If you read Matthew 24, you will discover that this entire chapter is not only about the destruction of Jerusalem, but it is also a prophecy concerning the last days. In one chapter we have a general overview of prophecy from the time that Jesus was speaking, which was just a few days before His crucifixion in 31 AD, down through history, especially the history of the church until the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the gathering together of all of the disciples of Christ into one.

As we study this chapter, we notice several themes that Jesus develops. One of the themes that I want to study with you this morning is that Jesus predicts and warns over and over again, that after He would leave this world, and before He would come again, we would be in great danger of being deceived by false teachers and false prophets. (See Matthew 24.)

As Jesus was going out of the temple (See Mark 13) the disciples came to Him and said, "What huge stones are here!"

Jesus said, "Do not even look at those things."

By the way, those stones were huge marble stones that were placed together in a wall. We do not have any craftsmen anywhere in the world today who know how to do what they did. Those stones were cut so precisely that when they were placed together, they did not need any mortar. They fit, and they fit tightly. Now we do not know for sure whether this is the truth, but according to tradition, those stones fit so tightly together that you could not stick a knife between them.

Now how did they get those huge stones? Those stones weighed tons. They were not little stones that you or I could pick up, they were huge stones. And they were placed together and they fit so tight that fromjust a little distance, when you looked at the temple, it looked like one solid stone wall. This temple had been beautified. They had spent forty-six years making it beautiful. Even Herod had helped. It was one of the most beautiful, gorgeous, and rich buildings in the entire world.

It was the pride of the whole Jewish nation. It was one of the reasons, by the way, that they crucified Jesus, because they said that He had spoken evil of the temple. You can read about that in the story of His trial. One of the main accusations that the Jews brought against Jesus at His Jewish trial was that He spoke irreverently of the temple.

So, as He was leaving the temple, the disciples said to Him, "Look at these huge stones!"

And Jesus said, "Do not even look at this."

A few minutes before, Jesus had been inside the temple. On this occasion He was walking out from the Jewish temple for the last time, and before He walked out He gave a most pitiable lament.

"Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you are the one that stones the prophets and you kill those who are sent to you. How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not allow it. You were not willing." And then He uttered those words that even to them struck their hearts with tenor. As He was leaving for the last time, He said, "Behold, your house is left to you desolate."

By the way, unless the Holy Spirit is here, this isjust a building and we are just playing church. We are desolate unless the presence of God is here. That is why we pray asking that the Holy Spirit will be here so that we will not be desolate, but that we might be taught; so we will be comforted; so we will be encouraged; so our hearts can be changed.

Jesus was walking out for the last time. Their house was left desolate. The divine presence was gone forever. Alot of people have not studied that carefully. Are you aware of the fact that there are Christians today who are talking about going back to Jerusalem and sacrificing? This is all connected with their teaching about the rapture. They think the antichrist is supposed to come and stop them from sacrificing. There are people from the United States who actually plan to go back there and rebuild the temple.

What good does it do to build a temple, if the temple has been left desolate and the deity will not come there? What good will that do? It will not do any good. Just like us right here. Our worship of our heavenly Father, friends, is worthless unless we receive the Holy Spirit. Do you understand that? We are desolate! It is hopeless, it is worthless, it is in vain, unless we receive the Holy Spirit.

So Jesus lamented because He wanted to save them, but they would have no part of it. They were not willing. Remember what

He told the Jews in Matthew 23? He said, "You say that if anyone says anything against the temple, swears by the temple, that does not mailer, but if they swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor."

And Jesus said, "You fools. Which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?" You see, the gold, the building is worth nothing unless it has a presence. A temple, by definition, is a place where deity lives. That is even true with pagan temples. If you go to a pagan temple, they believe that their gods are there. If you go inside, you will find huge images of their god, and they kneel down to worship their god in those pagan temples.

So Jesus was leaving for the last time. If you understand the spiritual significance of what He said, what His disciples said actually was very inappropriate. They did not understand, but it was very inappropriate. What good are the stones, the rocks, the wall, the gold? What good is all of that if the presence of God is not there?

And Jesus said, "Do not look at this, because the time is coming when there will not be left one of these stones that is even sifting on top of another. There will not even be one!"

That, to the disciples, was incomprehensible. In fact, Ellen White, in describing this experience, said that if they could have comprehendedthe two awful facts; that within a few days Jesus was going to be hanging on a cross and they were going to be separated from Him until He would come again, and thatv~ithin less than forty years the temple and all of Jerusalem would be totally destroyed and demolished, they would have been overcome with honor.

