The Fall of David

Today on Summit Life, a cautionary message from Pastor J.D. Greer. Well, welcome back to a new week of solid biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch.

Okay, tell me if this was your experience. Growing up in Sunday school, King David was often treated like a superhero, right? A model of courage and faithfulness, just a few stones and a sling to topple a giant.

And in many ways, he really was kind of a hero. But it's important to remember that he was also a broken sinner. Today we're looking at the darkest moment in David's life and learning from his mistakes. It's part of our overview of the Bible called the whole story.

If you've missed any of the previous messages, you can find them all at jdgreer.com. But right now, let's get into the message titled The Fall of David. Second Samuel, Chapter 11. I want to walk you through one of the most tragic stories in the Bible.

It is going to give us a very pressing warning about a very practical issue. Just remember, whenever you read a story like this one in the Old Testament, the way that you interpret it is not Bible character you. That's a wrong way to interpret it. You always interpret it Bible character Jesus you.

Don't cut out the middleman. What this story is trying to show you is that every earthly leader is going to let us down. That salvation for us is not going to come riding in on the wings of Air Force One.

We need something different. But this story also shows us the dangers of sexual sin. Sexual sin destroys more people's relationship with God than probably any other single thing. If you don't have a relationship with God, a lot of times it's sexual sin that keeps you from considering a relationship with God.

If you do have a relationship with God, it's sexual sin that destroys it, including one of the greatest men who ever lived, a man that God described as a man after his own heart. I am not going to be intentionally risque, but there are just some things about the story itself that might dip from moment to moment into the PG-13 realm. I do not want to force you as a parent to have these conversations if you don't feel like you're ready for them yet. If they're 13 or over, they should be fine.

In fact, they might end up having to explain a few things to you when the service is over, but I think they'll be okay. Second Samuel chapter 11 verse 1, in the spring of the year, that time when the kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, who was his commander in chief and his servants with him and all of Israel out to battle, but David remained behind at Jerusalem. The first thing you got to notice here is that David was disengaged from the battle. For maybe the first time in David's life, he is not personally leading the people out into the battle.

He's going to send somebody else, and he is going to stay at home. David the warrior, in other words, is transformed into David the relaxer. For a lot of people, this is where sexual temptation begins. Their lives lack purpose, and the allure of sex promises a fulfillment, a distraction, an excitement, an attention, an adventure that they desperately crave. Their lives are just boring and predictable. Maybe they're a housewife, or maybe they're somebody that's just, they just feel like their job's not going anywhere.

And so this promise is something that is going to get them out of their boredom. Verse 2, and it just so happened that late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman who was bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. The Hebrew word there for beautiful is tobe, which literally means in Hebrew fine. Now the Bible does not typically rate women. It doesn't say, well, she was hot and she was not so hot.

So the fact that it says that Bathsheba was not just fine but very fine means that she was some kind of hot. Here's the second thing that you notice. David had put himself in a place where he could be tempted. He's walking on the roof alone. He's doing the Old Testament version of browsing the internet alone at night. He points, he clicks, and then he dwells.

And these feelings begin to overpower him. And so David, verse 3, is sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Now this is really important because the author very subtly points out something in that verse that David is unaware of, or at least he's forgotten of, and that is that this is somebody's daughter. It's somebody's wife. It might be somebody's mother.

Why is he doing that? Why does the author point that out? Because, you see, sexual sin almost always objectifies somebody. You begin to think of them only as an object of your pleasure, and you forget that you're dealing with somebody's life, usually multiple people's lives. This person is somebody's daughter, somebody's mother, somebody's wife, somebody's future wife.

This man that you're messing around with is some little girl's daddy. Most crimes, I have told you, begin with dehumanizing somebody. We hear about these Nazi crimes, and we're like, how could educated people in the 20th century, of all things, how could they actually do that to other people? And the answer, sociologists say, is very simple.

