2 Samuel Chapter 11- Confession and Departing From Sin

In Second Samuel Chapter 11, David, while his armies go out and conquer, stays at home. By coincidence he espied a beautiful woman bathing below his palace. He inquired as to who she was, and was told she was Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, who was fighting for David. And David invited her to his palace and slept with her. Then she purified herself and went home. Later, she sent a simple message telling David that she was pregnant. So David tried to cover this up, first by bringing Uriah home and trying to get him to go home and lay with his wife to cover up the pregnancy. This failed, because Uriah was so loyal to David and his brothers in arms that he would not go home to his wife, even though he was back in Jerusalem. And so David sent Uriah back to Joab with the order to have the men retreat before the walls of the city they were besieging and leave Uriah to die. And so this happened, and when Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she morned and David took her as his wife. And she continued to bear David's child.


This is indeed a dark time in David's life as king. He has done several things here; He has not only committed adultery (which is typical of David, who had several wives and many concubines besides), but has done so with another man's wife, he has ignored God throughout this situation, which probably lasted over the course of probably a few weeks or so, and he committed premeditated murder. The last one did not hit me until I read it again this time; we are so used to David slaying people that it seems par for the course. But premeditated murder is very very serious. I know there have been times in my life when I wished some people were dead. But I have never thought so for days at a time. What David did was a very dark thing for this normally humble and God fearing, God praising man. And it shows how far we can go in our sin; we slip up once, and down the rabbit hole we go, trying continually to cover things up and hide it, from God and from people.

But even confessing to God is easy compared to confessing to people. You don't have to look God in the eye when you tell God you were wrong. What is it about confessing what we have done to people that makes it so difficult? The answer is Grace. God has abundant Grace and abundant Love for us, that will never run out.

And here is yet another reason why we avoid God; not because we don't have a problem with Him giving us Grace, but of what he will ask us to do. For our God is not one if inaction, and not one that wishes for us to be separated from one another by sin and strife, but connected by truth and love. So when we pray to God for forgiveness, we will be convicted to act and do the hardest thing, and that is humble ourselves before our victims in confession.

But, I know just from observing myself, that I have limited grace and limited love to give, even more so for people who have hurt me. And it is dealing with that lack of grace that people have which is the most terrifying thing. That when we humble ourselves to them, that they will not accept our apology, but spit in our face instead.

It is a difficult thing to endure, people's lack of grace. But we must, because the burdens of our sins, whether against others, ourselves, or God, will weigh us down. Guilt is a powerful feeling. It seeps into us, and can become a part of our everyday existence and we don't even know it anymore. It convicts us, and sometimes so much that we become sick of it and block it out, that we would rather ignore our burden of guilt than go through what is necessary to remove that burden.

The truth is that regardless of how tough it is to repent to God and confess to those you have affected, not only must it be done, but if you ask it of Him, the Lord will give you the strength to endure whatever hardships may come from another person's lack of grace. One thing I do know from experience- when you confess to another person, out of love, what you have done, they will not forget it. Especially if they did not even know you had wronged them in the first place. There can be no greater testimony than to humble yourself in love to another.


And, finally, there is one more thing to learn from this passage. One of David's consistent problems in scripture was women. David by then should have know that what he had done before was not in accordance with God's law, and he should have known that he had a problem with his adulterous tendencies. And as soon as he saw Bathsheba, he should have run like hell. In fact, sexual sin is the one kind that the Bible literally tells you to run from (it says so in Proverbs, I believe), mostly because if there is one sin that can be avoided by running away from the source, adultery is it! So remember, when you are facing a stronghold...when it rears its ugly head, remember that whether you are being tested by God or tempted by Satan, you always have a way out...

Run Like Hell!