About this sermon
Peter warns that false teachers are bold and willful and blaspheme what they do not understand, like irrational animals; Jude 8-10 describes the same people. They have eyes full of adultery, entice unsteady souls, and have hearts trained in greed. They follow the way of Balaam, who loved gain from wrongdoing and tried repeatedly to curse Israel for the money Balak offered, until a donkey rebuked his madness. Such teachers lead people astray for personal gain. God sees them, will judge them, and is able to restrain them and protect his people.
Sermon transcript
The title my sermon this evening, Followers of Balaam’s Way. And there are a number of key words you can be listening for tonight. The words false, character, angels, unstable, rebuke, and way. Well, my dear friends in Christ, imagine that you are speaking or writing an important message to a group of friends or perhaps a group of loved ones about whom you care deeply. But what makes this particular communication with these friends or loved ones extra significant is that let us say that you know that your time in this present life is very short. And you know that this might very well be the last time that they hear from you. Maybe you’ve been diagnosed with a terminal disease or you’ve been given only a very short time to live. If you knew that your time on this earth was quickly running out and that this might very well be your last communication with these folks that you care so much about, I’m guessing that you would probably want to kind of cut out the small talk and that you would be hyper focused on communicating the things that mattered the most to you, communicating that which was of utmost concern to you.
Well, what we have here in 2 Peter is the Apostle Peter doing just this. You see, friends, when the Apostle Peter wrote this letter that is known to us today as 2 Peter, he knew that he was nearing the end of his earthly life. You say, well, how did he know that? He knew it because our Lord Jesus had revealed it to him, as he indicates earlier in this epistle. Peter was particularly concerned in this letter to remind his readers of those things that would keep them firmly established in the truths that they had come to understand. If you go back to chapter 1, let me just read and remind us of verses 12 through 15 of chapter 1, and here Peter lays out his reasons for writing. He says, therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, the qualities that he had spoken of in the previous context, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have, I think it right as long as I am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder.
Why is he so concerned to stir them up by way of reminder? Well, as he says in verse 14, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, in other words, I know I’m going to die soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. This was communicated to him by means of a revelation from the resurrected Christ. And then verse 15, and I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things. And indeed, by the Spirit’s blessing and inspiration, he did leave us such a record in this second epistle that he has written. Indeed, friends, Peter was especially concerned that his readers pay careful attention to the prophetic scriptures, in other words, to the word of God. If you look at chapter 1, verses 19 through 21, we read this, he says, And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
So here we see that Peter was deeply concerned about this because he knew that false teachers would infiltrate the church and would gain many followers, as sadly false teachers often do. If you study church history at all, you’ll see that Peter was indeed correct in this prediction. Well, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, what we have here is we have the Apostle Peter describing some of the characteristics of the false teachers that he had in mind. Dear ones, this passage of God’s Word, I believe it is highly relevant to our situation today in the professing Christian church, for I believe, beloved, that there are many church leaders today in the broader professively Christian world who could be described by at least some of these characteristics that Peter describes in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening.
Beloved in Christ, in this present world, we face many dangers. We face dangers from the fallen world system that seeks to draw us away from Christ and conform us into its image instead of allowing us to be conformed by grace into the image of Christ. So we face dangers from the world. We face dangers from the devil and his minions. And of course, we face dangers from the ongoing pull of our own sinful fallen nature. One of the dangers that we must be aware of is the ever-present danger of false teaching and false teachers. Now of course, some of the dangers that we face in this present world originate from outside of the visible church, dangers such as persecution from those who are hostile to the faith, those who seek to shut us up or shut down the churches or counteract the spread of the gospel and so forth.
But friends, this particular danger of false teaching and false teachers is a danger that rears its ugly head even from within the visible church. So friends, let us give our earnest attention to these Spirit-inspired words penned by the Apostle Peter. Now as we look at our and consider our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, I want to set this passage again in its context and remind us of the context. The late D. Martin Lloyd-Jones said this about 2 Peter chapter 2. And his words are a little bit shocking, but let me explain. He says, of all the chapters which are to be found in the entire Bible, this second chapter of the second epistle of Peter is among the most terrible. Now he’s not criticizing the Bible. He’s not denying the inspiration of this chapter.
