Slaves of Corruption

Sermon transcript

Well, friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue to make our way through 2 Peter, and this evening we will be in 2 Peter chapter 2 verses 17 through 22. That’s 2 Peter chapter 2 verses 17 through 22. You’ll find that on page 1208 in your pew Bibles. Let’s hear God’s holy word, 2 Peter 2 beginning at verse 17. Peter describing the false teachers that he is refuting, he says, these are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.

For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returns to its own vomit and the sow after washing herself returns to wallow in the mire. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word this evening. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you that you have given us in the scriptures your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word.

We ask, O Lord, that we might be guided and directed by this word. We ask that by your Spirit you would make us teachable, malleable, and we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would bless the word as it goes forth this evening, both the word that was just read and also we pray that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth your word in such a manner that it finds a lodging place in our souls and bears spiritual fruit in our lives. Be with us now, Lord, and Lord Jesus, be glorified and magnified in the proclamation of your word this evening. And we pray all these things, Heavenly Father, through Jesus, your Son, our Lord, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. As you see, the title of my sermon this evening is Slaves of Corruption.

And there are six key words that you can be listening for tonight. The words teaching, nourishment, knowledge, conversion, reformation, and regeneration. Well, my dear friends in Christ, one of the saddest, most tragic things for a follower of Jesus to witness is professed converts to the Christian faith who end up eventually turning their backs on their once professed faith and reverting back to their old non-Christian or secular beliefs, or perhaps turning back to the pagan godless lifestyles of their pre-conversion days. Perhaps you know folks in your own circle of relationships or from your past who would fit that description. And when you think of it, it’s tragic. It grieves our hearts to see those who once professed faith fall away from their faith. Or if they don’t abandon Christianity entirely, they abandon an orthodox biblical understanding of the Christian faith in favor of a heretical, modernistic, or so-called progressive version of Christianity.

A version of Christianity which by biblical standards is no real Christianity at all. Again, perhaps you can think of individuals in your own circle of friends or family or acquaintances who once seemed to be zealous followers of Jesus. Zealous followers of Jesus who were committed to living godly lives, committed to pursuing holiness, but who eventually ended up deserting an orthodox biblical understanding of the gospel or turning back to the godless lifestyle of their pre-Christian days, or perhaps both. Now some would describe this kind of movement away from faith as a de-conversion, a reversal in other words of one’s professed conversion. A more fashionable label that is sometimes used today to describe this kind of movement away from the historic Christian faith is the word deconstruction, although it’s my understanding that that word is used in different ways depending upon the context.

But friends in reality from the standpoint of God’s word, it is just good old fashioned apostasy or falling away from the faith. In his second letter, the apostle Peter is seeking to warn against and to counteract the influence of false teachers who had themselves been guilty of such a falling away and who were apparently targeting new converts to Christ with their false teaching and seeking to draw others away with them. Now these false teachers would still profess to be Christians, but they held to a heretical understanding of Christianity and really they were what we could describe as moral apostates. In terms of the setting of our passage for this evening, in 2 Peter chapter 2, the apostle Peter has been warning his readers about these false teachers. He had been describing their character and he had also been predicting their ultimate destruction and judgment.

Again the particular false teachers that Peter warns his original readers about could be described as antinomians, in other words the word antinomian means against the law. They were those who were against God’s law in the sense that they were moral libertines. In other words they seemed to teach that being saved by God’s grace gives the believer a license to indulge in sinful passions and the sinful passions in view were probably sexual sin in particular. And so these false teachers justified a secular sin under the excuse of well you’re saved by grace so it doesn’t matter what you do with your body. These false teachers could be described as I said as moral apostates since it seems that they would claim to be Christians but they denied the moral implications of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Does this sound like something that would be relevant in our situation today in the 21st century? Well friends again I would assert to you this evening that Peter’s warning in his second epistle is still very relevant to us today in the 21st century for today there continue to be many false teachers and many different varieties of the antinomian heresy. In our text for this Lord’s Day evening Peter continues to describe these false teachers. Here he highlights their character, their destiny as well as their moral condition. At heart they are as he describes it in verse 19 they are slaves of corruption. Slaves of corruption who have resolutely turned their backs on the true gospel of Jesus Christ and its ethical implications. They haven’t just stumbled or fallen into sin. True believers may stumble into sin even serious and scandalous sin like King David did for example and like Peter himself did when he denied Christ three times on the night before Jesus was crucified.

