“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 6:23
Tell others of what sin has done to the soul. Sin has come to rob the soul of fellowship with God. Sin has made it necessary to create a new vocabulary with words like rape, murder, depression, sodomy, hate, war, and child molester. Warn people of the peril of sin. Remind them how self-destructive sin is.
The story is told of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly, yet it offers fresh insight into the consuming, self-destructive nature of sin. First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.
Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare.
Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night. So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor- sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his own warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more–until the dawn finds him dead in the snow. It is a fearful thing that people can be consumed by their own lusts. Only God’s grace keeps us from the wolf’s fate.
Tell people of the power of sin. First, sin will always take us farther than we want to go. Nobody ever intends to go too far into sin, but they get carried away by their actions. Before they know it, they are deep in sin, and any thought of setting a godly example is gone.
Second, sin will always keep us longer than we intended to stay. The evil one wants to trap us in sin so he can destroy us. We fool ourselves into thinking sin doesn’t have consequences, that we can sin for a while, then give it up, and be godly. But sin saps us of strength and our character.
Third, sin will always cost us more than we are willing to pay, as Judas discovered after betraying Jesus.
If we do not understand our own sinfulness, or see our sin as God sees it, we cannot understand, or make use of sin’s remedy. There is a remedy for sin. The divine remedy is found in the love of God. When you tell people of sin, tell them of the love of God.
“The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win.
His erring child he reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill,
And ev’ry man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho’ stretched from sky to sky.
“O, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong.
It shall forevermore endure,
The saints and angels song.”
