Latest / Wetumpka Church of Christ Online / David: A Heart of Repentance — Learning Humility Through Failure

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David: A Heart of Repentance — Learning Humility Through Failure · Wetumpka Church of Christ Online

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All right. Good morning, everybody.
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We're going to keep going with our study of biblical kings and
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the lessons we can learn from their lives.
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And so today we're looking at David and I, I guess you could
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go a lot of different directions with David.
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I chose one that I think is maybe not the usual but but I
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hope will be very helpful for us in terms of personal
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application. So, so we're looking at David
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and he's been the subject of your movies, television shows,
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plays, you know, you name it. And was life as big as his as or
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as or as recorded over as much of the Bible much material as
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his is? It's hard to get one, you know,
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good teaching point out of that. But I think I've got one.
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But I want to make sure because it's not going to put David in a
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very good light. Well, it kind of is and kind of
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isn't all right. So it's it's got he's got a very
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good character quality that we need to imitate.
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But it is going to be something where he, he, it's, it's one of
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those character qualities that is demonstrated after times of
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failure. And so basically what we're
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going to be looking at today is humility in the face of failure.
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Because David does have a lot of those in his life.
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Now. I do want to keep this in the
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bigger context of his life as someone who had moments of
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exemplary faithfulness. OK, So the fact that we're
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focusing on some of his failures shouldn't take away from that
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because the rest of the the rest of the story, right?
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The context is important, which context is always important,
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right? So it's kind of like I ran
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across this movie trailer one time.
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It was I think a film student's project at A at a university
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somewhere. And the project was to create a
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movie trailer for a movie that makes it appear as if it's
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something other than what it was originally.
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And so that's not a good explanation.
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But I'll give you the example somebody had taken.
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The movie misses Doubtfire, which is a Robin Williams
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comedy, right? He is going through a divorce.
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He chooses to dress up as this, like, governess figure called
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Mrs. Doubtfire. And he babysits his own kids.
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And nobody's the wiser for most of the movie, right?
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And so it's a comedy and somebody recut the trailer to
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make it look like a horror film. And it was brilliantly done.
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And I ran across another one yesterday and it was somebody
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had taken the movie. And this is maybe even more
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absurd, the movie Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carrey and Jeff
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Daniels, which if you've seen anything of that movie, you
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know, these these two buffoons, you know, go on these just
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absurd adventures. You know, that would never
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happen in a million, you know, years in in real life.
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And somebody cut it to where it was like a thriller, horror
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movie, like like where where Jim Carrey's figure was like a
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character was this kind of psychopath.
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And it was brilliant. But you have to take all these
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moments where he's making some weird face or doing some bizarre
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action out of context in order for it to be, you know, kind of
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reshaped as this other thing. And so I'm not trying to do that
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with David today. I'm not trying to do that where
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where we just focus on these these difficult moments in his
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life. Because I think it is in those
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difficult moments that he really starts to shine as someone who,
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I mean, what he does is not worthy of imitation.
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It's worthy of contempt. OK, But but how he responds to
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it is how you know, we should respond when we have the same
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kinds of problems, same kinds of flaws.
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And there are those for for all of us, right.
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We all have those have those moments where we we are are what
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is it called our our feet of clay kind of reveal themselves
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and and all that. Now this is something that makes
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the Bible distinctive, though, because of the ancient world,
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you didn't really record material like so the three, the
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three episodes we're going to be talking about are David's almost
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the the moment where he almost goes and destroys Nabal and all
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of his his men, obviously the sin of Bathsheba and then the
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sinful census that he takes at the end of his career, at the
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end of his life. And so those kinds of things are
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not what kings would record about themselves in the ancient
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world. You would never do that.
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It was always propaganda, always boasting, always bragging, self
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aggrandizement, all those things and and and you would never and
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you know, people never lost battles in the ancient world.
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And so one example, and I may have mentioned this example
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before to you, so I apologize if I have and I'm and I'm, you
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know, kind of reach writing this, But you we saw this
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picture last week in the in the in the for last week, I
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mentioned that, you know, the, the picture of the king is
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always like a lot bigger than everyone else.
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People always expect the kings to be big.
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Saul's a big guy, right? So he kind of fits.
