Judgement is Coming for Those Who Distort Scripture

Now, what are you going to find with false teachers? They're going to start distorting the essentials. They start getting rid of hell, getting rid of judgment, and they say, oh, God's a loving God. He wouldn't do that. And they start now looking at it through a humanistic, secular point of view. Listen, you don't go from being one degree to 20 degrees just like that. You go one degree, half degree, another half degree, now another degree, now another degree. And all of a sudden down the road, you find yourself, I'm in a rabbit hole. I'm actually not in a rabbit hole. I'm in a devil hole. Now, I read this this morning, and this is what really got my fire going for this podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Jamba Beer Podcast. Okay, I'm used to saying it, Arden. There you go. We finally got there. I'm pretty sure we got there on another episode. I think I'm excited about saying it because I see what the Holy Spirit's been doing on these programs. And I just know it's helping people. And that's what's causing me to be excited. Yes, I know. It's very exciting.

Yeah. But you look good today. I look like you. That's the thing, I got your genes. Now, you're a much improved version of me. That's what Lisa and I always say about you guys. Okay, so we're gonna continue to talk about 2 Peter. All right. Now, we have been almost camped in chapter two. And I will say this. Look, there are many, many books in the Bible that I would consider to be more my favorites. Why 2 Peter? Because the Holy Spirit's drawing me because there's something very, very relevant to our time in 2 Peter. And that is false teachers. Yeah. And... Which we've talked about a lot. We've talked about a lot. But what we're gonna talk about today is we're gonna end up talking about the judgment that's gonna come. And it's pretty clear that there is judgment for this situation. Now, judgment is a word that scares people. It shouldn't scare you if you're a person who's walking with Jesus. But it should scare the hell out of you.

Well, I guess... Can I say it like that? I mean, you're literally saying that. It scares the hell out of a person. It should scare the hell out of a person, all right? And remember, God is love. Everything he does is out of love. Yeah. So you have to look at judgment in the light of love. And you have to look at a person's long-term, not short-term benefit. Because God's always interested in the eternal. He's put eternity in our hearts. And when we look at the length of this life, Arden, it is a blimp, a blimp on a screen compared to eternity. And so God is always speaking to us in regard to our eternal benefit, not our temporary. And so what we're gonna find out today is we have the essentials, the non-essentials, and false teachers always bleed over to emphasize the non-essentials. And what they do is they make light of the essentials. So in other words, the Pharisees did that. They were false teachers too. I mean, false teachers are false teachers, okay? They would pay tithes of their garden herbs, but they would neglect the weightier matters. And what we're gonna really hone in on today... Which going back to what you said, they would major on the minors and minors on the majors.

Right. Which we're gonna find out how they do this today. And just as a review, let's just read. Can we just read the beginning so everybody can be caught up here? But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly, listen to the word cleverly, teach destructive heresies and even deny the master who bought them. And we understand they deny them not by what they teach, although that can happen. They deny him by how they live. That is Titus chapter one. In this way, they will bring on sudden. Emphasize the word sudden destruction on themselves. Now listen to this. This is what's terrifying. Many will follow their evil teachings and shameful immorality. So it's not just their teachings. It's not just their ways. It's their teaching and their ways. It can be one. It can be both. All right. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. 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. Now, something that really hit me this morning as I was preparing for this podcast, every single writer in the New Testament talks about false prophets, teachers, and brethren. Every single writer talks about false leaders or false believers. I mean, Matthew, Matthew 7, 15, beware of false prophets who come disguised. They come disguised. They come in cleverly as harmless sheep, but are really vicious wolves. Mark, the writer of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus also taught, beware of these teachers. They shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public. Because of this, they'll be more severely punished. We're going to talk about judgment today. We're going to talk about that. Remember that word, severely punished. Acts 20, Paul said, I know the... False teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth.

So, evil teaching, it's truth that's been distorted. All right, Paul the apostle talked about it. We got Matthew, we got Mark, we got Luke, and Luke's is Acts' account that I just read to you. Now we're gonna go to Paul. Paul said, these people are false apostles. They're deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ, but I'm not surprised. Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, it's no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. So, they don't come in saying we're false prophets. They don't come in saying, oh, we're gonna talk about Hare Krishna, we're gonna talk about Muhammad. They come in disguised as servants of righteousness. And in the end, they will get the punishment. Again, we're gonna talk about punishment today. Their wicked deeds deserve. John the apostle, 1 John 2, listen to what he writes. I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. So, we have talked about every writer in the New Testament, except James. He's the only one that didn't talk about false teachers, false brother, false apostles. His brother does. His brother does, I love that, yes, absolutely. So, we gotta say, hey, James, you're the only one that didn't do it.

