Lessons from David: How to Be a Giant Killer (16 page)

Now that the pressure was off, David let up. He quit seeking the Lord with the same intensity he once had. Since he wasn’t doing what God had told him to do, David basically became bored.

Hardship vs. Prosperity

And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.

David was getting up out of bed when most people who have a job or a purpose are getting off work, going home, and going to bed! In other words, David wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t overwhelmed with the affairs of the state. He was sleeping, napping during the day. David didn’t have much to do because he had already reached his goal. That’s a dangerous place to be!

Seasons of prosperity are more dangerous than seasons of pressure. When all of the pressure is removed and things are going well, you’re most vulnerable to the devil. Conventional wisdom says that you will find out what’s in someone when they’re in difficult circumstances and under tremendous pressure. I disagree. Of course it takes faith and character to be able to persevere through hard times, but temptation is worse in times of prosperity.

In hardship, you know you need the Lord. When you’re facing something overwhelming, it amplifies the reality of your need for God. You know you’re incapable of dealing with the situation by yourself; it’s bigger than you. Even someone with a low commitment to God will run to Him in hardship and ask Him for help. It’s easy to seek the Lord and be God-dependent in a time of need.

Think about it. When do you pray the most? If you’re like most people, you pray the most when you’re under pressure. Trouble drives people to God! Anybody who knows He exists and that He wants to help them will turn to Him when the chips are down. But what happens when the pressure is removed?

What happened when everything was going so good that David could just send in his generals to fight the battle without him? He was so blessed and prosperous that he didn’t have to strive anymore. David had the greatest mansion in all the land. He no longer had enemies breathing down his neck, trying to kill him every day. So David let up and began to coast. He stopped seeking God with the same intensity.

That’s what caused David to commit this major moral failure. This wasn’t just a mistake—an accidental, unintentional minor failure. This was a major departure from God, and it came as a result of choices. This sin was conceived over a period of time.

You Cannot Coast

This sin didn’t really begin on the night David committed adultery with Bathsheba. It began months—possibly even years - before when David started being so blessed and prosperous that he wasn’t driven to seek the Lord with the same intensity. He let his spiritual life slide. David probably became so occupied with the affairs of being king that before he knew it, a long time had passed since he had intimately related to God. That’s really what caused this moral failure.

This is a warning to those of us who haven’t done anything like this before. David was a man after God’s own heart, yet look what he did! He committed adultery and even murdered Bathsheba’s husband trying to cover up the affair. How far can you go? David loved God with all his heart, but here he was living in a way that even Saul never did. Many people whose stories we see in the Word of God who aren’t considered as “great” examples, didn’t live as bad a life as David did. How can someone do something like this? It just goes to show that the flesh is capable of doing anything, if you just let it go. You cannot coast!

When you’re flying in an airplane, it seems so effortless. But if you turn off those motors, I can guarantee you that gravity is still pulling. You might think that because you’ve flown so long without any effort and everything has been working fine, that you can just do anything you want. However, I dare you to turn off those engines and see what happens. It’s inevitable; you will come down!

It’s the same way in the Christian life. You always have to keep the engines running seeking God and depending on Him. You can never get to a place where you don’t want to have a better relationship with the Lord, wait on Him, and look to Him for everything. If you ever think you’ve arrived at such a place, you’ll start to coast. If you ever become so prosperous and secure that you aren’t seeking God and depending on Him, you’re putting yourself in the most dangerous situation ever. Since your flesh is still capable of doing anything it ever could, it’s just a matter of time before you fall. This ought to be a warning to you!

Instead of waiting until you have this great temptation or until some crisis hits, you need to learn to seek the Lord and keep your heart sensitive to Him right now. If you do that, you’ll discover that you cannot wickedly depart from God unless you first of all depart from depending on Him. Even if you are prospering more than ever before, keep yourself aware of and acknowledging the truth that without God, you can do nothing. Your cry should be, “I need You every day of my life—not only when a crisis hits, but when everything is going good. Lord, I depend on You! I need You now just as much as ever before!” If you maintain this attitude, it will keep you from great transgressions.

Sins of Arrogance

David wrote:

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.

Psalm 19:13

The Hebrew word translated “presumptuous” literally speaks of sins of pride and arrogance. Pride is not just arrogance; it’s self-sufficiency. When you are proud, you no longer humbly recognize your dependence on God. When everything is going good you think,
I’ve done all these things by my might and power
. You aren’t recognizing your human frailty and need for God at all times. You need to say, “Keep us back from sins of arrogance. Keep us from operating independent of You, Lord!”

Let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

Psalm 19:13

In this psalm, David said, “If You’ll keep me from these sins of arrogance, from thinking I can make it on my own independent of You, that will keep me from a big fall. If you keep me in a situation where I recognize and acknowledge my dependence on You, that will keep me from the great transgression.” You have to sin in the small areas of not seeking the Lord and being dependent on Him before you’ll experience a big downfall. You have to sin by becoming arrogant, self-sufficient, and not being intimate with Him before you can enter into a great transgression.

