The Horror of Sin

This is a photo of dross. It is the mass left over from the refining
 of silver, gold, aluminum, among other metals. It is worthless and
is discarded after being removed from metals. The removal of
dross is necessary to make the metal as pure as possible.
Dross is literally defined as worthless rubbish.

"Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer." -Psalms 25:4

We all know how disgusting and wretched sin is but for the Believer in Christ, we never become immune to this fact. Although we were once filled with dross of sin, once Christ removed it, we became turned completely off from such state of being.





I was on Twitter earlier today and I saw "retweets" from people selling their self help books, audio sermons and other paraphernalia from their ministries. I could not help but to get upset. I was so disgusted with the SELLING of The Word, which is indeed a sin. The bible warns all people of this in 2 Corinthians 2:17:


"You see, we are not like the many hucksters who preach for personal profit. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority, knowing that God is watching us."

However, so many refuse to remember that Jesus Christ is watching EVERYTHING that happens on this earth. Even we as Believers must remain sober that we must represent the God we serve with thoughtfulness, being certain in all things we do to exalt Him and anything that does not correctly represent His character should not be done.

Have you ever thought about how horrid sin is?

I mean REALLY thought about how sin sweeps up anyone seeking to dip just a little into it... How sin creeps up on the unsuspecting and spiritually unguarded... How sin even tries to get those that are fully armored by the Word of God through human desires that aren't immediately subdued...

I want to revisit Sodom & Gomorrah because although it is an Old Testament event, this is one of the examples that Christ uses when He ministers in the New Testament and compares it with that present time and future (Matthew 10:15; 11:24).

A believer in Sodom & Gomorrah would be completely out of place in their way of thinking. For one, they'd have to constantly be on guard so they would not in anyway compromise their belief in Christ, even in the seemingly everyday leisure activities. Sodom and Gomorrah had plenty. These cities lived very well and enjoyed leisure more than work. The typical citizen saw sin as freedom and it was definitely part of their everyday life, seen as normalcy. The citizens of Sodom & Gomorrah had no regard of the Living God, did not respect those that did and tried to corrupt anything left that had a hint of righteousness. The only use these people would see of God is if they could make a profit of financial gain, from His Word.

When the LORD made known His plan to destroy these cities (Genesis 18:20-21), Abraham was worries about his nephew Lot and his family, that they would be destroyed as well. The LORD promised that even if it were only 10 righteous, He would not destroy the cities (Genesis 18:32).

However, we find that the angels the LORD sent to these two cities did not even contain 10 people that were righteous. How wretched sin is, that it consumed the population of two cities.

Not only was the righteous less than 10, we find that it was really only ONE. When Lot warned his son-in-laws that these cities were going to be destroyed, they thought he was joking and ignored the warning. Then once Lot, his wife, and two daughters made a safe escape - Lot's wife ignored the warning of the angels that told her do not look back. As a result she turned into a pillar of salt. Then Lot's daughters showed their distrust in God and took it upon themselves to commit incest and  "preserve the seed" , having sex with their father to get pregnant. As a result, knowingly or not, even Lot sinned. Therefore, we can say there was not ONE PERSON absent of sin in Sodom & Gomorrah!

I say that to tell you this: No matter how our flesh comes up with what appears to be a grand idea to do righteousness, we MUST TEST THE SPIRIT IT IS DONE IN!

I believe that Lot's daughters sincerely thought they were doing right when they tried to preserve their family lineage. But Satan was crafty in the way he presented this to them, causing them to sin in the process. They did not wait on instruction from the LORD and as a result, they birthed sons that became the fathers of wicked groups of people ( The Moabites and Ammonites).

The same goes for if you have an idea to go out and minister the Word of God. You may have started with the purest intention, but somewhere along the way, it turned into a tainted deed. You MUST go to the Word of God and in prayer, to see if the path you are taking is aligned with His Will. Selling books (among other products) on bible prophecy and spiritual inspiration is NOT WHAT GOD WANTS HIS CHILDREN TO DO. I don't care HOW RIGHTEOUS IT APPEARS, we are to go by faith, not by our lying sight. Our standard of righteousness is the Word of God and anything less, is not worthy!

The LORD wants to clean that dross from us, He seeks to remove the impurities from our hearts so that we may be made perfect in His sight. However, He cannot do that if we are holding on to our desires and plans to do His Work! We cannot please Him with OUR STANDARDS... We can only please Him with HIS STANDARDS!