PT-3 It is Offered by False Christians (2 Peter 2:19-20)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 04/29/2004

My Worship Time                                                    Focus:  PT-3 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 (KJV).”

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “Beware of ‘the deceitfulness of sin’ (Heb. 3:13).  Sin always promises freedom but in the end brings bondage.  It promises life but instead brings death.  Sin has a way of gradually binding a person until there is no way of escape, apart from the gracious intervention of the Lord.  Even the bondage that sin creates is deceitful, for the people who are bound actually think they are free!  Too late they discover that they are prisoners of their own appetites and habits.

            “Jesus Christ came to bring freedom.  In His first sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth our Lord sounded forth the trumpet call of freedom and the advent of the Year of Jubilee’ (Luke 4:16ff).  But Christ’s meaning of freedom is different from the apostates’ as is His method for accomplishing it.

            “In the Bible, freedom does not mean ‘doing your own thing’ or ‘having it your way.’  That attitude is the very essence of sin.  The freedom that Jesus Christ offers means enjoying fulfillment in the will of God.  It means achieving your greatest potential to the glory of God.  The Quaker leader Rufus Jones, paraphrasing Aristotle, said, ‘The true nature of a thing is the highest that it can become.’  Jesus Christ frees us to become our very best in this life, and then to be like Him in the next.

            “The apostates brought their followers into bondage by means of lies, but our Lord brings us into freedom by means of truth.  ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’ (John 8:32).  He was speaking of course, about the truth of the Word of God ‘Sanctify them through Thy truth,’ He prayed; ‘Thy Word is truth’ (John 17:17).  Through the Word of God, we discover the truth about ourselves, our world, and our God.  As we face this truth honestly, we experience the liberating power of the Spirit of God.  We cease living in a world of fantasy and enter a world of reality, and through the power of God, we are able to fulfill His will, grow in grace, and ‘reign in life by one, Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 5:17).”

            Dr. Warren Wiersbe has a way of writing things that make the Bible come alive and that is why that I am using these quotes from his commentary.  We will continue looking at what he wrote about these verses in 2 Peter 2:19-20 in our next SD. 9/26/2017 12:29 PM