Unchecked Temptation

FCF - the problem - Entertained temptation and ungodly influence allow sin to spread destructive consequences through families and communities.

proposition - what is God saying to address this condition?” - Though unchecked temptation leads to destruction, God offers grace through King Jesus, who alone delivers us from sin’s power and leads us in righteousness.

Application

Hidden sin and passive leadership multiply destruction

Intro

Teton Dam Failure

Teton Dam was located in southeastern Idaho about 15 miles from Rexburg in the valley of the Teton River. The dam and its reservoir were the principal elements of the Teton Basin Project designed by the Bureau of Reclamation to control flooding as well as provide a source of hydropower, irrigation, and drinking water. Construction on the Teton Dam, reservoir, and powerhouse began in 1972 and by November 1975 the zoned earthfill embankment was essentially complete with a structural height of 305 feet and a crest length of 3,100 feet. In 1976, the Teton Dam in Idaho began with what appeared to be relatively small leaks and seepage. But hidden structural weaknesses inside the dam were already spreading beneath the surface. Before long, the entire structure catastrophically failed, releasing enormous destruction downstream. The dam experienced catastrophic failure on June 5, 1976 during its first filling. Failure of the Teton Dam and subsequent draining of the reservoir caused the deaths of 11 people and approximately $400 million in damages.

What seemed manageable at first became devastating because the underlying problem was never truly dealt with.Sin often works the same way. What is entertained in secret rarely stays contained

You see we think that we can keep sin secret, but then it is so hard to say no to temptation, and we fall prey to sin and we feel horrible and we ask forgieness and the cylce keeps going if left unchecked. you see Entertained temptation and ungodly influence allow sin to spread destructive consequences through families and communities. undealt with sin can have devastating consequences.

the hole starts in the dam and sson everything breaks. Maybe it is the fact we are allowing the wrong person to speak into our lives. But when it does start to come out, which it will, it doesnt just affect you it also affects your family and the people around you.

Announce Scripture reading

We are not not alone in our struggles with entertaining temptation and the wrong people in our lives, David and his family dealt with this as well. @ samuel 13-14 gets into this, it deals with the consequences of unchecked temptation and the destructive nature of sin in our lives. We are not as alone in our struggles as we would think.

Announce Scripture reading

Read 2 samuel 13

But it does not end there! we can have hope in the grace of God. We see the example of David and his family and we look forward to King Jesus and wat we learn is this. (proposition)Though unchecked temptation leads to destruction, God offers grace through King Jesus, who alone delivers us from sin’s power and leads us in righteousness. It is the grace of God that allows us the strength to overcome temptation and break the cycle of sin that so easily destroy’s

Temptation grows when entertained

13:1-20

We start out with Davids children. We are introduced to a few of them. We are going to split the chapters up into chuncks to get an idea of what is going on here.

2 Samuel 13:1–2 CSB

1 Some time passed. David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister named Tamar, and David’s son Amnon was infatuated with her. 2 Amnon was frustrated to the point of making himself sick over his sister Tamar because she was a virgin, but it seemed impossible to do anything to her.

it does not start well for the sons of David. It would appear that they are dealing with the same sin that had consumed david. We are introduced to a few characters

Tamar and Absalom we know shared a mother, their father was David

Amnon was their half brother as David was his dad but he had a difefrent mom.

After a certain amount of time Amnon loved his half sister and desired her

He wanted to sleep with her, he dwelt on it.

after a while we read in verse 3 and 4 he could not help himself anymore, he ahd to have her. Temptation seemed to win out.

How often do we entertain sinful desires in our heart?

application - how do we work on not desiring temptation, the battle is lost if we are to this point in tempation to sin.

I have dealt with this in the past so I will not belabour it to much here, but never the less it is a common problem for us all. so many sins that we can be tempted to fall into. But we are told by the world that what harm is it when they are not hurting anyone but themselves? But that is the thing, when we fall to temptation we affect way more then ourselves.

but the question remains, what are we entertaining in our hearts? You love watching those instagram, youtube, Facebook reels but they always slip in those bad videos. do you put it down or just keep scrolling secretley hoping another one pops up. Maybe it is one more drink knowing we can not just stop at one or two. How about that information someone told you and you just cant help telling the next person about the juicy gossip you have. The list goes on and on, harboring anger, unforgiveness etc.

Amnon likely knew that his feelings where wrong, we all get those feelings we know are wrong, but it became an issue when he harbored them in his heart. Be warned because what we harbor in our hearts will become a reality in our lives if we let it sit there to long.

It did not endf there though for Amnon. He also allowed the wrong people to speak into His life.

2 Samuel 13:4–5 CSB

4 and he asked Amnon, “Why are you, the king’s son, so miserable every morning? Won’t you tell me?” Amnon replied, “I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.” 5 Jonadab said to him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend you’re sick. When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare a meal in my presence so I can watch and eat from her hand.’ ”

so they hatched a plan. Amnon was doing not well as it was cwhen it came to temptation, his cousing just made the matter way worse by speaking to his desires and lusts.

He was skilled in deception - Shrewd.

