Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings from friends and new listeners, and welcome to the Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Hardy Knotts, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If you've been listening to our message, the Ripple Effect of David's Sin, you know it is a real page-turner. Today, we will continue with the second part of the story that deals with the third judgment David's sin and cover-up brought upon his family: the sword will never depart from your house. Today, in the Ripple Effect of David's Sin, Part 2.

R. G. Hardy: We're going to go to 2 Samuel, the 12th chapter, looking at verses 9 and 10. We read these verses last week, but we're going to look at them this morning and then we're going to move on from there. Verse 9: "Wherefore have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife, and you have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon."

"Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife." Last week, we studied this in depth. We went through it incident by incident. We found out that David's original sin of adultery—when he saw Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop and lusted for her in his heart, and then after knowing that she was a married woman and the wife of one of his captains that was serving in the army where David should have been—happened instead while he was hanging around the palace at ease.

We learned that after he sinned with her by taking her and having sex with her, she got pregnant that very first and only time. Then he tried to cover up the sin. We saw the ripple effect. Each time, we saw a new ripple going out, as it were when you cast a stone into the water and then the whirlpool goes out ripple by ripple. We saw ripples that we didn't even think about before. I know I hadn't, and it seemed like none of you had either.

First of all, we found out he took Bathsheba. She was innocent. He saw her, he desired her, he asked about her, and found out she was married. He became reckless and careless, knowing her husband was off at the war. He had her sent for and brought to the palace, had sex with her, and then she went back home. She sent him word shortly thereafter that she was pregnant. Everyone would have known it could not have been her husband; he had been away in war too long.

David then went about trying to cover it up. He sent word to his commander-in-chief on the battlefield, Joab, and said, "Send Uriah into the hottest battle where he will definitely be killed." We learned the first ripple was that he raped, in a way, Bathsheba. Nothing that we read indicated that she was complicit in the whole thing. He was a man of authority, he was the king, and he flexed his muscles of authority. The scripture says he took her.

Then we know that he had her husband killed. Now Bathsheba is a widow and is grieving for her husband because we saw that Uriah was a righteous man and a good man. Not only that, the ripple effect went out beyond Bathsheba and Uriah. Joab, the commander-in-chief, was forced to obey the king, so he had to participate in Uriah's murder.

Then we saw something we had never seen before. When Joab sent Uriah into the hottest battle, he couldn't send him all by himself; that would have been obvious. No one would have understood why you would do that. He sent other valiant men with him, and they were killed. They were killed in the battle, so there's another ripple, all because of David's sin.

When it all came out and the prophet came to him and said, "What you have done, you have done in secret, but now judgment is coming to you and your house. God's going to do stuff out in the sunshine that you did in the dark." He pronounced three judgments. First of all, this baby is going to die. The baby died.

Secondly, he said, "You went and took his wife and you lay with her, and no one knew. You thought it was all done in secret, but now someone close to you is going to take your wives and is going to lay with them in the sunshine in front of all Israel." I even took you to the place to make the story all fit. I took you where, much later, we will visit today, when his son Absalom revolted against him. When he got into Jerusalem and marched into the palace, he thought, "Okay, here I am. What do I do now?"

He said to his advisor Ahithophel, who was actually David's advisor, "What should I do now?" He said, "Well, go get your father's ten concubines that he left behind when he fled the palace. Take them up on the rooftop and have sex with them in the daylight in front of all Israel." The ripple effect now went out to those ten innocent women. They were molested by Absalom in public on the rooftop. When David finally got back home to the palace, he took those ten women and secluded them in a ward, and the rest of their lives they lived as widows. These were the ripple effects of David's sin.

We looked at the baby dying, and we looked at your wives being molested publicly. But the third part of the judgment was: the sword shall never depart from your house. That was the third part, and we never looked at that. That's what we're going to look at today. Because it covers many chapters, I will do much paraphrasing and have you look at certain key verses. We are now going to be going into chapter 13, and this is where the first problem arises.

David had many sons by now, but one of his sons, the third one that was born to him, was Absalom. Absalom was one of his favorites. The Bible tells us this man was exceedingly handsome. He had a sister, Tamar, a full-blooded sister, and she was very beautiful. Apparently, their mother Maacah was a very beautiful woman, and these kids were very beautiful people.

There was another one of David's sons who would have been a half-brother, having a different mother than Absalom and Tamar. He was infatuated with Tamar's beauty. He was so infatuated with her and he wanted her sexually. He had become listless and despondent and not acting like himself. One day, one of his cousins, David's brother's son Jonadab, came to him and said, "What's up with you? What's up with you, Amnon? How come you're just not yourself? You're not acting like yourself. What's going on?"

Amnon confessed to him that he was in love with his half-sister Tamar. Jonadab said, "Well, I've got a good idea. Pretend to be very sick. Then you know your father the king will come to visit you and see what's wrong. When he comes to see you, tell him that it would make you feel better if he would send Tamar, your sister, to come to your house and bake you a special meal. Then, of course, you know what to do from there."

