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Pastor Jay's Blog

Sin Will Find You Out

 

 

Safety is valuable because life is valuable.  We all value our lives and therefore we try to insulate ourselves from danger.  The only problem is that safety is an illusion.  There is no fortress where pain and death cannot crawl through the cracks.  As Proverbs 30:28 says “A lizard you may grasp with the hands, yet it is in King’s palaces.”  Pain and death are like that lizard, it will always find both prince and pauper.  Nevertheless, people go to great lengths to hide.  They will try security systems and technology, bunkers and bullets, political clout and premium insurance.  But here comes that lizard of pain and death slinking into their plans again.  

So where is true safety found?  Bluntly put, it is not found in anything physical.  You are going die. Period.  Perhaps disease will do it. Perhaps an assault.  Maybe it will be an accident.  In some way that lizard is going to get in.  So what do you do?  Take reasonable measures to avoid the obvious stuff.  Buckle your seatbelt, eat your vegetables, and don’t wrestle alligators.  Then get comfortable with uncertainty and danger, because you cannot keep that lizard from coming in. 

Is that it, then?  Is there no safety to be found?  Physically there isn’t, but you are more than just a physical body, aren’t you?  Indeed, not only are you more than just a physical body, you are also spiritual.  And the spiritual part of you is the driving force that will keep you safe in all the ways that matter, and in many ways that have physical-world consequences.  We see this reality in a dire warning of Scripture found in Deuteronomy 32:23 “…be sure that your sin will find you out.”

The tribes of Israel were about to enter the promised land and conquer it according to the Lord’s promise.  Yet the tribes of Gad, Rueben, and the half tribe of Manasseh saw that the land just to the east of the Jordan was just what they needed, and they requested to have that as their lot.  Hearing that they wanted to stay on the east side of the river, Moses about lost it.  Would they sit there and let their brothers fight the Canaanites without them? The three tribes assured Moses that they would cross over and fight first, and then come back to settle their land.  In response to their promise, and to make sure they kept it, Moses issued his warning.

There is something to learn here.  Moses feared that the allure of safety had taken hold of those three tribes.  Why go and fight when they had all they needed just east of the Jordon?  Because God had called the whole nation to conquer the promised land across the Jordan; that is why.  And if they didn’t do that, sin would find them out.  What does that mean?

Surely it doesn’t mean that they would be guilty only when someone realized that they had stayed in their Lazy-boys and not fought.  No.  Guilt coincides with committing sin whether it is known by others or not.  It means that if they thought they would be safer in their sheepfolds than following the Lord into the fray of battle, they would be dead wrong.  You are safer in the middle of battle than in disobedience.  Does that mean a person will not die in the heat of battle when they are in the will of God?  No, it doesn’t.  We must remember we are going to die and experience pain, and even living in the will of God won’t avoid it.  God may send you into a battle where you will die.  Die well, brave soldier!  Saying as brave queen Esther said, “if I perish, I perish.”

The real danger is when we disobey.  Sin will find us and wreak a havoc that will make us wish we could die.  How does this happen?  First, when you disobey, you crack the door for more disobedience.  Sin once, and the second time it becomes a lot easier.  Start a government program and you can never get rid of it.  Every habit has its first act, every avalanche its first snowflake.  Now, admittedly, in the first moments of sinning, it will still seem that safety is in still place.  It is like the enjoyable rush of air of jumping without a parachute.  But the discipline of God will come.   He will orchestrate your life so that your sin will come to the surface.  Sometimes God will bring unexpected discipline, but often it happens as naturally as a chick outgrows its shell.  Cracks will appear slowly in your life and before you know it, the sin has come to light and that light becomes a day of reckoning. 

Think through the mighty who have fallen.  Samson was safer when slaying Philistines with a jawbone than in the arms of Delilah.  David was safer standing before Goliath than he was on the rooftop looking at Bathsheba.  King Hezekiah was safer when threatened by Sannacherib King of Assyria than he was when showing off his treasury to the Babylon officials (Is. 36-39).  Sin is not safe, no matter how far from danger it looks.  If you do not follow God into the risks of obedience, you will be found by sin in your supposed safety.  

Since this is the case, we must drag our sin into the light and put it to death.  Pluck out your eye and cut of your hand as Jesus said in Matthew 5.  Maybe you need someone to help you lift the executioner's axe, and if so, get that help.  Sin will find you, so go on the offensive first.  Kill it before it makes the initial strike.  Kill it or it will kill you. 

 

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