2 Peter, 2:10-22

Okay, let's go ahead and dig into the passage. There are a lot of verses to cover, and we're not going to be taking quite so detailed a look, because what Peter is doing here He's kind of painting a picture. He uses a lot of graphical terms. So it's probably better for us to move through it a little more quickly just so we get the picture painted and not look at all the pixels. So let's take a gander.

I've titled this a spiritual CAT scan of the false teachers. It's taking a look to get some understanding of depth of these false teachers. I have here, what Peter is next seeking to get across is a spiritually foolish and corrupt manner of living, empty and fruitless thought life, and the worthless outcome of the false teachers. Now let's ask one prior question. What's Peter wanting to have us come away with, going through a passage like this, where he's sending lots of verses describing both the eternal and the current and present situation with the false teachers. What does he want us to end up thinking? What's he aiming at?

Be aware of what's going on around you, I guess. Be aware, yes. Don't just go blindly along. Be aware. Good. What else? Okay, keep your eyes on the Lord, and so he's going to paint a picture here, not that we focus on these people, but that we be aware of what's going on and not get distracted from our looking upon the Lord, right? Let's ask another question.

Is Peter aiming at having all the Christians just be really, really paranoid? He is not aiming for us to be paranoid. He is aiming for us to be wise. He is aiming for us to have truthful insight. And so really what it does is not to get us distracted, not to get us paranoid, but to keep us truly focused on not just what matters, but who matters. The Lord. So let's take a look at that.

This 2 Peter 2.10-16 is what we'll start with here.

Especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.

But these, like unreasoning animals born as creatures of instinct, to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge. Will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed? Suffering wrong is the wages of wrongdoing. They counted a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. Having a heart trained in greed, accursed children, forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.

But he received a rebuke for his own transgressions from a mute donkey. Speaking with a voice of a man restrained the madness of the prophet. Now, we're starting in the middle of a sentence, as you may have recognized, but it's the start of characterizing the false teachers, and that's the reason for breaking it in this way. One of the things that he starts into here is just talking about what's going on with these false teachers, what's happening inside that starts them off in the wrong direction.

The sin nature, certainly. And how does he describe what the sin nature does here in this first verse? Indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Indulging the flesh, let it have at it, and despising authority. The desires of the flesh rule, and what ought to have authority, the Lord. Who ought to have authority? The Lord. put aside, and any other authorities that the Lord puts in place. One of the things that we see here, they despise authority, and what are some of the authorities that they despise?

Here you've got the apostles right there, and they're just thumbing their nose at the apostles, so to speak. Here, apostles are still present, and they just cast it all aside. Nope, I want to do what I want to do. Apostle who? So, they're not looking at that.

The example that he draws upon, which also parallels, as we showed last week, also parallels with Jude, is this reviling of angelic majesties, one that he talks about here. Interesting, they are self-willed, indicates they have a choice based on arrogance. They make their choices based on arrogance. What I want to do, what I feel like doing, that's priority. That's their perspective. You ever run into people like that? It doesn't matter. Whatever they want to do, that's what's going to happen. Yeah, these days.

And one reason is not only because the sin nature certainly likes to do that, but also because we have, from the culture around us, we've had decades of encouragement. I think it marks 30 years ago that we had, you know, It can't be wrong if it feels so right, right? That was 30 years ago this year that that was released. Then this reviling angelic majesties, that's doxus glories, and it's interesting, the picture that we get more specifically out of the book of Jude is it's actually reviling of who? In Jude, it's a reviling even of Satan.

Even Michael the Archangel didn't do that, but what did he say? The Lord rebuke you. Yes, the Lord rebuke you. So what do we have going on in our culture of Christendom even today? Yes, people binding Satan left and right. I don't know who lets them go, but that's one thing. You'll have binding Satan. I've heard people rebuking Satan.

This second Peter, and even more specifically, Jude, totally unbiblical. As a matter of fact, it doesn't make it a small problem, it makes it a big problem. What are we to do with Satan? Based on this, there is absolutely no biblical justification for rebuking or binding Satan. None whatsoever. As a matter of fact, it is spiritually a very dangerous thing to do.

