The deception of sinful impulses - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Samuel 13:1-2; 15,

"In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill... Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, 'Get up and get out!',"

Amnon, David's half-wit scum-bag of a son was attracted to his beautiful virgin half-sister in a big way. The account does not provide indication that the half-sister, Tamar, was responsible in any way for Amnon's intense attraction for her. To satisfy his lust for her, he raped her, and having his lust satisfied, he then hated her. The rape is what takes place between verses 1-2 and 15.

Like many things in our lives that can become a shiny glittering object of temptation for us, Tamar became that for Amnon. While most of us may not resort to the rape of a family member, we all experience the draw of temptation to whatever that object may become in our lives. And, we all get tempted.

I have to ask the question, (when I think of my own life), how often does that shiny object of temptation lose its luster, its excitement, its anticipated happiness or fulfillment when pursued and obtained by us?

The temptation to sin can become the greatest of deceptions, and only recognized as such after the act of gratifying it is actualized. The lesson here for me is that to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I need to keep in mind, no matter how strong the desire may come to be to commit that sin, no matter what it might be, it is deceitful - sin never satisfies in the end. God designed life together with the happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction it can bring. Sin is the antithesis to God's design and can never ultimately satisfy.

Why do we fall prey to the temptation to sin? We all, each and every one of us, have a sinful nature we have inherited from the fall of mankind in the garden of Eden. And, although we may fall prey to that temptation, we never have to gratify it. We're pretty good at deceiving ourselves that we have no choice in the matter... but, c'mon... really??? I am reminded of what Paul had to say, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Here are a few good verses that helps us define what is sin in our lives:

"Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness." 1 John 3:4.
"If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them." James 4:17.
"...  everything that does not come from faith is sin." Romans 14:23b.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com

David: teacher's pet? - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Samuel 12:13,

"Nathan replied, "The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die."

How about that?! David commits the murder of Uriah and others with him (collateral damage in the effort to kill Uriah), and sleeps with his wife, impregnating her. After all that, when the Lord's prophet, Nathan, confronts David on the Lord's behalf, Nathan tells David, "The Lord has taken away your sin."

No problem? To be sure, there will be a reaping of what David sowed. The baby Bathsheba became pregnant with in the tryst with David will die. However, David is told the Lord will not otherwise hold this sin against David, "The Lord has taken away your sin."

Earlier, when Moses wanted the Lord to reveal himself to him, the Lord told Moses, "Yet he [the Lord] does not leave the guilty unpunished..." Exodus 34:7. So why does the Lord punish some for their sins, but not David?

The answer to that question resides in a fascinating look Paul provides of Jesus Christ. In Romans 3:25 he says, "God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."

When Nathan told David the Lord had taken away his sin, that didn't mean the sin David committed was not paid for. Paul explains that God the Father sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to pay for all sins of all mankind for all time. This is why Jesus Christ died on that miserable cross. Forgiveness, the "taking away" of sin is appropriated when we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Peter makes this clear when he was given a vision that taught him, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right." Acts 10:34-35.

No "teacher's pet" with God. Jesus Christ died for all people's sins for all time, whether committed before Jesus paid for them or at the end of this age. David was a great man of faith, recognized as one of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11.

David was no "teacher's pet" in regard to sin, but as a man who embraced the Lord in faith, not only his sin in the murder of Uriah and his adultery with Bathsheba was forgiven, all of his sins were forgiven. Just like you and me when we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Read what Jesus taught about this himself, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." John 3:16-18. If we fail to embrace Jesus Christ in this life, our sins condemn us for all eternity. If we embrace Jesus Christ in this life we will be freed from the penalty of our sins for all eternity.

How can it possibly get any better than that?!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com

To sin is to despise the Lord - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Samuel 12:10,

"Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me [the Lord] and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own."

When Nathan approached David to level the Lord's indictment of him for his murder of Uriah and his adultery with Uriah's wife, this statement from the Lord was included in the indictment. When David took Uriah's wife and killed him the Lord told David that his actions expressed a despising by David of the Lord himself.

After Nathan delivered the indictment, David confessed that he had "sinned against the Lord." Verse 13. In Psalm 51, a psalm David wrote of the incident, David said, "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you [God], you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge."

The victim of David's sin was Uriah (and Bathsheba!), but his execution of that sin was against the Lord. Why is that? David knew the Lord, David was a man of faith and loved the Lord. David also knew God's righteous decree, his laws against murder and adultery. As such, the committing of those sins was the commission of an act against what God had decreed, and against God himself. In the very act of sinning, David subordinated God's desires to the gratification of his own sinful nature.

In what terms do we recognize our sins to be? Do we stop to consider, as we may contemplate some sin, that it is an expression of a believer to despise his God when he commits that sin? Something to consider here...

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Collateral Damage - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Samuel 11:23-24,

"The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead."

This is the report brought back to David from the front where David engineered the murder of Uriah the Hittite.

"Some of the king's men died." These "some" were David's men. Men who were fighting David's fight, men who were taking orders that were directly from David. Innocent men who died needlessly in a vain attempt to provide cover for David's adultery and impregnation of Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. We often fail to recall that David not only murdered Uriah, but the deaths of all these men, including Uriah, were murders - not casualties of war. All these men, honorable and obedient, died needless deaths in David's attempt to hide his sin.

What began as a furtive glance of sexual impropriety by a man that already had a number of wives, turned into an episode of lying, deceitful dishonesty, and the murder of a number of good, loyal men, including Uriah, as well as the adultery David engaged in with Bathsheba.

Sin has a way of slipping beyond our control, beyond our ability to keep it compartmentalized, beyond our ability to keep it contained. David was a great man of faith, a hero among those whose lives point the way to great faith, a man after God's own heart, and look at how his indulging in his lust for Bathsheba cost so much.

