Amen, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the Cafe, pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV Cafe, so glad to be here with you today. Beautiful day at the Cafe. I don't know if the sun's shining or not. I've got a big printer blocking a few, but I know it's cold outside, but it's a wonderful day here at the Cafe. Yeah, I just drank all my coffee, but that was really good. So we've had good coffee here. Hopefully you're doing well, having a great day, a great week as we study God's word together. And it's just so good to be here again. Thank you for listening. If you're new to the program, we're just a verse by verse Bible study and we're looking from Genesis to Revelation verse by verse, taking our time to see what God has in store for us. It's been a wonderful journey and you can look us up online KJV Cafe.com has links to all our stuff. All right, so we were looking at Genesis 26 29 through 35. We spent two episodes looking at the blessings that come from following God and the following of God in that instance was peace. And now we're on the second episode of looking at the curse or the bad things that come when we're disobedient to God, right? So unbelief leads to disobedience leads to really bad things. And you have a perfect example with Esau. He's got unbelief. We already know that. Sorry, he sold off his birthright for bowl of soup. Here we have him marrying these pagan women, these hitsites that are not of God that are an abomination to a holy God. And it doesn't just affect him. It affects his parents, right? And it says here in Genesis 26 verse 35, which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and Rebecca. This is something, you know, years and years ago, the first, one of the first times I had read that passage, I kind of laughed, you know, and the preacher from time to time, I'm sure we'll make jokes about in-laws and mother-in-laws and father-in-laws and stuff. But in all seriousness, is this not a picture perfect portrait of when we live in sin, it affects other people. When we live in sin, it affects other people. That's throughout the Bible. I mean, surely, you know, when the Israelites, Moses goes up, talk to God. He's gone a while. The Israelites, they're in the wilderness. They're asking Moses, or they're asking Aaron, most brother, what's going on, make us an idol. He fashions them a cow and so forth. They're living in great sin. They're worshiping a false God. He hadn't been gone that long. And who did it affect? Everybody. Moses was so furious. He threw the stone tablets down. There's a great plague. Many people died. Maybe some of them that died weren't the ones worshiping this cow, but they died anyways. Whether it's that example, whether it's an example of an evil king, whether it's an example of a good king, David, you know, a man after God's own heart, he counted the people. He took a census. That was a bad thing to do. I've got a video on that on YouTube about David's census. Not a good thing to do. Many people died. They didn't ask David to take the census, you know. When I was young, my parents divorced. I was five, I believe. And I didn't ask them to divorce. I was crushed. You know, I couldn't understand it. Every time they were around each other, I'd like try to put their hands together like they'd hold their hands. My dad would call on the phone. I would just cry. I was crushed. I didn't ask for that. Was I affected by their divorce? I live with my grandma who was also divorced. And was I affected by that divorce? Yes. And on and on. It was around people with different issues, alcoholism or whatever. Was I affected by that? Yes. Did I make any of those decisions? No. You see, the Israelite, the young Israelites at Moses time, if they were a boy, right, they were supposed to be killed. You know, were they affected? You know, did they make that decision? No. You know, were they affected by it? Yes. You see, sin has a way of affecting us when we don't participate in it. And the more you study God's Word, the more clear this becomes and the more heartbreaking it becomes. Because you may have someone in your family and you know, you know, you know, you know that they know better. And they can't help it because they're seeking their own pleasure, their own desires. And the whole family suffers greatly. And we see it here. And this is the concept of the wake of sin. When you have a boat, the water, we live by a little lake Moss Lake. We have a little park you can drive up to see the boat pass by. And after the boat will pass by, there'll be this kind of water spreading out. I know most of you know what what wake is, but for those that don't, you know, that water spreading out. And it kind of creates this big envelope, you know. And of course, you know, they don't have areas that are no wake zones or low wake zones. I don't want to disturb the fish or whatever, because that wake has an effect on the water. You know, if you're on the shore, you can see the water start to be troubled and moving up and up on the shore and so forth. I remember we were up in the mountains. It was at Bear Lake and a boat flew by and the waves just crashed. Our little babies had to run out of the sand a little bit. I mean, it looked like an ocean wave, you know. And the wake of sin is no different. You know, as we live in sin, we affect so many people. And I know, I know, we all make mistakes or we didn't know and all this like, you know, there's all of that, right? Great men and women of God have fallen in the sin, you know, Abraham lied, Isaac lied. Again, David took the census and Cor, Uriah, who was a hitite, by the way, Uriah, the hitite. David takes his wife in adultery and, you know, faces a great consequence and so forth, loses his child. So all of these things, you know, sometimes we don't know, sometimes we love God and mess up, I get it. But all of it has this cause and effect and it's parallel or not parallel, but it's just after the cause and effect of Isaac seeking peace and being blessed and finding a well. We have Esau, right, in this case would be the son of Isaac, not living for God and being a grief to his parents. What we'll do is we'll take a break and we'll dive deeper into this idea of the wake of sin when we get back, so stay tuned. Hey, it's break time around here. Thank you for listening to KJV Cafe. If you haven't already, visit kjvcafe.com for more information. So let's start with this idea that many people will wonder, well, how do I know that I'm sinning? Like, what is sin? So in John 1838, we have this verse, "Pilent saith unto him, Jesus, what is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and saith unto him, "I find in him no fault at all." Now, that verse is absolutely incredible. You could write textbooks on that verse, novels on that verse. You could preach on that verse for years and not exhaust it. Pilate saith unto him, what is truth? He's looking at truth. He's looking at Jesus. He goes out and acknowledges that there is no fault in this man, and yet he still doesn't know what is truth. So sometimes we are like this way where we think, what is sin? How could anyone do? What do we do? Proverbs 14, 12. There is a way which seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. I love that verse because it's so true in society today. Many people think they are doing something right, and the ways are death. Saul, who'd become Paul, right? So Paul, who was Saul, how about that? Paul, the great apostle Paul, who was Saul, quoting many of his verses here, like from Romans, etc. He thought he was doing a favor to God by persecuting the Christians until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and realized that that was the bad way, that was the way of death. