Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment!

12/21/03

 

2 Samuel 11

¹ 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.

This isn’t like David. He always lead his men. David was a warrior--a leader.

It’s one thing to rest in the Lord and it’s another to become too relaxed. David became too relaxed.

A person who becomes too spiritually relaxed becomes too careless. Their guard is dropped.

1 Cor. 16:13 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.

² One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, ³ and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” ⁴ Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. ⁵ The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”  ⁶ So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. ⁷ When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. ⁸ Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. ⁹ But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.  ¹⁰ When David was told, “Uriah did not go home,” he asked him, “Haven’t you just come from a distance? Why didn’t you go home?”  ¹¹ Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

The scripture makes it so clear that Uriah was a man of real integrity.

¹² Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³ At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

Heb. 3:13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

David is caught in a trap. He is not turning to the Lord. He is not confessing his sin. Unconfessed sin takes us down in a quick downward spiral!

Ps. 31:1 In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness. ² Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me. ³ Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me. ⁴ Free me from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge. ⁵ Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.

¹⁴ In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. ¹⁵ In it he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

David tried deceit. Now he turns to murder.

I wonder if the letter was even sealed. Uriah was such a man of integrity it wouldn’t of had to been sealed. Uriah would not have opened it.

¹⁶ So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. ¹⁷ When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.  ¹⁸ Joab sent David a full account of the battle. ¹⁹ He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, ²⁰ the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? ²¹ Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’” ²² The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. ²³ The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. ²⁴ Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”  ²⁵ David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”  ²⁶ When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. ²⁷ After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.

Nine months have passed.

Ec. 8:11 (KJV) Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

Without a doubt, these are the darkest days of David’s life. He might have appeared to everyone else like all is good, but in his heart the fellowship he once had with his God has been greatly damaged and he hasn’t done anything about it.

2 Samuel 12

¹ The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. ² The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, ³ but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.  ⁴ “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

The Lord knows how to get our attention!

1 Sam. 17:34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵ I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. ³⁶ Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. ³⁷ The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

⁵ David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! ⁶ He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”  ⁷ Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. ⁸ I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. ⁹ Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. ¹⁰ Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’  ¹¹ “This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. ¹² You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”

David’s third son Absalom revolted against his father to take the throne. David’s firstborn son Amnon raped Absalom’s sister. Absalom later killed his brother for this and fled for three years. When he came back to Jerusalem it was two years before David would even see him. David never did anything to fix the situation and it all backfired.

2 Sam. 16:20 Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give us your advice. What should we do?”

²¹ Ahithophel answered, “Lie with your father’s concubines whom he left to take care of the palace. Then all Israel will hear that you have made yourself a stench in your father’s nostrils, and the hands of everyone with you will be strengthened.” ²² So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he lay with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”

The greatest thing we can ever do is be honest with God and repent!

No matter how great the trap, how deep the sin. Repentance is the only way to deliverance.

Pr. 28:13 He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

1 Jo. 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. ¹⁴ But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”  ¹⁵ After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. ¹⁶ David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. ¹⁷ The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.

Read Ps. 51

¹⁸ On the seventh day the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, we spoke to David but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”  ¹⁹ David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.  “Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”  ²⁰ Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

David knew he was forgiven, he knew he was restored into the sweet fellowship he once greatly enjoyed with His Lord and Savior!

It’s one thing to ask for forgiveness and another to truly believe you are forgiven!

1 Ki. 15:1 In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijah became king of Judah, ² and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.  ³ He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been. ⁴ Nevertheless, for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and by making Jerusalem strong. ⁵ For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’S commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.

²¹ His servants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”  ²² He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ ²³ But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”  ²⁴ Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The LORD loved him; ²⁵ and because the LORD loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah (loved by the lord).