TEMPTATION ON THE VINE

Nothing is better in the summertime than a good ole cold water melon or a slice of sweet cantaloupe with a mess of peas from the garden. With most of our garden now harvested and put in the freezer, my husband and I have been impatiently waiting on our water melons and cantaloupes to ripen. While our little patch has plenty of fruit on the vines, they are not yet ready to pick. We know this because we gave in to our temptations to taste them before they were ready, only to be disappointed to find out that the taste was not worth the sacrifice of the melons. Isn’t it odd how our temptation sometimes can get the best of us, as our eyes glare down deceitfully telling us that what we see is good enough or ready for us to have, when in fact it is not. Yet, when we take the plunge and indulge in it before we should, we find disappointment every time. Even when our first indulgence might appear to be worth it, because our eyes tell us that what we are looking at will be worth the taking. However it is that second, third and even fourth bite that tells us that what sits in front of us lacks of satisfaction and we realize that we made a grave mistake by choosing it before it was ready. We find that the temptation on the vine was just too much for us to handle and its disappointing taste leaves us lacking. 

This reminds me of how we are tempted in other areas of our lives and can end up lacking, when we have tasted that which our eyes tell us that we want but our hearts know that we should not have. The Bible says that in the spring at the time kings go off to war, King David sent Joab one of his commanders out with his men and the whole Israelite army. While his men were fighting, David remained in Jerusalem. One evening during the course of this time, David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. When the man returned he told the king that she was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Out of his lust for her, David sent and had for her brought to him and he slept with her. Afterwards, she returned to her home.  Bathsheba conceived and sent word to David, telling him that she was with child. To try and fix his wrong doing David sent word to Joab the leader of his men to send him Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband. So Joab sent Uriah to David.  When Uriah came to him, David asked him how he was doing, and how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet; with the intentions of hoping that Uriah would sleep with his wife to cover David’s adulterous act by making Uriah think that he was to be the father of the unborn child. Uriah left the palace, but he chose to sleep at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house. When David was told that Uriah did not go home, he asked Uriah why he had not gone home. Uriah told the king that as long as the ark of God, Israel and Judah were staying in tents, as well as his commander Joab and all of David’s men are camped in the open country he could not go to his own house to eat, drink and sleep with his wife? As surely as you live, he told David, I will not do such a thing! At that point David’s sin began to roller coast into even more wrong choices as he tried to plot and deceive Uriah into getting drunk in hopes that Uriah would go home and sleep with his wife to insure that he and everyone else think the child was his. Yet still, it did not work. Uriah ended up sleeping in the camp with the other soldiers. Upon David’s frustration in trying to cover his sin, he decided to have Joab send Uriah to the front lines where the action was heavy and Uriah’s death would be certain. Afterwards, David was informed that Uriah had died. He was successful in getting rid of the one thing that he thought would relieve his guilt. He thought that he could fix the wrong that he had done by removing Uriah from the equation. However, the Bible tells us that our sin always finds us out. In II Samuel 11 the scripture tells us that David had done evil in the sight of the Lord in his actions and the Lord was not pleased with him at all.

This story however, does not end there. God later told David through Nathan His prophet that while David may have committed his sin in secret, that God was about to reveal His chastisement of David before Israel and the entire world. Although David did repent and was truly sorry for what he had done, the repercussions of his sin cost David more than he had any idea that he would have to pay. God told David that because of his sinful actions, David had given the enemies of the Lord occasion to blaspheme. The repercussions of David’s sin not only cost David his integrity and favor at that point but it also cost his child, his life. I could list for you a number of consequences that David, his family and all of Israel had to reap because of David not being able to resist a temptation one spring day. But instead I want to tell you about a God that forgives and restores when we turn to Him and repent from our sin. While God does forgive we still must face the repercussions of our wrong doing. May we all be reminded that though something may be tempting us to try or indulge in, let David’s life be a living testimony of how sin can destroy our reputations, our favor with God and others, bring harm to our family and even cost us precious lives.

Loving you today,

Bren