“Your enemies roar in the midst of your congregations. . . .”
Psalm 74:4
“And David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD!’
And Nathan said to David, ‘The LORD has put away your sin;
you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have given
great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme. . . .’ ”
2Samuel 12:13–14
The “enemies of the LORD” to which God, through Nathan the prophet, was referring were not foreign nations. They were Israelites who refused to believe that God had chosen David to be king and that He had revealed to David that Jerusalem was the place where all Israel should come to worship. David’s tragic sin with Bathsheba made those rebellious Israelites confident that they were right not to believe David and were right to speak evil of him and his “revelation”. For committing this crime against God’s people, David and his family suffered for the rest of his life.
May God save us from ever committing a sin that would make God’s enemies, His stubborn and rebellious children, feel justified in refusing the truth that He has shown us.
