One of my favourite Bible heroes is King David. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the story of David and Goliath, the boy who bested a giant. But there’s a lot more to David’s life than this story. In many ways he’s the kind of man that many of us guys would like to be.
David was marked out for greatness from a young age.
He was the youngest of 8 brothers. No one special, just the kid who looked after the family sheep.
So just imagine David’s out with the sheep one day, the sun’s hot and the wolves are hungry for a bit of lamb. Suddenly one of the family’s servants comes running over a hill and tells him to get back home quick smart, there’s something important happening. So David rolls up all sweaty and dirty from being out in the dusty Palestinian desert. The next thing he knows some old guy is pouring a flask of olive oil over his head and telling him he’s going to be the next king.
Kind of a lucky break, hey? How often do we envy the other guy because he got luck?
The reality is that things had to be kept a bit quiet. The reigning King, Saul, had plans for his own son to take the throne and wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone he saw as a threat, so David had to bide his time.
But even so, he took every opportunity to act like a king.
And one of the first things he does is kills a giant. When grown men were quaking in their sandals, David the nobody-in-particular kid who’s now heir-to-the-throne-incognito takes on this impossible opportunity, puts his trust in God and wins an argument with a 9 foot mountain of a man.
So naturally Saul promotes him. Soon David the shepherd becomes David the warrior and military commander. His is the unit every soldier wants to be in. The other officers respect him. He can do no wrong.
Saul’s starting to get a bit uncomfortable at this. Who is this guy? So he decides to give him the hardest missions hoping he’ll get killed in battle. Nope, he just gets better. And more popular.
In fact, he’s so successful the girls start to sing songs about him.
"Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands" (1Sam 18.7).
How’d you like to be remembered for that at your funeral?! Different times back then. Or maybe not so different?
And wouldn’t you know it, one girl in particular falls for him. Guess whose daughter? That’s right - Saul’s. So Saul asks for a particularly interesting bride price - and it gets a bit creepy here - 100 Philistine foreskins.
Now, I don’t know what exactly’s going on here. I don’t know if Saul has some kind of weird fetish or if he was trying to humiliate David. But David’s not phased, he’s so in love with Saul’s daughter, Michal, that the Bible says, "David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king" (1Sam 18-.27). Killing Philistines is fun for these guys, but seriously… I just don’t want to go there.
The point is, this guy’s got it made. Successful career, girls all over him. Gotta be a bad move marrying your crazy boss’s daughter, but no-one’s perfect.
Even when things go down hill, he goes up hill
The crazy boss-cum-father-in-law has decided he’s not happy with the new family member and sets out to get rid of David, so David literally heads for the hills. The mountains in Israel are very rugged and there are plenty of hide outs. But David doesn’t stay alone for long. He’s a leader and soon he gathers a rag tag band of outlaws and malcontents about him.
And what does he do? Goes plundering the countryside? Well, kind of. He forms his rag tag band into a private army and starts waging war on Israel’s enemies, running covert operations. He’s so successful that their enemies don’t even realise what’s happening and at one stage they hire David and his army. They think he’s battling Saul when all along he’s battling Israel’s enemies.
And then David becomes king.
And what do you think happens then? Now he’s got control of the army and the whole nation’s behind him, and he starts to expand his empire. In fact, under David and his heir, Solomon, Israel’s borders will reach from the Euphrates river in modern day Syria, down to the border of Egypt. This is the golden age for Israel.
David’s at the top of his game. A fearless fighter, successful military commander, star of Israeli Idol. Seriously, he sings, plays the ancient equivalent of the guitar, and writes songs - you can still read them in the Bible. He has the physique of a warrior, the mind of a cunning strategist and the heart of a poet. He’s the perfect King. No doubt the Bible idealises him, but if there’s one person in the Bible I want to meet, apart from Jesus, it would be David.
But David has one fatal flaw
For all his prowess and success, one thing almost turns out to be his undoing.
You’re thinking the incident with Bathsheba, right? The powerful middle-age King’s up on his balcony and sees a beautiful woman taking a bath. One thing leads to another, Bathsheba gets pregnant, David has her husband killed and marries her. OK, David’s far from perfect. But that’s not his undoing, he gets off relatively lightly for that.
No, the thing that undoes David is hinted at in 1Kings 1.5-6. By this time David is old. He’s had a long reign and the knives are out as the princes vie for the throne. 1Kings says, ’Now Adonijah… put himself forward and said, "I will be king." So he got chariots and horses ready with fifty men to run ahead of him. (His father had never rebuked him by asking, "Why do you behave as you do?")’
His father had never rebuked him.
David had a hard time with his sons.
David had a number of wives - it was the way of the wealthy and powerful back then. And you can only imagine the sort of domestic politics this set up between half brothers all eagre for their share of power when dad was gone.
One of his sons, Amnon, fell in love with his half sister, Tamar. Amnon tried to seduce her and - let’s save the gross bits. David hear’s about it and gets furious, but essentially does nothing. Tamar’s full brother, Absalom is incensed and bides his time. In fact, he waits two years for his chance to get Amnon back. Somehow Absalom lures Amnon to a party and while he’s there has all his men kill him!
Absalom has to run away of course, but David eventually lets him come back home. In fact, the Bible says, "King David longed to go to his son." When Absalom does come home do you know what he does? He plots a coup against Dad! David and all his people have to flee for their lives. It’s a terrible time as old friends become enemies and the once noble King David is publicly humiliated. But there’s a big battle and Absalom is killed. More grief for David.
For all his successes, David’s great tragedy was his children.
Why? Despite his love for his kids, David never really invested in them. And that meant that all his great strengths became their weaknesses. Amnon had his father’s passionate nature but not his heart for God and he ended up raping his own sister.
Adonijah would have been King if he’d just waited for time and nature to take its course. He had his father’s mind for strategy but not the patience that had helped David during the wilderness years, and he wound up dead after a failed coup.
The Bible tells us another one of David’s sons had his good looks and something of that strategic mind as well, but he also ended up dead at the hands of his own family.
The question I ask myself as a father is, am I investing in my children sufficiently so that their strengths, possibly strengths I’ve invested in them, don’t end up counting as weaknesses. Because, for all my admiration for David, I’d hate to have his charisma and success, but fail in that one vital task that leaves us our best potential legacy. Our kids.
The Good News is, the story doesn’t end there
David had another son. Well, a descendent really. God promised David that he would put one of his descendents on the throne and that his reign would never end. And the Bible tells us that Jesus, ’The Son of David’ is one of his titles, was that descendent. And his is a spiritual Kingdom.
Here’s the wonderful thing. David’s sons made others suffer. But Jesus, this son of David, did the suffering for us. He took all of our sin and failure on himself on a Roman cross. When he died our sins died with him. When he rose he brought the hope of a new kind of life.
And when we come trusting in his love and power to redeem our failings as we give our lives to follow him, we also have this hope of redemption.
Which is immensely reassuring, because I know that despite my best efforts at some point I’m going to fail my kids, like David did. In fact, I’m going to fail a lot of things. But I know that in Christ can make all things new if I’ll just let him.
