David & Bathsheba II: Fathers' Day

I. Introduction
A. This is our second sermon of a four week series on David and Bathsheba. We will continue the next two weeks with the two psalms written by David on this occasion: 32 and 51.
B. Review
1. It happened on a time of war — a foreign war, when the soldiers all went off to fight the Ammonites. But for some reason King David stayed home and took some time off.
a. It all started in this time of relaxation, when David was in vacation mode, when David was not alert to danger. “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1Pet.5:8
2. After waking from his afternoon nap, David looked out from the roof of his palace and spotted a young woman taking an open-air bath. (I remember taking outdoor baths – in their bathhouse with walls but no ceiling – when visiting Michelle and Ben in West Africa few years ago, and being afraid of people looking on from airplanes or tall buildings. Fortunately no neighbor woman saw me and was melted by the view.)
3. David first inquired about and then sent for this woman, whose name was Bathsheba. She was brought to the palace and the king took her and slept with her and then sent her home.
4. He assumed that the story was over but God had another plan. A few weeks later Bathsheba sent a message back to the king that she was pregnant. Suddenly the scandal threatens to burst the dam of secrecy.
5. So David arranges for Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, to be brought back from war, hoping that the soldier will sleep with Bathsheba and assume he is the father of the child.
6. But when Uriah returns home he refuses to do so in spite of all of David’s efforts, because he insists on standing in solidarity with his fellow soldiers who are in battle and sleeping in tents.
7. So David resorts to making an arrangement with his general Joab for Uriah to be killed in battle.
8. This plan is successful, and David now adds murder to his adulterous abuse of power.
9. We’ve all seen and heard about wives and families hearing about the deaths of their loved ones in battle and the grief it causes. Well, it’s the same for Bathsheba, who apparently knows nothing of David’s role in engineering it.
10. 11:27 “And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.”
a. The baby is born. It looked like David had pulled it off!
11. “But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.”
a. I will write a chapter on this story in my book, Big Buts of the Bible.
b. BUT the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.
II. Explanation of 2 Samuel 12:1–25
A. 1a And the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. 4 Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” 7a Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”
1. David thinks Nathan’s story is about somebody else.
2. But Nathan tells him: You are the man in the story.
B. 7b “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 9 Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
1. Didn’t I give you enough? I have lavished unspeakable blessing upon you.
C. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11 Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’ ”
1. He begins to list the consequences:
a. The sword shall not depart from your hand.
b. I will raise up evil against you out of your own house.
c. I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor evil against you out of your own house.
2. Next chapter: David’s son Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar. Then David’s son Absalom kills Amnon in revenge.
3. A few chapters later we find David’s son Absalom rebelling against him and sleeping with David’s concubines.
4. Then Adonijah his son brings the sword against David.
5. Do you think David felt the grief and guilt when these things happened?
6. Now the question is: how is David going to respond? The best two probabilities:
a. Repentance
b. Execute Nathan like good king Joash did to Zechariah the prophet in 2Chronicles 24:20.
D. 13a David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
1. David admits his sin.
2. His repentance is expressed in greater length in two psalms: 32, 51.
E. 13b And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”
1. Sin deserves death, as God said to Adam in Genesis 2:17: “on that day you shall surely die.”
a. Not only this, but adultery and murder both deserved capital punishment according to the law of Moses.
2. But God responds: You shall not die.
a. This is the surprising thing about this story: not David’s sin or its consequences.
3. This is a story of grace. And, of course, every story of grace is a story of sin.
F. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” 15 Then Nathan went to his house. And the LORD afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick.
1. So now it’s not just future consequences, it’s about the baby getting sick and dying right now.
G. 16 David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. 17 And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. 18 On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” 19 But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.” 20a Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped.
1. The baby is very sick and dying, but David has the audacity to pray. Why? He understands the mercy of God.
2. The people of Nineveh did the same thing and God spared them (Jonah 3:3-10).
H. 20b He then went to his own house. And when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate. 21 Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” 22 He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ 23 But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”
1. He was weeping not out of uncontrollable grief, but as a way to desperately seek God to save this child from the consequences of the king’s own sin.