But no these moral apostates these false teachers had willfully and resolutely turned their backs on the moral implications of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now in the course of describing these false teachers Peter reminds us that false teachers and false teachings are simply unable to provide us with any real spiritual nourishment for our souls. False teaching can present itself as a very exciting new insight and it’s easy to get caught up into the excitement of new ideas and new teachings novel teachings. But in the end they prove to be empty and they do not satisfy the hungry soul. We also learn here of the mortal danger of having a mere intellectual knowledge of Christ that is devoid of genuine heart conversion. We also learn about the ultimate uselessness of a mere external or outward profession of faith and a mere external reformation of life that is without the basis in an inward regeneration by the Holy Spirit and a genuine conversion of the heart to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

So with all of this in mind let’s dive into our text for this evening and the first thing I want to point out as we turn our attention to verses 17 through 19. Consider first the inability of false teaching and false teachers to provide lasting spiritual nourishment. The inability of false teaching and false teachers to provide a lasting spiritual nourishment. Let’s start with verse 17. Notice how Peter describes them. He says these are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. Waterless springs, what’s that talking about? It basically points to the fact that these teachers and their teaching is unable to provide refreshment. As one commentator puts it and we find here in this language a picture of cruel deception. The thirsty traveler comes to the spring expecting cool refreshing water but finds it dry.

So the false teachers promise satisfying truth but in reality have nothing to offer. I remember I have a memory in my mind of a time when I was I think I was in junior high school and I was outside I think I was jogging out in the high school track and it was a sunny day and I realized I’m really parched I was really desperately thirsty and there’s a water fountain outside and I run to that water fountain and I turn the handle and nothing comes out. How disappointing I was and how desperate I was to get hold of some water and to quench my thirst and I was so relieved when I finally was able to get to a water fountain. But these false teachers and their teaching is like a waterless spring or springs without water it promises refreshment it promises to quench your spiritual thirst but in the end it leaves you dry and empty.

What about the image of mists driven by a storm? I like what Dr. Kistermacher says about this he says what a disappointment to people who having endured a drought finally see storm clouds from which they expect abundant rain but the storm pushes along swirling clouds that are waterless so the heretics cause excitement in the community but offer nothing that is substantial and worthwhile. This would be language that would especially be meaningful to to those who were farmers for example and you’ve got you’ve had a dry season and you desperately need rain to water your crops and you see a cloud and you think oh the rain’s finally coming but then it ends up being merely a mist that is driven away by the storm that doesn’t leave water to water your fields. And what does he go on to say about these false teachers who are incapable by their false teaching to provide spiritual refreshments he says in verse 17 for them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

The NIV translates it blackest darkness is reserved for them. Their false teachings bring others into spiritual darkness so it is only just for God to reserve for them the gloomiest blackest darkness of hell forever. The darkness of hell will even surpass that supernatural darkness that was experienced by the Egyptians in the ninth plague where God sent a plague upon the people that of darkness that could be felt. Let’s turn back briefly to Exodus chapter 10 Exodus 10 verses 21 through 23 as Moses writes of this ninth plague it says this then the Lord said to Moses stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt and notice how this darkness is described it is a darkness to be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days they did not see one another nor did anyone rise from his place for three days but all the people of Israel had light where they lived.

That’s how God made a distinction between his people his people had light but the Egyptians had nothing but pitch black darkness for three days. Imagine being going three whole days without seeing a glimmer of light. This was obviously a supernatural darkness but the blackest darkness of hell will surpass even that kind of darkness. I’ve never been diagnosed with this and some of you can relate to this but one of the most difficult times of the year are the winter months when it’s very gray and you know that kind of gloomy dark gray for days and days and days and it just it really saps my mood. I think they call it seasonal affective disorder perhaps some of you have experienced that or suffer from that. In other words it’s very difficult for me to go through periods of time where I don’t see the sun for a lengthy period of time.

I can only imagine the darkness of hell that is described here in this passage something much worse than what is experienced by those who suffer from seasonal affective disorder and the like and so they are destined for the gloom of utter darkness because they by their false teachings bring others into spiritual darkness. But notice also how they are described as we move on to verse 18. It says for speaking loud boasts of folly they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. Now what’s what’s he talking about here. Let’s go through this. He says that these false teachers speak loud boasts of folly. In other words false teachers tend to be characterized by an arrogant boastfulness a bravado a boldness and that’s one of the things that makes them so attractive and makes their teaching so attractive they seem so confident so certain of themselves.

