2 Peter 2:0 - Homiletics

Warning against false teachers.

I. THE NEED OF WATCHFULNESS .

1 . There must be false teachers. There had been false prophets in Israel, like Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah, who flattered Ahab and lured him to his death. There was a traitor among the chosen twelve. "In the visible Church the evil are ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the ministration of the Word and sacraments." The Lord himself had said that it would be so. "Beware of false prophets," he had said in his sermon on the mount; the apostle echoes the Master's words. It seems very sad that there should be the taint of evil even in the chief places of the Church, that ungodly men should assume the character of teachers, and abuse the form of religion for their selfish and wicked ends. The divisions of the Church, the strange diversities of opinion among Christians, seem a great hindrance to the progress of the gospel, and furnish to some an excuse for unbelief. But when we remember Judas Iscariot, we feel that the Church must be always liable to this great misfortune; if in its very infancy, in the very presence of the incarnate Saviour, one whom he had chosen could betray his Lord for money, it is not to be expected that all those who serve in the ministry of the Church should be pure and holy. False teaching, too, made its appearance very early in the history of the Church. We soon meet with the name of the first heresiarch, Simon Magus; he was one of the converts of Philip the deacon at Samaria, one of the first candidates for confirmation. The existence of false teaching is a great trial of our faith; but, like other trials, it is overruled for good to those who in sincerity seek to know the truth.

2 . The character of their teaching. All false doctrine is pernicious. The ancient forms of heresy stood in direct opposition to the great truths of Christianity: they denied the distinction of Persons in the one God, or the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, or the truth of his manhood, or the reality of his precious death; they separated Jesus from the Christ, and the God of Christians from the God of the Old Testament; while others, as apparently the Nicolaitanes of the Revelation, indulged in licentious practices, and maintained that the mind might be pure, though the body was defiled. These and such like heresies were heresies of destruction; they led to the spiritual destruction both of the teachers and the taught; they were privily brought in, set alongside of the truths of the gospel, and so corrupted the gospel of Christ, and deprived it of its saving power. For these false teachers denied the Master that bought them, some by rejecting either his Divinity or his humanity, or the truth of his atonement, some by the practical denial of a licentious life. He had bought them to be his own: they were redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ; and they denied the Master that bought them with that stupendous price. Alas! we have all at some time and in some sense denied him by spiritual sloth and actual sin; we knew that he died that we should die unto sin, and rose again that we should rise to newness of life; and knowing this, we have sinned again and again, yielding ourselves to be servants of sin rather than of Christ. St. Peter himself had thrice denied the Lord; confident in his own steadfastness, he had maintained that he at least would be faithful even unto death; but his courage failed him in the hour of temptation. He must have remembered his own great sin when he wrote these words. He repented; the bitter tears, the holy life that followed, proved the sincerity of his repentance. May we feel the power of the Lord's loving look fixed on us, and be led, like Peter, to repentance. These false teachers were persisting in their willfulness, and bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

3 . The sad results of it. They will not be without followers; many will be drawn away from the truth, and will follow these false teachers this way and that, to strange heresies or to licentiousness of life. Men hanker after novelty; they dislike strictness of life; they are easily led to embrace systems which offer some new phase of error, or permit laxity of morals. And thus the way of truth is evil spoken of. Men rail at Christianity because Christians are split up into so many sects and schools; they speak against religion because so many of its professors live unworthy lives. It was so in the early days of the Church; it is so still. The evil lives of professing Christians give occasion to much scoffing and blasphemy at home; while abroad the progress of the gospel in heathen countries is sadly checked by the same unhappy cause.

4 . The motive of the false teachers. They do not care for the souls of men; they want their money. Their words are fair, but they do not spring out of strong conviction; they are carefully thought out, cunningly devised to attract attention and to ensnare men. And so they make a gain of their followers, reversing St. Paul's practice, "I seek not yours, but you." For they care nothing for the flock, but only for their own sordid gain. Very terrible is the guilt of those unhappy men who seek the ministry with such miserable objects. Their teaching is but hollow hypocrisy, their whole life is a falsehood. Thus to deal with sacred things is awful exceedingly.

