The year before this chapter begins, David had sinned against the Lord. He's seen Bathsheba naked and did not take his thoughts or imagination captive. Instead he dwelled on the thoughts of lust and let his imagination run wild with them. Next, he used his position of authority to get Bathsheba into his house and have sex with her. When she became pregnant and his scheme began to fall apart, he then used his authority (which the Lord had given him) to have her husband killed. During all this time he was also sinning by not taking his sinful thoughts captive and replacing them with God's truth. Plus he was continually trying to hide his sin instead of confessing it and repenting because he didn't want to stop. He now had a false god and idol. He had placed fulfilling his lust above God, showing that he loved himself, more then he loved God.
David must have been happy during that past year though right? I mean after all he got to play with Bathsheba during that time and that's what he'd wanted, right? Wrong! Psalm 32 and 51 tell us a little of how he felt during that year: Psalm 32:3–4 —When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. *For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah * He was being disciplined by the Lord during that year as the Lord wanted to bring him to repentance and that discipline began as soon as he refused to take that first thought captive! He eventually became sick and weak, unable to do the things he normally did due to his illness. He was sick at heart as well as his body for he knew he was living in sin. Yet, he still wouldn't give it up or confess it, and he still continued to sin, to hide it and then to sin more by having her husband killed. He lost his joy, he was no longer a good witness for the Lord, and his power. The Lord wasn't going to answer his prayers when he was doing this, that's for sure! He probably became short with people, snapping at the least little thing, as well as grumpy until he became downright depressed.
Strange isn't it. He got what he wanted, even though he knew it was a sin, and yet instead of being happy, he winds up depressed! We see that the Lord gave David more then enough time to confess and repent of his sin on his own...over a year, but still he refused, so the Lord sent the prophet Nathan to him with a message.
Nathan pretended he was telling David about a case that needed to be judged, though he never said that. He just let David think so, and told him about a rich man who had badly used a poor man by taking the poor man's one and only ewe. David got very angry when he heard what the man had done and said that the man should be put to death for it, and should have to pay back what he'd taken 4 times over. Although angry, he was still being fair because that's what God's law calls for in such a situation. Isn't it funny how easy it is to see other people's sins and judge them, but how hard it is to see our own at times?
It was then that Nathan revealed to David that he was the man he had been talking about. Nathan then told him what God said about it: that He'd given David all he had, made him King, given him power and authority and all the women and servants he had, made him victorious over all his enemies, etc. and still David took another man's only wife and then had him killed. He then told David what his sin would cost him. I'm sure David was totally stunned, but to his credit, he finally stopped hiding, didn't try to make any excuses, and immediately confessed, agreeing that he had indeed sinned against the Lord.
At that point, Nathan assured David that the Lord would allow him to live even though the death sentence was what the law called for for what he'd done. However, there were severe consequences for his sin which would still come to pass. Those consequences, all of which the Lord had told him, began as soon as Nathan left that day. One of my commentaries explains this better then I can so I'll simply quote what it says:
God was ready to forgive David’s sins, but He could not prevent those sins from “bringing forth death” (James 1:15). God’s grace forgives, but God’s government must allow sinners to reap what they sow. Psalm 99:8: "you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds." “He shall restore fourfold!” David had declared punishment concerning the man in Nathan’s story, so God accepted his sentence. The sword never did depart from David’s household: the baby died; Absalomkilled Amnon, who had ruined Tamar (both men are David's sons and Tamar is his daughter); then Joab killed Absalom (2 Sam 18:9–17); and Adonijah (David's son) was slain by Benaiah (1 Kings 2:24–25). Fourfold! Add to these trials the awful ruin of Tamar, the shameful treatment of David’s wives by his son Absalom (2 Sam 12:11; 2 Sam 16:20–23), plus the rebellion of Absalom, and you can see that David paid dearly for a few moments of lustful pleasure. He sowed lust and reaped the same; he sowed murder and reaped murders, for “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines
We often console ourselves thinking, "Well, David's sins were awful so that's probably why there were such terrible consequences". The problem with that kind of thinking is that God considers all sin the same. It doesn't matter if it's telling a little white lie, not studying His Word, cheating, or killing someone. The consequences of all sin is death. I'm not saying that if we tell a little white lie that someone in our family is going to die-not at all! God is always just. What I'm saying though is that we tend to make our own sins seem very little, especially in comparison to what David did. Yet David's first sin was that he simply didn't take his thoughts captive and replace them with God's Truth. How often do we do that??? And we usually think we get away with it too, don't we? But we never do. Never. Not because God is mean - far from it! But because God is righteous and just and fair and mostly because He loves us and wants what is best for us. It's always easy for us to say the way we've been treated isn't fair, but if someone were to do the same thing to us, we certainly wouldn't want them to get off the hook.
