Show Notes
2 Samuel 13
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Lord, we ask that you would work repentance in our hearts, grounded in faith and your promises.
[00:00:07] Our sins are many, and the more that we ponder them and ponder your law, the more that we see them.
[00:00:15] We do not regret this. And indeed we ask, Lord, that you would make our sin more clear to us, that we might know it's dangered, that we might know its odiousness, that we might flee from it and flee unto Christ.
[00:00:33] We ask, Lord, that you would make not only our sin known to us, but that you would make the grace and the love and the mercy of Christ known to us, so that we might know to whom we might flee, so that we might know where we can find mercy and forgiveness and healing and restoration and even obedience.
[00:00:55] That we might not only be declared righteous through the righteous work of Jesus Christ, but so that we might live in holiness according to your word, that you might give to us the power of obedience through him who works and wills in us.
[00:01:13] Lord, we pray these things, asking that you would bless the reading and preaching of your word. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:23] You may be seated.
[00:01:39] Well, this morning I'm going to be reading and preaching from 2 Samuel, chapter 13.
[00:01:45] You can turn there if you wish, or you can listen carefully either way.
[00:01:52] Second Samuel 13, we have the record of some terrible things, gruesome things. It recounts a rape, murder, the breaking apart of the first generation after David.
[00:02:09] Kind of like Cain and Abel, you know. You know, God makes this great promise to Adam and Eve, and then we see their children falling apart, some taking hold of the promise, others not. All kinds of internal problems within the family.
[00:02:30] We begin to see.
[00:02:33] We begin to see right away how gracious and powerful God must be in order to deliver on his promise.
[00:02:42] Gracious and powerful he must be in light of the depravity that is in our hearts, the brokenness, the hurtfulness, the things that we do to one another.
[00:02:55] But our desire to see the graciousness and the powerful, effective graciousness of God is not one that will go unanswered, because he is God and he is gracious and he is powerful to save even the most wretched of hearts in the worst of circumstances.
[00:03:18] In 2nd Samuel 13 we have this account of Amnon, David's son, giving himself over to lust, giving up and indulging what he wants, getting what he wants, and it results in the violation of his half sister, Tamar.
[00:03:34] An evil, she protests. An evil that's forbidden by God.
[00:03:39] Amnon doesn't listen, and the results are a tsunami of effects not a ripple effect, but waves of destruction and terror for a long time, beginning in some ways from the previous chapters, in which David has in some way set the stage.
[00:04:01] Amnon follows in his father's footsteps in a way, although of course this is not something David would wish, and it is a sad thing.
[00:04:11] So let's hear 2 Samuel 13. And as we read, listen for the references to God.
[00:04:20] You'll find none nonexplicit.
[00:04:26] 2nd Samuel 13 Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar, and after a time Amnon, David's son, loved her, and Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister, because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her.
[00:04:51] But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother. And Jonadab was a very crafty man.
[00:05:00] And he said, o son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning, will you not tell me?
[00:05:07] Amnon said to him, I love Tamar. My brother Absalom's sister Jonadab said to him, lie down in your bed and pretend to be ill, and when your father comes to you, say to him, let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight, that I may see it and eat from her hand.
[00:05:28] So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. And when the king came to him, Amnon said to the king, please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.
[00:05:40] Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, go to your brother Amnon's house and prepare food for him.
[00:05:46] So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, where he was lying down, and she took dough and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes, and she took the pan and emptied it out before him. But he refused to eat. And Amnon said, send out everyone from me. So everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, bring the food into the chamber, that I may eat from your hand.
[00:06:12] And Tamar took the cakes she had made and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near to him, he took hold of her and said to her, come lie with me, my sister. She answered him, no, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this outrageous thing.
[00:06:32] As for me, where could I carry my shame. As for you, you would be as one of the outrageous fools in Israel.
[00:06:39] Now, therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you. But he would not listen to her. And being stronger than her, he violated her and lay with her.
[00:06:50] Then Amnon hated her, and with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, get up, go.
[00:07:03] But she said to him, no, my brother, for this is wrong and sending me away is greater than the other you did to me. But he would not listen to her. He called the young man who served him and said, put this woman out of my presence and bolt the door after her.
[00:07:18] Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves for thus were the virgin daughters of the king dressed. So a servant put her out and bolted the door after her. And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long robe that she wore. And she laid her hand on her head and went away, crying aloud as she wept.
