Nathan’s Courage
[NOTE: Adam was asked to speak on the 2015 Freed-Hardeman University Bible lectures on the person of Nathan. Below if the manuscript of his lesson.]
It is a Biblical account that most of us can recite detail-by-detail.
It is shocking to us for many reasons. It shocks us because of who is involved. David, the one so often described as a man after God’s own heart, we know was just a man and therefore, had sin in his life, but the infamous incident in 2 Samuel 11 shocks us.
The account shocks us because it just continues to spiral out of control. We can find ourselves saying, “Just stop it here!” Yet, as the chapter unfolds, unwise decisions and sin continue to come.
The account shocks us by just how far it goes. We have all preached or heard lessons on how the chapter begins by telling us that David should have been at war with his army, and how it ends up with the blood of one of his own mighty men on the king’s hands.
But the problems of 2 Samuel 11 begin before the chapter does. At least, we have that hinted at in the very first verse. There is an ominous feeling when we read, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel.” We read, though, that David’s military plan worked: “And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.” But then the ominous tone returns: “But David remained at Jerusalem.”
There is something embedded there that will play a role in where we are going with our thoughts this afternoon on Nathan, who will not enter the scene until some time later.
Intrigue has often filled our minds when we consider David here. Why did he not go out to war this particular spring season? Why did he remain back in Jerusalem?
Was it because he no longer had the stuff that made for a good military leader? It doesn’t seem like it, and that was no excuse anyway. Even kings who were not military geniuses would still have been present on the battlefield to lift the morale of the armies.
Was it because he did not like the outdoors any longer? I don’t think any of us would ever think of David not desiring time on the hillsides, even if it was under stressful conditions.
The text never indicates bad health or fear in David at this point in his life, so those are out as well.
But look back up in the text of 2 Samuel and we may have a clue. In 2 Samuel 8, we read of victory after victory for David and his armies.
- Verse 1, he defeats the Philistines
- Verse 2, Moab is defeated
- Verses 3ff, he defeats Hadadezer, who was over Zobah.
- Verses 9ff, the king of Hamath gives up, virtually without a fight
Twice in this section, though, there is an interesting phrase. The end of verse 6 and the the end of verse 14 both state, “And the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.”
Chapter 10, then, continues with the conquests of David, and this time it is a remarkable victory. The armies of Israel, outnumbered and probably fighting against a better outfitted and trained army, put the people of Ammon and Syria to flight.
Near the outset of WWII, Benito Mussolini saw that Germany, under Adolf Hitler, was building up a large land empire very quickly. Not to be so easily outdone, Mussolini invaded the African nation of Ethiopia. The Italian army invaded with airplanes and tanks, while the Ethiopians—at least many of them—were trying to fight back with lesser weapons, like spears and arrows. Of course, the Italians routed the nation in no time, and Mussolini claimed a victory for Italy.
In 2 Samuel 10, you are reading of the opposite. It would be almost as if the Ethiopians had routed the Italians. David’s men, led by Joab, routed the better army, and David was able to claim an improbable, but remarkable victory.
Except for one fact. That fact is simply this: God had promised that, so long as the people of Israel were faithful, nothing could stand in their way. The Law of Moses, especially when repeated in the book of Deuteronomy, made it clear that the armies of God’s people would be victorious over and over again if they would just remain faithful to Him. To borrow from the WWII analogy, it would be as if they had the airplanes and tanks, even though they did not. They had something—or rather Someone—far more powerful on their side.
The Bible warns explicitly and implicitly of the danger of pride. Probably most famously, Scripture warns, “Pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18). It seems logical to conclude that a bit of pride was entering David’s heart at this point in his life. He had not known military defeat; Joab had proven himself many times in battle; so why should David concern himself with this next wave of battles to be fought? After all, what could possibly stop his unstoppable army?
