I want to start with a game of word association. I will say the first word and you say the first word that pops into your head. Are you ready? Strawberries and…(cream/shortcake/ice cream). Baseball and… (hot dogs/apple pie). Movies and… (popcorn). David and… (Goliath). Isn’t it interesting that we almost always associate David with Goliath above anyone or anything else? We shouldn’t be surprised, because the David and Goliath story has all of the elements of a great story. At its core, it is an underdog story, and everyone likes to root for the underdog. It has an epic battle scene, a teenaged hero and an overwhelming victory. It even has some nearly comic elements if you have eyes to see them. And to pull it all together, it is a story of great and powerful faith in a great and powerful God.

I am glad that David is known for his victory over Goliath because there are continual lessons to be learned from this victory, but there are equally valid lessons to be learned from David’s failures. Last week we took no more than a glimpse at David’s sins with Bathsheba and we especially focused on his repentance. David sinned in a big way, but he also repented in a big way. This cannot be said enough in the church: for the heart that is truly repentant, God’s mercy is always bigger than our sin. If you don’t think you need God’s mercy, then you don’t understand your sin, but if you think your sin is too big for God, then you don’t understand God’s mercy. We have all witnessed the power of water during the recent floods. At Living Waters Bible Camp, the small creek washed out a road. Andrew told me that he actually saw the road give way and wash down stream. But when the waters receded there was still a passable road across the stream. But if we would have gotten eighteen inches of rain instead of nine, you would have stood in the same place and said to yourself, “Road? What road? I don’t see a road.” In the same way, God’s cleansing mercy flows like a torrential flood washing away our sin, so when it is done we can say to ourselves, “Sin? What sin? I don’t see any sin.”

But as I said last week, even if the punishment for sin is washed away, often the consequences of sin remain. During the second half of David’s life we see the consequences of his sin spill out into his family. David was a living example of the second commandment. “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”^[i]  I don’t mean to imply that David hated God, but David’s hatred of some of God’s commands led to his sins being passed down through his family.

I am going to be covering a big section of Scripture this morning, chapters 13-19 of 2 Samuel. Last week I didn’t read the long story of David and Bathsheba because I assumed you were familiar with the basic storyline. As I pull from seven whole chapters this morning, I am again assuming that you are familiar with these stories, and if you are not, I strongly encourage you to read them this week.

Here is a picture of David’s family lineage. What’s the first thing you notice about this family tree? Normally in a family tree, you see a simple pattern that is repeated: father-mother-child; father-mother-child. But in David’s family tree, the pattern is: father, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother. David had seven wives before his affair with Bathsheba, whom he eventually married, making a total of eight wives. Does anyone see a problem with this? J Obviously, having multiple wives and multiple children by those wives was the core of David’s problems. If you haven’t already, you will eventually struggle with one of the hard questions in the Bible: Why did God even allow David to have eight wives in the first place? Why did God allow other prominent men in the Bible to have more than one wife? I don’t have time to explain my entire answer to this tough question, but let me say two things. First, it is abundantly clear that from Genesis to Jesus, the Biblical standard for marriage is one man and one woman for life. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[ii] Second, the most important parenting tool you have at your disposal is a great marriage. If your marriage is good, then make a decision to make it great. Why would you want to settle for a good marriage when it can be great? And if your marriage is not good, then I want to encourage you that it can not only be good, but it can be great.

God allowed David to have eight wives and we will now be able to see all of the trouble that resulted from his polygamous choices. But first, let’s review David’s main sins with Bathsheba, which are as follows: rape, murder, betrayal and adultery. The consequences of these four sins were lived out among David’s many children from his many wives for years to come. The consequence of David’s rape was lived out when David’s firstborn son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar. David saw a beautiful woman named Bathsheba and he took her to satisfy his own selfish desires. In the same way, Amnon saw a beautiful woman named Tamar and he took her to satisfy his own selfish desires. Like Father, like son.

Now here is where we have to tread very carefully. I am not suggesting that Amnon raped his sister because David raped Bathsheba. It is not as simple as a direct cause and effect. David was responsible for his sin and Amnon was responsible for his, but there is no question that David’s self-centered abuse of power heavily influenced the decisions of his firstborn son. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin both had many things in common, including abusive fathers who routinely gave them undeserved, severe beatings. Did their evil fathers turn Hitler and Stalin into monstrous killers? I would say no, their fathers didn’t cause them to turn out the way they did. Otherwise, the untold millions of other children who have had abusive fathers would also all turn into monsters, and that just doesn’t happen. We may never understand the specific relationship between our sin and that of our children, but there is no question that we carry a heavy influence over their actions.

