We call David a man after God’s heart and yet the Bible also show us the story of his sin with Bathsheba. Joyce shares lessons she has learned from this story that can encourage us through our own disappointments.

david was god’s beloved he was called

god’s beloved and we’re going to take a

detailed look

at david’s sin with bathsheba and i

think that

you will understand it

and be more obey amazed at god’s mercy

than maybe ever before

ii samuel 11 verse 1. then it happened

in the spring at the time when kings go

out to battle

that david sent joab and his servants

with him

and all the fighting men of israel and

they destroyed the ammonates

ammonites and besieged rabba

but david remained in jerusalem now

there’s a message just in this

because it was the time when kings go to

battle

but david stayed home

he sent everybody else and he stayed

home do you know something

sometimes you can keep yourself out of

trouble just by being where you ought to

be when you ought to be there

if you ought to be in church on sunday

morning

come on i wonder how many people

fully intended to say i don’t know maybe

come back to this afternoon session and

i don’t know maybe they had one doughnut

too many and got tired in between

and decided to go home

well i don’t know maybe they’ll end up

in some kind of mess this afternoon

take some kind of temptation and if they

were supposed to be here

if they would have been where they were

supposed to be when they were supposed

to be here then they could have missed

that whole thing

it’s important to just be where you

ought to be when you ought to be there

right how many of you ought to be

spending time with god every morning

before you go out the door to go and do

anything else

you have any idea how much trouble it

will save you during the day

if you’re where you ought to be every

morning for a certain period of time i

don’t care if it’s just

five minutes start your day with god

don’t try to start on your own because

if you start on your own you’re not

gonna like the way the rest of it turns

out

our strength is found in god

so one evening verse two david got up

from his couch and was walking on the

flat roof of the king’s palace and from

there he saw a woman

bathing i’ve never taken a bath on the

roof but apparently they did

then i guess it was a cool place to take

a bath i don’t know

and she was beautiful in appearance now

i don’t know maybe david knew

that ladies took baths on roofs

and maybe that’s why he went to take a

walk on the roof

i don’t know but neither have i ever

taken a walk on the roof so

there may be some things going on here

beyond what we recognized now david sent

word and inquired about the woman and

someone said well

is this not bathsheba the daughter of

eliam the wife of uriah

the hittite so there’s no deception here

david knows she’s married he knows that

she belongs to somebody else

he’s not where he should be he wasn’t

out

in battle at the time of the year when

kings go to battle

he stayed home he was on his roof

looking at her roof

i don’t know we’ll just leave that up to

you in the holy spirit

now i found verse 4 to be interesting

david sent

messengers and took her hmm

wonder what that means well

it doesn’t say that it was consensual

says he took her

it doesn’t sound too good to me sounds

to me like an abuse of his power

when she came to him he lay with her and

when she was purified from her

uncleanness so

here they’re living under the the laws

of the day and

apparently in this situation

her as a married woman

having sex with him rendered her unclean

and so she had to

go through the rites of purification

before she went back home

well guess what your sin always finds

you out the woman conceived and sent

word and said i’m pregnant

uh-oh

now i want you to watch the depth

of depravity that david the beloved of

god

falls into in this situation what was

his weakness

lust wasn’t fear

wasn’t anger it was lust

the devil picks on different people in

different ways and let me tell you

something you need to know yourself

and you need to do everything that you

can

to strengthen yourself in areas

where you’re weak come on now

let me tell you if you’re

if you’re a man or a woman and you’re

tempted

in that way you’ve got a lovely family

and

you don’t do anything to mess it up

you’ve made mistakes in the past

you work at a place where there’s a lot

of good-looking men or a lot of

beautiful women

let me tell you something you better go

in with your eyes closed and pray before

you get there

and you don’t do coffee breaks with them

you don’t start telling them about your

troubles at home

you don’t take them donuts in the

morning you run

like crazy

[Applause]

we don’t you know how many people say

how did i get here

how did this happen well a little bit at

a time

such little minute doses of deception

and we make such tiny little compromises

not paying attention to what the holy

spirit is saying each step

along the way and then before you know

it you’re in such a mess

that you end up losing things in your

life that were very precious to you come

on let’s be smarter than what we’ve been

in the past

amen

verse six then david sent one to joab

saying

send me uriah the hittite so david sent

for her husband

and joab sent uriah to david

and when uriah came to him david starts

to make small

talk with him because he’s got a plan

here

he wants to get him back home

to spend a couple of nights with his

wife

where hopefully he would have sex with

her and then

it would appear that she became pregnant

by him

and david would be off the hook so we

see conniving

deception sin on top of sin

on top of sin so when uriah came to him

david said

ask how joab was and how the people were

doing and how’s the war progressing

not that he cared about any of that he

was making small talk

and david said to uriah well go on down

to your house wash your feet spend some

time at home

uriah left the king’s palace and a gift

was sent from the king out after him

here let me give you a present while

you’re at it but uriah

who was obviously a man of integrity a

man of loyalty

a man of character he slept at the

entrance of the king’s palace with all

the servants of his lord and he would

not go down to his house

when they told david well uriah didn’t

go down to his house

david said to uriah have you not just

come from a long journey

why did you not go to your house now we

see the character

of uriah uriah said to david the ark of

israel and judah are staying in huts

temporary shelters and my lord joab and

the servants of my lord are camping in

the open field

should i go to my house to eat and drink

and lie with my wife

by your life and the life of your soul i

will not do this thing

in other words he’s saying my brethren

out there suffering

the ark of god has been captured

god’s name is being profaned i cannot

just go off and enjoy myself

while everybody else is still having

difficulty i won’t do it

verse 12 then david said to uriah we’ll

stay here today as well and tomorrow

i’ll let you leave

so your uriah remained in jerusalem that

day and the next

now david’s not done yet david calls him

to dinner and he ate and drank with him

so that he made uriah drunk

is anybody seeing this

[Music]