5 . Their damager. God's sentence of condemnation is already gone out against them; it idleth not; it is active and energetic. They have brought in heresies of destruction, doing what they could to destroy the souls of men. But the Lord most holy gave himself to die for those precious souls. These false teachers are doing what they can to frustrate the grace of God, to slay the souls for whom the Lord endured the cross. His wrath, except they repent, must come upon them to the uttermost; that utter destruction which they are bringing upon themselves, slumbereth not; it will fall upon them suddenly and consume them in a moment. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

II. GOD 'S WRATH AGAINST THE FALSE TEACHERS : EXAMPLES OF HIS AWFUL JUDGMENTS .

1 . The judgment of the angels that sinned. Even angels sinned; so strange and awful is the mystery of evil. We must not be surprised that there are sinful men in the visible Church, sometimes, alas! in its highest offices, when we read that there was sin in heaven, that angels of God sinned against their King. The power of evil must be very terrible, wide-reaching, and alluring, if it could draw angels from their allegiance to the Creator. What need have we men to watch and pray, if even angels fell from the grace of God! St. Peter bids us remember their punishment. God spared them not; he is of purer eyes than to behold evil; the sinful cannot abide in his presence. He cast out even angels when they sinned; Tartarus, not heaven, was henceforth their fitting abode; he delivered them to chains of darkness. Holy Scripture gives us no details concerning the sin of the angels or its punishment. We do not know the measure of restraint under which they are now kept; we do not know whether this description applies to all angels who sinned, or only to some. Those evil angels of whom St. Peter is here speaking are under some restraint and suffering some punishment; and they are reserved for the judgment of the great day. Their fall is cited for our warning; if God spared not evil angels, he will not spare evil men.

2 . The judgment of the antediluvians. Satan, the prince of the devils, brought sin into the world; it spread with fearful rapidity, all flesh corrupted his way upon the earth. God had created man after his own image; but now the wickedness of man was great, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually—an awful picture of the corrupting power of sin. The fixed immutable laws of the Divine government require the punishment of sin. God brought the Flood upon the world of the ungodly. But in wrath he remembered mercy; he guarded Noah, the just man who walked with God, the preacher of righteousness. Noah had proclaimed the blessings of righteousness, the misery of sin; the ark itself had been a silent preacher during the many years which elapsed while it was being built; the long labour showed the faith of Noah, and proved that his preaching came from deep conviction. His neighbours would not listen; but his preaching, though it saved not them, returned into his own bosom: God knoweth how to deliver the godly. Only eight souls were saved in that tremendous visitation. Let us take warning and fear,

3. The judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. "The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven." That tremendous overthrow is a solemn warning to the ungodly of all time. God will by no means spare the guilty; if men will pollute God's earth and their own bodies by sin and uncleanness, the heavy wrath of God must sooner or later sweep them into utter ruin. But even that frightful catastrophe showed how precious the souls of the righteous are in the sight of God. Had there been ten such in that wicked city, he would have spared it for the ten's sake. How little the rulers of the earth think that the course of this world is ordered for the sake of the faithful; that empires are saved from ruin, and wars averted, for the salvation of the few chosen souls! Two angels were sent to save the one righteous man in the cities of the plain; they laid hold upon his hand while he lingered, and brought him out with wife and daughters almost against his will. As now there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, so then two holy angels rescued the one servant of God. The Lord knoweth them that are his; he knows them all and each—each individual soul that believes and repents. Lot was not wholly blameless; he had tempted God by exposing himself to temptation; God had not led him there. He saw that the plain of' Jordan was well watered everywhere, "even as the garden of the Lord;" he did not consider that "the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." The children of light ought to be wiser than this; they ought to regard their spiritual interest as far more momentous than their temporal; but alas! the error of Lot is common still. He soon found how grievous his mistake had been. He preserved his integrity; he was saved, yet so as by fire. He passed through a fiery trial of distress and persecution; he lived in the midst of licentiousness and uncleanness; day by day evil sights were present to his eyes, evil sounds polluted his ears; he saw nothing but sin, he heard nothing but filthiness and blasphemy. He tortured his righteous soul with their unlawful deeds; he saw the dishonour done to God; he knew something of the tremendous condemnation that must engulf those ungodly men; his whole soul revolted from the vice and filth among which he lived. He knew that his own act had brought him to Sodom, and he tortured his soul day by day in repentance, we may be sure, for his thoughtless and worldly choice, in anxious dread of coming retribution, in bitter sorrow for the awful danger of those willful sinners, and for their outrages against the holy Law of God; he was crushed down, worn out with their wicked behaviour and abominable licentiousness. He had greatly erred; but this sorrow of heart, this self-torture, showed that he was sincerely penitent, that he was not corrupted by the fearful wickedness which surrounded him. And the Lord delivered him.

