One of my classes this semester is the second half to the Old Testament. It is a continuation of the class I took last semester.
There is some overlap between the two, in order to give proper background to students who didn't take the first half. Our reading a few weeks ago was the story of how King David came to power and his victories and falls during his kingship. Reading this reminded me of how we ended the class, and the thoughts that I had as the semester was ending.
David was chosen over all of his strapping older brothers to be anointed as King. He defeated a 9 foot giant with a sling and divine help. He forgave Saul multiple times for attempting to take his life. He unified a disjointed and separated Israel. He wept for his enemies.
David was an amazing man. No wonder the Lord selected him to lead Israel. David was loved by the Lord. David put the Lord first in his decisions and relationships. The Lord adored him and blessed him for his goodness.
But then he stumbled. He should have been with his armies in battle. He should have looked away from Bathsheba on the roof. He should have, he should have. I can sit here and list all of the things that he could have done or should have done. Let's be real here. David may have been an amazing man with a good relationship with the Lord. But he was also human. He still was subject to temptations and in this instance, he succumbed to it. I can't say I haven't made mistakes and fallen to temptation. I can't say I wouldn't have made similar decisions in his situation. Basically, it isn't our place to judge his mistakes. But the story is there for us to learn from, so that we can avoid and learn from his mistakes.
Lesson 1: It doesn't matter how good you have been, temptations are going to come, and come on strong. We have to always be prepared to withstand them.
There are many times that I have wished that once I receive a certain level of righteousness, all of my temptations would go away. That's just not how it works. The more that we practice saying no, the more strong and subtle the temptations will become. Satan knows us, he knows our weaknesses and how to use them to make us falter.
But that doesn't mean that we should just succumb to them because it's inevitable. That isn't the case. There is an example of one who was able to overcome all temptation.
Mosiah 3:7 states: "He shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst and fatigue, even more than man can suffer..."
He went through more temptations than what we will be able to go through, and he came out on the other side as the one perfect person to walk the earth. He knows how to overcome them. Studying his life and how he overcame the many temptations that came his way will help us learn the tools that he used.
One tool is one that we can use and should use it often is prayer. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed multiple times:
"Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me..."
He was in pain. He was tired. He didn't want to do what he was about to do. So much that he pleaded for another way. He was tempted to give up. But then he says the saving line:
"nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."
He was humble enough to say, I will go through with it, if you want me to. I think the following verse tells us there was a little bit more to that prayer though.
"And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him" (Luke 22:42-44)
Whether or not he actually prayed for divine help, Heavenly Father knew that it was needed, and sent an angel to help him through it. The same can be with us. Whether it is through an actual angel, or someone on earth sent to help us, or just divine strength it doesn't matter. What matters is when we pray for strength to resist temptation, we will receive it.
1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that we will not receive any temptation that is unique to us. And when we receive temptation, it is not what we can't handle, and there is a way for us to escape it.
Pretty cool, huh?
But how can we do that? Alma 13:28 gives us the answer:
"But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long suffering."
Keep a prayer in your heart to help you resist daily temptations. When something is really difficult to resist, say a quick, humble prayer, pleading for divine help and guidance. Ask to help know yourself, so that you can be aware of your weaknesses. This will help you to avoid tempting situations. If they are unavoidable, you can go into them with a protective prayer to strengthen you throughout the whole time you're subjected to the temptation. I personally have done this and testify that this works. But don't just take my word for it. Try it out for yourself and see how it turns out for you. If you do it will real intent, you will see for yourself that you can receive divine strength to avoid temptations.
And if worse comes to worse, and you need a last resort, there is always Amulek's approach.
Lesson 2: Consequences always come
After David committed adultery and then arranged the death of Uriah, there were some consequences that he faced. While he was alive, Bathsheba's first child was lost. Nathan, the prophet, promises a curse of evil into David's house. Then it came true, when things slowly began to fall apart. (See 2 Samuel 12)
To be honest, all of those things that David went through in the rest of his life, he could have handled without too much fuss. Yes, they were hard, but he came out alright. It is the spiritual consequences that proved to be too much.
