Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / #114: King David-Man of God or Predator

Transcript

#114: King David-Man of God or Predator · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

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[music]
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SPEAKER_01: If you know anything about the Bible that you know that one of the main characters
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SPEAKER_01: in the Old Testament and even referred to in the New Testament is David,
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SPEAKER_01: the King of Israel, who is the great, great ancestor of Jesus.
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SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is often considered to be or called to be in the New Testament of the line
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SPEAKER_01: and lineage of David.
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SPEAKER_01: David is referred to as a man after God's own heart.
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SPEAKER_01: And yet, David was a predator and a murderer.
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SPEAKER_01: And the question is, how do we square that story?
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SPEAKER_01: And what do we do with it?
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SPEAKER_01: And so John and I,
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SPEAKER_01: actually,
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SPEAKER_01: this was at John's prompting,
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SPEAKER_01: thought it would be interesting to look at some of the characters in the Bible
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SPEAKER_01: who were flawed, deeply flawed.
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SPEAKER_01: And David is certainly one of them, first one who comes to mind.
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SPEAKER_01: And to talk about How it is that God uses flawed people and what it means.
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SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to give a little disclaimer,
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SPEAKER_01: which may offend some of you right off the bat,
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SPEAKER_01: but I hope that you will stick with us.
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SPEAKER_01: In the last several years,
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SPEAKER_01: there have been Christians using stories like this to justify certain politicians.
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SPEAKER_01: And to say,
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SPEAKER_01: if God can use someone like David or if God can use someone like Cyrus,
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SPEAKER_01: then God can certainly use these really flawed people.
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SPEAKER_01: And we do the Bible a great disservice.
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SPEAKER_01: We do politics a great disservice.
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SPEAKER_01: We do Christianity a great disservice.
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SPEAKER_01: When we use that argument to justify sometimes downright vile behavior,
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SPEAKER_01: So I hope you'll hang in there with us because the story of David does not justify
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SPEAKER_01: Politicians behaving badly just because God uses flawed people,
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SPEAKER_01: nor does it give them permission to behave badly because God uses flawed people.
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SPEAKER_01: And as we're going to see in the story of David,
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SPEAKER_01: things did not go well for David,
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SPEAKER_01: nor for the kingdom of Israel,
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SPEAKER_01: when David began to step away from God and God's will.
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SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's really important to kind of keep this in mind.
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SPEAKER_01: That's not to say that God doesn't use flawed people.
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SPEAKER_01: God only uses flawed people.
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SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't give precedence or permission to simply be flawed.
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SPEAKER_01: There are responsibilities that come with being leadership and representing Jesus as a leader.
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SPEAKER_01: And that's what the story of David is going to bring for us today.
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SPEAKER_01: So, you know, for the four of you who are still listening, we're going to look at...
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and how God uses flawed people and what that means,
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SPEAKER_01: you know, in its totality, what that means biblically and scripturally.
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SPEAKER_01: And so, John, this was kind of your idea.
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SPEAKER_01: Tell us kind of what it is that you were hoping to have happen here in this series
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SPEAKER_01: or what you were interested in.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, no,
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SPEAKER_00: I think the what I said was the heroes of the Bible all seem to have this backstory.
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SPEAKER_00: And I just think that's super interesting to see, as always.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, people that have been listening to the podcast for a while know
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SPEAKER_00: that I'm generally excited by the humanity that's involved in these discussions.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think It's a really good question, Tim.
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SPEAKER_00: First of all,
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SPEAKER_00: I think God is stuck with only choosing flawed people
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SPEAKER_00: because there are only flawed people.
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SPEAKER_00: They're sort of all flawed differently,
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SPEAKER_00: but he doesn't have a very big deep bench in perfection, I guess.
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SPEAKER_00: But also,
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SPEAKER_00: as we go through David, I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: David is obviously a hero of the Bible,
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SPEAKER_00: first one that came to mind for both of us,
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SPEAKER_00: but also He had deep issues with his behavior and consequences to that
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SPEAKER_00: and how he was looking at the world and his place in it.
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SPEAKER_00: And I don't think either of us are saying,
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SPEAKER_00: but God used you, so that excuses all this previous bad behavior.
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SPEAKER_00: I think we're saying that there's beauty in the life that he lived,
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SPEAKER_00: including some of the problems that he clearly had.
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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SPEAKER_01: So let's just give some context for people who may not be completely familiar with
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SPEAKER_01: the story of David.
