1 Samuel Explained

David bought with a price, the temple for the foundation that would be built. Then Jesus paid with his blood, the real temple that would last forever. The temple, who we are. As living stones fit into Jesus, the chief cornerstone, that's how Second Samuel ends. That's the bridge to the next book as we go into kings, and that's where we need to take a look at how all of our lives need to be centered on the Lord in worship and praise and honor to him.

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Hello and welcome to the You Can Learn the Bible podcast where we summarize complete Bible books in single episodes. My name is Bodie Quirk from YouCanLearntheBible.com here with Joey Rosek, Lead Pastor of Living Springs Fellowship in New Jersey. And we are back after our first ever break. Joey from doing podcasting. How you doing my friend?

Bodie, I am doing great and it's, good to be back. We did take a good month or so off, and, one of the things that, has been just a part of my life during this time is, uh, A lot of ministry here within our church and summer activities and uh, I have two of my oldest kids getting ready to go away to college, so that's a interesting time period for me right now and my

Oh my gosh. Yeah, we're blessed too. We did a, our first ever family road trip this summer, which we've never done before. Got to see a lot of cool places in this incredible country God's blessed us to live in. But we're back, man. I'm so excited to be back with you. We have been, I've been looking forward to this episode a lot, and so tell us, Joey, where we're going today and kind of what our goal is for episode 16.

Well, we are picking up where we left off in First Samuel, and so we're in the life of David, and for all of our listeners, I mean, we don't really have to to tell you much, probably if you're familiar with the Bible at all, you know, David is one of the central figures of all of Scripture, but what Second Samuel does is it, really allows us to see the spiritual formation of this man. 

The fact that he was called a man after God's own heart, but you're gonna really see that he still had a heart of a man, which meant he had a sinful nature and flaws and failures. But we see the spiritual life of David where he chose to do things that are indicative of, a man who really did wanna please God.

And we're gonna see a bit of the mixture of all of that. And I think that's really helpful in the Christian life because that's really what so many of us can relate to, is we are growing on a journey of faith toward, you know, the day that we're gonna have to give an account before God, and I would hope and pray that there's a life of maturity happening where we are growing in our character, growing in our formation as believers and followers of Christ. 

And, David's life, of course, is one of those examples of somebody who points us to Christ. David is a line that leads us to Christ, um, both as a king and, uh, in the genealogy of Jesus. So I, there's a lot of great stuff to talk about.

We're gonna hopefully highlight a bunch of them for you and really hopefully get you interested in looking at this book again with fresh eyes and a fresh heart to study the life of David.

Yeah, it's pretty cool how first Samuel really starts about the formation of the nation of Israel, and now we're really gonna see the formation of the man, David himself, aren't we in this episode, Joey? 

So here's how we do these episodes. We have a seven part framework to equip and to inspire your Bible study. We're not doing this for you. We wanna equip you to have success when you read the text. So the way we do this is with this framework, we're gonna talk about the essentials of the book, where it falls in the larger storyline of scripture.

What are some of the major themes and ideas in this particular book? How is the book kind of broken up? What's the basic structure of it? But really all of that is a setup to, to ask two major questions. What does it teach us about God? What does it offer our Christian life? That's really the why of why we do these episodes, and it's fun to kind of talk about some of the details and favorite things as well.

So that's really what we wanna do is, is for you to be equipped by the end of this short episode again. 

So we always do these on video, they're available on YouTube. They're of course available in a, in your podcast app as well. So if you wanna watch and see and look at, uh, the slides that we use, YouTube is where you want to go to do that.

And then of course you can just listen as well. 

Alright, I think we should get right into it, Joey. Question one is, is about the essentials of the book. I'm gonna let you start. So somebody comes to you like, kinda like, right now we got a limited time, and they're like, I wanna study Second Samuel. What are some of the essentials they need to know to get started?

Well, we're looking at a narrative that is historical in the Bible, 

and we're also looking at a biographical sketch of one of the most prominent men in Scripture, as we mentioned, David. I'll just throw this out there as a couple interesting facts, is David's name is mentioned about 280, 80 times in this book and about 1,118 times throughout the Bible.

Wow.

1,118 times throughout Scripture, we see this man David mentioned. And so, what we're focusing on in Second Samuel is David as a king. He is ruling and so we're looking at King David's rule, you notice 1011 to 971 BC before Christ. Of course David is the lineage leading up to Christ.

So it's a historical book. We're looking at his reign. We're also looking at his spiritual formation. We don't really know who wrote second Samuel. It's pretty safe to say it wasn't Samuel anymore 'cause he died. So, um, he's not the one who authored this book, but it's probably somebody pretty close to David, it probably was somebody very near, to his life, the details are so specific. The setting takes place in Israel all throughout David's kingdom, which we're gonna learn about here in the expanse of it.

And, we do see in this biographical sketch both triumph and failure, which is true to any person who walks with God in a broken world like we have. But this is written for not just National Israel, but for all of us who believe in the Lord, the generations of faith. And so these are the essentials we need to know as we approach this book, Bodie.

