Sermon Transcript
Bible Reading
Good morning. So I'm going to start reading from 2 Samuel chapter 11, verse 1, starting on page 482 of the Red Bibles.
2 Samuel 11:1-15
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem.
One evening, David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, she is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him and he slept with her. Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness. Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David saying, I am pregnant.
So David sent this word to Joab, send Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. So Uriah left the palace and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house.
David was told, Uriah did not go home. So he asked Uriah, haven't you just come from a military campaign? Why didn't you go home? Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents and my commander Joab and my lord's men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing.
Then David said to him, stay here one more day and tomorrow I will send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him and David made him drunk. But in the evening, Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants. He did not go home.
In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest, then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.
2 Samuel 11:26-27
I'm going to jump ahead now to verse 26.
When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
2 Samuel 12:1-10
The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
Now a traveller came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die. He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.
Then Nathan said to David, You are the man. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, I anointed you king over Israel and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah, and if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.
You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.
This is the word of the Lord.
Opening Prayer
Wow. Let's pray. Thank you, Father. Thank you that David judged correctly. The man who did this deserves to die. Thank you for your grace to David in sending him the prophet Nathan, who spun him a yarn and drew out of him his own condemnation from his very lips, for indeed he was the man.
Lord be with us by your spirit, that we might not hear this as something that happened to somebody else a long time ago, but as a truth about the way you deal with men and women, your faithfulness to bring us to repentance, that we might be restored to you and then apologise to others. Father, this touches us, each one, in different places. Thank you for that quiet and deliberate work of your spirit. Shine a light on those parts of our lives where you would have us do some work, even today, for Christ's sake, amen.
When One of Our Heroes Falls
Well today we have before us the disappointing story of one of the heroes of our faith, King David, falling into sexual sin and the chaos that always accompanies it. Did you hear the reference from Nathan the prophet today, the sword will never depart from your house. From this point on in David's story, there is turmoil in his family, he is an absent father, there is incest. One of his sons tries to steal the throne from him and take his life. It is this dumpster of yuck emptied into David's family life and that's the way it goes to the end.
In this story, we see our hero, King David, lust, abuse, lie to himself and others, deceive, use his office as king, and eventually murder. Did you hear that? You killed him by the sword of the Ammonites. Wow, talk about nailed. And having murdered Bathsheba's husband, he then takes Bathsheba as his wife. The child conceived by their adultery dies and David is confronted by God's prophet Nathan.
This is an amazing passage of scripture and I do hope that you are reading these stories about David through 1 and 2 Samuel. Something you probably don't know is that like you have four gospels, you now have a parallel in the Old Testament, so you go to 1 Chronicles and you're going to get the same story there, slightly different perspective, always good to compare. 1 Chronicles defers to David and gives you the first two verses of chapter 11 and misses the story of Bathsheba altogether. You might want to ask why, but that's there for you to notice.
This is a chilling tale, especially if you or those close to you have been directly affected by adultery and its ghastly implications. And that might be in your extended family, that may be in your birth family, that may be in your family. It may be in the family of a friend or in the life of someone in your church. It's a broken promise. Broken relationships, broken homes, abandoned children, dislocated grandparents, the emotional cost of betrayal on the betrayer and on the one who has been betrayed, financial ruin and rejection.
Last time I preached this sermon was to a church whose minister had run off with the assistant. Okay, so this happens. Whenever I encounter people impacted by adultery in this way, it makes me so sad, so sad, because relationships and especially marriage and family were designed by God to be the ultimate source of blessing in life. But they can become the ultimate source of hurt and pain in somebody's life. So there's the ideal of God turned on its head.
Me, I'm ever thankful to God for my Roseanne and for our children who love me through thick and thin when I'm behaving badly and do what is necessary to love me a little bit harder until I get over it.
I've actually had my wife say this to me. I was acting out and a couple of days later I said, oh, sorry for that. She said, yeah, that's okay. I just have to love you a little bit harder.
How do you think that made me feel? Pretty average.
So friends, whether it's your personal family history or of relationships, and whether that's a glad or sad personal history, our Heavenly Father has his love firmly fixed on you. Our Heavenly Father has his love firmly fixed on you and is working in you to bring you into his kingdom.
