SIN, RESPONSE TO

Many of us who are trying to get rid of sin are like housewives who destroy the spiders’ webs without destroying the spiders.1280

What would you think of a doctor who, on discovering you had a tumor buried deep in your body, responded, “Take two aspirin and you’ll be just fine”?

How about a fireman who responded to a three-alarm fire by saying, “It’ll probably burn itself out soon enough,” or a policeman who, on arriving at the scene of a robbery, merely shook his head and said, “Boys will be boys”!

In each case the response is inappropriate to the situation. Is your response to sin also inappropriate?1281

French aristocrat Baron Richard d’Arcy kept a strange pet in his home: a two-year-old lion. One night in 1977, the baron tried to make his pet enter the bathroom, where it usually spent the night, but it refused to go and leaped on its master. In a matter of minutes, the lion had clawed the baron to death.

Christians should deal with sin definitely and drastically. We must not permit any “pet” sins, since that means we are playing with evil. Only by severe dealing with a sin can we be sure that we will not become the victim of it.1282

For a saint to desire sin is as ridiculous as a rodeo where cowboys ride calves to rope horses. Not only is the experience unnatural, it is also extremely unproductive.1283

One of every 400,000 babies is born each year with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease, or SCID, a disease that leaves the child with no body-chemistry defenses to fight infection from the germs that constantly attack one’s body. For such children, life is often short and always filled with danger.

In a similar manner, the Christian who is not protected by the armor of God is defenseless against the attacks of the flesh, the world, and Satan. Sin, like an infection, can eat its way into his life because he has no defense against it.1284

A certain man used to come home dead drunk each night. He was always so inebriated that he would fall into bed fully clothed, pass out, and then snore loudly all night long. His wife was losing so much sleep because of his snoring that she went to a doctor and said, “Doctor, I can’t stand it any longer. If you will tell me how to keep him from snoring, I will pay you anything!” The doctor told her that whenever her husband passed out and started snoring, she was to take a ribbon and tie it around his nose, and his snoring would stop.

That night, her husband came in as usual, fell across the bed fully dressed, passed out, and started snoring. The wife got up, pulled a blue ribbon from her dresser, and tied it around his nose. Sure enough, the snoring stopped. The next morning, the wife woke up refreshed from a solid night’s sleep. She asked her husband as he was awakening, “Where were you last night?” The husband, still fully clothed, looked in the mirror and seeing the blue ribbon around his nose, replied, “I don’t know, but wherever I was, I won first prize!”

This was the attitude of the early church that Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians 5:1–2. Immorality was in their midst, yet they were puffed up with pride. They had become so arrogant, thinking themselves first in spirituality, that they had become oblivious to their condition.1285