Yeah, it's cool how now the focus of David, we can learn so much about the Christian life through this man that God had called and we're gonna do that as we walk through this kind of his life looking at this particular book. So Joey, awesome. Thank you for those, some of those basic details. 

What I wanna do next is kind of go with number two. So the first one was like kind of what are some of the basics? That Joey just walked us through, where does this book fit in the larger story of the Bible? We always want to treat each book as a part of a larger network. So it's really important that, and I think a lot of times people will just open the Bible and read it, and they don't always consider its place in the whole.

So that's why every time in these episodes, number two is where does it fit in the larger story? 

So right now it's basically we're looking at Israel under a transitioning and really a failed leadership. So we just had Israel's first ever king, king Saul. And now what we're gonna start to see is kind of some of the ramifications of Saul's leadership and what happened in the nation and how God transitioned from that king that the people demanded to the second King that God had chosen.

And so before we kind of get into this book, what do we need to recall? What are some of the key little moments? Well, Saul and Jonathan have died. A big of that's a really important one. David is now already in motion to be risen up as the next king of Israel. But another reality that's rising up is Israel's enemies are starting to rise up, aren't they, Joey? 

Israel is now being attacked on all sides from different enemies. They wanted a king. And what's crazy, we know that God wanted a king for them too, but Saul was not God's choice. So there's this longing for them to become the nation that God had prepared them to be.

David is gonna be very instrumental in leading that nation into the monarchy that he had prepared for them. But what's so beautiful, as you already mentioned, is the Messianic line that's unfolding because we're gonna start to see the connections between David and Jesus. David is a key, key figure in this particular part of the story.

So let me just review quickly. Just from a, a visual perspective on the timeline, and Joey, anything you wanna add? I wanna open it up for you to kind of jump in, but here we see that David is kind of after Saul and David's son, Solomon is going to follow David. That's gonna be our next book starting in 1 Kings, but we gotta remember this.

Time of National Israel is a very important season of the formation of the nation that God has been building. And there's a verse I want to go to from Second Samuel in a second. Joey, anything you wanna jump in and add about this book's place in the storyline of where we're at in the larger narrative.

Well, I think this map does a good job in just showing the importance of David's reign right after Saul and right before Solomon. It's interesting that all three of these kings all reign for 40 years each, but David is the most memorable of them all, even though he wasn't even the one that builds the temple, which we'll see by the end of this book we see David just preparing the way for it.

But I think what is interesting is, whenever you're looking at historical pieces in the Bible, , we get a chance to look back in reflection, and the Holy Spirit really , in the inspired text of scripture helps us to see things that are so key in pointing us to Jesus. Remember everything in the Bible and history has a role of importance to point us to what the volume of the book is written about, which is the person of Jesus Christ.

And so, we have a couple key verses I would say that really encapsulate the biographical person, that we're looking at today in David's life. And, in second Samuel chapter five in verses 10. And 12. We read these very key verses and it says this, and David became greater and greater for the Lord, the God of hosts was with him. 

How important is it to have the presence of God, the favor of God, the selection of God over your life? But then in verse 12, it says, and David knew that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom, listen to this next phrase, for the sake of his people Israel. 

Remember First and Second Samuel were actually one large volume of Hebrew writing one scroll, so to speak, but it's broken up into two parts because you really do see, in the life of David, the lead up has its own biographical nature.

And the actual reign of David has its own biographical importance. And that last phrase, Bodie, for the sake of his people, I think not only shows us why the Bible is written, everything is for our sake. God knows what he did. We, we just need to know

Sure. Right,

secondly, David was chosen to be king because it benefited the people of God. David was a different kind of man than Saul was. Definitely different than what Solomon represented as well. David really shows us the heart of a man that really reveals how much God desires to be intimately, personally acquainted with our lives. 

We know that Jesus was called a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, in Isaiah 53, we're gonna get to see a lot of that unfolding in the life of David, the grief, the hardship, the personal cries and prayers and, challenges. So, it's gonna be a great book. Let's, let's get into

it is. And and the idea, David is called a man after God's own heart. And we see, we start to see how the heart of David was one of the big reasons for the call of David. And we know that when it, when talk, when we look back at Saul, Saul, it was constantly said that he. Took and he took and he took, right?

David is, has been raised up to be a blessing to the people, and I'm so glad you pointed that out in verse 12 of chapter five, for the sake of the people, Israel, ultimately, God raises up people, not for their own sake, but for the sake of others. 

And so, now that we've kind of oriented ourselves on the larger timeline, let's talk about this particular book specifically.

Now we're on number three. What are the major concepts? What are the themes and ideas, the big themes that drive this book? Joey, I'm gonna let you kind of walk us through some of these because we wanna go through these themes first, we wanna outline them now so that you can see them at work through the rest of the episode as we walk through the structure of the book, so, Joey, major themes and ideas In Second Samuel, what are some of 'em?

Well, of course the major theme to start off with is David is King. Why was he king? He was God's anointed choice. This is a key theme that you really see throughout the book that God's hand is on this man. We remember that in the story of Genesis with Joseph. The Lord was with him. The Lord was with him.

