Key Verse: Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Sin kills. Before you dismiss this as an overstatement, think again. Let’s look at it from our point of view. Then, with the Bible’s perspective, we’ll try to look at it from God’s point of view. And let’s take an “innocent flirtation” as our example of sin.

It starts with a hungry thought. Depending on your gender it might be something like, “My husband hardly notices me anymore. I have a need to be noticed, to be special, to be held.” Or, “My wife is getting dull. She doesn’t interest me anymore. I need some excitement, and someone who finds me exciting.” Then follows that first eye-contact across the room at the social gathering, held for a moment, but held. Then the casual comment, the jovial verbal jousting, the “positioning” in the seating or in the line at the backyard barbecue, the lingering. This cultivation continues with “accidental” meetings at a restaurant, or “legitimate” family get-togethers.  Then, after weeks or months, the explosion of passion, when spouses, children, and God are forgotten; and the predictable  fracturing of family and lives occurs. For the sake of the new relationship, the old bonded relationships are discarded and die.

Then there’s Good looking on. What does He see? He sees two people erasing their names from life. He sees 15 years down the line when the delinquent father wants to re-enter the lives of his now-adult children and is odd man out. He sees a woman who so easily  discarded her own commitments, now discarded by her knight in not-so-shining armour. And, most disturbing of all, in the case of those who have not confessed and repented, He sees an eternity of death. Sin kills. It’s called “the law of sin and death” (8:2). But never forget that Jesus kills too — He kills sin!