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We can have some good food here, but I'm telling you, when you go out there in the country,

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it just seems like they, I don't know what they do, they empty all their shelves or something

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and they bring it and it is just on the tables all over the place.

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Needless to say, we had enough to eat and it was a grand occasion, a grand occasion.

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I would like you to open your Bible with me tonight to 2 Peter.

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As we finish up the second chapter of the book, dealing with false teachers and how

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they're described, really this is an astonishing chapter it seems to me, from the language

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that is used by Peter.

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It is among the strongest language you will find anywhere in the Bible.

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It is language that is inspired by the Spirit of God and written by an apostle of Jesus

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Christ, but it is language that is very forthright, very clear.

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It is language that denounces in explicit terms the nature of those who are false teachers.

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You'll remember that Peter was a man of passion and action.

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Certainly his temperament, like the temperament of all of us hopefully, was somewhat moderated

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by his growth in Jesus Christ, his coming to know the Lord and then his growth, but

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the man himself, I think, is still very evident in this chapter.

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We have here something of an old salt, it seems to me, a crusty fisherman, sanctified

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by the grace of God, but very upset by the presence among some of the believers in that

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day of false teachers.

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He was alarmed by their presence and their activity as they sought to undermine new converts

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in particular and as they attempted to lead astray God's children.

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I wonder if there's that kind of passion among us today regarding this sort of thing.

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There needs to be.

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There needs to be.

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I wonder if at times the thinking in the world about pluralism, that there are many shades

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and hues of truth doesn't affect us so that we don't have as strong a feeling as we ought

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to have regarding those who are false teachers, those who are apostates.

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It is wonderful to be tolerant, and as the people of God there ought to be a certain

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tolerance about us, but there ought never to be a tolerance of that which is false and

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that which leads people astray from the truth into error.

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In this chapter Peter uses several methods to describe to us these teachers who were

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attacking the work of Jesus Christ and His person.

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He tells us early in the chapter that they denied the Son of God, they denied His deity,

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they denied that He bought them, they denied His blood atonement, the sufficiency of His

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sacrifice for sins, and because of this they themselves were bound for eternal judgment.

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As this chapter goes on he piles word upon word and phrase upon phrase until finally

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he overwhelms us really with language denouncing and describing these people.

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As he comes to the middle of the chapter and toward the end he draws several pictures to

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create an image in our minds regarding what they are like.

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He goes back in the history as we saw last week and he talks about Balaam and Balaam's

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willingness to sell his services as a profit for money.

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Numbers 22 through 24, he is killed in Numbers 31, that's where you find the record of Balaam.

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He is mentioned in the New Testament by Peter and Jude, by John in the book of Revelation

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warning against the error of Balaam, the way of Balaam, the teaching of Balaam.

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Balaam was a man who was willing to sell his religion and his practice of his religion

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for a price and Peter is saying so are the apostates.

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With them the bottom line is what they can get out of it, whether it be money or if it

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be promiscuity and that sort of fleshly satisfaction.

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Then he draws upon a picture from nature and finally he draws upon a picture from commerce

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reminding us that they entice, just like a fisherman entices the fish so these people

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entice others into their ways.

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The bottom line is this, that these false teachers had this one primary concern and

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that was satisfying their own lusts and greed.

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Now he concludes the chapter with several verses that record for us a couple of parables

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that give us further insight into the true spiritual condition of these frauds who are

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passing themselves off as Christians.

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I'm going to read tonight from the NIV, the New International Version, you follow along

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with whatever you have there.

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I'll start in verse 19, it says, they promised them freedom while they themselves are slaves

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of depravity for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

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If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus

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Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were

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at the beginning.

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It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to

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have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to

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them.

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Of them the prophets, the proverbs are true, a dog returns to its vomit and a sow that

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is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.

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Well this is a text of scripture that like some others has been greatly disputed in the

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church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Basically there are two positions.

