2 Peter 2 King James Version (KJV)

2 Peter 2 King James Version (KJV)

2 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

For too long these fearful scriptures in 2 Peter 2, along with an almost identical account in the book of Jude, have threatened too many honest souls who have either fallen short of the Lord's glory, or have been made by others in Christ to think that they are in the number that Peter spoke of in this chapter. I don't like that kind of intimidation because it only comes from one source, and that source is Satan. There are those who have actually gone beyond in emphasizing the fear of God, and left others with the impression that they could be in this number of these 'false teachers' and those who followed them. I believe in and have long preached the fear of God to a generation of believers who have been taught almost completely out of godly fear. But any godly thing can be emphasized to excess, and when it is it does damage to God's people, and he isn't pleased with it. I can speak from personal experience on this particular issue, and this particular writing, along with the one from Jude. Some years ago there were some men of God who did their level best to leave me with the impression that I could be in that number. They were wrong. They were wrong because they did not understand who and what both Peter and Jude were writing about, and they were wrong because they didn't have a clue as to what they were talking about in regard to myself. But it took me a couple of years to fully shake their horrific false judgments against me, so I know what it can feel like to be challenged with this kind of intimidation. For the sake of you not being intimidated by this chapter, or intimidating someone else with it, I would like to show in short order who and what Peter and Jude WERE writing about. I won't take the chapter apart with great detail. That would require writing a book. So I'll show the parts that really tell the story about what is written here.

Make no mistake now. Peter was speaking of men who were in Christ, or who HAD BEEN in Christ I should say. That means that at one time they had been baptized with the holy Ghost by Jesus, and were filled with God's love and joy. That should instill enough godly fear about the matter right there, but that's only the beginning of this story. Peter says right away that these false teachers were "bringing upon themselves swift destruction," and that "many would follow their pernicious [destructive] ways." So the element of destruction is introduced up front, and destruction is not just a matter of someone being a little off on some things. In fact the word 'destruction' is taken from the Greek word 'apoleia,' and it definitively means "to destroy vessels." That means that what these men were teaching was literally destroying the souls of those who received them with open arms. We're not talking about just being wrong on some doctrine here. We're talking about something that literally causes people to lose their souls, after having been redeemed by the blood of Christ. So it's evident that these 'false teachers' had already lost their own souls, otherwise they wouldn't be teaching things that would literally destroy the souls of those who received them. Peter mentioned the angels who rebelled with Satan, the sinners who rejected Noah, and the wicked of Sodom whom God destroyed with fire. Reason being that he was warning the saints that he was writing to, to absolutely have nothing to do with these people. Then he goes on to put those men in the same family of those whom God had destroyed in time past: "But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption." Those are very serious and sobering words indeed. But let's get to what it was that these men were teaching, that had cost them their souls. He actually told it in the very first verse of the chapter, saying they were "bringing in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them."

A heresy is an erroneous teaching that causes discord among God's people. If every heresy were correlated with damnation, then probably no one would have been saved in the past eighteen hundred years or so. Perfect doctrine has been basically lost since at least when John the apostle left the scene. But a 'damnable heresy' as stated by Peter, is a heresy that DOES bring damnation on those who receive it and love it. That means that once someone has received a damnable heresy, they are lost. Plain and simple. But I'm not going to leave you there, wondering if maybe you've done that, because you haven't. For one thing, if you had done that, you would not be reading this article, and you would not be wondering whether you might be damned or not. Damnable heresy is actually 'apostasy,' which means that someone has fallen away unto damnation, and will not be recovered. But let's get back to that first verse of the chapter, because Peter tells us exactly what the damnable heresy is that these men were teaching. He said that they were "denying the Lord that bought them." So he was saying that these were men who had once been redeemed by Jesus, and had gone all the way back into sin to the point where they no longer believed that Jesus is the Christ, or that he died for their sins and rose from the dead bodily. That is exactly what Peter said, and I will show you in short order how other apostles show this even more pointedly. The apostle Paul spoke of this same spiritual condition, warning the Hebrews to not tread that path: "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" (Heb. 10:26-29)