Here are two Scriptures that apply to this issue. The first is from Dt. 24 “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.”^[iii] This verse is saying that if a man commits murder, his father cannot be blamed for the murder. Each person is a free, moral agent responsible for his or her own choices. A well known verse from the gospels gives some balance to the passage in Deuteronomy. “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”^[iv] This verse deals with a person who purposefully entices another person to sin. In other words, if David had enticed Amnon to commit rape, then it seems as if David would have been equally guilty. Let me try to put this into a principle. Every parent bears full responsibility before the Lord to raise their children in the fear and training of the Lord. In extreme cases, it is possible for the parents to bear blame for the actions of their children, but in most cases, the parent has great influence, but does not bear direct blame for the sins of their children. This is important to set this forth clearly now, because as we see the other sins of David being passed to his sons, I don’t want any parent to leave here feeling the brunt of blame for their own children. At the same time, I want us to look soberly at the way we parent our kids, even if they are grown and out of the house.

After Amnon’s great sin against his sister, how do you think David responded? All that is recorded for us is this. “When King David heard all this, he was furious.” That’s all we know. I get the impression that David didn’t say anything to Amnon, which was clearly a case of extreme neglect on David’s part. This highlights one of the dire consequences of our sin—our sin can cut into our moral authority to speak the truth. Take the example of former NY Governor Elliot Spitzer. If Spitzer had had an affair with another woman, no one would have thought twice about it. The world scoffs at adultery, but Spitzer’s great sin was not adultery, but hypocrisy and a miscarriage of justice. Spitzer had built a reputation on fighting organized prostitution, so when he was discovered to have visited a prostitute, he immediately lost all of his moral authority. Imagine if he had tried to prosecute a prostitution ring after this episode. He would have been laughed and ridiculed out of the courtroom! David must have felt similar to Governor Spitzer. By what authority could he have rebuked his son for the same sin that he had committed not long ago? We are only left wondering what might have happened if David had never sinned against Bathsheba. Maybe Amnon would not have fallen into the same sin, but if he did, David would have been able to stand tall upon his moral authority.

Put simply: hypocrisy empties our parenting of necessary power. Hypocrisy undercuts our ability to speak Biblical truth into the lives of our family. However, not all is lost, because even the worst situation can be redeemed. David demonstrated genuine repentance for his sin and if he had carefully instructed his son in the art of repentance, things might have turned out differently. Hypocrisy weakens us, but it need not destroy us. If a lack of hypocrisy was necessary in order to be a parent, then I should have been stripped of my duties the moment Ryan was born! If a lack of hypocrisy was necessary in order to be a pastor, then I would still be working as a Medical Technologist. I am a hypocrite! And so are you, but the important thing is what we do with our hypocrisy. If we use our hypocrisy as opportunities to show and teach repentance, then even our hypocrisy can bring about good results. If we can readily confess our sins to our children—again, even if they are adult children—then not only will our hypocrisy lessen, our power to teach will increase.

I wish I could say that this was the end of the consequences of David’s sins, but we are not even close to the end. Tamar’s older brother was David’s son Absolom. Here is how he reacted to the offense against his little sister. “Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.”^[v] Absolom nursed his hatred of Amnon for two full years. He cared for and tended the anger in his heart like it was a prized garden. Absolom made certain that his anger grew into full bloom. Do you know anyone like this? Anger and unforgiveness don’t need a lot of fertilizer to grow large. Sometimes, all you really need to do is ignore it and it will sprout like a thorny thistle. But I don’t think that Absolom ignored his anger. I think he loved his anger. I think his anger made him stronger and more ready to avenge his sister. But long before he gave the order to strike down his brother, he had already killed Amnon. On the day he learned of his sister’s disgrace, he killed Amnon with the hatred in his heart.

How many people have you killed in this way? If you are painfully honest, how many dead bodies have you left behind you? Teens and young people, how many times have you stabbed your mom or dad in the heart with your anger? Husbands and wives, would you still have a husband or a wife today if you had literally acted on your anger? We have to be deadly serious about killing the sin of anger before it kills others or kills us.

I had to be busy killing my own anger this past week. A few of you know the inside track of how the building project went this week. Each day, sometimes each hour brought a new surprise with it. And when I say surprise, I don’t mean a “Happy Birthday surprise,” or “surprise, you just inherited a million dollars”. By surprise, I mean, “How could this happen? How could they do this to us?  On Tuesday, several of us worked all day with those nasty jumping jack compactors. That machine kicked so much sand on me that Tuesday night I had three separate dreams about brushing sand off of my face and body. Later that day we were told that all of our hard work would have to be dug up and redone the next day. I was shocked at first, but for some reason that didn’t bother me too much. But there were other things that did bother me. I got mad. Here’s an early warning sign of anger. If you are thinking something like, “How could he do that to me?/How could she do that to me?” chances are, you are starting to nurse a grudge. I started doing that this week, and literally, while I was writing this message, I had to repent of the seeds of my bitterness. We can already see the necessity of genuine repentance in a building project.

But Absolom didn’t repent and he acted on his anger. What was David’s reaction this time? Nothing. There is no evidence that he ever confronted Absolom. Once again, David lacked the moral authority to speak. The hypocrisy of his own murderous actions, even though they were wiped out by God’s mercy, were enough to effectively tie his hands in regard to Absolom. Unfortunately, Absolom wasn’t done yet. It took him a full two years to nurse his anger toward Amnon before he killed him, and after that nasty deed was done, he set to work plotting his betrayal of his father and the kingdom. Nine years after he murdered Amnon, Absolom attempted a coup—a takeover of the nation.

