KING DAVID AND URIAH’S WIFE
Matt 1:6 (p 681) December 16, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
I was watching this documentary about Lincoln’s assassination the other day and they interviewed some of the elderly members of John Wilkes Booth’s family…
One of them was his 97 year old great niece…and she talked about the part that when she was young there was an unspoken law that your did not mention his name or bring up that subject in conversation…Everyone knew…everyone felt a sense of pain and shame…But “God help you if you mentioned it!!!.
Matthew has already mentioned the name Tamar, who dressed as a prostitute so she could fool her father-in-law Judah into having sex…she got pregnant through this incestuous relationship...she would give birth to Perez…He’s listed in the Messianic line…
Matthew has no problem writing the name Rahab, whose occupation was a prostitute….she applied her trade in Jericho until by faith she rescued some Israel spies…
Matthew writes the name Ruth with no problem….a descendent of lot…(though his daughters bring a drunken deception)…she an unbeliever and a gentile…but…when he comes to verse 6 he writes…”and Jesse the father of King David….David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.”
“Whose mother had been Uriah’s wife?”
Did Matthew the genealogists of the messianic line through Mary forget her name? Has Bathsheba just slipped his mind?
Hardly…”One commentator writes…Her sin was so terrible that Matthew blushed at the thought of even mentioning her name…
Bathsheba is the woman David committed adultery with…she became pregnant by David…so David had her husband killed. She then married the man who killed her husband Uriah.
I don’t know….my first thought is…we’re not talking about equals here…at least in David’s time...He’s the King…she’s a woman…King’s usually gets what they want…and if you don’t comply…”it’s off with your head!!! Or at least…serious consequences.
You remember the book of Esther? The King is named Xerxes, he wants to show off his Queen’s beauty...she tells him “No”…the results according to Esther 1:19 “She can never again enter the King’s presence…her throne will be given to another…eventually Esther.” But could Bathsheba have said “No?” Yes…even if it were life and death she could have said “NO”.
And LuAnn my office manager, who is a woman said, “Was her roof the only place she had to bath…didn’t she know the palace allowed you to see her?” UHHHH…I would think…”yes”
Why does Matthew not write her name? Shame …protection for Bathsheba? Other reasons? I don’t know…but she is included in the messianic line…let’s look at the story.
I SPRING HAS SPRUNG
2 Samuel 11: 1-5 (p 221)
If you look at the early chapters of 2 Samuel they are filled with David’s victories…
David’s victories over the 1st Kings House, Saul it lasted a long long line…David’s house grew stronger and stronger…David’s reclamation of Jerusalem…David defeats the Philistines of Jerusalem…(Goliath’s crowd)…David brings the Ark of the Covenant back to the temple in the Holy City.
In fact chapter 8 is entitled…”David’s victories towards the end it says “The Lord gave David victory wherever he went” ( v 11) David reigned over all Israel doing what was just and right for all his people” (v 12)…and chapter 9 in 2 Samuel is the “feel good….tear jerking grab your heart chapter in the old testament…
David remembers his best friend Jonathon (Saul’s son) and he says…is there anyone left in this family that I can show my love for Jonathan to?...and Jonathon has a crippled son…name “Mephibosheth” and David brings him and his family into the palace and cares for them as his own…yeah…see!!!)
In Chapter 10…David defeats the biggest enemy of the Israelites…the Ammonites (also descendants of Lot...through his youngest daughter…yes, he was drunk that time as well)
So in chapter 11 when spring rolls around…when it’s time to get back in the fight…David…Uhhh, ‘rests” “He retires from the fight”
David doesn’t go out to war…He sends Joab, his general out to fight for him…They destroy the enemy…but David stayed in Jerusalem.
It’d be a little like me thinking…”Yeah I really don’t need to do any ministry anymore…I’ll let Jeff and the others take care of the lost and hurting.”
I’m afraid many times “spring has sprung” for way too many Christians!!! Way too many of us “get tired of the fight.” Instead of doing Battle, with our army…some of us leading the army…we go up on the rooftop, we find a vantage point where we can oversee things…and we “retire” spiritually from the battle…instead of…
“Going and making disciples as Jesus commissioned us to do in Matt 28. We “remain in Jerusalem” expecting that if we “work in the church, do our duty…take care of the home folk…lost people will come to us.”
