Nathan Tells It Like It Is

Painting of Nathan the Prophet confronting King David: Yahoo! Images

I'm currently working on a sermon about taking action as a follower of Christ.  Too often we sit idly by and do nothing.  Edmund Burke once said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  We like to sugarcoat things if we speak up at all.  Nathan the prophet was not such a man.  He was a man of action, a man who "told it like it was."

Nathan was a prophet during the reigns of King David and Solomon.  His name is from the Hebrew meaning "God has given."  He certainly lived up to that name on several occasions.  I'm going to share my basic outline for this sermon as I believe that the life of Nathan is one worth studying!

• The Temple (2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17)
• King David announces that he has plans to build for God a temple.  This seems like the perfect idea, and Nathan agrees.
• That same night, however, God appeared to Nathan and told him that David was not to build Him a temple, that the building would be done during the time of his offspring (Solomon).  
• Once we give something the green light, it is an inconvenience (to say the least) to retract that support.  It would've been easier for Nathan to have done nothing.  I mean, David is the King, wouldn't this news anger/disappoint him? Possibly, but Nathan didn't sit idly by.  He relayed the news to the King and David humbly accepted God's instruction.

• That Whole Bathsheba Thing (2 Samuel 12:1-12)
• This is the story that Nathan is most famous for.
• King David saw Bathsheba, who was very beautiful, and arranged for her husband Uriah the Hittite to be killed in battle so that he could take her as his own wife.  David had murdered, lied, coveted, and committed adultery all in one.  
• Nathan could've just stood silent.  I mean, the world today would have you believe "what's done is done."  That's not what he does.  He confronts the King by presenting him with a story about a rich man with many lambs and a poor man with one tiny ewe lamb.  When a guest visited the rich man, instead of taking from his own flock, he took the one ewe lamb from the poor man and sacrificed it for his guest.  David was naturally furious, declaring in verse 5: "Any man who would do such a thing deserves to die!"
• Then Nathan, always honest, drops the bomb on David: "You are that man!" (v. 7)

• Adonijah's Rebellion (1 Kings 1)
• David, the mighty warrior-king, is facing yet another rebellion by yet another son.  Adonijah anoints himself the new of Israel instead of Solomon, the rightful heir. 
• Again, Nathan could've sat by and done nothing.  He could've even joined with Adonijah.  I mean, the Bible tells us that he was handsome, and he certainly looked like a king on the outside.  Yet again, Nathan sides with God and his chosen one of David.

May we learn from this wonderful man and always be honest people of action in this life as we strive daily to follow Christ!