Bug Bites and Sin:
Immediate vs. Delayed Results
By Pastor Josh Wamble
A group from our church just returned from a week serving with Steve and Carol Thompson and the staff at Camp Chacauco in Patate, Ecuador. There were over 170 kids who attended camp during the week. Many of them were from Baptist churches that the Thompsons and their team have planted in the surrounding towns and areas over the years. Others were from catholic churches in those areas. It is a testament to the reputation the Thompsons have built over the last 37 years that these catholic families would send their kids to an evangelical camp.
We had a great week of serving together. We washed 1800-2400 dishes each day! We tried to sing songs in Spanish while doing the movements that went along with them. We got to know and care about kids with whom we could barely communicate. We worshipped, celebrated a baptism, and shared the Lord’s Supper in a joint worship service with three local churches. We split up among four teams and led the kids in competitions and activities. Some of our group even participated in a huge obstacle course involving racing up a mountain, crawling through mud, sliding down a muddy hill, and forming a human pyramid with kids standing on each other’s shoulders 4 or 5 levels high to reach prizes on top of a pole.
There really was only one negative from the week which was that many of us left with multiple bug bites on our legs, arms, hands, and other parts of our bodies. Over the last week or so, I have caught myself scratching the bites, sometimes to the point of bleeding. Of course, I know this is bad and only makes the situation worse in the long term, but in the short term it brings relief and makes them feel so good. This situation has had me thinking about several passages in the proverbs that warn about the consequences of sin.
In Prov. 9:17-18 folly is personified, and she says to a man, “’Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.” The temptations of sin are often like the temptation I have to scratch these bug bites. Sin often promises immediate rewards. Temptations come to us promising pleasure. Sin presents itself as delightful. We may find ourselves in a situation where lying seems like a way out of a bad situation. We may be tempted to do whatever it takes to get what we want. This is what John talks about in 1 John 2:16, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”
Over and over, the Bible warns us of the fleeting pleasures of sin. Scratching bug bites may provide immediate relief, but it leads to worse itching and sometimes even infections in the end. Sin is the same way. It may promise pleasure or a good result, and it may even provide some pleasure or solution for a short time. But, as Prov. 9 says, it ultimately leads to death!
Salvation not only changes our position before God—guilty vs. not guilty, it also changes our natures and how we see the world around us. May God help up to see sin and temptation for what it is. Sin is deceitful, may we fight it in our own lives by looking beyond its immediate promises to the ultimate reality of what is being offered—death!