Have you ever been around somebody who was overcome with honor? Have you ever been in a situation like that? When a person is overcome with honor, you cannot reason with them; you cannot teach them anything; they are overcome. They are so overcome because of the awfulness of what they have seen or experienced, you cannot teach them anything. You cannot tell them anything. They cannot learn anything right then. They are overcome with honor.

Jesus wanted to teach His disciples some things, so He did not tell them everything. But He wanted to teach them some things about the future and He wanted them to have presence of mind enough to think through what He was going to teach them. So He did not tell them everything that was going to happen in the next few days.

On the Mount of Olives, privately, they said, "Well, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming and the end of the world?" They thought that they were just asking one question; but they were asking two. We know that now. The two questions were: When is Jerusalem going to be destroyed and what is going to be the sign of Your coming and the end of the world?

They thought it was just one question, because they thought that when Jerusalem was destroyed, that would be the end of everything. They could not comprehend a world without Jerusalem. They had been taught all their lives that when the Messiah came, He was going to set up a throne and rule from Jerusalem. They still did not understand those things.

Just like Christians today do not understand those things. Right now we have been producing television programs concerning the rapture, because the Christian world, at large, has been absolutely deceived on this point. They are so utterly deceived that you cannot explain their deception in twenty minutes. They are deceived about too many things. It is interesting that the rapture teaching is so closely related and dovetails into what the Jews believed about the very same thing.

And so the disciples asked Jesus, "Well, when is this going to happen? What is going to be the sign of Your coming and the end of the world?"

Do you know what the very first thing is that Jesus told them? He said, "Pay attention, or take heed, or be careful that nobody deceives you." Do you think it significant that when the disciples asked about what was going to happen in the future; when would Jerusalem be destroyed, and what was going to be the sign of His coming and the end of the world; the very first thing that Jesus says is, Watch out that nobody deceives you? Is that significant?

Now if that is all we had, (Verse 4) that would be a very powerful warning, would it not? But as you go through Matthew 24, you will find that He repeats that warning. For instance, look at verses 10 and 11, "And then many will be offended." [That is happening today.] "will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then [at that time] many false prophets will rise up and" [Are the false prophets going to be successful? The false prophets, friends, are going to be successful because it says they will-- I "deceive many." And if there is anything that none of us want, it is to be deceived.

If you try to think this through in your mind, how is it that false prophets are so successful? How is the devil so successful? It says in Revelation 12:9 that the devil deceives the whole world. That is his whole policy Ellen White says that his policy is deception from the first to the last and all the way through. And here it says that they are going to be very successful. They are going to deceive many.

How is deception more successful than the truth? Have you ever wondered that? Now you do not want to be deceived; I do not want to be deceived. I have never met a human being who has told me, Pastor John, I want to be deceived. I have never met anybody who said that to me. And yet, people are deceived. False teachers are very successful. Iwill tell you one of the reasons.

This is something about which we need to be on guard. One of the big reasons that false prophets and false teachers are so successful is that the falsehood sounds better than the truth. Now ills not true, but it sounds better than the truth. I will give you an example of a falsehood that is going all over the Christian world today, and one of the reasons people love it so much is because it sounds better than the truth.

Do you like to be in trouble? No, I do not either. Does the Bible say that there is a time of trouble coming on this world that is greater than any trouble that ever was since there was a nation? Yes, the Bible says that. But we do not like trouble. So there is a teaching going all over the world, and hundreds of millions of Christians believe it, and the teaching is this; before the trouble hits, you are just going to disappear. You are going to be with the Lord. You will not have to wony about the trouble because before the trouble hits, you are going to be gone. Just like that!

And people hear that, and it sounds so wonderful that they want to believe it Thedeviltriedthatwith Jesus on the Mount ofTemptation. Do you remember what Ellen White said the devil offered Jesus inthe third temptation? lfYou will just worship me, [then what?] then You will not have to go to the cross. Then You will not have to endure the great tribulation that you are going to go through.

So today there are many people who want to be saved without bearing their cross. The falsehood sounds better than the truth. The trouble is, that it is not true. Like the old song says, "The way of the cross leads home." And I want to tell you, friends, that is the only way that does lead home. But the falsehood sounds better to people than the truth, so they have an inclination to accept it.

