WWUTT 366 Waterless Springs?

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The Apostle Peter refers to false teachers as waterless springs, and Jude calls them waterless clouds.

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Waterless springs and waterless clouds? Doesn't make sense. That sounds like a contradiction. Yeah, that's exactly the point, when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. And greetings, everybody.

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This week, we will conclude our study of 2 Peter 2, which we've been committed to over the last several weeks, the apostles' warning concerning false teachers.

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And we have one more section to look at, verses 17 through 22. If you want to open up your

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Bible and join with me there, Peter says, concerning false teachers, these are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm.

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For them, 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.

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They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.

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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

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

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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.

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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.

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So again, Peter is talking about false teachers, as we began this chapter with him saying, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

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Just as there were false prophets that came about in Israel and led the people astray, and God brought judgment on those false prophets, so there will be false teachers that will arise even among us in the church.

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Paul warned the Ephesian elders about this in Acts chapter 20, that from among you there would be wolves that would come about in an attempt to devour the sheep, and so we must be on watch for them.

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Just as God brought the false prophets of old into judgment, so he will bring judgment on these false teachers as well.

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We read about that in verses 4 through 10. Last week we were looking at verses 10 through 16, and here we are in verses 17 through 22.

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This is kind of like Peter's reprise here. He's coming back again to reiterate things that he has warned about concerning these false teachers.

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Just to make sure that I'm clear, just so you understand me here, here's what you expect of these false teachers.

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Here's what they're doing, and here's how they are leading people astray. So again in verse 17, these are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, and it's here that I actually appreciate the

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King James rendering of this a little bit better, or more specifically, the New King James, where it says that they are clouds driven by a tempest, mists driven by a storm.

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That's a little difficult to understand. Jude puts it this way, they are waterless clouds that are driven by a storm, and Peter is likely using the same language here, but for whatever reason in the

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ESV it's translated mists driven by a storm. Both metaphors mean the same thing.

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These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, or waterless clouds. It means that they promise water, but don't deliver.

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Nothing actually comes from these false teachers. You think that you're going to get refreshing. You think that you are going to receive the washing of water by the

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Holy Spirit through the word, as talked about in Ephesians chapter 5 and Titus 3 and other places, this regeneration of the

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Holy Spirit. You think that's what you would get from what it is that they are saying, but they can't deliver on it. It doesn't happen.

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The regeneration, the refreshing of the water of the Holy Spirit is never there because they do not actually have the

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Holy Spirit in them, and the words that they speak do not come from God. So what they are enticing with, and though it seems refreshing, nothing ever comes of it.

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Let me give you an example of this from a recent interview with Anne Voskamp. And Voskamp is notorious for just making stuff up.

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And the people who love Voskamp are just not being critical enough to evaluate her words and realize she's not actually saying anything at all.

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In fact, she makes so much stuff up that she even makes up her own words. And that's going to come about in this interview as well.

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This was an interview with Randy Robison in his program called Life Today.

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This was back in October. I remember seeing the video on YouTube. Here is a snippet of that interview with Anne Voskamp.

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After I wrote 1 ,000 Gifts, and 1 ,000 Gifts was really, again, gathering around the Lord's Supper. Jesus took the bread, gave thanks.

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And it was about counting a thousand things I loved, a thousand ways I've been blessed, and really stepping into hearing people's stories of how they were blessed over the last five years, but also hearing people's deep brokenness, pain and suffering that they were facing.

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How did they give thanks in really hard, dark places? And coming back to that Lord's Supper, what does

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Jesus do after He gives thanks? He gives thanks. He breaks the bread and He gives it.

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And I wanted to step into how do you live with your one broken heart? What is the answer to pain and suffering in the world?

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How do you live an abundant life in a world that feels broken? And in coming to the place of,

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I wanted shape to my days. I wanted to know how do you shape your life into abundance in a world of brokenness?

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And if the dare in 1 ,000 Gifts was, could I give thanks for a thousand things? The dare that I stepped into in the broken way is every morning taking that same pen that I'd written out a thousand things

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I was grateful for, taking that pen and penning a cross on my wrist, a shape that I wanted my days to have.

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That cross is really a symbol of brokenness, of weakness, of suffering, yet in the upside down kingdom, it's a symbol of power and transformation and resurrection and abundance.

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So the broken way really was taking this dare to live cruciform, to live broken and given out into the world in the midst of my own brokenness, that I didn't have it all together, that I, sometimes

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I think we can only be given out into the world once we think we're perfect, once we think we have it together and realizing that no, deep communion, deep wholeness, deep healing happens when

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I'm vulnerable enough to share my own brokenness with other people. That was basically a two minute answer of sentence fragments.

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If you came away from that understanding what she was talking about, your mind is playing tricks on you.

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That did not make any sense. She did not even think that answer through before she gave it because she would stop mid sentence and then start a completely different thought.

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Anyway, she had two symbols there that she redefined to mean something that they don't actually mean.

