but have pleasure in them that do them.”  What a terrible list of sins!  Oh, we must flee from any of them.  If you get your dictionary and look up the meaning of each one of these you would see how sinful sin is.  No wonder God looks down upon sinful mankind and is grieved.  Now mercy is held out to all who will turn to Him and through Jesus Christ seek forgiveness and turn away from sin, but the time is coming when mercy will be withdrawn.  This old world will be on fire and only the holy and true will be taken to that prepared place for a prepared people who have sought God.  Oh, I surely want to be ready in that day and hour, don’t you?

Seeking Forgiveness Was the Key

When I was about twelve years of age, the teacher asked me to erase the blackboard after school.  After I finished, I walked down one aisle between the seats.  On one girl’s desk I saw a match box, and in this box was a tiny doll.  I had seen her play with this doll and I thought it was the cutest doll I had ever seen.  I never had dolls when I was small, as my folks could not afford to buy me one.  I would wrap up a stick or something and carry it around for my doll.  So this doll attracted me very much.  As I looked at it, I wanted it so very much.

Before I tell more about this incident let us read a Scripture in the Bible which tells us about being tempted to sin.  In James 1:14,15, it brings out how it works.  “But every man [woman or child] is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin:  and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”  Let us see what the word tempted means. Tempt means “to induce; entice; allure.”  The devil works through us to tempt us.  First, we are tempted by our own lust.  Lust means an “overmastering desire.” Entice means to “attract by offering hope of reward or pleasure.”  So we see that the devil will induce us to do wrong by placing an overmastering desire for something, which he convinces us will bring a reward or some pleasure.

Note the next verse says, that when this lust or desire for a certain thing is conceived, which means “formed in the mind,” or it is decided by the person that he is going to do a certain thing that is wrong, then that brings forth sin.  Now sin is finished [completed] when the act is committed.  After the act is committed then it brings forth death to the soul.  In other words, sin separates a person from God.  That means spiritual death.  If a person continues to live in sin, or in spiritual death, and then dies a physical death, he would be eternally separated from God.  But thank God, this need not be.  The key to being restored to God is found in God’s Word.  Since sin has to be punished, we find that Jesus, the Son of God, was willing to come here, live and die and arise from the grave so we can have forgiveness for our sins, as we, with godly sorrow, seek for it.