Jesus warned us again about this. Look at Verse 24. He says, "For false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible even the elect." Now Jesus here adds another specification, more than what you see in Verse 4 or Verse 11. Jesus says that the false teachers are going to back up their teachings.

Can you back up your teachings? I hope you can. Anything that you or I teach anybody we should be able to back it up from the Bible. There should be someplace; in fact, there should be at least two places, because Jesus said, By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established; there should be at least two places in this Book that substantiate anything that we teach, and it should be in plain language. And if there is no place in the Bible that teaches what I am teaching in plain language, then I had just better stop teaching it. I should not even have started teaching it. But here in verse 24, Jesus says that the false prophets are going to back up their teaching.

Now a false prophet cannot back up their teaching from the Word of truth. They may try, but if you are a good student and you start comparing Scripture with Scripture, you will find out that their teaching cannot be backed up. I have looked through different books, pamphlets, and articles where people are trying so hard to find averse in the Bible to back up the teaching of the rapture.

Let me just show you one that they use so that you can see how hard they are trying. Look at Titus 2:13: "Lookingfortheblessedhope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ."

Now people are trying so hard, including ministers who should know better than this, to find a text of Scripture to support the rapture that when they found this one, they thought they had found one!

By the way, I had read this text many times and I had not "discovered" it. I did not know that this text was teaching about a rapture that would occur seven years before the Second Coming of Christ. These people who are teaching this, they were trying too hard to find one, that when they latched on to this one, they said, We have found it! AndI said, You found what?

Well, yes, we found it. Here is what they do. They take the text and they cut it in two. They cut it in two and they say, "The blessed hope," that is when the saints just disappear and then seven years later you have the glorious appearing. And so you have the blessed hope and then the saints are gone and then seven years later you have the glorious appearing!

I said, What? So I looked it up in my Greek New Testament. And as soon as I did, just like that, I said to myself; Nobody that has ever been trained as a minister could ever use a text like this unless he is a hypocrite or deliberately trying to deceive somebody. Nobody who has ever studied Greek could do this, because when you look atthe grammar, the way the text is put together, the phrase "The glorious appearing" and the phrase, "The blessed hope," are in, what grammarians call, apposition to each other. Websters New World Dictionary, 1990, says it this way: "the placing of a word or phrase beside an-other in explanation, as my cousin, in-- Mary, my cousin, is here."

In other words, they are talking about the same thing! They are not talking about two different things. You cannot possibly use this text to talk about two different comings withoutterribly violating, crucifying the text of Scripture, and dividing it right in two. You cannot divide it. In the original language it is talking about the same thing. It lies in apposition to each other and the blessed hope and the glorious appearing are not two things, they are one thing.

But that is just an example of how hard people try to find some evidence for something that is really not in the Bible. I was reading another author recently, in fact, he quoted several different ministers, (It has been encouraging to me.) even ministers in other churches, notAdventist, who have studied this. One of them said, "I taught it and I believed it for years, but as I kept studying my Bible, I finally concluded there is no place in the Bible that teaches this."

And, friends, there is not, there just is not any place that teaches the rapture. One writer said, "Go to page such-and-such in my book and Iwill list for you all the texts in the Bible, in the New Testament, which teach the rapture."

So I said, Well, let us see what they are. So I went to that page.

He said, "These are all the texts in the Bible that teach the rapture." The whole page was blank! There are not any!

There are none! There is not one text. Now this is the text used for proof texts. Is that the text you want to prove your teaching? Crucify the text and cut something in two. Have you ever read that Jesus said that man has no right to separate what God put together? And I want to tell you, the blessed hope and the glorious appearing in the Greek New Testament are put together. You cannot separate them. You cannot divide them in two.

Jesus said, If you cannot back it up with a Scripture, if you cannot back up your teaching from Scripture, how are you going to back it up? Well, read Verse 24. They are going to back it up with signs and wonders, with miracles. Can the devil work miracles? The Bible says that in the last days the devils are going to work miracles. Read Revelation 16:12--14.

In the last days, the time in which we are living, the devils are going to work miracles, and the miracles are happening all over the world, thousands of them. Let me tell you, dear friends, if you base your faith and your belief on miracles, it is 100 percent certain that you will be deceived. 100 percent! It is absolutely certain that you will be deceived if you are willing to base your faith on miracles.

That is what is happening all over the world. Somebody says, Oh! Have you heard? There is an image over here and blood came out of the eyes! Flocks of people go there. Is that what you want your faith based on, an image that has blood or tears, or something coming out of the eyes? Is that where your faith is based?

