For when they speak great swelling words of vanity,
they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those
that were clean escaped from them who live in error [2 Pet. 2:18].
“For when they speak great swelling words of vanity.”
These false teachers use beautiful, flowery language. They soar to the
heights oratorically, speaking in basso profundo voice.
“They allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much
wantonness.” It is a religion that appeals to the eye, a religion that
appeals to the ear, a religion that appeals even to the nose. One preacher
said to me, “I always have my church sprayed on Sunday morning.” He wants it
to smell good. Don’t misunderstand me—I think the place ought to look nice;
the music ought to be good music, and I don’t mind a fragrant smell, but
those things are not to be depended upon. They are the lusts, the desires,
of the flesh. But Peter is accusing the false teachers of more than this.
“Through much wantonness” refers to lewdness, sexual excesses.
This man Simon Peter is really being sarcastic now—
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are
the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he
brought in bondage [2 Pet. 2:19].
“While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the
servants of corruption.” Some habit has these false teachers enslaved, and
yet they are promising liberty to others!
“For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought
in bondage.” This is the picture that we have before us: they promise
liberty, but they don’t really know what it is themselves.
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the
world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are
again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them
than the beginning [2 Pet. 2:20].
These apostates have a head knowledge of Christ. They
know the truth but have no love of the truth. They reject what they once
professed and become enslaved in some sort of corruption.
And, my friend, I hear many folk say, “Oh, I am very
religious. I belong to a certain church. We don’t believe the Bible is
really the Word of God, but we talk a lot about love and brotherhood. We
have a beautiful church and a lovely service that makes us feel good.” Such
people have escaped the pollutions of the world. They are horrified when
they read of crime and violence in the newspaper. You see, they have escaped
the pollutions of the world but not the corruptions.
“Through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ.” It is not that they haven’t heard the gospel. They
have heard the gospel. One
man told me, “I listen to your Bible broadcast nearly every day.” But he had
to admit that he didn’t believe anything; he even doubted that there was a
God. That man knows the gospel. When someone asked me, “Why don’t you
present the gospel to him sometime when you’re playing golf?” I told him,
“He’s heard me present the gospel over a hundred times. There is no need of
saying any more.” Peter says, “They are again entangled therein, and
overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”
In this chapter Peter has dealt very definitely with the
apostasy that was coming into the church through false teachers who were
creeping in and teaching false doctrines, teaching that which is contrary to
the Word of God. Peter says that they pervert the truth of God, and they do
it for their own advantage. These false teachers exalt themselves instead of
exalting Christ. They do not use the Word of God except for a few little
proof texts that more or less clothe their teaching with a pious halo. They
use big words which are counterfeit words. They try to impress people that
they are very intellectual, and they are interested in making money. They
claim that they can change people. I know that I will get into trouble by
saying this, but I think you ought to examine very carefully anyone who
claims to have a supernatural power to heal or to perform miracles. Another
thing that sometimes identifies a false teacher is that he is living
secretly in lust and sin. You and I cannot fight these false teachers; I’m
not attempting to fight them; I’m just trying to expose them. But one day
God is going to
expose them, and He is going to judge them.
For it had been better for them not to have known the
way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy
commandment delivered unto them [2 Pet. 2:21].
Now Peter concludes all this by saying that it actually
would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness
than, having known it, to then turn from the gospel.
I have done something in my ministry which has not been
original with me at all. I heard the late Dr. A. C. Gaebelein say this, and
it was so effective and so true that I have used it on many occasions. I
will sometimes conclude a message by saying, “Friends, if you came in here
today unsaved and you walk out of here unsaved, I am the worst enemy that
you have ever had, because you have heard the gospel and you can never go
into the presence of God and tell Him that you have never heard the gospel.
You have heard it, and it will be worse for you when God pronounces judgment
than for any heathen in the darkest part of the earth today.”
But it is happened unto them according to the true
proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was
washed to her wallowing in the mire [2 Pet. 2:22].
Peter speaks of these false teachers, using the term
dog. To the
Jewish mind there was nothing lower than a dog, by the way. “The dog is
turned to his own vomit again.” Peter draws from Proverbs 26:11 to show that
they will return to their true, natural, unchanged condition.
“And the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the
mire.” It is Simon Peter who gives us the parable of the prodigal pig. You
may never have heard the parable of the prodigal pig, but here it is. It is,
of course, based on the parable of the prodigal son, which is one of the
greatest parables the Lord Jesus ever gave (see Luke 15:11–32).
There are those who say that you cannot preach the gospel
from the parable of the prodigal son. However, the first time that I ever
went forward in a meeting was under a brush arbor in southern Oklahoma in a
little place called Springer. It’s not much of a place today, I’m told, and
it certainly wasn’t in that day. I went forward and knelt down, and all I
can remember of that night is that the preacher preached on the prodigal
son. I can remember the figures of speech that he used. He took the prodigal
son through all the nightclubs and places of sin. That night all the saints
sinned vicariously through the preacher’s message. Believe me, it was a very
effective message. I’m confident that others got saved that night, but
nobody took the time to explain to me about the gospel. I didn’t really
understand it, and my life afterward revealed that I wasn’t saved, but my
heart was certainly open for it.
