JESUS'GREAT GRANDMOTHERS - BATHSHEBA

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Hello everyone. This is Pastor Dean Thompson with a word of hope. Jesus' great grandmother, Bathsheba. The woman who was used, violated, and still became a queen. Matthew's Matthew's genealogy names her not as Bathsheba, but as her who had been Uriah's wife. Matthew one verse six. That is not careless wording. That is a deliberate indictment. Matthew points his finger directly at the crime. David took a woman who belonged to another man, a faithful soldier who was at that moment fighting David's wars, while David violated his wife. Let us be clear about what happened. Bathsheba was bathing in the privacy of her own home. The king saw her from his rooftop, summoned her, and slept with her. She did not have the option of the option to refuse the most powerful man in the nation. When she became pregnant, she told David. David attempted to cover his crime by bringing Uriah home from battle, hoping he would sleep with Bathsheba and the pregnancy would be disguised. Uriah refused to enjoy his own home while his fellow soldiers were in the field. So David had him murdered, sent him to the front lines with orders that he be abandoned there. Bathsheba lost her husband because of David's lust, and David's cover up. She then lost the child that was born from the assault. She grieved twice over, once for her husband, murdered in his honor, once for a son who did not survive. None of it was her fault. All of it landed on her. But Bathsheba did not disappear. She became queen. She bore Solomon, who would become the wisest king in Israel's history, builder of the temple, author of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, a man whose wisdom was sought by kings and queens from across the known world. And when Solomon's succession to the throne was threatened by a usurper, usurper, usurper named Adonijah. It was Bathsheba who walked boldly into the king, into the aging King David's chamber and secured her son's future. She did not cover, she did not wait for someone to rescue her. She acted. Many scholars believe Proverbs thirty one, the famous description of the woman of noble character was written by Solomon at his mother's instruction. It may well be Bathsheba's own wisdom passed from mother to son, preserved forever in scripture. The woman who was victimized by a king became the woman who shaped a king. She turned her pain into pedagogy, her suffering into wisdom, her trauma into legacy. A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Proverbs thirty one verse ten. God did not ignore what David did to Bathsheba. He sent the prophet Nathan to confront David directly, and David was judged for it. God saw the injustice, he named it, and then he still worked through the life of the woman who had been wronged to bring forth a son who would change the world, and an ancestor of Jesus who would save it. It is the test of your resilience. God sees injustice done to you. He does not ignore it. Survivors can become the wisest, most powerful voices in the next generation. Your suffering, redeemed by grace, can become the greatest gift you pass on to your children. O God, we thank you for the story of Bathsheba, for many women like her today have are being abused, assaulted in different ways, and many carry scars of happenings of the past. We are happy that your grace can take us past the past and give us victory in the present. We're happy that your grace can help us to overcome all the abuse, all the trauma of the past and make us strong examples in the present. May your grace continue to abound towards women who are hurting, women who find themselves in places they never intended to be, in situations they never dreamed of for themselves. May your grace reach these and rescue them. May your grace transform their circumstances, transform their lives, and use them to your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you, brothers and sisters.