Be sure your (Twitter) sins will find you out

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MODERN HEADLINES MIRROR BIBLICAL LESSONS, BOTH GOOD AND BAD

TOM LAMPRECHT: Harry, I want to take you to a couple of stories, one out of The Daily Wire, the other out of Fox News.

The Daily Wire is reporting that, apparently, Twitter employees are paid to view private sex messages. All those people that have been doing things on their Twitter accounts who thought that nobody else would notice – well, apparently, at Twitter, there’s a whole group of engineers who monitor what you think are your private messages.

One Twitter employee was quoted as saying, “All your illegitimate wives and, like, all the girls you’ve been doing things with, they’re now on my server. I’m going to send it to your wife and she’s going to get you in a divorce.”

Then the second story, out of Fox News, three brothers – Ned, Roger and Steven Landau – their mom inherited some things from their grandparents and they, in turn, when their mom passed away, inherited it from her – things like a silver tea set, a couple of old paintings, perhaps, were worth a few hundred dollars.

As it turns out, one piece that was inherited, a painting, turned out to be a Rembrandt painting. What they thought they were going to get a few hundred dollars for, they got over $1 million.

DR. REEDER: Tom, when you brought these stories, first of all, they were interesting, but they were interesting beyond just a personal interest story or a human-interest story. They were interesting in that there are a couple of Biblical principles that are embedded in this.

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW, EVEN ELECTRONICALLY

Let’s take up the first one and that is this fact that, here, people are gathering all of these messages that you think are private, and they’re together and, as one employee said, “You’re just a moment away from financial ruin as I collect all this data and send it in a package to your wife.”

I couldn’t help but think of the Book of Numbers that contains an amazing statement – and it’s supported, of course, in the book of Galatians – in Numbers, it says, “Be sure your sins will find you out,” and in Galatians, “What a man sows, he’ll also reap.”

And then the warnings of the apostle Paul that, “We must all appear before the judgment seat and we will give an account for all that we have said and done.” And the reality that the Lord says to us that, “The things that you think are done in secret will yet be revealed in the light of day and from the housetop, itself.”

Here are these warnings that what you think is done in private and what you think is done in secret actually will also see the light of day – if nothing else, the light of day at the judgment where we all give an account.

SIN IS NOT VICTIMLESS OR SECRET

I was absolutely convinced that my mother had some omniscient gift in that I could not get away with anything in my life. The reality is it not only comes out in knowledge; it comes out in effect, as well. When we sin, there’s no such thing as victimless sins.

What your sins do is they destroy something in you and when they destroy it in you, they destroy it in the relationships you have with other people. Secret moments of pornography, those are victimless? Well, no, it’s not victimless. Just think of what’s happening in the lives of the people that you are purveying and think of what’s going to happen in the way you now look at other people, including your spouse. They have consequences in life and they certainly have consequences in eternity.

JESUS MAKES US RIGHTEOUS DESPITE TRANSGRESSIONS

If anyone’s listening to me and you believe that there is a God who is holy, who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished and that we must all appear before the judgment seat to give an account, then you have got to be thinking, “Oh my goodness, every sin is worthy of the judgment of God – the wages of sin, singular – is death and here I will stand before the Lord with thousands upon thousands upon thousands of capital crimes. Is there any hope?” I want you to know today there is a glorious hope for you and that hope is to come to Jesus Christ.

The Bible said, “In Christ, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. He paid for all of the sins of all of His people.” The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 that, “He did not count our trespasses against us.”

Now, by the way, it doesn’t say He didn’t count our transgressions – our trespasses, our sins – it doesn’t say that. He counts them. They are legally and experientially attached to us, but for all who are in Christ, He doesn’t count them against us. He did count them against His son and, when He counted them against His son, something else happened: He counted the righteousness of Christ for you.

Tom, there’s a wonderful moment when Jacob – and you can see the echo – Jacob knows what he did in deceiving his father Isaac, so when it came time for him to bless the children of Joseph, you remember how Joseph directed his hands to the younger and to the older. And now, so he reverses his hands and, by purpose, the blessings that goes to the older goes to the younger and the blessing to go to the younger went to the older.

