Today's reading from the One Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is 2 Samuel 15-17:14.
A Friend in Need and The Darkest Days of David's Life are two commentaries on bible.org that deal with today's passage.
These chapters are definitely chronicling some of the darkest days of David's life.
And, not coincidentally, this is the time when he is reaping the consequences of his sin of committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband.
Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. 10 'Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.' 11 “Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun” 2 Samuel 12:9-12
In today's passage, the consequences of David's sin as prophecied by Nathan are now fulfilled - David's son (the one conceived in his sin with Bathsheba) has died, his daughter Tamar has been raped by her brother Amnon, Amnon has been murdered by his brother Absalom, Absalom fled for asylum with his grandfather the king of Geshur, Absalom stayed in Geshur for 2 yrs untiL Joab deceptively convinced David to bring him back to Jerusalem where David kept him under house arrest until Absalom had had enough and regained freedom to go about Jerusalem where he proceeded to turn the hearts of the Israelites away from David and towards himself at which point he deceived his father into letting him go to Hebron where he initiated his rebellion and attempt to gain the throne, which caused David to flee Jerusalem, leaving 10 concubines behind, whom Absalom then slept with publicly.
I think by any definition, that qualifies as a very dark time period.
A few of the huge lessons to learn from this passage are that God always keeps His word, sin does not pay, and the results of our sin always outweigh the enticement it first appeared to be, but that God works everything together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).
Throughout this dark valley we see a brokenness and humility in David that hasn't been there for some time. Another case of God working, despite ourselves.
When we are tempted to sin, Satan tries to keep consequences out of the thought process.
If David knew all the consequences that would happen if he gave in to his lust for Bathsheba he would not have made the same decision. If Eve would've known the consequence to her decision to eat the forbidden fruit, she wouldn't have done it. If we fully thought through the consequences to our decisions to give in to temptation, we would not give in either.
Very unfortunately, we cannot call a mulligan when it comes to sin. There simply are no do-overs. Our sin has consequences and virtually every time those consequences are far greater than we could imagine. Certainly a whole lot greater than what we're thinking (or not thinking!) when we're considering giving in to temptation.
Satan is going to do his best to make the forbidden fruit look delicious, and like no big deal. Maybe, in fact, like a good idea! Satan likes to masquerade as an angel of light, reeling us in with just enough truth that he twists into a full-blown lie before we even know what's hit us.
Let us not be deceived.
Sin is sin. God will not be mocked. We will reap what we sow. And, unfortunately for those around us, the consequences often have a huge ripple effect into the lives of those we love.
Tomorrow's passage: 2 Samuel 17:15-29, Psalm 3, Psalm 63, 2 Samuel 18:1-19:30
1 comment:
It is amazing how innocent many sins look until you look back on them in hindsight... but God does work all things together for the good of those who love him.
I found it a little humourous that David prayed to God that his former advisor would give his son bad advice. It just sounds so "normal". Sometimes it's hard to remember that these amazing people we grow up hearing about were regular people in many ways, just like us. We hear the big stories, both good and bad, but that one sentence just brought it home to me that King David, in spite of being king, being a renowned warrior, having everything that he had, and being a devout follower of God, was still a regular guy underneath it all.
I also found it interesting that he said that God had told that member of Saul's family to curse him. It sounds like the guy was a nut job, raving and throwing rocks and tossing handfuls of dust into the air.
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