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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, good morning. This morning, we're going to continue our study of 2
Peter chapter two. And we're gonna begin just before we left off last time at verse nine, 2
Peter two, verse nine. I'm gonna read the rest of the passage and then we'll begin.
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation 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 uncleanliness and despise government, presumptuous are they, self -willed, not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
Whereas angels which are greater in power and might bring not railing accusations against them before the
Lord, but these as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things they understand not and shall perish in their own corruption and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that count it pleasure to riot in the daytime.
Spots they are 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, they have forsaken the right way and are gone astray, falling the way of Balaam, the son of Bezor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity.
The dumb ass, speaking with a man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet.
These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the midst of darkness is reserved forever.
But when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantedness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
While they promised them liberty, they themselves are servants of corruption.
For of whom a man is overcome, of the same he is brought into bondage.
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through 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 would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment to deliver unto them.
But it has happened unto them, according to the true proverb, a dog is returned to its own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to wallowing in the mud.
That's chapter two of 2 Peter. Let us pray.
Most gracious heavenly father, we thank you once again for bringing us here together in the safety and protection of this building, and in the protection and security that you provide for us.
Bless us and keep us. We know that you are with us always. We know that you have given us your holy word, that we may study it.
We know that you've given us the Holy Spirit to help us to understand what you've written.
And most of all, we know that you have given us your son, who bore on himself our sins, and gave him his righteousness, so we could stand before you unafraid.
Bless us and keep us as we go through all our services today in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
So we are back to verse nine, and that was the very last verse that we left off last time.
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
Matthew Henry had this to say, and I thought this was interesting. The deliverance of the godly is the work of God, that which he concerns himself in, both his wisdom to contrive away, and his power to work out the deliverance out of temptation, to prevent their falling into sin, and their being ruined by their troubles.
And surely, if he can deliver out of temptation, he could keep from falling into it, if he did not see such trials to be necessary.
So I paraphrase that. Why is it that true believers experience trials and tribulations?
Why isn't that just for the ungodly? Because God knows that it is necessary not only for the evil and unjust to be punished, but the righteous to be tested, so that they may develop the skills and the understanding that they need to understand.
They will develop the patience. And we don't like that. We don't like trials and tribulations.
We would just as soon, God say, yes, life is a bed of roses after you accept me.
But he didn't say that. He sees it necessary for even the believers to experience trials, not for punishment, but for growth.
And that's one of the things that we need to keep in our mind as we experience trials and tribulations, is that these are for our benefit, and we will be the better for it, because God sees the way more clear than we do.
John MacArthur said this, the pattern of the plan of God is to rescue the godly before his judgment falls on the wicked.
The wicked are kept like prisoners awaiting for sentencing, sentencing that will send them to their eternal prison.
The final judgment on the wicked is called the great white throne judgment, and that's in Revelation 20.
And in that, all the ungodly of all of the ages will be raised, judged, and finally cast into the lake of fire.
Now, what about the just at that time? The just do not experience the great white throne judgment.
They were found written in the book of life, and they were taken out before the rest of the world has to face the great white throne judgment.
In any case, back to verse nine, and I'm gonna, verse 10, but I'm gonna read verse nine again.
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanliness and despise government, presumptuous are they, self -willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
Now, there's a couple of things here I'd like to point out. Them and they. Who are the them and the they that Peter is talking about?
Who's he talking about? Okay, okay. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanliness and despise government, presumptuous are they, self -willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
Who's he talking about? Is he just talking about a regular run -of -the -mill person that is an unbeliever?
He's talking about a special category of people. We can get that from the first verse in 2
Peter chapter two. But there were false prophets also among you.
This is 2 Peter 2 .1. But that there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you.
So he's talking about the false teachers that he first alluded to in chapter two at the very first verse.
Who privileged shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
There's something else interesting about that. That word Lord that you see in verse one, even denying the
Lord that bought them, it is exactly the same word that in chapter, that in verse 10 is translated as government.
