False Prophets in the New Testament | thebereancall.org

TBC Staff - EN

In all ages of the church, and under all dispensations, when God sends true prophets, the devil sends some to seduce and deceive, false prophets in the Old Testament, and false Christs, false apostles, and seducing teachers, in the New.

"These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever" (2 Peter:2:17).
The Apostle (Simon Peter) proceeds to a further description of seducing teachers, whom he sets forth as wells, or fountains, without water. Observe,

  1. Ministers should be as wells or fountains, where the people may find instruction, direction, and comfort; but 
  2. False teachers have nothing of this to impart to those who consult them: the Word of Truth is the water of life, which refreshes the souls that receive it; but these deceivers are set upon spreading and promoting error, and therefore are set forth as empty, because there is no Truth in them. In vain then are all our expectations of being fed and filled with knowledge and understanding by those who are themselves ignorant and empty.

As clouds carried with a tempest. When we see a cloud we expect a refreshing shower from it; but these are clouds which yield no rain, for they are driven with the wind, but not of the Spirit, but the stormy wind or tempest of their own ambition and covetousness.

They espouse and spread those opinions that will procure most applause and advantage to themselves; and as clouds obstruct the light of the sun, and darken the air, so do these darken counsel by words without knowledge and wherein there is no Truth; and, seeing these men are for promoting darkness in this world, it is very just that the mist of darkness should be their portion in the next. Utter darkness was prepared for the devil, the great deceiver, and his angels, those instruments that he uses to turn men from the Truth, and therefore for them it is reserved, and that for ever; the fire of hell is everlasting, and the smoke of the bottomless pit rises up for ever and ever.

--Matthew Henry (Commentary on 2 Peter 2)