It’s Just Not Worth It!
9/28/97 Proverbs 7:6-24 1 Corin10:1-13
Have you ever been as dumb as I have in which you did something you knew was wrong. It even seemed liked fun and was kind of enjoyable at the moment, but later when your actions were discovered and you had to pay the price, you said to yourself, "It just wasn’t worth it." Tell your neighbor, "if you’re thinking of doing wrong, it’s just not worth it." Friday’s headlines were full of people whose past actions had caught up with them. They never planned to get caught or found out. But they did. Some will tell you now, "it was fun for a while, but it wasn’t worth it."
The moment we come into the world, a partner immediately comes to our side. The partner is committed to being with us till the day we die. Our partner will be there when we get out of bed, when we go to the bathroom, when we go to school, when we go to work, when we’re alone in the car, when we make it back home, when we’re getting ready for bed, and even when we’re in the bed.
Our partner will appear at times to have left, but don’t believe it for a moment. We are more married to that partner than we will ever be to another person. We can’t even get away, by going into the corners of our mind. Who is this partner who we can hear clearer than we can hear God? Our partner is temptation. You can’t pray to God to get rid of it, but you can allow God to help you from being its slave. If you don’t, you will find yourself saying way too often, "it just wasn’t worth it."
Our text for this morning involves a young man who lived in the best of mansions. He drove the latest set of wheels. He had the finest of designer clothes. Women would have jumped at the chance to have been chosen his wife. He was the number one prince in his father’s house, and when his father died, he would be the next king. By most people’s standards, this fellow was sitting on the top of the world. He truly appeared to be "all that." Our text is found in 2 Samuel 13. Our character who had the world at his feet was none other than Prince Amnon, the son of King David.
2 Sam 13:1 In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. I want you to notice first the Scriptures says, in the course of time. What happened to Amnon didn’t hit him all at once. It probably started out as something very innocent. A smile, a polite word, sharing a joke or a laugh or doing something which was fun together. Often times, our partner temptation starts with a desire which is already in us and relatively harmless. If this was being written about you, what is it you have fallen in love with during the course of time. Is it money, is it a person, is it fame, is it power, or is it pleasure. All of temptations can fit into one of those five areas.
Now King David, had taken more than one wife, and now he has one wife’s kid looking at another wife’s kid. Amnon believes he’s in love with his half sister. Now here was a man who could have a choice of beautiful women, but he decides to choose the one he shouldn’t have. The moment we can’t have something, all of a sudden it seems like the better choice.
Have you ever had to choose between two items in the store, and the moment you choose one and walk out the door, before you get out the door, you start thinking, I probably should have chosen the other one. Now that you can’t have it, it looks like it was the better choice.
Amnon just wouldn’t let this feeling inside of him go. That’s when his partner temptation sprang to life. 2 Sam 13:2 Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her. Tamar was a woman of faith and of character. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was going to compromise her moral values for any man, not even the most prized eligible bachelor in the country.
Our partner temptation has a close relative that he will often send to us. His name is bad advice. Amnon had a cousin by the name of Jonadab. He see his nephew looking so sad, and he said, " My man, What’s up. You’re the king’s son, you ought not to be looking like this day after day. You’re the man. Nothing ought to have you in the down and out. You can talk to me, maybe I can help."
Amnon said to him, " Aw man I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister and I can’t figure out a way to get next to her." Now the Bible says that Jonadab was a very shrewd man, which meant he knew how to help you get what you wanted, but he didn’t have any moral principles in the way he acted. Hey, if somebody gets hurt, it’s on them. As long as he got you what you wanted, what’s the big deal.
He tells Amnon, "Aw brother that’s nothing. I can help you out with that. All you need to do is "Go to bed and pretend to be ill. "When your father comes to see you, say to him, ’I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.’" Now I know you know what to do from there.
Now Amnon is facing a deadly duo. He’s got temptation right alongside some very bad advice. Some of us are facing the same situation this morning. Someone has shown us an easier way to get something we want, and we know the way is not of God. There is no reason to try to justify it by saying, but this temptation is too much for me to handle. Our New Testament reading said, God will not allow temptation to hit us with something stronger than we can handle.
