King David and the Foo Fighters
David went out wherever Saul sent him, and he was successful. So Saul put him in charge of a group of soldiers. All the people approved, as did Saul’s officials.
As the army was coming back from battle, when David was returning from striking down the Philistine, women came out from all the cities of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful music, with hand drums, and with noisemakers. The women sang to each other as they played:
Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his ten thousands.
Saul became furious, because he resented this statement. He said, “They have credited David with tens of thousands, but to me they have credited only thousands. What more can be given to him but the kingship?
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2018&version=EHV>
The name “David” means “beloved.” King David was quite beloved, not quite universally, and not at all times, but overall he was a pretty good guy. That’s the “company line”: the Sunday School version, the sanitized version. However, if you start to peel away the layers, much like peeling the layers of an onion, it brings a tear to your eye.
Dave Grohl, by all accounts is a pretty good guy. That is, up until this past week. If you are not familiar with the name, Dave Grohl is a talented musician and leader of the rock group The Foo Fighters. I’m not going to give his biography, suffice it to say, he’s been through some stuff. This week he announced that he fathered a daughter outside of his long term marriage. He is “doing everything to regain [the] trust and earn [the] forgiveness” of his family. The marks of a good guy that made some questionable choices.
King David has famously written in Psalm 51:
For I admit my rebellious acts.
My sin is always in front of me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned,
and I have done this evil in your eyes.
So you are justified when you sentence me.
You are blameless when you judge.
Certainly, I was guilty when I was born.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2051&version=EHV>
Dave Grohl’s lyrics in the song Best of You read in part:
Has someone taken your faith?
It’s real, the pain you feel
Your trust, you must confess
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best
The best of you?
Has someone taken your faith?
It’s real, the pain you feel
The life, the love you’d die to heal
The hope that starts the broken hearts
Your trust, you must confess
The knowledge of one’s sins, and the acknowledgement of the destruction that sin causes is a step in the proper direction. The remedy that King David seeks is:
Remove my sin with hyssop, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness.
Let the bones you have crushed celebrate.
Hide your face from my sins.
Erase all my guilty deeds.
Create in me a pure heart, O God.
Renew an unwavering spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence.
Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
Sustain me with a willing spirit.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2051&version=EHV>
Another “beloved” on the mountain of Transfiguration with his disciples all witnessed:
And behold, a voice out of the cloud, said, “This Is My Beloved Son In Whom I Am Well Pleased. Hear Ye Him!”
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2017&version=KJ21>
Jesus said:
For the Son of Man came to save what was lost.
What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go looking for the one that wandered away? If he finds it—Amen I tell you—he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not wander away. In the same way, your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to perish.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2018&version=EHV>
King David or Dave Grohl or good men or good women or me or you:
In fact, there is no difference, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God publicly displayed as the atonement seat through faith in his blood. God did this to demonstrate his justice, since, in his divine restraint, he had left the sins that were committed earlier unpunished. He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so that he would be both just and the one who justifies the person who has faith in Jesus.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%203&version=EHV>
Trust the Promises,
Steve Skiver