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PREACHING THE LIFE OF DAVID INTRODUCTORY NOTES

AGST SERMON SEMINAR BRENT ISBELL

MAY 2012

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PREACHING FROM THE LIFE OF DAVID (1-2 SAMUEL)

Selected Resources Bibliography Birch, Bruce C. “The First and Second Books of Samuel,” The New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. II).

Nashville: Abingdon, 1998. Brueggemann, Walter. First and Second Samuel. Interpretation. Louisville: John Knox, 1990. Halpern, Baruch. David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King. Grand Rapids:

William B. Eerdmans, 2001. Heym, Stefan. The King David Report. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 1973. McCarter, Jr., P. Kyle. 1 Samuel. Anchor Yale Bible. Garden City, New York: Doubleday &

Company, Inc., 1981. __________________. 2 Samuel. Anchor Yale Bible. Garden City, New York: Doubleday &

Company, Inc. 1984. McKenzie, Steven L. Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading. Grand

Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2010. ________________. King David: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Newsome, Jr., James D. 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel. Knox Preaching Guides. Atlanta: John Knox, 1982. Peterson, Eugene H. First and Second Samuel. Westminster Bible Companion. Louisville:

Westminster/John Knox, 1999. Films David and Bathsheba. Twentieth Century-Fox, 1951 (Gregory Peck and Susan Heyward). King David. Paramount, 1985 (Richard Gere). The Story of David: From Shepherd to King of Israel. Sony Pictures, 1976 (Timothy Bottoms,

Keith Mitchell, Jane Seymour). Originally a four-hour TV mini-series.

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GENERAL OUTLINE: LIFE OF DAVID 1 Samuel 1:1-7:17 Samuel Cycle: prophet, priest and judge 8:1-15:35 Saul Cycle: rise, anointing, reign and fall Young David (16:1-20:42) 16:1-13 Bethlehem: Samuel anoints David 16:14-23 David serving in Saul’s court 17-18 David and Goliath / Saul’s jealousy of David 19-20 David and Jonathan/Saul tries to kill David David the Fugitive (21:1-31:13) 21-23 On the run—Nob, Gath, Cave of Adullam, Keilah 24/26 David refuses to kill Saul (twice) 25 Abigail and Nabal [2 Sam. 23:8-39—David and mighty men (1 Chr. 11:10-47)] 27-30 David among the Philistines—Saul and the witch, Achish, Ziklag, the Amalekites 31 The end of Saul and Jonathan (1 Chr. 10) 2 Samuel: David the New King Consolidates His Kingdom (1:1-9:13) 1 David’s lament for the house of Saul 2-5 Rise to the throne—Judah, war with Saul’s house, Jerusalem, Israel (1 Chr. 11-12) 6 Bringing the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr. 13-16) 7-8 God says No to David’s temple dream, piling up victories (1 Chr. 17, 22-29) 9 Mephibosheth/Meri-Baal [also see 2 Sam. 16:1-4; 19:23-30/1 Chr. 8:34; 9:40] David Struggles to Keep the Throne (10:1-24:25) 10-11 Ammonite campaign / David, Bathsheba and Uriah 12 Confronted by Nathan, repentance, starting over 13-14 David’s family disintegrates—Amnon, Tamar, Absalom 15-16 Absalom’s coup / David exits the city [Shimei—16:5-14; 19:16-23; 1 Ki. 2:36-46] 17-19 Absalom’s death / David mourns and returns to the city 20-21 David the aging king—final crises: political, humanitarian and personal 22-23 Collection of last words, songs, remembrances (1 Chr. 29) 24 Census—counting the fighting men (1 Chr. 21) 1 Kings 1-2 Last acts and death—a dying David gives the kingdom to son Solomon, final

palace intrigue and assassination orders (1 Chr. 28-29)

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Winter-Spring Series 2012 1. January 15 Boy Who Would Be King 1 Sam. 16:1-13 2. January 22 A Fine Young Feller 1 Sam. 16:14-17:58 3. January 29 Jealousy’s Poison 1 Sam. 18-20 4. February 5 Cave Man 1 Sam. 21-23 5. February 12 Sweet Revenge? 1 Sam. 24, 26 6. February 19 A Good-Hearted Woman 1 Sam. 25 7. February 26 Man Without a Country 1 Sam. 27-30 8. March 4 Weeping Warrior 1 Sam. 31; 2 Sam. 1 9. March 11 Rise to the Top 2 Sam. 2-5 10. March 18 Dancing in the Streets 2 Sam. 6 11. March 25 When God Says No 2 Sam. 7-8 12. April 1 Promises to Keep 2 Sam. 9 13. April 15 Affair to Remember 2 Sam. 10-11 14. April 22 Home to Roost 2 Sam. 12-14 15. April 29 The Son Also Rises 2 Sam. 15-16 16. May 6 Forgiveness…or Something Like It 2 Sam. 17-19 17. May 13 Better With Age 2 Sam. 20-24 18. May 20 Passing the Reigns 1 Ki. 1-2 / Psalms

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SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR PREACHING THE DAVID MATERIAL IN SAMUEL

1. The very large amount of material. 2. The form of the material.

3. The historicity of the material. 4. The background/composition of the material. 5. Other challenges

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IMPORTANT THEOLOGICAL THEMES 1. God’s Kingdom. 2. God’s Holiness and Judgment. 3. God’s Love and Grace. 4. The Freedom of Humans. 5. The Faith That Saves.

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PREACHING THE LIFE OF DAVID SERMONS

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Boy Who Would Be King (1 Sam. 16:1-13) Focus: God calls and anoints an unlikely servant to the throne. Function: To remind hearers that God may be preparing each of us for a special calling. 1. Introduction: A thousand years before the Son of David, there was David…

2. An old prophet named Samuel riding south toward Bethlehem. “What am I doing? Am I

out of my mind? I’ve anointed one train wreck of a king, now I’m going to pour oil on another one? Dangerous business!” Flashback to the first time, when, after 200 years of tribal chieftains, Israel begged him for a king: We want a king like the other nations! It broke his heart, but God said, “No, Samuel. It’s not about them rejecting you. They’re rejecting me.” Samuel warned them: Kings do what kings do! But they insisted, so they got their first king, Saul the Benjamite.

3. Saul was an impressive fellow. Tall. Strong. Courageous in battle. There was a new upstart

nation over on the coast—the sea-people Philistines—just beginning to cause trouble. New technology, steel weaponry, and somebody had to stop them. Saul seemed the man for the job. To most eyes, Saul looked the part of a king! Yet, Saul never seemed to have the heart of a king. His downfall: Saul sins, disobeys God, repents in tears, then goes back to his old ways. And as early as 13:14 Samuel tells him: Saul, now your kingdom will not continue; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and has appointed him to be ruler over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord has commanded you… Saul could always talk the talk, but the straw that breaks the camel’s back comes in 1 Sam. 15 with a final act of disobedience. Samuel tells Saul once and for all he’s being rejected. Days of danger… decline… disillusionment… “Lord, will you ever break this cycle?”