Amnon thought this thing over again and again in his mind. He decided to do it. He went into moaning and groaning, and laying down on the bed. Word got to his father, your boy Amnon is really sick. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, "I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand." David sent word to Tamar at the palace: "Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him."
Now David intentionally put on blinders. He should have asked, "how in the world is a sick man going to get better from watching his half sister cook some food." It’s no secret that Tamar was a beautiful woman. The only way Amnon would have started feeling better was to have gotten his mind of his sickness and on lusting after his sister. Parents we live in a world where sex bombards our youth. A lot of girls end up sexually abused by older brothers and cousins all because we refuse to look at the possibility of what might be happening. We even put themselves in the situation where the abuse could occur."
David should have known better because of his own personal failure. He had seen a beautiful woman once by the name of Bathsheba. He schemed and connived to have sex with her, got her pregnant and had her husband murdered afterwards so that he could take her as a wife. He should have said to Amnon, "son, I have been where you are, and I think I know what you’re planning but I want you to know what you’re thinking about, it’s just not worth it." But David said nothing. He did not go out of his way to protect his daughter. We need more men who are willing to do all they can to protect their daughters. Every father ought to interview any guy that wants to go out with his daughter. Or he is putting her in the same situation as David put Tamar.
In obedience to her father Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat. "Send everyone out of here," Amnon said. So everyone left him. A bell should have went off with Tamar. Wait a minute, I’ve cooked the bread, but he won’t eat it, and he wants everyone else to leave. Something is up. When it comes to a situation looking bad, trust your instincts to get out of the place. Don’t start saying, "well it’s probably nothing and God will watch over me". God is telling you, "use your brain and leave."
But Tamar didn’t do it Then Amnon said to Tamar, "Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand." And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. Again bells should have gone off. Why does this man need to eat in the bedroom. I shouldn’t be in his bedroom. The bedroom is for sex and sleeping not eating. We don’t know what was on Tamar’s mind. Did she really think he thought her bread was the best tasting bread in the kingdom? Did she think of him as a friend? Did she hope the two of them may later have a relationship together? Other half brothers and sisters had been married before?
Well regardless of what she thought, Amnon made clear his plans. But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, "Come to bed with me, my sister."
"Don’t, my brother!" she said to him. "Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you."
Her message to him, is that "It’s just not worth it" to go about it the way you’re trying to. This is the first time Amnon is given the consequences of what might happen. She reminds him of all both of them have to lose in this matter. She even provides him with a legitimate alternative to what he wants to do. Wouldn’t it be great, if before we went and did something wrong, we would list all the things we’re going to lose and give up if we follow through with the temptation. Instead of saying, if I get caught, this might happen. We need to say, when I get caught, or when others find out, I will have to pay by.....and go through our list.
But we need to look at our lists in the early stages of temptation. In the passion of the moment, reason is going to go out the window. The temptation seems enormous. We only think of the moment and we see deep down inside, we love ourselves more than we love God or anybody else. The cry is "I want to please me!" It says in verse 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her. Women realize, even Christian women of godly character are raped when they don’t get out of a situation when they get the first warning sign of trouble.
What a difference 15 minutes can make in our lives both spiritually and physically. Amnon got what he wanted, but it was nothing at all as he imagined it would be. Sin will always promise us more than it can deliver. Temptation will always be more exciting in our heads, than it will be in the act because in our heads, we can always control the outcome and the circumstances. That’s not true in real life.
Everything began to fall apart for Amnon. In verse 15 Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, "Get up and get out!" Do you see what sin can do to the feelings we call love. The man about went crazy. 15 minutes earlier he was begging her to get in the bed with him, now he wants her to get as far away from him as she can possibly get.
But Tamar was a woman of character. Her message is, "I’m not some toy you can use and then throw away. "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me." But he refused to listen to her. You see the law required that he marry her and that he pay a fine. She would be the queen for as long as she lived once he ascended the throne.
