The truth is, we've all failed,
we've all back slid, and we have all woken up in a place we did not want to
return to, a place we thought that we would never return to. We awake to an old familiar face in the
mirror, one that is facing the day saddened by a return to a sinful state that
we thought was finally past. We stare in
the mirror at a face that is now saddened by the loss of joy because of the burden
that sin has now applied. We find ourselves
once again standing before God guilty and shameful because we have disgraced
our God and Father.
Questions begin to flood our heart
and mind such as, “How did I get here so far and so fast? How could this have happened? How could I have gotten so far off track
while worshipping and serving Him?
Emotions flood through your heart and mind as you stare at the face in
the mirror but which do you address first?
Emotions such as remorse, anger, sadness, bitterness and disgust just to
name a few, all of which scream out to be addressed, each wanting attention,
none wanting to be released from the list.
It has always been a problem with the people and children of God. “Why has this people slidden back,
Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding?
They hold fast to deceit, They refuse to return.” (Jeremiah 8:5 NKJV)
Why is it that so many believers,
continue to toy with other gods when we have direct access to the one true God?
Why do we allow the idols of this world to
fulfill that which only God Himself can fill?
We dabble with that which we shouldn’t, we listen to the music that the
enemy plays and all too soon we are ensnared, we are uncontrollably dancing to
the enemies tune, much like a marionettes puppet who dance is controlled by
another.
Another way to picture this is much
like sailors found in the tales out of Greek mythology who would succumb to the
call of the sirens and end up crashing their ships on the reef to their deaths. In our lives today, we find that SIN’s call
to us is much like that of the alluring call of the sirens in the mythological
stories of the ancient Greeks and it is just as dangerous and potentially
deadly. In Greek mythology, sirens were
beguiling sea nymphs that troubled sailors.
They would allure male sailors with their seductive voices and their
enticing singing. In many of the
mythological texts it is found that that even if you knew better, the song of
the sirens were still hard to resist. In
the Odyssey Book XII we find that Odysseus is warned about the dangers he was
to face at sea and one of them being Sirens.
Odysseus did not have an Orpheus (Singer of charms) to drown out the
lovely voices, so he orders his men to stuff their ears with wax and tie him to
a mast. In doing so the men could sail
by in silence while he could hear their song. The restraints that he had applied kept him
from causing any danger to himself, his men or the ship. It was said that the song of the sirens was
so appealing that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, he would do all that he could to follow their
call even to the detriment of his ship and the other men’s lives as well. So is the same to the call of SIN.
Mythology offered one other escape from their call which was an Orpheus. An Orpheus was one whose singing was known to charm all living things. We find in the adventure of Jason and the Argonauts, that Jason and his men faced the danger of sailing the seas where Sirens were known to be. Jason and his men survived that passage, sailing safely by but only through the help of the singing of Orpheus. Though we know that the stories of Jason and the Argonauts along with creatures such as sirens are a myth, we are quite aware of the enemy and the snares that he sets out before us. As we sail through life and the siren’s calls of the enemy cries out to us there is one that we find today whose voice can over charm the soul and help us against the call to Sin and his name is Jesus. If we listen to Him we can overcome many of the shipwrecks that sin leads us to; sadly and more often than most will admit we succumb to the call of sin.
All too often we find ourselves playing the part of Odysseus,
we are back struggling with in the bondage of sin listening and longing to
embrace its alluring seduction. Life now
finds us standing in front of the mirror, shipwrecked on the reef of sin and
castaway into the sea being dragged down into the depths as only sin can take
us. Drawn away if you will by our own
lusts (James 1:14, “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and
enticed.”) Once enticed we find ourselves quickly separated from the
God that we love and who completely loves us.
Standing alone, crying out for sins embrace, and at the same time hoping
that those around us cannot hear the call to seduction. As I mentioned before, backsliding has always
been a problem with the people and children of God. I do not believe that anyone is immune to
this struggle with backsliding.