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He kind of looks the part. And but here I'm going to use
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the passe picture for a different reason.
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And that is if you look under the feet of his horses, if you
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look under his horses, maybe you can make out all of these people
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be getting trampled. You know, they're in all these
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bizarre positions, right? Because they're getting, I mean,
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they're getting trampled on. And this was a battle called the
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Battle of Kadesh, very famous battle.
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And I think it's the first battle where we actually know
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some of the tactics that were used.
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So if you're in a military history, you know, and all that,
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you might look it up because this might be of interest to
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you. But Ramses the Great was
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fighting the Hittites and Ramses almost got almost got blown out.
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The Hittites actually kind of surprised him and kind of rolled
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over part of his army totally. He was going up in 3 columns, 2
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that were close and one was a little bit farther away.
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And Hittites come and smash into his army and they completely
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annihilate the first column and they start, you know, working on
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the second one. And apparently he was very good.
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He was able to kind of Marshall his forces and and kind of rally
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the troops in time for the other guys to get over and and and
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play a play some support role just in time to come to a
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stalemate. And then he goes back home and
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he has pictures like this where in this picture he is shooting
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the Hittites in the back as they're all all fleeing from him
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on and trampling the others on the battlefield.
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So he looks really good in this picture.
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I mean, it looks like it's, you know, I mean, he's just just
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steamrolling these guys. In reality, he was probably
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lucky enough to escape the battlefield with his own life.
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So that is what you expect from kings in the ancient world.
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In fact, there's there's Assyrians were the same way.
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Assyrians did very similar things.
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There is one very famous example that's connected to the Bible
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actually, that if you remember when King Sonakarib comes and
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sieges the city of Jerusalem with Hezekiah, right?
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So it's recorded in King's Chronicles and the book of
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Isaiah. So three different times.
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We, this is a very important event to be recorded three times
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in three different books. Well, Sonakarib comes in, comes
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in, you know, sieges the city, brags about how he's got
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Hezekiah wrapped up. We're going to talk about that
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in a couple of weeks, actually, so I won't give you too much
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about that. But you know the story, the
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Angel of the Lord comes and decimates his army, and he's
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forced to go back home. And you, if you remember the
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story, he goes back home and two of his sons assassinate him.
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OK, well, we know the story from Assyrian records, kind of what
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happened. And he goes back home.
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He has a son who's going to succeed him, his oldest son.
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This fellow dies. He appoints one of his younger
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sons to succeed him, somehow changes his mind and then
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appoints another guy named Ezer Hadden, who was the actual next
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king of the Assyrians. And what happened was two of his
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sons kill him and which is what the Bible records, right?
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OK. We know that this that this
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actually happened. Assyrian records make this very
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clear. It names the two guys.
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Their names match up with what we find in the Bible.
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OK. The problem is, is that many
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people think that the guy who was the next king also helped.
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So there's three sons that helped to kill the father, but
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Ezer Haddon. There's a very famous document
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called the Apology of Ezer Haddon.
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And in this document he says, oh, no, my two brothers
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assassinated our father. I wasn't anywhere near there.
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In fact, I was on the opposite side of the country at the time.
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And then when it happens, all of a sudden he's there right as it
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happens to respond to it. That sounds fishy, right?
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That sounds, if I, if I said that sounds like a typical
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politician, It's like maybe I can see that, right?
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That's what these guys did all the time, right?
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Everything was about boasting and bragging and self
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aggrandize, but never at fault for anything.
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No moral problems. And then you've got the example
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of David. And with David, you have, you
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have three different times where we're going to find him at his
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worst. OK.
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And so we're going to we're going to go through those.
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I've got some slides here that somehow made it into this.
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And I'm not sure why they came. They, they, they're there.
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All right, So First Samuel 25, we've got our story here.
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And in this story, we see a woman named Abigail.
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And yes, we have an Abigail in here too.
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Abigail Rose. Ah, I gotcha.
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Then. They.
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Yeah. And and so we've got this, this
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this, this, this story where you have this fellow named the Ball,
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and the ball's name means fool, right?
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And so, and that comes out of the story like everybody knows
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this, this guy is, is a dummy. Well, not, not a dumb person,
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but and, and, and the word really doesn't mean like, you
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know, like, like, like a Jim Carrey figure or something like
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that. You're not a buffoon, but
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someone who is maybe wicked, morally compromised, spiritually
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compromised. And that's what this guy is.