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One position would say that the verse 20 in particular refers to people who have truly

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been saved, they've come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ, their sins have been forgiven,

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they've escaped corruption in that sense, and then after having been genuinely saved

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they in some manner or way turned their back on all of that and they were entangled again

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in some of the sins of their former life and as a result of that their end is worse off

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than if they had never even heard the gospel in the first place.

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So that position would assume that one can lose salvation.

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The other position and the one that I adhere to is that it's not talking about genuine

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Christians.

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The language there is strong language but I believe that it comes short of describing

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a genuine Christian.

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Now if one wishes to debate the language itself one then should go to the rest of scripture

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and let other scripture shine the light upon this.

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And the fact is that as you go to scripture you find that the scripture assures us that

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one who has genuinely trusted the Lord Jesus Christ though he indeed may stumble and fall

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into sin again will come out of that.

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Not only that he may stumble into sin again but that does not cause him to lose his salvation.

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Salvation is a gift of God's grace, it is not by works.

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It is therefore also kept by God's grace and power.

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It is not lost by our works.

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Let's begin tonight as we look at this text with the two parables that conclude the chapter.

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The first one says a dog returns to its vomit.

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Peter here draws upon two animals in his proverbs.

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Both animals by the way, interestingly, were considered unclean by the Jews.

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They were both animals of instinct of course and in that sense we are reminded of what

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Peter had said earlier in verse 12 of this chapter where he compares the false teachers

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to that kind of animal.

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He says they are like brute beasts, irrational creatures of instinct.

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And now he describes them by using parables about beasts that act out of instinct.

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The first is the dog and Peter here seems to be drawing upon proverbs 26 and 11 where

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the writer of proverbs says basically the same thing.

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The picture here if you have ever been around a dog is accurate.

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It's not exactly a pleasant proverb, however accurate it be, in fact it is a rather disgusting

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picture.

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If there is anything that will make you get rid of Fido, it is when he fulfills this proverb.

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It's a rather ugly scene and it does happen from time to time.

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But the disgusting aspect of it is exactly what Peter was drawing on because he wants

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us to realize that what these false teachers are and were doing was also very disgusting

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as far as he was concerned as disgusting as what the dog did.

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And then he talks about a sow.

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This morning in Storden, Minnesota we were in hog heaven.

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One of the men in the church farms 1500 acres and if I understood him right, in the course

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of a year he raises 12,000 hogs.

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That's a lot of pork.

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It's a lot of smell too, I'll tell you.

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But I'm told Storden reflects that in the summertime.

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Thankfully we were there in the winter.

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I didn't think to ask him if hogs had changed in the last few years.

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I know that 30 years ago when we raised them what it says here is true and I assume it's

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still true because whatever evolution has done, chortle, chortle, it hasn't improved

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the nature of hogs.

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Those still are hogs and the sow that is washed off will go back to wallowing in the mire.

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It used to be in the 4-H club and never did take hogs to the 4-H fair.

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It took sheep.

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But I had some friends who had hogs and they would scrub those creatures.

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I mean literally they would get brushes out until they glistened.

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They were actually almost pretty.

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I'm not going to comment anymore on that but they were amazing how clean they were and

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presentable.

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But I'm telling you as soon as they turned their backs those hogs went over to wherever

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they could find a little bit of mud and they would lay down in and they would begin to

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root in it and they would go right back to the mire.

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And the reason they did that is because they're hogs.

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They're just sows.

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And it says here that a sow after washing just returns to wallowing again.

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Well the point is that it's the nature of these beasts, it's their nature now of the

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dog and of the sow to do just what he describes.

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The nature is unchanged by whatever they've experienced whether it is regurgitation or

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it is being washed.

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Their nature remains the same and it's the nature that determines the actions.

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What they are is finally proven by what they do.

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That's his point.

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And so reversing ourselves now to talk about these people he was saying that these teachers

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were outside the people of God, they did not know God, they had experienced no regeneration,

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they had no divine nature within them, whatever they professed, whatever they said their experience

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was and the proof of that was the fact that their lives were characterized by immorality

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and by greed.