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SPEAKER_01: And by the way, Amazon has an ongoing series on David that Jan and I watched the first series.
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SPEAKER_01: I haven't gotten to the second series yet.
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SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to tell you that it's been in the last few months that I've been doing
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SPEAKER_01: a rethink about David.
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SPEAKER_01: And so I want to try to be as fair as possible to what Scripture is saying about David.
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SPEAKER_01: So the people of Israel wanted a king.
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SPEAKER_01: They wanted to be like the other nations.
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SPEAKER_01: They wanted a king, which broke God's heart because God was their king.
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SPEAKER_01: God was their leader.
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SPEAKER_01: And the people of Israel said, yeah, okay, but We'd really like a leader we can see.
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SPEAKER_01: And so God acquiesces and he gives them a king by the name of Saul.
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SPEAKER_01: Saul was a very flawed man right from the start.
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SPEAKER_01: And Saul continually disobeyed God.
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SPEAKER_01: And as a result,
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SPEAKER_01: God felt the need to essentially replace Saul With a king who would be a man
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SPEAKER_01: after his own heart.
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SPEAKER_01: And so a search was made for a brand new king.
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SPEAKER_01: And Samuel, the prophet who was going to anoint this new king, was sent to Bethlehem.
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SPEAKER_01: And he was sent to the house of Jesse.
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SPEAKER_01: And Samuel looked over the various sons of Jesse.
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SPEAKER_01: And each one of them he looked at, he thought, oh, yeah, this could be the guy.
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SPEAKER_01: He's a big, strong, strapping guy.
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SPEAKER_01: He's handsome.
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SPEAKER_01: He's got mature looks.
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SPEAKER_01: For those of you who know who that is, otherwise Google it.
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SPEAKER_01: And really, any one of these guys could be the king of Israel.
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SPEAKER_01: Now, all he was doing was just looking at the outer appearance.
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SPEAKER_01: And God said, I don't look at the outward appearance.
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SPEAKER_01: I look at the heart.
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SPEAKER_01: That's what matters to me.
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SPEAKER_01: The heart matters to me.
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SPEAKER_01: And let's remember that as we go through all of these different characters.
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SPEAKER_01: The heart matters to God.
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SPEAKER_01: Now, it's not that God saves us because our hearts are good.
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SPEAKER_01: But what we're talking about here are leaders.
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SPEAKER_01: We're talking about leaders.
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SPEAKER_01: And when God raises up leaders,
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SPEAKER_01: he's looking for leaders who have his heart because he wants what's best
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SPEAKER_01: for his people.
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SPEAKER_01: So finally, Samuel says to Jesse, are these all your sons?
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SPEAKER_01: He said, well, no,
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SPEAKER_01: we've got kind of this teenage kid out there and he's out there watching
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SPEAKER_01: the sheep right now.
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SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to see him.
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SPEAKER_01: And sure enough,
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SPEAKER_01: this is the guy,
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SPEAKER_01: this teenage boy is the guy that God wants to call us the next king of Israel.
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SPEAKER_01: Now, the story gets a little bit complicated in the Old Testament because we sort
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SPEAKER_01: of find ourselves in the various books going back and forth.
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SPEAKER_01: And, you know, is David with Saul now?
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SPEAKER_01: Is David back home?
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SPEAKER_01: But regardless, some things that we know about David, he is a guy who apparently is a musician.
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SPEAKER_01: He is a poet.
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SPEAKER_01: We have many of his poems in the book of Psalms,
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SPEAKER_01: his most famous one, Psalm 23, The Lord is My Shepherd.
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SPEAKER_01: Probably the most beautiful piece of poetry in all of Scripture.
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SPEAKER_01: And he eventually is called upon by King Saul to play his harp because Saul,
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SPEAKER_01: the Bible speaks about a spirit,
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SPEAKER_01: but if you read carefully, it looks like Saul has some sort of mental illness.
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SPEAKER_01: And David's harp sort of works like an anti-anxiety medication for him and calms him down.
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SPEAKER_01: There comes a point where the Philistines,
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SPEAKER_01: the arch enemies of the people of Israel,
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SPEAKER_01: send out their champion who is a giant by the name of Goliath.
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SPEAKER_01: Goliath stands about nine feet tall, if I remember correctly.
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SPEAKER_01: And he basically comes out and yells out at the soldiers of Israel,
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SPEAKER_01: look, let's stop the bloodshed.
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SPEAKER_01: You send out your champion.
