Articles
Do Yourself a Favor and Believe
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with my mom in the kitchen. She was bak-ing brownies. I would have been just a young boy, probably seven or eight years old at the time. My eyes were drawn to the open box of chocolate, and I asked if I could have some. She explained that I wouldn’t like that chocolate, that it was not like the other chocolate I had en-joyed.? After pressing her, I convinced her to let me taste it for myself. Why didn’t I trust my mom?
God wonders the same thing about us. Jesus was often heard stating the same thing to some of His religious adversaries: “Why then did you not believe…” (Mt. 21:25; Mk. 11:31; Lk. 20:5; Jn. 8:46).
The anecdote above reminds me that sin holds the same appeal and produces the same outcome. The prophet Isaiah pro-nounced a woe against those who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. That is exactly what the devil did when in the Garden of Eden, he got Eve to take her eyes off of the good fruit (because they were holding her back), and to focus on the only fruit that they weren’t allowed to eat. Eve succumbed to the lust of the eye when she looked at the fruit and “saw that it was good for food”. Just like the chocolate; it looked good to the eyes, it smelled good, but it was bitterness to the taste. As soon as she ate it her whole world turned upside down.
Hasn’t this been your own experience with sin? In Jeremiah 4:19 the prophet calls wickedness “bitterness” and says, “This is your wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reaches to your heart." The apostle Paul asked in Rom. 6:21, “What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” Can any of you say that you are in any way better off because of sin? Sin is a ruthless master. It is never satisfied, just as Paul who confessed that he was at one point overtaken with covetousness, which led to “all manner of evil desire” (Rom. 7:8).
Most people rue the day that they allowed some sin to get a foothold in their lives. A story is told in what is called “The White Book”, a manual for addicts, about a man who was born in the 1930s. His nosedive into the domination of sin (lust) began with Flash Gordon comics—Azura the scantily clad Queen of Magic destroyed him as a child and he did not even know it until he was an adult. What began for this individual as an exciting excursion into the stimulating world of fantasy, ended up with him losing his job, his family, even his freedom when one day the fulfillment of his lust landed him in jail.
God just wants us to trust Him when He tells us not to do certain things that He knows will harm us. In Deut. 6:24 it says: “And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day.”
Poor Sampson was a great example of a guy that should have had more sense to listen to those who loved him and wanted what was best for him. He chose his foreign wife based on the fact that she looked good (Judges 14:3) despite the fact that his parents tried to convince him to reconsider and not marry that girl. But he didn’t listen, and instead foolishly pursued the desire of his eyes. Of course, he couldn’t have known that his selfish decision would set in order a chain of events that would result in betrayal, heart-ache, revenge, prostitution, more betrayal, pride, capture, the gouging out of his eyes, and finally death in the heat of revenge. Although, God knew.
The text says “…that it was “of the LORD” (Judges 14:4). That is not to say that the LORD was pleased with Sampson’s life. What it does say is that God can and will use you and me one way or an-other. In defiance, He can humble us and bring us so low that oth-ers will see the fruit of sin in our lives and run for fear. Or in sub-mission and obedience He can bless you and use the fruit of godli-ness to call to those who are themselves weary and heavy laden. The prophet Jonah was “convinced” to yield in submission to God, and once he did he accomplished some great things through his delivery of the word of God to the Ninevites. However, it was not merely in submission that God was able to use him. You may recall how that God made believers out of a bunch of pagans through the rebellion of Jonah (Jonah 1).
Please don’t be like that little kid who did not have the sense to trust his mom who loved him. He had to see for himself what it was like. Instead, be wise, and learn from the folly of others who have suffered the consequences of sin. Trust me; trust God.
