Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 92
TRANSCRIPT
David Was Set Up PodcastKing David had everything this world had to offer. As a young man he made some really good decisions that showed great integrity. One example is that he didn’t harm and shame King Saul when he had the chance. Yet when it came to Bathsheba, he blew it big time. How could David go from man of great integrity to an adulterer and murderer? Believe it or not, David was set up to enter into these sins by his ancestors. That is the focus of this podcast.
I’m Cindi Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you to this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. In last week’s podcast Lee looked at how guilt took David down a sinful road that he normally would not have traveled. It was a road that led him to commit adultery with Bathsheba and then enter into deception and conspiracy, which culminated in committing murder by having Bathsheba’s husband killed. If you have not heard last week’s podcast you may want to listen to it because we will all have to deal with guilt at times in our lives. Knowing the two different types of guilt, conviction and condemnation, and how to deal with both types of guilt is essential to living the Christian life. Conviction is given to us by God as a gift which leads us to repent of our sins. Conviction says that what you have done is wrong and sinful and it leads us to want to turn away from that sin (to repent). Romans 2:4 says, “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” It is the kindness of God not His severity which leads us to repent. It is out of His kindness and love that He sends His conviction into our lives to motivate us to turn away from our sin, which is the meaning of repentance.
Condemnation on the other hand is neither good nor kind. It is a tool used by the enemy of our souls to beat us down and keep us from experiencing the freedom that Jesus came to give. Condemnation doesn’t point to our sinful behavior as the problem, condemnation says that we are bad or wrong as a result of our sinful behavior. It makes our identity the real problem. Instead of being convicted that what you did was bad, wrong or sinful, what the enemy whispers to you is that YOU are bad. He makes it sound as if your condition is permanent and not redeemable. You can’t get rid of condemnation through confession and repentance. In fact, condemnation will use your confession and repentance as fuel to pour more condemnation on you. The only way to get rid of condemnation is by accepting that your identity in Christ is complete. Who you are is determined by your birth in Christ and not by your behavior.
When we look at King David’s ancestors and his family line you can easily see that David was set up to fall into the sin found in the story of Bathsheba. Chester and Betsy Kylstra beautifully describe in their book Restoring the Foundations, An Integrated Approach to Healing Ministry that each of us inherit generational sins and curses from our ancestors. Exodus 20:4 – 5 says “For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,” This generational iniquity puts pressure on the following generations to enter into those same sins.
So, what did David inherit from his ancestors? I am quoting from the Kylstra’s book on page 143. “We know that David’s grandmother was Ruth, a Moabite, and that his great-grandmother was Rahab, a Canaanite, the ‘keeper of the Inn’ in Jericho” who was also known to be a prostitute. These two heathen nations were known for their idolatry and sexual sin.”
Let’s go back a little further in David’s family line. We know that Judah, one of Davids ancestors, was known to have sexual relations with his daughter-in-law Tamar being tricked into believing that she was one of the temple prostitutes. Deception, fornication, and lying are all involved in this sin and came down David’s bloodline.
One more fact that is important to note in David’s history. Psalms 51 was written after David was confronted with his sin with Bathsheba by the prophet Nathan. I am going to let David speak for himself by quoting the first five verses of Psalms 51.
“Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me.
4 Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight—
That You may be found just [a]when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.”
In this passage David accepts responsibility for his sinful behavior and confesses and repents before God. He doesn’t do what we often do and try to justify our sin by blaming it on someone or something else. He faces his sinful behavior head on and says, “Against You, You only, have I sinned.” That is a man who has accepted his guilt. I believe this is why God was able to call this sinful man David a man after God’s own heart.
Verse five gives us another clue into David’s family line. It says “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” Bible scholars believe that David was born of an illegitimate birth, that his father and mother were not married. This sin opens the door to sexual sin in David’s life. Looking at David’s life through his inherited baggage from his ancestors, we can see sexual sin, which David committed, we see deception, which David committed, we see lying, which David committed. So, am I saying that the devil made him do it because of his ancestors? Yes and No. Let me explain.
This generational iniquity puts pressure on the following generations to commit the same sins as their ancestors. David gets up and walks on the roof of the king’s palace late at night. He should have been leading his army into battle. How was he feeling as we walked on that roof? Was he feeling guilty for not leading the troops as King’s were supposed to? (Lee talked about David’s guilt in last week’s podcast.) The generational iniquity of sexual sin inherited from his bloodline is working on David. He sees beautiful Bathsheba bathing, obviously naked, and this generational iniquity pushes David to bring her to his palace so he can have relations with her. Was David helpless against this pressure? No, he had to cooperate with it. But let me give an illustration. Let’s say you plant a young tree. Then every day of its life a fierce wind blows heavily on the young tree from the same direction. Eventually that young tree is going to succumb to the power of the wind and bend in that direction. That is sort of what happens with this generational iniquity. It pushes people toward that sin every day of their lives. It is not inevitable that they give in to the pressure, but it is completely understandable why they would. They had to choose the sin but with that constant pressure pushing them toward that sin it is easy to understand why they would give in.
