Michael Youssef - The God Who Sees
There was a Roman emperor by the name of Arcadius, probably less known than most emperors. He was a weak man and he was totally controlled by his wicked wife. It's almost like the Jezebel-Ahab situation. They were in the late 300s. His wife hated a godly man by the name of John Chrysostom. John Chrysostom was the bishop of Constantinople at the time. He was one of those plain-spoken preachers like John the Baptist. He called the spade a spade, and he called them for evil that they were doing. In fact, they were so evil, that couple, that their son Theodos became a believer. He actually asked the nation to forgive his parents for their wickedness.
Chrysostom, who was born 347, died about 406, was one of the truly great pillars of the early church. One day, in a fit of anger, the emperor and his wife called their advisors together and asked them to help give them advice on how to get rid of this man who was like a thorn in their side because of his blazing righteousness. Each advisor gave them his advice. One said, "Banish him in the desert". Another one said, "Put him in prison". A third one said, "Meh, confiscate all of his properties". And another one said, "Kill him".
By the way, he came from wealth, came from power, John did, and he gave it all away to embrace the ministry. Finally, an old, very wicked and evil courtier, a very crafty one, spoke up and he said, "You know, you're all wrong. Your advice is really not accurate. You are making a great mistake. All of these suggestions are not really punishment for this man. I know this man, and I know him well. If you banish him in the desert, he will feel closer to God than he is in the city. If you put him in prison, he will be able to spend more time in prayer and praise than he is as a busy bishop. If you confiscate his property, it makes no difference to him because he gives it away anyway. If you condemn him to death, you only open heaven for him".
And then this malicious, devilish man said to the emperor, "If you really want to punish Chrysostom, force him to commit sin. Force him to commit sin. I know this man. He fears nothing in the world more than sin. More accurately, he dreads nothing more than he dreads sin". I must confess to you that after reading these words and being familiar with him throughout church history, I said to myself, "How I long that this would be spoken of me, that I dread sin more than anything else". Why did this godly man fear sin or dreaded sin?
Answer: Jeremiah 44:4 said that God hates sin. Romans 5:12 said that sin brought death upon the world. He dreaded sin because in 1 Peter 2:24 it says that sin nailed Jesus to the cross. He dreaded sin because "sin is a shameful thing that sullies our white garments of salvation that we wear when we come to Christ". Sin brings a reproach upon the name of Jesus which we wear. Sin is the very essence of rebellion against God. Through the years, many people have speculated as the reasons why David failed. And these are not excuses. These are not rationalizing of David's failure. It's a forewarning to all of us. First of all, it was boredom. It was boredom which caused David to get into this trouble.
Beloved, the average American is bored with life. If I can understand what's going on, I can tell you the average person is bored. You ask a person, they say, "Why do you work hard"? He says, "So I can earn more money". "Why do you want to earn more money"? "So that I can buy food". "Why do you want to buy food"? "It's because I want to get strength". "Why do you want to get strength"? "Because I want to be able to work". "Why do you want to work"? And the merry-go-round, it just goes on and on and on and on. I happen to be privileged to know people who literally work hard for one reason, and that's so they can give money away to the Lord's work. That humbles me beyond measure. This was David.
When I think of people who literally live to work so they give money away, this was David, because if you remember in the last message, he was giving his entire net worth for the glory of God. He was totally in. He was totally committed. There was no doubt in his mind. He said, "If God does not want me to build the temple, I'm going to give all that I have for the future building, whoever God will raise to build that building". That was David. And he said, "What happened? What happened of David of 2 Samuel chapter 7 to the David of 2 Samuel chapter 11"? Something has changed. Something has happened, when his life purpose was the glory of God, and then all of a sudden he becomes bored with life.
Now, beloved, as I said, this is a warning to all of us without exception. Young and old, watch out for getting bored. That is the very first sign of trouble. The second possibility is that David was experiencing loneliness. Well, I think all of us in leadership, we know that there is a certain loneliness that goes with leadership. It's just, that's the price you pay for leadership. And that is why he could say in Psalm 102, verse 7, he says: "I have become like a lonely bird on the housetop".
Someone would say, "Well, Michael, he was king. How can a king be lonely"? Sometimes there can be loneliness when you're surrounded by thousands of people. You can experience loneliness of vision that nobody shares with you, or you can experience the loneliness of idea that nobody understands, or you can experience the loneliness of taking an unpopular stand with the culture, or you can experience the loneliness of contentment. Even if there are thousands of people around you, you'll feel lonely under these circumstances. And the third possible reason for David's failure is that he got tired of fighting. He just got tired of fighting. After 34 years of fighting and running, it's time to relax and take it easy. Listen, had David gone out with his men into the battlefield, he would not have ended up in the places of failure.
Beloved, hear me right. The moment you relax your grip on the sword of the Word of God, the moment you relax your grip on the sword of the Spirit, the moment you relax your grip on being sober in the spiritual warfare, you will end up in places that you should not be. No wonder the apostle Paul says to Timothy, he said to him, "Endure hardship as a good soldier for Jesus Christ". Are you going through hardship? Endure that hardship. See the victory on its way to you. Then the fourth reason, possibility, is that David allowed his wife, Michal's, rejection to get to him. He took it personally. You say, "Well, how do you not take rejection personally"?
Well, I'll explain to you in a minute. Remember when David danced before the Lord in front of the entire population and he danced before God when the ark was being restored, and he basically humbled himself before the Lord? You remember his wife, Michal, Saul's daughter? Man, she gave him a tongue-lashing when he got home. She socked it to him. I mean, she let him have it, and she belittled him and put him down. Listen to me. Saul's daughter, Michal, was cold, cantankerous, critical, and crabby, and David took it personal. Someone say, "Well, you know, but Michael, he had other wives". Yes, but Michal was the love of his life. Hear me right, please. Rejection is severest and hardest to accept when it comes from the people that we love the most.
