How could that be?
One lesson to take from the life of David, is that he was human like the rest of us. And at times, his flesh
won out against his spirit in some of the worst ways imaginable. But whenever
YAHWEH ELOHIYM [the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] was able to
get his full attention, David was quick to confess his sins [the
wrongness of his actions]
and turn [repent] from them.
We read first-hand testimonies of this in his songs, many of which were inspired and preserved by God in the Holy Scriptures.
We read first-hand testimonies of this in his songs, many of which were inspired and preserved by God in the Holy Scriptures.
Sometimes, David failed to recognize his sin without some nudging from
from God's people. Sometimes, he needed to be confronted before he would
repent, but when he was confronted, his heart would break from the knowledge of his own wickedness.
When that happened,
God always forgave him and welcomed him back into his arms.
Although David
lived under the law and participated in Temple worship, he understood that religious ceremony did not impress God, unless it
was coupled with genuine faith. He wrote that a broken and contrite heart was
what counted with God--not sacrifice and ceremony. It was for this, that God called David a man after his own heart.
David was an in-person example [for both bad and good] to
his son, Solomon, who later wrote of his own experiences with sin. Solomon credited
his father’s example in his own return to the Lord when he wrote, “Train up a
child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Along with most everyone else, Solomon was aware of his father's sins,
which often became public knowledge. He was also witness to his father’s
willingness to turn from those
sins when confronted with them, and that too, became public knowledge
through David's own actions when he would publicly proclaim, “I was
wrong!”
Solomon witnessed the consequences of his father’s sins. He was also witness to the great blessings and
deliverance of God when David would bring his thoughts, his heart, and his
life back into line with God’s ways and God’s Word.
Following the influence of his father, to the bad, Solomon found his own life mired-down
in the muck of sin. He then demonstrated the
powerful influence of his father’s example of public confession and repentance, when he wrote “He who hides his
sin shall not prosper….”
David's life was not an example of perfection. Many of the facts of his
life were not recorded because they were meant to be emulated--but
rather, to be avoided. But his life [with all the ups and downs] is an
awesome example of what happens when a believer welcomes the
correction of a loving God--even the humiliating circumstance of public correction, if that is what it takes.
David embraced correction and was grateful for it. We read about that, when he wrote,"Blessed is the man whom you chasten O
LORD and teach him out of your law That you may give him rest from the days of adversity..."
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