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And it said, it says in chapter 1, First Samuel 25, verse 3, the
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name, the name of the man was Naval in the name of his wife
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Abigail. The woman was discerning and
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beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved.
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He was a Calebite. Weird, right?
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Because what do you remember about Caleb?
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He was. One of the 12 of the one of the
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two. After 12, that said we could
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take time. Yeah, awesome guy, right?
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He's he's he's a very faithful guy.
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He is a father, father, father-in-law, one of the
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judges, I feel. And he is a yes ma'am.
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Didn't he take the? Land that Joshua offered in
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order to marry. Who was that that got the land
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and got Yeah, Joshua offered the land.
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He. Gets a parcel of lands daughter
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to. Somebody who takes the land.
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OK, maybe so yeah, I know he gets, I know he gets a nice
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parcel of land and he got. Got the daughter in.
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Marriage. OK, sounds.
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It sounds right. Maybe you could Fact Check me on
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that. But yeah, so.
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But he's a Calebite, right? So that's a little bit of a
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surprise. Also, you know, sometimes the
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apple falls far from the tree, right?
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Because Caleb, whose name actually means dog in Hebrew,
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Caleb means dog. And you think of dogs as being
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very loyal, faithful. The name Fitz, right?
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Not in a not in a bad way, but but but in the best way, right.
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So, so loyal, faithful, you know, kind of companion.
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Well, that that seems to, that seems to describe Caleb, but it
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is not his, not his descendants. And so you, you have David, who
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is providing A valuable service to this guy.
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He's protecting his flocks and all that, protecting his guys.
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And then David's one of his young men come and ask for some
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provisions, and the ball is insulting.
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He says, who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?
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There are many servants these days, verse 10 who are breaking
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away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my
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water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give
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it to men who come from I do not know where, Right.
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And so you've got this very insulting response.
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And in the ancient Near East, very same way the Middle East
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today, this is still very much a part of the culture.
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Hospitality is absolutely paramount in importance.
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And it it's so to a fault at times because there are times
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where you see like with Lot and with the Levite at the end of
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judges, where you see these, these, these rogues, these,
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these criminals who come up. And so they so the, the owner of
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the home does not endanger the people under his roof who are
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enjoying his hospitality. They actually put their
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daughters out there for these guys.
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So it was hospitality to a fault in the ancient world.
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And with this, David says every man strap on his sword and every
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one of them did it. David did, too.
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About 400 men, 200 stay back behind, guarding everything.
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They're on a mission now to go wipe this guy out.
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And one of the young men tell Abigail, hey, these guys treated
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us like royalty. They were good to us.
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They protected us. There was there was no worries
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we had over anything that we owned day and night.
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They were like a shield for us. And and then he says verse 17.
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Now therefore know this and consider what you should do for
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harm is determined against our master and against all his
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house. And he he is such a worthless
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man that one cannot speak to him.
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That's one of his servants, right, saying this about him,
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which you I guess you get, but this isn't the only time it's
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going to be said. So this guy was man, this guy
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was bad news. But David is going to go and and
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do this and the ball Abigail, they seem to know something
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about David. David seems to be a figure
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public, publicly known enough that they know something about
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him. And it says she goes out and is
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going to ride out to him, because David says surely in
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vain have I guarded all this is verse 21.
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All this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was
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missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil
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for good. God do so to the enemies of
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David and more Also if by morning I leave so much as one
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male of all who belong to him. Now, if you've got the King
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James version, I had AI had a professor play a dirty trick on
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me one time. If you've got the King James
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version for for verse 22 in first Samuel 25, it is a very
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literal description of what a male is.
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And so people are like, where's got your King James, like flip
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the page, right. And so I had a professor read
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that for me, asked me to read that in class one time.
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He says, Wayne read this, read this for me in class.
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And I looked at it and I'm like, I look at him.
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I'm like, you seriously? You want me to read this?
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And so but anyway, but yes, that is that is the literal, the
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literal translation of what this is.
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And so he says, basically, I'm going, I'm going to exterminate
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everyone because of the. Now, does that sound like a
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justifiable response? Not really, because many of the
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services, this one, that they might be pretty good people.
