Flares are going off. Will you still crash?
I don’t know if you have noticed or not but we live in a society who ignores warning. Men, how many of you have ignored that little sticker on your step ladder and stood above that crucial step like you weren’t supposed to? Ladies, how many of you have, against all warning, tried putting your make up on while driving down the road? How many of you heathens have tempted time in prison and removed that little tag off your pillows? How many of you parents had children who, despite your warning of the stove’s heat, touched the burner? While driving down the road you pass a very unlucky skunk and someone yells out “sheuuuuu, that staaanks,” What is the very first thing everyone else in the car does…. SNNNIIIIIIIIIIIFF, and then as if it weren’t obvious they in some form of words let you know “YUP,you were right.”
It is, for some reason, a trait of mankind throughout history to blatantly ignore warnings and thusly wind up in utter disaster. The irony comes when during the disaster the failed person exasperates, “How did I ever get here?” What we fail to open our eyes to is the stack of warnings we received that, if followed, would have prevented this mucky mess.
In pondering this quirk of human nature I am reminded about a man named Jake. It’s been a while but the disaster felt in the story of him and his brother can still be seen today even though we have crossed thousands of years of history. You can read this story for your self in full back in the 25th chapter of Geneses but for now I’ll just give you my version.
Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, found herself to be very, very pregnant. Her’s was a very difficult pregnancy because her unborn twin sons were duking it out in the womb. Rebekah’s pastor even told her that she had two nations that were batteling in there for seniority. They never were going to really get along, in fact they would one day part ways for good but the older one would serve the younger one. Then struggle between them was so intense that when they were finally born the younger one had a death grip on his older brother’s ankle as they came out. Please don’t laugh to much at the mental picture in your head.
Life went on with these brothers and Jake, the little brother kept trying to one-up Esau, the older brother. One day Jake pulled a real stinker. You see Esau was a great hunter but for some reason he was lazy for a while and became hungry but had no food. Jake on the other hand was making a wonderful pot of stew out where Esau would smell it as he walked by. This stew smelled so good to Esau that he allowed Jake to trick him and trade his entire birthright for this pot of stew. Now you have to realize the first born was given the birthright which was the father’s wealth. No small thing.
Notice how Esau is remembered.
See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.
Hebrews 12:16-17
We look at this and say, how could this happen? Esau made one bad choice that seemed minor at the time but it ruined his entire future. We can easily and do often make the same kind of mistake.
Do you remember the Titanic.
-The greatest ocean liner ever to see the face of the earth.
-fastest
-unsinkable
-fanciest
-Warned
-signals from another ship sent warnings of ice-bergs ahead
-disaster
-Cocky
-Sank
-+1500 people dead
We look back and we say, “how could this happen?” The problem is they were no worse than you or I are. How often do we receive the warning saying “DANGER, DANGER” but we don’t pay any attention to it.
-A wise person listens to the warnings God puts in his heart.
If we would stop trying to outtalk God we would be able to hear His warning. We need to get back to the point were we listen to that gut feeling. That Gut feeling is far more than evidence of eating green meat. It is a natural response placed in us by God, our Creator, so that we can help in making good decisions. It is called a conscience and if you listen to it a little you can steer clear of approaching ice-bergs. If you ignore it long enough, though, it will stop warning. Some of us need to ask God to help us restart it.
To often people get cocky and say, “Oh, I can handle it. It’s just one drink. It’s just one look. It’s just one dinner date. It’s just one time. I won’t get hooked. I can stand.
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!
1 Corinthians 10:12
Don’t compromise.
Do what you know is right. Don’t compromise on even what may seem like little things. Satan just needs a little crack to work in, just a little compromise here and a little compromise there.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Big sin results from little compromises.
Fine people make little compromises and one day wake up trying to figure out what went wrong.
A person of excellence doesn’t put himself in a position to compromise.
-Don’t go to lunch by yourself with someone of the opposite sex
-Don’t work late and alone with another person of the opposite sex
-Don’t spend time in the home of someone of the opposite sex.
