The Fall of King David
Sermon Notes
Introduction:
Good morning, it’s great to see you this morning. My name is Zack; I’m one of the pastors here at City Awakening. Most weeks I’m leading the music, but today I’m happy to be able to dig into God’s Word with you. We can go ahead and dismiss our kids to their classroom where they will be studying the Bible as well. I love how they all run back there before we ever dismiss them. It’s really a formality at this point. They’re excited, which is good.
Speaking of running, you do have to be careful when you run. I’m still fairly young and agile. I’ve got good balance, good coordination. I can get out play basketball or football, and I usually don’t worry about getting hurt. But a couple of months ago, something happened that caught me off guard. It was raining, I was running…and I fell. I wasn’t even doing anything strenuous. I was leaving some friends house, I had my hands full with a cup and some tools, and not wanting to get too wet, I took off across their driveway. The next thing I know my feet are in the air and my body is smacking the ground…hard. I landed right on my side. Of course, I immediately jumped up and try to play it off. I picked up my stuff and ran to my car. When I got in, I had to take a minute and evaluate what just happened and try to decide if I was actually hurt or not. It was kind of scary. That doesn’t usually happen to me, and for a couple of days I was worried because it hurt to walk. I couldn’t lay on my side. I had a nasty bruise, and even now my bone is still tender. It was kind of a humbling experience because it reminded me that it only takes one little misstep to fall. No one is immune to it.
I tell you that because the same is true for us spiritually. We are all susceptible to fall. Today we’re continuing our walk through The Story. Last week we saw the rise of King David. The little shepherd boy who went from tending the sheep to killing a giant, to then sitting on the throne as God’s anointed king over Israel. He showed incredible faith in God from a very young age. He was brave, courageous, and a strong leader. He was a man after God’s own heart, but…he wasn’t above a fall. The title of today’s message is The Fall of King David, and we’ll be in II Samuel 11 & 12. When we pick up the story, David is at the top of his game. He’s reigning and ruling. The kingdom is doing great. He has it all. But the higher you are, the harder the fall.
As we walk through these two chapters of Scripture, I want to point out 7 Lessons about sin from David’s life. What is sin? Sin is any thought or behavior that transgresses the Law of God. It’s rebellion against God. So, these are seven lessons that apply to all of us because we all sin. The Bible tells us that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Even if you’re not exactly sure what you believe about Jesus and the Bible, you probably agree you haven’t lived a perfect life. So, these lessons will apply to all of us.
Let’s jump in with 2 Samuel 11:1,
1 In the spring when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman. 3 So David sent someone to inquire about her, and he said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hethite?”
Here’s lesson number 1 from David: Sin always has an on-ramp
That doesn’t mean that all sin is premeditated or planned. It doesn’t mean that all of our sin is intentional. What it means is that there is always an attitude, action or decision leading up to our sin that paves the way for our sin to occur.
In David’s case, his first mistake is that he stays home from war. It was customary in the spring for armies to go out and start fighting again; conquering the land. The King was expected to lead his army, but for whatever reason David decided to stay home. Maybe he was tired, maybe he felt too good to go out and fight. Maybe he wanted the comfort of his own bed. We don’t know. But he stayed home by himself. Isolation is always an on-ramp for sin. The enemy loves for us to be alone. It’s when we are most vulnerable to the lies he’s going to throw at us, because there’s no one to keep us in check or remind us of the truth.
For David, his isolation turns into idleness. His armies out fighting, so he’s hanging around with nothing to do really. Again, always a recipe for disaster…an on-ramp for sin. He goes for a walk on his roof. The language implies he’s literally just pacing back and forth, looking out over his kingdom when he sees Bathsheba bathing. Now, he could have turned around, gone back inside and found something constructive to do (played the harp). That’s what he should have done. But he takes another step up the ramp and he allows his glance to become a gaze. It only takes a split second to go from tempted to trapped. We can all relate to this is some way. We know what it’s like to be caught in that moment between temptation and sin. We can either submit to the fleshly desire or submit to the Spirit. We can allow God to have his way, or we can push forward with what we want. There’s always an on-ramp to our sin.
David walked right up that ramp and jumped off into his desire. His lingering look quickly turned into lust for his neighbor’s wife, and the sin that began in his heart was now going to be put into action.