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Yeah. So the.
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So they're not bad. They're not worthy of being
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disrespected, Right. Certainly not like this in a
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culture that prizes hospitality. But David is looking at wiping
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out what dozens, hundreds of people for the insult of one
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man. So David has overreacting here,
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right, But but this is during David's it's kind of during
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David's outlaw days and and Abigail goes out and she says on
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me, verse 24 on me alone, my Lord, be the guilt.
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Please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of
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your servant. Let my not, let not my my Lord,
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regard this worthless fellow the ball.
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For as his name is, so is he. The ball is his name, and folly
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is with him. OK, everybody knows that this
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guy's an idiot. But let the guilt be on me,
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right? And so if I, your servant, but
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I, your servant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom you
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sent. Now then, my Lord, as the Lord
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lives and as your soul lives because the Lord has restrained
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you from blood guilt and from saving with your own hand, then
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let your enemies and those who seek to do evil, my Lord, be as
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Nabal. And then she says, please
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forgive my trespass. She gives him an immense amount
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of material, immense amount of food as a as a gift here.
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And then David immediately says, blessed be the Lord, the God of
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Israel, who sent you this day to meet me.
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Blessed be your discretion. Verse 33 And blessed be you who
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have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation
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with my own hand. David has up to this point had
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moments where he has exercised incredible restraint.
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But life has a way of sneaking up on you.
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Sin has a way of sneaking up on us.
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And So what we've got here, it seems.
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Is David in a in a rash moment in AI mean he even uses let's
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see here I believe he even uses oath language God do so to the
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enemies of David and more. Also, if by morning I leave so
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much as one male of all this is this is this is a language of a
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vow. OK.
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And so he then with Abigail restrains himself.
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Now it could be he sees this very beautiful woman and maybe
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she has some feminine Wiles, right.
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It's kind of kind of reminds me, I forget which one of the seven
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dwarves it is. It says this.
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I think it's I think it's grumpy talks about Snow White and her
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wicked Wiles right in in Snow White.
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But but maybe she's got some feminine Wiles and she's working
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her voodoo, you know, on, on David.
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But I prefer to think that you have a contrast here.
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And that is that you have Abigail is the voice of wisdom,
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the ball, the epitome of foolishness.
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David, who's being sucked into that, into that same kind of
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foolishness. And that's why I will say very
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often that foolishness begets foolishness.
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Foolishness has a way of of, of being a contagious right
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reproducing itself. And so it's puts David in a very
21:35
negative light, but puts Abigail in a very positive light.
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And there are times in the ancient world where wisdom is
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personified as female. I've.
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Always been curious how I mean to feed that many men.
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It takes a lot of time to prepare that much bread.
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I mean, how was she able to do that fast enough to appease
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David's anger? That's that's.
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Only going to hang up like, why don't you do that?
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Yeah. The assumption would be she
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would have some, at least some servants helping her do that.
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That maybe just that detail didn't make it into the story.
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Right. Right.
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Yeah. This guy's immensely wealthy.
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So, yeah, but. But she, but she prepares an
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enormous gift for him to to persuade him, which I'm sure
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played into it as well, you know, so there's some of that as
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well. But.
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But wisdom very often and by the Bible's personified as as
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female. So you go to Proverbs and you
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see you know lady wisdom. Of course you also see lady
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folly right. But you, but you do see lady
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wisdom and and all that. So Abigail, but this is another
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moment where the Bible is, is, is unusual because it presents
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Abigail who we, we don't really see a lot of women being
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mentioned in historical records, but she but she is, but she is
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mentioned, mentioned by name, mentioned as someone who clearly
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is a very wise person, a prudent person who is perceptive, right.
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And so she's kind of like you got in the ball who is a buffoon
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wicked person. You've got Abigail very wise,
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right? Almost like, almost like beauty
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and the beast, right. So, so you've got, you've got
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this pair, the odd, you know, the original, the biblical odd
23:31
couple or something. And then you've got David.
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But normally David is very restrained.
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The ball's foolishness has, has, has, has has sucked David in.
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And so foolishness begets foolishness and almost makes him
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do something that is a unmistakable crime in the Mosaic
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law. I mean, there there is no, there
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is no allowance made to kill someone who insults you.
