Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

So it must be all right.

“Do you find that this amusement that you like so much glorifies God? It seems to me, for this reason, that it dishonors Him.’
“Oh, but this Christian I know enjoys it just as much, and you know how much he loves the Lord!”
“Do you feel that spending so much time and money on nothing but pleasure, is the way to be a good steward of what God has entrusted us with?”
“Mr. So-and-so spends even more on the same pleasure, and yet he has a ministry that God blesses.
“Do you think that the language you use pleases God? Don’t you find that this word that you use strongly resembles a swear word (or a dirty word)?”
“The person who led me to Christ uses that word.”
“Can you honestly say that you find the way you are dressed modest? I tell you, it would be provocative for a man!”
“An elder’s wife whom I know doesn’t cover herself any better.”
“And your artificial and highly ornamented appearance- isn’t it contrary to I Timothy 2:9, 10 and I Peter 3:3, 4?”
“I know a full-time preacher’s wife who arranges herself the same way, and the Lord blesses her husband’s ministry.
“We cannot adopt that practice in our assembly, as it is in flat contradiction with the pattern in the
Scriptures.
“But such-and-such a church uses that practice, and souls are being saved and added to the church”

“Do you realize that the church you intend to attend doesn’t operate at all according to the New-Testament pattern? How can you be content there after having known the blessing of meeting in a biblical assembly? “Oh, but the members of that church are so nice and loving! Isn’t it conceit to claim that we are right and they are wrong?”

This is a form of argument very frequently presented in an effort to justify what doesn’t conform to God’s Word. The desired conclusion is that the issue isn’t important- or at least, not very important- in God’s sight. It is reasoned that, since the practice in question doesn’t seem to be any more important than that in God’s sight, we are free to do as we want. A person who bases his conduct on human observation and experience, may find such reasoning convincing. For those who take God’s written Word as their basis, such an argument is worthless.

Let us first consider the sovereignty of God. He uses sinners, and even wicked people, as instruments. That is a major lesson that He taught the prophet Habakkuk (see chapter 1 of his book). The fact that God uses someone doesn’t prove that He endorses everything the person does. Also, consider the grace of God. If a believer sincerely desires to serve God, God bless everything He can bless in his efforts without compromising His character. That does not imply God’s approval of all the person’s undertakings. God blessed King Jehoshaphat’s sending out of itinerant law teachers (1 Chronicles 17:7-9); but He didn’t approve of Jehoshaphat’s alliances with the heathen (2 Chronicles 19:2).

Consider furthermore that God takes into consideration the light that each believer has received, and that He requires more of those who are more enlightened (Luke 12:48b). He ordered the death of the prophets of Baal in Elijah’s day, while He allowed those who had been sincerely deceived by them to live (1 Kings 18). That did not justify the idolatry of the mass of the people.

But to give a really authoritative and final answer to this type of argument, let us consider the life of David. God Himself called David “a man after His heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), and He blessed his life and reign abundantly. Yet an in-depth study of the life of David reveals quite a few practices that were not according to the law of Moses, which God had given to Israel, His people. If a servant of God in David’s day had reprimanded a Jew for such a thing in his life, that Jew could have tried to justify it by saying, “David does it, and God called him a man after His heart.” Just as in the examples cited above, the person would have wanted to imply that God didn’t care, or at least didn’t care much, about obedience to that article of the law. But would such a person have been right?

Why had God given a law to Israel by Moses, if He didn’t consider obedience to it important? On more than one occasion He promised blessing for obedience, and chastisement for disobedience to it (Exodus 19:5, 6; Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 27:11-26; 28; 30:15-20). Nobody could disobey the law without suffering for it. And our study of the life of David will show that, notwithstanding God’s blessing on his life, he nevertheless lost blessings that he could have had by

following the law of God completely.

In fact, it was less than God’s perfect will for Israel to have a human king at all. God wanted to be their King Himself (1 Samuel 8:7; 11:12, 17, 19; Hosea 13:10, 11). The book of Judges does say that, with no king in Israel, “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 21:25). That is not an expression of regret over not having a human king. It is rather a regret that the divine King was not recognized.