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SPEAKER_01: We'll go mano y mano.
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SPEAKER_01: And if I win, you surrender to us.
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SPEAKER_01: If you win, we'll surrender to you.
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SPEAKER_01: Let's stop the bloodshed.
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SPEAKER_01: And so for 40 days, he would go out onto the battlefield and yell.
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SPEAKER_01: And nobody from Israel, none of the soldiers, warriors, were willing to go out and fight him.
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SPEAKER_01: And so you've got David, who is a shepherd.
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SPEAKER_01: And still probably a teenager or at least a young adult.
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SPEAKER_01: He said, well, who's going to go fight this guy?
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SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with you?
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SPEAKER_01: You're fighting for the Lord.
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SPEAKER_01: He can defeat this guy.
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SPEAKER_01: Word got to Saul.
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SPEAKER_01: David goes to Saul and says, well, I'll take him on.
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SPEAKER_01: And Saul puts his own armor onto David.
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SPEAKER_01: And then it's too clunky.
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SPEAKER_01: So David said, no, no, I got to do this my way.
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SPEAKER_01: So he stops by a river and he picks up five stones.
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SPEAKER_01: And the question always is, well, why five stones?
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SPEAKER_01: And we learned later on that Goliath had four brothers.
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SPEAKER_01: Just a little interesting bit of tid for those of you who are wondering why he had five stones.
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SPEAKER_01: It wasn't because he thought he would need all five.
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SPEAKER_01: It's because he knew that he might need all five for the five giants.
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SPEAKER_01: So David goes running out.
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SPEAKER_01: He's got a slingshot.
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SPEAKER_01: And when we think of a slingshot,
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SPEAKER_01: we usually think of this stick within the Y shape and you pull a rubber band back.
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SPEAKER_01: That's not the kind of slingshot he had.
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SPEAKER_01: He had the kind that you wrapped around your fingers
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SPEAKER_01: and you swirled it around your head and then you let it loose.
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SPEAKER_01: You let go of one of the two strings, you let it loose and the stone flies.
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SPEAKER_01: So he runs out to take on Goliath and Goliath can't believe it,
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SPEAKER_01: that they're sending a child out to do a man's job.
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SPEAKER_01: And so David says, I'm here in the name of the Lord.
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SPEAKER_01: He takes his slingshot.
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SPEAKER_01: He wraps it around, or he starts to swing it around his head.
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SPEAKER_01: He lets that stone fly.
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SPEAKER_01: And there's one little space in Goliath's helmet right on his forehead.
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SPEAKER_01: And the stone knocks him right smack in the forehead.
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SPEAKER_01: And as Goliath is falling to the ground,
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SPEAKER_01: he says, nothing like this has ever entered my mind before.
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SPEAKER_00: Are there any questions?
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SPEAKER_00: That's the payoff for making it past the offensive part at the beginning of the podcast.
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SPEAKER_01: That's right.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
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SPEAKER_01: There you go.
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SPEAKER_01: So Goliath falls to the ground, dead.
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SPEAKER_01: As they did back in those days,
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SPEAKER_01: David ran over, picked up this guy's huge sword and lops off his head.
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SPEAKER_01: And the Philistines run.
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SPEAKER_01: Now, to cut to the chase, eventually David becomes quite popular with all the people of Israel.
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SPEAKER_01: Saul doesn't like this.
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SPEAKER_01: Saul attempts to kill David a few times.
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SPEAKER_01: And the long and the short of it is that Saul and his son,
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SPEAKER_01: Jonathan,
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SPEAKER_01: who was a very,
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SPEAKER_01: very close friend to David,
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SPEAKER_01: they die in Beth Sheehan, where John and I have both been.
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SPEAKER_01: And they die at the hands of the Philistines.
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SPEAKER_01: And David then becomes the king,
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SPEAKER_01: not just of the tribe of Judah,
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SPEAKER_01: where he's from, but he becomes the king of all of Israel.
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SPEAKER_01: And again, he's called a man after God's own heart and the people love him.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: All right.
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SPEAKER_01: So far, so good.
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SPEAKER_01: Now, as you read the story of David,
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SPEAKER_01: there are times when you get a sense That perhaps even at a young age,
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SPEAKER_01: he's got an ego problem.
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SPEAKER_01: Now you can interpret it one of two ways,
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SPEAKER_01: but his brothers are constantly complaining to him when he shows up at the camp or
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SPEAKER_01: when he's doing things.
