Fellowship in the Word

Jason Gebhardt: Today, on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bill Gebhardt: So you're almost worse off than you were before. You're close, there are certain truths you have, but there's a falsity behind it all. And that's what he is trying to say in 20 to them. He's saying, they've escaped the defilements of the world by knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are again entangled in them and overcome, and the last state is worse than they were before. They're worse off now than they were before.

For it would be better for them to not have known the way of righteousness than having known it, turn away from it, from the holy commandment handed to them. It would have been better not to know than to almost know, because the false teaching of almost know will condemn you.

Bill Gebhardt: So Lot chose, remember, to live in Sodom, not stay with Abraham. He wanted to go live in Sodom in the city. Now he realizes that it is totally a decadent and immoral place. And he tormented him, but he didn't leave the city. He stayed there, but it says that he was tormented by this.

He said for by what he saw and heard that that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul again, same word, tormented day after day by their lawless deeds. So he said, God judged angels. He judged whole cities. He judged the world with flood. He's going to judge false teaching. He says, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

So he will eventually judge everybody. You see, that's every knee will bow and every tongue confess. That's the great white throne. That's the whole judgment. So God is going to judge false teachers, he said. That's the way they work. And he says, if you look at their sins and their presumptions, let me explain it. He says in verse 10, he said, and especially those who indulge the flesh and its corrupt desires and despise authority.

He loves this idea of talking about they don't they don't recognize any authority but themselves. He says then, daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties. Now, that's kind of interesting. Peter must have heard something here that he found kind of fascinating. They would personally revile angels. Because I'm who I am and I I have this authority. I revile them. Now, listen what Peter says.

Whereas angels who are greater in might and power, they do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. He said, Michael wouldn't even remember Daniel. I'm not judging. I can't revile them. Angels give other angels, fallen angels, more respect than false teachers give real angels. That's his point. He said they have no sense of authority under them at all. He said, but these like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed.

So notice the analogy Peter makes now. There's no reason with them. They just make stuff up. There's no reasoning in this. He said, they're just like animals. He said, they're reviling where they have no knowledge. And that's always the case. There's no sense of authority. It's always something that personally becomes yours.

I've said this before, probably even lastly, but I'll say it again today because I was taught it my first year at Seminary, but I never forgot it. And Dr. Ryrie was the one who taught it, but he said, look, generally speaking, if it's true, it's not new. And if it's new, it's not true. You see, once you have that in your mind, yes. And there are all kinds of false teachings that for thousands of years have never been in the church, and now they're in the church. They say we have this truth.

So for 1,900 years, that truth didn't exist. But now we have it. You should run from stuff like that. You should be discerning about stuff like that. You have to be careful about stuff like that. He said, that's the way this works. Reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of these, those creatures be destroyed, suffering wrong, he says, as the wages of doing wrong.

They count it a pleasure to revile in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reviling into deceptions as they carouse with you. He's what he means by daytime is they're successfully short-lived. In the grand scheme of things, all this will become very short-lived. He he is insulting him as much as he can. He says, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin.

This isn't a matter of, you know, the idea to God of true teaching and false teaching is an extremely important thing. You see, and what do we live? We live in a day of pluralism and relativism. So what's that mean? Everybody's opinions are same. Whatever you think, that's your truth. What I think's my truth, and that's the way it should be.

And we even have churches that's your Bible study. Well, what do you think it says? This. What do you think? No, I think it says this. Oh, what do you God hasn't stuttered when he wrote the word of God. He wrote for a purpose. You see, this idea of a the sense of being steadfast to truth is our responsibility. But we live in a culture where well, there's no real truth, so everyone has the right to have their own view of things.

You have the right to be wrong. I don't deny that. But you can't both be right when you have a very different view of scripture. So he says, he says they're having eyes full of adultery. They never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed. Accursed children. He said, all you need is unstable souls. All you need are people who are emotionally led and greedy.

And you can teach them anything. Boy, that sounds like America. I mean, it's almost perfect. He said, forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. This is a funny story. You can read it on your own, but Balaam, Numbers 22, just read it an afternoon or something. It's a hilarious story.

But Balak is trying to get Balaam to give him a prophecy to help him out. Now, he shouldn't have been. He's not supposed to do it. But we find out later on that Balaam was really enticed because Balak had enormous wealth, and he could give him a great deal for it. But Balaam's kind of stuck. So Balaam's going down the road with two assistants and riding his little donkey, and the angel of the Lord, which is a theophany of Jesus Christ, is standing in the middle of the road with a sword in his hand.