this is david who wrote all the psalms

the beloved of god that we all admire

psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd i shall

not want

come on and he ate and drank with him

and he made uriah drunk and in the

evening he went out to lie on his bed

with the servants of his lord and still

would not go down to his house

oh i bet david’s getting nervous

now you know in no way am i demeaning

david he was a great man of god and

you know if you’re tempted to take what

i’m saying wrong you want to write me a

letter about

you know i’m trying to make a practical

point here

that this that this was a a normal man

who became a great man of god but he was

not a perfect man

amen

and apparently he believed that god was

greater than his greatest mistake

i think it takes unbelievable courage

to just absolutely

do something that

you knew not to do you disappointed

yourself so bad

you disappointed other people you hurt

other people

and yet say i will arise and go back to

my father

and he will heal and restore me once

again

what did the prodigal son do he got such

a bad life that he was living with pigs

wasted his father’s whole fortune and

the bible says that he came to himself

i don’t know maybe somebody’s listening

to me right now maybe you’re watching

from your couch or your recliner

i said one time when i was preaching i

said hey you lean back in your recliner

drinking that beer

and we’ve got this testament a young man

that was in his 20s was doing that very

thing

he’d been strung out on drugs for a long

time and he said when you said that it

scared me so bad

he said i sobered up and accepted christ

so yes god would stop an entire

conference like this

just to speak to you

to let you know it’s not too late you

can make a good decision right

now and start undoing the effects of all

those bad decisions that you’ve made in

the past

amen

god is in the business of giving people

hope not condemning them

and here again we’re not making light of

sin we need to be very repentant we need

to be quick to repent

we need to be very sorry for the things

that we’ve done wrong

but jesus is the solution to sin

and it’s not going to help us to stay in

a pit

that we got into when god is offering us

a way to get out everybody else will

condemn you

and put a lid on your pit but jesus is

the only one that will come and lift you

out

so he wrote david wrote a letter to joab

and sent it with uriah he wrote in his

letter

verse 15. put uriah in the front line of

the heaviest fighting

and leave him so that he may be struck

down and die

wow you know i’ve read this story of

david over and over and i

i mean i never slowed down long enough

to really

look at this and to see

how amazing god is

and how merciful he is

and then he went for a whole year and

didn’t even repent

didn’t even repent until

the prophet confronted him

told him a story i won’t get into the

story

and he realized that he was the man in

the story

that was being talked about and all of a

sudden he was confronted

you know sometimes we can sin terribly

and we can get ourselves so conceived

deceived we can get under so many layers

of excuses

come on that we’re not

facing what’s wrong and maybe you just

need to do that today maybe you need to

stop making excuses maybe you need to

stop blaming it on somebody else and you

need to just come face to face with the

ugliness

of what you’ve done but that’s not a bad

thing that’s a good thing

because that’s a place to begin again

[Music]

[Applause]

but you can’t begin again if you’re not

facing the truth about where you’re at

you will know the truth and the truth

will make

you free you climb out of the pit

and you skip the guilt trip

well he went on to become one of the

greatest greatest heroes in the bible

when you think about

david you don’t remember all this stuff

i don’t even like having to stand here

and bring it up because i like

the picture that i have of david besides

this

but this shows me how amazing god is and

hopefully it gives hope to a lot of

people

who have found themselves in a bad

situation

and you believe the lies of the devil

that is too late for you

now there were consequences for his sin

i don’t want to say that there were not

the bible actually says that david was

never without war in his house after

that

so there were definitely consequences

and that’s the thing we need to remember

about sin

sin can always be forgiven

god will always forgive you and you can

always be restored to fellowship with

god

but that doesn’t mean that you can

always

avoid all the consequences

of the wrong things that you’ve done

and to be honest i don’t even know that

we should want to all that much

i think sometimes we need to say you

know what god i’m so grateful that

you’ve forgiven me and i’m grateful that

you love me

and i’m grateful that i can have

fellowship with you and i don’t have to

be guilty

but i don’t think it’s a bad thing that

i’ve got these consequences because

maybe it will help me remember not to do

it again in the future

the bible says in proverbs that if your

servant doesn’t feel the consequences of

his wrongdoing

he’ll just do it again

that’s why you can’t raise children and

never give them a consequence for

anything they do wrong

and expect them to behave just because

you tell them to

i’ll i would always give my kids my word

first but if that didn’t work i would

touch their circumstances

[Applause]

and let me tell you something that’s the

way god is with us he’ll always give us

his word first

he’ll do everything that he possibly can

to get his word to us and to get us to

agree with him

and to do things his way but if we won’t

he loves us enough to touch our

circumstances