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Teachers saying it makes no difference what they say they've done or what they say they've

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experienced, the proof of the pudding is in the way that they live.

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The nature has remained unchanged.

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That's his point of illustration here regarding these false teachers.

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They, they, they is used here several times and the critical question is who are they?

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If you trace it right back through the chapter you find that the most plausible explanation

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in the context of the whole chapter as well as in the grammar of the preceding, the immediately

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preceding verse is that the they are the false prophets from back in verse one.

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That's who they are.

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These false prophets are called pigs and dogs, unclean animals.

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Nowhere are God's genuine children ever called unclean animals in a picture or an illustration.

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Peter uses another picture of them.

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What is it back in his first epistle?

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What does he say that we are?

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You remember?

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He says that we're sheep, one of the clean animals as God distinguished them.

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He says that we're like sheep as God's people but here he compares them, these false teachers

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who were apostates, to unclean animals.

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Now he says regarding them that they had in some way known the truth of God.

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It says that they had escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior

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Jesus Christ and the word that he uses there means a full knowledge.

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Now whatever else Peter may mean there, he does not mean that they had a saving knowledge.

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The point seems to be that they understood fully who Jesus was and they understood the

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truth about his death and his resurrection.

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They had an intellectual understanding of all of that.

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They knew him in that sense and there was some benefit in their lives of that kind of

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knowledge.

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There was at least an exterior cleansing of the defilement in their lives.

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They got washed like a pig might get washed.

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Outwardly things were cleaned up a little bit but they had deliberately chosen to turn

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away from a full experience of what they knew.

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He says they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus

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Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome.

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So the fact is that they turned away from the world and they came to this knowledge

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of Jesus Christ, who he was, why he died, why he rose again.

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There was no inward change of nature in that knowledge but they understood it.

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Nevertheless having understood it, they deliberately turned their backs on it and went back to

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where they were before.

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They used their knowledge, they used their entrance among God's people by what they

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had professed previously to begin now making money and satisfying their lusts off of religion.

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It's a powerful potent picture here of an apostate teacher.

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He's not merely describing the converts of these people, he's talking about the teachers

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themselves.

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He says in verse 19 that they had promised a certain freedom to these ones who were brand

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new converts apparently to Christianity.

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It was a false freedom.

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Basically what they said to these people who were just genuinely moving out of the corruption

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of the pagan world was, hey, you can live the way you want to live.

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You can do your own thing.

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If it feels good, go ahead and do it.

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They may even have said as some of the people did in Rome, go ahead and sin.

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There's no condemnation with that.

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If you sin, it just magnifies the grace of God.

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True freedom of course is not liberty to live that way.

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True freedom is liberty to live God's way.

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True freedom is not being free from any restraint.

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One cannot live without restraint of some sort.

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The most damning of all enslavements or restraint is slavery to self, doing what one wants to

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do.

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True freedom in Jesus Christ is the kind of freedom that sets us free to do the will of

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God.

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That's genuine freedom.

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He says not only that, but these apostates who had turned away from what they knew proved

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themselves to be enslaved.

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They proved themselves to be enslaved.

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They felt better after what they had experienced, like the dog might feel better after vomiting.

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They may have looked better externally, just like a sow would look better after being washed,

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but there had been no inward change.

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It was all exterior.

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All exterior.

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He says because of this, their end is worse than their beginning.

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And truly it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than

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to have experienced what they have.

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Because they have known the truth and deliberately turned from it, bringing greater judgment

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upon themselves than the judgment that comes upon those who have never known.

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But they multiplied it.

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Not only did they themselves make that mistake, but then they were seeking to lead others

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in error, thus compounding their damnation.

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So Peter says it would have been better had they never known.

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Warren Rimsby says, temporary reformation without true repentance and rebirth only leads

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to greater sin and judgment.

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He says in verse 21, and the last part of the verse, well let me just read from the

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beginning of it.

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It says it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness

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than to have known it, and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed

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on to them.

