A Daily Walk

John Randall: There is freedom found in Jesus. If you've diverted, if you've got off the path, it's not too late. It is not too late to just course correct. Come on back. Just "Lord, I'm sorry. Lord, I don't know what I was thinking."

It says concerning the prodigal son that in that place of the pigpen, he came to his senses and he realized, "My father's servants are better off. I'm going home." And you know what happened when he went home? He was received. He was welcomed. He was blessed. He was restored. That's the same thing that God can do for you today if you'll just turn your heart toward Him.

Guest (Male): God accomplishes His will and work by the truth. The devil, on the other hand, does so by lies. Satan spreads his lies primarily through false teachers, so we must be on our guard. Today on A Daily Walk, we'll learn the truth about false teachers and 2 Peter chapter 2 gives it to us.

We place the spotlight on verses 12 through 22 today and uncover the characteristics of false teachers, the deception of false teachers, and then the destruction that will ultimately come to them. Here's our teacher, Pastor John Randall.

John Randall: Peter gives us an Old Testament example of what these false teachers are like. He uses basically the founding father of the false teachers; his name was Balaam. He said Balaam, notice this, the son of Beor, who, following the wages of unrighteousness, was rebuked for his iniquity. A dumb donkey speaking with a man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet.

It is a great story, which is why you should read the Old Testament. There's good stuff in there. Numbers 22, are you familiar? All the children of Israel came into the plains of Moab and King Balak of Moab said, "Listen, we've got to do something. These people are going to wipe us out. We need to curse these people. Somebody find me a prophet." Well, they sent for Balaam.

They came with all this money and entourage and offered him some money and said, "If you come and curse these people, you're going to be blessed." He said, "Well, let me ask the Lord about that, if He wants me to curse His people." And so he went and asked the Lord. The Lord said, "Don't curse my people." He comes back and says, "Lord said I can't curse His people. They're His people, so I can't do it. Thanks for coming."

They came back with more money. He said, "You know what? Let me just double-check on that real quick and see if the Lord changes His mind because it's more money." So he goes back and the Lord said, "Go ahead." He gives him the green light. You know what happened? He grabbed his guys and said, "See you in Moab!" He got his donkey ready, got on top of his donkey, and started riding down the street.

Remember what happened? There was an angel with a flaming sword ready to kill him. He doesn't even think about it. However, the donkey sees the angel and he leans to one side and crushes Balaam's leg against a wall. He gets off the donkey and starts pounding it, pummeling that poor beast. Then he gets back on the donkey and takes off again.

This time, the angel's still there, about to kill him, and the donkey just sits down and he starts beating on the donkey. In the process of beating the donkey, Numbers 22, read it, it's in there, the Lord opened the donkey's mouth and he starts to speak. "Why are you beating me? I've always been a good donkey." It's classic. And the amazing thing is that Balaam speaks back to him.

The point is this: he ends up going for profit. So he gets down there and Balak says, "Hey, curse them." So he tries to curse them, but he blesses them. "Curse them over here." He blesses them. "Curse them over here." He blesses them. Then he says, "I don't need an altar," and then he blesses them again. If you've ever read through the prophecies of Balaam, he's an enigma to me. The things that he proclaims concerning Israel and pointing to the Messiah are amazing.

God used Balaam to speak these prophecies, but afterwards, the king of Moab said, "Listen, you're not getting paid. I'm not giving you a paycheck. You didn't help me out at all." He said, "Wait, wait, listen. All you've got to do is send some of those cute Moabite girls down there. You know how they like to worship? Send them down there and God will judge His people." Done deal. He gets paid. They go down.

You remember there were major problems down there and a curse comes. The Lord just wipes out a bunch of people as they turned to idolatry. It was tragic. Eventually, Balaam didn't get to enjoy all of his wealth. He ended up dying; he was killed in battle. But the point is this: the guy was a prophet for profit. That was his whole reason for the job.

These false teachers, Peter said they're a lot like, they follow, they're cut from the same cloth as Balaam. They're the same. This is their intention. This is what they do. They have an ulterior motive. They don't care about you. They don't care about your walk with the Lord. That's not their concern.

In fact, Jesus writes concerning this to a church in Revelation chapter 2 and verse 14, to a church at Pergamos. Do you remember? Jesus said to them, "I have a few things against you in this church because you have there those in your church right now who hold to 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."

