Insights from the Life of David – Part 7:
“What a Tangled Web We Weave: David & Bathsheba”
II Samuel 11:1-27
Our story today is not for young ears. It’s a story of adultery and premeditated murder. It’s the stuff that movies are made of and yet it’s the stuff we find in the life of one of the Bible’s most beloved characters.
This week as we continue in our series on the life of David we come to a completely different part of his life. We’re jumping ahead at least twenty years at this point. So let’s do some catching up. We discovered over the last few weeks that Saul had grown to hate David and desperately wanted him dead. After a long chase in which David had continued to elude Saul, Saul finally died and David ascended to the throne. There David had distinguished himself as a trusted leader of his people. He was a man of passion and compssion. He led the people in righteousness and now had two decades of sterling leadership on his resume. His military boundaries now reached 60,000 square miles. His army was undefeated. The country was financially healthy; David had a beautiful home and was making plans for a new temple of the Lord. And we discovered that the reason for David’s success was that the Spirit of the Lord was with him. Things were good, in fact, they were very good.
But the Bible never flatters its heroes. When it paints a portrait of their lives it’s a very realistic one. It doesn’t ignore, deny or overlook the dark side.
With that said we find ourselves today reading about a sin which has received more press than any other sin, save the sin of Adam and Eve.
Somehow David became so entangled in sin that it drug him to a new depth in his life, a place where he never thought he would end up. David, the giant killer, the writer of beautiful Psalms committed not only adultery but premeditated murder. Who would have ever thought?
What makes this sin even so much more difficult to swallow was the fact that this was David, you know the same one who was said to be “a man after God’s own heart.” Everyone looked up to him! How could he have fallen?
I was in the first semester of my sophomore year in college the night I received the call that would forever change my life. I was attending Houghton to pursue what I believed was a call by God into full time pastoral ministry. From the time I was young I had wanted to be a preacher and I credit a lot of that desire to the fact that I held my own pastor in a place of high respect. To me he was a super hero. I had never seen a fault in him and wanted to be just like him when I grew up. He was my mentor by choice, the man to whom I looked up.
As I listened to what my mother told me on the telephone on that Fall evening my heart sank. My pastor had been caught in an affair and had already left the church. In fact, he had also left his wife and was moving in with this other woman. I was devastated. Suddenly the man to whom I had always looked as my example, had committed a sin that I did not think he was capable of committing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. That evening forever changed my perspective on ministry and has significantly shaped the way in which I conduct myself.
As I studied the life of David and specifically this chapter on his affair with Bathsheba I began to ask myself: how is it that a person reaches the point where he or she takes that fatal step in which their life will forever be altered? We all face temptations but where’s the point at which we move from facing a temptation to committing a sin? What causes a person to step over that line?
There are three things in the life of David which we can use to alert us that we are most susceptible to failure.
The first is when we become too comfortable. There’s a little verse that’s tucked neatly away in the book of II Samuel that says an awful lot about David’s attitude. It’s in chapter 5:12. Listen to this: “David then perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.” In other words, any naiveté had faded away. David knew that he had been chosen for a special purpose. It became obvious too him that God was on his side. And he was beginning to become a little too comfortable with the way things were. His head had gotten just a little too big. David was at an all-time high. He was fresh off a series of victories on the battlefield. He had reached the peak of public admiration. He had ample money, incredible power, unquestioned authority, and remarkable fame.
But it’s interesting isn’t it that the better things go the more vulnerable we become. Our most difficult times are not when things are going hard. Hard times create people who are dependent upon God. Survival keeps you humble. Pride happens when everything’s swinging your way.
I mentioned a few moments ago that there’s a line that separates the point at which temptation becomes sin. One of the ways to broach that line is falling victim to the second indicator that we are most susceptible to failure: when our standards are too low.
Immediately after we’re told that David had perceived that God was on his side, we’re also told that he took more concubines and wives. Why’s that so significant? Because in Deuteronomy 17 God had instructed that the King of Israel not to multiply the number of wives he had. As the number of women David had in his palace increased, rather than his passion being abated, his passion of sex actually increased. Isn’t that interesting? When David lowered his standards and chose to disobey God’s Laws he began playing with fire and he was about to get burned.
Church: hear me! I believe that one of most significant problems with the church of today is that we’ve lowered our standards. In many cases we’ve ceased calling sin – “sin” and have rationalized behavior and justified what we once called abominations.
But the real issue isn’t with the way in which we approach the sins of others: it’s with the sin that resides in our own lives. That’s the problem. From gossip, to rage, to lust, we allow these “little sins” that don’t seem that severe to creep in and as we lower our standards we continue to become vulnerable to attack. Why do you think that so many clergy from so many denominations today have been trapped in sexual sins? Because as we lower our standards we increase our vulnerability. Church, it’s time to wake up and raise the bar on our living!
