Some say you're just a good make out Some say you work out
Some say you work in the grave But I say you're a good
Some say you're just a crowd man Some say you're worldwide
Some say you're just a man But I say you are good
You are my God I will shout your name to all the earth
And I will lift your name on high And the world will know your greatness
You are my God I will shout your name
I know that you're the Messiah You gave your life for me
And I know you're the only way Jesus you are God
You are my God I will shout your name to all the earth
And I will lift your name on high And the world will know your greatness
You are my God Jesus I will shout your name to all the earth
And I will lift your name on high I will show the world your goodness
As I live a life that shouts your name As I live a life that shouts your name
Jesus I decide to live To live a life that shouts your name
your face. Jesus, I decide to live to live a life that shouts your name. Jesus, I decide
to live to live a life that shouts your name.
Good evening, good evening, good evening, welcome. So it's Tuesday night, we're going
to have Wax Out Simple Stuff. This is going to go by quick, so brace yourself. Our Tuesday
is beginning now for six months. Our new spiritual emphasis will be prayer. So we're going to
be praying and talking about praying and learning about praying and have some questions about
praying. We're going to be scripting about praying. A little bit of quick looking forward
over the next probably two months, we'll talk about ten locks and ten keys. Praying. You'll
be able to collect the locks and the keys to prayer while we'll pray together. And so
what better way to start our spiritual emphasis on prayer than to pray together. So pray with
me if you would. Let's pray. God in heaven, we adore you. You are an awesome God, a loving
God, a powerful God, a giving God, a gracious God, and yet a just God, a holy God, a righteous
God. You are a God who loves us so much that if it were up to you, you would give us all
and be through Jesus. That's exactly what you've done. But it had to be paid for. The
wages of sin is death, and so it had to be paid for. The wrath of God against the unrighteousness
of men. That doesn't mean that you hate us or that you're angry with us. It means that
you resist our force when we're going the wrong way. And Lord, we are grateful that
Jesus took all of that resistance, all of that pain, all of that hurt on him. He made
that happen. He made it possible. So we confess to you that throughout our lives we have made
mistakes and choices that do not honor you, maybe even today, in the last moments. There
are those that are missing out, opportunity here in worship with us today, going through
something perhaps, and chose another course. I guess that's up to you to deal with that
or to figure it out, to work it out. Lord, we just ask you to help them understand, help
them process whatever it is that they're going through. Father, we ask you the same for us.
Forgive us when we fail you, when we're in the midst of something, when we let it interfere,
let it be important. You are important. Your word is important. Your teaching of your word
and also understanding it so we can teach you others. Those things are important. Worshiping
you, that's important. Father, that's what we want to do. And we look hard at prayer.
First of all, Lord, we've got to say thank you for prayer. Thank you for the opportunity
to praise and lift up our concerns. Come together as a group and lift up our concerns. That
we have somebody to say, hey, pray for this for me. And we know that the word says that
there are lots of ways that prayer impacts and does amazing things, including does not
fail. It produces fruit in the person praying and also affects our lives. It heals. It teaches.
It protects. We will hear incredible stories over the next six months of how even in our
midst, someone here was praying and something amazing happened. Lord, and how prayer opened
this building. Prayer planted this church. Prayer brought people back into the fold.
Prayer protected us from violence. Prayer provided for us. We know that, Lord, it's
really you that does all of those things. The prayer is our opportunity to ask it for
them. To answer any of those questions. Lord, take over the service time. We've got a couple
songs we're going to sing together. And a lesson we're going to look at in your word
and a reminder of how dangerous certain choices can be. Lord, we pray for those who might
still be on the way here now. Those who are just arriving. Special blessing, Lord. Pour
out yourself, your love. You've already spent everything to bring us to yourself. So Lord,
we just pray that we will be with you, learning from you, governed by you, submitting ourselves
to your every desire. Be God and let us be your people.
All right, this next one has some motions. If you know them, I think Mishiri is going
to come up and help if she can. If you would stand up, please. I can't do motions when
I'm playing the guitar at the same time. Sorry. Not that good.
You came from heaven to earth to show the way. From the earth to the cross, my friends
and friends. From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky. Lord, I wish you name
of God. You came from heaven to earth to show the way. From the earth to the cross, my friends
and friends. From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky. Lord, I wish you name
of God.
