David, Bathsheba, and the Consequences of David's Sin

Because I want to return to my "first works" it just so happens that today I was supposed to read Second Samuel 11 and 12. I wrote about 11 yesterday. That was the story of David and Bathsheba, how he saw her bathing from his palace and had her brought to him for sex. When she told him she was pregnant, King David had his military commander, Joab, to have her husband, Uriah, come to meet with him. After some small talk about how things were going in the war, King David suggested to Uriah that he take some time off and spend some time with his wife, hoping that people might think he was the father of her child. Uriah explained to David that he could not do that and not do his duty to his king and his troops (2 Samuel 11:6-13). So then David invited him to eat and drink with him and stay all night and leave in the morning. He hoped to get him drunk so he would go home to his wife, but, again, Uriah just went to "his bed with the servants of his lord." The situation was desperate now. King David ultimately ordered Uriah into the heat of the battle where he was sure to be killed. This story sounds a lot like the movies of today. Just FYI, there was a 1951 movie about David and Bathsheba starring Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, and Raymond Massey. In 2 Samuel 12:1-14, the Prophet Nathan tells the heartbreaking story of a rich man who had "many flocks and herds" and a "poor man who had nothing except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. "And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he tood the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him." King David said that this man should die for this great sin, and then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!" and went on to tell him what God was saying about David's future. "'Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the LORD: 'Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house...'" Then David confesses that he has sinned against the Lord, and Nathan says he will not die but his punishment is required because he had "given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.'" I see a terrible parallel here with the killing of Uriah. The motivation from David's point of view was to cover up his sin with Bathsheba. The most striking parallel I see is the sin of abortion. The killing of the unborn children removes them from the lives of the parents who produced them. They are an inconvenience, and could even bring shame to the parents, even though today there is not as much shame in bearing children "out of wedlock" as there was several years ago. Children are a blessing of the Lord, and fulfill his instruction to "be fruitful and multiply," but our culture has hardened the hearts of people today to deny the sanctity of life and to think only of the woman's "bodily autonomy." In other words it's "her own body" and "her choice," denying the right of the child to live, the sanctity of life and, ultimately, defying God. The other point that I see here is the point about "giving great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme." For Bathsheba to have a child that could not have been fathered by her husband, Uriah, would be a blot on David's reign. Before King David's adultery with Bathsheba, he was known as a man devoted to God, a "man after God's own heart," and a psalmist unto the Lord. This child would constitute a drastic contradiction and a shameful thing for a king and a man of God. Any time those who are known to be members of the family of God live just like the world and have no fear of God, they give "great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme." One final connection I have made to this story, I remember the night I came to the realization that I had sinned against the Lord, and that was the turning point for me to turn to God and Jesus. I decided right then and there I did not want to continue living the way I was living. It was so intense, like I just made a 180 degree turn in my life from that moment on. So I can identify with these chapters very much. My prayer for all my greatly esteemed friends and beloved family members who have yet to come to that place in their lives is that God would "grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth and that they may come to their senses, and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:25-26). This is going to conclude my Bible study for this evening. Tomorrow is a big day; I have to decide what to wear to a special high school graduate's commencement in the morning. Night all.