SERMON SUMMARY NOTES



Moses died on Mount Nebo overlooking the Promised Land, and God buried him there (Deut 34:1-7). God forbade him entry due to his pride and disobedience at Meribah Kadesh (Num 20:10-12; Deut 32:51-52). Jude (1:9) gives us insight not recorded in the Old Testament of how the archangel Michael argued with Satan over Moses’ body. It is supposed that Satan desired the patriarch’s body for use as an idol for Israel. In Michael’s contention with Satan, he never spoke against Satan, but left that to God; refusing to speak evil of greater dignitaries (2 Peter 2:10-11; Jude 1:8).
Beliefs, words, and character count, and false teachers reveal themselves as shams - fakers in the field of the Lord’s kingdom.

I. Instinct (2 Pet 2:12; Jude 1:8-10). Evolution is the belief that man is no more than an animal descended from other animals. It is no surprise that when taught evolution, people act as animals. But the Bible teaches that mankind is unique, created by God in His own moral image. When God’s truth is ignored or denied, all that is left is animal instinct as a means of survival. God creates His character in His children through sanctification (2 Peter 1:3-11); the unsaved, including false teachers, are void of it.
Since the Fall, man’s natural instinct is to sin (Gen 3; Rom 1:18-32). We sin because we’re descendants of Adam, the first sinner. We’re each conceived in sin (Gen 5:1-3; Ps 51:5-6; Rom 5:12-19). Peter calls false teachers natural brute beasts, irrational, rejecting reason and revelation, living in the flesh according to sinful instincts, like pigs and dogs (2 Pet 2:22), animals despised in the ancient world for their filthy behavior.
God made (created) animals to be caught (alosis, hunted) and destroyed (phtora). Phtora pictures a state of ruin, decay, or rot (2 Pet 1:4; 2:12). In Christ, we’ve escaped the corruption that is in the world, but the nature of false teachers is unlike God’s divine nature (2 Pet 1:4-5). They are unregenerate, instinctively seeking to destroy the church, but God reserves them for eternal destruction (2 Pet 2:9; 3:7, 10; Rev 20:10-15).

II. Ignorance (2 Pet 2:12-13). False teachers habitually blaspheme (blasphemeo) dignitaries and things they do not understand (2 Pet 2:10). They may be educated and brilliant, but they’re ignorant of spiritual truth. Their fleshly and materialistic minds act, think, and speak in fleshly and materialistic terms, defaming and ridiculing heavenly truths they can’t understand (Rom 1:22; 1 Cor 2:14; Col 2:18).
Because they aren’t stupid, false teachers count (make a careful decision after weighing all the facts) it pleasure (hedone) to carouse (truphe) in the open. Carousing describes an indulgent, delicate, luxurious lifestyle; pleasure means to indulge in natural appetites as the chief goal of life.
God ensures the self-indulgent false teachers will perish (kataphtheiro, rot completely) in their corruption (phtora). They’ll receive the wages in full (misthos) for their sins. We say crime doesn’t pay, but sin always pays (Rom 6:23). If Jesus didn’t take up the wages you deserve for your sin, you’ll receive your justly earned wages to the final judgment and die in your sins (Jn 8:24).

III. Impurity (2 Pet 2:13). Washed by the Word, the Church is being made without spot (spilos) or blemish (momos) (Eph 5:25-27) like Jesus (1 Pet 1:19); while false teachers twist the Word and spew filth on people who think they’re being blessed (2 Pet 3:16).
False teachers are not only impure, they are spots (spilos, stains of feces or other bodily fluids) and blemishes (momos, scabs) on the local church. They revel in deceptions drawing people with a façade of enjoying happy and fulfilled lives. They carouse (entruphao) among believers, living in luxury from “ministering” to those whom they exploit (2 Pet 2:3).
The Lord’s Supper symbolizes our fellowship with and in Jesus, “eating” Him by faith (Jn 6:51-58; 1 Cor 10:16-22; 11:17-34). False teachers know nothing of this fellowship. Pretending to be saved, they dine as friends at His Table, but are in all reality like Judas Iscariot: the greatest of shams (Jude 1:12).