The donkey sees it. No one else does. So Balaam's trying to get him to go forward. The donkey goes right and goes into a field. And he's like, Balaam's really upset with this. So he's talking Now, the Lord's standing in the middle of the field. So then he goes between the vineyard and a wall and tries to creep in that way, and the Lord's standing there. On three different occasions, the Lord is there. The last time he moves, the Lord is standing right up in front of him, and the donkey just lays down.

He just lays down. And Balaam's all upset. Balaam's telling him, what's wrong with you? And Balaam actually said to his donkey, if I would have had if I would have had a sword with me, I'd have killed you right here. I would kill you for that. So get this. The donkey speaks to him then. The donkey talks to him. And said, I'm not going any further. There's the angel of the Lord right there. He said, look, the whole time you've been you've ridden me your whole life.

Have I ever acted like this? No. Well, then what do you think I'm doing? Now, he rebukes Balaam that way. He's been rebuked by a talking talking donkey. Okay? But here's the funny part when you read the story. Balaam never really says anything about the donkey talking. Wouldn't that be the first thing you'd say? What? This donkey's talking. In Hebrew, to me.

I mean, it's it's just an amazing thing. You see, it's an amazing thing. He was more concerned about the donkey laying down. So that's his point that he makes of this story and it's amazing. He said, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. But he received rebuke. He said, for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with the voice of men, restrained the madness of the prophet. We're going no further here.

That's the way this works. He says, these are springs without water. He uses one analogy after another. These are springs without water, mist driven by a storm. Now you say, well, what's that? Oh, this is tremendous imagery. He's talking to people who live in an arid land. There's no water. You see, this is arid. So notice what he said a false teacher is like.

First of all, he says, he is like a spring that has no water. Just imagine going for a half a day to try to find water. You come to a spring, you put down and there's no water in it. That'd be terrible, wouldn't it? How about this? You see a tremendous thunderstorm on the horizon and it comes your way. But no rain, just a little mist. And you're counting on water.

You see, they don't deliver. Is what he's saying. There's no delivery here. They aren't helping at all. They're like mist. They're just like a dry spring. That's what they do. He said, for whom black darkness has been, he says, for black darkness, he says, has been, he said, reserved. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.

You see, he's telling them about two things. There are false teachers and let me use the analogy, there are false learners. You see, the false learner once they hear the words of a false teacher. That's what we do. We've got to be careful with this. He said, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves to corruption. Oh, that's a big one. I've even heard this said by people, even though Paul wrote about it.

You got listen, once you understand the grace of God, once you understand the forgiveness and grace of God, get this. You can sin all you want. You can sin every day, all day long. Still go to heaven. That's a good deal, isn't it? That's a really good. You have freedom. Remember what Paul said, if I know, you say, well, grace abounds more wherever sin abounds. See, he says, does that mean we should sin all the more? Mega noita, absolutely not.

We died to sin. But the false teacher gives freedom to someone and someone who wants the freedom to continue to sin buys it. I can continue to sin. Grace of God's going to cover this. That's false teaching. So that's what he says. He said, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves to corruption. For he says, by what a man is overcome, he said, by this he's enslaved.

You're not a follower of Christ. You're a follower of sin because it's sin that enslaves you. You see, that's the way this works. Then he says this, for if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, he said, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, and the last state has become worse for them than the first.

It's an interesting thing. He's talking about the fact that they never really leave an unsaved state. It's kind of the way he says that what happens. He said, they use a lot of the words. They'll talk about Christ and what Christ. And it's all false. So they talk about Christ, but not really all the knowledge of the true Christ. Now, there's another way we've done this in false teaching in the history of the church.

We call it religion. Pure false teaching. All false. You see, all of it. Doesn't religion use the same words? It's about Jesus and all that. But notice what religion does. It diminishes Jesus Christ. Hey, he didn't accomplish anything. You need to do some things. You save yourself. He just gave you an opportunity. No, he's not the be-all and end-all of all things, which he is.

No, no, his mother is. The saints are. You see what happens? You start adding things. Every time you add something to the gospel or the grace of Jesus Christ, you diminish him. That's false teaching. You see, that's just false teaching. And if you say it well enough and it's just sort of close enough, people buy it. Now, what happens is then, and this is a very important thing, and it's been my experience, that I've said over the years that if you're an unsaved person and you're an intellectual, an agnostic, you say the gospel's foolishness.

And I said that for many years, but gospel's foolish. I don't understand it at all. But if you're religious, you get the same response from a Jew, anyone who, Protestant, Catholic, anyone who's religious. That's too easy. That's too easy. I I have to do something. Wow. You know what happens, though? Dr. Hendricks used to say this all the time. Why it's so difficult, and for me, I would much rather have an inner action of my opinion with an agnostic or atheist than with a deeply religious person.

