The first sentence tells us where things began going
wrong. In the spring of the year “kings”
went out to battle but David didn’t go, he sent Joab and the rest of the
nation. David, however, remained at
Jerusalem. Because he didn’t go out with
the army, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. “If only I had…” is something we live with
all the time. Who would have thought
that David remaining in Jerusalem would become the occasion for his downfall in
sin? Uriah may be a Hittite but his name
is actually a Hebrew name meaning “the Lord is my light” and he is faithfully
serving David in the army at the time David sees and falls in love with his
wife. The liaison results in a pregnancy
and because she was “cleansing herself from her impurity” at the time, we know
that the child must be David’s so he sends for Uriah to come and, hopefully
sleep with his wife and cover David’s tracks.
The plot fails because Uriah is a faithful man to his duty and
ultimately, rather than admit what he has done, David must have Uriah
killed. As always, it isn’t necessarily
the crime but the cover-up of the crime that creates the nightmare scenario.
Clearly the disciples had no idea what to make of what
happened on the mount of Transfiguration.
They didn’t have any idea how it was possible or why Jesus was suddenly
transfigured and talking with Moses and Elijah.
They didn’t know what to do about it and suggested that the moment be
preserved as long as possible, Peter proposing to make booths so that they
could remain there. Just as remarkably
the cloud overshadowed Jesus and the voice from heaven proclaimed Him as the
Son and they were told to listen to Him.
These others had spoken also, the Law and the Prophets, the two who were
to come back prior to the end and yet they were eclipsed by Jesus. When He told them not to speak about this
until the Son of Man was risen from the dead, Mark tells us they didn’t
understand that either, “So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning
what this rising from the dead might mean.”
It was all too confusing, sometimes we don’t understand what we see and
hear in the Spirit either. We always
need to be humble about interpreting such things.
Real revival happened in Ephesus because real power was
displayed. People were being healed
which attracted much attention but also some of what could be deemed
superstition. The itinerant Jewish
exorcists (certainly something you don’t hear about in our day) included seven
sons of a priest named Sceva who thought they had found the magic word for
healing, the name of the particular Jesus whom Paul proclaimed. The result wasn’t pretty for these men,
routed, beaten and naked, they flee from the house. When word gets around town, believers come
confessing and divulging their practices and those who were practicing magic
brought their books to be burned. Believers experienced the fear of the Lord because
of the power of the Lord and revival began to happen, they put away their sins
and their folly, the belief in something other than God for power. The fear of
the Lord is an important part of revival, it means we are seeing clearly.
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