In David's case, instead of exercising leadership and headship in his home, servant leadership, he allowed bitterness to dig deep into his heart. The fifth possible reason for David's failure is pure, good old-fashioned laziness. It's laziness. Look at verse 2. He got up in the afternoon. Sometimes they say evening. This is self-indulgence. This is not redeeming the time. Beloved, laziness gives the tempter the upper hand. Proverbs 12:24 says: "The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful," that's kind of a old-fashioned word for laziness, "will be put to tribute". And the sixth possible reason for David's failure is this: He refused to hear the truth. He refused to hear the truth.
When David sent a messenger and the messenger came back to want to find out who she is, he came to him and he said, "She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah". Did you get that? "The wife of... David, she's another man's wife". But David let that truth go by. I know and you know, when somebody doesn't want to hear the truth, I mean, they will use all sorts of rationalization and explanations and excuses. If you're continuously criticizing your pastor, it is because he's touching a sore spot. I know experientially that when hearts are hardened and necks stiffened, no sermon, no preacher, no friend, no church, nothing will be able to get through to that person, except God the Holy Spirit.
In fact, David actually thought that he's gotten away with it because it's been a while now. He said, "Man, I got away with this shenanigan". He didn't realize that not only choices have consequences, even if these consequences do not show up for months or years. You see, the law of the land at the time said that when adultery is committed, the adulterer and the adulteress both put to death. How could David get around the law of the land? How could David circumvent the law of the land? How could David kind of get away with breaking the law of the land? "Well, if I can't get him to go and sleep with his wife, I'll get him killed".
The one whose eyes neither slumber nor sleep, the one whose eyes see what nobody else sees, the one whose eyes penetrate what no camera lens can detect, is watching. Months have passed since this horrific deed was done and everybody forgot about it. Oh, everybody except, except the one whose justice is just as real as his mercy. Now, a lot of people like to separate the justice of God and the mercy of God. You can't separate them. Two sides of the same coin. Now if you study the scripture carefully, you're going to find that the Lord seldom uses the same method to speak to us. And here in 2 Samuel chapter 11, God uses a method that is going to be a method that's unique to David. God could have spoken to David, but he probably not in the mode of listening to God. He had to send him the prophet Nathan.
So, Nathan comes in and he gives him a parable. The parable is very simple. A poor man with one lamb, talking, of course, about Uriah and his wife, Bathsheba. The rich man wronged that poor man because the rich man had lots of herds and cattles, lots of lambs. But when a traveler came, he takes the one lamb that the poor man has and offers it to the traveler. What is Nathan doing here? He is painting a word picture, one of the most magnificent things. He's painting a beautiful word picture. He is highlighting the enormity of the wrong that was done. He was elevating and highlighting that sense of wrong.
How? By describing how this rich man who had all kinds of herds and cattle seizes the one and only lamb of that poor man. Why? Because the rich man had a traveler, a traveler. Who's the traveler, who came to the rich man's house? David's eyes. That's who the traveler is. His wandering eyes. The traveler represents his restless desire. The traveler represents the progression of lust. The traveler represents the invading thoughts into our minds that have not been captured to Christ. The traveler here is the roving eyes of David in connection with Bathsheba. And that is why Paul says, 2 Corinthians 10:5, he said that "we must take every thought". How many of those thoughts? "Captives to obey in Christ".
But here, David welcomed the traveler. Here David entertained the traveler. David hosted this traveler. David allowed this traveler to have the run of the house of his life. Hear me right, continuously, a nonstop entertainment of ungodly thoughts paves the way for sin and failure. But I also want you to notice that David's reaction to that parable. His first reaction was really emotional. He said, "This man must be killed". Why react emotionally instead of biblically?
I want to tell you something that you can take to the bank. Listen carefully. Because David was harboring sin in his life, it made him critical of others. Be very careful when you are judging other believers, particularly when you judge their motives. We are never to judge a person's motive while you're harboring sin in your life. Be very careful. The one who has an uneasy conscience always rails against the sin of another believer. See, the moment David finished pronouncing the sentence upon this hypothetical character in Nathan's parable, Nathan said, "You're the man. You're the man".
Let me ask you this. Has the Holy Spirit of God convicted you of something? And he's constantly saying to you in a gentle voice, "You're the man, you're the woman, you're the boy, you're the girl". Are you harboring resentment that you have never been able to deal with? Are you holding on to some bitterness that is eating you alive? Are you in an unwholesome relationship that does not belong there, and God is telling you to give it up? Are you holding back money that belongs to God? Are you unfaithful to your spouse and keep on being unfaithful? And you get some remorse, but then you keep going being unfaithful. Only those who have spiritual depth, only those who truly hunger for righteousness, only those who have longing to please the Lord, they will fear that sin that Chrysostom feared.
Only those who would not rationalize, would not sweep things under the carpet or explain things away, but express repentance. They're the ones who are going to be restored and forgiven. They're the ones who repent of their sin, confess their sin, will experience true forgiveness and true restoration. And those are the very people whom God loves to restore. Ah, there are many people who repent like Saul. Remember Saul, throughout the series?
You know, kind of a very emotional repentance. But then there are those, thank God, who repent like David. Saul's temporary repentance was always a cheap repentance, always kind of fleeting repentance, momentary repentance, always had crocodile tears. But David's repentance was genuine repentance. It was true repentance. It was forsaking type of repentance. And beloved, this is the type of repentance that please the Lord. Sometimes we think repentance belongs to the person who never came to Christ when they repent and come to Christ. Believers should live a repentant lifestyle. The Bible said if we say we have no sin, we say because it's not true. We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess, God is faithful and just.