Invited to a Wedding
So let's just kind of pan out a bit. Let's take our eyes off, you know, David and the catastrophe that's going to happen to him and maybe our own life and the catastrophes that have happened there, or maybe the church and the catastrophes that have happened there, and let's just kind of keep on panning out, keep on panning out.
What's the big story here? The big story here is God's salvation plan for the world. In spite of my failings and yours.
And the good news is that he has invited us to a wedding. Did you know that? Revelation 21, he has invited us to a wedding of his son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
And as his church, surprise, surprise, we are the bride. You, me, this, we are the bride.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with his people, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
He who was seated on the throne said, I'm making everything new. And then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.
So that's where this is going. And friends, if you've put your trust in the Lord Jesus, that's where you're going.
And what you're doing now is surviving the ride, OK? And in the midst of that, we get to serve him, and he uses us, and that's just awesome.
And in the midst of that, we fall down, and he whispers in our ear or into our hearts by his spirit, and he says, Kev, that's not good enough. That's not the way. We've got some work to do.
And Kev dodges it for a while. But we race ahead.
A Passionate Man Off the Leash
King David. King David was a passionate man. Are you getting to know him? Have you been reading this stuff? Are you getting to know the guy?
There are some great books. We've got one on loan out here. I've borrowed it now that it's out on loan again. There's another one in the shelves downstairs. I've got a great one written by Chuck Swindoll about King David.
There's all sorts of stuff on King David. Please get into King David. He's a passionate man. You can see that from the way he wrote the Psalms. Do spend time in the Psalms.
And there's King David. He pops up all the time, and he's writing about depression, and he's, oh, I can't get out of bed. Nobody loves me. God doesn't care anymore.
And he's writing about exaltation, and bringing the ark into the temple in Jerusalem, and all the good things God's going to do. And he's writing about his people, and his joys, and his, wow, he's just all over the place.
David was a big personality. You wouldn't miss him at a party. He worshipped with all his might. He was passionate in his worship.
There's a story of bringing the ark into Jerusalem. And David, it says, is dancing or worshipping before the Lord with all his might. And I think some of his clothes might have become dissembled.
And the daughter of Saul the king, who was actually his wife, looks down from her window on King David, and it says, and despises him. David's out there. He's letting it all hang out. Probably, literally. Passionate guy.
He was a loyal and faithful friend. His friendship with Jonathan, Saul's son, is kind of legendary. Story of bloke friendship. So good. So rich. So deep.
May God give you one of those if you're a bloke. He loved many women. He had many wives. He had concubines, which is kind of, I think, what means to have a harem. Had so many children. And they're all listed here.
Passionate. He gave his life for the well-being of God's people and their nation, Israel. He was all in. Whatever he was doing, he was all in.
Mark Hansen's here today. Hello, Mark. Mark's going to fill in for me when I'm unreliable. Thanks, Mark, for doing that.
Mark and I have actually lived together. Did we both live together with Greg? OK, so my bestie Greg is a passionate man.
And you know the deal when you share a house with someone is that one cooks and one washes up. You didn't want to wash up after Greg, OK? Because he was one of these cooks.
And every pan and every pot and every spoon, it was all used. I mean, it tastes great, but it took three years to clean up after it.
So that's kind of a picture of King David. Think of my friend Greg cooking, and you're kind of nearly there.
And the point is that we all have passions. And we all have appetites. And we all have desires. And these things lead us. They draw us. They can overwhelm us.
And it seems to me that the trick is to keep them in balance, OK? Not let them run away with you. That's a mistake. So how do you do that? How do you maintain your integrity in a grey world?
You Can't Tell Yourself the Truth
Well, this is where God's truth-telling word is so important in our lives. Because, you know, if this is a mirror, you know, the light here is pretty good. Like, one of the things you should never do when you're my age is wear your glasses into the bathroom, OK? This is totally off script.
I get to go to Echuca and, you know, sleep in my son's house. And I get to make porridge for three grandchildren. At one stage, they were one, three, and five. You know how early these guys get up? This is just outrageous, OK? So it's very early. They're bouncing on grandpa's bed. Grandpa gets up. Eurgh! Porridge time. OK?