Before moving on, let me make this point that will play a part in our lesson: when we think we have time on our hands and have the world by the tail, we had better wake up. Charles Swindoll, in his biography of David, puts it brilliantly:
David was in bed, not in battle. Had he been where he belonged—with his troops—there would never have been the Bathsheba episode. Our greatest battles don’t usually come when we’re working hard; they come when we have some leisure, when we’ve got time on our hands, when we’re bored. That’s when we make those fateful decisions that come back to haunt us. (pages 183-184)
If I may ask, what are we doing in our society? We are trying to make everything leisure time. All we want is freedom and time to do whatever we please. Should it be any wonder, then, that we see lives so fouled up by unwise and sinful decisions?
- Preachers, when your outlines are done for Sunday and you’ve got the bulletin done for that week, you had better think of someone who is sick to call or a nursing home to visit. Just when you think you’ve got everything under control, that’s when the allure of pornography will take you down, since you are bored in your office.
- Students, when you think you’ve got all the snap courses and there is no reason to study any more, you had better find some service work to do or get your mind meditating on Scripture. Just when you think your work is done, that’s when the temptation to “live life just a little” will come, and you will end up destroying yourself and your reputation.
- Elders (and in fact, all church members), when you think your congregation is fine and there is no problem at all, you had better get back to spending serious time studying Scripture. When we think things are okay, we are setting ourselves up to be destroyed for lack of knowledge, all in the name of wanting things easy and leisurely.
Why spend so much of our time in a lesson on Nathan talking about the background that led to the incident with David and Bathsheba? Because it tells us something of where David was, which helps us understand even more about Nathan’s courage.
David was the king. That is obvious, but let that sink in for a moment. David was the king. And David was a king who had known virtually no defeat since ascending to the throne, and now he is feeling his place. Seemingly, he can do anything.
2 Samuel 12 begins with the straightforward declarative statement, “And the Lord sent Nathan to David” (verse 1). However, the previous chapter, in 11:27, had ended with another ominous phrase, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”
Keep in mind that this is inspired commentary. In other words, Jehovah did not open up the heavens and shout His displeasure to David. David, as the hours and days rolled on, was probably beginning to think that he had actually pulled off a covert operation of the highest order.
How much time passed between the end of chapter 11 and the beginning of chapter 12 we are not told. It does seem, however, to be a somewhat protracted time. Some scholars suggest even an entire year has passed. Personally, I believe it to be slightly less than that, based upon some things found in these two chapters about Bathsheba’s pregnancy. However, it was probably at least several weeks, if not a number of months between the death of Urriah and the time when the Lord sends Nathan before King David.
Why wait so long? Scripture does not tell us, but we can think of some very simple reasons. I want to suggest two that may seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, but that actually work together.
1. The pride of David may have led him to think he had really gotten away with this scheme. As time passes and nothing is ever said of a sin—especially one we have worked hard to conceal—there is a sense that grows within us that we really have covered it up. However, God’s timing is always right.
2. Guilt. As the time passed and Bathsheba began to show physically that she was going to have a child, we have to wonder if memories of what had occurred weeks or months earlier clouded the joy that David should have been feeling as an expecting father. As Bathsheba’s morning sickness grew, was David’s soul sickness also growing?
Whatever the reason, God waited and David felt that he was in the clear outwardly, though is inward self may have been eating away at him. I think these two can work together, because it would be quite a leap from one who was completely cold and calloused to the outpouring of emotion and repentance found so clearly in Psalm 51.
But for now, David probably thinks sufficient time has passed that he has gotten away with the ultimate. He is in the clear, and we have to wonder if his pride was returning.
“And the Lord sent Nathan to David.”
We do not know a lot about Nathan. Like so many other people in Scripture, he only appears on the scene for a few short moments. Even so, he makes a tremendous impact.
We know that his name means “He has given.” We know, maybe a bit ironically, that David had a son by the same name (2 Samuel 5:14). Similarly, we know that this was seemingly a common name, since there are up to 10 different men in Scripture who bear the name Nathan.
But this Nathan was a strong man. Oh, we do not know if he was physically strong, but he was mentally and relationally a powerhouse. We know that, mentally, he was strong enough to be the author of a history, according to 2 Chronicles 9:29.
It is obvious, though, that he was strong for more than that. He was clearly one of David’s trusted advisors, but he was not afraid to speak very directly to the King (as we clearly see in his famous, “You are the man” of this text).
