When God is angry with a believer

David was the man after God’s heart. He loved God and God also loved him. At a tender age, though, a mere shepherd boy, God sent Samuel to anoint him king in replacement of King Saul because of his sin of disobedience. The killing of Goliath, the Philistines General by David, earned him undisputed acceptance by his people. By divine providence, he conquered all the nations that waged war against him.
During a battle with Ammon, it was strange that he stayed at home, instead of leading his army, and it was the time that kings led their soldiers in battle. Satan did not start today to engage idle hands. Some anointed men of God, have fallen into the sin of adultery for staying at home on Sunday mornings, because of health challenges or other issues. In my house, the grand rule is that the sick person must attend Church service and then report the ill health to Dr. Jesus.
Through his window, David saw a woman bathing. There was nothing wrong with that, had he removed his eyes from her. The sin of ‘lookery’ is not what a person sees, but his deliberate looking at it again. One wonders, why the woman did not use the bath but an open place! When David enquired who she was, one would have thought that it was to reprimand her for indecency. Unable to control the lust that had overtaken him, he sent for her. Had it not been for that consuming lust, he would have invited one of his several wives to join him in the discussion. He did it all alone and it resulted in sleeping with her, another man’s wife! Sleeping with her, when Uriah, her husband, was in the warfront, fighting to protect his life and crown! There is God oooo!
The adulterous relationship resulted in pregnancy and she informed David of it. He sent a message to Joab, his GOC, telling him to send Uriah to him, and he did. It was the crafty way he had intended to cover his sin, believing that Uriah would go home to sleep with his wife, so that he would be presumed responsible for the pregnancy. In spite of the lavish food items he gave him, the officer still slept with the king’s servants. Asked by David why he did not go home, his reason would have forced the king to weep and to promote him, but it did not. “How will I go home to eat and sleep with my wife, when I do not know what is the fate of the Ark of God, and also, the fate of our soldiers and our GOC?” He asked him. That was a great commitment, but it did not touch the king. God was watching! It was incredible that lust made David, “the man after God’s heart”, to forget His Word, that “Whoever covers his sin, will not prosper,” Prov. 28:13.
Uriah’s refusal to go home was another way God had designed for David, to reconsider his plan of covering his sin. The danger of sin is that one sin often leads to another, and in fact, to a more serious one. Armed robbers do not leave their homes, intending to kill people. They kill so as to cover their theft, especially, when someone identifies them. That was the unfortunate case with “the man, after God’s heart”. He must go to any extent to cover his sin of impregnating Bathsheba. He made Uriah drunk, yet, he refused to go home. David must then play his last card, and that was to murder his loyal soldier. He wrote a letter to Joab, ordering him to send Uriah to the hottest sector, where the enemy soldiers would kill him. He did and Uriah was killed, and God was watching!
Joab sent operational report to the king through a soldier, instructing him that if he blamed them for taking unnecessary risk, that prompted the loss of some soldiers, that he should pacify him with ‘good’ news concerning the death of Uriah. David, however, did not reprimand but comforted them for losing some soldiers. When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she mourned him, may be, that it was ceremonial in reality, before joining King David’s harem. It might have left some of the subjects wondering.
We may be doing things the way and manner we like, since we have what it takes to be satisfying our cravings, even at other people’s expense. What we have no control of, is the whispering about our conduct by our underlying. It was someone that David sent to call Beersheba that day she was bathing openly, it was someone that he enquired about her, it was someone that opened and closed the door for her, when she entered and was leaving. After a month or two, it was someone that arranged her meeting with the king, when she was pregnant. It means that David was deceiving himself in his attempts to cover what he did with the woman. Nothing is hidden really from people, at least, on the long run.
At the war front, General Joab could have suspected that Uriah might have disobeyed the king, which made the king to order for his death. What Joab could not reconcile to himself was why it was done through the enemy soldiers, knowing that military leaders never executed erring soldiers secretly. That would give rise to gossip, which was justified when Bathsheba joined the royal family. Joab would never believe that it was driven by sympathy, knowing who killed him. He would have laughed, when he heard that she was pregnant and also, giving birth a few months after, as if she were a pig!
In the human sector, gossips, all the time, may be true or false. Things are different before God. He knows when someone conceives any sinful thought in his heart. He knows all the opportunities at our disposal, in turning our backs to Satan but we refuse. He knows all our hasty or dilatory tactics towards the execution. A born-again lady testified how on her way to buy alcoholic drinks, someone, while preaching in her bus, detailed, how some Christians would be buying alcoholic drinks secretly. She ignored the message and went to the market and bought the alcoholic drinks and put them inside a nylon bag where nobody would see them. On her way home, another man, while preaching, said that some born-again believers would hide the alcoholic drinks they bought inside nylon bags. She was convicted. Reaching her destination at Ojuelegba, Surulere, she broke all the bottles.
David sadly, ignored God and His Word. He forgot the number of wives he had and who were at his disposal. He forgot how the lion, the bear and Gen. Goliath, would have finished him but for God’s intervention. Forgetting God and what He has done for us, was not exclusive of David. Many people are always like that. God was angry with David. May we never make Him to be angry with us, knowing that He will judge the things we do, whether they are open or secret.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0817 223 7012; [email protected]