Sunday School: Walking in the Way of Balaam (2 Peter 2:15-22)

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

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New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Now to give you kind of a timetable here of where we are, we're going to finish up chapter two today, and then we've got three more

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Sundays to do chapter three. And then on September the 12th, we're to begin first Thessalonians.

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So that's currently the progress that we're making in our study of finishing up first and second

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Peter, and then going to first and second Thessalonians. That's where we'll be next. So second Peter chapter two is we've been talking about these false teachers.

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We're going to be picking up talking about Balaam today. So we're even going to go to Numbers 22 and read that story there.

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So in second Peter two, we're starting in verse 15, and I'm going to read to the end of the chapter, forsaking the right way, they have gone astray.

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Having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but he received a rebuke for his own lawlessness, for a mute donkey, speaking out with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.

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These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm for whom the black darkness has been kept.

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For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by sensual lusts of the flesh those who barely escape from the ones who conducted themselves in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption.

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For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and having again been entangled in them, then the last state has become worse for them than the first.

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For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.

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The message of the true proverb has happened to them. A dog returns to its own vomit, and a sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.

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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider these words again today, as we look at the distinction between those who teach rightly and those who teach falsely,

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I pray that you are sharpening our discernment, that we come to know and love the truth first and foremost, that it fills our hearts, that the passions of our mind and heart would be for Christ and not for the desires of our flesh, that we would not desire to entertain the flesh and then go after all the things that get promised to us by false teachers, but we love the

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Holy Spirit of God that has been given to us. We love the spiritual promises that we enjoy, and most of all, the promise of eternal life with Christ in glory.

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May that be our yearning, not for things that are titillating to the flesh in the here and now, but the things that are fully satisfying in the eternal spirit of our

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God and King, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in his name that we pray, and all

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God's people said, amen. So we're here as we continue the examples that Peter has been giving about false teachers.

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We read last week about how they're unreasoning animals. They're born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, blaspheming where they have no knowledge.

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And just like those animals are going to be destroyed, so those false teachers are going to be destroyed in the judgment that is to come.

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When we made comparisons between what Peter says here to what Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned about in their prophecies as well, talking about how those who were faithful to the

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Lord would not be annihilated, but they were those false teachers who were leading astray and the judgment of God was going to come upon them.

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So they would not get out of the exile alive. They were actually going to perish in the Babylonian exile.

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And so we see similar language that Peter is using here. Just as judgment is coming upon all that has been created, so it is going to come upon those false teachers.

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They're not going to be delivered from the judgment that is to come. They will perish. But all in God's good timing, as Peter is going to talk about when we get to chapter 3.

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So they suffer unrighteousness, it says in verse 13, as the wages of their unrighteousness, considering it a pleasure to revel in the daytime.

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They have eyes that are full of adultery. They are unceasing in sin, enticing unstable souls, and they have hearts trained in greed.

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They are accursed children. And as we continue these examples, Peter then gives us the example of a false teacher who himself was trained in greed.

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Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.

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But he received a rebuke for his own lawlessness for a mute donkey. Speaking out with the voice of a man restrained the madness of the prophet.

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Here we've heard about how these false teachers are like unreasoning animals, right?

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That was back in verse 12. And then when we get to the end of chapter 2, it says the message of the true proverb has happened to them, a dog returns to its own vomit, and a sow after washing returns to wallowing in the mire.

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So you see these comparisons that we have to animals. And yet, how low is it?

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How low does Peter bring these false teachers down to say even an animal could correct how falsely these teachers speak?

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Take Balaam, for example, who was corrected by his own donkey. And his madness was prevented.

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Could have been worse than it was, but God had slowed the false prophet from doing what he was going to do.

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So let's look at that together. Let's look at this example in Numbers chapter 22.

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So open up in the Old Testament to Numbers 22. Now, I've been reading out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible in 2 Peter chapter 2. If you have the New American Standard, it's pretty close to that.

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In Numbers 22, I'm going to be reading from the New American Standard. So this is the story of Balaam.

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And this story goes a few chapters. It's 22 through 24, but we're only going to concentrate here on what's said here in Numbers 22.