What he’s saying is that of all of the portions of scripture that we might consult, this is one of the most terrible in the sense that it speaks of the terrible wrath and judgment of God. He goes on to say that for threatening, for warning, for the idea of doom and disaster and destruction, there is nowhere in holy writ itself anything which surpasses this particular chapter. Now again, whether or not we agree with Lloyd-Jones’ particular assessment of this specific chapter of God’s Word, it is certainly a portion of God’s Word which is indeed filled with the theme of the doom and destruction of false teachers and the certainty of God’s judgment against them. Now as we consider this passage within its context in chapter 2, we note that in the first three verses of chapter 2, Peter, first of all, introduces us to these particular false teachers.
Again, just to review verse 1, he says, but false prophets also arose among the people. He’s talking about the people of God in Old Testament times. He says false prophets arose among them, arose from within the visible covenant community, and he goes on to say just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, again, false teachers don’t go around advertising themselves typically as false teachers. They privately or privily, to use the old King James language, they introduce destructive heresies even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. So we’re introduced to these false teachers in the first three verses and then in verses 4 through the first part of verse 10, Peter assures his readers of the certainty of God’s judgment against these false teachers and also of his ability to rescue the godly from their trials as we’re assured and comforted by the truth as Peter brings it out in verse 9.
Well, let me start in verse 8, he says, let me start rather in verse 9, if the Lord knows how to bring judgment upon the angels and upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the world of the time of Noah, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of punishment and so forth. Well, friends, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, Peter describes the debased characteristics and character of the false teachers. So let’s now turn our attention to what we learn here in this particular section of chapter 2. Let’s first of all focus on the character and characteristics of false teachers. We learn here about the character and the characteristics of false teachers and again, there are specific false teachers that Peter has in mind, but these tend to be characteristics that are generally true of those who are false teachers.
How does Peter describe them? Well, look at the second part of verse 10, bold and willful. They do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones. How does he describe them? He describes them as bold and arrogant or bold and willful as it’s translated here in the ESV. The New King James translates it presumptuous, self-willed. The NIV has bold and arrogant. One suggested translation is that they are derers, self-satisfied. Dr. Kistermacher points out that they are bold in the sense of being rashly insolent and so adhere to the well-known saying, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The term bold in this verse, it’s not a positive term, the term bold in this verse points to presumptuous and conceited individuals whose pursuits in life are self-gratification and physical pleasure. They’re bold, they’re presumptuous, they’re not teachable, they’re not humble, they’re arrogant.
Of course, this is the opposite attitude that we would expect from the faithful man of God. Faithful preachers and teachers of God’s Word will be characterized by, or at least ought to be characterized by an attitude of trembling at the Word of God, an attitude of humility before the face of Christ, and thus they will strive, however imperfectly, to be cautious and careful in their handling of God’s Word. You want those in the pulpit, for example, and those who preach and teach to you to tremble before the inerrant, infallible Word of God. And when we handle the Word of God, we are handling holy things, but the false teachers don’t have that attitude towards the Word of God. Another way that they’re described here in this passage is that they are slanderous. Again, let’s look at verses 10 and 11.
It says this, bold and willful they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones. I’ll explain that in a moment, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, probably meaning greater in might and power than these glorious ones that are blasphemed, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. Now, this raises an interpretive issue, an issue where good and godly scholars of the Bible have come to different conclusions. Who are these glorious ones? That’s how it’s translated here in the ESV. The New American Standard Version translates it as angelic majesties. There the New American Standard Version gives sort of an interpretive translation. Likewise, the NIV translates it as celestial beings. The New King James Version translates it as dignitaries. What is the word here that is here in the ESV translated as glorious ones?
The Greek word is the word doxus, and it’s a word that could literally be translated as glories. So these false teachers blaspheme or rail against glories. But that raises the question, who are these glories? Are they celestial beings, angelic beings, are they earthly dignitaries? Well, some have suggested that this term glories, doxus, refers to church leaders or perhaps to civil leaders. In this view, the false teachers are characterized by railing against legitimate church authority or legitimate governmental authority. And that is sometimes a characteristic of false teachers, is that they denigrate legitimate church authority or legitimate authority in the civil realm because they want to exalt their own authority and push themselves forward as worthy of being followed. But again, this is one understanding. But others suggest and many others, many others suggest that the term glories is referring to angelic beings, either referring to good angels or perhaps referring even to evil angels.
