The Conduct of False Teachers Part 2

I'm going to ask someone to read for us, someone with a mic or from home where we can hear you clearly, and 2 Peter 2, and let's begin where we started last week. Verse 10, let's start with verse 10. And especially those who indulge in the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority, daring, self-willed, and may do not true rule and may revile angelic majesties, whereas angels, who are greater in might and power, do not bring a reviling judgment against them with a reward. But these, like unreasoning animals born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviled where they have no knowledge, will, in the destruction of those creatures, also be destroyed.

Suffering long as the wages of doing wrong, they counted a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes. reveling in their deceptions as they corralled with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a trained heart in grieving the cursed 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 transgression.

O mute donkey, speaking with the voice of a man, restrain the madness of the prophet." Okay, thank you very much. All right, let's go ahead and begin with verse 13, and we'll receive the wages of unrighteousness as those who counted pleasure to carouse in the daytime, bear spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions, while they feast with you." Really a packed verse here with lots of different kind of related issues and concepts.

Now notice that these false teachers will receive the wages of unrighteousness. That future tense may not be occurring at the time that they will receive the wages of unrighteousness, and it's in a middle kind of passive participle. In other words, they're involved, but this is something they will receive. In other words, their actions bring across something that will happen to them, and that is a promissory note here in this particular verse.

What do you envision are the wages of unrighteousness? Or because you're all speaking up at once, maybe we should proceed. Let's contrast the following verses, and I think this kind of puts the breadth of the wages of unrighteousness into some degree of understanding. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 10 through 12, it says, And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, notice those who perished, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. I think that really reflects very nicely what Peter is addressing here. in terms of the false teachers and false prophets.

But then let's contrast this to 1 John 5.17. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. So how do we contrast these two wages of unrighteousness? Well, I was going to say that my answer was going to be death, eventual death for wages.

But here we have a verse that states that what about 1 John 5.17 about all unrighteousness is sin and there is sin not leading to death. What is our definition of death, Tom? Well, death could be separation and fellowship and that's I think what John is addressing, is it not?

Yes. So I think the wages of unrighteousness has two interpretations. One is condemnation because ultimately to not receive the grace of God by coming to salvation is condemnation and that's the wages of unrighteousness. I think applied here in context of the false teachers. But when we fall short and we're in sin, either the sin nature manifested in an observable manner or in fact internally, that's death, but it's death for the believer in terms of the separation. So all unrighteousness is sin. The consequences of that sin will differ in terms of the nature and circumstances surrounding that unrighteousness. Any additional thoughts there? All right, let's go ahead.

What's this pleasure to carouse in the daytime all about? What do you think carouse means? And here I'm putting it out there for you. I was kind of surprised. I mean, carousing or rioting is one of the other interpretations that Strong gives us. But, you know, the real interpretation of this It's indicative of softness, effeminacy, or here in context, probably luxurious living. Isn't that interesting? To carouse is to live luxuriously. Actually, the American standard has rebel, translates that rebel. One of my commentators is going to use that term, Roger. I'm going to wait a couple of more points to get to that point.

It says that they are spots and blemishes carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you. Spots and blemishes, let's drill down on that a little bit. Have you ever been called a spot or a blemish? The metaphor here, Scripture, Peter is calling these individual spots and blemishes. So, you know, I don't know that I've ever been called a spot. I mean, Margaret cleans spots off my shirt all the time. But anyway, or a blemish. So these are all metaphors to contrast beautiful with ugly, I believe.

Ephesians 5.27, and ultimately the verse to follow really, I think, puts this into better perspective. Ultimately, that he might present her, who's her? The church, to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish.

What do we make of that? Are we all holy and without blemish or spot or wrinkle? Are we not currently positionally that? Yes, but not conditionally. Right. And in 1 Peter 1, 19, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemishes, without spot. How's that for identification? Right.

And then ultimately, I think as we turn to Next, what do you think it means that they carouse or are sporting themselves in their own deceptions? What's that look like? Well, he's comparing them to Balaam, which was pretty bad. I think he's understating. Let's look above, Margaret, while they feast with you. What's that all about? Is this potentially a form of luxurious living? No, I think they're deceptive. They present one thing or they try to present one thing and then in reality they're another thing that's worse.

