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40. David's Sin and Repentance.

Now follows a terrible story, and it would have been better if it had not happened. David fell into a great sin. A mighty king has greater opportunity and temptation to gratify his desires than another, if he does not always keep God before his eyes. Many a man who thinks himself pious in his poverty and lowliness, who knows what he would be like if he lived in power and wealth and could do what he wanted with impunity and without shame. The king's army was in front of an enemy city. But the king was sitting in Jerusalem and fell in love with the wife of a man of war, Uriah. So he ordered his captain of the army, Joab, to put Uriah to the sword where he was hardest. Afterwards the people had to turn their backs on him, so that he was slain by the enemy. When Uriah was dead, David took a fine wife, Bathsheba was her name, and so he sinned grievously by lust and by an artificial act of murder. Even a good heart can fall deeply. But the deeper it has fallen, the faster it must rise again and seek the God it has lost. It cannot remain in sin for long and be without its God. His God comes to meet him again.

The Lord sent the prophet Nathan to the king. The prophet said to him, ‘There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a lot of sheep and cattle. But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb that he had bought, and he fed it so that it grew large with him and with his children. It ate from his morsels and drank from his cup and slept in his lap, and he kept it like a daughter. But when a guest came to the rich man, he spared to take of his sheep and oxen to feed the guest, and he took the poor man's sheep and fed it to the man who had come to him.’ David looked at the matter as if it had really happened, as if Nathan had come to him for a judgement of justice. He was indignant at the offence and pronounced the sentence of death on the man who had done it. Nathan replied, ‘You are the man.’

He then reminded him of the great things God had done for him and how he was ready to do him more, and why he had despised the word of the Lord and done such evil in the sight of the Lord to Uriah's wife and to him. David recognised his sin and repented of it. He sought mercy and comfort from his God and found it. From this time onwards, David suffered much temporal misfortune. But his God, to whom he had turned back, did not abandon him.