These sins of adultery and murder didn’t just jump on David. They had been coming on for months—perhaps even years—as he began to be so prosperous that he didn’t have to depend on the Lord. He believed he didn’t have to seek God the way he once did. That’s where his sin was conceived. The adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah just happened to be the way his sin manifested itself.

Looking for Trouble

My teaching entitled,
How to Prepare Your Heart,
deals with this very thing. It explains why people do evil things and that these things don’t just happen. In this teaching, I also share how you can keep yourself from entering this process simply by keeping yourself dependent on God. Humble dependence on the Lord makes all the difference!

David was so blessed and prosperous that he didn’t feel compelled to do what the Lord told him to do. He wasn’t obeying God. He was at home sleeping during the day, goofing off, aimless and purposeless. If you sleep all day and carouse at night, you’re going to run into trouble. David was looking for trouble, and he found it!

Chapter 17
“You Are the Man!”

David saw Bathsheba, a beautiful woman, washing herself so he…

Sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house. And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child.

When David found out Bathsheba was pregnant, he knew it was going to look really bad for him. His sin would be found out. But rather than humbling himself and dealing with his sin, he tried to cover it up. This reveals how hard David’s heart had become toward God.

Sleeping on the Steps

David didn’t miss a beat. He called for Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to come back home. He was one of David’s soldiers out fighting in the battles that David himself should have been fighting. David acted interested in the battle and what was going on with the troops out in the field. After Uriah gave him a report, David released him, expecting him to go home and have sexual relations with his wife. David even sent some food with him to bless him.

But it turned out that Uriah didn’t go home. Instead, he stayed on the steps of the king’s house. The next morning, David’s men told him what Uriah had done, so David called Uriah in and asked, “Why didn’t you go home last night?”

Uriah answered, “What am I going to do—go home and have relations with my wife while my comrades are out there sleeping on the ground and putting their lives on the line in battle? I will not do it!”

David saw that his plan didn’t work so he had Uriah stay over some more. He had a feast and called Uriah to join him. David made Uriah drunk, thinking that surely his resolve would crack when he’s drunk and he would then sleep with his wife. However once the feast was over, Uriah decided to stay there again at the steps of David’s palace. Even though he was drunk, he refused to go home.

Sin Always Affects Others

David finally realized that he wasn’t going to be able to get Uriah and Bathsheba together, so he wrote a letter commanding his top general, Joab, to put Uriah in a place where he knew it was dangerous and then withdraw from him so that he would be killed. David even had Uriah deliver this letter to Joab himself! I’m sure the letter had some kind of seal on it for protection, but the king had seen that Uriah was a man of high standards and integrity. David probably had no doubt that the letter would be safely delivered. He sent Uriah’s death sentence by his own hand. The irony, hypocrisy, and evil of David’s plan is just amazing!

It’s incredible to think that David could stoop so low. But David didn’t do all this by himself. He had servants go out and bring Bathsheba to him. He had Joab, his general, comply with this plan. David involved other people in his sin. Many people say, “I’m not hurting anybody but myself by the things I do!” That’s just never true. Somebody else is always hurt by our sin.

Once Joab executed David’s order, he sent word back to the king. When David heard that Uriah was dead, he sent for Bathsheba and made her his wife.

And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

What an understatement! So Nathan—David’s longtime friend, advisor, and prophet—came to the king and told him a parable.

The Parable

And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.

And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.

Of course, this was only a parable. It didn’t really happen. It was symbolic of what David had done. David was like the rich man. God had blessed him and given him everything. Yet when he had a need, he didn’t go to the Lord or draw from what He had already provided to meet that need. David had multiple wives. Second Samuel 3:2-5 lists six of them. In addition to these six and Michal (2 Samuel 3:14), he also apparently had some concubines (2 Samuel 16:21-22). Therefore, David had at least seven wives that he could have gone to and satisfied his sexual desires. But instead of choosing one of these who were all legally his by law and given to him by God, David took another man’s wife while that man was away serving the king and fighting his battle. Then David had that man killed in an effort to cover up his sin. That’s what this parable was all about.

Mercy or Judgment?

David became furious and declared, “The man who has done this thing shall die! And he must also make fourfold restitution—give the poor man four lambs—for the one he took!”

In light of David’s reaction, let’s consider this scripture:

So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shown no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

James 2:12-13

The Lord delights in showing mercy to people who have shown mercy. But to those who have shown no mercy, who have been critical and judgmental instead, they will reap what they sow. David understood this principle. Although it’s listed later in the chronology of the Bible, the words of the psalm contained in 2 Samuel 22 were spoken by David on the day the Lord delivered him from all his enemies, including Saul. David spoke these words before he became king and long before his sin with Bathsheba. Notice what he said: