Sin? Think...Then Flee!
Proverbs 4:14-15
Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way.
Micah 2:10 (HCSB)
Get up and leave, for this is not your place of rest, because defilement brings destruction...
Haggai 1:5 & 7
This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways."
(NLT) "Look at what’s happening to you!"
King David's failure with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) was in seeing...feeling...then acting.
Though freed from the eternal penalty of sin, we are not separated from the presence and power (attraction) of sin, but we can THINK before acting on what we feel...and instead choose to flee from sin.
1 Corinthians 10:12-14 (NKJV)
Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is Faithful, Who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Therefore, my beloved, flee!
1 Timothy 6:11
Man of God, flee from all (sin) and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
G. Campbell Morgan “The Fight of Faith”
The grace of God is able to keep a man in any place into which God brings him, however grave and perilous; but the grace of God is not sufficient to keep a man when a man deliberately puts himself into a place of peril outside the pathway of the Divine will for him.
Thomas Brooks Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Keep at the greatest distance from sin, and from playing with the golden bait that Satan holds forth to catch you. The best course to prevent falling into the pit is to keep at the greatest distance; he that will be so bold as to attempt to dance upon the brink of the pit, may find by woeful experience that it is a righteous thing with God that he should fall into the pit.
Scripture commands us to shun the occasion of sin as we would a serpent in the way.
He that would not get burned must dread the fire. To venture upon the occasion of sin, and then to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation’, is like one who thrusts his finger in the fire and then prays that it might not get burnt. There ordinarily is no victory over sin without also avoiding the occasion of sin. God will not remove the temptation unless you turn from the occasion. To rush upon the occasions of sin is both to tempt ourselves and to tempt Satan to tempt our souls. It is seldom that God keeps the soul from the acts of sin, when they do not keep far from the occasions of sin.
Richard Baxter A Christian Directory, “Directions for Hating Sin”
Keep as far as you can from those temptations which feed and strengthen the sins which you would overcome. Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out, by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.
John Owen The Mortification of Sin
He that dares to dally with sin will dare to sin.
William Gurnall The Christian in Complete Armour
Never venture near the door where sin dwells, lest you are dragged in. If you do not wish to be burned, don't walk upon the coals of temptation.
Jeremy Taylor on the progress of sin in a man
First it startles him, then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed, then the man is impenitent, then obstinate, then resolves never to repent, and then he is damned.
John Angell James "The Deceitfulness of Heart"
Vice first is pleasing, then it grows easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed; then the man is impenitent, then he is obstinate, then he resolves never to repent, and then he is damned!
Theodore Cuyler on Genesis 13:12 "Lot...pitched his tent toward Sodom."
And soon Lot moved into Sodom; and before long Sodom moved into Lot.
Beware Of "Little" Sins
Thomas Brooks Crown and Glory of Christianity, "How shall we know whether we have real holiness?"
There is no little sin, because there is no little hell, and no little God to sin against.
Mark Guy Pearse Some Aspects of the Blessed Life, on Psalm 91:3 "He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler."
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ab8TAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA99&lpg
That means the little things, the hidden traps and nets that are set for us. Great sins frighten, but little snares entangle.
And where are they not set? (In) riches and poverty, sickness and strength, prosperity and adversity, friendship and loneliness, the work and the lack of it - each has its snare, wherein not only are the unwary caught, but the wise and the watchful.
Little things, mere threads, hardly worth guarding against - yet they are strong enough to hold us and hinder us, and may be the beginning of our destruction.
J.C. Ryle Old Paths "Repentance"
At first (sins) are all like cobwebs. At last they are iron chains.