Sexual Purity

In a world saturated with sex everywhere, it is quite a challenge to live a pure and holy christian life, 'fleeing from youthful lusts' like Joseph did. While surfing the internet I came across this well written article which addresses this important issue, here is a part from the original.(The full article can be found at http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/sxpurity.html and is well worth reading.)

Well, we may know what is right, but knowing what is right is often not the same as doing what is right. Now, I want to look at a passage in Proverbs that instructs its readers concerning dangers, both obvious and subtle, of sexual temptation.

A Young Man Lacking Sense Meets a Harlot

It is hard for some to imagine that the Bible contains explicit advice on how to avoid sexual temptation. But the entire chapter of Proverbs 7 is devoted to exactly that. In the first five verses, Solomon essentially pleads with his son to listen and guard his words carefully concerning the adulteress.

My son, keep my words,
And treasure my commandments within you.

Keep my commandments and live,
(sounds like serious stuff!)
And my teaching as the apple of your eye.
(actually the "pupil" or "little man of your eye." This was meant therefore to be a precious truth to be closely guarded and kept.)

Solomon goes on in verse 3:

Bind them on your fingers;
Write them on the tablet of your heart.

Say to wisdom, "You are my sister,"
And call understanding your intimate friend.

That they may keep you from an adulteress,
From the foreigner who flatters with her words.

In verses 6-9, King Solomon takes the role of an observer, telling his son what he sees unfolding before him.

For at the window of my house,
I looked out through my lattice, And I saw among the naive,
I discerned among the youths,
A young man lacking sense.

Passing through the street near her corner;
And he takes the way to her house.

In the twilight, in the evening,
In the middle of the night and in the darkness.

Solomon speaks of one who is young, inexperienced, and lacking judgment. His first clue was that he purposefully walks down her street and actually heads straight to her house in the middle of the night. As Charlie Brown would say, "Good grief!" The young man’s intent is probably harmless. He is curious, perhaps hoping for a glimpse of the adulteress plying her wares to someone else on the street. Sin is probably not on his mind. He just wants to see what the real world is like. That kind of thinking is still heard today. "I just need to know what is out there so I can warn my family and others around me." In reality, our young fool was looking for titillation and was confident that he could withstand the temptation.

This is precisely why Solomon says he is lacking sense. The apostle Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 10:12, "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Overconfidence is our worst enemy in the face of temptation. I am reminded of two contrasting characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Boromir and Faramir. Boromir and Faramir were brothers. Boromir, the elder, was renowned for his exploits in war. He was his father’s favorite and the principal heir. He was confident, however, that were he to wield the One Ring, the Ring of Power, he would not be corrupted by it and could use it to defeat the armies of the evil Sauron. However, his overconfidence and lust for power lead him to attempt to steal the ring from the designated Ring- bearer. His foolishness caused the Fellowship of the Ring to be split apart under attack and led eventually to his death. He thought he could stand, but he fell.

His brother Faramir, however, had a more realistic picture of his sinful nature. When confronted later with the same opportunity to see and even hold the Ring, he refused. He knew the temptation would be strong and that the best way not to yield to the lust for power was to keep the temptation as far away as possible. Faramir, though perceived to be weaker than his brother, was, in a sense, actually the wiser and stronger of the two. He took heed and did not fall and later played a significant role in the final victory over the forces of evil.

What about you? Do you consider yourself strong enough to resist the temptations presented in movies, books, commercials, etc.? Do you walk into the movie theater blindly, lacking sense, uninformed as to why this movie is R-rated or even PG-13? Are you a headstrong Boromir, or a wise Faramir who knows his weakness in the face of temptation and avoids it whenever possible?

The Schemes of the Adulteress

As we continue in our walk through Proverbs 7, Solomon now focuses his attention on the schemes of the seductress. Our young man lacking sense is walking down her street, right past her house. Solomon continues in verse 10:

And behold, a woman comes to meet him,
Dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart.

She is boisterous and rebellious;
Her feet do not remain at home;

She is now in the streets, now in the squares,
And lurks by every corner.

