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If we understand the world we live in, in a nutshell, we can simplify it in this way. There are two types of people. Those who belong to the Lord and those who belong to the devil. When Jesus was talking to the corrupt Jewish leaders of His day, He said in John 8, verse 44, that you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.
The Jewish leaders of Jesus' day and every unbeliever is in this position. They are slaves to their sin and they belong to the evil one. But then there is the positive. Those who belong to the Lord, and my prayer is that everyone in this room does belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you belong to the Lord, Colossians 1, verses 12 -14 describes your place. The Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
So everyone either belongs to Satan and is in darkness or belongs to the Lord and is in the light. Now when we seek to understand those who belong to the darkness, we can break those into two different categories.
There are those who are pagans. When people look at these people, they're not going to be confused. These people are unbelievers and they are in the darkness. And then there are those who profess faith in Christ.
And when you look at them, they look like they are Christians. They look like they fit in, but the reality is that they too belong to the darkness. And this is a sobering reality that scripture talks about in numerous places.
And one of those places is in Matthew 7, verses 21 -23 where Jesus said, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
So Jesus tells us that there are many people who think they are Christians, but are in fact frauds. They go to churches. They go to Christian colleges. I went to a Christian college and let me tell you, there were unbelievers there.
There were people who professed faith in Christ, but you looked at their life. There's no way this person is a Christian. They belong to parachurch Christian organizations. These people have no problem telling others that they are Christians and they can sign a statement of faith that explains correctly the central tenets of the Christian faith, but in reality, they do not belong to the Lord, but are in fact in darkness.
Right now in Sunday school, Pastor Doug is going through 1 John and the letter of 1 John is written to let people know that you are saved, whether or not you are saved. 1 John 5 .13 says, I write these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life.
The letter of 1 John provides different marks to show a person where they are at. Are you in darkness or are you in light? But as we think about phonies within the Christian community, they blend in. They blend in by being involved in church activities and through attending even Sunday morning service, which includes taking part in the Lord's Supper, which is a meal that is intended for believers only.
Phony Christians blend in with true Christians and they fool many. Phony Christians are found among laymen and even among teachers. Just because someone is a pastor doesn't mean this person automatically belongs to the Lord.
We have seen in the previous weeks and even months, Peter talks a lot about teachers, and we have seen that people get into the ministry for the wrong reasons. We just had our Be Not Conformed conference.
If you can believe it,.
It was three weeks ago already. We had a conversation at this conference. One of the themes was corrupt leaders who know all the Christian lingo but are in fact not serving the Lord but serving the evil one.
Satan has placed them in this position to push his agenda, not the Lord's. And some false teachers are obvious while others are more subtle. And it is the subtle ones that much more easily blend in within the Christian community.
So this morning as we continue our sermon series through 2 Peter, we are going to see Peter describe the reality that these false teachers do all the public Christian activities but in reality lead immoral lives showing that they don't belong to the Lord.
So I encourage you this time to turn with me to 2 Peter 2. If you brought a Bible, turn there with us. If you don't have a Bible, we do have the red Bibles. And this morning is part two of the sermon titled Waterless Springs.
And we're going to be looking at the middle of verse 13 through verse 16. And for context here, I'm just going to read all of verse 13 where Peter writes, Suffering wrong is the wage for their wrongdoing.
They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery. Insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls.
They have hearts trained in greed, accursed children. Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing but was rebuked for his own transgression.
A speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. Our big idea that we saw one Sunday ago is this, realize that false teachers are revealed through their corrupt actions.
And one week ago,.
We saw four immoral character traits. And let me give you a little recap of these. The first one was that they have lustful desire for the wrong things. Secondly, they reject true biblical authority. Thirdly, they're like animals in their treatment with the demonic realm.
And fourthly, they are entangled in trouble now and forever because of their wicked actions. Okay, so this brings us to the fifth immoral character trait. And we'll zero in on the second half of verse 13, where Peter once again writes here that they count it pleasure to revel in the daytime.
They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you. In the middle of verse 13, he tells his readers, he tells us that they love to revel in the daytime. Now, typically, when people sin in grievous ways, it's done in the darkness.
So it's done at nighttime. This is when people get drunk. This is when people do all sorts of sinful activities. 1 Thessalonians 5, 7 says, those who sleep, sleep at night. And those who get drunk, get drunk at night.
But the false teachers that Peter's describing were not this way. They did those things, yes, but they didn't wait till the night to do their sinful activities. They did so also during the day. One author wrote, describing them, these false teachers are so consumed with lust and rebellion that they are pleased not to wait for the night.
