Back to sermon search

Full transcript

Let us read now from second Peter chapter two, verse fifteen. Forsaking the right way. They went astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the hire of wrongdoing. But he was rebuked for his own transgression. Dumb ass spake with man's voice and stayed the madness of the prophet. Now, just to remind you, this morning we have been looking at chapter two of the epistle, the second epistle of Peter, and we have noticed that its contents are thus. First of all, some verses that deal with the false teachers and br- briefly indicate the main features that mark those false teachers. Then very swiftly, the apostle comes to announce that their judgment doesn't slumber and will not linger. God will intervene to deal with them. There follows a passage explaining that statement that their judgment lingers not, and an explanation gives us to know how God will do it. How he will intervene to deliver the godly out of temptation finally and once and for all. And how he will simultaneously take and keep the unrighteous under punishment and keep them there waiting in his custody, under his divine pleasure, until it please him to bring them forth to the final judgment. Then we notice that second Peter chapter two reverts after that explanation once more to the false teachers, and gives us again details of the features that mark these people and their teaching. Once more, it ends up with an announcement of the judgment that is reserved for them. Not only will their destruction come, but when it comes, the judgment will take this form: for them the blackness of darkness hath been reserved. There follows a fourth passage in which the apostle explains that judgment, this time not how God will do it, but why he will do it. The severity of that judgment comes because of the fearful results of this false teaching on what I have here called the half converted. Now that, I must admit to you, is a new term. I invented it, and I've not had yet time to patent the term, so don't you go and borrow it, because it'll have to be patented. But, uh, on the other, uh, chart that we, I gave you, and I shall use again presently, what I mean by the half-converted is people that, in their attempt to escape the corruption of this world through lust, have in, uh, experienced some kind of moral reform. But alas, their reform has stopped short of regeneration. They are in peculiar danger from the false teaching of these evil teachers. And the effect on some of them, says Peter, is that their last state is worse than the first. It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to have departed from it, they put themselves beyond hope. And God's wrath and indignation must fall consequently and proportionately strongly on the people whose teaching is responsible for the sad effects upon these people. If that then is the content of two Peter chapter two, we're now going to look in this, our third session, once more at these false teachers and learn one or two more lessons such as Peter brings before us. We notice that in the second, uh, paragraph devoted to them, Peter repeats broadly what he had said in the first. The first thing said here is that they deny the master that bought them. The word that Peter uses for master is not the word master that means teacher. In the Gospel of John chapter thirteen, for instance, our Lord refers to himself as our Lord and Master, Master in the sense of teacher. That is not so here. Word here indicates Master in the sense of owner, slave owner, if you like, though his slavery is, of course, perfect freedom. He bought us by his blood. These false teachers, when they are faced with the wrongness of their teaching, are not prepared to repent and submit. They then show their true colors, and they deny the authority of the apostles, and they deny the authority of the Lord who appointed them, and they reject his mastership over their lives. You can hear them any day of the week you wish, telling us that this and that part of the New Testament is not authoritative. Oh, that was only what Paul said. That was only what Peter said. Oh, that's what Jesus said, but he doesn't know our conditions nowadays, and if he were around nowadays, he would put it differently. Denying the sovereign authority of the Lord that bought them. I remind you that according to his own parable, the man bought the whole field that is the world, that he might get the treasure within it. These men are obviously not true believers, but he who bought the whole field to get the treasure within it has rights over them. It is the solemn fact that they deny those rights and show exactly what kind of men they are. Just, uh, a few remarks answering a question that was brought to me earlier. You may remember we looked at Matthew chapter seven where our Lord warns us about false prophets, and he says that by your fruits you shall know them. The question that was put to me was as follows: is it true that if someone or other, some teacher or some good professing, um, person who professes to be a believer, behaves in his life in an exemplary fashion, does that automatically follow that their teachings are correct? It does not, of course, automatically follow. In Matthew seven, our Lord is giving us a test by which we can recognize a false prophet. Moreover, he only gives us one test. If you look at the first epistle of John, John will give you a whole series of tests. He will tell you that the mark of a genuine believer is, one, of course, the way he behaves. If a man constantly does unrighteousness, he is not of God. You must consider how he behaves. You must also consider whether a man is a loving man. He that loveth not his brother, but constantly and intentionally hates his brother, he is not of God. But likewise, John will apply a doctrinal test. For instance, he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, then he's not of God. His life may be moral in the extreme, but if in these fundamental matters of doctrines