Doctrines Covered

Doctrines Alluded To

Sexual Arrogance

Adultery

The Ark of God

Dying Grace

Laws of Divine Establishment

Liberation Theology

Polygamy

The Will of God

Chapters of the Bible Alluded To

2Samuel 5

2Samuel 6

2Samuel 10

2Samuel 12

2Samuel 21

1Chronincles 13

1Chronincles 15

1Chronicles 20

Psalms Appropriately Exegeted with this Chapter

Psalms 6

Psalms 32

Psalms 38

Psalms 51

Other Chapters of the Bible Appropriately Exegeted with this Chapter

This time, in beginning to put together the list of defined terms, it becomes even more apparent how important the ministry of R. B. Thieme, Jr. has been. All disciplines have a technical vocabulary and the same is true of Christianity. Apart from the reformation, the vocabulary and thinking of Christianity has languished to some extent over the past thousand or so years. Bob not only developed a more modern vocabulary to describe certain Christian principles, but built upon these principles as well, and developed doctrines which were previously undeveloped and, in some cases, not even thought of, until he began to put things together.

You may balk at this, and think, if the word is not found in the Bible, then we have no use for it. But bear in mind, the term Trinity is not found in the Bible, but it has tremendous meaning for us in the Church Age (also a term not found in the Bible). Developing some new concepts is extremely important in this and subsequent chapters of the Bible, because God the Holy Spirit will reveal that this sin of David’s and God’s dealing with his sin, is quite important and requires a great deal of study (which will involve doctrines and vocabulary).

Definition of Terms

The Arrogance Complex

See interlocking systems of arrogance below.

Client Nation

Client-Nation, is a national entity in which a certain number of spiritually mature Christians (the salt of the earth) have formed a pivot (see below) sufficient to sustain the nation and through which God specifically protects this nation so that believers can fulfill the divine mandates of evangelism, communication and custodianship of Bible doctrine, providing a haven for Jews, and sending missionaries abroad. The United States is a client-nation to God. A client nation must have freedom: Freedom to seek God, freedom to use one’s own volition and self-determination to succeed or fail, freedom from anarchy and tyranny, freedom for evangelism, freedom for believers to hear Bible teaching without government interference and, therefore, to grow spiritually, and freedom to send missionaries to other nations.

Compartmental-ization arrogance

To compartmentalize means to put or divide into (compartments, categories, etc.), especially to an excessive degree. Compartmentalization arrogance takes this concept to the n^th degree.

Divine Good

That which the believer produces while filled with the Holy Spirit. A mature believer will produce more divine good and more efficiently than an immature believer.

Enforced and genuine humility

Enforced humility is when you are forced to obey the proper authorities. Whether it is a parent standing over you with a switch or the police car behind you, you bend your behavior to what is expected, even though your volition desires to do just the opposite. Genuine humility is, you choose to do those things required by authority.

Evil

Evil is the thinking, strategy and plan of Satan. Evil may include sin and human good.

Human good

That which is done when out of fellowship, but is not sin. These acts are often in accordance with Satan’s strategy and plan, thought by some to be good. Giving your time or money to a global warming organization would be an example of human good. All human good will be burned at the Judgment Seat of Christ (1Cor. 3:11–15).

Iconoclastic arrogance

This is also known as the feet of clay syndrome. One person builds up this great, unrealistic image of a second person, often out of arrogance. This often happens in love, where one person or the other is unable to really see or understand the sin nature of the one they love. Suddenly, the person who built up this image sees the feet of clay in the other person, and they are angry and they, in arrogance, smash this image.

Installment discipline

The sins committed require extensive discipline. Instead of delivering the discipline all at once, God delivers the discipline in several parts (installments).

Interlocking Systems of Arrogance

Also known as the arrogance complex. The interlocking systems of arrogance refers to many clusters of sins which have a tendency to interlock with one another. Entering into this complex is more than carnality and it is different from reversionism. The link will take you to a more complete explanation.

Judgment Seat of Christ

At the end of the Tribulation, believers will be gathered together and God will test their production with fire. Their human good and evil will be burned; the divine good which they create will remain.

Laws of Divine Establishment

The laws of divine establishment are a system of laws and principles which provide for the preservation as well as for the prosperity of the human race. These laws apply to both believer and unbeliever alike.

Pivot

In nearly any nation, there will be believers and there will be mature believers (which is called a pivot. If these groups are large enough, a nation will be preserved and, in most cases, greatly prospered. If the pivot is small, or if there are very few mature believers in this pivot, then that nation will go down. The concept of a pivot of believers preserving a nation is found in Gen. 18:22–33 Matt. 5:13.

Rebound

The act of naming one’s sins to God. You get out of fellowship by sinning; you get back into fellowship by naming those sins (privately) to God.

Reversionism

Spiritual decline brought about by rejection of Bible doctrine. This is a reverting to one’s sin pattern before salvation. Sometimes, one develops a sin pattern after being saved.

Sexual Arrogance

Sexual arrogance is preoccupation with sex and self-gratification. It is preoccupation with the body to the exclusion of the soul.

Sin Nature Weakness Arrogance

Every believer has a weakness (or, weaknesses) in his (or her) sin nature. When this is placed above Bible doctrine, that is arrogance.

Some of these definitions are taken from

http://www.bibledoctrinechurch.org/?subpages/GLOSSARY.shtml

http://rickhughesministries.org/content/Biblical-Terms.pdf

http://www.gbible.org/_files/pdf/Doctrine_of_The_Divine_Decree.pdf

http://www.gbible.org/index.php?proc=d4d&sf=rea&did=28

http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/topics/chastisement.html

The discipline that David requires is going to be so great that, God cannot just give it to him at one fell swoop, or it would destroy David. So God breaks his discipline down into installments.

Installment Discipline for David

Installment

How David Was Disciplined

#1

David loses the child of this adulterous union in the latter half of 2Sam. 12. (2) 

#2

One of David’s daughters is raped by one of David’s sons, Amnon (and David sets thing sup in order for this to happen—2Sam. 13:1–23).

#3

His son, Absalom, will kill Amnon (again, David is manipulated into setting up this murder—2Sam. 13:24–39).

#4

Absalom will lead a full-scale rebellion against his father, David (2Sam. 14–18). FInally, Joab has to straighten David out before he is restored as king, in 2Sam. 19.

There are 2 reasons why God applies installment discipline to David: (1) He cannot take all of the discipline at one time and (2) It takes this much discipline to turn David around and to turn him away from his arrogance and sin. David will still be involved in arrogance through to the final discipline installment. One concentrated lump of discipline would not be enough to turn David around. Even in the final phrase of his discipline, David is still making really bad decisions, from time to time, as king, based upon emotion and arrogance. God has to pour enough discipline upon David to get him going in the right direction again because the entire nation Israel is dependent upon him.

Part of what we will study is discipline and part of it is suffering for blessing. When it turns David around, and he rebounds, it goes from being suffering from discipline to suffering for blessing.

I enjoyed some of Henry’s language in the following:

Alternate Outline from Matthew Henry

I.       He committed adultery with Bath–sheba, the wife of Uriah (2Sam. 11:1–5).

II.      He endeavoured to father the spurious brood upon Uriah (2Sam. 11:6–13).

III.     When that project failed, he plotted the death of Uriah by the sword of the children of Ammon, and effected it (2Sam. 11:14–25).

IV.     He married Bath–sheba (2Sam. 11:26–27).

From: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; from e-Sword, 2Sam. 11 introduction. .

Let’s see if we can get some introductory points on David’s sin.

David’s Sin: What’s the Issue?

1.      Introductory point: this is not David’s first sin, nor is this the first recorded sin where David is out of fellowship for a lengthy period of time. You may recall David marching with Philistines with the intent of attacking Israel—that was the result of David’s protracted sin against God during that time period.

2.      Second introductory point: there is not just a single sin which David commits here; however, the discipline for this series of sins and the text on this series of sins often refer back to David’s sin. His getting out of fellowship and staying out of fellowship for a long period of time is treated with the singular word sin.

3.      David is clearly a mature believer. His actions and life from very early on indicate this.

4.      We know for a fact that David has carefully studied the Mosaic Law, because he figured out the proper way to move the Ark of God. This took some intense study and reading, since he may not have had anything which approximated a concordance back then (that is, he had no way of looking up moving the Ark, so that he could have looked up that particular passage). My guess is, David began to read the Law in order to find this passage, but, it grabbed him, and he began to read it carefully and to study the text as he went along.

5.      Given that David marries many wives and collects mistresses, it is obvious that he rejected the doctrine of right man/right woman; which would have been apparent from God’s model for a relationship between man and woman (one man, Adam; and one woman, Eve).

6.      David ignored the passage that a king ought not to add many wives to himself (Deut. 17:17).

7.      God the Holy Spirit spends a great deal of time on this sin, which indicates, it merits our careful study. Bear in mind, what we find in the Bible are not simply random lists and events, but exactly that which God the Holy Spirit wants us to know.

8.      At the beginning of this sin, David is king over all Israel and one of the wealthiest men in all Israel—a man greatly blessed by God. At the end of his discipline, David is king over Israel and one of the wealthiest men in Israel—a man greatly blessed by God.

9.      In fact, David, at the end of all this, will be blessed by now having his right woman and fathering children he actually spends time raising, and, obviously, enjoying.

10.    The discipline which David receives is administered in installments, something which R. B. Thieme, Jr. calls installment discipline. The idea is, David is back in fellowship and he has admitted what he has done wrong, but God chooses to continue with suffering in David’s life.

11.    When a believer is out of fellowship, God may pour on the discipline, and the idea is, to catch his attention and to cause him to rebound and get back into fellowship. The suffering is also punishment for the sin or sins committed.

12.    However, David is in fellowship for much of the suffering that he endures.

13.    All suffering for the believer in fellowship is designed for blessing.

14.    Suffering for the immature believer and the mature believer while in fellowship is often used to accelerate growth.

15.    Therefore, this intense suffering which David is under will result in blessing and accelerated growth for David. So, even though David is clearly a mature believer throughout the previous chapters, he will still experience spiritual growth.

16.    It is reasonable to suppose that this intense pressure which God puts on David also continues so that David remains in fellowship for the rest of his life (obviously, he will sin and get out of fellowship but he will be motivated to get right back into fellowship).

17.    It is reasonable to suppose that David’s intense suffering was made quite public by God because of David’s position and authority. Everyone knows who David is; after awhile, people will begin to find out just how David has sinned. Some believers who know their Scriptures know that there is at least one mandate from God which David has ignored: A king will not multiply wives to himself (Deut. 17:17a). This must have been a concern or a question for believers who recognized that David was a great believer and greatly blessed by God. Because of his leadership role, David had a very public life; and this affected the spiritual lives of others.

18.    Finally, there seems to be more going on here than David simply getting out of fellowship for a period of time and then being disciplined for it. It is that which I have been struggling with.

19.    Each installment of discipline is not simply to make David feel pain; but, David is to learn something from each installment of discipline.

20.    When all is said and done, David will not enter into sinless perfection. However, he will remain in fellowship for much longer periods of time and he will not get out of fellowship for days on end.