During the seven years when David reigned in Hebron, Abner, captain of Saul’s former army, killed Asahel, brother of Joab, head of David’s army (2 Samuel 2:20-23). Later on, Joab avenged his brother’s death by killing Abner (2 Samuel 3:27). In the meantime, Abner had come and announced to David that he was abandoning Saul’s family and wanted to join up with him; and David had made peace with him. For this reason, David denounced and cursed Joab for having killed Abner, and treated him like a criminal (2 Samuel 3:28, 29). Then David publicly lamented Abner’s death. The nation, guided by mere human feelings, approved the position David took; but were they right?

According to the law of Moses, Joab was acting legally in killing Abner to avenge the death of his brother, Asahel. The law prescribed that a close relative of the victim of a murder had a duty to kill the murderer (Numbers 35:19, 21; Deuteronomy 19:12). The Hebrew word for “revenger” in these verses is gaal, of which the applications. basic meaning is “relative;” but the word is rich in The same word is often translated “redeemer,” because if an Israelite lost property over a debt he couldn’t pay, a gaal (relative) who had the means could redeem it for him. And it was also a duty of a gaal to avenge the blood of a relative of his who had been murdered. Joab was performing this duty in killing Abner.

Furthermore, it was Abner’s own fault that Joab killed him. The law of Moses prescribed that there be six cities of refuge in Israel, of which three would be on each side of the Jordan River. A person who had killed somebody by accident or deliberately could flee to one of those cities and live there in safety until his case had been judged by the priests. Then, if the priests found him guilty of murder, they were to hand him over to the revenger of blood, who would put him to death. If they found the fugitive innocent because the death he had caused was an accident, he was allowed to live in safety in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest, after which he would be set free and nobody was allowed to hurt him (see Numbers 35:9-28; Deuteronomy 19).

Abner, then, knowing that Joab had the duty of avenging the blood of Asahel, should have fled to a city of refuge; and as a matter of fact, he was at the gate of a city of refuge (Hebron, according to Joshua 20:7) when Joab killed him! Instead of stopping to talk with Joab, he should have hurried up and gotten into the city of Hebron! It is hard to say what the verdict on his case would have been if he had done so; the priests might have said he had killed Asahel in self-defense, and acquitted him. But whatever the case may be, the law of Moses made Abner responsible to hide in the city of refuge until his case was judged (Numbers 35:28). It was therefore entirely Abner’s fault that he got killed, and David was entirely wrong in cursing Joab for having killed him.

Did God bless David in spite of his acting contrarily to the law? We are obliged to admit that He did; but that does not mean there were no consequences. Later on, Joab used sly and subtle tactics to influence David to let Absalom come back from exile (2 Samuel 14). Then, Joab had difficulty to submit to David’s orders. David had told him to handle Absalom gently after his revolt (2 Samuel 18:5), but Joab killed him (verse 14). The fact that the law demanded the death of a murderer did not justify Joab’s killing of Absalom without David’s authorization, since Absalom hadn’t killed any close relative of Joab. Then in the end, Joab supported Adonijah’s conspiracy against Solomon (1 Kings 1).

Is it not realistic to suspect that David’s unjust treatment of Joab provoked Joab to gradually lose his loyalty toward him? If David had recognized that Joab was acting legally in killing Abner, who knows but that Joab might have remained loyal to him till the end?

When Abner offered to make peace with David, David laid down one condition- he must bring him Michal, his former wife (2 Samuel 3:13-16). Saul had given Michal, his daughter, to David to be his wife (1 Samuel 18:20-29); but then he had taken her back and given her to another man, named Phalti (1 Samuel 25:44). The law of Moses forbade a man to take back a wife he had formerly had, after another man had had her in the meantime (Deuteronomy 24:4; see also Jeremiah 3:1).

