Thou Art the Man

2 Samuel 12:7-9 “And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; 8And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. 9Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight?”

Before this dialogue between King David and Nathan the prophet, Nathan told David a parable about ‘another man’ that had sinned. King David was quick to wrath and to pronounce a stiff judgment on the ‘other man.’ This is when Nathan reveals to David that He was the man. It was he that had sinned.

Why is it so easy for us to see sin in others and yet not in ourselves? I believe that God strategically places people in our path that display negative spiritual characteristics that mirror our own. The old saying is that you, ‘fight fire with fire.’ For example, if we have a problem with obedience to the Lord or others, He places disobedient people in our lives. 

Consider the Lord’s instruction about judging in Matthew 7:1-5, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” 

How many times have we heard God’s Word and automatically thought of someone else, and not applied the Scripture to our own lives first. The fact is, the Lord wants us to help remove the mote or speck that is in our brother’s life, but only AFTER we remove the larger beam from our own life. That is what gives power and humility to our words for others. We testify about what the Lord has shown us through the word and how we applied it to our lives, and that can offer an encouraging way for the Lord to point out their speck.

When you read God’s Word, judge yourself rightly, and you will not be judged. Likewise, if you find somebody in your life that you really struggle with, and you struggle with something about them, see if the Lord is trying to use them as a mirror to show you the beam in your own eye.

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