Trouble at Home, Part 1

Today on Insight for living from Chuck Swindoll. Grace means that God can forgive you the strength to endure the consequences. It does not mean the consequences are automatically removed anything concerns me more than using grace as a tool to justify said take away the pain of the consequences if this is a huge relief. God's grace and mercy allows us to put our shame and guilt. There are times when the consequences of sin continue to service as a reminder of our rebellion against God today on Insight from Chuck Swindoll addresses this in our ongoing biography of David before we start the message Chuck reads the passage he titled his message. Trouble is multiple stands for short resulted in extremely painful consequences for the rest of his life and including the lives of his family members. His life experiences should act as bright red lights for every one of us. Paul summarized beautifully writing the Galatians chapter 6 verses seven and eight. I love the way Eugene Peterson translates this. Don't be misled. No one makes a fool of God what a person plants he will harvest the person who plants selfishness ignoring the needs of others ignoring God harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds.

But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's spirit do the growth work in him harvests crop of real life eternal life.

Well, David planted selfishness and harvested crops of weeds for the rest of his life as the old prophet once wrote he sold the wind and reaped the whirlwind and so here is God's message to David through the prophet Nathan is recorded in second Samuel chapter 12 verses 12 to 25 going to read this section from the message. You're the man said. Nathan, and here's what God, the God of Israel has to say to you I made you king over Israel I freed you from the fist of Saul I gave you your masters daughter and otherwise to have and to hold, I gave you both Israel and Judah. And if that hadn't been enough. I have gladly thrown in much more so why have you treated the word of God with brazen contempt doing this great evil.

You murdered Uriah the Hittite then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with an Ammonite sword. And now, because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite's wife as your wife killing and murder will continually plague your family. This is God speaking. Remember, I'll make trouble for you out of your own family all take your wife from right out in front of you.

I'll give them to some neighbor and he will go to bed with them openly. You did your deed in secret.

I'm doing mine with the whole country watching then David confessed and I've sinned against God. Nathan pronounced yes but that's not the last. God forgives your sin, you won't die for, but because of your blasphemous behavior. The son born to you.org/study and now the message from Chuck titled trouble at home this evening. I have a message that is not easy to preach and is not easy to hear. But it is from the Lord and we need to do both. It has to do with the family that is in trouble. There are two kinds of trouble that a family can experience trouble that comes from without and trouble that comes from within, the more difficult of the two is the trouble from within. This is not to say the trouble coming from without is not devastating and difficult for family. Take for example the family. The Weiss family, which many of us watched on the Holocaust moved and troubled with this doctor and his wife and their dear Jewish children, we witness them one by one, being picked off by the by the clammy fingers of death took its tyrannical toll on their lives and brought pain to our hearts as we vicariously entered into the experience of that family that had trouble from without, but the more difficult of the two was trouble from within tension heartbreaking hatred pressure the difficulties that accompany the carnal life when mom and dad walk in the flesh or act foolishly are the children. Respondent rebellion disagreement disharmony when there is friction between husband and wife or between parent and child. That's that's a lot harder to bear, especially when it is the consequence of sin.

Before we look at second Samuel chapter 12 and following.

I want us to look into Galatians chapter 6 you turn there please and let's locate verses seven and eight. I want to give you a principal from these two verses and then I want to lay on you.

The consequences that follow. In light of the principal. These two verses are, no doubt, the most familiar and the book of Galatians, many of you have quoted these words and didn't really know where they were sourced. Galatians 67 begins. Do not be deceived, that you will read that in the New Testament rather often the reason the Lord gives that warning ahead of time is because the thing that follows is so easily an avenue of deception. In other words the devil or the flesh or the world will work have upon our thinking deceiving us into refusing to believe the truth or the principal, God presents and so are ahead of the principal God says don't be deceived about this. Don't let anyone teach you the opposite. Don't let yourself or someone else or some experience lead you to believe that something other than this is the truth. Don't be deceived and what is the warning verse seven God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows this. He will also reap.

For the one who sows to his own flesh show from the Flemish reap corruption, but stop there. Here is the principal we reap what we sow forgiveness notwithstanding, if there is anything we have been duped into believing in our area era of grace. It is the thinking that if we will simply confess our sins and claim God's forgiveness than this business of consequences all take away all we need to do when falling into the trap of sin is to turn the Lord and say Lord I confess to you the wrong I I agree with you that it is wrong and I declare before you and you only the wrongness of my actions now. I claim your forgiveness and I count on you to get me back on the track, as if to think at that point all the consequences are gone. That is not what the verse says the verses written to people like you and me living in the era of grace written to the church. It's not a law verse. It's not to Israel. It's too God's people, children of the King people under grace and the verse says don't be deceived, God is not mocked.