We really do see God's divine interventions, protections and the way in which, God leads David's life, but because David is, he's a man, we're gonna see, he makes decisions that are both good and bad, so we have success. We have favor, we have increase, but we also have failure, disappointment, we have really bad consequences that follow some of the actions and choices that David made. 

So those are some really, really key themes right from the get go, of course, Jerusalem, this is important, Jerusalem starts to become very central in the life of David. We actually know that Jerusalem's called the City of David. So we have this synonymous understanding now of why that is later on Jesus will call it the city of the Great King. Starting with David, of course, ultimately pointing to him as, as the fulfillment of David, the root and offspring of David. 

The other thing I think that's really important in this book is the Messianic line, the Davidic line, and the covenant that God makes with David, which he'll always have someone to, to kind of carry on the throne, which, which of course is definitely fulfilled in the life of Jesus.

And then we have not only the tests, the challenges and the trials that are there in David's life, again, we're gonna see a pretty egregious sin that David commits. Here's a man that, that is full of worship and he's a great king because of his tender heart and his love for people, and yet he also had lust in his heart, as most, of us do, right? We have a fallen, sinful nature, and we're gonna see that unfolding in his life. 

And then, of course, the consequences that follow sin, family strife over Israel's throne, which leads to David's decline and God's ultimate judgment on things in the end. So these are gonna be some of the big pictures, lots of application, and the emphasis that we're gonna be focusing on is the spiritual formation of this man, which includes all of these themes together.

Yep. Because we are being formed by the Spirit as well, aren't we? And so what we can do is we can align with certain moments moments and looking at David's both his successes, and his failures, and we can see how God is working in our own lives as well. So yeah, a lot of really good themes here.

We'll come back to these as we then now see. See them in the structure. 

So let's talk about how we should go about reading this book. How is it broken down? What are the major sections? It's pretty simple the, as far as the structure goes, 'cause we're gonna introduce the structure and then that's number four of our framework.

Number five and six are basically what do we learn, then? All of this here is just set up, it's just getting us acclimated into the text, but we wanna draw out those applications that are present, and really active in our lives right now. 

But we gotta know how the book actually functions structurally. It's pretty simple. Three major sections are really how Second Samuel is broken up. Chapters one through 10 are basically David's reign as king over Judah, then all of Israel. So that's gonna be a major theme, that we're gonna look at in the first 10 chapters is David's reign expands. Okay? He becomes king first over Judah and then All Israel.

But then in chapters 11 through 20, we see David's sin and its major consequences. So first we see David's expansion as king, in chapters 11 through 20. David. Sin and then its consequences. And then, the final four chapters are basically kind of an appendix. They look at David's life and they look at God's judgment.

So Joey, before we get into each of these three sections, is there anything you'd like to say, just kind of as we look at David's life in this structure before we dive into the first section? David is king of Judah in Israel.

Well, although we're not gonna look at the Book of Psalms really much today, remember that many of the psalms that you and I have become familiar with as we study scripture, they come out of these events of David's life.

So good.

and I think that's really important. You know, although we're looking at Second Samuel, everything has a context to it. You hear somebody who writes a song or somebody writes a book, and you have to ask the question, what inspired you to write this book or this song? We're gonna be looking at events in the life of David, that shows you why he had songs, Psalms of Lamentation, why he had Psalms of great praises, to talk about the deliverance that God provided for him in battle or in conflict or in personal hardship.

David, in the Psalms confesses sin and repents. You're gonna see that, why that was the case, Psalm 32, Psalm 51 are Psalms of repentance because of what David's sin was. So I think I'd like to throw that out there to our listeners that these are the events that inspired, much of the Psalms that David wrote throughout the 150 Psalms you read about in that book are not all by David, but half of them are by David in the Book of Psalms.

And the half that are by David are centralized primarily in this book of Second Samuel. Yes, of course I'm a First Samuel as well, but second Samuel has so many key events that cause David to pour out his heart before God. So I think that's really important as we dive

really important. And also too, Joey, it's, we're starting to enter a season of the Bible where it gets confusing for people because the arrangement of the books is by its genre. But what happens is, is that something that would happen in Psalms, which is in kind of one group of the Old Testament, really matches up with events, in books that are in another group. And so it doesn't, it feels like what's kind of confusing. So as we start to kind of now go and even though we are gonna continue to go book by book, we're gonna more and more reference other books because key things happen in other books. But we, we do wanna stay true to the framework of teaching you what this book has to offer while keeping it in light of the whole.

So let's get into to the first section. So right now, David is king over Judah and his, and he expands as the king over all Israel, so God is with David in this time. This is really one of the most exciting parts of this book. God's favor is with him, he's constantly victorious in battle.

So in chapters one through four, he's king over Judah. But the first thing that we see is that, David laments the death of Saul and Jonathan, like the very guy who was like after him, the entire last book dies and David isn't like celebrating, he's lamenting, which really shows us a lot of David's heart and character.

