February 07, 2022

Owning Up To It

Devotion for the Week...

It doesn't matter which political leader or celebrity has been accused of sexual misconduct, they all deny it. We see them on the news all the time, claiming that the women are lying or that they're remembering wrong. Nothing inappropriate happened, the men insist. They have to deny the allegations, of course, in an attempt to save their reputations and careers, but it's wearying all the same.

King David took a different approach. Yes, there was sexual misconduct when he had Bathsheba brought to him even though he knew she was someone else's wife. Not to mention the fact she probably couldn't refuse him, seeing as he was king. And yes, after Bathsheba became pregnant, David arranged to have her husband sent into the worst of the battle so he would be killed. Obviously sexual scandal is not only a modern-era problem. 

David's conduct was inexcusable, no question about it. He probably figured he had gotten away with it, until God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him. Nathan came and told him a story about a poor man who owned one lamb and a rich man who had whole flocks and herds of animals, but when a guest arrived he stole the poor man's lamb to serve at dinner (2 Samuel 12:1-4). "David was furious. 'As surely as the Lord lives,' he vowed, 'any man who would do such a thing deserves to die'" (v. 5).

I imagine at this point Nathan was shaking, knowing he had to confront the king, but he spoke the truth anyway. "You are that man! The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. Why, then, have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and stolen his wife" (vv. 7-9).

David probably could have ordered Nathan killed. He was king, after all, and he had already arranged for Uriah to die. He could certainly have argued with Nathan and insisted he did nothing wrong and that Nathan was lying. He didn't. Instead, he simply said, "I have sinned against the Lord" (v. 13).

Did this happen in the throne room, where there would have been dozens of witnesses, or was it in a private room, with just the two of them? The Bible doesn't give us those details, so we don't know if David confessed only to Nathan or if it was to a crowd of people. We do know he didn't try to bury the truth after his confession. Psalm 51 bears the heading, "For the choir director: A psalm of David, regarding the time Nathan the prophet came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba." It is a psalm of deep, sincere repentance that David wrote and then shared with the whole world.

It's refreshing to see a leader who owned his mistakes. Understand, I'm not excusing what David did to Bathsheba and Uriah, but I do admire his honesty in admitting the truth. Can you imagine any celebrity or political leader today doing the same?
Can we own up to our sins, as David did? | DevotedQuilter.com
On a more personal note, can we do the same? Our wrongs may not be the same as David's, but that doesn't mean we've never done anything wrong. Do we attempt to cover it up or do we own up to our sins?

3 comments:

  1. A great message. Thx for sharing.

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  2. Funny how it's so easy to point at anyone's else's sin, while sweeping our's under the carpet... And it doesn't matter how big or small the sin is - it's all sin. We're ALL in the need of God's amazing grace

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  3. Nothing new under the sun. Thanks for the lesson we all need to remember.

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