PT-1 "It is Offered by False Christians" (2 Peter 2:19-20)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 04/27/2004

My Worship Time                                                Focus:  PT-1 “It is Offered by False Christians”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  2 Peter 2:19-20

            Message of the verses:  “19 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. 20  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.”

            In today’s SD we will be looking at the second of three reasons that explain why the false freed the apostates offer is false.

            I suppose that when a false Christian offers you freedom it has to be false for they do not know the truth, as the truth has not set them free as Jesus told the Pharisees in John chapter eight.  Jesus spoke of a blind man leading a blind man saying that both of them will fall into a pit, same principle is found here.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “Peter made it clear that these men had temporarily disentangled themselves from the pollutions of the world, but then they went right back into bondage again!  They professed to be saved by had never really been redeemed (set free) at all!”

            He goes on to write that “The tenses of the verbs in 2 Peter 2:19 are present:  ‘While they promise them ‘the new believers] liberty, they themselves [the apostates] are the servants of corruption’ (italics mine).  They claim to be the servants of God, but they are only the servants of sin.  It is bad enough to be a slave, but when sin is your master, you are in the worst possible condition a person can experience.”  Now I have to say that this is one of those rare times that I do not completely agree with Warren Wiersbe, that is when he said “it is bad enough to be a slave.”  After my study of Colossians and Philemon, which led me to read a book by John MacArthur entitled “Slave” I came to realize that Jesus Christ was actually a slave to God the Father when He came to earth.  “but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men (Phil. 2:7).”  The words “bond-servant” are actually the Greek word “doulos” and this word is found over 100 times in the New Testament, but only translated as “slave” a few times because of the connotation that slavery brings up.  Jesus says that He was a slave to God as mentioned while on earth which means that God was His Master.  God is our Master because we have been purchased out of the slave market of sin by our Lord Jesus Christ and so we as believers went from slaves to sin to slaves to God who is now our Master.  Slavery is bad when one has a bad master, and sin is truly a bad master.  Slavery is not bad when we realize that God is our Master and He will always do what is good for us.  “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28 KJV).”  9/24/2017 7:11 AM