2 Chronicles 12:8
“Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.”
Rehoboam learned first hand that forgiveness does not remove consequences. In the latter part of his life, he left the LORD and stopped obeying God’s commandments. When the prophet came to tell Rehoboam that God was leaving him and going to judge him, he immediately got right. The interesting thing about this story is though God forgave him, the consequences of his actions still had to be paid. Yes, he found God’s grace during this time, but forgiveness didn’t remove the consequences of what his sin brought.
The forgiveness of God is often misunderstood. There are many who believe that because a person has been forgiven that there should be no consequences. That is completely against Scripture. God forgave Rehoboam, but he still suffered the consequences of his children becoming servants to the king of Egypt.
Let me explain this further. When a person gets saved, their sins are forever paid. They will never have to be concerned with going to Hell. The payment for eternity was settled at Calvary; however, that doesn’t mean that God will not correct His children when they do wrong. When they do wrong, God will correct them. Does that mean they are not saved? Not at all! Once a person is saved they will always be saved, but they still must suffer the consequences of their actions. Because a Christian’s sins are forgiven does not give them a license to get away with sin, it simply means when they do sin they are forgiven. However, the Christian will still pay the consequence for their sin.
Let me illustrate by using David. David sinned against God by committing adultery with Bathsheba. When approached by Nathan the prophet, David humbled himself and got right with God. God saw this and forgave him; however, David still had to suffer the consequences of his sin. The child that was a result of that affair still died. His family became very dysfunctional because of his sin. God removed the sin from his record, but the consequences still had to be suffered.
This is why we must not let down the standards of the Word of God. There are many well meaning Christians who think that we need to lighten our standards of the Word of God so we can reach the world. Yet, those standards are not there to make us great Christians, they are there to help keep us from sin. When you lighten up on the standards of the Word of God and tell people that your sins are paid and you never have to worry about paying for those sins again, you are only hurting them. In one sense your sins are paid, but on the other hand you still must pay the consequences for your actions.
Friend, there are always consequences for everything you do. Don’t every confuse forgiveness with removal of consequences. Sin always causes a person to lose privileges and freedoms. Sin always takes something from you because there are consequences to sin. Always remember that when you choose to sin, you still must suffer the consequences that sin brings. So, before you choose to sin consider wisely if you truly want to suffer the sin’s consequence.