Some of you may remember and if you don’t it’s okay but some of you may remember Harold Camping. He was a I’ll say it honestly he was a false teacher he was a Bible teacher on family Christian radio for a time he had been orthodox in his views but he developed some very unorthodox ideas but the thing about Mr. Camping he had this radio show and people would call in with their questions and they’d say Brother Camping what does this passage mean or what does that passage mean. And he would speak with such confidence and he would offer in many cases very weird and strange interpretations of passages of scripture that no one would have dreamed up prior to him and he would speak with great bravado great confidence. He didn’t speak in a loud voice but he seemed so calmly assured.

I can assure you that his teachings were far from what is found in the word of God. Well these particular false teachers they not only spoke with confidence they spoke loud boasts but their loud boasts were loud boasts of what? Folly. Their teaching was at heart and at its foundation nothing but utter spiritual folly foolishness and again because their particular brand of false teaching was again antinomianism which excused sin under the umbrella of the grace of God it goes on it says that they entice by what? By sensual passions of the flesh this is probably referring to sexual sin they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. Again these false teachers promoted a version of antinomianism which excused sin and it says that they went after as their potential converts those who are barely escaping.

Who’s he talking about there? Through this language Peter is describing the victims of these false teachers as new converts who have barely disentangled themselves from their former pagan associations they’ve just been rescued from their former pagan associations they’re just setting off onto the way of holiness the way of discipleship and then these false teachers come along and try to entice them back into error through their sensual passions and so forth and in verse 19 we’re told this they the false teachers promised them the potential converts they promised them what? Freedom freedom free from the law oh blessed condition you can send all you want and still have remission right? Sort of that antinomian that antinomian proclamation but it says they offer them freedom but they themselves these false teachers themselves are slaves of corruption they promise freedom but they can’t deliver what they promise and then he goes on to say for whoever over whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved again they cannot give what they promise they cannot give true freedom since they themselves are slaves of corruption the world thinks of freedom as the freedom to do whatever you want to do or to be more specific the freedom to send up a storm without consequence but that’s not true freedom that’s actually bondage quote unquote freedom to sin is actually bondage slavery to your own sin nature slavery to your own corruption so-called freedom or liberty to sin is actually in reality the deepest bondage of all and it says for whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved you know even the Roman pagan philosopher Seneca is reported to have said this he says to be enslaved to oneself is the heaviest of all servitudes that coming from a pagan to be enslaved to oneself is the heaviest of all servitudes brothers and sisters in Christ there are multitudes today who are slaves to their own sinful selves and only the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of the spirit can break that bondage can break that slavery a couple points of application here first of all beloved it’s vitally important for all believers but especially for new converts to the faith and for those who are young in the faith to be well grounded in their faith to labor to be well grounded in their faith your listener are you well grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truths of God’s holy word parents are you seeking to ground your children your covenant children in the truths of God’s word so that they are not picked off and enticed away from the narrow path that leads to life through the influence of false teachers like the ones described by Peter in his second epistle let us strive by the grace of God to ourselves be well grounded in the gospel and the truth of God’s word and let us strive to help those who are new to the faith those who are young in the faith to get established and mature in the faith we also learn here that Christ delivers true believers from their slavery to the corruption of sin I’m reminded of what our Lord teaches back in the gospel of John chapter eight verses thirty four through thirty six if you want to turn there you’re welcome to do so John chapter eight verses thirty four to thirty six we read these words Jesus answered them truly truly I say to you everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin the slave does not remain in the house forever the son remains forever so if the son sets you free you will be free indeed true freedom is freedom from the dominion and bondage of sin when Christ saves us he not only justifies us praise God he does that he not only delivers us from the guilt and the penalty of our sin he not only declares us righteous in his sight because of the righteousness of Christ credited to us and received by faith alone but he also sanctifies us he begins to sanctify us and clean us up on the inside he not only declares us