PETER’S EPISTLES: PREPARING FOR ETERNITY

XXVI. Peter’s Discerning Description Of False Teachers

(2 Peter 2:10b-22)

I. Introduction

A. Before the Apostle Peter began to minister for the Lord in the Church, his outlook was impacted by Christ’s prophecy in John 21:18-19 that he would be crucified for Christ. Eternity was thus often on Peter’s mind.

B. In accord with this theme, 2 Peter 2:10b-22 presents Peter’s description of false teachers so that his readers might clearly discern false teachers after Peter’s passing and thus overcome their error (cf. 2 Peter 1:14-21).

C. We view this passage for our insight, application and edification (as follows):

II. Peter’s Discerning Description Of False Teachers, 2 Peter 2:10b-22 NIV.

A. The false teachers, controlled by their sin natures, typically rebel against lawful authorities, 2 Peter 2:10b-12:

1. Being both bold and willful, they slander celestial beings without trembling over retribution, 2 Peter 2:10b.

2. This behavior contrasts greatly with even the godly angels who, though greater in might and power than such false teachers, do not heap verbal abuse on such beings when even bringing judgment on them from the Lord as His agents, 2 Peter 2:11.

3. Such false teachers carelessly and spiritually dangerously blaspheme in matters they do not understand, for they are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, so like animals they too will perish, 2 Peter 2:12.

B. The false teachers are marked by unbridled lusts of the sin nature, 2 Peter 2:13-16:

1. Such teachers will be paid back for the harm they have done since their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight without a sense of shame, 2 Peter 2:13a.

2. When they feast with unsuspecting believers, they are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures with eyes full of adultery, always looking at women with sexual lusts in mind, 2 Peter 2:13b-14a.

3. The false teachers never stop sinning, but they seduce the unstable, experts in greed of all kinds, an accursed brood of animalistic sinners, 2 Peter 2:14b.

4. Like the errant prophet Balaam son of Bezer of old who loved the bribery of wickedness, the false teachers have left the straight way and wondered off after false gain, 2 Peter 2:15.

C. The false teachers are rash like Balaam who was rebuked by a donkey that did not naturally have the human ability to speak, but it spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness, 2 Peter 2:16.

D. The false teachers are full of deception, 2 Peter 2:17-19:

1. Peter called them springs without water, mists driven by a storm, that the blackest darkness is reserved for them because they mouth empty, boastful words and appeal to the lustful desires of the sinful nature to entice vulnerably naïve people who are just escaping from those who live in error, 2 Peter 2:17-18.

2. False teachers promise their hearers freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity, for people are slaves to whatever has mastered them, and sin has mastered them, 2 Peter 2:19.

E. The false teachers are headed for a catastrophic end due to their waywardness, 2 Peter 2:20-22:

1. Peter noted that if they had once escaped the world’s corruption by knowing about the Lord Jesus Christ only to become entangled in the world’s lusts and overcome by it, they end up being worse than they were in the beginning before they knew about the Lord, 2 Peter 2:20.

2. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that had been passed onto them, 2 Peter 2:21.

3. Peter referred to two convicting proverbs about these false teachers, that a dog returns to its vomit, and a sow that is washed returns to wallowing in the mud, 2 Peter 2:22.

Lesson: False teachers are controlled by their sinful natures, rebellious against powerful authorities, rash, shamelessly lustful, lovers of money, insanely absurd, deceptive, hypocritical and headed for an awful destruction.

Application: (1) If we note any religious teacher who is controlled by his sinful nature, rebellious against powerful authorities, rash, shamelessly lustful, a lover of money, insanely absurd, deceptive, hypocritical and headed for an awful destruction, may we not follow his teaching, but avoid it and his influence. (2) On the other hand, if we encounter a teacher who is controlled by the Holy Spirit and is submissive to authority, considerate, honorable, free of the love of money, logically consistent, who lives what he teaches and is headed for an honorable end, may we give him a hearing and test what he says against Scripture before accepting it as the truth! (1 John 4:1)