Word of Salvation – Vol.12 No.28 – July 1996

 

David Forgiven

 

Sermon by Rev. A. H. Schippers on 2Sam.12:13

Scripture Reading: 2Sam.12:1-25

Psalter Hymnal: 344:1; 131:5; 179:1,2,3; 100:1,2,3; 201:1,2; 314:1

 

Beloved Congregation,

The story of David and Bathsheba is very fascinating and attractive.  It is this even in such a way that film producers found it an excellent theme for a new film.  Of course they did not tell the story as the Bible does, but nevertheless there were many parts in this story that were quite acceptable to this film producer,

Now, the main worry of a film producer is to find a new theme for a film that will draw the people in great masses to the pictures.  It is really a money-making business and as such it is very limited in its scope.  So the film-industry found out that there was something in the story of David and Bathsheba that would attract people and make them willing to pay their money for it.  So they made a real sex and love film of it.  And even many church members went to the pictures to see it,

What is so attractive in this story of David and Bathsheba?  Well, nothing else than this play of sinful love (if you may call it “love” anyway!).  Oh, I know, the world does not call it “sinful” love, they like to call it “realistic”, and with this fascinating word many are drawn to the cinemas.  The more realistic the more exciting!  And when you raise objections to these kinds of pictures or books you are called “idealistic”, walking with your head in the clouds, “not daring to accept the hard facts of human life”, etc.

But what is the reality of this story?  Is the reality that David lived with the wife of one of his generals who was in the frontline of the battlefield?  No, this is only part of the reality of David’s life, and all those people who boast of their sense for “realistic” life had better read the whole story.  “Realistic” in the modern sense of the word is not truly realistic.  Only man’s role in life is then pictured as if this were the only reality we have to face and this means that there are a lot of nasty filthy stories to tell.  And this is not only on the sex-level but in every respect.

But what is really the point in the story of David and Bathsheba?  David had sent his generals with their armies to the borders to fight the enemies.  David himself stayed home and one day (the Bible says very “realistically”: it was spring!) he saw a very beautiful woman and immediately fell in love with her.  So he made enquiries about her and he was told that she was the wife of Uriah, one of his generals.

David knew that this general could not do anything to stop him because he was out in the field.  So, David sent messengers and took the wife of Uriah, and you should read 2Samuel 11 carefully to know how mean and filthy David behaved in this instance.  We call it “sin”, but this sin is mean, and is rotten.  He tried, in the end, to kill Uriah so that this general would not find out about the king he was serving so faithfully, and he did it in a very “smart” way and succeeded!  David knew what to do.  This “lousy” king of Israel waited till the mourning was over and then he sent to Bathsheba and took her in his house and she became his wife.  “What a nice gesture of the king towards one of his faithful generals”, the people would say: “this is even better than a state-pension.”

Nobody knew about the true story.  Only Joab the field-marshal, who had to put the general in such a place that he would certainly be killed, knew of the murder.  Nobody else!  Nicely done by David!

Nobody else?

It was

Vs.27 of 2Sam.11 says: “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”  And exactly here the full reality of man’s life comes into the picture!  David was not just a man with great passions and lusts, he was the KING of ISRAEL, living before the Lord God!

Everybody who talks about “reality” and forgets to mention the Lord God standing in the centre of this reality, is not realistic at all, but he is really daydreaming.  He is with his head in the clouds, or rather “with his head in the sand.”  David got to know this reality of his love, and this became a very humiliating, painful and disastrous experience.

“David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.”  When was it that David made this confession of sin?

I think it is very important to know at what time David made his confession.  We are so used to talking about confessions of sins that it mostly escapes us what this really means.  Confession of sin is a very hard thing to do.  The easier we find it the more is it likely that we do not even know what it is!

Take David for instance.  After he had committed his crime in killing Uriah and taking the widow into his house David felt just fine.  Everything had turned out as planned.  David acted as if nothing had happened and he remained – in the eyes of the people – that “good king David”.  He went to the tabernacle as before, he brought the sacrifices, he knelt down before the priests to receive the blessings; in a word David showed himself a very pious king.

