05/30/2019
Have you conquered the bold sins in your life, but still have those little nagging sins that seem to fly under the radar? You know the ones... those seemingly insignificant habits like white lies, and occasional gossiping, that just don’t feel bad enough to be concerned about. Besides, you have come so far, and cast off such large sins! Well friend, the little or subtle sins can destroy all the progress you have made... they are the enemy within.
“Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom."”
The Song of Solomon 2:15 ESV
When our faith is increasing by leaps and bounds it isn’t the glaring sin that typically trips us up; it is some small perhaps secret sin that drags us down from behind. It might be that hidden vice that no one knows about like pornography, gambling, judging others, or one of a myriad of others that brings you time and time again to your knees asking for forgiveness. I like to call most of these “near sins” because you justify them as not being spelled out specifically in the Bible, and yet they make you feel less. Somehow when you have done one of these things you feel dirty afterwards, and embarrassed before God, and Jesus. Have you been there? Have you wept before the Lord asking for help, and forgiveness?
“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
James 4:4 ESV
Before we believed at all, the little infractions seemed so insignificant, but once we had taken a big drink of faith, and thrown off the sins that others would convict us of, or call us to account for... we were still plagued by those innocuous behaviors that only our spirit speaks out to us of.
“Let not your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths, for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.”
Proverbs 7:25-27 ESV
We have all heard the story of the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike, and sealed the crack before the water flowing through it eroded the dike, and flooded all behind it. Well, tiny sins are like that crack, they seem to be small, and we think that they are hardly worth the effort of worrying over, and yet there we are... time and time again asking forgiveness for them, or perhaps they take away our ability to place our hand in God’s like beforehand. Little sins, and their tiny dribble of guilt and conviction, eat away out our relationship with God... they are the tiny cracks in our dike against Satan that eventually become the breaches that destroy our faith.
“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.”
Hebrews 3:12 ESV
A little boy and his mother and went to the store, and there beside the cash register was the rack of small candies. He asked her if he could have a piece, but she told him “not today.” So, as she checked out he slipped a piece into his pocket. Later he hid in his closet and ate that candy... it tasted so good... like hidden, or forbidden, fruit usually does, but as the evening wore on he began to feel remorse because he had disobeyed, and had stolen. Finally it was time for bed, and as was her custom His mother sat on the edge of his bed as he prayed before going to sleep... but that night The boy couldn’t pray his normal prayer because sin and guilt prevented him. So he confessed his disobedience to his mother, and then asked forgiveness in his prayer. The next morning they went back to the store where he gave the clerk a penny from his piggy bank, and apologized. I think Charles Surgeon sewed this up nicely when he wrote these words...
“These Little sins burrow into the soul, making it so full of what Jesus hates that He will not hold comfortable fellowship and communion with us.” - Charles Spurgeon
Small sins eat at us until they have gnawed out a hole in us, and in our faith, just as large as the big sins in our lives used to leave. Until we have ferreted out the tiniest of transgressions we are within the clutches of Satan. So listen to your spirit as it convicts you, and treat no “Near Sin” as anything other than a sin that separates you from God.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Word that is implanted within us, and for your Holy Spirit that works alongside our conscience... our spirit... to convict us of our sins. Thank you Holy Father for leading us to an understanding that all things which separate our spirits from you are sin, and for forgiving our contrite hearts of the small, as well as the glaring, faults that destroy our walk with you. Teach us to recognize the subtle sins, the enemies within our camp, that seem so insignificant, and yet cause so much harm. Lead us away from the white lies, just as you have the murder, or adultery. Open our eyes to the power of even the tiniest of sins. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God, who detests sin, and desires for us to walk in purity beside Him. Great are you who shines His light on the tiniest of our sins, and calls us to seek forgiveness for them. All glory is yours Father, for your mercy, grace, and forgiveness is our joy, and places our cleansed hand within yours.
Rich Forbes