Marriage Series #6 - David & Bathsheba

But looking at this couple, and watching them just in their coming together, it's quite an interesting story, of course. David, early on in his life, he had one of the greatest trials, I think, that anybody can ever have. You don't think of it as a trial.

Most of the time when we think of David and his trials, we think of the trials that come, you know, with the Philistines, the Moabites, the Jebusites, the Jesuits, the Ammonites, all of these other forces that he had to fight. Well, David had other trials, usually ones that we wouldn't think of as a trial, and if we were to pick our trials, we'd oftentimes pick these, but they're very difficult ones. David was one of Israel's, probably Israel's, greatest hero that they ever had.

Definitely one of them, to me, I think it's almost safe to say the greatest that they ever had. He was a man, as well, after God's own heart, 1 Samuel 13, 14 tells us about. He was a remarkable young man.

He was a quality guy in so many ways, but his greatest struggles that he had in his life weren't the ones that you and I would usually think of. They're much more subtle than that. David had weaknesses, as all men have weaknesses.

Even men who have a heart for God can have, but he's somebody, when you look at David, just to analyze a few things in his life, and here are the trials I wanted to mention. Again, they're ones that we don't think of, but David was somebody that he gained national prominence at a very early age. While he was still yet a teenager, he came out and he killed Goliath, this nine and a half foot Philistine, while the whole rest of the army, and this had gone on for weeks on end, if you remember the story in 1 Samuel 16, by the time David came on the scene, the whole army had cowered before the Philistines for weeks.

Goliath had come out every morning and just with all of it, dressed in all of his armor, dressed there with his four sons there at his side as his armor bearers, and this colossal human being came and he stood out before the children of Israel, a warrior like they'd ever dream of. Though Saul was a great warrior, and as the Bible tells us, he stood head and shoulders above all of the other men in Israel, and he was quite a man, Saul was. He had never met a match until he met Goliath.

Saul was handsome, he was strong, he was a great leader, and he was big, he was massive, but one day when he met Goliath, he met a man like he didn't dream existed, and there as he came and they put their army in array for battle every day, none of them dare went out after this man. He mocked them, he said, am I not a Philistine? Are you not the children of Israel? Are we not in your territory? Well, come and take care of us. Come and fight with us.

Don't you have any courage? And they said, you choose out a man. If he destroys me, if he kills me, we'll be your servants. If I kill him, you'll be ours.

And here as they looked and as they pondered, this fear came over the whole of the army until little David, teenager, came along. Young man, as he came out, not even old enough to be in the military, not even old enough to be there. He just came, as you remember the story, to bring food to his brothers who were in the army, who were fighting, and when he heard this guy mocking him, mocking Israel, he says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he would come out and mock the armies of the living God? What sort of a foolish thing is this? Here in the course, the mark of circumcision was the mark of surrender to God in the Bible, and he says, he's not even surrendered to God.

He has no spiritual power about him at all. And he, there as he turned, he says, I'll take him on. Well, word started going through the camp until finally got to Saul's.

Saul called for him. He brought him in, and he, Saul said, hey, you're a kid. This guy's, you're just but a child, but this guy has been a warrior since his youth.

You're a youth. You're just starting out. This guy's seasoned.

But he looked at him, and he says, I don't care. I killed the lion. I killed the bear.

I'll take on this uncircumcised Philistine. I'm not afraid of him. And there was so much courage in this young man that Saul let him go, put on his armor.

He couldn't move in it. It was, Saul was so much bigger, obviously, at the time. David couldn't even maneuver in Saul's armor.

So he he just went out there and grabbed his little sling, took five smooth stones, no doubt for the reason that there was five out there. There was Goliath and his four sons. Well, out he went, and of course, he killed them.

And the story, of course, is history. But when you add to it, there soon it was all of the women. It tells us in all of Israel, they began to sing his praises.

Here is a young teenager. There is a song written about him. They would literally sing songs as David and his men would come in.

And how, of course, it absolutely incensed Saul when he heard it. Because they, Saul listened to the song, Saul was killed as thousands. And Saul, of course, loved that.

Until then, the second verse, and David is tens of thousands. Well, Saul didn't go for that. He didn't like that, the second verse.

He liked the first verse, but he didn't like the second. But here this young man, he found himself there just being drawn into national prominence. When you add some other things about him, David, the Bible tells us, he was an extremely good looking, a very handsome young man.

He was quite an athlete. He was an accomplished musician. He was one, you remember, when he would play his instrument that Saul's, his heart, it just was such peace.

They looked for a cunning player on the harp. Remember that? They looked over all of Israel. Who's the best, you know, musician out there? David was brought in.

He was also, obviously, one of the most profound poets that have ever lived. What a writer. You read his songs.

What a gifted. Write all these things right there early on in his life. Talk about a teenage idol.

Talk about somebody, I mean, national prominence, a great warrior. So much so, it tells us in 1 Samuel 18, verse 16, it says, all of Israel and Judah loved David. David won their hearts.

Wherever he went, this guy brought, I mean, the army loved him. He just wasn't some little kid that the kids liked. The nation loved him.