Yeah, Bob, I have a note that says this is referring to the love feast of Q12. That's right, Roger. So these meals or love feasts among believers promoted mutual love within the body and typically occurred before the Lord's Supper. We're going to drill down on that a little bit in terms of how to interpret that. Vincent says the word originally conveys the idea of sumptuous feasting. and is appropriate in view of the fact to which Peter alludes that these sensualists, carousing sensualists, living luxuriously, converted the love feast into a revel. So there's your revel, Roger.

So you're reading Vincent as I am too. Okay, so, you know, again I'm reflecting on what Macaulay said a week ago when I listened to his spiel on this section of scripture. He teaches 2 Peter, at least some of it, much of chapter 2 actually, with the Book of Jude. And it's amazing how parallel this is. last week mentioned maybe, you know, June is actually copying Peter.

Ultimately those guys hung out together. But anyway, these are spots in your feast of charity when they feast with you. So maybe these feasts had purpose initially, but ultimately now they were being turned into kind of more of a riotous or carousing kind of manner. Feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water. carried about of winds, trees, whose fruit withered, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots."

Pretty strong language and somewhat different and maybe a little bit more descriptive than we have in 2 Peter 2. So what about these types of gatherings before the Lord's Supper? Well, it's interesting to turn to 1 Corinthians 11, which we share that section of scripture when we do celebrate the Lord's table. Here, therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of the others, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? And I do not praise you.

Isn't that a great example of what was probably going on with these carousers, these false teachers? Your thoughts, comments, don't you think that's kind of where this group is at? It kind of reminds you of those scenes that you see in a movie of the Romans or the Greeks laying down and eating all the food, how gluttonous they are, and then all the wine. I mean, that's sort of what it makes you think of. And it takes you to Philippians 2, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things.

I think a question for the group at Holly Hills is, would such mannerisms be perceived in our fellowship meals? only Phil who gets his dessert. He comes and gets all the chocolate dessert. Phil, I think this has gone beyond luxurious living. That is a luxurious living. Anyway, we'll watch Margaret go for the key lime pie too. There you go. Alright, let's move on at this point. So I think you get the flavor here, and pardon the pun.

Alright, so in verse 14 it says, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, they have a heart trained and covetous practices and are accursed children. Roger, why did you assign me this part of scripture anyway? Alright, let's drill down on that task.

Having eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. Do you think this is literal adultery or do you think a strong state as the intimate alliance of God with the people of Israel was likened to a marriage? Those who were lapsed into idolatry are said to commit adultery or play the harlot. What are your thoughts?

Is this a literal interpretation or does this reflect the heresy that exists within the church and these false teachers? I think it's the heresy for sure. Well, according to many commentators, That's incorrect, honey. I love you anyway. If you go to the original Greek, and I think this does discern the interpretation, I think what helps here is a more accurate interpretation is the actual Greek can be translated as having eyes full of an adulterous. So it's not adultery. The Greek term is the adulteress, presumably a woman, but who knows anymore, or even back then.

Mayer says this is a vivid picture of a man who cannot see a woman without lascivious thoughts towards her. This is somebody who's preoccupied with her as a potential sexual mate. So this is really an ongoing, never-ceasing activity that exists within this type of individual who's being described here.

Macaulay says in his dialogue for this week's lesson, this is all driven by intellect, mind, and emotion. So the ways of the world, the ways of the flesh, in fact, is what this represents. So even though I liked it initially, honey, that this might be reflecting the intimate alliance of God with the people of Israel, like a marriage, this in fact goes far beyond that and is really as ugly as you can believe that it is. Job, I love this, 31-7, if my step has turned from the way, or my heart walked after my eyes, look at that, or my heart has walked after my eyes, or if any spot adheres to my hands. I mean, isn't that profound in this relationship of describing the false teachers and their attraction to an adulteress?

Any wisdom here from anybody? Yeah, I still don't agree with you. Honey, would you begin on your commentary of the seedling, please? I just think you can turn that Margaret Ecclendish of the Macaulay to Vincent and to Jason Fawcett Brown. I think it's bigger than just that. I think that's why they're deceivers. They're bringing in another some other kind of gospel that I just think that's what Peter's talking about here.

