Playing Footsie with Sin Burns — E.A. Johnston

The Church’s Failure to Warn Against Sin

Our young people today, who grew up in church, don't see anything wrong with sin. I blame it on the churches that gave them pizza nights, and movie nights, and mud fights, but failed to warn them against the dangers of sin.

Consecration to Christ and the Danger of Worldliness

When the church quit preaching hard against sin, and stopped preaching up holy living, that's when we began to present a God who was tolerant towards sin. But preachers in former times knew that Jesus never preached a sin and religion.

I like the words of Charles Finney who said,. The church is filled with hypocrites who were never told to give up the world. No one ever showed them that unless they entirely consecrated themselves to Christ, time, talent, and influence, that they would never get to heaven.

Many think they can be Christians, and yet float along through life, using their time and property for themselves, only given a little now and then to save appearances, or because it is convenient. It is a sad mistake.

Christianity as a Counter-Cultural Walk

If they don't use their energies for God, when they die, they will find hell at the end of the path they pursued. Christianity back in the days of Finney, traveled in an opposite direction to the world.

Christians went one way, and the pagan world in another. And whenever they met, there was a clash, because Christianity should be counter-cultural to society. Now there's not even a rub between them, as you cannot distinguish the saved from the unsaved today.

They both look and act the same. But there is a truth in scripture, friends, that cannot be ignored. You can't play footsie with sin and get by, friend, because you will get burned. Proverbs 6, 28 declares,.

Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? The answer is no. You will get a hot foot for sure. Listen to me, friend. Sin will take you further than you want to go, leave you there longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you ever realized.

Sin’s Inevitable Consequences

Playing with sin is playing with fire, and if you remain dead in sin, you will end up in a burning lake of fire. Revelation 20, 15 declares,. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

My Bible says that,. Be sure your sin will find you out,. The heavenly detective will be hot on your trail, friend, if you fool around with sin. You might be able to hide your sins from family and friends, but you can't fool God.

Sin as Going Our Own Way

Sin will bring you low as you let God down. The shortest definition for sin is found in Isaiah 53, 6, which declares,. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And that's what sin is, friend.

It's going our way when we know it isn't God's way. Listen to me, young person. You can't play with sin and not be burned. Proverbs 6, 27 says so. Can a man take fire into his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

Adultery and the Destruction of a Family

Of course not. And your sin could start a house fire. I used to have... It breaks me up to think about it. I used to have a close friend who was a leader at church and a successful businessman. He made a lot of money and lived in a fine big home.

He had a lovely wife and three sweet kids. Then one day he hired a new pretty secretary half his age, and he began to play footsie with her, and it turned into adultery. And when the news got out, it tore up his home like a house fire.

His wife divorced him and his kids turned against him because of his being a hypocrite. He might have enjoyed the excitement of sexual sin with someone who wasn't his wife, and it gave him a rush like walking on hot coals, but he eventually got burned.

Playing footsie with sin burns, and that's a fact, friend. If you play footsie with sin, you will have to live with the consequences of sin. Go look at King David's life and see how playing footsie with Bathsheba cost him his family.

David’s Sin and Absalom’s Death

His favorite son Absalom turned against him and was killed. We see David's broken heart as he mourns for his son. And the king was much moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, thus he said, Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, Oh, would God I had died for thee.

Oh, Absalom, my son, my son.