This is a lot to keep in mind as we begin studying this portion of David’s life, but these are all points of consideration as we evaluate what God the Holy Spirit wants us to understand.

Prior to exegeting this chapter, I have spent a lot of time studying and re-studying Bob Thieme’s old tapes (actually MP3 files now) and thinking about alternative explanations. The theories which I offer up here may all be interrelated.

Theories on David’s Sin

Theory

Commentary

David was out of fellowship for awhile and God disciplined him for it. Being a public figure, he may have been given more discipline than the average person.

There seems to be more going on here than simply getting out of fellowship. One issue here, which is often ignored by commentators is, David had many wives and this violated the mandates of the Mosaic Law (Deut. 17:17). It is reasonable to suppose that this Bathsheba incident will be related to that.

David was simply in reversionism and God disciplined him appropriately.

Technically, reversionism indicates that a person, from whatever spiritual level he is on, falls back (reverts) to his previous life. Reversionism is characterized by a refusal to rebound (name one’s sins to God), which is certainly a characteristic of David’s sin. Reversionism is accompanied by negative volition towards doctrine.

However, the discipline for reversionism has a specific pattern of warning discipline followed by intensive discipline followed by the sin unto death. Instead, we find installment discipline (a misnomer). Therefore, there is a different approach taken by God with regards to discipline, indicating that the sin is a different quality of sin.

The key here is, David is a mature believer and yet allows himself to fall into protracted sin. That is, the key is both his maturity and the fact that he stays out of fellowship for a long time.

These observations about David are completely accurate—he is a mature believer and he stays out of fellowship for a protracted period of time. Furthermore, it is clear that he uses his God-given authority in order to commit these sins, and abuses this God-given authority on several occasions. So David has taken a great blessing and responsibility given to him by God, and has used it in order to satisfy his own personal lusts.

David is in interlocking systems of arrogance.

This is something brand new to theology, developed by R. B. Thieme, Jr. He did a fantastic job of developing this doctrine, but a less than stellar job of selling it. However, the idea is, a mature believer can step into interlocking systems of arrogance through one of its gates, and not only be trapped in there (until he rebounds), but be subject to the other gates as well (that is, David will enter into interlocking systems of arrogance through sexual arrogance but he will soon resort to conspiratorial, manipulative and criminal arrogance, something which he would not have considered doing before). Since I have introduced the subject, I will present the doctrine of interlocking systems of arrogance below.

Blind arrogance.

Perhaps David has committed a series of sins which he does not recognize as being sins, and they take him to this point to where he engages in adultery and then in murder.

Wilful and persistent disobedience.

David knew the Old Testament, as we have previously studied, and yet he multiplied wives to himself, in opposition to the Bible. This ate away at his soul and eventually manifested itself in the taking of Bathsheba and the murdering of her husband.

Degeneracy sins. Semi-permanent engraving of the brain (or, this may be thought of as, the addictive quality of a sin). Engaging in a particular sin becomes more important than one’s responsibilities in life.

There are sins which are related to our thinking (perhaps all of them); and some of them become so ingrained in our thinking that we are unable to view them objectively and they further blind us to divine truth. David, in one portion of his brain, begins to write on the neurons of his brain, and engraves thinking which is contrary to the thinking of God. Although we have the sloshing around in our brains of various chemicals and electronic signals and pulses going on, we can write semi-permanent information onto our brains which affects us quite significantly. Two very obvious examples are drug addiction and alcoholism. These two behaviors, separately or in tandem, can drag our entire lives down. They can destroy marriages, families, careers; and most certainly, the spiritual life of a believer. Repeating a particular sin seems to engrave such thinking into our brains; or engaging in a series of related sins seems to further engrave this into our brains. The end result is, this affects our entire thinking and almost every aspect of our lives. Another example of this is homosexual activity. We all have weaknesses; our sin natures have areas of sin which we lean toward. When we fall into these areas of sin, which then begin to engrave themselves in the brain, and become established functions in our lives, and then permeate the rest of our thinking; this quite negatively impacts our spiritual live. A person can be a believer in Jesus Christ and have homosexual tendencies, and be so tempted for most or all of his life. The more that he gives into this sin—to the point of accepting it and then to the point of making it an integral part of one’s life—the more that this affects the entire thought process of this believer. Giving in to any particular set of sins over and over again can apparently neutralize the life of a believer. So, for David, what began as collecting women then turned to dereliction of duty, which turned to adultery, which then turned to murder.

David has moved from perpetual or intermittent carnality to perpetual evil

Evil is the thinking and policy of Satan, which is in opposition to grace, which is the thinking and policy of God. David suffered intermittent carnality because of his many wives (specifically not covered in Scripture). This led to carnality in David’s life (his sin with Bathsheba). This sin turned into perpetual carnality which morphed into perpetual evil.

Some of these theories may end up being different approaches which describe the same thing, like 5 blind men describing the elephant.

What appears to be the case is, R. B. Thieme, Jr. came upon this passage, which he was determined to teach, and did not have a viable doctrine to explain David’s behavior. Nor was there any developed doctrine in theology which explained David’s behavior and the results.

A Doctrine is Needed to Explain David

1.      The problem which seemed to bring out this doctrine was David’s sin with Bathsheba.

2.      David will first stay home when he ought to go out to war.

3.      Then he has sex with another man’s wife, and it is possible that this illicit sex involves rape.

4.      David attempts to manipulate the situation to get Bathsheba’s husband to come back from the war and sleep with his wife (to cover up the pregnancy).

5.      When this doesn’t work, David has her husband killed in battle giving a field order which requires Joab to carry it out.

6.      David will rebound and God will discipline him afterwards with installment discipline.

7.      Here is the problem: going into the sin, David is clearly a mature believer. Coming out of the sin, David is clearly a mature believer (he does a lot of writing of Scripture once he is restored to fellowship). David does not seem to lose spiritual ground in terms of maturity, although he certainly brought upon himself a heap of discipline.

8.      Although David gets out of fellowship for an extended period of time, this does not appear to be reversionism.

9.      Reversionism is where a believer gets out of fellowship, rejects Bible doctrine, intentionally not taking in doctrine (even though he might go to church) and consequently goes into a spiritual decline. Reversionism is a term which speaks of a person reverting to his behavior as an unbeliever during this period of spiritual retrogression. We find the Hebrews guilty of this in Heb. 6:1–6.

10.    In fact—and this is an important point—although David has been in and out of fellowship on several occasions, he never seems to go into reversionism. There never seems to be a point where he has to start over from scratch.

11.    David became a believer at a very early age and it appears as if he grew to spiritual maturity at a very young age as well.

12.    Therefore, there is no actual set of behaviors to which David can revert to when out of fellowship, because he was so young when he was saved and then when he matured.

13.    However, there is no way that we can overlook the gross sins which David immerses himself in. He will break several of the Ten Commandments here: he will covet another man’s wife; he will commit adultery with another man’s wife, and then he will have that man killed.

14.    In committing these sins, David is not reverting to his behavior as an unbeliever. He never committed such sins before.

15.    In reversionism, people tend to spiritual regress. That is, whatever level of spiritual maturity a person has reached, he begins to lose that state and to fall backwards.

16.    This does not appear to happen to David.

17.    He is spiritually mature at the beginning of these sins, and he will write a lot of Scripture immediately after committing these sins, suggesting that he is still in a state of spiritual maturity.

18.    That is, despite committing this set of horrendous sins, David does not appear to have lost spiritual ground. At no time, will David have to start over and grow.

19.    Therefore, we need more of an explanation of David’s sin here and the results which goes beyond David being out of fellowship for a protracted period of time and beyond the concept of reversionism, which does not appear to apply here.

These points ought to make it clear that, simply saying that David is out of fellowship for awhile or that he has gone into reversionism does not fully explain what he did and where he is spiritually, both before and after this sin.

This particular doctrine was originally developed by R. B. Thieme, Jr. in the late 1970's and he had it crystalized into a complete doctrine by 1980 (when he taught it in conjunction with this particular passage). He later revised this to 2 sets of interlocking systems, which he called cosmic 1 and cosmic 2.

As just discussed, we need to explain David’s spiritual state in this chapter. We cannot fully explain his behavior by saying this is simply a protracted period of time that he is out of fellowship nor can we say that he entered into reversionism, because this is not reverting to any behavior which David exhibited as an unbeliever.

The Doctrine of Interlocking Systems of Arrogance

1.      The interlocking systems of arrogance refers to many clusters of sins which have a tendency to interlock with one another.

2.      That is, a believer who goes into interlocking systems of arrogance through one gate (or entrance), is likely to interlock with another cluster of sins if he remains out of fellowship.

3.      Using David as the example, he first is guilty of sexual arrogance, and has sex with a women who is the wife of one of his soldiers. Rather than get back into fellowship, David then tries to manipulate her husband, and, when that does not work, he becomes involves in criminal arrogance, and has Bathsheba’s husband killed.

4.      Believers and unbelievers can enter into interlocking systems of arrogance.

5.      Immature and mature believers can enter into interlocking systems of arrogance.

6.      The believer who enters into interlocking systems of arrogance may not lose much spiritual ground. They may not have to start over from step one in their spiritual lives (as we see in Heb. 6:1–3).

7.      Such a believer may not be entirely negative toward Bible doctrine. He may continue to attend Bible class and will have periods of time when he is both in fellowship and listening to the Word of God.

8.      Although they may not revert to behavior from their past unbelieving life, they may begin committing whole new varieties of sins never committed before.

9.      While in interlocking systems of arrogance, a person can become more easily tempted by a variety of lusts. In this chapter, David will be overtaken by sexual lust for Bathsheba.

10.    While in interlocking systems of arrogance, you may abandon many of your norms and standards. David will commit adultery and then murder in this chapter.

11.    One cluster of sins often interlocks with another cluster of sins, which can pull in a set of sins that this believer generally does not commit.

12.    When out of fellowship in inside the interlocking systems of arrogance, the believer—even the mature believer—is more vulnerable to these other clusters of sins (gates).

13.    Each gate represents a cluster of sins related to arrogance.

14.    These are called gates because they represent the way a person enters into interlocking systems of arrogance.

15.    However, when in interlocking systems of arrogance, the believer may interlock with another cluster of sins. He is not reentering into interlocking systems of arrogance because he is already there. He just begins to participate in a new cluster of sins as well.

16.    We might say, the believer goes further into the interlocking systems of arrogance with each new gate he enters.

17.    In David’s case, he is too entrenched in interlocking systems of arrogance to see just how far he has gone. He does not recognize just how evil he has been. It will take another believer, Nathan the prophet, to get to David, to get him to turn around and look at himself and what he has done (2Sam. 12:1–7).

18.    So there is no misunderstanding here, David is not some helpless soul trapped in a system from which he cannot escape. He is in a system of interlocking clusters of sins, and involvement with one cluster of sins often leads to involvement with another cluster of sins. However, David has human volition which he is exercising the entire time. By arrogantly remaining out of fellowship, and trying to deal with this situation on his own, David continues to limit his options.

19.    God does not look at David and say, “Look, this is too bad you are trapped here. Let’s get you out and everything is all better.” God will discipline David so much here that it must be parceled out in installments. If David got all that he deserved all at once, even David would be unable to endure it.