Wow! What a surprise! A woman comes to meet him! Can’t you just hear Gomer Pyle exclaiming at the top of his lungs, "Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!" Surprise, indeed! This is only what was expected. Her boisterousness lends an air of fun and frivolity. Let’s face it, if sin weren’t so enjoyable we wouldn’t fall prey to it so easily. Solomon next gives the impression that she is everywhere to be found. As I pointed out earlier, that is even more true today. Even a widely proclaimed family movie like Forrest Gump surprised many with scenes that were unnecessary and sexually explicit. If you were surprised, you shouldn’t have been. Check these things out beforehand. Don’t act like a young man lacking sense and wander down the street of temptation unaware. Remember that Jesus extended the moral law from our actions to our thought life. If we simply lust after a woman, we have already committed adultery in our hearts (Matt. 5:27 28).

Solomon next turns to the woman’s tactics:

So she seizes him and kisses him,
(Suddenness can put you off your guard unless you have predecided what you would do, whether it is a real seduction, a scene in a movie, TV program, or book. Will you close your eyes, leave, change channels, skip a few pages? What? Know beforehand!)

And with a brazen face she says to him:
"I was due to offer peace offerings;
Today I have paid my vows.
(I’m not such a bad person. See, I do a lot of the same things you do. You’re not going to reject and judge me, are you?)

Therefore I have come out to meet you,
To seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you."

Ah, the ultimate weapon with a man: female flattery. Men are suckers when they’re told that they are needed. It was he, particularly, that she was waiting for. Not just anybody. If a man senses he is needed, he will be very reluctant to say no. Men usually hate to disappoint.

Solomon continues:

"I have spread my couch with coverings,
With colored linens of Egypt.

I have sprinkled my bed
With myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.

Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning;
Let us delight ourselves with caresses."

As she continues her assault on the male ego by indicating all the trouble she has gone through just for him ("Don’t hurt my feelings now," she says), she creates a sensual picture that is meant to arouse him and draw him in. Be realistic. This sounds inviting, even from the pages of Scripture. This should be a loud tornado siren in your ear to tell you: "There, but for the grace of God, go I!" The adulteress finishes her seduction with the assurance that no one need ever know, in verses 19 and 20. She says:

"For the man is not at home,
He has gone on a long journey;

He has taken a bag of money with him,
At the full moon he will come home."

This rationalization of "no one will know" is true not only of an affair, but also of what we allow into our minds through the privacy of our computer, videos rented when no one else is home, magazines stashed away in a secret place, or visits to parts of town where we certainly don’t expect to find anyone we know. But it’s a lie. These things cannot be hidden for a lifetime. Either you will slip up sooner or later, or you will poison your mind to such an extent that the outward temptation can no longer be resisted. Moses speaks to Israel in Numbers 32:23 warning them that if they do not obey the Lord, "their sin will find them out."

The Young Man Capitulates and Must Face the Consequences

As we have seen, the young man in Proverbs 7 has walked right into temptation’s snare and has been totally mesmerized by the pleas and schemes of the adulteress. I have made many parallels to today as to how prevalent sexual temptation is. Now we will see the young man’s demise and the consequences of his actions. Beginning in verse 21:

With her many persuasions she entices him;
With her flattering lips she seduces him.

Suddenly he follows her,
(probably as if in a trance)
As an ox goes to the slaughter,
(silently and dumbly)
Or as a stag goes into a trap,

Until an arrow pierces through his liver,
As a bird hastens to the snare,
(again blindly and without knowledge)
So he does not know that it will cost him his life.

He capitulates without a word, mesmerized by her seduction. The analogy to the ox, the deer, and the bird point out that each of them walk blindly, silently, and unknowingly to their death. So it is with the young man lacking sense. While he will not die in a physical sense, though he may if he contracts AIDS, he will die in the sense that his life will never be the same. Not only will the shame and guilt be difficult to overcome, but there will be severed relationships that may never be repaired. There may also be consequences that can never be removed and scars that may never be healed, such as a child out of wedlock or a broken marriage in which children are the real victims. But even if the sin is with pornography, remember your sins will find you out. You may keep up appearances for awhile but your ministry, your family, and your relationship with God will slowly rot from the inside out. Solomon closes with some final warnings and observations:

Now therefore, my sons, listen to me,
And pay attention to the words of my mouth.

Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways,
(do not give your mind opportunity with impure material)
Do not stray into her paths.

For many are the victims she has cast down,
And numerous are all her slain.

Her house is the way to Sheol,
Descending to the chambers of death.

Your best defense is to first realize that none are immune. Remember Boromir and Faramir from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Boromir, the stronger, older brother, thought he could resist the power of the One Ring and use it to defeat the enemy. In the end, his lust for power drove him to irrationality and eventually to his death. Faramir, however, assessed his weakness correctly and refused to even look at the Ring when the opportunity arose, knowing its seductive power. He not only lived but was used mightily in the battles that followed. No one was capable of totally resisting the power of the Ring. Those who actually gazed upon the Ring, handled it and even used it, resisted only through an extreme exercise of will often aided by the intervention and counsel of others or circumstances (Frodo, Bilbo, and Samwise). Those who totally yielded to it were destroyed by it (Gollum).

Many have faltered before you and many will come after you. Your first mistake would be to think of yourself as above this kind of sin or immune to it. Don’t kid yourself. It can ruin you physically! It can ruin you emotionally! It can ruin you spiritually!

Purity affirms who we are; we are made in the image of God. Purity affirms our relationship to Jesus Christ as His bride. Purity affirms women as a treasure God created for us as a companion and helpmate and not as an object for us to conquer.

Pray and ask forgiveness for any involvement in pornography, R- rated movies, and lustful thoughts. Commit to predecide what to do about those sudden temptations, commit to purity, commit to wives and husbands (or future wives and husbands) to be faithful in the power of the Holy Spirit. Martin Luther said that you cannot stop birds from flying over your head, but you can certainly stop them from making a nest in your hair. Some temptation is unavoidable, but as far as it depends on you, give it no opportunity to set up residence in your mind.

© 1999 Probe Ministries

About the Author

Raymond G. Bohlin is executive director of Probe Ministries. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois (B.S., zoology), North Texas State University (M.S., population genetics), and the University of Texas at Dallas (M.S., Ph.D., molecular biology). He is the co-author of the book The Natural Limits to Biological Change, served as general editor of Creation, Evolution and Modern Science, and has published numerous journal articles. Dr. Bohlin was named a 1997-98 and 2000 Research Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture

On the occasion of....

I have a ten year old cousin brother named Jacob who owns a pocket sized Bible. The other day I saw his Bible laying on the computer table and just started to flip through the pages. On the first few pages of most Bibles is a gift certificate to fill before you give it as a gift to someone. Apparently Jacob had filled his certificate himself (it was his handwriting) and it went like this: Presented to "Jacob Gill" from "Mum" on the occasion of "the church". At first I thought that the last part was pretty funny. But then a thought suddenly struck me, forcefully. How truthful and honest little children are. My Bible doesn't have a certificate attached to it but many times, the only time I actually bother to read it is on the occasion of
"the church". The rest of the week, it just lies there. No wonder our spiritual lives are so week if not dead. God's word is the bread of life. Jesus told the devil, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matt.4:4). We cannot even bear the idea of living without food for a week, yet we think our spiritual lives can survive on a weekly dose of our spiritual food. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "give us this day our daily bread", not monthly not weekly, daily bread. The Isrealitites were told in the wilderness, to gather the fresh manna or heavenly bread, every day. Adrian Plass, in his humorous yet thoughtful book, Bacon sandwiches and salvation: the A-Z of Christian life, makes a very true to life comment. The book runs like a dictionary from A to Z in which adiran gives his own definitions of a selection of words. Under letter "E" you would read:

Everyday with Jesus: excellent daily Bible notes written by Selwyn Hughes. Future publications for the lazier believers among us might usefully include every other day with Jesus or once a week if I remember with Jesus or random days in no particular pattern with Jesus or even its ages since I last spent time with Jesus.

Is is easier to laugh away his comment but difficult to realize that we need to change our habbits and pay attention to our daily diet of God's Word.

