1. David Succeeds and Sin Does Too

It seems while David was hanging out at home, Joab’s army was doing pretty well, something I never noticed: “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.� I guess sins do not only happen when things are going awry.

2. Sin in the Midst of Worship

Here is something that I have overlooked in reading this text before: “So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.)� Bathsheba had just finished menstruation and for her to be ceremonially clean for worship in the Temple, she was cleansing herself. Wow, as she as preparing for worship, David sends for her and “lays with her.� Sins do happen even in the midst of a preparation for worship.

Two things come mind for me here, the first about Bathsheba: “Did she want to lay with David?� The text is ambiguous here and so it would seem that we just do not know. But the second thing is that David was the king. He could have ordered her to do so. As things go, there probably was a bit of both.

3. David the Mass Murderer

Most people think of this as David’s murder of Uriah. But look at verse 16: “And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. 17And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell.� Others fell because of David’s evil schemes. In fact verses 19-21 give us this picture in Joab’s battle plan. He pushed the men towards the wall, which was obviously a suicide mission since those men would be defenseless, all so that one man might be killed on the orders of the king. This one man did die but so many others as well.

David’s sin led to the grief and mourning of these men. Not only did Bathsheba mourn but so did many wives and mothers and children mourn. Why did they mourn? They mourned because David’s eyes saw some pornographic material one morning, and he acted on his hormonal impulses.

Sin, and yes lust, has dreadful and deathful consequences. This is what God sees every day.

And God would punish David righteously for this act of rebellion against God. And God would also extend grace to David by forgiving him. We only need look at Matthew 1:1 to see how God was gracious to David: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.� It doesn’t say the son of Ezekiel or Amos. It says David.

God’s Son, the Messiah, was born as a descendent of David’s despite his rebellion. That is called amazing grace!

“Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except that each man may lead away his wife and children, and depart.” (1 Samuel 30:22)

That seems to make a sense to me in a very human sort of way. If you don’t put in the time, you don’t deserve to be rewarded. After all, it was they who risked their lives in fighting these battles. People today get extremely angered for not being rewarded for their work. How much more should one be angered when one puts his life on the line and is not rewarded?

But David’s answer typifies his understanding of God, His provisions, and David’s victories and resources. David says,

“You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the LORD has given us. He has preserved us and given into our hand the band that came against us. 24Who would listen to you in this matter? For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.�

David sees the victory as the Lord’s, not David’s. In other words, without God, these men would have had no chance against the Amalekites. But because God was there, David succeeded. Some will read this story and say, “Surely, it was David’s leadership skills, work, charisma, battle strategies that won the day.� No doubt, David had some abilities. But ability in God’s world is a hapless blunder apart from God Himself. And David recognized this. He knew that God gave him the victory and therefore, the spoils must be viewed in light of that perspective.

What a stark contrast to the way in which we view our own resources. I am not just talking about the resources of money, but also skills and intellect. I was reading in Time how more studies are done on the value of homework, and how children are continuing to do more homework and there are less returns for such an increase. Parents think that to do more homework means higher test scores. Now the article didn’t make this point, but I began to wonder, “Why do parents (and I am one of them) want higher test scores?� The answer is that my children can get in the best of schools. And so the next question is, “Why do my children need to get into the best of schools?� And the answer to that question is so that they could get a good job (which often means being some sort of professional). Then comes the next question, “Why do they need to get that particular type of job?� And the answer is usually so that they could get more resources (money, comforts, intelligence). The reason why these resources are so critical is to have such resources means that you become someone important, some worthwhile, someone to be respected. You can hang your head high and say that you have made it.

I am not advocating laziness in education and ignorance. Nor do I think that to go to a good school to get a good job is in any way sinful. But the human heart is deceitful and for the person who has been given such a task from the Lord, much will be required of him (in terms of a humble heart and a broken spirit).

David was a shepherd boy and yet we often see him more as a king. We must remember that at heart David was always that same shepherd boy who killed lions and bears (and giants) because he believed what he said when he confronted Goliath:

You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hand.” (1 Samuel 17:45-47)

David’s view of God was so grand that nothing, not even his own abilities, really mattered when living the life he lived. He truly believed God was Lord over all. How humbling it is to see a person who believed God and believed God could do anything. Even his abilities and resources were always in view of God and His fame and renown.

