Prophets- Men of God, Not Behaving Like Men of God?
Prophets committing grave sins in the bible
Note: Prophets according to Islam are sinless, sure they make mistakes, but they commit no minor or major sins intentionally. What good is God sending a man as an example for mankind to follow when the man himself cannot lead by example. If a man can sin then this tell us that we can sin and get away with it. God could have used normal humans as examples in the bible, there is no need to make a prophet sin as an example. If the prophet can sin and still be a prophet then why can we not sin and still attain heaven. Ofcourse God forgives and loves those who repent, but that is not the question here. For example. You are a parent, would you freely and happily sin as below i.e. murder, adultery, as an example for your children? The prophets do not commit these grave sins, these verses are man-made.
a) David
The famous prophet in the bible, a man of God, sent by God. Known for killing Goliath. Known as David the conqueror, David the pious man, David the sweet singer, David the shepherd and David the penitent. King David was a descendant of Judah as well as Ruth, and was promised by God that his children would rule Israel forever.
So he sounds like an impressive man, someone the bible praises and uses as a figure for men to follow. If i told you i know a man who has
-committed adultery
-made a woman pregnant out of marriage
-murder
-is a liar
Would you believe this man to be a prophet? Considering he has broken 3 of the 10 commandments already yet he is here to show people the right path as he is a prophet? Now read the story of David, the one which many Christians do not know...
2 Sammuel 11 “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joabout with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
6 So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
12 Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle. 19 He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, 20 the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? 21 Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth[b]? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’”
22 The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. 23 The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
In this story David falls for the wife of his army general Uriah the Hittite. He has an affair with her and finds out she is pregnant. To cover up his sin he then commands his army to leave her husband/his general, at the thick of the battle so that he gets killed. The worse thing is that this command to abandon his general in battle was given to HIS general in a letter to pass on to the soldiers. Being a good general he did not open the letter and passed it to his soldiers who aided his death. Then David goes on to officially marry the generals wife.
David the prophet...a hero, or, a murder, liar, adulterer. This is how the bible portrays the prophets. In Islam, no prophet committed a sin knowingly. We understand and accept mistakes can happen i.e. when Moses tried to protect a salve from a soldier and accidentally killed him. If God is sending men like these to be an example to me on how to live life, then it means I can lie, kill and commit adultery and I’m sure I will be forgiven too.
In Islam God praises David. David did no such sin, just as all of the prophets.
b) Noah
If you met a man on the street, you saw him lying on the floor completely drunk and naked. Then the next morning you see him walking around and he says to you “Hey, I am the prophet of God, God has sent me to guide you all”, how would you respond? I’m guessing you would never take him serious or believe God sent him. A drunkard can barely hold a 9 to 5 job, how is going to be capable of building an ark to save mankind. Well this is exactly what Noah was...
Genesis 9:21 “When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.”
In Islam God praises Noah, his efforts, and how noble he was. Noah was never a drunk and was a great prophet.
c) Solomon
Another great prophet of God.
1 Kings 11: “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molekthe detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.”
Over here we see that
1) As he grew old the prophet of God turned his heart towards OTHER Gods, this is a grave sin!
2) Solomon did evil in the eye of the Lord, yet he was sent as a prophet. Does God have a bad judge of character when sending these men to guide his creation? Or is it possible these stories have all been corrupted and are wrong.