20.    In other words, the punishment for entering into interlocking systems of arrogance is quite severe.

21.    There seems to be very little spiritual ground lost as a result of being in interlocking systems of arrogance.

22.    We know this because David goes in as a mature believer and he exits as a mature believer. We know he comes out as a mature believer because he will write a number of psalms to describe this experience (which we will, of course, study after completing this chapter).

23.    Mature believers can fall prey to interlocking systems of arrogance. They can go into the interlocking systems of arrogance with doctrine in their soul, and come out the same way. In fact, it is often doctrine in their souls which they apply in order to get out of interlocking systems of arrogance.

24.    Because it is so easy for the believer to fall back into he interlocking systems of arrogance after escaping, God often applies tough discipline in order to get our attention and to focus us toward getting out of interlocking systems of arrogance. Sin nature weakness arrogance and sexual arrogance were so deep in David’s soul, that God gave him installment discipline, partially to discipline David, but partially to help him stay out of interlocking systems of arrogance at the end of his life. This does work, because David will be great in the final years of his life (we know this, because he will actually raise up Solomon as a father ought to raise up a son).

Keil and Delitzsch write: Although the primary occasion of the Psalm [51] is the sin of adultery, still David says peshaʿ (פֶּשַע) [pronounced PEH-shahģ] not merely because many other sins were developed out of it, as his guilt of blood in the case of Uriah, the scandal put into the mouths of the enemies of Jahve, and his self-delusion, which lasted almost a whole year; but also because each solitary sin, the more it is perceived in its fundamental character and, as it were, microscopically discerned, all the more does it appear as a manifold and entangled skein of sins, and stands forth in a still more intimate and terrible relation, as of cause and effect, to the whole corrupt and degenerated condition in which the sinner finds himself. This entangled skein of sins sounds a lot like the interlocking system of arrogance.

Surprisingly enough, I cannot find anywhere on the internet where this doctrine is laid out completely. I have it in my notes and it must be in one of Bob’s books, so I will reproduce it here for easy access. Each gate below is a separate doctrine in itself with examples from Scripture of believers who have exhibited these types of arrogance.

I have added 5 or more gates to this list.

The Gates (Entryways) into Interlocking System of Arrogance

Gate

Description of the Gate

1.      Mental Attitude Arrogance

Mental attitude arrogance is preoccupation with self leading to sin, human good and evil. It is satisfaction with self and dissatisfaction with others. Mental attitude arrogance results in preoccupation with self, which results in indifference to Bible doctrine, which results in accepting the cheap substitutes of emotional activity, legalism, human good, and becoming a loser in the Christian life.

2.      Negative Volition Arrogance

Negative volition is resistance to Bible doctrine on the one hand, or indifference to Bible doctrine on the other hand, based on arrogant preoccupation with self. Arrogance preoccupation with self has many aspects, such as a personality conflict with the teacher of doctrine, or self-pity in interaction with people in the congregation. In this state, you are not antagonistic to doctrine, but simply distracted from it by your own status quo of arrogance. For the believer, this is the most damaging arrogance of then all.

3.      Impulsive Arrogance

Impulsive arrogance applies to those who are in position of authority and they abuse the power of their authority. Their arrogance is manifested by their aggressive decisions.

4.      Institutional Arrogance

Institutional arrogance is the rejection of authority, policy, purpose and system of any legitimate institution.

5.      Blind Arrogance

Blind arrogance - arrogance of legalism. This is being partially divorced from reality (sociopathic rather than psychotic). This includes self-righteous arrogance, which is failure to see in yourself what you criticize in others.

6.      Conspiracy Arrogance

Conspiracy arrogance comes after institutional arrogance and results in a conspiracy to overthrow the purpose, policy, or authority of an organization.

7.      Criminal Arrogance

Criminal arrogance seeks to solve problems by violence and/or by criminal actions. The modus operandi of a person in criminal arrogance is criminal behavior. Believers are susceptible to this kind of arrogance just as unbelievers are.

8.      Crusader Arrogance

Crusader arrogance is the self-righteousness arrogance that tries to straighten the world from its error and mistakes. A person places his personal standards above the law or any form of establishment or authority. When criminal arrogance interlocks with crusader arrogance, there is terrorism or revolution.

9.      Psychopathic Arrogance

Psychopathic arrogance is total divorcement from all reality. It is a result of bad decisions, not genetics. It is intense concentration on self. Emotions take precedence over reason.

10.    Sexual Arrogance

Sexual arrogance is preoccupation with sex and self-gratification. It is preoccupation with the body to the exclusion of the soul.

11.    Genetic Arrogance

Genetic arrogance is assuming that greatness in life is inherited. Parents who seek recognition through the achievement of their children have this type of arrogance.

12.    Political Arrogance

Political arrogance is a result as well as an interlock with crusader arrogance. It is any human panacea which offers the solution to life's problems. Liberals and conservatives both suffer from political arrogance. It rejects the separation of church and state. Political arrogance is self righteousness searching for a solution to problems in politics.

13.    Client Nation Arrogance

Client nation arrogance is the arrogance related to divine laws and spiritual leadership. National arrogance emphasizes the laws of divine establishment (HTML) (PDF) and the function of government leadership in terms of arrogance versus humility. There are three basic forms of legitimate government.

(1)Monarchy is the rule of one man in the interest of the common good, which under arrogance becomes tyranny, i.e., the rule of one man for his own advantage.

(2)Aristocracy is the rule of a group in the interest of the common good. This degenerates to an oligarchy, which is the rule of a group for their own benefit, as the cosmic system influences the nation.

(3)A republic is the rule of the better part of the people in the interest of common good. But when arrogance comes, it degenerates into a democracy, which is the rule of the worst part of the people for their own benefit.

14.    Authority Arrogance

In authority arrogance, the individual fails to make the most difficult transition of temporal life, which is going from the authority in the home to freedom in life. The home is organized humility. The parents' authority is enforced humility, and the child's response to enforced humility produces genuine humility. Rejection of overt authority in life results in rejection of inward authority of the soul, and that destroys your own self-discipline.

15.    The Arrogance of Ignorance

Genuine humility is necessary for the transitions from authority in the home to freedom in life and from ignorance at salvation to cognizance at spiritual maturity. Genuine humility is the necessary teachability to make that transition. The arrogance of ignorance is the failure to make that transition from ignorance to cognizance in the Christian way of life. Simply put, the arrogance of Ignorance is the failure to make transition from ignorance to cognizance

16.    The Arrogance of Unhappiness

In the arrogance of unhappiness, self-centeredness eliminates any capacity or possibility for happiness. Involvement in cosmic one guarantees unhappiness and leads to erroneous ideas about what constitutes happiness. This means you expect others to make you happy. Entertainment and marriage is for people who are already happy. But with the arrogance of unhappiness, you have a martyr complex which results in trying to control people by giving them a guilt complex. This is how the weak control the strong. Unhappiness arrogance is the martyr complex trying to control people by guilt complex.

17.    Iconoclastic (or, Disillusionment) Arrogance

The arrogance of disillusion is called iconoclastic arrogance or the feet of clay syndrome.

(1)This begins when you put someone on a pedestal. Then when their feet of clay shows, you become disillusioned and react to whatever they represent.

(2)In other words, arrogance creates an idol of enchantment and illusion, but when the idol is shattered, arrogance is shocked and distracted and disoriented to life.

(3)As a result, the arrogant creator of the idol seeks to destroy the idol, a revenge in which the person can only gain his self-respect by destroying the thing which has allegedly destroyed his self-respect.

(4)Illusion created by arrogance is illusion destroyed by arrogance.

Iconoclastic arrogance is idolizing a person, which person is then mentally destroyed by the admirer’s own disillusionment.

18.    The Arrogance of Morality

The arrogance of morality is the self-righteous arrogance of superimposing false standards of morality on others. People major in one moral thing so they can rationalize and say they are better than everyone else in that area. This is superimposing a false standard of morality on others or taking a true standard out of its context, e.g., salvation. Morality is designed to protect human freedom. Morality arrogance is the imposition of self righteous arrogance of man-made legalistic norms and standards.

19.    Rational Arrogance

1.      Rational arrogance is the vanity of intellectual arrogance, or the elitism of the genius I.Q. Elitism might be defined for this study as that arrogant consciousness of pride in belonging to a select or favorite group of people. People with a high I.Q. have a tendency to look down their noses at those who are less fortunate.

2.      Rational arrogance is the vanity of giving precedence to human I.Q. and intellectual attainment over spiritual I.Q. and momentum from doctrine. The human viewpoint of life rejects or sets aside divine viewpoint.

3.      Rational arrogance generally afflicts those believers in Jesus Christ whose superior I.Q. or educational background gives them a false sense of elitism or

4.      All too often, intellectual arrogance compromises Bible doctrine by attempting to reconcile those things found in the Word of God with philosophical and scientific speculation.

5.      Because rational or intellectual arrogance is so anthropocentric, it has a tendency to accept as fact theories and philosophical speculations in the field of rationalism and empiricism, and make them a part of Christian doctrine.

6.      This doctrine is found at the Free Republic Website as gate #9 (points taken from there) and at Robert McLaughlin’s website.

20.    Emotional Arrogance

The arrogance of emotion is irrationality. Arrogant people stop thinking and so their emotion becomes their substitute for thought. This is total preoccupation with self related to emotion. Knowledge is the environment for thinking. Bible doctrine is the environment for decisions. Emotional arrogance fantasizes and therefore collapses under pressure. Emotional arrogance is when thought is replaced by substitute emotion.

21.    Pseudo-generosity Arrogance

In the arrogance of pseudo-generosity, a person gives because of a desire for attention, approbation, or to buy friendship or happiness. 2Cor. 9:7,11 teaches that the function of genuine generosity is found in the mind.

22.    The Arrogance of Christian Service

A loss of momentum comes from rejection of doctrine and substituting Christian service for spirituality. Christian service becomes a distraction to momentum. Production is a result of growth, never the means. Perpetuation of Christian service while in the cosmic system is the arrogance of Christian service. Arrogance mistakes Christian service for growth and momentum. Christian service arrogance is the self-righteous arrogance of making a show of out of his service and sacrifice for God, the motive of which is human recognition and approbation.

23.    Discouragement Arrogance

The arrogance of discouragement is preoccupation with self under pressure and testing. Unexplained disaster tempts the believer to feel sorry for himself. Being maligned, treated unfairly, or facing the death of loved ones are the kinds of disaster or pressure that bring this on. This was Peter and Elijah's problem (Matt. 26:58 1Kings 19:10). In discouragement arrogance, one enjoys the scenario of seeing himself in pain, sorrow and lost.

24.    The Arrogance of Lust

When legitimate desire is linked with arrogance, it becomes lust. Inordinate desire is lust. Desire is not wrong, but lust is. Lust is arrogant preoccupation with one's desires. A legitimate arrogance when combined with arrogance becomes lust of arrogance.