D&C 132:29 tells us that from this mistake he lost his exaltation. It wasn't so much the adultery was the problem, even though that is a grave sin in and of itself. David didn't follow the law that sanctified life. He had taken many lives before but it was in war, in the protection of his people, or righteously avenging lives. He had already displayed restraint when he spared Saul's life, even though his own was threatened by doing so. David knew that is was wrong to take Uriah's life, but still designed his death. Murder is one of the big three sins with God. So as a result of completing this act, he lost his exaltation.
D&C 130:20-21 tells us:
"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-
"And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."
Logic follows that if blessings are set forth from heaven before the world was, punishments must have too.
In our world today, the common culture is to want to be able to do whatever we want, get whatever we want and suffer no consequences for it. Have an unplanned baby because you decided to have sex out of wedlock? Make abortion legal. Make poor business choices? Have the government bail you out. Don't want to work? Get yourself fired and have the government pay you to not work.
Look at what David did. He tried to do the same thing. He tried to do whatever he wanted, and once he got it, he couldn't handle the consequences. Then he tried to cover it up, only to make it worse. It simply does not work to try to slip out of the consequences that are bound to come.
Moral of the story: get the good consequences. Be righteous and receive the blessings in consequence to your actions. If you slip up, own up to it, repent and move on.
After seeing what happened to David, I will gladly take the world's judgments over God's judgments. I want to be able to live in the presence of God, even if I have to deal with scornful gazes of those around me.
Lesson 3: Forgiveness and love can be attained from the Lord, no matter what.
So David's life has shown us the bad that can come from our poor choices. But his life can also give us hope for when we do slip up.
David could have easily fell all the way down the slippery slope he was on, and just stayed at the bottom. But when Nathan brought to his attention just how serious of a sin he committed, he began the process of repenting and trying to get back to the Lord. He wasn't perfect before the even with Uriah, and he wasn't perfect after. However, he did all that he could to be righteous.
That is evidence in his psalms and in the mercy he tried to extend to his enemies. He praises the Lord, and continually prays for forgiveness, mercy and protection. And he receives it.
In Psalm 13, David tells the Lord, I know that I have done wrong and you have removed your spirit from me, but I trust in your mercy and salvation because all that you have done for me before.
He tried to be faithful again. He knew what the Lord could do and so he trusted in Him again.
Then in Psalms 32:5, David says the unthinkable:
"I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forecast the iniquity of my sin."
David felt he was forgiven! Even after all that happened.
Did that remove the eternal consequences? No. He still lost his exaltation. That can't be removed, like the scripture says. But he was still forgiven.
We will make mistakes that we will have to repent from. And we will pay for the consequences of those mistakes. But no matter what, even if we commit very serious sins, we can still be forgiven and feel the love of the Lord in our lives once again.
I think that is the most important lesson that we can learn from David.
Forgiveness is available to us, if we work for it and turn our hearts back to the Lord.
Lesson 1: It doesn't matter how good you have been, temptations are going to come, and come on strong. We have to always be prepared to withstand them.
There are many times that I have wished that once I receive a certain level of righteousness, all of my temptations would go away. That's just not how it works. The more that we practice saying no, the more strong and subtle the temptations will become. Satan knows us, he knows our weaknesses and how to use them to make us falter.
But that doesn't mean that we should just succumb to them because it's inevitable. That isn't the case. There is an example of one who was able to overcome all temptation.
Mosiah 3:7 states: "He shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst and fatigue, even more than man can suffer..."
He went through more temptations than what we will be able to go through, and he came out on the other side as the one perfect person to walk the earth. He knows how to overcome them. Studying his life and how he overcame the many temptations that came his way will help us learn the tools that he used.
One tool is one that we can use and should use it often is prayer. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed multiple times:
"Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me..."
He was in pain. He was tired. He didn't want to do what he was about to do. So much that he pleaded for another way. He was tempted to give up. But then he says the saving line:
"nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."
He was humble enough to say, I will go through with it, if you want me to. I think the following verse tells us there was a little bit more to that prayer though.
"And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him" (Luke 22:42-44)
Whether or not he actually prayed for divine help, Heavenly Father knew that it was needed, and sent an angel to help him through it. The same can be with us. Whether it is through an actual angel, or someone on earth sent to help us, or just divine strength it doesn't matter. What matters is when we pray for strength to resist temptation, we will receive it.
