Some people are just “bad news.” That’s not a phrase you hear a lot, but it is one of those things we occasionally say – “That guy is bad news.” Of course, you can receive some bad news. “You have a flat tire.” That’s bad news. But sometimes, people are bad news. “The kid down the street came and slashed your tires last night. That kid is just bad news, I’m telling you.” You understand. You probably can think of people in your life who are bad news.

We like to think the Bible is full of good news. That’s what the word “gospel” means in Greek. It means “good news.” And the Bible has plenty of good news in it. You are saved from the wrath of God by the cross of Christ. Your sins can be forgiven by grace through faith. You can experience eternal life and resurrection from the dead and the new heaven and the new earth. It’s good news. The Bible’s main message is good news.

The Bible also has people in it who are “good news.” Jesus is good news. He’s the pinnacle of good news. But also, King David, generally speaking, was good news. So were Moses and Abraham and Noah. And Ruth, Elijah, Daniel, Esther, and Nehemiah. Eleven out of the 12 disciples were good news. One of them, of course, was “bad news.”

And that’s an interesting conversation. Doesn’t the Bible have a lot of people in it who are “bad news”? I suppose so. The story of Cain and Abel tells us that. If you kill your brother, you’re bad news. The Pharaoh of the exodus was bad news – refusing God’s command to let the people go. The giant Goliath was bad news, mocking the armies of the living God. King Saul was “good news” until he became “bad news” and slaughtered the 85 priests at Nob. King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, were bad news. King Manasseh, who authorized child sacrifice in Israel, was bad news. So was King Nebuchadnezzar – for a while anyway. Haman, wanting to kill all the Jews, was bad news. King Herod was bad news. Caiaphas was bad news. Pilate tried to be neutral news, but he was bad news, too.

In 2 Peter 2, we find people whom the apostle Peter described as very, very bad news. I can’t imagine it possible for Peter to have described these people in a more negative light. These were false teachers whom Peter said would come in among the churches to lure Christians away from the faith.

I compiled a list of the ways Peter described these false teachers. The words I came up with are quite negative. These people were false, destructive, apostate, sensual, blasphemous, greedy, exploitive, condemned, sinful, ungodly, lawless, unrighteous, lustful, defiling, rebellious, arrogant, unrepentant, irrational, destined for destruction, unapologetic, stains on humanity, deceitful, adulterous, hungry for sin, manipulative, accursed, gone astray, empty, short-lived, foolish, slaves of corruption, defiled, damned, and no better than dogs or hogs.

That’s a lot of negative descriptors. These false teachers were very, very “bad news.”

You surely noticed how Peter went on and on about how terrible they were. Sometimes, we can get excited about something and rattle on and on about it. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another place in Scripture where such a lengthy and vivid description occurs. This passage stands out in that way. Peter seemed to want us to sit up and take notice – to look around and see the danger that might be lurking just inside the church walls.

“There will be false teachers among you.” That’s what the apostle wrote. Peter is warning us that within the global church and, perhaps, within many local churches, false teachers will arise and spread deception about the gospel. These false teachers will try to deceive believers using the tools of sensuality, lawlessness, and pride. And they will be motivated primarily by greed.

The first thing I thought of when I considered false teachers were today’s prosperity gospel teachers. The prosperity gospel is a perversion of the gospel that declares you can have health and wealth if you have enough faith. It’s a false teaching, of course. God may desire a believer to live in poverty or poor health, and that believer can honor God and spread the gospel even while in poverty or poor health. But the prosperity gospel declares God wants to make you healthy and wealthy – if you have enough faith.

You’ll find many problems with the prosperity gospel. It has a lot of derivatives – a lot of spin-off varieties that emphasize one thing or another. Some prosperity gospel types fashion themselves as apostles or prophets or faith healers or ministers of “deliverance.” They claim to have powers and gifts that make them special – and definitely more special than you.

The prosperity gospel is destructive. If you don’t get rich and if you don’t get healed after professing your faith in Christ, you might give up on your faith. If your spouse or child dies despite your very heartfelt “prayer of faith,” then you might think you did something wrong and it was your fault, rather than the will of God. And if a faith healer comes and says he’s going to clear up your gout or your limp or your clogged arteries and then doesn’t, he might give you a suspicious look. It’s not his fault, after all. No, no. It’s you and your lack of faith. And so you can see the danger of the prosperity gospel.

But the prosperity gospel sells. Remember the false teachers Peter lambasted in his second letter? They were motivated by greed. “In their greed they will exploit you with false words. … They have hearts trained in greed.” The prosperity gospel has at its heart the desire for money – your money. And it’s relatively easy to get money from people when you promise them wealth or healing from God or special powers from the Holy Spirit.

And so when I considered Peter’s condemnation of false teachers, that’s what I thought about first – the prosperity gospel. There are other false teachers out there, of course. Think about the progressive church, which teaches you don’t really need to worry about sin – not adultery, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc. “I’m OK. You’re OK. What we’re doing is OK, no matter what.” It is false teaching – trying to wipe sin off the books.

These are people “who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them. … They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. … They entice unsteady souls. … They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.”

The apostle Peter goes on and on. These people are “bad news.”

And Peter has bad news for them. They will be judged. God always has judged the wicked – the wicked angels, the wicked people during the time of Noah, the wicked residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were condemned “to extinction.” Peter wants us to know this. He goes on and on about it to make sure we know these false teachers will be judged. Apparently, it is a heinous thing in God’s eyes to lead His church astray. “Their destruction is not asleep. … For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.” These people are bad news, and Peter gives them bad news.

At the same time, Peter in this passage gives us a glimpse of some “good news” people. Maybe they’re not entirely “good news” people. After all, what do you do with a man like Lot? But Peter said God judges the wicked and rescues the “godly” from trials. Noah was preserved in his wicked generation, and Lot was rescued from the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. So you do not need to worry about false teachers. God will deal with them. In fact, Peter announced, God already is dealing with them. Meanwhile, the godly will be rescued.

Peter wants us to know all of this. It is quite likely, during your Christian walk, that you will encounter people who will try to steer you away from God’s Word and from your faith in the One True God. They will seek to deceive. They will twist the gospel. They will attempt to lead you into an indulgence of your flesh and your pride. You need to know these false teachers exist. These people are “bad news.” And God has bad news for them.

What should we do? I suppose we simply need to stick to Jesus. Even some of the false teachers, they knew Him. Before they turned away and began teaching their falsehoods, they knew Jesus. Peter said they had “escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” So the difference between the false teachers and you is that you have not gone back to those old defilements. You haven’t been like the dogs returning to the scene of their sickness. You haven’t been like the sow returning to the mud pit. You are remaining “in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Remain there. Don’t turn. Keep your eyes on Scripture. You know God’s Word, by faith – that Jesus Christ took on flesh, lived as one of us, shunned all temptation and sin, died on the cross for our sins, in our place, rose on the third day to new life, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and will return someday in glory. This is “the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

It also is known as “good news.”