And Dr. Hendricks said, you know why? Religion immunizes you against the real disease. That's what happens. It's like you got an immunization shot. Now you can't get the disease. You see, because you can't think of this outside of the religious norms. That's how this works. So you're almost worse off than you were before. You're close. There are certain truths you have, but there's a falsity behind it all.

And that's what he is trying to say in 20 to them. He's saying, they've escaped the defilements of the world by knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are again entangled in them and overcome, and the last state is worse than they were before. They're worse off now than they were before. For it would be better for them to not have known the way of righteousness than having known it, turn away from it, he said, from the holy commandment handed to them.

It would have been better not to know than to almost know. Because the false teaching of almost know will condemn you. That's what he's saying. Now, can that still be overcome? Of course, it can. It was overcome by a man named Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee. And we know by the end of Christ's ministry, he'd become a believer. And it seems like in the most natural ways. It was overcome by Saul of Tarsus, who was the Pharisee of Pharisees.

But you got to admit, his conversion is just a little different. You know, I mean, the Lord strikes him blind and speaks to him. So that was that's a pretty much of a confrontational thing. But the point of it is, he says, no, you can do that and it can be worse for you than any other way it could be. So he says that it has happened to them according to the true a true proverb. A dog returns to its own vomit, and a sow after washing returns to the wallowing in mire.

Now, that proverb is Proverbs 26:11 about the dog returning to the vomit. What's he mean by that? It's simple. False teachers will always resort to their true nature. For instance, you take a pig. Okay? And say you're going to go to the fair and it's a great pig. And if you've ever been to a county fair, we went to a few in Pennsylvania. You you see like the pigs. And you know, pigs are when they're all cleaned up, they're not so bad.

I mean, they really look, they're all they look great. Now, when they get back, where do you think they go? Right, right back in the slop. Okay? So they look good, but they went back. How about a dog? Do you think a dog feels better after vomits? Any of you, did you ever notice how sick you were and you did vomit, and you felt a sense of relief that you did?

That's what vomiting is to give you that sense of relief. So the dog feels better, but what's the dog do? He goes back to the vomit. Like, I'm sure none of us would ever even thought of that as a possibility. But why would a dog go back to its vomit and a pig go back to the mire? It's their nature. See, that's his point. That's their nature. You can't escape your nature. And so that's what he is saying about the false teacher.

They are just like that. They by their nature, it said. They always stay in the falsehood because they're false teachers. So I'll close with why are we so susceptible to this kind of thing? The short answer would be simple. It's our flesh. We like false teaching if it aligns with our flesh. You see, one of the great doctrines in the whole world right now in the last and it's worldwide now. I found this out from our missionary in India and one in Argentina.

The prosperity doctrine. That Jesus Christ came to make you prosperous. It's all over. In the poorest places in Argentina and the poorest places in Delhi. Yeah. Prosperity. Now the whole world wants more. You see, in some places in the world, you had have never known how much more was. But now with the worldwide web and your phone, you get to see what everybody who has more is like.

And what they live like. I want more. So you find that. There are other false teaching that it has to deal with. I want to have an experience. If I had some kind of special experience, some secret experience, that make me spiritual and closer to God. It's not true, but that's what it would say. And that has swept us for the last 125 years. Experiential Christianity. You have an experience. That means you're closer. They live for the experience.

But that's false. It's not true at all. The third one would be, and it very much appealed to someone like us where we could do it, pride. You see, one of the things about a false teacher is the first guy to ever figure out these truths. No one in the history of the world knew them until he did. And now you got it and now you say, I know something you don't know.

I know stuff. Everything you know is not right. I know. The appeal there is right to your pride. That's the way this whole thing works. So for some of us, it's a desire to be free and to take the grace of God and abuse it. And I know a teacher that will back me up. I can sin all that I want. So Peter is telling us, look, we need to be aware of false teaching. And I'm telling you this, though, that the truth of the matter is in this whole deal is that why he's telling us this is that you and I should be able to recognize.

And after we recognize it, reject false teaching because they're out there and they always will be. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for this unusual chapter. Thank you for the Apostle Peter and his disdain for false teaching that was already creeping into the church. It's always there. There's never a time when it won't be. And that's why almost every epistle we're told over and over, you need to be discerning, you need to be discerning.

And Father, for us to be discerning, we need to know the truth. And for us to know the truth, we need to know your word. So Father, motivate us. Motivate us to be those who believe the truth, defend the truth, and live in the truth. For our good and for your glory, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called onepress.com. That's onepress.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

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