2 Peter 2:17-22 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.… Nothing more strikingly characterises the teaching of the early preachers of Christianity, while it attests their faithfulness, than the uncompromising distinct ness with which they put forth the claims of the gospel to the whole obedience of mankind, and declared the peculiar characteristics of the Christian service. Self crucifixion, the absolute submission of their wills to the law of another will, etc. Such doctrine is not acceptable now, and it was not when St. Peter wrote. Accordingly, we find that while the apostles were busily engaged in enforcing this doctrine, there were other teachers no less busily occupied in endeavouring to counteract their endeavours, and who, to this end, with a thorough knowledge of human nature, addressed themselves to just those cravings of that nature which are at once the strongest and the blindest. The teachers of Christianity preached obedience; they taught the necessity of self-subjugation; they enforced the duty, while they showed the blessedness, of submission to the law of God and of Christ. What, then, was the argument, and what the enticement, with which these false teachers endeavoured to hold men, and too often succeeded in holding them, in disobedience and rebellion? It was then, as now and ever, "liberty." Liberty! that first temptation that was whispered cunningly amid the fresh leaves and flowers of unfallen Eden, and which has smoothed the way to all other temptations and all other sins whatsoever. Liberty! that form of light with which Satan so often delights to clothe himself. Liberty! that treacherous phantom that has slain more living men — ay, slain them eternally — than all the blood-dripping tyrants of the world. Liberty! that fair child of heaven which for six thousand years men have blindly sought, and which not even six thousand years have taught them, can nowhere else be found than in the house of law. I. THE NATURE OF THE TEMPTATION WHICH THESE EARLY OPPOSERS OF THE TRUTH HELD OUT TO MEN TO KEEP THEM FROM SUBMISSION TO THE LAW OF CHRIST. 1. Doubtless the apostle exactly states the promise made by these opposing teachers; and it is therefore worth while to observe that no limit is placed to the range or application of the liberty promised. These teachers very well knew the corruption and weakness of the human heart; and while therefore they misrepresented the service of Christ as a needless and cruel bondage, they took care to place before men the service of sin as a full and perfect liberty. "They promise them liberty" — deliverance from the iron authority of the Divine will; deliverance from a sense of constant condemnation and restraint; freedom for their whole nature in all its parts; liberty to think and feel and do without hindrance and without fear. And what is this but the temptation which we every day see coiling itself around, and fixing its fascinating eye upon the hearts of men; and to the promise of which we see men everywhere striving to attain? 2. Observe how another fact is brought out by this statement of the apostle — the fact, namely, of a recognised line of separation dividing always between the servants of Christ and the servants of the world. It is its exclusiveness that makes Christianity so repulsive. It is because Christ will divide His claims with none other, that it is so easy to represent His service as a bondage, when compared with the "liberty" of the world. II. THE PROMISE MADE BY THE WORLD AND ITS VOTARIES OF AN ABSOLUTE LIBERTY IS FALSE AS A MATTER OF FACT. 1. Man, by the requirements of his very nature and condition, must serve. He cannot be without a master — some dominant power, that is, ruling supremely in his heart; and as a moral being there are only two services between which he can choose — the service of good and the service of evil, the service of Christ and the service of the world. 2. There is no greater delusion than to imagine because a man has cast aside his allegiance to his Maker, or has even succeeded in excluding entirely all thought of his Maker from his heart, that therefore he is free. He is not free. There is no such deep bondage — a bondage fixing its relentless grasp upon the inmost powers of the soul — as the liberty of the world. The garlands of its holiday are flowers wreathed on chains; and although its victim himself, owing to the very stupor of his degradation, the delirium which falls on those long bound in prison, may come at times to be ignorant of his state, that state can in no wise be hid from any one who is not himself a servant of the world. No; he is not free. (1) He is held in bondage, first of all, to the world's opinions. Boasting, perhaps, of what he calls his intellectual freedom, scoffing, perhaps, at the authoritative teachings of God's Word, he is yet held in thraldom by the judgments of other men, and does not, in opposition thereto, obey the dictates of his own. (2) He is a slave again to his own body. His lower nature, that which allies him to the brute, rises up in proud supremacy, and rules triumphantly over all that connects him with his God. (3) He is a slave, moreover, to his own fears. Ever and anon his torpid conscience will uprear its crest and inflict its sting. III. The only question with which we, as wise men, are concerned is, WHICH OF THESE TWO IS THE BETTER SERVICE? WHICH WILL RESULT TO US IN THE GREATER RECOMPENSE OF REWARD? We have not spoken unfairly of the service of the world. We have admitted all its claims, so far as those claims are true. It promises liberty, and we have shown you the liberty that it gives. Undoubtedly there is an earthly gain and a present enjoyment to the natural heart in such freedom — the freedom of an untrammelled will, the freedom to enjoy without stint all the pleasures that this world can give; and if the full results, and therefore the final value, of man's acts were present and finished in the acts themselves, there would perhaps be little to be said. But the real advantage and value Of all human acts, even the commonest, and therefore of all human states, are decided by their ultimate results, whether, as to time, those results are immediate or remote. To determine, therefore, the true, and consequently the abiding, value, whether of the service of Christ, or the service of the world, we must consider the permanent results of each as they remain fixed in our own nature, or affect permanently the conditions of our own existence. 1. Applying this test, what must we say of the service of the world? How can we characterise results which, as we have seen, are poor and miserable indeed, utterly unworthy of man, debasing and unsatisfying even upon earth, and, instead of brightening, covering with cloud and darkness his real existence, even the eternal existence of his soul? It is, as the apostle says, "corruption." Yes, "corruption" — slavery to this body which, with all its strength and all its pride and all its lust, shall presently be hid away from sight and sense as an offensive thing;" slavery to this poor world of men around me, corruptible like me, and day by day dropping into this great charnel-house of earth; slavery to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, which send their destroying power into eternity itself, and turn into "corruption" the immortal soul. 2. Test in the same way the service of Christ, and see if the Christian — Christ's true servant — is a slave. If deliverance from his greatest adversary, if superiority to all human power, if a constant sense of perfect security and peace — if this be slavery, then he is in bondage indeed; but if, on the other hand, these are the evidences of liberty, then is he free. Through the power of Christ he vanquishes the temptations that once vanquished him. Living a life of obedience like that of the angels, knowing, through the approving witness of the Spirit, that he is accepted as a repentant son by his loving Father, he lives, through faith, in that Father's home — that home so bright and beautiful upon the summit of the universe; and the laws of that home are the laws of his life. And so, living with angels, what cares he for unrighteous men? or what on earth can harm him? He is above all bondage and above all fear. Death itself has lost all power over him. Its darkness even now is filled with the kindling rays of eternal life. Is not this liberty? and is not such liberty worth seeking for? Is there a sane man here present who, determining this question from the true point of right judgment, even that bed of death which may be spread for him to-morrow, would not give all the honours and all the gains and all the joys that this world can offer to be — a freedman of God? (W. Rudder, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. |
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