Falling Back into Sin
“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” -Proverbs 26:11
Yesterday I wrote about how we can’t overcome our personal demons alone, and today I wanted to reinforce a similar idea: that a foolish person will lapse back into folly.
Most dog owners know—and have witnessed to their dismay—that when a dog vomits, many times he will go back again and lick up his own vomit. This is certainly not a pleasant picture to imagine in our minds, yet this same disgust should come into our hearts when we contemplate how we may have lapsed back into a certain sin.
Perhaps we’ve been as the dog: we’ve had something evil inside of us, and we’ve purged it out—however painful or unpleasant it was to do so. And once we’ve put such an evil behind us, and we can look upon it with clear hindsight, we are disgusted by what was inside us.
And yet, having been purged of the evil, and having seen and understood its hideous nature, we return to it: much as a dog eats his own vomit once again. And so the poison and wickedness that once dwelt within us, which we had cleansed with such grief, returns again into our stomachs.
The apostle Peter also used a second proverb to illustrate the point:
“But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” -2 Peter 2:22
In the same way as a pig that was washed from the mud of the mire, and then dives right back into the dirt, so too does a sinner return to his sin.
The foolish man is one who just can’t seem to learn his lesson. Though he would be washed from the filth and mud of the world, he shortly thereafter returns right back to the same place where he came from.
Yet the Bible says a critical thing about a wise man who won’t fall back into sin like the fool does: a wise man will hate sin and evil, and so will be able to resist the temptations and pulls of the devil. He will be able to see the filthiness of the evil way, and turn from it permanently.
“The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” -Proverbs 8:13
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