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SPEAKER_01: His brothers sort of say, oh man, you're just, you're always bragging.
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SPEAKER_01: You're always doing this.
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SPEAKER_01: You're always doing that.
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SPEAKER_01: Now you could interpret it to mean that the brothers think that he's just a spoiled brat.
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SPEAKER_01: Or you could interpret it to mean the brothers are jealous.
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SPEAKER_01: But it does give the sense as you read these stories that he was maybe a bit full
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SPEAKER_01: of himself,
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SPEAKER_01: not unlike Joseph, who was a bit full of himself because of the dreams that he had.
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SPEAKER_01: When David becomes king,
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SPEAKER_01: he tries to rule with goodness and good intent.
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SPEAKER_01: But one day he's on top of his palace and he looks down and down below he sees a woman bathing.
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SPEAKER_01: And so he sends his servants to go get her and he,
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SPEAKER_01: let's call it what it is, he forces her to have sex with him.
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SPEAKER_00: This is Bathsheba.
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SPEAKER_01: This is Bathsheba.
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SPEAKER_01: We like to sort of say, well, it was
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SPEAKER_01: Because they ended up in love with each other, apparently.
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SPEAKER_01: Or at the very least, Bathsheba becomes a partner with him.
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SPEAKER_01: He forced himself on her.
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SPEAKER_01: There's no other way to look at this story.
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SPEAKER_01: If you want to use the word rape, you could probably use the word rape.
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SPEAKER_01: It was a power dynamic.
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SPEAKER_01: She had no choice.
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SPEAKER_01: She had to say, yes, this was the king.
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SPEAKER_01: He sends word that she's pregnant by him.
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SPEAKER_01: And how is she supposed to explain this to her husband?
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SPEAKER_01: So David attempts a couple of times to get her husband,
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SPEAKER_01: who is a soldier,
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SPEAKER_01: to go home and sleep with his wife so that they can say, oh, it was Uriah's baby.
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SPEAKER_01: He refuses to do it because he's a loyal soldier.
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SPEAKER_01: Why should he sleep with his wife when all the other soldiers are out on the battlefield?
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SPEAKER_01: And so David sends word to his His commander in chief,
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SPEAKER_01: he says,
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SPEAKER_01: what I want you to do is I want you to put Uriah out on the front line and
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SPEAKER_01: then I want you to retreat, but don't let him know that.
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SPEAKER_01: And Uriah is essentially murdered by David.
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SPEAKER_01: All right.
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SPEAKER_01: So let's pause here.
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SPEAKER_01: There are some questions that we can ask.
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SPEAKER_01: If
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SPEAKER_01: I would say normally in the United States of America, but I'm not so sure right now.
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SPEAKER_01: If we found out that a politician had raped a woman or forced himself onto her and
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SPEAKER_01: then had her husband murdered, we would probably put him in jail.
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SPEAKER_01: Now, I say I'm not sure anymore because we've had a lot of instances lately
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SPEAKER_01: of politicians both sides of the aisle being accused of sexual abuse
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SPEAKER_01: and Neither party says boo often,
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SPEAKER_01: although the Democrats, to give him credit, have said boo more often lately.
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SPEAKER_01: But you'd like to believe that if a politician were accused of rape and
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SPEAKER_01: then murdering the husband,
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SPEAKER_01: that we as a nation would be outraged and that man would be put into jail
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SPEAKER_01: after trial.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: And Tim,
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SPEAKER_00: we've talked about this from a little different angle before,
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SPEAKER_00: but what if it was a church leader?
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SPEAKER_01: The same thing.
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SPEAKER_00: Was a man after, or a woman after God's own heart.
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SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Same thing.
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SPEAKER_01: And we've seen instances where the pastor got away with it and the people said,
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SPEAKER_01: well, we need to forgive.
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SPEAKER_01: We need to forgive.
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SPEAKER_01: That's just, I mean, it's horrifying.
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SPEAKER_01: And so the first question is,
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SPEAKER_01: well, all right, how did David stay in power after doing all of that?
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SPEAKER_01: We're going to come back to that in a moment.
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SPEAKER_01: Secondly, does it negate everything that David had done up to that point?
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SPEAKER_01: Does it negate Psalm 23?
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SPEAKER_01: Should we stop reading Psalm 23?
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SPEAKER_01: Should David be canceled because of what he did?
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SPEAKER_01: Those are some difficult questions, and I'm not sure I'm prepared to answer them.
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SPEAKER_01: But here's where I am now.