Their unbridled passions consume them. What we see here is that they're not doing what they are supposed to be doing during the day. What are we supposed to be doing during the day? Supposed to be working.
Isn't that what good people do? In honest days, work. A person should be working during the day. As 2 Thessalonians 3, 10 says, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies.
Now, such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Now, Paul here is encouraging lazy Christians to get to work and make a good use of their time during the day.
But there's no hope for these false teachers that Peter is describing in 2 Peter 2. In verse 13, we see that they are those who not only aren't working, but they are doing great evil during the day. They are so full of passion for sin that they can't wait till the night.
They commit grievous sins even during the daytime. Then Peter continues in the middle of verse 13 by saying they are blots and blemishes reveling in their deceptions. What we need to understand about these false teachers is that they are the opposite of Jesus Christ.
And what Christ followers are called to be. 1 Peter 1 .19 says concerning Christ that he is a lamb without blemish or spot. Philippians 2 .15 -16 says what we are supposed to be. We are supposed to be blameless and innocent.
Children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast to the word of life. In other words, you are supposed to be different from the world.
The world is full of sins, full of worldliness, following the prince of the power of the air who is the devil. And Christians are supposed to look different than this. But these false teachers are right at the forefront of this crooked and twisted generation.
They say they belong to Christ. They say they speak on behalf of Christ. But in reality, they are serving the evil one, pushing forward his evil will. Now what Peter highlights is that these false teachers live immorally during the day and during the night.
And while they do this, guess what they do? They still hang out with Christians. They still do Christian activities. I alluded to this in the introduction. Phony Christians don't disconnect from the Christian community.
Phony Christians live among the Christian community thinking themselves in their own twisted way to be Christians. At Christian gatherings intended for Christian fellowship, these teachers were not able to hide their pride and immoral lifestyle as much as they tried to hide it.
They could not. At the end of verse 13, Peter describes what they are doing as deception. This is not honest living. This is false living. They want to give the impression that they are from God, that they belong to Him, that they speak on behalf of Him, but their life shows otherwise.
One aspect of Christian fellowship is that they took part in the Lord's Supper. You know, we do this once a month, the first Sunday of the month. They took part in the Lord's Supper while living immoral lives.
This meal, this sacred meal, which is intended for believers, which is to remind us that Christ broke His body for us, that He shed His blood for us. They take part in this meal, as Peter writes here in verse 13.
We, of course, as I just mentioned, we can't get away from this conference, right? I keep on talking about it, the Be Not Conformed Conference. And studying this verse reminded me of what we see among compromised Christian leadership in our day.
This leadership is found in academia, parachurch organizations, and in churches. And why is it in churches? Well, it starts in the seminary, right? It starts in the seminary. They pollute these graduates.
The graduates go to churches, and then they pollute their people. That's how it goes. That's Satan's strategy. If we can get the seminaries, if we can get the Christian colleges, then we can get the pastors, we can get the churches.
Think of all the pastors who push the woke agenda into their churches and have never repented. I've been asked that question. Can you name me a Christian leader who pushed the agenda and has repented?
It's interesting, Rosaria Butterfield. Some of you have heard her story. She was a lesbian, married to another woman, was a professor, I believe, at Syracuse University in New York, and became a Christian because this couple loved her and was patient with her.
And she comes to faith in Christ. And of course, when you come to faith in Christ, you don't have all the pieces put together. And so she wrote, I think, a couple of books where she still had some compromise in her beliefs because she was growing.
But she grew past that. And she publicly said, what I wrote in these books back then, early on in my Christian faith, was wrong. It takes a lot of courage to say that. And then she says, when are these men who led us in this woke direction going to repent?
Good for her. Strong woman.
Amen.
That's the kind of people we want. Now, a while back, I had a conversation with a person who left a church because the pastor somewhat pushed the woke agenda and was a defender of those who pushed the agenda.
One thing that deeply concerned this person was how much this pastor overlooked the actions of those who went woke. This layman came away thinking, we should repent of all sins. But the one sin that people don't need to repent of was taking their church or Christian institution in this worldly direction.
Leading a church or Christian movement toward a worldly direction is no small sin. It is very serious. It is so serious that those who did this actually, possibly disqualified themselves from being shepherds of the gospel.
And you wonder why there's so much defense of not confessing the sin because repentance means resignation. And people don't want to give up their positions. Yet these Christian leaders preach week after week, do counseling, take the Lord's Supper, and do other pastoral duties.
