The Consequences Of Hold On When We Should Be Turning Loose

Consequences Of Holding On When We Should Be Letting Go

Mark 7:14-23

Prayer

Introduction

Good Morning I hope that you all had a very good week last week and that God Blessed you during the week. In fact I know that He did because you are here this morning that is a blessing in itself especially if you are lost. He has given you at least one more chance to hear His word, to have His spirit to deal with you, and to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. To many of us are holding on to this world when we should be letting go and grabbing on to eternity. We let Satan confuse us and trick us into believing that we don’t need salvation or that we are saved when in truth we are not. We ignore God’s word and do things the way we want to do them, His love is not in us and therefore we cannot love like He does because He is not in us, but Satan Works very hard to confuse and trick us. He does not want you to come to Christ and If you Christ’s He wants to destroy your testimony by tricking you into believing that you are serving God and doing what God wants you to do when it is not what God wants you to do. But Preacher how can you tell if you are doing what God wants you to do. It is simple by the Study of God’s word, coming to Bible Study and Sunday school and learning God’s word and fellowshipping with your brother and sisters. All these things God has provided as tools and sources of strength for each and every one of us.

But we all must face temptations it is what we do with those temptations that matters. Rent-a-Kid" starring Leslie Nielson. The opening segment shows a dream sequence. Little Molly is an orphan who just gets adopted. Her new family is extremely wealthy and has everything a child could want materialistically speaking. They even have their own merry-go-round in the house. The new parents tell Molly she can have anything or go anywhere in the house she pleases. She’s just not allowed to go into this one room. It’s off limits! Molly let’s curiosity get the best of her and opens the door. On the other side she finds it is an exit to the outside with her new parents standing by a car waiting to take her back to the orphanage. Her parents are taunting her with phrases about how she just couldn’t listen and do what she was told. It’s back to the orphanage as she screams and then wakes up. This is an excellent clip depicting temptation and it’s consequences. We must understand that when we face temptations that there are consequences to face for our actions. We can go on believing those things we want to believe that man has drawn up like the Pharisees and Sadducees and continue to ignore God’s Word in favor of man’s word.

But Preacher, how can it be so serious, it is just one little thing that I want to hold on to. It is something that I have believed all my life and I just want to hold on to it because my parents believed it, my grandparents believed it and so on it ties me back to my roots. Why it is in my blood, it must be right because so many believe it. Well just like the Pharisees, who Jesus called a pit of vipers by the way, refused to change their beliefs because of tradition and family so do we. But that can lead to consequences also. On 11 May 2000 a lady found a new e-mail message on her computer, which simply said, "I love you". It looked innocent enough, perhaps even romantic. Like most of us would, she clicked to open the message, and the so-called "Love Bug" was born. With lightning speed it raced around the world, bringing politics and business to a halt. It was a deadly computer virus that caused millions of computer software programmers to crash. One virus, but so much contamination. But it’s not the first time that a single virus has caused so much grief to mankind. In fact, it’s a kind of replay of a deadlier virus that hit Planet Earth more than six thousand years ago polluting the first human couple, Adam and Eve. Despite God’s warning not to click on to Satan’s message, they did so with appalling consequences for them, and through them to all mankind. That virus is called "Sin". Ever action that we take has a reaction a consequence so lets talk about consequences now.

I. How do we know that there are consequences?