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So the sons of Israel journeyed and camped in the plains of Moab beyond the Jordan, opposite Jericho.

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Now Balak, the son of Zippor, saw all that Israel had done to the

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Amorites. So Moab was in great fear because of the people, for they were numerous.

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And Moab was in dread of the sons of Israel. Moab said to the elders of Midian, now this horde will lick up all that is around us as the ox licks up the grass of the field.

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And Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of Moab at that time.

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So he sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Beor, at Pether, which is near the river in the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying, behold, a people came out of Egypt.

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Behold, they cover the surface of the land, and they are living opposite me.

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Now therefore, please come, curse this people for me, since they are too mighty for me.

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Perhaps I may be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.

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Now, if you'll recall from the account that's given to us in Exodus, it's repeated here in Numbers as well, the number of the children of Israel that came out of Egypt was somewhere around a million and a half.

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It was a great multitude of people, and there has never been a group of people traversing the land as large as the

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Israelites were ever. Like, you have a million and a half people, they already have a country of their own.

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They already have cities that they're settling in. They're not going anywhere, right? But Israel here is wandering through the land that God is guiding them through, and here they have come to camp opposite of Moab.

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There are over 600 ,000 men who have been counted in the census who are ready for war, over 600 ,000 soldiers.

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They could destroy any city that they come up against, and especially because the

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Lord their God was with them. And so, the king of the Moabites is quite concerned about the presence of the

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Israelites there. But if somebody comes and curses the Israelites for them, well, then maybe we'll succeed against the

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Israelites. So, that's what Balaam's getting hired to do. So, the elders of Moab, verse 7, and the elders of Midian departed with the fees for divination in their hand.

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In other words, we're going to go pay a guy who's going to go curse the Israelites for us. They came to Balaam, and they repeated

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Balak's words to him. And he said to them, spend the night here, for I will bring back word to you as the

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Lord may speak to me. Now, when we went through the story of Lot, I asked you repeatedly, was

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Lot a righteous man? Do you remember that a couple of weeks ago? Was Balaam a righteous man? No.

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And just like we had in 2 Peter 2, it said to us that Lot was a righteous man.

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He was tormented in his righteous soul. So, everything that we read about Lot in Genesis, we can know and understand that he was righteous because of what the apostles said about him.

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Now, Balaam is being spoken about here as a false teacher. There is nothing good in this man's heart.

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So, whatever we read about Balaam here in Numbers 22, we should not be led to think that, oh, this was just a man who feared

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God and wanted to do God's will. Now, this is a man who has greed in his heart, just as Peter said.

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He's doing what he's doing for money. But at the same time, Balaam seems to also know his limits, okay?

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So, Balaam says, spend the night here. God's going to speak to me and he's going to tell me what to do.

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And the leaders of Moab stayed with Balaam. Verse 9, then God said to Balaam, who are these men with you?

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And Balaam said to God, Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent word to me.

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Behold, there is a people who came out of Egypt and they covered the surface of the land and now come and curse them for me.

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Perhaps I may be able to fight against them and drive them out. God said to Balaam, do not go with them.

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You shall not curse the people for they are blessed. So, Balaam arose in the morning and said to Balak's leaders, go back to your land for the

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Lord has refused to let me go with you. The leaders of Moab arose and went to Balak and said,

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Balaam refused to come with us. Then Balak again sent leaders, more numerous and more distinguished than the former.

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They came to Balaam and said to him, thus says Balak, the son of Zippor, let nothing

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I beg you hinder you from coming to me, for I will indeed honor you richly and I will do whatever you say to me.

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Please come then, curse this people for me. Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold,

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I could not do anything, either small or great, contrary to the command of the

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Lord my God. But is

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Balaam a righteous man? No. He says the Lord my God. But this is a man who thinks in his wicked heart that he's using

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God to accomplish for himself what he thinks would need to be done in order to earn the riches that he is after.

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So God is a servant to Balaam rather than Balaam being a servant to God.

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That's where he's at in his own wicked mind. But God is not going to do for him what

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Balaam would need to do in order to curse the people of Israel and then get the riches that he wants to get from Balak.

