The Second Letter of Peter- 8

Subtitle: The Problem of False Prophets 5

2 Peter 2:17-22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, September 6, 2026.

Peter continues with more descriptions of false teachers that the Church will potentially face.  However, we also get a description of those they target.

Let’s get into our passage.

They promise freedom but deliver bondage (v. 17-22)

The main point of these last verses is that these false teachers cannot and will not deliver what they promise.  They are offering freedom to people while they are slaves to corruption.  They can only deliver that same bondage to those who follow them.

Verse 17 gives us two metaphors that picture this.  Peter calls them springs without water.  A person goes to a spring because they believe they will find water there.  These teachers claim to be a source of water, but you will get none from them.

It is important to point out that water, rain, and dew are used as a metaphor for God’s revelation, or truth.  We see this in Deuteronomy 32:2. Of course, Moses can share these things because God has revealed them to him.

These false teachers talk like they are giving you God’s Word, but in the end, God’s Word is not in them nor coming from them. 

Peter also calls them mists driven by a storm.  There is a parallel to this in Jude 1:12. Jude describes them as clouds without water, carried about by the wind.  This would work well with what Peter is describing.  If you prayed for rain and saw dark clouds on the horizon, you would be excited in hope for rain.  However, these teachers pass by without leaving any true, word of God behind.

Yet, Peter’s words are a bit different.  The clouds or mists are being pushed about by a violent wind.  This is not a good thing, but a destructive thing. No one who wants rain rejoices when a hurricane approaches.  In fact, though a cloud can be a good metaphor, mists tend to give a negative image.  Like truth (water) broken up, atomized and aerosolized, their teachings often employ just enough truth to sucker you into believing them.  Yet, there are always destructive lies riddled throughout their teachings.

The true prophets of God are pictured in the Old Testament (see Deut. 32:2) as delivering the life-giving truth of God from heaven.  It causes the lives of those who receive it and believe it to become fruitful with good things.  The promises and teachings of false prophets bring nothing but destruction and corruption.

Verse 17 ends with a phrase that is similar to that about the angels who sinned before the flood (1 Peter 2:4).  Those angels are being held “in chains of darkness reserved for judgment.”  Peter speaks of an even greater darkness that can be translated as “the black darkness” or “the blackness of darkness.”  In the prior case, the darkness is a temporary holding cell.  Those beings are held there being reserved for God’s coming judgment upon the rebels of heaven and the rebels of earth.  In this case, Peter says that these false teachers are reserved for the black darkness.  This does not seem to be the same place as verse 4, which is called Tartarus.  It is something that is their final destination.

I believe that this black darkness should be connected to the outer darkness that Jesus referenced several times.  In Matthew 25:30, the outer darkness is spoken of in the parable of the talents.  “[C]ast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Jesus then teaches what will happen when “The Son of Man,” (himself) comes in his glory.  This is often called the Second Coming.  This teaching is what the parable of the talents is picturing.  Notice in verse 41 that those who are judged are cast “into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels…”  In other words, the parable (the symbolic picture) of being cast into outer darkness is connected to the teaching that the wicked are cast into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  This is generally connected to the Lake of Fire mentioned in the book of Revelation.

How can darkness be used for an everlasting fire?  In truth, both of these are probably metaphors.  The Lake of Fire is not a place on earth or even on a planet or sun somewhere.  It is a unique place that is walled off (firewalled) from God’s good creation.  Fire on earth is known for its destructive properties to that which is burned.  Darkness is generally connected to the absence of light, which is the truth and goodness of God.  This would make the Lake of Fire, the outer darkness (the black of darkness), to be a place bereft of any truth and goodness of God, a place that destroys those who are put there.  Would you like to live in a society where there is no truth or light of God in anyone?  Would you like to live in a society that is a destroying destruction at all times?  This is a place where no sane person would want to make their goal.

