2 Samuel 11-12:13

The Message (MSG)

2 Samuel 11

David’s Sin and Sorrow

 ¹When that time of year came around again, the anniversary of the Ammonite aggression, David dispatched Joab and his fighting men of Israel in full force to destroy the Ammonites for good. They laid siege to Rabbah, but David stayed in Jerusalem. ^2-5One late afternoon, David got up from taking his nap and was strolling on the roof of the palace. From his vantage point on the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was stunningly beautiful. David sent to ask about her, and was told, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?” David sent his agents to get her. After she arrived, he went to bed with her. (This occurred during the time of “purification” following her period.) Then she returned home. Before long she realized she was pregnant.

    Later she sent word to David: “I’m pregnant.”

 ⁶David then got in touch with Joab: “Send Uriah the Hittite to me.” Joab sent him.

 ^7-8When he arrived, David asked him for news from the front—how things were going with Joab and the troops and with the fighting. Then he said to Uriah, “Go home. Have a refreshing bath and a good night’s rest.”

 ^8-9After Uriah left the palace, an informant of the king was sent after him. But Uriah didn’t go home. He slept that night at the palace entrance, along with the king’s servants.

 ¹⁰David was told that Uriah had not gone home. He asked Uriah, “Didn’t you just come off a hard trip? So why didn’t you go home?”

 ¹¹Uriah replied to David, “The Chest is out there with the fighting men of Israel and Judah—in tents. My master Joab and his servants are roughing it out in the fields. So, how can I go home and eat and drink and enjoy my wife? On your life, I’ll not do it!”

 ^12-13“All right,” said David, “have it your way. Stay for the day and I’ll send you back tomorrow.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem the rest of the day.

    The next day David invited him to eat and drink with him, and David got him drunk. But in the evening Uriah again went out and slept with his master’s servants. He didn’t go home.

 ^14-15In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front lines where the fighting is the fiercest. Then pull back and leave him exposed so that he’s sure to be killed.”

 ^16-17So Joab, holding the city under siege, put Uriah in a place where he knew there were fierce enemy fighters. When the city’s defenders came out to fight Joab, some of David’s soldiers were killed, including Uriah the Hittite.

 ^18-21Joab sent David a full report on the battle. He instructed the messenger, “After you have given to the king a detailed report on the battle, if he flares in anger, say, ‘And by the way, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.'”

 ^22-24Joab’s messenger arrived in Jerusalem and gave the king a full report. He said, “The enemy was too much for us. They advanced on us in the open field, and we pushed them back to the city gate. But then arrows came hot and heavy on us from the city wall, and eighteen of the king’s soldiers died.”

 ²⁵When the messenger completed his report of the battle, David got angry at Joab. He vented it on the messenger: “Why did you get so close to the city? Didn’t you know you’d be attacked from the wall? Didn’t you remember how Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth got killed? Wasn’t it a woman who dropped a millstone on him from the wall and crushed him at Thebez? Why did you go close to the wall!”

    “By the way,” said Joab’s messenger, “your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”

    Then David told the messenger, “Oh. I see. Tell Joab, ‘Don’t trouble yourself over this. War kills—sometimes one, sometimes another—you never know who’s next. Redouble your assault on the city and destroy it.’ Encourage Joab.”

 ^26-27When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she grieved for her husband. When the time of mourning was over, David sent someone to bring her to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son.

 ⁴“One day a traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared a meal to set before his guest.”

 ^5-6David exploded in anger. “As surely as God lives,” he said to Nathan, “the man who did this ought to be lynched! He must repay for the lamb four times over for his crime and his stinginess!”

 ^7-12“You’re the man!” said Nathan. “And here’s what God, the God of Israel, has to say to you: I made you king over Israel. I freed you from the fist of Saul. I gave you your master’s daughter and other wives to have and to hold. I gave you both Israel and Judah. And if that hadn’t been enough, I’d have gladly thrown in much more. So why have you treated the word of God with brazen contempt, doing this great evil? You murdered Uriah the Hittite, then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with an Ammonite sword! And now, because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite’s wife as your wife, killing and murder will continually plague your family. This is God speaking, remember! I’ll make trouble for you out of your own family. I’ll take your wives from right out in front of you. I’ll give them to some neighbor, and he’ll go to bed with them openly. You did your deed in secret; I’m doing mine with the whole country watching!”

 ^13-14Then David confessed to Nathan, “I’ve sinned against God.”

    Nathan pronounced, “Yes, but that’s not the last word. God forgives your sin. You won’t die for it. But because of your blasphemous behavior, the son born to you will die.”