The word in verse 10, but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanliness, and despise, we could read that as Lord as well.
And despise the Lord, presumptuous are they, self -willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
Well, that's the false teachers, like the wicked of Noah and Lot's time, the false teachers of Peter's time, and of our time are slaves to corrupt desires of the flesh.
They identified with Christ outwardly. They pretended to be belonging to Christ.
They identified with Christ outwardly, but they would not live under his Lordship.
The two major characteristics of false teachers are emphasized in this verse. One, lust, and two, arrogance, or presumptuousness.
Presumptuous is to be brazen, audacious, and defiant. They're also self -willed.
Self -willed is to be obstinate, determined in one's own way. And what do they do?
They speak evil of dignities. Jude chapter eight speaks of that.
Likewise, these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, speak evil of dignities.
Yet Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, does not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, the
Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not.
So Jude and Peter have exactly the same picture of these false teachers.
They're speaking of things that they don't know about, but they speak evil of those things which they know not.
But what they naturally know as brute beast in those things, they corrupt themselves.
Now, to speak evil is to ridicule and blaspheme.
Now, dignitaries refers to angels. And these are probably the ones that Jude is talking about, wicked angels.
Angels though, even wicked angels have a level of existence in the supernatural world that is beyond the dignity and transcendent quality about them, which is beyond humanity.
It has a dignity and a transient quality about it that is beyond humanity.
Remember in Psalms when he said, I have made thee a little lower than the angels. And in Hebrews, it also said,
Christ made us a little lower than the angels. Even the most wicked angel has a level of dignity above our own.
And so we would do well not to be too flippant in our response to even what we consider to be false angels.
There's a certain honor that belongs to those beings who live outside of time.
And as a result, we need to be cautious about how we refer to Satan and his angels.
These false teachers that Peter's talking about and that Jude's talking about, it may be that they tried to excuse their wicked lust by pointing their finger to the angels in Genesis 6 who did not keep their proper place.
Jude continues and says, and the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved an eternal, everlasting change under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Now, the blasphemy of these false teachers, even bad angels, demonstrates the arrogance and antipathy toward any authority by these false teachers doesn't matter whether the authority is good or bad.
These false teachers have no respect for authority, neither good authority nor bad authority.
Peter verse 11, 2 Peter 2 verse 11. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusations against them before the
Lord. Unlike false teachers who are defiant toward higher powers, the holy angels so revere their
Lord that they will not speak insults against any authority. Even the
Archangel Michael, recognizing the great presence and power of Satan, refused to speak evil of him, but called on the
Lord to do so. No believer should be so foolish as to mock or commend the power of supernatural demons, especially
Satan. So it's not a good idea to be dabbling with supernatural authorities, demons and especially
Satan. We have a movement in this country today, satanic worship.
And in some places it's overt and you clearly know it's satanic. And other way at times it is kind of hidden in the background.
You don't really recognize that it's satanic until you're so immersed in it that you're almost trapped by it.
And would be trapped by it if you didn't belong to the Lord. Verse 12, but these as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of things they understand not and shall utterly perish in their own corruption.
These false teachers have no sensitivity to the power and the presence of demons or of holy angels.
They have no sensitivity to the power of either. And we must understand that they both have powers.
Demons have powers and so do the holy angels and both have powers beyond us. But like wild animals, insubordinate, insolent and arrogant, they charge into the supernatural realm, cursing away at persons and matters they don't understand.
And since they live like beasts made to be caught and destroyed, the false teachers will be killed like beasts.
False teachers cannot get beyond their own instinct and will thus be destroyed by the folly of those passions.
Verse 13, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that count it pleasure to riot in the daytime.
So bold that they don't even hide their bad doings for the night where it can't be seen, but do it right out in the open in pure broad day light.
Things that we used to sneak around and do in the dark because we knew it was wrong.