[00:07:38] And her brother Absalom said to her, has Amnon your brother been with you now? Hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Do not take this to heart.
[00:07:48] So Tamar lived, a desolate woman and her brother in her brother Absalom's house.
[00:07:54] When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry. But Absalom spoke to Amnon, neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon because he had violated his sister Tamar.
[00:08:08] After two full years, Absalom had sheep shearers at BAAL Hazor, which is near Ephraim. And Absalom invited all the king's sons.
[00:08:18] And Absalom came to the king and said, behold, your servant has sheep shearers. Please let the king and his servants go with your servant.
[00:08:26] The king said to Absalom, no, my son, let us not all go, lest we be burdensome to you.
[00:08:32] He pressed him, but he would not go out. But he would not go, but gave him his blessing.
[00:08:38] Then Absalom said, if not, please let my brother Amnon go with us. And the king said to him, why should he go with you? But Absalom pressed him until he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him.
[00:08:51] Then Absalom commanded his servants, mark, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine. And when I say to you, strike Amnon, then kill him.
[00:09:01] Do not fear. Have I not commanded you, Be courageous and valiant.
[00:09:06] So the servants of Absalom did to Amnon, as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons arose, and each mounted his mule and fled.
[00:09:15] While they were on the way, news came to David.
[00:09:19] Absalom has struck down all the king's sons and not one of them is left.
[00:09:24] Then the king arose and tore his garments and lay on the earth, and all his servants who were standing by tore their garments. But Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother, said, let not my lord suppose that they have killed all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead. For by the command of Absalom, this has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar.
[00:09:48] Now therefore, let not my lord the king so take it to heart, and suppose that all the king's sons are dead, for Amnon alone is dead.
[00:09:56] But Absalom fled, and the young man who kept the watch lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, many people were coming from the road behind him by the side of the mountain. And Jonadab said to the king, behold, the king's sons have come, as your servant said, so it has come about.
[00:10:13] And as soon as he had finished speaking, behold, the king's sons came and lifted up their voice and wept. And the king also and all his servants wept very bitterly.
[00:10:22] But Absalom fled and went to Talmai, the son of Ahimud, or Ammihud, king of Geshur. And David mourned for his son day after day.
[00:10:33] So Absalom fled and went to Geshur and was there three years. And the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom because he was comforted about Amnon since he was dead.
[00:10:46] May God bless his word to us.
[00:10:53] There's a lot to think about.
[00:10:55] I feel like I say that at the beginning of every sermon. I'm just realizing now, but there is.
[00:11:01] There's a lot to think about, a lot to meditate on, and it's hard to get to everything.
[00:11:08] The thing I want to focus on today is how in our sin, in our covetousness and our lust, we make this mistake of thinking that if we go and indulge the thing that we really want, we'll feel better.
[00:11:29] When in fact what we need to do is go to the Lord.
[00:11:33] And that's how we feel better.
[00:11:39] So let's begin by reviewing the story.
[00:11:44] Amnon is the eldest son of David's first wife, the one most likely to be king.
[00:11:52] He would follow in his father's footsteps, but, as I said before, not the ones that followed the ways of the Lord, but the ones that wandered.
[00:12:03] There's ways in which Absalom does the same thing in his fleeing. For example, we see ways in which the children are following after their father, like I mentioned before, like Adam's sons and daughters follow after him and his sin.
[00:12:17] We see very clearly that if God's promise to David is going to be kept, God's going to need to be the one that keeps this promise.
[00:12:26] And of course he will. And he does.
[00:12:30] The central problem, and there are many problems that we see many different sins in 2 Samuel 13.
[00:12:38] The central one, the one that the narrator focuses on, is Amnon and his lust after Tamar.
[00:12:49] Now it says he loved her, but of course this is not true love.
[00:12:55] This is not holy love. This is not Godly love.
[00:13:00] This is the love of wanting something, desiring something.
[00:13:07] That's the kind of love that he has for her. There's another word. This will serve as something of a sidebar. There's another word that also isn't quite what it sounds at first. That's the word friend.
[00:13:21] His friend Jonadab isn't really his friend, is he?
[00:13:27] Right. He comes to Amnon and he asks this nice thing. Why do you feel so bad?
[00:13:34] Amnon tells him. And then instead of saying, dude, what are you thinking?
[00:13:39] You're crazy and you need to stop this right away, he says, you know, I think I know of a way you can get what you want. Which involves of course, violating his sister, lying to the king, breaking God's law.