Too many of us live for resources. And we place resources above our God, essentially making them into idols. They have become our gods. “Once I obtain the status of…, then I will be successful.� “Once I get that new house, then everything will be fine and dandy.� I wish more of us would see that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. But not only would we see it, but we would believe it, and we would live as though we believed it. And yes, I speak for myself in this.

Then Saul fell at once full length on the ground, filled with fear because of the words of Samuel. And there was no strength in him, for he had eaten nothing all day and all night. 21And the woman came to Saul, and when she saw that he was terrified, she said to him, “Behold, your servant has obeyed you. I have taken my life in my hand and have listened to what you have said to me. 22Now therefore, you also obey your servant. Let me set a morsel of bread before you; and eat, that you may have strength when you go on your way.” (1 Samuel 28:20-23)

It sounds like a right response, one of fear and dread. But imagine if he would have responded the same way David did after Natahn confornted David with his sin of adultery and murder:

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” 15Then Nathan went to his house. (2 Samuel 12:13-14)

and…

And the LORD afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick. 16David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. 17And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. 18On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” 19But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.” 20Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. He then went to his own house. And when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate. 21Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” 22He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ 23But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:15-23)

Now I am not the Lord, so I do not know exactly what he would have done if Saul had truly repented before Him. But I know that according to what the Lord tells Ezekiel in Ezekiel 1821:23, God is a merciful God. The Lord says:

“But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. 23Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

Saul would have been saved through his humility before God and of course, BY God’s incredible grace. But instead, Saul simply sits in misery, fear, self-pity, and trouble. His response to sin is not one of guilt and shame and humility, but one of pride, arrogance, self-pity. And in the end, this is still his desire to be his own God. He just never gets it. Even at the end of his life, when he is confronted with the darkest of times, he still clings to his own ways.

That’s a wake up call to many of us who also undergo times of trial. If suffering comes our way, do we blame God first or do we trust God first even in the midst of anguish? Beware of sulking and self-pity. Once you have the “woe is me” feeling and perspective, your heart is no differnt than Saul’s heart. I hope mine and your outcome is one that takes David’s course than Saul’s. Listen to David is Psalm 51 after hearing from Nathan:

10Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Our eternal lives depend on a right response. Let’s remove the idolatry of self-pity from our lives.

This type of unbiblical thinking has led many people to veer far away from the Lord. Sadly, parents train their children too often by the standards of the world rather than Scripture. They use Parents magazine or books by Dr. Sears more than they do the light of God’s Word. But this is no new phenomenon. There was an unbiblical parent in years past and his name was Eli, and this is what he did: he “honor[ed] your sons above me [God]� (1 Samuel 2:29). Or to put it another way, Eli worshipped his sons as his god rather than the Living God. Just how did he do this?

He allowed his sons to disobey God and His commands without any consequences. When Phinehas and Hophni were cheating people for their gain in the name of God (1 Samuel 2:12-17) and therefore treated the name of God with contempt as though God could not see their sins, Eli said to his sons, “No.� That’s it. He said, “No, my sons; it is no great report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad.� (1 Samuel 2:24) This was supposed to be God’s priest, the one man who mediated between God and the people of Israel. In such a terrible thing as this brash and brazen effrontery to God, Eli said, “No.� And in this, his words were a cowardly approach to the sins of his children.

How often is the case that I hear parents simply say, “No� to their children? Saying “no� is not discipline for one’s actions. Usually it is an empty and toothless warning without even the remotest sense of discipline. It is the lazy way out of parenting, as saying, “No Johnny, stop hitting your sister,� is easier than actually having to communicate the depth of the child’s sin, mete out a just and fair punishment, listen to the child’s remorse, and then express your own love for that child. Saying “no� as a response to a child’s sin is easier, quicker, and completely ineffective in shaping a heart to love God and honor Him. If you’re trying to raise the most worldly person, then perhaps saying know is effective. But if you are trying to raise one who fears God and loves Him, then merely saying “no� is terribly inadequate.