about the person of the Lord Jesus, he is not loyal to the truth about the Lord Jesus and his person, then he is not a believer, however morally good his life may be. What our Lord was saying then in Matthew seven was giving us a test by which we may recognize a false prophet. If a prophet's teaching leads to corrupt practice, condones immorality, the man can say what he likes. He is false. You don't get thorns off grapes. Decent trees don't produce thorns. Forgive the metaphor, there can be no beating about the bush. If a man's teaching leads to corrupt behavior, that man is a false prophet. But now let's go over some of the other details that are given us here about these false prophets. Look here what is said in the second paragraph. They despise dominion. They rail at dignities. Now it is true that some commentators have supposed that these dominions and dignities were the officers in the church. It seems to me, however, from the context here and from the other epistle, Jude, that similarly, uh, uh, talks of these matters, the dignities and the dominions that Peter is referring to are the high-ranking spirit beings in the spirit realm. And these false teachers are not afraid, they do not tremble to rail at dignities. They have no sense of the solemn authority and the power and the reality of that spirit realm. Now that is a very serious matter. If you were to talk to these false teachers and rebuke them because of their permissive doctrines and tell them that they, uh, were sadly influenced by Satan and were doing the devil's work, they are as likely as not to laugh in your face. Oh, the devil. You don't believe in the devil, do you? Old Nick and all that. Dear me, he went out with Father Christmas, and all such talk as that. They are not afraid to talk lightly, blasphemously, if you like, of serious, solemn, spiritual entities and realities and personalities. Now, of course, we should not go to the other extreme. It is possible for Christian people to become obsessed with the devil and demons. So obsessed that thousands of books be written about witches and converted witches and demonism and casting out demons until people get more concerned with demons than they do with the blessed Lord himself. It is a mark of the sanity of scripture that it does not constantly focus our attention on spirit beings, either good or evil, but mentions them in their due place and in their due proportion. Beware of those that would concentrate and obsess our thoughts with over exaggerated emphasis upon spirit beings. That said, however, it is important that we notice the reality of the spirit realm because of what man is. If man loses his sense of the reality of that spiritual realm, he is likely to descend, as Peter here says, to the level of a mere animal. Man is a complex being. The Bible says he was made a little lower than the angels. On the other hand, when God made him, as Psalm eight observes, he put man, did God, God put man over all the works of his hands. Man is above the animal. Man is part spirit. In that he has connections with the spirit realm. Man is part animal. In that he has certain connections with the animal world below him. That is obvious, isn't it? A great deal of our physiology are very similar to the animals. Our desires, our appetites, and the way our life is propagated. Scripture would have us healthy men and women. We are not, by an excess of spirituality, to forget that we are in part animal. Uh, please, you won't be offended, will you? I didn't say that we are animals. I said we are in part animal. We're made of flesh. We've got stomachs and innards and all sorts of marvelous works, and therefore appetites and desires. They are truly human. They are not to be treated as though they were somehow wrong. They are God-given healthy parts of what it means to be human. And in particular, since we are at this topic, let me remind you that not to be married for gentlemen, Christian gentlemen, is an abnormal thing. You will need a special gift from God. If you're are, you are called to remain single. Paul, who advocated what a lovely thing it was if you can remain single, for various reasons that we won't go into, is also heard reminding Timothy and telling Timothy to remind his fellow believers that the doctrine that commands people to abstain from marriage is not a highly spiritual doctrine, it's a doctrine of demons, in fact. It was a grievous thing that happened to the medieval church when it took over certain ascetic ideas from the heathen Greek world and came to regard marriage as something unholy, unworthy, something to be run away from. We are not to try to be so wonderfully spiritual as we deny or suppress the fact that in part, as human beings, we are animal. And on that part of us, God's blessing rests. He designed it and its appetites and gives us instructions to how those appetites are to be satisfied in all honor and holiness and beauty. But if in part we are animal, in part also we are spirit. Unlike the animal, who as far as I know never says his prayers, we are conscious of that spirit realm. Conscious that somehow we ought to be related to it, and the unregenerate man is filled with a certain vague dread of that world. It is, of course, that we come from the father of spirits. Sin has caused a breach. While we are not morally dead nor physically dead, the unregenerate man is spiritually dead. But aware of the unease that comes because he is not right with that spirit realm. Now man has to be very careful. Man can make a terrible idolatry out of that realm by his superstitions that will lead to ghastly rites, such as you will find among the heathen, propitiating evil spirits galore, all for the gospel, to go and deliver people that sit in such bondage to such terrible superstitions. On the other hand, man can deny its existence, and in denying its existence, cut off a certain part of him. But when we talk of man being spirit, we're not talking of his aesthetic sense, in the sense that you can