BEWARE OF WELLS WITHOUT WATER!
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on June 26, 2019 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: June 26, 2019 from 2 Peter 2:17-22
Theme: Because of what they are, false teachers absolutely cannot deliver what they promise.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
This is a very unsettling portion of Peter’s second letter. It may be one of the most unsettling passages in the New Testament. But unsettling as it may seem, the Holy Spirit has preserved it for us in order to protect us from the danger it warns us about.
The apostle Peter had been writing in the second chapter of this letter about the dangerous influences of false teachers—individuals who would arise from within the church, spread unbiblical doctrines deceitfully, and mislead God’s people away from faithfulness to the gospel and into spiritual error. At the end of that chapter, Peter wrote these harsh words about them:
These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:17-22).
This passage treats the subject of false teaching through the logical principle of ‘antithesis’. In the Bible, the gospel of Jesus Christ is presented to us as the absolute truth from God; and anything that deliberately denies it, or presumes to be an alternative to it, or that seeks to set itself up in its place in defiance of it, is therefore—by antithesis—a lie. The Bible presents us with the exclusive nature of the gospel—that there is no other way to be saved and to enter into God’s favor than the way He Himself has provided through Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6; see also Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 John 2:22-23; 4:2-3; 5:20-21). If we take seriously the claims the Bible makes of the exclusive nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ, then this would mean that every time someone presents a new system of spiritual fulfillment or personal enrichment apart from faith in Christ, they are actually promoting a lie. Every time a religious leader from another faith offers an alternative way of enlightenment and spiritual peace than by faith in the cross of Jesus Christ, they are actually an idolater in rebellion against the truth. Every time a scholar or theologian dismisses what the Bible teaches and offers a ‘non-judgmental’ ethic and a ‘self-defined’ spirituality in its place, he or she is, in reality, a ‘blind leader of the blind’.
We should take this morning’s passage, then, as a warning that false teachers are presenting the antithesis of truth; and that they, therefore, cannot deliver the goods they promise. We shouldn’t give them any credibility, or be fooled by them, or in any way allow ourselves to suffer loss because of them.
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Notice first how Peter warns us that …
1. THEY CANNOT OFFER ANYONE ANY SPIRITUAL HELP BECAUSE THEY THEMSELVES ARE SPIRITUALLY EMPTY (v. 17).
He tells us, “These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” They are completely incapable of providing anyone any of the good things that can only be ours—and ours in a complete way—in Christ.
First, he says that they are “wells without water”—or, as it can be translated, “springs” or “fountains without water”. They are like a desert mirage. You run to them for spiritual refreshment because—from a distance—they look promising. But on closer examination, you find that there’s nothing there but dust. The promise sounded so good; but the well only proves to be dry. The hearts of many people have been hardened to spiritual things because of an encounter with such false teachers—leaving them so disappointed and disillusioned that they no longer want to even hear about spiritual things anymore. Second, he says that they are “clouds carried by a tempest”, or “mists driven by a storm”. Clouds are easily blown away in the wind and vanish. Sailors don’t guide their ships by the position of the clouds, because the clouds aren’t reliable. And these false teachers are like clouds in a strong wind. The tempest blows and they’re gone. They can’t be counted on. They have no firm rooting in God whatsoever. They’re only in it for what they can get; and if you take away whatever it is they want, they’ll drift on to someplace else. And most horrible of all, they are ones “for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever”. Peter has already spoken of this darkness in 2 Peter 2:4; where we’re told that the angels who fell into sin and rebellion against God were “cast into hell”—delivered into “chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment”. This ‘blackness of darkness’ is not just for fallen angels, but is also reserved for these false teachers who mislead God’s people. Perhaps this is what our Lord was referring to in Matthew 18:6; when He said that it would be better for some if a millstone would be hung around their necks, and that they were drowned in the sea, than that they cause one of His little ones who believes in Him to sin!
And the point? It’s that those who lead people away from God’s sure word, and away from a pure faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, can’t do any spiritual good for anyone. Instead, they draw people away from true spiritual riches, and have nothing of any spiritual value to offer in their place. We must not listen to them.
Second, Peter tells us that …
2. THEY CANNOT SET ANYONE AT LIBERTY BECAUSE THEY THEMSELVES ARE IN BONDAGE (vv. 18-19).
He wrote, “For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage” (vv. 18-19).