4. And when he pulled into Bethlehem, Samuel must have thought, “Seriously, Lord? Here?” He’s got his horn of oil all prepped and ready, and there’s not a university in sight. Nor a military academy! Just a little hick town six miles south of Jerusalem. A sheepherder named Jesse, so poor he doesn’t pay shepherds. His own boys tend the livestock. Eliab… Abinadab… Shammah… No… No… No… It’s as if God’s saying, “Samuel, we’ve tried that route before. Let’s try something different!” “Ok, Jesse, are these all your boys?” “No, there is the runt. The least esteemed.” Bring him in! Can you imagine a more unlikely monarch? The red-headed family embarrassment…

5. Why David? In many ways, David and Saul are so similar... But twice Scripture talks about

David being a man after God’s heart… What does that mean? Maybe it’s about being useful, usable, open to the heart of God. Perhaps David’s heart had been being prepared for this… In the wilderness, David’s heart had learned to sing. Out there in the solitude of those rocky hills around Bethlehem, a musician was emerging… Out there with the sheep is also where David learned to wait. Shepherd. Not a high-profile position… And we learn later that it was out there in the wild country where David had learned to do right. Ps. 78:70-72: [God] chose his servant David, and took him from the sheepfolds, from tending the nursing ewes he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel, his inheritance. With

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upright heart [NIV says “integrity”] he tended them, and guided them with skillful hand… Leading is born in serving. We don’t need another shallow Saul. We need someone, God says, with depth. Not perfect (oh no!), but with a heart for me, my people… Eugene Peterson: “The choice of David, the most unlikely of the brothers (the family runt?) has entered the Christian imagination as a characteristic mark of God’s electing grace. Paul’s way of putting it was, ‘God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God’ (1 Cor. 1:28-29).”—1-2 Samuel, p. 94

6. Conclusion: Maybe you’re in the pasture somewhere? Maybe you’re at a place in life you

feel off the beaten path, off God’s radar? Take heart! God has a way of using and calling the most unlikely servants. Wherever you are, give him your heart now. Let him work on your life now. Ask him to give you a song now. Allow him to teach you to wait now. Let him mold and shape and form your integrity of heart now. Then you’ll be ready for anointing when his call comes… What kind of person spends all the formative years of his life as a nobody from nowhere among sheep? Answer: God’s best. The King of Hearts. A person God is getting ready for great things.

7. Notes:

• Spirit of the Lord that comes on David (v.13)—emphasizes the invisible power of God (breath, wind—ruach, pneuma) that moves the visible. Appearances can be deceiving. Note the evil spirit (from God) that replaces his spirit in Saul (v.14).

• Multiple introductions of David. Note that Samuel in its present shape inserts David via (a) Samuel’s secret anointing (b) the public Goliath episode in ch. 17 and (c) his role as a minstrel/servant in Saul’s court. Multiple sources? Makes for a somewhat confusing narrative, but each emphasizes God’s sovereign hand and purpose.

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Jealousy’s Poison (1 Sam. 18-20) Focus: Jealousy is a pervasive and destructive work of the flesh. Function: To call each other to allow God’s Spirit to mature us into kingdom people who will reject bitterness and jealousy for his better way—faith, contentment, self-giving. 1. Introduction: 17:55-58—From the minute King Saul watched a shepherd boy dragging that

giant’s head back into camp, he knew somewhere deep in his soul that his goose was cooked! And the toxin began to course through his system. From that moment on, it was a love-hate relationship. From then on, David was no longer a court minstrel, the king’s armor bearer. From now on, he was the competition, a threat to Saul’s tenuous grip on his kingdom. And you don’t have to be a biblical scholar to understand why… He kept a jealous eye on David from that day on (18:9)…

2. One factor was his son. The souls of David and Jonathan were bound together… The Hebrew term for “jealous” has something relationship to becoming red. Like when your face becomes flushed with a rush of emotion. It’s the same term we get “zeal” from (which can be a great thing), but jealousy is zeal or passion gone over the edge. Saul was zealous for his place of power, but now someone’s threatening his place, and that someone is playing in the backyard with his own kid, the prince. Jealousy has a hard time with new relationships being formed, and this one so close! Now, Saul may have wanted David around so he could keep an eye on him, but the proximity drives him crazy. And the singing… Factor two: The maidens of Israel used to sing about him, now the victory songs are about this boy! A lot of jealousy lives in the past (good old days), and Saul is galled, ego wounded by the fact that somebody else is getting the praise that used to be for him, when he was somebody.

3. 18:10-16—So tempting to psychoanalyze Saul. One minute he’s loving David, the next

minute he sinks into one of these dark moods and turns into a homicidal madman. This evil spirit messes with his mind. First he tries to kill David himself, then he moves David from his personal servant to putting him on the front lines of battle, maybe thinking one day David wouldn’t come home. But that failed too. Because Saul isn’t running things anymore! 4x ch. 18 says that, no matter what Saul tried, David’s efforts were successful. David has the Spirit of God, Saul does not.

4. The rest of ch. 18 is an interesting story about how Saul tries another angle, again only

to play unknowingly into God’s sovereign direction of this whole drama, only shoving David closer and closer toward the inevitability of becoming king. Saul offers David Michal, his daughter, in marriage. The bride-price is the strangest ever—100 Philistine foreskins. I’m guessing Saul’s twisted thinking is “Hey, anybody can get lucky and kill one giant, right? But 100 giants?! Surely he’ll be killed.” But you can already see where this going—David comes back with 200 war trophies, and here comes the bride! Watch how the ch. ends—18:28-30. Imagine wearing Saul’s crown for a minute. Now David’s his son-in-law! Best friend of his beloved son. Star military hero. And he is a jealous mess, isn’t he? But that’s just it with the poison of jealousy—so easy to diagnose in the other guy, so difficult to see in yourself. So, let’s take a minute and think about what jealousy looks like…

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• First, a sense of personal inadequacy. David didn’t “make” Saul jealous, did he? No. For quite a while, Saul had known he had fallen out of favor with the Lord. Saul’s jealousy was rooted—not in David—but in himself. A bruised, unhealthy ego is always vulnerable to jealousy. Years of guilt and self-loathing and poor sense of identity is ripe for turning to jealousy. Second element....

• The desire to compare and control. You can’t have jealousy unless you somehow view other people as rivals. Comparing your life to his or hers, keeping score. I know two great gentleman, both friends of mine, in another city in Texas. Both gifted men of God, highly educated, accomplished Christians. One an academic, the other a writer, both church leaders. When I first met them years ago, I was struck that every private conversation I had with one was always about the other—how he got all the credit, how he’d been given some honor, how unfairly things had worked out—and it didn’t take me long to figure out that each one was and is overwhelmed with jealousy toward the other! Each wanted what the other had! Do you know anyone like that? You ever been someone like that? Interesting—3x the text says Saul was “afraid” of David. How could a powerful king possibly be paranoid about a shepherd boy? Because it wasn’t physical fear. It was emotional fear. Fear of losing control. Fear of being crowded out. And in the end, jealousy always turns ugly and bitter…

• A taste of bitterness. 19:9-10—And had it not been for a clever ruse involving his wife Michal, David would not have escaped the palace with his life. Saul was angry, galled. That refrain (Saul has slain his thousands…) had rung in his ears over and over, and the more it did, the more that spirit of resentment welled up in him, and eventually jealousy almost always winds up throwing a spear of one kind or another. You ever known somebody (maybe you) who just couldn’t get over something? Ever watched someone hurl a spear of jealousy? The writer of Hebrews toward the end of his sermon says this: See to it… that no root of bitterness springs up, and through it many become defiled. (Heb. 12:15). That’s the way with jealousy. It begins small inside you. And so easily excused/justified, right? But eventually the root springs up, and you have an ugly weed nobody can chop down!