The goodness of God

Two and half years old. Shiny Black eyes. Curly Black hair. Tone of skin: Chocolate. But don't ever call her that. "I am not chocolate, I'm Hossana!" she would say. The taliban killed her father for preaching the gospel, in a drive-by shooting in Peshawar, Pakistan, just two days before she turned two.(I mentioned him in the post: of compassion of suicide bombings). Despite all that has happened to her family, this little girl sings. She sings the little chorus, "God is so good, God is so good, He's so good to me". What has baffled the greatest of philosophers, God has revealed to this little girl: His goodness. For ages the world's greatest minds have debated, how could a good God allow so much pain in the world; since he can't so either He isn't good or he isn't the god we claim he is. But such questions don't perplex little children. They surely don't arise in Hossana's mind. I think its because a child's mind is pure. Unpolluted by the rubbish this world has to offer. Undefiled by man's sin, his passions, his lust, his arrogance. I think Hossana sees what Job, the most righteous man of his time, saw through his unjust suffering: No matter what the circumstances, God is always in control. He knows what He's doing. Our job: Only to trust Him for who He is: Our loving heavenly father, who has the whole world in His hand. And in times of pain, we need to learn from Hossana. We need to be singing, rather than weeping.Singing, "God is good, all the time".

Suicide Bombings and Compassion

Tuesday March 11, 2008:
At 9:30 in the morning, two powerful explosions rocked the city of Lahore, Pakistan. The twin suicide bombings have left 31 people dead and more than a hundred wounded. According to the BBC, more than 600 people have died in Pakistan within one year as a result of suicide bombings. I wrote the following entry in my journal in January which I think is relevant to the situation.

January 18th , 2008
I came to know today that yesterday, Mr. Sajjid Williams a Pakistani Christian working for a relief and development agency in Peshawar has been murdered. Unknown gunmen opened fire as he was leaving his place of work and left him dead on the street. The news has shocked me to say the least. Sajjid was a strong believer and extremely active in ministry in his area. He leaves behind a wife and an 18 month old daughter.
All this happened just moments before a suicide bomber (a teenager) blows himself up, killing twelve people worshiping in a Shiite Mosque in the same city of Peshawar. These are times of great turmoil in our country, enflamed by the war against terrorists in North Waziristan and political unrest in the country. The current rate of suicide bombings in our country is at least one every two weeks.
As I though about this great tragedy in utter grief wondering why God had allowed such a thing to happen, a strange thought struck me: Why had the death of this one believer in Christ (whom I personally knew) filled me with more grief and sorrow than the death of the twelve unbelievers in the mosque, or the 20 policeman killed in similar incident in Lahore a few days ago, or the 130 people killed in Karachi on 27 December (a suicide bomber blows himself up in an pre-election rally) or the dozens of people killed in the violence following the assassination of our former prime minister? I thought to myself: shouldn’t we as Christians be more concerned about the death of thousands of people dying around us every minute, who never knew Christ (and will spend eternity in hell) rather than the death of a believer goes to rest at His father’s House?
I don’t think Jesus wept for Lazarus at that graveyard in Bethany. I think he wept for all the other people in graves there. I think he cried, out of compassion for all those souls lost to sin. And Jesus Wept. As one writer puts it, Jesus wept as he saw what sin had done to man, what sin was doing to man and what sin would do to man, all in an instant.
I ask myself, Do I weep for the lost souls out there? Am I concerned about them or do I pray for them? Or am I just concerned about my brothers and sisters in Christ. Does it strike me that Jesus died for all humanity? That He had every human being, dead or alive, in his mind as he hung on that cross, and was willing to pay for each one of them with His own blood? Does it require a bomb blast to get my attention, to get me on my knees? To be burdened with love and compassion for these people?
I was Just wondering….

The Hound of Heaven

The Hound of Heaven
by Francis Thompson

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat -- and a voice beat
More instant than the Feet --

"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,

By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,

Yet was I sore adread

Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of his approach would clash it to :
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars ;

Fretted to dulcet jars

And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to Dawn : Be sudden -- to Eve : Be soon ;
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over

From this tremendous Lover--

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see !
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue ;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue ;

Or whether, Thunder-driven,

They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet :--
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat--

"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed,

In face of man or maid ;

But still within the little children's eyes

Seems something, something that replies,

They at least are for me, surely for me !
I turned me to them very wistfully ;
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair

With dawning answers there,

Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's -- share
With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship ;

Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,

Wantoning

With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,

Banqueting

With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,

From a chalice

Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."

