When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasing to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate …

— Genesis 3:6

It is amazing to me that so many professing Christians can toy with sin and think they won’t get stung.

When I was thirteen or so I was at a Boy Scout camp in Michigan. Snakes and turtles and all kinds of other lovely creatures had been cleaned out of a huge pen. The serpents were put into a huge box about five feet high, with a hole in the top. One of my friends caught a snake that had escaped. He held it by the tail and the neck, but tried to put the serpent in the hole in the box headfirst. The tail of the serpent wrapped around his wrist and when he pulled his arm back, he pulled the serpent out of the box. The snake’s head went down near the ground, and slowly came up. A number of people stood there frozen in terror. Finally, that serpent hissed and bit my friend’s hand probably twenty times with his fangs.

I have never forgotten that event. I think that toying with sin is a snake that you don’t want to pick up by the head or the tail. Sometimes, the effects of dallying with sin can be gradual and deceptively fun; other times they can be like that serpent—swift and deadly. Either way, sin is not to be toyed with.

Question to ponder:
What is the lure of sin—why does it seem attractive to us?