by Dr. R. L. Hymers, Jr.
A sermon preached at the Los Angeles Baptist Tabernacle
Lord’s Day Morning, April 26, 2015
“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, and will even deny the Lord who ransomed them, bringing sudden destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their dissolutions, because of which the way of truth will be blasphemed, and through greed they will make merchandise of you with feigned words. Upon such as have been condemned for a long time, and their perdition does not sleep” (II Peter 2:1-3).
This is an important statement in the Word of God. It is a prophecy given by the Apostle Peter, about apostasy and false teachers in the churches. There is no doubt that it is prophecy. The Apostle says: “There will be false teachers among you” (2:1). He was talking about the future. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave this as a sign of the end of the age. Jesus said, “For false Christs and false prophets will arise…so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). Earlier in the chapter Jesus said, “Beware lest anyone deceive you” (24:4). The Apostle Peter also warned: “There will be false teachers among you” (II Peter 2:1). Dr. John F. Walvoord, a highly respected figure in Bible prophecy, said:
Today there are churches that are dead and cold on Sunday night – ones that not long ago had good Sunday night services. Today too many have only one service a week, on Sunday morning…We live in a time when the church has many problems…unbelief, skepticism, and criticism of the Bible…are widespread today. It was not an accident, but something that was clearly predicted in the Word of God. II Peter 2:1 states, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, and will even deny the Lord who ransomed them, bringing sudden destruction upon themselves.” This prophecy that under the guise of Christian teachers in the course of history will come forth those who will deny their essential doctrines (John F. Walvoord, Th.D., Prophecy and the Seventies, Moody Bible Institute, 1971, pp. 112, 113).
I saw this myself. I was an eyewitness to this terrible apostasy at the Southern Baptist seminary north of San Francisco, where I earned my Master’s degree. I have heard teachers say that Jesus did not rise physically from the dead. They gave the heretical idea of Emil Brunner, that “Christ rose from the dead only in the minds of the Disciples.” I heard them deny the substitutionary death of Jesus on the Cross. I heard them deny the Blood Atonement. All of this is documented in detail in my book Inside the Southern Baptist Convention. . I heard even worse things at the Presbyterian seminary in San Anselmo, where I got my Ph.D. Going to those theological seminaries was really something that opened my eyes.
Many wonder why President Obama is often hostile to Christians, but soft on Muslims. I quickly knew that he would be like that. Dr. Jeremiah Wright was his pastor for over twenty years. We all heard him say on TV “God damn America!” People passed that by, thinking he was an ignorant black preacher. How wrong they were! Dr. Wright is indeed a very intelligent man, with a Master’s and Ph.D. But he got his Master’s degree from him at the University of Chicago Divinity School. That’s one of the most liberal, Bible-rejecting colleges in America. It was there that Obama’s longtime pastor learned to reject the Bible and hate Bible-believing Christianity. Thus we see ourselves with a President, the leader of the Western world, who was trained by a “false prophet who introduced destructive heresies, and even denied the Lord who rescued him.” No wonder the President attacks Christianity, and Israel, while he remains friendly to Muslim terrorists! God help us! The prophecy of the Apostle Peter affects all of our lives today! If Iran gets the hydrogen bomb, and drops it on any of our cities, it will be a direct result of the “false teachers” at the University of Chicago Divinity School!
The Apostle then said that those false teachers “will secretly bring in destructive heresies” (II Peter 2:1). The word “covertly” means “secretly.” “Heresies” means “Religious Lies of Self-Design” (MacArthur). They put those lies into the churches (“they will covertly introduce destructive heresies”). They will enter where? To the churches, of course!
I will give you a remarkable example of how these destructive heresies destroy those who hold them. Bishop James Pike (1913-1969) was a liberal leader in the Episcopal Church. Dr. Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) tells us what it is like to be a guest at Bishop Pike’s home. By this time Bishop Pike was communicating with his dead son, who had committed suicide. His dead son was talking to Bishop Pike through a medium. I saw one of those sessions on television. When Dr. Schaeffer arrived at his house, he told Bishop Pike that it was demonic, “really a demonology thing” – with a demon pretending to be his dead son. Dr. Schaeffer said, “He didn’t get mad at me, even though he was on the verge of tears.” Then Schaeffer said: “I will never forget the last time I saw him… He told me one of the saddest things I have ever heard: “When I ceased to be an agnostic, I went to Union Theological Seminary, desiring and expecting bread; but when I graduated, all he left me was a fistful of stones.’ Who is responsible for the Bishop Pike tragedy? The liberal theology teachers of him with a fist of stones and nothing else” (Francis A. Schaeffer, DD, The Great Evangelical Disaster, Crossway Books, 1984, p. 84).