6. Not just an old story, is it? It’s very real. Very present. The two Christian men I mentioned

earlier who just marinate in jealousy over each other—I think they are probably far more representative of a lot of us that we want to admit. Saul’s evil spirit of jealousy? I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. Haven’t you? And by the way, no one is exempt. Honestly, there is no field or discipline that incubates jealousy more than ministry. I’ve seen and heard a lot of spears thrown in the name of Christian “ministry”! Jealousy over having never been the one called to the big church, the important church, the high profile church. Jealousy over never getting the book deal… the speaking invitation…you name it…

7. Paul tells the Christians at Corinth that they are too immature for solid food. My gift is better than your gift! You need milk, he says, because you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh…? (1 Cor. 3:3). True love, he says, is not jealous… In another place (Gal. 5) Paul names jealousy as one of the works of the flesh… In Rom. 13 he calls jealousy one of the deeds of darkness—

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grouping it with sexual immorality, drunkenness, and dissension. Matthew even says at one point that it was jealousy among the people and their leaders that got Jesus killed (27:18).

8. It’s close and pervasive, isn’t it, this evil spirit of jealousy? Someone else gets the raise, the promotion, the attention. Is that okay? Someone else drives up in the shiny new car or moves into the brand-new house with the great furniture or gets the new wardrobe? Can I rejoice with them? A long-time friend strikes up a new relationship with someone you don’t know. Can you live with that? The other person gets the success, the calling, the blessing, the anointing… Can I possibly celebrate that? Thinking out loud here, what if Saul, instead of getting bitter over David, had chosen to allow God to make him a better person? What if Saul, when it became obvious that David was God’s chosen new king, had said, “Hey, it wasn’t MY kingdom in the first place. This is the Lord’s reign. He’s the true king of Israel, and whatever human instrument he wants to call and use is HIS prerogative. Yahweh, how may I serve you now during this time of transition?” What a great season of opportunity this could have been! What if, instead of spending years in a jealous fit, chasing David like a dog through the desert, Saul had been open to using this time productively to prepare the way for God’s chosen successor, his own son-in-law? I don’t know. Maybe this is crazy, but do you think God would have honored and blessed that sort of repentant and submissive spirit? I think he would have. I think he does. Jealousy is poison, but the sure-fire antidote is the same as it has always been—putting aside self-interest and picking up true agape, self-sacrificial love. Think about Jonathan! Better yet, think about Jesus (Phil. 2:5-11), who had equal status with God, but what did he do? He refused to think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status. For the sake of others, he let go the privileges of the throne, and in letting go, he blessed the world.

9. Notes • David’s succession is a long process. Nothing is immediate about David’s rise as the

future king. Saul’s exit takes years. There is ample opportunity with this material to speak to those who think and feel God is not working in their lives, at least not working quickly. God’s “waiting room” is always crowded. In the story of Saul/David, God’s hand is mostly behind the scenes and moving at what seems like a glacier pace. Kingdom is nothing if not a call to patience and endurance and trust that God is present in the long, quiet, lonely stretches.

• Beware caricaturing. The relationship between David and Saul is complex. The Samuel story-teller, as much as he may be attempting to shore up David’s memory, still does not make it easy for us by speaking in black and white categories about these two intertwined souls. G.K. Chesterton once ridiculed “two despicable modern doctrines, one that geniuses should be worshipped like idols and the other that criminals should be merely wiped out like germs” (George Bernard Shaw, 164). In the Samuel narrative, both Saul and David are treated like men. There are no pure categories (genius, criminal, hero, villain). Saul is not all “bad,” and David is not all “good.” And the emphasis is not even on Saul and David. The story is about God working out his sovereign way through the messy, jumbled up lives of these oh-so-human characters.

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Cave Man (1 Sam. 21-23) Focus: Church is a gathering place for people whose lives have caved in. Some of us, even today, are in dark places, desperate for resources and encouragement. Function: To encourage one another to turn to the God who is able to bring us out of dark places. 1. David the King of Hearts. No one was ambivalent. Enemies feared him. The prince

befriended him. The princess loved and married him. His new father-in-law despised him. And, in a heartbeat, David lost almost every symbol of security in his world. When things came to critical mass with Saul’s jealousy, David lost his position (and almost his life!) serving in the king’s court and army. He lost his wife Michal. And when we left him, he had just said good-bye to Jonathan, his dearest friend. It won’t be long before David learns that his mentor, teacher, protector old Samuel died while he’s away… All vestiges of stability and security now gone, David becomes a fugitive, a man on the run for his life.

2. And what follows is no beautiful Michelangelo statue in a museum. What ensues is about what you’d expect to see when somebody’s life comes apart. David comes apart too. And in so doing, he becomes more human than the almost mythical figure he’s been to this point. A number of years ago, I was preaching through a character study of some biblical figure, and I remember one of the small children in the congregation asking me, “Was he real?” How easily we can forget that these people we read in Scripture were not paintings on chapel ceilings or superheroes. One of the reasons David has such power for us is that his story has so much depth and texture. David is no one-dimensional character with whom we struggle to relate. He is, almost embarrassingly, real, flawed, sinful. In other words, he reminds us of ourselves. Have you ever lost big? A career? A home? A spouse? A mentor? A friend? Then listen closely… Ever felt desperate? Like running away might be the only option? Like you were running out of options? Like doing something crazy, out of character? Then listen closely to the story of someone—a person of faith—whose life literally “caved in” around him… 1 Samuel 21 and following record just a few stops David made in his flight from Saul, and they aren’t very cleaned up or pretty, but they are very real.

3. The first place David goes is a village called Nob, and it’s here he loses some of his

integrity. (21:1-3, 6, 8-9) Where do you go when you’re desperate? Well, David went to church! All by himself, David shows up at the door of Ahimelech—starving, unarmed, desperate, afraid. And the priest is naturally confused, suspicious. “David, what are you doing here in the middle of nowhere?” And David begins what will be something of a recurring pattern throughout his lifetime—in difficult situations, concocting a lie. He makes up a story about being on a secret mission from Saul. It’s a total fabrication. “David, where are your men?” Oh, at a top-secret camp. “How’d you get out here on a secret mission with no weapons?” Well, we were in a hurry and forgot them. So, David winds up—thanks to Ahimelech’s gracious nature—taking some of the holy bread, reclaiming Goliath’s sword, and leaving into the night. And we might be tempted to ask, “David, what are you doing here? Where’s the faith you talked about when you killed the giant? Why one lie on top of another? (which is about to lead to a monstrous atrocity)” Or maybe we don’t ask, because

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we know, don’t we? Sometimes this is what happens when life’s caving in. Sometimes we lose our integrity and do things we’d have never imagined doing…

4. Next stop: Gath. Wait a minute, isn’t that the Philistines? Goliath’s hometown? You got it… (21:10-15). David lost his security. He’s lost some of his integrity. And now, he even gives up his dignity! Let’s be clear: David goes to the mortal pagan enemies of Israel for refuge. I’m somewhat perplexed by the plan here, aren’t you? Does he really think they won’t know the more grown-up version of the guy who knocked off their favorite son? How many red-headed Jewish men are running around with Goliath’s sword strapped to their belt? Now, maybe it’s more intelligent than that. At the last minute, in order to survive, David turns thespian and puts on an Oscar-caliber performance as a madman—drooling, clawing, spitting… Maybe this is a little like when the thin veneer of “celebrity” comes off someone in our world, and all of a sudden the evening news and the internet are exploding with a disheveled police mugshot or some very unflattering paparazzi photo, and we’re reminded once again that anybody can look good and cleaned up on the red carpet—but drunk and disorderly or on the way to rehab or whatever is another thing altogether. This undignified episode with David in Philistia is an example of how—in a season of loss/grief—even the best of us may find ourselves sleeping with the enemy. After all, “desperate times call for desperate measures,” right? Like David, how often do you and I, in fear and frustration, try to “fix” things? First, we tell lies, then we live lies! Depressed? Have a drink. Lonely? Bored? Load up the credit cards. Unhappy? Maybe an affair spices things up. Scared? Go live with the Philistines…