__________

Adrian Rogers

The High Cost Of Low Living

2 Samuel 11 (Program 1978DVD, Air dates 10.2.11 and 10.9.11)

1. INTRODUCTION
   1. David was a man after God’s own heart.
      1. Acts 13:22
   2. David was:
      1. A king
      2. A poet
      3. A mighty warrior
      4. Humble
      5. Brave
      6. Noble
         1. 1 Samuel 26:23
   3. Yet David fell into deep, dark, hateful, heinous sin.
   4. The Bible doesn’t hide the scars on David’s life.
      1. David did not go to war; rather he stayed in Jerusalem.
         1. 2 Samuel 11:1
      2. David’s sin
         1. 2 Samuel 11:2-5

1. THE TRAGIC CAUSE OF DAVID’S SIN
   1. The sin of idleness.
      1. 2 Samuel 11:1-2
      2. The harvest was over and the battles had begun but David stayed in Jerusalem and was lazy.
      3. There are two fields that everyone of us need to stay in:
         1. The battlefield
         2. The harvest field
      4. This is the sin of omission.
         1. David isn’t doing something wrong at this point; he’s just failing to do something right.
         2. James 4:17
         3. Every sin is ultimately a sin of omission.
      5. There is a time for legitimate rest, but you’re not supposed to stay in bed all day long.
         1. Proverbs 24:33-34
         2. We are to stay busy.
            1. Luke 19:13

1. The sin of carelessness.
   1. 2 Timothy 2:3
   2. David didn’t fall at his point of weakness, but rather, at the point of his strength his integrity.
      1. Psalm 26:1
      2. An unguarded strength is a double weakness.
      3. All great men of God fell at their point of strength.
         1. Simon Peter fell at the point of his courage.
            1. Luke 22:33
      4. Proverbs 4:23
2. The sin of impulsiveness.
   1. David had not planned to commit adultery with Bathsheba.
   2. Sin is a combination of three things many times:
      1. An undetected weakness
      2. An unexpected opportunity
      3. An unprotected life
   3. David never dreamed that he would have committed this sin.
3. The sin of callousness.
   1. 2 Samuel 11:6-15
   2. David’s sin with Bathsheba was a hot-blooded sin.
   3. David’s sin with Uriah was a cold-blooded sin.
   4. “But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews 3:13
4. The sin of stubbornness.
   1. David was under great conviction, but he went one whole year without repenting.
   2. David was not only cold but he began to rationalize his sin.
   3. He was stonewalling God.

1. THE TREMENDOUS COST OF DAVID’S SIN
   1. 2 Samuel 11:27
      1. David’s sin displeased the Lord and he knew it.
      2. Psalm 38:1-2
   2. What happens when a child of God sins?
      1. There are words of rebuke.
         1. Psalm 38:1
         2. God will speak to you through His Holy Spirit, someone, or something to rebuke you.
         3. If you’re a child of God, God WILL rebuke you.
      2. There are arrows of conviction.
         1. Psalm 38:2
      3. There is the hand of pressure.
         1. Psalm 38:2
         2. God doesn’t toss you away when you sin; He puts His hand on you and squeezes.
            1. Psalm 51:8
         3. Thank God when you have that kind of pressure.
            1. Hebrews 12:8
   3. The most miserable man in the world is a child of God out of fellowship with God.
   4. When you are saved God doesn’t fix you up where you can’t sin anymore; He fixes you up to where you can’t sin and enjoy it anymore.
   5. David’s sin wearied him.
      1. Psalm 38:3
   6. David’s sin weighted him.
      1. Psalm 38:4
      2. Sin is a very heavy weight.
   7. David’s sin wounded him.
      1. Psalm 38:5
      2. David is talking about spiritual gangrene.
      3. Sorrow is a clean wound; it will heal.  Guilt is a dirty wound; it will only fester until it’s cleansed.
   8. David’s sin worried him.
      1. Psalm 38:6
   9. David’s sin wasted him.
      1. Psalm 38:7
      2. Sin promises much but pays little.
      3. God’s plan is one man for one woman.
      4. God’s plan is premarital chastity and post-marital fidelity.
   10. David’s sin weakened him.
       1. Psalm 38:8
       2. David speaks of himself as being blind, deaf and dumb.
          1. Psalm 38:10
          2. Psalm 38:13
       3. David’s friends and family deserted him.
          1. Psalm 38:11

1. THE TIMELY CHALLENGE OF DAVID’S SIN
   1. 2 Samuel 12:9
      1. God doesn’t just let your sin go on and on.
   2. There are four steps in which God deals with our sin:
      1. There is conviction.
         1. The words of rebuke
         2. God is not trying to get even with us. He is just trying to correct us.
            1. 1 Corinthians 11:31-32
      2. There is chastisement.
         1. Hebrews 12:6
         2. God is more concerned about your holiness than He is about your health and prosperity.
         3. God loves those whom He chastises; He loved David.
            1. Psalm 89:34
      3. There is confrontation.
         1. God sent Nathan the prophet to David to confront his sin.
         2. God will use His Holy Spirit, His Word, the people in our lives or even a circumstance to confront our sin.
      4. There is consummation.
         1. 2 Samuel 12:13
         2. David was a great sinner but became a great repenter.
         3. God was getting ready to kill David.
            1. 2 Samuel 12:13
            2. 1 John 5:16
         4. Moses didn’t die because he was old and weak.
            1. Deuteronomy 34:7
         5. God was going to kill Balaam.
            1. Numbers 22
   3. God will cleanse you of your sin no matter what the cost, even unto death.

Uploaded by TimSeay on Aug 10, 2010