Beware of Depraved Leaders
2 Peter 2.12-22
Contrary to superior beings, like the angels, some false teachers are like inferior living creatures such as wild animals. Although not descended from animals (as is widely taught by today's atheists), they have descended to the hopeless and helpless level of wild animals. They are like pests which must be destroyed because of the harm they cause.
They are loud ignoramuses posing as experts in matters of which they are ignorant. Some men who are not believers can be very intelligent and yet they do not at all understand the Word of God.
It is told that Edmund Burke, one of the great English statesmen, but an unbeliever, was taken by William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament, to hear one of the great preachers of Scotland. Afterward, Burke gave his reaction to the sermon: "That man is a brilliant orator, but what was he talking about?" These false teachers also can be brilliant orators, but they talk about spiritual matters which they do not understand at all themselves.
In contrast with the true believer, who has escaped the corruption in the world (chapter 1.4), they have not escaped such corruption and will perish in it, receiving the reward for their wrongdoing. Although some of them may have gone so far as to escape most of the pollution of the world, they have not escaped corruption brought on by sin in themselves.
On the outside they are religious, they go through forms, they do certain works and say pious things, but their heart is not right with God at all. They still have a corrupt heart, and they haven't done anything at all about it. They exalt themselves instead of exalting Christ. They hardly ever use the Word of God except for a few little proof texts to clothe their teaching. They are interested in making money, period!
When the heart is still corrupt, the thoughts are impure, and this will be revealed in behaviour. These people will revel in the daytime, transforming the Christian communion, which in those early days was celebrated as a meal, into an orgy of eating, drinking and licence. They are called "disfiguring spots": the church is made free of such by washing with the water of the Word (Ephesians 5:27).
In verse 14 we have a vivid picture of the man who cannot see a woman without lascivious thoughts toward her (see Matthew 5:28). He is unable to stop from this sin: his lust is insatiable. Some false teachers are guilty of this, and of alluring, or enticing, unsteady souls. They are greedy "children of cursing".
They are continually departing from, or have definitely left, the right way of truth (verse 2), going astray into the way of Balaam who loved the reward of wrongdoing (bribes in his case). Balaam, the typical hireling prophet, anxious only to make a market of his gift, is mentioned three times in the closing books of the New Testament.
Here it is the way of Balaam, in Jude it is the error of Balaam (Jude 1.11), and it is the doctrine of Balaam in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 2.14). Each one is different. Balaam knew that he should not go and prophesy against Israel, but he loved the price that was being offered to him. Therefore, "the way of Balaam" is the covetousness of one who does religious work for personal profit. (The error of Balaam was that, reasoning from natural morality and seeing the evil in Israel, he supposed a righteous God must curse them; he was blind to the higher morality of the Cross, through which God maintains and enforces the authority and awful sanctions of His law, so that He can be just and the justifier of a believing sinner. The doctrine of Balaam was his teaching Balak to corrupt the people who could not be cursed, by tempting them to marry women of Moab, defile their separation, and abandon their pilgrim character.) It is that union with the world and the church which is spiritual unchastity (James 4.4)).
Balaam was mad to go, and he was reproached by a dumb donkey, a common beast of burden, because of his greed. Avarice is one of the ways a false religious teacher can be identified, and God will judge him for it.
They are like springs without water: a common and disappointing experience of travellers in the Middle East. The emptiness of the false teachers is a mockery against the thirsty soul which sincerely wishes to learn God's ways from them. They are also like mist, or fog, driven by a storm which seems to offer refreshment but brings no real benefit. False teachers can be like clouds, beautiful clouds, and it is tremendous to see and hear these folk. They are very impressive, but there is no water in the well, and there is no rain in the clouds. People are thirsting today for the Word of God, and yet it is not being given to them.
They utter beautiful, flowery language, soaring to oratorical heights; it is a religion that appeals to the eye, a religion that appeals to the ear, a religion that appeals even to the nose (some preachers are known to spray their church on Sunday morning with scent). Of course the place ought to look nice, the music ought to be good music, and a fragrant smell can be pleasant, but those things are not to be depended upon. They are the lusts, the desires, of the flesh.
But these preachers may go even further than this: by provoking lascivious desires (lewdness, sexual excesses) they entice over to themselves people who are escaping from the error of the world. Many folk today say, "Oh, I am very religious. I belong to a certain church. We don't believe the Bible is all literally the Word of God, but we talk a lot about love and brotherhood, loving God and each other, doing what we think is good, and we overlook any differences in doctrine. We have a beautiful church and a lovely service that makes us feel happy." Such people have escaped the pollution of the world. They are horrified when they read of crime and violence in the newspaper.
They know the truth but have no love of the truth. They have escaped the pollution of the world but not the corruption. It is not that they haven't heard the gospel, but they don't believe anything; some even doubt that there is a God. They know the gospel but don't believe it. They are not believers, though they call themselves "Christians".
When such people are caught by these false teachers, who pervert the truth of God turning a blind eye to its instruction and teaching what is contrary to the Word of God, or isn't there at all, their last state under their new leaders is worse than the one they were in at first before they "came to church". It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to then turn from the gospel. Some faithful preachers close their sermon saying: "Friends, if you came in here today unsaved and you walk out of here unsaved, I am the worst enemy that you have ever had, because you have heard the gospel and you can never go into the presence of God and tell Him that you have never heard the gospel. You have heard it, and it will be worse for you when God pronounces judgment than for any heathen in the darkest part of the earth today."
False teachers promise "personal liberty" meaning license, like the advocates of drugs and alcoholic drinks today, not the freedom of truth in Christ (John 8:32; Galatians 5:1,13). Yet these leaders are themselves bondservants, slaves of corruption and sin (Romans 6:20).
Those who have returned to the pollution of the world are said to be like:
A dog turned to his own vomit again (Proverbs 26:11): they will return to cherish the abominable practices they had left behind.
The sow that was washed going back to her wallowing in the mire: not a proverb from the Old Testament, but a common saying at the time this was written. Classic writers used to moralise on the swine's habit of bathing with enjoyment in a filthy mud-hole. It is Simon Peter's "parable of the prodigal pig": similar to the parable of the prodigal son, turned the other way round. Sometimes a pig will get out of the pigpen and go up to the Father's house. He may get washed and cleaned up, leave bad habits and become very religious, even take on some tasks in the church. He looks so good on the outside, that nobody can tell that inside he has the heart of a pig. A pig loves the mire, and prompted by a false teacher he will gladly go back.
R David Jones
12 But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption,
13 and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you,
14 having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children.
15 They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet.
17 These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.
20 For if, after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to his own vomit," and, "a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire."