Day 38
2 Peter 2:18 – 22 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”
Peter’s warning here is two fold:
First he describes the false teachers, they themselves being slaves of corruption, who speak great swelling words of emptiness, who allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, promising liberty, and who are seeking to entangle believers in the pollutions of the world.
Second Peter describes the fate of those who listen to and follow the false teachers in their corrupt ways and who at some point seemed to have escaped from those who live in error, and who after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome.
Peter’s dire warning to us is to take great care we do not follow ungodly men back into ungodly living but to be faithful to the one who has given us a way of escape from the pollutions and corruption of the world.