The Deceptive Sin Of Omission

When I read this verse of scripture that tells us BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT reminds me of the young couple that were about to get married.

• The young man went to his Dad and said, "I’m a bit apprehensive about getting married, Dad".

• "Why, son", said the Dad.

• "Well, I’ve got terribly smelly feet Dad and it’ll be so embarrassing when my wife finds out".

• "Don’t worry about it, son, just be sure to go to bed with your socks on and she’ll never notice the smell. You’ll be fine".

• Meanwhile, the young lady goes to her mother and tells her,

• "I’m a bit worried about getting married, Mom, because I’ve got terrible bad breath in the mornings and it’ll be so embarrassing when my husband finds out".

• Mom says to her daughter, "Don’t worry, dear. All you need to do is, be sure not to open your mouth first thing in the morning. Don’t say a single word until you’ve been to the bathroom and brushed your teeth and use some mouth wash.

The wedding goes off fine and for six months they each manage to keep their secrets safe.

Then one morning at about 5 am the young husband wakes up and discover his socks had came off.

He start to scrambling around in the bed trying to find his socks and he woke his wife up and she got in his face and said, “What are you doing?

And he smelt her bad breath and he said, “Oh no, she has swallowed my socks!”

Before we consider our text BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT, we need to consider the context in which we find this text is written.

Moses said these words when Israel came to the land of Jazer. They were about to enter the promise land, but the tribes of Reuben, Gad, came to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the princes of the congregation, and said to them, (paraphrase), “This is such a wonderful sheep land we are presently in, let us have this land instead of the land on the other side of Jordan.”

In Numbers 32:6, Moses said, in so many words, “You mean you want to stay here on the East side of Jordan while your brothers go across and do all the fighting?”

Then it would seem Moses detected something was not right about this request. He made an accusation against them.

In verses 7-12 he told them they were doing the same thing their fathers had done. They were trying to discourage the people of Israel from entering the promised land.

WHAT DID HE MEAN BY THIS?

Remember, earlier Moses had sent spies out from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land.

• Two spies, Joshua and Caleb came back with a good report and said that they were “well able” to take the land and encouraged the people to go at once.

• But all the other spies discouraged the people from going. They told of the giants. saying that the giants were so big the Israelite people would be “as grasshoppers” in comparison.

However, when Reuben and Gad had been accused of this they defended themselves saying, “No, we are not doing the same thing our fathers did!”

They told Moses how they would support the ten tribes in fighting with them to drive out all the enemies and afterward they would come back to their families and settle in the land just outside the promised land.

Evidently Moses was not completely convinced they were telling the truth...

Now we come to the remarkable verse of our text.

Moses told them that if they would not do as they promised, he said in Numbers 32:23, “...ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.

HOW WERE THEY SINNING AGAINST THE LORD?

Let me come to the defense of Reuben and Gad.

That is, they preferred to live on this side of Jordan rather than the other side. This was a wonderful place for them to live and it had good pasture land for their sheep.

There is not anything wrong with what they wanted!!!

WHY DID MOSES REBUKE THEM THE WAY HE DID?

He rebuked them sharply because he felt the reason they were wanting to live on this side of Jordan they were trying to get out of doing something they should do!!!

WHAT WAS THAT?

They had other battles to fight as they entered the promise land and he felt they were trying to get out of fighting those battles.

But they assured him they would leave their families there but the men were willing to go to the other side of Jordan and fight with them.