The Seduction of Sin: it's not always ugly but it is always wicked

"But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate!" Revelation 2:6

So I must live, with equal aloofness from every wicked and dubious way--with equal abhorrence of all which my divinely enlightened conscience may not approve. Christ expects me to hate the works of the Nicolaitans!

If I am to escape the seductions of sin--I require such intolerance and hatred.
There is great enticement in sin's gaieties, fascinations, and charms!
It beguiles!
It entraps!
It enthralls!
It is not always ugly--often it has a mesmerizing enchantment. My one safety is have an unflinching opposition to that which is both so fair and so foul at the same time. If I dull the keen edge of my hostility to sin--the plausible and insinuating foe will quickly have me at his mercy!

There is a type of weakness which is all for concession and clemency in the presence of evil. It parleys with sin, and it dallies in its society. It can say a great deal in sin's defense--perhaps it discerns admirable qualities in it.

But the holiness to which I am called, is more manly and soldierly. It will have no friendship with the foul adversary!

If I am to imitate Christ--I require such severities and aversions to sin. He also hates the works of the Nicolaitans. I misread Him if I think of Him as altogether meek and gentle. He sends a sword, He kindles a fire, upon the earth. Before His pure gaze, sin blushes, and droops its proud head, and withers away! He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and He will not rest until He has trodden every iniquity under His feet!

"I hate every false way!" Psalm 119:128

(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)

This is a true heart of love for God and Truth (2 Thes. 2:10). This is what most "Christians" don't comprehend because they are likely not regenerate, and the few that actually are, are so immature that they are fleshly and shameful in their justifying sin or reducing God's holy standard to something less that what it actually is and therefore are more like the Pharisees than a true child of God.

Those who claim His name and yet revile against such a view of sin, error, and heretics, demand the rest of us compromise it all for their sake while maligning His holy name. True Christians are called to forsake all sin and all false teachers, fellowships, etc that set themselves in rebellion against the King of kings.