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SPEAKER_01: I would often, probably like most Christians, I would focus more on David's good stuff.
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SPEAKER_01: And then when it came to his quote unquote indiscretions,
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SPEAKER_01: which let's call it what it is,
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SPEAKER_01: rape and murder,
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SPEAKER_01: we would say, well, God is forgiving and God used him anyway, in spite of that.
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SPEAKER_01: But that's not really what happened.
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SPEAKER_01: From that moment on, David's rulership imploded.
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SPEAKER_01: His son rebelled against him and David was chased out of his kingdom for a while.
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SPEAKER_01: Bathsheba's son died.
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SPEAKER_01: David essentially lost, even though he was still king, he essentially lost his power.
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SPEAKER_01: His son Solomon,
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SPEAKER_01: who became king after him,
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SPEAKER_01: ended up corrupting himself with 700 concubines and 300 wives.
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SPEAKER_01: The kingdom split in two.
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SPEAKER_01: And
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SPEAKER_01: so I think this, I think David becomes,
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SPEAKER_01: David is less and less for me a hero of scripture.
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SPEAKER_01: Then he is a cautionary tale.
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SPEAKER_01: And a cautionary tale that should take on far more pertinence today
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SPEAKER_01: when you've got things like Epstein's files floating out there,
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SPEAKER_01: politicians trying to hide them because they don't want people to know the kind
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SPEAKER_01: of man that they were supporting.
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SPEAKER_01: A cautionary tale of what happens when power goes to our head
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SPEAKER_01: And we justify evil by saying God uses flawed people.
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SPEAKER_01: There is a big difference between saying God uses flawed people
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SPEAKER_01: and God uses flawed people who are intentionally evil.
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SPEAKER_01: As if God justifies their evil for God's good purposes or ends.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Ah.
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SPEAKER_01: Yes, God uses flawed people,
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SPEAKER_01: Christian and non-Christian, but God also uses flawed people who are good people.
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SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking about good to save themselves.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about people who are genuinely good people.
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SPEAKER_01: They're flawed.
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SPEAKER_01: They make mistakes, but their hearts are in the right place.
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SPEAKER_01: They want to help the poor and the oppressed.
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SPEAKER_01: They want to stand up for the voiceless, for the victims.
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SPEAKER_01: They don't want to use their power to abuse or to gain for themselves.
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SPEAKER_01: They want to use their power to help other people.
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SPEAKER_01: Those are flawed but good people.
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SPEAKER_01: And then there are flawed people who are also evil.
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SPEAKER_01: And let's just take it out of the United States of America.
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SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the guy in North Korea.
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SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the guy in Russia.
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SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about Hitler.
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SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about Stalin.
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SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about Mussolini.
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SPEAKER_01: These were flawed people who were evil.
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SPEAKER_01: And in the case of at least Hitler,
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SPEAKER_01: there were Christians who believed,
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SPEAKER_01: well, he's flawed, but God's going to use him to make Germany great again.
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SPEAKER_01: Well, he did.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: He destroyed Germany.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: So I think David is the cautionary tale.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Now, the other thing I think that's important to say about David is
22:05
SPEAKER_01: that David did confess his sin to God and repented.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 51 is a psalm.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And John, why don't you, I'm gonna let you look that one up.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: All right, why don't you take a minute?
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Where David basically confesses to God, yes, I have sinned.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: And he was confronted when Bathsheba was pregnant.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: God sent a prophet and the prophet told a little story about
22:40
SPEAKER_01: a poor woman being cheated by a rich man.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: And then David said, well, that person should be killed.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: And then the prophet Nathan said, well, you're the man.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: You're the one who stole that little sheep.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: And David confesses,
22:57
SPEAKER_01: he repents,
22:59
SPEAKER_01: but he still never regained his moral authority as a leader in the eyes of God or in
23:06
SPEAKER_01: the eyes of his people.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Because he broke trust with God.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: He broke trust with Uriah.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: He broke trust with Bathsheba.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: He broke trust with his people.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: And he was never able to regain his moral authority after that.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: So read Psalm 51 for us.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: It starts by saying a prayer for cleansing and pardon.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: And it says to the leader,
23:37
SPEAKER_00: a Psalm of David,
23:38
SPEAKER_00: when the prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on me, O God,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: according to your steadfast love,
23:47
SPEAKER_00: according to your abundant mercy,
23:49
SPEAKER_00: blot out my transgressions,
23:51
SPEAKER_00: wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Against you,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: you alone I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
24:06
SPEAKER_00: so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner, when my mother conceived me.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You desire truth in the inward being.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, teach me wisdom in my sacred heart.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Purge me with the hyssop and I shall be clean.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Let me hear joy and gladness.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Deliver me from bloodshed,
25:03
SPEAKER_00: O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise for you have no delight
25:15
SPEAKER_00: in sacrifice.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: If I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: O God, you will not despise.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Do good to Zion in your great good pleasure.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
25:34
SPEAKER_00: and then you will delight in right sacrifices in burnt offerings
25:38
SPEAKER_00: and whole burnt offerings.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Then bowls will be offered on your altar.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: All right.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of you listening are going to say, oh, Tim, you're always about grace.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Where's the grace in all of this?
