David's Betrayal

David: The Man of Prayer PART IX
Rev Aaron Bjerke
07 June 2015

2Samuel 11:1-5, 14-17, 12:1-7
1In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army.  They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.  But David remained in Jerusalem.

2One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace.  From the roof he saw a woman bathing.  The woman was very beautiful, 3and David sent someone to find out about her.  The man said, "She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite."  4Then David sent messengers to get her.  She came up to him, and slept with her.  (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.)  Then she went back home.  5The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."

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

16So while Joab had the city under seige, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were.  17When the men of this city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.

12:1The Lord sent Nathan to David.  When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  2The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought.  He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children.  It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms.  It was like a daughter to him.

4"Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.  Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man an prepared it for the one who had come to him."

5David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die!  6He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."

7Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!  This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

The story of David and Bathsheeba
v.1 David was a distant king and didn't go to war like he used to.
v.2 Events happened under darkness.
v.4+5 Lust was very active and happens fast.

Lust strips people of their dignity and recreates them into objects.
We become less human when we see others as what they can give us instead of how we cans serve them.

DAVID AND NATHAN
--Lust is hidden and operates covertly.
--Lust is rooted in the heart--the body goes where the heart leads.
--Lust requires our attention.
--Lust requires a friend to speak the truth--deep friendship and intentional community.

GOD AND DAVID
--Confrontation by God.
--Lust reflects a substute for the deep thirst for life itself.
--Let our lust point to Jesus...so we can know what it is to flourish.