It was Nathan who was chosen by the Lord to tell David that he was blessed for the idea of building a permanent place for God to dwell—the temple—but that David would not be the one to build it (2 Samuel 7:2-17; 1 Chronicles 17:1-15). The final verse of each of these accounts (2 Samuel 7:17 and 1 Chronicles 17:15) tell us a great deal about Nathan, as both record this short statement: “In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.”
In 1 Kings 1, it is Nathan who is chosen by none other than Bathsheba to tell David that Adonijah had set himself up as the next king, instead of the one, Solomon, whom David was to appoint. Nathan then is given the task to go find Solomon and, along with other trusted men, anoint him as the successor to David.
But it is in our text of 2 Samuel 12 that we are given the clearest indication of the courage of Nathan. He is, in the words of Herbert Lockyer, “unsparing in his condemnation of his monarch’s sin” (All the Men of the Bible, page 253).
I chose that brief quote for just two words: “his monarch.” How would you want to be the one chosen to go to your king and deliver this message? For the vast majority of us, we have no idea what it is like to live under a monarch. There may be a handful in this room who do, but history and other outlets give us some indication of the pressure that must be felt when approaching the absolute human authority within a nation.
And Nathan is chosen to deliver not just bad news, but condemning news.
So, you are sent to a prideful monarch who thinks that he can get away with anything. Would you accept that assignment? What would you possibly say?
Nathan’s composure is what intrigues me the most about this text. Blaiklock and Wood state it well: “Courage consists, not in disregarding danger, but in looking danger in the face without flinching” (Bible Characters and Doctrines, vol. V, page 19).
Nathan knows David, and uses the king’s pastoral background as the setting for a little tale. Nathan knew that David loved sheep, so he told him a simple, but powerful parable, recorded in 2 Samuel 12:1-4:
There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. the rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had brought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.
PAUSE in your reading. Before you let you eyes go forward, flip back just a page or two, where we see an insight into the character of David and why Nathan would choose such a parable to tell. 2 Samuel 8:15 tells us this about the king: “So David reigned over all Israel. And David administered justice and equity to all his people.”
Justice. Equity. How could one who ruled in such a way possibly stand for a rich man simply stealing the family pet of a poor family in such a cruel, heartless way?
Of course, David couldn’t. In his mind, this is very possibly a real story that Nathan is reporting, not a parable. Though David does not know what village this occurred in, or even the names of the people, this cannot be allowed to go on under his just–his equity-filled–rule.
So, in verses 5-6 of chapter 12, we read, “Then David’s anger was kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb foretold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.’”
I don’t agree with a lot of what Charles Swindoll writes, but I love the way he follows up this quotation from David in his biography of the shepherd-king. He writes,
When confrontation comes in God’s timing, the way is prepared. In that vulnerable, unguarded moment, David stuck his whole head in the noose. All Nathan had to do was give a pull. And that is exactly what he did in four words: “You are the man!” (page 201)
So far as I can tell, our well-known four-word English translation, “You are the man,” comes from just one Hebrew word: iysh, the Hebrew word for a male. The word, however, can also mean “whoever,” so we can picture Nathan looking into the eyes of the enraged king and simply stating “Man” but in a way that made it clear that David was the “whoever man” of the parable.
Such is the nature of courage. It was not slinking away from the tough assignment. It was not soft shoeing around the issue. It was stating just what David needed to hear. It was the courage that only comes from those who truly love us. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6).
But Nathan went on. I personally think he at least paused for a moment after saying, “You are the man” for effect, but there was more from God that the king needed to hear. The prideful monarch had gotten away with absolutely nothing. Proverbs 15:3, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.”
Nathan did not speak in general terms. This was not an “all have sinned” moment. This was not a “I know you’ve done something wrong” type of conversation. Nathan spelled out exactly what David thought he had gotten away with. Verse 9: “Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.”
Amazing courage! David needed to have the truth spelled out. He needed to be brought down from a prideful place. He needed to be shown that, though he wore the crown, there was One who is the King of all Kings.
Remember, David did not know about the man in the parable who had stolen the sheep, though he was equitable and just. The Lord knows all that happens under His rule, around the world and around the clock.
