WWUTT 367 Worse Than the First?

The Danger of False Teachers Who Promise Freedom

When a person hears the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they turn from their sin, and there seems to be a behavior change, but then they go right back into the sin that they were in before, their condition that they're in now is worse than it was in the first place when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Waterless Springs, the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God

Thank you, Becky. We're in 2 Peter 2, verses 17 -22 again today, where the apostle says,. These, referring to false teachers, are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them, the false teachers, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

For speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.

For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them.

The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire. Back to verse 17, where Peter says,. They are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. Or the way that Jude puts it, they are waterless clouds.

This means that these false teachers promise refreshing, but they cannot deliver on what it is that they have promised. And those who are listening to the false teachers, they might even think that they've received something refreshing or some kind of spiritual water.

Oh, it is just so wonderful the words that they say, but the spirit of God is not in their words. They either don't use the scriptures or they twist the scriptures and they will claim to have the Holy Spirit of God.

But if what they are saying is not grounded in the true word of the Lord, then it does not come from God. It comes from the spirit of error, who is the devil. We read at the end of chapter one, Peter said,.

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So the word of the scriptures is the word of the Holy Spirit of God. And if a false teacher is either not using the scriptures or twisting the scriptures, then they are not speaking from the spirit of God.

And that refreshing does not exist in their teaching. You think of the number of times in the scriptures that the Holy Spirit is being compared with water. So he is a spiritual water. Jesus says to Nicodemus that a person cannot be born again unless he is born of water and spirit.

And the very next chapter, John chapter four, Jesus talking to the woman at the well. He said, If you knew who it was who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water, a reference to the Holy Spirit.

Paul says with the Corinthians in first Corinthians chapter six, that the washing of sanctification that we receive from God is from the spirit of God. And I believe that I referenced Titus three, five yesterday, where it says that God saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

So it is the Holy Spirit of God who led the prophets and the apostles to write the word of God as we have it in the Bible. These false teachers will promise the spirit of God, but not being grounded in the true word of God, they cannot have the spirit and so therefore cannot deliver on what it is that they have promised.

So they are waterless springs. They don't have the spirit of God within them. They are waterless clouds or mists driven by a storm before water even has the chance to fall on somebody from their teaching.

It is quickly snatched away because it's simply not there in their words. It's not within their heart. And so it's not going to be within their teaching for them. The gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

Now we know that that is a promise of deliverance from these false teachers based on something that Peter had said earlier when he said that the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

That is verses nine and 10. They despise the authority of the word of God. And so the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. But that is also a warning to us not to follow these false teachers or else we will go in the same direction in the same place that they are going.

The gloom of utter darkness has been reserved from them. Jesus said they will be bound and be cast out with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. They will be cast into hell very specifically if they do not repent of their false teaching and follow the truth who is Jesus Christ for speaking loud boasts of folly.

They entice by sensual passions of the flesh, those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. So you have those who are weak in the faith, maybe even new in the faith that end up being snatched away by false teachers.

And so therefore we're never truly in the faith to begin with. Verse 19, they promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption for whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved.

And I come back again to Titus chapter three, where at the start of the chapter, Paul said, we ourselves were once foolish. We were once disobedient. We were led astray and we were slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

So this is who we were before we came to Christ. This is who these false teachers are without Christ. So none of us should ever get into a state of boasting that we are better than them for we were just like them until we were rescued by God.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our savior appeared, he saved us. And then verse five, which I quoted to you earlier, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our savior.

This work of salvation is entirely the work of God. It is not the work of a man. It is by nothing that we have done. We don't even work in cooperation of God, in cooperation with God rather. This is not synergism, OK?

It's not, hey, I'll do my part. God does his part and then I get saved. It is only the work of God through and through. No one can be saved unless God acts. And he acted by sending his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.

He acted by giving his goodness and loving kindness toward us, though who we were prior to Christ was foolish, disobedient, led astray and slaves to various passions and pleasures. And that is who these false teachers are, enslaved to these things.

And so though what it is that they are speaking sounds like freedom, it sounds like, oh, I am delivered from my inadequacies and my insecurities and my inabilities by living my best life now, OK? Though it sounds like a promise of freedom, of deliverance is there in their words, it's really not.

It's subjecting people to slavery, specifically slaves of corruption and enslavement to the flesh. Even if in following a false teacher, it does not lead to sexual immorality. It is still being enslaved to the flesh because what you're listening to come from a false teacher is not spiritual.

It's natural. It is a fleshly thing, not a spiritual thing. Paul addresses this in First Corinthians chapter two. Only a spiritual person can understand spiritual things. The natural person can't understand spiritual things because they are spiritually discerned.

So the naturally minded person who is a person of the flesh cannot understand the things of God because they are from the spirit of God. When we have the spirit of God dwelling within us, we're able to understand the things of God.

But the person who does not have the spirit of God does not understand the spiritual things, nor do they even want the spiritual things. They just chase after the desires of their flesh and they are enslaved to the flesh.

They think that the righteousness that they can attain or the right standing that they want to have before God can be done by something that they do. I can work and I can labor to achieve this, or I need to get myself in this condition first before I come to God, which is something that I'm constantly confronting with those who have left the church.

Whenever I sit down and have a conversation with those people, sometimes I will hear from them. Well, I feel like there's some things I need to work out in my own life before I can. I can start going to church again, and my response to them is always the same.

If that's what you think, then you're never actually going to go back to church because there's nothing that you can do to get to any kind of place that makes you worthy to appear before God again. You will never arrive there.

It is Christ who makes you worthy, not you yourself who makes you worthy. I love something that Millennial Puritan shared yesterday when we were joking about the titles of self-help books. One of the titles that Millennial Puritan on Twitter presented was, if you could help yourself, then you would have written this book, which is the contradiction of every self-help book.

