Inmate Sylvester Jiles was recently hospitalized for heavy loss of blood that resulted when he fell into the razor wire around the prison in Brevard County, Fla. The odd thing about this story was that Jiles was a former inmate. He wasn’t trying to break out of the prison; he was trying to break in! The man said he wanted back in jail for protection from threats to his life he had received since he had been released. I guess he found out prison isn’t safe after all. Unfortunately, many people are as foolish as this inmate in term of their spiritual condition. We read about them in 2 Peter 2:20-22, which says, “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.” This is why we must stay diligent to “continue to walk in truth”. A return to worldliness is the worst thing we can do.
In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back. I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...
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