Eli said “no� to his sons but that is all that he did. And in doing so, God tells Eli that he is worshipping them. He cares more about pleasing his sons, not wishing to bring them any discomfort, than he does about honoring his God. Eli was a God-fearing man at some level. After all, he was a priest. And yet, as a priest, he was blinded by the idea that his sons would somehow gain faith in God through osmosis. But that simply does not happen.

But instead we must heed the words of Deuteronomy 6:6-9:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Parents cannot take for granted that their faith will be absorbed by their children. Instead, like God commanded Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land, we must IMPRESS God’s commands on them. Without this type of intentional training that keeps in mind discipline, not only will our children run amok, but we will be in danger of worshipping them as our god. Our children become the sole reason for our existence and they rule the way we think, act, and respond to them, not our Heavenly Father.

So what happened to Eli’s two sons. This is what God says in 1 Samuel 2:34: “” ‘And what happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be a sign to you—they will both die on the same day.â€? That is not a good outcome for any parent. May our constant “No-ing,â€? turn into something much more profound. As Hebrews 12:7-8 teaches us about the necessity of discipline:

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

So we parents have a choice, we can either treat our children like the sons and daughters who are true sons and daughters and not illegitimate children or we can treat them like our gods who we continually say “no� to without even nary a thought of discipline. The end result is catastrophic and tragic.

Now when the Chaldean army had withdrawn from Jerusalem at the approach of Pharaoh’s army, 12Jeremiah set out from Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to receive his portion there among the people. 13When he was at the Benjamin Gate, a sentry there named Irijah the son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah, seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans.” 14And Jeremiah said, “It is a lie; I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah would not listen to him, and seized Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. 15And the officials were enraged at Jeremiah, and they beat him and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the secretary, for it had been made a prison.

Jeremiah 37:11-15

I was reading Jeremiah 37 and these words struck me. It’s hard to imagine Jeremiah as a normal person. He was the prophet extraordinaire. He was God’s respresentative here on earth in his day. And yet, he had some property that he wanted to check on during this tumultuous time. When I think of Jeremiah, I think of someone who cared nothing for earthly things at all, the John the Baptist of the Old Testament who wore camel’s skin and a leather belt and ate locusts and honey. And yet, here is Jeremiah setting out to look at his portion of land. So it was in this mundane act of looking upon his land that gets Jeremiah into trouble.

What happens to him? He’s accused of lying, treason, and desertion. And then to top it off, he’s beaten and imprisoned, for what? Because he wanted to see perhaps if his crops were doing well in the midst of the battles and wars, he faced this harsh treatment. I wonder what Jeremiah was thinking during such a time. Here he was, obeying and ministering on behalf of the Lord, and yet, he is tortured and imprisoned. He could have easily resented his ministry and His God. But instead, he knows that what the Lord offered to Him was better than life. It’s for this reason that Jeremiah records some of the most promising words throughout the Bible:

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

Jeremiah 31:3

Admittedly, I have no idea what Samson was like. But in Judges 16, he does not come off as the sharpest tool in the shed. What’s more he has the age-old sinful vice that so many men have, the desire for a woman at any cost. In verse 1, Samson “went in to� a prostitute. In verse 4, Samson “loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek.� She was a Philistine named Delilah, a people who were enemies of the Jews. But that didn’t matter to Samson. God who? It seems like his desire to worship God went out the window as soon as he his eyes lusted after Delilah. Sometimes men lust not only after a woman’s body, but also the companionship, conversation, and attention a woman gives to him. Perhaps the words of a woman are just as alluring as the fragrances and look and clothing. Thus, for Samson to love such a woman was quite telling of where he stood with his understanding of following hard after God. God told Israel in Deuteronomy 7:2-4 that Israel must never intermarry with its neighbors. God knew that to do so (which happens throughout Israel’s history) would lead to people turning away from God. He knew that when a worshipper of God married a non-worshipper of God, that God-follower would no longer follow Him. And certainly, this was the case for Samson.