Whatever you sow you reap if you sow to the flesh, you reap corruption forgiveness.

Notwithstanding grace means that God in forgiving you does not kill you. Grace means that God in forgiving you gives you the strength to endure the consequences.

It does not mean the consequences are automatically removed. If I sin, and in the process of sending out break my arm when I find forgiveness from sin.

I still have to deal with a broken arm is an amazing how little except in the physical realm, not a person here would deny that a broken arm is still a broken arm whether I been forgiven or whether I'm still living under the guilt of sin. Certainly we have a broken arm must be set. It must heal the same happens in the emotional life.

When a parent willfully and irresponsibly acts against God's written word. Not only does the parents suffer, but the family suffers as well and that brings internal trouble, which is the subject tonight that let me give you the consequence. See verse eight, the one who sows to his own flesh show from the flesh reap corruption these, the words are used to describe the consequence the pain of the harvest eclipses the pleasure of the planting. Think of your life like the life of a farmer, and as you walk along you are planting daily you are dropping the seeds.

If you choose to drop the seeds of sin and to so that that yes just so the seeds of carnality you will find a measure of pleasure in the sewing of carnality. Anyone who denies that is a fool denies Scripture. Scripture declares that sin has its pleasure it's passing, but it has its pleasure. That's one of the things that draws us into it. It is exciting.

It is adventurous, it brings stimulation. It satisfies the body.

It brings a sense of conquering to us now in the sewing of that seed there is a sense of pleasure, but what we don't like to face, and we will face tonight in this message is that the pain that comes in the harvesting of those seeds eclipses the pleasure I received a phone call. It was long-distance this week from an individual report on her heart to be a she said she was living in the consequence of sin and she wanted me to give an answer that would help her relieve the consequences. I cannot do that at the time she made a decision which was a foolish decision and she she knows now it was a wrong decision at the time she made it there was a measure of real pleasure in the act itself. There was a sense of delight. As a matter fact in this dear woman is now reaping the harvest of that sewing and it's miserable Jesus. What can I do how can I get, and it filled my lot again as it seems rather frequently I come back to these verses to show her in Galatians 678 that the harvest has eclipsed the pleasure of the planting.

That is never more true than in the life of David second Samuel chapter 12 as we turn to this passage I want to give you some things that you will for sure. Forget and I don't want you to forget. I think frankly we have been mis-programmed in our theology in the area of sin.

So many things need to be thought of proof in a fresh manner. I don't think anything concerns me more than using grace as a tool to justify sin or to take away the pain of the consequences by one message that I could declare Christians everywhere. It would have to do with this business of corrective theology as opposed to preventive theology, tell you what I mean every parent as the children grow older goes through the experience of the teaching the kids to drive, it isn't. It is an nerve-racking, unbelievably difficult experience to say the least.

No matter how careful your kids are now a parent has a choice in how to teach the child how to drive it to teach the child in a corrective manner or in a preventive manner. If I chose to teach my oldest son how to drive collectively. I could say to him occurred. I want to show you first of all, before we get in the car the insurance the insurance policy that I have taken out on your life and I want you to see here son that when you have the rack but you sure you don't have it. I want you to notice you call the agent at area 2139 on and on and I given the number and and after the accident son I want you to be sure to call me and then the third thing were going to do this after you have had the wreck or I could say son let's just prevent a lot of problems, but telling you ahead of time. Here is the way to drive and if you drive by these rules and regulations and if you obey these signs and and do what it what they say. It's amazing you, you could very likely go a long period of time without even a slight scrape can't guarantee it. But it would sure be better than the other way you stop and think for a moment, you were taught first John 19 almost before you are out of the crib is a little baby and you didn't learn Roman. Six perhaps still is very very hour. It's doubtful that many Christians in this place could quote one verse from Romans six, but most of us could quote first John 19 why because we have been trained to sin.

Sounds heretical doesn't it. You have been told since the earliest days out of the crib know when you sin. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So when you sin. Claimant claimed God's forgiveness. That's a marvelous verse I call it our bar of soap. The Christian life. It keeps us clean.

It certainly is the answer to the problem of sin once it is happened, but it's not the best answer. The best answer is Romans six. Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness understand, but you yourselves of the God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness under God, meaning what meeting as I view myself to God when Sam approaches can say no and in the power of Jesus Christ I could turn away from it. I don't have to sin utilize sin because I have a deep quiet sincere respectable love for sin is wising in every sin I commit not choose to commit and in every choice I've set up consequences in my life.

