Bible Study Topics | True Repentance | A Biblical Example | The Story of King David (Part one)
King David’s two deeds allowed his sins to be forgiven and earned him God’s approval. read now and you’ll find the way to win God’s mercy and blessing from King David’s story.
Bible Study Topics | True Repentance | A Biblical Example | The Story of King David
Whenever King David is mentioned, my mind conjures up the image of when he was in his teens and, by relying on the strength of Jehovah, he used a slingshot to kill the giant Goliath with a stone. Afterward, he went to war, won many battles and did many heroic deeds. It is also recorded in the Bible, however, that when David became the king of Israel, he had Uriah killed and then took his wife Bathsheba. God’s righteous disposition therefore came upon David and, through the prophet Nathan, God spoke to him, saying, “Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house; because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife” (2 Samuel 12:10). King David had sinned, and God had punished him. So why did God thereafter take delight in David and say that David was a man after His own heart? I felt very puzzled by this. In order to figure this out, I sought and prayed to God many times, and I found many verses in the Bible. Through seeking and fellowshiping with my brothers and sisters, I finally found the answer.
King David Truly Repented to God
Only through fellowshiping with my brothers and sisters did I come to understand that, when God said that King David was a man after His own heart, He meant that David’s essence was in accord with God’s will. Although David had committed an impulsive transgression, he was able to truly repent. It is recorded in the Bible that, after King David had sinned, He prayed to God, saying, “Return, O Jehovah, deliver my soul: oh save me for Your mercies’ sake. … all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears” (Psalm 6:4,6). Because of his sin, King David felt deep remorse, and every day he repented and confessed, fasted and prayed before God, and he prayed for God to be merciful. His words spoken in prayer, “all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears,” embody the extent of his remorse and how much he hated himself.
It is also recorded in the Bible: “Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat. Why his servants said to him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in your bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not” (1 Kings 1:1–4). In his later years, King David was unable to sleep well, so his servants arranged for an incredibly beautiful virgin to help warm his bed, but King David never touched her. From this, we can see that, after David realized his own transgression, he completely repented and was completely changed, so that he would never commit the same sin again. David was no ordinary Israelite; he was the King of Israel, possessed of both status and power. Throughout his entire life, however, he only ever commited that one act of illicit sexual relations, and with him being who he was, in his position, it must have been extremely difficult for him not to commit more transgressions than just this one. This shows that King David had a God-fearing heart. After he was punished by God, he never again dared to treat God’s word with contempt or do anything that might offend God’s disposition, much less did he want to bring shame on God’s name. We can see from King David’s attitude toward his transgression and the degree of his repentance that his illicit sexual relations with Bathsheba were a momentary transgression. His essence, however, was that of a good man and, from antiquity to the present day, it could be said that no king has ever surpassed David.
From the experiences of King David, I came to have some real understanding of God’s righteous disposition. God’s words say, “Regardless of whether God is expressing wrath or mercy and lovingkindness, man’s conduct, behavior and attitude toward God in the depths of his heart dictate that which is expressed through the revelation of God’s disposition” (“God Himself, the Unique II”). God’s righteous disposition is vivid and real. When David took Uriah’s wife and had illicit sexual relations with her, God’s punishment came upon him, and this shows us that God is righteous, holy and tolerant of no offense; when David truly repented of his deeds, God took mercy on him and showed him lenience, and God continued to guide him and be with him.
Comparing myself to King David, I felt so ashamed. King David only committed this one wrong and was then able to repent in such a heartrending way. Furthermore, he never again made the same mistake for as long as he lived. I thought of myself, however, and how I’d believed in the Lord for years and yet lived in a constant state of sin: I did not abandon things, expend myself and toil and work hard for my love of the Lord or to satisfy the Lord, but instead I did it all to gain blessings and get into heaven — it was all me making deals with God. When I worked and preached, I often talked about how much I’d suffered, how busy I’d been and how much work I’d done, all so that my co-workers and my brothers and sisters would hold me in high esteem and look up to me, yet there was no place for God in their heart. Whenever I discussed church work with my co-workers, I always wanted to make them accept my views and, if they didn’t, I would become hot-headed and would argue with them. Sometimes, in order to maintain my prestige and position, I would tell lies and cheat other people. Sometimes, when I saw my co-workers giving better sermons than me, and all the brothers and sisters willing to hear them, I would feel envy in my heart, resentment would rear its ugly head, and I would even judge, belittle and try to exclude them. These are just some examples of my behavior over my time believing in the Lord. After committing a sin, I would pray to the Lord and wish to repent, and sometimes I would even hate myself and cry bitter tears. But whenever I encountered a similar situation again, I would be unable to stop myself from sinning again and rebelling against God; I had been living within a vicious cycle of sinning and confessing that I was unable to escape. Now, I finally realized that my repentance was just words, and that it was not the same as King David’s repentance. Because King David revered and feared God, he was able to truly hate himself from the bottom of his heart, and he used his living reality to prove his repentance. It seemed as though, if I did not possess a heart which fervently desired God, then I would not be able to truly repent to Him and it would then be very hard for me to win His praise. The true repentance of King David was certainly something I had to emulate.
To be continue…