Was David “a man after God’s heart” when he took back Michal to be his wife again? Did God bless him anyway? Doubtless He did, but Michal was NOT a blessing to him! When David had the ark of the covenant brought to Jerusalem, and was celebrating his joy in the Lord, Michal despised and insulted him (2 Samuel 6:16- 23). God approved of David’s rejoicing, and punished Michal by making her sterile. David and Michal were therefore not united in spirit; and what is more miserable than disunity in a marriage?

Having learned that the king of Ammon had died, and that his son Hanun was reigning in his place, David sent messengers to Hanun to comfort him concerning his father’s death (2 Samuel 10:1, 2). Human feeling would cause one to say, “How kind!” But was it really a good idea? We must admit that the law of Moses didn’t expressly forbid showing kindness to an Ammonite, since Ammon wasn’t one of the seven nations that God had told Israel to wipe out (Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 3:10; 24:11). Yet the law of Moses and the history of Israel give us good reasons to strongly doubt that this gesture was pleasing to God.

The law forbade receiving an Ammonite into the congregation of Israel, even in the tenth generation (Deuteronomy 23:3). Was it wise to show a sign of friendship to someone whom God had so condemned? Besides that, God’s commentary on the life of Solomon tell us that He had forbidden Israel to form friendships with Ammonites (1 Kings 11:1, 2). Though we do not find such a commandment written in the law, God had evidently communicated it to Israel, perhaps orally. Also, an Ammonite king had attacked part of Israel at the beginning of Saul’s reign, thus showing himself to be an enemy of Israel (1 Samuel 11). That was still relatively recent history history during David’s reign. Furthermore, the prophet Jehu reproached King Jehoshaphat for helping the ungodly, and loving those who hated the Lord (2 Chronicles 19:2). Was not David showing love for someone who hated the Lord by performing this friendly gesture toward Hanun?

Was David still “a man after God’s heart?” In the general character of his life he was; but we can hardly believe he was acting after God’s heart in this. And he suffered consequences for it! On the advice of his servants, Hanun treated David’s messengers with suspicion and outrageously insulted them. This led to war between Israel and Ammon, and Syria sided with Ammon (II Samuel ch. 10). Certainly, God gave Israel the victory; but the war could have been entirely avoided if David hadn’t tried to form a friendship with someone

who hated the Lord.

That was not all. The next year, Israel was again at war with Ammon; and that time David stayed in Jerusalem while his servants went to war. It was then that David saw Bathsheba taking a bath, and fell into sin with her (2 Samuel 11:2-5). If war with Ammon had been avoided, David would have had more men around him, and it is not so likely that he would have yielded to the temptation. And what is certain-he would not have been able to use the sword of the children of Ammon to kill Uriah (2 Samuel 12:9). David suffered the consequences of that fall for the rest of his life (2 Samuel 12:10-12).

Amnon, a son of David, raped his half-sister, Tamar. Absalom, full brother of Tamar, then killed Amnon to avenge the shame brought on his sister (II Samuel chapter 13). In spite of the horror of Amnon’s crime, the law did not authorize Absalom to kill Amnon, since Amnon had not killed any close relative of Absalom. In the case at hand, the right action would have been to appeal to the priesthood, who would have condemned Amnon but acquitted Tamar, since nobody came to her rescue when she cried out (Deuteronomy 22:25, 26). Since the law did not authorize Absalom to kill Amnon, it was murder on his part. Murderers were to be punished with death (Numbers 35:30, 31).

Absalom fled the country before anyone could catch him and put him to death. But after he had spent three years in exile, David’s anger calmed down (2 Samuel 13: 37-39). Joab, perceiving this, subtly persuaded David to allow Absalom to return in peace (2 Samuel 14). The “wise” woman whom Joab used was talented in persuasion; but her gift didn’t guarantee that she would be guided by God’s wisdom and will. It is thus that Absalom got away without the execution required for a murderer.

