FBC Morning Light (4/13/2024)

Good Saturday morning, people of faith. This morning I wanted to start with a thought. What's the most difficult thing to convince someone of? Well, I've heard that it's been said that the most difficult thing is to convince someone that they've been deceived.

You can convince somebody that they're wrong, or you can convince somebody to try something new, but to convince somebody that they've been deceived is a very difficult thing to do. You may have bought a car that ends up being a really bad deal, and it's so difficult to admit that you were deceived.

There's something about that. Well, I will tell you this morning that the most deceitful, the most blinding thing in your life is actually sin. I remember a time in my life when I was so deceived by my own sin that I didn't even realize it, even though looking back on it was the most obvious thing in my life, that I was walking in sin.

And I remember the moment when God showed me that I was not walking with him. I felt for a moment like singing a hymn, and I was by myself in my dorm room in college, and I started to sing that hymn and realized that I was not loving God at the time.

Well, what does that have to do with today? Let me read to you and see if you get the drift of what I'm talking about here. This is in 2 Samuel chapter 12, this is Nathan talking to David. He says, there were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.

And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd and to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.

So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die. He shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.

Well, you're probably remembering what happens next. Verse seven,. Then Nathan said to David, You are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more. Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight?

You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword. You have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. David, upon hearing what he had done, he then does, in fact, repent.

The Lord showed him that his sin had deceived him. His sin had blinded him. He was not even aware that Nathan was talking about David. David just didn't even realize it until Nathan said, You are the man.

Sin is a deceitful thing. We so easily deceive ourselves with our own sin. We want to think that we do right when we are not necessarily doing right. Let's take some time this morning and just think, Lord, and pray, Lord, is there anything in my life of which I've let sin deceive me?

Let's not walk as David was walking, but let's respond how David did respond once he did hear that he was the man. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we know that we are easily deceived by our own sin. I ask that you would search me and search the hearts of whoever may hear this, that you would let us know that we have been deceived and by what we have been deceived, that we may repent of that sin, that we might be restored into a new relationship with you.

It's in your son's name, Jesus, that we pray. Amen. Have an excellent day, people of faith.