Lust, hypocrisy, calloused hearts...Avalanche

I believe that any sin is a tangle. 
   Like a “rats” nest in your hair. It’s not a single strand that makes a mess. It’s one looped in another twisted with another snarled with those until it’s painful to resolve. 
   Like a traffic jam. It’s not a single car. It’s the whole highway crawling along as we finally get a glimpse of the wreck that caused this whole mess.

Like an avalanche. It’s not a snowball, but rather a cracking sheet of immense snow that pitches forward roaring down a mountain, consuming everything in its path, growing greater by the second, until it settles at the bottom, having buried everything and everyone. 

Read 2 Samuel 11 like a story and you see as David’s heart was led astray over time, his sin grew, like an avalanche, piling sin on top of more sin, cover up over cover up, all the way to the bottom.

Because he was a king and his story seems so specific (whoa, I haven’t murdered anyone), if we aren’t careful, we put him in some Bible story and never examine if his path of heart led astray, including lust, hypocrisy, and callousness, could very well be like ours.  

Lust
Lust is not a gender specific issue, just for men. (Frankly, it’s not just a sexual issue.) Consider an author’s stark words that offer deeper understanding of lust. 

Have you experienced this?

David’s story echoes in those words. What was the thought in his mind and heart when he saw her? “If he just had her then he’d be…” Lust enslaved him. He couldn’t conceive of being content without her and so he sent for her and had sex with her. Then it owned him.

Hypocrisy
When Bathsheba sent word that she was pregnant, he scrambled to cover up his sin and make himself look righteous. And he acted like a king would…

royal orders

royal summons to ask royal questions

royal dinners

royally stamped execution orders

royal regards for the loss of a soldier

royal wedding bells.

In truth, David engaged in 

deceit

hypocrisy

tempting others to abandon integrity

treachery

and murder

--all to cover up his initial sin.

Deceit and hypocrisy were two sins I relied on as I struggled with sexual sin. My world revolved around lying to keep from being exposed and keeping consequences to a minimum. 

Hypocrisy seemed an easy game for a while: go to church, answer the right questions, play the part of the good Christian girl. But as my sin grew and grew, my hurting heart became calloused. I still tried to cover sin but I also shrouded my soul in bitterness and arrogance--“This is just who I am, and I’m fine with it!” 

I lied to others and I tried to lie to myself. Underneath the callous was the painful truth—I was not “fine with it.”

Callousness
Coupled with David's hypocrisy was a callousness that grew as his sin multiplied: ignoring Bathsheba’s husband’s integrity, skillfully trying to get him to abandon that integrity, and when he wasn’t successful at that David drafted a military order (carried back to battle by Uriah himself) that ensured Uriah’s death.

Thick layers of sin and cover-up produced David’s response to the news of Uriah’s demise. “You win some, you lose some.”

No guilt. No grief. Just a quenched Spirit. 

Quench, stifle, extinguish, put out--in essence, we can become so calloused to the Spirit that we no longer even feel the conviction and call to repentance anymore. (1 Thess. 5:19) 

Lust, cover-up, hypocrisy and callousness.

Those truths made me search for God in the midst of that avalanche—David’s and mine.Where was He? Had He turned His back, or worse yet, was He done with David? 

Strangely enough He’s found in a solitary statement that clinches the end of the chapter. 

“But the thing David did displeased the LORD.”

That means God was seeing David, knowing what David was doing. God was not the one who had changed or departed. David was. It was David’s heart that was led astray. God was where He had always been, and He was Who He has always been. 

LORD. I AM. Keeper of all the promises His people fail to keep. Holder of the past, present and future even when His people sin and forget. God was remembering who David really was, even when David chose to live in calloused forgetfulness. He was keeping His promise to him, and Abraham, and even you, that a Messiah would come through David, even when God’s covenant was dim in his lustful heart. 

Yes, David had practically abandoned everything for his sin. 
Yes, God was displeased, but not done. God’s story wasn’t finished.
For David, or for us.

The only place where God was done was at the cross where our lusts, sexual sins, hypocrisies and callousness were paid for. It was that place where what we wanted to cover-up, Jesus actually covered. He covered us in His blood. He covered us in His righteousness. He covered us with His record. 

“It is finished.” (Jn. 19:30) 

Done. That’s the Gospel. 

When our sin comes crashing down, the Gospel finds us buried under the weight of it all, with God coming to our rescue. 

How will we respond?

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny