Micah: The People's Preacher vs The Lord's Preacher

Welcome to the Carnival Grace Chapel Podcast, where we value the expository preaching and teaching of the Word of God for the purpose of life transformation.

John has not been feeling well for the last several months.

He doesn't have an appetite.

He's rapidly lost weight.

But at the same time, he seems to be swelling primarily in his ankles.

He's been lethargic, he has high blood pressure, and he has difficulty breathing.

He complains of having pain in his abdomen and in his lower back.

He finally went to the doctor where the doctor ordered a barrage of tests, and it was determined that John is suffering from renal failure, kidney failure.

And it's primarily due to his years of hard drinking.

So he would need to stop drinking.

He needs to start dialysis, and at some point he will need to undergo a kidney transplant.

However, there's a problem.

And the doctor doesn't like to give bad news.

And so the doctor started thinking about it.

He thought, you know, I'm just gonna highlight the positives.

And so he walks into the exam room and he looks John square in the eye and he says, You know, you look really good.

You've lost a lot of weight.

You look good, your clothes fit a lot better.

And I tell you what, man, you sure can't hold your liquor.

But you probably want to start drinking gym bean.

It's like the weakest amount.

It's probably better for you.

So once you go ahead and drink Jim Bean.

And uh, you know, exercise a little bit.

I know your ankles are swollen.

Why don't you buy some compression socks?

And uh come back and see me in a few months.

The doctor walks out of the exam room, he's feeling good about himself.

He just delivered, you know, some nice positive news.

John's feeling pretty good about himself.

He thought he was in serious condition.

The doctor also realizes, you know, John is in serious condition.

He's not doing well.

He is going to come back and see me in a few months, which means more money for me.

That's ridiculous, right?

Like, no one would consider that doctor a good moral doctor who refused to tell the patient the truth.

Then why do people seek out preachers who refuse to tell them the truth?

And why do they call them good?

Hey, there's nothing new about this.

Micah had to deal with it in his day.

Let's read it, shall we?

It is Micah chapter 2, verses 6 through 11.

Micah 2:6–11

That will be our text for today.

And this is from the English Standard Version.

Do not preach.

Thus they preach.

One should not preach of such things.

Disgrace will not overtake us.

Should this be said, O house of Jacob, has the Lord grown impatient?

Are these his deeds?

Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

But lately my people have risen up as an enemy.

You strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly, with no thought of war.

The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses.

From their young children, you take away my splendor forever.

Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.

If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, I would preach to you of wine and strong drink, he would be the preacher for the people.

In this particular text, Micah informed the people that there is a difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher.

Christians need to realize that there is a difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher.

Well, what's the difference between the two?

There are two main differences in this text between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher.

The first main difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is in the content of their message.

Now listen to this.

In Micah chapter 2, verses 6 and 7, and then we're going to drop down and read verse 11.

Micah 2:6

So Micah chapter 2, verses 6 and 7, do not preach, thus they preach.

Micah 2:6

One should not preach of such things.

Disgrace will not overtake us.

Should this be said, O house of Jacob, has the Lord grown impatient?

Are these his deeds?

Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

Verse number 11 reads, If a man should go about in utter wind and lies, saying, I will preach to you of wine and strong drink, he would be the preacher for this people.

Verse 11.

The reason why I included verse 11 with those two verses is because when you look at the text in its original construction, verse 11 serves as a post script.

You know how, well, back in the day we used to write things called letters and notes and cards.

This was the age before text.

Okay?

And so you would write a letter, you'd write a card to someone, and you realize, oh man, I forgot to say something that was important to this point up here.

So you would write PS at the bottom and you would write something.

Do you remember that?

That's a postscript.

And even though it's at the end of a note or a card or a letter, it's intended to bolster a point that you made or to clarify a point that you made earlier in the letter.

And so verse 11 serves as a postscript.

You know, if this guy, if he had somebody walked around who uttered lies and the wind, and he talked about wine and strong drink.

In other words, go ahead and indulge in your sin.

Then that guy would be the preacher for the people.

You bet that's a surefire way to grow a church.

Now, the point to verse 11, he was verifying verse number six.

In verse number six, Micah opens up this particular passage of scripture by pointing out the difference between the Lord's preacher and the people's preacher.

