M ore to Lose

On yesterday we talked about running and as I told you I think running into the strong tower is a great idea and it's also biblical. In Job chapter one and verse one we read this "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil."
There we see this word "eschewed"what does that word mean? It means decline, depart, leave undone, pluck away, rebel, remove, revolt, turn, withdraw, and be without. So Job was saying when evil comes my way my fear for my God is so great that I withdraw myself and depart and leave it undone in other words I 'RUN." We would more than likely never pick up a snake just for its beauty for we have been taught that they are dangerous. There are many things that we don't know are dangerous and we might be tempted to pick them up. There's a frog that lives in the tropical rain forests in Central and South America that we here in America most likely have never seen, unless we happen to see it at a zoo. They are called the dart frog and are really very brightly colored. They look very interesting, but he can be carrying enough poison to kill 20,000 mice or more important ten people! Here's a creature that looks so good but is so deadly. It reminds me of sin. So many people have reached out and touched what they should have never touched, and they paid a painful price that they could have never imagined. Sin may be pretty, but it's pretty poisonous! What about this eye opener James 1:14
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust,
{his own desires}
and enticed.
{Trap him}

James 1:15
Then when lust hath conceived,
{desire becomes pregnant}
it bringeth forth sin:
{gives birth to sin}
and sin, when it is finished,
{when sin grows up}
bringeth forth death.
Here we see a moral disaster from the first desire for something that's wrong to the sinful choice to get what looks so good, to its final result. When that "baby" called sin finally is born, what you get is death because sin always kills. It kills families, it kills marriages, it kills reputations, and it kills ministries. Sin kills your self-respect, people's trust in you and even your closeness to the God that you can't live without. Remember Adam and his wife Eve? They were placed in the Garden of Eden with all its beauty and enjoyments with only one law, rule or whatever you want to call it; Genesis 2:16
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

Genesis 2:17
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. They both learned the hard way that no matter how much you think you have to gain from going outside God's boundaries, you have so much more to lose. They lost Eden, they lost walking with God, they gained so much pain and they died. It's the same enemy that's lying to you right now about the sin that looks so good to you. "It won't hurt," "Everybody's doing it," "Hey, you deserve it," "You need this," "Only a little," "Ah, just this once." Anything the enemy can do to get you to bite. Anything he can do to get you to take the deadly poison of sin. It looks like you have so much to gain if you'll just lie a little, cheat a little, flirt a little, try a little, write a little, or take just one look. But you have so much to lose. You won't know that until it's too late unless you listen to what God says.

Remember sin first fascinated Eve and then it assassinated her as well as her husband. We are our brother's keepers for our sin always affects others. Just remember "Small compromises lead to great disasters." Don't walk away from sin run away from it because like that Dart Frog that looks so inviting, it like Sin is so deadly.