I. 24 Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the LORD loved him 25 and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD.
III. Application
A. This is a story about
1. The abuse of power
2. The hypocrisy of the human judge
3. The consequences and forgiveness of sin
B. The abuse of power
1. Notice that God does not confront David about the sexual aspect of the sin, even that’s the thing that got it all started.
2. The focus is on the murder and the abuse of power.
3. Now obviously I’m not saying that God doesn’t care about adultery. But we have to see by this story, and by the story God gave Nathan to tell David, how seriously God takes the abuse of authority: people in positions of power over others using that position to take advantage of those under them.
4. Jesus teaches servant leadership:
a. The little ones are His treasures. He takes their welfare very seriously.
b. He says, Don’t you dare harm one of My little ones or you’ll regret it (Mark 9:42).
5. David was thinking that he was the important one in this situation. But in God’s eyes the little people — the Uriahs and the Bathshebas — they were the important ones here. God had raised up good king David not because David was so great but because He wanted His precious people to have a good king!
6. David saw Uriah as a removable object which stood in the way of his cover-up. But God saw Uriah as his precious child.
C. The hypocrisy of the human judge
1. David sternly condemned the man in the story but the man turned out to be him.
2. Isn’t this the way we are!
3. We are outraged by others but the fact is that we do the same thing.
4. We are outraged when others abuse, when others take advantage of people for their own benefit or pleasure. But we’re blind to the fact that we are pointing the finger at ourselves. I am the man!
5. We need to look down the people on our black list and remind ourselves: You are the man!
6. Jesus brought this out with the woman accused of adultery. The men who brought her were all about her sin, just like David was when Nathan told him the story. But Jesus turned the attention onto their sin: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” (John 8:7)
7. He addresses this same thing in Matthew 7:1–5 “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
8. The second half of my life has included as long series of “You are the man!” incidents. So many ways I judged others early in my life have come back to haunt me as God has put me in situations where I realized that I was now the very person I once condemned. (E.g. I always judged my grandfather for having a pot belly.)
D. The consequences and forgiveness of sin
1. Today is Father’s Day.
a. The responsibility of a father is a heavy one, heavier than any one of them can bear.
b. Fathers come in many different flavors. Some are good at this, some at that.
c. But one thing they all share is the need of forgiveness.
2. This is a story about forgiveness. And we know that forgiveness only comes through Christ.
3. But it’s also a story about the consequences of sin.
a. Sin is serious. People die. The Lord loves us too much to let us get away with murder.
b. Hebrews 12:6–7 “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”
c. Gal.6:7 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
4. Forgiveness does not erase the consequences of sin. And the consequences of sin do not erase forgiveness.
5. In some people’s eyes, these seem contradictory.
a. This is because of the temptation to think of discipline and punishment as the same thing.
b. But they are not. Punishment is infliction of some kind of pain for the purpose of recompense, repayment for some wrong done (Hebrews 10:30 “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”). Discipline is infliction of some kind of pain for the purpose of helping the offender to learn/grow from his error (Hebrews 12:6–7a “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.”).
c. Punishment is justice-based, discipline is love-based.
d. God removing punishment is grace.
e. God removing discipline is judgment.
(1) Hebrews 12:7b–8 “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” (Cf. Romans 1:22–28.)
IV. One last question: hy does God allow David to fall?
A. God could have stopped it. He could have made the weather bad that day. He could have arranged for David or Bathsheba to be sick in bed. He could have done many things to prevent this from happening.
B. But He allowed it. Why? I would suggest that there are many reasons. Here are a few:
1. To remind David — and us — of who Jesus is. It’s not all about David, but about his promised Son.
2. To keep a very privileged man humble. (Things had started going to David’s head.)
3. To bring together the two from whom Jesus would eventually be born.
4. So we could learn that even the most godly of people are vulnerable to sin.
5. So we could see a supreme example of repentance.
6. So we could learn about the amazing forgiveness of God.