5. And maybe we’re not surprised to learn that—having lost his security, his integrity, even his dignity—that this is where David winds up—22:1a… David “caved in.” Interesting how even the geography of his journey seems to follow his descent. David winds up here—at a place called En Gedi—in the mountainous badlands of southern Judah. Almost symbolic, as he feels like his spirit’s dying, David goes down, down, down and holes up in a dark cave near the dying, evaporating waters of the Dead Sea—lifeless and caustic. Our group went there last summer. En Gedi is now a national park, wildlife preserve. And you hike back through rough terrain and find one of the most amazing oasis waterfalls! You’d never expect it. But back here among the bats and scorpions and the wild goats is where David called his hideaway. It was here, tradition says, he wrote the words of some his psalms—like the maskil Psalm 142—we read earlier… I cry to the Lord… I pour out my complaint before him. I tell my trouble to him… No refuge remains to me; no one cares for me… Ever felt like you’ve hit rock-bottom? Ever felt like singing the blues?

6. Life is full of caves, isn’t it? But one thing about a cave. Once you spelunk all the way to the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up! You either go deeper or you begin to climb out. At some point, as the saying goes, “there’s nothing left to lose.” All of our lives experience loss and heartbreak and disappointment and stupid decisions we wish we could take back but can’t… The difference isn’t the experiences as much as what we do with them. How do we cope? What resources do we tap? How do we come out? David could have stayed holed up at Adullam, but instead he chose to come out and re-route. The hopeful end of Ps. 142 says it: I cry to you, O Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living…

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Somewhere in the darkness, David began to see some light, and what follows in chs. 22-23 are something like a description of his coming back to the surface…

• He got his dignity back in community. Note the last words of his Cave Song: The righteous will surround (gather around) me… 22:1b-2: When his brothers and all his father’s house heard (about being at the cave), they went down there to him. Everyone who was in distress, in debt, and who was discontented gathered to him, and he became captain over them. Those with him numbered about 400. May have been a pretty motley crew, but one of the ways David reclaimed what he’d lost was to lead those God sent him! And he will eventually forge this collection of rejects into a loyal and deadly fighting machine. Mighty Men! I’m impressed that even after some serious mistakes, David is able to step back into community with other men. Isolation (long-term) isn’t good for anybody. Wallowing in self-pity and regret is not healthy, not what God wired us for. If you’re in a cave right now, one thing God would want you to hear is an invitation to step out of the shadows and engage life with others. Iron sharpens iron. We need each other to grow, to not remain stuck in misery…

• David got his integrity back with real honesty. Remember those harmless little lies he told the priest Ahimelech in the heat of desperation? Well, in ch. 22 a psychotic Saul got a tip from an informant, showed up and slaughtered Ahimelech, all 85 of the priests there, and all the residents of Nob—men, women, children, infants, cattle—all murdered in cold blood. Why? Because, in good faith, Ahimelech had believed David and helped him. See, sin’s that way—it carries a lot of innocent collateral damage! There was one escapee from the holocaust—Abiathar, Ahimelech’s son—who came to tell David about the massacre. Watch what happens—22:21-23. If you’re in a cave and want to come out, you have to stop covering up! David comes clean, doesn’t he? He didn’t have to. Could have rationalized what happened… Instead, he confesses to everyone: “This was MY fault! My bad! My selfishness! My foolishness cost the lives of good innocent people! I accept responsibility for my own failures!” Good stuff. A lot of folks are stuck in caves somewhere right now because they won’t honestly own their own sin. (A.W. Tozer’s “The Importance of Self-Judgment”)…

• Finally, BY FAITH David even recovered a sense of security. David song turns from “I have no refuge” to “God, YOU are my refuge!” And I’m struck by how 3x in ch.23 we’re told that David inquired of the Lord… It took a while, but eventually the day comes when—no matter how dark the cave—you can pray again. David went everywhere he knew to go searching for refuge—priests, bottom of a hole, even to the enemy. Maybe you’ve been trying a lot of dead end caves? Just keep in mind that God does some of his finest work when you’ve hit rock-bottom! Nothing in the world wrong with finding yourself in a cave. The idea is not to stay there! When you’ve gone as low as you think you can go, remember, God can and will hear your prayer of faith from anywhere.

7. Thomas Carlyle the English historian had a cave experience. When he finished writing his

history of the French Revolution he took the hand-written manuscript (m-d 19th century) to his neighbor John Stuart Mill for him to proofread. A few days later Mill reported that his maid had unknowingly used the manuscript to start a fire in the fireplace. No other copies. It was gone. Two full years of work reduced to ashes. For days, Carlyle said later, he raged like

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a madman, then sulked, went into a deep depression, vowed he would never write again. For months he stayed in his cave… Then he said one day he was staring out his window and noticed a stone mason rebuilding a collapsed wall on his property, and it struck him that the worker was doing it so patiently, one rock at a time. So, Carlyle went back into his study and began diligently re-writing from scratch his book that same way—one word, one page, one day at a time. And many later agreed that what he produced was even more of a masterpiece than his first lost work… Today, if you’re in a dark cave, you may not be prepared to surface immediately. Do what David did. Begin sharing community. Take what God sends you. Practice honesty about your own failures. And when the time’s right, begin to pray small prayers of faith, moving in trust toward the light of God.

8. Notes • David’s outsider community. David becomes a magnet for all kinds of marginalized

people (22:1-5). This reminds us of Jesus’ community (Mk. 1:32-34). Brueggemann (and others) have noted that here is one of several places we are signaled that the struggle between the houses of Saul and David is represented as more than a north-south or old order-new order tension. We may also have here a social conflict between haves and have-nots, “a challenge of economically disadvantaged groups against the more stable landed populace… In the rise-of-David narrative we are indeed watching while a ‘last one’ becomes a ‘first one’” (Brueggemann, 157).

• Psalm 142. The inscription of Ps. 142 is “A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer.” Compare to Psalm 57. It’s likely these titles were assigned later, but it’s understandable why these songs of complaint were at some point associated with David’s time at the Cave of Adullam. Both songs reflect a downward lament move and a subsequent word of praise. God is compassionate to those (like the singer) who have been brought low. He is ultimately the place of refuge for those with no place to go.

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Dancing in the Streets (2 Sam. 6) Focus: Coming into the presence of a holy God is not something to be taken casually. Function: To encourage the church to think about worship in a healthy and God-centered way, focusing on the idea that God is the one who sets the terms for his presence, not us. 1. Ever had the experience of losing something (or thinking you did) and then finding it,

maybe months or years later? Well, if you know that serendipitous feeling of reclaiming a lost object, then maybe you’re on track for understanding what’s happening here in 2 Sam. 6… Do you remember the time when Israel lost the Ark of God? And by “ark” we mean the little gold-covered chest or box that stayed in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle and had since the days of Moses. This was the place where, on top, where the wings of the cherubim met (mercy seat, place of atonement) it was understood that God’s Presence would come and meet his people! The Ark of the Covenant was, without question, the most awesome, holy, sacred piece of furniture ever! Inside were kept three items: A jar of manna, Aaron’s walking stick that budded, and the stone tablets of the Law with the Ten Commandments, written by the hand of God. It was Israel’s greatest national treasure (Think Constitution, Liberty Bell, Dec. of Ind. all wrapped up in one small object)…

