Numbers chapter 32, for just a few moments. Please, in your Bible, Numbers 32, verse 23. Give me your text. Pray this message will be of help to somebody. It's on my heart. Numbers 32, 23. But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure your sin will find you out. God in heaven, in Jesus' name, speak to our heart, we pray. Thank you, Lord, that you love us enough to warn us. Lord, we've got to listen, we've got to heed. I pray that tragedies would be prevented today. Lord, that not only souls would be saved, but lives. And Lord, do save the lost. Do strengthen every family. Bless these precious visitors. God, we pray you'd touch the sick, the grieving. Lord, you know you're able. Thank you in advance. Bless the invitation. Give us a wonderful day in Jesus. in whose worthy and holy name we pray. Amen, amen. You may be seated. Trust you'll pray with us for a few moments as we speak on the subject, no and not maybe. No and not maybe. There's a big difference between no and maybe. And I'm afraid that's where we fail many times as we shall see. Well, this text says, be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure, be certain. If there's a God and He's holy, then sooner or later in this world or in the world to come, sin's gonna find us out. I know we don't wanna hear that, but we need to hear that. We need to come face to face with that reality and maybe we need to do something about it right here today. It doesn't matter who you want to look at in the Bible, or who you want to look at in history, or who you want to look at that's still living today, Adam, Ananias, Achan, Cain, whoever you want to name in the Bible, everybody in the history of the world, sin has a way of finding you out. And in the very nature of sin, we don't want to be found out. want people to know what we've done. But God says, be sure your sin will find you out. I want to mention quickly some ways that sin ultimately finds us out. Number one, it makes a slave out of you. You think you're in control, and perhaps so for a little while, but then it becomes quite obvious to you and everybody else you're not in control anymore. The fish has a decision, bite the hook or not. He's in control. But once he bites the hook, he's not in control anymore. No, he's being pulled to shore and it's over. Sin leads to slavery. You do something, you keep doing it, it becomes a habit. And before you know it, habits become chains. And it's almost committed unconsciously. How many hundreds of drunkards have said to me, sure wish I could quit. It's bondage. It's fun for a little while, but a season runs out. How many thieves would admit that their habit, what was once a habit, what was once fun is now bondage. So sin can only embarrass you. It can only victimize you. It can only betray you. And the sooner we learn this, the better. You start doing wrong, Before you know it, it becomes a part of you. It becomes written into your DNA, your character, your name, your habits, your nature, even your appearance. A man's very countenance many times reveals the cruelty of his heart. The deceit, the way he says things shows the burden of sin. It's not easy on you. Sin is a hard lifestyle. You can't sleep. You can't remember who you told the last lie to and what you're supposed to tell them next. You're wondering if you're gonna get found out and then how you gonna justify it. No wonder the wisest man who ever lived said, the way of the transgressor is hard. Solomon said. So no wonder the Bible says wisdom is to flee from it, prevent it, shun it, guard against it. That's Jonah where down led to. Down the Joppa, down in the ship. down in the belly of the whale, down to the bottom of the sea, down, down, down. Yeah. Somehow we convince ourselves, well, that may be true generally, but not me, I can get away with it. You'll be the first. So it turns into slavery. quickly, and number two, it just spoils everything it touches. When you give in to temptation, the devil laughs and says, ha, God, he makes it. Oh, he failed for that last time. Man, he ain't got much sense. I mean, if you just kept falling in the same mud puddle, if you just kept doing the same thing over and over and over, See, sin spoils our usefulness, our joy, our purpose. It's just a thief of time, talents, and treasures. Everything it touches, it attacks. Why do I hate sin? For the same reason you'd hate the rattlesnake that bit your little baby and killed it. Amen. Wouldn't you? I hate sin because it sends people to hell. I hate sin because it steals Christians joy, power, influence. It mars, it fascinates and then it assassinates. Sin is against God. Sin is daring God to do something about it. Sin is shaking your fist in the face of God and saying, I'll do what I want to do regardless of what you have commanded. You say it's just a little sin. There are no little sins because there's not a little God to sin against. Sin destroys. And you know, most people sell out cheap. The devil does not give most people a hundred million dollars and ten new cars and houses. No. Most people like Esau, he sold it all for one bowl of soup. Sold his birthright, spiritual privileges. Most people sell their soul for a few paltry pleasures. Cheap. Roland Hill said he asked the man at the slaughterhouse, how do you get those pigs to march right in there to their death? He said, I just lay some beans along the way and they go along eating. Don't even lift up their eyes to see they're headed to the slaughter. That's mankind. Just enjoying a few little