The older men looked at this valiant man, this strong, young, aggressive athlete. Looked at this talented guy, this smart, capable, articulate young man, and they were just taken over by him very, very quickly. It was something there.

When you look at all of these things, this is a trial. Again, most of us would say, well, if you've got to have trials, I'll take those. But, you know, those are usually the type of things that can be the most difficult things to handle.

Soon, he won the very love and affection of Saul's daughter, Michael. Maybe you remember that story. After here, David with his national fame that just seemed to ignite from one end of the country to the other almost overnight.

It's something that Michael, Saul's beautiful daughter, she lets it be known around that she loved David. Well, obviously, she was probably maybe typical of a lot of king's daughters that was probably rather spoiled, probably had all sorts of problems, because it tells us one time that how Saul looked. He says, I'm going to let him have her.

I'm going to let him have her. She'll destroy him. And he was so jealous of him, he sets up David to marry her.

Remember what happened as the story goes on, and where Saul secretly, but not so secretly, he lets the word get out to David that any man who will kill a hundred Philistines, he can marry my daughter. Well, David, more like a dare, not like he was in love with her, but just he loved the challenge. Just seemed almost, well, you lay out the gauntlet there, all right, and he goes out and kills 200 Philistines.

And he comes back, and here Saul says, all right, sucker, you went for it. And then he ends up setting her up, and setting the two up, and they get married. Young teenage marriage.

But then next thing you know, she has to, you know, she lets him down. That didn't solve Saul's problem. So Saul's coming to kill him one night, and she goes and makes up his bed like he's in there, and gets it all set up, and lowers him down out the roof to get him out when they realize, Saul's thinking he's got him cornered, he's going to kill him.

And then Saul comes and find out what Michael did, when there they come to kill him, and he's not there. And she lowered him down. And so then he turns against her, and he turns against him.

And pretty soon their marriage was destroyed, because he went out and married her off to another man, while David was off as a fugitive, and hiding. And so here this, this first marriage in David's life, chaos. Tragic, you know, in a lot of teenage marriages like that.

The reason they're drawn together, and the things that bring them together, they'll never much keep them together. But it's something to where David hadn't learned yet, but something that a lot of people have to learn. Some of your greatest trials are the most unsuspecting ones you'll ever have.

Like Paul says, those things that were a gain unto me were a loss for Christ. But those things that were a loss unto me were a gain. There's a great paradox in the Christian life.

The areas of our life where we are the weakest, are the areas to where we become the strongest. And the areas where we think we are the strongest, where our most strength, our most greatest confidence are, is where we're the weakest. Is where we're the most vulnerable.

It was never David, he was a humble man before God, and he was a man who knew all of the enemies of the world. He says, some trust in horses, some trust in chariots. Not me.

My trust is in the Lord. He never took on Goliath or the Philistines or anybody on his own strength, though, you know, he started off as a teenager, he started off realizing he's no match for Goliath. You put these guys on any same turf together, Goliath would have killed him every time, he knew that.

But he put himself on spiritual turf with Goliath. He went out there and he says, you've defied the armies of the living God. This isn't you against me, Goliath.

This is you against my God. You've been mocking him. You'll answer to him.

And he did. David knew, I mean, in one sense, he was a humble man in one area of his life. He was a broken man.

He was a trusting man in the areas of his life where the man failed. Well, not in the areas where most people think the failure would come. He was never, there was never a man able to stand before him all the days of his life, basically, when his heart and his life were right.

But where he was strong, his looks, his, you know, ability as a musician, as a poet, as an athlete, I mean, this guy had all the bases covered. You know, he was quite an outstanding, you know, human being, quite a specimen of a young man. I think if you've ever seen Michelangelo's David, nobody knows, of course, what he looked like, but it's one that seems to fit him.

I mean, just a, quite a handsome, if you've ever seen that statue, quite a massive, just rippling strength through him. And yet, where the man failed was where he was so strong, where he gained his greatest attention. And it was something there that with this first disaster that happened in David's life with Michel, the next thing you know is, is that he's out and he's a fugitive.

And while he's there, a fugitive, he ran into a woman named Abigail. Maybe you remember that story. Wasn't that when he met her through her husband, kind of curiously.

But one time, David and his men, they needed food. He had protected Abigail, well, Nabal, her husband, and all of his wealth one time from the Philistines and from coming and taking it. And then David and his men one time, they needed food, so they sent some men over to get it.

Well, as they went to get some food from this guy, some supplies, he looks, he says, who is David? I've never heard of him. And he gets, he says, oh, there's all sorts of just bums running around that want some sort of handout. And I'm not going to give him anything.

You send him back and you tell him I'm not giving him anything. And he mocked the men, shaved their heads and made fun of them. But by the time they got back to David, he said, he told the men, he says, all right, you stay aside until your hair grows back.

And he says, and then he goes out and he says, Nabal wants to know who I am. He'll find out today. He told every man grab a sword.

He takes 400 men after him and he's about to go destroy him. But there Nabal's wife hears about it. And she just fills up donkeys with all sorts of food and all sorts of supplies while Nabal doesn't know what's going on and brings it out and meets David while he's coming to kill him.

