2 Peter 2 - part 1 — William Lavery

The Meaning of “You Shall Never Fall”

The last Bible reading to answer that was not made clear, verse 10 of chapter 1. What does it mean you shall never fall? We all fail and make mistakes. We're just sinners saved by grace. Peter is not teaching sinless humanity or sinless perfection.

He is simply saying that as you grow, you are much less likely to be led away with the error that we will be looking at in chapter 2, the error of apostasy or even being influenced. Chapter 2 will deal with influences as well, much less likely to be influenced by the error that was then prevalent.

So he's not saying we don't sin, we don't stumble, we don't have failure in our lives, but he's referring now to the error of apostasy and of being led away.

False Teachers and Their Destructive Heresies

So 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 1. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privately 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 evilly 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.

God’s Judgment and Deliverance

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 Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after 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.

The Character of the False Teachers

Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not reeling accusation against them before the Lord. But these as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the daytime.

Spots are they, and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you. Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin, beguiling unstable souls, and heart they have exercised with covetous practices.

Cursed children, which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray following the way of Balaam, the son of Boser, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity. The dumb ass speaking with man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet.

These are whales without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the midst of darkness is reserved forever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much-wantedness those that were clean-escaped, or just escaped from them who live in error.

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, for of whom a man has ever come, of the same as he brought in bondage. For if they that have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome.

The latter end is worse with them than the beginning, for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. Now we know that God always blesses the reading of his precious word.

The Outline of 2 Peter 2

Now we had a good outline this morning, and time is limited, so I'm not going to say a lot, but we have in the first verses, the first three verses, we have rebellion and the development of evil. We heard from Peter, and the fact that we can depend on the word of God, there were those in the Old Testament as well that were false prophets.

There were many in the days of Jeremiah, and you could think of others during the reigns of the kings. And he said, as there were false prophets among them, so there are going to be false teachers among you.

Now we say among you, not just thinking of the local assembly, but it's thinking of a wider sphere, the professing church. We call it Christendom, maybe we should call it Babylon, but that's how I would look at this, and it tells us something about the development of the evil.

It tells us from verse four down to verse number nine that the destruction of what was evil and the deliverance of some out of that evil. So there are evil times, but God would deliver his own out of them.

One great example would be Lot. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Sometimes we preach the gospel, we might think that that's referring to the fact that he did right in coming in and judgment, but he did right in taking Lot out.

Even though he may have been in a wrong position, he still was a righteous man. And then it gives us a description of these false teachers. One thing to be able to teach or listen to those that teach, but they must have a testimony to back up the teaching.

And if you want to know if these men are preaching what is right or what is wrong, just look at their character, and you'll find that it's contrary really to the truth of God, that we have been hearing about those things that we have added and the progress that we make.

These men are going to bring people down, and they're not going to elevate them or bring them closer to Christ, but they're going to take them farther away. And then when we come to the last little section, we have not so much maybe the character of these people, but their departure from the truth.

Their great swelling words. There are lots of people like that in the world today. There are many cults in the world that claim to be Christian, but don't really belong to Christ. And I think that would be obvious when we come to the last verses, when it talks about the dog and the pig, the sow, it's not talking about the sheep.

So we can be assured of that, that it's not talking about the sheep. Those of us who are saved, we're sheep. But these are those that we have heard have departed from the faith, apostates. They never were saved.

They come under the truth, and they know maybe enough truth to deceive, but they're not really preaching the truth of God. Maybe that's all we need to say. And then we'll go down from verse number one.

I was in a Bible reading one time in Mimico, and I said, we'll start at verse one and go down, and it was silence. So I said, if you don't like verse one, we'll start at verse two. But it would be better to start at verse one.

So that's what we will do and speak about these false prophets among the people. I suppose the fact that what they bring in, damnable heresies, denying the Lord, destruction, shows really that they're false.

They're not bringing anything that's good with them, and their destiny is destruction.

Prophecy, Teaching, and the Foundation of the Church

Isn't there the intended contrast with the end of chapter one? These men did not originate truth with themselves, whereas in chapter two, these men, the thought of there shall be false teachers, there shall arise on their own, men who put themselves forward as being teachers of the word of God who have not really been led of God to speak as they were.

Is there an inference? He doesn't say, but there were false prophets, there shall also be false prophets. Is there an inference in the fact he moves from the prophets to the teachers that the gift of prophecy is already gone?

Amen. Yes.

We're built upon a foundation of the apostles and prophets, that was one of the early in the foundation really of the church. So that is very evident that we have no prophets today. Sometimes we hear it said that there's a prophetic-like ministry.

