"What a tangled Web we weave"

What A Tangled Web We Weave

2 Samuel 11 and 12

This part of David’s life is one of the most familiar stories
in this part of the Old Testament, with the possible
exception of the story of David and Goliath. It is the story
of David’s disastrous affair with Bathsheba and its
implications for David and for the monarchy.

Unlike the average campaign biography or press release,
the Bible never flatters its heroes. All the men and women
of Scripture have feet of clay, for the Holy Spirit paints a
realistic portrait of their lives. He doesn’t ignore, deny, or
overlook the dark side. It should encourage us to know
that even the best men and women in the biblical record
had their faults and failures, just as we do. Yet, the
Sovereign Lord in His grace was able to use them to
accomplish His purposes. Noah was a man of faith and
obedience, yet he got drunk. Twice Abraham lied about
his wife. Jacob lied both to his father and to his brother
Esau. Moses lost his temper, disobeyed God and struck
the rock. And Peter lost his courage and denied Christ
three times.

Up to this point we have been looking at David as a
model for our own lives. He is the man who is “after
God’s own heart.”

Those of you who know the story of David know that this
story was coming and you would remind me that we
shouldn’t always see David as a model – he is far from
perfect. “Far from perfect” is a vast understatement. In
this story, it almost seems like the David we have been
reading about has been replaced by some monster. The
truth is he hasn’t, and maybe the reason the story is so
horrifying is because it reminds us that we all have the
potential to be a monster. David has become that monster,
but I think that even in this story, David becomes a model
to us.

David definitely doesn’t begin as a model, nor is he a
model for most of the story. In the beginning of the story,
David is “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” We
usually say that phrase when someone is caught up in
something and hurt through no fault of their own. For
example, when an innocent child is caught in the crossfire
of rival gangs and gunned down. David, on the other hand
is there by choice –

2 Samuel 11:1 (NIV)

“In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war,
David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole
Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and
besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.”

That first verse tells us that David was already on a
slippery slope – and the slope gets steeper.
David should not have been in Jerusalem, he should have
been with his troops in battle against their enemies. I
think that the first verse reminds us that we are most
prone to temptation when we are not where we are
supposed to be. If David gets lost in this chapter, not
being where he was supposed to be is his first steps
toward getting lost.

What are your first steps toward getting lost? Being in the
wrong part of town, not being at home? Sitting in front of
the computer when you should be asleep or with your
family? Stepping into the group of gossips at work?
Climbing up onto the (metaphorical) judge’s seat when
you should be sitting in the advocate’s seat? Where is the
most dangerous place for you? For David, it was being in
Jerusalem when he should have been on the battlefield.
For David, it was more than just not being where he
should be and being where he shouldn’t be; it points to a
shift in David that has happened in David. He has gone
from the hands-on king of the people who was a servant
of God and a leader among equals to an aloof king who
sends people to do his desires. He goes from a servant of
God to a king playing God.

The funny thing about when we say that someone is
playing God, the God that they are playing looks nothing
like the God of the Bible. The god that we play is a god
that controls everything and sends everyone to do his
dirty work. The God of the Bible is best seen in the
personality of Jesus – who call his disciples friends, who
takes the job of the lowest slave and washes their feet.
The reason that David was called “a man after God’s own
heart” was that he had the character of God – he was a
king of the people; fighting side by side with them,
mourning with them when there was loss, celebrating
with them when there was a celebration. Our God is the
God of Immanuel – “God with Us,” and to be a god-like
king is to have the character of God – the servant king,
the king who is with his people, not just over his people.
David was not just in the wrong geographical location; he
was in the wrong headspace.

In 2 Samuel 11:2-4, we see the following…
David is up on the roof, looking over the city and he sees
a beautiful woman bathing on her roof. We aren’t told
how long he looks, but we know he certainly didn’t turn
away to give her privacy. His look was stealing her
privacy, his lust was stealing her innocence, and as we
soon find out, his enjoyment of her beauty was stealing
what only her husband should have. He sees her beauty,
and he wants her.

So, just as he sent someone to fight his battle, he sends
someone to find out about her. The word comes back that
she is Bathsheba, and she is married to Uriah the Hittite.
I think that when we are sliding down that slippery slope
of sin, there are often a few foot holds, a few handholds
along the way where we can stop ourselves and get off the
slide. This is the big one for David – she is a married
woman, end of story, she is not available; lucky Uriah,
God bless them, but a relationship of any kind with me is
out of the question.