This time we'll let the leaders and their children go to the left.
Oh God, you are my God and I will never face you. Oh God, you are my God and I will never face you.
I will sing you in the morning and I will learn you walking away. Step by step you lead me
and I will call you by my name. Oh God, you are my God and I will never face you. Oh God,
you are my God and I will never face you. I will sing you in the morning and I will learn
you walking away. Step by step you lead me and I will follow you all of my days. Step by
step you lead me and I will follow you all of my days.
Right there.
Okay, that's the actors.
Alright, alright, alright. So we are going to look today at an interesting story and
you're basically going to see it in two perspectives. Okay, so before we go to the text, I want
to talk about that just for a second. If I was going to write down, if I was going to
write in my diary, let's say, the events that took place Tuesday with the block party a
week ago today, I would write down the things that struck me, the things that were most
important to me, things that I saw. You're going to have a hard time writing down every
little thing that happened. Almost nobody can do that. You would fill a dictionary with
all the details if you could remember what color shirt everybody was wearing, what color
shoes they were wearing, how their hair looked, how many cotton candy they ate. Or you try
to write all that down. You could literally fill a book and you just don't have to. You
just have one person's perspective. You don't know how many cotton candies somebody ate or
how many hot dogs. So you would have a hard time getting all of that collected. So what
you're going to do, when you go to write things down, is you're going to write down what you
saw, what was important to you. And you might be systematic about it and work through by
name. So let's see, what did I see about Tony Tate? What did I see about Aaron Stevenson?
And you might be systematic and write it down that way once you start getting into the details,
but you might not remember certain details about who ate what, who did what, what they
were dressed like, like that. Then if somebody else was going to write the same day down
in their journal, they're going to remember what their eyes saw and what their ears heard.
So they're going to write from their perspective. And they may know that Pascha Dan ate X and
somebody else might not. So perspective means what you know, what you saw, what you heard.
So the story that we're going to get today comes from two different perspectives because
the people who wrote the book, or the books that they come from, were writing for two
different purposes. Not so much that they saw it differently, right? But because the
purposes of the books were different. So on the page, as you're looking at it, you'll
see it has the big word battle in the middle and that's like two axes. And if you go up
to the right, there's some slant blanks. So we're talking about up here, going that way.
Okay? And that's where we're going to get our first reference. And so the first reference
is 2 Samuel 11.1. Thank you. Amen. So 2 Samuel 11.1. I'll read it in a moment. Okay. Does
anybody remember we did this a few weeks ago? Does anybody remember who Samuel was? Now
that we did it once a few weeks ago. So Samuel was a high priest, right? He was born to a
woman who for a long time couldn't have children. She begged God for a child and said if he
gave her a child that she would dedicate that child into God's service. She then got pregnant
after that, turned Samuel over to God's service and Samuel replaced the high priests who were
from before who were not doing a good job. Okay? Samuel will anoint, that means he poured
oil on and prayed for God's blessing. The oil was representative of God's Holy Spirit
actually. Saul and then later David. Okay? Alright, so here we go. 2 Samuel 11.1. Then
it happened in the spring at the time when kings go out to battle that David sent Joab
and his servants with him and all Israel and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged
Rabah but David stayed at Jerusalem. Okay? Now go over on your page to the left. Up to
the left. You got a slanting one goes up right like that and a slanting one goes up like
that. Okay? And now we're going to look at 1 Chronicles 20 verse 1. Okay? So a chronicle
is the story of what happened during a king's reign or like them coming to power and so
on. Okay? So 1 Chronicles chapter 20 verse 1. Listen to the similarities. Then it happened
in the spring at the time when kings go out to battle that Joab led out the army and ravaged
the land of the sons of Ammon and came and besieged Rabah. Okay? And so what's different?
What did you notice was different? I can read them again. 11.1 was that it happened in the
spring at the time when kings go out to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with
him and all Israel and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabah but David
stayed at Jerusalem. Then 20 verse 1 said that it happened in the spring at the time
when kings go out to battle that Joab led out the army and ravaged the land of the sons
of Ammon and came and besieged Rabah but David stayed at Jerusalem. Okay? So there's only
really one thing really that really stands out. It says David sent him out. Right? What
did David do? He stayed at home. What did Joab do? In both texts. He went to battle.
