2 Samuel 11:1–4 (NIV)

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. Then she went back home.

The Shadow of Apathy

Introduction

We have been teaching through this book, Fighting Shadows, and we have been exposing the different shadows that the enemy draws men in to in order to stop them from fulfilling their God-given potential.

Today we will close with a shadow that is perhaps the craftiest of all of the shadows; and that is the Shadow of Apathy.

Our authors cite a study of 400 women in which they asked women what is the one thing that is wrong with men today. Their answers point to this one theme - Apathy.

What is apathy?

It is a man without a vision for his life.

Proverbs 29:18 KJV

Where there is no vision the people perish.

And a man without a vision - an apathetic man, will not only perish, but He endangers his spouse and family in the collateral damage of living a visionless life.

To quote Tyler Durden from the seminal movie Fight Club:

“We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we’ll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won’t. And we’re just learning this fact.”

There are too many men who lack purpose & drive.

There are too many men who lack direction in life.

There are too many men who lack initiative in relationships.

There are too many men who lack a sense of vocational call.

And this begins when we don’t understand the time and the season that we are in.

The King Who Stayed Home

In our text we read about one of the greatest Kings in Israel, if not the greatest human King, and that is King David. He is the one that was hand selected by God to lead Israel into their glory days. He was a robust, almost super-hero of a man.

His origin story is that he was overlooked by his father and his job was to watch sheep. But because David is a legend, he didn’t just watch sheep, but he killed lions and bears who threatened the flock of his father.

He was anointed at a young age to be the King of Israel.

He was seen as the warrior prodigy when he killed Goliath, the Champion of the Philistines.

As a warrior in the army of King Saul, he would kill tens of thousands and the cheers of his name rang out in the streets of Jerusalem.

He knew that he would be King but he respected the order of God and refused to do any harm to the sitting King.

When it was His turn, David not only made the name of the nation of Israel great, but more importantly, he made the name of His Lord great.

His first order of business as King was to bring back the Ark of the Covenant, which was the presence of God. He built a tabernacle for the Ark, and would have built a temple, but God told him No.

David took territory, he expanded the Kingdom, he made Israel’s enemies distant memories as he led conquest after conquest.

But everything changed in the Spring time one year when he decided that he would not go out to war with his men.

We read that when it was time for the King to go to war, the King stayed home.

There is a tremendous point to be made here about being not only in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also missing the seriousness of the moment.

In the New Testament Paul encouraged his young protege who was starting to lose his faith.

Paul was in prison and nearing the end of his life. Timothy had been with Paul and had seen the glory of the Lord tangibly in his life. When he was with Paul he saw the sick healed, demons were cast away, and the Glory of the Lord was with them as they traveled the world and planted churches.

But now, Paul is gone and the opposition of the church felt emboldened to press young Timothy.

The glory days were gone and Timothy’s faith was failing.

Then Paul spoke to Timothy to remind him of the time.

2 Timothy 2:3–4 (NIV)

Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.

Paul tells Timothy - We’re in a fight bud! If this was easy, everyone would be doing it. It’s not for the feint at heart Timothy, but understand the season you are in.

And then Paul drops this bar, soldiers don’t get entangled in civilian affairs.

David, what are you doing staying home? You’re needed on the battle field.

Timothy, why are you losing heart? You’re in a battle!

Men, we have to wake up to the reality that we are living in. We are seeing moral decay all around us. This isn’t the time to get entangled with civilian affairs. This is the time to take up your sword of the Spirit. This is the time to take up your shield of Faith. This isn’t the time to forget who you are, and whose you are.

We have a real enemy that is not playing games with us, and from everything that I can see, the return of the Lord is getting closer and closer.

[Transition]

One of the things about sports and competition that we know and understand is the time on the clock determines the play.

When time is running out, and you are in a dog fight with your enemy, you don’t retreat. You understand that the time on the clock determines the play.

Men, time is running out, and I need to know, what is the play here?

When you’re too distracted to make a difference in God’s kingdom, what is your play?

You see men, I love how Paul reminds Timothy to not get tangled with civilian affairs.

Tangled is such a strong, and appropriate word to describe what happens when men get distracted.

You see, some men give too much of their time to things that have no eternal consequence. And it’s not that those things are sin… they’re just stupid. They’re careless. They suck up your time and energy.

“But Pastor, is it a sin?” No, but that’s not the point. It’s foolish.

I remember playing in a Fantasy Football League with some friends. And, before then I played in a work league and it was good fun and camaraderie.

But then I joined another league and these guys were serious. They were waking up in the middle of the night to submit their trades before everyone else woke up. They’d wake up at 3 AM to get their trades in.