They do it in pure broad day light, flaunting it in the faces of everyone.
Things that in my day, we would never allow anybody to know that we did.
They do right out in the open. Immorality and arrogant boldness, however, will not pay in the end.
It will rob and destroy. Sinning during the day without cover of darkness was a sign of wickedness in the
Roman society. But 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. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with wrong deceiving while they feast with you.
They have the opposite character of Christ. The church should not be like the false teachers.
The church should be like their Lord, her Lord. The false teachers deceive while they feast with you.
The false teachers pretend to be teachers of the truth while sitting with Christians at the church love fest were behaving arrogantly and immorally, even on such occasions intended for Christian fellowship.
Though attempting to cover their corruption with religious talk. They were filthy defects on these church gatherings.
Verse 14, having eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin, beguiling unstable souls.
And heart they have exercised with covetous practices, cursed children.
You can see that Peter is not mincing his words about these false teachers. What he's saying is, these false teachers cannot see a woman without seeing a possible partner in adultery.
They have trained and equipped their minds to concentrate on nothing but the forbidden things for which their passions lust.
And the only thing they're really good at is satisfying these lusts.
Verse 15, which have forsaken the right way.
These are the false teachers. Which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray following the way of Balaam, the son of Bezor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.
Balaam was an Old Testament prophet for hire. He was more interested in money than obeying
God. Have you seen, as you look around,
Balaam's in today's society, more interested in money than obeying
God? I see way too many of them.
But Balaam was rebuked for his iniquity. The dumb ass speaking with a man's voice forbade the madness of the prophet.
You know that Balaam was called by Bezor to curse
Israel. And so he said, well,
I'll go talk to the Lord and see what he says. And the Lord says, no, you can't curse Israel.
You gotta bless them. And he couldn't tell. He went back and he told Bezor that. And Bezor said, I can't pay you if you don't curse them.
And he said, boy. So they went round and about. Finally, he agreed. He told
Bezor that, you know, I can only do what the Lord tells me to do. So he said it.
He blessed Israel. But then he got into his head another way, a way around, a way to allow
Bezor to get the effect of Balak, Balak rather, advised
Balak on how to entrap the men of Israel to bring God's curses upon themselves. I can't curse them.
God won't curse them. But you can encourage them to do something to entrap themselves.
And so it was here that God intervened by speaking to Balaam through the mouth of a donkey.
And it's an interesting story. It's a funny story, but we're not gonna do it. Verse 17, these false teachers are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the midst of darkness is reserved forever.
They offer freedom and comfort, but all they deliver is slavery and pain.
Matthew Henry said this, these false teachers have nothing to impart to those who consult them.
The word of truth is the water of life, which refreshes the souls that receive it.
But these deceivers are set upon spreading and promoting error, and therefore are set forth as empty because there is no truth in them.
In vain then are all our expectations of being fed and filled with knowledge and understanding by these who are themselves ignorant and empty.
Again, speaking of false teachers. Verse 18, for when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantedness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
These false teachers deceive the weak with high sounding words that masquerade as scholarship or profound spiritual insight, and even as direct revelation from God.
So they say, I've got something to tell you that I received from God.
God spoke to me and told me to tell you this. If somebody tells you that, you might need to consider who told them that.
God doesn't speak that way in this time. In this time, God speaks through his holy word, and he helps us understand his holy word by giving us access to the
Holy Spirit to allow us to understand it. I don't know that anybody that says,
I've heard from God something, I don't know that that is always wrong.
I do know that there'll come a time when once again, the Lord will speak to people through dreams and prophecies.
I don't think that time is yet. I am always suspicious when somebody says,
I have a direct revelation from God that now I'm going to impart to you. This is something you need to do.
It'll make you free. They may even contradict the plain historical teachings of scripture.
Teachings that in some case, they can't even explain properly because of their lack of training and wisdom.
So they'll contradict what's written in the word. And when you ask them, well, how do you square that with the scripture?
