2 Samuel 11:1-5 The Setup Of A Fall

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Transcript

Where David’s Story Stands

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All right. Second Samuel Chapter 10 is where we are at. Second Samuel Chapter 10. The life of David is what we've been considering. And we should be reminded of what we saw in chapter 9. A beautiful expression of kindness and mercy and grace. David, a man after God's own heart, he resembles Jesus in chapter 9 better than just about anybody. There he showed mercy when justice would have been reasonable or expected. He showed mercy on a man named Mefukoshep. And it was beautiful to see. Chapter 9. Chapter 10, quick overview to set the pace here.

Chapter 10: Insult Becomes War

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Chapter 10 is continued conquest. This comes up every so often. David is fighting some battles. And it begins in chapter 10 with the death of the king of Ammon. Ammon, a people descended from Lot. Ugly story in the book of Genesis, you can review later. But the people of Ammon had an on-again and off-again relationship with the people of Israel. And here David was on good terms with the king of Ammon. The king of Ammon died, and his son took power. In chapter 10, David shows his respect to the king's son, and his condolences are met with insult in chapter 10. The emissaries there are insulted in some pretty harsh ways, and this leads to war. Now in chapter 10, God gives David the victory, and David's on a streak, if we could say. Victory after victory.

The Warning For Every Heart

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Now that's chapter 10, but chapter 11 is what we're going to look at. And I could guess that the moment that I said we were going to study the life of David, you might have thought of Goliath, David and Goliath, that scenario there. But you probably would have thought of chapter 11, his sin with Bathsheba. And it's been uh this dark cloud on the horizon that we know is coming, and finally it's here. Um now a little side note before we jump into chapter 11. Yeah, David is probably in his mid-50s, 50 to 55 at this point, and and he's about ready to have the fall of his life. And and that scares me as I look at it because I am a man in my mid-50s. Now that's not the application for us all today, but the application here, and you got to catch this, is much simpler. That David is a human being, and this applies to every single one of us. We're sinful people, we have a tendency towards sin. And so we can learn from this of the deceitfulness of sin and the weakness of every single one of us. We're all capable of this kind of sin. In fact, you should write it in your heart and in your mind. You and I are capable of every sin. We may say, no, I'm not, but God knows better that we should be aware of that weakness in us lest we fall, as it says in 1 Corinthians. Um, so the application today is for every single one of us. Today we're gonna consider the setup of sin, the temptation to sin, and the ultimate fall into sin. Uh, we're gonna go slower. Uh, I had hoped to cover the entire chapter, but there's just way too much that we can apply to our lives in this chapter. So we're gonna take verses one through five. Uh, notice 2 Samuel 11, verse 1.

When You’re Not Where You Should Be

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And it happened in the spring of the year at the time when kings go out to battle. That David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. Then it happened. One evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful to behold. So David sent and inquired about the woman, and someone said, Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? They tried. And David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed of her impurity, and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, so she sent and told David and said, I am with child. So lots to look at in chapter 11, verses 1 through 5. But we consider the setup there in verses 1 and 2. The setup for sin. We read there, it was the spring of the year, and it's the time that kings go out to battle. Now, this is put here for a reason that David was the king, and this was the time of year he was expected to go to war, and he had had success in war. He had some good generals, sort of, right? And the weather's so nice, I'm thinking, and I'm, you know, in my 50s and I'm tired. I paid my dues. I'll let them go, he says. And so, even though it was the time for David to go to war, he stays home and sends somebody else. Uh, that is the first real setup in this. David was not where he was supposed to be. He was not where God had called him to be. But notice even more in verse two how it starts, if you want to get the full vacation mindset here, it happened one evening that David arose from his bed, right? All right, so it's evening. The sun is going down, the breeze, the cool breeze, I'm just imagining, is coming there over his house. He gets up off of his bed at evening. Now, I'm guessing he probably had done other things that day, right? I don't think he just slept all day, but he took a nap, which is really scary because I like to nap now. When I was a kid, you couldn't get me to nap. Now I would kill for a nap. I mean, maybe not literally, but I love naps. You know what I mean? And he got up there as the sun was going down and he said, Life is good. I'm gonna take a walk. And and around the patio roof of his house, he walked. Now, the whole mindset is pretty relaxed. We're just gonna say it's pretty relaxed when he looks and sees uh a woman bathing. His guard is down, right? At this point, he's staying when he should have been going, he's resting when he should have been watching. Here's