That's what these men were doing. They were putting a stumbling block in front of God's people. They were hindering them and they were leading them into, as it says here, sexual immorality. They were perverse in every way, bound in their own sin. Peter says Balaam was a perfect example. And then he adds, notice what he says about them. Let me tell you what else they are like, as if that was not a great enough description looking at Balaam, a false prophet.

That's what they're like. But then he says in verse 17, "They are wells without water and they are clouds carried about by a tempest for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." In that dry region, when you would travel across the desert, one of the most encouraging things to find when you ran out of water was a well. And they had them. And you were able to be replenished. There was something life-giving in the well and you think, "I can survive. I can keep going."

But something that would be very discouraging is if you came to something that looked like a well and it is a well, but you look down and there's nothing in the well at all. It's completely dry. Peter says that is what these men are like. They come in and they have the appearance that they look like there's something life-giving that they're going to impart to you. But when you really dig deep, you'll find it's empty. They've got nothing to give you.

There's nothing that they can impart to you. It's not like you walk away refreshed or feeling more alive or transformed or changed. There's nothing that they can impart to you and that's rather discouraging. Jeremiah the prophet said something to the nation of Israel concerning this very thing in Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 13. He said, the Lord speaking, "My people have committed two evils. First, they've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. And they've made for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

Here the Lord's saying, "I have living water available for you. It is life-giving, life-changing. And instead of that, you're turning to a broken cistern that has nothing in it. It's completely dry." Jesus said to the woman at the well in chapter 4 of John, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." There is water that Jesus has and then there's water that the false teachers had and they didn't have any.

It is a clear description. You realize that the false teachers were not necessarily presenting God's Word to God's people. So how could you find anything life-giving? This is something that concerns me a little bit today when the Word of God is not being presented. I want you to understand this. I want you to just know what I'm thinking. Why do you suppose that it is that every time you come in here, two things happen? One, we tell you, "Bring your Bible." Secondly, "Open it."

Why? Because this is where life is found. The Word of God is life. It's life-giving. Why is it that you don't talk more about... because I want to talk about this! This is what you're here for. This is why you're here and there's something so refreshing that comes from the Word of God, also convicting, also life-changing. That's what the Word of God does.

I was sharing last service that there was a time in my life, and this is many years ago now when we first had moved back to Southern California from the south of Florida, that we were in flux. We were in limbo, as it were, not really sure, transitioning from one place to the other. Are we going to be here? Are we going to be there? And so we had just left a church that we had planted and I pastored for 10 years and you pour your heart and soul in that thing. It gets established. Then you leave it to one of your best friends and he's still pastoring and doing an amazing job.

But when you leave and you're not sure what's next and you have a family of four and you don't know what you're going to do. You think, but you're not sure. That's where we were and I was personally so dry. Just dry, like if you've ever seen a picture of a desert that's cracked everywhere, that seemed like to be the condition of my heart. I was still reading the Word, but I was just, I didn't know what to do.

I remember a friend of mine up in Los Angeles area, he said, "Hey, can you come and lead worship for our church?" I had nothing really. And I just went. I wasn't sure what my next move was, so I thought, yeah, I'll just go. He invited us down and I went to lead worship at the church and did my best. And then after I sat down, and I really wasn't expecting anything, but he was teaching through the Psalms. Chapter by chapter, verse by verse, open to the Psalms.

He started reading the passage and the text and I want to tell you something happened to me there. It wasn't all this flash and hype and eloquence and hashtag blah-blah-blah. It was none of that. You know what it was? It was like somebody took a bucket of cold, refreshing, clearest, purest water you could ever imagine and just poured it on somebody who was so dry. And it was so life-giving.

And what was it? It was the Word of God. That's what did it. That's what changed me. That's what just... and I walked out of there feeling completely different and that's because I was left with something life-giving. It's the Word, guys. It's the Word of God that brings about the change. God did it in my life. That is why there is such an emphasis here on these things, because it's living water. It's life-changing.

Peter says furthermore, "Let me tell you about the communication of the false teachers, some of the marks." Look at this. We're almost through. Listen to this. Verse 18: "When they speak great swelling words of emptiness." Just think about that. Great, swelling nothing. I mean, it's great and swelling, but there's nothing to it. It's like cotton candy. Have you ever had that? I don't encourage you eat it on a regular basis. You can't survive on it.

But you just get it and you're like... and then afterwards, you're like, "Why? I don't know. I just felt compelled." You feel miserable. Why? There is nothing to that thing. It's gone. It melts in your mouth and rots your teeth. I'm pretty sure. Don't eat that. That's what it's like when they talk. There's great swelling nothingness. There's no substance. I can't... there's no meat of the Word. I wonder if there's any milk of it. I just can't even... I don't hear it.