David commits sexual sin with Bathsheba and then discovers that Bathsheba is pregnant. At this point he begins to let deception run his life. Remember that he also inherited the generational iniquity of deception from his ancestors that is putting pressure on him to walk in deception. When we give place to these generational iniquities, they are always accompanied by what Chester and Betsy Kylstra call Ungodly Beliefs. You may recall from previous podcasts that an Ungodly Belief is anything we believe that does not agree with God’s Word, His nature, or His character. It is a pretty big area. These are basically lies that we believe come from generational iniquity. David’s ungodly belief given to him from the iniquity of sexual sin may have been something like, “I am the king, and I will order her to have sex with me.” Or any number of other lies. One lie that he definitely had was “I will send her home, and no one will know what I have done.” As we know, that lie didn’t work out very well.
Deception told David to bring Uriah home from the battle and send him home to his beautiful wife and surely, he will want to have relations with his wife. David was hoping to cover up his sin. Once Uriah is home the generational iniquity of lying pushes David to make up a lie to tell Uriah. He first tells Uriah to go home with the hope that he would sleep with his wife. When Uriah’s integrity got in the way of that plan, David gets Uriah drunk, hoping now he will go home to his wife. When none of those things worked and Uriah failed to sleep with his wife, David gives into creating a conspiracy to commit murder which is a form of both deception and lying. He sent Uriah back to the battle with the instructions that he be sent to the front of the fiercest battle and have the other troops withdraw, causing the certain death of Uriah. Once again, we see the generational iniquity of murder being played out in David’s life.
This story has a very painful outcome for David. David gets confronted by the prophet Nathan and recognizes that he was wrong. David repents for his sin and 2 Samuel 12:13 God says through Nathan the Prophet “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.” The punishment for David having taken the life of Uriah should have been death. But because David repented of his sin, God forgave him and did not require David’s death. However, when you read on in the story, the baby born of the union of David and Bathsheba did die. It was struck by an illness and lived for only seven days.
You might be asking, I thought it said that God forgave David? If God forgave David, then why did the baby die? There are two separate issues involved here. Yes, God did forgive David for his sin, and God even went on to have His Son Jesus Christ born in the family line of David. But forgiveness of our sins does not remove the natural consequences of our sinful behavior. If someone were to commit a murder today and sincerely confess and repent of that murder, I believe they will be 100% forgiven by God. They will still have to live with the natural consequences of their sin, which may mean prison or in some state’s capital punishment.
OK, that was David. How does what happened to him relate to me? Each and every one of us have ancestors who have sinned, so each of us has inherited generational iniquity through our blood line. What you inherited from your ancestors might not be as severe as David’s or influence you to make the serious mistakes he made, but pressure is being put on you every moment of every day from these generational curses. Along with those generational curses there are ungodly beliefs that help hold that curse in place. Since they have been part of your life from conception, you are probably not even aware that they are there putting pressure on you. We did ministry recently and presented an ungodly belief to a man and he almost broke down crying. He said I have lived my life out of that lie and until right now I did not know it.
Before we close today, I want to briefly address Bathsheba. Bathsheba isn’t innocent in this situation. She was bathing in full view of David. Ladies, we need to take ownership for our own actions in how we dress or in her case expose ourselves to men. It doesn’t mean that David wasn’t responsible for his actions, but Bathsheba also carries some responsibility. She lit the match that started the fire. Another thing that David did was he used his position as King in an abusive way. It would be very difficult for someone to refuse an invitation from the King. He used his position to woo Bathsheba into a compromising situation. Unfortunately, her situation is not unique. So many women experience sexual harassment in the workplace. It’s difficult to say no but I encourage you to do so. Also, ask the Holy Spirit to show you if you are doing anything that is “lighting the match”.
I want to encourage you to go back and listen to some of our previous podcasts and allow the Holy Spirit to use those podcasts to highlight places in your life that He wants to heal. To be able to access all of the previous podcasts go to our web site www.restoringthefoundations.org and click on the RESOURCES tab at the top of the page and then click on Podcasts and it will bring up a library of all the previous podcasts.
Don’t settle for just an OK Christian life. Go for the very best. And to have the very best you will need to get rid of anything that is holding you back.
If you are dealing with situations and circumstances in your life that keep you from experiencing the freedom that Jesus died to give you and you’re ready to make some changes then please reach out to our Ministry Coordinator at ministry@restoringthefoundations.org
Or go to our website and find a ministry team near you. Our members are highly trained in being able to get to the root of your issues. Sexual bondage, deception and lying are rampant in our world and the consequences of it are devastating.
Prayer
Father God, I thank you that you don’t hide negative stories from us in the Bible. David blew it big time. Sexual sin, deception and lying, and then murder. Yet you call David a man after your own heart because he will do everything You want him to do. Father God, make us like David. Make us aware of those places where we are being held back or are falling short so we too can do everything you want us to do. I pray blessing on each person who is listening today that they will experience your Father’s Heart of Love. Amen
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