A TIME TO BUILD

In 2 Samuel 16 we read about Shimei. He was the man who cursed David, but David would not raise a weapon or allow any of his men to kill him. (2 Samuel 19:18-22) Shimei repented before David and asked him not to remember his sins. David replies in verse 22 saying, “… ‘Shall any man be put to death today in Israel? For do I not know that today I am king over Israel?’ Therefore the king said to Shimei, ‘You shall not die.’ And the king swore to him.” As David came back, he was the king, and he said Shimei would live.

It says that David came into Jerusalem, which speaks of grace and redemption. There must be the fruit of our repentance. There is a time in our life when we can sneak by, but it does not bring godly fruit. Repentance has to be more than a guilt release as a result of talking to some one to make us feel better. True repentance must bring godly fruit in our lives.

As David was ready to die, Solomon, the new king, was ready to take the throne. David was the king of warfare and could not build the temple because he had blood on his hands. Solomon means peace and forgiveness. God called Solomon not to be a king of warfare, but his destiny was to build the temple. There is a time in our life when the warfare will cease because building and warfare cannot work together. There is a time for warfare, but there is also a time to build the temple. Without the temple, the glory cannot come. The enemy can be beaten, but God’s glory is only completed as the temple is built and restored.

When David died, he said something to Solomon. He told him not to let Shimei go without paying the consequences for what he did. “I promised him that he would not die a violent death, but you can think of a way to deal with him.”

Solomon was a wise man. The first thing he did was to complete the judgment of David as he become king. He dealt with every one of his father’s enemies, one way or another. He had a strange way of dealing with Shimei. (1 Kings 2:36-42) He said he must live in Jerusalem, but he may not go out form there anywhere, and it says in the next verse 37, “ that if Shimei crosses the Brook Kidron that he should surely die and his blood would surely be on his own head.” Kidron means dirty, filthy. What is the Lord saying? If we want to walk the new life, we cannot walk the old ways. If we have received forgiveness, we cannot walk our old ways. We must walk in the light and have fellowship that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins.

For Shimei, it seemed easy what Solomon declared. I can live in Jerusalem, the city of the Lord. I have everything and I do not need to go anywhere. There is the temple so I can bring offerings. I can pray and I can praise; there are merchants near by and all of my activity is in the city of Jerusalem. It is much like today. I have my church and my religious activities and my ideas. What else do I need?

But one day two slaves of Shimei ran off, slaves who served Shimei. We may live in Jerusalem symbolically speaking. We can have our slaves that serve us just as Shimei did. Slaves represent those things on which we depend. Slaves do not need forgiveness. They are something very familiar. They do not need to be treated the same way. They just need to do what I want them to do.

Shimei ran over the Brook Kidron and brought judgment upon him because forgiveness stopped and justice stepped in. That is how God works. He will not use me to kill you. He will use you to kill yourself. It sounds cruel, but spiritually, that is what happens. When he uses you and I as the plumb line, you yourself will make the choice to be with Him and chose between life and death. All of us have an affect on each other’s lives, for life or death.

When there is a ‘Shimei’ that curses you, literally that means that limitations have been placed on you, a barren condition. Many of us spiritually put limitations on each other because we do not understand. Shimei might not have been an evil man, but he did not understand who David was. He was still loyal to Saul, because Saul was from his own tribe, Benjamin. His loyalty was not in the covenant and anointing of God, but in his tribe and kinship. David was not without mistakes, but David’s key was that he had the power of forgiveness. He received forgiveness and he administered forgiveness and because of it, the kingdom of Israel was established.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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