But his favor expands, doesn't he say There's military victory, he secures and captures the ark from the Philistines, in five and six we're, I really want to talk about the covenant in chapter seven. And then David has just lots of success during this time. But who caress? Why is this important for us today?

Yeah, so if you were studying this book, or you were gonna teach on the book of Second Samuel here, one of the things you'd want to do is you'd wanna just kind of look at this first section. As you really see, these are years of patience, God's long suffering with David's life, and I remember a lot of times, things happen in God's time and there's a time to be born in a time to die.

You mentioned that the lives of Saul and Jonathan are now passed. David writes in, 2 Samuel 1:23, Saul and Jonathan were beloved, and pleasant in their lives and in their death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. You get to see a bit of the poetry of David's life.

When you see these prayers or these expressions. You really get to see his lament as you mentioned, Bodie. And one of the things that I appreciate when you look at these sections is, chapter one, you see that grievance and his expressions about those he loved. Do you remember how in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, love your enemies.

Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. Can you see the heart of David here? Kind of maintaining that heart? Saul could have easily been an enemy, but he puts him right there as his beloved, along with Jonathan. I. 

When you get to chapter two, I think what's important to note, you mentioned about David being king in Judah, but also being King of Israel, well, there's an order there. He's first recognized as king in Judah, which is where Jerusalem is centered in later on. All of Israel now starts to gather around. Remember, it took some time. That's why I used the word patience. It took some time for word to travel. It took time for the wider body of Israel to kind of gather themselves around David. 

Remember, David had been in hiding. David had been fleeing in caves. Now David's kind of centralized again and everybody can put their eyes back on the man that they once shouted in victory, Saul had killed his thousands, but David is ten thousands. So they were all familiar with the history of David, but now they're kind of being reacquainted with David's life.

They're beginning to see the man that they remembered, before. I think that's really important. In two Samuel five 10 a verse we read earlier how he went on to become great. His reputation continued to spread and David really learned how to, follow the leading of the Lord. I love how right after he becomes king, he gets tested twice by two different battles with the Philistines. 

And what's interesting about those two battles is God gives one instruction at one point, on how to go around him, he's gonna deliver the Philistines into his hand. But the second time David prays again to the Lord. And this time he is told to do something different. He's told to go out, and to strike the camp of the Philistines after he hears the sound of the marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, and he kind of divides up his camp and so forth.

So what I love is that God gives specific instructions for specific times, and these early chapters show the importance of waiting on the Lord, waiting on the Lord for direction. Waiting on the Lord for God to position you. Maybe you're out there listening right now and you're thinking, I don't know what God has for my life.

I don't know how I'm gonna come into the plans that God has for my life, but you, you need to stay obedient. You need to be in position because God will give you guidance and direction when you need it. And that is a part of God's faithfulness to us. He is a faithful God. He makes a covenant with David.

In chapter seven, we get to really see the heart of David revealed there when he gives thanks to God, right after the covenant is made in, 2 Samuel seven verse 18, David sits before the Lord, Bodie, and you know what he says? Listen to this. This is the words of a humble man. 

He says, who am I? Oh Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me this far? And yet this was a small thing in your sight. Oh Lord God. You see, we should never think of ourselves too highly. Never take ourselves too seriously. One of the beautiful things about David is David's confidence that it was the Lord who put him in position to reign over Israel.

It was the Lord who would give him victory in battle, like when he defeated Goliath. And it's the Lord who's gonna guide us through every season and storm of life. So I think in this first section, these first 10 chapters, These are some of the beautiful, beautiful pictures, uh, that I would want to emphasize. What about you, Bodie? In this first 10 chapters, what, what would you wanna point out?

it's really important. Don't miss chapter seven. Chapter seven is the third major covenant of the Bible. So we, in the very beginning of our podcast, what we talked about, four episodes on basically the covenant. Covenant mean God aligning himself with man. There's some general covenants like in Eden and with Noah, but the major covenants that drive this story start with Abraham, then there's a covenant to Moses, which is a covenant with this people. The third major covenant is the Davidic Covenant, and it's given in Second Samuel chapter seven. 

What is it? It's a promise that the line of David will last forever. Well, originally we thought, well, maybe that would start with Solomon, but well, the reason why it lasts forever is because Jesus is literally a descendant of David and Jesus lives forever, so his human lineage is connected to this man, this king of Israel, and that's why Jesus calls himself the son of David.

So it's so cool that we start to see Messianic prophecy in this section that's later fulfilled in Christ. But what I like about this is it's like this whole section is generally positive, right? David is with God, the favor of God is with him, and this is where the covenant is given. It's not given later.

It's given when God Is, is united with David and is with him now, I think God's promise was, is gonna, was coming either way, but what's interesting is that this is a part of the success. 'cause what we're gonna see in chapter 11 is a major shift in the book, Joey. After this, once the Bathsheeba event comes, but don't miss why God is doing something bigger than just King David, he is pointing us to Christ. But so do we see this favor, this military favor, but the Davidic Covenant in two Samuel seven is a massive moment in the scriptural story.

