Monday-Another Big But

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.

2 Peter 2:1[1]

Just when you think everything’s going great, something happens. The once great and perfect thing isn’t so perfect anymore. Whenever there’s something good, something bad comes along. There’s no such thing in this life as something totally good. Totally clean. Totally pure. Someone put it like this.

If you're looking for the perfect church and you find it, don't join it – you’ll ruin it!

While this might bring a smile, it has a lot of truth to it. Whether it’s about churches, places to work, or anywhere one or more people get together, there’s going to be trouble. There’s going to be conflict. There’s going to be problems. And the same was true of the early church. It wasn’t all that long after the death and resurrection of Jesus for things to start to go wrong.

Think of it like this. In Acts 2, God’s Holy Spirit comes, Peter gives his first sermon and 3,000 people become Christians. It’s the birth of the church. And it only took four chapters till there were problems. There was complaining, murmuring, and division within the believers[2].

But this time it’s different. It’s false prophets. And why are they called false prophets? It’s not that they don’t teach any truth. As a matter of fact, most of what they say is true. A great deal of what they say agrees with what God has already said. So, what makes them false prophets?

It’s not the truth that they say, but the lies that they mix in. They might take a truth of God and twist it. Or they sometimes go further when God says stop. And then there are those times when they just go off the rails and bring in a lie and hide it somewhere inside some truths of God.

They take what’s good and wholesome and add something outside of what God’s said. They dilute the truth with false teaching. They start with God’s excellent truths and intentionally add something that takes us away for who God is and all that he wants for our lives. Eventually it will harm them and everyone else. There were two problems with their teaching.

• Destructive heresies. These weren’t just little heresies, but great big ones. These weren’t like those little moles and lumps on our bodies that are harmless. Not on your life, these were deadly cancerous tumors of heresies.

• Denying the sovereign Lord. Instead of saying “Yes” to Jesus as God, Lord, and savior, they said “No.” It didn’t matter that Jesus clearly called himself these things, they were going to go in another direction.

And what did the sovereign Lord do for them? What great thing did Jesus accomplish for them? For their good? For their benefit before the holy and just God? What did they walk away from? What did they deny?

I’ll tell you what Jesus did. He paid the price that was on our heads for all our words, thoughts, actions, and attitudes. We had been kidnapped by our sin, and he paid our ransom to free us. We had sold ourselves into slavery and he bought us back. He brought us back to God.

It might be hard to understand, but there is another big but here for us to think about. That big but is what have we done to deserve all this? And that would be nothing. There’s not a thing that we can do or say to get God’s attention. To pay him off to forgive us. It’s like the words of the old hymn.

Not the labors of my hands, can fulfill thy law's demands;

could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow,

all for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone[3].

I know that this is wildly unpopular. We’ve been told to believe that we can do anything. That given enough time and technology, we can accomplish anything. We’re unstoppable. We can climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, 'till you find your dream[4].

But when it comes to our relationship with God, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s never been about us, but all about God. Salvation is Jesus taking what we deserve so that he can give us what he deserves. He took our sin so that we can receive his righteousness. It doesn’t get any better than that. If that doesn’t make you want to shout a great big “thank you” to God, then you haven’t got the real thing yet. There’s more for you to come closer to God for.

Noodling Questions

• Explain how you felt when someone disappointed you.

• Describe some false prophets you’ve know.

• Why isn’t identifying a false prophet not judging (Matthew 7:1)?

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all Bible references are from the New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

[2] Acts 6:1

[3] Rock of Ages, Augustus Toplady (1776)

[4] Climb Ev'ry Mountain, The Sound of Music, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II,