Every Action Has A Reaction

06/14/2002 Every Action has a reaction

Have any of you ever been lost while driving somewhere?

Maybe in a big city or something?

I missed my turn in Little Rock the first time I traveled there after moving to Arkansas, it was late, it was dark, and I was tired. That was the first time I had ever been to that part of little rock. I had been to the airport before but if you come out of Memphis and go to the Little Rock airport you really bypass the city itself.

But I was on some roads that I had never been on before and I simply missed my turn.

Now, It did not take me long to figure out what I did and I just turned around, I did not have any problem.

But now, I have been completely lost in some big cities before.

I have been lost in Jackson Mississippi.

I have been lost in Memphis Tennessee

I have been lost in Chattanooga Tennessee.

You may want to remember that if you ever go anywhere with me.

But it is amazing isn’t it.

One little wrong turn,

One little slip,

One mistake, and you are going way off over here, when you were supposed to be going over there.

Oh, if you can figure out what you did wrong, you can usually get back to where you were supposed to be going, but it may have cost you something.

Many people miss flights because they made one little mistake going to the airport.

Many people miss meetings,

People have missed a friends wedding, even a funeral,

When we make those little errors it tends to cost us something.

I want you to think of our lives now.

Every single time we make a mistake,

Every single time we go the wrong way,

Every single decision we make, changes our life forever.

We may not know what the change is, but there is a change.

I have not been to school in a long time, but I believe one of the laws of physics tells us that for every action, there is a reaction.

And so it is with sin.

Every time we sin, we take a wrong turn in our life.

“Can we not get back on the straight and narrow?”

Sure we can, but what did it cost us?

The Bible plainly tells us in numerous places that we will have to bear the consequences of our sin.

Now, we don’t have to pay the penalty, Jesus Christ has done that on our behalf, but we do have to bear the consequences.

Now, we may not always recognize what those consequences are, but they are there non-the less.

And even if we do not recognize the consequences, the Bible says that one day we, even Christians will have to stand before the Lord himself and give an account of everything we did with and in our lives.

Boy, if that wont make a man think twice about sinning, than nothing will.

But I want us to go back to the Bible and look at the life of a very Godly man and see what price he had to pay for his sin.

Now, The bible has shown the human side of all the great God fearing men of the Bible.

We see the sin of Adam and the consequences to this very day.

We see the sin of Abraham, and what it cost him and the entire world.

We see the sin of David and what it cost him and his family.

Last week I mentioned the sin of Achan and it cost his entire family their lives.

But today I want us to look at Moses.

Moses was a very Godly man and he spent most of his life in service to God.

But I want you to see what one sin cost him.

Turn with me please to Numbers chapter 20

READ NUMBERS 20:1-12

Boy, what a penalty.

Now, before we look at his sin and the consequences of that sin, lets go back and look at a few other things.

First, I want you to notice that Moses and Aaron were under a lot of Pressure at this time in their lives.

I. Pressure

Look at verse 1

READ VERSE 1

After the Nation of Israel came to Kadesh, their older sister died.

There is one little line in one verse

“now Miriam died there and was buried there.”

It does not mention a big elaborate funeral,

It does not mention a time of mourning for Aaron and Moses.

No,

I mean, they did not even have time to mourn because they were the leaders of the nation of Israel and if you will look at verse 2 it says that they had no water.