He led the armies. Were the armies generally speaking victorious? Yes. Joab struck Rabah
and overthrew it. Right? And then over here it says they destroyed the sons of Ammon and
besieged Rabah. So there's a slight difference but basically they were victorious. Okay?
So it does tell you from 11.1 that the story is not over yet because the siege, we're
at the point in the story where the siege is taking place whereas over here it says
that in verse 21 it says that they ravaged the land of the sons of Ammon came and besieged
Rabah but David stayed at Jerusalem. Okay. It says he's in both. So in both cases they're
besieging Rabah so something else is going to happen. Right? There we go. That's right.
Okay. So now we're working our way down the right hand side of the page. Okay? So the
first thing, there's three blanks there and I didn't give you the letters but it's
David stays home. Okay? So under 2 Samuel 11.1 David stays home. All right. And then
there's another one and I'll tell you right now this is about Joab and it's, I gave you
the first letter of each word. Anybody want to take a stab at it? Five words, you got
the first letter of each word. Yep. Yep. Against. Yep. Yes. Ammon. Or Ammon. You're
the one. Now there's an interesting thing about this before we go any further. A new
king came to the throne of Ammon. If you go back a little bit in the story. A new king
came to the throne. And the old king had been pretty good to David. And so David sent some
guys to console the new king at the loss of his father and say I'm really sorry your dad
died and he was always good to me and I want to be friends basically. But the advisors
to the new king said to him is he just sending people to console you or are they spying out
the land so that they can conquer the land? Right? And so they shamed the men. They cut
off their beards. And they sent them back to David and basically this new king was saying
we want nothing to do with you. Leave us alone. You know we think you're just trying to spy
on us so you can capture our land. When David wasn't trying to do that he was in earnest
trying to be genuine. He was trying to be kind to them. So he let the men stay in the
village, regrow their beards, let them come back, give the report. Now David's mad because
his men were shamed. Right? And he's thinking about going to war. So the king of Ammon hires
a bunch of mercenaries from the Amorites. Six thousand chariots and some soldiers. A bunch
of them. Thousands. I think it was seven thousand. Six or seven thousand chariots. Anyway. And
they defeat them all. They defeat all the mercenaries. In fact they deal with the Amorites
first. And now they're ready to deal with Ammon after all that. That's what's going
on here. These guys did not have to be David's enemy. They did not. David wasn't setting
out to destroy them initially. But after they shamed his men and told him that they didn't
want nothing to do with him, then that changed everything. So Joab leads the army against
Ammonites or against Ammon. And then we have capital G, capital V. Anyone want to take
a stab at that? Okay. It's actually just great victory. You could say God's victory, but
I'll show you why not so much in a minute. Why I wouldn't say that. Great victory. And
let me read a little bit here. So we're following with the text. I'm actually reading from 1
Chronicles chapter 20. I know that we're under the 2 Samuel 11, one side, but listen to this.
It says, Then it happened in the spring, at the time when kings go out to battle, that
Joab led out the army and ravaged the land of the sons of Ammon, and came and besieged
Rabah. But David stayed at Jerusalem, and Joab struck Rabah and overthrew it, and David
took the crown of their king from his head, and he found it to weigh a talent of gold.
That's a lot. And there was a precious stone in it, and it was placed on David's head.
And he brought out the spoil of the city of a very great amount, and he brought out the
people who were in it, and cut them with saws and sharp instruments and with axes. And thus
David did to all the cities of the sons of Ammon. Then David and all his people returned
to Jerusalem. So after the great victory, David does go out, and they do all this nasty
things to the people and destroy them. Mind you, none of that had to happen. They decided
they wanted to be at war with God's people. They didn't have to do that. But it's a great
victory, as in represented by the crown. So the crown of the king of Ammon is taken from
him, and he's put to death, and put on David's head. So there is a great victory. However,
something else happens in this story that's not told, and it goes in these blanks. Anyone
want to take a stab at the blanks without hearing any more than we have? If not, we'll
come back to it. So we've got S-U-G-A-D. Any ideas for this story? The other part of the
story? The part that we're about to read? Okay, so let's take a stab at it. We're going
to read it. 10-1. Now it happened after that... Oops, hold on. Second Samuel. It's 11-1,
sorry. Then it happened in the spring at the time when the kings went out to battle, that
David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons
of Ammon and besieged Rabah, but David stayed at Jerusalem. Now when evening came, David
arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof
he saw a woman bathing. So now if you go over on the left side, the first three blanks,
I gave you... I didn't give you the letters. They are the same as the other side. David
stays home. So we know David stays home. We're on the left side of the page. Now we're working
our way down the left side. David stays home. Okay? And when David stays home, what happens?