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So for the time being, he says to them, I can't accomplish this thing. Doesn't matter how much you want to pay me,

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I won't be able to do what you're paying me to do. In verse 20, it says that, oh,

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I'm sorry, is that where I ended? Oh, verse 19. Now, please, you also stay here tonight and I will find out what else the

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Lord will speak to me. Verse 20, God came to Balaam at night and said to him, if the men have come to call you, rise up and go with them, but only the word which

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I speak to you shall you do. Verse 21, so Balaam arose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the leaders of Moab.

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But God was angry because he was going, and the angel of the

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Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now, let's stop there. So this is kind of curious, and I remember from even when

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I was back in high school, people raising questions about this. So God says, go, and Balaam goes, but then while he's going,

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God gets angry with him. Even though God told him to go, and yet God gets angry with him anyway.

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Why? Anybody have any guesses? Why would God tell him to go, but then get angry with Balaam for doing what

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God told him to do? Could be the motive of his heart, right.

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So he said go, but Balaam goes with wrong intentions. Could be that.

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Anybody else have a guess? Right.

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But they didn't come, right. Okay, so that seems to be the indicator there, that God says, if the men come to you, then go.

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That's going to be the sign that God was with Balaam. But Balaam doesn't wait for the men to come.

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He just goes with them. So that seems to be what stirs the

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Lord's anger here. Now, to kind of back that up a little bit, I went to a couple of commentaries. Matthew Henry had an interesting take, where he said, we must not think that because God does not always, by his providence, restrain men from sin, therefore he approves of it, or that it is not hateful to him.

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So in other words, from Matthew Henry's perspective, God allows Balaam to go, but that doesn't mean that God was okay with him going.

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So that's one perspective. Matthew Poole, who was a contemporary of Matthew Henry, he said the following.

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Because Balaam went of his own accord with the princes of Moab and did not wait till they came to call him, he urged him to go, which was the sign and condition of God's permission, but rather himself rose and called them, as it may seem from Numbers 22, 21.

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So your answer was what Matthew Henry said, and your answer was what

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Matthew Poole said. So we have a couple of different viewpoints here on what may have been the instance, but nevertheless, what we do know from the story is that Balaam surely was not a man who feared

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God, not in a way that was reverent and worshipful unto God. This was a man who was following his own heart, desiring riches from this, that he was not even willing to wait and see what was going to happen based on the instructions that God gave him.

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So God becomes angry with Balaam. The angel of the Lord took his stand as an adversary against him.

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So we continue on in verse 22 here. Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him.

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When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword at his hand, the donkey turned off from the way and went into the field, but Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into the way.

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Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path of the vineyard with a wall on this side and a wall on that side.

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And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pressed herself to the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall.

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So he struck her again. The angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn to the right hand or to the left.

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But when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she laid down under Balaam so that Balaam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick.

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And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey and she said to Balaam, What have

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I done to you that you have struck me these three times? Then Balaam said to the donkey, as if this wasn't even really all that unusual, right?

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I'm having a conversation with my mule. Balaam said to the donkey, because you have made a mockery of me, if there had been a sword in my hand,

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I would have killed you by now. The donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day?

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Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you? The animal is reasoning with Balaam with a logic that Balaam is not using.

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And he says no. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw the angel of the

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Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed all the way to the ground.

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The angel of the Lord said to him, why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary because your way was contrary to me.

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There we have it. However we interpret Balaam's going in God's anger with Balaam, there's our answer.

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Because Balaam's intentions are contrary to God. So God has become an adversary to Balaam.

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Whoever is against God, God is an adversary to him. And we must understand that too as we're talking about these false teachers here in 2

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Peter 2. That they have spoken against what

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God has said according to his prophets and his apostles. So therefore God is an adversary to them.

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And he will come against them. And though these men lead people astray now, it's not that God's judgment is asleep.

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It will come upon those men. And so those men, the false teachers, men or women, they need to fear the judgment of God.

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And likewise we need to know the judgment of God that comes against false teaching. So that we're warned in our hearts.

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And we will not go astray after the wrong ways of these men that are contrary to the word of God.

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So again God says to Balaam, I've come out as an adversary because your way was contrary to me.

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Verse 33. But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times.

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If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now.

