There
is a program on the Investigation Discovery Channel called “I Almost Got Away
with It”. The story of David and Bathsheba would be a perfect one for that show,
especially the part where the prophet Nathan confronts David. David thought that
he had committed the perfect crime by having an affair with Bathsheba and
covering it up by killing her husband. Unfortunately, he was caught by the one
true, perfect, all-seeing and all-knowing God. David forgot that God sees
everything that his people do. It reminds me of the line from the Christmas
song “Santa Clause Comes to Town” that goes like this:
He knows when you’re awake
He knows when you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake.
This
passage deals with the ethical and moral failings that have plagued Christians
throughout history. Greed and selfishness cause believers to do whatever it
takes to get something that they want. Believers and non-believers have to accept
the consequences of their actions.
The
world has no sympathy for honesty these days. Sure, people give it lip service,
and we tell our children to be honest, but if we stop and think about it, many
of us would rather have our children be shrewd than honest. We teach them to be
suspicious, to protect themselves and to ward off people like the typical used
car salesman or politicians.
The
story tells us about ourselves and our sinful nature, how we covet what is not
ours, and how we often try to cover up our sins. Our sinful nature often causes
us to forget who we are and who we are supposed to be. Our sins cause us to
discover our true nature, and it is far from what we imagine ourselves to be.
We,
like David, are not perfect. We often sin and either try to cover it up or
think that our sin will not be discovered. We need to remember that God sees
all and knows all-including our sins. God’s Word presents people as they are,
not as later writers wish they would have been. To quote Numbers 32:23, “…be
sure that your sin will find you out”. Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s fall from
grace is a good example. He had it all--fame, fortune and a successful
ministry—but one moment of indiscretion with a prostitute hurt him. His
confession to God even made it into the video for the song “American Dream” by
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in 1988. It follows the line “Now you think
about reaching out, maybe get some help from above”, which is repeated twice.
He might have thought that he could get away with it, but he got caught. As
another verse of the same song goes:
Going through your garbage like a pack of hounds
Speculating what they might find out
It don’t matter now
You’re all washed up
In fact, it was only a few
years later, when he got caught with a prostitute again, that he and his ministry were washed up for good.
Another
example involves our own ‘local’ evangelist, the late Pastor Perry F. Rockwood,
and it was told to me by my own brother. My brother used to work in the
Engineering Department of several Halifax radio stations. One day several years
ago my brother and his boss were asked to go to Perry’s recording studio to
repair some equipment. After they were finished, my brother’s boss gave Perry
the bill. He did not want to pay it, stating that the work should have been
done for free because his programs aired on the particular station that my
brother worked for at the time. The boss explained why they couldn’t do the
work for free, so Perry went to a table in the same room, started opening the
mail that was on the table, took a fistful of cheques (without even bothering
to record who they were from and the amounts), gave them to the boss, and said,
“Here, take these!!!!”
Nathan
used the story as a case for David to judge. In Nathan’s story, the traveler
represents David’s lust, and the lamb is Bathsheba. The story itself represents
the commandments David broke-the ones regarding adultery, murder and coveting. It
makes the point that no one can misuse God-given authority and power for
selfish ends.
Nathan
rebuked David, but he did so indirectly through the story he told. Nathan used
a story that reminded David of his youth to break through David’s resistance
and bring him to a place of true repentance. We do not have to go looking for
other people’s faults or sins, but sometimes we can’t ignore them. Like Nathan,
we must correct others in love with the hope of restoring them, and an approach
bathed in prayer and led by the Spirit will accomplish more than our own self-righteous
arguments even can.
Jesus
outlined a good approach to use when correcting sinners in Matthew 18:15-17:
1.
Confront the
sinner in private. If he/she listens to you, great!
2.
If the sinner
does not listen to you, go with two or three others and confront him/her. Two
or more witnesses will be able to back up what happens.
3.
If the sinner
refuses to listen to you and the witnesses, bring it before the church.
4.
If the sinner
refuses to listen to the church, he/she is to be removed from the church.
David
“saw the light” when he was confronted with his sins. The enormity of his
crimes and the condemnation by Nathan represent conviction by both the earthly
judge Nathan and the heavenly judge God. You might be thinking that if it says
in the Bible, “Judge not lest ye be judged”, Nathan broke this commandment. You
must remember though that Nathan was an agent of God, and God is the one who
judges people either directly or through people such as Nathan or other good Christians.
The
story of David, Bathsheba and Nathan reflects the battle between our struggle
to live the Christian life and the earthly life that constantly tempts us. This
conflict reminds us of our constant need for grace and forgiveness. We, like
David, are only human. There will be times when we will stumble and fall in our
Christian walk. We gain insight into our weaknesses so that we can improve our
control over our weaknesses.