4 . What these examples prove. God's love and God's justice.

LESSONS.

1 . The Lord bought us; we are his. It is awful guilt to deny him who ransomed us with his most precious blood.

2 . It is a fearful sacrilege for an ungodly man to intrude himself into the sacred ministry for the sake of gain.

3 . There must be false teachers in the Church. "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God."

4 . God's justice will surely overtake all who sin, whether angels or men.

5 . But God will not destroy the righteous with the wicked; he cares for every righteous soul.

6 . Learn from the case of Lot that worldliness must lead to suffering in this world, if not in the world to come.

Verses 10-22

Description of the false teachers.

I. THEIR PRESUMPTION .

1 . They despise government. Living an evil life, they will not endure restraint of any kind. Self-willed and daring, they despise every form of authority, and speak evil of those who are better, or nobler, or loftier than themselves. Reverence is an important element in personal religion. Reverence for God inclines men to obey those who by God's providence are set over them; especially it leads them to respect the beauty of holiness which comes from God, to speak with due reverence of that holiness wherever it is manifested—whether in saints living or departed, or in the angels of God in heaven.

2 . Contrast between their conduct and that of the elect angels. God's holy angels are very high in power and might, but they do not rail even at the evil. It is their appointed duty to pronounce the sentence of God against the angels that sinned; they do it solemnly and sadly. These presumptuous men rail at the things which they understand not—both at the holy angels and at the fallen angels. It is not good to rail even at these last. Fools make a mock at sin; and the sin of the angels, as it is most mysterious, so it is also most awful. Men often talk lightly and idly about the devil and his wiles. Holy Scripture teaches us a very different lesson. We are engaged in a lifelong struggle against him. The conflict is deadly, awful; its issues are most momentous—life or death, heaven or hell. The soldiers of the cross must be in earnest, for they "wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness." To talk lightly of the enemy, to jest about matters so tremendous, is not only unseemly; it is dangerous. It puts men off their guard, and exposes them to the insidious assaults of the tempter. Thus these wicked men, of whom St. Peter writes, talked wildly and presumptuously about things above their comprehension. They behaved like irrational creatures in the presence of great peril, and their end must be destruction. This is the due reward of their unrighteousness, and this they shall receive. They had counted on far other rewards; but the master to whom they had sold themselves is a liar. He cheats his wretched slaves; he lures them to the forbidden fruit. It seems pleasant to the eye and good for food, but it proves to be a deadly poison (see reading adopted by the Revised Version).

II. THEIR SENSUALITY .

1 . Their gluttony and drunkenness. These men loved luxurious living. They were worse than their heathen neighbours. The heathen could wait for the night, the usual time for banquetings. They began their revelry early; they gave the business hours of the day (comp. Horace, 'Odes,' I. Revelation 1:20 , "Partem solido demere de die") to self-indulgence. They joined, it seems, in the love-feasts of the Christians, but their love was only a pretence. As far as they were concerned, the love-feasts were but hollow hypocrisies, occasions for excess. They were spots and blemishes on the assemblies of the godly. Christians must imitate the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb without blemish and without spot. They must be strictly temperate in all things; for temperance is one of the blessed fruits of the Spirit, while drunkenness is one of those works of the flesh which destroy the soul.

