Last week we looked at the sin of David. He had an affair with the wife of one of his best soldiers. She wound up pregnant. He tried to cover it up. He sent her husband back to the war carrying his own death sentence. In verse 24 of chapter 11 we find the words of the messenger to the king, “Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
David’s plan worked. The other man was out of the picture. Bathsheba went through a period of mourning. Then they got married, and she moved into the palace. It was all taken care of. Right?
Not so fast. David is restless. He can’t forget what has happened. His stomach is in knots. He can’t sleep at night. Every time he sees Bathsheba, he thinks about the events that unfolded. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Things just got out of control. Everything just happened so fast.
At the end of chapter 11, we read, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” God wasn’t pleased with the actions of his anointed king. Turn with me to 2 Samuel 12. No one is really sure exactly how long after the adultery and murder that this passage took place. It may have been as little as six months, but it was more likely about a year after the sorry episode.
Read 2 Samuel 12:1-14.
We are confronted with two concepts here: truth and consequences. The truth is David sinned, and God wasn’t happy about it. The consequences were horrible and ugly. The first 9 verses of the passage deal with…
I. The TRUTH
The truth was something that David had been trying to hide. He had tried to trick Uriah into spending the night with Bathsheba. He had sent Uriah to his death. He had been running full-speed away from the truth. Then the prophet Nathan enters the picture. We saw him chapter 7 of 2 Samuel telling David of God’s covenant with him and the promise of the coming Messiah through his descendants.
Now Nathan comes with a most unpleasant task. He had a…
A. Divine COMMISSION.
Verse 1 says, “And the Lord sent Nathan to David.” Nathan is charged with a most unappealing task. He has to face the king and confront him with his sin.
At any moment David could have picked up his sword or given the order to have Nathan executed. Nathan should be given credit for his bravery and fortitude in this matter. Even with the call of God, it still takes a person of courage to carry out the call of God.
It was routine practice of kings in that day to just run roughshod over the laws of their land. If someone confronted him, he would kill him. This week I watched the news about the death of Saddam’s sons. I was horrified at the stories of his eldest son, Ousay. Ousay Hussein was a man of incredible wickedness. He was a torturer. He was a rapist. He was a villain in every sense of the word. Could you imagine going up to him and telling him that God was displeased with his lifestyle? Even with a commission from God, it would take someone of great bravery to do that.
Nathan was a smart man. He tells David a parable, or story. He makes…
B. An appeal to COMMON justice.
Nathan tells David about 2 men, a rich man and a poor man. The rich man has a huge herd and flock, and the poor man has only one little ewe. The ewe was a pet. It wasn’t mere livestock. It was a pet in the same sense as many of us who have dogs and cats. David would also have taken interest in this since it involved sheep. After all, he had been a shepherd as a boy. David is struck by…
1. The ruthlessness of the CRIME.
David was struck by the down right meanness of the crime. This rich man had enough sheep of his own. Why on earth did he need to steel the pet of this poor family? The rich man was unwilling to take one of his own flock. He took the poor man’s sheep because he could. This was a heinous crime. There is something that David didn’t see, and that was…
2. The parallels of the CRIMES.
There are two interesting parallels in this story. Let’s look at it closer. Starting at the end of verse 1. Read 1b-4.
Look at verse 11 of chapter 11. Uriah says to David, when asked why he didn’t go to his house, “Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?” We see here in verse 3 that the little lamb used to eat the poor man’s food, drink out of his cup, and lie in his arms. It is interesting that David didn’t remember the words of Uriah.
The other, and more compelling, parallel is the characters. The rich man is David. The poor man is Uriah. The ewe is Bathsheba. The flock of the rich man is David’s harem. Who is the traveler that is mentioned by Nathan? The traveler is David’s desire. David had natural desires that he wanted to fulfill. The problem is that he took Bathsheba from Uriah to satisfy his desire, when he could have taken one from his harem.
David, however, doesn’t see the parallel. He thinks that Nathan is bringing him a real case that happened. David, as king, was used to reviewing judicial cases. The story raises the…
C. The CONDEMNATION of the king.
David is ticked off about this. How could this happen? This poor man now has no pet because this greedy rich fellow stole his lamb. Some translations translate David’s words as this man “shall surely die.” He is say that the man deserves to die. David did have an idea of…
1. CORRECT justice.
The Law of God called for a fourfold payback for a stolen sheep. Exodus 22:1 states, “If a man steals…a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay…four sheep for a sheep.” David was quite correct in his pronouncement of justice in the matter that Nathan presented him. The problem is that David had a…
2. Lack of CORRECT understanding.
David failed to see the parallel between the two. It is interesting that thought the rich man deserved to die, because that was the penalty for adultery. Both the man and woman were to be killed for committing adultery.
David was still running from his own sin. He lacked the understanding that he was subject to the Law as much as the rich man was.
D. God speaks to David’s CONSCIENCE.
With all the courage he could find Nathan steps up and says, “You are the man!”
Can you see the look of horror that must have appeared on David’s face? This prophet had the audacity to tell the king that he was as bad as someone who had stolen a family pet. What would happen next? Would David order yet another murder? Would he punish Nathan?