I think what they mean by that is the prophets spent time in the Lord's presence and come out with a message from the Lord. But we can spend time in his presence. But when we come out with a message, it must be a message that is backed up by the word of God.

We have the whole word of God.

Just a general comment on the chapter. It was evident that false teaching and ungodly living, the world in the church, was well established before the time of Constantine. That would be a reminder to us, a warning that it is possible to affect believers in all ages.

Yes. That would remind you, wouldn't it, of Acts 20, when Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders and he told them that grievous wolves were going to enter in, not sparing the flock. Some from outside and then there were some that would come in from the inside.

So there's a warning, and they're not told to fight against them, not in a physical way. The tares and the wolves go together. God will take care of that at the end, so we're not militant against them in that way.

Of course, what we do, we preach the truth. That's what we need to combat error. We don't need to know all the error that people hold in the world today. It's sad to say some have gone into that and ended up imbibing some of the error.

“The Lord That Bought Them” and the Scope of the Atonement

But they're denying the Lord, Lordship. And it says, the Lord that bought them. Now, you might think, well, if they're bought then they must be saved, but it's a purchase price, a purchase. The price was paid to redeem them, but they certainly aren't redeemed.

Is there...

I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, no. No, please. I just want to say, among the people and then among you, so the difficulty is going to be from within.

Is there in the thought of privily shall bring in, I think literally bring in alongside. So is this the manner in which they work? Alongside of truth, they bring in error. So the truth begins to attract a believer and the error is linked with it.

And before you know it, they're sliding over from truth into error and confusing it.

And I think of the apostle Paul, how he taught the same in the assembly and from house to house. Sometimes when men can't get into the assembly, they'll get into the house of Christians and they'll try and spread their doctrine.

The fact that they were bought would remind us of what you have in Matthew 13. The whole field was bought to obtain the pearl of great price. So the price is paid for Israel. I would take it that's what it is there.

But all of Israel aren't going to be brought into the good of it. So this would be 1 John 2, made propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but the whole world. God had to be satisfied before salvation could be offered to any one of us.

These people never took salvation for themselves, but provision was made. That's good.

I don't think any of us here would subscribe to the doctrine of limited atonement. So I think we're all agreed that the price that was paid was an infinite price far beyond what even was necessary to deliver sinners and that was the giving of Christ's own life.

And yet in this section, it may be that the sovereign Lord despotis, the one who is absolute control of slaves, which he buys, has every right to expect from them obedience. And these who were bought by analogy were the very ones who not only despised him, but despised his people and brought in destructive heresies in order to destroy them.

So nobody's going to deny that the atonement of Christ is unlimited. None of us here would teach that. We believe that propitiation was made for the whole world. But I'm not sure that that is exactly what he's meaning here.

I think it's more the idea by analogy that these are those who claim to be under the control of a master who buys slaves, by analogy. That's what they would have understood from the word despot.

The Corruption and Influence of False Teachers

It's interesting that he deals, Brother Bill, as you likely know, with the corruption of these false teachers. Then he moves on to the course of these false teachers and concludes with the condemnation of these false teachers.

So they're certainly dealt with.

It's amazing in a way how quickly false teaching came in among God's people. I wondered about it. I thought maybe it was some that came in from Judaism and brought some of the grave clothes with them.

Here it would likely be more idolaters. Although I think he's writing to Jews as well, Gentiles. But the things of idolatry where there's immorality all mixed up in it and it didn't take very long for things to depart.

Years ago, I looked at some false teachings that were around. This was in Britain. And every one is an attack on the person of Christ in one way or another. Some insidious, some very direct. But they're denying the Lord that bought them.

In Galatians chapter 2, Paul describes the brethren who were stealthily brought in or brought in secretly, stealthily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus. And that would be to your point there, Bill, about the fact that Jewish legalism was one of the very early forms that came in.

And initially, as you were saying, Sandy, it was a syncretistic thing, as we say. It was sort of like idolatry that began in Israel. It was not a denial of Yahweh or Jehovah. But it was rather, let's bring in this alongside.

He's one of many gods. He's the greatest of the gods. But we still need bail at the time of our crops in order to get the rain and so forth. And then, of course, that downhill slide continues to the point where Jehovah is completely denied.

Like the golden calf. Let's be your God.

God, you're of the land of Egypt. Can I ask you, four times we read that word damnable, destruction, pernicious, and then damnation is the last. It's all the same word, isn't it? What about the idea of swift?

Is this telling us that it's going to come suddenly? Or is it telling us that it's guaranteed? It's actually the same word used in the first chapter, isn't it? Shortly. Is it telling us more the idea that it's guaranteed to come?

