By Cho Chun-sook · Published Nov 2025 · Edition 1
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The Wages of Sin Is Death
What does it mean to be faithful in a very little? God lacks nothing. That is why he wants nothing from his people. It is God who is content simply to watch us live by faith, and who honors that life as faithfulness. Yet we fail to enter into the heart of this God, who pours out grace without condition. We do not treat the grace we have received as grace but claim it as our own, and because of that we cannot give thanks even for small things, and we go back and sit down again in the place of sin.
As I preached through 2 Samuel, my heart ached to see people who could not give up their sin even though God had granted them places of glory without condition. When God called Saul, a man who drew no one’s notice and had no confidence to put himself forward, to be Israel’s first king, Saul saw himself as greater than God. So he grew proud and wicked, and to gain more power he drove God from the throne. Then God anointed David, who was overlooked even by his own family and lived as the least in his father’s house, and lifted him up as king. Yet David sinned: he traded for pleasure the very God who had kept him and preserved his life through years of hardship.
They exchanged grace freely given for human sin. Preaching through 2 Samuel, which records the ruinous lives of Saul and David, I was reminded that the wages of sin is death. Saul became king freely, yet he met a miserable end together with his sons. David, too, became king freely, yet he could not escape the yoke of sin he had made for himself, and his life became a misery: his children died, they schemed against one another, and he fled from his own son. It struck me that this is the very life every human being is making.
Even so, we must not forget the heart of God, who, to forgive the sins of such foolish people, caused whole burnt offerings and peace offerings to be offered on the threshing floor of Araunah, and who hears prayer. I hope you will love more and more the God who delights to give love, the God who rejoices to save souls, the God who sacrifices himself in order to forgive.
It is my earnest hope that these sermons on 2 Samuel will become a path by which you come a little closer to God.
November 2025
Pastor Cho Chun-sook, Watercourse Church
Contents
- 1 People Standing Before God 2 Samuel 1:17-27
- 2 David Becomes King over the House of Judah 2 Samuel 2:1-11
- 3 Joab’s Betrayal 2 Samuel 2:12-23
- 4 The Consequences of Joab’s Sin 2 Samuel 3:17-27
- 5 The Death of Ishbosheth 2 Samuel 4:4-12
- 6 God, Who Adds Blessing upon Blessing 2 Samuel 5:17-25
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- 7 The Death at Perez Uzzah 2 Samuel 6:1-11
- 8 Wise David, Who Gives Up His Own Will 2 Samuel 7:1-17
- 9 David’s Faith That Knows God 2 Samuel 8:6-18
- 10 Mephibosheth, Blessed Through His Father’s Faith 2 Samuel 9:1-13
- 11 Hanun, Who Could Not Receive Grace as Grace 2 Samuel 10:1-14
- 12 When Lust Has Conceived, It Bears Sin 2 Samuel 11:1-5
- 13 David, Who Despised Yahweh’s Word 2 Samuel 12:1-15
- 14 When Sin Forgives Sin 2 Samuel 13:23-33
- 15 The Unbroken Cord of Sin 2 Samuel 14:21-33
- 16 David Looks Back on His Own Sin 2 Samuel 15:24-34
- 17 People Who Delight in Others’ Misfortune 2 Samuel 16:5-14
- 18 The Failure of Absalom and Ahithophel 2 Samuel 17:15-23
- 19 The Death of Absalom 2 Samuel 18:9-18
- 20 Barzillai, a Man of Faith 2 Samuel 19:16-40
- 21 Endless Human Greed 2 Samuel 20:14-22
- 22 Abstain from Every Form of Sin 2 Samuel 21:1-14
- 23 David’s Praise to God 2 Samuel 22:1-17
- 24 A Life That Gives Thanks to God 2 Samuel 23:1-13
- 25 God, Who Forgives to the End 2 Samuel 24:18-25