4 David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. Now she had just been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Afterward, she returned home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to inform David, “I am pregnant.”
Lesson #2: Sin always glorifies the sinner
David acted totally selfish. This was all about giving himself what he wanted, when he wanted it. And he abused his power to get it. Many scholars agree that there’s no indication of any consensual relationship here. There’s no wooing, no romance, and the text never places blame on Bathsheba. David took her and slept with her, which means this was essentially a case of rape. One of the most selfish acts possible. But that’s what sin does; it elevates the sinner. My sin is all about what I perceive to best for me in that moment. When we sin we are saying to God that our way is better than his; that our glory is more important than his. That’s why all sin originates in an unbelief in God. It’s not necessarily a question of whether God exists, but there’s some part of us that refuses to believe that his is worthy of our total devotion. We don’t trust that his way is best, and that he is the great and loving God that he says he is. Those seeds of unbelief in our heart lead to the fruit of rebellion…glorifying ourselves rather than God.
Let’s pick up in verse 6 to see what happens next:
6 David sent orders to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hethite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing and how the war was going. 8 Then he said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house.
10 When it was reported to David, “Uriah didn’t go home,” David questioned Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a journey? Why didn’t you go home?”
11 Uriah answered David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my master Joab and his soldiers are camping in the open field. How can I enter my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live and by your life, I will not do this!”
Here’s lesson #3 from David: Sin always tries to hide.
David immediately starts putting together a plan to try and cover up his sin. He calls Uriah in from battle and hopes that he will go home and sleep with his wife. They didn’t have the blood tests and ultrasounds back then to pinpoint the conception date, so David figured a month, give or take, was no big deal. It would be believable. The problem is Uriah was a man of integrity. It’s interesting if we contrast Uriah with David. Uriah is a Hittite. He’s not even a native Israelite, but notice his response in verse 11. He is devoted to his army, to Israel, and to all its customs. He doesn’t have his own best interest in mind, he’s thinking about the bigger picture. Whereas David, the King of Israel, is only thinking of himself. Uriah’s response should have been a wakeup call to David, but he’s too far in at this point. He’s trying to save face because he knows that according to the law, his sin is punishable by death. Look at verse 12,
14 The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote:
Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, then withdraw from him so that he is struck down and dies.
David is going to extreme measures now. He’s lying, manipulating, and abusing his power again to save himself. Sin is nasty. Have any of you ever lied to cover up your own sin? You don’t have to raise your hands, because I already know the answer. We all have. We don’t want to be exposed. Our sin always wants to hide, because it thrives in the dark. It’s like cockroaches and spiders, when they get exposed they get killed, which is actually a good thing, but the enemy wants us to believe it’s too painful and embarrassing. We think that if anyone knew the things that we had done, and still do, they would never forgive us or want to be near us. So, we hide and pretend. We also hide it because we think we “have it under control.” It’s not that big of deal. But David has just shown us how quickly things spiral out of control. When we hide our sin we aren’t controlling it, it’s controlling us. Let’s keep reading.
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband, Uriah, had died, she mourned for him. 27 When the time of mourning ended, David had her brought to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son. However, the Lord considered what David had done to be evil.
David’s plan seemed to work. No one seems to know what happened, but God does and he does not approve. Picking up in chapter 12:1,
So the Lord sent Nathan to David. When he arrived, he said to him:
There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very large flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised her, and she grew up with him and with his children. From his meager food she would eat, from his cup she would drink, and in his arms she would sleep. She was like a daughter to him. 4 Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.
5 David was infuriated with the man and said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 Because he has done this thing and shown no pity, he must pay four lambs for that lamb.”
7 Nathan replied to David, “You are the man!
This is lesson #4: Sin always gets discovered
I do not envy Nathan in this story. Imagine being the guy that has to go to the king and call out his sin. His life was on the line, but he comes up with a brilliant plan. He tells this sad story about the lamb being taken from the poor family. Keep in mind this is not normally the kind of issue that would be brought to the king. If this was a real offense in the town, it would be handled in court. But David listens and then becomes outraged at the injustice. You get the feeling that he’s overcompensating for his own actions. By making a situation right for someone else, this poor man, maybe it’ll help David sleep easier at night. But the irony is that in his cry for justice and the death of the offender, David is condemning himself.