False teachers cannot lead you to any good place though they surely promise such.  You will be like Pinocchio being tricked to go to Pleasure Island.  In fact, this brings up verse 18.  They entice, or allure, people with fleshly desires and sensuality.  Of course, we have already established that they are full of their own fleshly desires.  However, they find purchase within your heart because you also have desires of the flesh.  The temptation is to realize those desires in actions that please your flesh. 

By the way, the word for sensuality here simply means unrestrained lust.  There is a powerful pull within us when we are offered the chance to release our lust in action.  It is even more powerful if there is a logic or teaching that promotes it as acceptable to God in some way.

These lusts can be for food or sex or money or power, etc.  They can manifest in a variety of ways among false teachers.  A person may be the epitome of control in the areas of sex and personal wealth.  Yet, a false teacher always wants power over people.  Even this cannot be known completely.  A teacher may be quite adept at hiding their lust by satisfying it in secret.  The Christian must always be careful not to put their trust in a teacher over that of Christ and His Word.

Verse 18 describes these false teachers as speaking arrogant words of vanity.    The words are empty (vain) in that they cannot deliver anything good for you from God.  Vanity always includes a puffed-up sense of pride. They are enticing you towards things that pamper your flesh and puff up your pride, but they are empty of any of the goodness of God.

At the end of verse 18, it mentions that they are enticing “those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.”  This is essentially saying that their target, or those they have success in capturing, are those who are newly saved.  “Barely escaped” can have the sense of distance, i.e., they were close to falling short of being a Christian.  However, it most likely is meant to be taken in the sense of time.  They have just (barely an amount of time) escaped from those who are living in sin.

A predator would love to take down a large adult prey, but they have more success with prey who are newly born, sick, or dying.  If you are a new Christian, stay close to those who are spiritually mature Christians.  Learn and grow in the things of Christ so that you will not be a successful target of false teachers.  Of course, on the other hand, mature believers need to go out of their way to help new believers be discipled.  We must help them to become savvy to the schemes of false teachers and become stronger in their faith.

Verse 19 puts the fine edge on this whole area.  They promise people freedom while they are slaves to corruption.  This brings up the whole issue of freedom.  Many people don’t realize that freedom can be speaking of different things.  The false teacher is promoting the freedom to sin, whether in all areas or particular ones.  Whereas Christ came to give us freedom from sin.  Sin brings death.  We see this detailed in Galatians 6:7-8.  “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

A slave offering freedom is an impossibility or an empty promise.  Like Lampwick resisting Jimny Crickett and encouraging Pinocchio to plunge into pleasure, these false teachers lead weak Christians to ignore the Word, ignore the Holy Spirit, and transgress their own conscience.

Christians are not perfect, but this does not mean we abandon the ways of Christ.  We pursue the righteousness of Christ as the Spirit of God leads us.  When we fall short, we repent and ask for forgiveness.  We are still tempted, but we draw moral lines empowered by the Holy Spirit and the truth of Christ.  Any teacher trying to convince you that it is okay to sin, or it is okay to cast off restraining yourself in these areas, is a false teacher.

Verse 19 ends with a statement in the NASB that reads, “[F]or by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.”  You will see other versions that have the sense of a person being overcome, controlled, or mastered.  This is not the complete sense of the word.  It also has the sense of something that you do to yourself.  You yield to a powerful force and end up being a slave to it.  You succumb to the lust of the flesh that these false teachers promote, ending up as a slave to it.  To give in is to become a slave.

The best defense against seduction is to go into relationship with God, loving Him, loving His things, and walking in His love.  Some may counter that this is just being a slave to God.  However, being a “slave of God” is a thing of freedom because it is He who has made us and not we ourselves.  He knows what is good for us versus what is bad for us, enslaving to us.  A person who becomes a slave to their flesh, this world, or the devil, may speak of a moment of “freedom,” but in the end, they manifest as a person tormented by their slavery.