Watch, Pray, Stay Sober

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some verses from the New Testament for us. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12. Let me read it to you. 1 Corinthians 10, 12. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. So this is a mindset thing. Paul says, if you think you stand, you better be careful because you might fall. Um, Jesus says it more clearly, I think, even in Matthew 26, 41, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. Watching and praying should be part of our life. One more, Peter says in 1 Peter 5 8, 1 Peter 5 8, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. So we look at all these things, and David wasn't doing any of that. He wasn't watching, he wasn't praying, he wasn't vigilant, he was taking a nap on the roof when he should have been out in battle. And that's when the temptation, you know the story, that's when the temptation came. And the devil is a roaring lion, right? He knows the best time to send the temptation, and this was it. Now, David walking on the roof of his house, he looks down and he sees a woman bathing. Now, I'm sure we could blame her a little bit. What were you doing outside taking a bath? However, there this is before the invention of indoor bathrooms, right? This is before the invention of the indoor tub, I guess. And people did this when they bathed, they went down to the river and they bathed. Generally, I think with their clothes on, but they they bathed, right? They bathed perhaps, as maybe she was, maybe, in a courtyard. Now, the big problem here wasn't actually that wasn't actually that she was outside bathing in this case. The big problem here was the location of David's house. Because David, being the king, had his house elevated from everyone else. Maybe nobody else could see her bathing outside, but David could. Now, David goes for a walk. Now, we don't want to go so far to say that he knew this was the time that this would happen, but I wouldn't put it past him because David is a man. He's a man after God's own heart, but he's still a man, he's a human being. And check it out. We have a way of justifying everything in our life. We do. He might have thought, now, this is hypothetical, he might have thought, I'm going for a walk because it's a beautiful night. Why shouldn't I go for a walk? I don't have any wrong intentions in visiting this website. It's all for news I'm looking at. I'm trying to find out what's going on in the world. What do people really think? You know, I'm not trying to flirt with the coworker, I just want to be kind. And and you could put all these things, plug in the sin, plug in the sin, but we can justify anything and say, Oh, my intentions were wrong. And then the other voice is your intentions are all wrong, you know, but we do it anyways, and that is the big setup. He really trusted himself more than he ought to have, I think. But here we are, he saw. Notice in in verse two, he saw. Now, the seeing is not the sin. What comes into our eye is not necessarily the sin, it's the second look. The second look was the big problem here. The action that came after. Now, let's stop for a second and look through the lens of omniscience. As the reader, we have the same view that God has in some ways, right? Because we can skip ahead and we can see what happens next. We can see uh that he takes her and she becomes pregnant, and the cover-up that comes after that. He tries to get Uriah to come home and you know, sleep with his wife, and everything will be just fine. The cover-up that doesn't work. And we find out that David plans for Uriah to be killed in battle. The murder happens. Well, not only that, he's busted in chapter 12 by Nathan the prophet, who comes and says, David, you're the man who did the sin. And because of this, the sword will not depart from your house. And we could look down the road at what happens in David's life. The baby dies. His children war against each other. One son rapes his daughter, uh, David's daughter. And then her brother, it's an ugly thing, her brother comes and kills him. Two sons, one killed. Then that same son, Absalom, we find later on, rises up against David, tries to steal the throne, and is killed against David's will. Now, listen, we look at that and we go, what an ugly scene. David, don't do it. I can see what's going to happen. The consequences of this are so ugly. And we could say in a moment, David,

The Second Look And The Spiral

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look, stop. Okay. You see here? Yeah, but walk away. Do you have any idea how this is going to affect your life? And we could tell him. And listening to one teacher this morning, they had a good point. If only David could have looked forward to the consequences of what he was doing, he wouldn't have done it. And I think, you know what? I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so sure that the consequences keep us from sin, right? Does it stop us from speeding since we're celebrating law enforcement today? Does it stop us from speeding that we may get a ticket? Absolutely not. We do it anyways, right? We think it through. Does it stop us from spending time on TikTok, on the job, knowing that we may lose our job by misusing our time? Absolutely not. Does it ever keep us from sin? Maybe, but not always. Sometimes you can tell us that this sin will lead to our death. And we'll say, you know what? That's the chance I'm gonna take. Because we're just that twisted and we're just that wrong. What can keep us from sin? It's not the consequences, it's a relationship with God. That's the only thing that can keep us from sin is the fear of God. And we look to Joseph in the book of Genesis. Very similar temptation in Genesis. Um, I believe it's 39. But Joseph's master's wife casts longing eyes, you know, Mrs. Potiphar, every single day. She wants Joseph to come and sleep with her. And Joseph says, No, and no, and no, and no. And finally she grabs him and says, You're gonna do this now. And Joseph says, How can I do this against my master? But how can I do this against God? And Joseph runs away, leaving his robe right there. And I think we see here the only thing that will keep us from sin in the end is not wanting to hurt God, a relationship with God. That's why it's so important that we invest in that. Well, David saw, and then he acted, notice verse three. So David sent and inquired about the woman. David sent and inquired some action, the next step. Notice in verse three, there's a huge amount of grace for David in verse three, because someone, we don't know who this someone is, says, ah, yes, that lady, that's Bathsheba, uh, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah. Now, David probably would have known this because she was also the granddaughter of one of his advisors, right? So you put all that together, you you know, David, you shouldn't be here right now. You shouldn't be doing this right now. We're gonna say this looks a lot like the conviction of the Holy Spirit, which we've talked about, that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment to come. And we all know this, right? When we find ourselves in a questionable situation, and the Holy Spirit says, What are you doing? Why are you here? Isn't that the wife of Uriah the Hittite? I think David knew. But it's God's grace that convicts us every single time. But he pushes forward, we see here, and we see a parallel here also to a man named Achan. Uh Achan in the book of Joshua. You remember him, right? God said, Don't take anything from the city of Jericho, it's mine. Don't take any of the spoils. And Achan there does, and he tells us a little later how it all went down in chapter 7, verse 21, Joshua 7, 21. He says, This, when I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels. I coveted them and I took them. So Achan shows us something real similar here. He says, I saw this stuff. Not a sin, but he saw it, and then he coveted it. Something happened in his heart where he says, Ah, if I only had that. Now, you look at how unreasonable this is. We don't have time to get into it, but how unreasonable this is a Babylonian garment. He's like, Man, those are some sweet clothes there. You can't wear them, you can't even enjoy them, right? He just hid it underneath his tent. He can't enjoy it, he can't have any of it, but he coveted and then he took them. Because of that, he lost his entire family for something that started with a scene. It's a downward spiral of sin. Now, David doesn't listen, and it says he sent messengers in verse 4, and he took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her, had sexual relations there. Now, now think about it for just a second. How long was that enjoyment? Not long, right? A moment of passion. Maybe it was everything the movies of the day said it would be. Maybe, and it was over. Now, it was never worth it. Afterward, there's the consequences we talked about. But for a man, now listen, for a man after God's own

