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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

A Man After Gods Own Heart: King David

David Wright

01 The Nobody Nobody Noticed

02 God’s Heart, God’s Man, God’s Ways

03 Giant Lessons Worth Remembering

04 Aftermath of a Giant Killing

05 Every Crutch Removed

06 How to Lie to Your Pastor

07 I Hate To Wait

08 Is This God’s Will or Mine?

09 Living Above Retaliation

10 Lying Appearances

11 When Seeing is not Believing

12 When Your Enemy Falls

14 Pulling Down Strongholds

13 Power Grab And Civil War

16 When God Says No

17 When Grace Calls You By Name

18 A Perilous Thing to Lose Dependence On God

19 Restore To Me The Joy

15 But God Knows My Heart

And I'm just going to begin with this quotation.

It says, it's a perilous thing to praise or exalt men, for 1 comes to lose sight of his entire dependence on God and to trust in his own strength, and then he is sure to fall.

And today we've been looking at all of these things leading up in David's life, how he's gone from being the little lad and watching over the sheep, how he, through the power of God, defeats the giant, how he's been on the run, how in the midst of that time, he trusts in the Lord, even though he doesn't understand, and he's waiting and he's waiting as he's being hunted for his very life, and then the Lord finally sees to bless him, he becomes king, he moves the capital back to Jerusalem, everything is clicking and going just as anybody would want it to go.

But then this piece that honestly I wish was not part of the story of David.

And it's a dark time in David's experience and it's honestly rather discouraging.

I think all of us have had friends, maybe family, close associates who have seen somebody take a significant moral fall.

And we've seen the destruction, the heartache, the hurt, the pain that can be just perpetual, ongoing.

We've seen it in world leaders, business leaders, presidents, pastors, even great athletes.

And so I could have provided a host of examples, but I don't like to provide examples, honestly, of people who make moral falls.

And so today we're just going to spend time in what the scripture tells us of David's moral fall.

And so we're continuing this series, A Man After God's Own Heart, but we'll notice David is not a man after God's own heart when he's participating in sin.

When he is restored, when he seeks forgiveness, when he is repentant, but Spirit of Prophecy says not when he's engaged in sin.

And this part, part 18, a perilous thing to lose dependence on God, and I believe that is truly the crux of the matter.

And so if you brought your Bibles we're in 2 Samuel chapter 11 and it's there that we read, 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 Raba.

Remained, or your version might say, tarried at Jerusalem.

Now that's the first time as well in this verse, David sent Joab, there's a lot of sending that goes on in chapters 10 to 12.

In fact, if you count them up, 23 times the word sent is used, implying power.

Somebody is in charge, and when you are in charge, you are able to send someone.

And so in the midst of all this, David is in a place of power, of prestige.

Their leaders are courageously at the front leading their armies, but not David.

He remains behind, surrounded by the fruits of victory.

By this time David is about 50 years old.

He's been on the throne now for approximately 20 years, and he's distinguished himself as a man of God, a composer of Psalms, a faithful shepherd, a valiant warrior, a leader of his people.

We've seen him show compassion and grace, that he's a man of honor and dignity, and he's receiving honor and acclaim, not only from his people, but from surrounding nations.

And now David is living a life of ease and contentment.

And it was this greatness that exposed him, I believe, to the greatest danger.

Because coming up right in a few verses is a calculated moment, and David is off guard.

Imperceptibly, the inner defenses of his soul had been weakened.

And so in verse 2 we read, then it happened 1 evening, essentially at twilight, that David arose from his bed.

Sounds like a day of leisure, doesn't it?

When you get out of bed in the evening, and he 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.

And so not only is David at home when he should be leading his troops, but he's being lazy.

And by evening perhaps he's even feeling a bit bored.

And so he goes up on his rooftop and what does he happen to see but a woman bathing?

Now there are 2 thoughts of study when it comes to this story.

1 is that Bathsheba is equally guilty with David, that this is somehow an affair that has been working its way over time, that perhaps she seduced him, that she knew he might be watching.

And the other school of thought is that not at all, David is the 1 to be blamed.

And I would tend to side with the latter of the 2 for several reasons.

For 1, if you've been to Jerusalem where David's palace was, kind of like this picture here, it overlooks the entire city of where people were in their houses.

Also the custom of the day was when it was twilight, that was the time for bathing.

They would go on their roof or in their courtyard and everybody would do this in a private manner, except if you have a vantage point that is different from everyone else.

According to this custom, David as king would know that, and so he wouldn't go out onto his roof at twilight.

If he did, he certainly would stay back far enough away to only see the sun setting.

But here, I believe we see David going over to the edge, peering down to see what his lingering eye might find.

Further, we don't see anything here in Scripture or in spirit of prophecy that even uses the terms we when talking about this event that unfolds as a tragedy or not in favor of the Lord or anything of that nature.

In fact, and spirit of prophecy is the same.

In fact, the very end, if you wanna jump to the end of this chapter it says, but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

It doesn't say the thing David and Bathsheba or the thing they had done, it simply says David.

Spirit of Prophecy simply says the same, this thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

Patriarchs and prophets says every effort to conceal his guile proved unveiling.

Another place she refers to this incident as David's sin toward Bathsheba.

And so I tend to think that this is a wrong truly done to Bathsheba.

We continue to read, so David sent, using his power again, and inquired about the woman, and someone said, and this should be a red flag for David right here, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

What do you mean, who is this young lady?

And by the way, isn't this his wife, David?

And all of that seems to be skirted to the side as the next verse in verse 4, then David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity and she returned to her house.

All of this to say, she is not pregnant when she comes to David.

But as we will find out in verse 5, and the woman conceived, so she sent and told David and said, I am with child.

Here the daughter of Ilium, that's a member of the 30 mighty men.

Wife of Uriah, 1 of his inner circle of honored 30 soldiers.

And while not named here, we know that this is also the granddaughter of Ahithophel, 1 of David's most trusted and wise counselors.

So it's very likely David knew this young lady as a little girl.

I imagine he had met Uriah's gorgeous wife before.

She's married And so I believe David knew better.

But instead of checking himself, as the king, I know what I want, and he sends.

And I imagine she thought David was someone to be trusted.

I imagine an abuse of power taking advantage of this young wife of Uriah and she becomes pregnant.

I imagine upon reading her little note to him a bit of panic sets in, but all too quickly he comes up with a plan, a cover-up plan.

And so in verse 6, then David sent to Joab saying, send me Uriah the Hittite.

And when Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered.

And David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet, be refreshed.

So Uriah departed from the king's house and a gift of food from the king followed him.

See how he's trying to set everything up here.

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." Because the idea is all of my men are out fighting, they're in the battle, how can I go back to my house and be refreshed?

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A Man After Gods Own Heart: King David

18 A Perilous Thing to Lose Dependence On God

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