All right. Well, again, we'll be looking for that commentator, a commentation. You have two weeks to get it done. Somebody's going to say, Gloria, is that you? Yeah. I don't know if you can hear me or not. Yes. One of the things that struck me here is in the previous verse in the novel, It seems pretty strong here that it is their own deceivings.

They're self-centered. And that might be a clue that believers or unbelievers, either one, they're focused on themselves in this exercise of deception while they're feasting and so forth, justifying themselves that may be, hey God has really blessed me, look at my prosperity. Is that a mark of God's blessing? That's self-deception. And these deceptions occur in many forms and this is just one example of this. One of them. A fairly detailed one in fact. All right, let's continue.

What's an enticing unstable soul? The idea here is that it's like using bait to reach someone who is not firmly established in faith. Enticing unstable souls, this type of behavior can become malignant, can't it? Think about who your friends are, who you hang out with, and what their desires and goals are in life.

This does reflect, I think, the view of the world versus the view of us in terms of the sanctified body of Christ. That doesn't mean that we don't have a sin nature. We can't certainly be attracted to the things of the world at times. But nevertheless, that's all unrighteousness is sin. But we have an opportunity to confess and be back in fellowship with the Lord. That's not who we are.

2 Peter 3.16, we'll be getting to this presumably by the end of the year, is also in all his epistles speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction or deception as they do also the rest of the scriptures. This is a perfect example of someone who might even know enough scripture to make themselves appear dangerous, but yet These are basically people who can be swayed by people who teach untruths and twist it to their own destruction.

They have a heart trained in covetous practices and are accursed children. Notice what has been trained here and the result. Their heart has been trained or exercised in covetous practices. Doesn't sin kind of build on itself in this way? that when you're trained to think that way and your life reflects that, in fact you're exercising it day in and day out.

The flesh is incredibly powerful here. And the result is you become accursed. And we reflected a little bit on the wages of unrighteousness previously. Alright, perfect participle. A past completed action having present results. What having been trained you know, has a continued result in the present time or even potentially in the future. And remember, this was some of us.

Ephesians 2, 3 is a rich section of scripture. Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. just as the others. That's always important, I think, to reflect on the fact that Paul considered himself the greatest among sinners. And we, in fact, need to really think about how that might apply to each and every one of us. All right, any other thoughts on this verse, verse 14? All right, good. Let's go ahead to verse 15 then. And this verse could be a couple lessons in its own right.

So they have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. So the bond here is how this reflects Balaam and his ultimate life that reflected the wages of unrighteousness. So they have forsaken the right way and gone astray.

I think a better term is abandoned the right way. A process that these are people that have previously been exposed to the truth. And I think, you know, how often does that occur? Maybe more so in mainline churches and things where the social gospel is what's preached and they know some of scripture, but ultimately they've not either been reached by the true gospel or ultimately they've dismissed it and have gone their own way. So this abandoning is something they've known at least something about, I think, in terms of the best interpretation, but they've left it behind. and gone their own way. And notice this is the right way.

Acts 13.10, O fool of all deceit and of all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? So anyway, I think the straight ways are the right ways of the Lord, of course, all that we understand and by faith accept.

Now Jude 11 also lists Cain and Korah in addition to Balaam, but let's here stick with Balaam with a bit of reference to him in Jude 11 as we proceed to understand a little bit more about this. So what's the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, but some interpretations say Bozor? Well, let's begin by some definitions. Beor or Bozor literally means burning torch. and Balaam the son of carnality.

How does that work? Doesn't that become very descriptive here of what we might be talking about? So what's the way of Balaam? Can anybody tell me what that is? Because every time I read this I say, I've got to go back and look at this again and see what it's all about. Should we put the alarm clock on him? You think it would be good to go back and read some of Numbers 22 about Balaam? I don't know. Yeah, well, in fact, we're going to go there, Roger. Thank you for that introduction.