The people's preacher refused to preach any type of message that contained judgment or confronting people's sin.

Or challenging their wicked thoughts and their wicked lifestyles and their wicked ideologies.

Instead, they just wanted to hear the good parts about God's word.

They wanted to hear a message that, you know, actually encouraged them to continue in their sin so that they felt secure in who they were as they were committing sin.

Verse 7 contains the message of the Lord's preacher.

The Lord's preacher preaches the full counsel of God's word, including the unpleasant parts, including judgment, including challenging people's sin, confronting their sin, and challenging their wicked mindsets and lifestyles.

And this is why Micah wrote, he said, look, the Lord hasn't become impatient.

The Lord's not impatient, he's long suffering.

But do not take his patience for granted.

He will deal with sin.

Furthermore, the Lord's preacher realizes that preaching the full counsel of God's word is actually beneficial.

This is why Michael said, Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

Yes.

If you receive the preaching of the word of God or you receive the written text, even the parts that convict you, even the parts that challenge you and your sin, if you will repent of those, it does good to you.

But whenever you reject it, when you reject the full counsel of God's word, when you reject a message that involves judgment or confronting of sin, then it actually does harm to you.

What ends up happening is that you reject it and you harden your heart even more against the things of God.

Not only is there a difference in the message between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher, the people's preacher wants to silence the Lord's preachers.

This is why it opened up with they say don't preach.

And in essence, they end up preaching.

Do this or that.

In other words, deplatform them.

Don't even listen to the real preachers who are proclaiming God's word because you know they're judgmental.

They're harsh.

They're stuck in their ways.

The difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is clearly seen in the modern church era.

The people's preacher is trendy.

His message is almost rehearsed.

Down to the minute.

It appeals to the masses.

The source of the message is the trend at the time.

The authority of the message is rooted in the expectation of the congregation.

In other words, they want to hear a certain message, so the people's preacher delivers it, and the people receive it because they love it.

It's what they want it.

And thus they give him even more authority.

The people's preacher will play fast and loose with the scripture.

I mean, to the people's preacher, they never let the Bible get in the way of telling people what they want to hear.

They'll twist scripture, they'll bend over scripture, they will contort themselves in numerous ways in order to tell people what they want to hear.

The only things that matter to a preacher's or a people's preacher is that people are happy, the church is filled, and the money keeps rolling in.

On the other hand, you have the Lord's preacher.

He could care less about trends.

His message is usually rough, confrontational.

It does not appeal to the masses.

In fact, it confronts the masses and calls them to repentance.

The source of the message is the scripture.

The authority is God Himself.

And the only thing that matters to the Lord's preacher is that the word is rightly divided, Christ is exalted, and God is glorified.

And if you need a visual, and here it is.

Stephen Furtick, Joel Osteen, T.D.

Jakes, and the like are people's preachers.

Vodip Bacham when he was alive.

Paul Washer, James White, Jeff Durbin are the Lord's preachers.

And there's literally hundreds of more on both sides of that that we could list.

You see, the people's preachers refuse to preach any message that involves judgment.

Their primary message, it's not the only thing they preach, but their primary message is one that sanctions and encourages people in their sin.

It makes them feel secure in their sin.

And there's nothing new about this.

Listen to the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 23, verses 16 through 17.

Jeremiah 23:16–17

Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes.

They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.

They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, it shall be well with you, and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, No disaster shall come upon you.

The people who despise the word of God, those who listen to their own heart.

Man, this drives me crazy.

I'm gonna get on a soapbox just for like one sentence, okay?

When somebody says you follow your heart, no, don't do that.

The scripture tells you your heart is deceitfully wicked.

Who can know it?

You don't trust your heart, you trust the written word of God.

Jude in the New Testament, chapter 1, verse 4.

Of course, there's only one chapter in Jude, just the way we reference it.

In Jude, verse 4, it reads, For certain people have crept in unnoticed too long ago, were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, they preach and they say, Oh, God is gracious and God is merciful and God is love and God is forgiveness.

And what they do is they turn people's lifestyles or they give them a license to sin.

They turn into sensuality.

It's okay.

It's okay to say, man, God understands.

And I get it, you know, when they wrote the Bible, you know, that long ago, that was kind of the culture, you know.

