II Peter 2:15-19
It is amazing to notice the viciousness and terrible-ness of the false prophet, yet they feast with us. Sin is not rebuked. An example: I know a married couple, whose wife began to run around with another man, a member of the same church. The church did nothing, although some members did come to the husband and tell him they hoped things would work out between them.
Verse 15,16, Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; {16} But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
I. Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray.
A. Jude verse 13 calls these people "wandering stars".
B. II Tim. 4:1-4 declares that these people have been "in the truth" but have forsaken the truth for lies.
II. For a more complete study of Balaam, and the result of his rebellion, see my notes on Numbers chapter 22-25.
A. According to the Bible.
1. The recorded history of Balaam deal mostly with the Midianites, Numbers 22-25 and 31:8,16.
2. According to Genesis 25:1-4 the fourth son of Abraham and Keturah was a Midianite.
3. There is really no way of knowing, but the above scripture show that it is possible Balaam was a descendant of Abraham and Keturah.
B. According to Numbers 24:1, and Joshua 13:22, he was a soothsayer and used enchantments.
1. Soothsayer (See Joshua 13:22) is also called divination, or telling the future by any means not of God.
2. Enchanter (See Numbers 24:1) is a person who by using chants and devices cast spells on people.
According to Deut 18:9-14, both a soothsayer and one who used enchantments are an abomination to the Lord.
Joshua 13:22 declares that Israel killed Balaam because he was in the enemies camp. He ought to be have killed because he continually played around with sin. The same thing will happen to us if we continually play around with sin and aren’t serious with God.
III. Balaam's history.
A. First of all, I believe it is very important to state that the Bible doesn't say that Balaam was lost.
1. He is a false prophet because he lead Israel into whoredom with the Moabites. Numbers 25.
2. A saved person can be a false prophet if they lead God's children into sin.
B. Peter warns people not to follow "the way of Balaam".
1. Most people will say they don't follow anybody, but that is not true.
2. We are all influenced by those around us, whether we recognize it or not.
3. We are either a positive or negative influence to those around us, whether we recognize it or not.
C. Loved the wages of unrighteousness.
1. The Bible doesn't say whether Balaam was rich or poor.
2. The Bible does indicate that Balaam wasn't trusting God for his daily needs, for he wasn't living by faith.
3. The love of money, (I Tim. 6:10) not money, is the root of all evil.
D. It is remarkable that this prophet of God was an abomination to the Lord.
1. He probably slowly went from righteousness into wickedness.
2. This is likely the reason God allowed him to go with Balak's messengers.
IV. Verse 16
A. A dumb animal rebuked the madness of the prophet.
Psalms 32:9 - Be not as the horse or mule - no spiritual understanding.
Psalms 76:10 - God will only let the wicked go so far.
The folks who followed Balaam are no different.
4. Balaam wouldn't listen to what he knew to be right.
5. Balaam wouldn't listen to the national conscience of the Nation of Israel, for he counted his own personal interest more important than the well being of the entire nation.
6. Balaam wouldn't listen to the still small voice of God, for his ears were deaf to God's will.
a. I think it is very tragic that this prophet got so far away from God he didn't believe He would take care of his physical necessities.
b. Living by faith involves trusting God to supply not only our spiritual needs in this life and in the life to come, but also trusting God to supply all our physical necessities day by day.
c. When this is lost, there can be no real service to God.
d. When we don't daily trust God, our life's work turns from serving God to serving ourselves.
B. Madness of the prophet.
1. This is "wrong thinking", not craziness, or anger.
2. Balaam was in his right mind, he just wasn't thinking correctly.
3. He had fallen into the clutches of Satan.
C. Satan cannot get our spirits, so he tries to seize our minds, like he overpowered Balaam's mind.
1. II Corinthians 4:3,4 - Satan blinds the minds of the lost so they won't understand the gospel.
2. Romans 12:1,2 - In order for us to present our bodies a living sacrifice to God, to not be conformed to this world, our minds must be transformed from carnality to spiritually.
Verse 17, These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. (Get the real thing - Get GOD - Get TRUE salvation and service.)
I. A description of what these kind of people are.
Both of these things describe something that promises great deliverance and satisfaction, yet yield nothing but disappointment.
There are two things talked about here.
One is a well without water, and the other is clouds driven with a tempest.
B. Wells without water.
The false prophet is the well, but there is no water.
Christ is the water, and the false prophet doesn’t have Christ.
If the false prophet had Christ (water) he wouldn’t be a false prophet.
I am not saying the false prophet is lost. I am saying the false prophet is not led by God, Christ, or the Holy Spirit. He is driven by Satan.
In a time of great drought, a well without water is not just an inconvenience, but a mortal danger.
An empty hole in the ground is a pit that a person cannot easily get out of.