[00:13:59] Jonadab, a very crafty man. We see him also being crafty later in the story when he comes to David.
[00:14:08] He comes to David as this sort of comforter, right? Remember, he is kind of the plot. He is the plot maker. He is protecting Amnon. And now he comes to the king and he says he's the one that corrects. However this rumor got started that all of the kings sons were dead. He says, no, no, no, not all of them. Just Amnon.
[00:14:32] Just Amnon. Just Amnon. Don't worry. And then when all the king's sons show up, he says, see, just like I told you, he's trying to prove himself as a good counselor, as a reliable person, as one to be trusted. But of course he's not.
[00:14:50] This is a theme that comes up throughout 2nd Samuel and in our lives, right? On who do we trust?
[00:14:56] Do we trust our hearts? Do we trust our friends who would enable our hearts and tell us that we can just have what we want?
[00:15:05] Or do we trust the Lord?
[00:15:09] Well, Amnon wants Tamar, but this is sinful. Leviticus 18:9 says, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter, or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter brought up in your father's family, since she is your sister.
[00:15:45] This command takes away every possible excuse Amnon might make to himself on why this is probably okay.
[00:15:55] She lives in a different part. She's my half sister, et cetera, et cetera. None is allowable.
[00:16:03] None is allowable.
[00:16:05] And that's just one of the commands that he breaks, of course, in violating her, in raping her, and many other things.
[00:16:15] Well, what happens? We see a path of sin.
[00:16:20] We see he has this desire, and it's a desire so strong, it is tormenting him and making himself. He's making himself ill.
[00:16:34] I think it's perfectly fine to take this in both a spiritual but also a physical sense.
[00:16:41] Jonadab, when he comes to him, he's asking about how he's doing. You wake up every morning and you don't look well, right?
[00:16:49] What's going on?
[00:16:52] So take a moment and ask yourself, is this possible?
[00:16:55] Is it possible to desire something and want something so badly that you feel physically different?
[00:17:05] Yeah, of course. Happens all the time, right? Not in maybe small level of ways. You know, we see a certain cereal at the grocery store seems good. We're not, like, immediately sick. But imagine and remember those times when you have wanted something really bad, especially something sinful. And you've wanted it, and you've wanted. And you keep thinking about it, and you're kind of resisting, but you're kind of not. And you're thinking, and it's just. You can't have it. And you're. And it's really, really hard.
[00:17:36] You might feel frustrated, you might feel sad, you might feel broken. A lot can happen in a person's body and a person's soul when covetousness takes over.
[00:17:49] This covetousness is in the form of lust.
[00:17:54] He is.
[00:17:55] He has this desire, this hunger for her because she is beautiful.
[00:18:02] And instead of putting that hunger to death or in finding the satisfaction in the Lord, he won't stop.
[00:18:10] And so what he starts to do over a period of actions is he starts removing the obstacles to sin. And this is often what we do.
[00:18:22] Starts Small, but it gains momentum. Amnon goes pretty fast here. He removes physical obstacles, he removes moral obstacles, he removes social obstacles. As he lies to the king, as he brings her into the room, as he tells other people to leave, as he uses the physical strength that God gave him as a gift to overpower her and harm her, he creates the conditions in which the sin can happen, in which he can abuse his strength, his authority, his relationships. To do one, he should love great harm.
[00:19:06] This is the opposite, by the way, of what we sang about when we sang Blessed be the tie that binds all the warmth of that song, the joy of being together, of being connected, of being intimate with one another in the body of Christ.
[00:19:25] Not in sexual ways, but in ways that. Where love is poured out, in which we are known and vulnerable and close and safe and protected.
[00:19:34] All of those feelings and all of those ideas that are expressed there should be present in the kingdom of God, present in the people of Israel, present in the house of David. And exactly the opposite of all of that is happening. Murder and strife and covetousness and harm, breaking apart bonds and guilt and shame, all because of sin.
[00:20:00] All of the disruption that happens, all of the lies and the misinformation and the murder and all. All of these things, all of the shame. It happens because Amnon just wants what he wants.
[00:20:18] Happens also because David gets mad, but takes no action, doesn't do anything.
[00:20:26] He's the king, he's the father, he's the judge. It's his job to be a protector, and it's his job to uphold righteousness.
[00:20:36] I wonder. This is speculation, but I wonder if he's doing sort of something similar to the way Abraham took the promises of God and then tried in various human ways to make them happen.
[00:20:50] Is David doing the same thing here?