That's right. David sees Bathsheba bathing. That's perfect. Okay? So it says, Now when
evening came, David arose from his bed, walked around on the roof of the king's house, and
from the roof he saw a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful in appearance.
So David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter
of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers and took her. And when
she came to him, he lay with her. And then when she had purified herself from her uncleanness,
she returned to her house. Okay? So the next one, I gave you the first and the third letter.
And you want to take a stab at it? David took her. That's right. David took her or takes
her, either one, depending on the tense of the verb. David took her. Okay? So all of
this is happening. Are you following? You've got a funny look on your face. Okay? So David
stays home. David sees Bathsheba bathing. David takes her or David took her. Got it?
Okay. Okay. So he's having this other man's wife. This is not his greatest day, right?
Then after he lay with her, she waits for herself to be cleaned again. She gets cleaned up,
whatever, and she returned to her house. Verse five. And the woman conceived, and she sent
and told David and said, I am pregnant. Then David, what's that? Ritro. Yeah, exactly.
Then David said to Joab, sent to Joab saying, now mind you, this is while they're besieging
the city, right? So we haven't had the full victory yet. They're besieging the city. Send
me Uriah the Hittite. So Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked
concerning the welfare of Joab and the people in the state of the war. So he makes a pretense
of asking about what's going on at the front. That's what you would do with a good warrior
who comes home. You say, well, tell me what you think. How are things going? Right? How's
the war going? Does it look like we're going to win? How's our supplies? You know, just
basically ask them the questions. Verse eight. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your
house and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house and a present from the
king was sent out after him. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the
servants of his Lord and did not go down to his house. So he refuses to go home. So this
guy comes home from war and battle and he refuses to go home to be with his wife. Verse
10. Now when they told David saying Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to
Uriah, have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house? And Uriah
said to David, the Ark and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary shelters and my Lord
Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house
to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? So he knows that that's what you do when you
go home. That David knows that all men of war know that's what you do when you go home.
Right? By your life and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing. He's dedicated to
the men he serves alongside. The Ark or the covenant is not where it belongs. He's like,
I'm not going to do this. Verse 12. Then David said to Uriah, stay here today also and tomorrow
I will let you go. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. Now David called him
and he ate and drank before him and he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out
to lie on his bed with his Lord's servants, but he did not go down to his house. So he
stayed with him, fed him up, gives him a big feast, gets him drunk and he still won't go
lay with his wife. He did everything he could to get the man to go home and be with his
wife, but he didn't do it. Verse 14. Now it came about in the morning that David wrote
a letter to Joab and it's sent it by the hand of Uriah. So Uriah himself takes this letter
that we're about to read the results of. But he's loyal to David. He won't read the letter,
keeps the letter sealed and he takes it to Joab. And he had written in the letter saying,
place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him so that he may
be struck down and die. So it was as Joab kept watch on the city that he put Uriah at the
place where he knew there were valiant men. So where the strong warriors of the enemy
were. And the men of the city went out and fought against Joab and some of the people
among David's servants fell and Uriah the Hittite also died. Okay? So we went as far
as D-A-U-D. What do you think? Capital D is David. I'll give you that. David what?
David authorizes Uriah's death. Yep. Arranges. David arranges or authorizes would be fine
too but arranges Uriah's death. Okay? So he died. David arranges Uriah's death. Then
here we find what we didn't find on the other side. So if you trace right over to the right
and in the horizontal words, follow death, go over, there's an S. This word speaks of
Uriah. It's a single word. What was Uriah? To David. No actually it seemed like he wasn't
suspicious I think. I don't think he was. I think he was just loyal. It didn't seem
like he was suspicious to me. Maybe he was. We don't really know because it's written
from the other side. He was a servant. Okay? Now listen. David's the king. David can have
any woman in the kingdom he wants. Uriah is a servant and a loyal servant. He didn't just
steal some guy's wife. He stole what might be the most loyal Hittites wife. This guy
would not even go and lie with his wife while the army was still in the field and the other
men couldn't come home. He was loyal to his men at arms, the people that he was fighting
alongside of. So it's servant and the capital U is Uriah. And now they want to take a stab
at G-A-D. It's not like how we would normally talk. The men of the city went out and fought
against Joab and some of the people among David's servants fell and Uriah the Hittite
also died. So what I know is a little weird but it's gets also dead. That's what Uriah
got. He got a letter from David to take to Joab and it gets also dead. That's what he
winds up. For his loyalty, for his service, for his strength, for his combat, everything
that he did, all of it, he just gets a line. He's also dead. Verse 18, then Joab sent
and reported to David all the events of the war. He charged the messenger saying, When
you have finished telling all the events of the war and the king, and if it happens that
the king's wrath rises and he says to you, Why did you go so near to the city to fight?
Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who struck down Abimelech the son
of Jerubishah? Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he
died at Sebez? Why did you go so near the wall? Then you shall say, Your servant Uriah
the Hittite is dead also. In other words, he's telling him this was all arranged to
make sure that Uriah died. But notice, why would David be angry? What would he be upset
about? Why is Joab expecting him to be upset? Yeah, losing, not winning at least at that
point, losing and also men dying. It's not just Uriah the Hittite, right? Others died.
They lost a bunch of men. So they don't have to lose any men. The city is besieged.
Only if they come out to fight, right? You don't go near the wall and get shot at by
archers. That's just basically, and you take bullets and die, right? That's just dumb.
You don't go up there. So David might well be upset because people died. And the truth
is David should be upset if even Uriah the Hittite died. But in this case, David's
arranging for it. So he's not upset about that. And he takes that excuse, if you will,
or Joab believes that that excuse will be sufficient that they were busy arranging for
the death of Uriah the Hittite. So the messenger departed, came and reported to David all that
Joab had sent him to tell. And the messenger said to David, the men prevailed against us,
came out against us in the field, but we pressed them as far back as the entrance of the gate.
In other words, we were winning the battle. We just kept pursuing them to the gate. Moreover,
the archer shot at your servants from the wall. So some of the king's servants are dead.
And your servant, Uriah the Hittite, is dead also, or is also dead. Then David said to
the messenger, thus you shall say to Joab, do not let this thing displease you for the
sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle against the city stronger and
overthrow it, and so encourage him. Now when the wife of Uriah the Hittite heard that
Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. When the time of mourning was
over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife. Then she bore him
his son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. So there
was a great victory, but not really God's great victory, right? This is all arranged
by David and his men. The great victory is David's great victory, or Joab's great victory,
but it's not really done in the way that God would want it to be. Very briefly, I'm going
to summarize the next part, and I'll hit a few verses. It says, Then the Lord sent
Nathath to David, and he came to him and said, There were two men in the city, the one rich,
the other poor. The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing
except one little yew lamb, which he bought and nourished, and it grew up together with
him and his children. It would eat his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom,
and it was like a daughter to him. A traveler came to a rich man, I'm just going to read
through four, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare
for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather, he took the poor man's yew lamb and prepared
it for the man who had come to him. So what is he doing here? What's happening in the
story? Nathan's telling David a story. What's the story really about? What he just did.
Okay? So how is Uriah the Hittite's wife like the yew lamb? Anyone want to take a stab at
it? If this is about what he just did, then Uriah the Hittite must be that guy and the
yew lamb must be his wife. Go ahead. Okay, yeah, so he took what he wanted from somebody
else. How many wives did Uriah the Hittite have? One. Just one. A good one, but just one.
Right? Kind of a little bit debatable because we don't really have any in the story where
she resists at all. She probably did. She probably at least passively resisted, although
it was the king, so what was she really going to do? Yeah, David had more than one wife
already. Yeah, exactly. So David's anger burned greatly against the man and he said to
Nathan, as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. Get it?
So David pronounced his judgment on the man who did that and he must make restitution
to the lamb, for the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and had no compassion.
Nathan then said to David, You are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, it is I
who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul.