So again we see that Paul, like Peter, stated that the only people who could end up in the apostasy of 'denying the Lord that bought them,' are people who had once been sanctified by 'the blood of the covenant.' The Greek word 'apostasia' is the word that translates to the term 'falling away' that is used in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, where the apostle Paul is telling about the manifestation of 'the Beast' of the book of Revelation; letting this confused congregation know that the Lord had not already come, as some were teaching. The full verse says this: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." So in order for the Lord to come back from heaven, there will have to be an apostasy from the faith by many, which will coincide with the manifestation of the Beast and his ally 'the False Prophet (Rev. ch. 13). But I want to go back to Hebrews 10:26,27, where Paul says that once that sin is committed "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins" and that those who go to that place of sin have nothing left but to look ahead to fiery judgment against them. The only way a believer in Christ could find themselves in a place where "there remains no more sacrifice for sins," is if they have fully DISBELIEVED Jesus; who is the ONLY sacrifice for sins in existence. It takes some doing to get to that place, and that 'doing' is all about justifying sin to the place where the conscience is basically dead. It takes a long held practice of deceitful unwillingness to repent from sin, and stubborn resistance to anything or anyone who gives warning to do so. It brings a particular scripture readily to mind: "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy" (Prov. 29:1). Again, there is that word 'destroyed,' which implies eternal damnation.

But let's allow the beloved apostle to show us these same things in equally as simplistic terms that are very difficult to not understand: "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us... Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also" (I Jn. 2:18,19,22,23). John said it plain and simple, and it was the same report given by Peter and by Paul. He said these 'anitchrists' had formerly been with the apostles and the believers of that day, but that they had left their number and gone their own way. He also clearly stated that these false teachers were "denying that Jesus is the Christ." Period. There is nothing difficult to understand there, and there is no reason to complicate a simplistic understanding. These men had been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, and they had "forsaken the right way," as Peter said; and were teaching that Jesus was not and is not THE Christ. Apostasy includes Jesus, just not the Jesus who died for our sins, rose from the dead, and is the Lord of heaven and earth today. It also includes that he has already come back, or that he will not be returning from heaven; at least not visibly with the armies of heaven, to destroy the wicked and immortalize the faithful. Actually the apostasy that we have been reading about here is what became 'Islam' about six hundred years after the things we are reading. Mohammed, the false prophet of Islam, came from 'Ebionites,' who were the apostates mentioned in the Bible. So if you have wondered why Islam is so protected by leftist liberal government and supporters thereof, it is because it is the devil's baby and Islam will be heavily involved in the end time apostasy and "strong delusion" that Paul said would come in the end (II Thess. 2:11). In fact 'the Beast' and 'the False Prophet' of Revelation will be the 'Madhi' and the 'Jesus' of Islam.

So there are certain things we need to take from the truth about the apostasy and the apostates that Peter spoke of. One is that as long as you still believe that Jesus is the Lord, that he died for your sins, and that he rose again from the dead in his body," YOU HAVE HOPE! And that means that ANY AND ALL SINS can be forgiven if they are confessed and repented of. That is how big the cross of Christ is, and the cost of his suffering was, to take away our sins. We would have to remove the faith of Jesus completely from our hearts, and be fully convinced against him for who he is, in order to be in apostasy. Another thing we take from this is that we cannot afford to be complacent with God as we see the day approaching where the great apostasy will be in full force, and many will deny the faith and betray their brethren (Mat. 24:11-13). The circumstances will exist that will force one and all to either be all the way righteous in God, or all the way wicked, as it is written: "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still" (Rev. 22:11). Yet another thing we can learn from this is to not judge brethren to damnation because we feel they believe some wrong things about the Gospel, or even because they have gone back into sin. In fact someone could confess that they no longer believe in Jesus, and not really believe what they're saying with all their heart. I've actually seen that. God is the only one who knows the hearts of men, and he knows our hearts better than we know them ourselves. Nonetheless we will have to be able to identify apostasy in people in time to come, and not be involved with anyone who is a partaker of it. So the bottom line here is that we should certainly fear God, but we shouldn't fear him to the point that we're afraid he's going to damn us because we've missed the mark, even if we've missed it big. The suffering of Jesus, and the unfathomable price he paid for our redemption is bigger than any sin, except for the sin of fully disbelieving him for who he is and what he's done for us; and thereby removing him from our hearts. Amen.