Late in 1999, a nine-year-old boy was poking around outside his home in Tennessee and found a 37mm artillery shell. During World War II, the Army had used the area as a practice range. After the war, in 1946, the range had been closed and the property returned to private use. Since then, the government had sent five separate teams to clean up the old shells and explosives. But they missed at least one.

The artillery shell didn’t seem to pose any danger. In fact, the boy had it for more than a year and a half, frequently playing with it. But in July 2001, the shell exploded and the boy lost his left hand.

What can we learn from this tragic story – other than, “Don’t play with live ammunition”? Perhaps we can use this incident as an analogy for sin.

Sometimes we get involved in sinful activities, and if we don’t get harmed right away, we begin to believe they aren’t all that dangerous. A lot of clearly sinful things appear exciting, evocative, intriguing, and (let’s admit it) fun! People who party really look like they’re having a good time. Couples who pair up, have sex, and move on to different partners don’t appear to have a lot of ill effects like we’ve been warned about.

Our spiritual enemy is a cunning strategist when it comes to dragging us into sinful entanglements. He tempts us to try something once and perhaps nothing terrible happens. So maybe we try it again with less reluctance, and we even enjoy it. In a short time, that sinful behavior becomes a regular behavior. And with no apparent consequences, we begin to wonder why parents and other authority figures make such a big deal about it.

However, sin always has a timer. You get lulled into a false sense of security and, just as a shrill alarm shatters a peaceful sleep, you’re suddenly faced with a troublesome consequence of your sin that rips your life apart. We all know the potential risks of sex, drinking and drugs, but we are deceived into believing that such horrible results could never happen to us.

EVERY sin has a consequence. We tend to worry about things like arrests, traffic accidents, unwanted pregnancies, STDs, or “getting caught,” yet an even worse consequence in that each sinful thought and action thickens the wall we’ve built between God and ourselves. The eventual consequence of sin always turns out to be worse than any perceived benefit of getting involved.

Sin may appear shiny and alluring, but resist it. Leave it alone. It’s deadly. Like the artillery shell the boy found, sin is designed to destroy. And sooner or later, it will do what it was designed to do. The shell waited almost 60 years before its destructive effects were felt. The consequences of sin won’t take nearly that long.

On your own…

Read Proverbs 23:29-35

When it comes to sin, what the attraction for some people? What are the potential consequences afterward? How would you paraphrase this passage for drug use? Having sex? Shoplifing?