A Promise Compromised...

This week, as part of the Christmas story, we are looking at King David, who was a part of the family tree of the Messiah. For the Jewish people, King David was not just a king: King David was the King. Yet, there would be embarrassment for the Jewish people when Matthew, the writer of the account of Jesus life designed to prove that Jesus was the fulfillment of this promise brings up the name Bathsheba.

There would be embarrassment because of what happened between King David, their greatest leader, the man after God’s own heart and Bathsheba. The type of embarrassment that would make a person wish that a part of their story would never be brought up. Because just like you and me, the Jewish people knew about a part of King David’s story that they wished would simply disappear. We read about this chapter of King David’s story, which occurred only a few years after God had made an incredible promise to the King, in 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 Rabbah. 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; 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?" David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, "I am pregnant."

King David, the man after God’s own heart, the man who was their greatest military leader, instead of doing what he was supposed to be doing and called to be doing, decided to do what King David wanted to do. And what King David wanted to do was have a little fun with someone else’s wife, who was doing what King David was supposed to be doing. What King David did not plan for however was that Bathsheba would become pregnant.

So King David had to try to figure out how to get out of this horrible and embarrassing situation. King David comes up with a plan, which we read about in verse 6:

Then David sent to Joab, saying, "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 and the state of the war. 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. 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?" 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? By your life and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing."

Well that did not work out how King David planned it. So King David comes up with another plan:

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.

Uriah was a man that seemed to possess more of a heart for God than King David did at this point. Now, imagine yourself as King David. You grand plan has not worked. How are you going to fix this mess that you have made? We see the king’s final solution recorded for us in the verses that follow:

Now in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 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. 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.

Just when you think the story cannot get any worse, it does just a few verses later in verse 26:

Now when the wife of Uriah 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 a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD.

You think? Now can you see why the Jewish people would want this part of the story of the Jewish people to simply disappear? Can you see how the names of David and Bathsheba in the same sentence would be so embarrassing? Not only was King David’s sin embarrassing; King David’s sin was devastating. King David’s sin, like ripples that form when a rock is dropped in a pond, had devastating consequences to his family and the nation. King David’s sin proved the principle that there is not such sin as private and personal sin. Our selfishness and sin affects and impacts all who are in our sphere of influence.

And for King David, as a leader who represented not only the Jewish people but also represented God, his sin gave the enemies of God an opportunity to ridicule and reject God. So God’s response to David’s sin was swift and severe for David, Bathsheba, and the son that came from their relationship. While David confessed his sin and received forgiveness for his sin, he and his family would have to live with the consequences of their sin, which included the death of their son, for the rest of their lives.

And at about this point in King David's story, I believe that King David was confronted with a fundamental question that many of us have experienced. And that fundamental question is this: “will God still keep His promises to me when I blow it?” Maybe you are a follower of Jesus, and for you the question is “will God still keep His promises when I do something that grieves Him, that wounds Him, that rebels against Him?” Or maybe you are far from God, and for you the question is “how could God keep His promise of forgiveness and relationship with me in light of all that I have done”?

And for King David, he could not help but wonder whether or not that amazing promise that God had made to him was now null and void. David finds the answer to these questions and doubts a short while later.

So, what decisions have you made that you felt devastated your relationship with God? Tomorrow, we will see how God responds to King David's doubts and fears.