I'm not hearing scripture. I'm hearing about what you have for breakfast. I'm hearing about this thing, I'm hearing about that thing. But when are you going to tell me chapter and verse? Tell me the Word. Give me scripture. I listen to other people teach and my first thing is: how soon are we getting into the Bible? How long did it take you to get me to the Bible? You just spoke to me for 35 minutes about something and then you said, "Let's open our Bibles." I can't wait. That's just me. This is personal.

I want to be in it. I want to be there. I want to be in it. I want to be seeing it. I want to be reading it in its context. This is what I need and I long for it. I have an appetite for it and anything else is just less. Great swelling words of emptiness, impressive rhetoric, great quotable lines that could be scripture, they may not be, but it sounded good and it rolls off really easy.

Paul when he went to Corinth, they were very fond of eloquence, of rhetoric, of speech. They said, "Oh, he speaks with the Corinthian style," which was a particular type of teaching that they enjoyed. But Paul said, "When I came to you, brethren, I didn't come with excellence of speech. I didn't come with the wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is what I preached. This is what I emphasized."

And the reason why Paul said he spoke in that way, and not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, why? "That your faith would not be in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. That is why I preached the way that I preached," Paul said. I didn't want you to be looking at the vessel so much as looking at the one who pours into the vessel. This is what I want you to walk away with. Not what a great pastor, but what a great God. What a great God who reveals Himself in scripture. This is what we desire for you.

And so these guys, they were alluring the listener through the lust of the flesh. They were presenting people with the kind of religion that can embrace and still hold on to the fleshly desires and sensuality. There is not a denial of self, but rather a pursuing of self and not necessarily pursuing a holy life of walking with God. That's not always a topic to teach upon. Many people would just like you to feel comfortable. Are you guys comfortable? I just want to make sure everybody's comfortable.

I want everyone to feel comfortable. And I know to an extent what they mean when they say we want you to be comfortable. But I also know what it means to not be comfortable. I know what it is to be convicted by the Spirit and I need that. And the truth does that. It's grace and it's truth, but there's truth. And so they were trying to allure these people away, just kind of soft-pedaling the gospel, not saying you have to change, not saying you have to do this. You just need to live your best life and that's it. It's just ridiculous. There's no scriptural basis for that.

This isn't the best life. The best life ultimately is in glory. That's the life we're living, but this is the thing that Peter is warning. They allure the listener through the lust of the flesh and they make promises that they can't keep. It says here, look at verse 18, we're almost through: "They promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption, for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he's brought into bondage."

The false teacher promises, "Hey, we will lead you into liberty. We ourselves are slaves, but we will tell you how to be free." How are you going to do that? You're not free yourself. How are you going to tell me to do something that you don't do yourself? How are you going to tell me to walk in this freedom that you don't have if you're a slave of corruption? It's impossible. Paul warned the church in Galatia, he said in chapter 6, there are many that desire to make a good showing in the flesh and they would compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cause of Christ or the cross of Christ.

Not even those who are circumcised, they keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. In other words, they're telling you to do something they're not going to do themselves because they don't want the cost that comes with the cross. So they're going to tell you to do it. "I don't do this personally, but I think you should do this." I want you to know something, folks. I am held accountable for what I tell you to do and if I'm not doing it myself, then God holds me accountable.

I have to put this into practice in my own life. And like you, everybody here, I am growing in my relationship with Jesus. I am growing as a man of God. I am learning what it is to still walk with the Lord. He is still working and I praise God He's working in my life. My wife is praising God He's still working in my life. God is working. He's changing me. There are parts of my character that Jesus still wants to be conformed to be more like Him. I've come a long way, but I've got a long way to go.

But these men were saying, "Hey, listen, you don't have to do that. Come on, let's just..." and they were leading them into the flesh, justifying it, making room for it. It's not a problem, no big deal. And they were compromising themselves too. So why would they preach anything that would bring conviction? That's what he says. And so I love what A.W. Tozer said. He said this: "The important thing about a man is not where he goes when he is compelled to go, but where he goes when he is free to go where he will. Where we go when we are free to go where we will is a near infallible index of character."

Think about that. True spiritual freedom in Christ is not the right to do as you please, but it is the liberty and the power to do as we should. That's real freedom in Christ. Finally, we see the condemnation of these teachers when he says in verse 20: "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." But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to its own vomit and a sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire."