Jesus said, Watch out, there are going to be miracles. There are going to be signs and wonders.

When I grew up, people in the United States used to pride themselves on not being superstitious. We used to say, "Oh, we are not superstitious like people were in the Dark Ages." Listen, we are just as superstitious as they were then. If you go to see an image because some or blood tears are coming out of the eyes, you are just as superstitious as was anybody in the Dark Ages.

Let us look at a few things about false prophets and false teachers. Obviously, the disciples did not forget this three-fold warning that Jesus gave in Matthew 24, because they had alotto say about it. Let us look first of all at some things that the apostle Paul says.

"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." II Corinthians 11:13.

Notice, a false teacher, a false prophet, a deceitful worker, a false apostle will always claim to be true. He will claim to be an apostle of Christ. He will claim to be teaching you the truth and he will have some wonderful new truth to teach you. It will sound better than the truth. When the devil came to Eve, what he told her sounded better than what God told her.

The devil tried to pull that on Jesus on the Mount of Temptation. He tried to show Him some better way than the cross. He is still trying to do it. "There is a better way," the devil says, "You do not have to go through the tribulation. You do not have to go through the time of trouble. Listen, You can be out of here before that time." But the New Testament teaches something very, very different.

The New Testament says that we all must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God. (See Acts 14.) And God has a much better way than the devil, but people do not realize it. Gods way is that when the tribulation comes, God says, "No plague is going to befall your dwelling. You are only going to see the end of the wicked with your eyes. A thousand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." (See Psalm 91:7,8, 10.)

You see, tribulation is not a problem if the Lord is with you. And if we are going to make it to the end, you and I are going to have to learn that, friends. We are going to have to learn that no matter how bad it looks, if the Lord is with us, He will help us and He will sustain us. He will strengthen us; He will keep us; and you are better off in prison with the Lord, than outside without Him. Do you believe that?

We are living in the time when Jesus predicted many false prophets, many false teachers would come. When we look at the Spirit of Prophecy writings we find that the most dangero us false teachers that are going to come to Seventh-day Adventists are going to be other Seventh-day Adventists, other professed Adventists.

That is where the most dangerous deceptions are going to come from, because it is more deceptive. That is why you should check out everything--and I am not talking against any preacher. But whatever you are listening to, whether you are being preached to or taught, you should check it out yourself in the Bible. Do you believe that? And if it is so complicated; or if it is so intricate that you cannot find any Scripture that says it, you ought to feel perfectly free to say, "I am not going to accept something I cannot find in the Bible. ff1 cannot understand it in the Bible, I am just not going to accept it," because the deceitful workers and the false apostles will always claim to be true, and they will always claim to have wonderful knowledge, wonderful light. And it will sound more wonderful to many people than the truth.

I want to go over with you some ofthe characteristics of false teachers. We should study something about this, because the Bible spends alot of time with it.

1. They always profess to be true.

2. They will bring in the new teachings in a secretive way In other words, they will not be frank and open. Now there are a number of texts in the New Testament about this. Both Paul and Peter had some experience with this. In Galatians 2:4, 5, notice what Paul says: "This occuned because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, thatthey might bring us into bondage), to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you."

How did these false brethren come in? They came in secretly.

In 1897 Ellen White wrote this, "Apostasy has come into our ranks as it came into heaven, and all who unite with Satan inthis kind of work will act on the same principles Satan has worked. Not open, not frank, but in secrecy. Satan must deceive in order to succeed." Manuscript Releases, vol.7, 178. So, not open, but secretly.

Now the apostle Paul talks about this in different places throughout his writings, but we are going to see that Peter devotes a whole chapter to this subject. Peter only wrote two letters, and in those two letters ofjust a few chapters, he thought this subject was important enough to devote a whole chapter. So it obviously is important.

First though, we will look at one more from the Apostle Paul, first though. Look inActs 20:25. This is the last time that the apostle Paul is speaking and visiting with the elders of the church from Ephesus, and he told them that he would not see them anymore. Starting with verse 26, he says, "Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure [that is, after my death] savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves." Acts 20:26--30.

Notice, the apostle Paul says, After I am gone, savage wolves are going to come in. These are the wolves that Jesus talked about, the wolves that are dressed how? In sheeps clothing. That is something very interesting to study. How do you tell the difference between a wolf and a sheep when they both look the same? Jesus said, By their fruits ye shall know them.