beans along the way. Next thing you know, he's in the slaughterhouse. The devil ain't gonna give you much, okay? In fact, compared to what Jesus gives you, the devil ain't gonna give you anything. Sin can only ruin that life of joy and peace and usefulness God had planned for you. Sin will reduce that to a tragedy and a waste, God forbid. and you wake up one day and your family's gone, your health is gone, your opportunity's gone, your life's gone. For what? And what did you get in exchange? Be sure your sin will find you out. I'm gonna give you the remedy before we're done, thank God, but I'm trying to warn some young person here today that you can't do wrong and get by. You say, my mama don't know, but Jesus knows. Nobody knows. Jesus knows. Nobody sees. Jesus sees. Nobody hears. Jesus hears. Nobody's keeping a record. Jesus is keeping a record. So don't fool yourself. Don't be your own worst enemy, which we usually are. You know how the Alaskans kill wolves? The wolf kills itself. The Alaskans just put some warm blood in the snow and they put a knife underneath it. And the wolf smells the blood and comes for the free meal and starts licking up this blood. And his tongue is froze by the time his tongue hits the knife. Why, that's his own blood coming out now and he's licking it up and he thinks, oh, this is wonderful, a free meal. How wonderful, then he drops over dead, a victim of his own appetite. The devil ain't giving you nothing free. No, it's gonna cost you sooner or later. Sooner or later, it'll cost you. more than you want to pay, keep you longer than you want to stay. Ask the prodigal son. He didn't intend to end up in the hog pen, but he did. But it was a wonderful day when he dropped the pail, jumped the rail and hit the trail, amen, and went home. Amen. You might want to go home and find out that it's better at the father's house, amen, than wanting what the pigs. are eaten. Number three, sin numbs your conscience. You don't just sin and remain the same person. You sin and that knocks you down a notch. You're a little bit less sensitive than you were before. That's why some people can cuss all the time. When they first started, it was repulsive. And they said, oh mama, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. But then they got better at it. Highly skilled. Some people are highly skilled in wickedness. It's ugly and startling and shocking at first, but the more you continue in it, the more your conscience freezes over, the more your conscience is numbed. And before you know it, sinning is easy and frequent and habitual and confirmed and justifiable. And you're planning to do it. and you can't think of anything else. And you're bragging about it. It's a descent toward hell. Sure it is. The man that sins is more likely to keep on sinning. More and more, worse and worse. You don't start drinking liquor, just one day Kool-Aid, next day liquor. No, you start with a beer. and then you just work your way down to more slop and more and more slop. You heard me right. That's right. The devil knows the progressive addictive nature of sin. If he can just get you started, you'll have to have it again and a little bit stronger dose. That's right. Whether you're talking about drugs, alcohol, immorality, whatever you're talking about, you got to have it again and a little bit more. That's why you don't want to get started at all. It's paralyzing. Sin's paralyzing. It's offensive. And your conscience just The Bible says your conscience gets seared, cut, silenced. The protest now is so weak you can't hardly hear it anymore. But just before the destruction, your heart is hardened like a stone, the Bible says. You don't want anybody to reason with you. I remember knocking on the door and the man opened the door. He was the town drunk at that specific town where I was that day. I knew him, he knew me. I had tried to talk to him before. He looked at me and he had been sitting there watching television and he slammed the door in my face. Now, you know, the funny thing is he'd been sitting there in front of the television, letting that television preach to him 24 hours a day. And all I was trying to do is tell him how to get to heaven. Slam the door. That's what sin will do. It'll make you a monster. And you will resent the best friends you got. You'll even hate the God who wants to help you. Yeah. You become impenitent, obstinate, doomed. Doomed. And you know what most people do? Here's what most people do. They end up in hell. Why? Because God don't love them? No, God loves them and God would save everybody. But most people say, well, that religion is okay. And you know, I'm going to get saved there on my deathbed. But they don't realize the longer you live, the less you want to get saved. And you don't even want to think about it because it stings your conscience. And you know, I should have taken care of this a long time ago. Now, if I get saved, what's all my buddies going to say? And you end up just being another statistic. A has-been, a castaway. You played the game. You gambled. You lost. Your sins found you out. Your sins found you out. There are people here today playing with fire. I just want to tell you what God says about that. You're going to get burned. Read Proverbs. And I say to you with all the love of my heart, who do you think you are? Think you're smarter than God, more powerful than God? No, you're not. We're not. You don't play with poison, broken glass. You don't play around in quicksand, rattlesnakes. You just can't