25:51
SPEAKER_01: So did God forgive?
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Did God forgive David?
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: No question.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that David's issues were gone.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: There was something in David that needed not just confession and forgiveness,
26:15
SPEAKER_01: but that needed really to be worked on.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: All right?
26:19
SPEAKER_01: They didn't have therapy back then like we would today.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:24
SPEAKER_01: Right?
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: So are you talking about the difference,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Tim, between forgiveness of sin and consequences of sin?
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously there were consequences to what David did.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: And Uriah experienced the consequences of David's sin.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: Bathsheba experienced the consequences of David's sin.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: And David experienced the consequences of his sin.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a good question you raised, John.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: They're not God's punishment.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: These are the consequences of our own actions.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: And just because we confess,
27:03
SPEAKER_01: just because we forgive, doesn't mean that the consequences go away.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they do, but not always.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: If you hit your thumb with a hammer,
27:15
SPEAKER_01: you can apologize to yourself, but your thumb's still going to hurt for a while.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't seem to take away consequences.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible or in life very often.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: When I complain about the consequences,
27:35
SPEAKER_00: oftentimes,
27:35
SPEAKER_00: and I use myself as an example, I think we all complain about the consequences.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: I think something happens and you think,
27:42
SPEAKER_00: man, if God, if you could just undo that for me, that would be great.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think what I hear you saying a lot is maybe Maybe not,
27:52
SPEAKER_00: but no matter what, he's going to walk there with you.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think that's a good point.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: I think we need to see that there are consequences to our actions.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: And what grace does is it doesn't ignore them.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't turn a blind eye to them.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Grace gives us the courage to face those consequences.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: And ask the question, all right, what can God teach me through these consequences?
28:26
SPEAKER_01: What do I need to learn about myself?
28:29
SPEAKER_01: Why did I do this?
28:31
SPEAKER_01: What is it about me that caused this to happen?
28:35
SPEAKER_01: And how can God's grace begin to heal me?
28:37
SPEAKER_01: What are the things I can do,
28:39
SPEAKER_01: not to save myself, but to make sure that I don't hurt people like this again?
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: God's already saved me.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: God's forgiven me,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: nor does it mean that there aren't responsibilities as a human being to stop
28:57
SPEAKER_01: that stuff.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
29:02
SPEAKER_01: there have been a number of high-profile pastors lately who have gotten themselves
29:07
SPEAKER_01: into trouble.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: And almost always they'll deny it.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's what you do.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: Not just pastors, but you know, if we get in trouble, the first thing we do is deny.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: And then when they do finally have to admit it,
29:24
SPEAKER_01: most of them
29:27
SPEAKER_01: refuse to take seriously the consequences of their actions.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: And what they want is to be forgiven,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: take a couple months off,
29:40
SPEAKER_01: And then without any thought about why they did what they did,
29:43
SPEAKER_01: they want to just jump right back into ministry again.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: And almost every time that happens, they self-destruct again.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Because they equate forgiveness with transformation.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: And they're not always the same thing.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Transformation is a process.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: It's a gift, but here on earth, it's also a process.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: And if I have a predisposition,
30:16
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say,
30:19
SPEAKER_01: if I have a predisposition to sexual harassment,
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't be in ministry ever again, period.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's say hard to manage the church finances without dipping in a little bit right now.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: So I need to, at that point, I need to get some counseling.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: And then I need to have a group of people around me that I can trust who protect me
30:43
SPEAKER_01: from myself and protect,
30:44
SPEAKER_01: if I get a new congregation, the congregation from my predisposition to steal.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Look, there are pastors who have had affairs and some of them have gotten help.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: Their marriages survived and they were able to go back
31:02
SPEAKER_01: and their ministries were never quite the same, but in some ways maybe deeper.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Because now they were living with a wound that was in the process of being healed
31:12
SPEAKER_01: and they had maybe a bit more compassion for people.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: I just think that there are certain lines that once they're crossed,
31:22
SPEAKER_01: you just automatically shouldn't be doing ministry anymore.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Or if a pastor has an alcohol problem, he gets help or she gets help.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: And then is,
31:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:37
SPEAKER_01: attending AA and yeah, get back into ministry because we get second chances.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: But again,
31:45
SPEAKER_01: there's a difference between God using flawed people whose intentions are good
31:52
