said that scripture troubled him. I'm gonna tell you why it troubled him. He's sleeping with his girlfriend.

'Cause he's doing exactly that.

It's conviction. And that's God loving his children, saying, "I'm convicting you to get you out of the trap of death," right? So this other preacher comes along and tells him, this is what we didn't say in our last podcast, "Oh, these people made a list of their accomplishments that they did for Jesus, and they think that's the basis of why they're getting in." This is all that we did. And I'm like, no, you who practice lawlessness, you who practice iniquity.

It doesn't say you who did all these things by yourself. It says you who practice the one thing.

And you're like, oh my gosh, now that's a false teacher. Because what is he doing? He's saying God's marvelous grace allows that person to live an immoral life.

Yeah, it's so sad.

I'm going to get that bold and say it. Whoever told him that, I would agree. That's a false teacher.

100%.

Because he's causing one little one to stumble. Now, you know what? He'll read that scripture and there's no more conviction.

No, his conscience has been seared is what the Bible talks about.

Yes.

Yeah. And that's so sad because the Holy Spirit was continuing to add that, like, I feel convicted when I read this and telling him to change his ways, but yet conscience gets seared because someone comes in and rather than loving him and telling him the truth, They tell him what he wants to hear. The thing that's gonna allow him to continue on the same path that he's doing, doing all the same things that he does, and believing that he has a close relationship with God, and yet he doesn't need to change anything about his life.

Well, Jude says, how do these people come in? How do they pervert the word of God? They say they creep into our churches unnoticed. This is Jude 4, saying that God's marvelous grace, allows us to live immoral lives. Now, this is where we gotta talk about today. We have people in churches that literally live together, have sex together, and aren't married. We have people in churches that literally believe homosexuality is something that God is okay with. When God says all throughout the scripture that it's something that is unnatural and it's a result of when people walk away from God. Not come close to him. Okay, we've got people that are in the church. We're seeing that 67% of the men that attend church regularly watch pornography regularly. Jesus said if you look at a woman to lust after her, you've committed adultery in the heart. Yeah, you know, I'd like to say that life under the law was easier than life under the grace as far as standard expected Now, let me make this very clear. Life under grace is a much better covenant because we're empowered to live godly from the inside, all right? Under the law, they were just proving the fact that man could never live good enough to earn a relationship with God. And so under the law, to commit adultery, you had to actually jump in bed with a woman. That was their mentality. Jesus comes along and says, look, I'm here to deal with your inward man. I'm here to deal with your motives, your thoughts, your heart, because from the heart is where evil thoughts come, sexual immorality, perversion, right? So Jesus said, hey, they said under the law you commit adultery. I'm gonna tell you how it really is. You look at a woman to lust after, you've already committed adultery. So in other words, Jesus kind of tightened it up. He did the delete on the playlist, okay? And so I love that example. And so these guys are gonna come along and they're gonna allude, hey, it's okay. We got the grace of God. Hey, we're all men, we're all women. We got needs, we have desires. And you know what? That's just because we're human beings. And this is kind of like the teaching of the Gnostics. The Gnostics who Peter and Jude were addressing, a lot of people believe, a lot of Bible theologians believe, they separated the flesh and the spirit. They said, hey, look, there's nothing good in the flesh. We're all gonna sleep around, we're gonna have homosexual relationships, we're gonna do all this stuff because we just can't, we can't, but Jesus redeemed our spirits. So when we get out of this body, we're gonna be okay. And what they were teaching in error, because Paul came along and preached the truth. And Paul said, hey, listen, God has given you by his grace, his divine nature, Peter preached this as well, And now you have the ability to choose. Your spirit was dead when you were under the law. Your spirit was dead before you met Christ. Now your spirit is alive. You have his nature, his character in you. And they emphasize that, to live by that. You have the choice. That's why Paul says, "He who lives in the spirit should walk according to the spirit." He said, "If you live according to the flesh, you're gonna do the things of the flesh and you're gonna die." He said this to the Galatian church. He said, "But if you live by the spirit and you put to death the deeds of the flesh," You will live. And false teachers will come along and say, it's okay, don't worry about it, grace covers. You can kind of live just like the world lives and everything's gonna be fine. So we have a problem. Now, I wanna kind of illustrate the difference between a true man of God, a true woman of God, and a counterfeit man of God and a counterfeit woman of God. I wanna make the difference between a teacher who is pleasing God and a teacher who's not pleasing God. And I'm going to bring us back to the book of Malachi. And the reason I'm going to do this, and I saw this when I was taking my sabbatical, I saw this and I actually texted you. I don't know if you remember, but this scripture so impacted me. Now I want to set this up. Malachi is the— You called me. Huh?