2. So how on earth do you lose something like that? Well, just read 1 Sam. 4-6. We won’t today, but here’s the gist: Because of Israel’s foolishness in taking the Ark for granted, treating it like some sort of magic rabbit’s foot, they took it out into battle against the Philistines and—it got captured by the enemy. The Lord allowed it to get stolen to show his people that you can’t just shut God up in a box and trot him out when you need him! Well, the Ark didn’t vacation long in the land of the Philistines! Great story! They took it back as a war trophy, put it in their temple, and it wasn’t long before their idols were falling apart and everybody was coming down with a bad case of tumors or hemorrhoids or something (yes, really)… So, they loaded up (and this seems key) the Ark on an ox-cart and sent it back home to Israel. And at a place called Beth Shemesh some Israelites got so excited to see it come home that they pulled the lid off and (like a scene straight from Indiana Jones) they were struck dead by God for violating the Ark’s holiness. So guess what they did? The survivors got so scared, they did exactly what you do to make anything go away for good—they put it in somebody’s garage! They took it to the house of a guy named Abinadab and appointed one of his son’s—Eleazar—to guard it…

3. Now, this was all back before Saul! For the last several decades or so the Ark has been sitting in storage collecting dust at Kiriath Jearim. And that’s where this text in 2 Sam. 6 picks up. David’s now king in Jerusalem. He wants to bring the Ark into his new capital. Maybe partly political calculation, differentiating his reign from Saul’s? But maybe more importantly, David is a guy who throughout his life seems almost obsessed with experiencing the Presence of God in deep, real, intimate ways! Again, this is not just any piece of furniture—it’s the Ark of God! For hundreds of years, Israel has looked to this symbol as representative of God’s actual dwelling place among his people. And David knows that. David longs for that sort of relationship with a God who is near and present. He wants to restore that to Israel. He doesn’t want God to be lost and sitting in cold storage anymore!

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And the rest of this episode is the story of how different characters receive and respond to the Presence of God…

4. Uzzah’s Disaster. Obviously, David’s first attempt to bring the Ark to town is an “epic fail,”

if there ever was one! Imagine, the party’s all planned and prepared, the parade route is lined with thousands, and—what happens? Well, there’s nothing like sudden death to take the life out of a party. Talk about a buzz-kill! One guy dies, and what follows is a three month delay. Interesting, says in v.8—David was angry… which strikes me a little like the student being angry with the teacher for giving you the exam you knew was coming but didn’t study for, despite his giving you the review session… I mean, Uzzah should have known better, but this tragedy is largely David’s responsibility. Another version of the story (1 Chr. 15:11-15) says this—Read… Oops! If all else fails… All David and his advisors had to do was go back to the Law (Ex. 37) and look up how the Ark was to be transported: Poles, rings, shoulders of priests… NOT oxen and carts and roads with potholes (in other words, like the pagan Philistines sent it back!)… This is an awful misstep (especially if you’re Uzzah!), so David takes three months to stop and think this through, do his research, and before long, they’re ready to try it again…

5. Verses 12-13—Amazing scene! What a thrill to see how God desires and honors and blesses an obedient spirit! And from a human perspective, what a joy it is to realize “Hey! I’m doing what God wants! This pleases God!” WHEW! Six steps… make a sacrifice… six steps… sacrifice… David and those priests learn and teach a great spiritual lesson: Don’t expect God’s blessings when you are blatantly living in disobedience and rebellion! What happened to Uzzah was unnecessary, because it was about willful disregard for God’s clearly prescribed will. This was not a gray or ambiguous area. So, I’m impressed with a David who has the guts to go back to the Word and say, “Fellas, I think we blew it. No excuses. We acted ignorantly. We had plain revelation about how to move the Ark. Let’s get the poles, priests, do it right.”

6. God is not honored by casually hitching his Presence to any old human cart we choose!

We should never presume to approach God’s holy Presence in just any way we want… The cart of good intentions… everybody’s doing it… that will market us better to the culture… this is what I like and prefer… legalistic nit-picking… Folks, worship ain’t about us! It’s about God! You want to approach God? You do it on his terms (not yours!). You ask, “What is his will? What does he say?” And let me tell you, when that happens, the party can really get rolling!

7. Verses 14-15—When David got his ducks in a row, things went marvelously! So well, in

fact, that he could not contain his joy! This is quite a scene, isn’t it? Picture it: Dancing in the streets! Shouting! Trumpets and tambourines! Celebration before the Lord with all his might! Maybe you or I would say, “Uh-oh, remember what Uzzah got! David’s next, right?” No. This seems to have been a great day for God and Israel and David… Well, okay, there was at least one person who wasn’t at the party…

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8. Verses 16-23—This raw domestic scene always reminds me a little of the story of the Prodigal Son, with the Elder Brother standing in the field, refusing to go into the feasting and laughing and dancing and music. Arms crossed. Scowling. Pitching a fit… I suppose wherever there’s anybody on fire for the Lord, invariably not far away is some brother or sister ready to show up with an extinguisher to douse the flames! Why? I don’t know. Our nature, isn’t it? But even the greatest times of rejoicing/celebration among God’s people can be tainted by someone’s disdain—a chip on the shoulder, attitude of criticism… Michal looked out her window that day and she despised David in her heart (16)… David, on the other hand, wanted to come home and bless his household (20)… instead, met with judgment! He was full of joy, she was full of embarrassment/shame. How could you do such a thing? Running around in the streets like a… vulgar fellow… In other words, like a commoner, peasant… You don’t act like a king! You act like, well, one of them!... It’s tough for any relationship, particularly a marriage, to survive and thrive when the words turn this nasty and sarcastic… David points out, you notice, that “Well, God chose me—not your Daddy!—to be king.” Maybe things had been tough for a while, but, from this point forward, things are never the same between Michal and David again, are they? Michal moves to the back of David’s harem and, well, we never hear from her again. Sad ending to a sad story about a woman who, in many ways, never had much of a chance.

Responding to God’s Presence... • From Uzzah, let’s keep in mind the danger of holy familiarity. Hans Kung: The amazing

thing is not so much that poor Uzzah died, but that the rest of us are still alive! True. We all deserve to die, don’t we? Are any of us so squeaky clean that we’ve never touched the holy? Uzzah represented generations of his people who had been conditioned to think about God’s Presence very casually… Uzzah is a reminder that God comes to us on his terms, not ours. Uzzah is a reminder that when you’re heart’s not in it, when God’s “in a box,” when worship becomes merely functionary, it’s really not worship at all—but death.

• From Michal, let’s appreciate how ugly a cold heart can really be. Maybe Michal thought David’s worship was irreverent. Maybe she thought it was untraditional and beneath the king. Maybe it just wasn’t her style… But I think, like Uzzah, Michal in many ways represents another poor, poor way to approach the Presence of God. If Uzzah was a familiar functionary, then Michal is the critical observer—watching, judging, condemning. Few things are uglier than one child of God pouring cold water on the joyful worship of another. Michal reminds us that such a cold, cold spirit always leads ultimately to spiritual barrenness.

• Finally, from David, let’s learn to make some space for celebration. I’ll say this much for David—when he did finally figure out the importance of obeying God, he did it! And I want you to take notice that obedience does not have to produce rigidity! David is the hearty participant! Coming into the Presence of God in Scripture is full of an array of images and terms and ideas and feelings—bowing, kneeling, raising hands, shouting, confessing, silence, singing, praying, even dancing! Read the Psalms! Worship is not just one thing. Sometimes being in the Presence of God calls for solemnity—but not always! A lot of things can be done “reverently.” Obeying God doesn’t have to rob us of our joy. In fact, it should add to it. We are children of the Resurrection. There should always be space in our communal life for genuine celebration. Do we believe Jesus died for our sins? Do we believe he conquered death on the third day and rose to the right hand of God? Do we believe the Gospel brings

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blessings to our life? Then who has more reason to celebrate before the Lord: David who lived a thousand years before Jesus was born OR disciples of the Son of David, whose tomb remains empty? Who has more reason to offer praise?