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And David is about to do it on a massive scale, right?
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Well, Nabal, Abigail comes back, he's holding a feast, says like
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the feast of a king says his heart was married within him for
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he was very drunk. Verse 36.
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And then Abigail tells him these things and it says his heart
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died within him and he became as a stone.
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About 10 days later, the Lord struck the ball and he died.
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We have no idea what this is. There have been a lot of
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suggestions made. Some people think this was a
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stroke or, or some kind of cardiac event, heart attack,
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maybe because of the heart, his heart died within him.
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Truth of the matter is we're we're not sure, but there was
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something that was shocking about this because because David
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is about, you know, he, he, he is Abigail's intercepted in him
24:57
in route and and prevented this. But but again, we don't, we
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don't really know. Oh, it does say he became as a
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stone. So what does that mean?
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Does that mean he was immobilized?
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That does that mean there was some kind of condition Maybe his
25:17
skin was clammy that made it maybe he was his his skin was
25:21
cold. You know, was is that indication
25:24
of a condition? We don't really know.
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There's almost like a little cottage industry of people who
25:30
look at things the way the Bible describes and ancient
25:33
descriptions of things and try to find out medical diagnosis
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for this we we the truth is we don't know.
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But whatever it is, I mean, Lord takes care of business.
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So David hears Nabal is dead. And again, you know, blessed be
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the Lord who's avenged the insult I received at the hand of
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the ball and has kept back to his servant from wrongdoing.
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There are those moments, right, that David has where he
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exercises incredible restraint and then moments where he has to
26:07
be reminded to be restrained and then he has a thankfulness for
26:12
it afterward. Well, I think that for us, one
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of the one of the temptations is that if David had done this, he
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could have said, well, I have a justifiable excuse.
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I was gravely me and my men were gravely insulted by this person.
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But that's I think where sin kind of gets this is when you
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have some slim justification for some kind of response.
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But it's really not fully justifying how we respond.
26:50
Maybe there's some, you know, indiscretion that was there,
26:53
some insult, some provocation, but not, but it doesn't justify
26:59
the level that we take it to. That's one of the tricks I think
27:03
sins that sin plays on us. Well, you know, I, I, I didn't
27:06
have any other option that, you know, that he, he provoked me or
27:08
whatever. And well, that doesn't give us a
27:11
blank check to just escalate things, you know, to to the NTH
27:16
degree. And I think that's one of the
27:18
tricks that sin plays. David seems to have fallen afoul
27:23
of that in this in this episode. So, so we get so we get one.
27:29
But notice as soon as as soon as Abigail confronts him, he says,
27:35
you know, you're right. You know that I would have been
27:39
guilty of the blood of these people if I had done this thing.
27:42
Now he's very quick to do this. David's David's responses,
27:49
unfortunately, are going to get a little bit slower as we go
27:53
through our three examples this morning.
27:54
OK, the other the other example that I've got here is David's
28:01
sin with Bathsheba. All right, So when we look at
28:05
this interaction and I and I won't rehearse it because, you
28:09
know, we already know what it was, what it was about it it is,
28:14
you do see one very important thing though there about sin,
28:19
and that is the more we try to cover it up, the more it sort of
28:22
reveals itself. Because when David sleeps with
28:25
Bathsheba and is plotting to murder Uriah to cover it up, you
28:34
know this obviously this is a secret, right?
28:36
You're trying to keep the secrets.
28:37
It says secret letters here and there.
28:39
Well, you got to have somebody that you dictate your letter to
28:42
because most people were illiterate.
28:43
Most even kings, even kings didn't know how to read and
28:46
write much of the time. There's actually one Assyrian
28:49
king who one of his accomplishments was he boasted
28:52
about being able to read and write.
28:53
Most people, even even royalty, didn't know how.
28:56
And so David's probably dictating a letter to someone
29:01
that someone has to then give it to a messenger.
29:05
That messenger then has to go to Joab.
29:08
Joab gets his instructions, everything happens, he gets a
29:12
messenger, he sends it back. And so there's messengers and
29:15
people all over the place who know this right.
