“I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” (Romans 6:19)
So this guy goes to the doctor, and he hears the dreaded “sentence” that he is terminal and has six months to live. He says to the doctor, “Wow, doc, that is terrible news! Could I get a second opinion?” So the doctor says, “OK, you’re ugly, too.” Is that what it means to add an insult to an injury?
A week ago, Kansas City got blasted by a foot of snow. Yesterday, four days later, we got another foot. I am sitting in my office watching it still snow. They did not plow our street until midnight last night, so we were snowed in. I tried to get up the street, but the snow had drifted so high that it was up to the floorboard of the car, and there was just no way. I made it to the end of our yard and that was it. Fortunately, I was able to get back into the driveway. When we got hit with the first foot of snow, I shoveled just enough to be able to get the car out. I parked at the back of the driveway on purpose so that there would be just a little bit behind the car to shovel. So I made a narrow path to the car and opened it up behind the car. It took me five separate trips to do it – the snow was so heavy it wore me out. Just about the time we saw daylight, God dropped another foot on top of it, and I had to do it all over again. There is a lot of snow out there! It is going to take a while for it to melt. The guys across the street from us built a huge snowman. It has to be at least seven feet tall. I have no idea how they got the last ball on the top of it. That snowman will be there for a long time. A couple of years ago, we got a two-foot snow like this. There was one place on the Plaza where they transported a lot of the extra snow and dumped it in a huge pile that just happened to be on the north side of a fairly tall building, which means it got no exposure to the sun. The local weather man ran a contest to guess the date it would finally melt and win a prize. The two feet of snow fell on Christmas Eve, December 24. The last bit of it melted on April 6.
The verse I quoted above talks about the sin nature of humanity. It says that our uncleanness leads to “iniquity unto iniquity”. That is the “piling up” of sin. Sin has a way of multiplying. John chapter 8 says that our enemy Satan is the “father of lies”. Fathers beget sons who beget more generations. Once you do something wrong, you then have to lie to cover it up, and then you have to bribe or threaten the guy who knows the truth. Sin is never isolated. Once we experience one, it feels good and we think we like it, so we try another one. Some people have this strange idea that “just a little bit won’t hurt”. It was just a small piece of forbidden fruit that plunged humanity into this mess in the first place. People talk about their bad habits and say they can “take it or leave it at any time”. Yet they rarely “leave it”. Sin is like Lay’s potato chips. You can’t eat just one. One turns into four which multiplies to 16 and it doesn’t take long before a person is buried under a pile of sin so huge it seems like it will never go away.
It is winter in the Midwest. It is going to snow. But when it piles up on top of itself like this, it creates a real burden. You are human. You are going to sin. But when you pile it up, it creates a huge burden in your own life, and can bring down the lives of many others around you. Just like this pile of snow will be with us for many days, the results of long term repeated sin can last a long time. Proverbs 28:13 says, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” The best way to melt snow is to let the sun shine on it. The best way to deal with sin is to let the Son shine on it. Bring your sins to the Lord, and confess them – and more importantly, forsake them. Allow the grace of God and the power of his Spirit to cleanse you and give you victory.