I would think so.

Is that what you would think? I personally thought so. And damnable, it's going to bring them down and cause them to be lost. Yeah. You know, they're in destruction. It's sad. You know, you can see this all around us.

You could talk about Russellites and all these kind of Christian scientists and so on. Don't like to mention too many names. But even in the denominations, you go to a funeral. What do you find? You find that everybody's on their way to heaven.

One funeral, the young fellow was drunk and was thrown out of the pickup truck. And what did the preacher preach at his funeral? Well, he said he made a mistake. But even the Lord made mistakes. And the Lord ate on the Sabbath and broke the law.

This is all around us. I'm glad I'm part of an assembly, aren't you? Or at least we try to go by the truth, by what we know. We only know what we put into practice. So it's good to never think of ever going to one of these other places.

Only one place that God has. That's the local assembly.

Judgment Is Certain and God Delivers the Righteous

Brother Bill, would you agree that when it comes to judgment from God, it depends who's being judged, how quickly it is acted upon? Okay, when it starts with the cherubim, the angels, and now these professed teachers, it's swift.

Yet when it comes to the long suffering of God and the patience of God that he has in the day of his grace, we see something totally different.

Yeah, that's good. Paul says to Timothy, some men's sins are open beforehand, going to judgment, and others follow after. There's some immediate, and there's others a long time coming.

So could we say in verse one, we have the ringleaders. But then in verse two, it brings in the rabble, the many that will follow their destructive ways, their riotous behavior. Really, the whole thing is an attack on the way of truth.

It's an attack on righteousness.

Yes, and that's good. We need to keep going. Many shall follow their pernicious ways. They have a following, as many in the world today follow these false teachers, and by whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

They exploit, what am I trying to say? Exploit. Exploit. Is that again? Explode. Deloitte, only different. Explode is your name. It depends what you're trying to say. Exploit is what I'm trying to say.

And they do it by their liberalism, and ritualism, and immorality. And they do it all, I think this was mentioned, in the name of love. So important, the love. And many will follow them. And then verse three, and through covetousness.

They make merchandise of them. They're not in it just for others. They're in it for themselves, with feigned words. And make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not. So the thought there, isn't it?

It's ready to pounce. The judgment's ready to come in.

One of the minor... Go ahead, Bernie. These words that are described as feigned words, really are the idea of plastic words. So they can be molded to suit any situation. And although I do respect you bringing out the cults in this, really, there are many groups, and teachers, and leaders, which are not cultic, that are practicing this.

And it's the idea of the seeker-sensitive movement, right? So we cater to the masses, because the masses have the money, right? So I believe you see that right here. That covetousness that drives their plastic words, which fools these people into giving them money.

We see this in the emergent church all around us. Words that are co-opted, or stolen, or changed in their meaning, or slightly modified. I think of the word missional. We love the word missionary and missions, when we think of people going off to preach the gospel to people who desperately need to be saved and are in darkness.

That's not what they mean by missional. That means going into bars, and into seedy places, and living seedy lives with seedy people, in order to love them, and to be accepted by them. So this is the idea of plasso, or a malleable word that is turned from its original meaning into something that is utterly wrong.

Very good.

Gnosticism and the Distortion of Christ

One of the predominant teachings in those days, and you've probably heard the expression Gnosticism. We're not going to get into all the details. There's books being written on it. One of the things they did was they thought that the Lord Jesus was not the eternal Son of God.

But it was an emanation from God. It inhabited a man. They thought that all material is evil, and spiritual is good. So the material side of you can sin, as long as the spiritual side doesn't. And so they went into licentious living, and they went into all sorts of creeds and everything else.

And reading this just brings to mind things I've read on the Gnostics.

One of the sub-themes of the epistle is influence. And the influence of these men is not just that they lead many astray, but the way of truth itself is evil spoken of. We'll see influence with Lot. We'll see influence with Noah.

But the influence of these men is that the truth itself becomes evil spoken of. So it's not just the introduction of error that takes some astray, but the reflection on the real truth of God itself. So the televangelists, I mean, we would get people into tent meetings until the scandal with all the televangelists broke.

People don't come just cynically. Look at it, you know. Yeah.

So it says, their judgment lingereth not, their damnation or judgment slumbereth not. It's wide awake. God's going to come in. Some might think we've gone on so long. Is God really going to come in and judgment?

Well, he said, no, I'm going to give you some examples of it. And it'd be interesting to know about these angels. There's so many different ideas about angels. Actually, it doesn't tell us who they are or when they sinned.