29:17
So in, I don't know, I think I remember like an episode of
29:22
Downton Abbey or something one time back when that was like a
29:25
big thing that you know, this, you know, as much as the owners
29:29
of the of the the mansion or the manse want to try to keep
29:33
something a secret, like all the servants know, they all know and
29:36
they all whisper, you know, and all that kind of thing.
29:38
And I imagine that probably something similar was going on
29:41
with, with David, because if you look at that chapter first
29:44
Samuel 11, you see messengers going all over the place.
29:53
Well, messengers had to hear the message, right?
29:55
They all know the message and they're going to tell other
29:57
people. This is not a secret as much as
30:00
Dave is trying to keep it a secret.
30:01
It isn't. And So what we're going to find
30:05
is that when when you look at this moment in David's career,
30:09
this is a pivot moment in his career because like I've got on
30:14
our on our, our thing here, you look at David up to his sin with
30:20
Bathsheba and it's he is an eager warrior ready to serve God
30:24
and and Israel. He goes out to battle all the
30:27
time. He's always out on campaign
30:30
after you know when you when you get to this moment he is
30:32
complacent. He stays at the palace right in
30:37
the in the spring of the year at the time when kings go out to
30:40
battle. 1 little king stays home before this.
30:47
He is honorable and self controlled in his conduct toward
30:50
women. Got an example with Abigail
30:52
there to see after with Bathsheba and then after he
30:56
takes what is not his, he abuses royal power and dishonors
31:01
Bathsheba. He is very decisive in decision
31:07
making and sometimes maybe a little bit too eager, right?
31:11
It's kind of like kind of like the ball.
31:13
But but he's ready. He's ready to to get it on
31:15
right. Soon as the guys come back and
31:16
say, hey, this guy's dishonored us.
31:18
He's like, all right, let's go. I mean, they are ready to roll
31:22
at that point. And then afterward, what you've
31:25
got is he is very indecisive with Absalom.
31:30
He is unfair with Mephibosheth. We're actually going to bring
31:34
that story back up again when we talk about Solomon because
31:40
because there is something unfair about how he treats
31:42
Mephibosheth. At the end, after Zeba tricks
31:45
him, Zeba's servant tricks him, and then he is sometimes
31:51
self-serving. So the consequences of the
31:53
sinful census we'll talk about in just a minute.
31:55
If you remember, what he does is he's given three options and
31:59
he's given the option that has the least accountability for
32:02
himself. It's it's the the price is paid
32:04
by other people. And then only then after like 3
32:08
days does he say, oh man, this is bad.
32:10
You know, you need to get on them.
32:11
And I need to take this, right. I need to take responsibility
32:13
for this. Well, yes, that is true.
32:17
But but he is but, but, but he is, he is evasive.
32:21
He sort of delays, he's indecisive after his his SIM of
32:26
Bathsheba. And then at first he has a very
32:28
sensitive conscience. He's grieved over cutting off a
32:32
corner of Saul's robe, right. Just this one little thing,
32:36
which probably was a lot bigger than like if like, you know, you
32:40
like cut off part of my pant leg or something like that's it was
32:43
probably much more serious than that because this was the King's
32:45
person. This was his personal garments.
32:48
He did something that could be interpreted as an act of
32:51
provocation. Well, Even so, he's very
32:55
remorseful over this. He's he's he's very upset over
32:58
it. And then with the after his
33:02
adultery, he has a damaged conscience and he is ready to
33:07
conceal sin at the cost of human life.
33:10
And it's not just Uriah's life. Because if you think about the
33:15
way and I'm and I'm not a soldier, I've not been in a
33:18
battlefield situation. But my understanding is that in
33:22
the heat of battle, things aren't neat and surgical.
33:27
And for Joab to have orchestrated the movements of
33:31
his troops to put Uriah in a position where he would be
33:37
killed. There probably other guys that
33:40
got killed with him. There are other guys who are
33:43
who, who were collateral damage. And so this isn't just Uriah.
33:49
It's not just Uriah that's not coming home.
33:51
It's a lot of guys because David is trying to cover something up,
33:56
which again, you know, politicians so, so rarely do.
34:02
But but when we look at the story of, of David, you know,
34:08
temptation, I guess you can say, sort of presents itself.
34:11
He has the option to look away, though, right?