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The broken bread at the last supper and the cross, which she said that she penned on her wrist to represent a cruciform life, which is a word, just not the way that she uses it.

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Anyway, let's talk about the broken bread. What did she say the broken bread represented? She said Jesus gave thanks and then he broke the bread, which represented her brokenness.

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And when she talks about brokenness, she's not talking about like broken in her sinfulness and repenting before God.

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That's not what brokenness means. Brokenness means her inadequacies. It means not having it all together.

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That's the way that she defined it. Jesus specifically said what the bread represented when he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples.

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What did he say? It was this is my body, which is broken for you.

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This is the cup of the new covenant that represents the blood that has been spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

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Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, remember what it is that I have done for you.

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That's what those things represent. He specifically said what they represented. But Ann Voskamp is putting herself in the place where Christ belongs.

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It represents the broken body of Christ, not Ann Voskamp's inadequacies.

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OK, and then there was the cross. And what did she say the cross represented? She said it represents brokenness, weakness and suffering.

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But again, as defined by Voskamp, her inadequacies, her insecurities, the inability to perform on a level of her expectations.

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That's not what the cross represents. The cross represents the great price that was needed for our sin and rebellion against God.

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And what we deserve for that was his wrath. But instead, Christ died in our place and absorbed the wrath of God as a propitiation for our sins, which is what that word means.

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It means the wrath of God was satisfied and the penalty, the price that needed to be paid for our sins was paid in full by Christ.

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So now we stand before God justified. We are innocent, not because of anything that we have done, but because of what

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Christ has done for us. The cross represents the love and the wrath of God.

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We see the love of God in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross who loved us so much not to leave us dead in our sins, but gave his son as a sacrifice.

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And we also see the wrath of God poured out upon Christ, his perfect son dying in our place.

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So it's incredibly profound that the cross is a cross. It is the crossing of God's love and his wrath, his love for us to satisfy his wrath in the giving of his son.

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But Voskamp redefines the cross to mean something totally man -centered.

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Instead of Christ glorifying. Here's another example. This is from the same interview where she takes yet something else and redefines it to mean something that it doesn't mean.

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Lots of times we don't know the answers to pain and suffering at all, but we do know that whatever the reason is, it has to be a profoundly transformative necessary reason because God himself enters that suffering.

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God himself is willing to feel the brokenness. God himself cries with us in the brokenness. God himself, history really is the tears of God.

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He's willing to sit in the brokenness and not escape the brokenness. Whatever the reason is for the suffering,

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God himself is willing to experience it. So it has to be worthwhile. And number two, I think the answer to suffering, sometimes we don't want an explanation from God as much as we want an experience with God, that he comes and he's with us in the brokenness.

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The book really explores that. I believe that good brokenness breaks bad brokenness, that the good brokenness of being broken and given, that we reach out and break ourselves and give a bit of ourselves to someone else in their bad brokenness, that breaks the bad brokenness.

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Just doesn't make sense. Good brokenness breaks bad brokenness.

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Anyway, okay, so at the beginning of that, she said that, oh,

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I can't even formulate a thought now. And I promise I'm not editing this. Like it sounds like, what just happened there?

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She didn't even finish her thought. She started something else. That was unedited. That was exactly the way her answer came out.

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Anyway, she made the comment about, we don't understand suffering. We don't even know why suffering happens, but whatever the reason, it's got to be incredibly profound because God is willing to come into our suffering and not take himself out of it, but suffer with us.

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And history represents the tears. I'm trying to do this with a straight face.

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I really am. We know what the reason for suffering is.

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We know what it is. It's because of sin. That's why there's suffering in the world.

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Paul talks about it in Romans chapter eight. All things have been subjected to futility because of sin.

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So why do we, once we are saved and we stand before God as justified, why do we continue to go through this world and experience that suffering?

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Because of sanctification. God is using that suffering to make us more in the image of his son.

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And we share in the sufferings of Christ when we go through the things that he went through. And that means being persecuted for our faith.

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It doesn't mean wrestling with our inadequacies. It means representing

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Christ and then people ridicule us for it, but we stand firm on his name anyway, just as Christ was persecuted and put to death for being the son of God.

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So we are going to be ridiculed and persecuted by people in this world because we would be with Christ, because we're part of that eternal kingdom instead of part of this fallen world.

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That's clearly spelled out in scripture and nothing that Voskamp has said uses the

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Bible at all. She doesn't even know her own thoughts well enough to form a consistent, conclusive answer.

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She gets midway through a sentence and has to stop and comes up with something completely different. Anyway, so what does this have to do with what we read in 2

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Peter 2 17? These are waterless springs misdriven by a storm. For them, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

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So once again, they look like they're offering something refreshing. It sounds like Voskamp is going to be offering something that's going to revive my spirit and refresh my soul.

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And there are some women in particular that will listen to what it is that she said and think that there was something refreshing in that.

