Beauty, in the end, may indeed turn out to
be skin deep; but the ugliness of evil resides in the fathomless
recesses of the heart.
"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders,
adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
These are the things which defile a man: ..."
JESUS implied that the heart of man, is a vast demonic warehouse
for every sort of vile and wicked invention. The Old
Testament Prophet, Jeremiah, said the heart, acting as both guard
and storehouse is: "deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it."
It would appear from Scripture, and certainly this bears out in
our world today, that the inventory of the heart's defilement is
beyond reckoning.
All of this, of course makes the
abstaining that much more difficult ...
"For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I
not; but what I hate, that do I."
... and no less than the late, great, apostle
Paul, knew of the personal and prodigious fight evil pitches
against GOD and those WHOM HE redeems.
"Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles,
nor to the church of GOD: Even as I please all men in all
things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many,
that they may be saved."
The driving passion of every true child of
GOD is to be used of HIM to beget spiritual offspring.
"The fear of the LORD is
to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the
froward mouth, do I hate."
Similarly, the daunting fear must be of evil, and yea, even its
appearance; which is quick to quench any hope of effective
witness unto SPIRIT-filled reproduction.
Don't be confused, the word
"appearance" does not suggest
that evil is in the eye of the beholder. No! ...
"evil" is thoroughly defined in
the Word of GOD. That said however, if our lives are
viewed close enough, and long enough, the direction we are
headed will be apparent. At the end of the day, what you
see is what you get regarding evil, or its absence, in
each of us.
"Enter not into the path
of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid
it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."
The Christian must daily train to abstain in HIS Word; which is
the only successful abstinence manual known to man. Beware
of false advertising ... partial abstinence equals partial
indulgence; and of a certainty, the Bible never condones that
half-hearted effort which eventually meets evil halfway.
"Let not then your good be evil spoken of:"