In this compelling episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes delves into the storied life of King David, a man after God’s own heart who faced immense temptation and moral failure. Rick walks us through the Biblical narrative in 2 Samuel, where David’s transgressions come to light, providing deep insights into how deception and arrogance led to his downfall. Through this analysis, listeners gain a perspective on the timeless lessons applicable to our own lives, ensuring our actions align with God’s will. Rick further elaborates on the concept of God’s directive, permissive, and overruling wills, emphasizing the importance of
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. It won’t be long, just maybe 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, but absolutely no manipulation. That’s right. No con game here. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re not trying to solicit anything. We’re not asking for any money. It’s just simply a talk show about the Bible to give you some information designed to help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And if I’m able to do that, then you certainly have the freedom and the privacy to orient and adjust to the plan. But the FLOT line, the show you’re listening to now, stands for Forward Line of Troops, F-L-O-T. It’s a military term for a main line of resistance in your soul, learning God’s problem-solving devices, 10 specific problem-solving devices. If you learn them, and this is nothing new, this is not something I discovered, these are age-old biblical truths, but if you learn these and understand these and use them, Then they will stop the outside sources of adversity from ever becoming the inside source of stress. That’s why you’ve heard me say countless times, adversity is inevitable. Stress is optional. And you need to remember that. The Christian life is a life free of stress. It means no worry, no fear, no guilt. None of that sort of stuff, not living like that in hopeless depression and despair. It’s a wonderful way to live. It’s having the mind of Christ, thinking like he thought, living like he lived in the devil’s world. So God gave you a couple of ends. One of those ends you’re sitting on right now and the other one you think with. and success in your life is going to depend on which one of those ends you use. Heads, you’ll win. Tails, you’ll lose. I promise you. So let’s get started. We are studying criminal complications, criminal adversity, criminal thinking in the Bible. If you’ve ever been through any sort of criminal activity, such as having your car stolen or having your home broken into or having your check account fleeced or having your credit card numbers lifted or… I mean, it could be any number of things and… sometimes it comes from the people you’re close to people you trust and so we’ve been studying what does the bible say about criminal activity and we’ve studied a couple of things we’ve studied cain and abel in the book of genesis we’ve studied aiken in the book of joshua now we’re going to take a look at the fall of david the greatest man i guess in the old testament the man after god’s own heart the man that The line of Christ came through, through his son Solomon. David, a phenomenal individual. A man after God’s own heart falls into tremendous temptation. You can read about it. You should read about it. You may find a lot of analogies about your own life in there, but you can read about it in 2 Samuel 11, verses one through 2 Samuel 12, verse 25. This is the same David that defeated Goliath at the battle with the Philistines. This is the amazing David. And the cast of characters in this study include King David and then Joab, his servant, a wonderful, amazing individual named Uriah the Hittite, and then a wonderful lady named Bathsheba, which was the wife of Uriah, and then Nathan, the prophet of God. But the thing to remember as we jump into this study this morning is 2 Samuel 11, 27. The thing David had done displeased the Lord. There is a pattern of failure in 2 Samuel 11. It’s a progressive pattern of sin and cover-up, and that’s what the criminal does. Anyone who gets into criminal arrogance always tries to cover it up, and they usually do it by self-justification. That’s what arrogance does. Arrogance justifies why it’s okay to steal from people. Arrogance justifies why it’s okay to be deceptive. Arrogance justifies why you don’t have to admit your guilt. And there is a pattern of cover-up even in David’s life. It starts in 2 Samuel 11, verse 1, and I’ll read it to you. And it came to pass after the year was ended at the time when kings go forth to battle. Did you hear that? The time when kings go forth to battle. that David sent Joab. David didn’t go. David wasn’t at the battle. He sent Joab, his servant, with him, and all of Israel, and they destroyed. They sent Joab and his servants with him, that’s his soldiers, and all of Israel, and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.” Now here’s some principles to remember. This is the first sin in this pattern of cover-up. David was out of the geographical will of God by remaining behind at Fort Zion and not going to battle with Joab. He got out of the geographical will of God. Yes, principle two. You definitely can sin by getting out of God’s geographical will. And maybe you say you’ve never heard of that before. Well, there are three, point three, principle three. There are three categories of the will of God. I’ll give it to you under A, B, and C. Number one, the directive will of God. That’s point A. And that’s that God wants you to stay in fellowship. God wants you to grow in grace. The Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God. a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. You hear that? Twice. Another