TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
The Doctrine of Compassion
Part 5
February 2, 2020
Before you begin, ask yourself a very important question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins? If you answered yes, you will need to be sure that you are filled with The Holy Spirit. How do you do this? You name your sins to God The Father in His Son’s Name. This is called Rebound. As a Christian, you must rebound any time you sin. This is taught in 1JOHN 1:9: If we confess [name] our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if you have never believed that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins, all you have to do is say to yourself that you believe in Him and you are saved! The Bible verse which teaches us this is ACTS 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
Toward the end of last week’s Teen Tree, we had just started to look at King David and his relationship with Uriah (an elite soldier in his army) and Bathsheba – Uriah’s wife. We learned that David had become overwhelmed with the problems within his kingdom and made his general – Joab – lead his warriors, while he stayed holed up in his palace on Mount Zion. 2 SAM 11:1-5 (The Message Bible) tells us what happened during this time: When that time of year came around again, the anniversary of the Ammonite aggression, David dispatched Joab and his fighting men of Israel in full force to destroy the Ammonites for good. They laid siege to Rabbah, but David stayed in Jerusalem. One late afternoon, David got up from taking his nap and was strolling on the roof of the palace. From his vantage point on the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was stunningly beautiful. David sent to ask about her, and was told, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?” David sent his agents to get her.
Now, it’s important to note here that in those times, it was not considered a sin for a man to have more than one wife. And almost immediately, David had fallen deeply for Bathsheba and wanted to take her as one of his own wives. But, of course, he couldn’t marry Bathsheba while her husband Uriah was alive. David became so completely obsessed with Bathsheba that he came up with a fiendish plot to have Uriah killed, so he could marry her and take her into his own house. His sickening plan is written about in (2 SAM 11:14-15 The Message Bible): In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front lines where the fighting is the fiercest. Then pull back and leave him exposed so that he’s sure to be killed.”
Sadly, Joab did as David had commanded him to do. What happened next is explained in 2 SAM 11:22-25 (The Message Bible): Joab’s messenger arrived in Jerusalem and gave the king a full report. He said, “The enemy was too much for us. They advanced on us in the open field, and we pushed them back to the city gate. But then arrows came hot and heavy on us from the city wall, and eighteen of the king’s soldiers died.” When the messenger completed his report of the battle, David got angry at Joab. He vented it on the messenger: “Why did you get so close to the city? Didn’t you know you’d be attacked from the wall? Didn’t you remember how Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth got killed? Wasn’t it a woman who dropped a millstone on him from the wall and crushed him at Thebez? Why did you go close to the wall!” “By the way,” said Joab’s messenger, “your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.” Then David told the messenger, “Oh. I see. Tell Joab, ‘Don’t trouble yourself over this. War kills—sometimes one, sometimes another—you never know who’s next. Redouble your assault on the city and destroy it.’ Encourage Joab.” How arrogant David had become, blaming Joab! Can you see how far into reversionism David had gone? How he was going backwards instead of forward in his Christian Walk?
Bathsheba mourned over her husband Uriah’s death for a time. Then David took her into his palace, she became his wife, and they had a baby. Joab and David were no doubt confident that they had kept the horrible secret of the successful plot to kill Uriah. But, of course, God knew all about it and He was greatly displeased with David!
This is the point at which God sent Nathan, the prophet, to David to tell him that God had seen his wickedness and would surely punish him for his sin. We looked at this last week saw how arrogant David was – and how it led to his reversionism. We also noted that arrogant people don’t show compassion to others. David’s behavior toward Uriah and Joab lacked any compassion! However, when David came to his senses and realized all that he had done (including his reversionism), He was extremely sorry. He even owned up to the fact that he had sinned against The Lord. In fact, David showed such sorrow for sinning that God forgave him: Then David confessed to Nathan, “I’ve sinned against God.” “Yes, but that’s not the last word. God forgives your sin. You won’t die for it. But because of your blasphemous behavior, the son born to you will die.” (2 SAM 12:13-14 The Message Bible) Through His Compassion, God forgave David, but He still had to discipline him for what he did.
Soon after, David and Bathsheba’s little child, whom David absolutely adored, became very ill. David prayed to God for his son’s life. He wouldn’t eat and just laid with his face against the floor of his house in deep sadness. The nobles of his palace came to him, urging him to get up and eat, but he refused. For a week, the child grew worse and worse and David remained inconsolable. Then the child died, and the nobles were afraid to tell him. They were afraid of what he would do when he heard that his beloved baby son was dead; but when King David saw people whispering to one another with sad faces, he knew.
And what do you think happened next?? David got up from the floor where he had been lying, washed his face, and put on his kingly robes. First, he went and worshipped God. Then, he sat down at his table and ate. Then we read in 2 SAM 12:21-23 (The Message Bible): His servants asked him, “What’s going on with you? While the child was alive you fasted and wept and stayed up all night. Now that he’s dead, you get up and eat.” “While the child was alive,” he said, “I fasted and wept, thinking God might have mercy on me and the child would live. But now that he’s dead, why fast? Can I bring him back now? I can go to him, but he can’t come to me.” David’s reaction in this verse says so much about him and his faith in God! He knows that that when our family and friends get sick, we should pray to God for them. If someone is alive, there’s still hope, and, while there’s hope, there’s room for prayer. But now with his child dead, David’s great faith shines through as he realizes that it’s his duty to be satisfied with God’s Divine decision. We should never question God’s motives.
So, what can we learn from what King David went through? Well, up until his life with Bathsheba began, David had been a GREAT man of God. The general trend of his life was spiritual. What other man has had the reputation of being known as a man after God’s own heart? He had been carefully chosen as Israel’s second king by God Himself. In his youth David was trained to tend his father Jesse’s sheep. He was extremely courageous as a very young man: Then David took his shepherd’s staff, selected five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the pocket of his shepherd’s pack, and with his sling in his hand approached Goliath. (1 SAM 17:40 The Message Bible) He was still a boy when he fought Goliath the giant, dressed like a poor country shepherd lad, with no weapon except his sling. Never were two warriors more unequally matched. And when David was victorious over Goliath, he didn’t boast about it. He wasn’t arrogant when he won. God gave the victory and David gave Him all the glory. And it pleased God to eventually make him King!
God had appointed David to be the king of Israel as part of his supergrace blessing: But He gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says, “God is opposed to the proud [arrogant] but gives grace to the humble.” (JAM 4:6) So you can understand how spiritually mature David was, to have been blessed in this way; however, David’s capacity for this promotion was destroyed, not by lack of doctrine, but by arrogance. God showed David great compassion by forgiving him for what happened when he fell in love with Bathsheba (a married woman!) and his subsequent ordering of the death of her husband, Uriah. The compassion, which God showed him, served as a motivation for the production of Divine good throughout the rest of David’s life.
{to be continued}