And she tells David, David, you don't want to do this. You don't want to make this grave mistake. God's wrapped you up in a bundle of life.

He's blessed you and he's watched over you and he's using you in such wonderful ways. David, don't make this terrible mistake. You don't want this man's blood on your hands.

You don't want to make this terrible mistake in your life. He says, Nabal is his name and folly is with him. Nabal means fool.

That's what his parents thought of this child. David was born, they named him fool. Well, she married him.

I don't know what to make of that one, particularly since it tells us about Abigail in 1 Samuel 25, 3, it says, and the woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance. David, as he sat and as he listened to this woman, here she was intelligent and she was beautiful and he was attracted to her. And here's a fugitive.

Then what happened is Nabal goes back and when he hears that David was coming to kill him, he had a heart attack and 10 days later he died. When David hears about it, he says, hey, poor woman, probably the greatest blessing in her life. But the day he died, but at any rate, he takes her and he takes her to be his wife.

Well, that was maybe justifiable. He was free too. His Michael was gone.

And, but it was something now though, where it tells us also in 1 Samuel 25, verse 43, it goes on and says, and David also had taken unto him a Hinnomim of Jezreel, and they both became his wives. Now David had crossed over a line. Now David had made a mistake, though he was a leader and though he was, by this point, he was acknowledged as a great man in a lot of people's lives and the end of the nation.

It was something there to where God had instructed the children of Israel. They lived in a different world than all of the rest of the world around them. And in Deuteronomy 17, the Lord had given the children of Israel and their king specifically three, three instructions that they were to live by and that they were to follow.

He says a king of Israel, he's never to multiply horses unto himself. He's never to multiply wealth unto himself. He's never to multiply wives unto himself, lest his heart turn away from the Lord.

But here was something and David was faithful on two of those. He never multiplied horses and he never multiplied wealth. Any wealth he got, he set aside for the temple and the horses when he got them, he hamstrung them so they could be used to plow a field, but they could never run again.

But one thing he did, is he did take wives. And here David found that, you know, that he, and boy did he, but I mean, that was just the start. Once he pulled that one off, he didn't stop for a while.

In 2 Samuel chapter 3 and verses 2 through 5, he went on, he married four other women. Macca, Haggith, Abitall, and Eglah. Sound like some women to me, but at any rate, that's what their names were.

And he took all four of these as his wife. Then in 2 Samuel chapter 5 and verse 13, after David's perhaps greatest victory in all of his life until that point, at any rate, when he went and he took the stronghold of Zion, the same as the city of David, it tells us in 2 Samuel chapter 5, it says, when all the nations of Israel, all the kings, all the elders of Israel, all 12 tribes, it says, then they came to David and they spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. When Saul was king over us, thou was he that led us in and brought us out of Israel.

They told David, we surrender to you, you are our king unanimously over all of it. And the very first thing David did is David went to Jerusalem, the stronghold of Zion, and the same became the city of David. And there, with the greatest military perhaps battle of his life, he took Jerusalem, the city of David, and a great victory.

But at the end of this great victory, another little verse, ever so subtle, but so powerful, for it says in 2 Samuel 5 verse 13, it says, Meanwhile, David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem. Here he came in and then right after, so often, some of the greatest trials you'll ever have in all of your life are right after a lesser trial that appears to be a great one. Many of the trials that people really have is right after some that they're just, you know, they're like they're running a race and they think it's a hundred yard dash, but as far as God's concerned, it's a 220 or something.

They paced themselves for one thing and they got through it and didn't realize the greater trial was right after it. And this is what happened to David. You hear the subtleties of his life.

He set his battles for entrust in the Lord in one area of his life, but where the enemy kept on sliding in was in another area. The area that was so, you know, that nobody seemed to care about it. As far as all the children of Israel were concerned, it's okay.

David, I mean, he's so handsome. He's such a great leader. He's so powerful.

He's so awesome. Who are we to question him? God's hands upon him. He's awesome.

He's powerful. He's wonderful. He's our leader.

And it wasn't anything inconsistent. All the oriental nations around, all the oriental kings, the way they displayed their power and their victories was wives. Always the size of their harem, the size of the number of the wives they had was something that their wealth and their power was demonstrated by their own little kingdom that they built around themselves.

Now, how many descendants they could have through wives and concubines? Well, the children of Israel, really a generation before David, already made a terrible mistake. They decided to overlook these things. They decided, oh well, morality's, you know, not that big.

Yeah, we'll let it slide. Because what had happened is the Lord had actually told Samuel way back when the children of Israel said, we want a king like the other nations. We want to be a king like the other nations.

They all have kings. And they've got these, all these, you know, this great government. We want to be a real nation.

We want to be a real kingdom like other ones are. We've been hanging around. We've been fighting for our lives.

But we want a king just like all the others so we can look like a real nation. Samuel, we may remember, he came back from that time. He came back from that broken heart.

He stood before God. And the Lord comforted him. He said, Samuel, they haven't rejected you.

They've rejected me. But go back and tell them they can have a king. But tell them also they'll pay a dear price.

