Before I started typing up this day's story on David, I wasn't sure what God wanted me to learn. But in my morning reading from Proverbs as I type, I saw this:
Pro 1:23 Turn at my warning; behold, I will pour out my Spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.
And so, I dedicated myself to learning the meaning of a totally unrelated passage that had confused me, and after learning what I needed to there, I saw the Lord's plan in David this week is, "You can do something for the right reasons, and still be wrong". And after I saw that, oddly enough, I saw what the passage that troubled me was saying- and it was the same thing. And so, I am going to include that in this lesson. Which means, God will give us today four examples of this theory.
First example
We have to go back to Exodus- and I have to show you some "what has gone before" verses to make it make the sense I'm aiming at:
Exo 4:21 And the LORD said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.
Exo 4:22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son,
Exo 4:23 and I say to you, "Let my son go that he may serve me." If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'"
Exo 4:24 At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death.
Exo 4:25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!"
Exo 4:26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, "A bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision.
So what is the deal here? God gives Moses instructions on going and doing in Egypt. But when they stop at the local Motel 6 that night, God tries to kill him! But notice #1, it was Zipporah that had to act; #2, it was on their son, Gershom, she had to act, and 3, it was at Moses' feet it was laid. The commentators are in pretty good agreement that- and Jewish tradition agrees- she had forbid Gershom's circumcision at birth, probably because she didn't want the child in pain. But, God had commanded circumcision several generations before, with Abraham; and the Midianites, also having sprung from Abraham, likely still practiced it. It was her sin- which Moses acquiesced in- that had him in trouble. So she circumcised Gershom and laid it to Moses, and that lifted the curse.
Moses would have been cursed as a fraud by the Israelites, and mocked as a hypocrite by the Egyptians, had he brought an uncircumcised son with him. Sometimes, you have to have a little pain to preserve your witness.
Second example
Now we go back to David, and the aftermath of Saul's death. Abner had been continuing the civil war with David in the name of Saul's remaining son, Isbosheth. But came a day that Abner realized Isbosheth wasn't worth the fight, and came to David proposing peace. But David's general, Joab, didn't see it that way:
2Sa 3:23 When Joab and all the army that was with him came, it was told Joab, "Abner the son of Ner came to the king, and he has let him go, and he has gone in peace."
2Sa 3:24 Then Joab went to the king and said, "What have you done? Behold, Abner came to you. Why is it that you have sent him away, so that he is gone?
2Sa 3:25 You know that Abner the son of Ner came to deceive you and to know your going out and your coming in, and to know all that you are doing."
Joab ascribed a base motive to Abner's repentance- the wrong base motive, though base it was- and thought it a trick. So, in his loyalty to the man David- and in the interests of revenge, as Abner in self-defense had killed his brother- Joab did what he saw as right...
2Sa 3:26 When Joab came out from David's presence, he sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern of Sirah. But David did not know about it.
2Sa 3:27 And when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the midst of the gate to speak with him privately, and there he struck him in the stomach, so that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother.
But David didn't see it as right...
2Sa 3:28 Afterward, when David heard of it, he said, "I and my kingdom are forever guiltless before the LORD for the blood of Abner the son of Ner.
2Sa 3:29 May it fall upon the head of Joab and upon all his father's house, and may the house of Joab never be without one who has a discharge or who is leprous or who holds a spindle or who falls by the sword or who lacks bread!"
Not only didn't Joab get it, but soon after Ishbosheth is also murdered, and the killers, thinking to receive glory, are executed by David. Lesson here is the same that Saul SHOULD have learned about Samuel and didn't- you don't follow the man of God, you follow God.
Third example
Now the kingdom is established, and David seeks to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. But they forgot to check the owners manual-
Num 4:15 And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, as the camp sets out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry these, but they must not touch the holy things, lest they die. These are the things of the tent of meeting that the sons of Kohath are to carry.
And...
Exo 25:12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it.
Exo 25:13 You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.
Exo 25:14 And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them.
Exo 25:15 The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it.
Instead of remembering this, they "loaded it onto a new cart" (2 Samuel 6:3) and trundled it towards Jerusalem. Perhaps the poles had been removed by the Philistines when the sons of Eli lost it to them, we don't know. But we do know they quickly learned the cost of disobeying rule #1...
2Sa 6:6 And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.
2Sa 6:7 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.
Now, 2 Samuel kind of glosses over the point, but in 1 Chronicles, we see David went 'back to the manual"...
1Ch 15:1 David built houses for himself in the city of David. And he prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it.
1Ch 15:2 Then David said that no one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the LORD had chosen them to carry the ark of the LORD and to minister to him forever.
And this time it went without incident. Lesson here- God values Obedience over intentions.
Fourth example
David gets it into his head- God needs a HOUSE, not just a tent. I have a house, why should I be ahead of God? And his prophet in house, Nathan, agrees:
2Sa 7:1 Now when the king lived in his house and the LORD had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies,
2Sa 7:2 the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent."
2Sa 7:3 And Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you."
Problem was, God wasn't with this project, and that very night He gave Nathan a vision outlining WHY He wasn't on board.
- How is a man going to build a house for God?
-I've dwelt with you in the tabernacle- a tent- for between 3 and 4 hundred years. In all that time, did I ever once ask for a house?
- And apparently, He didn't only speak to Nathan that night, because years after the fact, David tells Solomon...
1Ch 22:7 David said to Solomon, "My son, I had it in my heart to build a house to the name of the LORD my God.
1Ch 22:8 But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 'You have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth.
So here we have three more reasons of how you can be right in your motives and still be wrong: Firstly, You might be trying to give God something he already has and doesn't want; second, you might think it right, but God didn't ASK for it; and third, you might be kept from it by unconfessed sin. All of these things should be kept in mind before embarking on any ministry- and it sure gives me a lot to think about.
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