Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“After this, Absalom the son of David had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. Amnon was so troubled that he became sick because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her. But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab the son of Shimeah, David’s brother; and Jonadab was a very subtle man. He said to him, “Why, son of the king, are you so sad from day to day? Won’t you tell me?” Amnon said to him, “I love Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.” Jonadab said to him, “Lay down on your bed and pretend to be sick. When your father comes to see you, tell him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight, that I may see it and eat it from her hand.’” So Amnon lay down and faked being sick. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.””
(2 Samuel 13:1-6)

“A revelation is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked:
    There is no fear of God before his eyes.
For he flatters himself in his own eyes,
    too much to detect and hate his sin.
The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit.
    He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
He plots iniquity on his bed.
    He sets himself in a way that is not good.
    He doesn’t abhor evil.”
(Psalm 36:1-4)

Because of David’s wilful sin, he opened the door to strife in his family. There were people in his family who were wicked. They didn’t follow the Lord like they should. They did not reverence the Lord like David did. When David was shown his sin had not been hidden, that he had only made things worse by trying to cover it up with more sin, David repented. But there were people in his home who did not feel they needed to repent. In fact, they seem to have revelled in their thinking. Jonadab gave David’s son – his cousin Amnon – evil advice. He helped to plot the rape of another cousin. And later, when Absalom took revenge for this rape of Absalom’s sister, he reported to David that everyone knew Absalom had been plotting the revenge since the day of the rape. No mention of his own complicity. Perfectly content for Absalom to get in trouble or for Amnon to take the punishment for the rape alone. He did wrong and caused contention with his speech, and never said or did anything to make anyone suspect he was involved. He was a wicked infection in the family of David.

The origin of the behaviour of the wicked is very simple: they do not take God’s point of view into account. It’s easy for us to see that and move on. Like of COURSE they don’t care about what God thinks. They frequently don’t even believe He exists. Why would they care what He thinks? But that not caring about God’s point of view is the root of ALL sins and ALL iniquities. Whenever we choose to sin it’s because we have decided we do not care about God’s point of view in the situation. We choose not to trust in Jesus at that moment. Trust in Jesus can get us through ANY temptation that comes our way (1 Corinthians 10:13). One of Holy Spirit’s ministries is to convict us of not trusting in Jesus – not as a judgment but as an encouragement that in EVERY circumstance we can choose to trust in Jesus (John 16:8-9). The root of sin is the choice to not revere God.

Summary

Jesus can be trusted. He is consistent. He is CONSTANT. He is NOT wishy-washy. He is FAITHFUL. He is TRUTHFUL. We can rely on Him in all things and in all things He can be trusted. When we face a trial or have something ungodly pop into our minds, we can seek Him and His point of view on it. When something in our lives starts to feel different, something we might not want to tolerate anymore, we can trust Jesus and His point of view. No matter if it is a threat that is external, internal, or something we let ourselves develop into a habit (or at least desensitize ourselves to), Jesus’ point of view on it is truth and we can trust in Him to show us the Way. When we put ourselves first, when we flatter our own thinking or morals or decisions, we put our eyes OFF of the Lord. When we do that, our sin-detector goes offline. We can say and do MANY things that are wrong simply because we did not stay connected to the One who knows the Truth (John 15:5). We need to keep our eyes on God. We need to consistently remind ourselves of His point of view, because it is the ONLY point of view that truly matters. He is our protection. We need to cleave to Him and let go of our own ‘clever’ thinking.