SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/10/2014 9:52 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Believer Should Not Take Advantage of
Others
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 4:6a
Message of the
verse: “and that no man transgress
and defraud his brother in the matter”
We are looking at a third practical, unambiguous
principle that emerges from Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians on sexual
morality as seen in the partial verse above.
What we see in this verse is something that unfortunately
is too common in the life of the church in today’s world, and that is there are
times when men and women who are both believers work together in a church
setting and they do not take the time and care of not praying about temptation
and then one thing leads to another and before they can stop it they become
sexually involved. As we look at the
word “transgress” in this verse we should know that it means “to sin
against.” John MacArthur says that this
word also includes the concept of stepping over the line and exceeding the
lawful limits. He has this to say about
the “defraud:” “Defraud means to selfishly, greedily take something for
personal gain and pleasure at someone else’s expense.” “Whenever believers seek
to satisfy their physical desires and gain sexual pleasure at the expense of
another believer, they have violated this command.”
There is a very famous story in the Old Testament that
illustrates this point that Paul is making and that story tells the downfall of
Israel’s greatest king. King David
stayed home from a battle that his army was fighting and he should have been
there with his men, not fighting with them, but leading them the way that
perhaps a general does in our modern army.
He was sitting on the roof of his house and saw a woman taking a bath on
the roof of her house, and the Bible states that she was lovely to look
at. At this point David should have run
like Joseph did, but he did not and he eventually slept with her and she became
pregnant. This woman was the wife of a
good man, a man who was one of David’s great warriors, and so David violated
what Paul is writing about to the Thessalonians. David eventually had her husband put in
harm’s way and he was killed in a battle and so David married the woman, and
the baby died. David did not confess his
sin to the Lord and so God sent Nathan the prophet to him with a story. The story was about a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had many sheep, and the poor man
had only one. The rich man forced the
poor man to give him his one little lamb for food for his guests. David was angry over this story and then
Nathan told David that he was the man.
David had violated a fellow believer by sleeping with his wife and then
having him killed. As believers Paul
tells us not to do this, not to defraud a believer in this way. However we can violate a believer by simply
looking at their wife with sexual motives on our minds, and Jesus says that
this is sin: “27 “You have heard that it was said, ’YOU SHALL
NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; 28 but I say to
you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart. 29 “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear
it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts
of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” What does Jesus mean in verse 29? Perhaps it is this: ““I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman.” This comes from Job 31:1, and remembers what
God had to say about the righteousness of Job.
Job was a very rich man but he did not take advantage of his riches in
order to sleep with other women, for he kept his eyes pure and this is a step
that David should have followed.
Jesus speaks of the subject of sinfully taking advantage
of another believer in Matthew 18:6-7:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble,
it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and
to be drowned in the depth of the sea. 7
"Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it
is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the
stumbling block comes!””
MacArthur says that these “little ones” refers to young believers in the
Lord and goes on to say: “The seriousness
of Christ’s admonition to believers in Matthew 18:6 has no equal in all His
teaching. He said that a believer who
defrauds another believer deserves to be killed! So Christians must take heed to their own
holiness, avoid all ungodly influences, and never use other people, especially
fellow believers, to achieve sinful gratification.” Paul wrote in other places about this
issue: “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but
rather determine this-not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a
brother’s way (Rom. 14:13).” “1Co 8:13
Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again,
so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Peter writes in
his letter that we are to be holy just as the Lord is holy. We remember what Job says about his eyes, and
we wonder if all of this is possible.
Paul writes that I can do all things through Christ who gives me
strength. We cannot do this on our owns,
but if God desires for us to be holy we can trust Him to make us that way,
especially in the sexual ways that Paul is writing about to the Thessalonians
in chapter four.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to keep me holy.
Memory verses for the
week: Philippians 2:5-9
5 Have this attitude in
yourself which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form
of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied
Himself, taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of
men. 8 Being found in appearance as a
man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death
on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God
highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Acts.”
Today’s Bible
question: “What did Jacob make Joseph
promise him before he died?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/10/2014 10:41 AM
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