2Peter 1:1-3 - Heresies - Recovered, Reused, Recycled ... Resold.

1-3 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. 2 And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep.

God has always given to His people the gift of prophets, through whom the Holy Spirit spoke eternal and unalterable truth concerning the Christ, and things touching Him and His people. But God always permitted false prophets to arise so that His people might be tested. Regrettably, the track history of both kingdoms in Israel was that they were led astray by them. Today, it is no different - in fact it is worse. And not only is it worse, but it will get a lot worse than it is even now. They will deceive millions and, if it were possible, even the elect will be led astray.

The most dangerous false teachers are not found in the world. True Christians have relatively little trouble with the inanities of a Deepak Chopra or the humanism of a Norman Vincent Peale. But they are increasingly befuddled, bamboozled and bedazzled by an unceasing stream of teachers who come dressed in "Christian" robes and who use all the right lingo - people who give enough of the truth to bait the hook so that the hearers will swallow it.

It is no accident that they come. God permits it. He permits it not so that His children will be ensnared, but so that they will be tested and proven. Those that fall permanently into heresy and apostasy through these wicked corrupters of the truth will fail the test because they are not truly of God. They were impostors - never truly born of Him and having climbed in over the wall, rather than coming through the gate. Yet even true believers need this kind of test because, when they have passed it, then they know - they are assured - they are witnesses to the power of God at work in them, upholding and guiding them to their home above.

Nevertheless, there is a terrible fury awaiting all false teachers who are the cause of even the minutest stumbling in the true saints. It would be better in that Day for them to have a millstone hung around their necks, and to be cast into the depths of the sea than to have caused one of Christ’s little ones to stumble. The elect of God cannot be permanently deceived, but they can be led astray for a season.

In Peter’s time there was no shortage of ready and villainous heresies. The gnostics were among the first, but they were by no means the only ones. In the next generation other perversions were added to these, involving all the heresies that we have today in a retread form. Unitarianism, spiritism, humanism, faith plus-isms of every stripe. Jesus was an angel, a man, a man who became God; He was a god (one of many), He was Lucifer under another name. He was a spirit and never actually came in the body. He never died. He was drugged and whisked away by the disciples. He was a conspiratorial invention of a bunch of 1st century Jews. All this is only scratching the surface.

Today there are hordes and hordes of false teachers, false prophets and false Christians out there still hacking away at the simplicity which is Christ - at the Apostles’ doctrine and the record of their witness. Some attack the Bible, some change it. Some deny Christ and some distort Him. I would that I could give a list of those professing Christ who blatantly misrepresent Him. Some are just ignorant, some sincerely self-deceived and others are vicious and deliberate enemies of Christ. The best defence against them - apart from being in Christ - is to know the Word of God. To know God in and through His Word and to be walking in the Spirit in that knowledge is to be clad in the armour of God. Know the Bible. Sit under accurate, thorough and faithful teaching and preaching of the whole counsel of God. Settle for nothing else and nothing less. And pray that He will not let you fall.

Moving along, some people today read the phrase "even denying the Master that bought them" and, being haters of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, will immediately jump on it. "There!" they will cry, "Aha! You see! Jesus bought them and they were saved and then they were lost. The Bible says you can lose your salvation!"

No it doesn’t. But they will say it does because they are ignorant, or because they have been taught heresy, or because they are stubbornly afraid of the truth. The Greek word for "master" or "Lord" that is used here is not the word used of Jesus’ relationship to His people. In that relationship the word used is kurios, meaning "Lord." There is a personal relational aspect to the word kurios. Here, however, the word is despotes, which is where we get our English word "despot." This word is all to do with absolute right of ownership and not personal relationship.

So whatever the Apostle intends, he is not speaking of the redeeming price for their souls, but more likely of the forbearance, the common grace and mercies that are provided by the Father in Christ towards even the reprobate, by which their just end is delayed. By flying in the face of God’s delayed judgement and forbearance and perverting even the gospel of grace, false teachers tempt God to bring a swifter end to their lives, and to hasten them on to final judgement.