“Be sure your sin will find you out.”
How these words burn!
Moses spoke them forcefully to those Hebrews who were members of the tribes of Reuben and Gad. Turn to our text in Numbers 32.
Israel is here camped just over the river Jordan, preparing for their invasion of Canaan, or Palestine. But the men of Reuben and Gad look around at the land where they now stand and see that it is very good pasture for their herds. “Let us make our homes on this side of the river,” they ask, verses 1-5.
“Should your fellow Israelites go to war while you sit here?” Moses fires back at them, verse 6. Quickly they explain that they are willing to go over Jordan and help the conquest of Canaan. “We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has received their inheritance,” they promise, verse 18.
To this Moses agrees. Then solemnly he adds this warning, “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out,” verse 23.
You see immediately that the aged leader feared his people would turn aside from God’s way. I fear that many of us may have — perhaps without fully realizing it — turned aside from righteousness. Something is drastically wrong with our society today. That problem is sin in the lives of individuals.
Looking at our text verse 23, we can discover three sobering descriptions of sin.
Reflect on these as you go over your own life. Let their impact lead us to Jesus Christ for His full salvation. By”full” I mean first a clean slate with God (justification) and secondly the power for an on-going spiritual progress. Have you all but given up? Settled down short of God’s Promised Land? Are you open for something new in your life?
I. Variety
Consider the vast complexity of sin! Each of us is assaulted in a different way. There are sins in word, thought and deed. Anything that displeases God is sin, I John 3:4.
However, our text is not talking about a wrong committed, but rather of a right omitted: “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” Sins of omission – how many they are! See James 4:17.
Indeed, on the last great day when the nations are gathered before the Lord, He shall separate them as sheep are separated from the goats, condemning them for failing to do right to their God. “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matthew 25: 44-46.
So often we are wracked in conscience over wrongs done. What if God brings to our minds all the overlooked good that we failed to do?
II. Magnitude
Alas! Read what follows.
“But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord.” Moses does not say, You will be sinning against your fellow Hebrews. It is true that they would have so sinned in failing to fulfill their vow, but Moses strikes deeper. The real sober issue is that sin is against the Lord.
So many will be shocked when they realize the truth of our text, “You will be sinning against the Lord.” Looking further into the matter, it will one day become painfully clear that sin is really and directly against the Lord Himself.
Right in line with this central fact, Scripture teaches that behavior in the home, at work, toward civil authorities — all should be “as unto the Lord.” Again, Jesus pictures Himself in the judgment scene of Matthew 25:45 as saying, “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
III. Danger
This places one in great danger and God is faithful to tell us so: “Be sure your sin will find you out.” Note carefully these three facts about this jeopardy:
I) It is Certain –“Be sure.” What a man sows, he will and must reap. Payday comes.
2) It is Personal –“YOUR sin will find YOU out.” No more blaming parents, vague “society”, the other generation, your husband, or wife. YOU. Many of the sins we notice and criticize in others are a dead give-away of our own disposition and weaknesses. In psychology this is called “projection.”
3) It Is Destructive –“Sin will find you out.” At last one’s evil catches up to him and lays him low – ultimately in the lowest hell. I noticed in a recent report of surveys on campuses that birth-control assistance is being offered by increasing numbers of schools. Some authorities are actually arguing that all sex prohibitions are harmful. Let it be said that not one law of God is harmful to good health and soundness of mind. And, God warns that sins of lust and sex expression outside the marriage bond is an evil that will be punished with blight in this life and in the world to come. Payday some day!
The one loving and all-wise God who laid down moral laws also designed the human body and emotions. They fit together. Break the laws and you pay, even in this life. Many a young person has found it out — some before, and some after, marriage. Then, like a boiling forest fire that leaps over the emergency trenches and explodes atop the helpless houses nearby, so sin leaps on to the next generation.
Perhaps a listener is tempted to feel, “My sin is too great. I am overwhelmed. I have sinned against God!” True, But Jesus Christ died exactly for that reason. “Christ died for our sins.”
Just as He spoke peace to the raging sea storm, He can raise His hands in peace over your troubled life and home. Get your Bible out and study carefully Romans 6:23. Then in prayer humbly tell God that you do accept this gift through the Lord Jesus Christ. Follow this with Hebrews 7:25.