The Nazis quit thinking of the Jews as humans. Well, see, that's what happens in sex. You think of somebody in terms of what kind of pleasure they can provide you, and you forget that you're dealing with a real person, like somebody you love, with real relationships. You know, I will tell you, probably the single thing that keeps me away from pornography more than any other thing is just thinking that every image is some daddy's little girl. Behind every pornographic image is a broken hearted father. Verse four, then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived. And she sent and told David, I'm pregnant. At this point, David starts a pretty complicated cover up. He sends words to Joab, his army commander, and then Joab, he says to Joab, hey, have Uriah come home.

I like to have somebody brief me on the battle. And so Uriah comes back, and he starts explaining to David what's going on. And David's like, yeah, whatever. You know how, hey man, you look really tired. Why don't you go home and just enjoy a night with your wife? Aren't you married, Uriah? Oh yeah, you are.

Why don't you just go and spend some time with her? So verse eight, David gives Uriah an Old Testament version of an aphrodisiac and sends him home thinking that he and Bathsheba will, you know, get busy and then everybody will assume that the baby is Uriah's baby. But here's where the real drama begins. Uriah refuses to go home. He says, verse 11, all my brother soldiers are out sleeping in tents in harm's way in the ark of the covenants out there. And I'm going to go home and just enjoy a great night with my wife.

That doesn't feel right. So instead of going home to sleep with his wife, he sleeps in a big room with all the palace guards that night. Now imagine how convicting that was for David.

Here you've got a guy who's so loyal to the rest of the army that he's not even going to go home and enjoy a legitimate night of pleasure. So David hatches plan B. He invites Uriah. He says, hey, one more day, I've got some more questions to ask you.

Come back up for dinner. And gets Uriah to dinner. And he just gets Uriah hammered thinking that drunk guys tend to lose their nobility. So Uriah, who is noble, yes, but also loves a good corona, gets hammered that night. But as he's going home, he passes out in his front yard and spends the night there. He's so drunk, he just passes out, which is kind of shameful, I guess. But I mean, the point is everybody sees him face down in his yard so they know he didn't go in and sleep with his wife.

Everybody knows that. So David hatches plan C. By this time, he's desperate. He writes a note to Joab that says, take Uriah, put him at the very front of the battle. And when you charge the line, I want you to pull back and I want you to leave Uriah out there all by himself.

He writes this on a little scroll. He seals it. He puts it in Uriah's hand and has Uriah take it to Joab. Uriah literally carries his own death warrant in his hand. He hands it to Joab.

Joab opens it, follows the instructions, and Uriah is killed. You know, this is David. This is David, the man after God's own heart. The mighty protector of Israel. The guy who wrote Psalm 23.

The guy who was brave enough to fight Goliath when nobody else would. Now he's killing groups of people to cover up his moment of pleasure. Well, after Uriah dies, David takes Bathsheba for his wife and brings her into his house and she bears the child and everybody assumes that she got pregnant on their honeymoon and David just brushes the whole thing under the rug. And it's the perfect crime, right? He's gotten away with it and we don't hear anything else about it, right?

Not hardly. Second Samuel 11 ends with these chilling words, but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Chapter 11 is going to mark a turning point in David's life.

David up until this point, at least as a king, has enjoyed a pretty charmed life. We're going to begin to watch as his family starts to fall apart. This newborn son that he and Bathsheba have is going to die. Another one of David's sons is going to rape his half sister and then is going to be killed by one of his brothers.

And then another one of David's sons is going to lead a rebellion against David and is himself killed. So let me just stop here before we go on and draw out three really important truths for you. Number one, sexual sin will absolutely destroy your life. I read a book one time where a guy listed out all the things that he thought would happen to him if he committed adultery.

It was so moving to me that I made my own list. I have a Microsoft Word file where I just have this and every once in a while I'll look at things that I think would probably happen if I committed adultery. Number one, I would cause untold hurt to my wife Veronica and would likely have to endure the loss of her respect and her trust and very well may forfeit my relationship with her altogether. I would cause all kinds of confusion to Charis and Ali and Riah and Adam, my four children who may never understand why I would trade my relationship with them for a cheap thrill.