verse, grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is God’s directive will that you stay in fellowship with him by using problem-solving device number one, rebound, and that you grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, B, the three categories of the will of God. A, the directive will of God. B, the permissive will of God. And that’s you when you get in carnality. That’s you when you commit sin in your life and you fail to confess the sin. God will allow you to get into carnality if you want to do so. You have free will. You have a volition. You can choose to sin. No one manipulates you. No one causes you, forces you. Any sin you commit, you choose to sin. And number three, our ABC, the overruling will of God. And this is a wonderful thing. This is where God’s wall of fire will protect you. It’s a wonderful thing to know that we have that protection, that overruling will of God keeps us alive in the devil’s world. The devil is a murderer. He’s a killer. And he would like to take you out and take me out because we represent Jesus Christ to our friends. And Satan doesn’t want that. However, we have ministering spirits or what we call guardian angels that guard us, take care of us, protect us. And I bet you can think of a few times in your life you should have checked out by something stupid you did, but you’re still here. God overruled and he kept you here. So these three checkpoints in the will of God, which are critical to you and me, they keep our life on course and they keep us from sliding into arrogant self-justification. Now, I want to give you three checkpoints. Listen carefully. The geographical will of God is the first checkpoint. That means where does he want me to be? There is definitely a place where God wants you to be. There is a place for you to serve. I think this has to do a lot with a local church. I think God wants you in a local church under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor. If you don’t have one in your area, that doesn’t mean you can’t sit under a pastor. You can do what I do. You can order food. You can order DVDs. You can order material and study at home until God shows you where to go. But the geographical will of God, where does he want me to be, indicates that there’s a specific place God wants you to serve him, one specific place he wants you to be. I’ve seen people pack up and move to a new location so they can get face-to-face teaching from the Word of God. I can name a lot of people that did that They heard a well-qualified pastor, they thought his ministry was fantastic, and they moved to his town so they could go to his church and be a part of his congregation. That’s called putting priority number one. So the geographical will of God, where does he want me to be? And number two, the viewpoint will of God is another checkpoint. And this is meaning what does God want me to think? Now, David was out of the geographical will of God, and he definitely wasn’t thinking the viewpoint will of God. You’ll see that in just a minute. But then there’s the operational will of God, another checkpoint to keep your life on course. And that is, what does He want me to do today or even with the rest of my life? And I can say simply, He wants you to grow and use your spiritual gift and serve Him and re-present Jesus Christ. This guidance is provided through Scripture. That’s how God guides you, so you know what His will is. It guides you through Scripture, and you must act upon it with faith perception. Faith perception is an amazing thing. Recently, my own pastor has been teaching on this subject of faith perception, noting that the disciples prior to the crucifixion and the resurrection had not faith perception. They had empirical data. They watched Christ. They talked to Christ. They were with Christ. They could see him. But then he said, I’m going to leave. I’m not going to be here anymore. And you’re going to have to operate by faith now. And I’ll send the Holy Spirit and he’ll help you do that. And the Holy Spirit did come to the disciples. They did operate by faith. And you and I. read what those disciples wrote, we read the canon of scripture, we read the Bible, and we operate by faith, on faith perception. We believe it and we act on it. We don’t have empirical data, we haven’t talked face to face with Christ, we haven’t talked face to face with the disciples, with the apostles, and yet by faith we believe what they wrote. So this guidance for us is provided through Scripture and by means of faith perception. That’s so we will know the operational will of God. Now David knew better than to lag behind. He knew better. And this is a principle you need to remember. Satan will take advantage of your lack of obedience. If he sees you stepping out of the will of God, that’s a prime opportunity for Satan to distract you and defeat you. So listen to how he did it to David. This is the man after God’s own heart. This is the man that defeated Goliath on the battlefield when he was just a kid. 2 Samuel 11, 2, and it came to pass in the evening. I guess he had been taking an afternoon nap or something in the heat of the day. It came to pass in the evening that David arose from his bed, and he walked across his roof, walked upon the roof of his house, And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself. This is 2 Samuel 11, 2. And he saw a woman washing herself. And the woman was very beautiful to look upon. I don’t know if you’re going to call David a peeping Tom or what’s going on here. I don’t quite understand all of that. But, I mean, it’s not a sin to see somebody expose himself. It’s a sin to stare in lust. Obviously, he was taken by the moment. He was being tempted in the wrong place, and he faced unnecessary temptation. Sometimes you’ll be exposed to