1 Timothy 1:5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (NASB)
Yesterday I ended the devotional with the comment “And you still have not sinned but all the warning signs are there.” Having a positional advantage over someone else is not a sin. What you do with that advantage could be sin. It is like coming to a crossroad and having to make a decision about which way to turn. At the crossroads you will have signs telling you, instructing you as to which path leads where.
In my thesis called “Walking in the Spirit” I spent the better part of that section on the pure heart. It is the most important part of sound judgment. An evil heart will look to the signs at the crossroads and see perhaps lust or greed as the desirable path and ignore the one marked righteousness.
David’s sin of 2 Samuel 11 was created not so much by his true heart condition as it was by the pondering observations of looking down the path to lust. It held his eye which is the vehicle of coveting. Looking back to 2 Samuel 11 David asked directions at this point. His “What’s down there?”
2 Samuel 11:3 And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
That did not change his focus and he went down that road far enough to sin. Once he had, he dismissed her, sending her back home. If his heart had been for her, he would have kept her. But he did not and sin and the consequences for sin kept going down the wrong path even though David chose to leave it. Leaving a sin does not dissolve the consequences of the act.
Only a pure heart will keep your eye perfectly focused on the path to righteousness, no matter the crossroads we encounter.
I agree leaving a sin does not undo the consequences of that sin. Some people think that this is God punishing them. These are natural, unavoidable consequences of the choice you made to participate in the sin.
Your devotion this morning, Larry, is “spot on”! I was especially struck with your observation in the statement “What’s down there?” The attraction of opposite sex is a “God given” attraction that produces offspring……”Be fruitful and multiply” was God’s instruction to Adam and Eve, and so He introduced the wonderful institution of marriage to contain this attraction. The deviousness of Satan was to get Eve to believe that God was withholding something from her, showing her another path, and she in essence said to herself “what’s down there”. I just bring this in to remind us that the problems arise when we lose communion with God—Satan then brings in the crossroad choices. Phyllis, I am thankful for your remarks on “the Roof”—made me think of the Proverb, “My son, keep your heart with ALL diligence, for out of it are the issues of life” Prov. 4:23—this is where it all happens, as you pointed out to us, Larry.