Amnon was not man enough to accept responsibility for he had done. He even wanted to place the blame on her in verse He called his personal servant and said, "Get this woman out of here and bolt the door after her." So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. He thought it would be the last time, he’d have to worry about Tamar.
Tamar could have put on her clothes and left and pretended as though nothing had happened. But like I said, she was a woman of character, and she didn’t want him doing the same thing to somebody else. Too often our silence, may condemn other future victims to the same fate.
The Scriptures says she was wearing a richly ornamented robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore. Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went. Everyone who saw her, knew she had lost her virginity and by the way she was crying, knew Amnon had raped her.
Her brother Absalom said to her, "Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart." And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman. When King David heard all this, he was furious. Now David sees clearly what he should have seen right from the start. Even though he was furious, he did nothing to Amnon. I’m sure if he had tried to talk with Amnon, Amnon would have probably said, "What’s the big deal Pop, I only did what you did with Bathsheba." Absalom, Tamar’s brother never said a word good or bad to Amnon. He just hated him because of what he had done to his sister.
Was it worth his father’s anger and his brother not speaking to him again. Well only Amnon knows that. Amnon, the man appeared to have gotten away with it. Two years have gone past and who knows how many young girls fell victim to his schemes. There are so many things which come back later in life and in time to haunt us. Even those things which we thought were a sure bet, come trailing after us.
Absalom decided to give a party out of town. He invited the king and all the king’s sons. The king said, "you young fellows go ahead and have a good time, we older folk would just be a burden to you. We don’t want to listen to that crazy music." Absalom, says "well dad, would you invite Amnon to come to the party?" Another bell should have gone off. The king says, "why in the world should he go to the party." I can imagine Absalom saying, "well he is my brother and sometimes bygones should just be bygones."
The king tells Amnon, "your brother Absalom is having a party and he wants you to go with him." Amnon was so conceited or full of pride that he didn’t think. "Absalom, Tamar’s brother has not spoken to me for two years and now he wants me at a party. What’s up with this?" He chose to believe what he had done wasn’t that big of a deal anyways. Sin has a way of clouding our judgment. Absalom was using the same strategy to get Amnon by himself as Amnon had use to get Tamar. "Get dad to send me the person."
Well the party was going on, and when Amnon was about drunk feeling kind of tipsy, all of a sudden Absalom’s servants surrounded him with the swords. Now is the time to ask Amnon, whether or not raping Tamar was worth it. It dawns on him that he is about to lose everything. His lifestyle, his throne, his life. It just wasn’t worth it. First they beat him down with the swords. Then they began to stab him through until he lay dead.
What started out has a harmless temptation, which ran into some bad advice, which refused to consider the consequences, which went ahead and took what was wanted resulted in Amnon lying in a pool of blood with no possibility of escape.
This is where temptation seeks to lead us. Each of us here has an enemy who want us to believe everything we want to have, we should have. And no matter what it might appear to cost, it’s going to be worth it for us to get it.. That enemy is Satan. Jesus said Satan came with the purpose of maiming and destroying our lives. He wants to kill us He doesn’t need something evil to use. He can use legitimate desires that we seek to fulfill in the wrong way.
Everybody comes into the world with sin. It is our nature to say no to God. We want to do our own thing. God says, there is a price to be paid for saying no to Me. Not only in this life but in the life to come. Sin will produce negative consequences for our lives. Sin will ultimately lead us to hell. God says, the only way to stop the consequences of sin destroying our spiritual lives is to accept my Son Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to God apart from him.
Jesus is willing to walk with you as temptation walks with you. He’s willing to deliver you out of temptation by making a way for your escape. But in return you must be willing to live your life for Him. Don’t ever forget, true life is found only in Christ. Jesus said "I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly." Don’t be content with anything less. It’s just not worth it. At times following Jesus Christ will be hard, it will be difficult, it will be costly, and it will be painful, but in the end, you will always say "it was worth it."