They they they weren't really, they had to evolve like we have, and now we understand that, you know, people are just people that they're wired a certain way.

God loves you, and so it's God loves you.

It's okay, God loves you.

That's the primary message you hear in the American pulp.

Does God love you?

Most of you.

Right?

I mean, and I can say that because that shocks some of you.

You realize the Lord, the Lord, throughout his word, does say that there are certain people he does hate, right?

You do recognize that.

Okay.

And another thing, just because God is love, and just because God loves you, doesn't mean that he lets you continue to live in sin.

That's not love.

Love is confronting people in their sin so they can come to wholeness and help and salvation and restoration in Jesus Christ.

It's no different than the doctor walking in and refusing to tell the patient he has terminal cancer instead, he tells you to go treat Jim V.

You see, the Lord's preachers preach the full counsel of God's word.

They confront sin and make people feel secure in Christ.

Colossians chapter 2, verses 6 through 8.

Colossians 2:6–8

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

In other words, he was pointing people to Christ, turning them to Christ.

If you follow Paul's primary method of communication in the epistles, what he'll do is he'll talk about doctrine in the first half of his letter, and the second half he says, and this is how you live in light of this.

So he lays the theological and biblical groundwork, and then he said, this is how it applies in everyday life.

And Paul was constantly pointing people to Jesus Christ.

You walk in freedom through Jesus Christ.

You reject wicked and simple lifestyles.

You put on your clothes, your clothed, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and you should live in that manner.

Now, are we sinless?

Of course not.

Are we perfect?

Of course not.

There's only one sinless, there's only one perfect.

His name is Jesus.

But that does not give you a license to continue in sin.

In fact, the apostle Paul said in Acts chapter 20, verses 26 through 27.

Acts 20:26–27

Um, he met with the church at Alphasis, he met with the elders, and he said, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

In other words, I didn't hold anything back, and because of that, I'm innocent.

Your blood is not on my hands.

As Christians, if you're a Christian in this room, if you're listening to me online and you are a born-again Christian, you have a responsibility to preach, teach, witness, tell the whole counsel of God's word.

Second Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 through 2 tells us, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead by his appearing and his kingdom.

2 Timothy 4:1–2

Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

There's a point you have to reprove, you have to rebuke.

Do not my words do good to those who walk uprightly.

Micah said in Micah chapter 2.

Micah 2 · chapter mention

This is why us as Christians cannot be afraid to confront people when they're living in sin.

It's not because we're being mean or judgmental, we're pointing them back to Scripture.

We're pointing them back to Jesus Christ.

Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20.

Matthew 28:18–20

We call it the Great Commission.

It reads, All authority and inhabited, well, Jesus came and he said to them, All authority has been on heaven and earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you, behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

Notice the phrase, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, the full counsel of God's word.

And the God's word has a lot to say about walking in repentance and holiness with God.

If you are a child of God, you walk to the best of your ability, light of scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit, in holiness with God.

You may not do so perfectly, but you do so progressively.

Day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, you are learning to walk with God.

And in that process, there are things that you walk away from and sins that no longer ensnare you and trap you because you have overcome them by the blood of the Lamb.

So we see that the first main difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is the content of their message.

The second main difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is the content of their character.

Listen to this, Micah chapter 2, verses 8 through 10.

Micah 2:8–10

Let's look back at our text.

Micah chapter 2, verses 8 through 10.

Micah 2:8–10

But lately, my people have risen up as an enemy.

You strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly, with no thought of war.

The women of my people, you drive.

Out from their delightful houses, from their young children, you take away my splendor forever.

Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.

So again, Micah confronted the false preachers, the false prophets, and their false belief system by showing them that the Lord is indeed patient.

But he will deal with sin.

The Lord's patience is a manifestation of his goodness and his grace and his mercy.

In God's patience, in God's goodness, in his grace, and in his mercy, he raises up preachers who will preach the word of God, who will confront sinful lifestyles and thoughts, so that people hear and can repent.

But if they do not, eventually judgment will come.

And Micah, in this particular text, in Micah chapter 2, verses 8 through 10, he says, Look, my words will do good if you will listen and walk uprightly.