I bowed out… they asked why aren’t you playing with us, and I told them that this was becoming foolishness. You wake up at 3 am to make trades? You won’t event wake up at 5:30 to pray, but you’ll wake up to make trades in your fantasy world of football?

I’m out.

Not a sin… but foolish.

David stayed home… not a sin, but foolish.

COVID is OVER

Earlier in our series I threw out an idea that came to me while I was preaching, and I probably shouldn’t have said it becuase it was a thought that I had not fully thought threw. I could tell by the looks on your faces that you were a little confused by what I said, and so after more study and context I want to share it again.

One of the things that damaged men during the pandemic lock downs was men normalized staying home.

For a season this was necessity.

But when the lockdowns ended, I saw that there were men who refused to leave the house and go re-enter the workforce.

Sure, there are some men that have justified their existence in their home, and that’s not to say that there is no truth to that.

But, like David, when it is time for the man to go out to war, there have been too many men who refuse to leave the home.

They traded in a vision of being the Priest, Provider, and Protector, for comfort, lethargy, and virtual success.

Said differently, they are distracted. And distraction becomes a liability in a war.

Think about that… we’re in a war and we’re in a fox hole.

In those moments do you want a man next to you who is present, or is a distraction.

An apathetic man has traded in his focus for distraction.

Author C.S. Lewis wrote a book called the Screwtape Letters. It’s a fascinating read from one demon to another demon and it is meant to wake us up to the reality of spiritual warfare. Let me read to you a portion of that book:

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that they cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestone, without signposts.

If Satan can keep you in the recess of your comfort he can keep you from living up the potential that God has for you.

The King of Grew Complacent

You see, David was a man of war, and it is not that he grew tired of the fight, but rather, he grew accustomed to the comfort.

I don’t expect you all to remember this, but in Rocky 3, Rocky’s trainer tells him that he can’t beat Clubber Lang. Clubber Lang simply wanted it more. The fire inside of Rocky had died. He made his money. He was living in a mansion. He was sleeping in silk pajamas. He was losing the reason and the fire to go and take a punch in the face.

David stayed home and his generals took the men out to war and they were having great success.

Men, you have to be careful that in your comfort, you do not lose your zeal for the things of the Lord.

You see David was a worshipper. The Bible records that when David was King one of his first orders of business was to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. When they brought the Ark back he pitched a tent, it is called David’s Tent, and he had commissioned priests and worshippers to surround the ark and offer up continual worship to the Lord.

Every time David would step outside his palace he would fix his eyes on the tent and marvel at the beauty of worship being offered around the Ark.

But on this day, instead of looking outside of his palace and fixing his eyes on the ark, he fixed his eyes on a woman who was bathing on the roof of her home.

Here’s the bumper sticker gentlemen - Apathy sets in when we take our eyes off of the presence of God.

The moment that David took his eyes off of the presence of the Lord it set off a chain reaction in his life that there was no coming back from.

David sleeps with the woman who was bathing on the roof that day knowing that her husband was off to war. When David learns that she had become pregnant he tries to conceal her pregnancy by bringing her husband home from war hoping that he would come back and be intimate with that woman so that on one would know that the child was his. What David didn’t count on was this man had more integrity than this once great King David. He refused to sleep with his wife while his men were out at war. This man understood the times… David did not.

Now came the gravest of David’s sins… he conspired to have her husband killed by placing this man in the front lines of battle where we was sure to die; and he did. David took this woman to be his wife and he believed that he had effectively executed a conspiracy to hide his adultery and the murder of the woman’s husband.

Listen to me men… apathy will take you further than you want to go and keep you longer than you intended to stay.

And when David thought that he had pulled it off, God sent a Prophet to expose his sin and the child that David conceived with this woman died.

Two deaths, one affair, and a stain on the legacy of a once great King.

Men, we can’t afford to pay the price of apathy and distraction.

A Distracted Dad (The French Spiderman)

I want to close with a story about a man called the French Spiderman.

In 2018, Mamoudou Gassama, a Malian immigrant living in France came to the rescue of a boy who was dangling from the fourth story of his French apartment. When Mamoudou, who just happened to be walking down the street, saw this boy hanging from the balcony he ran to action, climbing the walls like Spiderman. He miraculously saved the life of this little boy.

He was given the nick-name the French Spiderman and was granted national citizenship. He was a hero and was celebrated as one.

But later, the questions emerged, where was the boys father? Why was this child left home alone and where were the adults to protect the child?

The father had left the home to pick up some groceries and made a poor decision to leave the boy home for what should have been a few moments. But when the father was out picking up groceries he became distracted while playing Pokemon Go and the few minutes from home turned into a much longer time.

Fathers, we scoff at that story, and rightly so.

But are you that Dad? Are you being distracted by things while your child’s well-being is hanging in the balance?