The
story also reflects a sense of entitlement. Here was David, the boy who became
king, who had more opportunity and power than anyone could imagine, and had
everything he wanted. He had a sense of being entitled to privileges. This
sense of entitlement led him to give in to temptation. Unfortunately, the
situation still exists today. For example, some experts claim that the current
recession was caused by corporate greed-greed that led American banks to make mortgages
available to people who could not afford them. The result was the failure of
several American banks, and like the old saying goes, “When America sneezes,
Canada catches the cold”. American politicians told the banks that what they
did was wrong, just like Nathan told David that what he did was wrong.
We
must be careful that we do not fall into an attitude of self-indulgence. We
must also keep as far away from evil as possible. Evil and sin diminish the
respect others have for us, weaken our authority and cause unnecessary
headaches.
We
need more people like Nathan today-people who are not afraid to tell us what we
need to hear. We need more people who will tell us the truth no matter how hard
it is to say or hear. Nathan and people like him are motivated to speak the
truth because the holiness and beauty of God are offended by the wickedness of
sinful people. Sin is the great problem keeping people from the knowledge of
God. Even when people shrug their shoulders and say, “Everyone else is doing
it”, we must stand firm and say that this is wrong. When sin is public, visible
to all and scandalous, those who know this have a duty to speak up and use
words of strong condemnation. The word of forgiveness follows quickly when we
admit out guilt. God’s forgiveness and abundant mercy are now available through
Jesus.
This
story is also an example of our hunger. We are hungry for control of our lives.
We are hungry for a world that is not controlled by sin and our sinful human
natures. We often try to satisfy that hunger with material goods, alcohol,
drugs or sex (like David did). The only way that our hunger can truly be
satisfied is by the true bread of life-that is, our faith in Jesus. Jesus said
in John 6:51, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If a man eats
of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world”. Just like the 5,000 people were still hungry after
Jesus miraculously fed them with the five barley loaves and two fish, we will
still be hungry if we try to satisfy our hunger in the way the world wants us
to satisfy it.
This
story is not about sin as much as it is about forgiveness. When David was
confronted with his sin, he repented and was restored by God-even though he
still had to accept the consequences of his actions. It is better for us to
confess our sins before we are forced to do so by getting caught. When we do,
the burden of guilt will not be able to limit our spiritual growth and our
worship and prayers will not be hindered.
We
also need to repent of our sins so we can be restored by God, but we must also
be prepared to accept the consequences of our sins. God’s anger toward sin is
righteous anger. God will not let sin go unpunished. It is this righteous anger
that leads to restoring our relationship with God. God cares about how we live
our lives. If we show contempt for God’s law, we will be punished. God does not take our actions lightly, but if we
deal with our sin genuinely, openly and immediately, God will lessen the
severity of our discipline
We
often try to straighten out our own problems like David did, but Jesus has
already straightened our problems for us. He put our sins away. He paid the
penalty for our sins on the cross at Calvary. We do not have to do anything
more than what Christ has already done for us. All we have to do is accept what
he did, repent of our sins, and accept him as our Saviour.
Bibliography
1. Stanley, C.F., “The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles
Bible, NASB” (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.; 2009)
2. Lectionary Homiletics, Aug.-Sept.., 2012 (St. Paul,
MN: Luther Seminary)
4. Matthew Henry Concise Commentary. Part of Lessonmaker
8 Bible software package
5. ESV Study Bible. Part of Lessonmaker 8 Bible software
package
10. Jude Siciliano, O.P., “First Impressions, 11th
Sunday in Ordinary Time ©”. Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
12. Chafir, K.L. & Ogilvie, L.J., “The Preacher’s
Commentary Series, Volume 8:1,2, Samuel” (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.,
1989)
13. Stanley, C.F., “The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles
Bible, New King James Version” (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
19. Pastor John Barnett, “David’s Lust Led Him to break all of the 10 Commandments”. Retrieved
from www.dtbm.org
20. Pastor John Barnett, “David’s Sin, God’s Grace &
the Inescapable Consequences of Sin”. Retrieved from www.dtbm.org
21. Randy Kilgore, “Moving Past Sinful Failure”. Retrieved
from ww.rbc.org
23. Amy Erickson, “Commentary on 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10,
13-15”. Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org
25. Lloyd H. Steffen, “On Honesty and Self-deception: ‘You
Are the Man’”. Retrieved from www.religion-online.org.
26. Charles R. Swindoll, Insights on 2 Peter (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, Inc.: 2010)
28. Daniel B. Clendenin, PhD, “Human Desires Divinely
Filled: Jesus the Bread of Life”. Retrieved from www.journeywithjesus.net
29. Rev. David Shearman, “John Shearman’s Lectionary
Resource, Year B-Season after Pentecost-Proper 13 Ordinary 18”. Retrieved from http://lectionary.seemslikegod.org/archives/year-b-season-after-pentecost-proper-13-ordinary-18.html
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