08/27/23 BEAUTIFUL BUT DEADLY

08/27/23 BEAUTIFUL BUT DEADLY

(I asked earlier) If you know, please tell me what kind of flowering bush is this?

It looks like it might be SWEET AUTUMN CLEMATIS.

It is beautiful, but as we know, beauty can be deceiving and dangerous.

Sweet Autumn is an invasive plant that can also be POISONOUS (to the touch and if ingested). 

There are other plants that are beautiful, which are dangerous. It makes me think of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.

The warning in Eden was ignored and death entered the world. God has warned us about things that are appealing, but are forbidden. Yet people are still drawn to destruction.

As it was with Adam and Eve, the full danger of taking the forbidden fruit is not realized instantaneously. The immediate cost may not even be evident to the one sinner, but the poison has already taken a toll. Yet the cost gets greater and greater, until there is no possible rescue.

As a sinner, you have sinned (which is what makes us sinners).
*Your sin has separated you and God.
*You are under God's judgment.
*Christ died to save you from your sins and your separation.
*Christ died and rose from the dead to save you from your sins.
*Confess your sins.
*Believe on Christ as your Savior.
*Repent (turn from your sins).
*Deny yourself and follow Christ every day.

If you are a believer.
*Don't sin (remember, Christ saves us from our sins, not in our sins).
*If you have sinned, stop immediately, turn from sin, confess your sin, believe God for forgiveness and deliverance from your sin.
*If you have continued in your rebellion for some time, you must repent now, while you have the opportunity; before you will be finally destroyed, cut off, ruined, and that without remedy.

1 John 2:1-6
1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.