Are You Getting Used To Sin?

 

Are You Getting Used To SinWhen David Livingston began his trek across Africa in 1852, he carried 73 books which together weighed 180 pounds. After he had gone 300 miles, he had to throw away some of the books because it was not feasible to carry so much through the rough jungle. He continued to throw books away as he went further into the jungle. Eventually his library had shrunk to just one book – the Bible. This he did not throw away.

USMC Cpl. Bob Banner got separated from his platoon during Desert Storm. He wandered in the desert for 48 hours hiding from the enemy, evading Iraqi scouts, and hiding under the sand in evasive maneuvers. He was found by allied forces who happened to have news reporters with them. He was recounting his story to the reporters who noticed he was gulping down water. A reporter commented, “You sure are thirsty!” Cpl. Banner replied, “You know what? I was so busy running, I forgot I was thirsty.”

In his work, “Memoirs from the House of the Dead,” Fyodor Dostoevsky remarked that, “Man is a creature who can get used to anything.” This is a startling and bone-chilling assessment. The truth of the statement is backed up and proven by human history. Consider, for example, the atrocities committed against mankind during WWII in the Nazi concentration camps. The senseless murder and torture of millions of men, women and children is well documented. Victor Franki, a holocaust survivor, and author of the book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” recalls the way in which his peers became desensitized to the brutality around them. New arrivals to the camp were confused in their unwanted situation and always held out hope of being reunited with their loved ones. Also in the initial stages, they would recoil in horror and dismay when they saw fellow prisoners beaten and tortured. They simply couldn’t stand seeing a campmate being abused. It hurt their hearts and minds! They couldn’t watch! They wanted to run and hide! But soon the horror would turn to humdrum. The amazement would turn to apathy. The prisoners would reach a point where they had seen so much pain, sorrow, and suffering that they were no longer affected by it. They lost all emotion. Their hearts were no longer affected no matter how brutal the scene. What a pitiful situation. Men and women had seen so much violence and bloodshed that they no longer cared. They got used to it.

[Jeremiah 6:15] Certainly there is an important lesson here for us. We must be alert. We must be guarding our hearts and minds. It may just be the case that, like Israel before us, we are getting used to sin. Just because we are bombarded with worldliness and sin day and night does not give us the excuse to become apathetic toward such things. God still expects us to talk, dress, act, and think differently than the world. If we’re not careful, righteous living could become a heavy load as we live in this world, and we’ll begin to shed some of our morals in exchange for personal pleasures and start looking at sin as a simple “change of the times.” As we look around us today, we see mankind throwing away every thought of God as being judgmental and too restrictive toward the pleasures of life. Folks are becoming so wrapped up in doing so many “things” they have forgotten to thirst after God, even though it may be good things they are doing. Jesus caution his disciples that they could become so busy running that the “cares, riches, and pleasures of life” might be allowed to choke out the word” (Matthew 13:18-23). The Bible is from God (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and it is being discarded so quickly by the leaders of this world in the hope that people will “get used to the new world order” without God and looking to government as godvernment. The wrath of God is coming soon to a country near you.