13 Lessons From My Rooftop: Part-4

Matters with Bathsheba and Uriah were finally settled, and I could give my full attention again to the affairs of the nation. Well, so I thought, until Nathan—one of the prophets—showed up one afternoon at our Council meeting. He was in a combative mood, but he shrouded it in a genial disposition.

“My lord the king,” Nathan began earnestly, “there's a matter that the Lord God of Israel wants the king to urgently adjudicate on.”

“Go ahead, Prophet. You have my ears and those of the Elders in Council.” I gestured to my council of elders for concurrence.

“My lord, a great evil has been committed in the land. One of your subjects is a very rich man who possesses a great flock of animals,” Nathan began, his combativeness beginning to show. “Another of your subjects is but a poor man whose most treasured possession is a young female lamb he nurtures daily in the hope that it will one day birth more animals for him.”

“Go ahead, go ahead,” I urged impatiently.

“Not long ago, your rich subject received an important visitor in his home, and instead of taking one from his large flock, he seized upon his poor neighbour’s only ewe lamb and entertained his visitor with it. Your poor subject cried to me, my lord, robbed of his precious animal, and totally disconsolate.”

Before Nathan could conclude his advocacy of the poor man’s rights, I passed my judgement.

“Go away and fetch me this errant rich man,” I said presumptuously. “He must make restitution with four animals, and die for his treachery. The weak amongst us are entitled to their lives, too.”

Grunts of approval rent the council chamber. But Nathan froze in his presentation, glared at me belligerently, and pointed an accusing finger at me. His boldness and insolence were damning.

“That rich man, my lord, is you!” he said vehemently.

A pall of silence fell upon the council chamber. The ensuing tension was so thick you could slice it through with a breadknife. Eyes looked at me and sent darts through me. My heart took a leap and I felt faint. There was no pity in Nathan’s eyes as he stood and glared at me, preparatory to delivering his knock-out blow.

“This is the message of the Lord God of Israel to you this day,” he continued with venom. “God subdued all your enemies before you, placed you on this throne of our fathers, and honoured you. He made you king and gave you everything you could ever wish for. He gave you riches, honour, many children, and many wives. And if all of these were not enough, all you had to do was ask and He would've given you more. But you wouldn’t do that. Instead, you killed Uriah and took his only wife and lied to the nation. You have invited death and persecution into your household. "Bathsheba’s son shall die. Besides that, your wives shall be sexually abused openly. You abused Uriah’s wife in secret. Your wives shall be raped openly!”

The earth should've opened its mouth to swallow me, to end my misery, but it conspired against me, too. Before the Elders of Israel I fell from the throne and crawled on my hands and knees.

“I've sinned against God,” I cried. I saw the Elders rise and leave the chamber one after the other. I had become an abomination. Nathan himself stomped out in fury. His mission was accomplished, and picking up the pieces was not part of it. The chicks had come home to roost.

Since that fateful evening when the devil led me to the palace penthouse, something very destructive crept into my destiny. As I crawled on the chamber floor, too humiliated to weep, too humiliated to think, two lessons quickly resonated in my confused mind:

Lesson number 10: in quickly passing a death sentence, I realised that we are not as hard on ourselves as we are on others; we often judge others more harshly than we judge ourselves.

Lesson number 11: the evil that will destroy a man does not strike him down on day one. It matures over time. It is in times of sound health and mind that we use our own hands to create the affliction that will destroy us. Indeed, every man chooses the poison that will kill him. No man of honour should ever let down his guards.

My one sin of self-imposed idleness had bred a legion others—lust, adultery, treacherously induced drunkenness, murder, wife stealing, and now a hasty and merciless judgement! My sin had matured and taken on a viral self-extrapolation. Sin can indeed be cancerous. It grows in geometric proportions when we take steps to cover it up. This king had taken a scandalous descent into infamy.

For the first time since Nathan walked into the Elders’ chamber, I found enough tears in my eyes and I wept bitterly for this shame and reputation accretion. The most sobering lesson of all screamed in my ears:

Lesson number 12: since the days of Adam, sin cover up has never worked. The best treatment for sin is confession and penance. Evil is a suborning spirit. It cannot be covered or chained. It ultimately breaks loose if not resisted.

Men had abandoned me as they would a sinking ship. Men may reject me, but I knew my God abounded in mercy. Therefore after many hours, I rose from my lonely revelry, hurried to the Lord’s temple, and threw myself before God at His altar, totally broken and humiliated. It was the least price I wanted to pay for my crimes. I cried before Him as I had never done before. I sang sorrowfully and penitently my most famous 51st Psalm:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation; and uphold me with your free spirit...deliver me from blood guiltiness...open my lips and let my mouth show forth your praises....the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

My singing came from the depth of my wounded soul, and I sang, not caring who was listening or watching. Hours later, still hunched before God, I was completely drenched in my own sweat and tears. Godly sorrow had taken me over.

Suddenly a very bright light shone across the temple. Frightened and blinded by its intensity, I made to run. It was a most frightening sight. My judgement had come, I thought. "I've lost the right to stand before His light."

I staggered to my feet and felt my way towards the temple door. As I did, I heard His familiar voice: “Son, you are totally forgiven. The Judge of the universe finds no guilt in you. You are acquitted.”

His verdict shot my adrenalin to a mad level. O, His mercies! His mercies!

I ran out of the temple like a crazed gazelle, jumping, dancing, celebrating, and shouting the praises of my God to all who cared to listen. It didn’t matter to me if any of my subjects thought I'd run mad. In that very ecstatic moment, I shouted to all humanity the most important lesson of all from my rooftop adventure:

Lesson number 13: whatever the gravity of our sins, our God is merciful enough to forgive us, if we ask...only if we ask!

In the weeks that followed, Junior was to fall fatally sick. I entreated God for his healing and recovery, but God’s sentence, passed through Nathan the Prophet, stood. He honours the words of His prophets. Junior died, and Bathsheba and I mourned his passing.

When Junior died, I went to God and asked Him, “Didn’t you say you had forgiven me?”

“Yes, I forgave your sin in order to restore your soul, but I can do nothing about its irreversible consequences. As a sign of my forgiveness, your wife Bathsheba shall be pregnant again and give birth to another son. You shall call him the same name, the name you cherish, Solomon, for I have restored peace to you. He will sit on the throne and be king after you.”

This, indeed, came to pass. As Solomon grew up into a man, I began to see that he took after me in the matter concerning women, and I prayed, “God, may he not make the mistake that I made.”

Dear friend, my name is David, king of Israel. I'm a man after God’s heart. That had been my singular life pursuit. But in the course of it I've erred grievously. I share my experience with you as a way of unburdening my heart, and strengthening yours. You might as well laugh over a serious matter than ignore the lessons I now teach.

I live in the knowledge that God has forgiven me, but I can never forget the verdict of Robert Young, that gifted analyst and writer of Bible concordances, where he writes about me: "75 of the 150 Psalms of the Bible have his name prefixed to them and remain imperishable monuments of his poetic genius, and his unfeigned piety, repentance, and hope in God, though marred by grievous follies and crimes against both God and Man.”

Goodnight, dear friend. I go back to my eternal sleep. But I ask, what are you going to do about that sin of yours? See you in church on Sunday. Let's repent together.

(Culled from my book Laughing Over Serious Matters. For other articles visit https://www.chrisekpekurede.com/blog)