When King David heard all this, he was furious. Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.
Two years later, when Absalom’s sheepshearers were at Baal Hazor near the border of Ephraim, he invited all the king’s sons to come there. Absalom went to the king and said, "Your servant has had shearers come. Will the king and his officials please join me?"
When David heard that Amnon had raped Tamar, he was furious. But he did nothing. Perhaps he was hesitant to confront Amnon because he was David’s oldest son. Perhaps David’s own feelings of guilt about his relationship with Bathsheba make him afraid of being the pot that called the kettle black. For whatever reason, David took no decisive action against Amnon. The result? The ball of anger and distrust among his children kept rolling and growing, and two years later, David’s son, Absalom set a trap for Amnon and killed him.
This wasn’t the first time David had hesitated to take decisive action against someone. Joab, the commander of David’s army, had created severe problems for David when Joab entrapped Abner and murdered him right at the moment that David was working on using Abner in a peaceful settlement. Instead of punishing Joab for the murder of Abner, David let it slide. So, because he got away with it the first time, Abner did it again, later murdering Absalom when David told him to protect the young man’s life. David’s indecisiveness in dealing with the sins of Amnon and Joab created havoc in both his personal life and in his kingdom. By avoiding the pain of dealing with the sins of these people, David created even greater pain for himself and others in the future.
It’s very, very difficult and painful to confront the sins of your family. It’s even harder to confront the sins of your friends and co-workers. But look at the example of David. If David had punished Joab the first time he sinned, perhaps Joab would have learned from the punishment and would not have repeated his sin. If David had punished Amnon for what he did to Tamar, the animosity between David’s sons might not have escalated like it did. If David had dealt decisively with Absalom’s murder of Amnon, perhaps he would have stopped Absalom’s later rebellion.
When you see sin around you, stop being indecisive in dealing with it. The pain of confronting the sin in the first place is minor compared to the pain that could result if that sin continues and escalates.
Amnon claimed to be in love with Tamar, his half-sister. Actually, he was in lust… so much in lust that he set a trap for her and raped her when she wouldn’t give in willingly. Within hours, his so-called "love" turned to hatred and disgust. Then he compounded his sin by throwing her out, making it look like she was the one who had instigated the encounter rather than him.
Lust is a very human feeling, something virtually every person experiences at one time or another. In fact, many people spend so much time trying to satisfy their lust that they never find true love. How do you tell the difference? Especially when lust is so intense… so overwhelming. Especially when movies and television and books play on our lust more and more and more, enticing us with the apparent pleasures available all around us? Let’s take a look at 1 Corinthians 13.
Love is patient. Lust can’t wait. Love is kind. Lust is cruel, determined to be satisfied no matter what. Love does not envy. Lust sees an actor on the screen who always ends up in bed with a beautiful woman and wants to be just like him. Lust wants to take another man’s wife or another woman’s husband. Love does not boast. Lust makes a person preen and swagger and prance in an attempt to gain access to its target. Love is not proud. Lust is filled with vanity, sure of its ability to conquer. Love is not rude. Lust doesn’t take time for propriety, doesn’t care how one behaves. Love is not self-seeking. Lust cares for nothing but self-gratification. Love is not easily angered. Lust fills a person with fury if it is not satisfied. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Lust will give out a list of wrongs, over and over and over again, doing everything in its power to condemn the other person if he or she does not give in. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Lust is evil exemplified and will twist the truth – even using scripture out of context – to win its case. Love always protects its object. Lust only protects itself. Love always trusts. Lust is jealous, suspicious, trusting no one. Love always hopes. Lust only hopes to be satisfied. Love always perseveres. Lust stops cold as soon as it is satisfied, moving on to newer and more gratifying conquests.
See the difference? Whether you’re single or married, lust can creep in and take over. Decide which one you want – the love that God wants you to have or the lust that your body wants to have. Learn from the Word what the difference is. Then when lust shows up, you’ll recognize it.
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!"
He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me."
Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The LORD loved him; (NIV)
David had really made a mess of things. He had purposely sinned. He had bedded another man’s wife, and then had cold-bloodedly caused the man to be killed to cover his own sin. In both instances, David had calculated and planned his sins and then deliberately committed them. He had hardened his own heart and had turned away from God and toward his own lust and desire. When confronted by Nathan, guilt was heaped upon guilt by what David had done. When the child conceived out of wedlock with Bathsheba lay ill and dying, David wept and mourned and begged God for the child’s life. When God’s judgment was that the child would die, David didn’t continue to mourn. Instead, he got up, bathed, dressed in new clothing and got on with the business of his life. God had given David a fresh start. So David didn’t dwell on the past… he didn’t allow feelings of guilt to bog him down. God had forgiven and forgotten his sin. And although David would never be able to forget, he didn’t dwell on the past either. He stepped out anew, moving forward in victory.