It would have been better. Isn't that interesting? It would have been better if they had not known the way of righteousness than having known the way of righteousness then to depart from it. You think, why would you say that? Well, if you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and you know that He's good and you've experienced an encounter with the living God, there's nothing better than that. To leave that and to go back to what the Lord brought you out of, typically observation-wise through the years, it's usually worse.

It's worse the second time because it was dark then and it was empty then and it still is. But you've got to go further and dig deeper and it's still empty. It wasn't there when He brought you out. So to experience the Lord, to walk with the Lord, to know Him, to sense the presence of the Spirit, to have the Lord speak to you through His Word and then to leave that, to backslide, to get away from that, to divert from that path, you go further down.

In fact, Peter highlights what that's like. He said it's like a dog that returns to its own vomit. How do you like that? That's a proverb, by the way. Do you have a dog? Have you ever seen this happen? It's troubling. Immediately, you're like, "Grab him! Grab him!" You're like, "Get him outside! Get him..." You ever seen that? You're like, "Get the screen door open!" Oh, man! And then you're like, "Get him! Get him! He's trying to eat it!" You grab him away. It's gross.

And then he wants to go over and give you a little kiss. You're like, "No!" Some of you let them! Some of you let them! Don't do that. That's wrong. "Dogs have the cleanest mouths." I don't think so. Not like that they don't. Not my dog. Nothing can be said of cats. I mean, that is a whole other level of... but he also said it's like a sow, that is a pig, a word for pig, going back to the mud.

Today, maybe if you have, if you remember the 4-H club, I know many of you are, but if you have a big old pig and you clean it up, feed it, it's a beautiful, beautiful specimen. And you wash it, you put a bow on it, you spray cologne on it. I don't know if they do that, but you take them to the county fair and you're going to, you want a ribbon. You've got a picture with him, you're like... you frame it at home. "Look at our pig. This thing is incredible. Look at him, he won! You did it! Congratulations, Porky!"

And then I guarantee you the first opportunity that pig has to be in the mud, guess where he's going to be? In the mud! Like, look at your picture! No, he doesn't care. Why? Because that's his nature. He's a pig. That's what they do. So you say, "Well, thank you for that." Here's what I want to say with that, folks. You, we can very easily clean up the outside. You could go over the bookstore today afterwards and you could buy the biggest Bible they have. I encourage you to do it. Everybody needs a Bible.

You could get the Calvary gear over there; sweatshirt, hats, sticker on the car. Yeah, you just represent outwardly. But what God's really concerned about is what's going on on the inside. What's inside? Change my nature. Change my heart. Change my life. Change my mind. God, give me a different vision. Lord, just work in me. And the beautiful thing is as we yield to that work of the Spirit, God does the change from the inside out.

Maybe today you went back to the pigpen. You're here, you're checking that box. "Well, I'm still going to church." You're still going to church. Too much time in Texas, I'm afraid. But the point is this: you check the box and you think, "I'm here." But today after church, you're already headed back to the pen. What are you doing? Why are you going back to the mud? You are a child of God. There's no place for you in the pigpen of this world. Don't go back to that.

And the great news is you don't have to. There is freedom found in Jesus. If you've diverted, if you've got off the path, it's not too late. It is not too late to just course correct. Come on back. Just "Lord, I'm sorry. Lord, I don't know what I was thinking." You know, it says concerning the prodigal son that in that place of the pigpen, he came to his senses and he realized my father's servants are better off. I'm going home.

And you know what happened when he went home? He was received. He was welcomed. He was blessed. He was restored. That's the same thing that God can do for you today if you'll just turn your heart toward Him.

Guest (Male): We're traveling through 2 Peter one verse at a time here on A Daily Walk with Pastor John Randall. Hear this study again anytime you'd like at adailywalk.org and look for us wherever you get your podcasts. Have you downloaded our free app? This is a great way to listen to weekly teachings from John. Search for Calvary South OC. It's always encouraging to hear from our listeners. Even just a brief email letting us know you're listening and where means a lot. It's an opportunity to say thanks to God for what He's doing.

Share a praise report or a prayer request today. You can email that to us at adailywalk@gmail.com. That's adailywalk@gmail.com. We've picked out an encouraging book this month from John MacArthur. It's titled 12 Ordinary Men. John uncovers how the Master shaped His disciples for greatness and how He wants to do the same with us. You don't have to be perfect to do God's work, and the 12 disciples are proof of that.

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