Guilt, Confession, And Turning Back

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heart, here's something I know he experienced conviction, guilt. He knew he was wrong after that. Well, how do you know that? Well, one, that's what the Holy Spirit does, but two, let's turn, you've been wanting to turn this whole time, I know. Let's turn to Psalm 32. Psalm 32. Now, Psalm 51 is even more distinct because it says after David sinned with Bathsheba, and we'll get to that next week. But Psalm 32, most people say is that same time period. Um, let's look at verse 2, because it feels brighter and better than verse 3. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit. Verse 3. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Say law. Selah means think about it, take some time to think about it. So, David, here at this time, to get an insight into his heart, he's like, Oh man, God's hand was so heavy upon me. I was groaning day and night. And and we just see this deep conviction and guilt that David experienced, and he tried to cover it up, right? Um this was the result of David's sin. It separated him from that close relationship with God. That's not what God wants, but that's the reality of what sin does in our lives. So think about all the consequences to this separation from people, destruction in our lives, separation from God in our hearts. Now, David in ver in chapter 12 will Confess. We're not going to hit that, probably not this week, not this week, next week, or the week after that. We'll probably hit it. But David confesses his sin when he's confronted by Nathan the prophet. And he repents, we could say. He turns back to a right relationship with God. And God will forgive him. That's what he says there in Psalm 51. You know, blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, you know. Uh creating me a clean heart, God, right? All these things. And and we see David turn back to God. Now, it's never too early or too late to confess that you were wrong. Boy, we should get that in our relationship, shouldn't we? I should probably get that. There's conviction right there. It's never too early to confess when we were wrong. It's never too late to confess that we're wrong. And that's what God wants, right? He wants us to confess and just say, God, you were right and I was wrong. John says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we've got to confess. We've got to admit we're wrong. But it's also repentance. It's never too early or too late to repent. In a moment, as David saw Bathsheba, he had the opportunity to repent. And you would have seen it. This is what repentance looks like. Ah, see Bathsheba, she's bathing, and turn around and go the other way. Right? That's what repentance means, and that's how it shows up is I'm not going to go the way I was going. I've got to physically go the other way. You can't just talk about it. You got to do it. And David had that opportunity, but so do we. It's never too early. Now listen, it's never too early or late to confess, as long as you're alive, to confess when you were wrong. God, I've sinned, I've messed up. It's never too early or late to repent, to turn from your sin and just start coming to God. Now there may be some consequences. There are consequences in David's life. Consequences. But forgiveness is there if we just turn back to Him. And we see the best thing of all could have been to not be there in the first place, to be where God wants you to be, where you're expected to be, to be in close relationship with Him. That would have been the best. But it's never too late to turn back to God.

Closing Prayer For A New Week

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So, God, um, this is by far one of the most applicable studies in your word we could ever hit because God, we're all sinners, and we find ourselves tempted with sin every single day. And the enemy knows our number. He knows what will trip us up and get us down. He wants to destroy us. And yet, you've come that we may have life and have it more abundantly. God, help us as we face another week and even a day. God help us to turn to you with everything that we are, with all of our heart. God, to trust you with all of our life, our happiness, and uh all of it. God, that you would bring us even closer. And all we would see is you. God, I just pray that by your mercy you would work these things into our hearts today. Help us to be aware of all these things. And we give you our lives in Jesus' name. We pray. Amen.