Part of the reason we don't get the full truth of Romans six is nobody is talking about the consequences we shortchange the consequences by giving people the idea grace takes it all away.

Grace does not take away the consequences of sin.

Just as it does not take away the arm and the need for the bone to be healed, said to you, David could rise from the grave today, he would say amen to that statement also sin in David's life led to trouble the likes of which few fathers on earth will ever go through and let me show you from this passage beginning at verse seven and following some of the stair steps that went down in David's life, leading him to a life of misery.

As a result of his sin. Now David verse seven, Nathan says you are the man, the prophet has stood before the king and his told him what no one else would tell them during the years time in his life.

You're the one that took Bathsheba. You're the one that had Uriah murdered. You're the one that slipped like a hypocrite. You're the man, David verse 13 David said to Nathan, I have sinned three words he should've said the very moment after he went into Bathsheba, but he didn't and I am convinced the consequences would have been much, much less if he had one on the heels of that act, declare his sin openly confessed before the people as well as before God and laid his life bear, but he didn't. And now, 10, 11, 12 months later, Nathan says you're the man. David pieces I've seen the way women we look at the prediction that Nathan makes verse 10 under the guidance and inspiration of God. Verse 10 the prophet declares the sword shall never depart from your house. You have a pencil circle. The word never. The sword will never depart from your house. I thought he was forgiven. He is verse 13 says the Lord has taken away your sin, you shall not die.

That's forgiveness but says nothing about the consequences. Oh yes it does. It says in verse 10, the sword will not depart from the house. Am I saying that everyone who sins will have the same consequences know you haven't heard me say that God and his sovereign manner fits the consequence for the person and it's his choice. It's his move. His plan why he chooses son to go this way and some that I do not know. All I know is in David's case, he led him down a path of misery so that he would never forget, nor would we, in retrospect, the consequences of that act are the series of acts. The sword will never depart from your house.

Verse 11 thus says the Lord. Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household twice into versus the mention of his own house.

The good news Bible renders this passage with this bad news, I will cause those from your own family to bring trouble on you, the living Bible speaks of David having to live under a constant threat in his family since God said, I will cause your household to rebuild against you I told you it wasn't an easy message to hear because it isn't an easy message to preach.

I have no platform upon which I live.

That keeps me free of the very things I'm declaring I have endured some of the consequences, just as you, and no doubt before God.

I will endure more because I'm imperfect and every time I make a choice to sin.

I can be sure my holy God will not be mocked as I turned to him and lay my life before him as I repent of that as I to change my mind and turn to him for forgiveness. God will keep me from death, God will guide me in his grace but he will not take away the consequences until I've gone through that.

That he chooses for me to go through the sad part about it is so will some of my children so will my wife be affected. In some cases, so will the church that I serve. That's true in your life as well. David is forgiven, but it says the God will cause the household to rebel against.

Now the general prediction we want to remember is this trouble will come upon David's household member. The beginning statement I made. There are two kinds of problems that a family can endure trouble from without and trouble from within and this is a case of the second David endures with his family trouble from within. I don't think there's any way to write in the sacred record awful guilt that this man lived with. As he looked back over the months that were going to travel through the night and trace the steps of the downward trend of misery because he sin during that 12 month period of time. You see what our theology has led us to believe we have set ourselves up with a sin mindset and therefore to live with the guilt and the consequences we have told ourselves that grace means those consequences are going to be removed meeting. It's fine to go on and that same vortex sucked under by the power of the fly rather than what Paul teaches.

You don't have sin sin because you want to. You have the power in the person of the Holy Spirit to say no to it and every turn in your life if you choose to say yes against the prompting of the Holy Spirit. You may be certain you will live in the backwash of the consequences which may be severe maybe slight. Unfortunately so innocent people who are closely related to our study of King David has been focused on his ascent to the throne, but now were looking at his personal flaws and the chaos that is sinful choices caused Chuck titled today's message trouble at home and there's much more to the story that will unfold. So please keep listening and to learn more about this ministry or the resources we have available for this study, we invite you to visit us online@insideworld.org and then if you receive Chuck Swindoll's newsletter. I like to encourage you to sit down and absorb what he's written. Chuck's heart has been heavy for families and turmoil in this letter specifically addresses this stormy season in David's life and the lessons we can learn from it will also remind you the check is written. A full-length biography on David, this book would make a great book to add to your reading list because it chronicles the fascinating story of David from his celebrated victories on the battlefield to the darker moments of his journey, such as the one Chuck described today to purchase a copy of Chuck's biography on David call us if you listing in the United States called 800-772-8888 or visit insight.board/off.

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