Notice who their intended victims are. We’re told that they “allure” those who “have actually escaped from those who live in error”. Peter is most likely speaking here of Christians who are new to the faith—what we would call ‘babes in Christ’. Other translations have it that they those who have “just escaped”. In the original language, it’s put in such a way as to say that they are, even then, “just escaping”. That’s who these false teachers look for—that is, those who are not yet rooted and established in the truths of the faith—the ones who are most vulnerable to the kind of false teaching that might draw them back into the sins that God had saved them from. And second, notice how these false teachers seek to draw them in. They try to allure them through “the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness”. They make the appeal that, if their victims would simply follow the path they set for them, they can still enjoy the pleasures of the fleshly nature. In fact, they make it sound as if they can even gratify those lusts more freely. (One of my former teachers in Bible college told me that, if you watch long enough, false spiritual teaching will almost always cause its victims to degenerate at some point into sexual immorality.) These false teachers draw people in with high and swelling words of moral ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’. But it’s not ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ at all. The only thing they really offer is licentiousness—and the eventual suffering that goes with it. And notice thirdly why they really can’t offer freedom to anyone. It’s because they themselves are slaves to corruption. Jesus said;
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every three that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:15-20).
These false teachers may make a great boast about their “freedoms”; but Jesus plainly said that “whoever commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). If these false teachers were truly “free”, then they would freely walk in holiness. But they are overcome by sin themselves; and therefore they cannot set anyone free. They can’t deliver the ‘freedom’ that they claim to offer.
A third thing that Peter tells us is that …
3. THEY CANNOT RAISE ANYONE UP TO A HIGHER LEVEL BECAUSE THEY THEMSELVES ARE ON THE DOWNWARD SLIDE (v. 20).
The weight of the sins that have enchained them—sins that they will neither repent of or trust the Savior to deliver them from—simply pulls them down further and further in their separation from God. Peter writes; “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning” (v. 20).
Note how Peter said that they had “escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”. Apparently, these false teachers knew enough of the Lord Jesus to—temporarily, at least—escape from the pollutions of the world. But they turned back to their rebellious ways again; and ended up in even worse spiritual condition than before. The word Peter used for their “knowledge” of the Lord is one that meant that they were only ‘coming’ to a knowledge of the Lord; but it doesn’t indicate a full, complete, saving knowledge. This is apparently what the writer of Hebrews was talking about when he wrote,
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, had have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame (Hebrews 6:4-6).
And note that they do not simply return to that spiritual state of being in which they were before they came toward Christ. Peter says that their latter condition is far worse than the first. They were like ‘the swept house’ that the Lord Jesus spoke of in His parable—how when a demon is cast out and finds the house swept and clean, he comes back with seven more; “and the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45). That’s how it is with false teachers who ‘knew’ of the Lord Jesus, and perhaps were even drawn to Him, but who rejected Him and have returned to their rebellion against Him. They can’t make anyone “better”. They can only make those who listen to them worse off than before; because they themselves are worse off than before.
And finally, Peter tells us that …
4. THEY CANNOT LEAD ANYONE TO SALVATION BECAUSE THEY THEMSELVES HAVE RETURNED TO THEIR OWN DEPRAVITY (vv. 21-22).
Peter says, “For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them” (v. 21). Imagine that! It would have been far better for them to have never heard the gospel at all than to have heard it and turned from it! What condemnation they bring on themselves!
Peter here quotes from the Old Testament—from Proverbs 26:11—and writes, “But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire’” (v. 22). It’s a repulsive picture. But though repulsive, it is given to us by the Holy Spirit for our protection; and we need to think carefully about it. It speaks of a dog vomiting in a way that illustrates what it means to be rescued from our sin. Out goes all the things from our old lives that are repulsive to our holy heavenly Father. But what a horrible thing it is to go back and get those things and take them back into ourselves again! Or when a pig is washed of its own filth, that’s a picture of what it means to be cleansed of our sinful habits. But what a repulsive act it is—having claimed to have come to Jesus for cleansing—to then go back and wallow in the filth again! The very image makes us sick to think about. But we need to understand that that’s how God sees it when people who are drawn to His Son and then taste of a righteous life … and then turn away and go back to their old sins again!
Peter says that “it has happened to them according to the true proverb”. And though we say this with genuine trembling of heart, such false teachers are thus proving their nature by their return to their former sins. They show themselves to be—spiritually speaking—dogs and pigs. They cannot help lead anyone to fulfillment in Jesus because they are still—by their very nature—inclined toward the kind of depravity that Jesus died on the cross to save us from.
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We must not listen to such false teachers in their error. We should pray for their deliverance; but should never look to them for spiritual insight, or listen to their offers of freedom, or heed their ‘self-help’ programs and ‘enlightenment’ advice. They can only deceive, rob, and drag their victims down further and further from God’s blessings. Instead, we should learn to trust completely in the reliable word of God, and rejoice confidently in Jesus alone as the only one in whom we are given “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).
EA