Yeah, you called me.

I actually called you. I was going to say, I don't think you texted me.

I thought you called me.

Go ahead. Okay.

Yeah.

And Malachi is an Old Testament prophet. Preacher, okay, a prophet I should say. And he's the very last prophet who, who spoke for God in the Old Testament. Then there was a 400-year silence in which you have the Maccabees and you have, you know, eventually the Pharisees and the lawyers coming along. And so Malachi, everything he wrote in his book— not everything, a lot of what he wrote in his book really has application to the New Testament. However, Malachi couldn't say, "Hey, you pastors, you Christians." That terminology didn't come along until the Apostle Paul, right? So now Malachi is addressing communicators of God's word, who in his day were priests. So he says in Malachi 2:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, let's start with verse 4. So shall you know, that I have sent this command, this is God speaking, to you, that my covenant with Levi. Now Levi was the one whom the priesthood was in, right? Levitical priesthood. They were the ones that carried the word of God.

Yeah, established through Aaron.

My covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. Now let me just show you how he is really talking to us. In the book of Revelation, it says to him, 'Who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and has made us kings and priests.' So the Levitical priesthood, we're called the priests in the New Testament, the born-again believers, okay? Revelation 5:9-10, 'For you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe, every tongue, every people, and every nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God.' So now we know he's not just talking about the Jewish Christians because he says every tribe, every tongue, and every people. That's all Gentiles.

Yeah.

Okay, that's all Americans. That's all Brazilians. That's all Australians, okay? He's made us priests. Peter said that he's made us a royal priesthood in 1 Peter 2:5. So now let's go back to Malachi and realize God is talking to those who bear his word. God said, "My covenant with Levi, the priest, was one of life and peace, and I gave them life and peace to him. It was a covenant of fear." Stop right there. It was a covenant of fear. "And he feared me." Here we go. "He stood in awe of my name." This is why I felt so strongly of the Lord to write the book, "The Awe of God." because I believe it's missing in our Western church. It's not being afraid of God. To fear God is not to be afraid of him because you can't be intimate with somebody you're afraid of. It's actually being terrified of being away from him and is to stand in awe of him and to even tremble in a healthy way in his presence. Okay. He stood in awe of my name. Now listen to verse 6. This is Malachi 2:6. True instruction. So that means there can be false instruction. False teacher. True instruction was in his mouth and no wrong was found in his lips. Why? 'Cause he feared God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning of understanding. He walked with me in peace and uprightness. Now watch this. And he turned many from sin, iniquity. So here's what a person who communicates the word of God should first and foremost be doing. Turning that person from sin to God, to Jesus. What was Jesus' first words out of his mouth publicly? Matthew 5:17. What was it?

Repent.

Repent of your sins and turn to God. What was the disciples' first words out of their mouth? They went and told everyone, repent of your sins and turn to God. So, he walked with me in peace and uprightness. He turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest, the lips of a true communicator of the word of God, should guard knowledge. So here's Peter guarding, here's Jude guarding. Guard knowledge and people should seek instruction from his mouth. I wanna be instructed. How do I live in a way that pleases God? Okay, I don't wanna be like, oh, you can do it, life is grand. Make the most out of life. That's not pointing people to walk with God, our creator. That's what?

Motivation.

That's motivation. That's life coaching. Yeah. Okay.

It'll last you a day or two.

It'll last you a little bit.

It'll last you a little bit.

It'll temporarily last. I watch movies that inspire because inspiration is a great thing, but inspiration does not change my life. No, it inspires me to have my life changed, but it doesn't it changed my life. I agree. Okay. All right. So for the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and the people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have turned aside. Okay, so he's talking to these communicators. You've turned aside from the way. And this is what Peter's going to be saying. You have caused many— here's the word many again— to stumble by your instruction. So this is false teaching. Their teaching has actually caused many people to stumble. Okay, I remember when my pastor got divorced, divorced his wife, not for the reason of sexual immorality. We had the one of the largest churches in the country, and then he got up and used scripture to justify why he was divorcing his wife. Okay, he used scripture It released a wave of divorce in our church. Oh man. Okay, a wave.

Yeah.

And what happened? Men turned aside and many stumbled because of his instruction. You know what he used for instruction? I'll just tell you. He said, when the king of Persia, right, who was Cyrus, called for his wife Vashti, She didn't come. So he put her out, and that's when Esther became his wife. That's what he used to justify his divorce to his wife, who had never committed adultery with him. He didn't like her because she was calling him out for the wickedness he was doing, and she was just trying to help him stay on the right path. He was— she looked at me at lunch and she said, we both know he started on the right path. Everybody thinks he was always a charlatan. She said, but we know he started on the right path. He veered off of it.