But every single writer. Now, I read this this morning, and this is what really got my fire going for this podcast. This is just my daily Bible reading. I'm in 1 John right now, okay? Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them. Now, let's just stop right there. We have said this before, we're gonna say it again. The reason I'm spending so much time on this is either people don't talk about it at all, or when they do talk about it, they get everybody suspicious. We don't want people suspicious, okay? When I go to the grocery store, and I give them a $20 bill, and they hand me back my change, I'm not sitting there going, oh, I've gotta spend 10 minutes here and make sure these aren't counterfeit bills. Hey, everyone, spiritual growth just doesn't happen by accident. That's why we here at Messenger International are passionate about equipping you with resources to help you in your growth and your relationship with God. One tool we've developed is called Messenger X. Inside Messenger X, you'll get access to dozens of full-length courses,

sermons, audio books, and more, all available to you at, get this, 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 Messenger X that will help you get there. Download Messenger X today, create a free account, dive in. Now, let's get back to the podcast. When they give me back my change, let's say a 10 and a five and a one, I'm not looking at these bills for like 10 minutes going, are these counterfeit? I'm not suspicious, but you know what? I've been trained to recognize it so that I just look at it and go, whoa, there it is. And that's what I'm hoping will happen. I don't wanna be the guy that gets people suspicious, people looking for a demon behind every bush, but I don't want people to be ignorant if the apostles and Jesus himself talked about it this much, we got to talk about it today, because this is the day when they said, what's gonna be the sign of your second coming? Jesus' first words out of his mouth is, be very careful that you're not deceived. Okay, so if Jesus says this and warns of deception, Paul says, I spent day and night for three years

warning you about these false teachers, about these even people from among themselves rising up and distorting the truth. We got to talk about it. So now listen to this. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many, again, we hear the word many, we hear the word many, many, many, many, always means a good number and actually some dictionaries say over 50%. For there are many false prophets in the world, you belong to God, my dear children, you have already won a victory over them because the spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Now, this is what grabbed my attention this morning. Those people belong to the world, false teachers, so they speak from the world's viewpoint and the world listens to them. Now, what are you gonna find with false teachers? They're going to start distorting the essentials. We have the essentials. There was a teacher about 100 years after Martin Luther and I can't remember his name. He said, in regard to essentials, there must be unity. In regard to non-essentials, there must be liberty. Okay, now. Okay, so let's talk about non-essential. Well, women aren't allowed to preach behind a pulpit.

That's a non-essential, right? It is when we get dogmatic about the non-essentials that we make people's faith shaky and a lot of people walk away. So in other words, I came close to doing this with you sons, okay? I remember I was getting a little bit almost legalistic at one point. I was majoring in the minors. When you threw away or burned all of our Pokemon cards. Yeah. That might have been, maybe that was a good thing, but. Okay, Lisa and I say we were over-saved today. I was over-saved. The beach boys were evil. Oh my gosh. And so I realized there came a day that God got ahold of me and said, you're making majors out of minors. You're overemphasizing these points and the essentials, the major points. Jesus being the son of God, Jesus shedding his blood, Jesus being born of a virgin, Jesus being all God, all man, Jesus dying on a cross, shedding his blood. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. Jesus raised from the dead. Jesus will ascend to heaven. Jesus will return and judge the living and the dead.

What am I basically doing? I'm quoting the Apostles' Creed. Now, the Apostles' Creed wasn't originated by the Catholic Church, even though the Catholic Church uses it. This is something that the early church fathers came up with that is what the, it was the major essentials of the apostles' teaching. Let me read it. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate. See, you see teachers already in our generation that have written books, and the way they start is they ask a question. Over the authenticity of scripture, is it really important that Jesus was born of a virgin? One of these false teachers asked in his book years ago that caused upheaval in a lot of people's faith. Okay? Is it really necessary? Does your faith really need to stand on the fact that Jesus was born of a virgin? Absolutely, yes. I remember actually Larry King said in an interview, he said, someone asked him, if you get any question or anything answered in history,