Actually, the story of the prodigal son is not how a
sinner becomes a son but how a son becomes a sinner. The account, as
recorded in Luke 15, is a familiar story. You remember that there was a
father who had two boys. One of the boys, the younger one, wanted to take
off for the far country. Dr. Streeter calls this the sin of propinquity.
That is a big word, but it simply means that the things near at hand are not
so attractive but that the faraway places have an allurement, an
enchantment. I think the chief allurement of sin is its mystery. The old
bromide that grass is greener on the other side of the fence is the story of
this boy.
So the boy ran away and soon was living it up. When he
had plenty of money, the fair-weather friends were with him, but they soon
faded away. He ended up having to go out and get a job working for a man who
raised pigs. When the Lord Jesus mentioned that, both the publicans and
Pharisees winced, because a Jewish boy could have sunk no lower than that.
He hit bottom. In effect, he was on drugs, involved in sexual immorality,
and all that type of thing. This boy was down in the pigpen.
Again, let’s understand what the parable is primarily
teaching. It is not showing how a sinner gets saved, but it reveals the
heart of the Father who will not only save a sinner but will take back a son
who sins. Someone asked the late Dr. Harry Rimmer, “Suppose the boy had died
in the pigpen? What then?” Dr. Rimmer said, “Well, if he had died in the
pigpen, there is one thing for sure, he would not have been a dead pig. He
was a son.” He was a son when he left home; he was a son when he got to the
far country; he was a son while he was living in sin; and he was a son in
the pigpen. And because he was a son, he made a statement one day, a
statement that no pig could ever have made. He said, “My father lives up
yonder in that great big home. He has servants who are better off than I am.
I am his son, but I’m living down here with the pigs. I will arise, and I
will go to my father.” No pig could say that, unless he was going in the
opposite direction, heading back toward the pigpen.
Now what is the father going to do with his boy when he
returns home? According to the Mosaic Law, that boy was to have been stoned
to death (see Deut. 21:18–21)—but he wasn’t stoned to death. The son went
back and made his confession, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and
against you!” But his father wouldn’t let him finish. You would expect the
father to have said to one of his servants, “Go down and cut off some
hickory limbs and bring them back to me. I’m going to whip this boy within
an inch of his life. He has disgraced my name; he’s spent my substance; he’s
wasted his time. He has been in sin, and I’m going to teach him.” But that’s
not what happened at all. The boy, you see, had gotten his whipping in the
far country. All prodigals get their whipping when they are away from home.
When they come back to the heavenly Father, there is always a banquet, a
robe, and a ring. And “they began to be merry.” The fun was up at the
father’s house and never in the pigpen.
The interesting thing now is that Peter says, “And the
sow that was washed [returned] to her wallowing in the mire.” Now we can add
something to the parable of the prodigal son. One of those little pigs in
the pigpen said to the prodigal son, “You say you want to leave this lovely
pigpen with all of this nice mud and goo, and you want to go up to your
father’s house? That sounds good; in fact, you’ve sold me. I think maybe I’d
like to go up there with you and try it myself.”
So the prodigal son told him, “If you go up there, things
are sure going to be different! You are going to have to clean up.”
When they got to the father’s house, the father put his
arms around the boy and said, “Bring forth the robe.” Actually, he could
smell those clothes his son had been wearing in the pigpen, and what he
really meant was, “Give him a good bath and then put a new robe on him. He
can’t smell like that or live like that in my house.”
The little pig went with the prodigal son, and he had to
get all cleaned up too. They washed this little pig up nicely and tied a
pink ribbon around his neck. They brushed his teeth with Pepsodent, and the
little pig went squealing through the house. But it was only a couple of
days until the little pig came to the prodigal son with a downcast look and
said, “Prodigal Son, I don’t like it here.”
And the son said, “Why, I am having the best time I’ve
ever had in my life since I came home, and you say you don’t like it here!
What’s wrong?”
The little pig replied, “I don’t like this idea of having
white sheets on the bed. If we could just get to a place where there is
plenty of good, sloppy mud, I could sleep better there.”
“We just don’t do that here in the father’s house,” said
the prodigal son. “You just can’t live in a pigpen here”
“Another thing I don’t like is sitting at a table, using
a knife and fork, and having a white tablecloth, and eating out of a plate.
Why couldn’t we have a trough down on the floor and put everything in there?
We could all jump in and have the biggest time of our lives.”
“We don’t do that here!” said the son.