You can't help yourself. If you could help yourself, you would be the one writing the book. But we cannot save ourselves. There is nothing that we can do to make ourselves better. There is certainly nothing that we can do to save ourselves from our sins.

It is Christ who makes us worthy before God. And so we submit ourselves to the Lord humbly, coming before him, confessing our sin, hating our sin and desiring the righteousness of God. And those who are humble before the Lord, he will exalt by the righteousness of Christ, not because we have exalted or have helped ourselves.

So if we are not coming in the spirit of God, if we're not chasing after the things of Christ, then we're chasing after sensual passions of the flesh. We are enslaved to corruption and those things have overcome us.

So therefore we are enslaved to them. Whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved. Verse 24, if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome.

The last date has become worse for them than the first. It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them, to turn back from the holy commandment that they had first received when the gospel was delivered to them.

Jesus issued woes to the unrepentant cities in Matthew chapter 11, those who had heard the gospel, those who had seen the miracles and would not turn from their sin and follow Christ. Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyree and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyree and Sidon than for you and you, Capernaum. Will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than it would be for you. It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it, to turn away from the holy commandment that was delivered to them.

In Luke chapter 11, Jesus talks about the return of an unclean spirit. In verse 24, he says, when an unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest. That sounds familiar, right?

Waterless places. These are waterless springs and waterless clouds driven by a storm. For them, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. You know, this reference to waterless places that Jesus is making here in Luke chapter 11, this goes back to Leviticus chapter 16, the whole thing with the scapegoat.

So on the day of atonement, there are two goats and there are lots cast over those goats. One lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel, which is a reference to the devil. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering.

But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. So you have one goat that's being offered to the Lord and the other one that's being sent out off to wander in the wilderness.

And this is where we get the term scapegoat from. So that that goat that goes off to wander in the wilderness is the scapegoat. And whenever you're looking for somebody to blame, you know, we use that term scapegoat.

Well, that person is my scapegoat. OK, so this this reference to the goat being sent off to wander in the wilderness, wander off into waterless places. This is a reference to this unclean spirit that Jesus is making here in Luke chapter 11.

So even even here, when Peter is describing in 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 17, they are waterless springs and misdriven by a storm. This is also talking about how those that are in league with Satan are waterless.

They are in a desert, dry and parched, never able to quench that thirst that can only be quenched by the Holy Spirit of God. So anyway, coming back to the story that Jesus is sharing here in Luke chapter 11, when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest.

So it's it's going through its own territory. A demon is doing the things that a demon does, but it's not finding any satisfaction in those waterless places. So finding none, finding no rest there, it says, I'll return to my house from which I came.

And when it comes back to the person that it has left, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself. And they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.

So here, as as we're reading from the Apostle Peter, it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

The last state of that person has become worse for them than the first, just as Jesus is saying here in Luke chapter 11, an unclean spirit being sent out of a person just just to describe how a person has heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And they kind of show, you know, that they they believe it. They might turn from sin for a little while and show some kind of a behavior change. But it's not real. It doesn't stick. For when that unclean spirit comes back to that person, they're able to overcome them, bringing with them seven other unclean spirits.

And the state of that person is worse than it was than before they had heard the gospel delivered. Now it's going to be even more difficult for them to repent and more unlikely that they will repent because they heard the way they seem to show evidence of walking in the way.

But then they do not remain in the way. And instead, they chase after the things of the devil. You know, in that very story in Luke chapter 11 that Jesus was sharing, it goes on in verse 27 to say that as he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed.

And Jesus replied, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. So how is it that we can protect ourselves from evil spirits that attempt to come upon us and lead us astray or those evil spirits that will go and find even more powerful evil spirits and try to bombard us even worse than we were being hit by the wiles of Satan before?

How can we be protected from these things by reading the word of God and storing these things up in our hearts? Those who hear the word of God and keep it, blessed are they, they will be protected from the devil and his schemes.

Meditating on the Word to Resist the Devil

Let me go to Psalm chapter one. In fact, turn with me, if you will, to Psalm one. And let's conclude our lesson today by reading this Psalm. The Psalmist says, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither in all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Psalm 119 verse nine, how can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word?

The one who meditates on the word of God and his law is like a tree planted by streams of water. So let us be that person loving the word of God, staying away from these false teachers who are waterless and cannot give us the refreshing or the regeneration of the Holy Spirit of God that comes only from those who are sound in their teaching and their doctrine and teach from the Holy Scriptures.

Let us pray our Lord God, we thank you for this word that we have given to us by your prophets and apostles and then for sound teachers who are around us that help to teach it to us and help us to understand it.

But we know ultimately our ability to read this word and store it up in our mind and in our heart in a way that is right and pleasing before the Lord is because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

Only a spiritual person can discern the spiritual things of God, those who have the Holy Spirit living within them. This is a gift that comes from you. It is not by anything that we can do or have done.

But you and your mercy saved us from the corruption that we were enslaved to before we came to Christ and have delivered us into your perfect kingdom sealed by the Holy Spirit of God that is within our hearts.

Keep us meditating on the things of God, the word of God and therefore we will be protected from the schemes of the devil and the false teaching of the false teachers. We pray for those who teach falsely that they would be convicted by the true word of God and repent from their false teaching.

And we pray for those maybe some of us as we're praying this right now we're even thinking of a person that we know of who is ensnared by false teaching by the schemes of the devil. We pray that you would give us an opportunity to share the true word of God with them so that they would turn from their error and follow the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus Christ our Lord in whose name we pray. Amen.

This is a protection of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find us on the web at www .utt .com.