Sin & Puck!

Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," (Proverbs 26:11) and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."   (2 Peter 2:22)

Those who know me well know that I’m not an animal lover; I consider myself to be more of an animal tolerator.  But the reason is not that I lack a soft spot for furry creatures.  I love most of the pets I encounter.  It’s just that many times they are too demanding for my personal comfort.   Being totally honest, I loathe cleaning up after them and having to watch them do very disgusting things.  Stepping in “it” while I’m walking through the yard (worse when “it” is in the house); gross ear baths (especially for dachshunds); licking themselves “there”; drinking out of the toilet & then wanting to lick me; and cleaning up puck (our family’s term for animal vomit).  And the clincher . . . re-eating what they’ve recently “deposited”!!  I know God made them do this, so there’s a good reason for it (I’m planning to ask Him about it when I arrive in Heaven).

The abhorrence I feel for this favorite habit of our best friends effectively drives home the reason Peter quotes this Proverb above.  It is, in my opinion, one of the best word pictures contained in Scripture.  It gives me a real feel for the contempt God has for our bad behaviors.  He sent Jesus to save us from the “stink piles” and “barf pools” of our sins.  He gave us a nice, clean place to inhabit free from the disgusting, vulgarities of our greed and selfishness.  Yet, like the church in Laodicea, we return to “eat” the sickening slime and filth and crud and smut that He had cleaned our souls of (see Revelation 3:14-22 – the word for “spit out” is literally “vomit”).  Peter, take note, is describing the actions of church people, not the ungodly.  God’s people had gotten tired (or lazy) of being good and were returning to “eat” their former vomit (judgmental, apathetic, selfish attitudes and vices).  Isaiah says (1:10-20) that even our worship is tainted and abhorrent to Him when we try to appear before Him with the odorous remnants of sin that we continue to return to throughout the week.  God states emphatically that He is nauseated by this.

Though we’re not always aware of how disgusting our actions can be, God is repulsed by them.  And He doesn’t grow to be ok with our disgusting habits over time, because He isn’t so interested in our happiness and need to have fun as He is in our being holy and righteous and clean (morally & ethically).  He has already said that He is so sickened by our “puck” (sin) that He will get busy ridding us of all traces of it.  He loves you too much to be “good” with you making a disgusting wreck of the life He made for you.

So make your life more comfortable and relaxing for yourself and help make things easier for God too by ridding yourself of sin and its influences once and for all.  Allow Him to help you “put to death” (Paul uses the word “murder”) your sin (Romans 8:13) so that your soul can be clean and free from anything gross and repulsive.  Determine from now on that whenever the urges arise, you are not going to return to that vomit ever again.

Doug