[00:20:52] Well, God had promised me a son and that he would reign on the throne and all these sort of things. I. I don't want to cast off Amnon.
[00:21:02] I don't want to send him out when he is my firstborn son, the son of my first wife.
[00:21:08] Anyway, all of the negligence and all of these things creates this powder keg that is waiting to go off. And it does two years later, in verse 23. After two years, Absalom creates this plot, basically, where he lures the king, Amnon, along with the king's sons, away, gets him drunk, has the servants. His servants kill him.
[00:21:35] In a lot of ways, this is kind of like what David did with Uriah.
[00:21:40] Kind of created a situation and then took care of him to use A euphemism, we think when we're sick and our hearts and our bodies are craving this thing that we feel like we have to have and we really need, even though we know it's going to hurt other people, even though we know God said not to, we think indulgence is the way to deal with the pain.
[00:22:08] If I just.
[00:22:10] I just have what I want, this pain in my soul, this pain in my body, it'll go away.
[00:22:17] But it doesn't work.
[00:22:19] It's a lie.
[00:22:21] This is what we must, must understand. And we see it here in the example of Amnon. Remember it from the example of Amnon.
[00:22:31] What happens after he gets what he wants?
[00:22:34] Is he full with joy and satisfaction and peace? Is he finally happy and blessed? Does he have the peace in his soul that he wants?
[00:22:44] No.
[00:22:45] He immediately is filled with hatred for the one that he supposedly loved and that he certainly wanted.
[00:23:03] From one moment, he goes from desperately trying to get her and then obtaining her by force to the next moment sending her out of the room and telling them to lock the door after her.
[00:23:20] He's tormented before his sin. After his sin, he seems tormented in a different way, with a different set of circumstances, and now he's got all kinds of things to worry about. This is the lie of sin, brothers and sisters. Our sin.
[00:23:38] Or the flesh will tell us. Just indulge. Just take what you want. You. You'll feel better.
[00:23:45] But you won't.
[00:23:47] You won't.
[00:23:49] It might last for a little bit of time. You might last for a little bit of time. There might be a little tiny, itty bitty shred of what you might call relief, but eventually it will end all in ruin. Because sin leads to death.
[00:24:05] Sin leads to misery and destruction.
[00:24:08] As James 1 tells us, Desire conceives, it gives forth birth to sin, and sin brings forth death.
[00:24:16] Habakkuk2.5 says, his greed is as wide as Sheol. Like death, he never has enough.
[00:24:26] That's what covetousness is.
[00:24:28] It's what lust is.
[00:24:31] It never, ever gives enough.
[00:24:40] A bottomless pit.
[00:24:42] Think of Haman in the story of Esther, how he desperately wanted, in this case, power. He desperately wanted to be thought of. Well, he desperately wanted wealth. And Mordecai was getting in his way.
[00:24:56] And it ruined him because he couldn't let it go. Because he was so attached to this. He kept going after Mordecai. Going after. It drove him mad and it eventually killed him.
[00:25:10] He kept trying to do things to get what he wanted, but it wouldn't work. He wanted Relief from the way he felt, maybe the embarrassment, maybe the lack of power, I don't know.
[00:25:23] But the way that he was feeling was not the problem, wasn't that he didn't have what he had, was missing. The problem was his wanting.
[00:25:34] The problem was the sin, not the lack of the thing.
[00:25:40] What I'm trying to say is covetousness is not just improper.
[00:25:44] It's not just a sin against politeness where it looks kind of grimy or something that's not as deep as it goes.
[00:25:54] Covetousness will drive you crazy, you say, well, not mine. It's so little right now.
[00:26:03] Yeah.
[00:26:04] Wait and see.
[00:26:06] Let it go.
[00:26:07] Just ignore it. Don't be watchful.
[00:26:10] See what happens.
[00:26:12] It will destroy you.
[00:26:16] The sickness in his soul, the sickness in his body, it needed healing. And the healing does not come by way of indulgence.
[00:26:27] It comes from the Lord.
[00:26:30] Medicine is not the medicine he needed was the healing and graciousness of God.
[00:26:37] Listen to these two verses. Jeremiah 3:22 Return, O faithless sons.
[00:26:43] I will heal your faithlessness.
[00:26:46] Behold, we come to you, for you are the Lord our God.
[00:26:51] Or Hosea 6:1 a call says, Come, let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us that he may heal us. He has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
[00:27:04] That's what Psalm 32 that we sang earlier, right? When sin is unconfessed, it weighs heavy on us.