Notice, Paul says, Grievous wolves are going to come in and they are not going to spare the flock. In other words, they are going to deceive the church. But the most interesting thing is from where these wolves are going to come. Notice what he says in verse 30. He says, "From among yourselves." Now, is the greatest danger for the church, either the church in Pauls time or the church today, from the outside or from the inside? From the inside.

Ellen White said that we have more to fear from within than from without. (See Selected Messages, Book 1, 122.) The greatest danger is from within. But a true preacher or teacher will never be offended if you check out everything they say from the Word of God. They will never be offended. The greatest danger is from within.

Let us get a little more specific. Paul says, "From among yourselves." Now, to whom is he talking? He is talking to Christians, but he was notjust talking to Christians, notjust anybody in the church. There was a certain class of people in the church to whom he was talking. He said, The Holy Spirit has made you an overseer. An overseer is somebody who is in charge. The Greek word is episkopos, that is where we get the word bishop.

It was from among the bishops, the overseers, in other words, the leading elders or pastors. That is where the greatest danger was. By the way, do you suppose that is still so? Remember, when he says, "From among yourselves," he is notjust saying that the greatest danger is from inside the church, not outside. He is saying that the greatest danger is from the leaders in the church. The greatest danger is from the bishops. That is where the apostasy was going to develop.

It is interesting when you study church history, that is exactly where the apostasy developed. This prediction of the apostle Paul was fulfilled exactly. That is where the apostasy came from. That is how it developed. He said, they are going to speak perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. We are neverto draw away disciples after ourselves.

The disciples are to have how many Lords? One. Oh, my friend, if you or I have any aspirations to get people to follow us, if we want to be leaders--that is dangerous. Jesus said to the disciples, You are all one, you are all brethren.

Let us go now and see what the apostle Peter has to say about this subject. He thought that it was so important that he spends a whole chapter on this subject. (2 Peter 2.) He says, "There were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you." That is what he is talking about. He says, There were false prophets in the Old Testament times, Jeremiah had to deal with them. You read a lot about it in his book. But he said that in the future there are going to be false teachers among you, that is, in the church. And they "will secretly bring in destructive heresies." Oh, is that not interesting? The very same thing that the apostle Paul talked about in Galatians. They are going to bring in destructive heresies and how are they going to bring them in? Secretly! They are going to bring in heresies that will destroy, that will bring destruction.

Now what is a heresy that will bring destruction? It is a heresy that will cause you, if you accept it, to lose your soul. Do you agree? A heresy that brings destruction is a heresy that will cause you to lose your soul. Now there are many things upon which we here, right here in this room, might have some differences of opinion.

And by the way, we need to learn when we have differences of opinion to give each other some room and some latitude and not try to clobber everybody that does not think exactly like we do. We have a lot to learn in that area. I am always amazed when I study how much latitude some of our pioneers gave to each other. Much more than we are willing to give to each other today

But we are not talking in that case about a heresy of destruction. We might differ. We might have a different opinion on many things. We might not agree. I have noticed that there are many people who do not agree about the king of the north and the king of the south in Daniel 11. We do not need to split up from each other because we do not agree on that.

Not everybody agrees--and they did not in Ellen Whites day either--on certain texts in Galatians, talking about the law. Not everybody agrees about who the ten horns are and certainly not everybody agrees about who the seven kings in Revelation 17 are. That is one reason we have never published anything aboutthe seven kings because we said, we have opinions, but what is the use of stirring up controversy?

Different people think differently. And we need to be pressing together and looking for points where we can agree with each other instead of looking for points where we are different so that we can split everything up.

But there are heresies of destruction. Now heresy of destruction is not whether you have a difference of opinion on who the ten horns are and who the king of the north is or something like that. A heresy of destruction, such as he is talking about here, is a heresy that if you accept it, you will lose your soul. And Iwill give you the chief one of all. It is right here in this chapter. He goes into it over and over again.

You go home this afternoon or sometime and study carefully 2 Peter 2 and you will see that he brings it up over and over again. One of the chief heresies of destruction back inthe apostles day, that Peter talks about in 2 Peter 2 and Paul talks about in connection with the antichrist, he calls it "the lie." It is just called "a lie" in the Old King James Version, but if you look in the Greek text, it is called "the lie."