Well, stumbles out into the kitchen to do his very best for these grandchildren. How am I going so far? Good? Yeah, good. All right. And little three-year-old says, Grandpa... I say, yes, Huey? He says, why have you got cracks in your head? Wrinkles. OK? So I said, shut up, kid, and eat your porridge.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. God's truth-telling word. Don't wear your glasses into the bathroom. You don't need the truth-telling word. OK? Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. God's truth-telling word. All right? Don't wear your glasses into the bathroom. You don't need the truth in places like bathrooms.
But you do need God's truth in your life. So you know, the thing about God's word is, if it's a mirror, it's going to tell you the truth, actually. And if you find yourself in God's word, that could be good. Or that could be bad. Next best thing is having a friend who will tell you the truth. A truth-telling friend.
So who have you got in your life is going to stand between you and temptation? Because there's temptation. All right? Let's not pretend. There is temptation.
Who have you got in your life is going to stand between you and that? Who's going to say, Kev, don't you dare? Don't you dare. Don't you do that to me, or to your church, or to your family, or to your friends, or to your community. Don't you do that.
Who's going to do that for you? Or are you going to do it for someone else? Well, because we're stuffed unless somebody tells us the truth. Agreed? You can't tell yourself the truth.
I think that's the point of the talk. I've just worked it out. It took about six years. The point of the talk is, you can't tell yourself the truth. You tell yourself stories. Sorry.
If you're like me, that's how this thing works. You tell yourself stories, songs you sing yourself to sleep with to make you feel better about the world. That's how my life works. How about you? We need someone to tell us the truth.
So God bound himself to his people in a covenant of faithfulness. God is a promise-keeping God, and warned them about wanting to be like the nations around them, and that their kings would want to be like other kings.
And if you go to Deuteronomy 17, God warns them against multiplying horses, wives, and treasure. So I don't know what the modern equivalent is, but that was what the kings had to look out for.
And here is David multiplying wives. So this dear man, a man after God's own heart, lets his sexuality off the leash. It's gone.
And creates a disaster, which we have before us in our reading today, and we'll continue to encounter as we go through the rest of his story.
Caught in a Trap of His Own Making
Please notice, there's a number of things you've got to notice here. David was a king. He was the king, and he got away with it. David was the king, and he got away with it. The only one who really knew what David has done was dead. Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. Bathsheba is now his wife.
Chapter 11, and verse 26.
When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. And after the time of mourning was over, David brought her into his house, the palace, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
So who knows about this? David knows about this. Bathsheba knows about this. And God. David knows what he's done. I imagine that that was not a very pleasant memory for David. In fact, if you read Psalms 32 and 38, it seems that he was haunted by it.
For he wrote,
When I was silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. Day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess.
David is stuck. David is stuck. He is caught in a trap of his own making. It's like unforgiveness. It is so complete. And he has no way forward, and he has no way back.
I've spoken to many men who have left their wives. One of the privileges of my position is people tell you their stuff. And I've spoke to not a few women who have been abandoned by their husbands.
One had a girl. She's a mother. She had a girl in our church whose parents had split up there in South Africa. The mother came to Australia to live with her. The father also emigrated.
And we had one of those things you do at church, barbecues, for everybody to come. Could have been Christmas or something. His grandchildren. So he turned up, and we're standing by the barbecue. And he's telling me a few things.
And he said, I saw the chance to be happy. I'm living with the damage he's done to her daughter. His daughter. Her hair fell out. Alopecia. Didn't grow back. I'm dealing with the damage he's done to his wife, who is now resident in my church.
And he stands there and says, I saw a chance to be happy. I thought, you turd. I've seen many regrets, but I haven't seen many repentances. I've seen some. And when I do, I think, man, you are on holy ground. This is so unlikely. God has clearly been at work.
So here's David, and he's stuck. God graciously sends him a friend. He sends him a prophet to provide him with a way out. And it's not what you'd expect. It's not there, there, David. It's like a baseball bat across the brain. It's whack.
