Daily Archive

John 10:28, Jesus says, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish—ever; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” There’s our security. As we look at the false teacher, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4, “We have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

They’re going to perish in their corruption. “The wages of sin is death,” and this is the wage that they will be called to pay. These wages will be paid. In fact, as he describes this “suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing,” he says they will receive the wages of unrighteousness. And this is a very specific phrase, not just meaning that you are going to be paid the consequences of your sin, this is not just “the wages of sin is death,” it is a very specific word here. And when he talks about receiving the wages of wrongdoing, the way it’s phrased, it is the idea that suffering wrong is what you are going to be your rewarded. Everybody wants a reward, right? Somebody loses a dog, somebody loses a cell phone, they post a reward. You get a reward for doing this, you get a reward for doing that. We all naturally assume by the virtue of our own goodness and purity that God is going to reward every one of us just as we deserve. Well, the reward that’s talked about here, the wages of wrongdoing, it’s a phrase literally that means you will be harmed just as you have harmed.

You see, the false teaching is dangerous because it’s not just that they are walking in this ignorance and immorality, it’s that they are teaching it to others. And as that false teaching spreads, it is destructive. So the threat of judgment here is not just judgment that, oh, by the way, you’re going to pay the wages of sin. No, you’re going to be, the phrase literally, you are going to be harmed in the same manner that you have caused harm to others.

And we think, “Yes, they are going to get what they’ve got coming.” What do we deserve? The very same. For all the harm we did to others and will do to others, for all the harm we do to ourselves, that’s the real poison of sin, isn’t it? The hurt we do to ourselves because we want to, that is the harm that wounded Christ. Those are the stripes and the pain of the cross as He paid the penalty for our sin. These are going to be paid. They are going to be rewarded harm for harm.

He says, “They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime.” There is no shame. They are doing what they are doing right out in the open because of their ignorance. And so what do we need? We know that means then that we need first a new heart, secondly, a new mind. And that’s why we rejoice that in Christ we are a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

This is what we need to fight against false teaching, a new heart, a new mind, and knowing in Christ that we are a new creation. In 2 Peter 2 verses 13b now through verse 15, we see their serial sensuality. And we’re given eight things here that characterize the way that they live and what drives them out of this ignorance and this immorality. He says, first, “They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they feast with you.”

“They count it pleasure to revel.” That is the word hedonism or hedonistic, which means simply to live for pleasure, and they are living for absolute pleasure without shame. The concept here is they are doing things in the daylight that most people only do in the cover of darkness. Have you ever noticed that you get downtown, you get someplace and it’s dark out you kind of wonder what’s going on and what are these people up to? Do you ever see where people go when they don’t want to be seen, to do whatever it is they are going to go do? Can you imagine living like that out in the daylight just in front of everybody, not caring? If you want to know what that looks like turn on the television. This our society is living like this. It’s hedonistic. It’s all about pleasure.

In Jude verse 10, Jude talks about these kind of people. He says, “But these men blaspheme the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.” This is what they chase. This is what drives them. This is a dog chasing its tail. Why is the dog chasing the tail? Because the tail running away! The tail goes, so he has to chase the tail. Well it’s driving them, it’s consuming them, it’s what they are chasing, it’s what they want. And they don’t realize they are just running in circles in this corruption.

They are just doing this out in the open for everyone to see and it’s all about “Give me what I want!” They are indulging their appetites. In Jude, verse 12 and 13, “These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”

They are corrupting in their influence. Their teaching brings corruption. Paul had to deal with a little bit of this in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 11, where we read that they would come to the Lord’s table, and they wouldn’t eat at home, and they would want to eat at the Lord’s table, and they’d want to gorge themselves. You understand? It was a meal followed by elements of that meal being used as the Lord’s Supper, and they would come and make the priority stuffing their face, and even getting drunk. They were drunk at the Lord’s table.

Here they are, carousing, gorging themselves, and drunk at the Lord’s table. And Paul has to rebuke them for that, and correct them for that, and tell them, here is how it happened, and here’s how it should be observed, and here’s how it should be corrected. Because what do we do? We tend to take God’s good gifts to us, and we tend to abuse them. He gives us good things, and we wreck it. We ruin it. We abuse it. This is what it is, to be a blot and to be a blemish.