David thought he succeeded in his cover up. We, too, may think we can hide our sin, even though 9 times out of 10 it’s going to come to light eventually. Your spouse knows you too well. Your friends can figure things out. Kids, your parents know you. But even if you’re able to lie and hide it from other people, God knows your heart. You’re not hiding it from him. So what have you accomplished? What difference does it make if people don’t know, but God does. Is that really a win? No, and David just got punched in the gut with this reality. Nathan goes on to tell him in verse 10,
10 Now therefore, the sword will never leave your house because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hethite to be your own wife.’
11 “This is what the Lord says, ‘I am going to bring disaster on you from your own family: I will take your wives and give them to another before your very eyes, and he will sleep with them in broad daylight. 12 You acted in secret, but I will do this before all Israel and in broad daylight.’”
Lesson #5: Sin always has consequences
David’s family will be suffering the consequences of his sin for some time. As we read on in the Bible you will see that turmoil does come, the family is torn apart, the throne gets overthrown, and the kingdom divided as David’s sons replicate the sins of their father. I think there are 3 types of consequences to consider: natural consequences, spiritual consequences, and then divine punishment. For instance, if you get angry and punch a wall, there’s natural consequences. You might break your hand, put a hole in the wall, get sent to anger management…Those are all natural consequences of sin, and I believe that every one of our sins has those. They may not always be obvious or major, but they are there, even if it’s just internal turmoil.
Spiritual consequences is the distance our sin puts between us and God. Many of you know the feeling of being far from God because of your sin, and the heavy burden that puts on you. It often blends into the natural consequences it terms of anxiety, insecurity, or even pridefulness. Then’s there’s divine punishment. In this story, if you read on, you’ll see that God struck Bathsheba’s baby with a sickness and he died. That was a divine punishment for David’s sin. This can make us really uncomfortable, especially when it involves a baby. I can’t explain the reasoning perfectly, but here’s some things that can help: God was not punishing David’s child; he was punishing David. David is the one that suffered the loss, and David is the one that went through the public shame and humility, which was worse in that day than if he was killed himself. We also have to consider that God may have actually been sparing the child from the family turmoil that would soon follow; a life of pain and fighting that may have led to rejection of God altogether. So, we may see the punishment as harsh, but we have to remember that God is good and perfectly just. And we have to remember that the reality is we all deserve the divine punishment of death for our sin. God allowing us to live is his grace to us. It’s not what we deserve. But, the really good news is that the punishment that we deserve today has already been taken by Jesus. That means that God has no reason or desire to punish you today. There’s nothing you can add to the work Jesus did on the cross. We can still suffer the consequences, but the punishment has been paid. So we can look at this story and be thankful for the Gospel!
I think we can also learn something by looking at David’s response to Nathan’s words. Look at verse 13.
13 David responded to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Lesson #6: Sin always demands a response
In this moment David has a choice to try and deny his sin and get defensive, or to come clean. He comes clean. He knows that Nathan is right. David is guilty before the Lord. Our sin always demands a response. We either admit our guilt or we deny it. We can continue to lie and cover up, or we can allow it to come into the light where it can be dealt with. One response leads to a calloused, cold, and hardened heart that become increasingly numb to the serious of our sin, and the other response chips away at the outer shell and allows our heart to grow in affection and likeness of our Savior.
Everything that follows suggests that David did not just confess his sin, but he was truly repentant. He was broken over what he had done. Psalm 51 records the deep and meaningful words of David during this time. These are just a few of those verses:
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.
Notice David is not upset with God for his choice of punishment. He knows it is just.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
David knows he’s not worthy to be in God’s presence. He needs his forgiveness and transformation.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
God is not looking for ritualistic worship to satisfy him. This is the mistake King Saul made back in 1 Samuel 15. When the prophet Samuel called out his sin, he just wanted to go to the temple and worship and make everything right again. But God is concerned with the posture of our heart, not our religious formalities.
David shows that he is truly repentant. He trust in God’s justice, as well as God’s forgiveness. And, here are the most amazing words in this whole story in 2 Samuel:
12:13 Then Nathan replied to David, “And the Lord has taken away your sin; you will not die.