what would it be? And he said, the question I would want answered is was Mary actually a virgin? And he said, because if she was actually a virgin, like that would answer everything. It would answer the conversations and the debates. It would end all of that stuff. You could not deny the validity of Jesus Christ. And I think that's some pretty incredible, crucial thing that if you're saying, if he's saying, if just that would be answered, it would put so many things to rest. So then a very popular false teacher writes in his book that was read by many, asked the question, is it really important to our faith that Mary had to be a virgin? What's he attacking? The very core teachings that the apostles majored on. Yes, he had to be born of a virgin because that would make him 100% God if the Holy Spirit is his father. And it would make him 100% man because Mary, a human being, is his mother. And we were under the curse of having a sin nature that was given to us by our forefather, Adam. So he was born free from that. He was born as the son of God, as God manifested in the flesh, as the Bible calls him, God, our savior. But false teachers will start questioning that.

They'll start getting people to begin to question that very foundational thing. So he, you're gonna say something? No, I was gonna say, I mean, that's how you get to a point where, like you're saying, is these foundational things become optional. And it just begins with something small. Yeah, just a small question. I remember having conversation with a friend of mine and he had gone very far away from God. And even though he's raised in a Christian family all of his life, went to a secular college and his teacher really instilled some interesting thoughts into his mind. And I remember having conversations with him around this. And I said, well, hang on. I said, what does, is your teacher, is your professor, what religion is he? And he's like, oh, he's a Christian Buddhist. And I was like, that's not. You can't put those two words together. You can't do that. And yet his teacher was completely denying the significance of Jesus, but taking the things that he enjoyed out of Christianity and then all the things that he enjoyed out of Buddhism Buddhism, Buddhism, taking all the things he enjoyed out of Buddhism, taking all of the things he enjoyed out of Buddhism and was combining them together

and basically just making his own belief system, which at the end of the day. It makes you essentially your own God. So it's, it's covered with good. Yeah. It's, it's masked as being Christianity, but yet it pulled your friend away from the faith. And that friend of yours story is the story of, they say a million young people going to our universities. These teachers will start asking questions, start making comments, innuendos that will start getting kids to question the validity of the word of God. Yeah. That's why that's a good thing. We just identified, I feel like, because I do think so many times you think false teachers as it's just preachers, it's just ministers, it's just books, but you just identified even teachers of, you know, educational teachers, because that's what you're seeing so much right now is so many people are falling away from Christ because they're going to different schools that are flooding them with doctrine. That is absolutely crazy. And this is what they're sitting under. This is what they're learning. This is what they think, well, this person is a professional and they're not using the word of God to test their teachers. And I don't think it's a point for them to dishonor. And I think that's a really important thing that you always taught us boys is, is to make sure you test those things that your teachers are saying, but you never dishonor your teachers. If your teacher says something that's opposite of the word of God, it's not your place to shout them down and get argumentative with them.

But yes, but you entreat them. I remember conversations that I would have with teachers after, after class where I would just say, Hey, this is what I saw this as, this is what I believe. And I just wanted to bring this to you and was able to have a discussion with them and not coming from a place where I was, you know, arguing their authority, but more having a conversation that I was hoping to get a better understanding and for them to better understand me and ultimately lead to a better point. You know, I I'm thinking, I've never thought of this before, but I'm thinking about Jesus when he was 12 years old, he was asking questions and he was probably entreating these, these leaders because he's a 12 year old. They're all older men, but he's doing it in an honoring way. I will say that when I took theology 175 in, in, in, uh, which was at Purdue university and my theology teacher was all over the board, I do remember him saying at the very end of the semester, he said, I have a lot of you fundamentalists in my class and he called us fundamentalists. All right. Some would say that you're evangelical or whatever, you know, and he said, the thing that sets you apart from the others is they either got really mad at me, shouted at me in the class, or they left my class. You stayed in my class and you constantly. Asked me questions and challenged me in a very respectful way. Now I didn't do that on purpose, Arden, but I just knew it was wrong for me to sit there, him being the teacher of his class for me to say, you are in error. You are a heretic. And I just had to ask questions that I knew would open up the hearts of the other students. Because I was concerned about all of us, to be honest with you, what we were being taught, the heresy that was being taught in that class. Yeah. Sorry, I got us off track.

