Good morning and welcome in. Today we are going to take a look at a passage of scripture from second Peter, but before that I want you to think about something.
Imagine cleaning your house and bagging up all the garbage and refuse. You decide to make a trip to the landfill and throw it all in the dumpster. Later on that week you have second thoughts and decide to go back to the dump and bring all that trash right back home again. You tear open the bags and dump that garbage right back in your living room after you had cleaned it all up.
The Christian life is about cleaning up your life of sin. Some people will begin the Christian life but will turn away from the faith and get involved once again with the sins from which they left in the first place. Instead of continuing in the teachings of Christ they abandon the truth. It had been better off that they had not become a Christian in the first place.
2 Peter 2:20-22 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. 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. 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.
Instead of continuing to follow and obey Christ Jesus, there will be some who return to the life that they left in their past. After they have gotten off the wide road that leads to destruction, they will simply return and get back on it once again. Instead of learning the lesson that the end of those things is death, they just don’t care anymore. The Christian life becomes too difficult for them and because of impenitance, they fall away from their faith, evidenced in their lack of obedience to Christ and his teachings.
When somebody escapes the pollutions of the world it means that their life undergoes a change through God’s grace and the knowledge and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Someone begins the Christian Life and begins to turn away from the old lifestyle that they lived, in order to become a new creature. They last for a period of time, but then for whatever the reason, they turn away from the faith. Instead of continuing to follow and lovingly obey Jesus, they rebel and return to the life that they left when they first became a Christian. They willfully choose to serve the ways of the world once again, rather than remaining in the doctrines of Christ. For this group of people, it will be far worse with them then it was before they became a Christian at the beginning. God is not mocked and those who choose to reject the faith in such a manner will be punished.
Jude 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
From what I have read, adult dogs will eat their own vomit and is considered by many as a part of their natural behavior. You can clean a pig, but the natural behavior for a pig is to live in the mud. You might attempt to train a dog not to do this behavior, or wash off a pig and teach them not to wallow in the mud, but they might very well reject their training and return to their old ways in the future.
Christians are called to grow in the teachings and instructions of God’s Word, trained in the way of righteousness, but like a dog or a pig, some will return to what comes natural to them, living in carnality and sin. They really don’t care about how they live anymore because their conscience is seared. You can train somebody in the way they should go but you can’t live their lives for them.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
When someone departs the faith they turn away from the Christian life and the teachings that they been educated in within the church. Instead of listening to men of God, they choose to listen seducing spirits who lead them on the path to damnation. They are filled with hypocrisy, appearing to be religious but completely rejecting biblical truth. Instead of discerning right from wrong, they simply don’t care anymore when they live in sinfulness. With that attitude Godly sorrow can’t happen, and no change can take place.
Proverbs 30:20 – Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
When we become a Christian we must turn from our natural behavior to spiritual behavior. It’s turning away from the carnal nature to the divine nature. Once we begin to live as a Christian we are not to return to the past from which we left otherwise it will be far worse.
John 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
Lots wife is an example of someone who was longing to return to what they had left behind.
Genesis 19:26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt
Everybody deals with the carnal nature but it needs to be subdued and mortified. We have to go through a change to inherit the kingdom of heaven someday. Without a change through conversion, salvation is unattainable.
Matthew 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Once you begin the Christian life there is no turning back. We are called to come out and be separate from the world, not to rejoin it and the sins from which we left.
2 Corinthians 6:17-18 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Like a plant without a root to hold it in place, there will be people who will not stay rooted in the teachings of Christ, and will end up deceiving themselves, and being deceived by others.
Luke 8:13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
God gives us grace, but what is His grace given for? It’s for change. It’s to become something different, a new creature. Some people just aren’t going to make it, and return to their old life, going back to the vomit…..
……..and wallowing in the mud.
Let’s think about these things for today, and Lord willing we can talk some more tomorrow. Till then, bye-bye everybody.❤️
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Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 