Again, this is a difficult interpretive conundrum that we find ourselves in because Peter doesn’t really flesh out what he’s talking about explicitly. He kind of assumes that his readers will know what he’s referring to. And so what do we need to do when we come to an interpretive difficulty in Scripture? Well, we need to interpret Scripture with Scripture. We need to look at the immediate context and we need to look at possible parallel passages. And we have such a parallel passage in Jude verses 8 through 10, which we’ll turn to in a few moments. But friends, when we consider verse 10 and 11 together and when we compare this passage with its parallel text in Jude verses 8 through 10, then the interpretation that seems to make the most sense is that Peter is referring to the fallen angels.
Let’s read verse 10 and 11 together again. Bold and glorious, excuse me, bold and willful they, the false teachers, do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, clearly he’s thinking of the angelic realm, angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them, these glories, these doxus before the Lord. Is there another passage of Scripture that can throw light on the meaning here? Well, I’d have you turn to Jude. Jude is the short epistle right before the book of Revelation. And let me read verses 8 through 10 of Jude. And Jude is dealing with a similar situation. He’s also addressing the issue of false teachers. And he says this, yet in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the doxus, the glorious ones.
But when the archangel Michael, contended with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. It’s instructive, if you’re doing a study of 2 Peter chapter 2, to keep the epistle of Jude opened up, because there’s much parallel in these two epistles. And so it would seem, from the context of Jude, that these glories are referring to, he’s speaking of the angelic realm, and he speaks about the archangel Michael not bringing a railing judgment or pronunciation against the evil spirits and so forth. And so, but that raises the question, why would Peter refer to the evil angels as glories, as glorious ones, as celestial beings, and how is it that they can be blasphemed?
Well, again, if this is the correct understanding, then the term glories reminds us, beloved, of the truth that Satan and the other fallen angels, they had not been created as fallen angels. God did not create Satan with an evil nature. Satan and the fallen angels, the demons, were once good and glorious beings. They were glories. They were created good and glorious. But sadly, tragically, by their own free will, they rebelled against the Lord and fell. And in terms of what this teaches us about the false teachers, that they rail against the fallen angels, Satan and the fallen angels, what that teaches us is that, again, they don’t take Satan and his demonic hosts nearly as seriously as they should. They’re bold and they’re arrogant, they’re presumptuous. They don’t realize that they themselves are slaves to Satan and the demonic realm.
They’re not in a position to sit in judgment over the demonic realm or to rail against it. So again, they are slanderers and they are ignorant. And that leads me to my next point as we move on to verse 12. They are also described as ignorant and irrational. It says in verse 12 of our passage of these false teachers. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction. Like irrational beasts, they’re not dwelling in the realm of rationality. They are like irrational beasts which function only on instinct. These false teachers behave with a similar irrationality to the irrationality of a beast. They also rail and blaspheme about matters about which they are ignorant. You listen to false teachers long enough in light of the Word of God, it’s clear that they speak of things, often speak boisterously and confidently of things about which they are ignorant because they’re not informed by and in submission to the Word of God.
And I think one of the takeaways from this beloved is that we need to beware of any pastor or preacher or Bible teacher who wants you to turn off your brain and let him do your thinking for you. Certainly, we must appreciate and respect the gifts, the teaching gifts that God gives to His servants who preach the Word faithfully. We can learn from them, but you can be a great preacher of God’s Word and still have error. You think of some of the great theologians in church history that we can learn much from. The more you study them, the more you realize, yeah, they were really great in certain areas, but they were way off in other areas. One example that comes to my mind is St. Augustine. We love St. Augustine. The reformers, Luther and Calvin, loved St.
Augustine. He was a great defender of sovereign grace against the Pelagians, and yet he also had some really wacky ideas in some other areas of his theology. Can we learn from him? Yes, but he was not infallible. And so, friends, when it comes to false teachers who want you to turn off your brain and just listen to them, that should be a red flag. God wants us to love Him with our minds, not just our emotions. He wants us to use our reason in submission to His revelation, in submission to the Word of God, yes, but He wants us to love Him with our minds and not just with our emotions, but with our hearts. So these false teachers, they’re bold and arrogant, they’re slanderous, they’re ignorant and irrational, but they’re also described here as being immoral.
