The Wayfaring Man
2 Samuel 12:1-6 And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. 2 The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: 3 But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. 4 And there came a traveler unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. 5 And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: 6 And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
l. THE PARABLE OF THE LITTLE LAMB
A. The Comparisons
-What an incredible story that the prophet Nathan tells to David the king. What a drama that is played out in the king’s court on that fateful day. It had the makings of a blockbuster. It probably would have won an award, but this whole tale was not fiction, it was real. A year had now passed since this story had been accomplished.
• Two Men in One City.
• A Rich Man.
• A Poor Man.
• The Rich Man had exceeding flocks and herds.
• The Poor Man had nothing, except for one little ewe lamb.
• The Rich Man took the poor man’s lamb and spared his own flock.
-There is no other parable in the Old Testament that can be compared with this one. None equals the story of the little single lamb. Nathan uses such mastery and such skill in telling the story that all who hear it are cast under the spell of this tale.
-These two men in the parable, because of the geographical considerations, were in equality. Two men in one city bound by the citizenship of a nation that God had his hand on. But the comparisons pretty much stop there.
B. The Contrasts of This Parable
-The rich man had enough wealth to cover any need that he had. There was no desire that could be left unattended. There was no purpose that he could not carry out. Whatever he desired in this life, he generally either bought it or took it, whatever suited the situation.
-The poor man was confined by his limitations. He found himself at the mercy of those above him socially and materially.
-The rich man’s position made it possible for him to indulge in his lawlessness without any hindrance at all. The poor man found his own happiness and his life at the disposal of the rich man’s desires. Once the crime was accomplished, this inequality aggravated and exacerbated the crime of the rich man.
-That is the whole jest of the story. But behind each of these characters lies a vast territory of discovery. This parable not only tells us of men then and how they operate, but it tells us of the here and now and how men operate. Even more importantly it tells us of and brings discovery to our own lives.
-The rich man was obviously King David. His flocks and herds were his many wives.
-The poor man is Uriah. The noble and very loyal follower of King David.
-The lamb in the parable is Bathsheba. She is the single wife of Uriah. Uriah loved her with all of his heart. But the story tells that rich man took the poor man’s lamb.
-This story is primarily about two men. These two men are the stars, they are the focus, they get the major rolls.
ll. THE WAYFARING MAN
A. A Nameless and Faceless Third Party
-But you must look at this Scripture slowly. Do not pass over it too quickly and you will notice behind the bushes, in the shadows, that there appears a nameless, faceless character, another man. His role is being played out almost anonymously. He is very seldom recognized, but he is still there. He stands in the crowd anonymously, in the city lanes, in the country pastures, he is there as the walk-on.
-Enter stage right–the wayfaring man. He is a traveler.
-The man that came to him was full of wickedness. This traveler, this imposter, this contaminant, played into his life.
• David did not take this lamb for himself. This was the man after God’s own heart.
• David did not eat this lamb. This was the man whom the Messiah would come from.
• It was not David’s appetite that hungered for the lamb. This was the man who destroyed Goliath.
• In fact the lamb did not satisfy David’s palate. This was the man who worshiped with abandon when the Ark was returned.
-The lamb was destroyed for the wayfaring man. The lamb was robbed from the poor man. This lamb was stolen from a safe haven.
-When David understood the story, he became so enraged that he demanded that the man who had committed such an act would be killed. He is going to die. Nathan calmly, quietly, and firmly spoke back to David, “Thou art the man!” That statement ought to strike terror in the heart. It should terrify us with it’s heart-searching accusation.
-David, you have just demanded and summoned for your own death. Look at how angry he was as the story is being told.
• The spoiler is eager to punish the lesser scoundrel.
• The villain is ready to destroy a lesser villain.
It is always a sign of a lack of knowledge of our own hearts when we judge our own lives leniently and judge others critically. There was a painter in the old days who was noted as a savage critic of other artists. When he was asked how he could ever pass any of his own work when he had such a keen and critical standard, he informed them: “I have only two eyes when I look at my own work but I have a hundred eyes when I look at the work of others.” This admission states the case in far more things than simply artistic criticism.
• We can pluck out the splinter from our brother’s eye, but be equally ignorant of the beam in our own eye.
• We can pass sentence and applaud judgment on the cruelty of another, but our own cruelty we do not even perceive.
-It is not until some prophet ambles through and focuses the light of judgment on our act and puts before us what sins that we have works in the lives of others. It is not until we see the terrible temper reflected of a man on the gallows of justice before we are able to comprehend our own devices.
B. An Illustration of Exploitation
In December 1925, guests at the swankiest hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, watched with interest as a mysterious man arrived in a Rolls-Royce driven by a chauffeur. Over the next days they studied this handsome man, who walked with an elegant cane, received telegrams at all hours, and only engaged in the briefest of conversations. He was a count, they heard, Count Victor Lustig, and he came from one of the wealthiest families in Europe–but this was all they could find out.
Imagine their amazement when Lustig one day walked up to one of the least distinguished guests in the hotel, a Mr. Herman Loller, head of an engineering company, and entered into conversation with him. Loller had made his fortune only recently, and forging social connections was very important to him. He felt honored and somewhat intimidated by this sophisticated man, who spoke perfect English with a hint of a foreign accent. Over the days to come, the two became friends.