-Don’t become emotionally connected with someone of the opposite sex
-once you are emotionally connected then just wait for the physical
connection. It will come, almost guaranteed.
Be smart, there is nothing wrong with having a friend of the opposite sex but don’t push it too far.
Don’t fall into the trap of hanging out with anther person of the opposite sex and pouring out your feelings to them because they listen better than your spouse does. Spend that time opening the lines of communication with your spouse. You married them. You must have loved them enough to get married and you must have been able to communicate with them at one time so quit being lazy and restart that communication link.
When you look outside your marriage to find emotional stability and satisfaction you eventually start looking there for physical satisfaction as well, you can count on it.
You may disagree with me saying everything I have talked about is purely harmless. Let me tell you this, the enemy only paints a pretty picture of the future, he never shows you reality.
Don’t get caught up in the feeling of the moment. Think about the effect it will have on the future. After this event has passed what will things look like?
Esau got caught up in the moment and lost his birthright over a measly bowl of stew.
Here now the humanness of your pastor. I once worked for a bank in a very busy area the City. Five o’clock on Friday was always hectic beyond belief. We would literally have cars backed up for half a mile sometimes. The lines in the lobby would be lined up out the door. It was a high pressure, high stress job that required everybody to work at there absolute peak performance. It took to much time to walk from the counter to the window of the drive through so we would just yell and sling the vacuum tubes in order to keep up the pace. If you didn’t move that fast you would have a bunch of grumbling customers. In fact we had them even when moving at that pace. You had to cut anything that made your job longer than necessary.
Occasionally we would be short staffed so we would bring in what we called a floater. This person would fill in as needed. One week we had a floater who had a really, really, really high self-esteem and had no problems with her self perception. She walked around thinking she was the “cat’s meow”. The problem was that she showed these feelings in the way she dressed. It would have been cheaper for her to have bought spray paint and paint her outfit on every day. It caused sever interruptions. Instead of doing their banking business and leaving men would lean over the counter and just stand there for fifteen minutes gawking and hitting on her. Now we were with out a needed teller and we had customers blocking up the line just to flirt. If that weren’t bad enough people would sit in the drive thru after doing there transaction just to watch her thru the window.
I finally had all I could handle. Being the holy saint I am and wanting to correct this problem I told her, “Yes, you are an attractive girl, but have you ever considered putting clothes on.” The next day I no longer worked for the bank.
What seemed so good and so right in that moment of impulse ruined my promises of advancement in that bank. By acting on impulse without properly evaluating its effect on the future I admittedly made a stupid move.
By the way--Don’t be fooled, If someone leaves a spouse for you there is a five percent chance your relationship will last. It is a character flaw.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Proverbs 25:28
That means if you don’t control yourself you are like a city whose walls are broken down. Anything can get you. You can be easily knocked over. You are an easy target.
Be aware.
Be careful in your work place. 80% of all affairs begin in the work place. You spend time with these people. Often you spend more time with the people you work with than with your spouse. That means you need to put up some barriers and you also need to fortify your marriage by spending more quality time with your spouse.
By the way—The divorce rate is the same among Christians and non-Christians.
Don’t compromise because the group you are hanging out with wants to do something you feel you shouldn’t do. How do you know they aren’t simply ignoring the warnings God is broadcasting into there life.
I was once a college roommate. I know what that temptation is like.
Learn to self-discipline. Discipline is difficult, I know. But as Joel Osteen once said, “There are two kinds of pain, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. The pain of discipline is like an ounce but the pain of regret is like a ton.
Evaluate the decision as you are about to make it and remind yourself, “This decision can keep me from being everything God made me to be.
I am not trying to condemn anybody but I do want to encourage you to be careful to listen to God. If you have veered of path God can certainly forgive and heal you. But how sweet it would be to avoid the pain altogeather.
God will not make us do the right thing but He will certainly tell us how to avoid the wrong things if we will just listen.