David, of course, as a man of God, was not beyond God's ability to know and confront David, which he did through the prophet Nathan.

So... I ask myself, if it was beyond David's ability to contain his sin, if it was beyond his ability to hide it from God, if it was beyond his ability to keep the whole of it under wraps, if it was beyond his ability to keep it from morphing into an episode that horrified even himself by what he had done... how about me? Do I ever think the sin in my life is something I can manage, I can control?

These innocent and loyal men who died were not the only collateral damage, damage turned its ugly face toward the principal in the episode: the one who allowed his time of temptation to get the best of him.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com

The aggressive use of force - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Samuel 10:17-19,

"The Arameans formed their battle lines to meet David and fought against him. But they fled before Israel, and David killed seven hundred of their charioteers and forty thousand of their foot soldiers. He also struck down Shobak the commander of their army, and he died there. When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been routed by Israel, they made peace with the Israelites and became subject to them."

In these several verses a great truth in life is on display regarding international relationships. Diplomacy can provide for the well being of a nation, but that diplomacy will always be couched in the outcomes of the aggressive use of force.

The Ammonites had spurned a genuine expression of kindness by David and Israel, and greatly humiliated David and all of Israel. As a result war ensued. David and the Israelites defeated the enemy and when the kings who had been subject to Israel's enemy, the Arameans and Ammonites, they "made peace with the Israelites and became subject to them." Verse 19. Note that the diplomacy was couched in the realities of the aggressive use of force by David. Diplomacy is always couched in the realities of the potential aggressive use of force.

It is often recalled that the world is controlled by the aggressive use of force. What this truthful observation is short to recognize, however, is that the aggressive use of force is squarely in the hands of God. It is God who utilizes nations and the relationships they develop to his own ends. When the threat of an aggressive enemy, and its intent to use force imposes itself on others, it produces people who begin to reach out for refuge, for help, for relief. It is in this context the gospel operates with great efficiency.

Perhaps this sounds somewhat bewildering, but it is God who determines the nations that exist and he uses them for his own agenda. Listen to Paul as he speaks to the philosophers at the Areopagus, "From one man he [God] made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us." Acts 17:26-27.

How does God utilize the institution of nations to cause people to "seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him"? We read in Romans 8:20-21, "For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."

God uses the push and pull between nations, the aggressive threats imposed by some nations over others to bring people to a point where they begin to seek refuge, relief from fear, a desire to be rescued, a felt need for deliverance, and, hopefully, bring them to a point where they "seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him... " In this way God meets us well past "half way" in order to draw us to himself.

While our desire might be for a peaceful and hopefully prosperous existence in this life, this is not the agenda of God. This life is the stage upon which God seeks to make a kingdom and a family for himself from all who will embrace him in faith. This life is all about this one singular agenda of God. Real life takes place in the resurrection, not in this age. This age has one purpose and one purpose alone, to populate a kingdom, a people, a nation, a family for God in the next. One way God accomplishes this is by establishing within us a felt need for being saved, that we might reach out to him.

Unrest in the world, as well as the fear from concerns within a nation is an answer to prayer for God to "move mightily" in drawing the unsaved to himself. If those people who pray for such only knew...

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com

New life with a place at God's table! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Samuel 9:7,

"'Don't be afraid,' David said to him [Mephibosheth], 'for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.'"

I can't think of a better picture of God's grace for believers than what David did for Mephibosheth. Here in this account is a parallel to what God's kind words to us will be on judgement day.

I am unaware of anything Mephibosheth had done to earn David's gracious kindness toward him. In a lavish display of rich blessing, David gave Mephibosheth land that had been in his family and was now gone from him as well as appointing servants to care for him. Additionally, David gave Mephibosheth a place at his very own table! David told Mephibosheth he did it for his friend, Jonathan's sake.

I am reminded of the wonderful inheritance that is our because of Jesus Christ, "Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." Romans 8:17.

This is something that becomes ours not because of anything we have done, "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy." Titus 3:4-5. Indeed, as Mephibosheth, who was lame in both feet, verse 13, we likewise are lame - but of a spiritual nature, "What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.'" Romans 3:9-11.

Just as David gave Mephibosheth a new life with a place at his table because of his father Jonathan, so God the Father will grant us eternal life with a place at his table because of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com

God's agenda and a man of faith - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Samuel 8:1,

"In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Metheg Ammah from the control of the Philistines."

David had quite a few achievements for his resume. In this chapter alone we read he:

Defeated the Philstines
Defeated the Moabites
Defeated Hadadezer, king of Zobah
Slaughtered 22,000 Arameans

In verse 11 we read he subdued Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines and Amalek. We are told twice in this chapter it was the Lord who gave David his victories, verses 6 and 14, "The Lord gave David victory wherever he went." David was quite a military leader who defended Israeli territory and expanded it. In this chapter we read nothing of the kinds of defeats King Saul experienced, his final one ending his life in 1 Samuel 31.

As a man of faith, the Lord used David to establish Israel's existence as a nation to be reckoned with in the area. It would be from this platform, together with both her past experiences and the further experiences Israel would have with the Lord (mostly painful due to Israel's continual rejection of the Lord) that the Lord would use for the things Paul would enumerate a thousand years later: "Theirs (Israel) is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen." Romans 9:4-5.

David was a man of faith, a man for the times as it was the Lord's agenda to pursue what he did through David. I see two elements here: David's faith, and David functioning squarely within the agenda God had for Israel.

Something to think about here. As God's people, are we well-versed in what God's agenda is today? And, as David was, are we actively participating in those activities God is employing to pursue his agenda?

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com