Loller of course did most of the talking, and one night he confessed that his business was doing poorly, with more troubles ahead. In return, Lustig confided in his new friend that he too had serious money problems–Communists had seized his family estate and all it’s assets. He was too old to learn a trade and go to work. Luckily he had found an answer–“a money-making machine.” “You counterfeit?” Loller whispered in half-shock. No, Lustig replied explaining that through a secret chemical process, his machine could duplicate paper currency with complete accuracy. Put in a dollar bill and six hours later you had two, both perfect. He proceeded to explain how the machine had been smuggled out of Europe, how the Germans had developed it to undermine the British, how it had supported the count for several years, and on and on. When Loller insisted on a demonstration, the two men went to Lustig’s room, where the counted produced a magnificent mahogany box fitted with slots, cranks, and dials. Loller watched as Lustig inserted a dollar bill in the box. Sure enough, early the next morning Lustig pulled out two bills, still wet from the chemicals.
Lustig gave the notes to Loller, who immediately took the bills to a local bank–which accepted them as genuine. Now the businessman feverishly begged Lustig to sell him a machine. The count explained that there was only one in existence, so Loller made him a high offer: $25,000, then a considerable amount (more than $400,000 in today’s terms). Even so Lustig seemed reluctant: He did not feel right about making his friend pay so much. Yet finally he agreed to the sale. After all, he said, “I suppose it matters little what you pay me. You are, after all going to recover the amount within a few days by duplicating your own bills.” Making Loller swear never to reveal the machine’s existence to other people, Lustig accepted the money. Later the same day, he checked out of the hotel. A year later after many futile attempts at duplicating bills, Loller finally went to the police with the story of how Count Lustig had conned him with a pair of dollar bills, some chemicals, and a worthless mahogany box.
Count Lustig had an eagle eye for other people’s weaknesses. He saw them in the smallest gesture. Loller, for instance, over-tipped waiters, seemed nervous in conversation, talked loudly about his business. His weakness, Lustig knew, was his need for social acceptance and approval and for the respect that he thought his wealth had earned him. He was also chronically insecure. Lustig had come to the hotel to hunt for prey. In Loller he homed in on the perfect man. (The Forty-eight Laws of Power, Robert Greene, p. 275-277)
-This cannot be the David that we know, the worshiper, the warrior, the hero, what was it that led to his fall??? - The Wayfaring Man. The Traveler.
Job 1:6-7 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. 7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
-This traveler is the devil. He is no idle spirit but a walker and vagrant like Cain who cannot rest in a single place. There are great adventurers who have traveled the lanes of the world but none can hold a candle to the trails of the devil. He has traveled every coast and every corner of this world. His motion is circular and his unwearied steps know no rest.
-He has a large and endless circuit that he passes over. His walk is a siege that goes around the fort to find the weakest place in the defense. His walk is a circle and man is in the center of that circle. The motive and the cause and the main intention is to win man and then to destroy him.
-He walks through the streets and diverts employees to become thieves and liars. He walks into the construction sites and tries to entice men toward depraved conversation. He shoulders up to the bar and uses fake ID’s then stirs up a fight. He dares to enter schools and even churches to set up breaches. He travels no ground but that he will like a stinking fox or ponderous buzzard leave an awful scent behind him.
-There are perils of an indulgent life, of unguarded moments, of leisure hours, of slackness and a lack of discipline with the flesh. These are the travelers that can destroy us.
1 Thessalonians 5:6-8 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. 7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. 8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
1 John 2:15-16 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
-The wayfaring man was a careless unguarded thought. He is a wayfaring man and after you slay the lamb, he eats it and then he’s on his way.
-The wayfaring man will not stay around for the humiliation, for the disgrace, for the funeral of the child. David fed that lamb to his baser nature, to his own fleshly lusts, and his on carnal will and it forever changed his life.
-I can only wonder now if there are not some travelers that are present in the lives of some here in this place even now.
lll. CONCLUSION
There is a Northern legend told in one of Hall Caine’s books of a man who thought he was pursued by a monster. His carts in the fields were burned. His barns had the roofs blown away, his cattle was destroyed, his lands were blasted, and his children were even slain. So he lay in wait for the monster where it lived in the chasms and crevices near his destroyed holdings. Finally in the darkness of night, he saw it. With a cry he rushed upon it, and gripped it around the waist and it turned on him and struck his shoulder. He wrestled with the beast, reeling, staggering, falling and rising again. He fought breathlessly, he felt staggered by the painful blows and soon felt the blood coursing from his wounds. During the grisly fight, he felt strength mysteriously coming back to him and he overthrew the monster. He stood over it, covering it, conquering it. With his knee to it’s chest and his hand set hard on the monster’s throat, he reached and drew his knife from the scabbard and prepared to kill the grisly beast. Then the moon shot through a cloud and opened an alley of light on the face of the beast, the monster, the fiend, the ogre, and the face of the monster was that of his own.
-You have to watch for every wayfaring man, every traveler that comes to your life. . . . . . because he is intent on one thing. . . . . . destruction of your own soul. . . . . .
Philip Harrelson
barnabas14@juno.com
barnabas14@yahoo.com