They'll come and they'll take their sons. They'll take their, you know, as you know, to be his, you know, guards all around. And they'll take their daughters to be your confectionaries.

And they'll be his, take care of his palace and do all this. And he'll raise taxes. And he'll do all these other things.

There'll be great cost. But you want it, you can have it. But it isn't you they rejected, Samuel.

It's me. They don't want me as a king. They want so they can have a king.

We'll let them learn through this. And then Saul came and he multiplied wives. Saul came and he went in, you know, to this whole value of life.

And the next thing you know is David then picks up the habit. It seemed to be one that was okay and so he did it. I don't think David was anybody that his physical desires were necessarily any different than any other man.

It was just justifiable. It was acceptable in his position. So he seemed to just do it.

And of course the world finds out how human David was. But that set him up for his greatest trial. As again, it wasn't a trial that was anyway this great warrior wasn't on the battlefield where he failed.

It was in his strength. For seemingly things went on for many years just fine in his life. He went on, he had all these wives, his concubines, no judgment.

God just let the thing go on, let it carry on. Until finally when he was about 50 is when the day came that God stepped in. The story of it, in fact I haven't even given you any, I've just been telling you Bible stuff here.

But in 2nd Samuel, you might turn to it, in 2nd Samuel chapter 11, it tells us there, it says, Now it came to pass in the spring of the year at a time when kings go forth to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all of Israel. And they destroyed the people of Ammon and they besieged Reba. But David remained at Jerusalem.

Such a subtle little thing there, but as it happens there in 2nd Samuel, it tells us at this time when things happen, at a time when kings go forth to battle, at a time when David should have been off at war, it tells us there that David tarried still at Jerusalem. He sent Joab, he says, you go just kind of, it's just a mop-up operation. The way the things were back then, if you may be aware, is in Middle East with the cold winters as they could be, and with the snow and things, they didn't have things, you know, way of living to kind of handle that weather.

And nations, basically, when their war, it would sound comical to us, but it was, it was very real then, when the winter came, they would basically, they would just maybe keep a very small corps of guys on one side of the ravine, a small corps of the other arm and the other, and then the whole rest of the army would go back till spring. It was kind of almost just a military agreement, the way that a lot of nations are at night. When the sun goes down, hey, we don't, you don't fight at night, we won't fight at night, okay? Wait till the sun comes up, and then we'll pick up the battle in the morning.

Well, they did that with the seasons. And here at a time when kings go forth to battle, when the spring has come, when it's, when David ought to go back here and pick up the battle, David this time said, hey, I'm going to, you know, or Joab, you go finish it up. The, they were, they weren't threatened militarily, they weren't any power at all, they'd hired the Jebusites, Jebusites had failed, and they were just a weak nation, and now just go finish the mop-up operation.

So he sends him out to do it, and David remained at Jerusalem. And this, I'm convinced, was the real time that things happened. Here David, he'd had a weakness in his life for a long time.

He'd had a moral problem in his life that had gone on and gone on and gone on, but David at the same time, with all of these problems in his life, he fundamentally stayed in the will of God. He fundamentally, in other areas, he was right there and things, but now finally a day came to where David just looked there and said, God, I'm on my agenda. I think every one of us, not a human being, you and I don't have weaknesses, all of us.

We all have flesh, we all have weaknesses, we all have desires, but I, so often I think fundamentally, as long as God, keep me in your service, keep me in the issues of your kingdom, keep me about the things where I ought to be, God has a way of just continuing to protect and watch over and guard us as his children, protect, he sees the weaknesses, he sees the flesh, he sees the things of our nature that are far from finished in any one of us, any one of us of all. If anyone thinks he doesn't sin, he's a liar, John says, but here it's something that any man who's not aware that he's a sinner, but God tends to keep us free. He tends to watch over us and have a divine and a wonderful protection over us, even in our secret sins, in our nature that we're longing to deal with, but are yet far from perfect, God watches over, but the day that then we just step out of his will, now we're vulnerable.

Now there's a time when David says, I'm going to take my ease, I'm going to relax, the next thing you know is there's David, finding himself there to where he's really little more than a sitting duck, for in the next verse it tells us, then it happened one evening, isn't that the way it always is, then it just happened one night. One evening that David arose, 2nd Samuel 11 to, from his bed, here this man who supposedly didn't stay back in Jerusalem because he had paperwork to do and he had business to do, he just laying around. One evening David arose from his bed, 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.

So David went and he inquired of the woman, and someone said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? David said, messengers, and he 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. But here it's something to where David went out and he, now he just one night goes out, just happens one night, as he goes out on his own patio, but he looks out over, and as he just walks out there and looks, and he sees this woman bathing, and she was beautiful. And a look led to a thought.

A thought led to a desire. A desire led to an inquiry. Even then, God in his mercy and his grace, trying to get a hold of David, he sent back, and he says, who is this woman? The inquiry came back, oh wait a minute, isn't this the daughter, you know, of, and this was a man David knew, and knew him well, of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of your men in your army.

