The heart is more deceitful than all things, and desperately wicked; who can understand it?

— Jeremiah 17:9

The Scriptures clearly teach the sinfulness of man. Many violate their consciences. We know not what we are capable of doing.

At the Academy at Lyon, a thesis was written on the dangers of ambition. Its author was young Napoleon. Nero declared, “Would this hand had never learned to write,” when he signed the first death warrant. And Robespierre, who sent thousands to the bloody guillotine during the reign of terror in Paris, in an earlier day resigned as municipal judge in a small town when he was confronted with the task of signing a death warrant for a guilty criminal.

Sin is a very slippery slope. When we take one step down that slope, God withdraws the restraining power of His Spirit. Then we slide farther down, and again He withdraws His Spirit. Ah, how dangerous a thing is sin! Like the great whirlpool, Charybdis, to be caught in the outer rim of that swirling water is the kiss of death. Soon you are drawn ever closer, ever inward, ever further down until you disappear forever into the watery chasm beneath. What a terrible, dangerous, deceitful, slippery thing is sin.

Thankfully, Jesus Christ came to break the power of sin in our lives.

Question to ponder:
Have you ever violated your conscience? How did it make you feel?