Appearance of evil

Key verse: 1Thes.5:21-22

21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.

Read: 2 Samuel 11:1-5

The Lord has put in man a conscience to decipher between good and evil. By it, anytime a man is about to engage in evil, he knows. If he goes ahead to do the evil, it is that after processing the evil in his heart, he makes the choice to do it. For this there are spiritual consequences as it tantamount to disobeying God. It is one thing to engage in evil, it is another to do something that appears like evil. This is when in the sight of a third party it looks like evil. When it thus appears, your action is likely to make an onlooker to fall. But the most critical point in this is that anything that tends towards evil is a bait from the enemy. If care is not taken it can draw down completely. Ask king David. All he did was to see a naked lady taking what appeared like an innocent bath and rather than flee, he dwelled on it and one thing led to another until he became not only an adulterer but also a murderer.

In some culture, it is not out of place for brethren to embrace in a suggestive manner. This has caused so much pollution in their society that God decided to send His Ambassadors there to rectify the rot through the Gospel. Ironically, so as to belong, some part of the body also imbibed the profaned culture and carry on as if nothing is wrong. The hypocrisy behind it is that they embrace people’s spouses so suggestively only when the partner is not there. The question then is why do it when you know it is wrong? Many have so fallen into lust through this and yet pretend to be holy still. David was eternally damned in that God rejected him from building a Temple for his God. What a shame.

The injunction of God to you and I is to flee whenever it looks like evil; not when it is confirmed evil. Never allow the enemy to lure you through your lust to sin like he did to David. Since when did you become an iron whose body remains constant when it meets the opposite sex? Or since when did it become unattractive to use the good things of life for one to ‘reject’ a ‘blessing’ from God in something that is not yours but appears to be asking you to take it? Flee my dear friend. Don’t get caught in sin. Your allowing it to go can destroy you eventually or destroy another whom you have led on. Please flee.

Pray:

Father, give me the strength to flee whenever evil appears in Jesus name.