"THE FOLLY OF MEDDLING"
Intro. King Amaziah was 25 years old when he began to reign over Judah, he had a war in which he defeated the Edomites, and conquered the rock city of Petra. Upon his return from this victory he sent a message to Jehoash the king of Israel challenging him to a fight. The king of Israel was reluctant to fight and sent a message back suggesting that he just stay home and enjoy the victory that he had over the Edomites. He asked, "Why should you meddle to your own hurt?"
I. THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE TODAY WHO ARE MEDDLING TO THEIR OWN HURT WITH VARIOUS FORMS OF SIN.
A. Some are meddling with alcohol.
1. A recent survey revealed that 81% of the high school students have tried drinking alcoholic beverages.
2. That children today are being introduced to alcohol at the early age of nine years old.
3. Let me warn you that meddling with alcohol can only hurt you.
a. There is not one decent benefit that can come from drinking.
b. There is a myriad of evils that can come from alcohol.
4. Proverbs speaks of some of the problems that alcohol brings.
PRO 23:29 Who has woe? who has sorrow? who is in fights? who has quarrels? Who has wounds and doesn't know how he got them? who has bloodshot eyes? They that hang out in the bars spending their time drinking. Don't let the sparkle and smooth taste of wine deceive you, for in the end, it will bite like a serpent and sting like a scorpion. Your eyes will begin to look at strange women. You will utter stupid things that would embarrass you if you were sober. You do stupid things like trying to lie down on the sea or to go to sleep on the top of the mast. You will say, "They beat me up and did not even feel it. When you sober up, you will go out and seek it again."
B. Even worse than alcohol are the problems that come to the person who meddles with drugs.
1. One of the insidious things about drugs is the first thing the drug attacks is your power to resist.
2. It also destroys your capacity to reason.
3. You soon find yourself doing things that at one time in your life you swore that you would never do such things.
a. Honesty and truth, are early victims as you become a con artist.
b. In time it will cost you your job, your family, and everything that is worthwhile in life.
C. Some are meddling with an extra marital affair or just with sex apart from marriage.
1. It started off innocent enough but now like a fly caught in the spider's web you are trapped.
2. The excitement and sex drive keep you pursuing the forbidden fruit, yet it is destroying your family.
3. You find yourself in the torments of hell, because of the approach avoidance conflict.
4. You feel so guilty when you look at your sweet innocent children and you realize the pain that you are bringing into their lives.
5. They do not understand why you are never going to be living with them again. Many nights they will cry themselves to sleep for their world has been destroyed, and they don't know why.
6. You know what God's word says about such things, but your desire for sex becomes stronger than your desire for life.
7. If you have become sexually promiscuous your chances of contracting a sexually transmitted disease is very great.
8. One day they brought to Jesus a man afflicted with the palsy. This particular Greek word describes the symptoms of the final stages before death from a form of syphilis in those days. He was now bedridden and dying. He had indulged in a moment of pleasure, but for months has been gradually going down hill physically. Day after day, as he would lie there shaking uncontrollably, unable to move from his cot, don't you know that the mental torment of the illicit affair plagued his mind? I would suppose that it was much like the torment of those who are dying of AID's. Why? Why? Why? I am paying for that moment of pleasure, with months and years of torment, was it worth it? The first words of Jesus to the man were, "Your sins are forgiven." The friends that went to so much trouble to get him to Jesus were probably upset with those words, they wanted Jesus to say, "Be healed." The words certainly upset the Pharisees for they knew that only God could forgive sins. But I can
imagine to his poor tormented mind, they were like music.
9. Some of you here today have been meddling and now you are hurting. 10. Maybe, like Amaziah, you had a good start in life, a lot of potential, and good opportunities.
D. King Johoash gave Amaziah some good advice. Just stay home and enjoy your victory. Why meddle to your own hurt?
E. Amaziah would not hear it, he was determined to fight.
II. THE CONSEQUENCES.
A. Amaziah and his men were defeated at the battle at Beth Shemesh.
1. This is a pain that was not necessary. Had he just stayed home and minded his own business, it never would have happened.
2. It not only effected him, but the whole nation suffered because of his meddling. Your sin can cause calamity to many others.
3. Not only do you suffer, but so often it brings suffering to many others.
B. The army of Jehoash came to Jerusalem and broke down a large portion of the wall. Verse 13
1. Amaziah lost a part of his defenses.
2. This is one of the insidious things about sin, it destroys your defenses.
a. Before the first time you indulged in that sinful practice, you put up a stiff resistance.
b. You knew that you shouldn't do it.
c. You resisted rather strongly.
d. The peer pressure or curiosity was so great, that you finally gave in.
e. Afterward your conscience gave you fits. I'm guilty, why did I do it?
3. But because you did it once, you lost a part of your defenses. The next time you were tempted you discovered that your resistance wasn't as strong and it was easier to give in to the temptation, because you had already done it once.
a. After a time you lose all of your defenses, in fact, you find that it reverses itself and you have become trapped, and you have now a hard time not doing it for you are hooked, addicted. As the scriptures say, by which a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.
b. You have done it so often that you have quieted the voice of your conscience, and you can now do it without the mental torment. The Bible calls it a seared conscience.
C. When King Jehoash came to Jerusalem, he took the gold and silver and the treasures of king Amaziah.
1. His meddling cost him his treasures.
2. This is so often true, your meddling will cost you your treasure.
a. What a glorious treasure virginity is.
b. What a sad day when a person meddles with sex before marriage and loses that treasure, they can never regain it. It is lost forever.
c. They will not have that treasure to give to their chosen mate when the day comes for them to be married.
3. What a beautiful treasure is purity.
a. Paul wrote to the Romans to be simple concerning evil.
b. When I was in Bible College some of the fellows went to a burlesque show under the guise that they needed to know how evil the world was so they could expose it in their sermons.
c. The problem is that when you once plant that rot in your brain, you cannot erase it.
d. The Bible tells us to guard our hearts with all diligence.
4. There are many things in life, that you should never meddle with because it can only cause hurt.
D. You say, but Chuck, I have already meddled and I am hurting, is there any hope for me?
1. I am glad that you asked.
2. The Bible tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses a man of all sin.
3. God is the only one who can forgive sin, but he not only forgives, He makes you so clean, it is as if you had never done it. That is what the word justify means. Break up the word and find the meaning, just if I had never done it.
4. God said, "Come now, let us reason together saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, you can be as white as snow."
5. Paul wrote, "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."
6. No matter what you have done, how messed up your life, you can leave this place today, pardoned and cleansed, declared innocent by God, a clean conscience for there is therefore now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
Verse-Reference
Square — [Jhn 1:1 KJV]
Abbreviate Books
Use SBL Abbrev.