Not only unbiblical, this makes it very clear, it's serious error. He will be bound, but we don't have to do it. That's right. Satan will be bound. Doug's point. Satan will be bound. The Lord will do it. It'll take one angel at the Lord's command. We are not only not commanded to do it, we are told not to do it. Here, and especially in the book of Jude. Okay. The next compares the false teachers to animals that cannot reason. Isn't that something?

Running on instinct. They do that by instinct. You know, it's interesting that you don't have to go up to an animal and tell it to behave like the animal it is. You know, we've milked the cows and I never had to start off the milking process. Now look, you just behave like a cow, right? They do that by instinct. Yes, huh? No, we never did. There was one cow we wish we had them for, though. Okay. Ah, okay.

They are lower in judgment than the godly angels and as low as the beasts. Isn't that interesting? Their ability to maneuver and drive and direct their own lives is not even as high as a man or an angel, it's beastly. It is purely driven by instinct. So Peter doesn't speak well of that. The way Peter paints the picture, they are meat to be consumed. Isn't that something? Meat to be consumed. Let's take a look at the second page there. Going through it phrase by phrase or line by line.

Suffering wrong is the wages of wrongdoing. Now this is a message we get in various places in scripture and we even have sayings in our own culture. In Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of sin is death, and death is what you get.

Paul writes in one place about, these go about deceiving and being deceived. They are the recipients of the very thing they dish out. And I put in here we have kind of a saying, even in our own culture, what goes around comes around. And Peter just being real specific about here. They suffer wrong as the wages of doing wrong. It comes right back on.

They counted a pleasure to revel in the daytime. Typically, we think of the night time as a time when people do things that are shameful. And what he's saying is these guys aren't ashamed of anything. They do stuff in broad daylight. Ever seen somebody do something and you're shocked? It's just like doing right out in the open. Oh, it's amazing. Well, that's exactly what Peter points out here. Doing shameful things with no shame. That's how he puts it out. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions. Now here's the stinger, as they carouse with somebody else. As they carouse with you. Here is the stinger.

Peter doesn't say, watch out for those guys out there. He says, these will even come in right among you and poison the flock. So that's the thing he's warning about. That's why he's being so blunt and so lengthy in his description here. This problem has gotten seriously intertwined with the church body.

Jude, in the parallel passage here, talks about these are hidden reefs in your love feasts, believers getting together. These are hidden reefs and what's the hidden reefs a reference to? Pardon? Yeah, the hidden reefs are like a ship all of a sudden hitting this thing and now you're stuck and you may be sunk. In fact, there was a ship that happened just recently with a sandbar where they broke it open and then tried to back off of it and then went down.

This is a serious problem and it's among the believers. That's why he's being so emphatic and why he's so lengthy in the description of the false teachers. And here he gets very pointed, as they carouse with you. They're the ones bringing this in among you. Yes, believers are being misled because these are coming in alongside and drawing them into it.

One of the other things, how about the stains and blemishes? Why would he bring up that? Why would he paint the picture that way? Why would he use those kinds of words? What's the big deal with stains and blemishes? It's not clean or pure, certainly. One of the things that comes out a few different places in Paul's letters is that you'd be holy and blameless, presented holy and blameless before the Lord. Stains and blemishes. Certainly, he is saying that as a believer, in your position, You're pure and holy. You wear robes of righteousness.

Have you ever, maybe you've been in a situation, you know, you've been in a situation and somebody says, hey, you got this thing on your, you know, shirt or something, you know, and it gets to be to the point where it just kind of draws everybody's attention to it. And maybe you've been in that embarrassing situation yourself.

But what happens is, is everybody's attention gets drawn to the blot, drawn to the spot. And it begins to get real distracting, and it's the character of the stain and this blemish that distracts away from what we ought to be looking at. Something else here. These are moral and spiritual stains and blemishes. In our position in Christ, do we have any stains and blemishes? No. This is living contrary to your position. In our position in Christ, we are holy and blameless. So he puts this as a contrast. Now this is an interesting picture.

