Transcript
You Are the One:
The Accused
First Baptist Richmond, August 4, 2024
2 Samuel 11:1-15
When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
If you weren’t here last Sunday, or if you don’t know much about the Bible, or if, in fact, this is your very first time in church, you might need to know that today we are continuing the biblical story of David, who was the greatest king who ever lived in Israel, and one who was often said to be “a man after God’s own heart.”
But…he did a terrible thing.
In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David stayed home in Jerusalem, and late one afternoon, when he was walking on the roof of the palace, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. Because there was no one to tell him not to David looked, and kept looking until his look turned to lust. And because he was the king (that is, because he could) he sent for her, took her, lay with her, and sent her home, and he thought he had gotten away with it until she sent him a message telling him she was pregnant.
And then David had a problem.
He sent for her husband Uriah (who was where he was supposed to be, off fighting the Ammonites), and after he had heard his report from the battlefield he encouraged him to go down to his house and “wash his feet,” a euphemism for
sleeping with his wife so that when Uriah found out she was expecting he would assume it was his child and not someone else’s, certainly not David’s!
But Uriah wouldn’t do it. He told David, “The Ark of the Covenant and the armies of Israel are on the battlefield; shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?” In other words (in case you missed it last week), “How could I sleep with my wife while the armies of Israel are on the battlefield?” Which raises the question, “How could David sleep with his wife while the armies of Israel were on the battlefield?” But he did, and since he couldn’t get Uriah to play along with his evil scheme he sent him back into battle with instructions for his commanding officer to put him on the front lines, in the heaviest part of the fighting, where he might be struck down and killed, where he was struck down and killed.
And that’s where today’s scripture reading picks up, beginning at 2 Samuel 11:26: “When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.”
So, what was David thinking? That he had gotten away with it, right? Yes! Uriah was killed in battle, but as David said to his commanding officer by way of encouragement, “Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another.” As if to suggest that it wasn’t really anybody’s fault. And then he brought Bathsheba into the palace and made her his wife, and I’m sure everyone was thinking, “Isn’t that sweet? The way David is providing for that poor, young widow!” So, David may have been feeling rather proud of himself, congratulating himself on his skillful handling of the whole Bathsheba affair. But
the last line in the 11th chapter of Second Samuel makes it plain: “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”
And David must have known it.
I wonder what it was like for him, sitting on the throne of Israel, knowing what he had done, and thinking no one else knew it, but wondering how long it would be before someone found out. It’s as if Uriah’s dead body were there in the room with him, hidden under a Persian carpet in the corner, quietly decomposing. Day after day the smell would grow stronger, so that every time someone came into the room David would wonder, “Don’t you smell that? Can’t you smell that?” It’s the stench of unconfessed sin, and it’s nauseating. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced it, but David seems to be referring to it in Psalm 32 when he writes, “While I kept silent, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” David’s guilty conscience was making him physically sick, and it might have been almost a relief when the prophet Nathan came to him and asked if he could tell him a story. He said:
“There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” And when David heard that part of the story his anger was “greatly kindled” against the man. He said to Nathan, “As
the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” And that’s when Nathan said, “You are the man!” And that’s where this sermon series gets its title.
I’ve been asking you to find yourself in these Old Testament stories, to look in from the outside and see if you can find any parallels between the lives of these biblical characters and your own life, because that’s how it works with stories. They take place in a world that seems far removed from your own until you realize that what’s happening up there on the stage is exactly what’s happening in your own life. And suddenly you’re caught. You’ve been found out. I think this is why Jesus “didn’t open his mouth except in parables” (Mark 4:34). If he had said to the Scribes and Pharisees, “You people are the biggest hypocrites I’ve ever known!” they might have turned their backs, but when he said, “Two men went up to the temple to pray,” they leaned in a little closer. The best preachers still use this technique. They might lure you in with a story about something that happened to one of the ancient kings of Israel, a long, long time ago, but then, before you know it, they’re talking about you.
So, how about it? Is there anyone here who has ever done something they shouldn’t have? Anyone here who is hoping that no one will notice the stench of unconfessed sin? I think David was almost relieved that his terrible secret was finally out in the open. But Nathan wasn’t finished yet. He said: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your bosom and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of
the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and in broad daylight.” And that’s when David said,
“I have sinned against the Lord.”
When I read that line last week I was reminded of the Jimmy Swaggart scandal of 1988. Do you remember that? Jimmy Swaggart was a television evangelist, one of the biggest ever, but in the late eighties he had an affair with a prostitute and a fellow evangelist ratted him out. To his great credit Swaggart didn’t deny it. Instead he confessed it. He stood in front of his entire congregation, on television, and apologized, first to his wife, then to his family, and finally to the Lord himself. With tears streaming down his face in an image that burned itself into the collective consciousness of America he said, “I have sinned against you my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain.”
It sounds so much like what David said after his sin had been exposed. Psalm 51 is introduced as “A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” And then it begins:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you (vss. 1-13).
That prayer must have done some good. When David got up off the floor after pouring out his heart he must have felt better. Psalm 32 (which he also wrote) says,
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
While I kept silent, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin (vss. 1-5).
But as we will learn next week, having the guilt of one’s sin forgiven is only part of it. There is the other part, which is dealing with the consequences of sin. Bathsheba had been raped, Uriah had been murdered. You don’t just waltz out of the courtroom after a thing like that. David would soon find out that all those things Nathan had predicted would come true. And yet. He had taken that very important first step. He had confessed his sins to the Lord. He had asked him to
have mercy on him, to blot out his transgressions, to wash him thoroughly from his iniquities and to cleanse him from his sin. And when we ask for such things I am convinced that God hears us, and answers.
Thanks be to God.
—Jim Somerville © 2024
