When Scars Remain Series

Fairytales are so uplifting. Prince charming rescues the princes and of course they live happily ever after. A lot of traumatic things happened to the princes before prince charming rescued her. The fairytale ending whitewashes the harsh reality of the remaining scars. Everyone has struggles.

Yes, you were washed clean when you trusted in Christ, but you will still have struggles. There are still consequences from what was set in motion from wrong actions of the past. Those consequences do not automatically stop even when we have a new life in Christ. In fact, do not expect them to. Some scars will remain. They certainly did for King David.

2 Samuel 12:13 makes a tremendous statement. “The Lord has taken away your sin.” The Lord said this to King David after his sin with Bathsheba. That “sin” was really a long list of big sins; deception, lust, adultery, murder and cover up. Happily-ever-after is simplistic.

In real life you can’t just sweep sin under the carpet without consequences. This does not change the most wonderful truth of Grace. You really do have complete forgiveness in Christ when you put saving faith in Jesus no matter how big the sin.

Psalm 51 shows the beauty of David’s forgiveness. But it really does not end there. We can’t just say David arranged for Bathsheba’s husband to be killed then following the murder he married her but received forgiveness and then David and Bathsheba lived happily ever after.

Even with such incredible forgiveness David received wounds and from those wounds the scars remained. We find that out from 2 Samuel 12-18. These chapters tell us of the scars and consequences that remain from David’s sins even though God forgave him.

The more worldly your background the more subsequent turbulence in life you can expect to come. Yes, you are forgiven, but you better stay seated with your seat belt fastened. It may get rough. It sure got rough for King David. For David it was more like landing the plane without the landing gear than turbulence.

I want you to know what David set in motion from his sin with Bathsheba. It is the norm for the consequences of sin to play out. Not all problems are a result of sin and we don’t usually see such a one to one correlation between our past sin and our problems but, it is explicitly clear in King David’s case.

Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ 11 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” (2 Samuel 12:10-14).

The guilt before God of our sin is removed in Christ as far as the east is from the west. But David experienced some of the deepest suffering known to man. Some of his suffering was as severe as Jobs. It was the consequence of lust David did not control. Forgiveness yes but also scars remain too.

The child that David conceived will die because David did this deed. Not every child conceived in adultery dies. But David has given occasion for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The child fell sick at birth. David fasted and lay on the ground all night. Seven days after the child was born, he died.

No one even wanted to tell David his son had died because they were afraid that David would harm himself when he heard the news. Verse 2 Samuel 12:23 tells us of David understanding of what happened when his son died. But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Just think if David had just turned his eyes away when he first saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof top. If only he had just retreated to his chambers to write another beautiful Psalm of praise, he could have avoided unthinkable pain.

As the story of David moves to 2 Samuel chapter 13 the repercussions of David’s sin has taken root on his firstborn son Amnon who is in line to the throne. He burned with lust to the point of illness for his beautiful sister Tamar. Following in his father’s footsteps he succumbed to this lust rather than take it to the Lord.

Amnon acted on his desires and lied and schemed to rape his sister. As soon as he raped her the “love” which was actually lust turned to hate (2 Samuel 13:15). He held an intense hatred for his sister.