WEDNESDAY'S WORD - MIXTURE - 08/02/17 Sadell Bradley - New Life Covenant Cincinnati

"There is a strange kind of human being in whom there is an eternal struggle between body and soul, animal and god, for dominance. In all great men this mixture is striking, and in none more so than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart." - Albert Einstein       Wow! a struggle for dominance...To MIX means to combine together to form one substance; a group of people of different types within a particular society or community; or positive and negative elements or views. In music, a mix is the production of a continuous piece of music by combining portions of a number of separate recordings.  When Run DMC and Aerosmith mixed "Walk This Way," it was a fusion of rap and rock that created a sound that had never existed before, but was neither type of music. Couples who hail from different ethnic backgrounds birth children who are sometimes called "mixed." Their genetic makeup is no longer of either group, and identity can be a struggle. MIXTURE is the substance made after the other distinct substances are combined. We were taught when you mix yellow and blue together, they make green. In the process they automatically lose the distinctiveness of their original color. In 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 Paul addressed the issue of sexual immorality, in particular incest. A man was sleeping with his father's wife. Paul said the Corinthian church should have thrown him out of their fellowship, and "handed him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord." (vs. 5) Yep, that's in the Bible. Not only were they allowing this mixture of sin and holiness in their fellowship in people who claimed to be Belie vers, they were boasting about it! He said, this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole patch of dough. Get rid of the old "yeast" by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. (vs. 6-7, NLT)  What happens when the MIXTURE is not around you, but IN you? God told the church at Laodicea, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16) Luke warm is a MIXTURE of hot and cold water: metaphorically a MIXTURE of holiness and carnality. Jesus expressed a similar sentiment to His disciples about light and darkness in Luke 11:34 -36, "The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. "Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. "If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays." It is clear that when it comes to consecration, God does NOT want mixture. Even in our close continual relationships, Paul warns us, "Don't be misled, evil companions corrupt good morals/character." (1 Cor. 15:33) You can't unscramble eggs. You can't un-see what you saw. You can't un-hear what you heard, or un-do what you did. You can't un-go where you went, and you can't take words back once they escape. You can't be all the way for Christ and in league with the devil. Unfortunately, MIXTURE has been normalized. We are conforming to the world, not being transformed. When we engage the lost in the world, it's supposed to be to win them to Christ with the Gospel. There is to be a marked difference between our lifestyles and theirs. Paul said there's no fellowship between light and darkness, between righteousness and unrighteousness or between (YOU) the temple of God and idols (2 Cor. 6:14-18)  Once yellow and blue mix... it's green. You can't pull yellow out again.

SUNDAY Worship

11:00 AM Worship
The Great Room Sunday Class
9:30 AM Youth Room Basement
at Wyoming Presbyterian
225 Wyoming Ave., 45215
For information 513-212-1131