Good morning and welcome in everyone. Today, we are going to take a look at a passage of scripture, but before we do that, I wanted to tell you a little story.
In March of 1910, near Stevens pass, one event set in motion the deadliest snow disaster in U.S. history. Two trains were stuck in snow drifts on the tracks at Wellington, when it began to rain. Just after 1am, on the side of Windy Mountain, triggered by a single lightning strike and followed by a boom of thunder, a huge slab of snow cut loose, resulting in a 14 ft high massive snow wall approximately half a mile long and a quarter mile wide speeding towards them. It slammed mercilessly into the trains, sweeping them 150 feet down into the Tye River gorge. In all, 96 souls were lost that night in the most deadly avalanche in U.S. history. A century later, it still is.
Did you know that one small stick of dynamite can cause up to a million tons of snow to come pounding down a mountain, at speeds well over 100 mph, trapping and even killing innocent bystanders, leaving behind a path of destruction. One single event, such as a low-flying helicopter, can trigger a massive slide that can destroy towns and communities.
This reminds me of the Christian Life.
One little sin you commit, can result in huge amounts of damage caused to others around you. It will affect relationships with friends, relatives, your spouse, and other members in the church. One small thing can put other huge events into motion. Just as removing a single card from a card house can result in everything else tumbling down with it, your one little sin can result in an avalanche of suffering and pain in other people’s lives. I call it the domino effect of sin.
When you sin, things do not get better, they get worse. Jesus taught to go and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you. The best route to take is never rushing into anything that you are going to regret later. It means that you need to think it through before you act. In the carnal mindset, you really don’t care about other people and how your actions are going to affect them. Someone sins, only to plan to clean up the mess, and pick up the pieces when it’s convenient for them. It’s an act first and think later mentality which is not wise at all.
In the Christian Life, we need to think first, considering the aftermath of the way that we choose to live our lives, or the results of the decisions that we are going to make. Decisions need to be prayed over. Good decisions are always made by first consulting scripture, and making sure that you are aligned with God’s purpose and divine plan for your life. If it’s outside the will of God you are outside the blessings of God because blessed are they who hear the word of God and do it. Problems will develop if it’s outside of God’s purpose, because God is not a part of your decision making. Instead of making a Godly choice you make a worldly one instead. This is why we need to be circumspect. You need to think things through before you do them. You need to consider the consequences that will result because of rash actions. You need to think about how it’s going to affect other people.
Ephesians 5:15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
Possessing this quality shows true wisdom from God. It is being able to think before you do something, or considering something before it escapes your lips.
James 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
To truly be circumspect I’ve always felt that it requires temperance. When you choose to think first, that resonates with the gift of temperance in your life. If you can control your tongue, you can bridle the rest of the body. To truly control it, you need to think very carefully before something comes out of it that can hurt or even ruin the lives of other people.
When I was in kindergarden, the children were finishing playtime and getting ready for lunch, so I decided to clean up all the toys that were spread all over the floor throughout the room. Without thinking about it, I opened up the outside window, and proceeded to throw all of the toys outside onto the front lawn of the school, but what I had done was only created a bigger mess of things. One small sin can turn a small mess into a big one, in a big hurry. Some things are better left alone, such as sin. That is a can of worms that needs to remain unopened.
Poor choices will result in poor results. It only takes one misplaced step on a mountain face to cause you to slip and fall all the way down the hill. It only takes one little point to lose a basketball game. It only takes one wrong turn to get lost in the woods. One small mistake can cause an avalanche of consequences.
When Moses went into Egypt to free the Israelites, Pharaoh had a cold heart that was filled with pride. Because of his impenitence, He ended up turning a molehill into a mountain. He refused to listen to the command of the Lord, and because of this, it affected many other people in his life. Because of his sin, he lost his first born son. Because of his sin, the people of his country were smitten with plagues and pestilence. Because of his sin, his army was swallowed up in the Red Sea. All of these resulted because of one man’s sin against God. The actions of one single person, resulted in a landslide of consequences. One man fighting and screaming at God on the top of a mountain, produces an avalanche that hurts numerous other people around him.
In the church, we are all a part of the body of Christ. When one person sins the whole body suffers. If you choose to veer from the path of Christ, you enter into uncharted territory, and anything can happen. If you look back in time, and had made the right choice at the right moment, numerous other painful results could’ve been avoided. Rewards could have been reaped instead of heart-wrenching consequences for foolish behavior. If Pharaoh had simply obeyed, things would have gone well for him. It’s when he refused to obey God’s command, that everything went haywire in his life.
So, one small event can result in a catastrophic failure. One small coal can ignite a forest. One sin, like one clap of thunder, can affect and hurt the lives of many other people, producing a massive avalanche of consequences, not only for you, but for those around you. Just like taking a wrong turn on the highway, we must turn around and go back in time to the point where we went astray. We need to humbly confess, repent and be reconciled to God and others. We need to get back on the narrow path of Christ, and learn the simple truth that when you sin you never win. The only thing it produces is death, sorrow and suffering, an avalanche of pain that we can best do without.
Let’s think about these things for right now. We can be found on your web browser by searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods. Peace to you, and Lord willing, we will talk with you some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody. ❤️
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