But David doesn’t stop himself, he is the king acting like
a god, and kings send for things, and they take them. So
he flexes his royal muscles and she comes and he takes
her to his bed, despite the fact that we’re told she’s still in
the process of being purified after her period. His desire
for her by now is so strong that even her ritual impurity
isn’t a deterrent. Afterwards, he sends her home.

A month or so later, Bathsheba does the sending, she
sends a very short message: “I’m Pregnant.”

David knows that people can do the math – Uriah has
been away at war, there is no way that the child is his.
Sooner or later one of the servants will talk about the visit
to the palace, and their secret rendezvous would be not so
secret. Who would follow an adulterous king?

David sends word to his general Joab; “Send me Uriah the
Hittite.” David is in deep, but he could stop the slide – he
could come clean to Uriah, beg his forgiveness and take
the punches. But he doesn’t – a scheme is a better way
out. Uriah comes to him, David asks for news about the
battle, and then sends him home on leave. He sends a gift
to follow him home, maybe to ease his guilt a little.
But Uriah doesn’t go home! “My men are sleeping on the
cold hard ground,” he says, “How could I go home to my
wife?”

Uriah is beyond loyal to his men and to his king. This was
the way that David once was, honoring his comrades in
arms above everything but God. Now Uriah, a foreigner,
was showing David up in loyalty.

For the next two nights, David has Uriah at his table and
he gets him drunk. But even drunk, Uriah has more
integrity that David had sober. Uriah won’t go home to
his wife while his men were in the field, but David had no
trouble sleeping with Uriah’s wife while he was in the
field. David has gone a long way in the wrong direction.
Once again David had a chance to stop the slide – the
scheme wasn’t working, time to ‘fess up. But he sinks
even deeper into the lie, into sin.

Uriah is listed as one of David’s mighty men. In 2 Samuel
23 there is a list of David’s mightiest, most loyal men –

37 in total. Even though they were called the thirty, at the
end of the list, there is a punctuation mark – Uriah the
Hittite – He had been with David from the beginning,
when David was a teenager on the run from the wrath of
King Saul. Uriah, even though he was a Hittite was loyal
to the end. He had been valiant in battle for David. David
sent him back to the front with a letter to Joab: Place
Uriah where the fighting is fiercest and abandon him.

Joab, unlike Uriah and the David we thought we knew,
loves this type of cloak and dagger intrigue, and he does
the deed – he lets the Ammonites execute Uriah for
David. Joab sends a messenger who reports the failure in
battle, and punctuates his report by telling David, “Uriah
the Hittite is dead.”

David replies to Joab: “don’t let this thing appear evil in
your eyes, the sword will kill one man as easily as
another…”

David has gone from being the servant king to being
Frank Lucas in the movie American Gangster.

After the appropriate time of mourning, David sends for
her again, and takes her as his wife.

David sits back, breaths a sigh of relief, and thinks, “That
went alright”

But, it says, “this thing was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

This takes us to 2 Samuel 12

This hard word is grace – David has gone so far from God
that he can’t find his way back. He has forgotten who he
is. God comes and says “where are you David? It’s just
like God coming to Adam and Eve and asking them
where they are. God knows where they are – It’s David,
It’s Adam, It’s Eve that are lost and they don’t know it.
Here comes Nathan, God’s messenger…

Well, God is watching David and he’s not pleased. So he
sends Nathan to David with a story. A story of a rich man
who owns many flocks of sheep who lives next to a poor
man who has only one small lamb who’s like a family pet.
A traveler calls on the rich man, but instead of taking one
of his own sheep to prepare a meal for this guest, the rich
man decides to take his poor neighbor’s lamb instead. The
poor neighbor is powerless to stop him, so the rich man
can do what he likes.

Well, David has been king long enough to know that this
isn’t the sort of thing he wants happening in his kingdom.
He’s righteously indignant. He tells Nathan such a man
deserves to die. And David is right. Such behavior will
never do in God’s kingdom.

You can imagine Nathan turning to David and saying in a
clear but quiet voice: "You are that man!" And he
proceeds to give him God’s message. God has given him
everything and now he’s totally ignored God, doing
something that’s detestable to him.