He goes on to say in verse 14 the following about them. He says, they have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed, accursed children. What does this mean? They have eyes full of adultery. One commentator explains it this way. Eyes full of adultery is a compressed phrase for always looking for a woman with whom to commit adultery. Phillips has their eyes cannot look at a woman without lust. They are possessed by and driven by their lust, and they seek an outlet for their lust. And we are told, and again, when we look at the specific false teachers that Peter has in mind, it’s clear that these false teachers were what we might call antinomians. They were those who proclaimed that the grace of God gives a license to sin, and they lived in accordance with that principle.
Let us sin that grace may abound seems to have been their motto. And notice what it says here, and this is what has Peter so concerned as he writes earnestly this final epistle to these believers and to us today in the church. He says, they entice unsteady souls. Is your soul steady or unsteady? Are you settled and firm in your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you grounded in the word of God? If not, you’re liable to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. Those who are not well grounded in the truth, such as newer or immature believers, are much more prone to be allured by false teachers and by false teaching. I know a man who was converted to Christ as a high schooler, but then the Jehovah’s, and he was a young believer, but then the Jehovah’s Witnesses got to him, and he became a Jehovah’s Witness, and he raised his family in that faith.
And later on in life, he came to realize he was wrong. He came to realize the Bible does teach the doctrine of the Trinity, and he returned to a sound orthodox understanding. But Satan got him when he was unsteady. This is why it’s so important to be in the Word, and parents, this is why it is so vitally important for you to ground your children in the Word of God. Read the Bible to them, teach them the Word, catechize them, ground them in the faith. You might say, well, yeah, we fill their heads full of knowledge, but their heart has to embrace it too. And that’s true. That’s where prayer comes in. Pray for your young ones, pray for your covenant children. But they are being raised in a world of unsteadiness. They need to be well-grounded, which means you, mother, father, you need to be well-grounded.
You need to be in the Word. My friends, the more unsteady and unstable the times in which we live, the more important it is to be well-grounded in the Word and stable in our faith. And the way to be stable, you know, it’s not something you don’t grow up physically overnight. Likewise, we don’t grow spiritually overnight. This is why we need one another. We need the body of Christ. We need the confessions of the church to guide us in our understanding of the Scriptures. We need the community of Christ, the community of God’s people. And yes, false teachers sometimes arise even within the covenant community. But if we are grounding our faith in the truth that has been confessed by our forefathers in the faith and which has been affirmed by the church of Catholic throughout its ages, I’m using the term Catholic in the terms of in sense of in the sense of the universal church, then we have that protection.
We need to not just trust Christ. That’s the only, you know, that’s the only way to salvation, of course. But once we trust Christ, we need to be discipled in him lest we be picked off by false teachers who prey upon the unstable. So again, these false teachers, they are also they are also immoral and they entice unsteady souls. But they’re also described in verse 15 as greedy, forsaking the right way. They have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Bayor, who loved gain from wrongdoing. Now that passage from Numbers that was read earlier in the service where the Lord tells Balaam to go ahead and follow after Balaam. And you may say, well, there’s this kind of attention in the text there because Balaam does that. He goes with Balaam and then the angel of the Lord confronts him.
And you know, the story about the donkey is one of the one of the funniest stories in the Bible. If you think about it, it always it always makes me chuckle when here’s Balaam and his donkey is not following his directions and crushes his foot and he starts beating up his donkey and the Lord opens the donkey’s mouth and the donkey starts talking to him. And then Balaam starts having a conversation with his donkey. And it’s almost like he’s so enraged he doesn’t realize, oh, hold on, wait a minute. My donkey’s talking to me. What gives here? But what was it that drove Balaam? The reason the Lord confronted Balaam is because Balaam wanted to do Balaam’s bidding. Balaam wanted the money that Balaam was offering him, but Balaam knew that he couldn’t speak anything except what the Lord directed him to speak.