Clouds that are carried with a tempest.
The false prophet (false teacher) is the cloud.
The tempest (wind) is the driving force behind the cloud.
False teachers have feelings and a determination, but the source is wrong - and the end result will be wrong.
1. In a time of drought, fast moving, turbulent clouds give hope of rain to come.
2. It is a great disappointment when those clouds are empty.
3. They are carried with a tempest, indicating that they have no strength of their own, but their strength is supplied by another.
4. The tempest indicates a wind.
a. John 3:7,8 - The Holy Spirit is compared to the wind.
The tempest is compared to the Unholy Spirit, which these people follow to their destruction.
The unholy spirit will give great excitement, but not holy excitement.
The unholy spirit will always appeal to the flesh, but the Holy Spirit never appeals to the flesh, always to the spirit.
I John 4:1 - Try the spirits whether they be of God or not.
There are many false spirits in this wicked world.
II. The result of their wicked life.
A. To whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
1. The Bible uses the word "mist" (thick darkness or blackness), not "midst" (to halve, or concerning the middle).
2. Jude 13:13 says "to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever".
a. Their eternal darkness is reserved, or kept back for them.
b. Reserved means to keep, or preserve.
c. They have reserved this for themselves, God didn't do it.
3. They shall forever dwell in the darkness they created in their lifetimes.
a. They have lived in spiritual darkness because they refused to follow the precepts laid down in God's Holy Word.
b. They will die eternally in spiritual darkness.
Verse 18, For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
I. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity.
A. Their method of deceiving is to speak.
1. God has chosen to use the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
2. Satan also uses this means to deceive believers and unbelievers alike.
3. Just because someone is a great speaker doesn't mean they are speaking great truths.
4. It is very important not to listen so much as to how a speaker speaks as to listen to what he speaks.
B. Swelling words.
1. Their words are over abundant and exaggerate the facts, or makes up such big lies that gullible people believe them.
2. People believe these lies because:
a. Satan steals the Word of God from their heart.
b. Some people want to believe a lie rather than the truth.
C. Vanity means uselessness.
1. Their doctrines are completely useless in everyday living.
2. An example of this is the doctrine of Christian Scientists.
a. They believe there is no such thing as sickness, pain, or death.
b. This doctrine is very stupid, for everybody knows better, but many people follow this doctrine.
3. Another doctrine is Baptismal Regeneration.
a. To bypass the blood of Jesus Christ for a cleansing in water is to miss salvation altogether.
b. Many people follow this doctrine because it fits their flesh better than accepting the free gift of salvation.
4. Another doctrine is the Health and Wealth gospel.
a. This gospel preaches that God wants everybody healthy and wealthy.
b. This doctrine circumvents the doctrine of Christ, for He healed the sick for His glory and said the poor would always be with us.
c. Men accept this doctrine because everybody wants to be healthy and wealthy.
D. These false teachers discourage many people from seeking the true religion.
1. Self serving radio and television preachers, milking the public have sickened many people on all preachers and religion, regardless of their honesty and integrity.
2. It is not necessary for true teachers to constantly speak out against false teachers.
3. It behooves us instead to declare the truth of God's Word and let the Holy Spirit give discernment to the listeners.
E. Speaking ought to be used to glorify God.
1. Wicked people are seldom hesitant to speak their minds regardless of who they hurt.
2. Righteous people are often reluctant to speak the truth for fear of hurting someone's feelings.
3. It is time for righteous people to stand up for what God says, and let "the chips fall where they may".
II. They allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness.
A. Allure means beguile, entice, to lay a bait.
1. Their purpose is to trick the unsuspecting into their ways.
2. They are not honest, but are very deceiving in their methods.
B. They use the lust of the flesh to gain followers.
1. Lust of the flesh doesn't necessarily mean sexual lusts.
2. They attract with eye appealing sensual things.
3. They use the natural greed of sinful humans to entice them into their religion.
4. One "Baptist preacher" used a gimmick called "The 100 Club" to entice young people to witness for Christ.
a. Young people who had won 100 souls to Christ were the only ones that could join this club.
b. This may sound good on the surface, but he was using the carnal desire for recognition to motivate his young people, not a love for Christ.
c. Can you imagine Jesus Christ or the Apostle Paul, using such a deceitful means to motive their followers?
5. This reminds me of luring a fish to the hook with artificial food, or luring the mouse to the mouse trap with a bit of food.
C. Wantonness means lasciviousness, lewdness, or excessive desire for temporal possessions.
1. They don't use a little wantonness, but much wantonness.
2. These false teachers don't try to persuade their followers to yield to the Spirit, and beat their bodies into submission to the righteousness of God.
