God's Mercy

A Life of Blood

David is approximately fifty years old when this story takes place. From his teenage years until now, his life has been filled with bloodshed. When he was a teenager taking care of the sheep, he killed a bear and a lion with his hands. He killed Goliath before he ever became king. For years he traversed the area running from Saul, having to take part in different little skirmishes, leading men into battle. Lots of blood. When he became king, the first ten years were just one battle after another as he secured the kingdom under his rule. From that time on, it’s all about pushing back the enemy, making sure the enemy never gets close. There are regular battles and campaigns. Blood.

By the time we get to 2 Samuel 11, David is fifty years old or so. Maybe he’s tired of war. The Bible doesn’t tell us. But in the spring when kings go out to war, David decides he’s going to stay home. Maybe he’s just seen enough blood.

Something happens to men at fifty. You spend thirty years of your life pushing and trying to accomplish, trying to set out in a direction of life. You’ve got blood on your hands—not literal blood, but you’ve sweated and worked and toiled and you’ve done everything you can to get to a place. Then you hit fifty and it’s like, “I ain’t young anymore, but my brain tells me I’m still young.” There’s a part of you that knows that the life in front of you is shorter than the life behind you. You’ll do almost anything to hold on to being young.

I think that’s where David is. He’s trying to hang on to his youth. He’s done nothing for the last thirty years except kill and lead people into battle, and he is no longer young. He’s got a great house, a great kingdom. Don’t think for a moment I’m saying he’s turned his back on God—he hasn’t. But he’s not young anymore. In twenty years he’ll be dead. So what does David do? He stays home while Joab, the main general of David’s army, and the young men who are ready to go to war take the fight forward.

The Lamb and the Sin

So on a particular night while all of his men are out fighting, getting blood on their hands, David can’t sleep. He gets up and walks around and he sees Bathsheba taking a bath. She has an element of privacy here—it’s at night, the menfolk are out fighting wars, everybody should be asleep. But David immediately calls for a servant to say, “I want to know who that woman is.” The servant comes back and says that her name is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

Stop right there. That’s a lot of information. Look at 2 Samuel chapter 23, verse 34. The writer gives us a list of the top thirty men in David’s army. These thirty guys are David’s main bodyguards, the guys who have been with David the longest, who have walked with David from the time he started running away from Saul. These are the guys who David really knows. One of the thirty guys is named Eliam, son of Ahithophel, the Gileunite. That’s the same Eliam that is Bathsheba’s dad. Then verse 39 mentions Uriah the Hittite—that’s Bathsheba’s husband.

So let’s put this in perspective. David, that’s Eliam’s daughter, Uriah’s wife, and Ahithophel’s granddaughter. You know those three guys, don’t you, David? The first two have fought with you side by side, battle after battle, for years. And you know Ahithophel, right? He’s the guy whose advice you always seek out. He’s the wisest man you know. That young lady right there, that’s Ahithophel’s granddaughter, that’s Eliam’s daughter, that’s Uriah’s wife.

David says, “I want her. I want her now.”

We can all be shocked at the adultery. But you know what I’m really shocked at? Spitting in the face of three guys that you know, that have been with you shoulder to shoulder. David said, “I don’t care. I don’t care about them. I don’t care about the relationships that we have. I don’t care how much blood we all have on our hands. I want her. I want her right now.”

There’s one more piece of information you need to know about Bathsheba. She had purified herself from her uncleanness. That’s the reason she was taking a bath. She’s God’s daughter. Her husband’s out at battle. They’re not going to be with each other sexually until he gets back. So she’s gone through her menstrual cycle and she now has a bath, which was commanded of God of all women. In what she thought was a private moment, she was honoring her God. And out of his lust, David’s going to ruin the lives of an entire family and doesn’t care.

Long enough time passes that Bathsheba sends the message: “I’m pregnant. And it’s yours. It can’t be anybody else’s.”

So David plans another scheme: Get Uriah home. He’ll be glad to go see his wife. That doesn’t work. Uriah has more honor when he’s drunk than David does when he’s sober. So the plot keeps getting worse and worse. David arranges for Uriah to be murdered. And after a period of mourning, Bathsheba is brought into the palace. If I count right, this will be wife number six for David.