David needed to remember his own words:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is to wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:1-12)
He would end that same psalm with the famous words, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (verses 23-24).
We are not told when David penned the amazing words to that psalm, but they were possibly written some time after his downfall, when he had been made to remember that the Lord sees all and knows all. David’s pride was broken, but it took the courage of Nathan to follow God’s will to break it.
Courage is often confrontational, as we see in this great man Nathan. However, courage sometimes is displayed by the person in the background. It does not always draw the headlines. It does not always receive a parade or an award.
But one thing that is always true about courage is that it shows itself only when times are difficult. It is a heart that beats when the world has no heart.
The New Testament tells us that we are to be people of courage. In fact, to be cowardly is sinful and those who are cowardly are destined for hell (Revelation 21:8). Paul told his young protege Timothy, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). While God does not bring us arrogance, we know from Scripture that He does give confidence and courage if we will just rely on Him.
It is found in Scripture from beginning to end that God has always wanted His people to have a heart in their chest that beats with courage.
- Moses to the people of Israel: “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6).
- Joshua’s message from the Lord: “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:7-9).
- David to Solomon, “Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for the Lord God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished” (1 Chronicles 28:20).
- Isaiah to the people of God: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous hand. … For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, ‘Fear not, I am the one who helps you’” (Isaiah 41:10, 13).
- Paul to Christians: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (Ephesians 6:10).
The common theme of everything we see in Scripture about real courage is that it is not in ourselves. Nathan may have had to come before his monarch as an individual, but the Lord sent Nathan, the Lord told Nathan what to say, and there is no doubt that the Lord was with Nathan that day when he said to his monarch “You are the man.”
Too often, we are told to be courageous of our own doing. “Pull yourself together,” we are told. “You have to be strong for someone else,” we are told. Oh, we certainly play a part in courage, but the foundation and basis of our courage can never be in ourselves. True courage is being courageous for the ways of God only through relying on the strength and presence of God.
Courage does not mean we go with the flow. Courage is walking up to our monarch and saying “You are the man.” It is trusting that whatever is best to the glory of God will be the outcome because we have boldly stepped out for the Lord. It does not always get the headlines, but it certainly goes against the grain.
Courage…
…is the single mom who works in an office where to get a promotion you have to dress immodestly and talk crudely, but she stays modest in speech and dress, living her life to help her children know real dignity.
…is the daddy who is not ashamed to take his little girl on a date and show her what real manhood looks like by being the perfect gentleman and listening to her heart.
…is the parent who knows more about their child’s GPA than they do the SEC.
…is the eldership who sees numbers dwindling, but continues to do all they can to win the lost, except for compromising the Word of God.
…is the preacher who refuses to use the “it’s just cultural” argument and continues to preach that God has given roles within the church that are to be respected and obeyed in submission, no matter what era of history we are living in.
…is the wife who lives without nice cars and vacations so she can stay at home with her children and show them the love of God.
…is the husband who goes to work every day and does without a man cave or boat so she can stay home.
…is the teacher who will not teach evolution as fact, though the curriculum calls for it, but will stand up for the Truth.
…is the soldier who does not just fight for his/her nation, but who fights as a soldier of the cross while in hostile lands.
…is the congregation who will stand against the influence of homosexuality, even if it costs them a tax exemption or even their building.
…is the university who always ensures it cares more about Biblical morality than about building money.
…is the aged saint who refuses to let age or health keep him or her from teaching a lost soul through an outlet like World Bible School.
…is the teenager who befriends the outcast and shows the love of Christ.
…is the college student who, in this time of growth and exploration, hears different philosophies and tests all things, but who remembers that the standard is Scripture and not society, and so holds fast to what is good.
…is the Christian who fights for his physical life through cancer treatments, but all the while helps others seek eternal life.
…is the Bible school teacher who spends her Saturday nights cutting out tiny Josephs, though this world says those stories are just make believe.
…is the couple who refused to let this world tear them apart, and are now holding hands in the nursing home.
You see, very few of us will ever get the opportunity to literally state to someone, “You are the man.”
But that is just one kind of courage. For most of us courage is living each day showing the strength, the resolve, the teaching, and the example of the Son of Man.
