Thursday, October 15, 2015
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We were in a radio studio getting ready to tape a live youth broadcast. One of the things that made this program exciting is that we had a live studio audience of young people. This particular night a youth group was coming to be that audience.
Well, we waited, and we waited, and they never came. Consequently we never got to do the program. No one had even called us! Either they were pretty irresponsible, or they found out what we pay – which is nothing – or something had happened. Actually, something had happened. The man driving had looked down for just a second and they plowed into the rear of a construction truck. Thankfully no one was seriously injured, and they even came back another time to do a program. I think someone else was driving.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Accidents Happen."
It really didn't take much to cause that crash – just one look away! Actually, that's been the cause of many accidents, many spiritual accidents. Our word for today from the Word of God, 2 Samuel 11:1. I find this one of the saddest chapters in the Bible. "In the Spring, at a time when Kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. But David remained in Jerusalem."
David's job was to be out there fighting God's battles right then. Instead he decided he would take a day off in more ways than one. Verse 2: "One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, 'She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah,'" who, by the way, was one of his trusted men. "She came to him and he slept with her." There was a moral crash that night that David could never have foreseen and all the damages that would follow.
Chapter 12, the prophet says to David, "You despised the Word of the Lord." In other words he got tempted and he stopped caring what God would think. Have you ever been there? Then the prophet says, "The sword will never depart from your house." Oh, David's sin is forgiven but the consequences will haunt him for the rest of his life. Then the prophet says, "The Lord has taken away your sin, but by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt"(Ch.12 vs.14).
God's reputation has been smeared because of what one of His children did. How many times have we seen that happen? What caused this very costly moral accident? The same thing that caused the crash of that van – one look away. I believe someone is listening right now, and God wants to say to you, "You're about to crash because you've looked away." He doesn't want you to crash. He doesn't want you to pay for the damages. So He's sending you this loving warning today.
You've looked away from His book. You've put your Bible on a shelf and seldom are you showing up for your time with the Lord anymore. You've looked away from His calling on your life and you're on a spiritual vacation. You've looked away from Jesus and you've let something or someone else take over your heart. You're headed for a terrible accident.
David took a spiritual day off and he paid for that day with the rest of his life. It could be you've been taking some spiritual days off and Satan is using your complacency, he's using your carelessness to make you drift off the road that God once had you on. Listen, it's time to look up, it's time to wake up, and it's time to quit flirting with that temptation. God said flee from it, not flirt with it!
It's time to drop that person or the people who are pulling you away from your Savior. No more compromise, no more drifting, it will cost you too much. Look up again at Jesus who suffered and died for the very sin you've been playing with. Come back to His love. Come back to His Lordship. It's so much better there.
If you look away much longer the crash is going to be inevitable and it's going to be costly.