Putting First Things First

Putting First Things First

2 Samuel 11-12 ; Psalms 51

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

It was the springtime when David sent Joab and the whole Israelite army out to war while he stayed home (11:1). While others risked their lives, little did David know how susceptible he was on his “vacation” from war to give into “cheap thrills.” The roof of most Israelite homes were flat and were often used to sleep, bath, and catch a good breeze. As King David strolled on his rooftop, he noticed in the distance a beautiful woman bathing (11:2). He immediately sent someone to find out her status and even though she was married to Uriah the Hittite and was in the process of “purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness,” David was so filled with lust that he summoned and had sex with her (11:4)! A cheap one-night stand might have been what David was looking for that night, but he got so much more! Shortly after the affair Bathsheba sent the dreaded news that forever changed David’s life: “I am pregnant” (11:5)! To keep from being caught as an adulterer the king sent word to his general Joab to immediately send her husband Uriah home (11:6). To ensure the credit might be given to Uriah for the pregnancy and not to him David commanded Uriah to “go down to your house and wash your feet” (11:8) which was a euphemism to have sexual intercourse with your wife. To David’s horror “Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace” (11:9) because he did not want to indulge himself while the armies of Israel where camped out for war (11:11)! This unaware “stunning rebuke of the King” resulted in “Plan B,” to send Uriah back to battle with a letter to Joab outlining Uriah’s execution (11:14)! David simply could not have his subjects know he was an adulterer so he told his general to put “Uriah on the front lines where the battle was the fiercest then withdraw from him so that he would be struck down and die” (11:15). Uriah died that day never knowing about the King’s heinous crimes of both adultery and now murder! How relieved David must have been for now not only was his secret safe, but he was free to marry the beauty from the roof (11:26)!

While king David thought he had gotten a free ticket from the consequences of sin this was not true for what he “had done displeased the Lord” (11:27)! We are told that the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to give king David a rebuke he would not soon forget. To help David understand the depths of his depravity he told him a story. There was a rich man with a “very large number of sheep and cattle” (12:2) and a poor man who “had nothing except one little ewe lamb” who he treated like one of his very own children (12:3). One day a traveler visited the rich man and instead of taking one of his own sheep or cattle to feed him he took the poor man’s only ewe and prepared it for him (12:4). “David burned with anger against the rich man and said to Nathan, surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die. He must pay four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity” (12:6). In response Nathan said, “you are the man!” He told David the Lord had blessed him beyond measure and would have given him more and yet he chose to do evil in the Lord’s sight (12:7-9). As a result, Nathan stated this is what the Lord says will be your punishment, the “sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.” Also, a member of your own household would sleep with your wives not in secret like he had done but in “broad daylight before all Israel” (12:12)! Not only that but the “son born to you” with Bathsheba was going to die (12:14). And yet though David deserved far worse punishment than this, death for having committed adultery and murder, the Lord told him he had taken away his sin and David would remain alive (12:14)! The rest of this sermon is going to review Psalms 51 which is David’s confession and restoration of these heinous sins. From it we are going to learn how important it is to always put first things first when we sin, i.e., repentance and restoration!

The Plea for Forgiveness

I can only imagine how many times king David re-played the words, “you are that man” over in his mind! “When the divine message had aroused his dormant conscience and made him see his guilt” David was overwhelmed with shame. Since there were no sacrifices that could be made to atone for his heinous sins of abuse of power, adultery, and murder; all David could think of doing was to “prostrate himself as a guilty man before his offended Maker.” Knowing full well that the Lord’s judgments were just David did not plea to be released from his punishments but instead pled that the Lord would reveal “His gentlest attributes” of mercy, unfailing love, and compassion, and forgive, cleanse and restore his broken heart ravaged with guilt and polluted by sin. His missing the mark of righteousness had “disrupted his fellowship with the covenant-Lord,” and David knew the only path to restoration was to “bring the sin out of its hiding place” and see it for what it truly was, an abomination before a holy God! David’s heart was defiled, and no sacrifice was available to wash him clean, so he appealed to the Lord’s hesed to rid him of the guilt upon his soul, cleanse him from unrighteousness and pronounce him clean, a redeemed masterpiece of His grace! David put first things first by seeking the Lord who is always near to forgive and restore his relationship with Him, that was never earned but by His grace was granted!