This guy's married, this is a woman who's married to one of your men off fighting a battle right now with Joab, who you sent out, and he's a daughter of a friend of yours. But amazingly what happens with lust, the power of it, first is it's a look, then it's a thought, then it's a desire, then it's an inquiry, and then by then so often, even though the Lord comes and says, David, stop it, don't you realize what a fool you are? Don't you realize what you're doing? You're under a spell, but he couldn't get free, and he calls for her, and she comes, and it would appear that the two of them were quite consenting in this, this wasn't a rape or anything like that, this was something there to where she seems to be one that she, I don't think she was anything too innocent either. That's just my own supposition, but I, personally, I don't think many women who take baths out where people can stand on their back porch and watch them are real innocent.

That's just my own supposition. I, you know, and the, of the thing when somebody, oh hi, you know, King David, how you doing? You know, don't mind me, it's just my evening bath, you know, or whatever else it is that's going on here. And it's funny, when we lived in Southern California, in Costa Mesa, we had a neighbor two doors over from us that she would always frolic around the backyard naked, and she was a grown woman, children, and I just, the neighbor next to me told me about this.

I knew nothing about it personally, just rumor, but the, that is true, I, but the neighbor, and it was well known through the neighborhood, she didn't mind, she'd just go around, she figured her backyard was her backyard, she could do whatever she wanted in it, but then my neighbor next door, Gene was his name, he'd talk to her over the fence on any subject that she would talk about, he would do that.

Well, I don't think a person like that's too innocent, and a person that allows a thing like that, and something to where maybe just an awful simple woman, that's, that would be trying to help her out an awful lot, and very ignorant, but the one thing that I think maybe is a suggestion, any of you have daughters, I think something to me, I look at a lot of kids these days, I don't think they have any idea the power of their flesh, and I don't want to get into it too much, but I just look at, I don't think most young girls, when they're starting to discover their sexuality, when they're, their body is about 10 years ahead of their brain, I think sometimes, in terms of the awareness of what it is that's going on, you look at the way some of these, I'm not talking 13, 14, 15 year old girls,

the way that they dress, they're so proud maybe that they're becoming a woman, or that they're becoming feminine, but they don't realize the way that sometimes they dress, and they, you know, go running around, what that does to the young boys, what that does to other people around, I don't, I just have to hope, I look at them, I hope they don't know what they're doing, a lot of them, the way that they can flirt, you can do it with your dress, you can do it with your eyes, you can tease in all sorts of ways, and a lot of kids, they're doing that these days, it's a whole generation, it's a whole world, it's almost to fit within it, you just to be somebody that lives and walks and talks in a prudent, decent way, is almost old-fashioned, I suppose always have been somewhat old-fashioned, but

never more than now, and how I just encourage every parent, take your daughter aside, and I'm, I belong to somebody I have yet to meet, and I long to meet them, but that's who, that's who will know me, and that's who will know something about me, but the rest is none of your business, and so often I look at the way kids dress these days, and it's like they make their sexuality everybody's business, and I don't know how I got into this, David and Bathsheba, not having girls, I don't know what, you know, maybe they'd run me like they do, I see, you know, it's funny, well it isn't funny, let me get back here into David and Bathsheba, but at any rate, I probably, Bathsheba thought David was quite a catch, I mean the man there, I mean say, I mean he's king, the man there is, I mean he's a

handsome man, he's a powerful man, he's a talented man, he's got all the things that any, you know, anybody could easily be drawn into, and, but the tragic thing is, is that all that David had, they're very attractive things, they're very desirable things, but they're, none of them are things that hold a marriage together, when you stop to think about it, I mean so often the things that people are attracted to somebody by, in our world, the things that people use to pick somebody out with, aren't the things that hold a relationship together, they aren't relational things, they're just images on the outside, you know, warrior, musician, poet, athlete, as if any of those things are ones that as a result, they are qualifications for somebody to hold together a relationship, for somebody to

be, you know, that's going to be able to be a strong mate, and have a profound depth about them, those are oftentimes things that, if anything, they're a detraction from a relationship, they're a distraction from a relationship, they oftentimes hold somebody back from becoming effective in a relationship, those things that are strong on the surface about things, are oftentimes things that actually thwart and reduce human, you know, growth, many times, and I think I've mentioned this before in this series, I can't remember, but oftentimes it's the girls that are so pretty, the ones that everybody looks at, what a pretty little thing, and they're always pretty, and everybody comments how pretty they are, and everybody notices how pretty they are, all the way through school, they're the ones

that oftentimes never form a personality, they don't need one, people attract to them, they just smile and bat their eyes, and the boys are all over the place, and then you look at them one day and say, hi, and they say, I don't know what to say, you know, I mean, they haven't, they've never developed a personality, because they never needed one, they never developed the capacity to hold together a relationship, they're just people that they look at each other and there's an attraction, that's what happened to David, that's obviously the way so much of his life was, though he was strong in one area, another area of his life, he was a cripple, it was tragic, in a sense, to look at him and realize, here's somebody, he could look over a fence and say hi, and she could look up at him and say