9. Notes

• Bringing in the Ark (Part 2). An interesting follow-up story to David’s bringing the ark to Jerusalem appears in 2 Sam. 15:23-29. Here, David is exiting the city in advance of his son Absalom’s coup d’état. The priests and Levites grab the ark and attempt to flee with him. However, David instructs Zadok to take the ark back. He says, “If I find favor in the Lord’s eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again.” It’s an amazing statement of faith and pushes hard against the old “holy war” model that had used the ark as a talisman.

• Newsome: “All of chap. 6 is permeated with a feeling of great joy over God’s presence in Israel’s life and his goodness to David… The fact that the joyous mood is interrupted by the incident involving Uzzah and by Michal’s bitterness should not be allowed to obscure the essentially celebrative quality of this chapter. The spontaneity of David’s and people’s joy, perhaps even its charismatic flavor (compare 1 Sam. 10:5) is unmistakable. The preacher may want to use this text to discuss the place of celebration in the public worship of God. On the one hand, unrestrained joy may easily lapse into a kind of emotional orgy… On the other hand, however, it may be said that there are too many of our mainline churches where worship is so formal and controlled that genuine expressions of emotion are almost impossible… Each worshipping community must decide for itself questions having to do with proper forms of worship. But 2 Sam. 6 certainly speaks a word for the place of joy.” (1-2 Samuel, pp. 104-105)

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Affair to Remember (2 Sam. 11) Focus: A timeless human drama about sin, abusing power, and playing God. Function: To identify ourselves in this story, acknowledge our sin, and move toward God’s great forgiveness. 1. 2 Samuel 11:1-4—It was springtime. Ch.10 is the backdrop—a military campaign against

the Ammonites. David had tried to be nice when the Ammonite king died, sent a sympathy delegation, but the king’s son took some bad advice (spies) and sent David’s funeral party home with their beards cut off and pants stolen. Since the dawn of time, that has been a recipe for war! And Israel has been winning handily. It’s now spring—warmer, rains stopped, great time for a mop-up operation at Rabbah the capital city of the enemy. I’m not sure there’s much to be made of David’s staying home—kings didn’t always go off and risk their necks in sieges. David has Joab, and I’m sure there was plenty to do in Jerusalem. Now, if you want to say, “This might have never happened if David had been off with his troops,” okay, that’s true. Might have saved himself and his family a lot of tears and heartache…

2. And one warm evening the king looked out over the edge of his terrace, and tumbled right over the edge! David fell down and cracked his crown and the kingdom came tumbling after! How does an unarmed 100 pound female accomplish what a lumbering outfitted Goliath was unable to do? There she is, taking her bath. Probably in a big rooftop cistern where they collected rainwater. The water would heat up from sunlight during the day, women would bathe in the evenings. Sounds like a lot of the men were off at war, so… Now, some have suggested Bathsheba knew exactly what she was doing here! Maybe this is a clever seduction by a smart woman who knew full well that that the king’s terrace was right there! Maybe she knew David better that he knew himself and suspected the king had too much time on his hands. I don’t know. Sounds more to me like a man in power who’d spent years taking whatever he wanted...

3. God said this would happen. Deut. 17—God had warned Israel hundreds of years previous

that kings are dangerous. Three don’ts for monarchs: (1) Don’t amass riches (2) Don’t gather war horses and (3) Don’t collect women! Money. Power. Sex. David, like so many ancient heroes, had trouble disciplining his passions. Never once does Scripture say David “inquired of the Lord” about a woman. Abigail. Michal. The pattern is he sees, he takes. Note the language of the text: Time after time we read David SENT… He inquires who this woman is… He sends for her… He sends her home…Here’s a guy who all he has to do is speak and things happen, people pop up and go out and do his bidding…

4. Problem is, you live by the sword, you die by it too. Verse 5—The woman conceived, and

SHE SENT and told David, “I am pregnant.” Uh-oh. Now David has a real mess on his hands. Precarious situation most other kings would not have had. In most kingdoms, the king was the law-giver, so if he wants something he takes it. Story over… But in Israel, torah comes from God. God is, at least in theory, the true king and his law is the higher standard. And if torah says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery… covet thy neighbor’s wife…” that applies to the king too. Oh, adultery was originally a capital offense under torah. And David

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has an especially touchy situation here, because, when he asked about who this woman was, what did he learn? “Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Not a stranger. One of David’s most loyal warriors, one of his inner circle of Mighty Men. Ouch. So, will David live under accountability to the law, or will he act like a law unto himself?

5. The balance of ch.11 is a (poor) series of cover-up efforts. Plan A: Deception (6-13).

David scrambles, calls home Uriah, hopefully to get into bed with his wife as fast as possible. Go “wash your feet, soldier!” If he does, all this can just go away, right? No one will ever know the difference. Well, except Bathsheba, David, God… But you get the idea! Problem: Uriah won’t cooperate! Uriah comes to us, unlike King David here, as a person of some integrity. Perhaps this is loyalty to his fellow soldiers, perhaps this about ritual purity rules for warriors, whatever—David wakes up the next morning and there’s Uriah sleeping on his porch. Great! Okay, he won’t voluntarily go home … So, David makes a second run at this and gets Uriah drunk. Problem: Uriah is a better man intoxicated than David is stone cold sober! Falling over drunk, Uriah (his friend) still won’t go home. Don’t miss the deadly irony here! A Hittite mercenary—not a natural born son of the covenant—seems more concerned about doing the right thing than God’s man on the throne! Once you start down the road (and David’s been on this road for years!) of using people, it’s hard to stop! So finally, in desperation, David moves on to…

6. Plan B; Destruction (14-25). The “dead men tell no tales” plan. The man after God’s own heart murdered a loyal friend. And Uriah’s final/greatest act of integrity was that he was entrusted by David (who knew him!) to carry his own death warrant back to the front line where Joab—David’s long-time hatchet man—would carry out the bloody specifics. It doesn’t get much uglier than this, does it? Lust. Adultery. Hypocrisy. Betrayal. Lies. Murder. And to top it all off, just sheer callousness—“Joab,” David writes, “don’t worry about what happens here. After all, this is battle. You win some, you lose some.” Folks, this is far more than a story about sexual indiscretion (that too!)—it’s a rare glimpse into the heart of what happens when Sin gets hold of you!

7. There’s an old story about a general who commissioned an artist to draw a portrait for

his people to adore… In his pride, he struck a thoughtful pose, chin on palm, left hand covering up the terrible battle scar on his left cheek… Powerful, but prideful… thinking his people wouldn’t adore him as he really was. Whatever we may think of the nature of Scripture, surely one of the things we have to give it credit for is sharing with us not just the triumphs of its characters, but also the tragedies… David, at least the Samuel narrative gives him to us, is a man with scars—scars he probably would have just as soon we not know anything about! David was a Renaissance man—poet, shepherd, singer, warrior—a man capable of great compassion and restraint… But also a man with blood on his hands and pride in his heart! David rose so high—maybe too high for his own good. The great danger of any kind of “success” is that it tempts us to breathe thin air, arrogantly think we don’t need God anymore. When things are going great, watch out! Prov. 16:18: Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall… MSG: First pride, then the crash—the bigger the ego, the harder the fall… Ch.11 ends summarily—vv.26-27a. Bathsheba grieves. David (we might think) has really gotten away with something. Maybe some

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even thought he was a great guy to take in this poor widow of a fallen war hero… but wait… v.27a. No, it’s not over. Not even close. It’s an old story, isn’t it? But always relevant…

8. Someone looks over his terrace, sees something he wants, and falls like a rock... David

didn’t see a woman and fall in love. He saw an object to be sent for… He didn’t see the wife of a friend. He saw a body to be used selfishly and sent home... • So, what are you looking at over your terrace? • What lies are you telling and believing? How are you glamorizing or romanticizing or

trivializing your own actions? • Have we de-sensitized ourselves to the point that a story like this one just sounds archaic?

