The Worst Kind of Cancer
There is an insidious disease that has swept across the globe and has plagued mankind for millennia. Everyone is susceptible to this disease; it does not discriminate. Like a cancer, it starts out small at first, but, if left unchecked, it will grow, spread, and ultimately lead to death. However, unlike cancer, there is a cure, and as long as the cure is applied before death, the disease can be beaten.

The disease of which I am speaking is sin.

Friends, sin is a spiritual cancer and all accountable individuals are susceptible to it. This spiritual cancer can and will kill us spiritually if we do nothing to combat it. How does this cancer kill? Simply put, it kills us by cutting us off from God. Consider the words of the prophet Isaiah: "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear" (Isa. 59:1,2).

Take another look at verse two. What is it that separates man from God? According to the inspired prophet, it is our iniquities--our sins--that separate us from the Heavenly Father. Just as physical cancer ravages the body and cuts off our life on this earth, spiritual cancer (i.e., sin) ravages our soul and cuts off our eternal life with God.

The inspired writer James provides us with an invaluable glimpse of this spiritual cancer's progression: "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (James 1:14,15).

Sin usually starts small, with temptation playing upon our individual desires. If our immune system--our discipline and self-control--is not strong, our desires get the best of us, we yield to temptation, and we commit sin. Sin that goes unchecked and is allowed to persist will lead to spiritual death. James is not the only writer to tell us what the ultimate result of sin is. In Romans 6:23, Paul writes, "For the wages of sin is death".

But do not despair friends because there is a remedy for this spiritual cancer, and, if we apply it while the breath of life is in us, it will remove this spiritual cancer from us. That remedy is the blood of Christ (Eph. 1:7).

The alien sinner accesses the blood Christ by being baptized into the death of Christ (Rom. 6:3-7), and the Christian that sins is washed by the redemptive blood of Christ through penitent prayer and confession to God (Acts 8:22; I John 1:9). There is no other cure for sin--the worst of all cancers.

Dear listeners, how is your spiritual health? If you are unsure, perhaps it is time to schedule a checkup with God's word and the Great Physician.