Amnon said, "I think I'll do that." He feigned to be sick, and David came. He said to his father, "Please send my sister here to prepare me a meal." David, not ever suspecting anything so evil that was in his heart, sent her there. Tamar came to prepare these cakes. Let's take up the story in chapter 13 and verse 8.

So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, and there he was laid down. She took flour and kneaded it, made cakes in his sight, and did bake the cakes. She took a pan and poured them out before him, but he refused to eat. Amnon said, "Have all the men put out from me," and they went out every man from him. Amnon said unto Tamar, "Bring the food into the chamber, into my bedroom, that I may eat out of your hand."

Tamar took the cakes which she had made and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. When she brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, just like David took Bathsheba. He took hold of her and said unto her, "Come lie with me, my sister." She answered him, "Nay, my brother, do not force me, for no such thing ought to be done in Israel. Do not this folly. And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? And as for you, you shall be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray you speak unto the king, for he will not withhold me from you." Howbeit, he would not hearken unto her, but being stronger than she, forced her and lay with her.

First of all, I have to say, my God, these children had seen their father take one wife after another and one concubine after another. They had even seen him commit adultery with Bathsheba. They had seen so much of this that they had become jaded by their father's sexual sins until she actually believed that her father would break the law of Moses and let them get married.

Because I know that if you go way back to Abraham, Abraham and Sarah were half-brother and half-sister. However, that was before the law of Moses. If you read the law of Moses, it was not permitted; it was considered to be incest. She actually believed that their father would go along with it and let them get married.

She pleaded with him, and she said not only that, "If you do this to me, where will I go with my shame? How will I ever outlive this humiliation?" She would never get a husband. She would never be able to be married. But he was so consumed with lust. Lust was leaping in his loins. He was so consumed that he didn't care about her. All he wanted to do was have sex with her, and it says that he forced her and he lay with her.

Wherever you see in the Old Testament about someone having sex, if it says "and he knew her"—K-N-E-W—and he knew her, it's always intimate between a husband and a wife. It always means that Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bare a son. Whenever you see "he knew her," it means it's legitimate; it's between husband and wife. When it's illicit, it will always say "and he lay with her," letting you know it is illicit.

So he forced her. Now read verse 15. This is very telling: "Then Amnon hated her exceedingly, so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, 'Arise, be gone.'" You see, it's because he didn't love her; he lusted for her. It wasn't love; it was lust.

When someone has illicit lust in them and they carry it out—and you know, maybe that even in the church, a young man is just pressuring a young girl to have sex and he pressures her and pressures her—she's holding on and she's holding out because she doesn't want to sin. She doesn't want to sin against God. She doesn't want to sin against her own body. But eventually she succumbs and she gives in and has sex with him, and then he hates her.

You know why? Because she represents his sin. When he looks at her, he knows his sin, his wickedness, his guilt. He hates her because actually he hates himself for what he has done. May that be something for some of you young women out there to know: he'll tell you, "If you love me, if you love me, you will do this for me." But he'll tell you that and make you think that you've got to prove that you love him by doing this. If you don't do it, "You don't love me, I'll just go find me another girlfriend." Then you think, "Well, I don't want that to happen," and you give in to him, and he has his desire quenched. Then he goes and finds another girlfriend.

So, this is what I call when lust becomes disgust. Look at how cruel he was. He said, "Get out." He talked to her that way. He's just forced her and now he screams at her, "Get out of here!" What did that do to this young girl? Her brother has raped her, and now he tells her to get out. In other words, "I can't stand the sight of you. Get out of here."

Verse 16: "And she said unto him, 'There is no cause. This evil in sending me away is greater than the other that you did unto me.' But he would not hearken unto her." Listen to her. She said, "You sending me away now is worse than you forcing me to have sex. This wounds me even more."

Then he called his servant that ministered unto him and said, "Put now this woman—this woman!—put now this woman out from me and bolt the door after her." She had a garment of divers or many colors upon her, for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins appareled. Then his servant brought her out and bolted the door after her.

Tamar put ashes on her head and rent or tore her garment of divers colors that was on her and laid her hand on her head and went on crying. Absalom her brother said unto her, "Has Amnon your brother been with you?" Apparently she said yes. "But now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Regard not this thing." So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.

She begged him not to humiliate her. Perhaps she still had hope that maybe David would let them get married. But he didn't want anything to do with her now, calling her "this woman," "put this woman out." Here she had this beautiful robe on that only virgin princesses wore. She took that robe and she ripped it. She would never be able to wear that robe again.

Putting ashes on her head, he told her to get out, and so she goes out crying because her virginity was stolen and her life would never be the same again. She comes upon her brother Absalom. Now he's the whole brother. He says, "What happened? Did Amnon have sex with you?" She says yes. He told her, "Don't say anything to anybody. Just go to my house." Big mistake. Big mistake.

Tamar should have gone running to her father and she should have told her father what happened. Because David as king and as father would have had to execute some kind of discipline upon Amnon, some kind of a penalty. Now Amnon was his firstborn, so he would have been next in line for kingship. So he probably was very cocky and thought he could get away with anything.

