In 1939, the story goes that a Coast Guard vessel was cruising the Canadian Arctic when the men spotted a polar bear standing on an ice pad. It was quite a novelty for the seamen who threw the bear some salami, peanut butter, and chocolate bars and then they ran out of food. Unfortunately the polar bear hadn’t run out of an appetite so he proceeded to board the ship. The men on the ship were terrified and opened fire hoses on the bear. The bear loved it and raised his paws in the air to get the water under his arm pits. We don’t know how they did it, but eventually they forced the polar bear to return to his ice pad but not before teaching these seamen a horrible, fine lesson about feeding the bears. How often we make the same mistake with sin that these sailors made with the polar bear. They began feeding it a little at a time without thinking through all of the consequences. Be careful what bears you let on board your life. Some things start out quite harmless and end up biting you in the end. It’s better to not feed the bears at all. It is an old common sense saying, but it still rings true, “Don’t play around with fire or you will end up getting burned.” Or as the writer of Proverbs says, “The person who strays from common sense will end up in the company of the dead.”
– Dr. Tim Thompson