False Teachers and Their Destruction
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord. But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—a beast without speech—who spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”
My Understanding: I think oftentimes we have a false impression of the characteristic traits of false teachers. We often think of false teachers as wackos or crazies who are peddling some obscure or far out doctrine or cult following which would be easily recognizable. Yet, they are often described as those who slip in among us as wolves in sheep’s clothing, and that they will secretly slip in destructive heresies. That means that many of the sheep accept them as though they are true sheep, when they are not, and many sheep accept their teachings as truth because it sounds good, when it is not truth, or certainly it is a mixture of truth and lies, and the lies are made to sound like truth.
The purpose of what Peter wrote here to the church was to warn them against those false teachers who had secretly slipped in among them. And, so he went into great detail to describe for them the characteristic traits of false teachers so that they would recognize them, and so they would not follow them. And, that purpose still stands today for today’s church. God is still speaking to his church today, and he is warning us against following these false teachers of the word. And, that is why it is essential that we are aware of these “destructive heresies” that culminate in the moral and spiritual demise of their followers. And, it is essential, as well, that we recognize these characteristic traits of false teachers and false teaching, so that we are not duped and end up believing a lie.
Characteristic Traits
They secretly introduce destructive heresies – Heresies are deviations from the truth. They may sound like truth, but they are lies disguised as truth. These heresies are secretly introduced in a way that has the appearance of being wholesome and helpful, when it is nothing of the kind. They will often be cloaked in truth so as to appear truthful.
The biggest lie and example of this that comes to my mind is a teaching or philosophy that is sweeping across America’s churches, and one the Lord has me speak against often, and that is the lie that we do not have to repent or obey Christ in order to be saved, and that once we pray the prayer of salvation, God is pleased with us no matter what we do. All we have to do is carefully and prayerfully read through the New Testament and we will see over and over again that repentance and obedience to Christ are indeed required for salvation, and that God is often displeased with his children, and must chastise them for their own good to help them to return to pure devotion to God. We are also taught that we must find out what pleases the Lord and to do the things that please him.
Yet, these lies concerning repentance and obedience are cloaked under the guise of opposing works-based salvation and legalism, yet they go to the opposite extreme by completely removing the cross of Christ from salvation, and reducing it to merely an emotional or intellectual decision to accept Christ, but what are they accepting in reality? They are accepting a false doctrine and a false hope of salvation, which leaves them still dead in their sins, so that is no hope at all. We must repent and we must obey Christ.
They even deny the sovereign Lord who bought them – Christ Jesus, when he died on the cross for our sins, bought (purchased) us (everyone) for salvation. He died for the sins of the whole world. Yet, we are still under the wrath of God until we, by faith (repentance and obedience), apply what Christ did for us on the cross to our individual lives. We do this through faith in what Christ Jesus did for us and by appropriating it to our lives. In other words, he died so we would be free from sin and so we would be free to walk in holiness. So, that is why repentance and obedience are essential elements of our salvation. We must turn from our sin and turn to walk in obedience to Christ, and that is the way in which our salvation is applied to our lives. So, when they teach and practice a salvation absent of repentance and obedience, they are, in fact, denying the sovereign Lord who bought them, i.e. who purchased them from bondage to sin, and who freed them to walk in obedience. Many will follow their evil ways and will bring the truth of salvation into disgrace.
Greedy, these teachers will exploit you with made up stories – So much of what is being promoted and taught in our churches today is man-made (made up by man). Bible studies have been replaced with book studies, only the books are not books of the Bible, but modern-day books written by ordinary men, many of whom pervert the truth of the gospel for their own gain (profit). The spiritual gift of teaching of the word is replaced with facilitators who are instructed to not teach but to merely lead people in discussion on the man-made books they are studying, which means we no longer think but we are truly sheep who blindly follow whatever man leader is over us.
They often target new believers or the unsaved, because they can mold them after man’s image and make them disciples of man and man’s visions, goals and purpose statements. And, those who are strong in the faith are often cast aside and told to go someplace else, because they are a threat to these man-made kingdoms and to the false teaching, because they expose the lies and tell people the truth. Much of the training of pastors and lay leaders is patterned after the model of building big businesses (corporations), with all the trappings included. The instructions of men on how to build Christ’s church are adhered to over and above scripture in many cases. And, they will often use, manipulate and stomp on anyone to build their corporations, too. I know this from personal experience, both on the training end and on the receiving end.
They carouse in broad daylight – They do not hide their actions from public view, though they certainly hide behind manipulations of truth, and much of what they do is done behind closed doors, secretly, and out of view of the public. Yet, the idea here is that they are unashamed of their conduct. And, so they openly and publicly bring the word of God into disrepute (disgrace). They are described here as reveling in their own pleasures while they fellowship with us. Their eyes are full of spiritual adultery and sexual sin. They never stop sinning, i.e. because they don’t believe repentance and obedience are necessary for salvation, so it gives them a free license to continue in willful sin and to still have their ticket into heaven. They seduce the unstable, i.e. that is why so much of today’s church meetings are targeted at the unsaved, i.e. they use the world to attract the world, supposedly to Christ, but when we use the world to attract the world, we are only attracting them to more of the world, not to Christ. The cross is an offense and is not attractive. As well, this is why they target the unsaved or young Christians who are easily moldable in man’s image. They can seduce them to whatever form of Christianity they choose in order to draw large crowds of people into the institutional church via entertainment, et al.