enjoy beautiful music and fine art. We are talking of the spirit world in the true and strict sense of that term, in that God is a spirit, angels are spirits. Deny that realm, and you are denying to man one of his major dimensions. And if he loses that side of him, man is in danger of becoming a mere animal. A very highly intelligent animal, but animal nonetheless. I don't wish to say more about it, simply to point out to you that Peter warns us about these false teachers. As they pour scorn and mock on that s- uh, and mockery on that spiritual realm, and are all for unrestrained license in the animal direction, they become, he says, just like mere animals. And I don't need to remind you how much popular entertainment to be seen on television and in our theaters and in some of the ballet portrays man as a very poor and sometimes disgusting Disgusting animal. animal. Perhaps it is time some Christians began to protest. One day, so our New Testament tells us, that we who began life as fallen men and women, dead in our trespasses and in sins, and astray from the Father of spirits, and have now been redeemed. And we have received the Holy Spirit and have become children of God. One day, the glorious gospel is this, that we're going to be raised in God's universe above the angels. Our blessed Lord Jesus, who became for our sake human. He who was spirit, uncreate, equal with the Father and God is spirit. All the wonder of this magnificent message, that the very second person of the Trinity became flesh. Became human. With all that that means, sinless but truly human nature, and risen from the dead now, he has gone back to heaven, not as some disembodied spirit, but with a body back into heaven, a true man, and at this moment, as you sit here, he is seated above principalities, powers, mights, and dominions, and every name that is named. And already are you in contact with him, seated with Christ in the heavenlies, above principalities and powers, and yours an inexpressibly and indescribably glorious dignity. One day you shall, with your blessed Lord, judge the very angels as you share in his supreme place in God's universe. The Bible teaches us true morality. It treats it teaches us far more than true morality. It bids us consider this element of the spirit and what the re-regeneration of the spirit will eventually accomplish for all that are joined to the Lord Jesus. Oh, what an eternity there is ahead for men and women made a little lower than the angels, but in Christ raised above them. To share with Christ as Adam with Eve. The administration of all God's great enterprises in the ages yet to come. Oh, what a shame it would be if we allowed false teaching to dim our vision and to pervert our attitude, and in any way limited our Our potential potential. in eternity. With this, therefore, we come to, uh, uh, an Old Testament illustration with which Peter drives home his exhortations to us to discipline ourselves and beware of false teachers who will, from time to time, try to corrupt the people of God. Peter now, therefore, turns to Balaam. And to understand the point of what he says, we ought perhaps to turn to the book of Numbers, chapter twenty three and verse eight And following. Allow me to remind you of the following elements in that very ancient story of what happened to Israel at one stage in their wilderness journey. First of all, Balaam's attempt to curse Israel. And the glorious record is that it was a complete and a miserable failure. He was not able to curse Israel. Secondly, Balaam's attempt to stumble Israel. That wasn't a failure. That was all too great a success. And he did stumble them. Then, thank God, that is not the end of the story. Let us notice what the record contains about Israel's recovery. We shall find there are at least four elements in Israel's recovery. one, God's discipline of them. two, Israel's self-discipline of themselves. three, Israel's consequent war against Moab. And finally their bringing of the spoils of victory. Israel was slogging it hard across the wilderness. They had been redeemed from Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb. As far as they knew, according to the promises of God, way out there in the future was an inheritance flowing with milk and honey, and now they were trying to make their progress along the way. The story will do as an analogy for us who are trying to make progress, that, uh, there shall be an abundant entrance given us into the eternal kingdom. When their enemy Balak, king of Moab, called Balaam to him and asked Balaam, hook or by crook, to stop the progress of these people. And first, Balaam, being a prophet, but a false prophet, and very much interested in the cash and the promotion and the office that the king of Moab promised to give him if he would do what he was told and lend his priestcraft to the establishment of the state of Moab. Balaam tried as his first device to stop their progress by cursing them. Come, curse me, Israel, cried Balak to Balaam. Well, Balaam had a go. And had to own his miserable defeat. He was not able to do any such thing. And why wasn't he? In chapter twenty three of Numbers and verse 8, he says, how shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? And how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? And then again, in verse nineteen of that chapter, God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said and then doesn't do it? Or hath he spoken and then doesn't make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless, and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is amongst them. First lesson, therefore, one of glorious comfort and encouragement. Here we are walking across our wilderness, and all the powers of hell, seen and unseen, there to try and stop us. Much should all the powers of hell put all their forms of terror on. I shall be safe. Let's sing it with Wesley, of all people on earth. I shall be safe. Why? Because God is not a man that he should lie. Or the son of man