The final thing that we see evident in the life of David as an indicator that trouble was lurking ahead is found in the first verse of our reading today. Here’s what it says: “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.”
Like David we are most susceptible to failure In times of leisure. If David had been where he belonged – with his troops, like the rest of the kings, there never would have been the Bathsheba episode. Our struggles don’t usually come when we’re working hard; they come when we have some leisure, when we’ve got time on our hands, when we’re bored. Those are the times when we make those fateful decisions that come back to haunt us.
That’s where David was – indulging himself beyond the
boundaries of wisdom. He belonged in battle; instead he was in bed. He certainly didn’t need any more sleep. He wasn’t suffering from exhaustion of a busy, productive man; he was tired from not being tired.
Be careful what you do with your time. There’s something to be said about making the most of your day. Times of leisure are both healthy and necessary but if you spend too much time allowing your mind to wander and yourself to get into trouble, you’ll be sure to find it. That’s exactly what happened to David.
He got out of bed and took a walk on his roof. He’s out enjoying the scenes and sights when suddenly he hears some splashing and perhaps the humming on the lips of this very beautiful woman living just beyond the palace, just within the clear sight of his own backyard. The longer he stood and watched her the more paramount his desire for sexual pleasure with her became. And so, rather than doing what he knew he should have done and not doing what he knew he shouldn’t have done, David inquired about the woman, discovered she was the wife of one of his soldiers, sent for her anyway and slept with her.
Now let’s be realistic. You’d have to be foolish to think that there wasn’t any pleasure in this encounter. They probably both enjoyed the night. There’s nothing to indicate that he forced himself upon her. It appears to be a one-time adulterous affair, between two consenting adults. He was romantic and handsome… she was lonely, beautiful, and flattered… both enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing indicates otherwise. Perhaps before midnight she slipped back to her own home, hoping no one noticed.
What neither David nor Bathsheba counted on was the tangled web that they had begun to weave on that fateful night.
I’ve outlined three things that we learn from David & Bathsheba about sin’s web:
The first is that Sin will always cost you more than you want to pay! Isn’t it interesting that the Devil never tips his hand in temptation? He only shows us the beauty, the ecstasy, the fun, the excitement of stolen desires. He never tells the heavy drinker, “Tomorrow morning there’ll be a hangover. Ultimately, you’ll ruin your family.” He never tells the drug user early on, “This is the beginning of a long, sorrowful, dead-end road.” He never tells the thief, “You’re going to get caught, friend. You do this, and you’ll wind up behind bars.” He certainly doesn’t warn the adulterer, “You know, pregnancy is a real possibility.” Or, “You could get a life-threatening disease.” Or, “It’s only a matter of time before you will regret this.” Seriously. Sin always cost us more than we want to pay.
David discovered that. After their time together the text tells us that Bathsheba discovered she was pregnant. Imagine that! You would have thought that they would have considered that possibility. They were both grown adults.
That’s the thing about sin, it will always cost you more than you want to pay.
The second thing is that sin will always take you further than you want to go. There’s something about sin that causes us to get deeper and deeper into it before we realize what we’ve done and by the time we look for help it’s too late. It’s kind of like quick sand. The more we get into it the more we struggle and the more we struggle the deeper we get into it.
When Bathsheba sent word to David that she was pregnant, David panicked. He had to make a decision. He could either go before God and then before his people and confess and come clean or he could take the route of deception and hypocrisy. Sadly he chose the latter which led him into further sin. In an attempt to cover this entire mess up David brings Bathsheba’s husband home from battle and says to him, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” The phrase “wash your feet” was a euphemism for sexual intercourse. What David had in mind was that if Bathsheba’s husband slept with her then the pregnancy wouldn’t be questioned. But his plan backfired. You see her husband was too faithful to his nation and refused to go home and have a good time when his friends and peers were off fighting the battle. Imagine what a reproof that would have been to David, the great king! He should have felt rebuked by the integrity of this soldier but instead hatched another plan. After having attempted to get him drunk and send him to his wife with no success he sent a note with this soldier back to the commander that he was to be placed on the front line of the fiercest battle and withdrawn from so that he would be killed. And his plan worked. Uriah was killed in battle and following his death David took Bathsheba as his wife.
End of the story? No. It never is. The other thing about sin is that it will always keep you longer than you want to stay. He didn’t just live happily ever after with Bathsheba. His affair began a swirl of misery, which he describes in detail in Psalm 32:3-4 where he says, “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me…” And then in Psalm 51 he remarked that “his sin was ever before him.”
