Question of the day:
So we are at one of the most provocative stories in the bible. It reads like a movie that we would NOT want our kids to watch. In fact if I were reading the description of this movie I might not even watch it. It is salacious!
READ: 2 Samuel 11
David and Bathsheba
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.”
25 David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. 27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
Well there you have it. Quite a story.
What went wrong. In the last several chapters we have seen David demonstrating how Christ loves and cares for us, in the way he was carrying himself. David, was quite an amazing man. He really had everything....
What an interesting story this is in light of the news this week. Is this a trap or weakness that comes with wealth and privilege?
David had everything a man could want. It wasn't like he only had one wife who had let herself go. He had wives and then concubines at his beck and call. So what happened?
Though wealth and privilege may be a contributing factor, it is too easy to use that to dismiss ourselves from learning from David. After all we are not Kings, with great wealth, privilege, a palace full of wives etc.
We hear in the news this week how privilege contributes or facilitates a life of bad behavior, however you can't say that those in poverty don't behave in this way too. You also can't say that any of us are immune to falling into sin. This is a cautionary tall for us all!
So what led up to this?
Let's go back to verse 1.
What happens?
Is there a warning here for us?
What are we commanded to do in the 4th commandment?
When all the Kings were going to war, David sent his men out to fight, but he stayed behind. He was taking sometime off. Just hanging out. Now I'm not suggesting we should never take a break but this was the "time" for Kings to be going to war. David.... turned over his responsibilities to someone else.
We are called to work. We are supposed to be workers. Our goal is not to vacation but to work.
This week, Chris lost his job. We have other friends who are looking for work. Some of you in this class are out of work. There is never a time when you realize how precious work is until you don't have any!
Why does this contribute to what happened to David.
1. He was idle. Being idle can be a dangerous place to be. I realize most of us will claim that we have the opposite problem. But seriously how does being idle, contribute to giving our minds over to Satan instead of to Christ?
Ellen White writes in Patriarchs and Prophets that, "It was the spirit of self-confidence and self-exaltation that prepared the way for David's fall. Flattery and the subtle allurements of power and luxury were not without effect upon him."
I will admit there is a part of me that didn't want to use this quote. I work so hard to help students and my children and my friends to have "self-confidence" that this quote stung a bit. However, I think what she is saying is something different. She is talking about a self confidence and self exaltation that doesn't give God the glory.
Let me explain it this way. David, as a young man, facing Goliath had confidence! He had confidence in what he could with the power of God. He had confidence. One could even say, "self-confidence", because he knew he could. Let's look again at what David said.
“Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
I see confidence here...even self-confidence, but it is a confidence that is grounded in what the Lord did. This is crucial for us to have as Christians. If we sit around like all the other warriors that day, crippled by feelings of inadequacy then we loose the ability to fight. However if we on the other hand forget, "The Lord who rescued me from the paw...." part then we get into a "self" focused spiral that will lead us to fall.
2. David's confidence turned to "self-confidence and "self-exaltation"
A third issue I think we must address here is that David found him self all alone at night, probably lonely and surrounded by people who were at his beck and call, who would do whatever he asked without question.
This is a very dangerous place to be. I warned at the beginning of this lesson that we can't make this just about power and riches, and I am not doing that here. No matter your status, you can find yourself in a place where you are alone, and where no one will call you out. It may be easier to see in the powerful and rich, but it can also be a poor thing.
From the homeless, to those who are living pay check to pay check, and everyone around this table, we can isolate ourselves. We can live a life where people only see a very careful front that we put out. We can lead a life where the "truth" the "struggle" is all hidden and kept in our secret place. We can surround ourselves with people that we lord over. There are women who use destructive words to have power over those around her, and men who do the same.
Lonesomeness, is not what God intended for us. In the very beginning before sin entered the world, aloneness or lonesomeness was said to be NOT good by God! We are supposed to have companionship! We are supposed to have those around us to really connect with!