[00:27:13] But when we come to the Lord, we find healing, we find life, we find forgiveness.
[00:27:22] Let me mention three things in closing to confirm the strength of the Lord in the midst of these things.
[00:27:33] Sin number one. Sin brings guilt and shame.
[00:27:40] You indulge your sin, you will get more sin, you will get more guilt, you will get more shame.
[00:27:48] What do you get, though, when you go to Jesus in repentance?
[00:27:54] Well, instead of sin and guilt, or instead of guilt and shame, you get righteousness and justification.
[00:28:05] The law condemns us.
[00:28:10] And just trying harder or enacting more guardrails against your sin is ultimately not going to be enough because the law will just expose more of your faults and it doesn't change your hearts.
[00:28:26] The solution to the feelings of guilt and shame, the solution to the temptation against sin is Christ.
[00:28:35] Because Romans 8 tells us, as we read earlier, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
[00:28:42] That means in Jesus we're forgiven.
[00:28:45] We're not made guilty as we do. When we indulge our sin. In Jesus, we're forgiven of our sin.
[00:28:53] Well, that feels good to me.
[00:28:57] Romans 8 goes on, for God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.
[00:29:15] The law comes and speaks to us and it says, you're lusting, you're coveting, you're violating your authority, all these other things.
[00:29:24] And it makes us rightly feel guilty and it rightly makes us feel ashamed.
[00:29:32] We can try harder and maybe sin a little bit less, and that would be good. But it doesn't solve the problem, the inside problem. It doesn't solve the hunger and the frustration and the temptations that feel so overwhelming. We need the gospel to come in. We need the promise of God to come into our lives and tell us that you're forgiven and that I. That God says, I will provide your righteousness, I will give you pardon, I will give you everything you need.
[00:30:07] So this is one reason why we flee not to indulgence of our sin, but to Christ, because he promises forgiveness, he promises us righteousness.
[00:30:16] The second is that when sin brings where sin brings defeat, shame, anxiety, weakness, frustration, etc. Etc. Etc. That's what sin brings us. That's what indulging the flesh brings us.
[00:30:32] Christ brings us healing.
[00:30:35] And we read those verses in Jeremiah 3:22, I will heal your faithlessness.
[00:30:43] It's not just the forgiveness of our sins that we need, but we need healing, right? It hurts inside.
[00:30:50] The covetousness hurts. The sin hurts.
[00:30:55] The relationships we've broken need restoration. We need healing.
[00:31:02] Sin's not going to heal you.
[00:31:05] Indulging the flesh is not going to heal you.
[00:31:08] Jesus will heal you.
[00:31:12] The law exposes our alienation and our weakness. But the Gospel, the promise of God, declares to us union with Christ, victory with Christ, healing in Christ you can.
[00:31:26] If you're in the ocean and you look at all that water and you say, oh, that's. I'll drink that. That'll help me.
[00:31:34] It's not going to help you. You need to be saved and be given a different kind of water.
[00:31:42] The last thing where sin brings hardness to the heart, right? Further pressing us into disobedience, further pressing us into more and more difficulties, more and more misery, greater and greater temptations.
[00:31:58] Jesus gives us a new heart.
[00:32:02] The law can't give you a new heart, and sin can't give you a new heart.
[00:32:10] Amnon's sin brought him more frustration, more difficulties, and eventually his death.
[00:32:20] His hardness increased.
[00:32:24] David's passivity hardens into more and More dysfunction.
[00:32:29] Absalom. He nurses bitterness for two years.
[00:32:35] I hope you can't imagine, but maybe some of you can imagine holding on to. To bitterness for a long time. And you know the way that it eats away at the heart, the way it controls you, destroys you.
[00:32:50] Sin has a way of getting in and poisoning and affecting everything.
[00:32:57] So the answer to sin is not more sin.
[00:33:01] The answer is the answer to our temptations, the answer to our trials, and is Christ, who says through his apostle in Romans 6:14.
[00:33:13] In him, sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace.
[00:33:22] Listen to the promise of God in Ezekiel 36, 25, 26 Again, God the Lord of heaven and earth, speaking. And he says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your unclean. I can never say this word, uncleannesses. We'll go with that.
[00:33:47] You shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols. I will cleanse you.
[00:33:57] Indulgence is not going to cleanse us from our idols.
[00:34:01] Indulgence of our sin is not going to cleanse us.