No, you didn't get us off track because let's go back to what Paul said. Satan transforms himself as an angel of light, so do his ministers. Now Satan has one goal and that is this, to pull people away from the heart of God. He wants to pull people away from the faith. So do you think he's just going to limit it to an author of a book who says I'm a Christian or just a pastor of a church behind a pulpit or just somebody on a podcast like you and me? Yeah. He's going to use professors and universities. He's going to use doctors and nurses. He's going to use what people call the wise people of this world in order to be able to shake the foundation of your faith. And the apostles came up with this creed because they wanted people to have a foundation. Because when the foundations are shaken, what will the righteous do? That's what we are asked in the book of Proverbs, I believe it is. And this is where false teachers go after. They go after the foundation. It usually involves the deity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, him coming back and judging the living and the dead. You're going to see a lot of false teachers. They question the very thing we're going to talk about in today's program and that is judgment. Okay? And so anyway, he was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

Okay? These are the apostle creed statements. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church. Okay? Catholic means relating to the church universal. Now I will say this came along before the Catholic Church and basically the Catholic Church grabbed this word to say. Hey, this is relating to the church universal, okay? The forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, amen. So these people belong to the world so they speak. I'm going back to 1 John, what I read this morning. These people belong to the world so they speak from the world's viewpoint and the world listens to them. So think about it. A false teacher's gonna end up going over to what? They're gonna go over to gender, right, identity. They're gonna go over to same sex attraction, a marriage. They're gonna talk about diversity, equity, inclusion. They're gonna make these the majors. Now, what do we do with diversity, equity, inclusion? We as believers believe there's neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither African American, nor is there Asian American, nor is there Caucasian American. We believe that God loves human beings and that all men are created equal. But what a false teacher's gonna do is try to major on that and get people over on that bandwagon

while ignoring the fact that I need to live a godly life, a holy life, a life that glorifies God. We need to preach the resurrection of Jesus because Paul said to the Corinthian church, I don't wanna know anything about you other than Christ Jesus crucified and raised from the dead. What's he saying? This is the important matter. Jesus is Lord, He's alive. He can live in you. He can change your nature. You can go from living an ungodly worldly life to living a holy life. These are the majors. This is what we declare. But what false teachers love to do is they love to get everybody out shouting on the skirt issues, okay? Which can I even say is, would you say that then you can even identify that based off of the people that follow them? Because I think sometimes you'll see those people that are big after that person. Yeah, they're very argumentative. I saw just today, this morning, is I saw three men that really looked up to, I got onto social media and I saw all three of them just going at each other over something that was not a doctrinal issue. It was an issue that was completely outside of their scope

of their relationship with this individual, but it was about a teacher and they all had different opinions on that teacher. And I watched as all three of them said, have a good life. And these are three men that were in leadership and were in great relationship with each other. And I watched as this issue over a teacher that it could be a little controversial, they just divided over. And I saw that and I said, man, that's so far from the heart of God. That's so far from what this is supposed to be about where you're able to have conversations and it shows the offspring of almost that teacher in the way of, you know, they're feeling the persons of feeling I need to defend and I need to condemn and all of these things that are going on. And I just watched as I'm like, man, this kind of proves my point about that teacher where the things that are coming from it is not life-giving. And that's what I've realized. What's the fruit? Wisdom is justified by our children. Remember, we've been saying this and I'm gonna say it again. There are false teachers, but then there's good teachers that are often an area and you sit down with them and they realize, oh, I'm not gonna divide over this.

I mean, Arden, my wife preaches the gospel all over the world. She's behind pulpits constantly. There are actually people that think she's doing evil. Yeah, no, we showed last episode, the greatest form of evil. Right, okay. One of them is our friend. You know what I love about him? He loves us and we love him. He sees us as believers. We see him as a believer. Yeah. We don't agree on that point, but we know we're all in the body of Christ. That doesn't make him a false teacher. Yeah. Okay, there may be somebody who thinks, okay, there needs to be something done as far as race goes. And I'm like, you know what, da, da, da, da. We may disagree on that. That doesn't make them a false teacher. But if they harp on it, they stay on it, they get away from the essentials. Now, all of a sudden, they're, listen, you don't go off path. You don't go from being one degree to 20 degrees just like that. You go one degree, half degree, another half degree, now another degree, now another degree.

