Lessons From King David

I've learned a lot lately from King David. I just today completed reading through 2 Samuel. The final chapter presented a strange scenario. In the 1st verse we're told that, "The anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them..." What David did was order a census, or numbering of the people. This served a no practical purpose if David was trusting God for protection and deliverance in battle as he had done in the past. This act meant that David had moved from trusting the Lord to trusting the number of fighting men he had in his standing army. By verse 10 David figured out that he had sinned by ceasing to trust God. However, the damage had been done. Although he confessed and repented, there was a price to pay for his unbelief, and God gave him a choice of punishments. David chose the one which put the people of Israel in the hands of God for discipline. The end result was that 70,000 people died in a plague.
The lesson I'm walking away from this reading is, even though you may realize, confess and repent of sin, there are still temporal consequences that are set in motion at the time of your sin, and will only be stopped when God's discipline is satisfied.
I really think that those of us under grace sometimes presume on that grace and don't take sin seriously. We take the catholic approach which is, go to confession, do your "Hail Marys" and "go and sin no more" everything is cool. Well, it isn't cool. Sin put Jesus on the cross. There are consequences to sin even for those under grace. In the words of Steve Brown, "You think about that."

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