Above is a pic of my youngest daughter and me.
My Husband, My brother in Christ
Famine... Enemies... Plagues...
I have been studying 1st and 2nd Samuel for awhile and just finished it up this morning. I have to admit there were times in the process of reading and studying this book I was fighting boredom and would find myself praying for the Lord to help me through it. He did and I was most certainly blessed by this time in His Word.
The last chapter of 2nd Samuel (24) was especially sweet. I know that may sound odd considering it is about the just judgement of God on David's sin. But it gave me a time to heavily reflect on a few attributes of my Holy God.
1. (God's anger is pure): God's anger is always justifiable and perfect... ALWAYS!!!
2. (God is holy and His judgements are just): He is holy and there are just and necessary consequences to our sin. (and the consequences are never to the degree of which we, as His children, deserve... which brings me to #3
3. (God's mercy is abounding): The Lord God's mercies are great... far greater than the vileness of our sin.
Let me elaborate.
If I get angry at someone, my anger, though it may me justified, is not perfect. God's is and that is why we should leave the busines of vengeance to Him. He does it better... way better. But this portion of scripture is about the justifiable anger of God upon David... a man that loves God but deliberately sinned against the God he loves. Vengeance is reserved for the enemies of God. But the Lord in His perfect anger justly determines the need for consequences of the sin of His children. That is called divine chastisement and when David was given 3 options (the title of this post) as to what the consequences should be, he cried out, "I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man."
David knew that God's anger was perfect. He knew that the consequences were just. He knew that God's mercy was great. He did not whine. He repented. He was forgiven... BUT think back on David's sin against Uriah and Bathsheba. Just because we are forgiven does not mean that we will not suffer consequences of our sin.
The hardest thing for David must have been that the consequences of his sin fell upon his people. (v. 17) David is the one that deserved punishment. The people were innocent of the sin David committed. Christ was innocent and willingly died for the guilty. I doubt these people died willingly for David. They were struck with a horrid plague.
Anyway... this made me ponder the responsibilities of being a mother. Teaching my children about consequences and how we often fail to realize that our sins do not just affect us. They often hurt other people. I remember one day awhile back my oldest son did something horrid. (details not necessary) I asked him what he felt the consequences should be. He came down hard on himself... way harder than I was going to. He seriously said, "Mom, I need a hard spanking with a belt and I need to be grounded for like a year." Than he asked me to forgive him. We hugged and I said, "Turn around Son." As he got ready to be spanked I took the belt and instead of spanking him with it... I hit my leg with it 3 times. It was on bear skin... mid-thigh. Tender skin. My son cried and cried and cried. "Why did you do that?" he said in an angry voice. "I am the one who deserved it." ...
"Because, even though this example does not even begin to touch the excruciating pain that Christ went through as He was beaten and suffered on the cross for sins He did not commit, I wanted to give you an idea of what it is like to have the consequences of your sin put upon one who is innocent of that sin."
I have six kids... I will not do that for all of them. It hurt and my leg did bleed. :-/
But my oldest son still remembers... I have talked about this with the other children. One of my younger children mentioned that story just before she was about to be spanked... "Remember when you spanked your leg instead of Josh..." I chuckled a bit cause I knew where she was going with this. It became an opportunity to talk about how more often than not, we will suffer the consequences of our sin... though forgiven.
The last part of this chapter (v. 18-25) discusses sacrifice... which was essentially worship. In verse 24 David said "...nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing." In other words, God's forgiveness is free and so is His grace... BUT worshiping God is never to be careless. It is to be reverential for He deserves the "firstfruits."
