Scripture
There is a sin that is mortal; I do not say that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin that is not mortal.
~I John 5:15-16, NRSV
Quote
Sin is your murderer: kill it before it kills you.
~Richard Baxter
The Greek word translated ‘mortal’ in the Revised Standard Version is thä’-nä-tos which is an adjective for death. In other words, mortal sins are deadly sins. This can be taken more than one way: there are sins that lead to death like smoking which results in physical death but there are also sins that deaden other things other than the body. No doubt you have heard of the SEVEN MORTAL OR DEADLY SINS taught by our Catholic Friends. This list of sins originated in the 5th century with a monk named Evagrius Ponticus. He listed seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth [laziness]. Just a few days ago, I came across a protestant list: Arrogance, Unforgiveness, Pride, Selfishness and Greed. You will note that Pride and Greed are on both list.
Greed is not like smoking. Smoking effects the lungs whereas greed effects the heart. It is getting far too common these days for children to deny their parents proper care because they want to save their parents savings for an inheritance. June was telling me this morning at breakfast about two sisters: one living here in Morgan County and the other living in Nashville. The one living here is taking care of her father who had some kind of stroke and has not been able to recover to a point he can live by himself. She is using his money to get him proper care. The sister is Nashville is upset because she fears all his savings will be depleted by the expense of taking good care of her dad. This is not a rare exception: this is common these days.
Greed is an ugly thing once you see it up close. We don’t talk a lot about greed but Jesus did and He said, “Beware of all forms of greed, life does not consist in the abundance of things one possesses.” The best way to attack greed is to catch it early. We must teach our children to give. Parents who raise children to be selfish and miserly will becomes victims to their own doctrine. Once greed gets into a person’s system, it is all but impossible to root it out: this is why it is a deadly sin. You don’t see people who have practiced greed all their lives just suddenly snap out of it. Greed is like a web, the longer we stay entangled in this vicious web, the less freedom and strength we have to set ourselves free. Misers never die happy. There are no happy misers. There are some rare exceptions like John D. Rockefeller who was literally dying from the anxiety of his greed until he had a late night conversion and began giving money away but these exceptions are few and far between.
Listen folks, I beg you in Jesus name, come up with a plan to attack your greed or else your greed will consume you. Greed is your murderer: if you don’t kill it, it will kill you. Greed is not something to play with. Would you play with a rattlesnake: Greed is much more deadly.
Another good message from God’s word on our need for fellowship. A very good lesson in LCBS on true friendship. Great picnic for VBS last night. Very good turn out. It was good to see old Gregg back: he is doing pretty good.
Very busy week coming up: We preach at the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association today. LORD willing, we will be preaching at DBC Wednesday night and again next Sunday morning. We will be driving Joe David to Atlanta Thursday and somewhere in there, we are going to have a root canal.
We need a little precipitation here on Ironman road. While we got a good rain at church last Monday, we got less than a half inch here.
God bless you for reading the blog. I hope you have a good day and a great weak. The Lord works in mysterious ways: Josie rode with me in Squeak yesterday.