HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN – DAVID AND BATHSHEBA
II SAMUEL 11-12; PSALMS 32 AND 51
I am sure you all recall the scandal which engulfed President Clinton a few years ago. It involved a liaison with a young intern called Monica Lewinsky. Some of the details were quite lurid and the press had a field day for a time. Yet 3000 years ago another leader, just as powerful as Clinton, had a similar situation engulf his kingship. There were no tabloid press around in those days and the those who did record the details saw fit not to include the sordid details, as such. Turn back with me to 2 Samuel 11 and 12 and let us look at this incident in the life of king David. The story is no doubt familiar to us all. After the story of Goliath this is probably the most commonly known incident in the life of David. Right at the very start of this sermon I want to remind us again who David is. He is God’s chosen, called and anointed king of Israel. This is the man of whom God said ‘he is a man after my own heart.’ This is a chosen man of God. This is not some wicked or debauched man but a man whose heart was after God’s. A man who would pen some of the most beautiful words of praise of God ever written. The man who knew God intimately and deeply. Remember this as we go through the text today.
There are four simple lessons or principles I think we all can learn from this incident:
SIN ALWAYS DECEIVES
SIN ALWAYS DESTROYS
SIN IS ALWAYS DISCOVERED
CONFESSED SIN IS ALWAYS FORGIVEN
SIN ALWAYS DECEIVES.
Before we enter into this point turn back with me to Deuteronomy 17 and verses 16-17. God in his Law says there are three things a king is not to do:
(a) He is not to multiply the number of horses he owns.
(b) He is not to multiply his gold and silver.
(c) He is not to multiply the number of wives he has – because his heart will be turned away from God by them.
Now David obeyed the first two but on the question of wives and concubines David disobeyed God. 2 Samuel 5.13 we read that David took many wives and concubines. Many years before this incident with Bathsheba David had sown the seeds of his own downfall. Remember that friends. The seeds which you plant in your heart and life today will bear fruit many years from now – maybe 10 or 20 years from now – and that fruit will either be good or bad – depending on the seed you plant now. Now what is true of your life is also true of the lives of the children God has blessed you with. So think about what you are planting in their lives and what fruit it will bear in their adulthood. But that is an aside at the moment.
Let us come back to David. David knew from God’s law he was not to have many wives and concubines but he desired to be like other kings. No doubt he justified it to himself that he had won many battles and he had obeyed God in all these other areas – he deserved this little perk of being king. The result was disaster not only in the life of David, but in his family and in the nation of Israel. Let us see how this played out in his life.
2 Samuel 11.1-4 David being lazy leads to sin. Look at verse 1 – David has neglected his duty. Instead of being on the battlefield with his men he is in his bed. At this time of his life David is in his 50’s, he has been king for 20 years and all we can say is that he has become bored with the battlefield, and he indulges himself and stays behind in Jerusalem. He has become lazy – it is evening by the time he gets up out of his bed. This was a pattern developed over many weeks or months. It is not as a result of physical tiredness but as the result of emotional and spiritual laziness, not tiredness but slothfulness on the part of David.
We read that he goes for a walk on the roof and something catches his attention. A ‘very beautiful woman’, the Hebrew is explicitly clear here – Bathsheba is striking in her beauty, is washing. You know if this was the tabloid press or a Holywood film a more graphic description would be given and the sensuality of it all depicted but not the Bible – it does not tell this story to titillate but to warn. Let me say also to you this morning that the Bible makes it clear that the one at fault here, the one who sins is David and not Bathsheba. His palace no doubt was higher than all the other buildings around it. Bathsheba no doubt did not expect someone to be watching from a vantage point as she bathed. The first verse leads us to believe that all the men of fighting age had gone to war, David should have been there also. Even so David should have turned away but he does not he lingers and gazes and his fall into sin is sealed. What should he have done? There are times when our gaze catches something it shouldn’t and it is not deliberate. He should have remembered Joseph who when confronted by Potiphar’s wife ran away – he did not linger, he did not try to explain it or reason it out – he ran away. Not David. In fact in chapter 12 Nathan calls this ‘a traveller’ who came to call on David.