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What is this holy commandment, the sacred command?

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I think the best answer to that is that it was the summation of the message of the apostles

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of Jesus Christ.

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It's the whole message, the holy commandment that focuses upon the person and the work

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of our Lord Jesus Christ in all of his glory.

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It was passed on to them in some sense.

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They had had a grasp of it, intellectually at least, and yet in the end they turned their

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backs upon it.

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The result was that they enjoyed their sin less and incurred greater judgment from God.

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I think that Jesus tells us a parable in Luke chapter 11 that's sort of a parallel to this.

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I want you to turn back there with me.

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His theme here is not particularly that of false teachers so much as people who go through

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a less than genuine conversion.

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It is one that is only external.

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It is self-reformation, not internal regeneration.

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Verse 24 of Luke 11, when an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places

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seeking rest and does not find it.

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Then it says, I will return to the house I left.

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When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order.

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Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in there

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and live there.

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The final condition of that man is worse than the first.

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In this parable that Jesus is telling, he's simply underscoring what Peter later said.

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That is that self-reformation in the end accomplishes nothing but greater problems and greater judgment.

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Self-reformation doesn't make it.

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A few years ago, there was a great emphasis on moral rearmament, was the term of the cult

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as it was back in the 30s and 40s, up with people.

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You remember when that was the fad a few years ago?

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Up with people.

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They had concerts all across the United States.

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Millions of young men and women in particular were attracted to these rather clean-cut men

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and women who led these concerts and this movement up with people.

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The whole idea of it was self-reformation.

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In the end, it doesn't change the heart.

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That's exactly where people who are in liberal theology have so much problem.

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They seek the cause of wickedness and evil in the environment and they seek it because

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we're not paying enough tax dollars and they say that evil comes because of prejudice and

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it comes from here and it comes from there.

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Ultimately, evil comes from the heart of man, from man's nature.

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He's a sinner.

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And there is no salvation for man apart from becoming a new creature in Jesus Christ.

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Religion that advocates self-reformation and self-worth and self-realization and self-actualization

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and all of that will always be popular in the world.

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But it's not a religion that will ever deliver one soul to heaven, not one.

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The regeneration of the heart is essential for one to see the kingdom of God.

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Jesus said, unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

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I suppose one thing that we can say regarding this is that you and I need to be careful

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regarding the ministries that we support.

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Occasionally, someone will say to me that they listen to so-and-so on television.

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And I try to be gentle.

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You don't like to be critical.

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But on the other hand, you want to warn people that so-and-so may not be what so-and-so says

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he is.

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We need to be cautious regarding those ministries that we support.

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We want to have nothing to do with counterfeit ministries that are not preaching the holy

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commandment, the sacred command, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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I think it would be appropriate, too, to ask the question of all of us tonight, have you

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experienced yourself a genuine spiritual regeneration?

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I think a danger of growing up in a Christian home and an evangelical church is growing

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up with a lot of knowledge, being able to use the language and say the prayers and sing

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the songs, but not have a genuine experience with God.

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And if tonight the Spirit of God is probing and poking at that area of your life, and

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you're not certain about that, then as Paul says to all of us, I exhort you to examine

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yourself.

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And if in fact you have not assurance that you've truly been born again of God, I would

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invite you to come and talk with me or to one of our pastors, seek out a spiritual counselor

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who can walk back with you through your spiritual journey.

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J. Vernon McGee was a great preacher.

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How many of you ever heard Vernon McGee in person?

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There's quite a few of you.

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How many of you heard him on radio or in person?

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That's many more of you.

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Dear brother and gifted exposer in his own interesting way, I suppose, as only an Oklahoma

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boy can do it.

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But Vernon McGee was preaching one time regarding the prodigal son, except that he turned around

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and he called it the parable of the prodigal pig.

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And in the sermon he contrasted the prodigal son who left his father's house and went to

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the pig pen, then came to himself and went back home.

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But the prodigal pig who was there in the pig pen went with the son back home but ended

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up going back to the pig pen.