Without hesitating, Nathan continued with words direct from God. This is a brief recap of David’s career and especially his sin. Read 7b-9.
God had chosen David to be king. He had protected him from the murderous and jealous Saul. He had given him all that Saul had. God would have given him more than that. David is accused of killing Uriah with the sword of the enemy.
The truth is out on the table. Now we have to deal with the…
II. The CONSEQUENCES
Verse 10-14 deal with the consequences of David’s sin, his repentance, and forgiveness. Nathan delivers the judgment of God in verses 10-12. There we see…
A. The CALAMITY of sin.
The basic gist of God’s judgment is that David’s house will be a mess as a result of this.
When I was in high school there was a public service announcement that was on TV. A dad bursts into his son’s bedroom while the son is listening to music. The dad opens up a box filled with drug paraphernalia. The dad screams, “Where did you get this? Who taught you how to do this?” The son is shocked at his dad’s discovery. Fear overtakes him. Then he responds, “I learned it by watching you.” The dad has a look of horror on his face as he realizes that this is a mess of his own creation.
Over his last years David must have thought that he was the cause of his families calamity. The lust of the father was learned well by the children. In chapter 13, we find David’s son Ammon raping his half-sister Tamar. In chapter 16 we find David’s son Absalom sleeping with the concubines of David in plain view of the entire nation.
We also see that David pays fourfold for the death of Uriah. The child born of the adultery died. Absalom murdered Ammon after the incident with Tamar. Absalom died when he got his hair caught in a tree. Another of David’s sons, Adonijah, also died a violent death.
Sin brought great calamity on the family of David. There is one thing good that David did. He confessed.
B. CONFESSION and repentance lead to forgiveness.
David cried out, “I have sinned against the Lord.” What a relief that must have been for him to get that off his chest.
I remember when I was a kid. I was probably about 8 or 9. I had stolen some gumballs from candy machines at a couple places. I had turned the knobs and gum came out, but I hadn’t paid for it. It ate me up. One night I couldn’t sleep. I went and woke my mom up and told her the whole terrible thing. It wasn’t even $1.00 worth of gum. It was something like 60 cents. One of the machines was one of those old penny machines. Mom and I prayed about it. The next day, I went to the places and confessed my sin. I pulled out some change and offered to pay for it. The people thanked me for my honesty and assured me that they would throw me in jail. That was a great relief to my guilt-wracked conscience. Confession and repentance led to forgiveness. I slept well that night.
David must have felt a great weight removed from his chest when he uttered those words.
David still had to deal with…
C. CONSEQUENCES and punishment.
There was still the issue of justice. David deserved the death penalty for committing adultery. He also deserved the death penalty for killing Uriah.
One thing that I hate to hear is the notion that the God of the Old Testament is vengeful and angry, while the God of the New Testament is graceful and nice. God is the same in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Here we see an example of God’s grace in the Old Testament. We see that he…
1. COMMUTED the punishment.
God was most gracious in dealing with David. Remember that he was very much displeased with the actions of David.
We see the fruit of genuine repentance. David was genuinely sorry for what he had done. He recognized his sin and took responsibility for it. As a result we see that God “put away [his] sin.” He then proceeds to tell David that he won’t die as a result of his sin. David received a healthy dose of God’s grace. He would not get what he deserved for his sin. It is a beautiful thing to receive God’s grace. It is available to all who truly repent and ask for it.
David had another issue to deal with, and that was…
2. CONTINUING consequences.
I have heard Mike Eason say this on a number of occasions, “If you pick up a stick, you have to willing to deal with what’s on the other end of the stick.”
While David was forgiven and his punishment commuted, he still had to deal with things that happened as a result of his sin. He had to deal with what was on the other end of the stick that he picked up.
As mentioned earlier, his family was a mess. The things that happened shock us. This is true even in the age of Jerry Springer. The things that occurred in the palace after this would probably make Jerry Springer blush.
Our sense of justice says, “It’s not fair that David’s children paid the price for his sin, when he got off free.”
There is a difference between punishment and consequences. The punishment is a matter of law. Consequences have nothing to do with the law.
Take the example of former baseball player Denny McLain. He was a con man. He had been one of the best pitchers in the game in the late 1960s, but when his playing days ended, he turned to a life of crime. He was a first rate con man. The law eventually caught up with him. He has been in prison a couple of times. The most recent trip to the big house resulted in his wife leaving him. She had put up with his antics for years, but this time she had enough. She decided that she wasn’t going to take it anymore. McLain’s life of crime led to punishment from the legal system. He was sent to prison. His life of crime also led to consequences that were beyond the scope of the legal system. His wife left him.
Conclusion
In God’s government, we all deserve the legal punishment of death, but through his grace he offers us the opportunity for forgiveness. We still have to deal with the consequences of our decisions. David had to deal with death, incest and all the garbage that happened. He never whined and fussed about though. He understood that he had brought this on himself.
So often we want God to take away the consequences of our sin. The important thing is that we not focus so closely on the temporary consequences. The important thing is whether or not we are in a right relationship with God. After his confession and repentance, David was restored to a right relationship with God, but he still had to deal with the consequences. Where are you? What is important to you?
