“Truly Sorry??” – FBC Morning Light (4/22/2024)

Well, a good Monday morning to you. I hope you're having a good day thus far. Your week's gotten off to a good start. I especially hope that you had a good day yesterday, gathering together with God's people and able to worship the Lord on the Lord's Day.

Shimei’s False Repentance and David’s Gracious Response

Well, today in our Bible reading, we're in 2 Samuel 19 and 20, and then Psalms 6 and 9. And we have an interesting situation in 2 Samuel 19. You remember Shimei? Read about him over the weekend. And Shimei was the guy who was very bold and brazen when David was fleeing from Absalom, running from the city of Jerusalem because Absalom, in his rebellion, was taking over.

It looked like David was a defeated man. And here's Shimei on the side of a cliff, throwing dust and stones down at David and cursing David. And one of David's men said, let me go kill him. And David said, no, if the Lord's told him to curse, then let him curse.

Well, things have changed now by the time we come to chapter 19. Absalom's rebellion, his coup has been defeated, and David's being reinstated as the king over all Israel. And he's making his way back to Jerusalem.

And guess who shows up on the scene? Running up to David here in chapter 19, verses 18 and following, is Shimei. It's easy to criticize and condemn someone when he's weak and seemingly powerless to fight back and do anything about it.

But how times change when that one gets a measure of strength and can do something to retaliate. Well, David is now in that position. And so along comes Shimei in verse 19. He says to the king, do not let the Lord impute iniquity to me, even though Shimei was guilty of some pretty serious iniquity against David.

Don't impute iniquity to me, or remember what wrong your servant did on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem, that the king should take it to heart. No, no, there's no reason he should take it to heart.

After all, when he was down, Shimei kicked him pretty soundly. But he goes on and he says in verse 20, I, your servant, know that I have sinned. Therefore, here I am, the first to come today of all the house of Joseph, to go down to meet my lord the king.

Well, here's a question, right? Is this sincere? Is this a genuine repentance? I would contend that it is not. I think it's a tactic on the part of Shimei to try to save his skin. If he was truly repentant, he would have gone after David when David was still in hiding, running from Absalom before Absalom was ever killed.

He was really sensing his guilt and all that. No, he's not really repentant, he's not really sorry for what he's done. He's concerned that now David is restored to power, that he's going to lose his life, that David's going to execute him for his rebellion against the king, for his betrayal of the king, for his traitorous behavior.

So he comes to David, and now when David's back in power, he's singing a different tune. But I want you to notice how gracious David is. He would have been justified to say, you know what? This is bogus.

You're just playing the hypocrite. You're just trying to save your own skin. I'm not going to forgive you that iniquity. But no, that's not what he does. He actually gives Shimei the benefit of the doubt, if you will, and he says regarding Shimei that he is not going to die.

He says in verse 22, shall any man be put to death today in Israel? This is a day of great rejoicing and celebration. I'm taking the throne back. The rebellion has been quashed. This is a day of rejoicing.

Nobody's going to die today. And then he says, do I not note that today I am king over Israel? So he spares Shimei's life. But at the same time, we're going to see this in days ahead, that David is wary.

Just because he is granting this measure of forgiveness, he is not going to trust Shimei, and he doesn't truly believe that he's really repentant. David is just being gracious here. So a couple things we can gather from this.

In the first place, you know, let's not be the kind of people who take advantage of others when they're in a position of weakness and vulnerability and, you know, kind of play the part of the bully. No, there's no place for bullying among God's people.

Secondly, let's be truly repentant for the wrong that we do and not simply try to save ourselves from pain by a sort of a fake confession of fake repentance. And then thirdly, let's be people of grace like David, who is willing to extend forgiveness even though he has every reason to be justified in questioning the genuineness of the repentance.

Let's be gracious people. And so our Father and our God, thank you for these lessons from this very brief passage in your Word, so much that we can gain from these Old Testament stories. Bless it to our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Monday. Hope your week gets off to a great start. May the Lord bless you in it.