The Grip of Sin

Dearest Sibling in Christ

God has pressed me to deliver a message to you. 

Let me begin with something of a riddle. 

From the sinner's point of view it does not exist. 

From the holy person's point of view, it seems incapable of touching them.

What is it that I am talking to you about today brethren? 

I will tell you:

That thing is sin.

When I tell you that sin is a powerful force that neither you or I can hide from, I tell you this from experience. 

When Eve, who had never before committed sin was in the Garden of Eden in her perfection, she too thought that sin was nothing much to contemplate or spend much time on examining. 

She thought nothing of it when the fruit of knowledge came her way and was marketed to her by "the original marketing director", The Devil himself. 

Now brothers and sisters I tell you the same thing is true of me. I am in part a sinner and in part a holy man. The good part of me, as you will know, comes only from Jesus the Messiah. 

The bad part of me is always ready to tempt the Good. And this is how the Devil gains access. 

In some ways, I am more susceptible to sin than Eve, because I have experienced it. 

In other ways I am less susceptible because I have the Lord Jesus Christ in my life. 

But whichever way I tread this thin tightrope, I am always in danger of sin. 

Often the devil and the flesh and the world will use my ideas of holiness against me. 

Often this trinity of evil  will say: "Look how innocent you are! You would never again commit that sin of which you were such a familiar friend before!

And that, usually is the point at which I fall. 

Conversely, if I am already in sin, my mind becomes consumed by it. I am always searching for the next opportunity to do it. I am like a prowling wolf, ready to have his fill of meat, or in this case, the carnal desires of the heart. 

And so it is that I on my own am incapable of averting sin. Without Jesus, and in my own supposed holiness, I am more fallible than ever. I would love to think that I am capable, but Jesus is like a friend who helps me off the tight-rope and onto stable ground. 

When you are on a tightrope, you may fall only a little way, or you may fall to your death. Some of us here have broken arms, metaphorically speaking, as a result of falling from a tree. But others have never returned. Rather, they kept falling and falling until the day of their death. 

And this is really the nature of sin. We never know which type of tightrope we are walking. We sometimes take a vow of "unsaved leave" as one pastor called it, and decide that we will only sin for a little while. 

But the devil is like a lion who is mortally injured, and we never know when that tightrope is suspended directly over his city, which goes down a long way, or over a mere few meters. 

We are when we knowingly sin, always in mortal danger. There is always a chance that we may never return. 

So I ask you today brethren, what is the value of your eternal soul? 

Are you willing to sin in these days of increased technology? 

Only this week, it was announced that synthetic embryos were formed out of skin cells. 

How long before these creatures are spliced with other creatures and made into killing machines or become subjects of political space races that have wide-ranging implications for you? How long before governments develop synthetic creatures that are only a fraction human and therefore available for all forms of slavery, including the most carnal kind? 

Therefore brethren, I implore you in these last days, do not make yourself readily available for the Devil. Do not give him a foothold. For when you do, you lay your entire soul's eternity at the doors of hell, and also those who you love; those who rely on you as an example.