Yeah. And you know, there's these beautiful, that was great, Bodhi and, and I love that you emphasize the importance of the covenant. What I think is also important is the beautiful ways that when this narrative is unfolding in the life of David, it's like God's puts a spotlight on certain things to almost reveal some of the things that we're supposed to take away in our spiritual formation, that is really important. In living out our lives by faith. 

And one of those is how are we gonna treat people who, we have the opportunity to deal with either harshly or graciously? And I think Mephibosheth, I wanted to say this word about Mephibosheth in chapter nine. One of my favorite chapters in the book of Second Samuel is this chapter because in chapter nine, We see this beautiful picture of grace where, remember, David loved Jonathan.

They had the most incredible brotherhood, a beautiful, loving friendship that was so near and intimate, that David made a promise to Jonathan that he would always look out for him and his family, no matter what happens when he took the throne, and so forth. 

And despite all of the spears thrown in him by, Jonathan's father, Saul, we see that, in the son of Jonathan, which is Mephibosheth. We discovered that when he was brought before the king, he thought he was gonna be put to death, but David shows grace. We see that Grace seeks out its object, like God seeks us out and David sought out Mephibosheth. 

We see that grace brings us out of bondage. Mephibosheth was not only a crippled man, but a man that didn't think he'd ever be free to enjoy life and love again, but David brings them out of that bondage. Then Grace shows beautiful, loving kindness with understanding, and you see that David was able to contextualize the life of Mephibosheth and said, I know you don't think you deserve anything. I know that you don't feel like I'm going to bestow any honor on you, but I wanna honor you. The humility of David, combined with this display of grace to Mephibosheth, and then Grace restores what's lost, so he kind of has a, a, a sense of having Jonathan back through his son again.

And then also Grace gives beyond measure. Remember, grace is undeserved favor. It's unmerited favor, and so God shows us through David what he does for us. We are the Mephibosheth's of the world. We are the ones that are outcast, right? We are the ones who don't deserve grace and mercy, but God shows it upon us, not only inviting us into his household, like adopting us as one of his own, but we get to sit at the table with our king Jesus one day feasting with him, and that's what Mephibosheth experiences every day with David. Wow. When the Bible says, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good, this is an invitation for all. Not only did David take discontented in debt and distressed men and turn them into mighty men earlier in First Samuel.

Now we see him doing it in the very family of Jonathan and Saul as he invites them in by grace, to just partake of the inheritance that David had as a king, that's the picture of grace and salvation that we have in Christ. I love

We see how united David is to the Lord and all of the results, right? There's favor militarily. 

And we're you gonna start to now head towards a turning point, right? So it's just a review. If you're watching, you can see how the land has transformed kind of from the tribal times after Joshua and they conquered it, and then in, in numbers.

And then we have Saul's kind of kingdom here, the area of land that he had conquered. But one of the things that we've now talked about is the military expansion. 

He has really increased this nation. David is like a national hero. He's experiencing victory after victory after victory, and then something happens, Joey, and once chapter 10 ends, the focus of second Samuel shifts. 

remember, one through 10 is about David's success and favor as the king over, first Judah, and later all of Israel. Now we're in section two. David's sin and its consequences. That is going to be the thread of these next 10 chapters. 

So chapter one through 10, big time. Right? David is king over Judah and Israel. Great. So many good things happen and David's heart is in the right place too. What happens next? In 11 through 20, our second section of the book?

Well, there is a, not only a shift, but there is a pitfall here. This is one of those moments where we see David's life really taking a turn for the worse, and it's interesting because it came in a time of prosperity. For all of you listening right now, some of the most dangerous times of your life are not gonna be when life is hard.

But actually when life is going good and easy, it's in these times, for whatever reason, we tend to not be as prayerful. Not to be as careful, and we also tend to find ourself more susceptible to the attacks of the evil ones. So what takes place, chapter 11, David is, is no longer going to battle like he is.

He kind of feels like I've won lots of battles, I've done that. Maybe I deserve to enjoy the spoil of my victories or to enjoy the fact that I'm king. So what it says in the opening of chapter 11, it says, it happens in the spring of the year at the time when Kings go to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the people of Amon and besieged Rabah, but David remained at Jerusalem.

Those words, David remained at Jerusalem, are going to set up this downfall that happens in David's life, you see, because he didn't go to battle as King should have, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, to eventually be tempted to do the wrong thing. And not only does David give into this temptation, but he sees a gorgeous woman who's bathing on the top of a roof, remember in those days, David had a very high outlook from where he was being a king, and he could look out the city and he could see, but probably many other people would not see this woman thought she was in privacy, maybe not, we don't actually know if she was trying to maybe even put herself out there, it nothing in the text tells us this. 

But nonetheless, David looked upon this woman with lust and because he had power and because he had authority, he used that for his advantage, and he called for this woman to come to him, and as a result, David commits adultery with another man's wife, Bathsheeba is her name, the husband was Uriah and David not only has this night fling, but it turns into a series of repercussions that is devastating for David's life. Oh, it's just, it breaks my heart and it breaks the heart of God to think about how quickly a man can lose his reputation or his testimony, or his character and credibility in a sense by one really bad decision.

