Today's Readings: 2 Samuel 12 | Jeremiah 16 | Matthew 27

Other comments on this day's readings can be found here.

Reading 1 - 2Samuel 12:7

"Then Nathan said to David, 'You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: "I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul" ' " (2Sa 12:7).

"It was the story of the slaughter of a lamb which exposed the immensity of David's sin. It is the story of the slaughter of the Lamb of God which exposes the immensity of our sins. Isn't it amazing that David was so blinded by his own sin that he could not see it? It was by means of the story of the slaughter of a poor man's pet lamb that David was gripped with the immensity of the sin which was his own. David could see his own sin when he heard the story of what appeared to be the sin of another.

"That is precisely what the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ does for us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1-3). We were blinded to the immensity of our sins (2Co 4:4). The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, his perfect life, his innocent and sacrificial death, his literal and physical resurrection are all historical events.

"But the gospel is also a story, a true story. When we read the New Testament, we read a story that is even more dramatic, more amazing, more disturbing than the story Nathan told David. When we see the way unbelieving men treated our Lord, we should be shocked, horrified, and angered. We should cry out, 'They deserve to die!' And that they do. But the Gospel is not written only to show us their sins -- those who actually heard Jesus and cried, 'Crucify him, crucify him" -- it is written so that the Spirit of God can cry out in our hearts, 'Thou art the man!' When we see the way men treated Jesus, we see the way we would have treated him, if we were there. We see how we treat him today. And that, my friend, reveals the immensity of our sin, and the immensity of our need for repentance and forgiveness" (Robert B. Deffingbaugh, "Biblical Studies").