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But there's nothing there. And it's a complete contradiction, which is what you have in a waterless spring.

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How can a spring be waterless if there's no water there? It's not a spring. Right. Precisely. All she does is so confusion.

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There is nothing there that is a consistent, truthful thought according to the

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Holy Spirit of God. It's just according to the flesh of Van Voskamp. So she is a waterless spring, a waterless cloud driven by a storm.

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And for teachers such as this, if they do not repent of what it is that they are teaching and teach the sound words of God, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

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What really sweet and Voskamp would be cast into the outer darkness?

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Yes. If she does not repent of her false teaching and rest in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which she does not teach.

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Then what will end up happening to her is exactly what is being said by Peter will happen to these false teachers.

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In first Timothy, chapter one, verse three, this is this is the way Paul starts his letter with Timothy.

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He says, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

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In first Corinthians, chapter four, he warned the Corinthians not to go beyond what is written, but only that which flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Paul goes on with Timothy, first Timothy, chapter four to say, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

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Before this, he says, hold fast to the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

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Rather, train yourself for godliness for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is a value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

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So what it is that we need to hear about is not how to draw a cross on your wrist as a representation of living a cruciform life, all right?

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What we need to hear is the gospel of Jesus Christ and that those who are in Christ are more than conquerors through him who loved us, meaning that everything that we experience in this life is used for an ultimate purpose and that is growing us in sanctification and holiness to shape us more in the image of Christ.

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That's clearly defined in Romans chapter eight, but Voskamp does not even use any scripture in anything she says.

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It's just talking off the top of her head and it means nothing. It sounds like she has something to offer, but there's nothing actually there.

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And when deviating from the sound gospel, the true words of Jesus Christ and that which pertains to godliness, when deviating from that message, what you end up with is irreverent silly myth, which

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Paul clearly says to stay away from. And those who teach in a way that they become waterless springs and waterless clouds, for them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

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Proverbs 16 for the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

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And so we must repent from false teaching and hold fast and firm and true to the sound words of Jesus Christ and that which pertains to godliness.

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Verse 18 for speaking, I'm back in second Peter chapter two again, verse 18 for speaking loud boasts of folly.

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They entice by sensual passions of the flesh. Those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

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So in verse 17 we have those teachers that entice by offering something refreshing that doesn't deliver on what it is that they are promising.

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In verse 18 you have those false teachers that are even offering a gratification of the flesh.

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Like you can still do this and and still be a godly person.

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You can satisfy all the desires of your flesh and God is still going to give you the desires of your heart for speaking loud boasts of folly.

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They entice by sensual passions of the flesh. Those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

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So they're very weak in their faith, probably very young in their faith, maybe new converts and they look at these

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Bible teachers who are able to live in the passions of their flesh and they go, oh, hey, I can still have the life that I had before I became a

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Christian as a Christian and I know that that that I'm still saved in God anyway.

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No, they are false teachers. Those who live in the passions of their flesh and there is not there is not an evidence or a longing for the holiness of God in their life, but instead still living in a way that looks like the rest of this world.

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They are false teachers in the way that they live enticing people with their sensual passions of the flesh.

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They promise them freedom verse 19, but they themselves are slaves of corruption for whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved.

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So what has overcome you? Are you overcome with a desire for holy living, hating your sin and wanting to live in righteousness, wanting to live as Jesus lived?

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Is that what has overcome you that longing and that desire to be as your savior or is what is overcoming you the passions of the flesh, the desires of this world, the temptations of the things that are around you to live as others live to earn their approval to have the things that they have to maybe have one foot in the world and one foot in heaven's gate.

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How can I still have the passions of my flesh and still be pleasing to God at the same time?

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I'm telling you, you can't be, but maybe you're trying to find a way that you can be. If that's what's overcome you, then you are still in the flesh and the kinds of teachers that you will be seeking after will be the ones that scratch your itching ears.

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But if what has overcome you as a desire for the righteousness of God, then the teachers that you will listen to will be those who preach the gospel and speaking the words of the

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Holy Spirit of God, you will be convicted in your sin. Their preaching does not make you comfortable.

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It makes you hate your sin and long for the things of God. The sound doctrine, which pertains to godliness, let that be what our hearts desire.

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The things that give glory to God and Christ Jesus, our Lord, not a man -centered message, but a

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Christ glorifying gospel. Let us pray. Our Lord God, I pray that this would be the attitude of our hearts to long for the things of God, to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness.

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And all these other things will be added to us. All these things that we need, you will provide for us and you will take care of us.

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If we seek first your kingdom, help us to understand what it means to have been raised with Christ.

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And we are seeking the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, setting our minds on things that are above, not on things that are here on this earth.

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Lord, as David prayed, turn my eyes away from worthless things.

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Preserve my mind according to your word. Help us to meditate on the things of God as we go throughout our day and every temptation that comes our way, we're taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ, to whom we give all glory and honor now and forever.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.