Notice that the term used for loved, now let's go back and look at the verse again. following the way of Dale Moussa, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. And that's agape. Notice that this isn't just kind of a soft affection for, right? Love is, you know, describe agape. Anybody. Love that finds value in what is right. Well, right. It can be distorted by other readers to find value in what is not right. Right, so agape is this, to be very simplistic, this unconditional love, the love of Christ for us is the love we need to have for our brethren and ultimately this is a love that is not of the flesh and we can't work it up.

But now here's this term applied to how the way of Balaam reflects the love for the wages of unrighteousness. So let's look at this now in more detail. So the way of Balaam, just to summarize it very, very quickly, and I'll provide a little text to support this, it's the love of reward irrespective of the means of obtaining it. So in a sense, in context, it fits this carousing or luxurious living that I think this section of scripture describes. But let's go back now and take a look at some support for this.

So what I've done, just kind of very simplistically, is I've taken a series of verses with dots between each of these verses, and by Numbers 22 has a lot of details here, so I reflect on this section of scripture as having much more detail that we won't have time to go into today. So let's get the sense here, so the elders of Moab, this is a heathen country, and the elders of Midian departed with a diviner's fee in their hand, so they had money, okay, and they came to Balaam and spoke to him the words of Balak, And by the way, Balak was the king of Moab and his name is best interpreted as Devastator. We got some cool names here, these guys. Okay, then we're going to verse 12.

And God said to Balaam, so they're appealing to Balaam, okay, with money. And God said to Balaam, you shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed. Now, what did Balaam do? Balaam appealed to the Lord. to say, well, look, I'll go with him, but, you know, I'm going to, you know, follow your way. So just allow me. And the Lord kind of agreed to that. It wasn't that he changed his mind. He told him not to go, but he wanted his principles and truth to be manifested if Balaam did, in fact, go.

Then Balak, remember the king of Moab, the Devastator, sent princes more numerous and more honorable than they. And then I'm just going to end with verse 17, for I will certainly honor you greatly, and I will do whatever you say to me. Therefore, please come and curse this people for me. So in effect, what, you know, Bozor, you know, actually Balak is doing is he's really kind of bribing or blackmailing Balaam to really curse the nation of Israel. So in a sense, the summary of that is it's a love of reward irrespective of the means of obtaining it.

And although presumably Balaam turned to the Lord God, he in fact ultimately succumbed to the ways of the world. So that's the way of Balaam. So what else comes up in Scripture is the error of Balaam, and that takes us to Jude verse 11. 11. Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. Alright, let's drill down there a little bit. We'll look at a few verses and numbers here.

So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, which is Beor or Bosor, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel. So the consequences related to the Lord's arousal in anger against Israel. Numbers 31-16, look, these women caused the children of Israel through the council bound to trespass against the Lord in the incidents of Peor and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.

And again, here I think the sexual sin is what plays out. So in effect, Balaam was bought not only by money, but in fact, ultimately, adulterous behavior in terms of the relationship to the heathen world. And it's neat to turn to Revelation here, and I think this is helpful. But I have a few things against you. By the way, this is Christ's message to the church at Pergamos. But I have a few things against you because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, which is really, if you will, the heir 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.

So the way of Balaam and the error of Balaam are very much related, but now we are talking about the ultimate curse upon people who in fact take the way of Balaam and result in the error of Balaam. Now that God could curse what he had blessed was the error of Balaam. So I'm very simply summarizing the error of Balaam being the curse of what he had blessed was the error. That was the consequences of the way of Balaam. So the way of Balaam resulted in the nation of Israel being cursed. The consequences of the way of Balaam. So now in closing today, the last verse is verse 16, but he was rebuked for his iniquity A dumb donkey speaking in the man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet.

And by the way, Macaulay describes this madness in terms of his being insane and provides a lengthy discussion of the fact that this madness is really insanity. And I think we have a little trouble understanding that in terms of its interpretation today. I mean, I think a madness could be very self-centered behavior that would be out of expectation of reality. Anyway, Macaulay equated this to insanity. But wouldn't this be nice of the way the Lord repeats us today to have some donkey talking to us? What's that? Scripture would put us some dumb ass, but anyway, that's Scripture.