And all of a sudden down the road, you find yourself, I'm in a rabbit hole. I'm actually not in a rabbit hole. I'm in a devil hole. And I have now done something wrong. I've gotten away from the heart of God because what I find is when people are spending time with God in prayer and they're spending time in the word and the word of God is reading them and correcting them on a daily basis, you know what, they don't get caught into those holes. Yeah, they get recalibrated. And that's the importance too of reading the Bible without your filter. Because that is what people will do is they'll go through scripture. And then they'll highlight, you can sometimes see if you go back through someone's Bible, that they're very big on one topic. They'll keep highlighting everything that's giving way to their argument. And then I almost love it because I've seen that with myself, is that when I've been super focused on one area and I come back through and I come back through to my old highlights, I'm like, wow, look what God's worked on me. Like, I was a little bit too hard. And I see that as all of my highlights are on the scriptures that are maybe a little bit confrontative and a little bit difficult. And then I allowed that continuing to develop and grow in God to work with me. Then I come back and yes, those scriptures are important, but then I'm also seeing everything else that's around. I'm seeing the different aspects that are coming into it. And so I think that's something important is we always make sure we don't read with our own filter. Now, what would cause us to create the filter is the offenses we've picked up. Now, here's the thing. I wrote the beta Satan years ago and the beta Satan actually deals with people that have hurt you. Well, now we're living in a society 30 years later after writing the beta Satan where I realized a lot of people's offenses

is what's been done to their people, whether it's their race, their group, their gender. And so listen to what Jesus says, it's impossible that no offenses should come. So in other words, Jesus said there are going to be offenses. And now the word offense is the Greek word skandalon there, which is actually originally wasn't used for offense. It was used to describe the bait stick of a trap that hunters would catch small animals and birds on. That word was then used to describe things that I would do to you that would cause you to stumble. So now I take up the offense at what's been done with my gender, with my race, with my group that I'm associated with. Now what happens is I'm in a trap, and in that trap I start seeing the word of God through a filter, just what you said. Whether it's been done to my age group, this has been done to my...whatever it is. Now I'm seeing the word of God through a filter. Now I can't allow it to transform me any longer because I begin to grow a root of bitterness by which the writer of Hebrews says many people become defiled. So the thing you've got to do is realize that offense is like deadly poison, and it's the beginning of error. If you look at what Jesus said in the last days, talking about before a second coming, many are going to be offended, they're going to betray one another, they're going to hate one another. Hello, what's happening today? What's the next statement? Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. Who are the many they're going to deceive? The many that are offended because offense is the breeding ground of deception. Well, I love what mom's always talked about. She said that the word of God, when you get into an offended place, you use the word of God to hurt people rather than to set people free. Yes. And that's what you've seen with so many of these movements and so many of these things is that they'll use scripture against one another. And I think that's what even what you're saying is in the last days that people will be offended, people will have those things, and it's because they're not using scripture with the intent that it was given to us to, to set people free. Instead, they're using it as a weapon. That's what happened with the crusades. The crusades were men that were using scripture in the things that they believed that they were reading scripture through a lens all to bring up years and years of utter terribleness. And so that's something that's really important. And that as we continue to keep allowing ourselves to come and be recalibrated in the word of God, not using a filter, we get into a place where we're able to actually help other people. Cause I love what you even talk about. And we've, we've talked about this as I think the, what's the, the quote that says to be offended with

someone is to, or to, to overlook an offense is to set a prisoner free only to realize that you were that prisoner. You were the prisoner that got set free. Yeah. And so it's the realization is that we cannot use the scripture in a way that is going to be life giving to us at all. Well, our same writer, Peter said that we are to hold the word of truth with a pure heart. Okay. So a pure heart means I don't have the defilement of offense. I don't have the defilement of bitterness. I don't have the defilement of, uh, unforgiveness resentment. So now this is why the Bible says, guard your heart with all diligence because out of it flow the forces of life. God showed me back when I was offended, uh, and this was something that was done to me. I wasn't offended for my, my, my sex, my race, my, you know, my group that I was a part of. I was offended that something was done to me, but the same principle applies. He said, son, he said, if you allow offense to be harbored in your heart, he said, what's going to happen is. the living waters that come out of you are gonna be tainted with bitterness. And I realized, wow, truth gets, it starts, that that tainting starts with an offense, whether it was something that was done to me personally or something done to my group. I pick up that offense. I start now seeing things through colored lenses, through wrong lenses. And I now am getting on a road that's gonna pull me off my secure footing, as Peter says, of the word of truth. You're looking for something. No, I was going into Jude just because what he was talking about, what you said is the rivers that are coming out of you are gonna be tainted. So that means the word of God that you're supposed to use to set people free

