Continuing to look at the depravity of false teachers in 2 Peter 2, the apostle has talked about their destructive doctrines, as he’s talked about the sure judgment that’s going to come upon those who twist the Word of God, motivated by greed and by covetousness to use the gospel as a means of gain in their own lives. What we learn very quickly is they are not actually using the gospel at all. They are changing the message, and they are appealing to the lusts and the itching ears of their hearers.

Last time we saw that “The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt lust and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they blaspheme glorious ones, whereas angels who are greater in strength and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.” (vs. 9-11). He is talking about their ignorance and their arrogance. This boldness and the sensuality that so fills and dominates their thinking. And he gives us specific examples.

In fact, he tells us eight things in the next four verses that is a characteristic of these teachers. This is not about what they are teaching. There are times in John, in his epistles, he will tell us about those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh. Looking at the early heresies of the church, those who claim that Jesus was born a man but He wasn’t God, and the Spirit of God came upon Him at some point and then departed from Him before He died. These errors and these heresies about the person and nature of Christ, these are blatant. But most of what we actually hear in the scripture doesn’t relate to the content of the teaching of the false teachers. It’s related to their character.

This is a character test, to look and see the fruit that their life bears because that gives us the evidence of what they believe. The same thing is true about sound teaching, isn’t it? The two list of qualifications we have for elders within the church in Timothy and Titus are not a list of doctrines. They are a list of character qualities. You look for men who do this, who teach like this, who live like this, you look at the fruit because what we believe works its way out in how we behave.

That’s why what gives the false teachers away is not the smooth words that they use. Look at the life, look at the fruit that’s produced in their lives and look at the fruit that’s produced in the lives of those who listen to them. And here we have it starting in verse 12, he says, “But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, blaspheming where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering unrighteousness as the wages of their unrighteousness, considering it a pleasure to revel in the daytime—they are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and unceasing sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed—they are accursed children. Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but he received a rebuke for his own lawlessness, for a mute donkey, speaking out with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.” Verse 17 finishes the thought, “These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been kept.”

We see here first the ignorance of the false teacher. He said these false teachers, like irrational animals made to be destroyed. This is what Peter is saying – they are like animals. The key focus here is that they are irrational. They are unreasonable. There is no domesticating them, there is no taming them. Some animals have uses. There are animals that are raised for food. There are animals that are raised to be work animals. Animals have uses. They can be domesticated even if it’s just domesticated as a pet, as a companion. But there are some animals that just cannot be domesticated. They are wild and unreasonable. They are dangerous.

And if you come into proximity with them, the only thing you can do is escape or kill them or they are going to kill you. He’s saying this is the mindset of the false teacher. They are like a wild animal. And your only escape is to kill them. Now, he’s not giving us a mission there when it comes to false teachers as if we are to hunt them down and take them out. He’s just warning us about the fact that these are dangerous beings.

This is explained as a mindset of moral corruption. He says they are blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant. They talk badly about things they don’t even comprehend. Now, usually, false teachers are saying one of two things. They are either teaching their false doctrine or they are arguing against the truth. And what becomes pretty clear with most false teachers is when they argue against the truth, they really don’t even know what they are arguing against. They don’t know the truth. They don’t have a grasp on the truth.

Some principle that we all learned if we took debate in high school or in college was that if you were going to debate an opponent, you had to understand their point of view so that you could debate it. Otherwise, you get what’s called a straw man argumentation. I’m arguing against something that doesn’t even exist. It’s not even real. We have to understand the other side. False teachers can’t understand the other side. They just claim upon their own authority, their own insight, their own charm and good looks that what they are teaching is true. And you should listen to them and disregard people who teach the opposite.

They speak evil of things they don’t understand. This is the mindset of the lost. It says here of them, “blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. This mindset of moral corruption is the mindset that Paul explains, the mindset of a lost man.

You see, there are those who really do believe that we can logically and rationally argue someone into making a decision for the kingdom of God. And here is what we miss. Before the Holy Spirit of God illumines our mind to the truth of the word of God, we cannot comprehend God’s word. Paul is clear in Romans 8:7, “Because the mind set on the flesh is at enmity toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” Those things have to be spiritually discerned. Paul says in Ephesians 4:17, about the lost, “Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind.”

Their mind, their thinking, it’s vanity. He says, “Being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” “But,” he says, “you did not learn Christ in this way— if indeed you heard Him and were taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” (Eph. 4:17-24).

When we look at the mind of the lost, it’s not that we preach in order to convince them mentally to simply assent to the gospel. There are plenty of people who mentally agree with the gospel, but who are not saved. Because mentally agreeing with the facts of the gospel is not the same thing as saving faith. You can understand and explain point by point the doctrine of the atonement, and still not have repented of your sin and believed and placed your trust in Christ.

Their mind is darkened. There is no understanding. It’s futile. It’s alienated. They have not believed. The way to guard about this and around this, Paul tells us there, is that we are to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” In Romans 12:1-2, he echoes this, “I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Our minds need to be renewed daily. Our thought processes need to be cleansed, because our minds very quickly run in ruts, don’t they? We have a way of thinking and patterns of thought, and you know how it goes throughout the course of the day. You could probably, usually most days, tell what time it is just by how you’re feeling. Your mind and your body are set in a routine, and there are things that happen, and you wonder, how do we renew that?

Well, there’s only one tool that’s been given to us by which we can renew our minds. In fact, Jesus told us, as he prayed to the Father, he said, “Sanctify them by truth.” What did he say? “Your word is truth.” (John 17:17).

What did David say? How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed to the word of God. What did David pray in Psalm 19:14? “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Where is the source of this cleansing? It is being washed in the Word of God, the Spirit of God washing us in the Word, renewing our minds, changing the way that we think, and here’s the good news – as redeemed individuals we can grow and change and mature. We can experience this cleansing.

The lost? They are living in ignorance. They are living in immorality. They cannot understand this at any deep level of faith. They simply are not capable of doing that, and he says here they “will also be destroyed in their destruction.” They are doomed if they stay in this state of ignorance. We read in Romans 10:1-3, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For not knowing about the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”

This is man’s religion. “I’m going to make myself pleasing to God.” And what is that rooted in? Absolute ignorance, because what can we do to make ourselves acceptable in the sight of God? Not a thing. That’s why we are so glad that he goes on in the chapter, and he says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation.”

This is John chapter 3:14-16, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

The hope of the lost, the only thing that they have to look forward to, dying without faith, without salvation, is to perish. But you understand that this perish is not a finality, it’s an eternity. It is dying the second death forever, suffering under the judgment of God, under his wrath for sin. These, he says, these false teachers, they are going to utterly perish in their own corruption.