things. That doesn’t mean that you give in to those things. You may see them and turn away and say, no, I’m not going to buy into that. he should have turned away he should have given her her privacy he should have said oh my gosh i i don’t need to look at that and he just said lady put some clothes on or whatever but he didn’t he was in the wrong place and he faced unnecessary temptation this tells us something about satan satan knew david’s weakness he knew david had a weakness of the flesh we all have lust patterns we all have a weakness you do and i do some people are have sex lust like david did here some people have powerless like many politicians do today some people have lust for money lust for drugs lust for alcohol it comes in a lot of different forms but you can bet this The Bible tells you put on the full armor of God so you can stand against the strategy of the devil. He knows your patterns. He knows your temptations. He knows your weaknesses. And if you have a lust pattern and you get out of the will of God, this is what he will use to manipulate you. So David’s strength is now going to be neutralized by him being in carnality. That’s the sin nature, lust pattern at work. It will neutralize you. It will make you weak. It’ll take you out of the plan of God. And you’ve got a sin nature. You got it from Adam. That’s why the Bible says the flesh wars against the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh. They’re contrary one to the other. As a believer in Jesus Christ, you decide who’s going to control your life. Either you’re going to let God’s Holy Spirit take control or you’re going to let your sin nature take control. Both are important because if you allow the sin nature to control, then Satan will be able to manipulate you to not present Jesus Christ, to shut you up, to counter God’s plan, and to put you in the battlefield as a casualty. The fact that David followed up on his lust, The fact that he inquired about this woman is an indication of his own personal failure. He was already out of the will of God. He was already not at the battle with Joab where he should have been. He was already laying back at the castle. And this woman was Bathsheba. the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. You may say, who was Uriah? Well, he was a proselyte. A proselyte is noted as a Gentile who converted to Judaism. And Uriah’s name meant God is my light. More than likely, he was a Judaistic proselyte. And so he was in David’s army fighting for David, but he was a Hittite by nature. But he was trustworthy, very honorable servant of David. This leads us to ask a question. Does God find you trustworthy? And does God find you honorable? I know we all violate God’s trust sometime. We all mess up, we all sin, and God’s always faithful to forgive us if we use rebound, where the Bible says if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us. But overall, in your fidelity, Can God trust you? Does he trust you? Trust you to do what? To represent him personally. You’ve been left here as an ambassador of the royal family of God. Can God trust you to do that? Can God trust you to act with integrity? to act with honor, to live under the royal family honor code, which I wish I had time to teach it to you. It’s an unbelievable study. Can God trust you? Are you honorable? Can you hear him say in the future, well done, my good and my faithful servant? i hope so so david now moves into the third stage of his sin he sends messengers to basheba and he takes her the verb he took her the cow stem of that verb indicates that david made a volitional decision to follow his lust pattern and demanded that she come to him. Now, the question of whether it was voluntary on her part or an assault on his part is between them and God. I don’t know the answer, and there’s no way to know what happened. Was it voluntary or was it forcible? But the end result was this, an unwanted pregnancy, an unwanted pregnancy. Now, you can figure out how that one would be handled today in today’s world. The big news is coming. He takes her. He has sex with another man’s wife. He commits adultery. And the big news is this. The woman sins and tells David, I’m with child. I’m pregnant. Now, this is several weeks later. They’re still going on with the battle. David’s still back at the fort. This didn’t happen overnight. So David is going to try desperately to cover it up. Why would he want to cover it up? I mean, other than the fact that it wasn’t his wife, it was another man’s wife, and that other man was an amazing warrior, an honorable warrior in his army. Why would David seek to cover this sin? Leviticus 20, verse 10 says, And the man who committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he who committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. That’s from the law of Moses, Leviticus 20, verse 10. The thing that David had done and the thing that Bathsheba, if she was a willing participant, was worthy of death. And David has to cover it up or face the consequences. So David schemes to conceal what he did. And this is the fourth stage of the sin, the fourth cover-up. In 2 Samuel 11, 6, the way David progresses in this thing is he’s sent to Joab. And Joab’s up at the front line. He sends a messenger up there. No radio communication, but somebody runs up, maybe 4, 5, 10, 15, 20 miles. I don’t know. And the communique said, send Uriah the Hittite back to the fort, 2 Samuel 11, 6. 