And the little pig said, “Well, I think I’ll arise and go
to my father.” His old man wasn’t in that house, and so he started back to
his home. He had been all cleaned up, but he went back to the pigpen and
found his old man right down in the middle of the biggest loblolly you’ve
ever seen—mud all around him, dirty, filthy, and smelly. That little old pig
began to squeal and made a leap for it. He jumped in right beside his
father, saying, “Old man, I sure am glad to get back home!” You know why?
Because he was a pig.
I had the privilege of being pastor in a downtown Los
Angeles church beginning in 1949. Those were the years when subdivisions
were beginning to be built in Southern California. That’s the period when
the population doubled again and again. People came from everywhere, and we
saw a tremendous ingathering in the church I pastored during that period. I
have always thanked the Lord that He gave me the privilege of being in that
unique position at just the right time.
Although it was a great time because so many folk turned
to the Lord, there was always the problem of how to tell the pigs from the
sons—that is, professing Christians from real born-again believers. It was
difficult and confusing, but I learned something. I found that at one end of
the road was the Father’s house, at the other end of the road was a pigpen,
and there were always prodigal sons who were going back to the Father’s
house.
I talked to a preacher’s son one time when he came in to
see me. He was a handsome young man who had come out to Hollywood to make it
big, but he was one of those who didn’t have the charisma and didn’t quite
make it. He got in with the wrong crowd and began to drink. He saw that he
was going down and down. He was a prodigal son—he wasn’t a pig. He hated the
life he had been living. When he came to see me, he said “My dad is a
wonderful man. I’ve let him down so, and I just don’t know how he would
receive me. I don’t know whether I can go home or not.”
I said, “Let me call him, and if he doesn’t want to talk
to you, we’ll just hang up,” and the boy agreed. So I called this man who is
a very fine minister, and after we had exchanged a few pleasantries about
the weather and such, I knew that he was wondering why I was calling him. I
said, “I have somebody here in my study who would like to talk to you.”
He knew who it was. He knew that his boy wasn’t a pig but
a son. That father broke down and said, “Is it my boy?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Let me talk to him.” The boy began to weep, and I’m sure
the father was weeping too.
I just walked out of my study to let them talk. I came
back in after the young man had hung up, and he said to me, “I’m going
home.”
However, the transition is always confusing because
sometimes the prodigal sons are on the other side of the road going down to
the pigpen. To add to the confusion, sometimes a pig will get out of the
pigpen and go up to the Father’s house. But he is a pig—he won’t like it
there. He may get all washed and cleaned up and become very religious.
Sometimes he may even be made a deacon in the church. You just can’t tell
because he’s all cleaned up on the outside; but inside he has the heart of a
pig, and a pig loves the mire.
One time a lady came to me and said, “I used to know this
man back East when he was a superintendent of a Sunday school and a deacon
in the church. He’s here on the West Coast now. He’s drinking, he’s divorced
his wife, and he’s running around. Is he saved or not?” I told her I didn’t
know, and she said, “You mean that you are a preacher, and you don’t know
whether that man is saved or not?”
I said, “No, I really don’t know. I couldn’t tell you,
because all I can see is the outside. But I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We
are in this great metropolitan area where there is a road with a pigpen at
one end of it and the Father’s house at the other end. I’ve learned that, if
you wait long enough, all the pigs will go down to the pigpen and all the
prodigal sons will go home to the Father’s house. Just wait and see. If that
man continues to live in the pigpen, we can know that he is a pig—because
Peter says that the pig that was washed has now returned to her wallowing in
the mire.”
This is the mark of the apostate, and it is a frightful
picture. I know of no more frightful picture in the Word of God other than
chapter 18 of the Book of Revelation.
I will conclude with a poem written by a friend who heard
me preach on this subject of the prodigal pig.
A
Pig is a Pig
“Come home with me,” said the prodigal son.
“We’ll sing and dance and have lots of fun.
“We’ll wine and dine with women and song.
You’ll forget you’re a pig before very long.”
So the pig slipped out while the momma was asleep,
Shook off the mud from the mire so deep.
Around his neck was a bow so big,
He’s gonna show the world, a pig’s not a pig!
With his snout in the air he trotted along,
With the prodigal son who was singin’ a song.
It must be great to be a rich man’s son,
He would surely find out ’fore the day was done!
It didn’t take him long to realize his mistake—
He’d been scrubbed and rubbed till his muscles ached!
He squealed when they put a gold ring in his nose
And winced with pain when they trimmed his toes.
He sat at the table on a stool so high,
A bib around his neck and a fork to try,
While the prodigal son, in his lovely robe,
Kept feeding his face, so glad to be home!
When the meat came around, the pig gave a moan—
It looked too much like a kind of his own.
He jumped from his chair with a grunt and a groan,
Darted through the door and headed for home.
His four little feet made the dust ride high
For he didn’t stop till he reached that sty!
It’s what’s on the inside that counts, my friend,
For a pig is a pig to the very end!
—Evelyn C. Sanders
McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible
Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997,
c1981, S. 5:740-745