Yeah. That's so sad.

And so he married a beauty pageant. She won the state and they were married for approximately 3 years and he divorced her. Okay. And this is a pastor of one of the largest, most influential churches in America. He was my pastor. Okay, so he caused many stumbled. I remember when I went back to that city, I was asked to preach at a church down the street from the big, big church that we were on staff with. We had 450 paid staff members. Okay, that's how big this church was. And a lot of these people had, well, most of the people stopped going to church. When he got up and said, I'm divorcing my wife and here's the scripture and here's why. Most people stopped going to church, they divorced their wife. But then when the church dissolved, a lot of people went to another church down the street and that church asked me to come preach. And I remember when I came and preached, I sat there and looked at all these people that were so on fire for God and now they acted like spiritual zombies. They looked like spiritual zombies. They had no more life, zest, faith in them. And I realized he had caused many to stumble by his instruction. "'You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,' says the Lord of hosts.'" Verse 9, "'And so I will make you despised and abased before all people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways, but you show partiality in your instruction.'" Now stop and think about that. Partiality in instruction. What are they doing? They're picking out the parts that are gonna make people happy, that are gonna tickle itching ears, and they're avoiding the parts that are gonna confront people and bring them under conviction.

Wow. It's a great way to build an audience.

That's why I called you. This is why I called you. I was so like, oh my, here I've read the book of Malachi for so many years and I've never really seen it like this. But because we were talking about the second chapter of Peter, it just jumped up off the page on my sabbatical. And I went, oh my gosh, this is exactly what's going on. And so I want you to listen to what Paul said. So God said, you've showed partiality in your instruction. Paul says in Acts 20:20-21, "I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike, the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God and having faith in our Lord Jesus." Okay, so here's Paul looking at his leaders. He knows he's never gonna see these leaders again, and he says, I've had one message, and that is the necessity of repenting of your sin. Which, what does repentance mean? It means, hey, running away. I tolerated this sin, I'm not tolerating it anymore. I tolerated disobedience to God, selective obedience to God, and selective disobedience to God. I'm not doing that anymore. That's repentance.

Yeah.

Okay, he majored in lifestyle, and so So I wanna take you to Acts 26 now. Now Paul's speaking to a king and he says, "And so King Agrippa," this is verse, I put this in my notes this morning, you don't have it, sorry. He says, "And so King Agrippa, I obeyed that vision from heaven." So Paul is witnessing to this king. And he said, "God gave me a heavenly vision." He said, "I preached first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem, throughout all of Judea and to the Gentiles, to all the Gentiles." So here's Paul's message to Americans. To Australians, to British, to people in the Middle East, to people in Africa, to people in China. He said, I preach to all the Gentiles. Now listen to this, that all must— doesn't say it's a good idea. Yeah, must repent of their sins and turn to God. Now listen to this, and prove they have changed by the good things they do. That's Acts 26:19-20. Okay, wait a minute. What is he doing? He's majoring on the majors.

Yep.

Okay.

That's good.

So the false teachers are gonna say, let's select this out of the scripture. Let's avoid this. So now he said, I didn't shrink back from telling you the whole counsel of God, because I'm gonna go back to Acts 20. Paul said, and now I know that none of you whom I have preached the kingdom of God will ever see me again. These are leaders. I declare to you today, that I've been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it's not my fault. Wow, why is it not your fault? For I didn't withhold or shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know, the whole counsel of God, which is repentance from sin and turning to God and bringing forth fruit worthy of repentance. For I didn't shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know, the whole counsel of God. So guard yourselves and God's people. Here's the charge. Guard them from what? Feed and shepherd God's flock, his church purchased with his own blood, over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as leaders. I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves in sheep's clothing, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. Even some of your men from your own group, okay, false teachers will be among you, will rise up and distort the truth in order to deceive you. To draw a following. Now here's Jesus who looks at a guy who wants to get saved. The rich young ruler comes running, "What do I do to get saved?" He tells him the truth. The guy walks away sad and sorrowful. Why are we avoiding the convicting parts? I had a billionaire look at me just in the last 6, 7 months and he said, "John, why aren't pastors and preachers in America addressing homosexuality, addressing gender perversion, addressing all these things? Why are they only saying things that aren't really relevant to the very critical things that are happening in our society? And I had to look at that billionaire and say, I don't know. I don't know why they're not doing it. Could it be, and this is something, if you are a communicator of the gospel, I wanna ask yourself, are you avoiding convicting scriptures, avoiding truths that will make people uncomfortable in order to draw a following? Do you want more clicks? Do you want more likes? Do you want more people following you on YouTube, on Instagram? And so therefore you're avoiding the issues of holiness, of repentance, of godliness, the fear of the Lord, the love of God, the genuine love of God, not perverted love that our society teaches. Therefore watch and remember, this is the last verse, verse 31. Okay, so I want everybody to know this, write this down. This is Acts 20:20-31. This is Acts 26:19-20. And now I'm going to the very last verse of Acts 20. This is verse 29, or verse 31. Therefore watch and remember that for 3 years I did not cease to warn everyone "Night and day with tears." So for 3 years, he's warning what? About false teachers. Now here's Paul, he said, "I warned you day and night for 3 years with tears." Here's Peter using 2 chapters out of 3. Here's Jude writing an entire book. And this is why I'm spending so much time on this. Because I think we've been avoiding it because it's uncomfortable, because it's not socially, What do I wanna say? Socially delightful. Socially inspiring. I like to say it like this. My dad's teaching sure helped me in life, but his warnings saved my life. And Paul said, we've gotta warn everyone and teach everyone in Christ to present them mature. And that's why we're spending time, Arden. Warning, warning, warning. I know even our producers looked at us and said, yikes, let's scratch our head and think about this. Are we talking about false teachers too much? Gotta say it again. Yeah. We don't want you to be watchdogs. No. We don't want you to be watchdogs.