2 Samuel 11, 7, the phony appearance of virtue on David’s part, acting like nothing had happened. Uriah shows up. And David says, now tell me how the battle’s going. How’s Joab doing? And how are the people doing? And how’s the war going? This is a common characteristic of hypocrisy. Acting like you care. Acting like you’re interested. Acting like he had no interest in this battle. He had interest in covering up his sin that demanded his death. David planned to cover his adultery. by using Uriah to force him to go home, have sex with his wife, and he would think it’s his child. So in 2 Samuel 11, 8, David said to Uriah, okay, thanks for the report. It’s great to have you home. Why don’t you go down to your house now, wash your feet, and go in? That means go home, take a bath, clean up, and maybe we’ll have you up for dinner tonight. So Uriah left the king, the Bible says, and the king sent a gift to his house. No doubt it was some wine or something like that, some food. But verse 9 of 2 Samuel 11, 8, to the king’s surprise, Uriah did not go home. He slept at the door of the king’s house with the other troops, the guards. And David got word of it. David was upset about it. So the next time David tries to pull a ploy, he gets Uriah drunk. in order to trick him into going home. But Uriah still slept with David’s servants. He wouldn’t go home. Here’s the principle. Uriah had true integrity and he would not relax while his battlefield buddies were still at war. You know, this should have opened David’s eyes to his own failure to lead his troops. It did not, and so David compounds his sin, one sin piling on top of another sin, trying to get him drunk, trying to make him go home, trying to trick him into going home, doing everything he can, trying to act like everything, he’s his big buddy and everything’s all fine, knowing that he has impregnated this man’s wife. And so how does he handle it? Sin number six, 2 Samuel 11, 14. And it came to pass in the morning that David wrote a letter to Joab and told Uriah, here, take this letter and deliver it to Joab. In the letter were instructions for Joab to expose Uriah to the hottest part of the battle. And once in the hot battle, pull the troops back and leave him up there alone so he would be killed. This sin made Joab an accessory to murder. So Joab had to make a decision. Either he would accept or reject the king’s command. Joab sold out Uriah, one of his greatest warriors, at the insistence of King David. How tragic that such a valiant soldier died for David’s lust. Sin number seven, David sacrificed other soldiers in order to kill Uriah and cover up his sin. Did you know that? He wasn’t the only person killed. Here the Bible tells us in 2 Samuel 11, 24, as the report came back from the front lines, the servant said, during the battle, the archers shot from off the wall upon your soldiers and some of them are dead, but also is Uriah the Hittite. That’s what David wanted to hear. He didn’t care about the other men that were killed. He wasn’t thinking right. He wasn’t caring about their wives and their families and their children. He was only thinking about his own self. That’s what sin does. It gets you so self-centered, you just think about yourself. You don’t think about anyone else. David’s sheer pretense and philosophical bull is seen here. Here’s what David says. Once he gets this news that all these soldiers are dead and even Uriah the Hittite was killed, he said, well, tell Joab not to worry about it since the sword devours one as well as another, 2 Samuel 11, 25. No big deal. Just a few soldiers died just to cover up my sin. 2 Samuel 11, 26, when Bathsheba heard about it, she mourned for her husband. And after she was through mourning, David sent for her. brought her to his house, married her, and they had a son. In verse 27, 2 Samuel 11, this thing did not please God. It displeased him greatly, and you can count on it when you displease God, divine discipline is about to come knocking. David’s own self-induced misery is evident from divine discipline. He has excruciating pain in his life. Listen to Psalm 38, 1 through 4. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Verse 2. For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presses me greatly. Festering guilt became an emotional burden and left him severely depressed. And it reflected in his physical demeanor as well. David failed to rebound his sin and was now compounding his discipline. This has been over a year since all this took place. And then he said in Psalm 38, 3, There’s no soundness in my flesh because of your anger, and neither is there any rest in my bones because of my own sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden. They’re too heavy for me. Here’s a principle you need to remember. If you don’t rebound your sin, divine discipline will either break you or it’ll take you. David was on his way out under the sin of death, but he finally, finally, finally rebounded. When will you finally confess your sin and get out underneath your own sentence of death because of your sin in your life? In Psalm 38, 18, I will declare my iniquity and I will be in anguish over my sin, singular sin, sin. This took a year of God’s heavy discipline. And the result of it is seen in 2 Samuel 12. Nathan said to David, the Lord put away your sin and you won’t die. However, because of what you’ve done, you’ve given great occasion to the enemy of the Lord to blaspheme him. Thus the child who is going to be born to you shall surely die. Principle, while God forgives sin, he does not necessarily remove the consequences. So Galatians 6, 7 says, don’t be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever man sows, he’s also going to reap. Not only did David face the loss of his child, much more came in 2 Samuel 12, 9, 10, 11. Even his own children turned against him. Many, many, many years of discipline. There’s a lot more to say. I ran out of time. I hope this makes sense. Are you listening? Is it speaking to you? If so, get with it. Change your ways now while you can. I pray you will. Until next week, it’s Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
