Can One’s Spirit Really Experience Only a MINOR INFESTATION?

© 2023 by Tom Boynton (editing by Kathy Boynton)

“Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5: 6)

Some tiny organisms multiply rapidly to become plentiful.  The Bible uses leaven as an example of this phenomenon.  Though leaven is commonly used in baking bread, it’s destroyed in the baking process.  Otherwise, it could give rise to various infections.  Because of this, the CDC actually issued the following warning:

“Don’t taste or eat raw (unbaked) dough or batter.  Don’t let children handle or play with raw dough…” (https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/no-raw-dough.html)

Suppose I offered you food, contaminated with only small amounts of typhoid fever germs.  Would you eat it?  You shouldn’t!  Even small amounts of such germs can rapidly multiply inside your body into something very dangerous.  In the scripture at hand, God, through the apostle Paul, warns that sin can seriously contaminate you in a similar manner.  Though, in this passage, the sin in question is fornication, the caution applies to sin of any kind.

Fornication, however, has been a particular problem throughout man’s history.  It’s not limited to the actual act.  Jesus said:

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28)

Later, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus further emphasized this point.

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:  These are the things which defile a man:…” (Matthew 15:19-20)

Have you ever noticed that even the hints of seductive perversion, permeating our public entertainment systems, influence our thoughts?  Those hints are planted in many ways.  Seductive music, seductive visual presentations, and seductive words all contribute to this infestation.  These infestations of our thoughts tend to multiply like leaven in bread dough.  We need to constantly bake the bread of our hearts in God’s Word to destroy these lusts of the flesh.  Recognizing God’s severe displeasure with the leaven of sin should subdue the rapid multiplication of these evil thoughts.

God the Son, Jesus Christ, came to be sinlessly born of a virgin through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Devoid of sin, He died sacrificially, and rose again, victoriously, to bear punishment for sin.  The apostle Paul said,

“…we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)

Have you recognized that you and I are innately sinful with no ability to pay the infinite penalty for our sin?  Have you called out to God for forgiveness?  Are you one in whom God’s Holy Spirit truly resides through faith in Jesus the Christ?  Is He showing this to be true by baking your heart in His Word?

 

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