My relationship to them, yes, there can be healing, but it would never quite be the same. I would bring shame on my mother and my father. I'd bring shame and endless judgment on the girl that I committed adultery with.

She'd never be able to go anywhere, at least in this city, without people saying, oh, you know who that is? I would bring shame on you, my church family. I would give just more fodder to the professors at UNC and Duke and NC State as just another reason for them to mock the gospel and say, that's why it's not true at all. I would follow in the footsteps of men I know whose ministries were incredible, but whose immorality forfeited that ministry and causes me not to shudder with horror.

Most importantly, I would grieve my Lord and Savior and one day I'd have to look him in the face and explain to him why, why after all the goodness that he put in my life, after all the beauty that he put around me, why I just had to have something else. Notice men especially that this sin begins with a version of pornography. Sociologists point out that pornography trains your heart and your mind. It trains you to objectify the opposite sex. That's why the author points out, hey, this is not just somebody for pleasure. This is somebody's daughter, somebody's wife. I read a book several years ago called Hooked. It's not written by Christians or at least the guys don't identify as Christians. It's a couple of medical scientists who were trying to discover what happened to the brain when you looked at pornography or when you just had multiple sexual partners throughout your life.

And here's what they discovered. And I quote, the individual who goes from sex partner to sex partner, whether it's on a screen or whether it's actually in real life, is causing his or her brain to mold in such a way that eventually accepts that sexual pattern is normal. The pattern of changing sex partners therefore damages their ability to bond in a committed relationship at all.

The kind of what he calls attachment damage, the inability to really attach to somebody else caused by repeated sexual encounters is in many respects more devastating than an unwanted pregnancy or an STD. The authors then use the metaphor of duct tape, which you've probably heard before, to illustrate this. They say if you take duct tape and you wrap it around somebody's arm, then you rip the duct tape off. With the duct tape is going to come pieces of that person's arm. The hair out of their arm is going to come with it. But you take that same piece of duct tape and wrap it around somebody else's arm, it's still going to stick a lot, but it's not as much as it did in the first one. You do that a hundred times, and by the hundredth time, that tape has lost its ability to adhere to anything.

It's lost its stickiness. And they say that's what's happening to the human heart and soul through these repeated sexual encounters. It's losing its ability to cohere, to be able to enter into this lifelong fulfilling sexual relationship. Again, these are not pastors. These are just scientists.

Here's what they conclude. You can no more try out sex than you can try out birth. The very act of sex produces a new reality that cannot be undone. Pornography, they say, has the same effect. Pornography destroys your own capacity for sexual fulfillment. Every time you look at pornography, you train your soul, even if you don't believe it here, you train your soul to believe three things. Number one, a real body isn't good enough.

I need this airbrushed CGI thing. Only one body is not good enough. And then number three, your spouse's body isn't good enough. Man, let me tell you, if you have pornography, if you've got that in your life, I'm telling you, yes, it's a sin against God, but for the sake of your relationship with all future women, you need to get rid of it today.

Let me just speak as a dad for a minute. If you are not willing to address this, then you ought to at least be man enough to tell that girl you're dating or your fiance that you are not going to deal with this before you bring this into their marriage. So at least she has the option to opt out now before you rip her heart out later. You ought to at least have the courage to say, this is not something I really want to deal with.

I'll just destroy you later with it to give her a chance to pull out. By the way, I keep applying this to men, but it works in both genders. Sometimes for women, this takes different forms.

Sometimes it's trashy romance novels, Fifty Shades of Gross or Fifty Shades of Gonorrhea or whatever that series is called. But sometimes, sometimes it's in images just like it is for men. Studies show that this is a problem for both men and women.

It's not just an exclusively male problem. Y'all, sex, gun, life, God's way is life giving. I've explained it was supposed to be a total opening to the soul. It was a picture of you opening your soul up and giving yourself entirely to somebody. And there was a fusion of the bodies.