‘a traveller’ – a sinful, lustful thought came into David’s heart and the result would be disastrous. He not only entertained the thought but he indulged it and acted upon it. We read that David inquires who this beautiful woman is. Now I want you to listen carefully to the answer given by the servant – READ verse 3. in the Ancient Near East when an inquiry about someone is made normally their name and lineage is given but this wise servant adds ‘the wife of Uriah the Hittite.’ This servant knows what David is about and in his answer adds a warning line – she is a married woman. Not only is she a married woman but her husband is one of your first 36 valiant warriors. Yet David pays no attention to the warning. He sends for Bathsheba and he lies with her. That is all the bible tells us of this part of the episode. I want you to listen to these lines which David wrote: Psalm 40.8 and yet he wilfully and deliberately disobeys the Word of God. Satan lied to David. He told him:
‘It is only a one night stand, no one will get hurt, everyone else is doing it, no one will ever know, you deserve this pleasure in life.’
Those are the lies of sin. Sin promises pleasure but it always fails to deliver. David had many wives and concubines and yet he was not satisfied – so his heart was led to desire another man’s wife – no doubt sin said – ‘this is the one that will satisfy.’ His self-indulgence in the area of sex and sensuality did not bring happiness, contentment or satisfaction. In fact it sowed the seeds of discontent, discord and ultimately led to his fall. David now indulges himself once more. He could have averted his eyes and he did not. He could have walked away and he did not. He could have stopped when he found out Bathsheba was married and he did not. This is premeditated and deliberate sin. This was no accident. This was no spur of the moment sin. He was not drunk. He was not caught up in the moment – though neither of these condone or justify sin. David deliberately committed adultery – despite as Nathan said in chapter 12 verse 2, having a large flock of his own – he takes the pet lamb of another to entertain a ‘traveller.’
No doubt David sent Bathsheba home after he had indulged himself and thought he would hear nothing more of it. But some time later he gets the message ‘I am pregnant’ (v5.). Numbers 32.23 says this ‘Be sure your sins will find you out.’ David is now in a quandary. The Law of God was clear on the sin of adultery – death by stoning, Leviticus 20.10. There can be no doubt that Uriah is not the father – after all he is on the battlefield, where David should have been. David reasons if we can get Uriah home then I can cover this all up. After all many babies are born a few weeks early. So David hatches a plan and sends word to Joab to send Uriah back to the palace. This leads us to the second principle or lesson from this text.
SIN ALWAYS DESTROYS.
David inquires of Uriah how the war is going and then suggests that Uriah goes home to Bathsheba. However, Uriah is more concerned for the ark of God and the men of Israel than his own comfort and pleasure. So he sleeps in the court of the palace with the king’s servants. David is informed and realises that his plan is not working. So he now compounds his sin of adultery with drunkenness. He persuades Uriah to stay another night and he gets him drunk, verses 12-13. He hopes, mistakenly, that Uriah will go home to Bathsheba and all will be well for David. But once again Uriah sleeps in the palace. David is now in a panic and he results to murder to cover his sin of adultery. He sends Uriah back to Joab with his own death warrant in his hand. He instructs Joab to put Uriah in the front line and then to withdraw from him so that he would be killed. Friends learn from this – sin destroys, it destroys our relationship with God and then with each other. It promises so much but it lies. It only ever, and always, brings death. It might promise life but its wages is death. Sin always destroys. David has had Uriah murdered, verse 15. He has laid himself open to blackmail by Joab in the process.
After Bathsheba has mourned the death of Uriah David brings her into the palace as his wife. He assumes, wrongly, that that is the end of the matter. He assumes, wrongly, that the cover up is now complete. But the result in his life is that his soul begins to shrivel and die because of his sin, which lies unconfessed. Listen to what is said about all of this – verse 27 ‘But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.’ In I Kings 15.5 the murder of uriah the Hittite is singled out as the thing which in the life of David displeased God. The result is that David is now living a lie before the people of Israel, before the palace and more importantly before God. The result is spiritual dryness, decay and despair.
SIN IS ALWAYS DISCOVERED.
