by Jeffrey W. Hamilton<\/p>\n
I ran across an interesting quote:<\/p>\n
“Never open the door to the lesser evil, for another and greater one invariably will slink in after it.” [Baltasar Gracian, Spanish philosopher]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He makes a good point. Satan is never content to leave a person struggling with just one sin. It would be too easy to escape if he did. Instead, using the weakness gained when one sin overcomes a person’s defenses, he moves to introduce additional sins. You can see that in your own situation. It never was just marijuana. Procrastination and laziness come from the use of it, which isn’t a part of your natural personality. You took up lying to cover your tracks. You became prideful as you were determined to go through life alone. You took up drinking beer, a product you’ve told me many times that you don’t even like the taste. Profanity entered your speech as you hung around profane people and lost your inhibitions. Religion stopped being a daily thought and you figured going once a week was good enough. You even chose sin over your dearest friend and brother, something I would have never guessed you would do. Then there was the taking of money that was justified as “borrowing.” At one point you were even convinced that if you were going to sin, you might as well go all out and chase everything you’ve denied yourself. Satan never leaves a person alone, does he?<\/p>\n
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful<\/em>” (Romans 1:28-31).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The reason I and others aren’t leaving you alone in your sins is because we are trying hard to stop the progression of sin, even as you keep foolishly fighting us. We love you too much to let you go. Close the door on sin.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPrior Lesson\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSearching for My Friend\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNext Lesson\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Progression by Jeffrey W. Hamilton I ran across an interesting quote: “Never open the door to the lesser evil, for another and greater one invariably will slink in after it.” [Baltasar Gracian, Spanish philosopher] He makes a good point. Satan is never content to leave a person struggling with just one sin. It would be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":25976,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-65850","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15494,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/moral-principles-for-young-people\/the-harvest\/","url_meta":{"origin":65850,"position":0},"title":"The Harvest","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 15, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"The Harvest by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Judy had big plans for the future. In a small plot behind the house, she worked the soil \u2013 turning it, spading it, and raking it into a fine soft bed for her dream. She could see the fragrant lily-of-the-valleys snuggled up under stately\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/harvest.jpg?zoom=1.6500000953674316&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":65733,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/searching-for-my-friend\/never-too-far\/","url_meta":{"origin":65850,"position":1},"title":"Never Too Far","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Never Too Far by Jeffrey W. Hamilton \"And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living\" (Luke 15:13). Have you ever wondered why the prodigal son left for a far\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65658,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/searching-for-my-friend\/perfect\/","url_meta":{"origin":65850,"position":2},"title":"Perfect","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Perfect by Jeffrey W. Hamilton In my life, I've met people who never came to God because they demanded perfection of themselves. If they could not be absolutely perfect from the start, then they decided it wasn't worth beginning. They never started because they could never reach perfection. \"If we\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25976,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/searching-for-my-friend\/","url_meta":{"origin":65850,"position":3},"title":"Searching for My Friend","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Searching for My Friend by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Once again I lost a dear young friend to the seductive snare of drugs. It grieves me to the depth of my heart to see a life full of potential and capable of great joy being twisted toward ruin, sadness, and loneliness.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Searching.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":65438,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/proverbs-practical-advice-on-life\/consequences-of-conduct\/","url_meta":{"origin":65850,"position":4},"title":"Consequences of Conduct","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Consequences of Conduct Text: Proverbs 21:1-31 God is involved (Proverbs 21:1-5) The illustration is that of irrigation ditches used to water a field. The farmer can control where the water will flow by making changes to the channels the water flows through. Oddly, from the water's point of view, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5861,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/matthew-mark-luke-and-john-old-testament-or-new-testament\/the-bible-says-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":65850,"position":5},"title":"The Bible Says It","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 16, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"2.5 The Bible Says It Quote: \"More than 100 times in MMLJ -- before the cross, Jesus declared that he was teaching the Law of Moses. Not once did he ever state that he was teaching New Testament doctrine.\" Answer: Jesus taught much more, comparatively speaking, about the new coming\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65850\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}