Bishop Pike went deep into the Judean desert, trying to find out why Jesus went there to fast and pray for forty days. His car got stuck in a ditch and wouldn’t move. Bishop Pike tried to get out of that desert. He slipped and fell 60 feet down a deep canyon. He died there, searching for data on the “historical Jesus” (Wikipedia). When I first read about it I burst into tears. He knew that this poor lost man had been destroyed, alone in the wilderness, by “false teachers who brought in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who ransomed them” (II Peter 2:1). As Dr. Schaeffer pointed out, demonology was the cause of this tragedy. The Apostle Paul spoke of “seducing spirits” who are responsible for liberal theology (I Timothy 4:1).
When I was studying at the liberal Southern Baptist seminary north of San Francisco, I was acutely aware of the demons connected with liberal theology and its attacks on the Bible. I remember reading the passage in I Timothy:
“But the Spirit clearly says that in later times some will apostatize from the faith, listening to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons; for the hypocrisy of liars, who, having their consciences seared” (I Timothy 4:1-2).
Dr. Merrill F. Unger (1909-1980) was a long-time teacher at Dallas Theological Seminary. He wrote Unger’s Bible Handbook, a classic tome. Dr. Unger also wrote a book titled Biblical Demonology Biblical Demonology. He called I Timothy 4:1-2 a prophetic warning against demonic activity in the last days that corrupts the truth, and leads many away from the faith…this prophetic passage traces all doctrinal aberration to its deepest cause and source last on the agents of invisible demons” (Merrill F. Unger, Th.D., Ph.D., Biblical Demonology, Kregel Publications, 1994, pp. 166-167).
Dr. Wilbur M. Smith (1894-1976) was a long-time professor at Moody Bible Institute. He later became one of the founders of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He left Fuller Seminary when he began to reject the authority of the Bible. He finished his teaching career at Trinity Evangelical Seminary in Deerfield, Illinois, a school that rejected liberal attacks on the Bible. In his classic book on apologetics, Therefore Stand, Dr. Smith traced the liberal Bible-liberal teaching back to Satan and his demons. Dr. Smith said, “Today we have men in our theological seminaries who deny the existence of God, the vicarious work that our blessed Lord accomplished on the cross…He who is dominating, controlling and directing these evil beings…is nothing less than the evil one himself. This is what Paul means when, in the First Epistle to Timothy, he says that in the last days men will listen to deceiving spirits and doctrines of devils” (Wilbur M. Smith, DD, Therefore Stand, WA Wilde Co., 1945 , pp. 184, 185, 176).
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was one of the two or three greatest preachers of the 20th century. He followed Dr. G. Campbell Morgan as pastor of Westminster Chapel, in the heart of London. His sermons drew large crowds. His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Dr. Lloyd-Jones said, “There are thousands, perhaps millions, of evil spirits” (Christian Unity, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1980, p. 58). Once again, he said, “The devil is an expert. So when he can persuade the Church, especially, that there is no such being as the devil and the principalities and powers and demons, everything goes very well from his point of view. The Church is drugged and deceived; she is asleep, and she is not aware of this conflict at all” (Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, MD, The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10-13, Baker Book House, 1976, p 106.) .
These words show the source of the problem. False teachers come into our churches and schools and seminaries “undercover” (in secret). How does that happen? Satan has blinded us. As Dr. Lloyd-Jones said, “The church is drugged and deceived; she is asleep and is not aware of this conflict…” (ibid.).
I was aware of Satan and the demonic before I went to Southern Baptist seminary. My long-time pastor was Dr. Timothy Lin, an Old Testament scholar who went on to teach at Talbot Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Theological Seminary in Illinois. He was one of the translators of the New American Standard Bible, and finished his career as president of the China Evangelical Seminary in Taipei, Taiwan. Dr. Lin taught us systematic theology and demonology in special classes at the church. So I was aware of demonic influences before I went to the seminar…