Micah 2:8–10

But if you don't arise and go, for this is no place of rest for you.

And he was talking about the coming invasion and how the people would be taken into exile if they continued to walk in disobedience to the covenant that they have with God.

And it's interesting, he pointed out a few things.

It was pretty obvious that the people of Micah's day were rebelling against the covenant that God had made with his people as they were living in the Holy Land.

Instead of loving their neighbor, according to Leviticus 19, they were treating them harshly, almost like enemy combatants.

Passers by were coming and they would rob them, they would take their cloaks, you know, with no thought of war, or they were treating them like they were enemy combatants.

They robbed people, they disinherited people from the land, which was a violation of the covenant found in Leviticus chapter 25.

Leviticus 25 · chapter mention

They took robes from people as collateral, but they kept them at night.

Now, that sounds strange to us, but in Exodus chapter 22, uh, God's people were told if you're going to take a person's garment, their outer robe, their nice robes, you're going to take that as collateral.

Exodus 22 · chapter mention

You can hold it during the day, but at night you give it back to them because that may be the only thing that keeps them warm.

Give them their blanket, and then the next day you get it back, and you do that until they repay the debt.

But they weren't doing that.

They were just taking people's cloaks, they were taking people's clothes, they were disinheriting people, they were robbing people, they were taking things from them, they were treating them as if they were enemy combatants rather than God's covenant people.

And on and on we could go.

But there's a point I want to make that I think is clear in the text, or at least implicit in the text.

And that is that the people were living in sin, they were deliberately breaking the covenant with God, and they were doing so with the blessing of the priest and the prophets and the judges, which says something about their character.

You see, according to Deuteronomy chapter 17, the priests were the ones responsible for teaching the law of God.

Deuteronomy 17 · chapter mention

And when it came to court cases, they were the ones who were to give the interpretation of the law.

What does God say in this instance?

For example, what happens if an ox comes out and gores someone in the community?

What do we do?

The priest would give the interpretation of this is what the law says, this is what the word of God says, these are the boundaries that you have to work within, and then the judges who were actually uh dealing with the court case would then make the ruling based on the law of God that had been taught to the people.

So you can see that whenever the pulpit is weak, so will the nation be weak.

When the pulpit is corrupt, the nation will be corrupt.

And this is what happened.

The priests and the so-called prophets, the people's preachers were showing partiality to the rich, which is a violation of the covenant.

If you're gonna rule in a court case, you're supposed to be impartial.

It doesn't matter how wealthy or how poor the individual is, it doesn't matter the color of their skin, and so on.

You're supposed to be impartial.

You go by the law.

But instead, they were sanctioning the sin so that the wealthy could continue to get wealthy and they can take advantage of the poor and the disenfranchised.

They were robbing people, treating them as enemy combatants, taking their land, all of which is a violation of the covenant.

And the reason, listen, the reason why the people were willing to do so is because the priests were willing to sanction it.

The prophets, the the people's preachers were willing to sanction it.

And the reason is because they were living in sin too.

And so it's a reflection of their character.

In other words, the people's preacher would not preach against sin because they were living in sin.

The Lord's preacher will preach against sin because even though he's not sinless, he's been changed by the grace of God.

And that's the difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher.

The modern application of this particular passage of Micah chapter 2, verses 8 through 10, is manifestly self-evident.

Micah 2:8–10

One of the main differences between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is the content of their message, which is driven by the content of their character.

In other words, the people's preacher will not preach against sin because they're living in sin.

And they encourage it in others.

Listen, I'm gonna walk, we're gonna walk our way through a large passage of scripture.

I just want you to listen to this.

Follow along with me.

It's 2 Peter chapter 2.

2 Peter 2 · chapter mention

I'm gonna kind of walk through various passions.

I won't read it verse by verse, but I'm just gonna highlight some things, but it might be a passage you want to go study later.

Second Peter chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.

2 Peter 2:1–3

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.

You catch that?

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemy, and in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Just in that passage of scripture, did you they're sensual, they blaspheme, and they're greedy, and they exploit you so you keep giving them more money.

It goes something like this.

If you need a hundred dollars, you need to sow a seed.

If ten people will give ten dollars and 95 cents, then you'll be blast.

God will give you money.

That is greed.