is gonna be tainted. And him just continuing the reminder, and I know we talked about this, but it talks about a little bit in 2 Peter, these springs without water, but Jude's saying specifically. So what Jude's talking about is he's going into this same idea that 2 Peter was talking about, where you have clouds without water, you have autumn trees without fruit. So you have these things that essentially, in a way, when you look at them at glance, you look at a well and at glance, that's a, oh man, this is gonna be a relieving thing. I finally get water, but then you dig down and there's nothing there. And so that's something that we have to be so careful in understanding the offense, not coming into it, because that's one of the most misleading things for people. I mean, I think about the hope that comes for so many people when they finally get to hear the truth, but if that truth does not come with life-giving clarity and understanding and a clear teaching around repentance and what all this means, then it is essentially just a momentary relief. That's not a true relief. It's a excitement that, oh, I just discovered this and let me get a quick thing. And then, oh no, there's actually nothing here for me.

And that's probably why you're seeing so many people that are walking away from Christ, because they have been led astray by wells without water and trees without fruit. And they're feeling like I came expecting to get some fruit and now I'm leaving with nothing. Wow, that's so, so sobering when you think about it. To get back to what John was saying here, but we belong to God and those who know God listen to us. Okay, so when he says they listen to us, he's talking about the teachings of the apostles. So what we've been talking about out of a pure heart, the word of truth, right? If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. So let me just back it up again. Let me come off of what you just said. It's just a very serious matter. I mean, to have the appearance that I've got water, to have the appearance I'm gonna have fruit that's going to benefit you, but yet it's empty. Yet it actually ends up bringing you into a place of famine, a place of weakness, a place of vulnerability. That's what happens when you have no water and you have no food. You come to a place of weakness and now you're vulnerable and now you can be taken by an enemy. So this is false teachers will not feed you what you need to be strong, to be stand against the wiles of the enemy, correct? So if we go back to what John said, it just sums it up.

He said, those people, okay, now he's talking about the false teachers, the false prophets, the false Christ, the false, right? Those people belong to the world. So they speak from the world's point of view. In other words, the world's gonna listen to them and the world listens to them, okay? That's the next statement. But we belong to God and those who know God listen to us. Now, this is the thing that God put in my heart one day. I said, God, what if I, he was putting in my heart to preach something. I said, there's a lot of people. What if they don't listen to this? And I was writing driven by eternity, right? And I don't think people are gonna read this. He said, son, those who know me will want to read this. And I realized this scripture applied to that. If those who know God listened to us, now us being the apostles writing of the word of God, not John Bevere's writing, the apostles, because the apostles writing was the inspired word of God, right? If they do not belong to God, they don't listen to us. This is why you have so many people fighting the truth today. This is why you have so many people saying, no, we wanna talk more about this, this, and this, which is the non-essentials and they want nothing to do with the essentials.

And so they've majored in the minors as we've been saying, right? All right, that is how we know if someone has the spirit of truth or the spirit of deception. Here's how we know. The people who have the spirit of truth are the people who are gonna love the word of God. They're gonna embrace the word of God, even if it corrects them, even if it challenges them, even if it humbles them, right? The person who doesn't is gonna be dogmatic about what I believe, and this is the way I see things, and they form. their own point of view. They have fed now from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I am wise. It will make me wise outside of what God says, right? So let's keep reading here. Peter goes on to say, for God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell, into gloomy pits of darkness where they are being held until the day of judgment. This is what we're going to focus on here. And God did not spare the ancient world except Noah and seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God's righteous judgment. So God protected, remember that word protected Noah, when he destroyed the world of the ungodly people with a 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 us today. Now, when it says God did not spare the angels who sinned, that Greek word actually means to imply forgiveness. So all three of these speak of judgment. The angels that sinned, they're being chained up in gloomy pits. Number two, Noah's generation, they were destroyed by the flood. Number three, Sodom and Gomorrah, they were destroyed by sulfur, right? Okay, all speak of God's judgment. Now, this is what a false teacher is going to do. Okay, the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament was very judgmental, very harsh. He had them killing. No, he's not a different God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He's not changed a bit. So we must realize that God

