If I am particularly stubborn about a weakness or sin of mine, God may force me to take “the cure.” The cure is described in Jeremiah 27:17: “Serve the king of Babylon, and live!” Strange message indeed from a true servant of God, as Jeremiah was. We would expect to hear, “Serve the Lord and live!” But no, the right thing was wrong; the wrong thing was right.
There are times when God allows, and even commands, me to do what He has expressly forbidden. “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still” (Revelation 22:11, NSRB). “Come to Bethel [the house of God], and transgress” (Amos 4:4, KJV, italics added). I am horrorstruck! Is that because God is unholy? Not in the least. He urges that direction because He is holy; He simply wants me to get my fill of sin so completely that the very thought of it nauseates me. None of the prophets was able to convince Israel to leave their sins; yet seventy years in Babylon did what no prophet could do. He sent them captive into the very fountainhead of idolatry, and they came out a cleansed and purified nation after seven decades.
Must God go to such extremes with me? Must I be submerged in sin in order to see its odiousness? Lord, my prayer is, make me so sensitive to sin that its slightest presence will send me to Calvary’s fountain for protection! The distinguishing feature of any true disciple of Christ is paper-thin sensitivity to sin. I notice that in reading the biographies of the saints—the slightest sin made them mourn, weep, and agonize. Lord, make me averse to sin like that, for when I am averse to sin it means the Holy Spirit is deliberately refining me in the divine image; the new heart and the right spirit are displacing the old and the wrong (Psalm 51:10).
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
Daily with the King 