You might have your own ideas, and I have mine too. But the thought is that God spared not the angels that sinned. Cast them down to hell or Tartarus or the pit and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment.

Now, we know, I would take it, if you look at it as angels, you know, the angels that fell with Satan aren't certainly in the pit. Job would tell us that they appeared before God and so on. And they're quite at liberty in the world.

But there is a group of angels. Some linked it with Genesis 6. We don't want to get into big arguments about how angels could cohabit with men. But whatever it was, God's going to judge it. So any thoughts, we listen to them, but we're not going to get into hot water over it.

The Examples of Noah, Sodom, and Divine Judgment

The other two examples that he uses of God judging evil, the antediluvians in Noah's day, and then Sodom and Gomorrah are both from the book of Genesis. Could this be from Genesis 2?

Genesis 6, I mean. Genesis 2 or Genesis 6? Genesis 6. Well, it's rebellion anyhow in this case. It's a thought, it's rebellion here. And then you have lawlessness next with Noah and then corruption when it comes to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Because there's a similarity, isn't there? I'm not sure, Brother Sandy,.

Did you mention the three worlds that are in this chapter this morning? I mentioned in chapter three, the three worlds. Okay, you've got three here too.

Yeah. Because you've got the angelic world that we're considering, then you have the antediluvian world, then you have the anti-God world. And the result, of course, is always the same in the judgment coming.

It's interesting, our brother David will have a slightly different order in Jude. This is a chronological order. And I would take it that what you've said is where we really should go with this. Not so much when did this happen, but number one, God judged without respect to status, angels.

God judged regardless of size, an entire world. God judged without any reserve, an entire city reduced. And it goes from the celestial to the world, to the local. Global, regional.

Yeah, global, local, and so on. So is there also the inflection here that is not found in Jude, the fact the if of verse number four anticipates the deliverance that is mentioned in verse number nine.

And that's also proven that Noah was delivered and also Lot was delivered.

It's interesting too that no angels are delivered. Yeah. There is no salvation for angels. So this judgment was total. That is, all the ones who were guilty were thrown into Tartarus to whatever occasion this was.

And we get to revisit this tomorrow, so we won't have to linger over it today. But at the same time, when it comes to men, there were those who were delivered. And God's judgment upon the unbelievers was a sure thing, but his salvation of his own people out of that judgment was just as sure.

And he delivered the minority, I think is what it's teaching too. There were only eight delivered from the flood. Now he said, you Christians that I'm writing to, you're in the minority in this big world, but God's able to deliver you.

And it even comes down, not just to a family, but to one man, God's able to deliver.

I think that's important to point out, brother, because notice it says that many, but not all. Okay. So there is a remnant, if you like.

There is those that haven't followed. The character of God is seen here. He made man and he gave him free will. Man sinned. He didn't make angels robots. He gave them free will. They were to worship him.

And here there's angels that sinned. So that's the character of God. He doesn't have robots following him around with mindless activity. But those angels that worship him are worshiping of their free will in recognition of who God is.

What do we do? We worship him of our free will in recognition of who he is. He saved Noah the eighth.

The eighth generation from Adam. So going back, there were eight people, but also he was the eighth generation. So going back to your point, within eight generations, a world that had actually known God in creation.

And actually, if you put all this on a grid, looking at the chronology of it, there were people alive here that would have known Adam. In fact, Adam only died a few years before this. So prevalent was the knowledge of God upon the earth.

And yet men totally rejected it. How quickly apostasy occurs. You have the same thing I was thinking you were mentioning about how quickly things happen. It was the grandson of Moses who introduced idolatry into the tribe of Dan.

So just three generations.

And the angels that saw the glory of God, yet they sinned.

Before we leave verse four, these angels were cast down into hell or Tartarus and delivered into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. So there's a future judgment for angels? Yeah. I would take that, certainly.

Okay. A lake of fire.

What will that determine? What's the judgment to determine? Why will men who are now in hell stand before the judgment seat? I said stand before the great white throne. Degrees of judgment? Well, also God will show them why they are worthy of the judgment they're getting.

Vindicate God. Vindicate God's righteousness. He is absolutely righteous.

Every mouth will be stopped. No excuse. All of the judgments here are only partial or they're physical or they're earthly. The judgment of the flood was not the final fate of those who drowned in the flood.

And of course, the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah was only the first stage of their judgment. Same with the angels. The vengeance of eternal fire.

Isn't it here with the angels, it's the finality of the judgment that's in view? What their end will be? It's already predetermined. And it will take effect in a future day.

And that's proven because he says reserved in verse number four. And that's linked down to the false teachers in verse number 17. Mists of darkness is reserved forever.

