SIN NEVER GIVES WHAT IT PROMISES!

A while back I was listening to the radio on my way home from work. The announcer reading the news and chuckled as he read the story of a fellow who robbed a convenience store. What was funny?

The robber had a neat plan: give the clerk a $10 bill, get her to open her cash drawer to make change, then grab all the money. The plan worked! He got everything in the cash drawer, a total of $4.34 ——and the clerk was left with his ten dollars. He went in the hole $5.66, and five years in the slammer. 

The undeniable truth is that sin never gives what it promises. It always returns less than the sinner invests. Do you want proof?

Adam and Eve were promised freedom, wisdom and life by Satan, only to be led to commit spiritual suicide. They gained neither wisdom nor life. 

Sensuous Samson fell in love with a woman who did not love God, and paid with his eyesight, freedom and ultimately with his life.

Ananias and Sapphira were going to get credit for being generous and wound up being buried for being liars.

In each of these cases, sin promised something it couldn't deliver. The same thing is still happening in our world today.

Adolescents are led to see God, their parents and teachers, as enemies and wind up in rebellion's deep pit.

Young people start dating early, then they jump into marriage, without taking into account that their association with God, and their obedience to His Divine will, are the critical parts for the success of their marriage.

Some church members hide behind masks of hypocrisy and fool themselves and their friends... but not God.

Sin costs too much. You have to sell your soul to have whatever pretty trinkets it offers you for the moment. Then, you have to face a time of bitter reckoning. You have to "pay the price". Yet, whatever has been promised to you as a reward, has already gone up in a puff of smoke, or has slipped through your fingers. And Judgment Day is coming!

And as always, the basic lure of sin is the promise of quick gain, without regard to long-term consequences.

Truth and Holiness work differently. With total honesty about the difficult demands at hand, the God who cannot lie promises to reward you down the line. Obedience, purity, integrity, repentance, denial——these are hard words and demanding deeds. But what lies at the end is invaluable!

Sin never delivers. Christ never fails. So don't get robbed while trying to pull a fast one on God.

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Hebrews 11:24--26  By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, ²⁵choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, ²⁶ esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

With love and concern,

Larry