When you and I sin, the Holy Spirit convicts us. He reveals to us how evil our sin is in the sight of God… and we feel guilty. So we turn to God, broken and contrite, angry with ourselves for doing what we’ve done, ashamed to even talk to God and filled with fear of what God could do to us. We beg for forgiveness and turn away from those actions that pull us farther and farther away from God. And God, by both forgiving AND forgetting our sin, gives us a fresh start… a new lease on life… a brand new beginning. He removes our sins as far from us “as east is from west.” Think about that. How far is east from west? If you begin traveling north, eventually you’ll go south, and the reverse is also true. But if you begin traveling east, you will never, ever go west. And, again, the reverse is true. Amazing distance, isn’t it?
So, like He did for David, God will open the way for us to live the kind of life He wants us to live. So what do we do? We keep playing those old tapes, reminding ourselves again and again of how rotten we are. Unable – or unwilling – to forget, we reject the fresh start God gives us, unable to believe that God could forget, much less forgive, what we’ve done. And as those old tapes play and replay, we soon become convinced that we’re stuck. That’s just the way we are. We can’t change. And before long, we have something else to feel guilty about.
If you have recognized your sin and turned to God for forgiveness, stop playing those old tapes. Stop allowing guilt to seep back in where you’ve found forgiveness. Your forgiven sins are lost in a sea of forgetfulness… God no longer remembers them or holds them against you! So, allow the Lord to give you the fresh start you need. Stop looking back. Allow Jesus to lead you forward in victory.
2 Samuel 12:13 NIV:
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. (NIV)
Finally, David’s eyes were opened. After all he had done wrong, one sin compounded by the next, David had not slipped so far away from God that he’d lost the desire to come back. Nathan’s story had opened David’s eyes to his own guilt. And he was crushed. His first reaction was to say, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Yes, David’s sins had hurt a number of people, but his greatest sin was rebellion against God. That’s what all sin is – rebellion against God. And David had a very long list of rebellions to deal with. Out of this realization of what he had done came several Psalms, the most revealing of which is Psalm 51.
David begins this Psalm with a cry for mercy. David knew he had done wrong. He knew he was guilty of horrible wrongs. And he was terrified of God. He was terrified of what he knew God could do to him to punish him for his sins. So he cried for mercy. In David’s terror of God’s wrath, he also was aware of God’s other awesome qualities – His unfailing love, His compassion, His ability to blot out our sins… to completely forget them… and especially His deep desire to forgive.
That’s right, God’s desire to forgive. He wants to forgive you and me for each and every thing we’ve ever done wrong. He proved that by sending His Son to die for us on the cross. This was a hard lesson for me to learn and, even more, for me to understand… God wants to forgive me for what I have done! When I looked at my life, it was filthy with sin. Of course, to any outside observer (other than God), I looked pure as the driven snow… After all, I had just spent the past 30 years trying to work my way to heaven, so I appeared to the world to be a really good person. But when I saw Jesus for who He really is, in all His glory and perfection, I felt like a walking garbage dump. It was incredibly difficult for me to understand how God could forgive me, much less that He would want to! It was only when I read about David – the man God called a “man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22 NIV)… the only person that the Bible calls by name and says that God loved him… it was only when I saw how God forgave David’s terrible sins that I finally understood God’s mercy.
If you’ve sinned against God, follow David’s example. Acknowledge that sin. Then ask for God’s mercy. He will forgive you. He wants to.
Nathan had a tough assignment from the Lord. More than a year had passed since David had gotten into his sin cycle with Bathsheba and Uriah. By this time, David had done such a good job of suppressing his guilt that when Nathan told him the allegory, David did not recognize himself as the villain. Nathan probably knew David’s state of mind. He probably was very aware that David had started on the road to becoming someone who could easily turn completely away from God at any point. David had chosen the road to sin and destruction. He had deliberately sinned against God and man. In this state of mind, his reaction to Nathan’s confrontation could easily have gone against Nathan in a big way. After all, David had the power to have Nathan imprisoned or killed if he had not reacted favorably to what Nathan had to say. If I were Nathan, I would have had more than a few butterflies in my stomach at the point of confrontation!
But Nathan was more than an obedient servant of God; he was also a very wise man. He didn’t rush in to David and start accusing him of adultery and murder, ranting and raving and shouting his condemnation. Instead, he chose his moment wisely, then approached the subject in the form of a story. He knew that there was enough of the “man after God’s own heart” left in David for the king to be angered by this story. The hard part would be revealing to David that the villain in the story was David himself. But, because Nathan was wise in his approach, the result was the positive one that God wanted.