Like I said a moment ago, these kids grew up seeing all their father's sexual shenanigans. They saw how loosely he lived sex, and so when you watch that, you think nothing of it. That's why we see a cycle today of children being born outside of marriage, and then they grow up and they have a bunch of kids outside of marriage, and it just keeps perpetuating that cycle. Somebody's got to break the cycle. You break the cycle: somebody comes to Jesus Christ, gets born again, gets filled with God, and then starts living by the word of God, gets married, and has children, raises them in the house of God, and the cycle gets broken. Yes, sometimes it still happens, but it's not like a cycle that keeps going and going.

So that was a big mistake that she did not go to her father and say anything, and no one said anything. Amnon thought, "Boy, I got away with that," which would have only made him cockier. Can you imagine that when Absalom had to come into his presence and be around him, oh, what do you think was brewing in his heart and in his mind?

Let's drop down to verse 21. It came back to David, because be sure your sins will find you out. But when David heard of all these things, he was very angry. Absalom spake unto his brother Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon because he had forced his sister Tamar. It came to pass after two full years that Absalom had sheep shearers in Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim, and Absalom invited all the king's sons.

Let me tell you what's going to go on here. This is now two years later, and Absalom has never even confronted Amnon about what he did to his sister. David heard about it. He was angry and he did nothing. So Tamar, no one has done anything for this girl, and they have let Amnon get away with this wicked deed.

Two years later now, all this time hatred and vengeance is brewing in Absalom's heart. He came up with a plot. He wanted Amnon dead. He wanted to kill him. He didn't want just a slap on the wrist. So he decided to come up with a plot and he went to his father King David. He asked him, "Would you come and join me and my men as we go out into the fields to shear our sheep?"

Remember, David was a shepherd at one time. He no doubt loved that he grew up doing that. This would have been a good father-son outing. He said, "Daddy, would you come out with me and my men?" David said, "No, I'm sorry, son. I can't come." Absalom knew his father would say no. He wanted him to say no.

Because then he said, "Well, father, if you can't come, let Amnon my brother come." When he said that, David must have felt a pang in his spirit. He should have felt a pang in his spirit. Red flag! Red flag alert! Because he knew the animosity between the two brothers. When he had this hesitation, Absalom discerned his father's hesitation of allowing Amnon to come and he quickly followed up and said, "How about if all my brothers come? Let all my brothers come to the shearing."

David, even though he had that in his heart, even though he knew that there was a possibility of bad stuff between the brothers, he did not follow through. He said, "Okay, fine, they all can come." He allowed them all to go to this shearing event. Whenever they would shear sheep afterwards, they would have a big celebration, a big dinner. Let's celebrate. It's a big job shearing all them sheep, and afterwards they would all have a celebration. There would be food and all this going on. It would be like a party.

So they all came, all the king's sons. Absalom told his own servants, he said, "Watch Amnon. When he is really getting happy with wine, when he's drinking and getting drunk, kill him. Kill him." He said, "Smite Amnon," and this is what he told him, "Don't be afraid. Be courageous and valiant and kill him."

You know what? That's exactly what they did. At the celebration, the party was going on, Amnon—who would have been probably the cocky guy anyway—he was good and drunk and the servants obeyed Absalom's command and they killed him. When they killed him, all the other brothers were like, "We are out of here."

They all ran for the hills. They all cleared out in a hurry. They went out and jumped on their mules and they high-tailed it back to Jerusalem. They didn't know if it was all of them were going to get killed. They didn't see it coming. Two years had elapsed. But someone ran ahead and got to David and told David, "Oh, all of your sons are dead. They all are killed. Absalom has killed all of your sons."

This was their words, "And there is not one left." You can't even imagine. You can try but you can't imagine how that must have hit David. Oh yeah, he had lost a baby one time and that almost devastated him. But now to have all of his sons dead? All of them? He was absolutely grief-stricken. He was in shock. He ripped off his robes and he lay on the ground with his face in the dirt.

Along comes his nephew Jonadab. That same one that had advised Amnon to do what he did to Tamar. He came along and said, "Oh king, oh king, it's not that bad. No, it's not true. All your sons are not dead. Only Amnon is dead, and Absalom killed him because of what he did to Tamar."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen. What a comprehensive look at the life and influence of one of God's choice servants, King David, whom God had said is a man after mine own heart. In Part 1 of the Ripple Effect of David's Sin, we saw that the cover-up he concocted was worse than his original sin of adultery, and its collateral damage was widespread and tragic. Likewise, his judgment was swift and terrible.

The child born of adultery died, ten of his concubines were publicly molested by his own son who tried to steal his throne, and today in Part 2, we are following the trail of death in the final part of his judgment: the sword will never depart from your house. This is a multifaceted story rich with nuances and nuggets. To order on CD, request SK-207 and send a minimum love gift of $10 for our radio ministry to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, or order from our e-store at soundoffaith.org, where you can also order on MP3s.

To order the Ripple Effect of David's Sin, Part 2 by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 and request SK-207. If you would like to order Part 1 as well, add $10 and request SK-206. That's $20 for both SK-206, Part 1, and SK-207, Part 2. Until next time, this is Sharon Hardy Knotts saying Maranatha.