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Here Peter tells that in all ages of the church, when God sends true teachers, the Devil sends false teachers. The work of the true teachers is to do as Peter was doing, remind the people of the truth and keep heresies out of the church. The job of the false teachers is to bring, into the church, teachings that are false, teachings that "water down" the scriptures, teachings that seek to destroy the authority of scriptures and deny the divinity of Christ. These destructive teachings deny the Lord of Truth.
Matthew Henry explains the success of these false teachers this way. "Men drink in
iniquity like water and are pleased to live in error." People are so afraid of
being called stubborn and "old fashion", they go along with "new teachings" without
first testing to see if they are of God. My advice to all is to be good "Bereans"
and go home and check the scriptures and test all teachings to see if they be true
to the Word of God. What was true in Peter's day is true today, "their damnation
is not idle and their destruction has not been asleep."
The Destruction of False Teachers
["Click here for II Peter 2:4-9"]
Peter, by reason of his knowledge of the Old Testament, knows that God brings destruction upon those who teach false teachings and are disobedient to His commands. Here he gives 3 very well known examples of that judgment.
Notice in all three cases, righteousness was what was lacking, this was evidenced by their disobedience. How then can we, who have no righteousness of our own, escape the judgment? Lot and his family believed God and it was counted as righteousness, they escaped the judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Noah and his family believed God and evidenced this by building the Ark and that was counted as righteousness and they escaped the flood. So there is a way to escape this judgment. We must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and have His righteousness "imputed" to us, and we will be saved from this judgment.
But what about the false teachers. They are like the people at the time of the
flood, they scoff and they continue in their false accusations and do not repent,
and they will face the judgment. So lets see if we can identify these false
teachers.
The Description of False Teachers
["Click here for II Peter 2:10-22"]
John says in First John that they are Gnostics. The Bible Dictionary describes Gnosticism this way. It was a religious movement of the first century that claimed to be Christian and to be able to trace their roots back to one of the Apostles of Jesus. They claimed that salvation came through knowledge of one's true self. They claimed to be free from the evil world and especially the evil flesh. To arrive at perfection, there were two paths. One was to practice complete isolationism, to separate ones self from the world and all worldly experiences. The other was to practice total experience, rejecting all moral standards. You can easily see which of the two paths most of them traveled.
Peter says here, "They are full of adultery and have an insatiable appetite for sin. This appears to describe the second path. But these Gnostics had not only disobeyed moral laws but they had also disobeyed civil laws. Verse 10 says that they "despised" authority. They were not afraid to slander or aggravate the "glorious ones", (RSV) or the people in authority. They had no respect for anyone or any thing. They sought only to walk after the desires of their own hearts.
In verse 11, Peter says that they do things that even Angels do not do. These creatures delve in matters of which they are ignorant. Here are carnal men pronouncing judgment upon men of authority, even judgment upon authority itself. Vengeance is mine, sayth the Lord, and judgment is His also. Peter further describes them irrational animals, creatures of instinct, like blots and blemishes on the face of the earth, taking pleasure in dissipation, full of adultery, and this is where their false teaching comes in, they entice unsteady souls into their life of hypocrisy.
Peter further describes false teachers as those who forsake the way of Christ, those who follow Balaam. The story of Balaam is found in Numbers, Chapters 22 thru 24, it is a story of a pagan man of great contradiction, one time he is a man of great obedience to God and the next, he is leading the people of Israel to commit sensuous sins and eat food offered to idols. The story is fascinating in that Balaam is rebuked by his own donkey who speaks with a human voice.
Peter also calls them "waterless springs", mists driven by a storm, nether gloom (underground) of darkness saying words without knowledge. Peter says that only the most faithful escape these false teachers. They promise freedom only to make you slaves to corruption.
Then in verse 20 Peter says something that seems contrary to the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. "If, after they have escaped the defilements of this world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, if they become entangled and overpowered, then their last state will become worse than their first. It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness." What is Peter saying here? Matthew Henry believes that Peter is saying that the state of Apostasy is worse than the state of ignorance. Peter believes that some people are saved from the physical and mental anguish of sin by their knowledge of Christ. They do not know Christ as their Lord and Savior, they only know the advantages of His teachings, and for a time, seem to practice them.
These people are easily persuaded by false teachers and once they have become entangled in their false doctrines, are more difficult to convert than they were in their original state. A little knowledge is often worse than no knowledge at all. Many people have a knowledge of Christ but have not accepted Him as their Savior. A pig, when washed, will return back to the mud and wallow again.
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