Now, of course, it doesn't mean David was not sincere, and it doesn't mean David was not a true man after God's own heart, but it shows us that anyone at any time can fall. And this just reminds me to keep a guard over my heart. As his son Solomon will later write, keep Your Heart with all diligence for out of it, spring the issues of life, and so David sins and, and then he covers up his sin, Bodie. He actually tries to get Uriah to come home from battle to see if he would sleep with his wife because he finds out that Bathsheba got pregnant. 

And so instead of owning his sin, taking responsibility for his sin, he tries to cover it, and that is always something that we should not do if we're gonna be truly formed as spiritual men and women.

right

We need to bring our sin to the light. We need to confess our sin. We need to repent of that which caused us to grieve the heart of God. And instead, David adds sin with more sin. He adds insult to injury and he kills Uriah eventually because he won't sleep with his wife.

I mean, what I mean, I gotta even say this, what an honorable man Uriah is. I know we're focusing on David's life, but Uriah doesn't feel he should go home and be comfortable while the rest of his men are at war, but David didn't seem to have that mindset anymore, and so Uriah doesn't go to be with his wife, and so eventually David has to write a letter, send it out to the battlefield to have him be in a very dangerous part of the battle, basically telling his commanders, put Uriah in the front almost basically murdering him that way by putting him in harm's way, and that that's what happens until eventually David has to confess his sin, when Nathan, the prophet comes along, why, why don't you jump in there, Bodie, what are your

my gosh, 

One of the things that's so important about this David and Bathsheba incident, is really that the rest of this section is the result of these two chapters. 

David just took his foot off the gas just a little bit, and it's such a warning to us that the smallest compromise is the beginning of a new journey. And so that is what happens. It's the smallest little compromise. I'm just gonna stay home, you guys go fight the battle. Everything downstream is the result of that little compromise that led to another little compromise. 

Uriah, the who's way more godly than the Godly King of Israel. Uriah is not even in Israelite, he's a Hittite. He's a foreigner, and he's literally acting like the honorable king that David is not acting like right now. So what happens as a result of this, Joey? Well, David's family just starts to crumble. It starts to fall apart. 

Things are imploding on David, and so in 10 and 12 we see David and Bathsheba and all that. Joey just walked us through. 

And now we're gonna see that it gets worse, right? Because then one of David's daughters gets raped and the brothers are like, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna avenge this? You're the king. And David really doesn't do anything, David's sons start to usurp him. 

They start to want to dethrone his dad. 'cause they're like, you're not fit to be the king anymore. So we see family dysfunction, we see a rebellion, and then we see kind of David's reign reconfirmed later. But friends, what the scripture wants us to see is the consequences of David's sin because it's the same for us today. Sin will find you out, right Joey, jump back in.

Yeah. I think of when Paul writes to the Corinthians about take heed, you who think you can stand lest you fall. Not only will sin find you out, but you need to find out that you can't handle sin on your own. You need the grace of God. The Bible says no temptation is overtaken you, except that which is common to man, right?

But God is faithful with the temptation he will provide a way for you to escape and David didn't take this escape. And I also think it's important to think about the restoration of David. You know, Nathan was sent by God. Because God chastens those whom he loves. David was not bringing his sin to the light, he was keeping it covered, and so what God does is he sends a man, a prophet named Nathan to kind of come to David with a story about this understanding of a rich man who had all this wealth, but he actually steals from a poor man who had hardly anything but a little lamb just so that he can feed some visitors that were, you know, coming to his home to show hospitality to.

And David was like, this is wrong. How could a man. Uh, you know, takes a poor man's little lamb and feed his guest with that when he had so much of abundance to give, and Nathan's like, yeah, yeah, David, really good point. Really good point by the way. You did that and David's like, you know, you, you, you know what I, what I've done and, and I find that to be what one of the most powerful moments in scripture of sin finding you out. 

And I believe Bodie, that this is something of a warning for all of us listening in today through this spiritual formation of David, that we need to be the ones to bring our sins to the light. It's much harder if somebody else has to do it for you. And once David realizes that his sin is out, I think he probably, there was a big relief from him.

If you wanna know what he thought. Read Psalm 32, read Psalm 51, especially Psalm 51, I believe. You know, you really get to see the heart of David talking about the tender mercies of God from this point on and, and how he asked the Lord to create in him a clean heart again and to renew a steadfast spirit in him and take not the Holy Spirit from him.

He saw that happen with Saul. The Holy Spirit was taken from Saul, and a distressing spirit came when it comes to the anointing as a king. And then he says, restore unto me the joy of your salvation. And this is really what's needed in the whole of the family. In chapters 13 and 14, the family dysfunction is there, and I think the only way to deal with family dysfunction is to talk about your family dysfunction.