Was David still “a man after God’s heart?” We dare not deny it. Was God blessing his life? Certainly, since God delivered him and gave him the victory over Absalom’s subsequent revolt (2 Samuel 15-18). Yet if David had wholly followed the law of God by putting Absalom to death for his murder, Absalom’s revolt would have been avoided. Then, when David learned of Absalom’s death, he mourned over him dramatically (2 Samuel 18:33). It is true that David had told Joab to handle Absalom gently; yet the law of God required that he already be dead. Joab was quite right in warning David that he’d better “snap out of it” and show himself grateful to his army that had delivered him from Absalom (2 Samuel 19:5-7). Human feeling is moved in seeing David’s love for his rebellious son; but that doesn’t change the fact the law of God required Absalom’s execution long before.

We find one more failure to follow the law of God in David’s reign. The story of his life doesn’t recount it, but we can deduce it by calculation from information given concerning the Babylonian captivity. The law of Moses required the Jews to observe a sabbatical year every seven years, during which they were not to cultivate their land, but let it lie fallow (Leviticus 25:3, 4). God had warned them that, if they did not obey this law, He would have them taken into captivity for a long enough time to compensate for the sabbatical years they had missed (Leviticus 26:34, 43).

A day came when God chastised the Jews by having them taken into captivity in Babylon for seventy years. We learn that it took an exile of that length to make up for the number of sabbatical years not observed (2 Chronicles 36:21). That means that for 490 years

(seventy times seven) the sabbatical year had been entirely forgotten. According to Sir Robert Anderson’s chronology, the total length of the reigns of all kings of the Jews put together, from Saul to Zedekiah, was exactly 490 years! Therefore the time during which the Jews did not observe the sabbatical year was exactly the time during which they had human kings- including David, “a man after God’s heart.” Was God blessing his life anyway? We know He was. Nevertheless the nation suffered consequences of this negligence. Since David reigned for forty years (1 Kings 2:11), five years of his life should have been set aside as sabbatical years. This means that five years of Israel’s captivity in Babylon was due to David’s negligence. The captivity would have been five years shorter if David had followed the law of God concerning the sabbatical year.

All this shows that, even though God called David “a man after His heart,” not everything in his life was according to the law that God had given His people through Moses. A person living in David’s time could have acted contrarily to the law on any of these issues and, when reproved, answered, “David does that, and God called him ‘a man after His heart.”” Yes, certainly David was “a man after God’s heart,” and most of what the Bible says about him is in his favor. On the whole, God abundantly blessed his life and reign. Yet this does not justify his failures, nor does it change the fact that he could have had more of God’s blessing on his life if he had followed God’s law on the issues where he neglected it. One cannot overlook anything without suffering for it.

Now, may we suppose that God didn’t blame David too much for his failures, since the law wasn’t being taught sufficiently in his day, and therefore he wasn’t aware of its content? Hardly! God had ordered that, when the Jews had a king, the king was to make himself a copy of the law and read in it every day of his life (Deuteronomy 17:18, 19). As the king copied the law, he would learn its content and it would become well fixed in his mind; and daily reading of it would keep him reminded of it. Thus he would have no valid reason for not knowing what God expected of him.

In the same way, we cannot justify the Christian in our day who neglects the teaching of the Bible, even if those who should be teaching it to him are negligent. We all have access to the Bible, and God holds us responsible to read it ourselves and examine whether what we hear is conformed to it (Acts 17:11). Many surveys uncover the sad reality that the majority of professing present-day Christians are not reading their Bibles every day! Many read the verse at the top of the of a daily-readings book, and the comments on it; page but they don’t look up the passage indicated in their Bibles (if there is one). Many others read a verse or two on the cards they draw at random from a “promise box;” but that will not give them systematic teaching from God’s Word. God certainly holds us responsible for ignorance that we could have avoided!

Let us therefore refuse all arguments that seek to justify practices contrary to God’s Word by saying that keen Christians whose lives and ministry God is blessing, do them. By all means, let us be gracious and patient toward those who haven’t understood certain truths that God has taught us. Let us recognize the reality that many who do not see as we do are very fervent Christians. But, do we aspire to God’s greatest blessing on our lives and service? Do we want to glorify Him to the uttermost? Then, let us base our conduct and our methods of service, not on human examples which, however godly they may be, always have their faults- but how much rather on the Word of God that lives and abides forever (1 Peter 1:23).

@1996 by author
Used by permission
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