No Counterfeits • 2 Peter 2:1

26:31 Teaching begins

Notes

Joanie and I had coffee with friends who are musicians and we were talking about counterfeit instruments, like counterfeit Stradivarius violins and counterfeit 1959 Gibson Les Paul electric guitars. Worth millions if they are real, not so much if they are fake.

A counterfeit is something made to look valuable and authentic, but it’s not valuable because it’s not authentic. You only counterfeit things that are valuable and rare.

Nobody counterfeits a shopping bag. There’s lots of shopping bags in the world, and so they’re not worth very much. You want to counterfeit rare valuable things. Money in large denominations, paintings, instruments, antiques, passports, emails from some millionaire in Nigeria who wants to give you their millions.

The most valuable thing in the world is salvation, because that determines your eternal destiny—heaven or hell. It’s rare—there’s only one way to be saved from the condemnation of God. Because salvation is most valuable, that attracts the most counterfeiters.

If you accept a counterfeit salvation you are in the greatest danger. You trust that you are being saved but in reality you are being deceived. A counterfeit salvation will destroy you forever.

Can you tell when someone offers you a counterfeit salvation?

Do you have the only real salvation?

We’re reading in 2 Peter chapter 1.

1. False teachers are coming—and really they are here now.

A. Peter has been speaking about authentic prophecy. 

1. Spoken by God.

2. Conveyed by the Holy Spirit.

3. Spoken through a holy man or woman prepared by God to be His spokesperson.

B. Even as there were true prophets in the Old Testament there were false prophets as well.

1. Some came representing different gods, like the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who led God’s people away from worshipping the Lord. That’s 1 Kings 17-18. Spotting different gods is pretty easy.

2. False prophets also spoke in the name of the Lord. In Jeremiah 27 and 28 we see a prophet speaking in the name of the Lord things that the people want to hear. It’s completely different than Jeremiah’s message: repent before judgment comes. So how do you tell who’s authentic? Jeremiah 28:15-17 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Hear now, Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the LORD.’ ” So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

C. Peter says there will also be false teachers among you. Even in Peter’s time false teachers had already shown up. Notice verse 13, they ARE stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions as they carouse with you. They’re here, now.

2. They bring in destructive heresies.

A. They smuggle in false teachings. They do it secretly, quietly so they don’t attract attention. They do it illegally, they are not authorized by God. They are making it up themselves. They are outlaws.

B. They are counterfeited, it’s a forgery. That’s verse 3, false words.

1. You make a detailed copy. You can skilfully devise a fable, like Peter said he didn’t do, in chapter 1:16.

2. If you can, put a lot of truth in it. A lot of guys take stuff straight from the Bible. Then they mix something in it that’s not true. Truth mixed with a lie is still a lie.

C. The lie is still destructive. How destructive?

1. A lie doesn’t save you even if you are sincere. You sincerely believe what is not true. It’s not true because it has no authority. You are caught trying to spend a £100 note. That government official says, your £100 note is counterfeit. It doesn’t matter how sincerely you believe that it’s authentic, it’s still a forgery and worthless, it has no authority. Your counterfeit salvation doesn’t save because it’s not from God, it doesn’t have His authority.

2. If you are not saved that affects your present and your eternal destiny. Right now you are not entering now into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ as Peter is urging his readers to do. In your future you are excluded from the eternal kingdom of Jesus forever. You are in eternal judgment.

3. You are saved by the truth, with authority. If you believe a forgery, a counterfeit, you cannot be saved.

3. What is the lie? It is denying the Master who bought you.

A. This is why the lie has to be brought in secretly so you don’t notice.

1. A false teacher doesn’t get up and say, “Pooey on Jesus! Let’s worship the devil!” Somebody would notice and say, that’s not right.

2. But notice in 1 Corinthians 12:3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. Paul had to make it really clear because I bet someone tried prophesying that. God is never going to contradict Himself, He will always exalt Jesus.

B. The lie is to teach a different Jesus than the authentic Jesus.

1. The outer resemblance is all there—white robe, blue or red sash thingy going diagonally, long hair and a beard—bingo! It’s Jesus.

2. Wait a minute—what’s this Jesus saying? This forged, counterfeit Jesus tells you to depend on what you do to be right with God, not on what the authentic Jesus already did completely for you.

3. Counterfeit Jesus says salvation is not a free gift after all. You have to work for it. The lie will sound like this: do your best and then Jesus will do the rest. Start with yourself, then end with Jesus. Jesus is there somewhere, but really, the focus is on what you do to make yourself right with God. You have to produce. You have to show that you’re worthy. You do these 8 things, or 5 things, or ten things, and you’re in.

C. The Apostle Paul had to oppose this teaching in the churches of Galatia. Jewish false teachers pointed people to obey the Jewish commandments in order to be saved. He says this: Galatians 1:6-9 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

D. Paul opposed this teaching in Corinth as well. 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

E. In these cases “do your best to make God happy” means obeying the laws that God gave through Moses. Do what God told you to do. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

F. But what this “do your best” does is deny the Master who bought you. It means to refuse to accept the existence, truth, or validity of Jesus.

1. Jesus prayed for three hours in the Garden of Gethsemane Mark 14:36 And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” If there is any other way for You to save man than Me dying for them, let this cup pass from Me.

2. God the Father answered the Son’s prayer. He said, “No.” The only way for God to be just and save sinners is that the punishment is carried out. Either on the sinners, or on a sinless substitute.

3. Romans 3:10-12 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

4. Jesus was put to death as a substitute for sinful man. And He shed His blood, the proof that He was dead. Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ It is the proof that a life has been given.

5. Hebrews 9:11-14 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

6. Redemption is the price to be paid to free someone from debt, from captivity, from death row. Jesus paid our price for disobedience. He bought us with His blood.

7. Acts 4:12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” No one else can pay the price. Jesus has paid it once and for all.

G. You receive this as a free gift or not at all. If you add your efforts to Jesus’ work that denies the Master who bought you. It denies sin. It denies the death of Jesus on the cross, it denies the Father who sent the Son and answered the Son’s prayer in the garden: There is no other way to redeem man.

H. If you work to be saved you are saying Jesus died for nothing; I can do this, I must do this. I have to work hard to show myself worthy so that God will bless me.

I. That will send you to eternal punishment. You are depending on yourself and you have no authority with God. You are denying the Master who bought you.

4. So what?

A. Only accept the authentic, authorised Jesus.

B. One simple way to see if anyone is a false teacher is to ask who they say Jesus is.

1. You don’t have to laboriously sift through all their teaching. Every false religion gets it wrong about Jesus. They say He’s a good teacher, one of the best. He’s a prophet. But they stop short of saying that Jesus is the Lord God, the eternal God, the exact representation of God. The light of His glory, the creator and sustainer of the world. In the end they say Jesus is not God. If He’s not God, He’s not the Saviour.

2. The Scriptures are about Jesus. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. False teachers get people off from following Jesus onto following something that isn’t Jesus.

B. This means you have to know the truth for yourself. It’s no good to trust in some licensed religious professional to get you where you need to be. You have to know Jesus for yourself. He alone is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Him. You must be born again or you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

C. John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

D. 1 John 5:9-12 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

E. 1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

F. I’m going to give everyone an opportunity to receive Jesus.

Let’s pray.