Cotton Thread Bondage

2 Tim. 2:22 (NKJV) Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

In his letter to his young friend Timothy, Paul encourages him to flee, run away from, youthful lusts. Youthful lusts, strong desires, are those things that lead to compromise and sin and once we have engaged in them they can become strong(er) the longer we allow them in our lives. They can be easy to run from or break in our lives but the longer we allow sin to exist in our lives the hard they become and the harder they are to break.
If you were to take a cotton thread and tie someone’s hand together with a single strand that person can break it easily. But if it is wound, even a couple of times it can become harder. The more we wind it around their hands the harder it becomes to break, sometimes impossible.
In the biblical story of David and Bathsheba, David allowed himself to fall deeper and deeper into sin. First, David abandoned his purpose by staying home from war (2 Samuel 11:1). Then he became lazy and gave into his own desires. He was getting up in the afternoon which means he was staying up late (2 Samuel 11:3). When he was presented with temptation of looking at a woman while she bathed he did not look away but instead inquired who the woman was (2 Samuel 11:4). though he was told it was the wife of one of his trusted men, Uriah, he called for Bathsheba any way and he sinned deliberately (2 Samuel 11:4). He tried to cover up his sin by deceiving her husband and everyone else. (2 Samuel 11:6-15). and when that did not work he committed murder to continue the cover-up (2 Samuel 11:15, 17). David’s sin was exposed when Nathan the prophet was sent by God (2 Samuel 12:9) and David was punished (2 Samuel 12:10-14).
Using the cotton thread illustration, we see that David just allowed the thread to go round and round his wrists and each sin made it harder to break the cycle and allowed him to be bound more tightly. We think to ourselves that David could have chosen to stop and turn from evil at any stage along the way and technically that is true. But once sin gets started, it is difficult to stop (James 1:14-15). We are often tempted to compromise with the world using the 'just once won't make any difference' argument but we find that the further we go the more bound we get. And the deeper the mess, the less we want to admit having caused it which only leads to another "strand" of sin. The best place to stop sin is before it ever happens. If we recognize that first thread sin we need to break it before another strand is added. The best case scenario is to do what Paul said to Tim….flee from youthful lusts. But we should not just "run away" we should run in pursuit of the right things. Paul says to ...pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace and we don't have to do it alone. We join in that pursuit with those that have a like heart and a like mind ...those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.