Nathan

 Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! The LORD, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul.  2 Samuel 12:7

David was the King of Israel, but he hadn't come to the position easily. Saul, the king God had raised him up to replace, had sought his life for years. He was constantly on the run, and the Father had engineered deliverances for him time and time again. Reading of it always encourages me and reminds me that He is a God of Deliverance. We love to think of Him in that way. We don't hesitate to ask Him to deliver us out of the many life threatening situations we can come to. We want Him to save us from those outward things that seek to destroy us. We're less anxious about the inward things that seek the same. Indeed, we're often blind to them. David was.

David had seduced, likely raped Bathsheba, the wife of his loyal servant Uriah. Bathsheba became pregnant, and David resorted to every means he could to get Uriah to sleep with his wife and cover David's sin. Uriah, who'd been called home from battle, refused, and wanted to get back to the army. Finally, David instructed his general, Joab, to place Uriah in the front lines of an assault, and then withdraw those around him. Uriah was killed, and David took Bathsheba as his wife. Yet God would not let his sin go unconfronted. He sent Nathan the prophet who presented a case of an innocent who'd been terribly wronged and asked David what should be done about it. David wanted the man executed. Nathan then confronted him with the truth that the one who'd committed the crime was David himself. David was undone. How blind we can be to our inner corruption. Writer Paul Tripp writes, "We don't want to face the fact that what we need to be rescued from is us." 

I don't know anybody, including myself, who doesn't want to be delivered from circumstances that bring pain and misery. We want out. We want what is going on around us removed. That will be enough. We rarely want to see that what is going on around us is so often the fruit of what has been going on within us. That which is in our heart. The sinful attitudes, habits, and practices that hold us captive, and wreak havoc in and through our lives. We want to be rescued from the results of our own actions, but we don't want to look at the inner condition that put us in that place to begin with. The Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart. He had a heart for God, yet within his heart was corruption that resulted in adultery, rape, and murder. He didn't see it....until God confronted him over it. Where might God be doing that in us? Where is it in our lives that we need to be rescued from ourselves?

It was God's great mercy that He sent Nathan to David. He wanted to deliver David from himself and the reaping of the full consequences of His sin. Where does He need to send a "Nathan" to us? Maybe this writing is His Nathan. Where are we "that man," or "that woman," in our story? Wherever that is, may His Nathan come to us. May He confront us. May we melt before Him, and be rescued from ourselves. Thank you Lord for Your Nathan's.

Blessings,
Pastor O