Having eyes full of adultery that never cease to sin. What does that sound like to you? Eyes full of adultery? Lusting. It's an interesting picture that he uses, isn't it? Sounds like television. That's an interesting way to put it. He doesn't say their brain is full of adultery. He says their eyes are full of adultery. What it's conveying here, especially when he uses that word full, it's superlative. Their every thought when they look at someone That's a person that the Lord cares for, and that the Lord died for, and that the Lord has saved, or the Lord desires to save them. Instead of looking at people that way, the false teacher's constant look is predatory. Whether you're talking about legal or illegal, the mindset is constantly predatory. How can I get some pleasure out of that person's body? That's the mindset.

In a church that Nancy and I were at in Carson City, there was a man who came into the church and he was like that. As a matter of fact, Nancy's nodding. She knows what I'm talking about. He came into the church and he was like that. He was predatory. And the women in the church felt hunted.

And so I had to confront the guy. And I said, we're glad to have you here, but you cannot come in and hunt down our women. You may not do that here. And then we never saw him again. But that predatory outlook, and what he was doing was all legal, but it was awful. Rather than recognizing that these are brothers and sisters in the Lord, the false teacher is looking for, you know, who can I get? Who can I get what from? And their viewpoint, they have eyes full of adultery. All they see is, who's my next victim?

Isn't that something? I will tell you that that was Jim Jones. That was Jim Jones. Yes, Nancy. Yes. No, that person was not Jim Jones. But yes. Yes. Nancy's bring up the point that this isn't the guy in Carson City. Jim Jones was from California and sat across from him at PTA meetings. And he took a number of the kids that I went to high school with down to Guyana. and had them all take the Kool-Aid. Some of my friends also hung out with Charles Manson. And, you know, it's guys like that, boy, they're just, who can I victimize? Who can I draw into my web and suck them dry?

Yes. Yes. Well, think of it, eyes full of adultery. What is the adultery? Adultery is a violation. And obviously the eye is full is a picture, a word picture, because their eyeball isn't full, but the idea is everything they see is an opportunity to victimize. And certainly when you think of adultery, that's sexual, but the reality is they can be broadening that into other areas.

Who can I use? Who can I victimize? Who can I take down with me? to my own selfish satisfaction. And it's that mindset, they are constantly predatory in their outlook. Enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children. Strong words. One of the things that they do, and I picture it, they are a spiritual black hole, sucking everything into themselves that they can. Manipulating people with intent. Manipulating people strategically. Drawing people into their own web.

Having a heart trained in greed. Now that's interesting. Why the trained in greed? Did they go to school for this? What does he mean by trained in greed? Yes, it's practiced. You know, if you see somebody who does something and they practice, they get good at it. These guys are good at it. Not that it's good at all. But if you can call it expertise, they've got it. Think about, what is greed? And this goes along with your question about what's adultery. What is greed? What's the heart issue with greed?

It's first of all itself. What's that? Me, me, me. Yeah. You want it all. And what else does greed say? Yeah, the other guy, it doesn't matter what he gets, it matters what I get. Yeah. What else? Ah, never can have enough. Greed says I am continuously dissatisfied. And so I must have what somebody else has to satisfy me constantly. Covetousness. I'm going to grab it. I'm going to take it for me. I don't care about you. I've got to have that for me, myself only.

Yeah? Yeah, there is no satisfaction level with greed. There is no satisfaction level. There isn't some point where it says, ah, yes. It's just, okay, I got that. Where's my next? There's a point of diminishing returns with greed. You can't say, well, gee, if I get this amount, then I'm there. No. No, I've got to have some more. And how about this, accursed children?

There are some terms used elsewhere, Ephesians 2.3, by nature, children of wrath, sons of disobedience, a term that Paul uses in both Ephesians and Colossians. And we saw in Galatians, the false teachers who bring in the law, he is to be Accursed. How about the next one?

The way of Balaam, the son of Baor. The way of Balaam, the son of Baor. This is verses 15 and 16. You've got a supplement on the back page, and make sure that you do. It should have Old Testament references to Balaam, and there it is, both in black and blue and red. Everybody got that? Now, let's talk about Balaam here. You've got this on the top part of your sheet that lists the Old Testament references.

