2.12.23 2 Samuel 11:1–17, 26-27
1 Springtime arrived, the time when kings go out to war. David sent Joab out with his officers and with all Israel. They ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem. 2 One evening David had gotten up from his couch and was walking around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very good looking. 3 David sent to inquire about the woman, and he was told, “Isn’t this Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 David sent messengers to bring her. She came to him, and he lay down with her. (She had been purifying herself from her ceremonial uncleanness.) She then returned to her house. 5 The woman became pregnant, so she sent a message and told David, “I am pregnant.”
6 David sent a message to Joab, “Send Uriah the Hittite to me.” So Joab sent Uriah to David, 7 and Uriah came to him. David asked how Joab and the troops were doing, and how the war effort was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” When Uriah went out from the palace, the king sent a gift to him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all the servants of his master. He did not go down to his own house. 10 David was informed, “Uriah has not gone down to his house.” So David said to Uriah, “Haven’t you come a long distance? Why didn’t you go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are living in shelters, and my master Joab and the servants of my master are camped on the bare ground in the open countryside. Should I go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie down with my wife? By your life, as surely as you live, I will not do such a thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Stay here today also. Tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 David summoned him, and Uriah ate as his guest, and David got him drunk. But in the evening he went and slept on his mat where the servants of his master were. He did not go to his own house. 14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and he sent it in the hands of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Station Uriah opposite the fiercest fighting. Then withdraw from behind him so that he will be struck down and die.” 16 So when Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew that the enemy’s strongest warriors were. 17 The men of the city came out and fought against Joab, and some of the troops of David fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.
26 The wife of Uriah the Hittite heard that her husband was dead, so she mourned for her husband. 27 When her mourning was completed, David sent for her and brought her to his house, and she became his wife. She gave birth to a son for him. But what David had done was evil in the eyes of the LORD.
A Dirty Chapter in the Life of David. Seduction, Sex, Lies, and Murder
What were the circumstances?
Whenever you watch a murder mystery, people often try to look into the circumstances behind the scene. Was there an affair? What were they doing online? Why did it happen? Sometimes these things happen seemingly out of the blue.
What about with David? We can’t say he did it because he was weak in the faith. God called him a man after God’s own heart. We can’t say that he was sexually deprived. He already had seven wives at this point. I think he had that covered. So what was it that led to his demise?
Idleness is one. Springtime arrived, the time when kings go out to war. David sent Joab out with his officers and with all Israel. They ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem. Notice how the Bible says this was the time that kings normally go off to war, but David didn’t. He was just lounging around the castle when other kings were staying busy. He had time on his hands, time to get in trouble. It’s not good when we or our children don’t keep busy with life, especially actively working with our bodies.
Success can bring with it pride and a lack of humility. David may have been legendary by this point. The success may have started going to his head. Maybe he thought he could do no wrong.
Sexual temptation and opportunity. David was a young man in his sexual prime, and he liked women. Bathsheba was a nice looking woman. He had seen her naked. Instead of looking away, he probably gawked. Maybe she saw him gawking, and smiled. Perhaps she didn’t cover up immediately and kept on bathing, knowing that he was looking. Uriah was gone away to war. Maybe she was lonely. David was a nice looking man too, and powerful. The king was looking at her and noticing her. There may have been desire both ways. This was someone new, someone intriguing. He didn’t have her yet. A new conquest with a forbidden mystique to her.
If the devil was behind this, he sure is sneaky. Here’s a guy with everything and more, and yet Satan still found an opening by luring David with some forbidden fruit, just like he did with Adam and Eve. David shouldn’t have fallen, but he did. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10, “if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Your sinful nature can find plenty of reasons to sin, and there’s always the extenuating circumstances.
A young man or woman finally meets someone they are attracted to, someone they want to be with. They know what God says about premarital sex, but they are getting serious. “We love each other. We plan on getting married, so it's ok to join together now. Why not move in together? Save some money. It costs too much to live by ourselves. We can’t get married yet. We aren’t ready for that. We need to save up for a venue and a dress and a caterer. Our circumstance is unique.” But you know God’s Word. You shall not commit adultery. God doesn’t give exceptions. He doesn’t say, “Oh, you can’t afford to live apart? Then go ahead and live together for a while. I understand.”
It might seem incredulous that David would do this, but everyone has different weaknesses. I could say the same for the Third Commandment when it comes to your worship attendance. “You’re tired? You’re busy? Oh. Ok. I understand. Don’t worry about it then. Just make it when you can.” You don’t want to pay extra taxes, “It’s ok. Go ahead and lie on your tax returns.” You’re diabetic and shouldn’t eat like you do? “I can’t help it. You only live once. What’s one more candy bar going to hurt?” It all depends on your weakness. You can always find reasons to sin, and you’ll always find more excuses.
What were the consequences?
Once you start making excuses, it doesn’t take much to get yourself caught in more and more sins. David started out with a one night stand. They may have thought, “This will just be a one time thing. She’s lonely. We’re both attracted to one another. We’ll just do this once and no big deal.” Only it was a big deal. There are always consequences to sin, even when you think there aren’t. Bathsheba became pregnant, which set off a whole sequence of events. David tried to cover it up by having Uriah come home and sleep with her. He got Uriah drunk. That still didn’t work. (I wonder what would have happened if Uriah had slept with his wife and the child came out with David’s complexion or hair color?) He then sent Uriah back to the front line and had him murdered in war. He involved Joab in the murder as well, all in order to try and cover his sin. Either way, that one sin led to many more sins because he didn’t want to confess his sins.