They can't because they don't understand the scripture. And Paul tells us in Corinthians, they don't understand it because they can't understand it.
1 Corinthians 2 .14, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.
Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. So in reality, these false teachers have nothing to say.
They have nothing genuinely scholarly, nor spiritually, nor divine to say to you.
While they promise liberty, they themselves are certain servants of corruption.
For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.
These false teachers promise those trying to escape the struggle of life, the very freedom that they seek.
They, the people are seeking to be free from the trouble of life. And so these false teachers are promising those who are trying to escape the struggles of life, freedom from the struggles of life.
But these false teachers can't deliver the promises that, the freedom they promise, because they themselves are enslaved.
They're enslaved to the very corruption, which the people are trying to escape.
And whosoever puts himself in the name of freedom, into the hands of a false teacher, who is a prisoner himself, also becomes a prisoner.
Bondage to corruption, await the followers of false teachers. Verse 20, for if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worth with them than the beginning.
Now, Peter notes this, that at some point in time, these false teachers and their followers wanted to escape the moral contamination of the world system and sought religion, even
Jesus Christ. But they sought him on their terms, not on his terms.
They set up a schedule, a religion, a way of approaching
Christ, and said, if you want to approach Christ, this is what you got to do.
They became legalistic. They wanted their own way to reach
God. They wanted to escape the contamination of the world system.
They sought a religion, they sought even Jesus Christ, but they wanted Jesus on their terms, not on his.
Well, it's my belief that these false teachers had never genuinely been converted to Christ.
They had heard the true gospel and moved toward it, toward it close enough to know that they didn't want it, and then they rejected it.
That's apostasy. That's like the people of Hebrews 10, 26.
For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for our judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour their adversaries.
To sum it up, their last end is far worse than their first. Matthew Henry says this, the apostle in the last two verses of the chapter sets himself to prove that a state of apostasy is worse than a state of ignorance.
Apostasy is worse than a state of ignorance, for it is condemning the way of righteousness after they have some knowledge of it and expressed some liking to it.
And it carries in it a declaring that they have found in righteousness some iniquity.
Some iniquity in the way of righteousness and some falsehood in the word of truth.
Now to bring up such an evil report upon the good way of God and such a false charge against the way of truth must necessarily expose the heaviest condemnation.
The misery of such deserters of Christ and his gospel is more unavoidable and more intolerable than that of any other offender.
That's Matthew Henry. I really did a bad job of that. Verse 21, for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
Now you understand this, the false teacher that Peter was describing didn't come into being apart from inside Christianity.
Peter was not describing something that was made outside of Christianity altogether.
They're always bred in the church, half in and half out. But they eventually reject the truth and try to seduce others in their attempt to fulfill their self -gratification.
So the false teacher has some relationship to the church. They have some position in the church.
They got some learning from the church. They have some experience with the church.
They got enough to know that they have a better way and they want to seduce you into that better way.
But yes. Good job on that, you're right.
There's a case I know of. One of the people that was sent from this church first two years of existence in 1908 and then left the church.
Had some different things, ended up as a high preacher and was going to that church for a while.
Now she and some other woman were in a group that was
Christian. I think it was by a Jewish leader. Had some group that actually isn't
Judaism. It's like, yeah, we agree about it. And each other had a worship on Sunday.
I mean, on Saturdays. And they're very zealous about this. Bringing them all back in.
Even though it was no Jesus at all. So much is like what's happening today, 2000 years later.
And I think about the sadness of a Jewish priest. I've never thought about what
Matthew said. But now
I'm confused with this. So amazingly, it's worse. First scripture class, that isn't right either.
It's worse than if they can turn out the truth. Because the part that you talked about,
I never heard so well. You said, well, they think they have a better way. They're definitely worse, greater than there's someone who's never told the truth.
They, I never thought of it quite like you said. I thought of it like, okay, they're just false teachers.
I never thought of it like, and then we look at grace and they say, well, I don't like that.
