2.28.20
In His Holy Word, God leaves in the sin and failure or his key people. It shows that His sovereignty and grace allows Him to complete His purpose despite us.
Wiersbe does attribute part of David's sin to the fact that he was "idle", even though it was Wiersbe from whom I first learned that David wasn't at the battle because his counselors told him to avoid warfare. But Wiersbe theorizes that David could have been with his troops, just avoiding actual battle. I guess I need to look in to this more to understand if David made a mistake or if this is what his military advisers wanted for him. Either way, sin can tempt you. Plenty of sin happens in the workplace; and David had plenty of others tasks to do back in Jerusalem. But I also understand the admonition that idle hands are the devil's playground.
Wiresbe said it was an afternoon nap, not awake in the middle of the night. I misunderstood the timing when I read it.
Wiersbe includes a quote Samuel Johnson, "If you are idle, be not solitary. If you are solitary, be not idle." I thought that was interesting. I get it; but I'm rarely truly idle and solitary. It seems like I have so much to do around the house and work is also usually so busy. But it's a good admonition to remember.
As an aside, this Wiersbe book (just a theory) seems to have been written by someone other than Wiersbe. Or Wiersbe during a distracted phase of his life. Usually he can weave in Christ and New Testament concepts in an enlightening and interesting way. In this book, they come across more like promoted ads in a digital reading. You'll be reading along and he'll use a random word or concept and try to bolt on a Christ or New testament concept. In the chapter on Mephibosheth he quotes Mephibosheth calling himself a dead dog to transition to something like, speaking of dead dogs, we were dead in our transgressions...while not untrue...I'm not sure that the best alignment. Then the author does it here again. He claims David's problem came when David put aside his armor and then tries to make the alignment to the Armor of God from Ephesians 6. First of all, David was the King of a Nation of God. He had MANY outfits he had to wear. Taking off just his armor wasn't accurate. And then the bolt on of the armor of God was, again, not wrong...it's good concepts; but it is unrelated to the story at hand and not tied in well. It makes for a poor reading experience and makes me feel guilty that I'm frustrated with the content he infuses. I makes me feel bad that I'm annoyed by the armor of God. I do want to be reminded of all the great things in God's word; but not in the middle of an analysis of another passage. It shows how good Wiersbe is that it's taken this long into the Old Testament for it to be anything but seemless.
I agreed with Wiersbe on David's second mistake- when he saw a naked woman, rather than fleeing like Joseph, or just politely turning away- he lingered. He evaluated her beauty. He considered his own desires and how she could meet those desires without any input or consent from her. All because he lingered.
Wiersbe claims that David led Bathsheba into temptation when he sent his messengers. I don't think that's obvious. It doesn't explicitly say he raped her coerced her with his position as King; but it also doesn't say she was an explicitly consensual partner. I guess I would need to do a word study and read more about the actual first incident. And if there was more than one incident before she conceived; but it's not clear if she sinned or was a victim.
Wiersbe brought up something I had in the back of my mind but hadn't considered closely. I thought that David was making himself vulnerable by having messengers involved and Wiersbe goes further and points out that palace servants are often a bunch of gossips, Many people would have known about David's sin and it didn't seem to phase him at all. That's a sign that his heart was growing hard. He tried to hide it from the general public; but was fine with those around him knowing.