There aren’t too many things nastier than a pig sty. They stink and they are filthy. They are sloppy because pigs love slop. They can wallow in the slop all day long and be happy doing it. It is in their nature. It is what they are used to. They know nothing else.
Some of us are living or have lived our lives as if we were in a pig sty. No, I’m not talking about living in homes that aren’t clean, working in dirty places, driving in cars full of trash and spilled French fries, having to live in dirty clothes, not taking baths or living homeless under the bridge. I’m talking about this; is your heart, your mind, your very life a filthy mess? Take a reality check here—are you promiscuous, do you lie, do you cheat, do you lust, do you deny God, do you hate some others, are you indifferent to those who love you, and the list goes on. The question is, who, really, are you? Do you follow the two commands from Matthew 22:37-39 (NLT) or not?
“Jesus replied ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
I lived as if I was a pig in a pig sty for quite a long time. It got to the point where I was no longer happy living in the sty. I begam to sense that life was more than that and I feared that to continue living like that my days were numbered. Can you perhaps relate?
Peter was one of the twelve apostles. He was in Rome in Nero’s time after Jesus’s death when he wrote his two letters in the New Testament. In his second letter he was warning of false prophets and false teachers. Might it have been prophetic in that there are, in today’s times false teachers? They spew such things easy-believe-ism, the prosperity gospel, and Christianity lite. I can’t help but think that what Peter wrote applies not only to the false prophets and teachers, but to those who buy in to their garbage AND to those of us who may be tempted to take the easier road. It’s funny how garbage is the mainstay meal in a pig’s sty and can be in some churches, isn’t it?
12 These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. 13 Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception[a] even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. 14 They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse. 15 They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor,[b] who loved to earn money by doing wrong. 16 But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice.
17 These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. 18 They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. 19 They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 20 And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21 It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command, they were given to live a holy life. 22 They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”
2 Peter 2:12-22 NLT
On a pig farm, the sty will always be there. Pigs, cleaned up or not will always return to the sty and get filthy again, and again, and again. We are not pigs. We are God’s children. Can any of us say that we have never lived in, or returned to the pig sty for an occasional visit? Clearly, I have, and I will fail and visit it once again I’m sure.
God’s word is the key to staying away from the pig pen, and especially when God’s word is taught by clearly upright men of God—those pastors and teachers who are learned in the ways of the Bible and are humble–the true shepherds.
Do Life Better Ministry 