I've got a better way. I'll pull people out of that church. And they never really went that way.
They tend to do that. You know, we'll grab brand new Christians that don't know anything about Jesus.
The garbage to them. So those are the things that I think like Matthew's speech.
Well, thank you. I want to reread something that, now to bring up such an evil report upon the good way of God and such a false charge against the way of truth must necessarily expose the heaviest condemnation.
And what they are, they are looking at Jesus and the way and the truth and the perfect way set up by a perfect man with infinite power and saying,
I have a better way. You can't pick better words than arrogant for that. How arrogant can you be?
Right. And again, these people, these false teachers just didn't appear out in the world.
They came from inside Christianity. They came from the church, but they were only half in and half out.
Eventually they reject the truth and they can't leave it there. They've got to seduce other people to leave with them.
Now, and they do it for their belly, yeah.
Like Balaam. They try to seduce others in their attempt to fulfill their own self gratification.
It's not enough just to go. I can't remember what it is, but Jesus talking to the
Pharisees told them, it's not enough. This is my way out. Just to paraphrase, it is not enough that you want to chase after evil yourself, but you want to make everyone that you have contact with follow along with you and make them more evil than you.
Well, Peter goes on to say, but it just happened to them, according to the truth proverb, a dog is returned to its own vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
Well, that is probably about as ugly of a way that it can be described.
But I think he was trying to describe them in the most, he took the most evil animal, the two most evil animals that the
Jews could see, the dog and the pig. And they say, it's not enough to be a dog and a pig, but when the dog purges himself of the evil by throwing up, he walks around circles twice, comes back and makes it up again.
And you take this pig and you know how dirty pigs are. And you get your brush and your soap and you scrub them down and you get them nice and clean.
And they're just so pretty little piggies. And you let them out and what do they do?
They go right back and wallow in the same mud you took them out of. Brother Otis said this, we always do what we wanna do.
So if it is in our nature to want to be evil, that's what we will be.
God underwrites man's deliberate choice. So in the end, we will all go to our own place.
If we're like the dog, we'll wind up where the dog winds up.
If we're the sow, we'll wind up in the pig wall. But if we belong to Christ, we'll wind up clean.
And that's the good news. These false teachers, how many people will follow them?
Lots of people will follow them. In fact, there may be more people following false teachers than true teachers.
But how many of God's children will they get? None. They'll get none of God's children.
They will take all the people that are dancing around the edge of the churches, around the edge and bring them out.
They'll lead them astray. They may lead some good people out for a while, but the
Lord will bring them back. If there he is, he'll bring them back and he will allow, like he's allowed me to live to be 75 years old.
And one of the reasons he allowed me to be 75 years old is so that he didn't take me out too soon before I got back to where I ought to be.
And am I back to where I ought to be? I don't think I'm there yet. And so he's giving me some more time.
He's allowing me a little more time. If I were where I ought to be, I would boom up right now,
I think. I keep checking to see if he's taken me yet.
Now, I don't know if he'll take me up that way. I may just fall over the floor. That's probably the way
I will go. But I'm convinced that all of us in here,
I guess I forget I'm talking to a lot of other people. I think most of us belong to the
Lord. And I don't think that the Lord is gonna allow you to die too soon.
It was, I think it was Sherman that said he was immortal until he finished his job.
Because the Lord wouldn't let him go until it was time. So he wasn't afraid to ride back and forth across the, that was
Stonewall Jackson, wasn't it? Yeah, I had the wrong army and the wrong side.
Yes, I am just invincible. They can shoot at me, although, of course, they didn't shoot him and kill him.
But he was one of his own men, by accident, because it was time for him to go.
So he was right. He was immortal until the time it came for the Lord to take him. We can keep that in mind, that'd be good for us,
I guess. Any other comments or questions? I think I've run over into Brother David's time a little bit.
But in any case, most gracious heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for all our many blessings.