SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
05/03A/2004
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-3
It Involves a False Experience
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Peter
2:21-22
Message of the
verses: “21 For it would be better
for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to
turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. 22 It has happened to
them according to the true proverb, "A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,"
and, "A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire."”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “These men could point to ‘an
experience,’ but it was a false
experience. Satan is the
counterfeiter. We have already seen that
Satan has a false gospel (Gal. 1:6-9), preached by false ministers (2 Cor.
11:13-15), producing false Christians (2 Cor. 11:26—‘in perils among false brethren’). In His Parable of the Tares, our Lord taught
that Satan plants his counterfeits (‘the children of the wicked one’) wherever
God plants true believers (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43).”
Dr. Wiersbe goes on to tell about the false experience that
these counterfeit believers received and talks about Peter’s vivid images. The pig cleaned up on the outside, but
remained a pig, the dog cleaned up on the inside, but still remained a
dog. The pig looked better, and the dog
felt better, but neither one of them was changed, they still had their same
nature, and did not receive a new one.
“This explains why both animals returned to the old
life: it was part of their nature. A pig can stay clean only for a short time
and then must head for the nearest mudhole.
We do not condemn a pig for acting like a pig because it has a pig’s
nature. If we saw a sheep heading for
the mire, we would be concerned!”
Peter used some pretty gross pictures in describing these
false teachers and their false converts, but he was making a point that a true
believer must be cleaned up on the inside through the blood of our Lord Jesus
Christ and unlike the dog who was only temporarily cleaned up on the inside, or
the pig who only looked good for a while before he went back to his nature of
getting dirty and living in the dirt, the true believer will stay clean through
the blood of our Lord. John writes that even
though true believers are saved and heading to heaven that they still sin, sin
because we still have the flesh in us that wants to do wrong, but John tells us
that “if we confess our sins Jesus is faithful and righteous to forgive us of
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is not a get out of jail free card to
sin as Paul stated in the book of Romans and chapter six, but the fact is that
all believers’ sin, we just feel terrible about it and desire to be cleansed
from our sins.
I will try and finish up this section in our next SD.
9/30/2017 10:28 AM
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