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And I would have let her live. The false prophet has a lower status than even a donkey here.

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His life is worth less than a mule's. And in Romans chapter 3 verse 12 we are told that all of us who run contrary to God have made ourselves worthless.

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Our worth comes from Christ. Now we do have an inherent worth in the sense that we are made in the image of God.

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So absolutely we are to treat one another as image bearers of the Lord.

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And it's the fact that we are image bearers of God has made our sin against God so awful.

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So much worse than anything that anything else in creation has done.

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A lion kills an antelope because that's what it's in its nature to do.

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But the lion to do this thing to feed that it may live is not doing something wicked or sinful.

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The sinful wickedness is what mankind does because we were made in the image of God.

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And we did what was contrary to whose image we were made in. This is why our sin is so wicked.

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This is why the sin of mankind is so bad. You consider that it was the sin of two people in the

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Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve who ate of a tree that God told them not to eat from.

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And all of the universe, the entire cosmos was sent into upheaval.

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Because that which was made in God's image did what was contrary to God. And that caused all of creation to come into disarray.

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As Paul says in Romans 8, all of creation has been subjected to futility. So we were made with worth.

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Genesis 1 says God looked at his creation and behold it was very good.

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But we made ourselves worthless when we sinned against God.

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So that our fall and our destruction will be greater than the judgment that comes upon anything else in creation.

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That would be our lot, that would be our end if not for Christ.

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And it is Christ who has died on the cross for us and risen again from the grave. And by faith in what he accomplished in his life and his death and in his resurrection.

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We are made new, we are born again. And we are being made in the image of Christ as it says in Romans 8 .29.

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Being conformed to his image. And now we have been made worthy, we were worthless because of our sin.

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We've been made worthy to fellowship with God and live with him forever.

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And stand in his presence and even be called friends of God. Not because of what we have done but because of what

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Christ has done for us. Even reading here about Balaam and that God would favor

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Balaam's donkey over Balaam himself. That should be humbling to us, that should humble us.

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To recognize how bad our sin is, that it makes us even lower than animals.

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And that's what we do to ourselves. We make ourselves worthless when we go astray from God's way.

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And this is how God is coming against Balaam here. Said, I would have killed you and let your animal live.

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Verse 34, Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have sinned.

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For I did not know that you were standing in the way against me. Is that an excuse? Is it an excuse for us to be able to say,

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I didn't know I was sinning. I didn't know I was going against God.

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God is holy and we are not. God is just in all his ways.

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And so if he wants to destroy us, he can. And he is guilty of no wrongdoing.

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But he's merciful toward us. He is gracious. As it says in Romans 2,

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God's patience, his kindness toward you is meant to lead you to repentance.

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The love of God that is demonstrated for us in Christ on the cross.

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So that we would turn from our sin to Jesus Christ and live. Balaam's being given another chance here.

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But we know by the condition of his heart, especially Peter having spoiled the end of the story for us.

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Says to us that Balaam was a wicked man who forsook the right way.

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So God says to Balaam, verse 35. Well, I'm sorry, let me finish what

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Balaam said. So Balaam says, now then, if it is displeasing to you, I will turn back.

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Verse 35, but the angel of the Lord said to Balaam, go with the men. But you shall speak only the word which

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I tell you. So Balaam went along with the leaders of Balak. And when Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at the city of Moab, which is on the

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Arnon border, at the extreme end of the border. Then Balak said to Balaam, did I not urgently send to you to call you?

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Why did you not come to me? Am I really unable to honor you? It's insulting.

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It's insulting to the king that I offered you all these treasures and you wouldn't come. Is what I'm offering you not enough?

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So Balaam said to Balak, behold, I've come to you now. Am I able to speak anything at all?

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The word that God puts in my mouth, that I will speak. And so we go on to hear the prophecies of Balaam in chapters 23 and 24.

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And instead of cursing Israel, he what? He blesses Israel because that's the word that God put in his mouth.

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But still, though God's word was in Balaam's mouth, as wicked a man as he was,

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God's word was not in his heart. And he did not love the Lord God.

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He did not fear God in a reverent fear that worshiped the

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Lord, that bowed to his will. Instead, Balaam still tries to go his own way. And as Peter says to us here, coming back to 2

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Peter 2, verse 15. Forsaking the right way, they've gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.

