The Rise and Fall of False Prophets
2 Peter 2:1-22
Main Idea: Beware of destructive deception. Trust God’s divine discipline. Retrain your desires by delighting in Christ.
I. Destructive Deception (2:1–3)
2 Peter 2:1a: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you…”
“Did God really say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” (Gen 3:1)
“You will not surely die.” (Gen 3:4)
“God knows that when you eat, your eyes will be opened.” (Gen 3:5)
The false teacher playbook is established:
Distort the Word
Deny the judgment
Doubt the goodness of God
2 Peter 2:1b: “They secretly bring in destructive heresies…”
2 Corinthians 11:13–15: …for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
2 Timothy 3:1–5: But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
2 Peter 2:3b: “Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”
II. Divine Discipline (2:4–9)
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned… if He did not spare the ancient world… if He condemned Sodom and Gomorrah… then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly and to keep the unrighteous under punishment.”
Case Study #1: The Rebellious Angels (2:4): “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell…”
Case Study #2: The Days of Noah (2:5): “If He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness…”
Case Study #3: Sodom and Gomorrah (2:6–8): “If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes He condemned them to extinction…“Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.”
III. Deficient Desires (2:10–22)
The Vices of False Teachers (2:10-16)
The Arrogance of the False Teachers (2:10b–13a): “[They] indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones…”
The Appetites of the False Teachers (2:13b–14): “They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime…They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls.”
The Avarice of the False Teachers (2:15–16): “...They have hearts trained in greed…
The Effect of False Teachers (2:17–19)
Spiritual Drought (2:17): “These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm.”
Enslavement Under Sin (2:18–19): “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.”
The Danger of Apostasy (2:20–22)
2 Peter 2:20: “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.”
“It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
~ C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters
2 Peter 2:22: The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.
John 6:66–69: After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.