I mean, you think just about it. There's a fusion of the bodies that become one. And that was supposed to be matched by a oneness in every other area, emotional, spiritual, financial. It was this picture of whole life oneness. It was supposed to be a renewal of the marriage vow.

Every time you had sex, it was, you're renewing the marriage vow. I give myself wholly and completely to you without reservation. I give it all to you. People come to me and they say, well, we want to go to Hawaii and renew our marriage vows.

I'm like, there's a lot easier and cheaper way for you to do that. All right. It's what it's supposed to be. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel itself. And I've told you before that the human heart wants to be known and loved completely. Known and loved. I've explained that to be known but not loved feels like rejection. But to be loved but not really known is kind of sentimental.

And so what you have this desire for is for somebody to know you, all of you, and see all of you, and love you anyway. And you get a glimpse of that in sex because it's supposed to be marriage is this picture of the gospel. It is life giving when it's done in God's way. But when it's done outside of God's way, instead of becoming life giving, it becomes life destroying. That which has the greatest power for good also has the greatest power to destroy.

Right? That's why it's so, it literally disintegrates the person. Think about that word disintegrates. It tears apart your oneness because physical oneness is over here and soul oneness is not quite there yet.

What has the power to bless has the power to destroy. It's why I've always described it to you like fire. If I ask you, do you want fire in your house?

Your answer is depends on where you put it. Fire in the fireplace is awesome. Fire in the couch, not so awesome.

Right? Fire has the ability to bless. It has the ability to destroy. You see our culture right now basically thinks of sex as a victimless crime. Woody Allen's a good example. Sex without love, he says, is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. But sex turns out it's not a victimless crime.

And it turns out that you're actually the first victim. You see, I'm telling you a lot of young people, I know a lot of high school students and college students don't want to wait until for sex until they get married because they're afraid they're going to miss out on something. God tells you to wait for sex until you get married precisely because he doesn't want you to miss out on something. And I know right now in our culture, a lot of young people, I talked a lot of high school college students who just like, well, this is impossible.

Maybe it was possible 50 years ago, but not today. That's not true. I always tell them two things when they say that. I say, first of all, I realize I'm not close to your age anymore, but my wife and I were virgins when we got married. And they're always like, well, you're a pastor. I'm like, I wasn't then. I was just a normal college student. And then God gave us the ability to do it.

You can do it. And there's lots of people today that do that. The second thing I always tell them, even more important is the most fully alive, fully masculine man that ever walked the face of the earth died as a virgin. He was 33 years old. He's the one who taught us about the abundant life. Every time you pray, you pray to a 33 year old male virgin. So do not tell me that you can't live a fulfilled life. And not have that as a part of your life.

Jesus was more alive than any of us. And that was something that he in his life was not able to participate in or chose not to participate in. So the first thing this story shows us is that there are some real significant things that go along with this.

And sexual sin can absolutely destroy your life. Number two, it shows us we got to stay engaged in the battle. You need to stay engaged in the battle. For many of you, the problem is not a lustful body. The problem is a bored soul. Your first application of this message is not just to avoid the sexual temptation. The problem is some of you are on the sidelines and you're bored.

Right? You come in like a spectator. You sit in church. You're not a spiritual leader in your family.

You're not a leader here. And so because you're not engaged in God's mission, your life lacks a purpose that the enemy is all too willing to fill in that gap. You need to get involved in the church. You need to get involved in the mission. You need to volunteer. You need to begin to lead. You need to begin to serve. You need to get into a group.

Men, I will tell you from personal experience that the attractions of sex lose a lot of their power when you are actively engaged as the spiritual leader in your family. And that's why you're so susceptible because you're not a spiritual leader and you're not living the life of courage and ministry that God has designed you to live. It is a lot more difficult for you to take your pants off when you're in a battle than when you're lounging around the couch. Don't believe me?