The consequences of David's sins lasted the for the rest of his life and the lives of his children. Again, not because God's mean, but simply because that's what sin does. It's done that since the very first sin. Look at how long the consequences of Adam's sin has lasted... it's still going on! I have looked back on my own life and can honestly say that I can see how my own sins, even "little sins" have affected my children and are still affecting them. It's another aspect of sin that we often choose to ignore and not think about. Especially if the sin is something we want to do like David did. But our sins affect our children and other people as well. It is not just us that is affected by them. Everyone pays when someone sins. That's why God hates sin so much. He hates to see us hurt. He loves us. Think how we as parents feel when we know someone or something is hurting our child - we'll do anything to stop it! We hate it! Well, that's a small taste of how God feels toward all sin because He knows far better then we do, just how horribly sin hurts us, His children whom He loves.
He knows we are enslaved to and by sin and because He loves us and hates how it hurts us, He was even willing to come and die so we could finally be free from it. And so we are, just as David was freed when God forgave his sins. Yet the consequences of those sin continued just as ours do. God will not stop the law of gravity because someone was stupid enough to think they could fly off their roof. Nor will he stop the consequences of our sins because if He did, there would be nothing to stop us from continuing to sin. God's grace forgives us, but His government must allow us to reap what we have sown, even though it hurts Him as much as us.
The Lord shows us something else that's very important in this story that we often overlook. Often when we sin, especially if we think it's a "terrible sin" like I'm sure David did, we then decide that He can no longer use us, that we're no good to Him anymore. We'll spend hours, days, months, sometimes years, thinking about what a horrible thing we did and how bad we were and "now God can't use us". But that too is a lie that needs to be taken captive and replaced with the truth God shows us here. Because after David confessed and repented, God did indeed use him and bless him. He even sent Nathan back to him to assure him that he was being blessed.
After the child that had been conceived in sin had died, God caused Bathsheba to become pregnant again, with another son. This time she gave birth to a boy they named Solomon. The Lord sent Nathan to tell David that He loved this child and of course David knew that the child had been given him by the Lord as all children are. Next the Lord gave David yet another victory over his enemies and another crown.
We see that as soon as David had confessed and repented of his sin, although there would be consequences from the sin, his relationship with the Lord was completely restored. This is shown in more detail in psalms 32 and 51. It's very true of all of us as well. When we're forgiven, God promises to never bring our sin up to us or anyone else, not even Himself, ever again, and to never use it against us. What an awesome God we serve! When we're forgiven, God restores us to our previous place of service and our relationship with Him is repaired. We once again have the joy of our salvation. So we must never allow Satan to trick us into thinking that we've gone too far or that we can't be used by the Lord anymore etc. Where sin abounds, grace abounds more!
Of course there's much much more in this chapter then what I've shown here, but this will have to do for now. Please read 2 Samuel 12 and then read psalm 32 and psalm 51. When reading the psalms see if you can see what David lost and how he felt during his year of sin and what he gained and how he felt when he finally confessed and repented of his sin. The reason being that his experience is one we all share when we sin, regardless of what our sin is. If there's any portion of the psalms or of 2 Samuel 12 that you'd like to discuss, I'll be happy to do so.