25.    Pseudo-Intellectual Arrogance

Pseudo-intellectual arrogance is the superimposition of human I.Q. over spiritual I.Q. Arrogance rejects divine viewpoint. It glorifies human speculation to the exclusion of Bible doctrine, or seeks to reconcile Bible doctrine with false philosophical, psychological, and scientific speculation; e.g., gnosticism. Spiritual IQ is the ability and capacity of the believer to perceive, receive, believe, retain and recall Bible doctrine for everyday living under the grace of God.

26.    Pseudo-Love Arrogance

Pseudo-love arrogance is the attempt of anyone to duplicate the principles or function of true love while residing in the cosmic system.

27.    Revenge Arrogance

Revenge arrogance - trying to re-gain self respect by destroying the destroyer of his false self-esteem.

28.    Suicidal Arrogance

Suicidal arrogance - is super-imposing his own will over God's sovereign will at the limelight. Arrogance of suicide is produced by arrogance which motivates the taking one's own life.

29.    Religious Arrogance

Religious arrogance exalts creatures or things over the Creator (we see this in hyper-environmentalists who are concerned with the preservation of mother earth more than with human life).

30.    Sin Nature Weakness Arrogance

Every believer has a weakness (or, weaknesses) in his (or her) sin nature. When this is placed above Bible doctrine, that is arrogance. For instance, homosexual believers who refuse to recognize that homosexual behavior is sin. It is certainly possible for any homosexual to believe in Jesus Christ and stand saved forever, no matter how often this person has homosexual relations. However, when their personal predilection for sin is given preeminence over Bible doctrine, that is the arrogance of sin nature weakness. In other words, they often try to portray their sin as good or as a condition given by God, which is far worse and more arrogant than committing this sin.

31.    The Arrogance of Addictive Behavior

Some sins are naturally addictive—alcohol and drug usage are examples of this. Quite obviously, a person drinks or takes a particular drug because they like the way it makes them feel. It titillates their emotions and causes their mind and/or body to feel good. Most often, it removes them from their circumstances, which they may find difficult.

32.    Manipulative Arrogance

Rather than to take responsibility for one’s actions and rather than to accept things as they are, a manipulator will attempt to manipulate people and circumstances in order to do his or her bidding.

33.    Compartmentalization Arrogance

Here, a person is able to set aside all of the pain and grief he causes, because these things are a means to a desired end. There are a huge number of people around the world who are willing to do very evil things, so that their ends might be gained. Islamic radicals, communists, socialists and anarchists all come quickly to mind. These people all have a radical vision of the future, and are unconcerned about the pain and suffering that they cause, which will take them to that goal. They are able to set aside, in their own minds, the pain, harm and evil which they cause, because these things result in what they see as a good result.

34.    Anti-societal arrogance

This is where a person rebels against societal norms and standards, to the point where, if society classifies some as right, he questions it; if society classifies something as wrong, he does it. He looks at other people who adhere to these rules with disdain and sees them as inferiors. A great many filmmakers suffer from this sort of arrogance. They attempt, in their films, to continually push the envelope when it comes to societal mores. Because they question society’s conventions, they see themselves as superior and insightful to those who abide by them. However, from time to time, they we latch on to an axiom of counter-culture morality and display it with great self-righteousness (such as, tolerance).

35.    Entitlement arrogance

The infusion into the soul that one is entitled to things which one has not earned.

36.    Abuse of Authority Arrogance

This is where a person in authority considers himself too smart and too good to consider the suggestions of his underlings. He automatically reacts negatively to the suggestions of certain people below him. Or he rejects philosophies and approaches which rejection has been ingrained in his soul from his early age.

Another form of this is where a person in authority abuses or takes advantage of those under his authority. You have entered into this gate when this is your modus operandi.

Many of these definitions from:

http://demonology.jrcbdm.com/gates_of_evil.htm Some of these definitions came from Rev. Dr. James A. Brettell from http://www.docstoc.com/docs/33520367/Texts and others came from Cvengr’s notes from Berachah Church circa 1989 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2344068/posts The final 6 gates are my own.

There are more extensive notes on the interlocking systems of arrogance from Bob’s teaching of David (HTML) (PDF); lessons #631_0238–631_0239 (I apologize in advance for the many typos). My notes from those classes have since been removed, at the request of R. B. Thieme III.

Applying the interlocking systems of arrogance to David in particular,

David and the Interlocking Systems of Arrogance

1.      David likes women and he began to collect women very early on.

2.      As a great and charismatic leader, David could also apply this charm to women, and we have a list of David’s wives, mistresses and children begun in 2Sam. 5 (HTML) (PDF).

3.      However, during all of this time, before and after David began to collect wives, David continued to grow spiritually and he had many spiritual breakthroughs (e.g., the successful moving of the Ark in 2Sam. 6 (HTML) (PDF).

4.      However, all of this time, he continued to collect wives and mistresses. David collected so many that he did not even record all of their names in 2Sam. 5, nor did he keep track of which child belonged to which wife or mistress (which will be discussed in greater detail when we look at David’s Wives.

5.      This chapter marks a point at which David takes this too far.

         a.      He does not go out with his soldiers at war. This appears to be at the urging of his own soldiers (2Sam. 21:17).

         b.      He appears to take advantage of the fact that his soldiers are at war, as there are far fewer men inside of Jerusalem.

         c.      David finds himself attracted to a woman, and when he finds out that this woman is the wife of one of his soldiers—even now, on the field of battle—this does not dissuade David. He desires the wife of Uriah the Hittite, breaking commandment #10, and he commits adultery with her, breaking commandment #7, which violation makes David worthy of death.

         d.      When David takes Bathsheba, bear in mind, he had 10–20 other women that he could have had sex with legitimately.

         e.      However, even then, David continues on this arrogant pathway, and he has her husband killed, which is breaking another commandment, which is also a capital offense.

6.      David is both out of fellowship for an extended period of time, and he is committing acts which begin affecting dozens of people, completely ignoring his own personal responsibility toward these people.

7.      David will gives in to the lusts of his sin nature and he will abandon his many norms and standards.

8.      David’s old sin nature weakness is revealed in 2Sam. 5, and despite the clear spiritual growth that David enjoys in 2Sam. 6 (and elsewhere), David later finds himself giving in completely to his personal desires, which is what this chapter is all about.

9.      According to R. B. Thieme, Jr.¹, David will go 18 months without rebounding (naming his sins to God and being restored to fellowship).

¹ From my notes of R. B. Thieme, Jr.’s 1972 David series, lesson #631_0238.

This portion of David’s life—his sin and punishment—take up a huge portion of the Word of God (2Sam. 11–20). Therefore, we need to recognize the importance of this study. This sin that David committed simply indicated how far he had fallen into degeneracy.

Degeneracy Sins (Addictive Behavior)

1.      Not all sins function the same way in our life. We may give in to this or that sin, now and again, but these sins do not dramatically impede our spiritual growth nor do they consume our lives.

2.      However, there are sins which potentially can stop us dead in our tracks, keeping us from spiritual growth, and sometimes transforming our lives, to where these sins become first and foremost in our lives.

3.      We will classify these types of sins as degeneracy sins. Committing such sins once or twice is not degeneracy; committing such sins with great regularity, where much of our life is spent preparing to commit such sins, is degeneracy.

4.      David has fallen into sexual degeneracy.

5.      Sins of degeneracy are sins where we continue to dig ourselves deeper and deeper into sin.

6.      Most often, these sins involve some kind of pleasure, often from sex, drinking, drugs or even over-eating.

7.      The commission of these sins goes beyond the weakness of the sin nature. These are not simply a person’s individual weakness; these are sins which that person continue to pursue with greater effort and greater frequency.

8.      There seems to be an effect of repetition and time when it comes to degeneracy sins. This repetition digs out a rut which often keeps us there. That is, the more we repeat the sin, the harder it is not to commit that sin.

9.      Degeneracy sins can begin small and develop to a point where they consume much of a person’s life.

10.    There seems to be a diminished capacity to resist such sins, as repetition of these sins continues. It is not necessarily that the person is completely unable to stop committing these sins; but that he chooses not to.

11.    There also appears to be an inability to objectively appreciate the effect of these sins on one’s own life.

12.    David was a skirt-chaser. He loved women. In his culture, David could get away with having many wives, and few people took a dim view of this.

13.    However, the ability to temporarily satisfy a sin of degeneracy does not minimize that sin in any way, nor does it keep that sin from taking up too much of your life.

14.    David had so many wives and mistresses that he stopped keeping track of all their names and stopped worrying about which child belonged to which wife (apart from his first few children). 2Sam. 5:13–16

15.    However, his sin with Bathsheba made it clear that David was in a hole and he continued to dig himself deeper into that hole. His sins of degeneracy had led him to a place where he committed sins against others that he would have never considered before.

16.    If you have ever driven a vehicle over open land and got stuck in the dirt, you will find that, when you rev up the engine, you will just dig yourself deeper at the point where you got stuck. This is how a sin of degeneracy affects us.

17.    The carry this analogy further, we find that we must either seek outside help to get the car out of the rut or try an outside approach (e.g., putting boards under the wheels of the vehicle in order to get traction).

18.    One of the common steps in addiction recovery is trusting in a higher power (God) to help you, guide you out, or to depend upon. Political correctness has kept many addiction organizations from specifically identifying God.

19.    By the time of 2Sam. 11, David discovered that, as king, he could send his troops off to war, and that took many of the men out of Jerusalem. That gave David a greater chance to chase women.

20.    David wakes up in the early evening, has a sexual urge, and yet does nothing to satisfy the urge with one of his (approximately) 20 wives and mistresses. Most of us males think, with 20 women, that is going to be quite enough variety. The fact that David did not turn to one of his wives or mistresses indicates that he was trapped in addictive behavior; he was digging himself further into a rut with degeneracy sins.

21.    David’s son, Solomon, had 1000 wives and mistresses, and that was not enough for him. The Song of Solomon is all about his pursuit of another women, even though he had 1000 women of all nationalities to choose from. That is clearly being trapped in addictive behavior.

22.    Degeneracy sins can include various sexual addictions, including homosexuality, a desire for sexual relations with children, and/or an addiction to pornography; as well as alcoholism, drug addiction and an addiction to gambling.

23.    There have been several studies which indicate that there is a genetic component to addictive behavior. One study, for instance, showed that, of identical twins, if one person was a homosexual, there was a 50% chance that his identical twin was homosexual. This indicates a clear genetic predisposition but one which is not determinative.

24.    Along the same lines, there seems to be genetic evidence for alcoholism. Charlie Brown may be predisposed genetically toward alcoholism, but that may or may not develop in his lifetime. The same thing is certainly true of drug addiction. Having this soul defect is not determinative; you can choose not to participate in the first place.

25.    I recall an article which was purposely a setup. It begins describing the effects of a particular sin, and the results of that sin. The way the article begins, one immediately thinks that it is homosexual behavior which is being discussed, but it turns out to be alcoholism. The twist of the article is, all the percentages of negative results which are true of the alcoholic are even more pronounced for the homosexual.

         a.      As I read somewhere on the internet, “This is how God made you (an alcoholic), enjoy it. Drink all you want.”

         b.      This is how the world wants us to view these weaknesses, in some instances. That is, if you have a desire to experiment with homosexual sex, then go ahead and try it out. Quite obviously, that is not the Biblical approach.