A lot of you out there have problems from your past. You had maybe issues with your parents or siblings and conflicts that were never properly resolved in your family. If you wanna really grow in your relationship with God, I'm gonna encourage you, go back before you can go forward. You need to revisit those old sins or maybe those old things that were never really talked about or never really processed and you didn't really heal from them.

I can tell you in years in, in 25 years of pastoral counseling, a lot of counseling that I've done over the years has to do with root problems from the past. And so what you get to see in Second Samuel is the aftermath, the effects that come, as you rightly said Bodie, from the fall of sin, you see Absalom's Rebellion in chapters 15 through 18.

I mean, here's a man, Absalom, the son of David, who's literally now trying to take matters in his own hands to position himself as a king, and it's like this terrible cycle of sin unfolds until we get to the final chapters of 19 and 20, in this second section where you see that God still has his hand on David, the chosen king of Israel preserves his reign, but the fallout is definitely real and perpetuates through the life of David. So those are my further thoughts on this

So if you, if we look back really quick in one Samuel 13, remember it's the heart of David that we're really looking at in this episode where we, we see that, but now your kingdom shall not continue, that was spoken to Saul. The Lord sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be the prince over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. So we know that David is a man after God's own heart. But Joey, I think that sometimes people hear, he does everything right.

That is not what that means. What it means is he repents when he does wrong. That's what it means to be a man after God's own heart. So that's what the, I think the idea of the sin and the consequences there. In Psalm 51, when David blows it, with Bathsheba, you read in Psalm 51, he says to you, and you alone have I sinned, like David reconnects with God as part of his repentance, acknowledging that first he sinned against God and then he sinned against Uriah's family and then he sinned against his nation and there was a major fallout that happened, but it wasn't that God gave up on David after that God called David just knowing that all this was gonna happen and that kind of leads us to our final section of the book, 

chapters 21 through 24, which is kind of a, a conclusion of David's life. So what's what's happening now is we're now, David's life is now coming to an end and the story is gonna transition to his son Solomon. But before that happens, a couple key things that our audience needs to know in this final section of 21 through 24. So we have David's life and we have the judgment of God like the second Samuel doesn't end on an happy little note, unfortunately. So Joey, what's going on in this final section of Second Samuel?

Well in these final chapters, we really do see kind of the final, victory that David's gonna have in battle. He continues to be victorious when it comes to being the Warrior King that he is. He avengers the Gibeonites. I. He defeats the Philistine giants, you know, we remember we, David, before he came into power, was recognized among the people of Israel because he defeated Goliath.

But if you guys remember, Goliath had four brothers. David had five smooth stones from the brook When he was going to sling that stone against Goliath and crush his head down, we always wonder why did he have four extra stones? It was, was it gonna be, 'cause he might miss. And of course everybody needs to have more ammunition.

Sure. Some people. Some people speculate that, uh, David was ready to deal with his brothers if they came out to battle too, because he had five stones and there was five total brothers. And so you see, here's where we see the rest of the Philistine giants defeated. Here's also where we see a final address, you know, chapter 22 is basically Psalm 18, written in the book of second Samuel. 

This is the only time in the books of Samuel, that we actually have an entire Psalm recorded in it, and so it's basically all of Psalm 18 in chapter 22. And what it's it about, it's about a song of deliverance. How, in Psalm 18, it talks about how I can run against a troop, by my God, I can leap over a wall, and how David praises God for the victories that he had, how he, he set me into a broad place how he delivered me, because he delighted in me, as he says in verse 20. I love

Right. Yeah. It's

And, and David writes about how with the merciful you will show yourself merciful. With the blameless man, you will show yourself blameless. With the pure, you will show yourself pure. And with the devious, you will show yourself shrewd. David realized all of that in his own experience. So David kind of sings this Psalm 18 in this chapter 22. And then in chapter 22, you also get his final address where he gives his final words of instruction. 

We'll pick up on that in Chronicles as well, or in Kings, we get to see David's final words expressed there. But, the final acts and preparations of David is interesting because he makes a big mistake. He basically does a census, which you think, why would a king need to do a census all of a sudden? Well, God did not command him to do the census in chapter 24, but David does it. Why? 

Well, when you sin in your life, when you have a lot of repercussions, insecurities come into your life, and I think David was really dealing with a lot of insecurity as a king, and he felt like he needed to almost, count his armies to see how many he had and almost to kind of find some sense of security in the externals rather than the identity he had in God when he first started his journey. 

And this is a real reminder to us that a lot of things can be avoided in our, in our lives if we live humbly and honestly and don't need any affirmation from man to basically establish who we are

Right. Yeah.

so Da David does

go ahead. Yeah.

And he, and, and, and he upsets God with this. He displeases God. And as a result, God gives him three choices on how his judgment's gonna be. And he, David, knowing that he'd rather put his life in God's hand, says, God, you deal with me as you see fit. And he allows God to, to ultimately send a plague to his people, but it ends on a positive note. 

