(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

I think that is an important concept to keep in mind when we get into 2 Peter 2. As he leaves off this thought of the fact that the Word of God is more trustworthy than what we see here, taste, touch, smell or any kind of physical experience that we can have, he leads into the topic or the subject of false prophets. Why that is important is this. A lot of people have a hard time with this doctrine or believing that false prophets exist because of the carnal mind and because they don't want to really believe that someone could be evil. They don't really want to trust the Word of God over their own physical experience. They go to a charismatic church or they grew up in a particular church and they feel like everyone is so sincere and they're so loving and they're so kind. How could they be bad? How could they be lying to me? The reason why they're lying to you is because the Bible says something different. You have to let the Word of God triumph over your own personal experiences, your own personal feelings, your own personal desires, wants and wishes. You can't trust in your own heart. You can't trust in your own self. You have to lean wholly upon the Word of God and accept it as truth. No matter how good, bad or ugly the truth is, we should be willing to accept the Word of God as the truth and not our feelings, our emotions or a majority viewpoint. Unfortunately, false prophets is a minority viewpoint. It's one where people really don't really agree with or they don't really like this type of preaching. And honestly, it's negative preaching. But that's the reality that we live in, that there's a lot of false prophets. Look at verse number one. It says, but there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. So the Bible warns, he says, hey, we gave you the Word of God, but there's a problem. There's going to be false prophets among you. There's going to be false teachers, just like you read about all the false prophets in the Old Testament, just as you see the false prophets, even in the New Testament. He says there's going to be false teachers among you guys. Even in the New Testament church, there's false teachers. And unfortunately, people just feel like no one's a false prophet. It seems like nobody's a false teacher to them. And it's really mind boggling to me because the Bible brings it up so much. Let's look at a few places. Keep your finger here and go to Matthew chapter seven for a moment. Go to Matthew chapter number seven. Let's learn a little bit of what the Bible even says about false prophets. What about that specific phrase in your New Testament? What are some things that Jesus Christ brings up about them? First of all, in chapter two, he was telling us that they were going to be among us. So that means they're going to be present, that they're going to exist. I don't believe in a religion where there is no false prophet. There has to be false prophets. So what's some of the qualities of them? Well, Matthew chapter seven, look at verse 15. Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. So here's another quality of false prophets. They appear righteous from their outward presentation. You know, they're not wearing devil horns and a pitchfork, but rather they look the right part. They act the right part. And notice they have sheep's clothing, but they're wolf. You know, that also tells me they're disguising themselves. They're pretending to being something that they're really not. They're mischievous, they're cunning, they're crafty, they're trying to fool you. They're trying to trick you because they're disguising themselves by putting on the sheep's clothing. I wonder where they got that. Maybe they killed a lamb and put it on. I don't know. Go to Matthew 24, go to Matthew 24. Or maybe they just sheared some sheep. They took advantage of some sheep and they put on his clothing, but ultimately they take the qualities of someone else and they try to attach them to themselves. This is the transgender movement, all right, where they pretend to be something that they're not. It's like a false prophet. He tries to take righteousness from someone else and put it on as if it was his own clothing. You know what? It never looks right. You know, when you dye your hair, it never looks natural. You know, they have all the colors, black, brown, yellow, whatever, and everybody has those shades of color. But when you dye your hair, something just doesn't look right on you because that's just not how God made you. And you know what? You can put all the lamb, you know, you can put all kinds of lamb outward appearance on a wolf, but he's still going to look like a wolf. You're going to have wolf hair poking out. It's just not going to fit him quite right. I mean, you know, there's going to be something off about it. And there's going to be something off about their righteousness when it comes to a false prophet. They might appear righteous, but if you kind of start studying it, it's also going to look a little weird too, okay? There's something weird about their righteousness. Matthew 24 verse 11, and many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. Here's another quality of false prophets is they deceive many. That's a sad one. Go to Mark chapter 13, go to Mark chapter number 13. So they appear righteous. They disguise themselves. They're going to be among us. And notice one of the qualities, they're going to have a lot of followers. Many people will be deceived by false prophets. So if you go to Mark 13 verse 22, let's see another mention of false prophets. Mark 13 verse 22, for false Christs and false prophets shall rise and shall show signs and wonders to seduce if it were possible, even the elect. So not only are these false prophets, they kind of look the part, not only they have a big following, but the Bible says that they're going to show signs and wonders. Now again, what did I make mention of when we first started this sermon? The fact that you can't trust your physical experiences. You can't trust your eyesight and your taste and your touch and your smell. You have to use the word of God to determine what's right and wrong because notice they're going to look right. They're going to have a big following and they're even going to show signs and wonders.