that he should repent. Has he said it? And then will he not do it? Is he one of those people? There are some people, they'll promise you the earth, but then they don't do it. Is God like that? Does he say and then not do? Has he sworn and then fails to keep his oath? Indeed not. Heaven would go black if that were so. God is not a man like that to change his mind, nor will God go back against his word. He cannot lie, and I shall be in glory because of it. Oh, what a wonder it is in the battle of life, with all the forces of temptation around us, to know that if God before us, who can be against us? God himself, in subsequent centuries, called Israel to remember it. I read to you now from Micah and chapter six, where God pleads with his wayward people in verse three, O my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me, for I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage, and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balak, king of Moab, consulted, and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him. Remember from Shittim unto Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord. Oh, what a lovely thing. Is God pleading with his people, pleading with you, perhaps. And reminding them of that occasion when they were in the wilderness, and half of them didn't know what was happening. Unbeknownst to them, as they were trying to make their way through the wilderness, there were two dark and sinister figures walking up the hills on the other side of the wilderness, scouting out Israel and determined with their fel powers and magic and divinations to curse Israel. And then and then, if God had grown weary of his people, they might have succeeded. Remember, Remember. says God, and what I said to them. God stood faithfully by his people because God cannot lie, nor is he a man to change his mind. What a glorious comfort. Sum up, if you can, those great and precious promises that Peter called our attention to in chapter one. You'll need every one of them before you get home. You will indeed. You haven't won too many promises. But howsoever many be the promises of God, in him is the yea, and in him is the amen, to the glory of God. God cannot lie. Paul was writing at one stage to his fellow missionary Titus, whom he'd left behind in the assemblies in Crete. And between you and me and the gatepost, if you won't split on me, I'll tell you something about the ancient assemblies in Crete. They were in a bit of a pickle. For naturally, they weren't like the Irish. Naturally, they were slow bellies, lazy. Don't know what time they got up in the morning. Liars! And when they got converted, they'd have got a big way to to make up, hadn't they? How far had you got to make up when you got converted? And you might say, well, if they started so far back, cool, it would take the grace of God some time to deal with them, wouldn't it? They got converted, but that's not the last time they told a lie. They were so used to it, you know. We get shocked sometimes at what believers fall into, but pray consider where they started, my dear good man, pray consider where they started. And before God has them perfect in his glory, oh, there's some wilderness to be crossed, some battles to be fought, and some days they'll despair of ever getting there. Oh, when shall I overcome this sin? Could it be that God eventually will despair of me before he gets me home to glory. Come, curse me, Israel. No, says God. God is not a man that he should lie, and Paul, writing to Titus, reminds him of the gospel devised of God before the worlds were, devised by the God who cannot Not lie. lie. If God be for us, who shall be against us? Every believer will be home in glory at last. He couldn't curse them. But he was able to stumble them. Balaam taught Balak a cruel and a dastardly cruel. They were tired, weary, foot slogging. No one pretended it was easy. How they crave for a little ease. And then one day the good girls of Moab came out and they invited the young boys to a dinner. The boys weren't quite sure whether they ought to go, but then they went, and you know, they found out these girls in Moab were beautiful girls, delightful girls. You know, they said, you know, old Moses used to tell us about these Moabites and make out they were so bad, but they're jolly decent girls, very nice girls. They're a little bit with it, but then that makes a change from some of the girls around Moses' tent, and hmm, so they got invited home to a dinner, and then before they knew where they were, they got invited to take part in the little religious ceremonies in Moab. And one thing borrowed another, and before they knew where they were, they were bowing down to the idols, and it wasn't long after that, with a little drink taken. But they were doing what Moabite religion said was okay to do. And they committed fornication. It succeeded. Balaam taught Balak to put the stumbling block in their way. And our blessed Lord thought wise to warn one of his church. He says, you've got people in your church like Balaam who taught my people to commit fornication and to worship things offered to idols. You say, could it happen in an assembly? Afraid it could. It did particularly in these ancient assemblies, as we noticed P- Peter saying about these false teachers, they're spots and blemishes in your love feasts. In some of the early Christian churches, you see, as well as the Lord's Supper, they had a fellowship meal together. And do you know they're delightful, but they can be dangerous, can't they? Or get folks together in a very close atmosphere when their hearts are opened and everybody is feeling kindly and loving, how not? And you've got to watch it. There have been conferences of young Christian people, haven't there? I'm not telling tales out of school. But in the course of weekends devoted to Bible study. But then the pressure of modern day standards, and it's the fashion, and why shouldn't you? And we're modern now, and we don't have to listen to old