So the thing about these different groups is that when we come to the end of verse six, making them an example unto those that after or to those that should live ungodly. So it's even a warning to these false teachers.

They should know that God came in and judgment in the past. But and the believers should realize that these men and women, maybe as well, are going to come into judgment. So we need to learn. What do we learn?

Israel is a lesson book of the church, isn't it? Church is a lesson book for angels. But we learn not to rebel against God's word, not to be lawless. And to keep out of all the corruption that's all around us.

The problem today is we become used to the sin that's all around us. We need to be very careful. We have neighbors living together, not married. We couldn't have had better neighbors, but you kind of forget they're living in sin.

That's what God calls it. So we should have a testimony in the world.

What were you going to say? I was just going to ask you, is the ensample only linked to the second group? Or does it include both? I had wondered if it wasn't just the second making an ensample. So that this is an ensample for all others who should follow that lifestyle.

Specific to verse number six. Specific to that sin and specific to that verse.

It's interesting that the example here is for the ungodly. First Corinthians 10, the example of Israel, the things that are wrong, an example for the believers. But they don't go that way. This is to let them learn the ungodly, learn the outcome of the way that they're living.

Repentance and the Final Judgment

God wishes to save men from eternal and final judgment, the lake of fire. It's interesting in the book of Revelation we have chapter after chapter as we see the series of judgments proceed with harrowing details and graphic descriptions of what's to happen on earth in temporal judgments.

So that those who survive them will take warning as we are to take warning in this chapter and turn to God and repent. But when we come to Revelation 20, when no further chance is available to anyone, God no longer gives us harrowing descriptions or graphic illustrations.

He simply says, and they were cast into the lake of fire and that's the end of it. So in other words, God describes judgments and history teaches us about judgments so that we may take note and repent.

God always wishes men to repent. The Lord in the gospel spoke about those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them and those whose Pilate mingled with their sacrifices. But the sad thing is people say, well, I'm not that bad.

You know, that happened. They must have been really bad, but God's giving warnings and all these things that happen, we should take warnings. And even, well, we think of even among believers, they pass away.

We don't judge why they pass away, but I say to myself, well, you know, I'm not going to be here forever. So it's time I was getting into the book and making something count that comes. But anyhow, he delivered just lot.

Lot’s Righteousness and the Danger of Compromise

Delivered lots, shall not the judge of all the earth do right. Lot was a man, of course, you know, so different from his uncle, Abram. Abram had a tent and an altar. Tent is a symbol of the pilgrim. Altar would be his link with God.

But Lot left. We never read that he ever had an altar. He had a tent and someone, I think Sandy mentioned that could be legalism. You have a tent without an altar. We need to have that link with God. And yet God saw him and God knew he hates sin and Lot hated sin.

He was vexed, it says, with a filthy conversation with the ungodly. He was distressed by what was going on around him. Yet really, he was in the wrong place.

Isn't it true that we focus even in this passage, we focus to Lot going into Sodom. But the whole focus in this passage is Lot being delivered out from Sodom. And it's only this passage, it's only through this passage that we know that Lot was a righteous man, isn't that correct?

Three times.

It is very encouraging amidst all the darkness of this chapter to remember that God always says the best about his believers. Every Old Testament believer brought into the new, God always says the best about them.

That's certainly true of Hebrews 11, isn't it? We get people like Jeff then, we wonder why the big positive review? The reason is their sins and iniquities are no longer remembered. At the end of their life, all that they did that was wrong and all the lessons that we learned from their lives of what not to do are forgotten by God.

He purposely will not remember them. He only remembers the good of his people.

David was a man after God's own heart. He was a murderer, an adulterer, a liar, a deceiver. But that was individual things that he did. The general tenor of his life was pleasing to God. And God doesn't judge us for a single acts in your life.

They will be judged, the acts will be. But your whole life isn't condemned because of it. There's forgiveness with God. He knoweth how to deliver the godly. And he delivers us from many of the situations we foolishly get ourselves into.

In Hebrews 11, there's not one mention of sin. But Hebrews 10, their sins and their iniquities, well, I remember no more. So it is wonderful. That should be an encouragement, but an encouragement to the people to whom this was written.

God's able to deliver a righteous man. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, wasn't he? You're going to be throwing the. Enoch seemed to preach judgment, but somehow it was a preacher of righteousness.

Would that be preaching that God must have his rights? Don't forget God. Could be.

That should be pointed out here, too. I hope I'm not rushing ahead of you. Verse number eight, that righteous man and seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul. A little different thought than verse number seven, where he was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.