The lie of the antichrist, do you know what that is? It is a heresy of destruction. It is the theory, the teaching that you can be saved in sin. That is a heresy of destruction. Let me tell you, if you believe that, you will lose your soul, and Iwill tell you why you will lose your soul. The reason you will lose your soul is because you will never overcome a besetting sin. And by the way, everybody has at least one besetting sin.

You will never overcome a besetting sin if you do not try, and why should you try if you do not think that you need to? Just keep your sins confessed and evetything will be all right. So that is a heresy of destruction because you will lose your soul if you believe it. The mark of the beast is a heresy of destruction. In the last days you will lose your soul if you believe that. And there are several others.

3. These false teachers will bring in heresies of destruction. That is, heresies that will cause you to lose your soul. And then he says, notice he says how successful they are going to be in verse 2, and he says in verse 3, "By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words." And it says also in verse 1 that they will even deny "the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction."

It is a very interesting word that is used in the New Testament where it says in verse 1; they will even deny the Lord who bought them. It is the word from which we get the English word despot. That is the word. It is talking about somebody who is an absolute ruler. And the false teachers dent the absolute rulership of Jesus Christ. Sometimes they say they accept it, but they do not, because if you do not obey His law, or if you do not believe some part of His Word, you have denied the absolute rulership of Jesus Christ.

That is very popular today. People say, Oh, I am a Christian. But they do not believe the flrsttwo chapters of Genesis. Have you ever met anybody who claims to be a Christian and they do not believe the first two chapters of Genesis? But Jesus believed it. He quotes from it and shows that He believes it. So they do not believe Jesus either They do not believe in the absolute authority of Jesus, because they do not believe the first two chapters of Genesis.

Or there is some other part of the Bible. It is amazing what some people can cut out of the Bible. Have you ever met somebody who said, Oh, I think that the book of Job is just a story? Have you ever met somebody like that? I have met people like that in the Adventist Church. They think it is just a fictitious book and they say, Oh, God would not do anything like that. Do you and I have authority to say what God will or will not do?

They deny the absolute authority of Jesus and they will attract many followers, and they will attract so many followers that it says in verse 2, "The way of truth will be blasphemed" or evilly spoken of We are living in that time today We are living in the time when error is more popular than truth and truth is not popular at all. Truth involves a cross. Truth involves obedience. Truth involves self-denial. Truth involves yielding my own mind to the absolute rulership of Somebody else Who is Lord of all. It is not popular today

The whole chapter of 2 Peter 2 is on this subject, so I know it is an important subject to study. Bible writers are not known to devote a whole chapter to something that is not important. This chapter shows how to recognize who these people are.

And he told the believers then, These people are [the new versions use the word exploit, or in other words, they are] going to buy and sell you. That is what it literally says. They are going to buy and sell you. In Revelation it talks about the merchandise of the bodies and souls of men. And there are a lot of people today who are being bought and sold.

I appeal to you, do not let yourself be one of these. There are many people who are being bought and sold by false teachings. False teachings in Christendom. FalseteachinginAdventism. There are false teachers all over. You have to take the Bible and check it out. We say to the people in our prophecy seminars, Look, if you cannot find what we are telling you in the Bible, then do not believe it.

Is your faith going to be based on the Word of God? Will you accept the Word of God more than miracles? More than all the wonderful sounding teachings of today? The people who tell you to just relax, it is easier to be saved than lost. That is going all over Adventism. Where is it in the Bible? I have never been able to find it. Where is it in the Spirit of Prophecy? You will find just the opposite there.

Do not wony, just trust in the Lord. You do not even need to try. Where does it say that in the Bible? Do not worry, the Christian world says, you do not have to worry about the mark of the beast, you are going to be out of here before that happens. Where does it say that in the Bible? Not only does it not say that, it says just the opposite.

We are living in the time when Jesus said, Beware, lest somebody deceive you. Many false prophets will arise. They will deceive many. We see that happening. And they will back up what they say with miracles. Friends, there is going to be a remnant. No matter how many people do this, no matter what happens, they are going to believe what God says. They are going to follow and obey Him. They are spoken of over and over again in Revelation as the remnant.

And I want to be part of that group. Do you? Part of the group of people who accept the only way not to be deceived, and that is to study this Book; see what it says and live by it. That is the experience I want to have. l do not want to be deceived. And by the way, one of the worst ways you can be deceived is if you are deceived by yourself, and the only way that can be solved is if you are studying the Word so the Lord can open your eyes.