King David Repented

Written 2/16/2021

Is it happening more frequently in the past several years or am I becoming more aware of the world around me? Another popular, well loved, well respected Christian leader discovered to be found in immoral sin. With every new revelation we gain a deeper sense of nausea in our collective stomachs.  Who is next? Who can we trust? As Christians we attempt to grapple with these massive breaches of trust and integrity and we seek to reconcile them from a Biblical perspective. As we try to absorb the recent news of the horrible indiscretions of Ravi Zacharias, I have heard many referencing King David and a God of redemption.  King David was a king hand selected by God for a specific work of ruling His people.  David had seven wives yet David’s self-centered, lust filled heart was not satisfied.  He had seen the beauty of Bathsheba’s feminine form while she was bathing and immediately became fixated on her.  Assuming Bathsheba was not a willing participant in David’s scheme, a tragic story of adultery, rape, and ultimately murder unfolds.  A murder of not only an innocent man, but also a man who honored and respected David because of the position that God had given him.   Because David lost sight of God designed sexuality, a beautiful life-giving relationship between a husband and a wife was destroyed. The life of Bathsheba’s husband, her life, her family, and her dreams were all destroyed.  All because David sought to fill his own self-centered needs. 

Nathan the Prophet enters the scene, confronts David for his sin, and the whole story changes.  This could have been another story of a great powerful King using his authority to abuse and misuse femininity to satisfy his destructive fleshly desires; instead, it takes an unsuspecting turn. David makes a life altering decision and thus changes the storyline forever.  David repents! God responds. God’s response leads David to write “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17 ESV  

Believers of all time find within the story of David a comforting story of redemption and restoration. So much so that we often forget to ask, “What about Bathsheba?” What about her restoration? Was there any justice for her?  Was Bathsheba’s greatest misfortune that she was feminine and therefore desirable to a lust-filled man?  Was she just property, a vase on a shelf to be taken down and used at the owner’s discretion?  I digress.  On with the story of David. In spite of the tragic story of Bathsheba, this is a story we can solace in, maybe because all of us find a little bit of ourselves in this grand story of redemption. A King so deeply flawed becoming so broken and yet so beautifully restored.  A man after God’s own heart! 

But Ravi Zacharias is no King David. Like King David, Ravi was a man gifted by God for a work. Based on recent investigations, Ravi was equally self-focused and used women for his own selfish desires. But that is where the parallels stop.  At the time of this writing there have been no reports of Ravi coming to repentance. Instead, we have reports of cover ups, financial compensations, and non-disclosure agreements.  Could Ravi have repented of his deeds and still have been used of God like King David?  Yes, of course, but on May 19, 2020, Ravi’s soul left this earth and his opportunity for repentance ended. According to available information at the time of this writing Ravi went to his death and to his eternal destiny covering his murderous sin. Perhaps you think murderous sin is too strong a characterization of a life spent killing the hearts of women one by one, desire by desire?  I think not.  Not if we believe that all humans were created for the purpose of living in a loving relationship with God and each other. Have we really become so used to women being objectified that we have lost sight of the death that takes place in every young and old woman’s heart when they are looked upon for the pleasure of a man outside of a loving life-giving relationship within the context of marriage? For every woman that Ravi engaged with in an effort to satisfy his desire to receive sexual gratification, he did not return to her life as God had designed her to receive from a sexual encounter with her spouse; instead he returned to her death.  Every woman he engaged with, whether they willingly engaged or not, left her encounter with Ravi with more death and a deeper level brokenness than she had prior to her engagement with him. How do I know this? Because God has designed sexual expression to be held within the confines of marriage. Sexual expression within the marriage was intended to be a life-giving experience for both husband and wife.  A time to exchange life-giving words, sharing life-giving beauty, and life-giving pleasures. It was never designed for takers; it was designed for givers.  It was designed to be a shadow of the relationship that we can have with God.  Ravi, like King David, was a taker. 

As disciples of the God who seeks to bring life to every broken human being, I believe we do God and ourselves a great disservice when we call on the story of King David as we try to reconcile the story of Ravi Zacharias. The story of Ravi is not a story of repentance, restoration, and life restored.  It is not a story of being a life giver. Instead it is a story of the greatest hypocrisy that any human being can perpetrate on the kingdom of God. It is a story of intellectually knowing the truth but not having the power of Christ in his life. It is a story that brings desecration and mockery to the message of the gospel.  Like all of the stories of the past year’s revelations of Christian leaders being found in great digressions, Ravi’s story is a story of a gifted man who proclaimed the treasures of the Kingdom of God while living in the Kingdom of darkness in his private life. This is not the story of a new creature who has the Holy Spirit as a sign of his redemption as Apostle Paul speaks of. Instead, it is a story of great intellectual arguments without the heart changing effect of the Holy Spirit cleansing all of him.  When we live spirit filled lives of repentance, we will begin to bring life to all our relationships, not death.  It is time that we, as believers in Jesus Christ who brings redemption to sin filled and broken lives, raise our collective voices with a new message for our broken world.  A clear message, without excuses. A message that says that anyone who brings death to relationships around them is not acting from within the Kingdom of God.  A message that clarifies that repentance always has fruit of change and that the gospel is a message of hope, healing, and life.

Garrett Martin