3. They teach them that it is right for them to do their own thing and make the best of themselves (for themselves).
4. People that are not interested in serving God through His Holy Bible will willingly follow such theology, having a form of religion, but denying the power thereof.
Those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
God allowing people who live clean to escape from false teachers is a great blessing of God.
Isaiah 4:2 tells of the total destruction of the Jews because some of the Jews weren’t faithful.
During the Holocaust, millions of "innocent" Jews died who had nothing to do with false teachers. I am not saying they were completely pure and innocent of all sin, but they were following the teachings of the Old Testament as closely as they knew.
B. Clean means certainly, indeed, of a truth, verily, actually, really.
1. The meaning is that those who are truly right with God in the depths of their hearts will escape the design of false teachers.
2. Those whose lives are morally pure because they are following God's holy precepts will be spared the damnation reserved for false teachers and their followers.
C. Escaped means to flee away from.
1. II Peter 1:4 - The saved flee away from the corruption that is in the world through the promises of God.
2. II Peter 2:20 - False teachers flee away from the pollution (corruption) that is in the world, yet fall back into it because they find some fault in Christ. (See my notes on verse 20 for a fuller explanation.)
D. Live in error.
1. They exist in false doctrine, wandering around daily in moral, spiritual and doctrinal decay.
2. Matt. 7:15-21 - They are wolves in sheep clothing, whose chief goal in life is to devour the innocent.
Verse 19, While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
I. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption.
A. True liberty means freedom, or not being tied to any system or set of rules.
1. Galatians 5:1, The faithful Christian has liberty in Christ.
2. This means that we as Christians don't have to do anything at all.
3. Our actions are based on what we want to do, not on what we have to do.
a. When a person is saved, they want to please God.
b. When a person makes a profession of faith without being saved, they don't want to please God, they want to please themselves.
4. Some examples:
a. Children will obey their parents because they want God's blessings upon their lives.
b. Parents will raise their children God's way because they want God's blessings upon their children.
c. Men will be Godly men because they want to be obedient to God.
d. Women will wear Godly apparel, not because they have to, but because they want to, in order to please God.
e. Churches will be independent because each church is supposed to follow God's instructions, not those sent down to the church by "denominational headquarters".
B. False liberty is doing what the natural flesh desires to do.
1. There is a religious philosophy that teaches all restraints, rules, and regulations are things which keep us from "knowing ourselves".
2. This philosophy instructs its followers to do anything they want to do.
a. There is no such thing as sin, only what people say is sin.
b. There will be no consequences from evil acts because nothing is evil except what we label evil.
c. They make man God, and God nothing but a figment of man's imagination.
d. This religion is from Satan and its professors will receive their reward in this life and in the life to come.
C. These false teachers are promising something to their followers they themselves do not possess.
1. These false teachers know the truth about liberty, but since they haven't yielded themselves to God's laws, they don't have liberty, except in experimental knowledge.
2. It is impossible to teach something you don't have, just like you can't come back from where you haven't been.
D. False teachers do not practice Christian liberty.
1. They preach what they do not experience to people who cannot receive what is preached, for the message won't be clear enough to understand.
2. These false teachers are overcome by their sensual evil while they preach freedom.
3. Some examples:
a. Jim Bakker build a great television network, swindling many people out of great sums of money while committing homosexual and heterosexual acts!
b. Jimmy Swaggart appeared to be a great man of God, preaching against sin and wickedness while he was engaged in the very acts he preached against!
c. Billy Graham used to preach repent and believe, and salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, now he preaches "make a decision for Christ".
d. There are many preachers that preach "follow me", when they ought to be preaching follow Jesus.
II. For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. The word "overcome" always indicates a greater and a inferior.
A. A positive overcoming. This is when Christians overcome sin by the power of God.
1. I John 4:4, "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world."
2. 1 John 5:4, "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
B. A negative overcoming. This is when people yield to the sinful nature.
1. The case stated in these verses is negative.
2. Sin overcomes the person.
C. This word "overcome" means "to be or become inferior".
1. Here we have a person who is teaching about liberty, but all the while, they are being overcome by extreme wickedness.
2. There is a power that controls the false teacher.
3. The words "of whom" indicates that this power is of a person (Satan), not an indefinable entity.
4. Verse 20 contains the same Greek word for overcome, showing again that false teachers come under control of the world's system of false philosophy.
D. Satan brings the false teacher under his control.
1. Satan not only wants to control the teacher, but the student as well.
2. Acts 7:6 - Egypt brought Israel under their control, just like the false teacher is brought under Satan's bondage.
3. They lose their ability to think subjectively and analyze data to come to the correct solution.
4. An example is II Peter 3:5 - Supposed wise men are willingly ignorant of:
a. The creation.
b. The flood in Noah's day.
c. The judgment to come.