Today we are going to look at a man who had it all. He had wealth, power and the ladies. That man is King David. We are going to start 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 brought destruction on the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem.
So, we see right out of the gate that King David is not where he was supposed to be. David should have been at battle with his army. How often do we forget how important it is to be where God wants us to be? Every moment of our life. We are going to see that when David was not where God wanted him to be opened the door to temptation. So, David was at his palace one day when he should have been with his soldiers. He was walking on the roof and something caught his eye. It was a lady. Her name was Bathsheba, and he want this lady. He told his servants to go get this lady. This is what his servants told him, “Don’t you know that this is Uriah’s wife?”
Many times, in our walk with God when we are not in the right place or not doing the right thing, He nudges us. This is David’s first nudge that is recorded. It seems that pride has set in in David’s heart. He had all the wealth, the power and every six wives at the time but he still wanted Bathsheba, another man’s wife. Pride. Pride is blinding. It blinds us to the fact we are not where God wants us to be. It blocks us from hearing from the Holy Spirit.
So, this is what David does. He doesn’t listen to his servants. He wants Bathsheba so they go and get her. The Scripture says that David lay with Bathsheba, and he got her pregnant. Now how is Bathsheba going to explain this to Uriah. Uriah is at battle. So, David sends for Uriah and tries to send him home. Uriah refuses to go home and sleeps at the door. David tries again by getting Uriah drunk, but he still refuses to go home to his wife while the other soldiers were at battle. So, David has Uriah killed.
Pride is blinding. It will blind you. Bathsheba is pregnant and the time comes for her to have the baby. So, nine months go by, and David did not repent. At this point, his grace period has ended. We know this because God sent Nathan, the prophet to David. He tells David a story.
There were two men living in this town. One was a rich man with many servants, sheep and livestock. The other was a poor man with only one lamb that he cared for like it was his own child. One day a visitor came to the rich man’s house. Instead of taking a lamb from the many he had, he took the poor man’s one little lamb and cooked it. Now Nathan asked David what should happen to that rich man? David said that man should die. Nathan told David, “You are that man.” Nathan proceeds to tell him that his baby is going to die.
See all this time David was being nudged and pulled on by God. But David wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t to his servants. It says in 2 Sam 12:18
Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us.
David would listen, so God sent a prophet, Nathan to let him know that God saw what he did to Uriah. So, the baby ends up dying because of it.
So, you may be asking what does this story have to do with me? If we are not where God wants us to be at, we are in a dangerous place. When we are not where God wants us to be, it opens up doors to the enemy that he normally wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have those opportunities to deceive us, to trip us up. If we are where God wants us, He protects us. We have a protection around us. When we are not in His will that is when we run into trouble.
Will we still have problems? Absolutely. But if we are in His will those problems are minimized. Serving God and being born again, we go through things. Even if we follow the perfect will of God for our lives, we go through things, but He helps us through them. The problem comes when we are not in the perfect will of God. The enemy is watching, waiting for us to make that mistake. He is like a roaring lion waiting to devour us. If we think he won’t or can’t we are fooling ourselves. We need our Savior. So God pulls and nudges us to get us back in line.
We often don’t listen and then expect God to get us out of it. The great thing about God is, He will. If we repent, He will help us. But we continue to ignore his nudges, continue to ignore the voice, the veil of pride will get thicker and thicker. Before we know it we are no longer hearing anything from God, we are just listening to our own minds instead our hearts. It is the new heart that Christ gives us that transforms the mind, not the mind that transforms the heart. When Jesus brings us our new heart, He is not bringing us a defective heart. He is bringing a perfect heart.
One of the things that is difficult for us to digest when comes to the will of God. Sometimes God will send us someone to tell us the truth about ourselves, sometimes publicly. God loves us too much to leave us in that situation. He will send someone. He doesn’t want to embarrass you, but He will.
Until Next time…Grace be with you.
