2 Peter 2:17 — These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

It was foggy this morning. Well, it was foggy by South West Florida standards anyway — it was a light mist by the standards of the places where Myra and I grew up!
London, where Myra grew up, used to be famous for it’s fogs — “pea-souper’s”, so called because of their yellow tint caused by the mixture of chimney smoke and other pollutants with the natural moisture. They could be dreadful events — the worst, in 1952, killing 4000 people.
I lived much of my youth and young manhood in the country. Our fogs were not the vile one of Myra’s childhood, but there were still times when it was not possible to see more than a foot or two in any direction!
Driving along through the fog this morning, Myra compared it to the spiritual fog satan sometimes leads us in to. Peter identifies a major source of that fog — false teachers. He starts this chapter of his letter, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” He likens these false teachers themselves to deceitful clouds that promise the refreshment of rain but provide nothing … Leading their students into mists … Though not the dreadful mists that is the end of the teachers themselves.
We should not confuse this fog that satan, or bad teachers, lead us into with the spiritual confusion that is sometimes part of our spiritual growth. Of this, Oswald Chambers said:

There are times in spiritual life when there is confusion, and it is no way out to say that there ought not to be confusion. It is not a question of right and wrong, but a question of God taking you by a way which in the meantime you do not understand, and it is only by going through the confusion that you will get at what God wants.

There is a test to apply when we find ourselves in a fog of confusion. Does it arise from teaching that obscures or contradicts what you find in the Bible? It is probably the product of false teaching. Does it arise because you cannot see God’s hand, or discern His purpose? It is probably a legitimate spiritual confusion, that will be dispelled by patience, prayer, and faithful Bible study.
We will all be in fog at sometime or another. The challenge is to discern between satan’s vile “pea-souper” and the natural country fog!