The terrible cost of sin

In our last meditation we began a small study of the life of King David and specifically focused on the episode of his adultery and his murder of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, with whom King David had had an adulterous relationship that had resulted in her pregnancy. We talked about the God of justice, the God of holiness.

We examined the terrible cost that sin has on the life of the human being, we saw that sin affects our conscience, affects our relationship with Heavenly Father and gives the devil room to also wreak havoc on our lives and to accuse us before God, therefore sin is always costly.

I think one of the reasons why we should always be aware of holiness and one of the reasons why we have to talk to people about God's call for holiness and I think also one of the smart ways of presenting the call to holiness is by explaining to people the terrible cost of sin.

Many times we simply call people to behave well and do things well and not to sin, but we do not give them reasons why this is important and we do not make it logical and necessary for them to conduct ourselves in a correct and holy way before God and before God. men, and therefore we lose a good opportunity to do this but we simply put in people the fear of hell, the fear of damnation, fire and brimstone but today in the 21st century people are already inoculated against that kind of primitive preaching.

What it does is that they become more stubborn and hardened more and more they resent the preaching of the Church and less we reach them for the ways of the Gospel. One of the things that we Christians have to do when we speak to people is to call them to holiness but to call them to holiness because holiness is beautiful, it is good, because it is positive, because it leads to a life of peace, of cleanliness. personal, prosperity and good relationship with God and with others.

As the Bible says right? that: "We must praise Jehovah in the beauty of holiness." Many times we don't make it clear to people that holiness is beautiful and that is why we should pursue it, that holiness leads to blessing while sin leads to suffering, and so we see this exemplified in David's life.

Remember what the passage says about the fruit of the spirit, right? It says that the works of the flesh produce among other things: "disputes, lawsuits, jealousies, dissensions, murders, envies and things similar to these" among other things, right? "But the fruit of the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and against such things there is no condemnation" there is no law, there is no accusation from the devil.

And that is why we have to call people to holiness because it produces blessed families, produces loving parents, produces healthy children, produces pleasant marriages, homes that are a refuge for people when they come from the streets with all their struggles and threats. and demands. Holiness is beautiful, sin is horrible, and you see that in David's life.

But what touches me is that when God denounces David through the prophet Nathan, you can read it later when David repents, recognizes that he has sinned and knows that God has brought his sin to light and that he has seen everything, David He immediately humbled himself and recognized that he had sinned and from there we have that beautiful Psalm: "Have mercy on me, O God according to Your mercy. According to the multitude of Your pieties erase my rebellions. Wash more and more of my wickedness and cleanse me of my sin because I acknowledge my rebellions and my sin is always before me.

David wrote this beautiful Psalm as a consequence of his sin and David humbles himself in a profound way. The interesting thing is that David at that moment humbles himself and at that moment God tells him: do not worry you will not die, I have forgiven you. If we look here God could have judged David in a terrible way; this man had abused his governmental authority, had probably raped this woman or at least intimidated her into having sex with him, had had one of her most loyal generals killed, had become involved in a government plot, and had involved other men in a plot to kill a man.

And finally God tells him that he had discredited the reputation of God because others, his enemies had seen what had happened and somehow had found out and this had brought dishonor to the prestige of the Hebrew faith and the God of the Hebrews. Something terrible that merited death, merited jail at least, merited David to be removed from his throne and yet God in His mercy does not do any of these things, he says: I will forgive you, I will have mercy on you .

The God of goodness, the God of mercy, the God of grace. Interestingly, God does tell David that as a consequence of this sin that had been done in such a public way and that had brought so much loss and that had been so deep and so terrible, there were going to be consequences. The child that had arisen from that adulterous, illicit relationship and that had been as an expression of something so illegitimate and so sinful was going to die and we know that that child went directly to the bosom of God's Grace and one day we will probably see him up there. , we will know. God sovereignly withdrew it because He has the power to do that and He also told David that there were going to be consequences throughout their lineage and that the sword was going to be there for a long time in their generations.

And we see later in the case of Absalom and all the things that later happen, what David did in private unfortunately later happened to him in public because he too was abused by his women through Absalom his son, a terrible situation and David he suffered greatly as a result of this.

The wonderful thing is that God never destroyed him and David maintained his reign and David always enjoyed the goodness, love and mercy of God but there was also judgment and there was loss. But I am moved by that balance that I see in the way that God treats, the way so subtle, so nuanced, so paternal where God mixes His justice and His mercy as well, His goodness, His forgiveness.

We see both things at stake here, based on this sad episode in the life of David and our churches have to be an example and expression of that complex treatment of God as well. God bless you.