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In verses 10 through 16 of 2 Peter 2, we have examined Peter’s description of the character of false teachers. He has looked at the way that they live, at the fruit that their life produces, and the fruit that their teaching produces in the lives of their hearers. We’ve looked at the depravity of false teachers. They are chasing after the flesh and enticing others to do so.

In verses 17 through 22, in this last paragraph here of the chapter, Peter now shows us the consequences of false doctrine. The consequences both to the teachers and to their hearers, to those who have been led astray by these who are not proclaiming the truth of the gospel, those who are watering it down, polluting it, changing it, denying the truths of scripture.

We start in verses 17 through 19, looking at empty promises. “These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been kept. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by sensual lusts of the flesh, those who barely escape from the ones who conducted themselves in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.”

As we begin to look at their promises and at what they do and at the consequences of what they teach, Peter tells us first that these false teachers are like waterless springs, or wells without water, and clouds carried by a storm. They have a reservation with the gloom of utter darkness!

It’s as if you go out on a hot summer day and you see the clouds gathering and you begin to suspect that you smell the scent of rain and you think maybe, maybe today we get relief from the heat and the drought and the dry. You know this, in West Texas you see those clouds coming from miles away. Well, what happens if those clouds build and you’re certain that rain is coming and the next thing you know they’ve blown on by and there’s no rain? These are clouds carried by a storm. There’s a promise of something. There’s an expectation of something, but it doesn’t happen. The same as springs that have dried up and have no water.

If you can imagine in that day and time, living as they were with cisterns and with wells, if your well ran out of water, what happened? You had to find another source and find it quickly. If you have traveled a long distance and you know there’s supposed to be a well and an oasis, and you get there and you want to find relief for you and your traveling companions and your animals and you drop that bucket into the bottom of the well and there’s nothing there – what is that feeling? That feeling is of someone who’s listened to a false teacher, have bought into what they have said and then found out experientially that what they have been told just isn’t true.

Now the false teacher has a way out of this, right? Because the false teacher from the start has this set up. If you have enough faith, God will ___________________ (fill in the blank). So you’re expecting fulfillment. You’re expecting satisfaction. You’re coming to the water thinking you’re going to get something to drink and there’s nothing there to satisfy. There’s only disappointment and frustration.

Jude uses the same terminology in Jude 12 and 13. He says, “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.”

Peter tells us, they are “speaking out arrogant words of vanity.” They are not telling you the truth. They are wells without water. They are clouds carried away before they drop any rain. And again, the same phrase that Jude uses, “or whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.” There is a promised judgment for them.

Jeremiah 2:13 also comes to mind. God through the prophet Jeremiah tells the people of Judah, as they’re about to be carried off into captivity, “For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Where was the source of what they needed? The source was God. And He would provide if they would ask and if they would repent and if they would believe. But instead, they went to go find their own way. They went, the analogy here is to hew themselves cisterns, but they didn’t hold water. They would hew out these big areas hoping to catch the rain, but if it never rained. You didn’t get water, and even if it did rain and your system wasn’t built correctly, then it wouldn’t hold the water, the water would leak out. You wouldn’t be able to keep it. So they were looking to do God’s work man’s way, they were looking to find their own fulfillment.

This today is translated in this theology, that people say, pray like it depends upon God and work like it depends upon you. Really? I understand the sentiment behind that. Don’t just pray and wait, but then again sometimes the Bible says just that, doesn’t it? Pray and wait. Sometimes we wait on God to do what only God can do. There are the times we pray, and what we need to do is pray and act in obedience to what God tells us to do. But don’t pray as if it depends on God and then act as it depends on you, because it doesn’t depend on us.

If it did depend on us, it would never get done and it would always fail. It depends on God. So pray like it depends on God and act like it depends on God. You see, prayer doesn’t change anything. God changes what needs to be changed. Usually when we’re praying, what we find God changing is us. He has to change us so that we ask in accord with His will.

Well, the false teachers make all of these promises, but they are like wells without water. There’s no true satisfaction. There’s no true fulfillment. The people are hungry and they’re thirsty for something to make a difference in their life, for something to change their circumstance.

Today, the church often is looking for happiness instead of holiness. They’re looking to play instead of pray. The church that doesn’t agonize but wants to be entertained. The church that wants it easy and comfortable. The church that comes to Jesus because we’ve all been pitched a Jesus that will fix everything wrong with our lives. As this happens, we find out that as we listen to false teachers, people weren’t telling us the truth from the Word of God, the hard truth, the convicting truth. The truth that shatters us, that breaks us, that crushes us. The truth that on our own we can’t do it and only deserve judgment. The truth that on our own there is no hope to escape from the wrath to come.

And the truth is that we can’t save ourselves. We can’t even desire what is right without God intervening in our lives. That’s why people jump from teacher to teacher and from church to church. They want somebody to tell them what they want to hear, and if that doesn’t satisfy them, then obviously if there’s something wrong with this preacher, I’m going to go somewhere else until somebody can tell me what I want to hear and bring me satisfaction.

But here’s the problem. You can scratch an itchy ear, but that itch is never going away. You can scratch it and scratch it and scratch it, and it only gets worse. Why? Because the very act of scratching the itchy ear is feeding self. Not the spirit, but our flesh. And self is insatiable. The flesh will never be satisfied, will it? Our flesh will never be satisfied.

That is the flesh. It wants more, but it never satisfies. It’s always to our hurt if we’re indulging the flesh. There is no true satisfaction to be found in a life of sin. This is why sin and addiction condemns people to destruction, because they can never feed it until it is completely fed and satisfied. It will dominate you until it destroys you.

Where do we find true satisfaction? See, the problem is, we’re looking in the wrong place. We’re believing our flesh when it says that it has desires and needs and wants. Our flesh clearly does not know the difference between a need and a want, but our flesh has needs and it has wants. Some of those are built in by God, and they’re good, and if you don’t fulfill them, you die.

Some of those things are good, but if we abuse them, if we overuse them, if we’re not obedient in our pursuits, if we’re only seeking to serve self, we will not be satisfied. So where do we find true satisfaction? Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Do you want to be satisfied? Hunger and thirst, that is, crave as if you need it to live, being right and pleasing to God.

Where does that come from? First, the imputed righteousness of Christ given to us when we’re justified. Secondly, the righteousness, the good works that He has laid out for us to walk in, as we are obedient. Strive after obedience. When you strive to be righteous, not self righteous, but truly righteous, being obedient to God out of love for him, then you will find satisfaction. In fact, that’s the only place you will find satisfaction.

We look so many other places. And we think for a time we might have found something. And you know this is true, otherwise there would not be such a thing as fads. Whatever the latest fad is, somebody found something that finally satisfied them. It scratched that itch just right. And it’s a fad and they want to tell everybody about it. And four weeks later, they’re on to the next fad because it turned out not to actually truly give lasting satisfaction.