That's exploiting the people, that is freezing the sheep, and that is a false gospel, and it needs to be rejected.

2 Peter chapter 2, verses 10, 12, 13, and 14.

2 Peter 2:10

Listen to this.

2 Peter chapter 2, verse 10.

2 Peter 2:10

And especially those who indulge in lust of defiling passion, and they despise authority.

Bold and willful, they do not treble as they blaspheme the glorious ones.

Talk about angels.

They even blaspheme angels.

They despise authority.

They don't like being submitted to people, and they certainly don't like the authority of the scripture.

Verse 12, but like these irrational minds, they're irrational.

They're creatures of instinct, they follow their heart.

They go with their instinct.

They're born to be caught and destroyed.

They blaspheme about matters of which they are ignorant and will also be destroyed in their destruction.

Listen to verse 13.

Suffering wrong as a wage for their wrongdoing, they count it pleasure to revel in the daytime.

They don't even hide it.

And that's so true of a lot of the modern preachers today.

They don't even hide their sin anymore.

And people just accept it.

Their blots, their blemishes, their reveling in their deceptions.

While they feast with you, verse 14 of 2 Peter 2, they have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin.

They can't get enough.

They have hearts that are trained in greed.

They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.

But whatever overcomes a person that he is enslaved.

I mean, we could go on and on, but surely you'll see money keeps coming up, adultery, sexual promiscuity, uh, sensuality, license to sin, they encourage license to sin, they fleece the people.

These are marks of a false preacher and teacher.

And you can see it.

It's manifestly self-evident in the American church.

If people would just take off their blinders and look.

Because it pleases the flesh.

They promise a short circuit to holiness.

Oh, you don't have to walk in years of discipleship.

You just got to give enough money.

Unbelievable.

You see, the content of the preacher's character drives the content of the message.

The Lord does a work in the heart of the preacher before he preaches the message.

And so when you come up against someone who's preaching a false message, it's because he serves a false God who has it, the true God hasn't done a work in his heart.

So again, we see that the people's preacher would not preach against sin because he's in sin himself.

So he encourages it.

The Lord's preacher has been changed by the grace of God, and his message is not always acceptable to the masses.

Think about Isaiah.

Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

Remember that?

The king dies, Isaiah goes into the temple to pray.

He says, I see the Lord high and lifted up, and the train of his robe fills the temple.

Right?

And seraphim, angels flew back and forth.

They had two, they had six wings, with two they covered, you know, their eyes, and two they covered their feet, two they flew.

They never stopped crying.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

And Isaiah was so moved by, he said, Woe is me, for I'm coming undone.

I'm a man of unclean lips.

In other words, in the presence of God, it was as if he was coming apart at the scenes.

He said, Woe is me, I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among the people of unclean lips.

Now again, are we to believe that Isaiah just walks around, you know, cussing, dropping the F-bomb every other sentence?

No.

What it was is he realized in the presence of holiness how just how unholy he really was.

But the Lord did a work.

Right?

He sins and he gets the coal comes off the altar and touches his lips, touches Isaiah's lips.

And in verse number seven, we read of Isaiah 6.

And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips.

Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Who shall I send?

And who would go for us?

Then he said, Here I am, send me.

So the Lord did a work in Isaiah first, and then called him into that prophetic ministry.

And when Isaiah responded with, Well, here I am, send me, he wasn't like, Here I am, man.

I I am I am God's gift to the pulpit.

It was quite the opposite.

It was kind of, he was like looking around, going, Well, here I am, will I do?

The answer was yes, because God had already done a work in him.

And if you follow the rest of Isaiah 6, I'm not going to walk through it for sake of time, but if you follow Isaiah chapter 6, he was told what to say and even told people we're going to listen.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

Listen to this.

I'm nearing the end because it's just as uncomfortable for me as it is for you.

Here's the good news.

Some of you are like, oh I find the good news.

Ready?

Here's the good news.

False prophets.

False preachers.

Who in this message I term the people's preachers.

They serve a purpose.

They reveal what's in your heart.

And they clearly show who's who.

Who's the sheep?

And who's the goat?

Deuteronomy chapter 13, verses one through three.

Deuteronomy 13 · chapter mention

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods, which you've not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.