I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care and I gave
you the house of Israel and Judah and if that had been too little I would have added to
you many more things like these. Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing
evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword, have taken his
wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now
therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and
have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, Behold I
will raise up evil against you from your own household. I will even take your wives before
your eyes and give them to your companion and he shall lie with your wives in broad
daylight. Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and
under the sun. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan
said to David, the Lord also has taken away your sin, you shall not die. However, because
by the deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child
also that is born to you shall surely die. So Nathan then went to his house. Okay, so
the next one on the line, NCD. What do you think? Yep, Nathan chastises David, Nathan
confronts David, Nathan, I don't know, he might come up with another one. Can't say
curses. You could say that, yep, any of those would work. Although the pronouncement, the
actual judgment is from David, not from Nathan really. But interestingly enough, what does
David said should happen to the man after the story? He should die. And what does Nathan
say will happen to David? He'll be spared. He said you will not die. God forgives your
sin and you will not die. However, because this deed you have given occasion to the enemies
of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die. Ouch.
Alright, and so then we have GC, God's curse. Nathan pronounce a curse. And it is that the
child would die, that's bad enough. But on top of that it says that David's wives will
be taken in broad daylight by a companion of David. There would be nothing that David
can do about it, it's pretty bad. So at the bottom of your, you've got the top here. If
you'll look right in the middle, we haven't filled in the blanks of kind of like the above
battle yet. And the blanks are in the spring when kings go out to, and then there's the
big word battle. You see it in the axis? In the spring when kings go out to battle. The
battle, the word battle is already there. Okay? And then you follow the line down to
the bottom, you've got loss and victory. How was this a great victory? How was it a great
victory? Yeah, they beat him bad. In fact, they destroyed the society. They destroyed
him. And you know, I always thought the way he kills the Ammonites is a little bit rough,
but it could well be because he leaves after the baby dies and goes out there and that's
when he deals all that terrible viciousness to the Ammonites. He has them drawn and quartered
and everything else. It's really bad what he does to them. Why he does it, whatever,
it's unknown. But it is a great victory because God's people defeat Ammon with very little
losses. Okay? But why is it a loss? Why is it a loss?
I think it's a slow thing. Victory wasn't the worst. Victory was kind of, basically little
by little not following God. Even though it was a great victory, victory wasn't what God
wanted to do. They all make mistakes of course, but the idea is that he was constantly little
by little not following God anymore. It was his victory, it was his battle.
Yeah, I mean his heart definitely wound up in the wrong place, didn't it? I mean, take
another man's wife just because she's, I mean, let's be realistic. How many women were probably
in Israel that day that if David saw them bathing he might have said, she's pretty hot. Not
just one, right? And yet he took her and then tried to kill her husband, first tried to
get him to come home and sleep with her so that it would be Uriah's child, right? So
it would be his master child. He could still be heir to the throne potentially someday,
but Uriah and Beth Shiba would raise that child of their own if David's deception had
worked and it didn't. Then he got the guy drunk and still tried to get him to go home
and stagger into his wife, right? Which you assume then that means that Uriah, that she
probably would have, if he had gone home, even if they didn't have sex, right? They
probably would have made it look like they did to cover up the sin. If he had just went
home and slept, passed out in bed with his wife in the morning, she would have woke up
and she said, oh honey, you were great last night. I'm sure we're going to have a child
out of this, you know, or whatever. They would have covered up the sin. So they did all of
that and that still didn't work. So then he flexes his military might and he has the guy
killed and he has Joab do it because he didn't even go out there. He wasn't at the scene
of the battle because he stayed home, right? So I submit to you that it's a great loss
because there are two battles going on at all times. One battle is about money, resources,
health, clear thought maybe even if you want to take it that far, relationships, respect,
you know, all of those things, right? The whole war against Ammon comes out of the fact
that they disrespected David. David sent men to them with a gift to say, oh, so sorry for
the loss of your father. Your father was always good to me. Hope we can maintain our allegiance,
whatever. And they shamed those men and sent them back with their beard shaved. And he
said, we want nothing to do with you because we think you're just trying to spy out the
land, which was not the case. That's not it. So then this whole war results because that
well, that and the fact that because they thought a war was coming after they did the
wrong thing, they hired all the mercenaries. So then David and Joab and all the men of
Israel wiped out the mercenaries, destroyed the Amorites, that country, subjugated them.