David, your secret is known. How did this guy find this out? The Lord revealed it to him. David, your secret is known. God has revealed it to me.
He is holding out a lifeline. Take it. Repent. Talk about holding the door open for somebody. Nothing David could do. Totally stitched up. Then he sends him a prophet. Repent. Live again.
The chronology is this. It's been almost a year since David took Bathsheba. He's ready, if you read the Psalms, to say sorry to God for what he's done, to own up and repent of his sins, but he's stuck. There's no one to repent to. You can't bring your eye back. The child has died.
Psalm 51 begins like this. For the director of music, a psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. This is written at the time.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love. According to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions. My sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.
For surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
What's David saying? I'm rotten to the core.
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I'll be whiter than snow.
Let me hear of joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins. Blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
So is that you? Is that you? Are you caught in a trap of your own making? Is there no way forward and no way back?
Perhaps this is your Nathan the Prophet moment. Perhaps the medicine that the Lord applied to David's life could apply in your life as well. Maybe it's your time to go home and write Psalm 51.
There is a freedom that is promised if we will just come to God as we are without pretense. Friends, is it time for you to be honest to God?
Run From Temptation, Run to Jesus
David is forgiven. The Prophet tells us that in chapter 12 and verse 13.
Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan replied, the Lord is taking away your sin. You are not going to die but because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt. The son born to you will die.
David's guilt is removed but the consequences of what he has done roll on like a wrecking ball through his family.
It's so often the way. You can be forgiven but you still have to live with the consequences.
Friends, David's case is tragic but it does not have to be repeated in your marriage and in your family life. Here is the benefit part of the talk.
If you can hear what is being said today, how God dealt with David, you've learned something. Let that rest upon you. Let that enter your heart. Let that impress itself on your consciousness so that you don't walk the same path because the temptation is going to be there.
Let this be God's truth-telling moment to you. Vow and declare that you will never. Heed the warning these verses give.
Flee temptation. Don't try to fight it. You are not strong enough.
David was a man after God's own heart. How much more will we fall if he fell? How much more?
Again the kind of song we sing at nighttime and the stories we tell ourselves about our capacity and our goodness and our strength didn't work for David. I don't like your chances.
1 Corinthians chapter 10.
These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
So if you think you are standing firm, beware that you don't fall. For no temptation has seized you except that which is common.
And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
When you are tempted, he will provide a way out. You need to be looking for a way out friends, not a way in.
Earlier in that letter, 1 Corinthians 6 he says, flee sexual immorality. Do you know what it means to flee? It means yell fire and run out of the building with your hands in the air. That's what it means.
So when you become aware that your thoughts are going in the wrong direction, that your behaviour is being affected in a negative way, that something is coming upon you, Paul has a word of advice. Run away. Run away.
Don't run away later, run away now. Because you are not strong enough.
There are so many important practical reasons why we all need to hear this message today. Primarily to realise that we are just as human as David and say to ourselves there but for the grace of God go I.
But there is more. In all the Scriptures there is only one man like David, a man after God's own heart. God says it of David himself, yet he still fell into this hideous sin.
And again if he fell and was overwhelmed by sin, how much more vulnerable are you and I? In spite of all our good intentions, our emotions and our promises, in sickness, in health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, we seem destined only to make a bad situation worse.
What are the marriage stats in Australia at the moment? It's pitiful. Is it under 30%?
And of those marriages how many of them end in divorce? Half. So we're not getting married in the first place and when we are it's not lasting so the scorecard's pretty bad.
How sad that our failure is then visited on the next generation and the generation after. Help. Help.
Well help is at hand because God had promised David that he would have a son who would sit on his throne forever. We talked about that last week.
We know this son's name. His name is Jesus, son both of David and son of God. This son lived not to please himself but to please his heavenly father, even offering himself as a living sacrifice to take away the sin nature of the world for all who trust in him.
This son, this Jesus, is our Saviour, our Prophet, our Priest, our King. He secures our forgiveness as a gift and pours out his spirit of holiness upon his church so that we can resist temptation and live and not die. Praise him.
Jesus is our only hope. Hear the lesson of David. Run from temptation. Run to Jesus. Friends, the Lord be with you.