hi, and both of them could realize, you got something I want, and the next thing you know, they're sleeping together, and they don't even know anything about each other, because their strength in building a relationship isn't the thing that brought them together, it's the appearance of the person that they think they are, and that's no, you're never going to build a marriage there, you're never going to have anything that's going to be deep or strong or profound about it, and so here David and Bathsheba, they both have their desire, her husband's off at war, and he's just a little soldier, this guy's a king, you know, and so they carry on their thing until word gets back where she realizes she's pregnant, and now David's got a real trial, a real trial, what do I do with this, he'd had a

lot of wars, he'd had a lot of battles, he'd had a lot of things to confront, and he could go and take every one of those things on, he didn't care how many they were, he didn't care how big an army was, he got to the place, he was so confident in the Lord's ability to carry him through something, that he could do it almost with half of his life tied behind his back, just trusting in God, but now he's looking at this, and because it was a product of the flesh, he used the flesh to try to resolve it, and here he realizes he's got a problem, Leviticus chapter 20 says that what happens here is you get stoned, you die, that's what the law called for, and so he decides I got to get out of this, and so he calls for Uriah, her husband, to come back home, brings Uriah in, says give me an update

on the battle, how's it going out there, Uriah gives him an update on the battle, he says well thank you very much, he says go home and see your wife, and then go on back to war, and well he didn't, he went and he slept in the barracks with his men out there outside David's drawer, David finds out the next morning, didn't even go home, tries to get him drunk, and when still it doesn't work, the next thing you know, I mean here this guy says how can I go and have pleasure with my wife, while all the rest of my men, and while the rest of our army is out there in battle, I won't do such a thing in the sight of the Lord, oh if you imagine the conviction that David had to have, you know, you expect me to go lay with my wife, while all the guys in my company are out there fighting, no way,

David probably said well, I kind of had the idea, but it's probably a good one I guess, but at any rate, I mean here this man, if you can imagine the conviction, the realization that came across his own soul, and then finally when he realized the only way out of this, as he writes a note to Uriah, or to Joab, I want you to take Uriah, put him in the hottest point of the battle, leave him right, take him, he and his men right up to the wall, and then right in the heat, the heat of the battle, pull back your forces and let him die, he wrote this, a note, gave it to Uriah, Uriah carried his own death note to Joab, and there as he looks at this thing, if he, I mean because David realized, well obviously he can trust this guy with his own death notice, he wrote it, watch a man fall, and watch

what a man can do when he's in trouble, well this is what he did, and here David as he sends it out, Uriah dies, and all is well, covered it all up, that is except for one slight, a little problem that seemed to come along for it, it tells us there that the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, it was evil in the sight of God, and there David found himself where he sat, and for the next year of his life, he knew he'd sinned, he knew he'd failed, he went and he took Bathsheba to be his wife, and there those two were, but it was something now he had no idea what to do, he found himself there in his own heart, in his own life, in his own walk, and emptiness in his soul like he'd never ever known in his life, he'd never known such separation, he'd never known such quietness from

heaven, he'd never known such a sense of God's presence gone into the emptiness of his own soul, and of his own life, it ate him away night and day, at least that's the way he looked at it himself, he wrote three Psalms, Psalm 32, 38, and 51 during this time in his life, it says, O Lord, in Psalm 38, do not rebuke me in your wrath, nor chasten me in your hot displeasure, for your arrows pierce me deeply, and your hand presses me down, there's no soundness in my flesh because of your anger, nor is there any health in my bones because of my sin, for my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me, my wounds are foul and festering, because of my foolishness, I'm troubled, I'm bowed down greatly, I go mourning all day long, for my loins are full of

inflammation, there is no soundness in my flesh, I'm feeble and severely broken, I groan because of the turmoil of my heart, hear this man, you can just see him, his insides are eating him apart, he can't think, he can't pray, he can't walk, he can't lead, everything is corrupted seemingly within him, he has nowhere to go, he doesn't know how to handle it, all he knows is God step back, wrote in Psalm 32, blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no guile, when I slept my bones grew old, through all my groaning all day long, for night and day your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was turned into the draught of summer, I acknowledge my sin, my sin to you and my iniquity

I have not hidden, I've said I will confess my sin and my transgression unto the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of it, but here is David, he looked there and in Psalm 51, another one there of just to the rottenness of the impurities of his heart, the tragedy of his sin, it took a year, it just began to gut him out, it just began to go in and through him in the silence of heaven, the powerlessness of spiritual life, looking and just carrying on life in the palace, in his home, with his children, with anything, where it was all gone, it was dried up, everything had just eaten him alive.

The wonderful thing is, in the midst of this, or after about a year, God sent Nathan to David, and he came in before him one day, and you know the story only too well, when he came in and he says, David I've got a problem, I need your advice.

He says, what is it? He says, well there's this very very wealthy man, he had many flocks, a lot of sheep and goats, very wealthy, and there was a guy that lived down at, you know, shortly away from him, who had just one little lamb, oh this little lamb was like a pet, children played with it, it literally came in and slept in his bed at night, it was one there that was just like a member of the family, but one day a traveler came to town, traveler came to town, to visit this wealthy man, and rather than go and kill one of his own sheep and dress it for the man, his own visitor, he went down and he took this other man's lamb, and there he dressed it and he served it to him, and all of a sudden David's anger just arose.