26.    There seems to be an addictive personality, that has one set of addictions, and, after overcoming that, falls prey to another set of addictions. This would probably indicate both a genetic and a volitional component.

27.    You cannot fall into addictive behaviors apart from your own free will. This is one of the attacks of the present-day, political homosexual movement—they claim that there is no choice involved, that being homosexual is ingrained from birth, and cannot be changed, and that even those who claim to be transformed, if they find themselves tempted, this is evidence that they have not been transformed. Some even bring God into this, along with love, and try to approximate homosexual relationships with heterosexual relationships. This is wrong on many counts.

         a.      A heterosexual relationship can result in a child, and marriage serves to protect both the mother and the child. You have no doubt heard of shotgun weddings; this was a somewhat warped version of understanding this principle. There is no such protection required in a homosexual union.

         b.      A heterosexual marriage combines two fundamentally different creatures: a man and a woman. These genders are different from birth. At one time, the women’s lib movement tried to convince us that gender differences were placed there by society, but that has since been shown to be false.

         c.      Homosexuality is not as widespread as it portends to be. The National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS), found that only 2.8 percent of the men and 1.4 percent of the women said they thought of themselves as homosexual or bisexual.¹

         d.      Fidelity is a very important part of a heterosexual marriage. An act of infidelity can destroy a marriage. Few committed homosexuals depend upon sexual fidelity.

         e.      A lifelong commitment among heterosexual couples is much more likely than that between homosexual couples.

         f.       Marriage is an institution recognized by nearly all cultures over all recorded history. Homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia and polygamy have all existed almost since the beginning of time, but always as a perversion and never as the norm of any society.

         g.      For a traditional marriage, it is not unusual for lifelong partners to enter into a lifelong commitment, without ever having sex with one another or with others. In fact, this was, at one time, the norm. Virgin marriages and making a lifetime commitment to one another as virgins simply does not occur in a homosexual relationship.

         h.      It is obvious that many of these differences are a matter of degree, but the difference in degree is generally quite dramatic.

28.    For many, committing these sins (sexual sins, drunkenness, the use of drugs) tends to dig oneself deeper into a degeneracy hole.

29.    Their lives become obsessed with committing these sins, to the exclusion of other legitimate activity.

30.    I’ve known alcoholics and have seen them drink themselves to the point where they lose their jobs, their families, their homes, and/or their cars.

31.    I have known drug addicts. Drug abusers can get to a point where the will rob their own family members in order to continue using drugs. I have known drug addicts whose physical changes and mental changes are so stark as to make them almost unrecognizable to friends and family.

32.    A 1978 study showed that 43% of male homosexuals have had 500 or more partners.² That is obsessive behavior.

33.    A 1981 study showed that only 2% of male homosexuals could be classified as monogamous or semi-monogamous.² Again, this is behavior far outside of the norm and indicates addictive behavior more than it does personal satisfaction.

34.    There are several passages in the Bible which allude to degeneracy sins:

         a.      2Sam. 11 is all about how overcome David is with lust that he would take a woman in adultery—possibly by rape—and then have her husband killed.

         b.      Song of Solomon is all about Solomon, the man who is chasing after the woman in this book, despite having 1000 wives and mistresses.

         c.      Rom. 1:21–27 Because knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful. But they became vain in their reasonings, and their undiscerning heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became foolish and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. Because of this, God gave them up to impurity in the lusts of their hearts, their bodies to be dishonored among themselves, who changed the truth of God into the lie, and worshiped and served the created thing more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Because of this, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for even their females changed the natural use to that contrary to nature. And likewise, the males also forsaking the natural use of the female burned in their lust toward one another, males with males working out shamefulness, and receiving back within themselves the reward which was fitting for their error. Here, God gives these up to their dishonorable lusts, allowing them to burn in lust toward those of the same gender. So the Bible clearly recognizes that, when it comes to this sort of behavior, the desire to commit these sins is very strong.

35.    The solution for sins of degeneracy does not appear to be any different from the solution to all forms of carnality (being out of fellowship). Rebound (naming one’s sins to God) and turning toward the truth of the Word of God (the inculcation of Bible doctrine into one’s soul; or, epistemological rehabilitation). This is not reading the Bible for yourself, but putting yourself under the authority of a knowledgeable pastor-teacher who consistently teaches the Word of God. Personally, I believe that there is no reason why a believer should be taking in doctrine less than a daily basis.

¹ http://www.truenews.org/Homosexuality/homosexual_myths_and_facts.html accessed February 15, 2011.

² http://gospelway.com/morality/homosexuality.php accessed February 15, 2011.

For additional research of homosexuality, let me suggest:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1751579/posts

http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality

It may seem early to be drawing some conclusions about David’s sin (since we have not exegeted the first word yet), but I think we can safely come to some conclusions.

Concluding Introductory Remarks about David’s Sin

1.      There is certainly more here than simple, perpetual carnality.

2.      David’s high profile position and clear relationship to God play an important part in this narrative. David’s position of authority allow him to commit these sins. It is a lot harder for me to spot a super-babe who is married, get her to come over to my house, have sex with her, and then murder her husband. These things are harder for me to do than for David.

3.      David was looked up to with regards to his relationship with God. It was clear, early on, in his kingship, that he was closely related to God in his thinking. He was absolutely persistent about bringing the Ark of God into Jerusalem.

4.      David was well-known and respected. You or I may commit a great sin or a series of sins, and 10 or 15 people might know (maybe less). David’s sins became known to perhaps tens of thousands of people and they affected hundreds, if not thousands of people.

5.      David, a man after God’s Own heart, has sex with one of his warrior’s wives and then has him killed is pretty extraordinary; as people found out about this, the more they are likely to use that as an excuse for their own bad behavior. “David, this great spiritual giant, did this; and all I want to do is that, which is much less important.” Sin has a way of taking hold and spreading throughout a population. The fact that David is seen as a spiritual giant allows people greater latitudes in their own rationalization.

         a.      I am a political junkie, and I have heard, hundreds of times, a charge laid against our current President Obama, where an apologist immediately cites something similar which former President George W. Bush had done.

6.      A number of us desire some modicum of fame. I recall being in Austin on Sixth Street with a friend of mine, and some drunken kids drive by and yell out my name. This was moderately impressive, as here we were, a couple hundred miles from where I live, and I am recognized. Some people have a great desire for this thing called fame; but with fame comes responsibility. The more closely you are identified with the plan of God, the tighter the reign which God might upon you.

         a.      This does not mean that what you want to shoot for is a mediocre spiritual life when you essentially fly beneath the radar.

         b.      People are confused by spiritual growth. They think that, they don’t want to grow too much, because this might obligate them to too much.

         c.      Remember what Jesus promised: “Come to Me, all those laboring and being burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, because I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28–30; Jer. 6:16b).

         d.      In other words, spiritual growth makes your life better, not worse, despite the added responsibilities.

         e.      In the human realm, when you went from being a teenager to a full-fledged adult, you gained a huge amount of freedom; however, personal responsibility also increased.

         f.       In your job, you will often find that additional responsibilities is a promotion. Furthermore, often what is involved is greater creativity and greater authority. One of the things which I enjoyed about teaching was the great latitude, freedom and creativity which was afforded me in the classroom (something which was reduced over the years). It made the job much more enjoyable, despite the fact that more responsibility was much greater.

         g.      The more you grow spiritually, the better your life is, despite the increased responsibility. Just as no sensible adult wants to return to his parents’ home and put himself under their authority, no sensible growing believer wants to retrogress to a more mediocre level of spiritual growth.

7.      David’s fame as a man who was spiritually mature came into play here; his actions were deplorable and could have infected the entire nation. God’s discipline of David had to be just as public and just as harsh, so as to discourage others from falling into the Davidic rationalization process.

8.      One of the end results of David committing this sin is going to be a revolution against his government.

9.      Therefore, David’s sin is going to affect essentially everyone in Israel.

10.    This is part of the responsibility that the believer with some authority faces. A pastor who commits adultery or some sexual sin is likely to be run out of his church. The greater the spiritual responsibility, the greater the punishment.

Let me add in a few principles taught by Bob in the David series:

Loyalty to the Truth Rather than Loyalty to People

1.      Human integrity is having loyalty to the 3 categories of truth.

         1)      To the laws of divine establishment (HTML) (PDF).

         2)      To the gospel (HTML) (PDF).

         3)      To Bible doctrine (HTML) (PDF) (Lake Erie Bible Church HTML PDF) (Verse by Verse HTML)

2.      True integrity is having loyalty to a principle as opposed to loyalty to a person. It is legitimate to exhibit loyalty to a person so long as integrity is directed toward the truth.

3.      Believers and unbelievers alike are to adhere to the laws of divine establishment.

4.      The gospel is truth for the unbeliever only, but designed to be understood as absolute truth by believers, with all of its ramifications.

5.      After believing in Jesus Christ, the believer then is to turn toward doctrine.

6.      Loyalty to the truth is adherence to the truth.

7.      When having to choose between loyalty to a friend and loyalty to the truth, the person with integrity must choose the truth.

8.      The following two illustrations are an application of this doctrine, and which help to explain it.

         1)      When your friends desire to break the law, you cannot be with them. It is not unreasonable to turn them in or warn them that you are going to turn them in.

         2)      When friends, family or other believers try to dissuade you from Bible class, you have to choose Bible class. God separated some believers from their family so that they can focus on the Word of God (however, this is not true for all believers in the Bible nor does the Bible suggest that you must isolate yourself from family and friends.

9.      Incorrect application:

         1)      You do not separate from family and friends because they are confused about the laws of divine establishment.

         2)      You do not necessarily separate from believers who lack doctrine and are therefore, not growing.

10.    A chief characteristic of integrity is having loyalty to truth. You will know the truth and the truth will make you free (John 8:32). Therefore, when you, as a believer, face a conflict between people and the Word of God, you choose the Word of God.

11.    You cannot be loyal to Bible doctrine without knowing Bible doctrine.

12.    A believers cannot have integrity unless he is loyal to the truth.

13.    The believer cannot be enmeshed in the interlocking systems of arrogance and have integrity. We are going to see David trapped by interlocking systems of arrogance in this chapter, and his personal integrity is completely lacking.

14.    Personal honor is the coalescence of integrity and loyalty.

15.    The believer who is ignorant of doctrine and the unbeliever who has no concept of divine establishment, cannot develop honor because they have on truth to be loyal to.

16.    Developing an appreciation for the truth begins with teachability, which is true humility. There is nothing more arrogant than a believer who, soon after believing in Jesus Christ, thinks that he knows it all.

17.    Learning Bible doctrine as a system will involve self-discipline and academic discipline. A natural outcome of spiritual growth is self-discipline and academic discipline.

18.    Many of the principles of doctrine (which include the laws of divine establishment) ought to be applied to business and professional life.

19.    Learning and believing in Bible doctrine develops integrity for the believer, which is loyalty to God.

20.    When you choose people over doctrine, that is not loyalty to people but disloyalty toward the truth.

21.    Believers who are not loyal to the truth are then given strong delusion, as Paul wrote in 2Thess. 2:11: Therefore, God will send them [those who reject Bible doctrine] strong delusion, so that they will believe a lie.