Some of them were allowed to live by the way, and they became servants. And then this country,
which is the ones that hired them and started everything, he wiped them out. So the point
is, there's two battles going on. One is, can you say it this way, circumstantial. At
all times, you got to deal with what you're going through. But there's another battle
going on behind the scenes at every war. It's a battle for the heart. It's a battle to be
in relationship with God, right? Like we talked about fulfilling all righteousness. Two weeks
ago, right? So now I have a heart that is regenerated as I am saved and sealed by the
Holy Spirit. And if my heart can do evil after that, I have a real problem. Now if my mind
does evil, my heart is resisting and saying, no, I know I'm not supposed to be doing this,
but I'm having a hard time stopping, right? Then I might wind up in the same place that
David wound up, which is forgiven by God, but still suffering the wrath of God for the
choices that I made, which would be a terrible loss because that's not what did God say?
I gave you all of this. And if that wasn't enough for you, how would I give you a whole
bunch more things like that? This is exactly where we walk, right? If you think about all
the good things you have in your life and all the things that God has given you, and
you say, well, I don't have very much. If you think you don't have very much, you're
missing most of what you have, right? So think about all the things that you have and realize
that if God knows and God says that in order for you to feel loved by Him, if He has to
give you more, He'll give you more. I'm not saying He'll make you rich. He'll give you
more things sufficient that you know that you're loved, right? So you're not going to
go through life feeling unloved. If you have a relationship with God, the Holy Spirit testifying
inside you says you're saved and knowing that you're saved, that's huge, right? I'll never
forget when Sherri was calling me to tell me that she had lost her job and we knew that
she was going to lose her house, everything, we're up in Michigan. And she said, I drove
for 45 minutes afraid to call you because she was driving over two hours to get home.
So I was afraid to call you, I was afraid of how you'd react. And I said, well, I don't
know what you thought I was going to say, but listen, God's going to take care of everything.
Everything's going to be okay. I said, if we wind up living with family while we get
back on our feet, we lose both our houses. None of that matters. Houses, properties, cars,
nothing. None of it matters. What matters is we'll be together under God and it's going
to be okay. And in that moment, because God led me to do that, I'm not saying anything
good about me, I'm saying God led me to do that. And because I was able to do that in
that moment, she realized that she could always come to me, that we were always going to be
together. And if I had said to her, what do you think, you keep firing me, we're going
to lose our house, and you know, start cussing her out or something, there's no coming back
ever. You know, you ruined what you had with your spouse at that point. And so what I'm
getting at is all the circumstances that you face in life, God loves you, sent his own
son to die for you while you were still a sinner. You now know that hopefully you're
saved. If you're not, commit your life to Christ because he loves you that much, right?
And then don't live your life in a way that leads you to a place where you suffer great
loss when the alternative is an abundant life that God paid for. Okay? So we're down on
the bottom of the page, and they're summing up this way, and I've got one more thing.
So it's victory outside God's will results in long lasting suffering. So you know that
on the highway of holiness, you've heard me say this many times probably, if you haven't,
you're going to hear it one more time, okay, that there is suffering on the highway of
holiness. The Bible says there's suffering and sighing on the highway of holiness. We're
all going to experience suffering. But not all suffering has the same character, okay?
There's different kinds of suffering. There's a thing called a chirodic moment, and a
chirodic moment is a moment that seems to last for an eternity. Caitlin, do you remember
when you were on the beach and it was cold and blowy and Aaron got down on his knee?
How long do you think you'll remember that moment? Yeah, until the Metro sets in, you
can't remember your own name, right? It's a chirodic moment, right? Some suffering is
like that. I think David will ever forget this, what he's done. According to Psalm 51,
he says, I'll never forget this, right? And he wrote Psalm 51 probably right after the
Sabbath. Some suffering is like that. When you betray God and God sets you in place,
okay, you're going to be okay. Now you're going to face the penalty for this, but you're
going to be okay. I'm still going to save you. I paid for this, right? It's hard to
ever get out of that. It's hard to ever truly let that go because you realize you betrayed
God. You betrayed the one who died for you, right? Think of Peter and Judas, the difference.