And they move on like they did nothing wrong. Think of those pastors and institutional leaders who persecuted faithful shepherds like Russell Fuller, who we just saw, and Jeff Clewer. And yet they move on with their pastoral and leadership duties like nothing happened.
They go to sleep at night like nothing happened. The Lord has given us a conscience. And once people stop listening to their conscience, what happens is that their heart becomes hard. What happens is that ministry leaders become comfortable in compromise.
Now, some of these leaders are false teachers, no question about it. But some are born again. But what they have shown is that at least at this stage in their walk with the Lord, they are unfit for leadership.
And it's a sobering thing to say this. Because 1 Corinthians 10, 12 says, take heed lest we fall. No one is above it. When Russell Fuller was talking, I remember him saying this. He said, the world has a pull on us, every one of us.
And we need to be honest about that. So if we see other people going in that direction, we shouldn't be shocked because we know what it's like to be pulled in that direction. So when we see this, take heed lest we fall.
It's a frightening reality as we see with these false teachers that Peter describes, that those who are deep in their sins are no longer troubled by their sins. Think about that. The more you reject your conscience and the Spirit's conviction on your life, the less troubled you are by it.
You just keep going, keep going deeper into sin instead of saying, no, I'm not going to do that. And that's a word for all of us that we would kill the sins in our lives before we get too deep in them, before our conscience becomes seared, which so easily can happen if we're not careful.
And this is the case with these false teachers. They're living these immoral lives. They're going through the day and through the night, all these sins. And then they go and take the Lord's Supper like it's no big deal.
How wicked that is. So realize that false teachers are revealed through their corrupt actions. And the fifth immoral character trait is that they act out godliness while living evil lives. The sixth immoral character trait that we need to realize that false teachers are revealed through their corrupt actions is this.
And this is in your outline that you received when you came in. They take advantage of unsteady women to satisfy their own lustful desires. And Peter highlights this in verse 14. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin.
They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed, accursed children. One question we have asked is that why would men get into ministry if they don't really believe the Bible? Lots of people out there like that.
And you think,.
Well, yeah, of course,.
Those liberal churches. Well, yeah, certainly them, but even evangelical churches. One answer as to why men get into ministry is that they rationalize that they are following God when in reality, what they're doing, serving their own selfish desires.
People also get into Christian leadership because it strokes one's ego, as I have explained before. But one of the main reasons these wolves get into ministry is that it gives them close proximity to the opposite sex.
This is what Peter's talking about. And this is something that every woman, especially young women, need to understand. There are certain men that are dangerous. And they won't come across dangerous at first, but over time, they show their true colors.
Young women should only date men who treat them with honor and respect. It's interesting that I didn't even plan on saying this, but Julie Johnson said, I gave the book, The Man Code to my daughter. Why would a young woman read the book, The Man Code?
Well, this is the kind of man you want to be with someday, right? A man who is a biblical man. These are the kind of men that women should desire to marry. God has a high standard for men as He does for women.
And when it comes to how we should view the opposite sex, since most false teachers are men, I'm going to talk about the men here. God calls every man to be a one-woman man. This is the qualification to be an elder in 1 Timothy 3.
And it is God's command to every Christian. Every man is to be married to one woman and every woman to one man. I know we have several Johnny Horton fans in this church. Johnny Horton played old country.
They had a little bit of a rock feel to it. So they actually called it rockabilly. He was born in 1925 and he died at the age of 35 in 1960. And I wrote an article on TrueScript a while back titled, Seeing God's World Through the Music of Johnny Horton.
Now, I don't know if Johnny Horton ever came to faith in Christ, but he sure described God's glory in the world through his music. His music is truly a joy to listen to. You can listen to it without sinning because it's actually beautiful music.
And he wrote and played a song titled One Woman Man. And here's how the song goes. If you told me that you love me, I would feel so proud. If you let me hold you, honey, I'd holler out loud. I'll never love another, even if I can.
Come to me, baby. I'm a one woman man. So, I mean, a man could talk it to his wife like that, right? Christians are those called by God to be committed to one spouse for life. But worldly people, and in this context, false teachers, they don't live by this.
They look for opportunities to take advantage of women. One week ago, I shared the story of this troubled pastor in South Carolina named John Paul Miller. He pastors in the Myrtle Beach area and he had multiple affairs years ago, somehow kept his position as a pastor.
One of the woman he was having an affair with, he makes his wife. And now there's suspicion that he is involved in her death. What a mess. This evil man entered the ministry for all the wrong reasons.