They have left the straight way and have wandered off – The “straight way” is synonymous with the narrow road leading to heaven which only few travel. It is the way of the cross. Jesus said that if anyone is to follow after him, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Christ. He taught that we must die to our old way of living by the sinful nature so that we can live. If we hold on to control of our own lives, we will die, but if we put to death our old sinful nature at the cross of Christ, we will live. We are taught over and over again throughout the New Testament that to be a true follower of Christ we must die to sin and we must be resurrected to new life in Christ, patterned after Christ and his holiness. We must forsake following after the pattern of the world, and we must obey Christ. And, all this is done in the power and working of the Holy Spirit within us in cleansing us from sin and in giving us new lives in Christ Jesus, our Lord, as we cooperate fully with Christ in appropriating his work of grace into our daily lives. This is the straight way, yet it is not being taught much these days. The gospel has been so watered down to make it palatable to the listeners, that it is hardly recognizable as the gospel. And, the church has become so much like the world that it is barely distinguishable from the world.
These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm – Christ Jesus provides his Holy Spirit as a spring of water welling up into us unto eternal life. Out from those who are Christ’s true followers thus flows streams of this living water (life-giving water). So, when this passage states that these false teachers are like springs without water, it means that they do not have the Holy Spirit within them and they do not possess eternal salvation. They only have the appearance of being regenerated, but truly they are not, because the Spirit of God does not dwell within them or he certainly is not the one in control, and thus the water is not springing up nor is it flowing out from them. They are like dried-up wells or like dried-up streams where you can see the dirt and bare rocks where the water once flowed. So, these false teachers can provide nothing of eternal value, as they themselves are lacking the Spirit of God welling up in them to eternal life and flowing out from them. They are mists driven by the storm because they lack substance and direction, and so they go wherever various winds of doctrine lead them, and they become followers of men instead of followers of God.
God’s Judgment and Warnings
God is going to judge these false teachers. Many of them will perish in their sins. They will be paid back for the harm they have done. If they had escaped the corruption of the world by knowing Christ Jesus as Savior, and then they are entangled in the corruption of the world all over again, then they are like a dog which returns to its vomit, or like a pig, after being cleansed, returns to wallowing in the mud. Unless they repent of their sins, they face certain judgment of God. The scripture says here that it would have been better for them not to know the way of righteousness, than to know it and then turn their backs on it.
The warning for us here is that we need to know the truth, and we need to pray for much discernment so that we are not led into a trap of Satan and we end up believing lies. The one that concerns me most is that so many people have been given a false hope of salvation based upon a lie, and one day they are going to come before God and God is going to tell them that he never knew them because they truly never knew his Son. So, in order for us to not be trapped by lies, we have to know the truth, and the way we know the truth is by digging into the word of God and studying it and finding out what it says. Then, we should be able to discern these lies when we see and hear them. And, then, hopefully, we will not follow the lies. These lies are of Satan. He is our true enemy. And, we are in a spiritual battle. So, the encouragement here for us, I believe, is to be found in the words of this song which is taken from scripture. And, may we be seekers of truth and followers of truth so that we don’t get trapped by the lies.
To My Beloved / An Original Work / November 14, 2011
Based off I Pet. 5:6-9; Eph. 6:10-20; Jms. 4:4-10
Be strong in the grace of Christ, and
Put on His full armor in your fight
Against the enemy of your souls,
And resist him with all your might.
Take up the shield of your faith within you.
Salvation’s helmet – you put it on.
Put on the belt of truth,
And walk in the Spirit,
And you’ll not be ashamed.
Love your Lord Jesus; call His Name.
Call on your Lord and Savior, Jesus, and
Make Him Lord and King of your hearts.
Obey all of His teachings He has given
To you to follow in all His ways.
Repent of your sins. Return to your God.
Follow Him where’er He leads you now.
Humble yourselves in full
Surrender to His will
For your lives today.
Bow before Him, and humbly pray.
Be strong in the grace of Christ, and
Obey your Lord in ev’rything, always
Keeping His teachings in your hearts near you.
Walk with Christ in ev’ry way.
Resist the devil. He will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and He’ll be near you.
Wash your hands you sinners
And double minded.
Weep and wail o’er sin.
With Christ, your new lives begin.
Song lyrics @ Public Domain
Audio, Song Lyrics and Sheet Music (free) at:
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs2/home/songs/to-my-beloved
Song on video:
http://youtu.be/PLMZdBxhE3I
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