Try taking off your pants in the middle of a rugby match. It's possible. It's possible, but it's a lot more difficult. Let that be a metaphor unto you.

All right? Again, for many of you, the problem is not a lustful body. The problem is a bored, wandering, purposeless soul.

You need to get engaged in the battle. Number three, the story shows us that you need to keep yourself away from temptation. Keep yourself away from temptation. Listen to this.

It is easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist it. I am a child of the 1980s. I was not born in the 1980s, but I grew up in the 1980s. And like a lot of children in the 1980s, I learned a lot of my most valuable life lessons from Mr. Miyagi on The Karate Kid. And one of the ones that's always stuck with me is him explaining to Daniel's son how it is you can avoid a punch. Daniel wants to know the counter maneuvers to avoid the punch and he says the easiest way to avoid a punch is not being in a place where you get in a fight. That's the easiest way. The easiest way to counter a punch is to not be in a place where you can get in a fight. It is easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist it.

Years ago, I read this statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was the German pastor who resisted the Nazi regime, actually let a spy ring and ultimately was executed by the Nazis for that. But he said this, and I thought it perfectly described my own path toward temptation. Listen really closely. In our members, in our body, there's the slumbering inclination toward desire that arises both suddenly and fiercely. With irresistible power out of nowhere, desire seizes mastery of the flesh.

Have you ever felt that? It just comes out of nowhere. All at once, a secret smoldering fire is kindled that just wasn't there before.

The flesh burns and is in flames. In this moment, God becomes quite unreal to us. Satan does not here fill us with a hatred of God. He fills us with a forgetfulness of God.

Here I am as a pastor, and then God is what I'm supposed to think about all the time, and I just not even think about it at all. The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and the will and the deepest darkness. You lose your way. It is here that everything in me rises up against the word of God.

Therefore, Bonhoeffer says, the Bible teaches that in times of temptation to our flesh, there is only one command. Flee. Flee youthful lust. Flee worldly temptation. If you're feeling under pressure and on the verge of something, an emotion is welling up within you.

What does the Bible say? Run. Run. No human being has within them the strength to resist such overpowering emotions.

This from a man who stared down the Nazi regime and would die as a martyr. And what he's saying is, I can't do it. You can't do it. And if you're going to count on yourself to be able to resist temptation, you're a fool. You need to avoid temptation, not resist it. Which is why I do not spend time alone with girls who are not my wife or my daughters. Is that because I don't think I can handle it?

No. It's because I don't think that I can handle it. How's that? I just don't think I can really ...

Here's what it is. I have concluded that if I do not spend time alone with girls who are not my wife, then I will not have sex with them. How brilliant is that? The stakes are just too high. I don't play Russian roulette with my family. I don't keep loaded revolvers sitting around on the table at our house. Is that a sin to have a loaded revolver sitting on a table?

Maybe it's not technically a sin, but what kind of loving dad would do that? I don't keep a panther in my backyard that may or may not eat one of my children. The stakes are just too high.

I'm not going to play Russian roulette with my family. A sobering reminder about the danger of sexual sin from Pastor J.D. Greer and Summit Life. Pastor J.D. will continue this message tomorrow, pointing us to the forgiveness and the hope of the gospel. But in the meantime, you can hear this message again when you visit us online at jdgreer.com. Today's message is from our teaching series called The Whole Story.

We've been at this for a while now, so if you've missed any teaching along the way, you can always find it at jdgreer.com. To go along with this series, we have a new resource simply called The Books of the Bible Cards. This set of cards will help you as you read to make connections with the context of the original audience. Each card includes an illustration representing the book, details about the book, three key truths gleaned from the book, where the book points to Jesus and the good news of the gospel, and a reflection question to help you apply the book's message to your life. We'd love for you to have this resource as a reference for any time you're reading through a book of the Bible. They come as our way of saying thanks when you donate to support this ministry.

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Or if it's easier, you can give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Bidevich. Be sure to listen again Tuesday when we conclude the message that we started today, right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.