Just like that, David is forgiven!? What!? That seems crazy; too easy. Here’s the last lesson on sin for us today: Lesson #7: Sin doesn’t have to define you. Your sin doesn’t have to define you. Although David suffered the consequences of his actions, he went on to serve the Lord. He’s listed in Hebrews 11 among the Great Cloud of Witnesses. In Acts 13, Paul still refers to him as a man after God’s own heart. He and Bathsheba had another son, named Solomon, who we know as the great and wise king of Israel. And even after all these mistakes, Jesus the Messiah, would still come as a direct descendant, the Son of David. This is huge for us!
I think there’s probably some of you here today that have allowed sin to define you. You feel completely defeated by your sin. You may feel like there’s no way God could still love you or forgive you for the things you’ve done, and you continue to do. But the Bible is full of people, like David, that did some really bad things yet God forgave them and used their lives in powerful ways. Here’s the big idea for today: No fall is too far for the forgiveness of God. No fall is too far for the forgiveness of God.
There is nothing you can do to push you too far away from God. Jesus was known as the friend of tax collectors and sinners. These were the worst of society, but he welcomed them into his presence. He came for the sick, for the spiritually broken. Dane Ortlund says,
“This is a Savior who draws near to us, who is repelled only by self-righteousness but never by acknowledged shame and weakness, there is no limit to just how deep a transformation is possible in us. It is at our point of deepest guilt and regret that his friendship embraces us most assuredly, most steadfastly.”
This is the Savior that David knew and leaned into in his darkest moment. It’s the Savior that is inviting you to turn to him in the same way. No matter what mistakes you’ve made, or how “bad” you’ve been. Jesus is ready to forgive you.
The question isn’t if you will fall. The question is what you will do when you fall. Will you allow that sin to push you into a hole of hiding, lying, and cover ups? Will you allow it to manifest itself as a defining pattern because you believe there’s no other choice? Some of you might be afraid to get into a small group or serve on a team because things might get exposed. Some of you have great leadership potential but you’re allowing your sin to hold you back.
I know what it’s like. When I fell in that driveway a couple of months ago, I had to get back up. It hurt, there were some natural consequences. But I didn’t just lie there, I kept moving. And I know what this is like spiritually as well. I sin on Saturday and have to get up to preach on Sunday. I’m not perfect, Pastor Louis isn’t perfect. No one’s faith is going to be perfect. But there’s no fall too far from the forgiveness of God. And the key to walking with Jesus is to trust in his forgiveness and keep moving forward. What we can’t do is sit on our sins and become comfortable with them or allow them to hinder our faith. We have to make every effort to uproot those from our lives. Even when we continually mess up, we remember the Gospel and keep moving forward. We will never have a perfect faith, but we can have a growing faith.
I think David showed us what this looks like in this passage. Look at verse 20 of chapter 12.
12:20 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.
David got up and worshipped. He goes to the Father, humbly, apologetically, knowing that he is still loved and accepted, and he worshiped. This is like hugging your spouse after a fight. Sometimes it’s hard to take that step because it takes humility, but it’s the best response when we want the relationship to truly be restored. We can say we forgive each other, we can talk and coexist, but until that intimacy is restored there’s still distance and doubt that things are actually right. David going into worship is like that. Nothing shows that we understand God’s love and forgiveness more than when we are able to set aside the shame and guilt of our sin, and turn to the Father in worship. I’m not talking about going through the motions of singing some songs. I’m talking about on your knees, crying out to God, accepting his embrace, true worship.
I want to you invite you to follow in David’s steps this morning and worship. It’s time to stop trying to cover up your sin and pretend it does’t exist. It’s time to stop carrying the guilt and letting your sin define you. It’s time to trust in Jesus and his perfect work on the cross, whether that’s for the first time or the five-hundredth time. Jesus is ready to welcome you in.
We’re going to take communion together in just a few minutes. But before we do that, I want to give you a few minutes to respond to God today. Maybe the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, and there’s some things you need to deal with. You can do that from your seat, you can do that here at the altar. Maybe you need to go to someone in this room and ask for their forgiveness. Let this be a time of confession, repentance, and healing as we sing together.