         1)      The lie can be almost anything, depending upon the category of truth you have rejected.

         2)      This is another way of viewing scar tissue of the soul. When you reject Bible doctrine, your soul develops a vacuum which sucks in false doctrine, which develops scar tissue of the soul. Eph. 4:17–19 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility [emptiness, vacuum] of their minds [thinking]. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart [scar tissue of the soul]. They have become callous [in their thinking; they have become callous toward the truth] and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

22.    There ought to be no conflict between truth and loyalty. When loyalty to a person leads to criminality, arrogance, and/or corruption, then one has become loyal to a person rather than loyal to the truth. Al believers, our loyalty is always toward God, which means our loyalty is toward divine truth.

23.    In a national entity, there must be adherence to the laws of divine establishment. We find this under communism; we find this in Arab nations; and this is beginning to develop throughout most of Europe.

24.    Quite obviously, a client nation to God must be loyal to the truth, which means, it must adhere, as much as possible, to the laws of divine establishment. The more that these laws are rejected, the more warning discipline that God administers to that nation.

25.    No nation can continue as a client nation without national integrity, which is loyalty to the truth. Therefore, as a collective body, the unbelievers in the nation should believe in the laws of divine establishment and the believers should believe in Bible doctrine. Evangelization and doctrinal teaching ought to continue unhindered.

2Samuel 11:1a

Hebrew/Pronunciation

Common English Meanings

Notes/Morphology

BDB and Strong’s Numbers

wa (or va) (וַ) [pronounced wah]

and so, and then, then, and; so, that, yet, therefore; because

wâw consecutive

No Strong’s # BDB #253

hâyâh (הָיָה) [pronounced haw-YAW]

to be, is, was, are; to become, to come into being; to come to pass

3^rd person masculine singular, Qal imperfect

Strong's #1961 BDB #224

lâmed (לְ) [pronounced l^e]

to, for, towards, in regards to, with reference to, as to, with regards to; belonging to; by

directional/relational preposition

No Strong’s # BDB #510

t^eshûwbâh (תְּשוּבָה) [pronounced t^e-shoo^b-VAW]

a return; a replay, an answer

feminine singular construct

Strong’s #8666 BDB #1000

shânâh (שָנָה) [pronounced shaw-NAW]

year

feminine singular noun with the definite article

Strong’s #8141 BDB #1040

We find this same or similar phrasing in 1Kings 20:22, 26 1Chron. 20:1 2Chron. 36:10.

2Samuel 11:1b

Hebrew/Pronunciation

Common English Meanings

Notes/Morphology

BDB and Strong’s Numbers

lâmed (לְ) [pronounced l^e]

to, for, towards, in regards to, with reference to, as to, with regards to; belonging to; by

directional/relational preposition

No Strong’s # BDB #510

ʿêth (עֵת) [pronounced ģayth]

time, the right time, the proper time; opportunity

feminine singular construct

Strong’s #6256 BDB #773

yâtsâʾ (יָצָא) [pronounced yaw-TZAWH]

to go out, to come out, to come forth; to rise; to flow, to gush up [out]

Qal infinitive construct

Strong's #3318 BDB #422

melek^e (מֶלֶך׃) [pronounced MEH-lek]

king, ruler, prince

masculine plural noun with the definite article

Strong’s #4428 BDB #572

According to Rotherham, this is written messengers but read kings.

Codex Leningrad (B19A), on which Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia is based, has here "messengers" (הַמַּלְאכִים, hammal'khim), probably as the result of contamination from the occurrence of that word in 2Sam. 11:4. The present translation follows most Hebrew MSS and the ancient versions, which read "kings" instead (הַמֶּלָאכִים, hammela'kim).

2Samuel 11:1c

Hebrew/Pronunciation

Common English Meanings

Notes/Morphology

BDB and Strong’s Numbers

wa (or va) (וַ) [pronounced wah]

and so, and then, then, and; so, that, yet, therefore; because

wâw consecutive

No Strong’s # BDB #253

shâlach (שָלַח) [pronounced shaw-LAKH]

to send, to send for [forth, away], to dismiss, to deploy, to put forth, to stretch out, to reach out

3^rd person masculine singular, Qal imperfect

Strong’s #7971 BDB #1018

Dâvid (דָּוִד); also Dâvîyd (דָּוִיד) [pronounced daw-VEED]

beloved and is transliterated David

masculine proper noun

Strong’s #1732 BDB #187

ʾêth (אֶח) [pronounced ayth]

generally untranslated; occasionally to, toward

indicates that the following substantive is a direct object

Strong's #853 BDB #84

Yôwʾâb (יוֹאָב) [pronounced YOH-aw^bv]

Yah is father and is transliterated Joab

masculine singular proper noun

Strong’s #3097 BDB #222

w^e (or v^e) (וְ or וּ) [pronounced weh]

and, even, then; namely; when; since, that; though

simple wâw conjunction

No Strong’s # BDB #251

ʾêth (אֶח) [pronounced ayth]

generally untranslated; occasionally to, toward

indicates that the following substantive is a direct object

Strong's #853 BDB #84

ʿebed (עֶבֶד) [pronounced ĢE^B-ved]

slave, servant

masculine plural noun with the 3^rd person masculine singular suffix

Strong’s #5650 BDB #713

ʿîm (עִם) [pronounced ģeem]

with, at, by, near

preposition of nearness and vicinity; with the 3^rd person masculine singular suffix

Strong’s #5973 BDB #767

2Samuel 11:1d

Hebrew/Pronunciation

Common English Meanings

Notes/Morphology

BDB and Strong’s Numbers

w^e (or v^e) (וְ or וּ) [pronounced weh]

and, even, then; namely; when; since, that; though

simple wâw conjunction

No Strong’s # BDB #251

ʾêth (אֶח) [pronounced ayth]

generally untranslated; occasionally to, toward

indicates that the following substantive is a direct object

Strong's #853 BDB #84

kôl (כֹּל) [pronounced kohl]

every, each, all of, all; any of, any

masculine singular construct not followed by a definite article

Strong’s #3605 BDB #481

Yis^erâʾêl (יִשְׂרַאֵל) [pronounced yis-raw-ALE]

God prevails; the prince that prevails with God; he will rule as God; transliterated Israel

masculine proper noun

Strong’s #3478 & #3479 BDB #975

2Samuel 11:1e

Hebrew/Pronunciation

Common English Meanings

Notes/Morphology

BDB and Strong’s Numbers

wa (or va) (וַ) [pronounced wah]

and so, and then, then, and; so, that, yet, therefore; because

wâw consecutive

No Strong’s # BDB #253

shâchath (שָחַת) [pronounced shaw-KHAHTH]

to cause one to go to ruin, to spoil, to ruin, to corrupt, to destroy

3^rd person masculine plural, Hiphil imperfect

Strong's #7843 BDB #1007

ʾêth (אֶח) [pronounced ayth]

generally untranslated; occasionally to, toward

indicates that the following substantive is a direct object

Strong's #853 BDB #84

bên (בֵּן) [pronounced bane]

son, descendant

masculine plural construct

Strong’s #1121 BDB #119

ʿAmmôwn (עַמּוֹן) [pronounced ģahm-MOHN]

hidden; transliterated Ammon

masculine proper noun

Strong’s #5983 BDB #769

Just in case you forgot the details of the conflict that Israel had with Ammon and Aram, let me fill you in:

A Recap of Israel’s War Against the Ammonites and the Aramæan Mercenaries

In the previous year, at the beginning of 2Sam. 10, the Ammonite king died, and he was a king with whom David had a good relationship. They were allies. David dispatched a emissary of men to convey his sympathy to Hanun, this man’s son (and new king). Hanun treated these sympathizers with contempt, leaving David no choice but to attack Ammon.

Ammon, therefore, went to Syria (Aram) for help and paid for their mercenary army. So they joined forces and developed a fool-proof plan in order to defeat Israel’s army. Now, this was not all the Syrian army, but a mercenary force. Here was the plan (and bear in mind, there are two independent armies): when Joab came through the valley to Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon, the Ammonite army would be poised right outside of the city wall, and they would put up a moderate fight, which would draw Joab’s troops in toward the wall of Rabbah. Meanwhile, off hidden in the trees and the bushes, was the mercenary force of Ammon, hidden there with their horses and their chariots. As soon as Israel was drawn into the wall, the very mobile army of Aram would close in behind them, as a trap.

This was an excellent plan except for Joab’s quick thinking. He did exactly what the Syrian forces did not expect or plan for: he attacked them! He turned his forces around, keeping a holding force on the Ammonites, and charged the Aramaic army. Now, they expect Joab’s army to dig in, and they would come at them from all directions in their chariots and on their horses, and they would easily kill most of Joab’s army. But, before they could get their army out from where they were hidden, Joab attacks. Now, in an open field, with an stationary opposing force, horses and chariots are marvelous. They have speed and great mobility, and can come at a stationary force in seemingly from all directions and easily overpower them. However, when caught up in the brush, and foliage and trees, which hid them, they could not maneuver. Joab struck them before they could get out into the open, and Joab soundly defeated the Aramæans, sending a few soldiers retreating, and killing most of them. Joab was brilliant and flexible. The Aramæan army was inflexible. They had a plan, that plan involved attacking Israel’s troops when out in an open field, and when Israel attacked them before they could mount up and move out, they were too inflexible and too surprised to response effectively. So Joab’s assaulting force destroyed the Aramæan mercenaries, eventually sending them running (they were able to use their horses and chariots to escape, and some, of course, just ran on foot). Meanwhile, the holding force under Abishai, just held the Ammonites at bay at the wall.

Now, there are Ammonites soldiers and Aramæan mercenaries. They had no close ties, apart from their mutual hatred for the Jews. So, when Ammon saw what was going on, they did not suddenly charge out from the wall, to save their comrades. They were somewhat frozen there, amazed the Joab turned the tables on Aram, and was beating them now. Had Ammon aggressively moved out from the city walls, they may have turned this war around, but they did not. Therefore, after Aram retreated, the men of Ammon did the same, going back behind the walls of their great city, expecting Israel to attack mercilessly. Except, Israel did not.

Joab was a brilliant soldier, and he understood what he had just done. He defeated an Aramæan mercenary force, and that was the bread and butter of the Aramæan empire. Their mercenary army was their great export to the world. This filled the nation’s coffers with gold and silver. Aram cannot let that stand. Who is going to hire them if this little upstart nation Israel defeated them and another army both? Aram is a great empire at this time; one of the greatest in ancient history. They cannot let this stand, and Joab knows that. He cannot spend the next few months besieging the city of Rabbah; he has to deal with Aram, and they have to go big. So David and Joab meet, they gather all of Israel, all of their reserve forces, and go out and defeat Aram, which is one of the greatest battles in ancient history, as well as one of the most important. We see a few verses describing this battle in 2Sam. 10, but this changed the course of history, and virtually stopped the advance of the great empire of Aram in its tracks.

That was then; that was last year. This is the new year and Ammon is still there—the people huddled behind the walls of Rabbah and dying a thousand deaths, expecting the siege by Israeli forces to begin at any time. So, now it is perhaps 6 or 8 months later, since the Ammonites retreated behind the walls of Rabbah, and Joab takes a fairly large force against them, to take them out, to destroy them.