David repents in Psalm 51:1-4 (NIV)

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing
love; according to your great compassion blot out my
transgressions. 2  Wash away all my iniquity and
cleanse me from my sin. 3  For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me. 4  Against you, you only,
have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you
are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
There are times when we are called to be like Nathan and
call a friend back from the wilderness of sin. Nathan loves
David and he loves God, and this is why he goes to David
– out of love, not to judge, not wrath, but to call his king
back to God, to call him back to where he should be.

Galatians 6:1-2 (NIV)

1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you
who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.
But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will
fulfill the law of Christ.

Nathan speaks to David out of love, and he speaks to him
with God’s words, not his own, and he speaks in a way
that David will hear and listen.

We must speak the same way to our friends.

And finally, this is where we need to be like David –
David hears Nathan and he confesses and repents, he
stops playing god and returns to being the Servant king.
The reason David repents is because he is terrified of life
without God. Repentance is not as much about the sin as
it is about restoring our relationship with God.

We will all sin – non of us are perfect – hopefully our sin
will not be adultery and murder like David’s. But how we
deal with that sin is the important point. Do we humble
ourselves and confess and repent like David? Or do we
walk away from relationship and live without God?
When our Nathan comes to us, my hope is we respond
like David and repent.

God is a gracious God, who doesn’t desire the death of
the wicked, but rather that they should turn from their
ways and live? David has repented and in response God
withholds his hand of judgement. David won’t die. But in
case he thinks he’s got away with it he needs to realize
there are always ramifications to our sin. His child will
die.

And here we come to another lesson that God wants us to
learn from this passage. As so often happens, one man’s
sin leads to much suffering for others. In fact, have you
noticed how it’s often those other than the perpetrators
who suffer the most. First it was Uriah who was killed,
now it’s this new born child who’ll die, simply because of
David’s uncontrolled lust for a beautiful woman and his
inability to control his desires and resist temptation.
If we ever start to think our sin won’t matter, or that it’s
only us who’ll be affected, we need to stop and think.
Every action we take has an effect on those around us,
whether we realize it or not and even more so when what
we’re doing is rebelling against the Lord.

And so it turns out. David begins a long period of prayer
and fasting, of showing his repentance towards God. For a
week he refuses to eat. He spends his nights in prayer
before the Lord. But in the end the child dies. God has
answered his prayer, though not with the answer he’d
hoped for. David rises, bathes, returns to his home and
resumes his life. When questioned he explains that while
the child was alive he pleaded with God for mercy, but
now that the child is dead there’s no point in continuing to
plead. God has answered in a final way.

I guess there’s a lesson here for us in the way David
accepts God’s negative answer to his prayer. Sometimes
people think God hasn’t answered their prayers because
they didn’t get the outcome they were looking for. But in
fact God has answered them, but with a “No” And it’s as
important that we accept those answers as it is that we
thank him when he says “Yes” But at the same time
remember that David kept on praying for mercy until the
day the child died.

Well, that could have been the end of the story couldn’t
it? David has sinned in the most terrible of ways. God has
seen it, has sent Nathan to David to accuse him and to
pronounce the judgement of God. And that judgement has
been carried out in the death of David’s son. But then
comes another one of those surprises that pop up in God’s
dealings with his people all the time.

David again makes love with Bathsheba and again she
becomes pregnant and bears a son, who is named
Solomon.

David’s sin is great, but God’s mercy is greater. It isn’t
that God has simply ignored David’s sin. Rather David
has repented, has turned away from his evil behavior and
God responds to such repentance with forgiveness and
mercy. He sends Nathan to David this time with a word,
not of accusation, but of encouragement.

The child is to be called Jedidiah, which means “loved of
the Lord”. You can imagine David at this moment feeling
like he’s a total failure; feeling like God has abandoned
him because of his gross sinfulness. But God hasn’t
abandoned him. God continues to love him.

There may be times when you feel like you’ve let God
down to such an extent that he won’t be interested in you,
that he’s turned his back on you. At that moment you
need to remember this important lesson from David’s
experience. God never forgets us. When we turn back to
him in repentance, when we ask for forgiveness, intending
to live a godly life again, God’s mercy reaches out to us
with a message of love. David is loved by the Lord. His
new born son Solomon is loved by the Lord. You are
loved by the Lord. God’s judgement and mercy are never
far apart, provided we truly repent as David did.