David goes back to being king. He just goes back to being every day what he needs to do. The men are still out fighting. It started in the spring. It’s now in the fall. They’re still fighting. David just keeps doing kingly stuff. Who knows what he has done? Maybe he hasn’t thought about it much. Maybe Joab suspects something. Certainly he knows that he set up Uriah, but maybe he doesn’t know the reason. I wonder if Ahithophel knows.

The reason I say that is because by the time you get a few years down the road, Ahithophel’s advice was sought by David. And who else? Absalom. When you get to chapter 16, Absalom is overthrowing David, and he’s taking Ahithophel’s advice on how to do that. So I do wonder—there’s a part of me that wonders—does the grandfather know enough of the story to make it known his allegiance is now no longer with David? His allegiance has gone to his son? The Bible doesn’t tell us.

But depending on how close he was to his granddaughter, maybe she told him what happened. That’s a story of intrigue, isn’t it? And it’s a story that many of us have heard, and when we listen to it, we say, “David’s in a bad way here.” And he is. He has completely gone off the rails. And listen, it can happen to any of us. Before you say, “No, it would never happen to me,” stop. Just stop.

David goes on with life and acts as if nothing has happened. The birth of the child comes. As far as David is concerned, he’s gotten away with it. There’s no one who has pressured him. Even Bathsheba has no voice here. David’s just doing his thing, and he thinks he’s gotten away with it.

Nathan’s Confrontation and God’s Mercy

I don’t know why God waited. I don’t know why God didn’t confront David early on. But whatever the reason, Nathan comes to David. This is chapter 12. Nathan is God’s prophet. I suspect they’ve had regular meetings. This is not like the first time Nathan has talked to David. And so Nathan comes to David and says, “I got a story I need to tell you.”

David says, “Yeah, let me hear it.”

Nathan says, “There’s this rich guy. He’s got all kinds of lambs and sheep and all that kind of stuff. And there’s a guy that’s close to him. He’s a real poor man. He’s got only one lamb and he loves that lamb. He has taken it in like a family member and it is loved and loved and loved. The rich man takes the lamb and kills it in order to feed some guests.”

David is enraged. He has all these lambs to choose from and he chooses this man’s lamb and he takes it and he steals it and uses it, butchers it in order to feed his own desires.

And Nathan says, “You are that man.”

I don’t know if David’s brain could process fast enough. He’s gone months with nothing being said. He thinks he’s gotten away with it. Even this story brings about the heart of God from David. It’s the heart that says, “That’s unjust. We’ve got to rectify this. We have got to fix this, Nathan.” He’s a man still filled with passion. He’s a man who is still filled with the heart of God and he wants to do the right thing.

And Nathan says, “You’re the rich guy who took the lamb. I anointed you king over Israel, delivered you from the hand of Saul, gave you your master’s house to you, your wives. You struck down Uriah, took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword. I mean, look at all what God’s done for you, David. Was that not enough? Was that not enough for you?”

Think of the worst thing you’ve ever done and suddenly have it laid bare in front of everybody. Can you imagine what that would do to you? We can talk about embarrassment. That doesn’t even begin to cover what you would feel. The betrayal, adultery, murder, selfishness. On and on it goes with David in this particular situation.

Think of the worst thing. You say, “Well, I haven’t done that or that or that. Good. What else have you not done? What have you done? Because all of us, all of us have things that we just as soon not everybody know about. We don’t want our life exposed that way.”

Then David says, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

How do you think David said those words? What was his tone of voice? Was it in tears? Was it quiet? Was it in hushed tones? Was it said haltingly? “You know, I have sinned.” I mean, was it said and everybody who was standing around listening to this knew that David was admitting what he had done? I mean, it’s all out there for everybody now. Every generation ever since has read about it. The worst thing that you could possibly ever do. Wouldn’t it be great for it to be recorded so that every generation can read about it from here on out? That’s what we all want our biographies to read, right? Here’s what you’re noted for. Bring up David’s name and everybody goes, “Bathsheba.” Yeah, there you go. Some folks will start at Goliath and give him a benefit of the doubt. But most people run right up to Bathsheba real quick.

And then Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin.”

