Epic Fail[1]
The Lord is compassionate and merciful, very patient, and full of
faithful love. God won’t always play the judge; he won’t be angry forever. He
doesn’t deal with us according to our sin or repay us according to our
wrongdoing, because as high as heaven is above the earth, that’s how large
God’s faithful love is for those who honor him. As far as east is from west — that’s
how far God has removed our sin from us. (Psalm 103:8-12)
What will the Vatican give for the
pope’s name? That was the question posed in a 2005 article in the San
Antonio Express News entitled, “Does Texan Have a Prayer of Trading Domain Name?”
And it was Rogers
Cadenhead, a Texan, who sought an answer to that question. Because upon the
death of Pope John Paul, Cadenhead, a self-described “domain hoarder,”
registered www.BenedictXVI.com before
the new pope’s name was even announced. In other words, Cadenhead had secured
it before Rome even knew they needed it. And a sought-after domain name can
prove lucrative. For instance, another name, www.PopeBenedictXVI.com, sold for more than $16,000.00 on E-bay.
Cadenhead, however, didn’t want the money.
A Catholic himself, he was happy for the church to own the name. “I’m going to
try and avoid angering 1.1 billion Catholics and my grandmother,” he quipped. He
did want something in return, however. In exchange for the domain name,
Cadenhead asked for: (1) “one of those hats;” (2) “a free stay at the Vatican hotel;”
and (3) “complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March,
1987.” Makes you wonder what happened that third week of March, doesn’t it?
Does it remind you of a week of your own
like that? Most of us have one … or more. A folly-filled summer, a month off-track,
days gone wild. If a box of tapes existed that documented every second of your
life, which one of those tapes would you burn? Do you have a season in which
you indulged, imbibed, or inhaled? King David did.
Could a collapse, or fail,
be more epic than his? He seduces and impregnates Bathsheba, murders her
husband, and deceives his general and soldiers. Then he marries her, and she bears
the child. And the cover-up appears complete. The casual observer has no cause
for concern. David has a new wife and a happy life. All seems well on the
throne. But all is not well in David’s heart. Guilt simmers. He later describes
this season of secret sin in pretty graphic terms: When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became
daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.
(Ps. 32:3–4)
His harp hangs hushed. His hope
hibernates. The guy is a walking wreck. His “third week of March” stalks him like
a pack of coyotes. He can’t escape it. Why? Because God keeps bringing it up. Underline
the last verse of 2 Samuel chapter 11: “The thing that David had done
displeased the Lord.” (v. 27) With these words the narrator introduces a new
character into the David and Bathsheba drama: God.
Thus far, God’s been completely absent
from the text, and unmentioned in the story. David seduces – no mention of God.
David plots – no mention of God. Uriah buried, Bathsheba married – no mention
of God. God is not spoken to, nor does he speak. And the first half of verse 27
lures us into a false “happy ending” because Bathsheba “became David’s wife and
gave birth to his son.” In other words, they’d decorated the nursery and picked
names out of a magazine. Nine months pass. A son is born. And we conclude, “Well,
it looks like David dodged a bullet that time.” Apparently the angels must have
dropped this story into the file marked, “Boys Will Be boys.” Evidently, God must
have turned a blind eye. Yet, just when we think so (and David hopes so),
someone steps from behind the curtain and takes center stage. “The thing that
David had done displeased the Lord.”
God won’t be silent any more. The
name not mentioned until the final verse of chapter 11 dominates chapter 12.
David, the “sender,” sits while God takes control. So, God sends Nathan to
David. Nathan is a prophet, a preacher, a White House chaplain of sorts. The
man probably deserved a medal for going to the king because he knew what
happened to Uriah. David had killed an innocent soldier. So, what’s he going to
do with a confrontational preacher?
Still, Nathan goes. However, rather
than declaring the deed, he relates a story about a poor man with one little sheep.
David instantly connects. He shepherded flocks before he led people. He knows
poverty. He’s the youngest son of a family that was too poor to hire a
shepherd. Nathan tells David how the poor shepherd loved this sheep – holding her
in his own lap, feeding her from his own plate. She was all he had. And then
enters, as the story goes, the rich jerk. A traveler stops by his mansion, so a
feast is in order. But, rather than slaughtering a sheep from his own flock,
the rich man sends his bodyguards to steal the poor man’s little lamb. So, they
Hummer onto his property, snatch the
lamb, and fire up the barbecue.