Such a wise and good judge most of the time, but this time he arose and he says, the man will die for this, and he will also pay four times what it was that he took back. Well it's interesting, here David in his terrible wrath, in his terrible anger, the law didn't call for a man to die, it did call for him to pay four times it, that's what the, that's what Leviticus called for, you steal something like that, you pay four times, didn't call for him to die for stealing a guy's sheep, but it's amazing, you know, on how judgmental we get when we see our own sins in somebody else, and on how intense we can get when we, you know, as James says, you judge, you know, one another, because it's in your own heart, it's in your own life, what you see in your own life, you get so angry, there's something about us that we live with it, and it's eating us apart, and then when we see somebody else do it, we want to destroy him for it, well that's what David wanted to do, but then Nathan turned to him and he says, David, thou art the man, you're the one I'm talking about, you're the rich man, God gave you so much, he gave you everything of Saul's, you've got all of his power, all of his wealth, all of this given over to you, and there's one little man down there that you, when you took his wife for yourself, killed him, and there, you know, the thing that happened, David had to realize the pain of it, for there he looked and he said he had anointed him over Israel, delivered him from the hand of Saul, blessed him, and watch over him, he says, I gave you your master's house, your master's wives, and your keeping, gave you the house of Israel and Judah, if that had been too little, I'd have given you more, God looked at David and he says, David, I've given you so much, I've given and given, it's not enough for you, is it David?

There David had to learn that the judgment that comes also has consequences, because in 2 Samuel 12 10, it says, now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you've despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will also raise up adversity against you from your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them unto your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of his son, you did it secretly, I will do this thing before all of Israel, before the son, you know, that's what happened too, it's ended up his sons, one son murdered another, another son raped a half-sister, Tamar, Joab went and killed Absalom for killing Ammon, and here it's like the sword went all the way

through David's life, all the way through his house, then when Absalom tried to overtake the country and David had to run for his life, Absalom took his concubines, built a tent up there on top of the king's house, visible to all the nations around, and he went in and he had relations with David's concubines, saying I'm the king, and in the sight of all of Israel, his own son lied with his concubines, but here it was something that David, he says, you did this secretly, and he says, but I'll do this thing, but I'll let all of Israel see what it is, but you see, the thing is, is even God's judgment is great wisdom, he also told him, he says, the son that's been born will die, it seems terrible, doesn't it, but God had to teach, he says, you have taught the nations how to blaspheme me, God

looked it there at David and he says, David, the way you've lived your life in this area, it's something there where it's gone on and it's gone on, it's gone on, I've let it go and I've been patient, yeah, I've let it go and I've been merciful to you in this, and of course this is true with every one of us as human beings, and if the Bible says, you know, the man thinks he stands, let him take heed lest he fall, God's watching over and protecting us all far more than we dream, but here he looked at David and he said, David, what you've done has caused the enemies of God to blaspheme me, he says, they must learn judgment as well, they had to learn that God is willing to judge his own children, he's willing to discipline them and chastise them, and oh, what a lesson, what a painful thing

that happened in this relationship, but the wonderful thing is, is the story doesn't stop there, because as soon as David then turned and he confessed his sin, as quick as it was when Nathan touched him in that way, the wonderful thing about David, the thing I love so much about him is as soon as God broke through in an area of his life, David was able to call it what it was, and he immediately turned after, you know, Nathan came, he says, thou art the man, David turned, he says, I've sinned against the Lord, and as quickly as David confessed it, just that quickly, Nathan then turned, you know, and he says, and the Lord has taken away your sin, just like that, it's gone, Psalm 32, David has already read, he said, I acknowledge my sin before you, and my iniquity have I not hidden, I said,

I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin, and then there's the wonderful word not translated in most Bibles, Selah, that's perhaps the most wonderful part of that verse, it means rest, it's a musical rest note, David there, I confess my sins, you forgave it, and I rest, David found there that the moment he could turn to God and to confess it, that it was something that was forgiven, and the man entered into a rest in his life where he'd never known it, God even in his judgment in David was loving him, for David never again took another wife, I think that's wisdom on his part, wouldn't you?

I mean, it was something there to where he never again, that was it, I'm through, I don't want any more, and he learned his lesson awful hard, and in an ever so painful way, but that was one sin that had been in his life that he seemed not to be able to get the grip on, until finally God broke through and showed it to him, and he confessed it, and the moment he confessed it, God forgave it, isn't that wonderful?

