TEXT: II Samuel 12:1-15

SUBJECT: However

INTRODUCTION

This is one of the Bible's most sobering passages. Sobering because it demonstrates the power of indwelling sin. Sobering because it exhibits the fullness of God's grace. Sobering because it recalls the consequences of sin in this life. As the Lord provides, I hope to speak to this third sobering thought. It is summarized in the first word of v.14, "However".

THE BACKGROUND

David is the King of Israel, chosen by God to execute His holy will. This he does, quite admirably, for many years. But well into middle-age, David blunders into a grave and costly sin. From his rooftop patio he spots a lovely young woman bathing down below. Royal servants are sent to inquire of her. Is she available? No, she is the wife of Uriah the Hittite, the king's loyal soldier. But David is undeterred. He will bed another man's wife.

A month later, he receives a message: "I am with child". What's the king to do? He must cover up the affair. But how? By getting Bathsheba together with her husband. But this presents a problem: Uriah is on maneuvers with the army. He is ordered back to Jerusalem and encouraged to visit his wife. But Uriah won't go: "The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you life, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing".

Curses. David goes to "Plan B". He invites Uriah to dinner with him--and gets him drunk--hoping he will forget his vow and be return to his wife. But alas! Uriah is a man of integrity. He won't indulge himself with his comrades in the field.

Desperate, the king resorts to "Plan C". Uriah is sent to the front lines; his comrades are told to retreat; he is left alone and killed at the Battle of Rabbah. Bathsheba is now a widow. And available. She joins the royal harem. The clever king has covered his sin.

Or has he? The epilogue is telling: "But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD".

THE PARABLE

Several months later, Nathan comes to the king with a police report. It seems that two neighbors have fallen out with each other. One was a rich man; the other was poor. The rich man grazed a vast flock of sheep; the poor man had only one ewe lamb--which he loved as if she were his own daughter.

The rich man had a guest one day. He fixed a tasty dinner for him, roast lamb--the poor man's pet!

David was enraged at the rich man's gall! "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this thing shall surely die! And he shall restore four-fold, because he did this thing and he had no pity".

Nathan turns--and with great boldness--replies: "You are the man!" David had many wives; if he wanted more, he might have had them. But--like the rich man in the story--he had no pity. He took a poor man's only wife and compounded his guilt by murdering a loyal servant.

David is crestfallen. "I have sinned against the LORD!"

THE COMFORTING WORD

The Lord is easily entreated; Nathan is quick to apply a spiritual balm to the wounded soul. "The LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die". Just like that, David was forgiven. Freely, fully forgiven. The penalty for both adultery and murder was death. But the Lawgiver is also the Judge. He pardoned David's crime and commuted his sentence. It's no wonder the king would write,

"If you, LORD, should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with You,

That you may be feared".

And...

"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,

Whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not

Impute iniquity,

And in whose spirit there is no guile".

Yes. David was forgiven; "The LORD had put away (his) sin". Therefore, (he) would not die". He wouldn't die under the Law's curse; he wouldn't die the second death.

HOWEVER...

David's sin was "put away". Its penalty was revoked. "However" consequences would follow; they must follow. What were they? David pronounced his own judgment: "He shall restore four-fold".

Uriah's murder would be visited upon the king four times. First, the son born of the illicit union would die. And so he did at the age of seven days.

A second murder would soon occur, Amnon's. His sad tale is told in chapter 13. Amnon fell in love with his half-sister, Tamar. Feigning illness, he coaxed her into serving as a nursemaid. But when they were alone, he violently raped her. Her brother, Absolom learned of the foul deed, and repaid it by slaying Amnon.

A third murder would quickly follow, Absolom's. It's told in chapters 14-18. Absolom was a handsome and dashing young man who "stole the hearts of the men of Israel". He didn't stop with their hearts; he led a coup d'etat of his father's kingdom. David fled Jerusalem in disgrace. In time the two armies clashed and the loyalists prevailed over the rebels. Absolom, fleeing a battle, was caught by the hair in a tree. Suspended in mid-air, he was an easy target for Joab who drove three spears into his heart. Absolom was no more.

Years later, another son must die a violent death, Adonijah. We're told of it in I Kings 1-2. Solomon was David's heir. But Adonijah presumed to take the throne for himself. His plan was upset, and he was killed for his treachery.

Thus, what David "did secretly", God did "before all Israel, before the sun". Truly, "He takes the wise in their own craftiness".

QUESTION

This presents a difficulty. How is v.14 consistent with v.13? If "The Lord put away (David's) sin", why must he yet "pay four-fold"?

Let's start here: David was not paying for his sin. The penalty of sin is death, eternal death. And David did not pay it; not in this world; not in the world to come. Not in full; not in part.

If these four deaths, therefore, were not Divine judgments, what were they? They were fatherly chastisements.

They humbled David; they boosted his respect for God; they broke the power of his lust; they made him feel the depth of his dependence. In short, they did him good. How do I know that? He said so. "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept Your word".

THE AFTERMATH

How did David respond to the chastisements? Negatively, he didn't resent them or murmur against God. Unlike the spoiled child we so often resemble, he didn't demand God to "let him off the hook". Positively, he fessed up to his sins and he forsook them. In the end, he gloried in the mercy and goodness of his Savior.

"He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

Nor rewarded us according to our iniquity;

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him".