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Now, if Balaam had really understood God and his will,

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Balaam would not have gone at all. He would have stayed right where he was. But he continued to ask God, can

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I go? Is it okay if I go? In his heart, his desire was to go, so that he could get rich from going.

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God permitted him to go, but God would not allow him to do what he really wanted to do, and what

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Balak wanted him to do, which was curse the people of Israel. So in verse 16, 2

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Peter 2, verse 16, it says, But he received a rebuke for his own lawlessness, for a mute donkey speaking out with the voice of a man restrained the madness of the prophet.

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Now, what's the lesson here? What's Peter trying to say to us? Well, first of all, that we would understand

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Balaam was a false teacher, and judgment would come upon Balaam.

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We would see later that when the Israelites took the land that God was giving to them, it mentions in the text that Balaam fell with everybody else.

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Balaam comes up again in Joshua as having fallen when the Israelites took

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Canaan. So we know that judgment will eventually come upon Balaam.

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There's the warning there. But secondly, Balaam could have done worse, but he was restrained.

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Balaam could have gone out there to curse, but he couldn't. A donkey kept him from going, first of all, to his own destruction, and then when

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Balaam was there to speak what he was to speak, it was only what God gave him to speak. So the false teacher can only do what

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God allows the false teacher to do. And if these false teachers were unrestrained, they would be doing way more and way worse than they're already doing.

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So many of us look at what false teachers are doing in the church today, and we go, why is

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God allowing this? He is accomplishing something through this. He is, in fact, even restraining this from being worse than it is.

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If God was not restraining it, many more would be led astray. Even the elect would be led astray.

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If God were not holding his elect to him, as it says in John 10, my

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Father is greater than all, has given them to me, Jesus said, and no one is able to take them out of my

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Father's hand. I and the Father are one. So God is holding his elect dear, but he's also restraining the false teacher from having his way and leading the elect astray.

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So God's restraining hand prevents the false teacher from accomplishing more than what he in his heart would want to accomplish.

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So as we see false teachers in the church today, there is a reason why they are there. And going back a couple of weeks,

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I gave you the two reasons why God allows false teachers. It's for testing and for judgment.

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God will test us to see if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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Do we love God more than we love the things that these false teachers are promising us?

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So that's number one. Number two is for judgment.

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We looked at that last week, where God will send a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false and go after unrighteousness so they will perish in their unrighteousness.

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So again, God will be just in all of his ways. So the madness of the prophet would be running roughshod, even worse than what we see, if not for the restraining hand of God.

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Verse 17, we go further into these descriptors of false teachers.

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Before I continue though, because we're gonna spend about the last 10 minutes here in verses 17 to the end.

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Are there any questions? So we're finishing with the story of Balaam. We're gonna continue on in 2 Peter. Any questions here at this point?

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All right, let's continue on. Let's go to verse 17. Now, these descriptors that Peter uses, very similar to what

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Jude says. These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm for whom the black darkness has been kept.

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Another illustration that Jude uses is that these are clouds without water. So both of these descriptors are like contrary to one another, right?

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They're springs without water? Well, how can it even be a spring? It's a cloud without water. How can it even be a cloud if it doesn't have water?

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And that's kind of the point. So they promise you something that they can never give you.

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It might look like a refreshing spring when you hear the words of the false teacher, but they can't actually deliver to you what they promised to you.

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Like you think of a dry, parched, weary land, a desert in which somebody is standing, looking for water.

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There's a cloud overhead, so they stand there with their mouth open waiting for the cloud to drop rain.

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And it never does. And that's kind of the illustration of the false teacher. People clamor after what the false teacher promises, but even what the false teacher promises, they can't deliver on.

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You think of the health and wealth gospel. You know who benefits from the health and wealth gospel?

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The health and wealth false prophet. That's exactly right, yeah. The false teacher benefits from it.

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Nobody else does. He gets your money, and he's doing just fine, and you have nothing to show for it.

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And you'll hear them on TV, the televangelists saying, sow your seed. If you sow a seed of, well, we were in Psalm 150 today, so sow $150, and then you will get all of these benefits and prosperity and all this other kind of thing.

