How Do Good Christians Fall 2 Pet 2:18-22 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

How Christians fall.  How is it that a good Christian can go along, seemingly doing fine, and then one day you find him backslidden and almost unrecoverable for any beneficial fellowship with or work for the Lord?  Well, for some the answer is a follows:

They get tripped up by a false teacher – 2 Pet 2:1, 18-22 – they had “clean escaped from them who live in error” and they had “escaped the pollutions of the world.”  Then some teacher comes along in a college classroom or in a pulpit or in a Christian book and with “great swelling words of vanity” promises him “liberty,” by alluring “through the lust of the flesh.”  The poor fellow doesn’t realize that the professor is the servant “of corruption” and before he knows it he is “overcome” and “brought in bondage.”  At that point he is worse off than before knowing the way of righteousness.

They get tripped up by the devil – 2 Tim 2:22-26 – they don’t flee youthful lusts and, as a result, they unknowingly “oppose themselves.”  They quit acknowledging the truth and soon they are in “the snare of the devil” and they “are taken captive by him at his will.”  That snare may lay there for months or even years before the devil pulls it.  But when he does, they will not be able to “recover themselves” unless the Lord gives “them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.”

They get tripped up by the Lord – Rom 1:21-32 – they quit glorifying God and they become ungrateful.  Like evolutionists they begin to worship and serve “the creature more than the Creator.”  Through this process, God gives them “up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts,” then God gives them “up unto vile affections,” and then God gives “them over to a reprobate mind.”  You see, in this case, it’s not the false teacher or the devil that trips them up over their lusts, it is the Lord.  They don’t like to “retain God in their knowledge” and so God gives them up.

Conclusion: This is how Christians fall.  The thing to do is to walk in the Spirit so you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh [Gal 5:16-17].  There is a war going on between the flesh and the Spirit and if you don’t let the Spirit have the upper hand by walking in Him, then you are set up for either a false teacher, the devil or the Lord to trip you up.