34:13
And so if you look at the city of Jerusalem, this is this is
34:17
the this is what's called the step stone structure or the SSS,
34:24
which sounds kind of sounds kind of grim, doesn't it?
34:30
But that's just the abbreviation for this thing.
34:33
There's also, there's also a large stone structure they call
34:36
the LSS. You didn't see that coming, did
34:40
you? Yeah, archaeologists are not
34:42
creative when it comes to naming things.
34:44
But this is this is the step stone structure in Jerusalem.
34:48
And this isn't too far from the Temple Mount and is in the Old
34:52
City of David. So the old City of David if if
34:56
you if you have a picture and I should have put one.
34:58
But if you got if you know where the Temple Mount is, there's a
35:01
strip. There's there's a little they
35:02
call it a spur, a spur or a strip of land that goes that
35:07
extends down below the Temple Mount S due South.
35:11
And that's the Old City of David.
35:12
Well, this is in the old city of David and his we don't know
35:17
where David's palace would have been, but it seems one of the
35:21
best candidates is it was on top of this.
35:23
This is a retaining wall and David's palace was actually
35:27
situated. If you see that little shag,
35:29
that little structure, modern, that's where David's palace
35:31
would have been. OK, Now, if you notice, if you
35:34
go down to the middle of the picture and just off to the
35:36
left, you see some walls and things.
35:39
Those are houses, OK, so you're looking at the palace up on top
35:44
and these houses that go down beneath that are that are built
35:47
into the into the, into the hillside there.
35:51
And so this will give you another, another shot of the
35:54
same kind of the same area. This is around the corner.
35:58
But if you, you know, so, so, so if you get a picture of David
36:02
spying on Bathsheba, this is not, you know, David like going
36:05
and peeking in somebody's window like a peeping Tom.
36:08
All he had to do was literally look off the roof of his palace.
36:11
You know, he's over here surveying his palace, surveying
36:13
his, his, his, his city, right? He's, he's fought all these
36:16
wars, he's got all these victories.
36:18
He, he set up trade routes. Things are starting to get very
36:21
wealthy. He's looking at surveying his
36:23
Kingdom and he's looking down the hillside and the hillsides
36:26
are very sharp. I mean, the more, more than a
36:29
more than a 45° angle in some places over here.
36:33
So you, you can see how he would be looking around in his palace
36:37
and then just sort of look over and spy Bathsheba as she's as
36:42
she's bathing. That'll give you another,
36:43
another kind of look at what it sort of looks like.
36:46
But you can see that like so, so from this vantage point, which
36:49
is like about where David's palace was, you can see down
36:52
under the rooftops of, you know, even modern day buildings down
36:56
there. And so that's what he's looking
36:59
at. And instead of saying, oh,
37:01
there's a woman bathing, right? He's like, oh, there's a woman
37:04
bathing. And he leans in for a closer
37:06
look. And of course, we like to always
37:09
think that that we can play with sin, right?
37:13
We like, we like to think that we're the ones in control.
37:16
And the way it works out is that rarely happens.
37:20
Usually that's the first step is if you think you've got a handle
37:26
on sin, it's probably the other way around.
37:29
It's probably already got you because if you think you can
37:32
play with it like like it's a pet, right?
37:35
Or some little distraction or, or, or or hobby, it's already
37:42
got you. So, so David goes and he brings,
37:45
he brings, brings her in. They have this night together,
37:50
but we're going to see here again.
37:53
And in the books of first and second Samuel, you see a lot of
37:55
this, a lot of contrasts, comparisons and contrasts,
37:59
right? And so you look at Uriah, I'm
38:03
sorry, David in this one act, right?
38:07
I mean, he's already like violating like a third of the 10
38:10
commandments almost. So First off starts, you shall
38:13
not covet, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder.
38:18
What do you, what do you see in this list?
38:22
Is there a pattern? It escalates, right?
38:29
I mean, you covet and that's, and that's kind of where a lot
38:31
of these things start, right? And then you commit adultery.
38:36
Well, once you get stuck in a quagmire of sand, it just keeps,
38:42
it keeps pulling at you. And then finally David has to
38:47
try to get rid of his problem because he has a problem now.
38:51
Well, we're going to see that in David's, in this, in this him,
38:59
him trying to take care of this, this situation.
