2 Samuel David's Failure (2 Samuel 11-12)
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Today we are in our 17th sermon in our series called a Prophet and 2 Kings.
If you have your Bible’s you can go with me to 2 Samuel 11.
Before, I read the text this morning,
I want to ask the big question of the day…
Are you treating the symptom
or
are you treating the cause?
A symptom is a sign or indication of the problem,
whereas the cause is the reason why that problem exists.
Are you treating the symptom
or
are you treating the cause?
1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. 3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. 5 And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” 16 And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. 17 And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. 27 And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
I will be honest and say that this is one of the most unpleasant passage for me to read in the Bible.
I say this because David is one of my heroes in the Bible.
(David up to this point has been well deserving of being labeled a role model, hero, man of God, someone to look up too)
[Commentators have tried to downplay David’s evil in this passage]
But in this passage it is very clear,
that the author describes a series of actions that David does that are absolutely evil.
We see David has an affair and sleeps with Bathsheba.
(No one will ever know) [misconception]
The Bible addresses this misconception..
Numbers 32:23b (ESV)
23b “be sure your sin will find you out.”
17 For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.
Explain… what is done in the dark will come to light… be sure your sin will find you out...
(Gossip and Slander, secret affairs, corrupt business deals)
What David did in the cover of darkness,
was coming to light,
as Bathsheba was pregnant.
But instead of facing the consequence to his sin,
he goes down a road of trying to cover up his sin.
David sends for Uriah the Hittite,
(important to remember he is a foreigner,)
[Not of Jewish birth]
So, David sends for Uriah the Hittite,
with the plan to have him sleep with Bathsheba to cover up his sin.
The problem for David,
is that Uriah the foreigner,
at this point fears God more than David fears God.
It is interesting because David is the chosen king of God’s chosen people,
yet this foreigner serves as a better example of pursing God than David does.
David tells Uriah,
you have had a long journey,
go home and relax with your wife.
Uriah replies…
“the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” (2 Sam. 11:11b
in other words Uriah.. How could I do such a thing…
David attempt again to cover his sin..
(gets Uriah drunk… still does not sleep with Bathsheba)
David’s plan A fails,
so he then goes to plan B...
Plan B takes an even darker turn...
(Have you ever been in a situation where someone is caught in something,
and they immediately start to cover up what they did?)
Robin… Land minds…
[cover up instead of take responsibility]
David turns to plan B,
and writes a letter for Uriah to deliver to Joab.
What Uriah does not know,
is that this letter is in essence his own death warrant.
Uriah delivers the letter to Joab and Joab carries out David’s orders,
which results in an innocent man’s death,
along with others.
David’s wickedness and betrayal is bad enough on the surface,
but as you dig a little deeper it gets even worse.
David has a group in his army refereed to as the thirty,
which totals 37 men.
And this group was filled with the mighty men of David’s army.
(3 and 30) [These men would have been extremely close to David]
I bring this up to show you the last name on the list...
Author goes through the list of these mighty warriors,
and the last name on the list is.…
39 Uriah the Hittite: thirty-seven in all.
Friendly fire is devastating because you never expect it…
The harsh reality is you never expose your back to an enemy,
but you do to a friend.
Uriah would have never imagined that the man that he helped establish as king,
fought on the front lines with,
and saw God’s anointing of the Spirit on his life,
Would be the one to not only sleep with his wife,
but have him murdered to cover up the sin..
For David to betray Uriah is fascinating in the sense,
that if anyone should know how painful betrayal is, would be David.
Saul betrayed David… David knew the pain of betrayal.
(If you don’t heal from betrayal,
you can easily betray someone else.… )
So it appears that David has been successful to cover up his sin.
But as the Bible says,
“be sure your sin will find you out”
The next chapter.. chapter 12...
Nathan the Prophet comes to tell a story to David...
David is different from Saul… David repents vs Saul justifies his actions...
(The baby ends up dying)
The question is how could have David acted so evil?
(Warning)
I would never do that.…
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Above getting tripped up,
your wrong…
There is something very important we can learn from David’s failure.
I think we can all agree,
that up to this point,
David would seem to be the last person that you would think,
would do something so evil.
Yet here we are and see David commit adultery,
and work so hard to cover up his sin,
that he even murders a fellow warrior in Uriah.
But what David did I believe were all symptoms for David,
but they are not the cause for David’s failure....
The cause for David’s failure is right there,
but we often miss it because we are focused on the symptom's of David.
1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
Why did David remain in Jerusalem?
The reason is David got comfortable,
which led him to stop engaging in the battle that was before him.
Do you know that no were in Scripture does God call us to pursue being comfortable?
The Bible has so many accounts of the Lord calling people out of their comfort zone to do difficult things.
It has never been the will of God to sit back and become comfortable.
An important reality to understand is that becoming comfortable,
will always gives birth to complacency.
David got complacent in the palace,
and what followed was the effects of that complacency.
When David engaged in the battle before him,
and was in feirce pursuit of doing the will of God,
we saw David walk in victory as the Lord was with him.
But when he got comfortable in the palace,
and stopped in engaging in the battle that was before him,
he did something that was so hideous that it hard to even imagine David doing it.
Though we may read this story,
and can focus on the symptoms of adultery and murder,
we must not miss the cause for the symptoms.
David’s cause of the symptoms was complacency.
David’s complacency was the opening for the enemy to come in to steal, kill, and destroy.
2 of my favorite old testament characters are David and Caleb… 85 years old
18 Where there is no vision, the people perish:
I have said this to the men in our church,
but I want to say it again.
And that is,
I believe the biggest problem in the church today is complacency. (church as a whole)
Complacency has opened the door to immorality.
Complacency has opened the door for illiteracy of the Holy Scripture.
(many other things that have been results of complacency)
That is because when we stop engaging in the battle,
and stop pursuing God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength,
we have allowed an opening for the enemy to come in the doors of the church....
I starting this morning with the question...
Are you treating the symptom
or
are you treating the cause?
A sad reality is that Church’s have become more focused on treating symptoms,
instead of addressing the cause.
The church has become an institution for self help,
to address symptoms that leads to temporary solutions.
(Mask, makeup, cover for a moment)
The church was never meant to just try to mask symptoms,
but rather get to the root of what the problem is.
(Jesus said in the last days the love of many will grow cold)
12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
to the church of Ephesus...
4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