In 2Sam.11:27 we are told that Bathsheba had already given birth to a son, and in 2Sam.12:14 Nathan speaks about the son that is born.

Then, one day, the prophet Nathan came into the palace and told the King a nasty story of greed.  It was a moving story about a poor man with only one ewe lamb, and a rich man with his many flocks and herds.  When the rich man was visited by a friend who wanted to stay for dinner he took the ewe lamb of the poor man and prepared that for dinner instead of taking one of his own sheep.

What could the poor man do against it?  When you are rich you are powerful and you have got many friends.  Your influence is great and who would listen to a poor man who could not even afford a good lawyer?

This story was too much for David.  He sentenced the rich man straightaway to death (even without having heard the story from this man’s point of view!).  David took the side of the poor man – that is a very nice thing to do for a King.

Then Nathan said to David: You are that man!  That struck David right in his “righteous” face!  He never expected this end of the story.  It came as a bolt from the blue.  “You are the man!”

Let us think about it for a while.  There are many people, even in the church, who know exactly what is right and what is wrong.  They easily condemn others (even without having heard the whole story!).  They know what is wrong in the life of others.  They have their opinion about life and about man’s attitude in life.  They know exactly what the Lord is asking from the people in His commandments and they have no problems whatsoever in giving sentence!  Having heard something about someone they are immediately ready with their verdict.  Without examining the matter they say: Well, he deserves to…. (and then you get a whole list of what such a person has deserved).

Nathan said: You are the man.  We should be well aware of the fact that this is what the Lord is saying to us.  We, who know exactly, know how others have to live and what is wrong in the lives of others, we who may express our thoughts about others very easily, WE are in the picture here!

Oh!  we may look very righteous in our own eyes, and even in the eyes of others as well, but what does the Lord say about us?  Paul says in one of the epistles: You who condemn others, are you not doing the same thing?  No, do not say: Yes, but we have not done such a great sin as David has!  What was the sin of David?  What was it REALLY?

From the story of the poor man and the rich one, that Nathan told to David and from what Nathan says afterwards we learn that the point here is: that David has violated the rights of his neighbour!  Adultery and murder were here only the ways in which David did this.

David’s crime was a crime against Uriah, not especially against Bathsheba.  He had taken Uriah’s wife, whereas he himself had already many wives (vs.8).  And thereafter he killed Uriah.  David had taken Uriah’s wife and life!  Therefore it is remarkable that the sword should never depart from the house of David.  Nathan says it clearly enough: You have murdered Uriah and taken his wife.  Murder and fornication, but – in the light of the neighbour!  It is exactly trespassing the second table of the law of God: our love toward our neighbour.

In David’s case it was the more despicable because the LORD had blessed him so richly.  The Lord had made him great and a king, and nevertheless he envied Uriah because of his wife.  David had to know what was wrong.  That is why Nathan came to David.  David had to confess this sin, this particular sin, and therefore he had to know what he had done in the light of the Lord’s law!

David could have said to Nathan: But I have not stolen ewe lambs from anybody.  No, but this was only a story, and when Nathan came to the reality of the story he was shocked!

Maybe we are trying to hide ourselves behind the literal meaning of the Ten Commandments or behind the literal meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and say: well, we are not that sinful; and when we read about murderers in the newspapers, we are highly indignant and say: “they should hang them,” especially when the circumstances of the murder are very touching.  Do not hide behind the literal meaning of the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount.  What is meant in the Lord’s commandment is: that we should abstain from what is our neighbour’s and promote his well-being.  In the case of David it was a very nasty and dirty way of doing things.  But there are nicer and smarter ways of doing the same!  “You are the man”.  This strikes home when you do not expect the Lord saying this to you: This strikes home when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and we become greater sinners than before, not because we do more sins, but we discover more of them and we feel more deeply what it means to sin against a God who has loaded us with blessings in Christ Jesus.