SPEAKER_01: and God using flawed people whose intentions are evil.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And far too many Christians today have confused the two.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Using stories like David.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: Missing the point that, first of all, David did confess.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: And secondly,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: the consequences to his actions essentially robbed him of his moral authority,
32:17
SPEAKER_01: his fatherly authority.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he lost his authority.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: And he disqualified himself from being king.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that God didn't continue his line.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: It didn't mean that Jesus couldn't be born of the line of David.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: But we cannot look at the life of David and not at least be conflicted.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: If we just over,
32:44
SPEAKER_01: if we just pass over rape and murder, we're not taking seriously the biblical story.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: Because the biblical story is making some very big points for us.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: And this has been a Sunday school story for far too long.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: And it's been used and we're missing out on Confession and forgiveness is given
33:03
SPEAKER_01: to us freely by a God who loves us.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: But confession and forgiveness is also a call and a gift to live into a different way of life.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: And to be forgiven doesn't mean I have a license to continue to rape or murder
33:25
SPEAKER_01: or cheat or discredit people.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: So Tim, let me ask you this,
33:31
SPEAKER_00: because I think it's a good time to clarify a couple of things real quickly.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Like we have talked about repentance on this podcast before.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: So repentance and confession.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Can you just sort of remind us a little bit?
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Because you said he repented in Psalm 51 certainly seems to be a confession and repentance.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: But can you just remind us what that what repentance is?
33:52
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Is God's forgiveness based upon my repentance?
33:57
SPEAKER_00: And then also Given this entire podcast episode,
34:01
SPEAKER_00: am I supposed to read Psalm 23 differently now that I know these things about David?
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Or does it carry half the weight it did before?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: No.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: How am I supposed to think about that?
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: I think those are good questions.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: First of all,
34:16
SPEAKER_01: let's remind ourselves that any confession or any repentance is always in response
34:22
SPEAKER_01: to God's love for us.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: So even for David, God sent Nathan to say some pretty hard words.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: He said, you're the guy.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: David, you're the guy.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: So God was coming to him,
34:34
SPEAKER_01: even though the language was a little hard for David to hear,
34:38
SPEAKER_01: it was an act of grace.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: God was hitting him on the head with a two by four of grace,
34:42
SPEAKER_01: saying, David, this is not what God wants, to say the least.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: Confession and repentance, some see as the same.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to make just a little nuance difference,
34:57
SPEAKER_01: a reminder that Paul says in Romans,
35:00
SPEAKER_01: it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: Confession is basically saying, I have done this.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: I have sinned against you.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: I have committed this sin.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: It is confessing something that I have done.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Repentance means to change direction.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: And to change direction means I'm no longer living, going away from God.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: I am now living toward God,
35:28
SPEAKER_01: or I'm following Jesus, or I'm living in the grace that God has for me.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: And so it's a whole change of attitude.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: It's a change of behavior.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: It's a change of lifestyle.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: And you can confess every single day and still not repent, so to speak.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: If every day I'm committing the same sin and confessing it, well, I haven't really repented yet.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: I repented when I begun to do the work of being freed from that thing that I keep doing.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: And that's what God wants for me.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: It's a process, and it's always motivated by grace.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: That's what God wants for us.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: But again, we need to remember that we're called to confess and repent.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: We're called to live in a different way.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: And that different way is to live who we are now in Jesus, sons and daughters.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: And how do sons and daughters of Jesus live?
36:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, we live to love others.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: We turn the other cheek.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: We love our enemies.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: We help the poor.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: We take care of the oppressed.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: We don't use power for ourselves.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, did David repent?
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, probably.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: But again,
36:36
SPEAKER_01: the consequences to his actions,
36:39
SPEAKER_01: he basically was now at He was living a diminished life.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Let's say it that way.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: He lived a diminished life after what he did to both Bathsheba and Uriah.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: So the cancel question is always a good one, right?