This is a recap of the events of 2Sam. 10 (HTML) (PDF).

2Samuel 11:1f

Hebrew/Pronunciation

Common English Meanings

Notes/Morphology

BDB and Strong’s Numbers

wa (or va) (וַ) [pronounced wah]

and so, and then, then, and; so, that, yet, therefore; because

wâw consecutive

No Strong’s # BDB #253

tsûwr (צוּר) [pronounced tsoor]

to bind, to besiege, to confine (shut up, cramp, enclose)

3^rd person masculine plural, Qal imperfect

Strong’s #6696 BDB #837

Tsûwr has 2 other sets of meanings: to show hostility toward, to be an adversary to, to treat as a foe; and to form, to fashion, to delineate.

ʿal (עַל) [pronounced ģahl]

upon, beyond, on, against, above, over, by, beside

preposition of proximity

Strong’s #5921 BDB #752

Rabbâh (רָבָּה) [pronounced rahb-BAW]

many, much, great (in the sense of large or significant, not acclaimed); transliterated Rabbah, Rabba

a proper, locative noun

Strong’s #7237 BDB #913

Maps and Photos of Rabbah

The first map is from the era of David and taken from:

http://www.bibles.com/content/images/The_Kingdoms_of_Israel_and_Judah__1_2_4152.jpg accessed November 8, 2010.

The second map is from the time of Jesus, 1000 years later, and taken from:

http://www.bible-history.com/geography/ancient-israel/nt_israel-flat.jpg accessed November 8, 2010.

Photo of Jabbok River from:

http://www.bibleplaces.com/images/Jabbok_River_eastern_end,_tb060603216.jpg accessed November 8, 2010.

Photo of Ammon theater is from:

 http://blog.bibleplaces.com/uploaded_images/Amman_theater_from_above,_tb060303014-711604.jpg accessed November 8, 2010.

2Samuel 11:1g

Hebrew/Pronunciation

Common English Meanings

Notes/Morphology

BDB and Strong’s Numbers

w^e (or v^e) (וְ or וּ) [pronounced weh]

and, even, then; namely; when; since, that; though

simple wâw conjunction

No Strong’s # BDB #251

The wâw conjunction is used as ➊ a simple copulative, used to connect words and sentences, in which case it is usually rendered and. ➋ It can be used to explain one noun or clarify one noun with another, in which case it is rendered even or yea (see Job 5:19 Dan. 4:10). ➌ The wâw conjunction can introduce two nouns, where the first is the genus and the second is the species; in which case, we would render it and particularly, and specially, and namely, and specifically (and it can be used the other way as well) (see 2Kings 23:2 Psalm 18:1 Isa. 1:1 2:1 Zech. 14:21). ➍ It can be prefixed to a verb also by way of explanation; it could be reasonably rendered as a relative pronoun (who, which) (see Gen. 49:25 Job 29:12 Isa. 13:14). ➎ It can be used to begin an apodosis (the then portion of an if...then... statement) (see Gen. 2:4, 5 40:9 48:7). ➏ It is used between words and sentences in order to compare them or to mark their resemblance (1Sam. 12:15 Job 5:7). ➐ When doubled, it can mean both...and... (Num. 9:14 Joshua 7:24 Psalm 76:7). ➑ It can be prefixed to adversative sentences or clauses and rendered but, and yet, although, otherwise (Gen. 2:17 15:2 17:20 Judges 16:15 Ruth 1:21 Job 15:5 6:14). ➒ And, what we were after, is the wâw conjunction can be used in disjunctive sentences; that is, it can be rendered or (which will help us to understand what Jephthah does) (Ex. 21:17 Lev. 5:3 Deut. 24:7). ➓ Finally, the wâw conjunction can be used before causal sentences and rendered because, for, that, in that (Gen. 18:32 30:27 Psalm 5:12 60:13); before conclusions or inferences, and therefore rendered so that, therefore, wherefore (2Kings 4:41 Isa. 3:14 Ezek. 18:32 Zech. 2:10); and before final and consecutive sentences, which mark an end or an object: in order that (Gen. 42:34 Job 20:10 Isa. 13:2). To paraphrase Gesenius, frequently, it is put after verbs and sentences standing absolutely, especially those which imply time or condition and is reasonably rendered then.

Dâvid (דָּוִד); also Dâvîyd (דָּוִיד) [pronounced daw-VEED]

beloved and is transliterated David

masculine proper noun

Strong’s #1732 BDB #187

yâshab (יָשַב) [pronounced yaw-SHAH^BV]

inhabiting, staying, remaining, dwelling, sitting

Qal active participle

Strong's #3427 BDB #442

b^e (בְּ) [pronounced b^eh]

in, into, at, by, near, on, with, before, against, by means of, among, within

a preposition of proximity

No Strong’s # BDB #88

Y^erûwshâlayim (יְרוּשָלַיִם) [pronounced yʾroo-shaw-LAH-yim]

possibly means founded upon peace or city of the Jebusites (or both); it is transliterated Jerusalem

proper singular noun, location

Strong’s #3389 BDB #436

Unlike many have alleged, David is not outside of God’s geographical will for his life; but he is outside of God’s will for his life. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to examine the Doctrine of the Will of God.

Summary Points from the Doctrine of the Will of God

This is all about how to be in the will of God and how to remain in the will of God.

1.      You need to be in fellowship, which is achieved by 1John 1:9: If we name our sins, He [God] is faithful [i.e., He does it every time] and just [God operates within His Own essence] to forgive us our sins [these are the sins we name] and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [these are sins which we do not name].

2.      You need to be growing spiritually. This does not mean that you reduce the number of overt sins in your life or that you speak a holy language now and again (Amen, God willing) or that you become more and more involved at your church (teaching Sunday school, acting as a deacon, etc.). Spiritual growth is achieved by the daily intake of the Word of God taught by a doctrinal pastor-teacher. Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (2Peter 3:18a). Grace is the grace system which God has provided. All believers in Jesus Christ are given the means and the opportunity to grow spiritually, regardless of geographical location. 99% of the time, this will be learning under the ministry of a doctrinal pastor-teacher (I provide a list of them here: http://kukis.org/Links/thelist.htm). Many of these pastor-teachers, if they are outside of your geographical area, provide an online MP3 ministry, where you can download (or order) previous lessons and listen to the teaching of the Word of God without any financial obligation. Many of them will provide these lessons by sending them to your home by mail. If you are relatively near to any of these churches, then that is where you ought to go.

3.      If you are not in the geographical area of any of these churches, then you need to operate under normal academic discipline when listening to a lesson. You don’t surf the internet, you do not text, you do not do housework, nor do you do anything else which takes your concentration away from the message that you are listening to. Ideally speaking, if you live within driving distance of a doctrinal church, then that is where you need to be when the church doors are open.

4.      The short explanation is, as long as you are in fellowship and growing, then you will be in the will of God.

5.      Now, let’s say that you are a new believer or a believer who has decided to get with God’s program and to start growing, and you face a momentous decision (to get married, to change jobs, to move elsewhere). If you face this as a new believer or as a believer just about to get with doctrine, then you choose not to change your status until you know enough doctrine in order to make this decision. 1Cor. 7:18–24.

6.      If you are at city A and God wants you to be in city B, do not worry. God will make that happen. Where I was raised up, I had studied God’s Word for about 5 years, but I was spinning my wheels career-wise, and it did not seem as if that would change anytime in the near future. I began exploring my options in other cities. On my list of 3 cities to move to, #3 on the list (and, way, way down from #2) was Houston. I thought of moving to Houston because Bob Thieme was teaching Bible doctrine there. However, this was so far down the list from my 1^st and 2^nd choices. In any case, every door closed to me for my first two choices; and door after door after door opened for me for choice #3. God did almost everything necessary to move me in that direction.

7.      When it comes to your day-to-day life, God has things mapped out. You have a job or school that you go to, which takes up perhaps 9–10 hours of your day. You do this job (or attend this school) as unto the Lord. That is, you function as if you are working for God, and you remain faithful in all respects, whether anyone else can see what you are doing or not. You have a couple of hours that you spend eating, an hour for Bible teaching, and a few hours for relaxation. If you stay in fellowship all of this time, or get back into fellowship when you get out, then you are in the will of God.

8.      If you do not have a job or school, then (1) you spend 9 or 10 hours of every single day looking for a job or (2) you set your sights to moving to a different city or to a different state. If you have begun to listen to a particular pastor from the list I provided, then you seriously consider packing up all that you own and move to the city where he teaches (obviously, it is normal to seek out job opportunities in that city by phone and by the internet and then you go there for interviews). God uses your lack of opportunity in city A to get you to move to city B. God allows man to enact foolish political policies, which negatively impact a particular geographical area, to move some believers from point A to point B.

9.      Gathering together with other believers is extremely important. I have known a lot of believers over the years, many of them squared away on doctrine. However, when they go off on their own—they make no attempt to gather under the authority of a well-qualified pastor-teacher or as a group—they get goofy, and I can name a whole host of believers I have known in my life who stopped gathering under this sort of authority, and got goofy. Personally, I gather with believers under the ministry of R. B. Thieme III every time the church is in session, and, on off-nights, listen to his father’s teaching. Even though I clearly understand what God’s will is for my life, that does not mean I no longer need to study under my pastor’s authority.

This was taken from the Doctrine of the Will of God (HTML) (PDF), which is a 12 page doctrine.

We need to discuss David, his wives and the concept of polygamy as compared to monogamy.

Commentary on David and His Wives and His Children

1.      One woman is a handful.

2.      2 or more women under the same roof can increase the woman’s expression of her nature, so to speak, exponentially.

3.      It is difficult for a man to satisfy one woman (soulishly and sexually.

4.      It is impossible for a man to satisfy several women.

5.      A woman’s soul is designed to respond to one man. They do not want to share.

6.      When David goes home to one particular wife or mistress, then the other 19 (approximately) are going to be jealous, angry, put off, and, if you know women, they are going to save this anger and jealousy up to share with David the next time he comes home to them.

7.      When children are introduced into the mix, there is a balance between the approach to discipline of both parents which is not always easy to achieve. A mother and a father have to work together in order to achieve a good balance of love, training and discipline for their children.

8.      When there are several wives—many of whom the husband is physically attracted to, but does not really like as a person—there is no way to achieve this balance of discipline. How does a man reach any level of balance of discipline with a woman he really does not like? He can’t.

9.      With David, we have an added problem: which child will succeed him? These women’s feelings toward David will be just as cool as his feelings toward them (probably more so), but almost every single wife will want her son to be king in David’s stead. Many of these women will want to see their own sons behave in a strong, dominant way towards his half-brothers.

10.    So David has several dysfunctional families. His wives and mistresses are in charge of raising his children (who appear to receive almost no guidance or training from David).

11.    Because of the complex relationships which are a result of this, and despite of having the choice of as many as maybe 20 women to go home to at night (or that afternoon), David finds himself sleeping at the castle alone.

12.    David could have summoned any one of his wives at this point, and he does not. That tells us the relationship that David had with his many women. There is not one single woman in his harem that David wants to spend a romantic afternoon or evening with.