So it was done :

I in their delicate fellowship was one --
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies ;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings ;

All that's born or dies

Rose and drooped with ; made them shapers

Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine ;

With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,

Heaven and I wept together,

And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine ;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart

I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat ;

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah ! we know not what each other says,

These things and I ; in sound I speak--

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth ;

Let her, if she would owe me,

Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me

The breasts o' her tenderness ;

Never did any milk of hers once bless

My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy ;

And past those noisèd Feet
A Voice comes yet more fleet --

"Lo ! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke !
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten me to my knee ;

I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,

And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,

I shook the pillaring hours

And pulled my life upon me ; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years --
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

Yea, faileth now even dream

The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist ;
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding ; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.

Ah ! is Thy love indeed

A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount ?

Ah ! must --
Designer infinite !--

Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it ?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust ;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever

From the dank thoughts that shiver

Upon the sighful branches of my mind.

Such is ; what is to be ?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds ;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity ;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.

But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound

With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned ;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields

Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
Be dunged with rotten death ?

Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit ;

That Voice is round me like a bursting sea :

"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard ?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me !
"Strange, piteous, futile thing !

Wherefore should any set thee love apart ?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),
"And human love needs human meriting :

How hast thou merited --

Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot ?

Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art !
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

Save Me, save only Me ?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home :

Rise, clasp My hand, and come !"
Halts by me that footfall :
Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ?

"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest !

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest me."

what is dying

I found this poem in a little book, what an insight into what many fail to understand:

What is Dying?

A ship sails and I stand watching till she fades on the horizon and someone

at my side says She is gone

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large now as

when I last saw her. Her diminished size and total loss from my sight is in

me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says she is gone there are

others who are watching her coming over their horizon and other voices take

up a glad shout There she comes!

That is what dying is. An horizon and just the limit of our sight.

Lift us up, Oh Lord, that we may see further

Bishop Brent

The Picture of .........

Oscar Wilde wrote a fascinating novel entitled "The Picture of Dorian Grey". It tells the story of a handsome young man by the name of Dorian Grey. Impressed by his physical beauty and the innocence of his looks, an artists becomes his greatest admirer and paints a magnificent portrait of Dorian, which becomes his greatest masterpiece. As the novel progresses, Dorian is mislead into all the pleasures and lusts of life by a friend of his, Lord Henry. When Dorian first sees his own portrait he makes a wish on it that turn out to be true: Every time Dorian sins, the portrait bears signs of it, while Dorian remains the same with his youthful, handsome and innocent looks. Every sin of his disfigures the portrait more and more. if he has been mean the portrait shows a cruel leer, when he kills a man, the portrait's hands turn red with blood. Every physical effect of his sins the portrait bears until Dorian begins to loath the very sight of his own portrait.
Reading the book reminded me of Jesus on the cross. Oscar Wilde was right in pointing out that sin has its consequences; very real and evident consequences. It bears it's mark on the physical, spiritual, intellectual and social; it disfigures, it destroys.
Now see the striking parallel. Imagine that for every time you sin, Jesus is the one who suffers, his portrait becomes disfigured, his body bears the pain. Except this is no fancy or a wish coming true. It really happened, right at the cross.
There, as he hung nailed onto a tree, Jesus bore every sin mankind ever committed and will commit. There he bore the greatest pain sins causes, it causes death and separation from God. And he did it all just for you, just for me.
Want to see the potrait of Jesus on the cross? Just read the first few verses of Isaiah 53 (from The Message) :

53:1 Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?

53:2 The servant grew up before God - a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look.

53:3 He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum

53:4 But the fact is, it was our pains he carried - our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failure

53:5 But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him - our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.

When sins seems to overwhelm, when temptation seems to overpower us, I think it would do good to go take a good, hard look at the portrait of Jesus in Isaiah 53. Dorian looked at his portrait own portrait, could bear it any longer, tried to destroy the portrait and in turn killed himself. You and I have a similar choice. Remember, the wages of sin is death.