Sermon 4.13.25
God is faithful to forgive us of sins when we repent. Jesus paid the death price for all those that accept him. But even with forgiveness, sin still has consequences. Galatians 6:7 (NIV) says, “ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
The Holy Spirit guides and directs us to do what’s right and leads us to repent when we fail. The best time to get out after falling in sin is the same as getting out of quicksand- immediately. Consequences can add up quickly the longer we stay in that a dangerous position where we were never intended to be in the 1st place.
Every person in a human body must overcome lust of the flesh, lust of eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). This includes janitors, CEO’s, farmers and kings, etc. In 2Samuel Chapter 11, the great leader/warrior King David strolled onto the roof of his house one evening and saw a beautiful woman washing herself. His decision to keep looking led to sin and a series of other sins to try and cover up the initial sins. He sent employees/servants to pick the woman up. She wound up getting pregnant and David wound up putting her husband – a committed soldier in his army- in a position so he would be killed; a stark reminder of what people are capable of when they fall out of relationship with God (sin separates from God- Isaiah 59:2).
This was the same David who wrote the Psalms and prayed beautifully to God for deliverance from King Saul and others. But because of lust and putting off repentance he himself became a terrible oppressor and murderer. He did not repent until being confronted by the prophet Nathan who pointed out to him what terrible things he had done. After a lot of stress, suffering and irreversible harm inflicted, David finally got revelation what he should have done earlier.
After God gave him everything – power, fame, riches, wisdom, military success – he still went after something else he had no right to. This put God in a bad light.
A moral of this story is not to let one bad decision turn into many. When we try to fix things on our own, we make them worse. To live victorious, we must rely on the Holy Spirit as our only hope.
Victorious living doesn’t mean we never make mistakes any more than having a clean house means it never gets messy. The key is to address it immediately so it doesn’t compound- the earlier, the better. As a result of David’s “sinning spree” God told him (through the prophet), “Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
“This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight” 2 Samuel 12:10-11NIV.
3 Key Points to remember from 2 Samuel Chapter 11 and 12:
- Be careful what we look at and for how long.
- When we fall in sin, repent as soon as possible. God gave sound mind and ability to make right decisions. A person sinning doesn’t have luxury of that and will inevitably make things worse.
- Don’t do anything shameful that Gods enemies can use against him
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