What a gracious God David had!  He came to David in his prophet and told him the truth about his nasty and dirty life.  And why?  To make him confess his sin.  To have the sins forgiven!  Remarkable… that David tried to hide his hideous crimes from men and that he thought himself safe as long as people did not know about it!  What a realist David was!  But then came the Lord!  And how reality changes!

Is not that the same with us?  Do we not feel comfortable and safe if nobody knows about the things we have done?  Is it not true that the people around us often prevent us from doing certain nasty things?  But, whereas we try to build up a good name and reputation before men, we entirely forget about what the Lord would say about it.  We know about the eyes of God which see everything and everybody, and we still commit our secret sins.  Only when the secret sins come into the open we are sorry and in trouble.  That is how we think, but in reality we were in real trouble from the very moment we committed the sin!  David had done what displeased the Lord.  And this is precisely David’s trouble.

But how merciful and great is the Lord.  He did not show His anger and displeasure, but He came to David to change David’s life.  And now read carefully what Nathan told David.  He is speaking more about the greatness of the Lord to David than about the greatness of David’s sin, although against this background of the mercy and blessings of the Lord David felt the greatness of his sin even deeper.  But Nathan had more to say of the Lord than of David.  And that is really great!  And then another thing: Nathan needed quite a few words to tell David how great the Lord has been for him, but David needed only a few words: I have sinned against the Lord!

What a mighty confession.  The King of Israel a sinner!  I have sinned against the Lord!  Oh, he had done wrong against Uriah and Bathsheba, but this sin received its depth as sin against the Lord who had said that nobody should covet what is his neighbour’s.

It took quite a long time between the committal of the sin and the confession of it.  Is it not difficult to become a truly repentant sinner before God?  But does it not often take a long time for us to realize that it is a gracious and merciful God Who brings us to this confession.  How did David know that God would forgive him?  David did not know, but the only thing he could do was: tell the truth!  And then: wait for the Lord what He would do.  David had not long to wait.  Nathan, at the very moment that David confessed his sin, said to David: “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”  This means that Nathan knew before he went to David what he had to say, but Nathan told David of the forgiveness only after David had confessed his sin!  This story of David and Bathsheba is not just part of the history of a certain king of Israel, This is revelation of the salvation in Jesus Christ.  This story is written in the Word of God because it has meaning for us.  It detects the graveness and seriousness of our lives before the Lord, although men may call us “honest” and “truthful” and “always helping the other” etc.  It brings us down from the throne on which we often are seated, and it makes us uneasy about our “righteousness” and “holiness” and ‘religiosity”.  It leads us to confess the sins we have committed.

But this story also leads us to hope and expectation.  Even before the Lord leads us into the confession of sins He has forgiven already: Forgiven out of pure grace, and not because we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness!  He leads us into the confession of sins that we may enjoy his forgiveness, that we in the reality of our daily life know that the Lord is no longer displeased with us.  The Bible is very realistic in telling us exactly what sin is.  Sometimes we are a bit shocked about the way the Bible mentions some types of sin, and we find it hard to read the Bible when we have visitors.  And we think ourselves very wise to skip some passages of the Bible when there are children listening.

But let us not fool ourselves.  Our children should know what is going on in the world and that the Bible calls a spade a spade, and our teenagers should read the story of David and Bathsheba, neither because it is a sex-story nor because I may think that youngsters cannot talk and think about anything else than sex, no, but because this story is telling us that no matter how great and nasty our sins are, God’s forgiveness is still greater, and that when we feel uneasy about the things we have done we may know that God is making us uneasy to the end that we ask for forgiveness and live with a gracious Lord.

We learn from this story that there is no reason for despair in the life of a sinner, for God is great and comes to us in that forgiveness that Jesus Christ has obtained on His cross.

No book has been as realistic as the Bible, for the sole and only reason that the Lord is not forgotten in the midst of a sinful life!  And this is the reality, a forgiving God, Who is nevertheless displeased with sin; a displeased God Who is nevertheless forgiving!

Amen.