37:00
SPEAKER_01: And of course, our culture is really struggling with that.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Do we cancel beauty
37:09
SPEAKER_01: because the person who wrote it Might have had evil intent.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: And I'll just stick with the Bible at this point.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to talk about anybody else who should or should not be canceled.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: I think the reason why the Psalms are in the Bible is because they are more
37:36
SPEAKER_01: than just David's words.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: They're God's words to us.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: And I think Psalm 23 can be both a psalm of comfort.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: I pray it every night before I go to bed.
37:57
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a beautiful, rich passage in the Old Testament.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those ones sort of like the prodigal son in the New Testament.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: If you want to know what God's like, read Psalm 23.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: But I also think it's a good At times it can be then a reminder to us,
38:16
SPEAKER_01: that cautionary tale,
38:20
SPEAKER_01: that we're called to follow this shepherd through the good and the bad.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: Lead me in paths of righteousness for your name's sake when I walk through
38:29
SPEAKER_01: the valley of the shadow of death.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: In other words, we're called to follow the shepherd in the light and in the darkness.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: And it's when we start to veer off the path, as David did,
38:43
SPEAKER_01: That we find ourselves stuck in the valley of the shadow of death rather than in
38:49
SPEAKER_01: the presence of the one who loves us.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: And so from time to time,
38:56
SPEAKER_01: it's good to just use it as a cautionary tale and say,
38:59
SPEAKER_01: God, really seriously, I just want to follow you, the good shepherd.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: And so may that prayer be my prayer.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: And again,
39:10
SPEAKER_01: to I think this is why the Scriptures have these stories in there,
39:17
SPEAKER_01: because they want us
39:21
SPEAKER_01: to see the wonder of God's grace
39:24
SPEAKER_01: and to see what happens
39:27
SPEAKER_01: when we wander away from the wonder of that grace and how it breaks God's heart,
39:34
SPEAKER_01: how it breaks our hearts, how it breaks people around us.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: That God does extend mercy and forgiveness when we do that,
39:42
SPEAKER_01: but that God also wants for us to get well.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament in particular talks a lot about wholeness.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: Wholeness means that every aspect of our lives is in alignment with God's will
39:54
SPEAKER_01: for us or God's grace.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: Wholeness is essentially to live as a loved child of God.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: David was not living as a loved child of God in that moment because loved children
40:06
SPEAKER_01: of God do not bring that kind of hurt.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know,
40:13
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 23 is a picture of what it looks like to be loved by God,
40:15
SPEAKER_01: to be one of God's children.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: And the author of that lost his way and power got to his head.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: And so David is a cautionary tale of what can happen to the best of us,
40:30
SPEAKER_01: especially if we start to justify evil behavior by saying,
40:33
SPEAKER_01: well, God uses flawed people.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: And then we're really on a slippery slope.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Why can't we say, well, okay, yeah, God uses evil people even though they're flawed.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, wouldn't it be better though if God used good people who are flawed?
40:48
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that just better all the way around for us?
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Why can't we vote for good people who are flawed and not evil people who are flawed?
40:57
SPEAKER_01: Right?
40:58
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't matter what your political stance is at this point.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: If we're voting for a certain person because it's our party,
41:09
SPEAKER_01: And we're voting for that person,
41:12
SPEAKER_01: as evil as they might be,
41:14
SPEAKER_01: no matter what they've done,
41:15
SPEAKER_01: just because God uses flawed people,
41:17
SPEAKER_01: then we've lost the plot of what the whole Old Testament and New Testament is about.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: Have I said that strong enough yet, John?
41:26
SPEAKER_00: I think we're on board with that.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: And God, I feel bad.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: There's not too many unflawed people to choose from, but that doesn't mean that we should...
41:38
SPEAKER_00: We certainly on this podcast are not overlooking the significant flaws
41:42
SPEAKER_00: that David had in the midst of trying to walk and find out where the grace is and
41:48
SPEAKER_00: where beauty is and where God was in all of it.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: And let's just say it again.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: God offered David grace after what he had done, but he was very diminished.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: There were consequences to his actions that he had to live with the rest of his life
42:05
SPEAKER_01: that really infiltrated his line.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: We're generations.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: And we need to take that part of the story very, very seriously.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk about another flawed character next week.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: I haven't decided which one yet because there's so many to choose from.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: So we'll come back with you with a brand new episode and back with you next time.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, John.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: Sounds great.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Tim.