If you’re a Christian, that’s exactly what happened to you. Jacob is a type of the glory and grace of God toward us. He took His hand and the consequences of our sin that ought to be placed on us, He switches and crosses His arms and it is placed upon the one who did not deserve it and that is Jesus. And the blessings upon his son are now put upon those sons of wrath so that we can have eternal life in Jesus Christ.

UNKNOWN TREASURE REVEALED TO FAMILY

Now let me go to the other story in the few moments that we have left and that’s this. You’ve got these paintings and, “Oh, this is just throw away stuff – went down to Woolworth’s and picked up a few paintings, here,” and then they find out, “Here’s a Rembrandt. You think it’s worth a couple hundred dollars and it’s worth a million.”

I’m reminded of the story of Randolph Hearst, who hired a guy to go find a particular Rembrandt and the guy searched and searched and he came one day and said, “Well, Mr. Hearst, I’ve got bad news and I’ve got good news.” And he said, “What’s the bad news?” He said, “The bad news is I have searched every art gallery, every treasure trove in all of Europe and everywhere for that Rembrandt and I cannot find it in any of those places.”

He said, “Well, then what’s the good news?” He said, “The good news is you already own it.” He finally came back and he went through the warehouse to look for something else and, as he came to the warehouse to look for something else, he found out that Randolph Hearst had already purchased this Rembrandt years ago or one of his agents had purchased it for him. He already owns it.

OUR TREASURE IN HEAVEN WAITS FOR US

I’m reminded of arriving in Heaven. One guy said, “You look at these boxes and you say, ‘Peter, what are these boxes over here for?’ and he says, ‘You don’t want to know.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I do want to know.’ He said, ‘Okay, they’re unclaimed blessings for believers.’ And he said, ‘Oh, Peter do I have any boxes over there?’ He said, ‘You don’t want to know.’ ‘Yeah, I do, Peter.’ He said, ‘Well, come here, let me show you,’ and here are these hundreds of boxes labeled ‘Unclaimed Blessings for Harry Reeder.’”

People say to me, “Have you gotten the second blessing?” I said, “Second blessing? I got the third, the fourth, the fifth.” Listen, I’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. The riches I have in Christ are untold. The problem isn’t do I have them already – the problem is am I using them now?

BELIEVERS MUST SEEK KNOWLEDGE OF GOD’S MAJESTIC BLESSINGS

And that’s what that story reminds me of. You and I have in our possession untold blessings. “Harry, how can I find out about these untold blessings?” Get in a Bible-believing church that preaches the riches and responsibilities of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What you are and who you are in Christ is unbelievably majestic. You think your walk and blessings in Christ are worth a pittance – actually, they are majestic in worth and value. And that’s what you need to know: the blessings that have been given to you and purchased for you in Jesus Christ. Not these unbiblically defined blessings of the riches of this world, but the gloriously defined blessings of the riches of eternity.

Remember, your sins will find you out, but what you need to do is find Jesus, who finds you and, when He finds you, God switches hands. The blessings due to Christ He places upon all those who are in Christ but don’t deserve it. Those things that you deserve, those things came from God’s hand to punish Son, that you could have eternal life when He went to the cross. Now you have riches untold that are yours in Christ Jesus, the Lord of Glory.

TOMORROW’S TOPIC: NEW DISCOVERY OUT OF HOLYLAND

TOM LAMPRECHT: Harry, we are out of time for today. On Wednesday’s edition of Today in Perspective, once again, a little digging in the Holy Land has unearthed a major find and a confirmation of the accuracy of the Bible.

DR. REEDER: And why is that important? Well, let’s talk about archaeology, the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what does it mean in your life.

Dr. Harry L. Reeder III is the Senior Pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.

This podcast was transcribed by Jessica Havin, editorial assistant for Yellowhammer News. Jessica has transcribed some of the top podcasts in the country and her work has been featured in a New York Times Bestseller.