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 would
the Vatican give for the pope’s name? That was Rogers’ question. Because upon
the death of Pope John Paul, Rogers 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 the
domain name 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. Must
have been Spring Break.
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 be more complete 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. 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 his 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)
David’s a
wreck. His “third week of March” stalks him like a pack of wolves. 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. Because 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.” Apparently the story got dropped in the “Boys Will Be boys” file. But 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 2nd
Samuel chapter 11, dominates chapter 12. David, the guy usually giving the
orders, sits while God takes control. First step? 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 party’s 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 week of March, 1987 hound you? Infect you? Failures
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: admit our faults. “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)
It didn’t
happen overnight, however. It took David a year. It took a surprise pregnancy,
the death of a soldier, the persuasion of a preacher, and the probing and
pressing of God, but David’s hard heart finally softened and he made is
admission: “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 west?
Grace,
Randy
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