The church in this time functions as if it is under the teaching of false prophets. We have forgotten what it is to be saved: we are taught that it is appropriate to indulge our passions. Our cities should distress us, because the lawless deeds are institutionalized, and we cannot speak against them without being called homophobic, sexist and being accused of perversion. To teach the gospel is to be accounted as a class traitor, and to risk doxxing and ritual condemnation by social media.

And in the East, being of the church is placing your life at risk. In the West, you are now at risk also.

But the teaching of the church has to reform. Particularly as the teaching of the world has become destructive. We will cause offence by reading the letters Paul and Peter wrote.

So let us be offensive. For the False Prophets will join the Fallen Angels in a hades of their own making.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgement; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Bold and wilful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,

(2 Peter 2:1-10 ESV)

Interesting. Lot is accounted as righteous, but he is also a warning. For he was weak, and his daughters had become infected with the mores of Sodom: when their husbands remained in that city of vice and they were in effect widowed for Sodom was destroyed (I’d speculate volcanic activity, having been in Rotorua on many occasions : the active volcanic field under that town produces hydrogen sulphide, so the entire town smells of rotten eggs) they ensured their father was drunk and then impregnated themselves while he was asleep.

We need to remain disciplined and sober. We could never be accounted as righteous on our own works: for one act of disobedience (and we all have done that) would damn us. And the false teaching of this age is a form of gnosticism, that our spirituality is linked to our self esteem, which must be preserved regardless of how we act.

The last sentence of the text is also important. Often, all too often those who are false prophets talk of spiritual power and warfare, impugning powers more intelligent and with more glory than humans ever had — for we are made a little lower than the angels — in a form of self-aggrandisement. They talk of light, of levels of sanctity as if the church is a regiment or corporation, where one is promoted up a scale. They think they are powerful, rich and preach both prosperity and power: when they, like us all, are poor, filthy, naked and weak. Beware of those who talk too much about spirituality and never reflect on their own sin.

For there are too many false teachers among us. If you are in the pews, test all teaching against scripture. And ensure that no elder remains in heresy. If you are an elder, do the same: you will have to give an account.