Maybe some of us just think we’re beyond the point of application. I would remind you that, at this stage, David was probably in his 50s… not a young man anymore… most of the psalms written… battles fought…

With God, there are no cover-ups. Is that good news? Oh, it’s great news! Because, only when sin is uncovered (ch.12) can sin be forgiven, and that’s the most surprising move of all in this story! When there’s repentance, humility, truth—then God can do amazing things! And that’s still the way it is. 1 Jn. 1:9—If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness… 9. Notes

• Eugene Peterson: “It is a story repeated with variations over and over through the centuries. Sin stories, after a while, tend to sound pretty much alike—virtually all sins ring changes on the theme of wanting to be gods ourselves, taking charge of our own lives, asserting control over the lives of others. Since there are only a finite number of ways to do this, not one of us reading this story has any difficulty finding himself or herself in it... Nor does finding ourselves in this story, whether in fact or imagination, surprise us. We are sinners. The precise details of our sin may not correspond to David’s, but the presence and recurrence of sin does.” (1-2 Samuel, p.183).

• Uriah. The figure Uriah is presented in clear contrast to David. His refusal to “wash his feet” (euphemism for sexual intercourse) while his fellow soldiers are roughing it at the front stands in stark relief to what David has done and is about to do. Here, in this story, all the abuses of kingly power that were warned out by God (and Samuel) come together in a perfect storm.

• Murder. We are hardly prepared for this criminal, remorseless David. But maybe we should have been. David’s path to the throne has been littered with conveniently dead bodies. He has lived by plausible deniability for decades, and perhaps this calloused act against one of his own Mighty Men is the inevitable end for someone who has spent years living close to the moral edge.

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Home to Roost (2 Sam. 12-14) Focus: Failures and fallout. Family and fatherhood. Function: To affirm the importance of engaged, faithful parenting. 1. Prov. 27:5-6—When Lyndon Johnson suddenly, in a crisis, became president, he

brought into his closest circle of advisors a young, inexperienced guy named Bill Moyers. Many were shocked and asked why? LBJ’s answer was simple: “Because Bill always tells me the truth.” Truth is a tough ticket to sell to people at the top. Politics and power is a hothouse for yes-men and sycophants and fair-weather friends. Never been much job security in being a prophet! Pretty rare to hear somebody (really anybody) say: “I want to be told the truth, even if it hurts!”

2. “Your Majesty, Nathan is here to see you.” Imagine being in Nathan’s sandals! The king

has acted shamefully, deliberately, secretly. A year or more has passed now. David’s own music (Ps. 32) discloses how miserable he’s been trying to keep his sin hidden. And now your job is to go in and hold accountable a man who didn’t think twice about murdering his friend and stealing his wife! Gusty. You have to give him that. Really, I think we have to say Nathan has all the things you need in your tool-belt if you’re going to admonish someone else’s failure… • Courage—lots of risk here; not easy or pleasant ministry • Credibility—you can’t go yanking splinters out of another person’s eye when you’ve got

your own issues • Commitment to Truth—bring the Word, not opinions and personal judgments, deal

with explicit, clear Scriptural matters and… • Concern for the Person—don’t shoot emails, don’t put it on Facebook… If you love the

person, go to him/her in person. Offer positive direction and counsel. Extend grace and forgiveness to the one who will repent…

3. And that’s the amazing part of Nathan’s story. He speaks truth to David in a way that

elicits repentance. David was ready to hear what he already knew—that he had blown it! Faithful are the wounds of a friend… And what begins here in ch.12 is a long season of confession and consequences, and both bring their share of tears! David felled Goliath. He dodged Saul’s spears. He conquered enemies and took Jerusalem. But the words of his friend Nathan went straight to his heart: “I did it. I sinned against the Lord!” Sin is breaking the heart of God. It’s the rupture of relationship with God and with those around us. David has been living in that broken, ruptured state for months now! How good in some ways it must have felt to let it out and. Folks, there’s no substitute for repentance! David will sing in Ps. 51: You do not delight in sacrifice, Lord, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (16-17). Coming to Jesus means coming the way every successful disciple approached him—as a sinner. Put down the pride. Acknowledge your failures. Start in a new direction. Nothing in the world substitutes for repentance. But something else should be added…

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4. There are no exemptions from consequences. Nathan said, “David, the Lord has taken away your sin.” Forgiveness. God no longer held David accountable for his guilt for the terrible things he’d done. However… Nathan also said, “Because of what you’ve done, the sword will never depart from your house…” Another way to hear that: David, constant tragedy and turmoil will never be far from those who live under your own roof!” Folks, the forgiveness of God is a precious thing, but it is not a free pass from the basic moral principles that God has sewn into the fabric of his Creation. Gal. 6:7-8—You sow? You reap. And much of what David reaped was years and years of tears…

5. In fact, one way to step back and look at the big picture of these chapters (12-14) is to

notice them being framed by tears… Two scenes as bookends: Ch. 12—a new father in agony. Picture David cribside, fasting and praying and weeping day night, prostrate on the ground beside his dying newborn child. Seven days. Finally news comes: The baby boy is dead. Just let that scene sink in for a moment…. Then skip ahead to ch. 15… We’re ahead of ourselves here, but what you need to know is that this is several years down the road, and King David is—well—he’s exiting his capital city! Why? Well, his own son has launched a coup d’état and has forced him to flee for his life— 2 Samuel 15:30…

6. You sow? You reap. You raise chickens? They will, at some point, come home to roost.

Now, we’re going to say more about David’s home life, but for today, let’s just acknowledge the terrible irony that you can be a relative success at ruling a kingdom and fail your own household… Picture David there on the Mt. of Olives, riding out of his own city, weeping as he went… Those are the tears of a lot of years of heart-breaking family agony! Ch.13—Amnon his oldest son raped Tamar his half-sister. Wonder where that young prince learned to treat a female as an object for momentary gratification? Maybe “Amnon” is Hebrew for “chip off the old block.” Daddy/Mama, your children will grow up to imitate you. You know that, right? Doesn’t matter if you live in a palace or a trailer… Your attitudes, values, priorities, modeling, behavior… And what you do in moderation, they may do to excess. The story says when David learned of it, he was furious (21)… That’s all. No action. No discipline. No intervention. Not even a corrective word… Just silence… And that clucking sound? More chickens coming home to roost…

7. Tamar’s brother, Absalom, wasn’t as passive as his daddy. Two years he plotted his

revenge, stewing in anger against Amnon. You might ask, “Didn’t David pick up on that? Didn’t he sniff out any of this toxic family conflict right under his own nose?” Apparently not… But when the time was right, one brother got the other one drunk and arranged for him to be murdered and ran into the desert for refuge. Where on earth would Absalom have ever picked up such despicable behaviors? And, get this—talk about weird family dynamics—David mourns Absalom’s banishment for three years, and even when he does officially bring him back—he doesn’t really bring him back! No contact for two more years! Sort of a halfway forgiveness, halfway reconciliation strategy that seems more about David salving his own conscience than it does about making peace inside his sad, dysfunctional family system. Absalom the murderer isn’t sorry enough to repent, and David his passive father doesn’t have the guts to try to mend this broken relationship with his lost son. And you think all the chickens have come home yet? Oh, not even close! David will one day be weeping over the