And not everyone's a false teacher.

But we don't want you to be somebody who's ignorant. Ignorant.

Yeah.

We gotta do this right. We gotta realize, hey, love of God believes the best in every person. My first thought about you, if you are teaching something wrong, is like, you know what? That doesn't make him a false teacher. It just means he's a godly teacher who's off in an area, and let me sit down with him let somebody on his level sit down with him and he'll go, "Oh my gosh, that's right." I've had pastors say to me before, I've gotten out of their pulpits and they said, "John, you need to stop saying this and this and this." And I went, "You're right. I see why you're saying it." Because they started giving me scripture. And I said, "You're right. You're really right." Okay, that didn't make me a false teacher. It just meant that I was wrong. I was like Apollos. I was only preaching repentance, but I wasn't preaching faith in Jesus Christ. So—

Well, I think that's really good for the father pastors, father and mother pastors, to make sure that they still can do that to the younger pastors. 'Cause there is this generation right now that they're passionate about the word of God, but they might not know the word of God as well as they should. And it's because the platform, we've talked about this platform, gets you lots of exposure,. And it's not because we said this again, it's not because they have a wrong heart or they're trying to lead people astray. It's just that they don't know better. And so they need the father and mothers to speak into their lives, to sit them down and say, hey, no, this is what the word of God's saying. This is what you're saying. Maybe you need to emphasize more on this. Maybe you need to talk about this and being able to have those conversations so that they can come into that place. I do think this is really important, even as we're talking about it, that we are spending so much time on it. Because I was one of those that was like, we're spending a lot of time talking about this. But never before have we had so much exposure to so many different teachers. Yeah. So many different voices and opinions about the word of God. And so it's more important now than ever that we don't just have people that are coming up in our congregation. We have people that are appearing on our feed that are every single time we pick up our phone that we're interacting with, we're somehow seeing their messages. And so now more than ever, is it good for you to, again, not be a watchdog, not be looking for every single person that's saying something wrong and calling them out, but to be aware of it. And then I love what you're saying of believing the best.

