Romans 6:16
Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
In 2006, famed and legendary "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray off the coast of Australia. In what seemed like a rather innocent yet bizarre accident, Irwin had taken a break from the filming of his upcoming documentary, "Ocean's Deadliest," to do a segment for his daughter Bindi's new television series.
Irwin's friend of 20 years, Ferre De Deyne said Irwin was struck in the heart by the stingray while filming. "The stingray just happened to be swimming around and out of the blue whacked his tail at him. It is absolutely tragic. I have dived so many times with stingrays and they are usually very placid things," he said.
I have to admit when I first heard of Irwin's death I was not too surprised. Sure the idea that a stingray was the instrument of death was shocking, but not the incidence of his death. Why? Because he placed himself regularly in death-defying predicaments, week in and week out. It seemed to be only a matter of time before his luck would run out.
The Bible tells us sin is just like that. 1 Peter 5:8: "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." We say: "Don't worry, I've got this sin under control, I'm only going to swim around in the water with it for a little while. Stingrays are nice -- people rarely get injured or killed by them." But be careful. Watch out.
Paul uses the word "know". In other words: "Know this -- the sin you are swimming around with, the sin you think you've got under control -- it's going to come back when you least expect it and pierce you right through the heart."
All sin brings death and destruction -- even the ones we think are placid or under control.
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