In 2 Samuel 11 and 12, King David famously commits a quite horrific set of sins in adultery with a woman called Bathsheba and then murdering her husband to try and cover it up.

It’s amazing how sin can “snowball” and how one sin can lead to another, and it did here, David did one wrong thing to cover up another wrong thing… and he kinda thought he got away with it a bit.

… But he didn’t. And his life was not the same, his joy and peace and physical and mental health was gone, and his sin festered away for some time.

A good rule of thumb for the Christian life isn’t to look left and right like Moses did when he killed the Egyptian, but instead to look upward, because the most important person who sees our sin is not other people… but God.

And God had seen it all, and God didn’t like it at all.

And so one day God sends a man of God called Nathan to David and David’s sin is about to get blown up for all to see “be sure your sin will find you out”.

Nathan confronts David in an unusual way though!

… To expose David’s sin, Nathan tells David a story, a parable, about a rich man and a poor man… and how that rich man oppresses, mistreats and abuses a poor man.

David doesn’t realize the story is about him, and he is the villain in the story that Nathan has told him. And David gets angry at the man Nathan is describing in the story and would have him killed if he could!!

… but then Nathan reveals HE IS that rich man “thou art the man”.

It’s an epic mic drop moment. And realisation and condemnation of sin hits David like a freight train.

… And he says “I have sinned against the Lord”.

They’re rare words in today’s society. We are so used to blaming others but David owns his sin… and the honesty of David here is the smallest of silver linings in the darkest chapter of his life.

Usually we are all guilty of making exceptions for ourselves and our own poor behaviour… but David is in checkmate.

But all that to say this! …here’s what I get out of this story this time around.

… We’ve all seen movies/tv shows where there are people with horrible characteristics and traits… doing things that we don’t like to watch and see. And we’d be quick to condemn and express our dislike for those characters!

And we’d hope to see them “get what they deserve” like David did here about the rich man of Nathan’s story.

… But how would we do if our life was told back to us in parable form like David experienced here? How would we like ourselves if our life was in a movie and we were at the cinema watching the story of our life being played, not realizing its us and with no dirty secrets spared?

It’s quite confronting and scary. I don’t think I’d like me too much if an honest movie of my life was played about me. But how about you?

So let’s not be the person in the story we wouldn’t like! Because whether we like it or not… all our lives are a story, a movie, a book being read by those around us… this world is watching on.

As professing Christians, people are reading us, the Bible says that we are living epistles “know and read of men”. So how is our life reading? Are we the good guy or the bad guy in the movie of our life?

As a Christian, our life is meant to portray and tell others about our Saviour and the so great salvation he has freely given us which should have changed our lives.

… but is it? And has it?

Blog Bathsheba Bible Christian Church David God Holy Spirit Jesus Nathan Salvation Sin Truth