What does the expression, “Burn your bridges” mean?

One definition is, “When you burn a bridge you can't cross it again. To burn a bridge means to be completely done with something.”

A preacher said, “You need to burn your bridges.” He was speaking about destroying everything that could bring us back to sin and death.

It is getting rid of everything that has to do with that sin, so it won’t be easy to begin that sin again.

It all needs to be “burned up” so that we are truly done forever with that sin.

It needs to be hated, so that it is completely out of our life and no longer desired.

Leaving just a tiny bit grows and sin takes over once again. ALL must be eliminated to please God.

What does the Bible say about this?

1 Corinthians 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

"Leaven is applied to that substance which is small in quantity, yet thoroughly pervades a thing by its influence." (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon)

Leaven is yeast that multiplies in dough until it has taken over the dough.

We must get rid of the smallest things in our life that can multiply and take over again, taking our soul back to death.

1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

2Corinthians 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. NLT: For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

What is repentance? It is feeling deeply sorry for our sins. It is a change of mind, turning around from the direction we were headed in sin and turning to living for God. It is truly hating sin and wanting to please God with our whole heart.

Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

Psalms 97:10 Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.

To please God, we need to leave sin behind, with no regrets and no ways of returning to it.