ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY = PART 64

ONE HEARTBEAT   AWAY

PART 64 



(Mark Cahill's Book)

For example, King David stole a man's wife while her husband  was away fighting the enemy. Then she got pregnant. So David called her husband back from the front, thinking he would be with his wife and then the expected child would seem to be his.

But the man was a good and honourable man, so when he came to see David, he slept in a corner and wouldn't go home.
And Uriah said unto David, the ark, and Israel, and Judah abide in tents, and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife?  As thou livest and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing. (2nd Samuel  11:11)

Eventually David had Uriah murdered  to cover up his sin. God sent a prophet to 
face David and declare to him the wrong he had done. Until then he had felt that he was the king and could do as he pleased. But when the thing was shown to him from God's point of view, it woke him up to the reality of what he had done. His reaction is quoted  in 2nd
Samuel 11 and in the prayer-song in which David spoke to God about it.

Against Thee, and Thee only have I sinned; and done this evil thing in Thy sight; that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speaketh ; and be clear when Thou judest (Psalm 51:4)

The problem is that most of us don't think like that.
I was speaking at a local basketball
banquet that included kids from second grade up through  high school . Now I don't do much speaking to second-graders, so I wasn't too sure what to do with them. 

When I began to talk all of the second-graders  crowded around the stage to hear me speak. I walked through each of the Ten Commandments. Then I threw names out to the crowd and asked 
them , by the standard of the Ten Commandments, and knowing that 
breaking  just one would make you guilty,  how would each of these people 
do by that standard?

I mentioned the name Timothy McVeigh, 
Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Laden, and of course everyone yelled out "Guilty".
Then I mentioned Mother Theresa and asked the crowd whether by that standard she would be guilty or not guilty on Judgement Day?

It is always interesting when I do that because some people will shout out "Guilty"  and others shout "not Guilty".
In our minds we have impressions of
certain  people that are hard to break. At this event people were saying both answers. Suddenly one of the second-graders stood up and said,  " Wait a minute sir, don't you think she lied at
least one time in her life?
Wow!  The second-grader knew the truth, but many of the adults didn't.
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God".  (Romans 3:23)

"As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one ". (Romans 3:10)

By the standard of the Ten Commandments none of us can say "Not Guilty."

next post 7th December