13.    What will appear to be the case (and we will study this later), is David will focus on one woman in the future and upon his children by that one woman. His other wives and mistresses are taken care of materially, but David behaves toward them more as a benefactor than as a husband.

14.    Bear in mind that, all the while that this is going on, with all of these problems, society views David as having several families as normal for a king. In other words, for his sin here, no one is ostracizing him for that sin. There is no social pressure on David to do anything any differently.

It is reasonable to ask, what should David have done? He has all of these wives and children, he now knows that this is a sin, so what should he do? It ought to be obvious that David cannot simply abandon his wives, mistresses and children. Therefore, he needs to continue to support them. However, beyond this, there is not a simple solution. I would submit to you that, David cannot continue treat these women as wives, and come home to whatever family suits his whims that evening.

Since David is about to commit adultery, we ought to look at who David is married to at this time and what we know about these women.

David’s Wives and Their Children

David’s Wives

Their Children

Although David was first promised another of Saul’s daughters (and Saul changed his mind), David was finally given Michal, Saul’s younger daughter. Michal loved David (1Sam. 18:20, 28) and even risked her life and separation from him to protect David (1Sam. 19:11–13, 17). While David was on the run, Saul gave her over to another man (1Sam. 25:44), and David later took her back (2Sam. 3:13–14).

They had no children who are listed in the Bible. After she is angered to see David dancing in the street half-naked before the Ark of God, she vents this anger against him, and the Bible then tells us that she has no children by him (2Sam. 6:16–23).

When on the run from Saul, David and his men were protecting Nabal and his flocks of sheep and goats. When David asked for payment, by means of a messenger, Nabal turned him down flat. Abigail, Nabal’s wife, an intelligent woman with a good figure (1Sam. 25:3), interceded, and saved her husband from David. When she told her husband about this, he apparently went into a coma, and died 10 days later. David was quite impressed with Abigail and married her. 1Sam. 25

She is the mother of Daniel, David’s second-born in Hebron (1Chron. 3:1). He is called Chileab in 2Sam. 3:3.

During this time on the run, David took Ahinoam of Jezreel as his wife as well (1Sam. 25:43). He lived with both Abigail and Ahinoam as a guest of Achish, king of Gath (1Sam. 27:3). Both Abigail and Ahinoam were taken as prisoners by the Amalekites and later rescued by David (1Sam. 30:5, 18).

She is the mother of Amnon, David’s firstborn in Hebron. He is the son who raped his half-sister Tamar. 2Sam. 3:2 1Chron. 3:1

Maachah (Maacah) the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur (2Sam. 3:3 1Chron. 3:2).

She was the mother of David’s 3^rd born son, Absalom, who would kill Amnon for raping his sister; and then flee to the kingdom of his grandfather. Later, he would lead a revolt against David. 2Sam. 3:3 13 1Chron. 3:2

Haggith is named principally as the mother of Adonijah. 2Sam. 3:4 1Kings 1:5, 11 2:13 1Chron. 3:2

The mother of David’s 4^th son, Adonijah. He will attempt to become king instead of Solomon, and he will make this attempt while David is still alive but very ill. 2Sam. 3:4 1Chron. 3:2 1Kings 1–2

Abital is named in 2Sam. 3:4.

The mother of Shephatiah, David’s 5^th son. 1Chron. 3:3

Eglah is named in 2Sam. 3:5.

Mother of David’s 6^th son, Ithream., born to David in Hebron 1Chron. 3:3

David is said to take more wives (and mistresses) in Jerusalem, which would bring the total number of wives at least up to 10. 2Sam. 5:13

David will have 9 more sons in Jerusalem, but it is unclear as to whom: Ibhar, Elishama, Eliphelet; Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia; Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet (2Sam. 5:14–16). Tamar is David’s daughter (1Chron. 3:9), possibly the daughter of Maacah.

Bathshua (Bathsheba) the daughter of Ammiel.

In this chapter, David will take Bathsheba, and possibly rape her, and then have her husband killed (2Sam. 11). David will take her as his wife and she will bear 4 sons to David: Shimea, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon

David also had at least 10 mistresses. 2Sam. 15:16 20:3 1Chron. 3:9

These mistresses also had children. 1Chron. 3:9

There is a literary device used when naming David’s sons and wives. His first 2 wives are memorable and there are things which we know about them. We know a lot less about David’s next 3 wives, although we do have a lot of narrative about their sons. In fact, Haggith, David’s 5^th wife, is known only through her son (and, because her son is called handsome, we may assume that she was gorgeous). When we get to wives 6 and 7, they are named, as are their sons. This indicates very little interest on David’s part. Obviously, we know a lot more about Bathsheba, and this suggests that she is David’s right woman. Finally, David has a lot more sons, who are not even connected to their mothers; and then David has mistresses and they have sons—and here, we do not even know their names. The idea is, as David collected more and more women, he became increasingly disinterested in the women that he collected (apart from Bathsheba).

One of the reasons for putting this list together, is to suggest that David had no fewer than 10 wives and 10 mistresses that he could go to on the afternoon of this narrative.

Now, just in case you think that polygamy is a good thing, let me remind you of the Doctrine of Polygamy (HTML) (PDF) (which was covered back in Deut. 21:15).

As an aside, a polygamist cannot be a good parent. Children require a full-time mother and a full-time father. A child being raised right under one parent is far less likely than a child raised right under 2 parents. David did not participate much at all in the rearing of his own children. He simply did not have the time or the interest (until he had children with Bathsheba).

David could have been a much better parent than he was.

If you want to know more about David’s wives, try: http://www.biblenews1.com/garden/David1.html (Some of this stuff is a little on the goofy side; some is insightful).

I am able to exegete these chapters in the Bible because of the many Bible classes I attended under R. B. Thieme, Jr. (many times attendance was sitting around a tape recorder, back in the day). This particular time of David’s life has many different ramifications, which explains why God the Holy Spirit devoted so much of the book of Samuel to this sin.

David’s Sexual Arrogance and its Application

1.      Sexual arrogance is preoccupation with sex and self-gratification. Sexual arrogance is a preoccupation with the body to the exclusion of the soul.

2.      The latter explains why David did not wake up that afternoon and decide, “Which wife or mistress should I go see?” No doubt that there were hard feelings between David and some of his wives and mistresses. No doubt that, once David got to know some of his wives or mistresses, he really did not like them that much. “If I go over and see so-and-so, she is going to start nagging me about why I don’t come around and help out with our son.”

3.      Ultimately, all relationships involve the soul, and sexual arrogance wants to ignore the soul for sexual gratification. The fact that David did not go to any of his wives or mistresses is proof as his being in sexual arrogance.

4.      Sexual arrogance always leads to distortions of sexuality.

         1)      In this chapter, David’s taking of Bathsheba is a result of his sexual arrogance.

         2)      Because of the physical differences between men and women, a man is more likely to become involved in sexual arrogance.

         3)      This is one of the great problems with homosexuality, because this involves two male souls—two men who are involved in sexual arrogance.

         4)      This is taken to the extreme when homosexuals demand that they become a protected class of people and that their sexual predilections be seen as no different than those of heterosexuals.

5.      As one becomes more preoccupied with sex, their capacity for love is lessened. Skirt-chasing (multiple sexual partners), masturbation, polygamy, homosexuality etc. all begin as sexual arrogance or they lead to sexual arrogance. These behaviors, when continued, result in a person becoming trapped in interlocking systems of arrogance.

6.      Because David is preoccupied with sex, he is a lousy father and a lousy husband. This is why most of the children from his early liaisons never amounted to anything; they lacked sound training in character and in Bible doctrine.

7.      In this chapter, David will neglect his duties as king and military commander because he is in sexual arrogance. His army goes to war, with Joab leading them, and David remains in Jerusalem to chase women. So, while his army was besieging Rabbah, David continued to function in sexual arrogance.

8.      It is normal for a man to have a desire for sex; it is normal for a man to have a physiological drive. When that drive controls you, then you are in sexual arrogance or you are entering into sexual arrogance.

9.      Another way to see this is, such a person is becoming addicted to sex. This means, when it is over, you no longer have an interest in your partner; and when your sexual drive kicks in, then you want to either use your present sexual partner or seek out a new one.

10.    David was preoccupied with sex because he was in sexual arrogance. Sexual arrogance is abnormal; being controlled by your sexual drive is abnormal. Having a sexual drive is normal.

11.    No man has ever died from having unrequited sexual desire. If men died from that, all men would be dead by age 21.

12.    You may be hungry an hour prior to a meal, but you do not just indulge your hunger. On the battlefield, you may feel a surge of adrenalin which could morph into panic, but you depend upon your training to keep you steady and focused. An athlete trains his body to do whatever the sport requires, even though it may be difficult. All of these things involve personal control of the soul and of the body. In the same way, we are able to overcome strong sexual lust. Many men face sexual temptation after marriage; most men are able to walk away from such sexual temptation because of the destructive nature of adultery.

         1)      The Bible mandates: You will not commit adultery (Deut. 5:18). This mandate applies to believers and unbelievers alike. It is a part of the Laws of Divine Establishment (HTML) (PDF).

         2)      When faced with illicit sexual desire, the believer resists with the doctrine in his soul. Sometimes, rebound is necessary to utilize. If necessary, the believer redirects his thoughts, as we all can control what we choose to think about.

         3)      Although the unbeliever lacks doctrine, a reasonable understanding of the laws of divine establishment can dissuade them, along with a realistic appraisal of the situation. When it comes to a married unbeliever, they should be able to recognize that infidelity could not just result in the dissolution of his marriage, but do severe damage to the souls of his children.

         4)      Society and the nation in which we live is preserved, in part, by marriage and family.

         5)      Therefore, believers and unbelievers alike are able to go through life without committing adultery (there are many unbelievers who have remained faithful to their spouses throughout their entire lives).

13.    Polygamy for David (which would be multiple sexual partners today) distracts the soul from true love. David did not truly love any of his wives, because such a love would be soulish and physical. His lack of love is clear because he wakes up, he desires sex, and he does not go to any of his wives or mistresses. Now, David certainly liked Abigail, a woman with whom he had a lot in common. However, both he and Michal probably lacked the capacity for a mutual love; and David had so little interest in his mistresses, that he does not even note their names in Scripture.

14.    David simply used these women for personal self gratification. This reveals his sexual arrogance.

15.    Sexual arrogance often produces increased lust, which becomes an abnormal lust. Many homosexuals fall prey to this lust, so that having 100 or even 1000 sexual partners is not unusual. It is not unusual for the homosexual to have more sexual partners who names he does not know than those whose names he does know.

16.    David’s continual sexual lust caused him to be on the prowl as often as possible, to the detriment of his responsibilities. Any attractive woman could set him off. Bathsheba, the woman who catches David’s eye, is the granddaughter of David’s greatest counselor, Ahithophel. His advice was highly esteemed and will play a part in David’s punishment phrase. David, in losing this man as his counselor, will negatively impact the nation Israel.

         1)      We have a modern-day example of such sexual lust: several men in the SEC spent 8 and 10 hours a day viewing pornography on their computer rather than doing their job. This is sexual arrogance. Obviously, sexual arrogance does not require a partner.