David’s Catastrophic Sin.

• 2 Sam 11:1-5

[Jim] I think what I’d like to do is have you turn to 2 Samuel chapter 11. And there’s an outline in your notes if you wanna follow what I’m doing on David’s catastrophic sin. Got a couple of outlines about David’s sin. We’re tempted by many different things. Some people are tempted. We’re gonna talk about substance abuse, drunkenness, drug use. Some people are tempted by sexual lust of different kinds. Some people are tempted to anger, outbursts of anger. Some people are tempted to covetousness and overspending and we’re even having a workshop this time on hoarding as a growing problem with the ease of shopping online.

Temptation tends to follow the same pattern no matter what the temptation is and it’s stated in James chapter 1, if you will actually keep your finger in 2 Samuel, James says in verse 13 of chapter 1, “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil and He himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” And this example of David, and you could take many other examples, but this is the most famous and one of the most clear, illustrates how temptation happens and on one level it’s one of the saddest chapters in the entire Bible. Especially since, I’ve been going through 1 and 2 Samuel for quite a while in preaching and the people of Israel are looking for a leader, they’re looking for a great man of God to lead the nation. And Eli fails, especially because of his son. Samuel seems okay but then his sons are a failure. Saul becomes the king of the people but he fails. And David looks like he’s the real deal, David up until now just seems to do almost everything right and then David falls in the most awful way.

And yet I’m also thankful this is here and the Bible is honest about its heroes and you read about other men. Noah being drunk and Abraham putting his wife at risk, his marriage at risk, her purity at risk. Peter denying Jesus. It serves as a warning that back to 1 Corinthians 10:12, Be careful if you think you stand lest you fall. You say, “Well that could never happen to me.” And maybe not that particular sin will happen to you but sin can make tremendous end roads in the life of a real believer. And David was the real deal, he was really a believer who loved God. You read his psalms. He was an amazing guy, that it’s instructive of how we need to deal with temptation which is why I’m talking with you about it.

It also portrays sin accurately and along with its consequences. Hollywood portrays sexual sin very glamorously. This passage portrays it along with how ugly and what the consequences are. Of course, also, it gives hope. Sometimes a counselee comes in, she’s had an abortion. They’ve gone through a divorce and a remarriage that was un-biblical and were sexually immoral. No matter what you’ve done, there’s hope. If a murderer, adulterer, thief, and a liar can be saved then God can save anybody. God can forgive anybody. One other aspect that I think is important to mention is that in the context of 1 and 2 Samuel that the failure of David shows us that no mere human ruler is ever gonna do. David was given the covenant in 2 Samuel 7 where he was promised that there would be one of his sons who would sit on the throne forever and David’s not gonna be that guy. And you keep reading in 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings is that it’s gonna take a man of an entirely different nature from David to be the king the people of God need. Of course that points us to Christ. But looking at the passage I’m just gonna read the first five verses. Then it happened in the spring 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 sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. Now when evening came David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king’s house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful in appearance. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? David sent messengers and took her and when she came to him, he lay with her. And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness she returned to her house. The woman conceived and she sent and told David and said, I am pregnant.”