Spoken With Love: Week 1 Day 4

2 Samuel 12:1-10

1 The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 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.’

Imagine how these words we read today landed on David’s ears. The prophet of the Lord, Nathan, put the sin of David into perspective. We see that David’s rage was boiling, he detested the wickedness of the wealthy man in the story. His heart, a heart after God’s heart, returned in a burning wish for justice, yet it was his own sin that needed correcting. The conviction of David had to strike like lightning to his pride and peace. David was hoping the sin he was hiding would never be known; yet the will of God was that David would answer for his sin.

It is both scary and reassuring to know that our sin will never be hidden away. It gives us no excuse but to repent of that sin and live in the freedom of Christ. Don’t let sin pile on; God will bring it to light. After sinning, David had to answer to God for his laziness and adultery, but because he tried to hide these things from God, he added deceit and murder to that list of sins as well.

Luke 8:17

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.

Don’t let repentance scare you! It is a wonderful way to find freedom in the forever forgiveness of Christ!