God and Sin

The title of my message today, friends, is God and Sin, and in our study today we will focus on the nature of sin and its ramifications. One only has to look at Calvary to see the depths of the blackness of sin. Our passage today is from the last chapter of 2 Samuel.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in verses 10 through 17, and in this striking passage of Scripture we find the account where David takes a census and the following consequences of that sin. For sin always has consequences.

God told Adam, curse it as the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life. I believe 2 Samuel 24 is a composite picture of God and sin, how God views sin, and how God deals with sin.

At the beginning of the chapter we see the nature of David's sin in the taking of a census. The text does not precisely state what the sin was if it had to do with the probability that the census was the first step in preparing for a military draft. For God's plan for Israel was to have a citizen army rather than a large standing army so that Israel would trust in God's protection.

Or perhaps David's intent in numbering the people revealed his pride and arrogance in the size of his empire. But whatever the nature of the sin from David's standpoint, it paled in comparison to God's viewpoint of it. For God is a God who must punish sin.

In verse 10 we read, And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done. And now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly.

Here we see David's repentance, but we also see the consequences of his sin. For God instructs the prophet Gad to go and say unto David, Thus sayeth the Lord, I offer thee three things. Choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.

Here the chastising hand of God manifests itself in three options for the consequences of his sin. Famine, military defeat, or pestilence. We see some principles here that run like a crimson thread throughout all scripture.

We see that God takes sin seriously. God takes sin personally. And God views sin as a violation of his law.

And that God is a God who must punish sin, for the sanity of the law must be carried out. In verse 14 we find David's choice of punishment. And David said unto God, I am in a great strait.

Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great. And let me not fall into the hand of men. Of the three options, the one that David feared the most was a conquering army besieging Jerusalem.

In verses 15 through 16 we find the stark reality of the consequences of sin. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning, even to the time appointed. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men.

And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed the people, it is enough. Stay now thine hand. I will stop there friends.

I believe three aspects can be drawn out of this passage regarding God and sin. Number one, the destructive nature of sin. There were 70,000 graves dug because of sin.

And all one has to do to see the destructive nature of sin is to peer back into Genesis chapter 19. And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord. And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain.

And behold, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. So we see the aspect of the destructive nature of sin. Secondly, we see the contaminating nature of sin, sin affected 70,000 people here in our text.

And over in Isaiah chapter one, we see how sin infected an entire nation. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint from the sole of the foot, even onto the head. There is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.

And over in Romans we read, for as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So we see this aspect of the contaminating nature of sin. And thirdly, we see the aspect of the damning nature of sin.

Ezekiel 18.4 declares, behold, all souls are mine as the soul of the father. So also the soul of the son is mine. The soul that saneth, it shall die.

And over in Revelation 20.15 we read, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. I believe friends, it's safe to say that God views sin as treason against His sovereignty and as a break in the fellowship with Him. Ephraimus 3.3 declares, can two walk together except they be agreed? The answer is no, they cannot.

And a holy God cannot tolerate sin in the life of His people, as seen in our text today. Let us pray.