How To Lose Your Kingdom In One Generation
I&II Samuel
I. Get married for all the wrong reasons. I Samuel 18:19-21
II. Become more interested in pleasure than responsibility I Samuel 25:42-44
III. Become great in everything but parenting II Samuel 5;10
IV. Know the world better than you know your children II Samuel 13:3-5
When we close out the life of King David and then his Son Solomon, we find the grandson coming to power and Rehoboam, is not a very wise man and not one set after the heart of God. He follows some bad advice and as a result the kingdom of David is divided and never returns to it=s glory. A phrase stands out from the people, AWhat have we to do with David?@ How did it go from the greatness of David to this in one generation? We will look at that in the life of David and find out. It was not that David and Solomon were not great enough in power and military might or governmental strength. So how did it happen then? My suggestion is that the kingdom collapsed because the family of David collapsed. I want to walk back thru the life of David and find some key areas that I think led to this point.
We begin in I Samuel 18;19-21 where we find one of many examples from David concerning getting married for all the wrong reasons. The truth of the matter is that David actually ended up with more than one sets of families. He had a set in Jerusalem and perhaps at least two other areas that he had a set of families. I want to tell you that the starting point of families of faith is to marry for the right reason and not the wrong ones. It is very clear that for David being married was someone to sleep with. One thing you do not find is David and any of his wives with a real basis in God. Now I know this is going to sound strange because the Bible tells us that David was a man after God=s own heart, but even those people can loose a kingdom and it will happen if they marry for the wrong reasons. Now I need to say a couple of things here. One is that if you did, you can start all over again. I can not tell you the number of couples who have come to me for marriage repair and after a while we found that there was really nothing to repair. They had not built their relationship on any thing other than physical pleasure and emotional pacifiers and when those passed their basis of being had passed as well. Second, to those of you who have not married as of yet, please, please, make sure that you marry someone because it is the person that you want to grow old with as you walk with God thru the days of your life.
Then we move to I Samuel 25: 42-44 and we find the kingdom fell as the family fell when David became more interested in pleasure than responsibility. Here is the consortium of wives being formed for David and we of course are familiar with the Bathsheba incident, as one of those times that David laid aside his responsibility for pleasure. Rather than care for what he had, David moved on to more wives and more concubines and more times of personal pleasure and all the while turmoil was going on inside what should have been a family. I want to say some things that I suspect will sound a bit challenging and perhaps uncomfortable, but I feel very strongly they need to be said. When you chose to make a family by marriage and then by having children, or even out of order as many do it today, when you make a family, your first priority becomes your responsibility to that family. When you make little babies, your quest for life from that point on is not to be happy or satisfied, but to be responsible. The tragic crashing of families all across our land today has a great deal of root in the seeking of pleasure over responsibility. It means nearly nothing to throw the future of a family away because daddy finds him a new sweety or mommy=s head has been turned by some one messing where he had no business. We have so confused this in our society today. We feel the key to life is to be happy. It is not, it is to be responsible. I am part of a lot of weddings and I tell you it is heartbreaking to see three and four sets of parents and hyphenated children all because they sought please above responsibility.
Thirdly, in II Samuel 5 :10 we find the description of the greatness of David. He was indeed, in many areas, but in one he had not chosen to be great in and that was parenting. Being able to have sex may make you a mommy or a daddy, but it takes lots of hard work and determination to become a parent. To fulfill the role and to be used of God as His instrument of imparting the values and basis of life into your children. David slew his thousands, but he had no idea about raising children. He could produce them, but not raise them. How about you? Where are your goals of greatness? What gives you a sense of greatness? Is it your career, how foolish, the day after you are gone, you will be forgotten. Is it fame in the community? They will put up a plaque for you, but if your children do not think you are great, you have failed where it counts most and your kingdom will come falling down. We have seen a phenomenon in our land in this past generation that is disturbing. The baby boomers have reacted to their parents lack of parenting to the extreme and to them it is very important to be thought of as a really caring loving parent and have drifted over the edge. It is the appearance to other people that has become more important to them.
Then fourthly, in II Samuel 13 we are invited into the inner work of the family and see one huge turmoil. David has no idea what is going on with his children. The kingdom will fall when you know the world better than you know your children. Now do not assume that just because you are with your children a lot that it means you know them. I know parents who drag their kids from one thing to another and the parents have no clue as to what is going on in the mind of that child. One of the things that we have surely done for our kids is destroy their ability to think and be constructive. We have arranged life for them that it is go from one activity to another that if they get put in a chair for more than a minute at a time they have no idea how to be a person. Every child has it=s own personality and it=s own way, the only way you can encourage it is to know them and to follow God=s leadership in shaping them.
Now, what is the state of your kingdom? Is it on solid ground because your family is on solid ground? With God=s help it can be, I urge you to have the courage today to fall upon your knees and claim your family as the priority of your life.
Let us pray, Father, You see the crumbling of families and kingdoms all around. Help us to repent and to return to you so that we might see your work done in our homes in Jesus name we pray,
Amen
