Worse Off at the End

Have you ever seen a mother pig? They can be huge, you know, 600 or 800 pounds even. I was astonished to see their size in a tour of a pig farm in Illinois.

Have you ever washed a sow? The sows and their little pigs actually lived in a pristine farrowing barn. I had to wear plastic bags on my feet when I entered that barn so as not to contaminate it in any way. They produced 120,000 pigs annually.

Pastor Peter uses an ancient proverb to describe what some people do. Having been cleaned up by the gospel, then go right back into the mud. Peter uses some of the strongest language and most vivid word pictures to describe the plight of those who are leaving the way of Christ for an alternate journey. They have abandoned belief in the gospel and given up on living it.

The false teachers have made some bad choices, and they are going to suffer the consequences. Some people in the church are making the decision to leave the Christ-centered life and join these teachers in a life centered in something else. They are turning their back on the truth in Christ that they have previously confessed. And that is a decision with earthly and eternal consequences.

It’s like the popular song Bad Boys: “Watcha gonna do when they come for you, when they come for you? You go to school, you learn the Golden Rule, so why you acting like a bloody fool?”

Springs Without Water:

“These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm” -2 Peter 2:17

All the springs are running in Central Texas. Not only are the creeks and stock tanks and lakes full, but the aquifer is full, they tell me, for the first time in a number of years. These springs seep from the layers or rock, pool in cavities in the earth, and provide abundant water for wildlife and the ranchers’ herds.

I don’t know of anything more disappointing or devastating in an arid land such as the Middle East than a spring without water.

1. Throughout history the caravans have carefully planned their progress so that each day they would arrive at the springs. They crossed the deserts traveling from one spring to another.
2. They would arrive at the green oasis thirsty and in great need of the water that allows humans to survive on this planet.
3. For the spring to be without water was not only disappointing. It was dangerous and deadly. They could die. The green promise of the oasis left unfulfilled might be the end of life.

False teachers mouth empty, boastful words. They are springs without water both in that their words are empty and that they are boastful of all that they will deliver.

• They are always their own primary illustration of the person who is successful.

• Watch out for the teacher who is always is own best example of goodness and greatness.

• When you think about it, their words don’t have any substance. They are empty. People can say anything.

They appeal to the lustful desires of the flesh. They are “mists driven by a storm.” The mist lacks substance. It cannot fight the storm of evil desire anymore than the mist can resist the fierce gale that accompanies the thunderstorm.

• Greed is good, they say. We all want more money than we now have. Everyone. “Do you want to have a million dollars?”

• Arrogance is good, they say. We all want more power than we now have. “You will get that next promotion.”

• Recreational sex is good, they say. We all have legitimate sexual desires. “Do not deny yourself legitimate pleasures.”

They aim for the new, weak believers on the margins.

• In every church there are people who still don’t understand the gospel. They have come into the fellowship under the assumption that the church is primarily a self-help institution that teaches people life skills—how to succeed.

• Because they are motivated by personal advancement and success, they are vulnerable to people who combine some truths from the gospel with enticements that appeal to fleshly desires.

 

The Promise that Never Delivers:

“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity” - 2 Peter 2:19

The promise of liberation from the law.

• The Ten Commandments are unnecessarily oppressive. The Christian life is too restrictive, they say.

• The false teachers suggest that you bring down these ancient barriers, these laws, so that you can fully experience everything there is for you in this life.

• The false teaching buys into the notion that the Ten Commandments are bad for you, not good for you. It suggests that lying, stealing, adultery, and even murder are good for you.

The promised liberation always turns into slavery just as it has for these teachers. But misery loves company, so they lie to you about what you will experience if you break the commands.

• Sin is a cruel master. It brings death into your life. It destroys every good think that you think you will find.

• It creates in you an addiction for the substance of this evil desire. You can never satisfy this addiction.

These teachers have eyes full of adultery.

• That means that they are angling to get you into bed with them. That is what they want more than anything.

• It means that they view you as a piece of meat to satisfy their desires, not as the person of dignity, deserving of respect.

• Adultery is the breach of a covenant of promise. You and your beloved stand before the pastor and promise forsake all others “and keep only unto one another so long as you both shall live”---a promise of absolute fidelity.

• Then you break that promise. And someone else violates that covenant with you. That’s why we call it “cheating.” Cheating involves both lying—the breaking of a promise—and stealing—taking something that doesn’t belong to you. You have broken at least four of the commands of scripture when you go to bed with another person’s spouse. You have lied. You have stolen. You have coveted. And you have committed adultery.

We can recover from such violation of the law, of course. Forgiveness has always been the message imbedded in the law. God’s grace is always greater than all our sin.

But you can be trapped by sin. That is what is so sinister about it. You start taking a prescription drug to address a legitimate need—pain relief after surgery, perhaps. And soon you are taking it even when you are not hurting, and you are taking it more often than recommended. You lie to the doctor so that he will prescribe some more. Maybe the physician joins you in your addiction, as one physician apparently did in Metairie and was arrested this week. And now you are enslaved to a substance that you think you cannot live without.

• A friend, a college professor, was suffering from addiction and all kinds of sins. He repented and trusted Christ as Savior. And he told me that he felt like he had been living in a cage in his own filth. And he leaned against the door one day and found that it was open. Christ delivered him in a glorious way.

 

Don't Turn Your Back:

“It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them” - 2 Peter 2:21

• After his deliverance the professor had to walk the walk. He could not play around with the sin that once enslaved him. The problem with sin is not the tenth indulgence but the first. We all know this in our heart. But we love it so. We just cannot live without it.

Sometimes people give up on the Christian life. They may not say they are giving up on Jesus. Perhaps they will insist otherwise, just as these false teachers did. “Oh, no, we still believe in Jesus. We just don’t practice the lifestyle.”

That’s a crock. It’s a lie. You cannot split your own personality in that way. It lacks integrity. It lacks honesty. It lacks faithfulness. It lacks discipline.

• You don’t get to choose two doses of Jesus, but not the rest. Jesus always made it clear that following him was all or nothing. You are either sold out to him or you have sold out to sin. You cannot have it both ways.

The return to the old life, the pre-Jesus life, is just as gross and revolting as a dog returning to his vomit.

• The return likely indicates about you that you never really understood what Jesus was calling you to do.

• This is a radical call of absolute surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

If you turn your back on Jesus, where are you going to go? Have you found some better leader to follow? Have you found a more impressive life described elsewhere?

Jesus said that he was the living water. Maybe you can find a well somewhere where you can slack your physical thirst. But you cannot find anywhere else the living water that becomes in you a wellspring surging up to eternal life. What Jesus brings to you is good for now and forever.