To have something that can be in your life so long, something there that you know when you're doing it, you know when it's going on, though other people don't seem to see it, or other people put you in a category where they're oblivious to it, but yet the conviction of your own heart, David knew not to multiply wives, he'd been faithful in two of them, but one of me just had little slip-ups, little white sins maybe, something that, oh, it's okay, and he found a way to justify it, but David who knew God so well, also knew there was an area of his life that was out of control, and it was an area, finally God looked at it, and he agreed, it is out of control, David, I must take care of it, and David, when you're weak and vulnerable, the next time, that's it, I'll step in, even that though is

God's love, for he brought David there, you know, to a sense of redemption and forgiveness and a mercy like David had never known in his life, you read Psalm 51, you read it there, and you look at how David said there, you know, he says, create in me a new heart, renew a right spirit in me, he says, wash me with hyssop, cleanse me, and he says, then will I treat, yeah, will I teach transgressors your ways, David could look there, and he says, God, you forgive me in this, you help me through this area of my life, he says, I'll have a message for sinners everywhere, I'll be able to tell anybody that's ever failed you and transgressed you, I can tell them about you, and you know, it's interesting, God in his wonderful mercy, Bathsheba became, of course, the mother of the future king of

Israel, Solomon, all the ones there, I mean, that could have been at that point potentially accepted or selected by God, initially, you'd think with the last woman he's ever going to, you know, lead on the children of Israel with is going to be this woman, but it wasn't, because here was a woman that David and together, they learned mercy like David knew it with no one else, they learned grace, they learned love, they learned forgiveness, they knew it in their home, they knew it in their marriage, and though they knew the pain of judgment and losing that child, it was one there that God was, because of their repentance, and because of the forgiveness, and because of the atonement, there was something that broke into that home and had never known before, and God wonderfully, you know, as

the Bible says, he, the, I know it so well, the years were eaten up by the canker worm, he restored them all, it's like all the things that our sin can just destroy, God in his mercy can do better than it, one will but turn to him, say, God, make it right, help, and it's interesting, though David named him Solomon, it was for peace, that's what he was to David, but Nathan, the prophet who came and revealed the whole sin in the first place, named him Jedidiah, which means beloved of the Lord, God came and there when he gave him this son, through Bathsheba, through this marriage, it was something there that God so blessed him and so restored him, he gave him peace and beloved of the Lord, once he got his life right, and Solomon, of course, went on to be the builder of great, David's

greatest desire of all of his life, the builder of the temple, and it is an added blessing, I suppose, Matthew chapter 1 lists Bathsheba as one of the four women referred to in the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Matthew, obviously, every, you know, I mean, there's a line that goes on all the way back to Abraham, but here it was something that there is the Spirit of God touched Matthew as he's writing that, Bathsheba, listed there as a descendant of Jesus himself, you know, I mean, what a wonderful thing of Jesus to look there, when somebody knows forgiveness, when somebody knows mercy, when somebody knows grace, be it ever so painful a lesson, perhaps, but when they learn it, it's a wonderful thing, which to me tells me that maybe in some of our marriages here, maybe in some of our

homes here, we look and it was all started in the wrong foot, it was started just purely out of all the wrong reasons, you know, you were a poet and a musician and an athlete and she was pretty, you know, or something or whatever else you want to put in there, we chose each other out of all the desires of the world, there wasn't God in it at all, we lived in sin, we chose the way of sin and there's all the guilt about it, but the wonderful thing, this story tells me is that any marriage can come and say, Jesus, forgive me, I've sinned, I've sinned against the Lord and as quickly as you can do that, and we've sinned, we've got a relationship on all the wrong things, we've started in the wrong foot, we got in the wrong attitude, we built in the wrong thoughts, we've got a history of

accusation, guilt and shame behind us that's filled with pain and great grief, but the wonderful thing of when two people can look and realize, but God has it so, God has it so, so we're to forgive, we're to receive forgiveness ourselves, we're to forgive one another, that's the wonderful thing, to think two people on how you can fail God, how you can fail one another, but still to look there and realize that God, once it's confessed, once it's gone, the Bible wonderfully tells us he takes our sin, he removes it as far as the east is from the west, he buries it in the depths of the sea, he hides it behind his back and he says, behold, I remember it no more, the only thing you'll never hear about in all of eternity again is confessed sin, you never need to hear of it, it won't be recorded

or mentioned in heaven, God will not allow it, and how that ought to be about the way we ought to be with one another, in our own relationships when somebody can come and confess, when two people can say, God, forgive us, it's fresh, it's new, and God can use that to build a temple, God can use that, that very failure can become your strength now, we're here, David, a man who had no weaknesses to a lot of people's thinking, but he had one terrible weakness and God finally came and he says, it's time to touch that and to change that, I'll make it your strength now, and he did.

He learned it all, it was painful, but glorious in its ultimate lessons, what a marriage, Father, how we thank you for your word, thank you, dear Lord, for the wonderful lessons that are in it for us, and Lord, I ask that tonight you would just take anything of this to our own hearts and our own lives, whatever we need, whether it has to do with raising our own children or it comes to something that we have yet to forgive of our own relationship, whether we ourselves need forgiveness or we need to forgive another, and to be able to look and do with our own sin the same thing you do with it, forget it, and be able to make that confession a temple, that something can be born in it where our greatest shame and our greatest failures, our greatest weakness can become our greatest strength, those things that were a loss for us, they become our strength in Christ, teach us these things, strengthen our homes, build our families, do it, Lord, through all the stuff that the kingdom of heaven is built with, with mercy, love, kindness, patience, endurance, long-suffering, do it, Lord, with the fabric that makes heaven heaven, may that be the fabric of our own homes, of our own love, strengthen us all, for, Father, we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.