“Every sin in our lives sets us up for the death of
something; it’s a spiritual law.” Not too long
after we had joined our church, the pastor drove home this truism to us one
morning in a penetrating sermon. I jotted it down and put it away. Besides the
death of the body, the end of sin’s road is eternal death in hell; and without
Supernatural intervention, nothing will keep us from reaching our destination.
It is a law as sure (and even more so) than any law of nature. There is nothing
positive about sin. It is its own extreme. Because it is not only an offense to
our own bodies, but an affront to God Almighty as well, sin—even the so-called
“good ones”—become “exceeding sinful,” according to Romans 7:13.
But sin deals a mortal blow to other things, as well.
It’s a killer of joy, peace, reputation, trust, and hope, to name a few. It can
dissolve a church, a friendship, or a marriage. Sin leeches spiritual strength
like a slow leak in a tire, until life is flat and we find ourselves at a
standstill. Often, it’s like high blood pressure: “the silent killer.” The
overt sins that shock others and us are actually old secret sins, come
to light. We can harbor them only so long in our bosoms until they belch forth
into our active lives. And all of them—the ones we hide and the ones we
flaunt—are dead ends of one kind or another.
James tells us the sequence of sin begins with inherent
lust, goes through an experience of conception, and ends finally with a death. Of
the three, the point at which intervention can take place is conception; and the trap is set during
the period of lust: temptation. I leave you with this final warning…
“Toying with temptation will spring the trap.”
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