As David listens, the hair on the
back of his neck starts to stand on end. He grips the arms of the throne and
renders a verdict without even a trial: “As surely as the Lord
lives, the one who did this is demonic! He must restore the ewe lamb seven
times over because he did this and because he had no compassion.” (12:5–6)
David, David, David. You never saw it coming, did you? You never saw Nathan
erecting the gallows, or throwing the rope over the beam. You never felt him
tie your hands behind your back, lead you up the steps, and stand you squarely
over the trap door. Only when he squeezed the noose around your neck, did you
gulp. Only when Nathan tightened the rope with four three-letter words: “You
are the man!” (12:7)
David’s face pales. A bead of sweat
forms on his forehead. He slinks back in his chair. He makes no defense. He
utters no response. He has nothing to say. God, however, is just getting warmed
up. Through Nathan, God said: I made you
king over Israel. I freed you from the fist of Saul. I gave you your master’s
daughter and other wives to have and to hold. I gave you both Israel and Judah.
And if that hadn’t been enough, I’d have gladly thrown in much more. So why
have you treated the word of God with brazen contempt, doing this great evil?
You murdered Uriah the Hittite, then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you
killed him with an Ammonite sword! (12:7–9) Gulp.
But these words reflect hurt, not
hate, don’t they? Bewilderment, not belittlement. Your flocks fill the hills,
David. So why rob? Beauty populates your palace. So, why take from someone
else? Why would the wealthy steal? David has no excuse. So God levies the sentence:
Now, therefore, the sword will never
depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the
Hittite to be your own. This is what the Lord says: “Out of your own household
I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your
wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives
in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad
daylight before all Israel.” (12:10-12)
And from that day forward, turmoil
and tragedy marked David’s family. The child born of his adultery dies (12:18),
and the surrounding nations begin to question the holiness of David’s God.
David had soiled God’s reputation, blemished God’s honor. And God, who
jealously guards his glory, punishes David’s public sin in a public fashion. And
the king of Israel discovers the harsh truth of Numbers 32:23: “. . . you can
be sure that your sin will track you down.”
Ever found that to be true? Does your
stubborn week of March, 1987 hound you? Infect you? Epic fails and colossal
collapses just won’t leave us alone. Unconfessed sins sit on our hearts like
festering boils – poisoning, expanding. And God applies the pressure to remove
the seed of the boil from our lives: “The way of the transgressor is hard.”
(Prov. 13:15) “Those who plow evil and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.” (Job
4:8) God takes your sleep, your peace. He takes your rest. Want to know why?
Because he wants to take away your sin.
Can a mom sit idly by as sickness ravages
her child? Well then, can God sit idly as sin poisons his? He will not rest
until we do what David did: confess our fault. “Then David said to Nathan, ‘I
have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan replied, ‘The Lord has taken away your
sin. You are not going to die.’” (2 Sam. 12:13) Interesting. David said the
imaginary sheep stealer was worthy of death because that’s what they did with
the demon-possessed. But God is more merciful. He put away David’s sin. Rather
than cover it up, he lifted it up and put it away. “As far as east is from west — that’s how far
God has removed our sin from us. As
a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those
who fear him.” (Ps. 103:12–13)
However, it didn’t happen overnight. It
took David a year. It took a surprise pregnancy, the death of a soldier, the
persuasion of a preacher, the probing and pressing of God, but David’s hard
heart finally softened, and he confessed: “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2
Sam. 12:13) And God did with the sin what he does with yours and mine – he put it
away.
Is there some sin in your past that you’ve
yet to admit, confess and abandon? If so, there’s no better time than now to
get before the Lord and name that sin for what it is — spiritual rebellion, a
slap in God’s face, a dark stain on the holy person God has made you to be. And
then thank God that he has removed your guilt as far as the east is from the
west, and ask him for strength to not only avoid that sin in the future, but to
gladly obey his counsel and his Word.
Maybe it’s time for you to put your
“third week of March, 1987” to rest. And you can do that by assembling a
meeting of three parties: you, God, and your memory. Place the mistake before
the judgment seat of God. Let him condemn it, let him pardon it, and then let
him put it away. Forever.
He will. He said so. Because since when
does east ever meet the west?
Grace,
Randy
[1]
Complete and total failure when success should have been reasonably easy to
attain. Urban Dictionary
No comments:
Post a Comment