Amnon confided in him, that he was in love with his half sister. his half cousin gave him the way to get his desires. the plan was to get her to make Him food.

amnon grabs Tamar and she tries to stop him but cant. he slept with her and hated her after the thing that he did.

Absalom Hated his brother for what he had done

which makes me wonder

Be careful who speaks into your temptation

you may wonder where this is coming from, we first see Amnon entertaing temptation in his heart. As we learned it is when we entertain temptation in our hearts that we become lost to sin, rather we need to fill our lives with the Lord Jesus, we need to fill our hearts with his word.

but along with thta we need to be reminded of who we are allowing to speak into our lives? who are we allowing into our lives to speak into it. Amnon went to his cousin and the guy encouraged him to seek his sin. Even family is not always the best people to allow to speak into our lives if they are leading us down the wrong path. if the people you are letting into your life to influence you are leading you down the path of sin then you are letting the wrong people speak into your life. They may tell you what you are doing is not a big deal, but they are wrong.

The bible tells us that we need to sharpen one another as followers of Jesus. This does not mean that we are never to be friends with non Christians, but that we should be allowing them to influence us. so then who are we to allow to influence our lives?

Jesus and His word is what we are first and foremost to allow to change us and influence us. Romans 12:1-2 is the probably one of the best examples of this. Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

You must be allowing Jesus first and foremost to speak into your life, then you may know when people are trying to lead you astray. for it is much easier to fall when people are leading you to the trap.

Absalom murders - 13:21-39

The sad thing is David does nothing, He hears of what happened and did nothing about it, allowed the sin again a place in his life and his kids hearts and did not call them out on it.

2 Samuel 13:21 CSB

21 When King David heard about all these things, he was furious.

2 Samuel 13:23 CSB

23 Two years later, Absalom’s sheepshearers were at Baal-hazor near Ephraim, and Absalom invited all the king’s sons.

David heard eventually what his son had done to his daughter but didnt seem to do anything about it. 2 years had passed with nothing done. But Absalom did not forget.

Absalom hatches a plan

He invites all the sons to the sheep shearers. David did not come but the rest of the sons did

Absalom had his servants murder Amnon and the brothers fled.

The King mourns

David mourns the loss of His so while absalom flees.

Sin always affects other people

we may think that the only person we are affecting with our sin is ourselves, but when it grows, it starts to affect others as well. what ever the sin might be, it usually affects your family and friends around you. This si usually what i refer to sometimes as the consequences of our sin. You may wonder how it affects your family and loved ones around oyu. It is because often you are not as secretive as you would like to think.

just look at the sins of David that he thought where kept a big secret, Davids sins came full circle, same thing essentially happened to his kids. The farther we drift from the Lord the less our kids and other loved ones see us not living for the Lord. We can only keep up the farce so long before it becomes evident. We are not just hurting ourselves but those around us ase well.

But the beautiful thing is that the Lord shows us grace! Grace is getting something that we do not deserve. Like as much as we are good for the year leading up to Christmas, we do not always really deserve the gifts that we get, but our family enjoys giving them to us anyways. we did not earn nor do we deserve the grace of the Lord Jesus but he offers it to us anyways.

Now What?

I heard someone say something interesting about the grace God offers us.

Grace means that God, in forgiving you, does not kill you. Grace means that God, in forgiving you, gives you the strength to endure the consequences. Grace frees us so that we can obey our Lord. It does not mean sin's consequences are automatically removed. If I sin and in the process of sinning break my arm, I will receive forgiveness for my sin, but I still have to deal with a broken arm.

Grace means still consequences but yet forgiveness.

Though unchecked temptation leads to destruction, God offers grace through King Jesus, who alone delivers us from sin’s power and leads us in righteousness.

The tragedy of David’s household reminds us that sin never stays contained. What begins in the heart eventually spreads outward into relationships, families, and communities. We may think that we are hiding it but we are not. It grows and grows till we are not sure how we got to the place that we did. Like Paul said, I do what I do not want to do, the battle of the flesh wages war in me.

And if our hope rested in human kings, human strength, or our own ability to master temptation, we would all fail. The bible tells us that we do not have the strength within ourselves to master our own temptation. If we try we will nto be able to do it, if we allow the wrong people to speak into our lives we will fail.

But this broken story causes us to long for a better King. David was not the perfect King, though He was called a king after God’s own heart, it should casue us to long for somehting more, someone that can save us.

Unlike David, Jesus rules with perfect righteousness. Unlike Amnon, He is pure. Unlike Absalom, He does not repay evil with sinful vengeance. And unlike every failed human leader, Christ confronts sin fully while offering mercy to sinners. That idea of confronting sin and mercy to the sinners is hard to comprehed. God lets us know what we have done is wrong while yet offering the grace and mercy that we need to recieve salvation.

The grace of Christ does not merely forgive sin — it breaks its power. God’s grace means that we will not fall under the wrath of God, though we deserve it. That is of we have given our lives to Him.

So do not entertain what Christ calls you to destroy in your lives. Do not listen to voices that draw you away from holiness. Bring hidden sin into the light, run to Christ in repentance, and trust the King who alone can restore what sin destroys.