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grave of this boy he refuses to even see. Folks, the opposite of being loved isn’t being hated—it’s being ignored, shown indifference, apathy…

8. David, how’s your family? Tell us about your wives… Too many women, competing

affections, beds to juggle, harem jealousies, jockeying for attention… Tell us about your kids... Wonder what the king would say? Maybe he’d say I was too out of touch… out of sight… out of line… for my family’s good. My guess is there were many years when his children were coming up that David was just gone, fighting wars, tending to kingdom. It’s hard to be an effective absentee parent, isn’t it? Children spell love T-I-M-E, and David probably didn’t have much of that to spare. Little wonder he was oblivious to the storms brewing at his own dinner table, because he likely wasn’t even there. In his book The Hidden Value of a Man, co-authored with Gary Smalley, author John Trent tells this story about his childhood—Read excerpt…

9. Something in me wants to think maybe David did better with little Solomon and his later

children (although, Solomon in many ways will look like his father). But for Tamar and Amnon and Absalom and Adonijah… there came, as there always does with the important seasons of life—there came a point of no return. Kids grow up fast, don’t they? It’s a very narrow window of opportunity God gives us to build and shape these gifts we call family… David, why you weeping? Because, it’s too late. Too late to play catch. Too late to do the family trip. Too late to read the book or check the homework. Too late to lovingly put your foot down and say, “Son or daughter, these are the values to build a life on. These are the boundaries that make life better.” Too late to go to that game or recital or play. Too late to show your kids how much you love their Mom… I’m looking at a lot of parents who’ve done this thing pretty well. Kudos! You may never hear it, but you’re all heroes. You may never win a Nobel Prize, but thank you for your example. And for the rest of us who are still working on this often baffling, frustrating project called parenting, God bless us in the journey.

10. Notes

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The Son Also Rises (2 Sam. 15-16) Focus: Family—physical and spiritual—can be a source of great chaos and anxiety. Function: To assure ourselves that God’s purposes will be fulfilled. God is in control, and that which God ordains can be trusted. 1. 2 Samuel 15:1-6—In the late 1850’s the hot political potato in our country was “states’

rights,” specifically the right to make slavery legal or illegal. One of the main proponents of the “popular sovereignty” position was a Senator named Stephen A. Douglas. In the election year 1858, the new Republican Party nominated a skinny lawyer from Illinois to run against Douglas for his Senate seat. He won. And in his controversial acceptance speech, Lincoln quoted Jesus’ prophetic words from Mt. 12:25: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this govt. cannot endure permanently half slave and half free… I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other… Three years later, not only was the nation divided, but families were split down the middle. Brother against brother. In some cases, son went to battle against father. Four years of tragic, heart-wrenching days. Can you imagine making that kind of loyalty decision?

2. Such painful choices aren’t new. 2 Sam. 15-18—Absalom’s Revolt, it’s sometimes called.

Prince Absalom’s Rebellion. It was a civil war, wasn’t it? And as we said last week, this coup d’état—like our own American Civil War—didn’t just pop up overnight, did it? Years of strained relationships in the House of David. Years of tension and isolation. Years of resentment and hoping problems would go away. Years of a house divided against itself. It was a storm that somebody, you’d think, would have seen coming!... And these chapters are so intensely human. The events that play out here are sort of strung together like beads on a chain, but is there anything here that seems so hard to understand? It sounds like a crisis we know…

3. We are familiar with these characters and their issues, aren’t we?

• The Charismatic Rebel Child—Absalom had all those years of separation to think and grow bitter. Prodigals aren’t born in an instant. No clear plan of succession. Absalom was a beautiful, gifted, articulate young man who—not unlike his Daddy—was able to steal the hearts of his generation!

• The Heart-Broken Parent—David winds up fleeing from his own palace. Once again, he finds himself a fugitive, this time from his own child! Imagine the mixed feelings—anger, humiliation, not to mention concern for the life and well-being of Absalom. A lot of parents find themselves in this no-win zone between loving a child and hating their destructive behaviors…

• The Sense of Divided and Broken Loyalties—much of this story is a tale of political espionage. Who’s gonna be loyal to who? Who’s trustworthy? Who’s playing the double-agent? David is betrayed almost immediately by one of his own advisors, Ahithophel—he stays in Jerusalem and welcomes the new King Absalom and sets himself up as part of his cabinet. One of David’s psalms (55:12-14) mentions someone who was a trusted companion who let him down. You have to wonder if that might have been Ahithophel…

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• On the other hand, it’s when the chips are down that sometimes you find out who your friends really are, and David exits his city to discover that he has some loyal supporters—Ittai the Gittite… Zadok and Abiathar the priests… and a helpful fellow named Hushai who goes back to Jerusalem as a counter-agent. Absalom asks for some military advice, and two voices step forward— o Ahithophel—David’s old ally—says first take your dad’s concubines in public view

on the roof! Then, move against David now. Quickly knock him out. Kill him. Strike while the iron of revolution is hot!

o The other feedback he asks for is Hushai—David’s mole, who tells him not to listen to Ahithophel. Wait. Consolidate a large army. Then attack your daddy when the time’s right….Now, what’s he doing? Buying David time. And in just about the only mention of God in this whole pitiful saga, 17:14—Absalom said, “The counsel of Hushai is better”… For the Lord ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so he might bring ruin on Absalom.

• Stop and think about that just a minute. Absalom should have listened to Ahithophel. But he didn’t. He chose the wrong advisor, gave David time to rally his forces, and when he did go out after him? Disaster. Five pounds of hair and riding through the forest like a madman don’t mix. Another sad, tragic ending. A house divided cannot stand, and Absalom—like a dandelion in the wind (poof) is gone… Why? Because, we’re told, God ordained the outcome of this struggle long before it ever happened... At key moments, the grace of a sovereign God is brought to bear upon our lives… We miss that, don’t we? We forget. Especially in seasons of crisis and chaos, we assume, like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, that Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing.

4. Does life seem chaotic? Maybe you’re on the run. Maybe for you, like David, things seem to

have spun out of control. You used to have the world by the tail (or you thought), but now, not so much… Maybe you feel like you live in a house divided…. I think for many American Christians that could describe “church.” Once upon a time it seemed like we had a handle on things. We all thought alike, looked alike, sang off the same page (or so we thought), but now, not so much… Maybe some of us feel panic, confusion, changing identities/loyalties we once assumed were solid that don’t seem to be anymore… Maybe it feels we worship in a house divided…

5. If so, then take heart today! Life may seem like a tale told by an idiot, but it’s not. Jesus is

still the King, and he still will emerge victorious! And listen, if God ordains a winner (like David), then that’s the way it will be! God’s Son and his people will ultimately share in the triumph God has purposed for us. Smooth-talking Absaloms come and go… Pretenders and contenders will rise and fall… Scary times will come around… But, as disciples of Jesus Christ (the true and rightful king), we must share the conviction of trust that somewhere in the fog, shadows is a God who is in control and watching over all of this. None of it surprises him. None of it discourages him. None of it scares him. Why? Because he’s God—and he has a future ordained for us that we may not be able to see or understand today. But it’s coming!