He's not allowed, he's not permitted Bodie to be able to build the temple that he had in his heart to build, but he does purchase the ground in Araunah's threshing floor, where he basically gets the groundwork laid on where the temple is going to one day be built in Solomon's time, and so David provides the preparations for that which is gonna be the house of God at a later time, which

Yeah. Which is cool. And that's pointing us to a lot of what's happening. 'cause David's life is ending, and now not only is Solomon, his son going to become really the only king of Israel that inherited the throne through a bloodline. Jonathan, Saul's son was gonna be the next king and it wasn't. David was the one God had called and raised up. 

Solomon though does become the next king of Israel and we're gonna now see that everything from here forward is going to be really as a result of what happens in and after Solomon. 'cause a major moment is about to happen that we're gonna cover in the next books.

But what's gonna be interesting, Joey, Is how we're gonna make sure that we connect the books of Kings and chronicles together. 'cause Samuel Kings and Chronicles, there's a lot of overlapping material and it's easy to get confused. So that's what we're gonna kind of point towards as we go forward. But the temple, the presence of God is going to become a major important factor in our next section. 

So just kind of recapping, so we have David. He was. He was favor increased, he was king all Israel. His sin and major consequences had devastating effects in his life. David was not a perfect man, but he was a man after God's own heart, and for us, as we kind of come to the end of our framework, 

as we talk about some of the favorite things, I'll share mine and I'll let you kind of wrap up, Joey, but I just love the grace of God because. God doesn't need David to be perfect for him to call him. And I think so often we still feel like God can only use me when I'm, when I'm doing well and God can't use me when I'm really not.

And we see David exemplifying both. He did really well. He trusted the Lord. He was favored, but man, did he blow it, big time. God never forsake him and God will not forsake you either. Why? It's because have you trusted in him? Repentance is just reconnecting with God and just saying, I'm not have anything to hide, I don't wanna hide anymore. I just want you, Lord. 

And David, we do see that in David, but we also see the real, ugly consequences of his bad choices. So I love the grace and kindness of God, but I also love that God doesn't let David away from those consequences. He really experiences a lot of pain and grief, but that could have been avoided, had David kept his eyes on the Lord.

So I just love the grace of God as we kind of see it in there. What do you, what are some of your favorite things, and then where are we gonna go next? Just kind of lead us out of the episode, if you would, Joe.

Yeah, well, picking up on the grace of God, Bodie is, you know what God does for us? We cannot earn. We cannot perform well enough to have God's love come to us. God loves us unconditionally, and I. At the end of two Samuel, I think one of the, the last things I'd love to share is, one of my favorite things is, I love that David says these words, and I'm gonna read to you from verse 24.

It says, in the king, that is, David said to Araunah, this is when they were negotiating over the price of, of this threshing floor where the, where he was gonna build this altar to the Lord. He says, I will surely buy it from you for a price, nor will I offer burnt offerings to Lord my God with that which cost me nothing.

You see, David realized that if this is gonna be valuable to God, it's gotta cost me. I just can't give out of the ease of my life. I can't just say, oh, I've got a little extra time. No, God, you can have my free time here, or you know, Hey, I made a lot of money, so I guess now I'll give to my church or to God or to whatever, because you know, I've got all this overabundance.

No, no, no. David was saying, I want to do an act before God, that costs me something valuable, and I think this is a sacrificial act. And of course, since this is where the temple is going to be built one day, which of course has the ultimate sacrificial system attached to it, how important It's for us to know that every sacrifice we do before God should cost us something.

It should be our obedience at the cost of our reputation, or at the cost of being popular, at the cost of doing ease and comfortable things in life. If we're gonna be true worshipers of God, just like we learned from Abraham who is asked to sacrifice his only son, Isaac on the altar, we're gonna need to realize that the pattern of a Christian who's going through spiritual formation understands that we're only responding to the greatest act of love that God has done for us.

We love him because he first loved us and since God has been so gracious to us, As Paul pleads in Romans 12, I beech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, which is our reasonable service. See, this is the first temple being built, but we know later on we become the temple of God and the Bible says that we should glorify God with our body and spirit, which are his, we've been bought with a price. 

David bought with a price, the temple for the foundation that would be built. Then Jesus paid with his blood, the real temple that would last forever. The temple, who we are. As living stones fit into Jesus, the chief cornerstone, that's how Second Samuel ends. That's the bridge to the next book as we go into kings, and that's where we need to take a look at how all of our lives need to be centered on the Lord in worship and praise and honor to him.

Oh, it's so good, Joey. Thank you for landing the plane for us. There's so much we couldn't cover in Second Samuel, which means, guess what? We want you to go read it. We hope that this episode has been helpful to equip and to inspire for you to see and notice some of the beauty in there. We're not doing it for you. We're doing it with you. We want to equip you and we wanna inspire you. There's nothing like this text. There's nothing that will change your life than encountering the God of the Word, and so until we meet again, we pray that you stay focused, fired up, and we pray that you are blessed and you keep your eyes on the Lord. And as always, we believe that you can learn the Bible 

next episode. First Kings Joey, we're heading into some new territory. I am excited about episode 17. So, friends, until we meet again, stay blessed and stay in the word. We'll see ya

Amen.

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