1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that we will not receive any temptation that is unique to us. And when we receive temptation, it is not what we can't handle, and there is a way for us to escape it.
Pretty cool, huh?
But how can we do that? Alma 13:28 gives us the answer:
"But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long suffering."
Keep a prayer in your heart to help you resist daily temptations. When something is really difficult to resist, say a quick, humble prayer, pleading for divine help and guidance. Ask to help know yourself, so that you can be aware of your weaknesses. This will help you to avoid tempting situations. If they are unavoidable, you can go into them with a protective prayer to strengthen you throughout the whole time you're subjected to the temptation. I personally have done this and testify that this works. But don't just take my word for it. Try it out for yourself and see how it turns out for you. If you do it will real intent, you will see for yourself that you can receive divine strength to avoid temptations.
And if worse comes to worse, and you need a last resort, there is always Amulek's approach.
Lesson 2: Consequences always come
After David committed adultery and then arranged the death of Uriah, there were some consequences that he faced. While he was alive, Bathsheba's first child was lost. Nathan, the prophet, promises a curse of evil into David's house. Then it came true, when things slowly began to fall apart. (See 2 Samuel 12)
To be honest, all of those things that David went through in the rest of his life, he could have handled without too much fuss. Yes, they were hard, but he came out alright. It is the spiritual consequences that proved to be too much.
D&C 132:29 tells us that from this mistake he lost his exaltation. It wasn't so much the adultery was the problem, even though that is a grave sin in and of itself. David didn't follow the law that sanctified life. He had taken many lives before but it was in war, in the protection of his people, or righteously avenging lives. He had already displayed restraint when he spared Saul's life, even though his own was threatened by doing so. David knew that is was wrong to take Uriah's life, but still designed his death. Murder is one of the big three sins with God. So as a result of completing this act, he lost his exaltation.
D&C 130:20-21 tells us:
"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-
"And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."
Logic follows that if blessings are set forth from heaven before the world was, punishments must have too.
In our world today, the common culture is to want to be able to do whatever we want, get whatever we want and suffer no consequences for it. Have an unplanned baby because you decided to have sex out of wedlock? Make abortion legal. Make poor business choices? Have the government bail you out. Don't want to work? Get yourself fired and have the government pay you to not work.
Look at what David did. He tried to do the same thing. He tried to do whatever he wanted, and once he got it, he couldn't handle the consequences. Then he tried to cover it up, only to make it worse. It simply does not work to try to slip out of the consequences that are bound to come.
Moral of the story: get the good consequences. Be righteous and receive the blessings in consequence to your actions. If you slip up, own up to it, repent and move on.
After seeing what happened to David, I will gladly take the world's judgments over God's judgments. I want to be able to live in the presence of God, even if I have to deal with scornful gazes of those around me.
Lesson 3: Forgiveness and love can be attained from the Lord, no matter what.
So David's life has shown us the bad that can come from our poor choices. But his life can also give us hope for when we do slip up.
David could have easily fell all the way down the slippery slope he was on, and just stayed at the bottom. But when Nathan brought to his attention just how serious of a sin he committed, he began the process of repenting and trying to get back to the Lord. He wasn't perfect before the even with Uriah, and he wasn't perfect after. However, he did all that he could to be righteous.
That is evidence in his psalms and in the mercy he tried to extend to his enemies. He praises the Lord, and continually prays for forgiveness, mercy and protection. And he receives it.
In Psalm 13, David tells the Lord, I know that I have done wrong and you have removed your spirit from me, but I trust in your mercy and salvation because all that you have done for me before.
He tried to be faithful again. He knew what the Lord could do and so he trusted in Him again.
Then in Psalms 32:5, David says the unthinkable:
"I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forecast the iniquity of my sin."
David felt he was forgiven! Even after all that happened.
Did that remove the eternal consequences? No. He still lost his exaltation. That can't be removed, like the scripture says. But he was still forgiven.
We will make mistakes that we will have to repent from. And we will pay for the consequences of those mistakes. But no matter what, even if we commit very serious sins, we can still be forgiven and feel the love of the Lord in our lives once again.
I think that is the most important lesson that we can learn from David.
Forgiveness is available to us, if we work for it and turn our hearts back to the Lord.
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