Text: 2 Samuel 12:1-12
Memory text:
“And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus, Esau despised his birthright.”
Genesis 25:34 NKJV
To despise someone is to manifest disobedience in its clearest term. In other words, disobedience and other sins are clear evidences of how much we despise God. Every act of disobedience shows how much value we place on God and His word.
According to our text, after David committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba and killed Uriah, prophet Nathan confronted him with the sin of despising the word of the Lord. “Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.” (II Sam 12:9).
God saw that David’s sin was beyond the actual acts and that he acted in that manner because he placed little or no value on the commandment of the Lord. David went ahead to violate God’s express commands on covetousness, adultery, and murder, not because he wasn’t aware of them but because he counted them as insignificant. Anytime you deliberately disobey God’s express commands, you despise God and His word.
Also, whenever you profane or treat holy things as unholy, you despise the Lord. For example, you despise God whenever you treat the communion table as an ordinary table or holy matrimony as a casual relationship. Hebrews 12:16 describes Esau as a profane person, in the sense that he treated his birthright, which was sacred with irreverence and insignificance. He couldn’t recover it again, even in later years when he sought it with tears. It serves as a warning today to those who despise the gift of God, be it in marriage or in the body or whatever God has set apart as sacred (1 Cor 3:16-17; 11:27-30).
The scriptures also describe some people as worthless for despising Saul’s election and looking down on what God had chosen (1 Sam 10:27). So did Goliath also, who despised the anointed of the Lord, because he was a youth (1 Sam 17:42).
Friends, despising God, the people, and the things that God has chosen and esteemed can cost you your life, something irrecoverable, and something eternal. Beware!
Prayer points
1. Father, let me never be guilty of despising Your word or the things You set apart as sacred, in Jesus’ name.
2. Father, let Your word be my last command and let me never negotiate obedience in Jesus’ name.
Today’s declarations
1. I will not despise the Lord or His word by living in disobedience.
2. I will honour whoever God has chosen and reverence whatever He has esteemed as holy.
Contact: pastor@thf.org.ng