Run With It: False Teachers Among Us

2 Peter 2:1-3,14-15,18-19 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“Now 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 Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed. 3In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.”

“14Their eyes are full of adultery; their desire for sin is never satisfied; they seduce the unstable. They are accursed children with hearts trained in greed. 15They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.” “18 With lofty but empty words, they appeal to the sensual passions of the flesh and entice those who are just escaping from others who live in error. 19They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to depravity. For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.”

A False Gospel

The false teachers among us may be pastors, elders, preachers, teachers, evangelists, missionaries, or just ordinary people who are sharing what they believe to be “the gospel” of Jesus Christ and of our salvation from sin. And it might not be in their own words that they are sharing this, but they are just copying what others are saying and then posting it on the internet in various locations, or they are speaking it within the gatherings of the church. But no matter the source, what they are spreading are the lies of Satan.

Now it says here that they will secretly introduce destructive heresies. Absolutely this is what is taking place. They will hide the lies within the truth of the gospel one small lie at a time in clever and hidden ways which are generally not noticeable and therefore not caught by the unsuspecting and by the immature and unlearned. And they will slowly adulterate the gospel message in ways most people don’t catch and so the lies become adopted as truth and shared as truth and then they are believed as truth by the many.

Living The Lie

And not only do they then adopt the false gospel as the truth, but they end up living the false gospel as though it is the truth. And rather than live godly and holy lives, pleasing to God, putting sin to death in their lives, and walking in obedience to our Lord’s commands, in life practice, so many of them are wanderers who are still living immoral and sinful lives. So many of them end up making sin their practice and not obedience to God, because they are believing the lie which tells them that they don’t have to obey God.

But they are not all doing this ignorantly. Many of them are well versed in the Scriptures and in what they teach us on the subject of salvation from sin and eternal life with God and on what it means to believe in Jesus. But they have adopted the lies because the lies give them permission to keep living in sin without guilt and without repentance and without obedience to God and to His commands while they claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior and salvation from sin and eternal life with God as assured them for eternity.

The Hypocrites

Many of these who claim to be Christians and followers of Christ and/or those who are preachers and teachers of “the gospel,” whether or not they are the false teachers or those adopting the lies for themselves to live by, they will put on a performance that they are following Jesus with their lives while secretly their eyes and their lifestyles are full of adulteries and immorality. They are living in addiction to sin, often to sexual sin, for their desire for sin is never satisfied, and so they keep going back for more.

Even though many of them are people of influence over other people and they know the truth of what the Scriptures teach, they will teach the lies as though they are truth, not only to pacify themselves in their own sins but to get others to join them in their depravity, in their obscenities, and in what is immoral, deceptive, self-indulgent, cruel, and hurtful to others. But then they lie to them and convince them that God will not judge them and that heaven is still their destiny since they said they believed in Jesus. Not true!

The Gospel

But Jesus Christ taught that to come to Him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) Him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to His commands, in His power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

For by God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in Him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness in walks of obedience to God’s commands. We are no longer to permit sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it results in sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

So believe and live the truth and not the lies, for the lies will send you to hell, but if the truth is what you obey you have eternal life with God.

False Teachers Among Us

An Original Work / October 5, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The Battle for Truth

Based off Malachi 1-4

An Original Work / May 18, 2013

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love