39:01
We're going to see just how far he's fallen because Uriah the
39:08
Hittite, so he's not an Israelite, he's a Hittite.
39:11
He's a mighty man who lives up to his name.
39:14
This is a guy who's not even a an Israelite, but he is more
39:20
faithful to God than God's own chosen man, right?
39:25
He, Uriah, is lives up to his name.
39:29
David's decisions here make him look weak, like a schemer.
39:34
Uriah refuses to spend time with his wife because sexual intimacy
39:38
makes a person ritually unclean and disqualifies one from
39:41
combat. So he is loyal.
39:44
He is loyal to king and country and to God apparently.
39:48
Also. So he's not going to do these
39:50
things because he wants to get back out on the battlefield and
39:52
fight for for his side. David is more than willing to
39:56
violate the Mosaic law. Three different ways to satisfy
40:00
his lust. And then finally, Uriah is
40:02
faithful even when drunk and his decision making ability is
40:05
compromised. David continues to scheme even
40:08
while perfectly sober. What is interesting is that.
40:15
When you see what David does, he tells Joab to not let Uriah's
40:23
death be evil in your eyes. Do not let Uriah's death be
40:27
evil. Don't don't think of it as a bad
40:29
thing. And yet what David does, Chapter
40:34
11, verse 27 says it is evil in the eyes of Yahweh.
40:39
So there's again, a little bit of a of a word play there in the
40:44
text that shows us David really has David really has has a
40:48
problem here. Well, we're running out of time.
40:52
I don't think we'll get to everything I'd I'd like to get
40:55
to. I do want to make one last, one
40:57
last mention here of Nathan's visit.
41:02
It does take David longer to recognize his fault and repent
41:06
of it. Now, when Nathan visits, it's
41:08
instantaneous, right? He tells him this parable,
41:10
David, David kind of overreacts. Nathan says you are the man.
41:14
David says I have sinned, right? It's boom, boom, boom, boom.
41:17
And he repents very quickly. But after the sin, he's already
41:22
gone through all these steps to try to cover it up before he
41:25
finally gets to repentance. All right, when you get to the
41:27
last step, when you get to the last step of David's sinful
41:32
census in Second Samuel 24, he takes his census.
41:37
It seems to be prideful. Joab tells him not to do it.
41:43
And when somebody who is as immoral as Joab is tells you not
41:47
to do something because it's immoral, chances are it's bad,
41:51
bad, right? And so don't do it.
41:54
And so, but he says, don't do this.
41:57
And David said, I'm going to do it anyway.
41:59
And then everything comes down and David kind of kind of puts
42:02
off the the punishment 3 either three years of famine, 3 months
42:05
of fleeing his enemies, or three days of pestilence.
42:07
He says 3 days of pestilence and starts wiping out Israelites all
42:12
over the country. And then finally David has a
42:15
change of heart. So his responses to sin get
42:20
slower. So, so he is repentant.
42:22
All right. So I don't want to take that
42:23
away from him. He is repentant, but I think
42:26
there is also an issue with him getting slower and slower to
42:31
repent every time. And that's instructive because
42:36
we should be immediate in our response to repent whenever
42:41
we're found to be in the wrong. So you've got this fellow here,
42:49
David, man after God's own heart, even great people can
42:53
fall. And what David does for us
42:56
though, but what David does for us is he gives us a model of
43:01
repentance. It's not a perfect model, OK,
43:04
it's not perfect, but it is a a lot better than some other guys,
43:10
right? And it's something that we can
43:12
take and improve upon because he not only repents, he's also
43:17
confidence in God's graciousness.
43:19
And you see that in Psalm 51, right?
43:21
So we get so, so out of his sin with Bathsheba, we got that.
43:24
We get this incredible song. It's one of the world's greatest
43:28
pieces of literature about repentance and confidence in
43:31
forgiveness. Not just I repent.
43:33
Oh man, I hope that God Forgives me one of these days.
43:36
You know, it's no, you can be confident when you repent that
43:39
God will forgive. And that's what David gives to
43:42
us. So thank you guys very much.
43:45
Next week we'll get into Solomon and I'm afraid I'm not going to
43:51
be so easy on Solomon either. But but again, it's a very
43:56
important lesson that's that's important for all of us.