One of the great dangers of abusing spiritual leadership is maligning the name of God.   #daybydaylw   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   Uriah And we can’t forget Uriah. He is simply an obstacle that has to be removed so that David’s power is not jeopardized. Soldiers of verse 17, 25 And what about the soldiers who are merely seen as collateral damage. They had no part in this whole scenario, yet they also suffer consequences that they did not deserve.   The nation of Israel Not only do we see that David’s abuse of power causes him to minimize individual people, but when we zoom out just a little bit, we see that the nation of Israel is in trouble. In chapter 10 we read and studied about some victories that took place. And did you notice how those victories and battles were described? Well, they were not described in very great detail as we have grown accustomed to some of the fight scenes we have studied in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. The narrator zipped right through them. But when we come to chapter 11, everything slows down. And the picture becomes clearer for us—chapter 11 is an inside look at what was happening on the inside of the kingdom, what was happening in the King’s palace, while all the men were out fighting to preserve and protect the nation and kingdom of God. And what was happening on the inside? Abuse, bullying, power trips, from the King himself, with no thought to how it would affect the kingdom. And here is what we can conclude—The kingdom of God is not safe in the hands of David. And you may say, “Clif, don’t forget all the good! David has given his life to God and the preservation of this kingdom! This is just one slip up. Think about all the lives he has saved in comparison to this.” Oh no. You have it wrong. Think about the holiness of God. You see, as we read through chapter 11, we simply get the recounting of the facts. The narrator chooses to offer no commentary on the events. He is simply a reporter of what took place…until the very last verse of chapter 11: “But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.” That is the issue. For all the wrongness of the adultery, and the scheming, and the plotting, and the murder and all the damage and death it brought upon the people, the saddest part of all of it is that David displeased the LORD. He sinned against the LORD. The LORD of Israel looked down and saw the hurt done to Bathsheba and Uriah, and the soldiers who lost their lives, and it saddened. But even greater, was the false representation that was made of God’s character. David’s power trip maligned the glory and goodness of God. David’s bullying of people misrepresented the justice of God. David’s scheming distorted the purposes of God. David’s cold, detached, unemotional behavior did not reflect the compassion of God. The kingdom, after all the victories, we discover, is not safe in the hands of King David. It was threatened from within. 1 Corinthians 10:12—“Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall.”