And interesting, in the Old Testament, Balaam is not only referenced in the passages where he is brought in to curse the Israelites, but continually referenced again in Numbers where he's killed. A summary of that in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy was Moses' second giving of the law before the Israelites go into the Promised Land, right? And so he brings up Balaam again. And then you see again in Joshua, as they're going into the Promised Land, again a reference to Balaam. And then again in Nehemiah and Micah. So, continued reference in the Old Testament. New Testament, we're looking at one of three references. And it's interesting, he is referred to in three different ways. Let's go over those quickly.

The first one we're seeing here in 2 Peter is the way of Balaam. What's the approach, the manner in which Balaam goes about things spiritually? What it says there is refers to one who hires himself out to do religious work merely for personal gain, as did Balaam. He's a sell-out.

As long as I get something, as long as my greed is satisfied, what do you want me to do? I'll do anything spiritual. The error of Balaam is his error in thinking that he could get God to curse his covenant people. Do you think you're going to get God to curse these people? Oh yeah, right. God's made a promise. Is He going to go back on it?

No. And the third one, the doctrine of Balaam. Balaam taught or counseled Balak to tempt Israel in marrying the daughters of Moab. Were they to marry the daughters of Moab? Nope. They're not supposed to. That was the doctrine of Balaam that's pointed out in Revelation 2.

Interestingly enough, there is a place in Jordan and I think you can see it up in this corner up here. It is between the Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee to the north and then off to the east side of Jordan. At that place, in fact here's the valley in the picture up above, they found in an excavation It's on that mound that you see in the middle of the picture. But they found an excavation, and on that excavation, real interesting, this is up close, but you know, first of all, it's old, but the other thing is none of us read that script.

But what it says, it gives Balaam son of Baor, just like in the Bible, three times. And it praises Balaam as this great prophet. And so, the interesting archaeological confirmation of Balaam, and that also points out one other thing. You would seem, possibly, that the Bible makes almost a big deal of this guy Balaam, and even three times in the New Testament. Well, it turns out that he was, even among the pagans, a well-known fellow. Balaam son of Beor.

I mean, it's the same guy, and it's right in the same area as well, just to the north. of the area where he was called upon. So, here are the scriptures. We listed those Old Testament scriptures and these New Testament scriptures. So it's stretched out from the time the first books of the Bible were written all the way to the last book of the New Testament. This guy Balaam keeps showing up, a prominent false teacher. Alright, now let's look at the second part, this is on page 3, 2 Peter 2, 17-19.

These are springs without water and mist driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been 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. promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved." In verse 17, here Peter told us that the false teachers are dry springs, Nancy and I lived for 15 years in Carson City. Once you get about east of Carson City, you're definitely in the desert territory.

Some of that, well a lot of the middle of Nevada, most of which flows into itself by the way. Only the southern tip of Nevada actually drains. Most of it just goes in itself. Lake Tahoe, the river that exits Lake Tahoe, this big huge lake. goes out through Reno and then goes out in the desert and just dissipates.

In desert places like that, if you're anticipating water, how do you feel when you come across a place where you were hoping for water and it's not there? Yeah. It's a serious disappointment, and in fact it could be life-threatening. You're saying, I'm hoping to get water here, and it's not there. It could be life-threatening. That's the picture that Peter's painting here. You are hoping for something from these people, and what they offer is a false hope. Springs, when you think you've got water coming up, he says, no, dry.

Yes. Yes, a mirage. Yeah, that's a good equivalent analogy there. And he says, and then a storm, normally thought of as generating rain, right? We've had some here recently. Normally thought of as generating rain, here it's just mist driven. You kind of put your tongue out and all you get is this mist passing by, that's as good as it gets. Promising something, like the place we expected the spring to be, promising something, but nothing's there. Something else, what about a wind? Does the mist determine where it is? A mist driven by the wind is driven by the wind, not by the mist.

And so here are these false teachers that appear to be, hey, I'm running my own show. The reality is they're just driven. They're not calling the shots. They're not determining their own destiny, unlike what they pretend. The next paragraph, the false teachers, words spring from arrogance, a false sense of their own importance, which would be bad enough, but the words are vain and empty. They entice others to draw them in to share their vacuous spirituality. They have this kind of spirituality to offer, but in reality, there's nothing behind it. It is empty.