But he keeps trying. Well, maybe if we offer a sacrifice on this at this spot, maybe the Lord will let me curse the people. He was motivated by greed. He wanted the money. He wanted the filthy lucre that was being offered to him by King Balaam. As one commentator puts it, Balaam is cited as a classic example of the false teacher who leads people astray for his own personal gain. Verse 22 to 24 shows how Balaam tried time and again to prophesy against Israel in order to gain the reward Balak offered. In the end, after failing to destroy Israel verbally, he is shown as doing so morally. Balaam is the prototype of the false teacher who seeks good rewards or popularity by persuading people that God’s standards can be lowered. A couple brief takeaways. First of all, understand that there are many false prophets and false teachers out there.
Just to mention a few obvious ones. There are pseudo-Christian cults out there, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, and so forth. There are prosperity preachers. There are so-called gay theologians. There’s modernists, neo-legalists, antinomians, and the list goes on and on and on. You will often be able to discern who they are not simply because of what they teach, although that’s an important way to recognize them if their teaching is not in accord with Scripture. But another way that you can recognize them is they will exhibit the same kind of character and characteristics that Peter mentions in this passage. And so that being the case, brothers and sisters, let us strive to be established, stable, and mature in our faith. And the best way to discern the errors that we are to avoid is to know well the truth God’s Word calls us to embrace.
Let me repeat that. The best way to discern the errors that we are to avoid is to know well the truth God’s Word calls us to embrace. Well, we’ve learned about some of the character and characteristics of these false teachers. But very briefly in closing, we also learn here of God’s power to rebuke and restrain false teachers, God’s power to rebuke and to restrain false teachers. Verse 16 focuses on this. Speaking of Balaam, the son of Baor, Peter writes that he was rebuked for his own transgression. A speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. We see, as I mentioned, the utter spiritual blindness of Balaam. He was so driven by his greed that he persisted in his transgression even though God was speaking to him, even though he knew the truth about God.
Nevertheless, he refused to repent and he did not truly turn to the Lord. So we see, again, false teachers are spiritually blind to the things of God. But we also see God’s ironic power in rebuking Balaam. By his awesome supernatural power, God was able to use a dumb speechless donkey to rebuke the false prophet Balaam and to restrain the false prophet’s madness. And friends, if God is able to rebuke and restrain the false prophet Balaam by using a simple beast of burden, surely he is able to rebuke and restrain false teachers today. That is the comfort that I think we can glean from this passage. If God was able to rebuke Balaam, who was obviously influential as an oracle giver and so forth in that culture, certainly God is able to rebuke and restrain false teachers today.
Let not the presence of false teachers within professedly Christian churches discourage your hearts. Just as God used a humble donkey to restrain the madness of Balaam, so he is able to use the simple and humble means at his disposal, such as the faithful preaching and teaching of God’s Word, to restrain and to counteract false teaching today. So let us continue to confess and embrace the truth of God’s Word and bear testimony to it. The light of God’s Word and the power of the biblical gospel, when blessed by the Holy Spirit, can overcome the darkness and the stranglehold of false teaching and heresy. In conclusion, I will leave you with D. Martin Lloyd-Jones’ ultimate way to test whether a teaching is true or false. How do we know ultimately whether a teaching is true or false?
Well, he puts it very simply. He says, if Christ is not in the center, He is being denied. He is either in the center or He is nowhere. If you listen to a sermon and there’s no Jesus, not even implicit in the sermon, if you could very well hear such a sermon just as much in a synagogue as in a Christian church, then you might be listening to false teaching. Christ is always to be in the center. That’s how we guard against false teaching. Keep Christ, the biblical Christ, in the center. Dear ones, we avoid false teachers and we avoid Balaam’s way if we follow on the narrow way, the narrow way that leads to life. What is the narrow way? The narrow way is Jesus Christ. Jesus said, John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father except by me. Let us keep Him front and center in our hearts, in our church, in our confession. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You that You’ve given us a true and trustworthy and reliable Word. We thank You for the Holy Scriptures. They are indeed a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. We ask that in these days where discernment is such a rarity that we ask that You would grant us a spirit of discernment. Grant us the grace, Lord, to test the spirits to see whether they are of God and help us, Lord, to be grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ and grounded in the whole counsel of God as revealed in Your inerrant Word. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen.
Let’s close our time of worship this evening by rising and we’ll sing hymn number 266, Thou Art the Way, 266.
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