understands that this evil, evil people saying, I want my own wisdom outside of God, this evil will ultimately destroy. It will hurt. And so God has got to get rid of that. He is hopeful, and you're going to see Peter says that everyone will be saved. He said Jesus died for the whole world. He wants everyone to be saved, but he realizes there are going to be people that are going to hang on to their own wisdom. They're going to be proud. They refuse to let go of their pride. They're going to be lewd. They're going to refuse to let go of their sexual immorality. And so they can't partake of the tree of life because the tree of life will cause them to live in that state forever. So if they, through God's patience of not coming back yet, keep saying no, no, no, no, no to the wisdom of God, then they are going to align with the devil. And Jesus said this judgment was made for Satan and his angels. But what Satan and his angels are doing, his demonic forces, he's taking people there with him. Because you have to understand you're either going to be with God, or you're going to be on the side of the world, which belongs to Satan. And Jesus came to deliver us from this world. And God says, look, there's a destruction. There's a judgment coming on that was originally just intended for the devil and his angels. But he is taking myriads of people there with him. And so that's why Peter is writing about these three. The key point is God didn't abstain from judgment. Now, Arden, what I have noticed that these false teachers do is they start bleeding over to either annihilation, or everybody's going to be saved. So in other words, they start getting rid of hell, getting rid of judgment. And they say, oh, God's a loving God. He wouldn't do that. And they start now looking at it through a humanistic, secular point of view of, okay, if God is a God of love, this is the way he would behave. So we start thinking how God's going to behave. And we now are erring away from the truth of scripture, because we say we know what love is more than what God knows what love is, when in reality, God is love. Yeah. Can I ask you, is this a relatively new... When I say relatively new, like within the past 40 years teaching, the more that there is no heaven or hell, and that God just... I don't know the best way to put it, but that there's... It really does not matter about what you do. Because I'm curious on terms of with my generation, I don't want to call out my generation, because I believe my generation is such an incredible generation. There's so much potential on it. And I do feel like sometimes it gets a bad rep, but we were raised in the day and age of participation trophies, and where it was like, everyone wins. And I'm curious on if we've seen some of those cultural things feed into the church in the recent years, or if this has just always been something that...

That's an excellent question. It has always been there, but it's been amplified in these days because of the very thing you just said. So you can go back and you can find teachers in... in church history, the last 2,000 years, that eliminated judgment, lessened judgment, the severity of judgment, or maybe started talking about annihilation, that a person actually is really annihilated if they're away from God. In other words, they'll no longer cease to exist. But that's just not true because Jesus said, he said, the worm doesn't die and the fire's never quenched. And the Bible shows very clearly that they're going to be tormented day and night forever and ever. This is the torment that was originally intended for the enemy. And this is why Jesus said, go, go, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every created being. Preach the good news. Preach the fact that I came to set them free from what they deserved. And I think sometimes people, you know, when you look at Peter and you go back into this first or second Peter, first chapter, they forgot that they were forgiven of their former sins. Remember, what they lack, if they don't pursue holiness, godliness, all those things, they forget they're forgiven of their old sins. Now, when you forget you're forgiven of your old sins, now what happens? Well, there really doesn't need to be judgment because everybody's inherently nice and they've got a good side to them, right? And so now you start diminishing judgment. You start trying to do away with it. And you say, okay, if anybody does end up separated from God, they're going to be annihilated because a loving God would never allow somebody to suffer that torment for eternity. God did everything he could. You know, Lisa and I were talking about this last night. I said, babe, Romans 1 says they're without excuse. We keep saying, well, what about, what about, you know, the number one argument everybody's going to say, what about the person that's never heard? Why is Jesus appearing to so many Muslims in the Middle East? Why is he appearing to so many Muslims in Indonesia? I believe because they look up to the heavens and they say, who really created all of this? Because they somehow feel something's not right. And then Jesus reveals himself. Can I, can I ask you this too, because this might go down another rabbit hole is, so C.S. Lewis got a lot of flack for this in his last battle book, in the last book of the series of Narnia. And he, at the end time, and hopefully, hopefully you guys have read that book because it's been out for a long time. So I don't want to be giving away, but at the end time you have the three siblings are there and then, you know, the cousins and, and they see there's a

