What's That Smell?

WHAT’S THAT SMELL?

2 Peter 2:20-22 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

Introduction

THE ROLE OF GOD IN MY SALVATION

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the Architect of the Plan of Salvation. John 3:16 is the “condensed version” of the plan.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

THE ROLE OF ME IN MY SALVATION

I want you to listen to this very carefully: My role, in my salvation, was not in knowing Jesus’ part in my being saved for eternity, even though that is key…my role in my salvation was knowing who I am.

Let me explain.

• God knew and understood what he created when he made man to have dominion in all that He created.

• God knew that in forging a great people, while in slavery under Pharoah, they would reject Him.

• God knew that they needed a savior.

• God knew that his chosen people would praise him when the death angel passed over their house on that night that gave them salvation from the Egyptians, would curse him at the water’s edge.

• God knew that they would give Him praise when he made a way of salvation through the dry ground of the Red Sea, that they would curse Him for bringing them to a barren land with no available water.

• God knew that the people would praise him for salvation through refreshing waters that they would curse Him for no food.

• God knew that the people would praise Him for full bellies but curse Him when Moses was on the mountain for forty days.

• God judged the unbelievers.

Now back to “knowing who I am.”

Knowing who I am in God’s plan of salvation is more than a “head or heart” knowledge that Jesus:

• Was born of a virgin

• Led a perfect, no sin life

• Died on a cross with my sins placed upon His “sin free” human body.

• Was placed in a borrowed tomb

• Rose on the third day

• Is coming back for me on day

I must know who I am, just as David come to this same conclusion: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

Turn in your bibles to the book of Psalms

Psalm 8:1-4 “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

God knew that man would fall to sin for God inspired King Solomon of the Old Testament and the apostle Paul of the New Testament to write:

King Solomon

Proverbs 26:11 Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.

And

Proverbs 14:14 The backslider in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways, and a good man will be filled with the fruit of his ways.

The apostle Paul:

Romans 3:10-12 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

And later in that same chapter:

Romans 3:23-25 “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”