Corrupting Influence of Sin

Today, I’ll start with an analogy.  It’s rather gross, but at the same time, I think, quite effective.

Consider a brand-new toilet bowl.  It’s clean, white, no hint of anything that might mar its pristine surface.  It gets installed in your home and it isn’t long before it’s not quite so pretty.

A little bit of rusty brown appears on the bowl under the water.  Quickly that brown stain spreads and the entire bottom is covered in this unsightly color.  Eventually you get out the Lysol, the brush, and you scrub it—it’s not going to clean itself!  Otherwise, the stain will just get worse.

This is how sin works in our lives.  We think we’re clean and sparkling, but we don’t realize there’s something at work against this wholesome exterior we portray.  We let in a sinful thought and commit a sinful act there.  Soon, if we don’t eradicate the effects of this sin, it spreads.

Here’s how the Bible puts it in James 1:14-15:

but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Sin can quickly and easily corrupt us if we don’t deal with it.  And how do we do that?  We can’t clean up our own sin like we can scrub a toilet bowl.  The only way is by repenting and giving it to God.

Now let’s look at another example.  It’s quite evident that sin is greatly increasing in the world.

The news is full of hate, the vile remarks people make, and the things they’re doing that are an abomination to God.  Many even celebrate this sin.  Twitter, where so much hate spews in this realm has been rightly described as a sewer.

What we see now is only a precursor of what is to come.  We think it can’t get any worse than this, then it does.  One prominent Christian radio host has repeatedly said, “I never thought I’d see the day.”

When the Rapture occurs and the Restrainer is removed, lawlessness will increase exponentially as the Tribulation advances.  We know the Restrainer is the Holy Spirit resident in true believers within the Church.  After the Rapture, the Holy Spirit will still be present in the world, however, He will probably operate more like in Old Testament times.  Many people will be saved, the Holy Spirit will at the least convict them if not indwell them, but the restraint the Holy Spirit exercises now won’t be there.

Lawlessness will consume the world—just as that brown stain in the bottom of your toilet will consume the entire bowl unless you clean it.  This is a picture of the horrors of sin and lawlessness during the Tribulation: they lead to death.

God in His mercy has decreed the Tribulation will last only seven years.  He says in His Word, in Matthew 24:22:

If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

In other words, the world would destroy itself if God didn’t intervene.

That intervention brings the return of Jesus Christ.  At that time the entire world will acknowledge Him as Lord:

  • Some to eternal torment
  • Some to eternal glory

Be sure you’re ready for when Jesus comes the first time for His saints in the clouds in the Rapture.  When He comes in His glory with His saints at the end of the Tribulation, it will be much too late.

Prepare your heart and live everyday like it’s your last day before you face Jesus.

It may be!

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