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Today we look into Psalm 36. This delightful little song, subscribed as, To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the LORD, is made of 5 little stanzas our church would call 'sandwiches' (because the meat is in the middle), but I prefer 'pyramids' because they build towards the peak in the middle. Our concentration is with the first set:
Psa 36:1 To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the LORD.
Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God before his eyes.
Psa 36:2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
Psa 36:3 The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
Psa 36:4 He plots trouble while on his bed;
he sets himself in a way that is not good;
he does not reject evil.
One commentator points out that this is someone who USED to act wisely and do good. What turned him? As we work this from the outsides, we can see that it breaks down to: first the thought, then the deed. As a guide to this, we can wrap this as, "How did David get to the point that he would do the whole thing with Bathsheba and Uriah?"
First thought: There is no fear of God. In the second stanza, David starts right off with praising God, as was- repeat, WAS- his habit every morning. But now, he is in a different structure of his days; his army has bid him to stay home after all the years of fighting have weakened him, and he's almost killed by Ishbi-benob, a giant of the line of Goliath (2 Samuel 21:16-17). Stuck in Jerusalem, he has taken to rising in the evening, and this puts his opening the day with praise in the dumpster.
First deed: He doesn't reject evil. Once again, if you look at second stanza, you see the results of rising early and praising:
Psa 36:9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.
We need to be IN God's light to SEE true light. Without it, our judgments turn inward, and become darkened. We stop rejecting evil as it comes at us, we stop seeing evil for what it is. Thus, when David saw Bathsheba bathing, he failed to avert his gaze... he stared.
Second thought: He thinks about how, being king, he can get away with anything. When he was in the Lord, he would have would have been angered at someone thinking as he was- just look at his reaction to Nathan's story that showed his guilt in 2 Sam 12 5-6- but now, he toys with the thought.
Second deed: He sets himself in a way that is not good. He sends out to MULTIPLE people (2 Sam 11:3-4) to find out who she is, and has her summoned to him. Not giving a thought to that his actions are making several people unwilling accomplices in- what?
Third thought: The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit. He starts to transition from thought to deed. Maybe along the way, he tells himself, ' 'She's not as beautiful close up as she appears, this will quiet me', or, 'I'll just rebuke her for putting herself in my line of sight.' In other words, de deceives himself about what will happen- he lies to himself.
Third deed: He plots trouble while on his bed.
...and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.
2Sa 11:5 And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
And that's how he got there- little thought to little deed, bigger thought to bigger deed. In the second stanza, we are little birds sheltering under the Father's wings. But for David, there is no shelter:
2Sa 12:7 Nathan said to David, “You are the man!"
So what started the chain? Getting out of good habits when the circumstances changed. Remember two things I have said in the past. One, there are three definitions of wise/wisdom the Truck is looking at: simple discernment, learning about God by fear of Him (The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom), and acting wisely. Secondly, there are three kinds of man who are not wise: the simple, who know nothing; the fool, who says in his heart, 'there is no God'; and the scoffer, who cares little if there is a God or not. The first two can be saved, the third, not so much.
David went from the simple discernment he had as a child tending Jesse's sheep to someone who gets tripped up by 'innocently' going for a walk on the roof. Then he went from actively seeking God to saying, "God's not hear to see". Finally, his actions, quite simply, reversed. He did what he knew was wrong, even though he knew it was wrong.
There are steps up to ultimate wisdom, and we have to work at them. There are steps down to ultimate failure, and all we have to do is stop being aware.
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