And what was shown during his time is that he was a womanizer. Certain men flatter women to get the desire of women so that their own lustful desires will be satisfied. As Peter writes in the middle of verse 14, their desires are insatiable.
They can't help themselves. They want more and they are never satisfied. They target specific women too, as Peter writes here. They know not to go after certain women, the more mature ones, because the mature women are going to see right through them.
So what they do is they go after, as Peter calls them, unsteady souls. They prey on vulnerable women. Women who are insecure. Women who are given to flattery and flirtation and are vulnerable to be enticed by evil men with an evil agenda to satisfy their lustful desires.
Then Peter continued at the end of verse 14 that they have hearts trained in greed, just as athletes train themselves to be better athletes. So these false teachers are good, skilled at getting what they want to satisfy their sinful desires.
You think, how would any women ever fall for these guys? They do. These men are trained in being successful. Sometimes I joke about this concerning politicians. Not every politician is bad. Okay, let me say that.
But there might as well be a school on corruption, right? I mean, they're so good at it. It's almost as if they went to school to learn these things. There could be a school for false teachers as well.
They are good at every evil practice. They take part in, including enticing vulnerable women to be drawn to them in order to satisfy their sinful desires. And as we look at this, men need to be better.
If men cross lines with other women, not their wife, this tells you what you need to know about this man. Scripture tells us how men are to view other women. 1st Timothy 5 .2 says that men are to treat younger women as sisters in all purity.
I remember when my brother got married, I was living with him. And my brother is an air traffic controller. And he would go to work and I would just be alone with my sister-in-law, Victoria. And it was totally normal.
It was totally comfortable. And she was my sister. We're not related by blood, but she's my sister. I was her brother. And we could be in the same room in the same house. And it was totally comfortable.
And so whenever I look at this verse, it makes me think of that. And I have a sister who lives in Cincinnati. She's my sister. I should treat every woman that way who's not my wife, right? And it's the same for every man.
That's the command that Scripture gives. And when men operate in this godly way, women are comfortable around them. They don't think there's not some secret agenda here. They're comfortable. And that's how men are to be.
That's what God calls men to be. But many in the world and in this text, false teachers disregard God's law to do whatever they want because they live to satisfy their own sinful desires. So in the sixth point here, realize that false teachers are revealed through their corrupt actions.
And the sixth immoral character trait is that they take advantage of unsteady women to satisfy their own lustful desires. And here's the seventh and final one this morning. And let's switch this before we get there.
Okay.
They commit the same sins as the wicked prophets of the past. This is our seventh point. They commit the same sins as the wicked prophets of the past. And let's look at verse 15 and 16 where Peter highlights this.
Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor. Who loved gain from wrongdoing. But he was rebuked for his own transgression. A speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
Last summer, we did a sermon series on the seven churches of Revelation. One of the seven churches that Jesus spoke to was Pergamum. And when Jesus rebuked Pergamum, he said that some of the people in the church were like Balaam.
The story of the prophet Balaam is found in Numbers 22 -24. This is the story that is notorious for the donkey speaking to him. It's that story where you wonder if our pets could talk, what would they say to us?
In the case of Mark and Lori, we know what they would say. Lori, Frankie adores Lori and thinks Mark just tolerates him, right? No, I'm just kidding.
Sorry, Mark.
He's way back there.
So Balaam was an Old Testament prophet, but he wasn't a believer. On rare occasions in the Bible, there's a prophet who isn't a believer. Think of the high priest Caiaphas, where Caiaphas says something that it's better that one man should perish than that the whole nation perish.
One man should die than that the whole nation perish. And he said that, and it was a prophetic word. But Caiaphas, of course, was one of the leading ones who wanted to put Jesus to death. So we see with Balaam that Balaam was one of those prophets in the Old Testament, as is described in Numbers 22 through 24.
And in this passage, he's summoned by Balak, the king of Moab. The king of Moab fears Israel because Israel was defeating everybody in their path. And he goes to this prophet Balaam, and he says, if you curse Israel, I will give you whatever you want.
Balaam, he knew that he was only to bless Israel and not curse. But Balaam was strongly tempted to curse Israel because of what the king of Moab promised him if he did. So this temptation led Balaam to actually go to this Balak, this king of Moab, to at least try to go to him.
And we know how the story goes. Many of you are familiar with this. As they took off, the donkey saw the angel of the Lord before them. But Balaam didn't see the angel of the Lord. Three times, the donkey turned away from going down the path that Balaam was trying to lead it.