For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Even if somebody comes to you and says, I got a word for you, thus saith the Lord, and they give you a word, and that word comes to pass, it doesn't matter.

If the rest of his message is one that is geared toward moving you further away from the revealed word and will of God.

Just because a false prophet says something that turns out to be right here and there doesn't make him a true prophet.

It just proves the old proverb that even a blind dog can fight a bone every now and again.

And it's interesting that the Lord told us in Deuteronomy 13.

If this false prophet says, let us go after other gods.

Now, if a people's preacher is encouraging sin, he is causing you to go after another God.

Namely yourself.

Because the root of that is idolatry.

And you're elevating your desires and your wants and your ideas and your thoughts above God.

And so unfortunately, in the church, we will have false prophets and false teachers that will arise from time to time.

That's evidently part of the way that God reveals what's in your heart and reveals and begins to separate who's who in the Christian church.

But my point to revealing this to you is so that when you hear a message, you must weigh it out and judge it according to the word of God.

Not the charisma of the preacher.

Not the brand that he has.

How big of a church he has, and the influence that he has.

None of that matters.

Micah was from a little small town outside of Jerusalem, 25 miles outside of Jerusalem, the border town, the Philistine city of God.

I mean, it's and yet the Lord raised him up with a power prophetic message.

Lastly, some of the good news is this false prophets, false preachers, in the end will be exposed and will be judged.

And I went through 2 Timothy chapter 2, and I went through a lot of that.

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

And I don't know how many times you call it says their end will be this or that.

But just let me read this.

Verse number three of 2 Peter chapter 2.

2 Peter 2 · chapter mention

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.

Jude told us that these people were marked out from ancient times.

In other words, this is part of the process.

False prophets, false teachers will arise in the church.

God uses it for a purpose.

He actually purifies his church.

He actually causes his church to dive into the scripture to really solidify what God really teaches.

What does the word of God really teach?

A lot of the great doctrines that we hold on to in historic Christian faith became clearly articulated in times of heresy.

When heretics were on the scene preaching different doctrines, then the early church got together and said, no, this is what the word of God teaches.

And it clarified and solidified our doctrinal positions.

And the same thing somewhat occurs today.

So when there's false preachers and there's false teachers that come, they serve a purpose.

It's part of the way that God purifies this church, and it's part of the way that we really dive into the scripture and find out what God really teaches about certain matters.

And their condemnation, their judgment was determined long ago.

They will be judged for their sin.

They're not going to get away with it.

No matter how prosperous they may look on the outside.

And so we see that the second main difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is that the content of their character.

Amen.

In so doing, he revealed the two main differences between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher.

The first main difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is in the content of their message.

And the second main difference between the people's preacher and the Lord's preacher is in the content of their character.

And so as we transition into communion, I want you to take just a moment to pray for the church in America.

Pray for the church in America.

The reason?

We are in trouble.

And we are the number one exporter of false doctrine around the world.

And we need to pray that the Lord would purify his church.

And pray that the Lord would open your heart and mind to fully know and walk in step with the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the Word of God.

So, in other words, let's pray for the church right now.

Let's pray that God would purify his church right here in America, right now, for the next 30 seconds.

However, you want to do that, just in your own heart and your own mind.

Take 30 seconds to pray.

See, Lord, please do a work in the church in America.

Lord, may you purify your church.

Now, take the next few moments, the next few seconds to pray for the Lord's preachers in the church.

There are many, many of us who are faithful to the word of God.

We've never heard their names.

We don't know where they're located.

We don't know the names of their churches, but they're faithful men of God preaching the word of God every single week.

Pray for them.

Right now, say, Lord, I pray that you bless your preachers, those you have truly called, those you have truly positioned in the pulpits.

Lord, empower them by your spirit to preach the word of God.

May the pulpits in America thunder with the word of God again.

Lord, may you remove the false shepherds and may you raise up true shepherds.

Watchmen upon the walls of the house of Israel that's not afraid to blow the trumpet in Zion and begin to warn people of the consequences of their sin and what is happening in the nation.

God, I pray that you would raise up men of God who are bold as lions, who aren't afraid to preach the word of God.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

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I'm Dr.

Jason Murphy, proclaiming grace, transforming culture.