3. David was in a place of lonesomeness with nothing but YES people.
In Beth Moore's book "A heart like His" she talks about three phases of sin. First, the thought. Second, the words, and third the deed.
David when he saw Bathsheba he thought about her, lusted after her. It was first a thought. Then he asked someone to find out about her. This was arguably both word and action. Then he had her brought to him and he acted on his thoughts or lusts.
If David at the first thought had checked himself, and turned to God this would be a much less salacious story. Then if David had checked himself and turned to God during the word portion of this sin, it would have saved all the sins that followed.
In Psalms David cries out to God about all three of these phases.
Thoughts: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalms 139:23-24)
Words: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14)
Deeds: Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart. (Psalms 15:1-2)
4. David sinned in his thoughts, then his words and finally his deeds.
The rest of this chapter is about David trying to cover his deeds. His thoughts, words and deeds led to more and more deeds. In the chapters to come we see even more consequences. Sin in private is never private. It always hurts others, it always spreads. Davids seemingly simple lust, turned into death. The facts are all sin turns to or is death. We know the wages of sin is death. It may be a figurative death. Death of a relationship, death of our God-confidence. death of our heart. Sin and death go hand in hand. Your sin, may not have led you to murder as Davids did, but it has caused death. Death of something. Ultimately your sin, our sin is why Jesus died on the cross!
5. Davids sin lead to death.
With everything that is in the news and what many of us have seen in those around us it is easy to see David and understand that he may have been a full blown sex addict. He certainly struggled with this area of his life. If you have struggled with sin in this area of your life I know this story is one where you can gain great comfort. In this story we see the struggle and even the sin and yet we know that David was still considered a man after God's own heart. We too, you too, can have hope! God does not forsake us!
If this is not where the devil has been taking you. If sexual immorality hasn't impacted your life, this story is still for you. There are still great principles that can help each of us in our Christian walk.
Yes this story is about sexual immorality but it is even more about turning away from God.
God asks us to work, and when it was time to work David ignored God and just hung out. He relaxed, because he could. Then he let "self" confidence and exaltation take over. He failed to acknowledge that his power and position was not because of what he had done but because of what God had done. Then he was alone. Isolated. Leading him to a place where the three phases of sin were like stepping stones in a garden. Easy and effortless. Then his sin led to death.
No matter where you are today, this story is for you! I know that God didn't put this story in the bible to boost ratings! He didn't put it in the bible for the salaciousness! He included it to encourage you! He included it to warn you! He included it so that we can all see the struggle. No matter your struggle will you turn to Christ and be willing to open up to someone you trust. If you don't know anyone who you are willing to be that vulnerable with, pray that God will show you who it should be. We are not created to struggle through this life alone. Will you today take this story and apply it to the struggles in your life! Don't see this as a problem for only the rich and famous. This is not just a Harvey Weinstein problem, it is a sin problem. Sin does not only infiltrate one class! It does not discriminate.
Above I have a numbered list. A list of things that went wrong. Yet the very last sentence of this chapter is very interesting.
It reads, "But the thing David had done displeased the Lord." Wait.... there is an "s" missing in this sentence. I have a whole list of thing(s) that David did wrong. A list! It wasn't one thing! Why is this singular? If we were to break it down and shatter the list, what is the one thing that David did? What is the one thing that displease the Lord?
In our court system today if David was brought before the courts he would be facing a list of charges. With each conviction of each charge would come additional time in prison. The convictions would pile up, and the cost would also.
This may be how our court system works but it is not how our Lord works. David's sin displeased God!
If your sin is greater and the list is longer than Davids, God doesn't count the list. If your list is seemingly less then Davids, or at the very least less obvious, have you still displeased God?
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," This puts us all in the same place of displeasing the Lord! You are no better or no worse than David! I can't reference this verse without reading the next verse too! "and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Romans 3:23-24
Let this story encourage you to be aware of the traps, or stepping stones of sin. Let this story encourage you in ultimately knowing that God has justified you freely by his grace through Christ Jesus!
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