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A Little Sin

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 27, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 17.

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A Little Sin

By G. B. Thompson

G. B. THOMPSON
“Be sure your sin will find you out.” Num. 32:23. Sin can not be hidden. We may cover it for a time; but sometime, perchance when we least expect, it will rise up to taunt us. We may entomb it in the heart, where no mortal eye can see it; but the eye of the omniscient God beholds it, and at the Judgment, if not sooner, it will be there to condemn us.
To us the sin may seem small, hardly worth mentioning; but the important question is not how it looks to us, but how God regards it. There is grave danger in the little sins which lurk around seeking a place in the heart. It is the “little foxes that spoil the vines.” Be the worm ever so small that gnaws at the roots of a plant, the effect will be seen in the barrenness of the harvest. It is even so in Christian experience.
A little sin may unconsciously change the whole course of life, and land us at last on some hidden rock or shoal. Many wrecks lie bleaching on the barren sands of time from this cause. We see men forsake the gospel, give up God’s truth, and seek to tear down the faith they once labored to build up. We wonder why men with such keen minds do these things. Some hidden thing in the heart, some sin unsurrendered to God, tells the story. It blinded their eyes, deflected their spiritual compass, and wrecked them spiritually.
“A ship was once wrecked on the Irish coast. The weather had not been so severe as to account for the divergence of the ship from its course. The master was competent. No proper explanation could be given of the disaster.
“A diver was sent down to bring up the compass, to see if any reason could be found in it, and on examination a bit of steel was detected, which looked like the point of a pocket-knife blade.
“It was learned that the day before the wreck, a sailor had been set to clean the compass, and had used his pocket-knife in doing so. Unknowingly, he had broken off the point, and left it in the box. That bit of steel had deflected the needle, and so made the compass unreliable. That little bit of steel wrecked the vessel.”
This incident contains a lesson for us. Our prayer should ever be: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.” Ps. 139:23, 24.
Takoma Park, D. C.