2 . Their impurity. The Lord Jesus Christ teaches his followers to be pure in heart. These men indulged openly in vice. Some of their successors even taught that, as the sea is not polluted by the impurities which it receives, so the true Gnostic might take his fill of sensual pleasure and yet not be defiled. It was no great thing, some of them said, to abstain from lust if it had not been tasted; the triumph was to live in sensual enjoyments, and yet to keep the mind untainted by the defilement of the body. The holy apostle sternly condemns this horrible heresy. These men, he says, are enticing souls to ruin. They are fishers of men, but not with the gospel net; they hide their deadly hook with an alluring bait. But the end of these things is death; for impurity is deadly sin in the sight of God. The body of the Christian is a temple of God the Holy Ghost; and "if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy."

III. THEIR COVETOUSNESS .

1 . Their example. Not Christ the Lord, not his holy apostles, who could say, as St. Peter once said, "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee;" but Balaam the son of Beer—that unhappy man who "heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High," and yet loved the wages of unrighteousness; who was a prophet, and yet mad and foolish; who could pray, "May I die the death of the righteous," and yet tried, and in some measure succeeded, to entice the people of God to deadly sin, anti himself perished miserably among the enemies of the Lord. His guilt was awful exceedingly. He sought to destroy souls for the sake of his own wretched gain. So it was with these false teachers. The love of money, the root of all evil, had taken possession of their heart; they shrank from no sin, if only they might gratify that tyrant passion.

2 . The result. They became trained in covetousness. They were like athletes, practiced wrestlers; but the prize which was always before their eyes was, not the crown of glory that fadeth not away, but those poor earthly treasures which fall away from the dying man, and leave the unhappy soul desolate in tile hour of its utmost need. For this prize, the reward of unrighteousness, they sought, like Balaam, to lure souls to ruin. Therefore were they children of curse; for the souls of men are very precious in the sight of God, and his awful curse must light upon the heads of those wicked men—all the more intensely wicked if, like Balaam, they hold sacred offices—who cause Christ's little ones to stumble and fall, and destroy the souls for whom the Lord Jesus died.

IV. THEIR TEACHING

1 . It is vain. They are wells without water. God is the Fountain of living waters. True believers become, in a secondary sense, fountains also. The water that he giveth is in them a well of water springing up unto eternal life. These men exhibit the appearance of wells; they profess to be teachers, but there is no living water in them. They have none themselves; they cannot give it to others. They are like clouds that promise rain, but are driven away by the wind, and fail to satisfy the thirsty land. They speak great swelling words, but they are words of vanity, empty and profitless, not like the words of eternal life which the Lord Jesus hath; not like the word of reconciliation which he hath committed to his faithful disciples.

2 . It is dangerous. For those high-sounding phrases cover an evil life. They gather followers round them by means of their specious eloquence, and then entice them to destruction by wicked example. They bait their hook with their own licentious practices, and sometimes, alas! succeed in destroying souls that were just escaping from evil influences. They promise them liberty, but the liberty of which they boast is not that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free—the liberty which recognizes the freedom of the Christian within the sphere of things indifferent, but even within that sphere carefully avoids giving offence to the consciences of others, and sensitively shrinks even from the appearance of evil. Their liberty is libertinism. It is freedom from moral restraints; it is a revolt against the holy Law of God; it is a lie, for it contradicts both the moral instincts of human nature and the truth of God. It is not liberty; for those only are free indeed whom the Son of God makes free in that service which is perfect freedom. This false liberty is really slavery, bondage to sin.

