God wants us to destroy sin out of our lives. God is more than willing to give us all the wisdom and strength needed to do a complete work. There is to be nothing left of sin in our personality.

We cannot do this all at once and God did not lead them into the land all at once. But when God does deliver some part of our personality into our hand, then we are to decisively, unrelentingly, mercilessly, harshly, drive this area of darkness from us.

Not only do we stop committing adultery, we do not call up and commiserate with our partner in sin. We renounce and denounce it as the spiritual filth that it is. We renounce and denounce office flirtations, telephone adultery, worldly television programs, every form of pornography, unclean speech and jokes— every aspect of the American sickness, which is pathologic physical lust.

We totally destroy it! God forgives us and then delivers it into our hand. We gain the upper hand over it and then set about to totally destroy it from every part of our personality.

We are not to be merciful or kind to lust or to flirt with it. We may be easily affected by romanticism, or art forms, or fleshly beauty or grace, but the Holy Spirit is not. The Spirit is cold, objective, without human sentiment. The Spirit works in the realm of the spirit, not the realm of the flesh and soul. The Spirit of God is not romantic nor is He affected by physical beauty.

The Spirit is pleased when the Word of God is able to divide between our soul and spirit. Such separation seems to require a certain amount of spiritual maturity.

Make no mistake. God is determined to make an end of sin. If you want to have a joyful entrance into the Kingdom of God, arm yourself with a mind to totally destroy sin whenever the Spirit of God delivers the enemy into your hand. Do not be soft, cute, merciful, or silly toward sin. Summon all the power that God gives you and drive it from your life.

Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. (Deuteronomy 7:3,4—NIV)

The Lord is warning us, from the Old Testament example, not to have anything to do with sin. Sin is contagious. It is like a fire in a wooded area or a structure fire where the firemen, after the fire appears to be out, nevertheless keep watch for several hours to make sure some small area does not smolder and then spring back to life.

So it is with sin. We have to maintain a ceaseless watch. Should we notice the sin coming back we are to bring the full judgment of God against it that it may be irrevocably destroyed—no quarter given! It must be completely destroyed!

To be continued.