Can it be that easy? “I have sinned. The Lord takes your sin.” Can’t possibly be that easy. I mean, this guy has wrecked the homes of Uriah, Eliam, Ahithophel, his own home. Can it be that easy? Can we just let him off the hook that easy? Oh, there’s consequences coming. He’s going to die. Nathan says, “The sword will never leave your home. You’ve seen blood, David. You’re not through seeing blood. And it’s going to be inside your house.” It’s a prediction about Absalom coming. Your house is going to fall in on itself. Oh, there’s consequences coming.

But can a sin really be taken away that easily, that quickly? “I have sinned before the Lord.” And Nathan says, “God has taken your sin.” I mean, the worst thing we’ve ever done, is it that easy for God just to forgive our sin? Is it that easy? Don’t we have to pay for it? Don’t we have to live in it? Don’t we have to feel it? We can’t just say, “I have sinned before the Lord” and have God forgive us. It just can’t be that easy.

Then I would say, you don’t know God. Sure, there was a price that was paid for your sin. But when you confess that sin, what does God do with that sin? He doesn’t say, “Hey, I need you to do twenty of these and some push-ups and some jumping jacks.” He just says, “I forgive you.” Can God be that easy about things? Well, He’s not easy. We know the price that was paid, but the price didn’t come through you. It came through Him. He paid the price. God can forgive you. What’s the worst thing? Adultery, murder, betrayal, ruining people’s lives. I mean, what more is there? “I have sinned. God forgives you.”

Turn over to Psalm 51. The passion of David comes out in his writing and the songs that he composed. It says, “For the director of music, a psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.”

So after Nathan’s confrontation with David, and he says, “I have sinned,” Nathan says, “Your sin is forgiven.” Somewhere in the next couple of weeks or so, David’s writing this psalm. Look at verse 10: “Creating me a pure heart, O God. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.”

The Heart of God

David was a man after God’s own heart. That pronouncement about him was made before he became king, before Goliath, before Bathsheba. It was an assessment made by God about David before anything unfolded. God says, “I’m looking for a man who has my heart. I know who it is. I have found him. He belongs to the house of Jesse. He is going to be king of my kingdom. And from him is going to come my own son who will reign forever and ever.”

This David, this David who has the heart of God, committed adultery. This David who has the heart of God, committed murder. This David who has the heart of God, destroyed lives. And we cluck our tongues and shake our heads and act like, “How could he have done that?” And my question is not, “How could he do that?” How can God forgive it? That’s the right question. Not, “How could he do it?” Because we’ve all done it. Not adultery, not murder. Okay, okay, okay. We’ve all done it. The question is, “How can I be forgiven?”

And I want you to hear what Jesus says. All who come to me and will give their burden to me, I will take it. I don’t know what your sin is and I don’t want to lay it bare in front of everyone. But there is a God who will forgive you, no matter what it is. And it has nothing to do with how good your heart is. It has everything to do with how good his heart is. He just wants you to be his. All he wants is for you to admit, “I am a sinner.” And his promise is to forgive.

God so wanted you to be near to him that he sent his son Jesus. Thirty-three years he lived. When he died, he was a sinless man. And he took all of our sin. With every stroke of the hammer, with the nails that went into his wrists and into his feet, he was taking our sin. Lifting up on that cross, he begged for God not to hold the sin of those soldiers against him. That’s the heart of God.

And the worst thing you’ve ever done, the very thing that you want to keep secret, God already knows about it. And if you’ll confess it, he’ll forgive.

The story of Bathsheba is a story of David’s failure. No, it’s a story of God’s mercy. No one would have gotten upset if God had ripped the kingdom away from David. That’s heinous. That’s terrible. Something bad needs to happen to him. But God had already made a promise, hadn’t he? God had already made a promise. You don’t think God knew Bathsheba was coming? He did. Five short years later, Bathsheba’s there. God made a promise five years earlier. The kingdom will never leave you, David. I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you.

David says, “I want what I want.” And five years later, he’s saying those words. Oh, we’ve all been there. If you’ll admit your sin, God will take it. If you’ll admit that you’re a sinner, God will forgive it. And if you’re ready to be baptized today, God says in that baptism, “I wipe away all the sins, past, present and future. I take them all. I knew Bathsheba was going to happen when I made the promise.”

That’s a merciful God. And we can leave here today knowing that we’re in the hands of a merciful God. God who does not want to destroy you, God who wants to forgive you, to love you.