And each time, Balaam strikes the donkey. And this is when the donkey spoke to him. And this is comical. This is what the donkey said. What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?
Then Balaam said, because the donkey made a fool of him, that if he had a sword, he would have killed him. I think Peter puts this in there just to get us to chuckle a little bit during this really intense chapter because this is really comical.
And here's how the donkey responds to that. Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way? You think Balaam would be speechless. He's not.
He says, no. That's how he responds. Now, Balaam in the remainder of the story doesn't curse Israel as he did desire this deep down. But his heart was shown. As one author said, he was an Old Testament compromising prophet for sale to whomever paid him who preferred wealth and popularity over faithfulness and obedience to God.
In fact, after this failed, Numbers 25 .1 and 31 .16 tells us that Balaam persuaded the Israelites to intermarry with the Moabite women. And the reason he did this is because this would get God to curse Israel and this would get Balaam the prophet that he wanted from the king of Moab.
And what Jesus had against the church in Pergamum that he compared to Balaam is that there were people among them who were not pure in their ways. Specifically, they were not pure in that they said they were following the Lord, but they were actually following other gods.
They were following the example of Balaam who led people after idols for his own gain. There's a belief out there known as henotheism. Henotheism. This teaches that a person prefers one god but has no problem worshiping other gods.
And I remember I had a professor in seminary say, this describes many Americans. We prefer the God of Christianity, but then there's all these other gods that we worship. And I think that's so true. And what Jesus is getting after in his charge to the church in Pergamum whom he compared to Balaam is that Balaam was a pagan prophet.
And as a pagan prophet, he showed his desire to have Israel cursed so that he can gain material wealth for himself. What Jesus is communicating is that this church, Pergamum, was doing something similar.
They were worshiping idols and practicing sexual immorality, just as the ancient Israelites did under Balaam's influence. Out of the one side of their mouth, some of the people of Pergamum would say that they were following the Lord Jesus.
But out of the other side of their mouth, they were living in sin as they worshiped idols and practiced sexual immorality. The false teachers that Peter is describing in 2 Peter 2 are rebuked for doing the same.
Balaam didn't do anything out of love for the Lord. Rather, he tried to manipulate things to get Israel cursed for his own material gain. He lived an immoral lifestyle. And he had no problem leading others down the same path.
You can imagine the people of Israel thinking, oh, he's a prophet. This is someone we can follow. And what did Balaam do? He led them into idolatry, away from the Lord. And this is what false prophets and false teachers do.
They lead people away from the Lord, but pretend like they speak on his behalf. Balaam was a blind guide leading the people of Israel astray. And everything that false teachers do is for their own gain.
The message that they preach and the different manipulative practices that they use to get what they want. The sinful nature is nothing new. Wicked people of the present do the same things as the wicked people of the past.
And if you were able to be around Balaam and you were a discerning person, you would look at Balaam and you would see people in the present and you would say, this person is just like this wicked prophet of the past.
This is what false teachers are all about. They love gain from wrongdoing. And we need to watch out for the Balaams of our time because they abound. We need to watch out for those who teach false things about God and take part in false living and lead others to do the same.
So to wrap this up here, our big idea once again is this. Realize that false teachers are revealed through their corrupt actions. And here's the seventh immoral character trait. They commit the same sins as the wicked prophets of the past.
The sins of Balaam and the sins of the present. They're no different. It's the same selfish, sinful agenda that these teachers are after. Now, next Sunday, we're going to do part three of the sermon as we look at the remainder of chapter two.
And to give you a clue of where we're going, it fits with the title of the sermon, Waterless Springs. They offer life, but they only give you death. They never deliver on what they promise. We will look at that, Lord willing, next Sunday.
But at this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in heaven, this is a difficult passage to go through as we see these wicked people who pretend to be on behalf of you, but really they serve their own agenda.
And my prayer for this church and everyone in here is that this church would be a discerning church and it would be able to spot these people out there because there's lots of people on the internet. There's people we might come across who this fits.
And in those cases, Lord, we should avoid those people. And we also don't want to live like false teachers. We want to follow the chief shepherd, the good shepherd, who leads us to the way of righteousness.
And so may we do that. As we read Psalm 23 this morning, may we be those who are led in that direction and not in this depravity that these false teachers display as we have seen this morning. And my prayer is that if anyone here has not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, that this day, that they would repent of their sins, that they would believe in Christ, understanding that he went to the cross, he rose from the dead, and by believing in him, each one will have eternal life.
And that's our prayer this morning. In Jesus' name,.