That’s what sin does to us. You know the feeling. You’ve got a deep, dark secret that you’ve hidden and while no one else is aware of it, it continues to eat away at you. Sleepless nights. Physical illness. Fevers. Haunted memories. Loss of weight. Total misery. Loneliness.
David’s misery drug on for many months because sin will always keep you longer than you want to stay.
A few minutes ago I mentioned that there’s a difference between being tempted and sinning. Each of us deal with temptation. In itself temptation, the desire to do something that we know to be wrong, isn’t a sin. The problem is when we succumb to that desire and allow it to control us.
The web of sin is much easier to confront if we avoid it in the first place. And there’s really only one way to avoid it. In moments of temptation – RUN!!! David couldn’t help the fact that he spotted Bathsheba. It wasn’t the first look that did him in. It was the moment he decided to linger rather than to run.
Do you remember the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis? He was faced with a similar temptation except for his was an even stronger temptation. The wife of the man for whom Joseph was working had taken a liking to Joseph and had tried to convince him to sleep with her, but he had declined. One day when they were alone she grabbed a hold of him and said, “Sleep with me!” But he RAN! That’s the key to avoiding the web of sin. You see once we linger and allow our minds to become preoccupied with the pleasure of sin we lose our ability to think rationally.
There are two very important passages in the New
Testament that I’d like to point out to you that speak to the importance of this truth. The first is found in the book of James 4:7, “Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” And the second is I Corinthians 10:13 where we’re told that, “No temptation has taken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” In other words, as a child of God you’ve been given power over sin. You don’t need to give in. And if you’ll make that crucial decision at the point of temptation to resist the devil and run from the sin, God will provide a way out for you.
The problem for David and for many of us as well is that by the time we realize what we’ve done we’re already caught in the web. How can we escape?
Here’s the sad truth: understand that all sins are forgivable but some sins carry tremendous consequences. When David was finally confronted by God’s messenger he sought forgiveness and it was granted. But there were also consequences to pay. That’s where the sad passage comes in. The child that was conceived as a result of David & Bathsheba’s affair would die.
The sad truth is there are many sins for which there are consequences that are unavoidable even though they are forgivable.
So what do you do if you’re already caught in the web? You’ve already messed things up. You’ve tried to get yourself out of a sticky situation but things just seem to get stickier?
In addition to the sad story of David’s failure and the terrible consequences that it brought is a beautiful story of a man who was restored and forgiven. The Psalm in which we shared this morning was David’s testimony of his forgiveness.
In order to escape the web one thing is essential: it’s what we call repentance. It comes from a Greek word meaning to turn and go the other direction.
True repentance is characterized by four things:
First, open admission. In Psalm 51 David says, “I have sinned…I have not hidden my sin.” There’s something very therapeutic about being able to admit your sin to others. That was part of the premise of the Catholic practice of confession. James 5:16 tells us to, “Confess our sins to one another and pray for one another so that we might be healed.”
If you’re truly sorry for a sin that has entrapped you find some one to admit it to and ask them to pray for you. You’ll be amazed at the cleansing power that act can have.
The second mark of true repentance is A desire to make a complete break from sin. One of the lessons that we’re trying to teach our children right now is that it’s ok to say “I’m sorry” but you have to show you mean it by not doing that thing again. Other wise the “I’m sorry” becomes an empty phrase. Have you ever wondered how empty your “I’m sorry’s” seem to God?
True repentance means turning and going the other direction. Proverbs 28:13 says this: “No one who conceals transgressions will prosper, but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” True repentance means a change of direction.
The third mark of true repentance is a broken and humble spirit. David said in Psalm 51:17 as he’s speaking of his experience, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Grief over what you’ve done, delight over the relief of repentance, and release, doesn’t leave you unmoved. You may cry, you may groan or shout with joy over the relief. But you won’t be defensive or angry or proud or bitter. Truly repentant people are broken and humble people.
Finally, true repentance is marked by a claiming of God’s forgiveness. I John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” It’s one thing to believe that God has forgiven us, but it’s another thing entirely to claim that forgiveness and accept it ourselves, to actually forgive ourselves.
If you really want to escape from that web then find someone to confess your sin to and pray for you. Make a complete break from that sin. Allow God to create within you a broken and humble spirit and finally claim God’s forgiveness.
If David, “a man after God’s own heart” could commit adultery and premeditated murder and yet be forgiven, restored, and remembered as the greatest King of Israel, then don’t you think there’s hope for you as well? You and I have a tendency to be the hardest on ourselves. We judge ourselves and won’t let go of sins that we know we committed. The good news is: Jesus Christ died to pay the consequences for your sins.
But in order to experience the abundant life that He desires for you you’ve got to avoid the tangled web of sin at all costs. When you find yourself drawing near run! And if you’re already caught in the web then take the steps to be set free!