Peter wept knowing that he had denied Jesus three times. And you better believe he never
forgot that night, ever. His whole time in ministry, that became a chirodic moment. He
betrayed Jesus, was still forgiven, was called the Lord. And he said, do you love me, tend
my sheep? And you told him three times, do that. And so he became a leader in the New
Testament church and he never would look back. And ultimately he would sacrifice his life
for his faith in Christ, right? Judas on the other hand, who thought of Jesus as a great
teacher, but not as Lord, as we studied that in the Last Supper text, called him teacher,
not Lord, right? He realized that he betrayed Jesus terribly for silver, right? And he goes
back and he throws the coins in the temple and they wouldn't take his blood money. So
they bought the potter's field and all that. He hung himself until his guts burst open
and he drained out on the ground, right? So the difference is Peter is saved, has a heart
after God like David has, betrays God terribly, but is still forgiven. Judas never really
had that firsthand experience of the Lord, right? And he couldn't get past it at all.
He encountered a chirodic moment of suffering and he was done, he was spent, right? Now
some will say he did get saved because he was repentant. I don't know if he'll be in
heaven or not, it's not my job, but what I know is that out of his suffering he took
his own life. And out of Peter's suffering he repented, turned to the Lord and became
a devout Christian for the remainder of his days. So go that route, right? Victory outside
God's will, no matter how good it goes for you, is still going to hurt forever, right?
You can literally go, okay, well I'm living for God and God won't mind if I sneak this,
if I take this thing, or if I tell this lie. If I get away with it, it'll be okay because
God forgives me anyway, right? But there is suffering that arises out of that that has
a certain caliber. It's like putting on dirty underwear that you've already worn for three
or four days in a row, God forbid, right? Or you're digging in a ditch in the mud and
it's a sewer ditch and nastiness is getting on your clothes, you get out of bed the next
day, get in the shower, get all cleaned up and go put those pants on again. And you'll
be doing that for the rest of your life if you fight like David fought. So that last
set of lines then is even if it, quote, works, it hurts. Even if it works, it hurts. If you
claim victory of your own strength after saying you're only walking in Christ, for example,
it will still hurt. It will not help you. You will be making sacrifices, you will suffer,
you will struggle in a way that you would not otherwise. Now all the blanks are full,
but let me ask you, as we did the whole lesson, what was the first mistake that David made?
He stayed home. Take a breath. Have you ever stayed home? Have you ever not, not smoking
up, not gone to worship, not gone to Bible study, not served God when you could have?
That's the first thing that David did that set him on the road to the mistake that David
made that would become a chirodic moment of suffering, a curse that would be the death
of his child. The child which arose out of the sinful union of him and that's Shiva,
right? So it's not like I'm saying like my kid's life is not online because my kid is
not born out of that. That's not what happened. But what else could be? Whatever fits, right?
So if you say, well, I'm going to blow off going to worship to take a job where I'm going
to have to work every Sunday, even though you know you're supposed to worship, you take
a job where you got to work every Sunday, then wouldn't it be justice for God to strike
your finances? Make it so you can't pay your bills? That would be justice, right? So God
can do whatever he wants to do that makes sense. When my kids, for example, if a child
sneaks an extra dessert, what's an appropriate punishment? You know, you whoop them on the
butt for basically stealing if you want to do that. But if you've got a child that basically
understands they've already done wrong, what's a reasonable punishment if they snuck an extra
dessert? Say it again. No more dessert. For how long? Well, whatever it takes for them
to figure out what they did was wrong, right? So you take that mistake that they made, that
thing, and you help them learn that that's not appropriate. Well, God is going to do
the same thing with us. Why? Why would God, why would God make that baby die? That's horrible.
That doesn't even sound right. Didn't God love that baby? Babies are alive from conception.
That's a living being born out of the sinful union of Beth Jiva and David. It's a horrible
thing. But where did the baby wind up? Well, heaven. So was it really all that terrible?
He went to heaven. I mean, it's horrible if you love the baby and you don't get to be
with the baby, right? So it's horrible in this lifetime. It's a horrible thing. But
the baby's in heaven. Why did God so severely bring down the hammer on David in this instance?
Because there are two battles going on at any given time. And what's worse than that,
David already knew that. David already knew that at any given time there are always two
battles going on. The one that's circumstantial in the world with these factors, these details,
this money, this strength, this victory, this loss, right, that's in the world, and also
the battle for a man's heart. David already knew that. And so when you already know that,
and now you do, and then you willingly go outside what God has planned for you, and
you try to get a victory that's outside God's will, you better believe it's going to result
in a long-lasting suffering. And he's just to do so because he's trying to save your
soul, or my soul, because I could do it too. We all must learn that when it's time to go,
it's time to go. We're going to close in prayer, but first I'm going to give away a cane.