Sermon notes January 19th, 2025
2 Peter 2:13-22
If you remember last week’s conversation we were talking about faults prophets, teachers who don’t teach the full gospel of God or who are actually twisting God’s Word to match their own agenda’s. This warning is not just meant for preachers and teachers, but it’s meant for all Christians. The Apostle Paul had a lot to say on this subject:
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 New King James Version
9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?
13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from ourselves the evil person.”
- In his description of these same people, Jude says: “These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves” (Jude 12).
Jude 12 New King James Version
12 These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;
- I believe Jude was referring to Communion were held by the early Christians in connection with the Lord’s Supper. They fear neither God nor man, and care for themselves rather than for the flock.
2 Peter 2:13-14
13 and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to ca-rouse 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.
- This describes men who preach supposedly religious sermons, administer the ordinances, counsel the members of their congregation; yet their eyes are constantly looking for women with whom they might have an adulterous affair.
- I thank God we don’t see these types of things in this church. That’s exactly why we talk about them. So that we don’t.
2 Peter 2:15
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.
- In several ways, the New Testament says these false teachers resemble the prophet Balaam the son of Beor. They falsely pose as spokesmen for God. In the case of Balaam, he was used of God, but there’s a problem here that we must inspect. The doctrine of Balaam induces others to sin Jesus says. So, I think this is very important we look closely at Balaam and see what the way or the doctrine of Balaam really means.
Balaam the son of Beor is a mystery to me. He gets more press coverage in the Bible than most.
- Numbers: Balaam is the main character in Numbers 22–24. He is also mentioned by name in these verses in Numbers, including 22:12, 22:23, 24:10 and 31:16
- Deuteronomy: Balaam is mentioned in Deuteronomy 23:4-5
- Joshua: Balaam is mentioned in Joshua 13:22 and 24:9–10.
- Micah: Balaam is mentioned in Micah 6:5.
- Nehemiah: Balaam is mentioned in Nehemiah 13:2.
- 2 Peter Balaam is mentioned in 2 Peter 2:15.
- Jude 11
- Revelation 2:14 Jesus talks about him.
But the chief likeness Peter uses here in 2 Peter 2 is that they use the ministry as a means of financial enrichment. These faults teachers, their interests are more important than any of the interests of the God he is calling on. Balaam was a Midianite prophet hired by the king of Moab to curse Israel. His motive for doing this was money.
Without any question in my mind God is using and speaking through Balaam. He wasn’t a Hebrew; he had no relation with this Jewish God Jehovah.
Yet he was world known (their world) for his abilities to prophesy as a sorcerer or a seer. Jesus called this the doctrine of Balaam.
- Balaam was a bit of an anomaly in that he was not an Israelite but seemed to have a lot of knowledge about Jehovah and even seemed to identify himself with Jehovah. I suspect the reason king Balak thought Balaam could curse the Israelites was because he dabbled in the dark arts, as you will notice in this blessing that Jehovah forced Balaam to pronounce to Balak instead of the curse expected. I’m going to read the story from Numbers 22-24 and some of 31.
A quick side bar before we get started: Balaam, a prophet from Mesopotamia, was a believed member of the Magi. This tradition suggests that the Magi may have known about Balaam's prophecy of the star that announced the birth of Jesus. This image would also call to mind the adoration of Christ by the Magi, since it was a star that led them to the home of Jesus. In fact, many Church Fathers wrote that Balaam belonged to the race and profession of the Magi, who would have known to look for the star because of Balaam's prophecy of Jesus in Numbers 24:17.
The story of Balaam and his talking donkey is found in Numbers 22. We need to remember not to allow the story of a talking donkey to be the highlight of this story, it does make it interesting, but that is not what it’s all about.
Read Numbers 22 – 25:13
Open your Bibles to Numbers 22
Numbers 31:16 New King James Version
16 Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
Revelation 2:14 New King James Version
14 But I have a few things against you, because you have there, those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
2 Peter 2:16-17
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.
- Peter likens the false teachers to waterless springs. Needy people go to them for refreshment and for relief from spiritual thirst but are disappointed. Their wells are without water. They are also clouds carried by a tempest. The clouds hold promise of rain for land that has suffered from prolonged drought. But then a windstorm comes and drives the clouds away. Hopes are dashed; parched tongues are unsatisfied.
- Pretending to be ministers of the gospel, they actually have no good news to offer. People go to them for bread and get a stone. The penalty for such deception is an eternity in the blackness of darkness.
2 Peter 2:18-22
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.
- Their victims are the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. These unsaved people once indulged freely in sinful pleasures, but they’ve had a change of heart. They decide to reform, to turn over a new leaf, and to start attending church. Instead of going to a Bible-believing church, they wander into a service where one of these false shepherds is holding forth. Instead of hearing the gospel of salvation through faith in Christ, they hear sin condoned and permissiveness encouraged. It all comes as rather a surprise; they had always thought that sin was wrong and that the church was against it. Now they learn that sin is given religious approval!
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 pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
- Verses 20–22 refer, not to the false teachers themselves, but to their victims. They are people who had reformed but who had not been born again. Through a partial knowledge of … Christ and of Christian principles, they had turned from a life of sin and begun a moral house-cleaning.
- Then they come under the influence of false teachers who mock virtue and crusade for liberation from moral inhibitions. They become involved again in the very sins from which they had been temporarily delivered. As a matter of fact, they sink lower than before, because now that religious restraints are gone, there is nothing to hold them back. So, it is true that their latter state is worse than the first.
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.”
- This passage should not be used to teach that true believers may fall from grace and be lost. These people never were true believers. They never received a new nature. They demonstrated by their last state that their nature was still unclean and evil. The lesson is, of course, that reformation alone is not only insufficient, but is positively dangerous, because it can lull a person into a false security. Man can receive a new nature only by being born again. He is born again through repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