By the appeal of the sin nature's desires and the senses of human bodies, this is a focus on satisfaction in the material world. Notice Peter's descriptions. keep describing the false teachers as seeking satisfaction from things in this world. I want what you have. I want to use your body to satisfy mine. I want to take from you something in this world, constantly grasping and grabbing and drawing to themselves.

Peter here is warning the believers, some of whom have been ensnared by these false teachers. Remember, he says, they carouse among you. And these moral libertarians who themselves will be slaves of corruption seek to keep the believers slaves as well. Something else that comes up, Peter doesn't use this word, but it's more of a modern term.

Are they addicted? Yeah, they're addicted. The greed, the eyes full of adultery, they don't say, oh, I did this once, now I'm satisfied for good. I've got this thing that I want, now I'm happy and I'm okay. No. They've got to continually go back for more. It doesn't satisfy them. They're constantly drawing in upon others. There is indeed an addiction in their behavior. To use modern terminology, Peter just calls it slavery. Enslavement.

Yes? Could you just almost nearly always call that vain satisfaction? Vain satisfaction, yeah. It's, I think I will be satisfied by this activity or this possession, but in reality it's empty. It's the mist. It's interesting too here that the Greek words for overcome and enslaved are both passive perfect verbs.

They're done deal. They're overcome completely, permanently. They're enslaved, totally. And passive, it's done to them. They think they're calling the shots. They think they're steering themselves through the path of life and directing their own destiny. In reality, he uses these passive verbs and it says, they're caught. They're enslaved and somebody else is hauling them in. They are not controlling their destinies as they pretend and like to think that they're doing. What appears as freedom is in reality total enslavement. Okay, verses 20 and 21.

For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them." What is he saying? Yeah, Tom? It makes me think of when Jesus was talking about people who got demons cast out of them but were not saved.

Exactly. Matter of fact, that's what we quote on the next page. Yeah, what he's saying, first of all, this is a logical if, it's assumed to be true. And so, because the question, you know, were these guys saved or not? What happens, they come in among the believers, they look like, you know, these guys believe, and they talk the talk, and they, you know, seem to sound like they've actually come to know the Lord. It seems like these people are saved, and yet, what you see, we're on the top of page 4 here.

Oh yeah, they come in to direct people. By all appearances, Doug's point is correct, these false teachers appear to be believers. They come in among the believers, but they're not one of them. They're not one of them. They seem to have come out from, that is escaped, all the entanglements of paganism, but in reality they get pulled back into the world's orbit. They get sucked in, right back into the things of this world. Pulled right back in, because in reality, although they learn to be good actors, It seemed like they heard and believed. In reality, the world just pulls them right back into their orbit, and they're just following the world.

Though they have appeared to be true believers, their hearing and close proximity to the gospel, then failure to believe it, has made them only worse. In Luke 12, verse 48, we quote a part of that verse, from everyone who has been given much, much will be required. You would have expected better for people who heard the gospel. People who were right there among the Christians and heard the gospel repeatedly and yet ended up getting pulled back into the world's orbit.

Tom's reference here, Matthew 12.45, he talks about cleaning out the unclean spirit and then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there and the last state of that man becomes worse than at first. The commandment here isn't one of the laws of Moses here.

But as 1 John 3.23 puts it, this is the commandment that we believe in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ. It's not a law that you do, it is a commandment to believe, which is not a work, and for which you get no credit. The Lord does the crediting.

Okay, now the last verse in the passage here. This is one that might make you say, oh heavens, do we have to talk about this? And it has happened to them according to the true proverb, a dog returns to its own vomit and a sow after washing returns to wallowing in the mire. Now, there are some, however, some good reasons for this to be in here.

Let's point them out. We have the bullets. The false teachers are not and never were sheep. What are they? They're dogs and pigs, right? And interesting, he uses the word dogs. There are two, and we pointed this out when we were studying Philippians.