Although you and I are rarely faced with life and death confrontations like Nathan, we often find ourselves in situations that are difficult… situations where we must approach someone with a difficult subject. Whether with a boss, a co-worker, a fellow Christian, a child, a parent or a spouse… no matter who the other person is, if we follow Nathan’s example, we can look for a favorable outcome to the confrontation. Timing is all important, as we saw in the case of Abigail (1 Samuel 25 NIV) when she chose to wait to confront her husband until he was sober. How we approach the other person is also important… very important.
If you are faced with a difficult confrontation, pray about it. Ask God for the right words and the right timing. Let Him show you the right approach… the one that will help you achieve the right outcome.
David had finally recognized his sin for what it was – rebellion against God. And when he begged for mercy, God forgave him. But God did not remove the natural consequences of David’s sin. Other people got hurt. Uriah was murdered. The baby died. And although God forgot David’s sin in His forgiveness, David had to live with the knowledge of what he had done for the rest of his life.
God does forgive sin – if we acknowledge it, if we are truly sorry, and if we ask for forgiveness. But He does not remove the consequences of that sin. A number of years ago, I knew a man who met Jesus at about the age of 40. He had led a terrible life, doing all manner of things that were not only sinful, but illegal. The list was almost endless. When this man came to Christ, he was exuberant in the freedom of God’s forgiveness. But in the midst of his euphoria of freedom from sin, he also acknowledged that the things he had done had harmed a long list of people and had broken a large number of laws. It would have been very easy for him to keep silent, to enjoy his freedom from everything – both his sin AND the consequences. But this man felt convicted that he had to do the right thing – all the way. So, one at a time, he went to the people against whom he had sinned and confessed what he had done, asking for forgiveness. Some of the consequences were good, because a few of his broken relationships were restored. Some of the consequences were bad, because he ended up not only having to pay back some people he had cheated, but he also ended up serving time in jail. However, this man was so excited about God’s forgiveness through Jesus, he suffered the consequences of his sin with joy. What he had to suffer at the hands of man was a mere pinprick compared to what he would have suffered at the hands of God!
No matter what you’ve done, God will forgive you if you acknowledge your sin, acknowledge your guilt, and ask for mercy. And He will forget that sin at the very moment He forgives it, removing it as far from you as east is from west. But God does not remove the natural consequences of our sins, so prepare yourself to accept the consequences. And remember, what you’re going through now as a result of your sin is a mere pinprick compared to what you would have suffered if God’s desire was not so focused on forgiving you for what you’ve done.
David told the messenger, "Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab."
When David heard that Uriah was dead, his reaction was pretty lame. He sent a message back to Joab saying, “Don’t let it upset you. People get killed in battle. So what?” That’s a pretty big contrast to David’s reaction to the news of Saul’s and Abner’s deaths (2 Samuel 1 NIV; 2 Sanuel 3:22-39 NIV). Saul and Abner were his greatest enemies, and yet David mourned them. Uriah, on the other hand, was a loyal subject who refused to go relax and spend time with his wife and instead stayed where he was supposed to be with the army. But David’s reaction to this good man’s death was cold, callous, and uncaring. Why? Because David had gotten so used to sin, he had become anesthetized. He had suppressed his feelings of guilt so deeply, he no longer felt guilty for what he was doing.
This is an excellent guide for avoiding the idea, “If it feels good, do it.” Feelings are a totally unreliable guide when it comes to sin (actually, they’re an unreliable guide in all areas of our lives!). In the first place, sin is fun. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be tempted to do it. In the second place, you may have been sinning so long that you have gone on past the guilt stage. You may have anesthetized yourself against feeling bad. I can still remember the first time I saw an ad on television for Maidenform bras. I was in high school at the time. I was mortified! How embarrassing! How gross! By today’s standards, it was very benign… a mannequin with no head or arms and nothing below the waist – wearing a totally modest bra. If it ran today, no one would even notice it. In fact, most of the time, we don’t notice underwear ads at all. They’re commonplace. And most of them are very mild compared to the other things we see on prime time television. The sad thing is, we’ve all been anesthetized against the evil we’re watching. And those few people who are still shocked… those few people who are voicing protests to the sex and violence and attacks on family values and the encouragement to sin that we see and hear on television and in movies and in our music – well, those people are just fanatics, right? They’re not up with the times, right? They are people to be ridiculed and ignored, right? Wrong.
The same type of thing happens with our personal sins. The worse we get, the less we feel guilty. So, what should we do? Start with staying out of harm’s way in the first place – and then stop relying on feelings to tell us whether something is right or wrong. The only reliable guide we have is the Word of God. We just need to use it.