Rebuke here means to convict on testing, so ultimately Balaam presumably was convicted on the testing of the consequences of his behavior, and so he was rebuked for that. Now the question is what happened to Balaam subsequent to that, and that's something we'll not need to get into today. The text that relates to this event is really in detail stated in Numbers 22 verses 22 through 33.

All of you who would be interested in looking at how this donkey spoke to Balaam and the nature of the comments that he made to Balaam. Of course, this is an angel of the Lord that's speaking through the donkey. This is not the donkey. But nevertheless, we could have a few donkeys I was going to use the other time in our lives that are really going to be speaking to us. That might be a learning curve that would be unique to our times. All right, I'm going to kind of summarize this by the Logos Bible commentary. So the term here is restrained and the Logos commentary basically says literally hindered.

It was not the words of the S for it merely deprecated his beating it. I mean, remember, Balaam beat the donkey before it spoke. It's a good response to him beating it. But the miraculous fact of it speaking at all, which withstood Balaam's perversity in desiring to go after God, had forbidden him in his first instance. Thus, indirectly the ass and directly the angel rebuked his worse than asinine obstinacy. The ass turned aside at the sight of the angel. But Balaam, after God had plainly said, Thou shalt not go, persevered in wishing to go for gain, thus the ass in act forbade his madness. How awful a contrast, a dumb beast forbidding an inspired prophet. So in a sense that's kind of an interesting set of comments about this whole scenario of Balaam and the way of Balaam that resulted in ultimately the error of Balaam with Israel being cursed as a consequence of his behavior.

But within context, remember we're talking about false teachers and false prophets here. And that's not what God has given us in Scripture. These are people enlightened and directed by the Spirit of God to write Scripture as it is. So this is the contrast of what we're all facing potentially in the day in which we live.

And I think what we might think about here is, was Balaam's appeal to God granted? Yes. And keep in mind we may sometimes appeal selfishly to the Lord and sense his guidance in making a decision, but yet God will use that to awfully allow his truth, his purpose, and his principle to be ultimately maintained, and that ultimately permission, because of its violation in God's truth, purpose, and principle, would be subsequently rebuked, and we will learn and be instructed by that. sequence of events that occurs in each and all of our lives. So I'm going to stop there and open it up for further discussion. Any questions? We're pretty quiet today. And Mike, you're particularly quiet, more so than usual.

Well, I was thinking about that donkey and probably get a Bronco. I'm trying to make the analogy here. But that's true in terms of those who are big Bronco fans out there. Anyway, well, this I think. To some extent concludes this section, doesn't it, Roger? Well, yeah. Well, we continue on. And, you know, 17 starts about their springs without water. This is right. Right. This is a really cool section that follows this, too. Yeah. It's in some ways it's it's easy to compare the.

Insanity of our present world with some of this, I mean, it's just, man, fallen man is insane, really. He really is not, and without God and without his word and without his instruction, man is, you know, without hope. And this, you know, this kind of shows the insanity of man. You know, especially, you know, Balaam knew about God and still went against him, which is just incredible.

Well, I think what happens in the next section, though, as I kind of look through this fairly quickly, is that this additional kind of perversion of Christian liberty and all that, he brings it back to doctrine in terms of who we are in Christ. So I think that transition is appropriate to bring the church back to where it really needs to be brought. You know, when you go back to Genesis chapter 6, you see the wickedness of man then and what God, He was even sorry He had made man. And so that's how grieving it is to the Father. I think that's why Macaulay taught this section with Jude and goes into great detail about Cain too. In terms of reflecting this same type of attitude and the same type of, if you will, way of Balaam.

So I think that's all we have for today. Maybe we can close in prayer. Father, we're thankful for the scripture as it reveals the truth, always not what we want to read because we're ultimately concerned about being exposed to this type of teaching, but we're thankful that we're founded on the truth of who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. May Christ always be central in everything we view and we we ultimately weigh in terms of the consequences and ultimately decisions we make in our day-to-day lives. So may the Spirit lead as we lead to the service and I pray that ultimately the message would be clearly presented by Roger and we would all thereupon benefit. So we're thankful for the fellowship we have around the Word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.