DEVASTATION IN A FRACTURED FAMILY
Is
it reasonable to assume that when career or job responsibilities overwhelm us
and consume us that there will be a negative impact on our family lives? When we fail to keep all things in their
proper order as God intended, we soon realize that our imbalance creates
significant repercussions not only in our lives but in the lives of our
families.
David has succeeded as a king but has now
failed as a husband and father. His
emphasis on the stability of his reign and the priority he gave to
accomplishing the work God gave him to do somehow got out of control—he
neglected the proper balance between his family life, his anointing as king and
his calling to follow God.
Ellen Galinsky, widely recognized for her research and writing on the impact
overworked parents have on their children, recently wrote a book called Ask the Children in which she documents
the connection between the emphasis on work and the priority of family life in
the minds of those directly impacted—children themselves. She observed that when work takes over, they
suffer the consequences…frustration, anger, overtime, financial strain and many
other stress- related job issues that overflow onto the family life.
Gregory P. Smith, in his article, “Baby Boomer Versus Generation X: Managing the New Workforce” takes note of a
growing trend among younger laborers in the work force: “In general, Generation X employees are those
between the age of 19-34. Unlike their parents and grandparents, Generation X
employees do not plan on staying with one job or company throughout their
career, nor will they sacrifice their family for their job. They grew up seeing
their parents laid off. Many of them have grown up as latch key children and in
divorced family situations. Therefore time for their family is very important
to them.”
Marilyn Elias, Gannett News Service, recently wrote, “Work is fine
-- in its place. But hard-charging baby boomers have placed too high a priority
on it, their kids seem to think…Generation X and Generation Y workers, who are
younger than 40, are more likely than boomers to say they put family before
jobs.”
Priority of Marriage Faithfulness
“Twenty-five years ago, Judith Wallerstein
began talking to a group of 131 children whose parents were all going through a
divorce. With The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, Wallerstein offers us the only
close-up study of divorce ever conducted--a unique report that will change our
fundamental beliefs about divorce and offer new hope for the future.
“Wallerstein chooses seven children who
most embody the common life experiences of the larger group and follows their
lives in vivid detail through adolescence and into their love affairs, their
marriage successes and failures, and parenting their own children. In
Wallerstein's hands, the experiences and anxieties of this generation of
children, now in their late twenties to early forties, come to life. We watch
as they struggle with the fear that their relationships will fail like those of
their parents. Lacking an internal template of what a successful relationship
looks like, they must invent their own codes of behavior in a culture that
offers many models and few guidelines. Wallerstein shows how many overcame
their dread of betrayal to find loving partners and to become successful,
protective parents--and how others are still struggling to find their heart's
desire without knowing why they feel so frightened. She also demonstrates their
great strengths and accomplishments, as a generation of survivors who often had
to raise themselves and help their parents through difficult times.” (from the inside jacket of the book).
Research has been conclusive that shows an
indisputable correlation between children’s sense of security and stability and
the level of faithfulness demonstrated in the love shared exclusively between
their mother and father.
Devotion to Ministry
Another failure comes in a noble
package—forsaking the family in order to devote full attention and priority to
ministry. Many stories abound of those
who thought it necessary and right to abandon their families in order to
fulfill their ministries. But their
willingness to obey Christ without hesitation was not matched by any
willingness to trust Christ in keeping His Word with regard to their families.
David was exuberant about worship and
zealous for the building of the Temple.
But somehow he found it difficult to be the husband of one wife and a
faithful father to his own children.
An unbalanced emphasis between his
anointing as king and his calling to be a husband and a father cost David
dearly as he suffered tragic losses in both.
THESIS: When God
calls us, He never expects us to emphasize one calling at the expense of
another...He is always sufficient for all!
2 Cor. 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to
you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an
abundance for every good deed;
As a result of his failure to establish
and maintain a godly balance in his life, David suffered through the
devastation of watching his family—and then his kingdom—fall apart.
I. HE WAS DEVASTATED BY…
--When
the multiplied sins were confronted by Nathan, David began a season of devastating
trauma that were the direct consequences of what he had done.
A. THE DEFILEMENT OF HIS WIVES
--Nathan
told David what was to come as a result of his sins.
2
Sam 12:11-12 “Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up
evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before
your eyes, and give them to your companion, and he shall lie with your wives in
broad daylight. 12 ‘Indeed
you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the
sun.’”
--This
was later fulfilled in 2 Samuel 16:20-22 when Ahithophel, Bathsheba’s
grandfather, counseled Absalom to do this very thing!
B. THE DEATH OF HIS CHILD
2 Sam. 12:14-15
“However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of
the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.” So
Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s widow
bore to David, so that he was very sick.
--After
fasting and praying day and night during the illness, the child born to David
and Bathsheba died on the seventh day.
C. THE DISGRACE AND DEATH AMONG HIS CHILDREN
--Meanwhile,
among his other children, trouble had been brewing for some time as they had
endured life with many siblings competing for the attention and favor of their
father the king.
