A Mega-Disaster is just what you would expect, a catastrophe of epic proportions. The evening news secretly loves them, the ratings go up, and revenues increase. Newspapers, factories, doctors, lawyers, the stock market, CEO’s—it seems that everybody profits off someone else’s misery. The people affected however are left to pick up their broken lives, suffer the consequences, and push ahead.
What if the mega-disaster is…self-inflicted?
David, King of Israel, for forty years, was a man who ran a nation that was a world power. Whenever we think of David, we think: shepherd, poet, giant killer, king, and ancestor of Jesus— in short, one of the greatest men in the Old Testament. But alongside that list stands another: betrayer, liar, murderer, and an adulterer. The first list gives qualities we all would like to have, the second, qualities that might be true of any one of us. The Bible makes no effort to hide David’s failures. He was a consummate politician and a military savant. The people loved him, and God loved him. Unfortunately, David had a lapse in spiritual judgment. David ordered his top general, Joab, to take a national census and count everyone, especially the men eligible for military duty. Soon after the census, David realized his mistake, but it was too late, the consequences were approaching like high tide. God was quite upset!
The nation itself wasn’t to blame, the king was, however it was the nation that was to suffer. God made King David choose the punishment. God provided David three options—all bad.
Option 1—Three years of famine in the land
Option 2 –Three months of the nation being chased by the enemy
Option 3—Three days of plague in the land
David agonized then chose option number three.
The result…Seventy Thousand people died!
What was behind the calamity? An angry God or David’s sin?
David did not surprise God again.
Bottom line
God never held back from David either his forgiveness or the consequences of his actions. David experienced the joy of God’s forgiveness even when he had had to suffer the consequences of his sins. Often we don’t seem to learn from our mistakes or the consequences that result from those mistakes. What changes would it take for God to find this kind of obedience in you?
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