Samson really turns into a dunce in this text. It should have been obvious to him that Delilah was trying to take advantage of his secret. As a reader, I am urging Samson from the stands to open his eyes and see the obvious chicanery Delilah is trying to pull. But alas, Samson’s passion and ‘love’ for Delilah not only makes him dull to her tricks, but also makes him numb to God’s presence in his life. Eventually, verse 20 says: “But he did not know that the LORD had left him.�

Lest we think this was Samson’s problem alone, we need not look much further to see that Solomon, the wisest and therefore dumbest person who lived, also was a fool when it came to his passion for women. Let me speak as a men to men, beware of your passions for women. Now I am married to a woman and every passionate for her in every way. Let me be a bit boastful here and say that I believe my wife is the most beautiful and caring and loving person I know. But what I love most about her is that she causes me to draw near to God and not further from Him. Anything less would make the luster of her beauty slowly fade away with time. But I know that her passion first for Christ and His Gospel makes her radiant with each new day. Samson’s problem, and Solomon’s as well, and perhaps yours, is that he was trying to find satisfaction in what would be fleeting charm and beauty (Proverbs 31). Such beauty fades with time. Conflicts arise in marriage. And without a deep passion first for our Lord, the marriage or affection is cast aside for ‘something better.’

Too many men have falsely believed that a woman’s love is more satisfying than the love of Christ. Samson proves to us that not only is this a red herring, it is an eternally dangerous notion. Thanks to the Lord’s grace, Samson was forgiven by God for his foolishness.

Do not take the fool’s road. Learn from Samson’s terrible mistake by choosing Christ and the ultimate satisfaction He gives over the ‘love’ of a man or a woman and the temporary satisfaction he or she gives. You will never regret it for an eternity.

In light of today’s escalation of skirmishes to now virtually full-on battles, and then reading this text in Joshua, I can’t help but feel the imminent domain of biblical Israel to be the main impetus for Israel’s recent push into Lebanon. I know that Israel’s claim is that they are acting in self-defense, especially after the recent incursion by Hezbollah into Israel to capture two Israeli soldiers. But is this under the pretext of finally doing away with Israeli neighbors that hold parts of the Promised Land? Only Israel knows the answer to that one. But my hope is that the Christian postmillennialists will not all climb out of the woodwork to support Israel’s battles solely on the basis of faulty theological hermeneutics in dealing with modern-day Israel. It is a sheer exegetical fallacy when today’s Christians assumes modern Israel is the same as biblical Israel. Paul lets us know that not all Israelites and Israelis are true Israelites, when he says in Romans 9:6-8: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.â€?

You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. 7I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. 8But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the LORD my God. 9And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.’

I love how he describes himself as one who ‘wholly followed the Lord.’ He repeats it twice because this is what marks him as a man. He is a WHOLLY follower of our great God. It is far too easy to “follow the Lord.� So many people, including myself, follow the Lord. But to wholly follow Him means that in all circumstances, when faced with that great decision, “Shall I trust God or shall I trust my own convenience and comfort?� it is far too easy to no longer follow the Lord. When Jesus spoke to his disciples about eating his flesh and drinking his blood to gain eternal life, John records, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him� (John 6:66). These are not the first and last “disciples� to no longer wholly follow the Lord.

Caleb saw the odds stacked Israel and his first inclination was to think, “God can certainly do this, therefore, we need not even flinch at what we think from human standards is impossible.� I hope Jack grows up to have Caleb’s heart and boldness and wholly devotion. I pray that I grow to be like Caleb. I pray that my church also grows in such a way.

1. Sin leads to eternal destruction.

2. Sin grieves the Holy and blessed Spirit.

3. Sin causes Jesus to be wounded afresh by it.

4. Sin takes away a man’s usefulness in his generation.

There is nothing, nothing at all worse in this world than sin and its power. This is why in Matthew 17:7-9, Jesus makes this poignant statement:

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! 8If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

While we read this as a hyperbole, sometimes I wonder if we might not read this not as a hyperbole. This is not to say that people should be out there cutting off their limbs. But, sin is so serious that if it has those consequences that John Owen mentioned, than it really is better to have your limbs cut off than end up in hell. People do not take sin seriously enough and so therefore we can never appreciate grace enough. And without grace, we are still dead in our sins. Now that is a scary thought.