Good understanding giveth favour: but the way of transgressors is hard. Proverbs 13:15.
The news of man’s fall spread through heaven. Every harp was hushed. The angels cast their crowns from their heads in sorrow. All heaven was in agitation. A counsel was held to decide what must be done with the guilty pair. The angels feared that they would put forth the hand, and eat of the tree of life, and be immortal sinners. But God said that He would drive the transgressors from the garden. Angels were commissioned immediately to guard the way of the tree of life. It had been Satan’s studied plan that Adam and Eve should disobey God, receive His frown, and then be led on to partake of the tree of life, that they might live forever in sin and disobedience, and thus sin be immortalized. But holy angels were sent to drive them out of the garden, while another company of angels were commissioned to guard the way to the tree of life….
Satan triumphed. Others he had made to suffer by his fall. He had been shut out of heaven, they out of Paradise.
By transgression Adam lost Eden. By the transgression of God’s commandments man will lose heaven, and an eternity of bliss. These are no idle tales, but truth…. I ask, On which side are you standing?
It is true that Satan’s path is made to appear attractive, but it is all a deception; in the way of evil there are bitter remorse and cankering care…. In the downward road the gateway may be bright with flowers, but thorns are in the path….
“The way of transgressors is hard,” but wisdom’s “ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Proverbs 13:15; 3:17. Every act of obedience to Christ, every act of self-denial for His sake, every trial well endured, every victory gained over temptation, is a step in the march to the glory of final victory. If we take Christ for our guide, He will lead us safely.
The Faith I Live By p. 74
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Prayer Requests
—-Please pray for a little boy that heard about who had a brain injury. I don’t know his name. Ellen
—-Please pray for our neighbor Keith who has liver failure . Pray that God comforts him and his family. Carla
—-Please pray for one of my new friends, there was an elevator malfunction, the doors opened about a foot below the floor they didn’t see and took a hard fall and went to the emergency room. Danette
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Dear Friends,
When my grandfather, Edwin Harmon, was a about ten, he and his little brother, Harold, were playing with a group of neighborhood boys. It was rare that they had any free time, but that evening was an exception. The boys sat around on the grass for awhile trying to figure out what to do with their unaccustomed spare time. Someone suggested that they go to the town gravel pit and play on the piles of gravel. Edwin had a twinge of conscience because this was strictly forbidden. The gravel pit owner had posted a guard at the entrance to keep everyone out. He did not want any children buried alive if he could help it.
The possible danger did not deter those boys. In fact, it made it more fun and exciting. Quietly, they sneaked around the perimeter on the pit. One of them spotted a place where they could wriggle under the fence. One by one, they slithered inside. Quietly they started climbing on the mounds and running back down again. Soon they were pushing and shoving each other off from the top of their “mountain.” This was so much fun! Why hadn’t they thought of this place before? Soon all thought of the guard vanished and they began to whoop and to holler. Before long, they became so noisy that the guard heard them and grabbed his gun. Firing toward the boys, but not meaning to hit any of them, he shouted for them to get out of there.
Immediately that boys scattered. Away they ran like scared rabbits. My grandfather had felt a little sting on his lip when the man shot at them, but it was only after he was far away from the pit, that he realized the bullet had grazed his lip. From that moment, he had a little blue mark where some of the gunpowder “tattooed” him. So it is with the “bullet” of sin. How often we think that we can “get by” with a little forbidden pleasure, but the results change can our lives forever. How many times, we think that we can play with sin only to find that it leaves a mark that will never go away. Sin scars. Sin changes our lives. Once we succumb to it, we are never quite the same again.
In God’s Holy Word, we find many who have toyed with sin and lost. Abraham’s nephew Lot had lived with his uncle for many years. He listened to his instruction. Morning and evening, he and his family worshipped around the altar Abraham built. When he was so prosperous that the two men had to dwell a little distance from each other, things began their downward course.
Abraham, was distressed to hear that his servants and the servants of Lot were fighting over grazing space nearly every day. He did not want this sort of spirit to take over the camp. Although in a position to choose the best for himself, he let Lot choose the area where he wished to dwell. “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.” Gen 13:10,11
At first, all seemed to go well. He and his family still worshipped our Great Creator. Following Abraham’s example, they erected an altar on which to sacrifice a lamb knowing this pointed forward to the future Lamb of God who would crush the serpent’s head. (Gen 3:15) Before long, he was trading with the inhabitants of Sodom. Slowly, he pitched his tent closer and closer so as to make it more convenient when his wife and girls wanted to go shopping. Eventually, his wife suggested that they buy a house inside the city. Lot was shocked! He knew the evils of the place. He refused, but day after day, as his wife talked about the advantages, the greedy side of his nature won. He had toyed with compromise far too long. That choice resulted in the loss of all that was dear to him. Because of his greediness, he eventually lost his wife, his family, his possessions, everything.
We read the story of Lot and shake our head. “We would never have done that,” we declare. Yet, we toy with sin daily. We make choices that leave wounds and scars just as surely as my grandfather bore that tiny blue mark for the next eighty years. One unguarded moment can change the whole course of our lives just as Lot’s decision resulted in the destruction of his entire family.
How much we need God’s wisdom and care. How close we need to stay to Him. Only then can we be safe from ruining our lives. We do not possess this wisdom naturally. It is a gift from our Great Creator. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” James 1:5 Our Loving Creator has promised, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.” Ps 32:8 What a wonderful God we serve! He promises to guide us and to instruct us. Our part is to cooperate with him. Yet how often we stubbornly refuse His leading and do our own thing. Every time we turn from His instruction, we suffer a great loss—a loss that He does not desire for us to experience.
Let us allow the Holy Spirit to take complete control of our life that we will not be marked by sin as my grandfather was marked by the gunpowder. Let us put our trust and confidence in our Glorious Redeemer, Who knows what is best for us. Let us heed His warnings, that we will not suffer the loss of all things as did Lot.
Rose