[00:34:05] Indulgence of our sin makes us more unclean. But God can clean us.
[00:34:11] Moreover, he says this.
[00:34:14] I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put in within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
[00:34:40] That's what I want.
[00:34:43] I hope that's what you want.
[00:34:46] And we have it because of what Jesus did for us.
[00:34:50] He who knew no sin, taking on our sin and overcoming it by the power of. Of his holiness, by the power of his life, because he represents us, because he's our faithful high priest. As we talked about last week in Rome or in Psalm 51. It's because of what he did that we can go to God with confidence that he will give us these things.
[00:35:17] So Hebrews 4, 15, 16 says this. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. That's Our Savior.
[00:35:34] Verse 16 then says, Let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne, not of judgment, but of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So when you're feeling like Amnon, and you're feeling like there's these things, things that you have to have, and you're feeling sick and you're feeling broken, and you're feeling like you're being pulled apart.
[00:35:59] Do not indulge your sin, but go to the throne of grace where you have been promised mercy and grace to help in every time of need.
[00:36:14] Let me ask you, ask yourselves. Do you believe that God will give you grace to help you in every time of need?
[00:36:25] It's what he says. I'm reading to you word for word.
[00:36:30] I'm not lying to you.
[00:36:32] He's not lying to you. He says he will do it.
[00:36:37] And you might say to yourself, well, that's hard to believe because I feel like I've gone to God before and I feel like I haven't had all the help that I need.
[00:36:49] Well, that, my friend, is more sin.
[00:36:57] That's something else you need help with that you can go to God with and ask for help with. In every time of need.
[00:37:04] Confess your doubts, confess your uncertainty.
[00:37:08] Say to him, I know you say this. I'm having a hard time believing it, but I'm here and I'm trusting you and I'm leaning on you.
[00:37:18] And then a few minutes later, do it again.
[00:37:21] And a few minutes later, do it again.
[00:37:24] And a few minutes later, do it again.
[00:37:26] And I would suggest to you from the word of God, pray continuously.
[00:37:34] Let your whole life, your daily life, your life be filled with.
[00:37:40] With the prayers of repentance, prayers for mercy, prayers for grace, because your Father has promised to give it to you when you come to Him.
[00:37:52] Maybe we're not coming to him.
[00:37:58] Maybe what he says is true and he will give us mercy and. And grace to help in every time of need.
[00:38:09] First Corinthians 10:13 says this rather extreme thing.
[00:38:15] No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
[00:38:19] God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
[00:38:32] Believe him, trust him.
[00:38:35] Go to him, and when you fall, trust him again, trust more. Return to him again and find the grace that you need. You will not find health and healing and a new heart in indulging your sin. You won't find relief in indulging your sin. You won't find satisfaction in indulging your sin, but all those things. And as Psalm 16 says, pleasures forevermore you will find at the right hand of God in Christ.
[00:39:08] Let's pray.
[00:39:11] Our Heavenly Father, save us from our sin. Have mercy on us, O God, according to your great mercy, according to the promises of the Gospel. Uphold your kingdom and the kingdom of righteousness and holiness through the strength of the Son that you have sent and the Spirit spirit that is now at work in us. Build up your kingdom in the strength of Jesus Christ and the holiness of our Savior. Keep us from violating one another, from harming one another, from transgressing the holy boundaries that you have set, that you might be honored and glorified. Do this work in us that we might be saved, Lord. Cause us to mourn and cry out over our sin.
[00:39:58] Cause us to not take lightly the beginnings of lust and the beginnings of covetousness in our heart.
[00:40:06] Restrain us and keep us and build us up not in our own strength, but in the strength of Christ. Teach us, Lord, to put on the armor of God that we might be equipped and ready to fight the spiritual battles that are before us.
[00:40:22] And Lord, when we sin against others and we break them and harm them and bring a shame upon them, we pray and ask that you would undo our doings and that you would rescue and lift up the needy and the broken from the ashes.
[00:40:41] And for those of us who have been sinned by against others, those of us who have been violated and hurt and struck down as a result of the sin and the aggression and the abuse of others, Lord, we ask that you would be our healer, our rescuer, our redeemer.
[00:40:59] As we know you know how to be.
[00:41:01] We know that we can find glory in you and hope in you and honor in you. Build us up. Lift us up in Christ.
[00:41:10] Lord, we ask that you would do all these things and that, Lord Jesus, you would come quickly.
[00:41:16] We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