These false teachers in that atmosphere of a love feast, the Lord’s table, are introducing impurity and immorality into the church by their teaching and by their actions. Their corrupting influence spreads all over worship and all over the church. He says, “Having eyes full of adultery and unceasing sin.” They cannot cease from sin. The phrase, “eyes full of adultery,” their eyes can’t stop looking for sin. This is a description like what you read in the Proverbs. There are those who just go out and they are just destined to find trouble. They are looking for it all over. And everywhere they look, that’s what they find. This is a description of these false teachers. They keep on sinning. They practice sin. All they see is sin. All they want to see is sin.

They want to please themselves however they can. They are going to sin and they cannot stop themselves. The question for us, do we have the ability to withstand temptation? And the answer is with the help of the Spirit through the word of God and accountability through discipleship, we can stand up. We know a way of escape is made and we can stand firm. You see, the problem is, though, is that usually we don’t get the help when we need it. We try to fight it out on our own and we end up falling.

But what about 1 John? In 1 John, there is a whole other new group of false teachers out there. They are not new, but they are teaching that you can reach a point in your Christian life right here and now where you can become sinless, that you can reach a state of sinless perfection in this life. They go to 1 John 3:4-6, “Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or has come to know Him.” So they have to confess that if I know Jesus, that means I don’t sin anymore. That means I can’t know Jesus until I stop sinning. So to know Jesus, I can’t sin.

I’ve had people argue with me and they tell me, I don’t sin anymore. Seriously? Give me five minutes alone with you with a pinata bat. Somebody’s going to sin. Let’s see if we can push this. “Really? You don’t sin.” “No. I’ve reached a point where relying on the Spirit, I don’t sin anymore.” Well, we know, He tells us, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

That’s why we look for glorification when the flesh is finally and forever redeemed and we don’t sin from that point on. But now we struggle with sin. So what does he mean? Well, do you remember back in school when you took English grammar? Do you remember tense? You had your verb tenses and you had to look at what tense was it and what was the action and who received the action. When you look at it and you understand it, it’s so plain because he goes on to explain. He says, “Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who does sin is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning. The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”

The key word and the key understanding of the tenses here is he who practices. Do you practice sin? What does it mean to practice? That means to do it over and over and over – the same sin, the same way, the same thing over and over. It is a habitual lifestyle that you cannot withstand, that you cannot break. Now there are times that we will fight and sometimes we fight longer than at other times and we are prone to fall into the same sins, but are we practicing that consistently as a way of life? Meaning when you’re practicing this, you’re not trying to stop it. You have no desire to fight it. This is simply how you live day in and day out. In fact, the word there is speaking of doing this to the point it’s like you’re training yourself athletically. I’m working to make myself better at doing this.

It’s the exact opposite of fighting sin. When you sin the same sin again that you knew you sinned yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day before, how do you feel? If you feel miserable and convicted, good. Next time, stand firm. Keep fighting. But there are those who don’t fight. There are those in fact who want to sin and they want to get better at sinning. These are the ones that we have to be concerned about because they cannot cease from sin. They keep sinning. They keep practicing these things.

Jesus talks about sins of the eyes, committing adultery with the eyes and the heart. In Matthew 5, He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. But if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.”

This is that fight of flesh against spirit. Fight it. Fight it drastically. Fight sin ruthlessly to the point that the word picture is, if you can’t control your eyeball, pluck it out. If you can’t stop your hand, chop it off. Treat sin like what it is. Remove the offending member. In Matthew 6:22-23, speaking of the eye, Jesus says, “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

What are you looking at? What are you imagining? Do you understand how powerful the imagination is? Not just the things we see, but the things we even project in our own minds, the things that we see in our mind’s eye? For the false teacher, these are always sinful. They can’t stop sinning. For us, as we grow in grace and as we grow in sanctification, we see sin, and it should be revolting to us.

It’s the idea that if you haven’t watched TV for a while and you turn it on and see what’s out there today, it will shock you. And the problem is we watch things, we expose ourselves to things. And this is by design, folks. It’s designed to desensitize us so that then we will accept things that we used to not accept. That is the way it’s set up to work.

Well, the false teachers in the church are the same way. They can’t cease from sin. They have no desire to fight it. They practice it. They want to get better at it because their eyes are full of adultery. Their eyes can’t stop sinning. Everywhere they go, everywhere they look, they’re looking for something to bring pleasure to their own selves.