Here is how he did it. (ch. 15) In the course of time, Absalom provided himself with a chariot and horses and with fifty men to run ahead of him. ^2 He would get up early and stand by the side of the road leading to the city gate. Whenever anyone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, “What town are you from?” He would answer, “Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel.” ^3 Then Absalom would say to him, “Look, your claims are valid and proper, but there is no representative of the king to hear you.” ^4 And Absalom would add, “If only I were appointed judge in the land! Then everyone who has a complaint or case could come to me and I would see that he gets justice.”

^5 Also, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him. ^6 Absalom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king asking for justice, and so he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

The people of Israel loved David. From his first victory over the giant Goliath, to his vast military conquests and his sincere worship of the Lord, the people of Israel loved King David. He was handsome, talented, devout and compassionate. In almost every way, David was the ideal leader and ideal king of Israel. How then was Absolom able to steal the hearts of the people away from David in order to betray him? The simple answer is that David had already betrayed the people and it was a small step for them to return the favor. David was very handsome, but Absolom was even better looking. David could give good political speeches, but Absolom had a golden tongue. David had betrayed his own people and Absolom skillfully took advantage of the people’s fears and collective anger and turned the nation against their once beloved David. Again, we see that the consequences of David’s sins found him out. Don’t forget—David was a forgiven man. His sins had been blotted out. His iniquities had been washed whiter than snow. His heart had been recreated and his spirit renewed. His entire soul had been washed in the mercy of God’s unfailing love. God’s mercy is infinite and more powerful than any sin and David knew this. But David was also discovering that God did not promise to remove the consequences of his sin.

We must be able to make a firm distinction between being completely forgiven and experiencing the consequences of our sin. If we do not make this distinction, then the consequences of our sin will continue to haunt us like a terrible nightmare. Our enemy, Satan, will point to the consequences of our sin and mercilessly accuse us saying, “See, you’re not really forgiven. What you did was too bad. You don’t deserve to be forgiven. God has turned his back on you!” If we do not make a distinction between the consequences and forgiveness of sin, then Satan will make you revisit every sin in its gory detail. He will heap on the guilt and shame until you forget you were ever forgiven.

I can bet that David was tempted in this way, because the consequences just kept coming. Absolom added adultery on top of murder and betrayal when he slept with David’s concubines. The consequences continued after David had died when his son Adonijah betrayed Solomon by attempting to steal away his rightful throne. David was a man after God’s own heart, but he sure had a messed up family, didn’t he? Some people say that they have a dysfunctional family or that they came from a dysfunctional family, but now that you know the life of David, I think you will have to rethink the definition of dysfunction. This was written for our encouragement in a number of ways. It shows us that no matter how “dysfunctional” you or your family may seem, no matter what kind of background you came out of, anyone can be a man after God’s own heart. Anyone can be a woman after God’s own heart. It is also written in part to help us see the truth and reliability of the Bible. If the Bible was merely a product of man’s writing, then certainly David’s life would have been whitewashed. The Jewish people would not allow their greatest king to be run through the mud. They would have cut out all of the negative stories and retained all of the positive ones. But instead, we see the unvarnished truth of David’s life which is itself a testimony to its inherent truthfulness.

These things have been written for our encouragement, but they also contain stern warnings. Passing on our sin to the next generation is actually a form of idolatry. Remember the second commandment which promises generational sins? The breaking of this commandment is idolatry, and we can have all kinds of idols of the heart. During his dalliance with Bathsheba, David’s number one idol was David. His idols were the idols of self, the idol of comfort and the idol of pleasure. The idols of our hearts are not just our problem alone, but we actually pass them down to our kids like a treasured family heirloom. Let me illustrate from my own life. Like David, one of the idols of my heart is comfort. My idol of comfort is most easily seen when I am frustrated. The big things in life I usually handle fairly well, but because I place such a high value on personal comfort, it’s the little things that tend to frustrate me the most. Because of this idol of comfort, I am training my kids how to handle frustration. In a sense, I am carefully discipling them in the art of being frustrated. It’s as if I slowly carved out an idol of comfort and regularly showed them my progress. “Look kids, isn’t my idol coming along nicely? A few more years and this thing will look great!” I carve out this idol of comfort and give one to each of my kids.

Here is a two step process for putting and end to this family heirloom idolatry. Step one: identify the idols of your heart. You might have an idol of comfort, or an idol of needing to be liked, needing to be respected, needing ot be appreciated, needing to have your own way in a discussion or decision. Before we can stop passing on beautifully carved idols to the next generation, we need to identify them. Step two: by the power of the gospel, smash those idols to dust and then show the smashed idol to your kids. These are my idols. If you see me carving one, would you please stop me? This is one of the marks of spiritual maturity: giving other permission to speak truth into our lives.

David sinned in a big way, but he repented in a big way too. No sin, nothing is beyond the realm of God’s mercy.

Rich Maurer

June 29, 2008