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. And so man today says, this is right, this is good, this is justified. This other people agree with me. An example I'll give, and I don't have time, let me get my soapbox, but I don't have time when King's Mountain wanted to bring a casino in. We went down to some of the religious, I don't know what you want to call it, people, church people, I don't know what you call it, preachers. You went down there, this is before Lord had called me to preach, I was just a video guy, I recorded it. But we implored the city council not to approve, I don't even know if they had power to do anything anyways, but we implored them not to approve a casino. And there was like just very graphic testimony from preachers about one preacher got up there and said his brother literally committed suicide after a gambling addiction. They all looked around and shrugged their shoulders, the casino went up, I think there was one out of all the city councilmen that disapproved or dissented from it, they all agreed to do it. It was right to man, there was a way that seems right to man, they're over there at that casino counting their money. This is a way that seems right to man, the government approves, the council approves. Sadly, conservatives, the so-called religious right, many of them have been involved in that casino, it's very sad to see. Also kind of shows you the underbelly of politics, but either way, all of these things, they show that there is a way that seems right to man, but the end thereof is death. See, the Bible tells us the wages of sin is death. That is not like a subjective thing, that is the truth, right, the wages of sin. And I know, I know, you know, I know that from Romans 623, so I'm going to bring it up here. Romans 623, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So you have that big butt there, the butt is, guess what, we trust God and we're saved, right? For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so we understand the wages of sin, they are death, that's going to be death, no matter what. And when we live like this, then we say, well, again, how can we know what God's ways are? Sometimes man's excuse, I just can't figure it out. I've heard this from people and it's unbelievable because you're like, yes, you can. This is just something you like to do, but I can't figure out what God's ways are. Isaiah 55, 8 through 9, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, sayeth the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." And so in Isaiah 55, 8 through 9, we learn that God's ways are so high, it's literally like out of the universe compared to our ways. And so for us to try to fathom what his ways are would be nearly impossible if we didn't have a book. And if that book happened to not be accessible, it'd be hard. But we have this book called the Bible and we have these preachers that teach and preach the Bible and we have these studies like this right here and many other ones. And we have workbooks and commentaries and discussions and, you know, again, other type of worksheets and all the rest to help us chew the cud and look to the Bible. And as you study the Bible, God's ways become pretty clear. Now, of course, not all of God's ways are clear, right? He is still miraculous Almighty God and his ways can found us. He uses the base things to confound the wise and all the rest. I mean, there's so much about God that's unique, but in a way, it's uniquely similar, right? Like, for example, God never contradicts himself. And so if we are trying not to live in sin so that we don't affect others with our sin, as Esau affected mom and dad, Isaac and Rebecca, then what we need to do is step back and say, how can we not sin? Number one, it's not going to be out of our own power. We need to be saved and accept Christ as Savior. Trust Him as our Lord and Savior that He died and paid the price for our sins at Calvary, was risen again and all the rest. We accept Christ as Savior. And then we have the Holy Spirit living within us. That's the third part of the Trinity. He, the Holy Spirit, helps us to not live in sin as we walk in the Spirit. So the instructional idea here, how do we overcome this tragic thing of sin? We overcome it through the Spirit. We overcome it by Jesus Christ. We overcome it by His Word. And while someone like me would hear preaching on this for years, I had trouble practically applying it. Like, I was like, I understood what the preacher was saying, right? I understood the missionary, whatever, what they were trying to get across. I understood the principle, but I'm like, how do you apply that? And as I thought it, prayed it, lived it, and so forth, trial and error, if you will, sadly. You realize that what God's calling us to do is simply believe, worship Him in Spirit and truth, spend time in His Word, spend time with Him, depart from those things that would be tempting, right? Like, if you're tempted, stay away from very hazardous things, if you're now the old time preacher would say, if you're an alcoholic, don't go down the beer aisle. That's a good one. If you have a problem with gambling, maybe don't go to the casino or download that app. If you have a problem with pornography, maybe delete all of the pornographic things or put your computer in the living room where everyone can see it. Whatever it is, you make a concerted effort to not flirt with sin. Let's just say that you're none of those things, but you gossip and you know you covered a lot of things, you put your hope and your trust, maybe your materialist. And maybe you just noticed that all those people you surround yourself with are also that way, then maybe it's time to go ahead and depart from those people, right? We are oftentimes who we surround ourselves with. That's the world's advice, but I think it has a biblical application there, right? Jesus says to depart from the unclean thing, right? From the unclean thing. And I should give Paul the credit, 2 Corinthians 6, 17, wherefore come out from the among them and be separate, say if the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you, right? And from Isaiah 52, 11, depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing, go ye out of the midst of her, be clean, bear the vessels of the Lord. And so as we live for God, as we drive close to God, we walk with Him, we walk in the Spirit, we don't fulfill the lust in the flesh, we get rid of the sinful things in our life. And we do all of these things by the working of the Holy Spirit, of course, that's His power, amen. That's the only way we can overcome these things. We do them because we love God, we will be better and have more peace ourselves, we'll be blessed of God, and we won't hurt others, we will not hurt others. That's the beauty, beauty, beauty of living for God, we're blessed ourselves and others are too. Thank you for listening, take care, God bless, and amen. Thanks for listening to KJV Cafe, and we'll see you at the Cafe tomorrow.