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Do you ever see any of that? No, no. Tipton, what was his first name?

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Anybody remember Tipton? Robert Tilton, that's the one, yeah, Tilton.

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Yeah, so he would do a thing, and his scam was incredible. So his scam was a sort of a thing where you would send a gift, and they would actually send money back to you and say, see what your gift has yielded?

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Like, you gave to us, we're giving back to you because God has given to us in abundance, so we're able to give back to you something from the abundance that we've received.

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They do that to entice you to give more. And so you give again, and they give back again, and this pattern keeps going back and forth.

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So his scam was to make it look like you're actually getting something back for your gift when really, no, you're giving way more than you're getting back, right?

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But they promise you health and wealth, and you never get that. If you've ever been through Justin Peters' seminars, he's given accounts of people who have given like their entire estates, thinking that if I give my estate,

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I'll be cured of cancer. And even though their loved ones and family members will beg them, don't do this, don't give all your money to that false teacher.

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Yet they do it, they never get healed. They end up dying of their illness. And what does the false teacher say?

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Didn't have enough. Didn't have enough money, didn't have enough faith. Whatever it might have been, it was your fault, wasn't my fault.

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So you must have done something wrong. You never get the health, you never get the wealth, you never get what the false teacher promises.

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Right now we have the wokeness gospel, critical race theory and intersectionality, which you've heard about.

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That's also promising something they can't ever deliver. They're promising a better culture, a better society.

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Is it getting better? Critical race theory is created to divide.

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It's intended to cause division. It's never gonna bring anybody together. So even with this, they can't actually deliver what they're promising.

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So they're springs without water, they're mists driven by a storm for whom the black darkness has been kept.

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For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by sensual lusts of the flesh, those who barely escape from the ones who conducted themselves in error.

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Promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.

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Exactly what Jesus said as well. For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and having been again entangled in them, then the last state has become worse than the first.

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So going back to verse one, 2 Peter 2 .1, but false prophets arose among the people just as there also will be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

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You remember what we said about that there in verse one? So Peter is using Exodus language where God had bought

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Israel out of slavery, but was all of Israel actually truly

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God's people from the heart? No. And you saw that in judgments that came upon the grumblers and the malcontents and things like that in the wilderness as they complained against God, God would bring curses and judgments upon them.

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They were even cursed to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. None of that generation would see the promised land except for Caleb and Joshua.

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They were the only two because of their grumbling against God. So not all of them were truly with the

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Lord. So having bought them does not necessarily mean the same thing that Paul means in 1

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Corinthians 6, that we've been bought with a price. That's a different context. So these are people who have escaped the defilements of the world, as said in verse 20, meaning they used to be really worldly people.

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They were idol worshipers. And then they heard the gospel and they escaped the defilements of the world. They became part of the church, but their hearts really weren't truly transformed is what

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Peter is indicating here. So they look like they've come out of the world, but instead they go right back to being entangled with the same lusts and passions that they had before.

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Verse 21, it would be better for them not to have known the right way of righteousness than having known it to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.

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The message of the true proverb has happened to them. A dog returns to its own vomit and a sow after washing returns to wallow in the mire.

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In Luke chapter 12, Jesus tells a story of an evil spirit that gets cast out and he goes around in waterless places trying to find rest, but can't find any.

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So he comes back to the house that he had previously occupied and finds that it's swept clean and put in order.

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So the demon goes and finds seven other evil spirits more evil than itself and the condition of the person that the spirit was cast out of is worse than it was in the first place.

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And as Jesus is telling this story, there's a woman that speaks up from the crowd and she says, blessed are you and blessed is the woman at whose breasts you nursed.

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And Jesus replied, blessed instead I say is he who hears the word of God and keeps it.

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There are many who are gonna look like they've come out of the world, they've escaped the snare and the schemes of the devil, and they're gonna look like they're

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Christians for a time. But then that evil force is gonna come back even stronger than it was the first time.

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And if that person is not truly in Christ, the house may be swept clean, it might look neat, but if the

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Holy Spirit's not living there, the devil will have his way with that person and their condition will be even worse than it was in the first place.