SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
04/17/2004
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 Their
Revolting
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Peter 2:14b-16
Message of the
verses: “having a heart trained in
greed, accursed children; 15 forsaking the right way, they have gone astray,
having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of
unrighteousness; 16 but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a
mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the
prophet.”
“They captivate the unstable ones, and their technique of
getting what they want is, through long practice, highly developed. They are
born under a curse, 15 for they have abandoned the right road and wandered off
to follow the old trail of Balaam, son of Beor, the man who had no objection to
wickedness as long as he was paid for it. 16 But he, you remember, was sharply
reprimanded for his wickedness—by a donkey, of all things, speaking with a
human voice to check the prophet’s wicked infatuation! (Phillips)”
As we look at the Phillips paraphrase we see that the
apostates knew the right way to go, but “they have abandoned the right road.” Knowing what to do and not doing it is not
common for people, even believers, but the point here is that these apostates
knew the right way, but abandoned it continually without any kind of repentance
at all, which shows that they were not believers. Dr. Wiersbe brings up Psalm 32:9 as he writes
of these apostates, “Be not as the horse, or as the mule!” He goes on to say “The horse likes to rush
ahead and the mule likes to lag behind; both can get you off the right
path. Believers are sheep, and sheep
need to stay close to the shepherd or they will stray.”
We have looked earlier at one reason for the apostates
godless conduct which was that they wanted to satisfy their own fleshly
desires. There is a second reason and
that is that they are covetous and want to exploit people for personal
gain. We first saw this in 2 Peter 2:3 “3
In their lust to make converts these men will try to exploit you too with their bogus
arguments. But judgment has been for some time hard on their heels and their
downfall is inevitable.” Peter goes on
to develop this thought more here. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “Not only is the false teacher’s outlook controlled by his
passions (2 Peter 2:14a), but his heart is controlled by covetousness. He is in bondage to lust for pleasure and
money!”
We can see that these practices still go on today as
people today desire to cheat people out of their money and many of them are on
the TV disguised, or veiled as pastors.
When I first became a believer I was listening to a man who I did not
know was a scam artist. Whether or not he was a believer or not I don’t know,
but I do know that he had a love for money and women too as we had some
personal insight into this. Just like
the ones that Peter speaks of here who had the perfect skill of getting what
they wanted so did this man. I am
thankful that the Lord showed us what this man was all
about as we were sending money to his ministry, but stopped after we knew what
he was about.
9/14/2017 11:16 AM
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