2 Samuel 12 is for me one of the most wonderful passages in the OT. I just love the way Nathan tells the parable of the little pet lamb to David. He has David listening intently, sitting on the edge of his seat. He waits his moment and when David speaks judgment on the man who has done this dreadful thing (verses 5-6) Nathan then tells him simply but directly ‘You are the man!’ (verse 7). David thought no one knew. David thought it had all been covered up. But sometime later the Lord sent Nathan (verse 1). That is important – it was God’s appointed messenger, in God’s time and speaking God’s Word. You see the messenger, the timing and the words spoken were all important. David respected Nathan. Nathan was trusted as a friend by David and he brought the Word of God to David. How true the words of Proverbs 27.6 ‘faithful are the wounds of a friend.’ The Hebrew there speaks of ‘the bruises of a friend’. Nathan’s words wound David. But I want you to note he does not storm in and confront David. His words draw David into the situation and they disarm his defences. When David speaks judgement the trap is sprung. I want you to note as well that David in his judgement goes beyond what the Law of God required in this situation. For taking a sheep like this the Law required a fourfold recompense. David adds that the ‘man deserves to die.’ You see when we cover up sin in our own lives. When we are living the life of a hypocrite we become very critical of the sins of others. It is a means of transference.
Before David has time to interrupt, Nathan speaks words of judgement. David will have to suffer and live with the consequences of his sin (verses 11-12). Before I look at the final principle I want to linger here a moment. Listen to what happened in the family of David because of his sin.
The baby born to him and Bathsheba dies.
Amnon rapes his sister Tamar.
Absalom murders Amnon in revenge.
Abasalom rebels against David and David has to flee for a while.
Absalom is killed and David is inconsolable.
David is not allowed to build the Temple because of his sin.
CONFESSED SIN IS ALWAYS FORGIVEN – 2 Samuel 12.13
Friends I want us all to listen to this fourth principle or lesson which we learn here because this moment in the life of David would be completely hopeless if it were not for the grace of God. In verse 13 David confesses his sin (if you want to read a longer confession read Psalm 51). Listen to the Lord’s reply – verse 13. However one will die in David’s place – an innocent – verse 14. The child born to David and Bathsheba dies, they will have another son – Solomon. I will not say to you this morning I understand why this child had to die – but what I see in it is the foreshadowing of the Cross of Christ – where the truly innocent, where one without sin died for the guilty and sinful. When David confesses his sin Nathan assures him God has forgiven him. Listen to me at this point – this is important. When we confess our sin – and note whom David said he had sinned against – God, then God forgives us our sin. I want to repeat that to you this morning – when we confess our sin before God then he forgives us. He declares that we are forgiven, that we now stand in a right relationship before him because in his grace and mercy he forgives us. He forgives us on the basis of Christ’s death for us on the Cross, just as he did David’s. The only difference being he was looking forward and we are looking back. But David, and we also, had to live with the consequences of his sin. Why? Why if God had forgiven David did he have to live with the consequences? To put it very simply: how else would David know God’s abhorrence of sin if he did not taste the bitterness of its consequences? And the same is true for you and me.
CONCLUSION
Hebrews 11.25 READ. The pleasures of sin are fleeting, they last but a moment. Sin is a liar. Sin always deceives. Sin always destroys. Sin is always discovered – listen to these words Hebrews 4.13 – ‘Nothing in all creation is hidden from the sight of God. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.’ Sin is always discovered. But we praise God this morning that Sin confessed is always forgiven.
I Corinthians 10.12 gives this warning ‘So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.’ David had indulged his life for over 20 years and his desires and passions were never satisfied. He neglected his duty – he was in bed when he should have been on the battlefield. He did not guard his eyes and he did not avert his gaze. When the ‘traveller’ came he did not flee temptation instead he indulged it. He did not flee when warned she was another man’s wife. His adultery led to murder and death. He lived with the consequences the rest of his life and so did his family and the nation of Israel. In David’s case the passion and desire was sexual – for you it may be something totally different – ambition, vanity and myriad of things. It matters not – when the desire is fed and kindled a raging fire consumes all around it and at that moment, even though we are God’s person, God seems unreal to us and the desire consumes us. Yet take heart this morning – even though David sinned God forgave him and from David’s line came Christ Jesus.
Finally I want to say this to us all this morning. When Nathan confronted David and he confessed – he confessed that he had sinned. He called it as it was. Nathan called it as it was. Today I hear far too many Christians excusing sin, condoning sin, explaining sin. To many try to justify their actions and their words by pointing to troubled backgrounds, past experiences or the latest trend which is to blame it on ‘the spirit of this or that.’ Friends, as your pastor, I say to you call it as it is – sin and come to God and confess it and receive his forgiveness.
Sin always deceives, always destroys, is always discovered but praise God when we come to him and confess it he forgives completely. AMEN.