win. I just can't win. You know how it is? Do you ever miss church? Did you know that first time you missed church, you couldn't even enjoy being at home because you knew you should have been at church. Guess what? Missed two or three services? Somebody be honest. It gets a little easier. Missed two months of church? Hey, I've had a hundred people tell me this. Brother Allen, I'm embarrassed to come back. I know I need to come back, but what am I going to say? After two or three months, you're so embarrassed. Next thing you know, you're a consummate backslider. Next thing you know, your whole family's out of church. Next thing you know, your own grandkids are going to hell because you thought you could handle it. I'm trying to help you. Amen. I am telling the truth. I am telling the truth. I didn't write the Bible. God said, be sure your sins are gonna find you out. So God sees. The Venus fly trap, have you seen how it attracts the flies and the fly goes in there and says, oh, this is wonderful, a free meal. Or the devil give you a few drops of honey. He knows your price. He knows some of you would sell your testimony for an extra $100 a week. Hey, I've been preaching 40 years, I know what I'm talking about. Just because the devil offers you a better job, don't mean you have to take it. If it ruins your testimony, it ain't worth a hundred million. If it makes your kids end up in hell, it ain't worth a hundred million. You better pray about what you do, because the devil knows how to paint a pretty picture. He's been doing it for 6,000 years. Amen? We better stay low or we're going to stumble. God help us. We all need it, all the help we can get. So be careful. That's why I'm saying be careful. Please be careful. This lady went to a doctor and she said, I need an x-ray of my heart. I just don't feel good. And I want you to not charge me a dime. I can't afford it. He said, okay. So he was doing the x-ray and the x-ray revealed that she had five $20 gold pieces in her pocket. He said, ma'am, you do have heart trouble. You're a liar. Yeah. Hey, God has an x-ray. He sees all. All secrets will be revealed. You say they got away with it. It ain't over yet. You say Hitler got away with it. It ain't over yet. So keep short accounts with God. Keep your sins confessed. And last of all, a reason to guard against sin is that it often appears in the lives of others. If you sin long enough, it's going to rub off on somebody else. And how tragic when big brother leads little brother astray and daddy wrecks his own family. You can't do wrong long enough without destroying somebody else. I knew this fella, he drunk all the time. One day he pulled out in front of a vehicle and killed some people in that vehicle, it killed him. His own son is lying in a drunkard's grave. Some of the children are in a cult. His whole life, wasted, destroyed. Of course, his daddy never would go. I'm talking about people I've known all my life. His daddy never would go to church. And if that fella was standing right here today, he'd say, I wish I'd never been born. I blew it. I wasted, done nothing but destroy. God forbid. Please don't let that happen to you. So there's traps everywhere. You won't live this week out until you'll be tempted. And it might be in the next 24 hours. So do what Moses did. Say no. Hey Moses, want to offer you the kingdom? The answer is no. How about a maybe? No. The answer is no. But I'm offering you to be the Pharaoh of Egypt and be famous and have power. And I'm offering you the greatest opportunity in the world. My answer is no. Hebrews 11 says he refused. the treasures of Egypt, and he said, I cast my lot with God's people. Don't you know who I am? I'm a child of God. Mr. Devil, you're wasting your time. You forgot that I got saved. I'm under new management. I don't listen to you any longer. All you ever did was lie to me, Mr. Devil. Go home. Amen. No, and not maybe. Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. I'm telling you and me, it's going to take more than a part-time Christian to defeat a full-time devil. Amen. You say, I'm a Sunday Christian. You ain't much. Amen. You better be all the time. I'm not talking about going to church every day. I'm talking about living for Jesus every day. Being in the Bible every day. Asking God to search you and judge you every day. I close with this illustration. I knew a fella, he's a nice guy, but he never had the determination to say no, run with the wrong crowd. If he is among Christians, he's a Christian. If he's among the world, he is a worldling. Last time I saw him, he was in Fry Hospital. 30 years ago, his buddies had crushed his head with a cinder block. that all went out and got drunk and crushed his head with a cinder block. And there he was just before he died, young fellow. I don't think he was 30 years old. Then it had destroyed his voice as well. I won't call his name. I could take you to his house. And if he's standing here today, he'd say, I was a fool. I wanted to be a part-time Christian. And I ran with the wrong crowd. And my whole life was a waste. I'm talking about a tailorful guy, not somebody a million miles away. The devil's got plans for you. He'd love to ruin you. And he will if you let him. That's not an if. But God has plans for you too. And you get to choose which one happens. Amen. You get to choose. That's fair, isn't it? God wants you saved and happy in Jesus and doing his will. Amen. I'm glad I can face every day with good morning, Jesus. What can I do for you today? Amen.