David’s Sin

In IT Sam., 11th chapter, we read the story of one of the saddest downfalls of a man of God recorded anywhere in history, and at the same time we read the record of one of the most contemptible and outrageous sins that any man ever committed against a faithful friend. We read how David committed against his faithful servant, Uriah, one of the most outrageous offences that one man can commit against another, and how in order to cover up his sin he stained. his hands with the blood of this faithful servant. After the deed was done, God in His great mercy sent His prophet to David, declaring to him, “By this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” (II Sam. 12:14). History has proven the truth of this declaration. There is scarcely anything in the Bible that has caused more of the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme than this dastardly crime of King David. The enemies of the Lord are constantly bringing it up and making it the butt of pitiless ridicule. Some of those who desire to defend the Bible have thought it was necessary to defend David’s action, or at least to try to make it appear that it was not as heinous as it looks at the first sight. But why should we seek to defend David’s action? ‘The Bible nowhere seeks to defend it. On the contrary, God rebuked it in the sternest terms. It was punished by a train of such frightful calamities as have seldom overtaken any other man. It is true that David is spoken of in the Scriptures as “a man after God’s own heart” (I Sam. 13: 14; Acts 13:22); but this does not mean by any means that David was an absolutely faultless man. It simply means that in distinction from Saul, who was constantly disposed to go his own way, David was a man who sought in all things to know God’s will and to do it exactly. Therefore he was a man after God’s own heart; but though this was the abiding attitude of David’s mind and heart toward God, it was still possible for him, as it is possible for men to-day, whose wills on the whole are entirely surrendered to God, to step out of their position of absolute surrender to God and in a moment of weakness and folly to commit an act hideous in the sight of God, and that will bring upon the one who commits it His sternest judgment. The recording of David’s sin, without any attempt in the Scripture to extenuate it, is one of the many proofs of the Divine origin and absolute reliability of the Bible. David was the great. hero of his times. Unless his Bible biographers had been guided by the Holy Spirit. they certainly would have concealed, or at least have sought to palliate, this awful fault of David; but in point of fact they did nothing of the kind. The Holy Spirit, who guided them in their record, led them to picture this event in all its hideousness, just as it is. Here is a radical difference between Bible biographers and all other biographers. Even the heroes of the Bible, when they fall, are not whitewashed, no excuses are offered for their sins. Their sins are not concealed from the public eye. They are recorded with fulness of detail, and the sinner is held up as a warning to others. In this matter David “despised the word of the Lord to do that which was evil in His eyes,’ and the Bible plainly says so (II Sam. 12:9, 10). “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (II Sam. 11:27), and God sets him forth before the whole world as an adulterer and a murderer (II Sam. 12:9). The whole story is too horrible for public recital, but if one will read it in private with earnest prayer he may find exceedingly precious lessons in it, It was one of the most dastardly and horrible crimes of history, but I am glad that it is recorded in the Bible. The record of.it and its consequences has held many back from contemplated sin.

The story of David’s sin abounds in great lessons. The first lesson that it teaches us is that an exceptionally good man, yes, a man “after God’s own heart,” if he gets his eyes off from God and His words may easily fall into very gross sin. Any man who trusts in his own heart is a fool. Any man that fancies that he is a match for the devil in his own wisdom and strength is badly deceived. David was one of the noblest men of his day. He was brave, he was generous, he had a single-hearted purpose to do the will of God, but he allowed himself to trifle with temptation, and he went down to the deepest depths of vileness, baseness and dishonour.

The story also teaches us that God never looks upon any man’s sin with the least degree of allowance. God has no favourites, in the sense that He allows some men’s sins to go unpunished. God loved David. He had given David remarkable proofs of His love, but when David sinned God dealt with David’s sin with the sternest and most relentless judgment. He allowed David’s sin to dog him and to embitter and to blast his life to his dying day. God forgave David’s sin and restored him to fellowship and the joy of his salvation, but God let David drink deeply of the bitter cup he had mixed for himself. One of his sons followed him into adultery, and that, too, into an adultery the burden of which came upon David’s own daughter. Another son followed him into murder; and as David had rebelled against his Heavenly Father, his own son rebelled against him. David was left to reap what he sowed. When David cried over this rebellious son as he lay before him silent in death, “O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (II Sam. 18: 33) David knew full well that Absalom’s wandering, and Absalom’s death, was simply the fruit of his own sin.

But there is another precious lesson for us, too, in the history of David’s sin, and it is that there is full and free pardon for the vilest sinner. David’s sin was black, black as midnight, it was appalling, it was inexcusable, but David found pardon full and free. David, said, “I have sinned against the Lord,” and God said through His prophet, “‘The Lord also hath put away thy sin (II Sam. 12:13).” David himself has told us in one of his most beautiful Psalms the story of his pardon (Ps. 32:1-5). God isa holy God. He hates sin with infinite hatred. He will not look upon the smallest sin with the least bit of allowance, but God is also a God of pardoning love. He stands ready to pardon the vilest sinner. He is ever calling to men and women who have sinned, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Is. 55:7). There are those that think they have sinned too deeply to ever find pardon, but it is not so. It would be hard to find one who had sinned more deeply than David sinned. He had committed the greatest wrong one man can commit against another, and he had stained his hands with the blood of his victim, still he found pardon. I do thank God for this story of David. It gives me hope for any man. In the light of it as told in the Bible I care not who comes and asks me, “Is there salvation for me?” I hesitate not to answer, “Yes, for you. David found mercy, and you can.” One night I was speaking to a man under deep conviction of sin. He had stained his hands with the blood of a fellow man. He had shot another to death. He said there could be no pardon for him. I took him to David’s prayer in Ps. 51:14, and showed him that David was delivered from blood-guiltiness, and that so there was pardon for him.