August 3 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

2 Samuel 13:1-15

¹And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her.
²And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do anything to her.
³But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David's brother: and Jonadab was a very subtil man.
⁴And he said unto him, Why art thou, being the king's son, lean from day to day? wilt thou not tell me? And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister.
⁵And Jonadab said unto him, Lay thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick: and when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it at her hand.
⁶So Amnon lay down, and made himself sick: and when the king was come to see him, Amnon said unto the king, I pray thee, let Tamar my sister come, and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat at her hand.
⁷Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go now to thy brother Amnon's house, and dress him meat.
⁸So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house; and he was laid down. And she took flour, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and did bake the cakes.
⁹And she took a pan, and poured them out before him; but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, Have out all men from me. And they went out every man from him.
¹⁰And Amnon said unto Tamar, Bring the meat into the chamber, that I may eat of thine hand. And Tamar took the cakes which she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother.
¹¹And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister.
¹²And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly.
¹³And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee.
¹⁴Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.
¹⁵Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.

Devotional:

How could David the father, who had himself committed adultery, train his son in the proper relationship between men and women? He ran the risk of being told, 'Physician, heal thyself.' But as we note his profession of love for God's law in the Psalms and sacred history, we believe he must have trained his children in just this way.

Did he say, honestly, frankly, repentantly, 'Son, I made a mistake, I sinned. God was displeased. And I had much unhappiness. You must be sure to honor God in this aspect of your life.' Solomon's declaration concerning his father's teaching would lead us to believe that this is precisely what he did.

There are parents who never admit to their children that they do wrong. God wants us to be honest. He wants us to say, 'I sinned.' He wants us to say, 'Forgive me.' He wants us to covet the prayers of our children in the handling of improper feelings, stubborn sins, sticky situations.

Often we see, as David did, our own sins cropping up in our children. Just as we sometimes receive a jolt as we look in the mirror and see our own parent's face looking out at us, we also see our own selfishness, pride, jealousy, quick temper in the lives of our children.

What are we to do? Sometimes we say casually, 'He is just like me. I understand because I had that same problem.' We excuse sin in our children because to condemn them would be to condemn ourselves!

God demands honesty in parents. He demands that we treat sin as sin, whether it is in ourselves or in our children. Sin must be confessed and brought repentantly before the God who is willing to forgive through His Son. Of course we will put ourselves in the place of our children as they experience the same problems that we had. But both the honest confession of our own sins and our own repentance are what they need to observe in us. We cannot hide our sins from them! Let us not try to do so.