Moses, his beard was too long anyway, and everybody does it, we shall be odd if we don't do it. Woe betide those modernist preachers who've said it doesn't matter. Some of them stumbled. Israel recovered. Thank God she recovered. How? Well, if you'll read the text closely, by four things. God brought them to their senses by judging them. He brought a plague on them. Oh, he wasn't against them. He was for them. But if they must be brought to repentance, and this is the only way to do it, God is prepared to use a plague to bring them to repentance, and twenty three thousand people died. One Corinthians ten talks to us Christian folks and says, you know, all Israel were baptized under the cloud to Moses, but with some of them God wasn't well pleased, and they fell in the wilderness. Under God's discipline, it could happen to us. How else Israel disciplined herself? At one stage of the outrage, there rose up a man called Phineas, and with his sword he executed God's judgment on Israel. And the plague was stayed. My brethren, we're called upon to do similarly, if not on others, on ourselves certainly. If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But if we won't judge ourselves, and we go on carelessly, then God will judge us. For this cause, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep for allowing unjudged sin. When they were brought to their senses by the discipline of God and the discipline of their fellow Christians, then they went on the offensive, and to use the biblical term, they mortified the flesh. They put it to death. They went out, that's the way they had do to do it in those days, and fought with literal swords and hacked on Moab to pieces. You say that was a bit vulgar. Well, perhaps it was, but it was a long time ago. We can't proceed with literal swords, but we are to mortify the flesh. And wrong passion, and ungodly desire, and immoral act. By God's good grace, we've got to get the sword out. And put it to death. Finally, when they got victory over Moab, they brought in the spoils. I like that little bit of the story. What had started off as a disaster, and in a sense it remained that. And yet eventually they got the victory, and out of that victory there came valuable spoils. I wonder if I talk per chance to somebody who, in his or her Christian life, has made some terrible blunder. Of whatever kind. You feel you've blotted your copy book. You wish ten thousand times it had never happened, and you say, what's the good of going on? Oh, courage, my brother. If you're genuinely the Lord's, God is still for you. If he must discipline you, he's still for you. There is forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. He will strengthen you now to go and fight and become strong where before you were weak. And out of those victories, there There shall shall come valuable spoils who can be used to enrich your fellow brethren and sisters here on earth. They'll grace the very splendor of the king's court above. Do you think heaven will forget what we now know, that Peter fell and denied his Lord? I think it impossible. What shall we make of it when we get home to heaven? We shall make out of it the glory of this, that poor old Peter, weak like the rest of us, and he went and fell. That's a pity, but all the magnificent grace of God that enabled the man to get up and fight again, and in the end to triumph in the very thing in which at first he fell, and heaven will be the richer for it. He was a bad boy, was Balaam. Do you know he's a prophet? He couldn't see an angel as well as a donkey could. And that's coming to something, isn't it? When an old animal has more perception of the spiritual realm than a supposed prophet. Never let my old donkey have to rebuke me. And that's our passage. Session seven, the story of Balaam. Part one, Balaam's attempt to curse Israel. Taken from Numbers chapter twenty two verses six to eighteen and from chapter twenty three verses nineteen to twenty one. Part A. On what grounds were Israel secure against all Balaam's attempts to curse them? On what grounds were Israel secure against all Balaam's attempts to curse them? Part B. Do we enjoy similar security on similar grounds? Cite one passage from the New Testament that bases our security on the fact that God cannot lie. Do we enjoy similar security on similar grounds? Cite one passage from the New Testament that bases our security on the fact that God cannot lie. Part C. Is it possible to allow the the doctrine of eternal security to make us morally careless? Is it possible to allow the doctrine of eternal security to make us morally careless? Part two: Balaam's success in causing Israel to stumble, taken from Numbers chapter twenty five, verses one to nine. and Revelation chapter two verse fourteen. Part A. Would we today be in danger of the things against which Christ warns us of in Revelation chapter two verse fourteen? Would we today be in danger of the things which Christ warns us of in Revelation chapter two verse fourteen? Part B. What did God do to Israel when they sinned with Moab? What did God do to Israel when they sinned with Moab? Part C. What will he do to us if we sin in the same way? See First Corinthians chapter ten verse eight and chapter eleven verses thirty to thirty two. Part D. What did God demand Israel to do to Moab according to Numbers chapter thirty one? Is there any analogy here for us? Question three: What was Balaam's motive for his wrongdoing? See chapter two verse fifteen. What happened to him in the end? Do you see any connection between chapter two verse fifteen and chapter two verse thirteen? What was Balaam's motive for his wrongdoing? See chapter two verse fifteen. What happened to him in the end? Do you see any connection between chapter two verse fifteen and chapter two verse thirteen? Question four: Do you see any connection between chapter two verse twelve and and chapter two verse sixteen. Do you see any connection between chapter two verse 12 and chapter two verse sixteen?