V. THEIR MISERABLE CONDITION .

1 . They are slaves. They talk loudly about liberty, but they are slaves themselves. They have yielded themselves up to the evil one; he has corrupted their whole nature, and uses them to corrupt others. They are slaves of corruption, overcome by it, and brought into bondage to it. Vice allures men at first. It offers a deceitful pleasure; it makes the restraints of virtue seem irksome; it presents a show of freedom. It entices men; then it ensnares them. Now and then they offer a feeble resistance: it draws its net tighter and closer; their struggles become continually fainter; it holds them secure; they are captive. They find out, when it is too late, the deceitfulness of sin. The false pleasure becomes real misery. They feel it, but their strength is gone. They arc overcome; they are in bondage from which they cannot escape. Such is the pretended freedom of vicious men. Only those whom the truth makes free are free indeed.

2 . Perhaps some of them were once free, Christians have escaped from the bondage of sin, Once, it may be, they loved the world and the things that are in the world; once the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life filled their heart. The moral miasma of the corruption that is in the world was defiling their soul; but they escaped, drawn by the powerful attraction of the cross. They rose into a purer atmosphere; they lived in the knowledge of Christ. The full knowledge ( ἐπίγνωσις ) of Christ is the very sphere in which the true Christian dwells. Within the range of that knowledge grace and peace are multiplied unto him ( Revelation 1:2 ). That knowledge is eternal life ( John 17:3 ); it more than compensates for the loss of all that the world can give ( Philippians 3:8 ); it is sweet, precious, holy, beyond the power of language to express. Those who have that blessed knowledge escape from the pollutions of the world. Sensual pleasures have no hold upon those who realize the holy joy of communion with the Lord. But they must watch and pray, and keep themselves in the love of God. It seems, indeed, almost impossible that any who have known the Lord should fall away into sin; but "the heart of man is deceitful above all things." Satan is ever on the watch with his insidious temptations, and sometimes, when all seems safe, the danger comes. Some of those who had escaped from the snare of the evil one are again entangled in it, and, alas! so entangled that escape becomes almost impossible. They are overcome; they are captives, brought back into utter bondage. Judas, like St. Peter, had forsaken all and followed Christ; and yet, oh strange and awful mystery of the deceitfulness of sin! he was covetous, like these false teachers; he sold his Lord for money. And if one of the chosen twelve who lived in familiar intercourse with Christ, who saw every day that gracious face, and heard those words such as never man spake, and witnessed his many works of power and love,—if one of those could fall completely under the dominion of Satan, bow jealously ought we to watch against the first suggestions of the tempter! how carefully should we take heed lest we fall when we most seem to stand! It is impossible, we may whisper to ourselves. We who have tasted that the Lord is gracious can have no taste for the pollutions of the world. But Scripture tells us it is not impossible; experience tells us it is not impossible. "What I say unto you"—such is the emphatic warning of the Lord—"I say unto all, Watch." All need that warning. The holiest saints of God do not count themselves to have already apprehended, to be already perfect: they watch.

3 . Brow their case is more hopeless than ever. The last state is worse than the first. Satan had them once; now he has them again; he will not let them go. They once knew the way of righteousness, but, alas! that knowledge, now lost, only serves to deepen their guilt and to harden their heart all the more. For sin against light is more deadly tar than the sin of ignorance; and, the greater the light, the deeper is the sin of those who love darkness rather than light. For all knowledge involves responsibility; and, as the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is blessed exceedingly, so to sin against that knowledge must imply an intense blackness of guilt. It is like the sin of Judas, who was one of the twelve. The man who thus sins against light "hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace." He was once unclean, but he was washed, but he was sanctified ( 1 Corinthians 6:11 ), and now, alas! he has returned to wallow in the mire of uncleanness. Holy Scripture says of such men, in words of most awful but most just severity, "It is impossible to renew them again unto repentance.'' "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

LESSONS .

1 . Christians must avoid the sins of the false teachers; they must not despise dominion, they must not rail.

2 . Christians must be strictly temperate; they must hate uncleanness.

3 . Covetousness is deadly sin, especially in teachers of religion.

4 . Christians must be on their guard against false teachers; high-sounding words and loud talk about liberty often lead men astray.

5 . To sin against light, to fall from grace, involves most awful danger. "Be not high-minded, but fear."