Sin

I hate sin. Really, I hate sin. I would imagine you do, too. God hates sin and He hates it even more than we do.  We hate it because we know that when we sin it is against God that we have sinned. 

David the man after God’s own heart said that very thing in Psalms 51:4- “

Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight-- That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.”

I have been reading about David a lot lately in my devotional time each day. Currently I am in that part of his life where we read of his sin and the reason he says what he said in Psalms 51:4.

You know the story and the progression that led to his failure in sin and the actions that he took. You see David was not doing what kings in that day should have been doing. In 2 Samuel 11:1 ESV it says-

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel.

This is an important lesson for each of us to remember. There are times and places we should be, and there are times and places where we should not be. We make those decisions. However, often God and His Holy Spirit are working to make certain we don't go to the wrong place, and especially at the wrong time.

This very important point has been a part of my life. I have made the wrong decision at the wrong time. Even made a decision and been in the wrong place. Those are not the mistakes but rather the opportunity for God to act and for us to respond accordingly.

In this story found in 2 Samuel, things go from bad to worse and at a very rapid pace. As David looks out, we read-

2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.

We would say it was bad enough to be at the wrong place and time. Now, things have gone further than they should have. We might conclude that he was bored and just looking for something to do. So he gets up and goes to the roof of his house. He is looking around the city but sees something that he should not have seen and certainly not acted upon.

3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

So he now knows he is not where he should be and doing what he should do. He is doing things he shouldn't and acting in ways that will have devastating effects in not only his life but that of others.

4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.

You might say, well, this can't get any worse, but you would be wrong. After this has happened and some time passes, he gets a message.

5 And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

It would have been bad enough if it had stopped there, but it didn't. It did not stop for David and it will not for you and me if we don't stop.

As the next part of the story goes, David brings Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, back from the battlefield.

6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.

7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.

8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king.

9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.

David's plan was for Uriah to go home, sleep with his wife, and have sex with her. Then the baby she was carrying would be thought to be that of Uriah. Uriah had great integrity and would not go home as David had planned. We read that-

9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.

10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”

11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”

12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.

13 And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

David schemed to get Uriah to go to his home and be with his wife Bathsheba, but Uriah would not go. Do you remember what Uriah said when asked by David why he would not go home?

11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”

Frustration sets in for David and he has no other options so he sends Uriah back but with a very specific plan that he has Joab execute.

14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.”

16 And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men.

The plan works and we are told-

17 And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.

The interesting part of this is that Joab has done as instructed by David. It was David’s desire that Uriah die in battle. Yet as Joan sends word to David as to the fighting, he instructs the messenger very specifically. You see Joab knew that David would respond a particular way but he had to be sure David knew his orders had been followed.

18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting.

19 And he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king,

20 then, if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?

21 Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’”

As the messenger tells David we learn-

22 So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.

23 The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.

24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”

25 David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”

26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.

27 And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

Sin is progressive and you need to know that it takes you further than you want to go. It will keep you longer than you want to stay. It will cost you more than you were ever willing to pay. David learned a lot more about his sin, and I encourage you to read more of the story of what happens in 2 Samuel 12:1-23. Then read Psalm 51 to understand how David knew what he had done was wrong.

I know this about sin, and it is that when I sin, I have sinned against God, just as David states in Psalm 51, and what I have done will affect my life in some way.  It might directly affect me be a result that comes from it.  It might indirectly affect my life in what I will or could do in the future.

Sin will always be with me; that is the potential to sin.  Hating sin at least keeps me aware of its power and its effect and what it can do to my life.

How about it, do you hate sin?

In God's Grace,

Elbert Nasworthy