Re: HELP! I Just Watched An In Depth & Unorthodox Bible Study Video That Shook My Fai
2 Samuel 12:7-23
[SUP]7 [/SUP]Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. [SUP]8 [/SUP]I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! [SUP]9 [/SUP]Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. [SUP]10 [/SUP]Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ [SUP]11 [/SUP]Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. [SUP]12 [/SUP]Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’” [SUP]13 [/SUP]Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. [SUP]14 [/SUP]However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.” [SUP]15 [/SUP]So Nathan went to his house.
Then the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, so that he was very sick. [SUP]16 [/SUP]David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground. [SUP]17 [/SUP]The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them. [SUP]18 [/SUP]Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!” [SUP]19 [/SUP]But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead; so David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead.” [SUP]20 [/SUP]So David arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came to his own house, and when he requested, they set food before him and he ate.[SUP]21 [/SUP]Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” [SUP]22 [/SUP]He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ [SUP]23 [/SUP]But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
Here we have the man after God's own heart requesting that his son be spared. God denied his request. As men we wonder why God punished the son for the father's (David's) sins, but we know very little about spiritual realities and the ways of God. Let's assume for a moment that a person's spirit does not vary depending on their age at death - meaning that your spirit is the same whether the person is born dead or dies at the age of one hundred years old. If that is the case (which it might or might not be), then the punishment was on David, Bathsheba, and anyone else who would have loved the child. And it would be a reasonable assumption to think that the baby would go to heaven (which is a fairly common belief among Christians).
God reminds us that our sins hurt others and that He can punish us during our physical lives. God also shows us that He can be merciful. In the story that Wayne referenced, David numbered the people. Then God gave David three choices.
2 Samuel 24:10-18
[SUP]10 [/SUP]Now David’s heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.” [SUP]11 [/SUP]When David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, [SUP]12 [/SUP]“Go and speak to David, ‘Thus the Lord says, “I am offering you three things; choose for yourself one of them, which I will do to you.”’” [SUP]13 [/SUP]So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider and see what answer I shall return to Him who sent me.” [SUP]14 [/SUP]Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”
[SUP]15 [/SUP]So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. [SUP]16 [/SUP]When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough! Now relax your hand!” And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. [SUP]17 [/SUP]Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking down the people, and said, “Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let Your hand be against me and against my father’s house.”
David chose God because he knew that God was loving and merciful...and far too often men are not!