Sin is rarely committed without being entwined with other sins. The person engaged in pornography ends up becoming more and more addicted. He or she stops giving energy towards the person they are supposed to be attracted to. They start desiring perverted behavior in their sex lives, or they simply can’t perform sexually because they give all their effort to a computer screen. The young adult who concedes on what sexual point is quickly not satisfied with that. “I’ll just do it once” becomes so much more. They need to go further and further to try and satisfy their lust. Sex becomes associated with guilt and sin and shame, and that’s not good either.
The remedy to sexual promiscuity today is, “Just take a morning after pill. Get an abortion. Easy peasy.” But it’s not so easy. You just put your body through tremendous trauma. You just murdered a child. You may make it impossible to have more children. You will have lingering guilt. You will realize that the child may be gone from your life physically, but they are far from gone emotionally and spiritually. You’ll think about what the child could have been for years to come. You’ve damaged yourself in the process.
Those who stop listening to the Word of God and taking the Supper end up becoming less and less interested in the Word. They convince themselves that they are getting by just fine without the Word and sacrament. Yet without even realizing it they may feel more and more lost. They feel more and more abandoned and alone. They get depressed. They feel like they have no purpose in life. They don’t feel loved. Why? Because they stopped fellowshipping with Christians and receiving the Word and sacrament. Sin is intertwined.
And if you get used to making excuses for your sinful behavior, you start to believe your own excuses. You don’t live a life of repentance. You want Him to leave you the way you are. You don’t strive for improvement. Your God becomes your puppet. You become the master. You’ll tell God what you’re going to do and when, and you’ll demand Him to like it. You won’t get on your knees before Him. You’ll tell Him to get on His knees before you. You’ll make Him the beggar. But He doesn’t beg. The God you worship will only be at your convenience. You may find out on Judgment Day that this isn’t your God. Why? Because you lived a life of impenitence, you made excuses for your sin.
What were the ultimate results? You can’t tell me that nobody knew about what David had done. Joab knew. The soldiers who withdrew from Uriah knew. The servant who told David, “That’s Uriah’s wife!” knew. You can’t tell me nobody talked about it. It wouldn’t have taken long for the rumor mills to fly, especially if Bathsheba’s child looked a lot like David. David was supposed to be a leader of Israel. He had been an icon of virtue up to this point in some ways. Now he was nothing but an embarrassment. I’m sure people knew.
What was God’s reaction?
What is worse? What David had done was evil in the eyes of the LORD. There was no excuse for what David had done. It was just plain evil. David had betrayed his other wives. He betrayed Uriah, who was one of his mighty warriors. He sinned against Bathsheba, and he sinned against God. He had embarrassed the office of the King of Israel. He may have thought that he had gotten away with it, but God knew. God always knows. He always sees.
David may have lived with his sin for a year before he was finally exposed. Some of his psalms show that on the inside he was wasting away. He knew what he had done, but he never had the guts to come clean. Thankfully, God didn’t allow him to stay in the dark. He sent Nathan the prophet, who used a tender story of a man with a pet sheep who was stolen and slaughtered in order to feed his rich neighbor. One of the great sins that Nathan exposed to David was how THANKLESS David was in his adultery. God said, “I gave you ALL THIS, and I would have given you MORE if you had just asked.” But David decided to jump into this sin, which was basically telling God, “That’s not enough. You haven’t been good enough to me.” Nothing could be further from the truth. God was angry with David. He was upset with David. David had no reason to fall into this sin. He had no excuse. He had done a shameful and dark thing.
Finally, David stopped making excuses when Nathan pointed the finger plainly at him. “I have sinned against the Lord.” What does the LORD do to his unfaithful king? He doesn’t damn him to hell. He takes away his sin. Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. He saves him from death. How? By becoming death for us, on the cross. And that is the only bright spot to this story. David had to be taken into the light and publicly exposed before he would fess up. But once he did, he found the mercy of God. There would be temporal consequences to his sin for the rest of his life. The child born of Bathsheba would die in infancy. Some of his other children would end up raping and killing each other. This story would live on in infamy for the rest of time. But David would be forgiven by God’s grace. This sin would be covered in Jesus’ blood and forgotten by God. And that’s not all! David was allowed to stay married to Bathsheba, and God gave them other children, one famous one by the name of Solomon.
So if you’ve got sins you’ve been hiding, sins you’re ashamed of, sins you’re making excuses for, don’t hide it. If you’ve made a mess of your relationships or your marriage because of your own infidelity, don’t give up or think there’s no hope for you. Just be honest with God. It’s not like you can fool Him. He already knows what you’ve done. God knows who you are. It will be scary and embarrassing to confess your sins. But it is much more scary to try and hide them. They will only eat you up from the inside out.
Don’t forget who God is. God is merciful. God is forgiving. Jesus already died for all your sins. God is gracious, in Jesus. He always is. Jesus died for the perverts, the adulterers, the lazy, the gluttons, He died for all of us. If you want to find light in this story, find it in God, who didn’t allow David to stay in the dark. He didn’t let him die in unbelief. He brought him back to the light of grace and faith. He wants to do the same for us. You don’t need to make excuses for your sin, not when you have Jesus.
Chief of sinners though I be,
Jesus shed his blood for me,
died that I might live on high,
lives that I might never die.
As the branch is to the vine,
I am his and he is mine! Amen.
