If you’re paying attention, you’ll probably say I misspelled the title of this article, but read on, and you’ll see I didn’t.  Today’s text will be taken from 2 Peter 2:1-11; But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.  And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.  And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.  For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after that should live ungodly; and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
 Let me explain “profit”.  That means “gain, or net gain”, and implies you end up with more of something that you want than you started with, such as a farmer would plant seed for a crop and at harvest, whatever was above the amount of seed sown was the profit.  That’s pretty easy to understand.  But it gets a little more complicated when it comes to spiritual things.  Peter warned of false teachers who would come into the body of Christ and deceive people into thinking they were really gaining when in fact they were losing.  And nobody likes losing.
    We know by reading in Romans that the heavenly Father is rich in mercy and grace, and that the blood of Jesus washes away our sin, and makes us as if we had never sinned at all.  And that’s wonderful!  But we must also remember that God is Holy and by virtue of that, He requires His children to be Holy as well.  So how does that connect with “false profits”?  Simple, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish between God’s children and the devil’s these days because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is continually being watered down with worldly teaching. 
    Jude, the brother of Jesus said in Jude 3-4, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.  For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,,ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
    Now, let me explain it like this.  You have a document in your hand and you want to copy it, ok?  So you put it in the copy machine, and it comes out reading exactly like the original.  No matter if you make a thousand copies, every copy will read exactly like the original, and you don’t have to sit and proof-read each copy to make sure it’s the same as the original.  As disciples of Christ Jesus, we, as copies, should speak, behave, love, and live like the Original, namely Jesus.  When the disciples spoke, people listened, because they had been with Jesus, and people expected Jesus to rub off on them.  And it’s still like that today.
    People expected the disciples to heal the sick, just like Jesus did, and indeed they did.  They expected to be able to approach the disciples and have their full attention, just like Jesus gave them.  Are you, as a disciple of Christ Jesus, approachable?    People came to the disciples seeking mercy, and they got it.  That’s why the early church grew so quickly and so powerfully.  Yet somehow, many of today’s “disciples” are too busy making a name for themselves, instead of making a name for Jesus.  They are “untouchable”, and if you don’t believe it, try calling the big name ministers and see if you can reach them personally.  You’ll see who is really approachable.  Yet, Jesus could be reached.  He was moved with compassion to the point of actually interrupting whatever He was doing to heal someone who was crying out to Him.  You’d better not cry out to and run up to one of those big name ministers at a conference to ask them for healing, you’ll be ushered out for disrupting the service.  They are busying themselves building their own kingdom, instead of God’s Kingdom.  Some of them distort the Word of God, telling you if you give into their ministry that God will increase your gifts back to you some thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.  That to me is a “false profit” because if God guaranteed a return on your giving thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold, then every Wall Street investor would be camping out on the church doorstep.
   I said all that to say this; are we as Jesus’ present day disciples a faithful copy of Him?  Can they look at us and know we’ve been with Jesus?  Do we walk in the power of the Word, or just talk about the Word?  If someone asks us to minister to them, will we stop and do it RIGHT NOW like Jesus did?  Or are we simply a “false profit”, making people think they’re getting something of heavenly value from us, when they’re not? 
   You know, I have to read the words of Paul and exceedingly fear God like he did, when he said in 1 Corinthians 9:27, But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.  Was Paul afraid of losing his salvation if he didn’t measure up to his responsibility?  No, but he was sure concerned about being unprofitable for the Kingdom of God.  And we should have that attitude that Paul had, also, for it was obvious that daily he contended for the faith once delivered to the disciples. He was after the REAL profit, not the fame and fortune and material blessing of this world, or the “hundredfold return”.  He was here to do one thing and one thing only; and that was to please the heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus, and to do the work of an evangelist.  Paul’s whole world revolved around raising up disciples to Christ Jesus.  Can the same be said of us?  Multitudes followed Jesus, for He showed them the Father’s love, and cared for them.  Who is following you?  If nobody is following you, then perhaps you aren’t showing them Jesus and the love of the Father, and some adjustments may be in order.