Tamarin that is there with them. And they asked Aslan, whose Tamarins were the evil people. And they asked Aslan, why is, why is he here? And he said, he knew me and he served me, but he served me by a different name, which he always was so faithful to the Tamarine God and believed all these things in a similar way that he thought it was basically, he was serving Aslan, but he was serving the Tamarine God by a different name. And so C.S. Lewis got a ton of flack for that because it brings up a lot of questions around that. Well, the first question would be, there's no other name under heaven by which men could be saved the name of Jesus. Exactly. And there's no way, there's no way to get, yeah, get to. That would be the first. However, here's the way I, but here's, but this is what I was going off of is I think that's why that you're saying is you're seeing Muslims, Jesus appearing to Muslims is because you have people who are so dedicated to things. I mean, you look at some of the Muslim people and the dedication that they have. I'm like, man, I wish Christians were that dedicated. And I think Jesus and God is looking at that as well and saying, they are serving us, but they don't know us. And so that they're getting the Jesus appearing to them and they're like, oh my goodness. It just, rather than flipping everything on their head and, oh, we've got to change. It's just, okay, we've been doing this, but now we know who we're actually serving. We know who it is who died on the cross for us and what that actually is. And I know a lot of, of course, within those religions, it talks about Jesus. And I think the Muslim people really see Jesus as a prophet, not so much as the Messiah. So that's where we differ. He is the son of God. Now I'm going, you've opened up a can of worms here that I want to address. I want to address. Okay. Here's where I go on this. God is the most merciful, loving being in the entire universe. It's not my position to figure out if somebody really is saved or not saved. It's not my position to tell people, okay, that person's okay or not. Okay. Because now I'm entering into judgment. Well, cause that's the first thing people are going to ask that really don't want to serve with all their heart. Jesus. Well, what about, what about, what about, what about, I'm going to say, what about you is what I'm going to ask. You know, what are you doing with the truth? Yeah. As far as those people go, I'm not going to enter in to be the judge. That's not my role. Jesus told me my role was to proclaim the word of God, to proclaim the gospel. So whether those people.

are saved or not saved, that's not my responsibility. It's not my responsibility to make that decision. That would be judgment. That is God's position. But it is my position because I've had so many conversations with Muslims, and I'm going to witness to them and tell them about Jesus. And if they say to me, hey, we believe he's a great prophet, right? I'm going to say, yes, and he is also God manifested in the flesh. I'm going to say that. Okay? So here's what happens. When I'm at a place where I just have talked to somebody and talked to somebody and we see we're not getting very far. Like I just happened with somebody recently, and it ended up being an hour conversation. I thought I'm not getting anywhere with this guy. So we're at coffee. We're having coffee. And I said, I want you to do something. And you better not do this unless you mean it. I said, I want you to look up to the heavens. And I said, I want you to say, whoever created all of this, I want to know who you really are. And when you reveal yourself to me, I will serve you. I said, if you say that, he will reveal Jesus to you. And I left it with that after we had like an hour and a half discussion over coffee. And, you know, Paul said, I'm innocent of the blood of all men. Why? Because I did not cease to preach. I didn't, I didn't cease to warn you. I didn't cease to preach the word of God to you. And I preached everything you needed to know to be saved. And that's where we need to be. We don't need to enter into the place of the judge. God is the judge and I'm not going there. Yeah. So I love that. You said, well, what about you? I think that's really good. I think that's something that people need to hear. And even when they hear that it's, well, yeah, we can sit here and talk about all the people that might not know, but what about you? What are you doing? Why have you sat with this? Why have you thought about, okay, if this is actually a real truth and I'm bringing up all these other people, but if I'm bringing up these other people, it means I think it's a legitimate argument. What are you doing with it? And I think that's really good. Yeah. Well, I think we better close there. I think we've talked about enough. We still didn't get really fully to judgment, which we will get to next time. But the next time what we're going to talk about, Arden, is we're going to talk about how God rescued not only Noah, but Peter talks about him rescuing Lot. And there is different outcomes for Noah and Lot. And a lot of people don't realize these incomes, even though both men were called righteous, even though both men were righteous, I should say, their outcome was totally different. And that's going to be a really interesting conversation on our next podcast. Till then, this has been the John Bevere podcast

with Arden and John.