There are two words that are used for dog. The one he used here is a roving, vicious, diseased street mutt. A pet dog is a kynarion. He used the word that Paul used in Philippians chapter 3, a kouan. These are dogs that nobody owns them. They just kind of live on the edges of the urban culture there, roving in packs. They're diseased mangy mutts, and if it looks like you're threatening their food supply, they'll come after you and make you part of their food supply. That's the word that he uses when he says dogs. He's not talking about cute little puppies.

These are vicious beasts. Pigs are obviously not kosher. Now here's the key. The dogs have filth from inside of themselves and go back to it. The pigs have filth from outside of themselves and go back to it. Inside and out filthy and they just go right back to it both ways. Returning to the vomit and mire is a picture of the return to the world that the false teachers have done by their nature.

Put up some shots there. Inside and out, they reside in moral and spiritual filth. Regarding the true believers, Paul wrote this, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Radically different. Radically different. All right. Thoughts? Questions? Surprises?

He's asking the question, who are the false teachers energized by? We're told believers are energized and we even have the Greek word Energeo, that's the Lord's energizer. Who is energizing or what's energizing the false teachers? Here's a reference from James, right, the tongue is evil. But still get back to his question, what's the energizing behind that?

And the tongue may indeed be a serious problem here, probably is. Pardon? Greed. All right. And that's kind of the motivation that drives it. What's energizing the false teachers that Peter's just described? Pardon? OK, let's ask this question. You might say Satan, and I would say in some instances that may be true. If you think about it, however, one of the things that these false teachers may in fact be doing is reviling Satan. Yes? Okay, yeah, in other words, this is motivation out of the old man. Here's something, the false teacher that he's describing here, these are not believers. They are in Adam.

They, in fact, because they're not saved, they have this sin nature totally calling the shots. The unbeliever has only one direction that is freedom, and that's to believe in Jesus Christ. Everything else that the unbeliever does is entirely subject to the control and dictate to the sin nature. The sin nature is a raging monarch dictating everything they do.

Satan may have an influence, the world may have an influence, but the energizing comes from the sin nature. We have the world, the flesh, and the devil. And the devil may be involved. The world certainly is going to be impacting him. But the energizing is from the sin nature. That's the problem. It's a corrupt nature inside. That's where the greed goes. Does Satan encourage that? Certainly. Does the world encourage that? Certainly. But the driving force, the energizing is from the sin nature. That's where the greed, the covetousness, the adultery all stems from. From the heart.

Yeah, other thoughts? Yeah, we? Oh, yeah. Oh, I was going to ask in this verse 21, I have conversion is not the same as salvation. Ah, yeah. Well, you think about it. These guys actually never were saved. So just having some sort of an external process that looks kind of, oh, yeah, I got this fake salvation. That's not going to cut it.

There's a very good movie in which Anthony Hopkins plays C.S. Lewis, and he did an outstanding job. I mean, I'd recommend the movie. I wouldn't recommend most of Anthony Hopkins' other movies, because what he does is a very good acting job. an outstanding acting job, but that's all it is. Because his other movies is Murderous Madman.

And I think that's part of what goes on here is you'll see people that go through a good acting job and they may cry and they may have come to church regularly enough to fool some people. But nothing has taken place spiritually other than they learn to act good enough to sell themselves as, yeah, I really am saved. And in reality, they've turned away the truth from their heart. They don't know the Lord. And they'll get real close, but close ain't close enough. This is one of those things that a person needs to be truly saved because they believe the gospel and not something sort of like it.

Yes. This is a good question. How do we deal with the false teachers? What's that? Ah, okay. He is going in substantial description here. Again, not so we can be paranoid, okay? But so that we can be aware, so that we know what's true and we know what's false. And so that we can deal with it instead of letting it come in and infect things. In this one instance, I gave the example of this guy who was hunting down the women. The women actually, they were coming to me and saying, I feel hunted. I feel like I'm an animal and this is a wolf coming after me.

If I had said, well, gee, why don't you just be nice to him? This is not going to do any good. The reason he paints this is when we see it, we've got to call it like it is. And I didn't come up to him and start slugging him in the nose and swearing at him and things like that. I come to him and say, look, you're behaving this way. The women are responding this way. You can't do that anymore. Not here. And I never saw him again.