You know, when we say Watchdog Garden, we're saying don't be a heresy seeker. Yeah. You know, I remember the problem when I was a young Christian 40 years ago is there were people who were looking for a demon behind every bush. I remember God one day said to me, hey, the Bible says keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. And if a demon gets in the way, blast him and then get your eyes back on Jesus. Yeah. And I would say that today, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Walk in the love of God that believes the best in every person. But listen, when you see these signs and they're right there before your eyes, don't be ignorant. Yeah. Don't be foolish. Don't be stupid. Yeah. And walk right into the middle of danger and put your life at risk because now you're going to be taken off your steadfast walk with Christ. Hey, Paul said to Timothy, now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly, clearly, explicitly, that in the last days, some are gonna turn away from the true faith. People are gonna walk away from the faith. They will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. Okay, let's look at this. Paul said to Timothy, his young apprentice, "These teachers oppose the truth, but they won't," and this is 2 Timothy 3:8-10. "These teachers oppose the truth, but they won't get away with this for long. But you," now here, we're gonna go to a true teacher. "But you, Timothy, certainly know what I teach." You know what I teach. "And you know how I live." Okay, what are the two things Paul emphasized? What I teach and how I live and what my purpose in life is. You know my— now watch what he says— you know my faith, you know my patience, you know my love, you know my endurance. He's going to all the important things. He doesn't say, you know how many followers I got on Instagram. He doesn't say, you know how many people I got watching my YouTube channel. He doesn't say, you know how many people are sitting in my, in my church and how big my church is. Hey, many are going to be deceived by these false teachers. So If you make your criteria of you being successful in ministry how many people you got in your church, you could be a false teacher and you could be just sitting there inspiring people and lifting people up and being a guy that just is a life coach. And you're gonna have a lot of people coming because they wanna be inspired. Now I'm not saying if you have a big church that makes you that, I am saying you could be that. What you wanna pursue is what I teach, The truth, staying with the majors, how I live, my purpose in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance. Paul said, hey Timothy, this is how you know I'm a true father to you. I'm a true communicator of the word of God to you. Okay? And so this is so important because then he goes on to say a couple verses later, for a time is coming, we're in the time right now when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and look for teachers, and they're gonna find them because there are gonna be many of them, who will tell them whatever their itching ears wanna hear, they will reject the truth. This is what Paul said. The time is coming. He's talking about the days that we're living in. He's talking about the days right before Jesus returns when Jesus said, hey, be careful that you're not deceived. So this is the time we're living in. We got people, And when I hear people, they're gonna follow their own desires and look for teachers, I think about what God said to Jeremiah. He said, "The prophet and priest are profane and my people love to have it so." In other words, the people love what the false prophets and the false leaders were saying because it appealed to their sensual desires. So when you start saying God's marvelous grace allows me to live immoral lives, whether you imply that or whether you directly say that, you're going to find a lot of people that have itching ears that say, great, I can go to heaven, I can be a child of God, and I can still be sexually perverted.

Yeah, which is just sad.

It's sad. I can still watch pornography on a regular basis. Everything's cool. No real problem.

I can still stay in bondage.

And God says they get to the place where they don't even blush anymore. They don't even blush when they sin. In other words, the conviction's gone because their conscience is seared. So it's a very— okay, so we got to keep moving on. Okay. 'in their greed,' in verse 3, we're in verse 3, 'in their greed, they will make up clever lies to get ahold of your money, but God condemned them long ago and their destruction will not be delayed. For God,' this is verse 4, 2 Peter, we're finally on verse 4, 'for God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell.' Wow, what language? 'In gloomy pits,' some versions say gloomy chains of darkness, 'where they are being held until the day of judgment. And God did not spare the ancient world except Noah and the 7 others in his family. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He warned the world of God's righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with the vast flood. Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. So he brings up the angels that sinned, he brings up the ancient world, Noah's generation, and he brings up Sodom and Gomorrah. Now Jude adds one more. He brings up Israel who comes out of Egypt and disobeys God, and they all died in the wilderness. So now Peter goes on to say, he now turns to a specific point of the last one he just talked about, which was Sodom and Gomorrah. 'But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man and he was oppressed by the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness.' Now watch this. 'He saw and heard day after day.' Now this is a whole new thing that we're gonna pick up on next time, okay? We are gonna talk about the difference between Lot and Abraham. We're gonna talk about, did he have to torment his righteous soul? No, the answer is no. And we're gonna talk about the carnal, the carnal Christian. Paul has to write a certain way to the Corinthians because the Corinthians are so much like the church of America. They were having sexual immorality. They were suing each other. They were having quarrels and fights. And Paul says some things that I think are gonna rivet people in our next podcast, because we're gonna talk about how this affects us eternally. Okay, I'll give a little sneak preview. Lot's fruit, the fruit of his life, his offspring was Moab and Ammon. So he may have been righteous, but he is like those who barely escape. They're saved, but they barely escape. And that we're going to talk about next time. And we're going to talk about eternal rewards and judgment. And then we're going to eventually get to what does John Bevere believe as far as the coming of the Lord and the rapture of the church, if there even is a rapture. So you guys want to keep staying in tune here. Because we're going to get to— it'll be the first time I've ever publicly said what I believe about the second coming of Jesus. It's going to happen on this podcast. It's going to happen. I've never said it from the pulpit, and I've done it on purpose.

I feel like we need to invite Mom on for that one.

I know. That'll make it even more fun, won't it? Exactly. Anyway, till next time, guys, don't forget we've got the MessengerX app. You've got to make sure you download that. We've got all kinds of courses on there for you. And please get the "Awe of God" book. The "Awe of God" book is the very foundation of what we're preaching out of here. When you walk in the fear of the Lord, your eyes are opened up to what is error and what is truth. I love you all so very much. God bless you. See you next time.