When Your Sin Finds You Out Series

Thomas Cromwell was having a portrait painted. He said, “paint me as I am leave out not a scar or a blemish.” There is a Wikipedia article on the portrait of Thomas Cromwell. The article says that Cromwell’s portrait is the least flattering portrait the artist ever painted.

For centuries a portrait could be the photoshop of today. An airbrush can make anybody look good. Your picture can be photoshopped and even your videos can be edited to make you look better than ever.

If you read a biography and it never tells you anything bad about that person, then you rightly suspect that the biography has been airbrushed and is not telling you the whole story. Our Bible heroes do not have the luxury of the airbrush, photoshop or a skewed biographer. The Holy Spirit inspired version gives us the scars and blemishes.

Here are a few examples of some blemishes:

Noah: His drunkenness.

Aaron: His forming the golden calf.

Jeremiah: Wanted to quit the ministry.

Peter: We see in the Bible his denial of Christ.

What about the first century churches?

Corinthians: Disorder and licentiousness.

Philippians: Division.

Galatians: Legalism

Ephesus: Lost their love for Christ.

The most famous and glaring scar and blemish of all is King David and his sin with Bathsheba. David learned, and his life teaches us, that sin is not something to be covered up. You don’t commit sin and sweep it under the rug and go on without consequences. You can be forgiven, yes, but there are still consequences put in motion.

David’s sin teaches us that sin requires repentance, confession to God and forgiveness from God. That one lesson, if fully learned and practiced could save countless heartaches. David could not hide his sin from the very one who he ultimately sinned against, God. God knows your every move, your every thought, and your every motive.

David sailed to the very height of achievement. He went from a lowly shepherd where he was passed over as a choice for king to being confirmed ask God’s anointed. He was not man’s choice to be king, but he was God’s choice.

David first became the king of Judah and then all of the nation Israel. He ruled from a beautiful cedar palace. David was victorious in his battles and extended Israel’s possession of the promised land. He even showed kindness to Miphiboseth as an extension of his own personal blessings.

Up to this point David himself was accompanying troops to battle, but this time he sent Joab to lead the troops. So, during the time that David was normally out to battle, he was at home. That is when he saw a woman bathing. You can’t help what you see, but it matters what you do when you see it. If only he would have quickly looked away and gone back into the palace and wrote another Psalm of praise.

Martian Luther said you can’t keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. David invites the sin of lust to roost in his hair and build a nest. It became the sin of lust that turned into the sin of adultery.

All sin will separate us from God. All sin is equal in that respect. But even with that, not all sin is the same degree. The sin of adultery if the more severe progression of the sin of lust. Out of adultery comes conception of a child.

This was not a day where David could have sent Bathsheba to have an abortion, but instead he brings back Uriah so that all but he and Bathsheba will be led to think that this was the child of Uriah. Uriah did not know that David brought him back to his home as part of a cover up plan.

Uriah was brought back so he would sleep with his wife and think the baby was his. Then wa-la the whole sin would disappear and be forgotten by everyone. He did not know that his wife Bathsheba was pregnant because King David had an affair with her. Uriah is a faithful soldier and faithful to King David to an incredible extent.

Once David’s cover up plan was in place nobody would have to be stoned to death for adulty as the Old Testament law required. King David lived above the law, but this law could be a danger to Bathsheba.

Uriah is too loyal to go back home and be with his wife. There was a war in progress and Uriah was a faithful soldier. David even tried to get Uriah drunk so that he would then put his own interests before the duties of the kingdom. Even that part of the cover-up plan did not work. This was a mess that was not easily cleaned up.