to be righteous in the courtroom of heaven but the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us and begins cleaning up inside and fitting us for glory dear listener has Christ set you free from the bondage and corruption of sin now true believers do sin we do fall into sin in fact there’s a sense in which we all sin all the time you say pastor what are you talking about well let me ask you this God’s word God’s law requires you and me to love the Lord our God with all our heart all our soul all our mind all the time does that describe you if you’ve been born again by the Holy Spirit you do love God the Lord has worked within your soul a disposition to love God you love God though you fail him daily you still love him and you long to be righteous you hunger and thirst after righteousness though you fall short but if you do not at this very moment love God perfectly with your entire being then you are at this very moment sinning that’s me and that’s you but the difference between a regenerate sinner in an unregenerate sinner is the regenerate sinner has the Holy Spirit he has been given a new heart a new spirit a new disposition that turns away from sin and toward Christ and though we continue in this present life to struggle with the remaining presence of sin we don’t feel comfortable in our sin any longer we desire to be fully free from it we desire that day when we will love the Lord our God with all of our heart with all of our soul with all of our mind with all of our strength and when we will truly love our neighbor even as we love ourselves we long for that day and that day is coming praise God Christ has set us free from the domination of sin that’s why we fight sin that’s why the spirit fights against the flesh does this describe you well this leads me to my next point consider next the danger of a merely intellectual knowledge of Christ without genuine conversion to Christ as we move on to verses 20 and 21 it says this for if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ they are again entangled in them and overcome the last state has become worse for them than the first for it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandments delivered to them now who is the they referred to here in verse 20 well this is probably a reference to the false teachers not to those whom these false teachers are seeking to deceive and it says it’s interesting language that Peter uses here he says in verse 20 that they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge he says if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ they are again entangled in them and overcome the last state has become worse for them than the first in what sense had these false teachers escaped the world meaning the fallen world system and in what sense had they possessed the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now some look at passages like this and they believe that Peter is here saying that these false teachers had once been true believers that they had once possessed a true saving knowledge of and a true saving faith in Christ but that they ended up falling away from their faith by their own free will and thus losing their salvation however if that was what Peter is saying here then Peter would be contradicting other parts of the Bible and we know that God’s word does not contradict itself the Holy Spirit does not speak different messages the Bible is a unified divine revelation and so as we compare scripture with scripture we see in passages like John 10 27 to 30 and Romans 8 verse 1 there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus we see from the scriptures that God’s word declares the absolute security of the true believer in Christ how then are we to understand passages like this which speak of these false teachers as having a knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and having in some sense escaped in the past from the world well friends I would suggest to you that the better way to understand what Peter is saying here is that these false teachers had at some point come to an intellectual knowledge of the gospel they had at one time professed their faith in Christ and they’d even escaped the world for a time in the sense of outwardly reforming their lives and living an external Christian life they cleaned themselves up on the outside however in reality they had never truly been born again and truly converted to Christ after all if they had they would not have abandoned the true gospel nor gone back to their previous pagan lifestyle this is confirmed by passages like first John 2 18 and 19 if you would turn there briefly to first John chapter 2 verses 18 through 19 now John in his epistle is dealing with a different kind of heresy than is being dealt with by Peter in second Peter but nevertheless John describes false teachers and heretics as well who had ended up leaving the church and he says this he says in verse 18 children it is the last hour and as you have heard that antichrist is coming so now many antichrists have come therefore we know that it is the last hour and notice how he describes these antichrists he says they went out from us but they were not of us in other words they’d been members of the church members in good standing of the church they had professed faith in Christ but they went out they left he goes on to say for if they had been of us they would have continued with us but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us and so forth so friends again as the great reform theologian Dr.

