SUNDAY 11th
Numbers 32:23
NIV – ‘But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the LORD; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.’
ESV – ‘But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.’
I mentioned a few days ago that this is one of the verses that always come to my mind when I think of the book of Numbers. Being one of six children, when we were growing up and our parents were seeking to instil in us right behaviour, if one of us did something wrong, (we were angels most of the time!) this would be quoted ‘be sure your sin will find you out.’ To be honest, on occasion I think we were found out because one or other of us would eventually grass on the offender to keep out of trouble ourselves. But there were occasions where the verse was very applicable, and I am sure we can all say the same thing!
I remember two occasions that are only small examples in the whole scheme of things but were sufficient to teach us a lesson.
Our farm was half a mile from the nearest road, accessed by a private track / lane and we would have to walk to the end of this lane every day to catch a bus for school and walk back again in the evening. One day we (about 4 of us) decided to take a short cut through a neighbour’s crop field, trampling through it to eventually arrive home literally only saving a minute or two. But we carelessly forgot that trampling through a field would leave the crops damaged and our trail would be left. Later that evening the phone rang and we could tell that dad was not happy, he came into the room demanding who had been through the neighbours field, (the neighbour also happened to be our uncle!) he had seen our trail and the damage, our ‘sin’ had been found out and we were duly reprimanded. The other occasion I remember or at least am willing to remember happened when we were having a new barn built on the farm, and we were strictly warned by our dad and the builders that we were not in any circumstances to touch any of the builders material or equipment. My older sister and I got a little inquisitive and we decided to go and investigate the building site and we found the builders extra-long (and expensive) leather cased measuring tape, and so we decided to play with it until, yes, we broke it! What will we do? We had no choice but to confess to dad and he then made us immediately walk to the builder’s house which was a little over a mile away and to report our crime to the builder. Our ‘sin of disobedience’ had caught us out.
I know these may seem almost trite examples, but the lesson is there, we may think that we can do something and get away with it, we may think that no one will see, or no one will know – BUT GOD SEES and GOD KNOWS and somehow sin will always get uncovered, we will always be found out.