“ Thou art the man! ”   “Everyone keep cool; nothing going on here. We’re just the people of God sitting around talking, right?”  “ Thou art the man!”   “Who keeps saying that? And why is he speaking King James English? Maybe we should wake up; it’s a nightmare, right?”  Yes, David and Bathsheba, it is a nightmare, but you are not asleep. Instead, Nathan the prophet is here in the king’s court, and he has been telling a story. Wind it back a little. Listen to the story that

Jeremiah 7: 1-2.  The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah, you who enter these gates to worship the LORD’.”   With this heading, we can see that the sermons or prophecies of the previous chapters are now behind us and we move on to a new part of the story. In fact, if Chapters 2-6 are a collection of Jeremiah’s early prophecies, as they seem

One would think that David has enough wives; but his attitude and behavior toward women is his weakness. His character flaw carries over into the next generation; it is also Solomon’s weakness. We saw some of the results because we followed the woes of David’s wife Maacah to its end, that is, until Scripture stops telling her story. That tragedy happened after this affair with Bathsheba. In fact, this case of adultery unwinds David’s life.   Who was at fault? Scripture is not

Jeremiah 6:16-21.   Thus says the LORD: Stand at the crossroads and look,    and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies;  and walk in it,  and find rest for your souls. But they said,  “We will not walk in it.” Also, I raised up sentinels for you:     “Give heed to the sound of the trumpet!” But they said,  “We will not give heed.” Therefore hear, O nations,    and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; I am going to bring disaster on

We return to the conclusion of the story of Maacah, the only royal princess among David’s wives. She was in grief over the rape of her daughter Tamar by one of David’s other children, a son by a different wife. Amnon had tricked David to send Tamar to him. He faked being sick, but then overpowered Tamar. It was a deceitful and violent rape. However, King David, the leading judge over the land, did nothing to comfort Tamar and Maacah nor did he punish Amnon. The text says th

God spoke the last line of Chapter 5: "An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?”   If God speaks to us through Scripture, and we believe that God does this, what is God saying to us today through the prophet Jeremiah? First comes a warning we should heed. “Prophets and priests” are religious personnel; so are today's p