Let me tell you what lurks for those who think like this…
II A SIN THAT MURDERS YOUR INTEGIRTY
God told Cain, just before he murdered his brother Able…”If you do not do what is right sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (Gen 4: 7)
Sin crouches in the shadows of our selfish pride…and our selfish desires…
Maybe (As Jonathon our children’s minister postulated….”Bathsheba wasn’t mentioned by name because the emphasis is on David not her! (I like that postulation!!!) And I think it’s true…the lineage of Matthew flows through Mary’s family tree. “Son of David.” Maybe Matthew is saying…God uses flawed broken people…like Tamar…like Rahab…like Ruth…and it was David’s FLAWS he’s emphasizing…not “Uriah’s wife.
David, at the peak of his accomplishments decided to rest on his previous victories…maybe as he walked the rooftop he began to glory in “what he’d one”….
This is the very place God needs to be put on the throne and not you…but “sin crouches”.
“From the roof David looks down at everything else…including Uriah’s house…Uriah is with Joab…out fighting the Battle…but his wife is bathing on the rooftop (I don’t know if she had another place to bath or not…I don’t know if she knew David liked to take walks on the rooftop)…but she’s beautiful…the only other place this description is used is when “Rachel is described” and when “Joseph is described” (in the masculine tense)
There are moments for all of us when decisions are made…for Cain, for David the King, for Rick Burdette…and for every single one of you….it’s a moment where we know something is wrong…but our very soul describes it intensely…And David choose to gratifying that intense desire, even when he had to do it in stages…
He could have said no…and turned his gaze aside from the rooftop…he could have said “NO” when he found out whose daughter and “wife” Bathsheba was. He could have said “NO” even after she was brought to him by the “messenger.”
This sin has been though about…toyed with…a plan formulated…His heart…”One that was described to be like “God’s own heart” fetched a place of crossing over, even before the very act itself…No wonder James describes the process like this.
James 1: 13-15 (p 854)
David’s sin did just that….Bathsheba conceives a child through this union…when David receives the “Face Flushing, heart dropping sinful realization” message from Bathsheba “I Am Pregnant”
He responds just like most of us…not shame, not remorse, not repentance… He tries to cover it up.
2 Samuel 11: 6-13 (p 221)
One soldier is a man of integrity…one leader and King is caught in the midst of deception…Sin would get what sin always get…death…the murder of a man…and the murder of a Kings integrity.
David send Uriah back to the battle he should have been leading…David tells Uriah’s commander…Joab to put him up front then when things are at their fiercest….”pull back…leave him exposed…so he will die.”
2 Samuel 11: 16-17 (p 222)
David’s response …when he receives the news Uriah’s dead…the deed is done…”O well…people die in war… don’t let it bother you…press the attack” How does Bathsheba react…? How does God react? 2 Samuel 11; 26-27 (p 222)
Here is the greatest King of Israel…the Messiah will be called. “The Son of David” …and… He’s an adulterous…He is a premeditative murderer…and he is a King who uses his power to make others accomplishes in his actions.
And yet there’s still hope for forgiveness…where….
III IN A STORY ABOUT A LAMB
God’s not happy…So the Lord sends a messenger of truth named Nathan to David…”when he came to him he said,
2 Samuel 12: 1-4 (p222)
David got so angry when he heard this little story he said, “The man who did this deserves to die…He should pay 4 times what he owes because he did this…with No “Pity”…
And Nathan looks at King David and says…”You’re the Man” …God made you King of Israel..He gave you everything Saul had…even when you’d been a shepherd and the youngest…God would have given you even more!
David said, “I’ve sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan said, God’s forgiven your sin…but there will be consequences…”Man they are severe too!!! The child in this union dies…Rebellion takes place in his family, and the sin he tried to hide in the dark…God puts it on public display.
No wonder God includes David, and Uriah’s wife in the lineage of the Christ…It’s the story of every single one of us…it’s a story we should see ourselves right in the midst of…even if adultery and murder wasn’t your sin…I promise you lust and hatred have been…everyone of us has stood at that door Cain stood at...David stood at…and each of us…men and women alike stepped through it…thought we could hide it…and maybe for time we were successful…
[Our hope isn’t in the little Lamb in Nathan’s story...our hope is in Mary’s little Lamb…on one side of his genealogy is Tamar’s deception, Rahab’s sexual past, Rahab’s unbelieving family, David’s murder and adultery…brokenness, lies, darkness, deception, guilt, shame, …some of which we don’t even speak about…”God help you if you mention it.”
But on the other side is “Holiness, purity...Righteousness, gentleness, humility, obedience, perfection, Jesus…the incarnation…child of Mary, a Virgin…Son of David…God in the flesh…”the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World…
How will he do that? Our sins will be put on Public display… In His body as He dies perfectly in my place…
All Sin…Every Sin…David’s sins…Rick’s sin…your sin…
“PAID IN FULL”…the question?
Will you accept His payment…surrender your control and live eternally…?