John Murray wrote in his classic book redemption accomplished and applied on the subject of the falling away of false converts to Christ Murray says this he says the scripture itself therefore leads us to the conclusion that it is possible to have very uplifting ennobling reforming and exhilarating experience of the power and truth of the gospel to come into such close contact with the supernatural forces which are operative in God’s kingdom of grace that these forces produce effects in us which to human observation are hardly distinguishable from those produced by God’s regenerating and sanctifying grace and yet be not partakers of Christ and heirs of eternal life it’s not enough just to have an outward profession there has to be true faith in Christ from the heart and he goes on to say Peter goes on to say in verse 21 for it would have been better for them for these false teachers who had fallen away from a true understanding of the gospel it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness meaning the gospel and its ethical implications then after knowing it to turn back that is to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them it would have been better for them not to have even known the gospel though Peter doesn’t explicitly stated one of the reasons why it would have been better in their case in the case of these apostates never to have known the gospel is that with greater knowledge comes greater responsibility before God and thus greater guilt before God if you neglect your responsibility this is taught by our Lord himself in passages like Luke chapter 12 47 and 48 Luke chapter 12 47 and 48 where we’re told this Jesus speaking of the judgment of the Lord he says and that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act accordingly to his will will receive a severe beating but the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating in other words even in hell there will be degrees of punishment but in the case of these false teachers they had known the truth they had known it clearly and they turned they resolutely abandoned it for a false gospel a false teaching it would have been better for them never to have known the gospel at all dear listener again have you been born again is your knowledge of Christ a mere intellectual knowledge now that’s important it’s important for us to have good doctrine and good knowledge but that knowledge needs to result in a personal trust in a receiving and resting upon Christ and Christ alone for salvation from sin the elements of true saving faith involve a knowledge of the gospel an ascent an intellectual ascent to the gospel but the crowning element of saving faith is personal trust in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the object of the gospel the Savior as he offers himself to us in the gospel and only the Holy Spirit can grant us the grace to receive and rest upon Christ have you received and rested upon him have you been born again and this leads me to the final point based on verse 22 and that is friends consider the ultimate uselessness of a mere external reformation without genuine heart regeneration and conversion the ultimate uselessness of a mere external reformation of life without a genuine heart regeneration and conversion to Christ in verse 22 Peter writes what the true proverb says has happened to them to these false teachers the dog returns to its own vomit some of you own dogs and you can picture what’s being described here and it’s pretty gross isn’t it the dog returns to its own vomit and the sow that is the pig after washing herself returns to wallow in the mire dear ones it’s possible to be externally connected to Christ’s church but not be spiritually and savingly connected to Christ himself and certainly while membership in the visible church brings great spiritual privileges and while an outward reformation of life through the influences of the gospel can be greatly beneficial in this present life at the same time from an eternal perspective a mere outward profession of faith and a mere external reformation of life without the new birth and without genuine faith and repentance of heart are ultimately useless Peter uses these illustrations of the dog and the pig both dogs and pigs were regarded as unclean animals by the Jews in Peter’s time as pigs continue to be today dogs were not viewed back then as man’s best friend you know let’s say that you own a pig let’s call her name Sally and let’s say that Sally loves to do what pigs love to do she loves to wallow in the muck and the mire and the filth when she’s in her pig pen she is at home and life is good for her but let’s say that Sally begins the stench of Sally the pig starts to get to you it starts to really she starts to really reek and you say you know we need to clean Sally up so what do you do well let’s say you take Sally out of the pig pen you connect the hose you hose her down sort of like if you’re cleaning a car that’s filthy you would hose down the car and you even use soap and you get Sally all nice and clean and to top it off she’s smelling much better now you put a nice bow on Sally’s head and then you release Sally what’s Sally the pig gonna do she can say thank you so much that’s great it’s so great to be clean now she’s gonna go right back to the pig pen and dive right into the filth when she has an opportunity to do so my friends why does Sally do that why would the pig do that because it’s still a pig by nature in order to keep Sally the pig from going back to the pig pen she’d have to stop being a pig she’d have to stop having a pig nature well in a similar way you can clean up an unsaved person on the outside you can teach them good manners and good morals so that they behave as decent human beings in society and they can continue as decent human beings in society as long as there are external checks and restraints that are brought to bear upon them we call it common grace and there are many certainly many unbelievers who are very decent individuals from a civic and external perspective they give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it but at the same time at the same time such an external reformation can be greatly beneficial but unless the Holy Spirit has changed their heart if the restraints are removed they will very likely go back to living their old sinful pagan lives just like Sally the pig will go back to the pig pen the Holy Spirit has to clean us up on the inside if the Holy Spirit hasn’t cleaned him up on the inside he will likely just go back to his unsaved ways and that’s why Peter’s warning is so powerful and so important for us to take to heart again we are all dirty we’re all sinners we need to be cleaned up we not only need to be justified before the throne of God the judgment bar of God we need to be regenerated and cleaned up on the inside the good news of the gospel is that God has the power through Christ to raise us up from the deadness and the filth of our sin and to bring us to newness of life in Jesus and to clean us up on the inside and so let us trust in him let us throw ourselves upon his mercy and let us rest in Christ who promises and welcomes all who recognize their sin and their guilt he welcomes all to come to him and he will forgive us he will embrace us he will cleanse us and he will fit us for glory let us pray heavenly father we thank you for the word even for difficult portions of scripture like the passage we’ve considered tonight we pray that by your spirit these truths would impact us and take deep root in our hearts and bear spiritual fruit in our lives we ask Lord that you would indeed not only reform our lives on the outside but change us for Lord in Christ our resurrected Savior we are indeed new creations in him give us the grace to live like the new creations that we are in Jesus for it is in his name that we pray and all of God’s people said amen let’s rise as we close our time of worship we’ll rise and we’ll sing

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.