April 23, 2019
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It was the fastest-moving, hardest-hitting, most widespread computer virus there'd ever been up to that time, and it was called of all things, the love bug. It came cleverly wrapped in an email that was designed to look like a love letter. So, of course, people wanted to open it. When the email was opened, the virus was activated, and it spread rapidly. In fact, it even sent copies of itself to everyone in the email address book on that computer. So, it jammed computers and damaged files in Asia, Europe, North and South America and companies and organizations from one end of the earth to the other. They had to shut down their email. The list included the Pentagon, Congress, and the British Parliament. Oh, it advertised love, but in the long run, it just delivered destruction.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Poison in a Package Called Love."
Long before there were computers, people have been opening up to things that seemed to promise love but ultimately delivered destruction. In fact, it could be a mistake you're in the process of making right now.
King David sure fell for a package called love, and he paid for it the rest of his life. Our word for today from the Word of God is one of the saddest chapters in the Bible. Before it, David's life is all about great victories and great successes. After the incident recorded here, his life is filled with death, tragedy, defeat, even the rebellion in his own family. The turning point is the day David fell for what destroyed him. It was a virus that could have been called the love bug.
Second Samuel 11:2 says, "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." It makes me sad to even read these scriptures. I know what happened. Well, the king sends someone to find out who this woman is and he learns it's Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of his most trusted and loyal soldiers. The Bible says in verse 3, "and David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her." Now, when he goes for what probably felt like love, he opens up a virus that eventually causes him to plot Uriah's death to cover up his sin. And the word from heaven in 2 Samuel 11:27 is, "The thing David had done displeased the Lord."
Later, David will cry out in Psalm 51, "My sin is always before me...create in me a pure heart, O God...restore to me the joy of my salvation." His sin is haunting him all the time, he's lost the joy of his relationship with God and, though he is totally forgiven, his life is never the same.
David opened himself up to something that advertised love and delivered destruction. That tragic mistake might be a personal warning from God to you. Maybe you're considering, or you're already involved in, a sexual relationship - not so much for the sex, but for the love you hope it will give you. Or maybe you're flirting with an adulterous relationship - again, because it seems to offer love.
Maybe the temptation is to get romantically involved or even married to someone who doesn't know Christ as you do. The Bible calls that being unequally yoked. It's for love, right? Even though God forbids it. Or it could be you're doing what your friends or associates want you to do even though you know it's wrong, because you don't want them to stop loving you.
You're walking on that same mine-filled ground that David did. You're getting into something that one day will deeply hurt you, it will hurt the people you love, it will hurt Jesus - the one who loves you most - all because it's advertised as love. Some of life's biggest, most devastating mistakes have been made for love, or what looked like it would be love. But take it from David and millions who have fallen for a love bug. The destruction it will cause just isn't worth it.