Stop Throwing Your Talents Away Series

Stop Throwing Your Talents Away

5/18/08 Proverbs 1:8-19 Philippians 3:12-16 2 Samueal 13:20-18:33

Is there anybody here, who has ever looked at someone who was wasting some talent he or she had, and you said, “if I had the talent they had, then I know I would be doing such and such.” It could be any kind of a talent from athletic ability to academic genius, from great looks to a super voice, from wonderful personality to an ability to fix things, from an abundance wealth, to a an ability to make things happen.

Why is it that God has blessed some people with special talents, and they’re not being used. They are simply throwing them away. Well one of the reasons is supernatural.

It was Jesus himself who provided us with this answer when Jesuse said, “the enemy comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy.” There is an enemy hovering around our lives with the purpose of killing what God has placed in us, of stealing the benefits we could receive from it, and destroying God’s plans and purposes for our lives.

If we do not open our eyes to the tricks of the enemy we will fall. Satan never appears as this big bad ugly dude, saying “I am Satan, here’s what I want you to do, now go and do it.” No, when Satan comes, you rarely recognize it as him. He usually appears as a desire to please you or to help you get something you want that will please you.

We are going to finish our series today on King David and his family and how David began throwing away his talents, all because of a decision to have a one night stand. Your plans for a one time event, is all that Satan needs to turn you talents into a lifetime of disaster. To bring you up to date, King David was walking on his roof one night when he spotted a naked woman bathing. Even though he knew Bathsheba was married, he sent servants after her to have sex with her for a one night stand. Neither expected to get caught. But she got pregnant. David then tried to frame the pregnancy on her husband, but when that fell through, David had her husband murdered through Joab the commanding officer of the army, so that David could marry Bathsheba. David took her into the palace and was going to raise the child as his own, which the child really was, but others did not know it.

God sent a messenger to David to let him know he was not pleased with what David had done, and as a result the child would not live, trouble would arise in David’s own family, and David’s wives would be sexually assaulted in public by someone close to him, and being at war would be a continuing part of his life.

The first thing that happened after the prophecy was that despite David’s fasting and praying for seven days, the child died. The next thing involved David’s children Amnon, Absalom and Tamar. Amnon had a different mother than Absalom and Tamar. Tamar was an extremely beautiful young virgin.

Amnon, was the oldest of King David’s sons, and he was a player, but he couldn’t get Tamar’s attention. He about drove himself crazy over her. He got some advice from a cousin name Jonadab, on a plan of how Amnon could get Tamar alone. Amnon pretended to be sick and asked his father King David if Tamar could come and bake him some bread in his sight at his house. David sent Tamar to Amnon.

When she came, Amnon tricked her and the servants and got her alone with him in his bedroom. She refused to have sex with him, so he raped her. He then had her thrown out of his bedroom, and tried to make it appear she was the one who had tried to sexually assault him. Tamar was courageous enough to let the world know what Amnon had done to her. When King David found out, he was furious, but he did nothing to Amnon. When Absalom found out what Amnon had done, he hated Amnon, but didn’t say anything to him at all, neither good nor bad.

We now pick up the story and my last message, which is about 4 years later than the original one night stand with David and Bathsheba, and it is two years after Amnon had raped Tamar. The central figure now is Absalom.

Absalom is one of the most naturally talented and gifted individuals we find in the bible. For you ladies, he was your dream looking kind of a guy. The bible says, there was not a made so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his feet there was no blemish in him. His hair was thick and rich, they even took the time to measure how much it weighed when he got it cut.