Verses 20-22 highlight a great problem.  Peter warns us.  If you have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of Jesus, but then are entangled in them and overcome, your resultant state is worse than when you started.  Though this would be a warning to any Christian in danger of deception, Peter is talking about the false teachers.  This is what has happened to them (at least the ones who are not complete liars).

It is good for people to hear the Gospel of Jesus, be confronted with their sin problem, and put their faith in Jesus.  This is what Peter means by the “knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  He speaks of this as an escape from the defilements, which are caused by living for the lust of the flesh.  1 Corinthians 6:11, after listing all kinds of defiling sins, reads, “and such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

Yet, Peter is speaking of a person who has become entangled in these things again.  You might describe this as a shipwrecked faith (1 Timothy 1:18-20).  Peter’s point is about the person’s resultant state.  It is better not to believe in Christ in the first place, then to believe for a time and then fall back into sin, rejecting Christ or redefining him.  The voluntary act of Jesus to sacrifice himself for our sins is God’s means of shocking our hearts back to faith in him.  If we then trample that sacred ground with unbelief, we make our hearts and minds that much more insensitive to God’s love.  What more can He do to break through to us than to lay His life down for us?  Of course, nothing more can be done.

It may sound unthinkable for Peter to say in verse 21 that it would have been better for them not to have known the truth at all.  But he is recognizing the great spiritual damage we can do to ourselves.  This kind of hardening of a heart following its softening by the Gospel is extremely dangerous.  Such a person becomes insensitive to God’s conviction.

Hebrews 6:4-9 even states that it is impossible for those who do such a thing, “if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance.”  I believe the writer’s emphasis of impossibility is on our human ability to bring them back to repentance.  If the Gospel is no longer drawing them, what else do we have to draw them back?  Yet, what is impossible for us is not impossible for God.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks about the man who was sleeping with his stepmother (1 Cor. 5:5).  Paul writes to “deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”  Essentially, the Church, believers, can’t do anything more, but cast them out of the Church (deliver to Satan).  To coddle them in this condition would be even worse.  If the impenitent person is cast out of the Church, the destructive nature of sin itself will be God’s last leverage on their souls.  The destruction of their flesh does not guarantee the salvation of their souls but is their only hope at this point.  Only God can reach them now, and even that is questionable.  To be hard towards God is bad, but to be hard towards the Gospel of Jesus after having believed it is worse.

Peter ends this chapter with a quote from Proverbs 26:11, which is the part about a dog returning to its vomit.  The vomit is analogous to the person who has a bad reaction to what the world has been feeding them.  The world has been feeding them the lust of the flesh.  Vomiting is a moment of deep-seated rejection of the bread of wickedness.  Yet, what do I do next?  Do I find good food, or do I follow my flesh and keep gobbling up the same stuff?

Peter adds a similar picture of a pig that has been washed (for the fair or what not).  If you release a washed pig, it is only going to go back into the mud.  It is the nature of pigs to love wallowing in the mud.

Both of these images speak to the heart of our identity.  Christ is saving us out of our chosen identity of being a dog and a pig, spiritually speaking.   We animalistically live to please our flesh appetites.  That is all we know.  Christ calls us to become the Children of God by the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit in us begins a process of expelling the lies of this culture and a process of washing us from the defilements of a life of fleshly pursuits.  However, to turn away from the Spirit, from Christ, and to go back into sin is to choose to be a dog, a pig, spiritually.  It is to choose to eat the very things you have vomited from your life.  It is to wallow in the defilement that Christ has been washing off of you (remember 1 Corinthians 6:11).

God is able to take us from among the dogs and pigs of this world.  He is able to make us real, live children of God because He is not willing that any should perish, and Christ has paid the price for your redemption.  However, false teachers, who may look good on the outside, are themselves dogs and pigs trying to draw you back to the vomit, back to the mud.

Be alert Christian.  Stay in fellowship with mature believers and do not be led back into the bondage of sin!

False Teachers 5 audio