When I read the psalms of David it reminds me of the importance of guarding my heart as well as the safety found in letting God search my heart.
David was a man after God’s own heart but he still managed to deceive himself!
When we read David’s psalms we’re basically reading his spiritual journal.
Psalm 101:3
I will set no worthless thing before my eyes.
Psalm 16:8
I have set the LORD always before me.
Psalm 16:6-7
The lines of my boundary have fallen in pleasant places; surely my inheritance is delightful. I will bless the LORD who counsels me; even at night my conscience instructs me.
Let the last passage sink in. God has set boundary lines for David, and David finds them to be pleasant, even delightful! He loves that God speaks to him and counsels him. He rejoices that even in the middle of the night he has a clear conscience and God uses it to instruct him.
So what then, happened to this man David, that caused him to drift from God and make such a mess of his life?
The night of David’s regret
When we read the writings of David we can see that he was a man with a very soft and tender heart. He was not a man given to violating his conscience. But this night would be different.
One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman. -2 Samuel 11:2
Was this the first time that David had ever taken a stroll on his rooftop and seen Bathsheba bathing? We’re not really given the answer to that. It would seem so, but the possibility certainly exists that this wasn’t the first time that he had gotten up in the middle of the night and seen her! I know that sin has a way of presenting itself to us until we finally give in. It wouldn’t be surprising if he had seen her on another occasion, and was laying on his bed wondering if he might see her again. Had he decided to take a stroll on his rooftop, just in case?
Since we’re not told that David had ever seen her before, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s laying in bed, can’t fall asleep, and decides to stroll out on the roof of his palace to look at the stars. As his gaze returns to earth his eyes are filled with the captivating sight of an exceptionally beautiful woman bathing!
We can understand how he might have felt. His heart pounding in his chest. On the one hand, his conscience restraining him. On the other, his passion pushing him forward. It wasn’t a sin when David first happened to see Bathsheba bathing, but without turning his eyes back toward God it could quickly become one!
David did what we often do when first given a glimpse of temptation.
But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. -James 1:13-15
He simply let his desires take their natural course.
He sends a servant to find out who the woman is and learns that she’s married. Instead of turning away, he fixes his desire on her and violates his God-given conscience. Instead of the Lord always being before David, he got his eyes on Bathsheba, and she’s all that he can see now.
David’s compromise led him into a downward spiral of self-deception, and that self-deception rotted away the core of what once made him great.
Wearing the face of sin
The end result of sin is perfectly portrayed in the Book of Hosea.
Hosea 9:10
They consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and so they became as vile as the thing they loved.
Just as gazing up on Jesus changes us into His likeness, gazing upon sin corrupts our visage.
Not only do we end up wearing the face of sin, our heart is giving over to the pursuit of it.
Make no mistake, David gave himself over to possessing Bathsheba in the same way that he used to seek after possessing God!
In his former days David’s song was all about his pursuit of God.
Psalms 27:4
One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple.
At this point there’s little doubt that David’s love song for God faded to a flicker. It’s almost impossible to retain passion for God while violating our conscience.
David had taken his gaze off the beauty of God and placed it on the face and form of a married woman!
Somewhere in his mind he justified it, but his self-deception would cost him dearly.
We end up looking like the thing we love no matter how much we tell ourselves otherwise.
In the end, not only did David end up wearing the face of an adulterer, he went on to murder Bathsheba’s husband so that he could cover his sin. David was a man after God’s own heart until he let his own heart deceive him to his own destruction.
God sends a prophet to wake David up
David was in such a fog of self-deception that God had to send the prophet Nathan to wake him up and bring him to his senses.
We ought to realize that God will sometimes take extreme measures if we’re unwilling to turn and repent.
Take notice, therefore, of the kindness and severity of God. -Romans 11:22
Nathan’s prophetic words pierced through David’s hard heart. David was made to see his sin and confess it. Nathan called him out on all of it! There were no hidden areas that went unexposed.
The adultery and murder were bad, but David came to see that his most grievous and deepest sin was actually against God himself.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight. -Psalm 51:3-4
“Because you have despised me” flew like arrows from the prophets mouth lodging deep into David’s heart. David may have been telling himself that his sin was a result of lust, but God put his finger on the truth.
David’s choices had revealed an utter disregard for God.
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.’ –2 Samuel 10
At the heart of David’s sin was the failure to see the goodness of God in his life. The prophet Nathan specifically highlighted David’s lack of appreciation for the favor and kindness that God had shown David.
I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? -2 Samuel 12:7-8
God had given David everything a man could want, and instead of appreciating the blessings of God in his life, David went out and stole another man’s wife! It’s my personal belief that David’s assent to kingship and the palace had a corrupting influence on his heart. We don’t see David acting like this when he was in the desert tending sheep. David in the desert is a humble man who’s appreciative, meek, and bowed in worship before God. David in the palace is bored and entitled! We’re told that he didn’t join his fighting men as a king would normally do, but instead stayed home lounging around in complacency and affluence. Contrast this with David in his earlier life who managed to attract a band of fighting men to himself because he was in the thick of it with the rest of them.
1 Samuel 22:2
And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.
It would be a great mistake to isolate the sin of David with Bathsheba as if it was something that occurred out of nowhere. No, David had by that time been falling away from God by degrees, so that by the time Bathsheba came into view his heart was hardened and he was easy prey for Satan’s temptations.
The mercy of God in confrontation
God was showing His love for David by calling his sin out through Nathan the prophet. If it wasn’t for the Lord’s mercy we’d live in our delusional world and never repent. How easy it is to fall into sin and how difficult it is to extricate ourselves from its grasp! Repentance is always a gift from God because sin will never willingly release us once it has a hold of us.
The Lord ultimately had mercy on David. God didn’t take David’s life for the sins that he committed. Nevertheless, David’s tryst with Bathsheba came with serious, painful, consequences.
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” -2 Samuel 12;13-14
I don’t believe it was ever David’s desire to “utterly scorn the LORD”. He loved God with all of his heart, but somehow he had found himself in the place where God was leveling this charge against him.
How did that happen?
I’ve been a Christian long enough to know that our catastrophic failures are almost never one-off situations. We fall away by degrees, and in the ensuing hardness of heart that follows, we deceive ourselves into believing that nothing has really changed between us and God. Beware that first sin of compromise!
See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. -Hebrews 3:12-13