This chapter - it starts out 2 Samuel 11.
In my Bible, it's got a subheading entitled,
"David's Great Sin."
David's Great Sin.
And the first three words: "Then it happened..."
I come back to this chapter
whenever I read this chapter,
whenever I come upon this chapter
I just... I just...
recoil.
I just read it and feel,
David, my dear friend,
I am so sorry for you.
And you just think,
O God,
keep us.
Keep us.
Men, women, older men, older women,
younger men, younger women,
all of us.
Well, I tell you, David - he conquered a Goliath.
But that enemy there was nothing
compared to the one that got him.
These fleshly lusts are...
they are a bigger giant than Goliath.
And you look at David's life.
And you can't believe it happened.
You know, "then it happened."
You can't believe it happened.
As David, you know, is set before us,
he was a standard.
He was an example of godliness and righteousness.
Always being set forth.
He was a man after God's heart.
He was a man who in such a rare way
was a man who sought after God's heart
and had intimacy with God.
He was a man who was in love with God
and had a passion for God,
who thirsted for God
like the deer pants for the water brooks.
And yet, it happened.
How can it be?
God is just so transparent.
He put it in there.
It's in the Bible.
Written down for our instruction.
Written for our learning.
It's written for our admonition.
It's written for our warning.
It's written that we might take heed
and not fall into the same miry clay
and horrible pit.
It's written for our benefit.
It would take more than one hand to number
the pastors and pastor's wives
that I know of
that have been destroyed -
ruined, their work, their ministry,
their reputation has been ruined
by this sin right here.
And it's just "an ox to the slaughter."
It's that type of thing we're looking at here.
Satan knows if he cannot get us with a sword,
then he'll do it with a smile.
That's the case of Baal of Peor
and Balaam's counsel to Balak.
He told him how he could get at him.
You couldn't conquer him with a sword
because God was with him
like the horns of a wild ox.
And so here's what you do...
bring some women in.
That led to their defeat, their downfall.
We ought to be warned here
to hate sin and to love righteousness.
It didn't make any difference
that David was about maybe in his 50's.
I mean, it was not a case of youthful lust.
It doesn't matter that the body
is drying up a little bit.
Still, the thing we're dealing with is in the mind.
And that's where Satan's workshop is.
And so, young? Old? It doesn't matter, does it?
It's still something that we must fight Amalek
to the very end.
And we either kill it or it will kill us.
There is no way that we can satisfy lust.
There is nothing that will do it.
It is just out to get you.
It's out to devour you.
It will take you right down.
There is nothing that will satisfy it.
It didn't matter whether he had 100 wives.
Sin and lust cannot be satisfied.
It refuses to be satisfied!
There is only one thing that can be done with sin
and that's kill it!
And it didn't matter that he had had
all these other victories.
Victories over Goliath.
It didn't matter that he was a great warrior,
that he was outstanding,
he was a man of repute.
It didn't matter that he had slain -
Saul his thousands,
David his ten thousands.
It didn't matter that he had attained that success in that area.
In other words, the point here is
that we are obliged before God
and for our own soul to watch,
watch, watch to the very end.
To the end.
He who endures to the end...
And he walked around on the roof
of the king's house,
and from the roof he saw a woman.
"He saw..."
Man fell with a look.
It says she saw that the fruit was good for food.
Man fell with a look
and he is saved by a look -
looking to Jesus.
And so here he saw a woman.
Do we realize?
I think we do -
the power of the lust of the eyes.
How great a forest was set aflame
by such a little fire.
Just a look.
And a look led to an inquiry
and an inquiry to an invitation
and on and down in went
resulting finally in much death.
Here's where it began:
A look.
I mean, here's a man whose conscience
was so sensitive.
He was smitten in his heart
when he just snipped Saul's robe.
Here his conscience
was already hardened and seared.
And he tries to cover it up.
And the Lord sent Nathan.
God uses different means, doesn't He,
to come after us, to recover us.
In the case of Peter,
it was a rooster's crow
and a tender look.
In the case of Job,
it was a majestic revelation.
In the case of Jonah,
it was some kind of a plant.
Here God sent a prophet -
a man with a word for him.
And Nathan, you can imagine,
it was a bit of a challenge.
A bit of a daunting thing for him
to go and reprove this king.
He finally tells him in v. 7,
You are the man I'm talking about.
And David was smitten and repented.
V. 13, "I have sinned against the Lord."
And Nathan said to David,
"The Lord has also taken away your sin
and you will not die."
So, David was spared
and you can understand the overflow
in Psalm 32,
"How blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven,
whose iniquity was covered."
David was spared, but there were consequences.
There was much death
resulting from his sin.
Incredible.
You remember that story about the man -
the mountain climber -
who was up there alone
and a big rock fell on his arm and pinned him?
And he waited for some days.
Couldn't get free
and finally took his knife
and cut his own arm off.
And so the Lord says it's better
that you enter into life
without a member of your body
than to be thrown whole into hell.
We will not be sorry
for dealing radically with sin.
We will not be sorry
for dealing radically with sin.