The Gospel Truth

Imagine yourself standing in the middle of hundreds of rattlesnakes - noisy, deadly, repulsive rattlesnakes. That's where I found myself as a young boy. My father had taken me to a South Georgia ritual known as a "Rattlesnake Roundup." The snakes were brought together and placed in plastic pools or other barriers, then displayed and measured to find out who had the biggest, meanest, most poisonous rattlesnake.

There are many things that crossed my mind while looking and listening to those snakes. Questions like "What am I doing here?" and "How do I get out of here?" came to mind. One thing that never crossed my mind, however, was the idea to crawl in one of those pools and start playing with the snakes. That would have been stupid, harmful, and probably even deadly.

Playing with rattlesnakes has absolutely no appeal to me, and I'm sure that it doesn't appeal to you, either. However, there is this thing that humans, even Christians, insist on toying with even though we know it is wrong and harmful. It is a thing that condemns the lost and cripples the saved. It is noisy and silent. It is ugly and beautiful. It is always poisonous and sometimes deadly. It is the most

treacherous thing in the universe. This snake is called sin.

Nowhere in scripture is this snake called sin more honestly and graphically dealt with than in the pages of 2 Samuel 11-12. King David, the hero of the Old Testament, turns into the goat. In a moment of pride and weakness he steps out from behind the safety barrier of God's will and into the snake pit of sin. He toys recklessly with his life and the lives of those around him. And the message we learn from him is clear, painful, and at the end hopeful - don't play with snakes.

Now for sin to rear its ugly head it has to be committed. In this episode King David played with and committed sin. Actually, if you're keeping score, he committed several sins. He coveted his neighbor's wife, he committed adultery, and he committed murder. That's three of the top ten. We might also mix in pride, lust, and dishonesty to name a few more sins. You might say that he jumped into a pit full of rattlesnakes. But why did he do it? What slippery slope did he travel that landed him in this pit? And what warning is there for us?

David's problem began when he was idle instead of active in the Lord's service. Instead of going into battle, as kings were expected to do, he sent others to do the work. We are all familiar with the (non-biblical) proverb, "idle hands are the devil's workshop." It is an excellent saying. When a believer refuses to engage in God's service - to hear and do the Word of God and to be involved in the ministry of the local church - he is leaving himself wide open for an attack of the enemy. He is walking barefoot through a den of snakes. A backsliding believer, like David in this chapter, is just waiting to be bitten by sin.

Perhaps David's second problem was prayerlessness. If he would not lead in battle, at least he could have been praying for the troops. When the man (or woman) of God does not pray, he will play - with sin. Instead of being on his knees, David was on his feet on the roof of the palace where he spotted the lovely, bathing Bathsheba. Idleness and prayerlessness led him to an utter act of selfishness.

You see, sin, at its core, is selfishness. And so often we are tempted to be selfish and play with sin rather than work at holiness. David succumbed to this temptation. In spite of his beautiful wives (God never condones polygamy or promiscuity, but he did allow David to have many women) and splendid possessions, he just had to have one more woman. David summoned her to his room, Bathsheba too gave in to temptation, and the snake of sin had bitten two people and scarred them for life.

Oh, and one other thing. When David played with sin, he had to keep playing until the clock ran out. One false move led to another. After the adulterous affair, David put poison on top of poison. He summoned Uriah ("God is my light") the husband back to home base in hopes he would sleep with his wife and cover his sin. When that did not work he got Uriah drunk. When that did not work he got Uriah killed. Other innocent men were killed, also. Then he took

Bathsheba and their unborn child into his own home. He was in the clear (he thought) in the eyes of man, but not in the eyes of God.

Now, it was the Lord's turn. As king, David on six occasions sent people from one place to another in order to commit sin and cover up sin. As king of kings, God now sent his preacher, Nathan, to confront David. Often times the only thing that will stop the ugly game of sin is confrontation. Nathan confronted his king with a parable and a pointed finger. Take your eyes off David and focus on Nathan for a moment. What he did took great conviction and courage. To point your finger in the face of a king could result in getting that finger, and your head for that matter, cut off. But Nathan, who was consumed with doing God's will, cast off fear and confronted the king with his sin.

Here is a lesson for those of us who find ourselves, not playing with sin, but being a spectator while someone else does. How are we to respond when a brother or sister in Christ has jumped into the snake pit? Should we pretend that we don't see them? Should we say, "He knows what he's doing and it's his business." Would you just walk idly by if your child or brother or sister was walking around in a literal snake pit? Then why would we let someone mess up their life and the lives of others by playing with sin? We cannot. If there is one thing that must be restored in the church if we are to regain God's power it is the process of courageously and lovingly confronting one another over obvious and serious sin. Don't do it in a judgmental fashion over questionable matters. But, when you see a brother handling a real, live snake (a sin that obviously violates the law and will of God), holler at him and tell him to put it down.

When we are clean, we are restored to fellowship with God, and we have peace with God. The end result of David's confession was a son named Solomon. His name means "the peace of God." David's confession gave him peace. So can your confession, if you have played with sin. Refer to Romans 5:1 and 1 John 1:9 and elaborate on the forgiveness that is found only in Christ.

Finally, and soberly, we must face that fact that after a sin is committed, even though proper confrontation and confession have taken place, this thing called sin always has consequences. Four of David's sons - Bathsheba's first child, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah - were killed as a four-fold payment of David's sin. David's spiritual, political, and military triumphs peaked at this episode. His influence and success with people, even though he had peace with God, went downhill the rest of his days. David played with sin. His wound was fully healed, but the poison that spread through the rest of the body was left to take its course. In spite of the boldness of confrontation and the blessedness of confession, it would be much better not to play with sin at all. As I heard an older preacher say many years ago, "Sin will take you farther that you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you ever thought you would pay."

But all is not hopeless. For while David lost his son and his prowess as king, he did gain one more giant victory over the Ammonites (2 Samuel 12:26-31). More importantly, however, David gained

depth and maturity as a believer. He was given a child, Solomon, who would grow to be the wisest and greatest king in the history of Israel. Nathan called him Jedidiah, which means "beloved of God." I believe for every sin there is a Solomon. No matter how badly you've behaved, no matter how far you've wandered from the will of God, when you make confession to him he will give you unconditional love and a peace that passes understanding.

If King David could come back to earth and stand in this pulpit and speak to us today, I believe his message to us would be plain and simple: don't play with the snake of sin. It looks like fun, and it does bring pleasure in a fleshly, wrong way, but it's not worth it. Don't commit it, don't put your friends through the agony of confrontation and yourself through the pain of confession, and then you won't have to deal with the awful consequences. Don't play with snakes.