--With
so many wives and concubines, David had created a “no win” situation for
himself and his family because he had forsaken his moral authority among them.
--All
his instructions to them must have sounded hollow and hypocritical coming from
a father who was not only not in exclusive relationships with their mothers,
but who was not even faithful to them collectively in his adultery with
Bathsheba!
--So
it should have come as no surprise that among his children, the behavior of
their father had reinforced the idea that you simply take what you want.
--2
Samuel 13 is a sordid account of the breadth and depth of degradation
to be found in his own children.
1. Amnon and Tamar
– Lusted for her, violated her, then despised her. (2 Samuel 13:1, 14, 15)
2. David and Amnon –
Angered by what he did, let him get away with it (13:21)
3. Absalom and Amnon
– Hated Amnon for violating his sister (13:22), avenged her shame by
murdering him (13:28)
--Nathan
had warned David that “the sword will never depart from your house” (12:10)
and David now sees the devastation in the tragedies among his own children
brought on by his own failures!
D. THE DEPARTURE OF ABSALOM
--After
murdering Amnon, Absalom fled, escaping the consequences of his flagrant and
cold-blooded murder of his brother.
2 Sam. 13:37-39 Now Absalom fled and went to Talmai the son of
Ammihud, the king of Geshur. And David mourned for his son every day. 38 So Absalom had fled and gone to
Geshur, and was there three years. 39
And the heart of King David longed to go out to Absalom; for he was comforted
concerning Amnon, since he was dead.
--Not
only did David lose Amnon, he lost Absalom as well!
II. HE PROVED TO BE DEFICIENT BY…
--In
many of our lives, we cannot trace back to the source of all the consequences
we suffer for many failures and sins on our part.
--Once
in a while, it is easy to detect as it was in the life of David as he invested
more energy and attention to his calling as king than he did to his calling to
be a father and husband.
A. MULTIPLYING WIVES – UNDISCIPLINED
--As
we mentioned in our last study, the king of God’s people was not to multiply
for himself either horses, silver and gold, or wives.
--David
avoided the first two but fell without restraint on the third…proving himself
to be undisciplined in knowing how and when to say “no” to his desires in that
area.
B. COMMITTING ADULTERY – UNFAITHFUL
--By
his actions with Bathsheba, David proved to be deficient of godly character in
curbing his appetite for that which belonged to someone else and for satisfying
his desires with what he already had.
C. COMMITTING MURDER – UNSCRUPULOUS
--His
calculating and cold-blooded plot to murder Uriah demonstrated how low a person
can go in order to cover up and continue taking what he wants.
--“What
I want no matter what I have to do!” seemed to be the way David chose to
operate at this point in his life!
D. WITHHOLDING DISCIPLINE – UNWISE
--When
his weaknesses and character flaws and depravity began to show up among his
children, he did nothing to discipline them, to show them that sin has many
consequences---even for the king and the royal family!
--His
wisdom in ruling the kingdom did not appear in his management of his own
household!
E. PRACTICING FAVORITISM -- UNFAIR
--Like
many other fathers before him, David acted unfairly toward the rest of his
children by showing favoritism in the way “his heart was inclined toward
Absalom” (14:1).
--This
may not have been as pronounced as his deficiencies in other areas, but serves
as a warning to parents to this day who find that a beloved child demands more
attention and consumes more emotional energy than the others.
--That
was the case with the prodigal son in Luke 15 or the lost sheep earlier in that
chapter—your energies are disproportional for that wayward one and those still
there are sometimes slighted!
Whether the
reason is rebellion or even illness, or whether the motive is that one child is
more “lovely and loveable” than another, we will only bring ill-will and suffer
for it if we treat our children unfairly!
All of us know that we have suffered as a result of things
we have done or not done. God gives us a
vivid picture in David of how far we can fall and how devastating life can be
when we lose perspective and neglect our responsibilities to keep our lives in
balance.
We must devote our best energies to obey
Christ and follow His calling in every area to which He has called us. David did a great job as king for a while,
but in doing so ignored his family—and that came back to be the reason his
reign as king suffered so severely!
We have to learn that obedience to the
Lord can never be a selective process—we will follow and trust Him in our work,
but not at home…or at home but not at work…in ministry but not at work or
home…and so on!
When God calls, we soon realize that the
call is comprehensive and covers all of life.
If we emphasize one area at the expense of the others, we can be sure
that there will be consequences—sometimes, as in David’s case, they can be
devastating ones!
God did restore David after this period of
upheaval, and He will do the same for any of us who have traveled the same path
he did. But why not determine now not to
go the same way David did? Why not ask
the Lord to show us how to walk in the power of the Spirit in all things and
maintain a balanced approach to obedience that will bring joy and fulfillment
in all things?
When God calls us, He never expects us to
emphasize one calling at the expense of another…He alone is sufficient for all!
…Whatever you do in word or deed, do
all in the name of the Lord Jesus…Colossians
3:17
March 6,
2005
Providence
Baptist Church
© David Horner 2005
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