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And after listening to that, one of his fans, an Evelyn C. Sanders, wrote a poem based upon

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it and I saw this and I thought, well, this would be good to close this particular section

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of 2 Peter with.

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It's entitled, A Pig is a Pig.

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Come home with me, said the prodigal son.

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We'll sing and dance and have lots of fun.

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We'll wine and dine with women and song.

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You'll forget you're a pig before very long.

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So the pig slipped out while the mama was asleep, shook off the mud from the mire so

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deep.

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When his neck was a bow so big, he's gonna show the world a pig's not a pig.

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With his snout in the air he trotted along with the prodigal son who was singing a song.

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It must be great to be a rich man's son.

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He would surely find out before the day was done.

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It didn't take him long to realize his mistake.

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He had been scrubbed and rubbed till his muscles ached.

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He squealed when they put a gold ring in his nose and winced with pain when they trimmed

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his toes.

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He sat at the table on a stool so high, a bib around his neck and a fork to try, while

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the prodigal son in his lovely robe kept feeding his face, so glad to be home.

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When the meat came around the pig gave a moan.

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It looked too much like the kind of his own.

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He jumped from his chair with a grunt and a groan, darted through the door and headed

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for home.

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His four little feet made the dust ride high, for he didn't stop till he reached that stye.

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It's what's on the inside that counts, my friend, for a pig is a pig to the very end.

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Let's pray together.

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Dear friend, are you one of God's sheep?

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Have you been born into his family, become clean inside and out?

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The fact is that all of us were like that dog or that sow, unclean, unrighteous, without

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God, separated from him.

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But God in his wonderful grace provided a way for us to be cleansed.

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A very simple way, though a very costly way to him, he provided for our cleansing through

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the death of his only son.

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Through Christ's suffering and death, you and I can be forgiven, because he suffered

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in our place.

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And he rose again with eternal life, mighty to save any who would come to him.

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And you can know the meaning of having a new nature, of becoming a new person by placing

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your faith in Jesus Christ.

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It doesn't come through self-reformation, self-help, turning over a new leaf or any

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of that sort of thing.

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You and I can clean up the exterior, we can start over again, we can try harder.

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But the fact is that we need to have a new heart.

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And that new heart is a gift from God when we trust Jesus.

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If you've never trusted him before, would you do it tonight, placing your faith in him?

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Just tell him that you do, that you understand that he died for you and rose again.

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You're trusting him alone to be your Savior.

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Ask him to give you that new heart, the new nature, a genuinely new beginning.

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And if that is your heart's decision tonight, would you be willing to testify to that just

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by lifting your hand and looking up at me and then putting your hand back down?

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Tonight you're saying, I am choosing this evening, I am deciding this evening by God's

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grace to place my faith in Jesus Christ, my self-reformation, all of my efforts have fallen

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far short, and I know that he alone can save me, I can't save myself.

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Is that your choice, your decision?

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Is God leading you to that point of trusting him?

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Let's stand together.

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Father, we live in a world that is filled today even more than Peter's world was with

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ingenuine teachers, apostates who have turned their backs on the truth and are using religion

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as a means to their own ends.

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I would pray that you would guard us as your people, as your children, that we might not

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fall prey to any of that.

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We might have discernment as we're on guard.

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And I pray that you will make us good passers-on of the truth.

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I pray that despite the apostasy that is rampant around us, we as your people may hold forth

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the holy commandment, may hold forth the word of life, and others may understand and come

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to a genuine knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Father, we thank you for the new nature.

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We thank you that you have changed us from being a prodigal pig to being sons, sons of

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God.

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May we this week walk as your children with all of the dignity, the humility, the genuineness,

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and the love that befits a child of God.

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Thank you for this evening and our being together, the joy of fellowship.

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Now, Lord, we go out as missionaries.

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We go out to share the truth, bless us, fill us with the Holy Spirit as we serve you this

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week and that way.

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In Jesus' name, amen.