But yeah, they must be recognized. They must be confronted. And it may have to be dealt with at a higher level. If he had continued to come back and continue to do that, we may have to have even more things take place and kind of a progression. But they must be recognized, they must be dealt with.

Other thoughts? Jack? Is there any significance to verse 14 where he mentions them as accursed children? Could you expand on that a little? Yeah. The thing is, first of all, you look at scripture Yeah. Think of it, Scripture uses children as something, I mean, aren't we as believers called children? Yeah.

But the children thing speaks of, you know, who's the parents? Yeah, see here's the thing. We are called children of God. We are called sons of God. That descendancy says we have a relationship there. Now, does a cursed children convey to you that they have a relationship with the Lord?

No. They reveal their descendancy. They reveal their parentage. The descendancy, where they came from, the upbringing that they had, the training that they had, it's not changed from where they started in Adam. Cursed children, because their descendancy remains right where it was at the start.

To be a son of is something you find often, and we even made reference to it here, sons of disobedience. To be a son of meant to have a close relationship to and have an apparent kinship, a visible kinship. And that's the situation that we see here. Does that touch on your question? Good. Other thoughts, questions, ponderings? Yes. Yes.

And that one place that I showed you, that temple, was on the Moabite and Ammonite side. They continued to revere him for centuries. That was about roughly around the time of Isaiah. slightly earlier, but about that time when that temple was made. So by the time of Isaiah, they were still considering this Balaam as a great dude. And it's three times in that inscription. Balaam, son of Beor. So there's no question we're talking about the same guy.

Yes. It was on the wall of a pagan temple. It was on the wall of the pagan temple, and as you can see, it's kind of broken up because it's really, really old. But when they dug it up, it's still visible even though parts of it are missing and chipped up.

Three times, Balaam, son of Baor. So that's exactly the guy. And here centuries later, even after, you know, written of badly in the Hebrew scriptures, he was thought highly of by the pagans in that area. So he remained a big issue on into New Testament times. Other thoughts, questions, exasperations? Yes. Oh yeah. Well, you know, I don't know. Yes, you're correct.

You can go to the Christian bookstore and find awful stuff. Awful stuff. Just pure junk. And some of it sells like hotcakes. And that's one of the reasons it gets painted here. One of them that's kind of past its zenith is Experiencing God, that book by Blackaby. Awful, awful stuff. It's full of legalistic rubbish. Yeah.

We've got a fellow that's been coming here the last few weeks because he was booted out of the church that he was at. They actually told him, don't come back, because he was raising a stink about a book that they were bringing in that was teaching the open theism where God changes and doesn't know the future. And they were teaching that men are wild at heart. And we need to pursue that wild man that God made us to be. I mean, crazy stuff. And so the guy speaks out about it, and they tell him, don't come back.

But you're right. It's sold like crazy. You can find it through, you know, in the Christian bookstores, CBD, you know, carries it. And they'll take it and do Bible studies on it, supposedly Bible studies, read the book and study through that stuff. And it's rampant nonsense, biblically speaking. And people don't recognize it. Hook through the nose. Yes. Yes, you're talking about people that propagate it or receive it or both.

Some people like to just sit there and dabble and they don't have any idea. The more spiritual stuff they talk about without discernment, the better they feel about it. Never coming to just grabbing up more spiritualistic stuff constantly. And yeah, you're right. I've seen and known people that do that. They just want to grab more and more spiritual stuff and it doesn't matter whether it's toxic or not. It's more spiritual stuff. And that feeds into what Bev just brought up, too. People will sell it to you. They'd be happy to. We better call it quits. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you that we have a good, clear warning from Peter here of the nature of some of the spiritual dangers there. Not that we go around paranoid. In fact, we have nothing to fear. but that indeed we as believers can look to you, we can count on you to lay out the truth before us, and we ask that you indeed grant us discernment and that we do recognize and act biblically and appropriately when we see the need to do so. And we thank you for the truth you revealed because you love us and care for us so much. In Jesus' name, amen.