When Lust Has Conceived, It Bears Sin

1At the return of the year, at the time when kings go out, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. 2At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at. 3David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?” 4David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house. 5The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”

Learning from what we see matters, but it matters more to have the ability to discern well what we have seen and act on it. Those who weigh things by good knowledge do not speak or act wickedly, and they do not follow falsehood.

Educating people is very important, but it takes a great deal of time for that knowledge to bring them to live as those born again. Even when good knowledge has been taught, living as one was taught is up to the learner, not the teacher. No one, then, can claim to have taught anyone perfectly. If everyone lived out the good they were taught, there would be no evil, betrayal, or rudeness, and the world would not be as corrupt as it is. We teach people right knowledge to help them live with at least the bare decency of a human being.

Just as the labors of parents and teachers come to nothing if their teaching is not put into practice, God’s good word is of no use if we do not obey it. The purpose of the truth is to bring people to believe in Christ and be saved, but believers must also grasp the truth to be able to withstand Satan’s attacks. When they strive to live with a good conscience, their mature lives serve to show the invisible God to the world.

To those who live by faith like this, God has given strong power to overcome human nature, along with wisdom and understanding, and he has made them full of the Holy Spirit. However much knowledge, experience, and wisdom we may have, no human being can reach the God on high. We must always, therefore, live humbly.

Whoever strives to obey the Holy Spirit comes, without even realizing it, to have the ability to judge rightly, and can go through life turning neither to the right nor to the left. Only by persevering and working to overcome our evil human nature through faith can we keep from straying off the path of truth. So if you listen to what the Holy Spirit says, work to cast off selfishness, and act with a clear conscience, you can live without shame.

People who yield and give like this always have many good relationships around them. Others can turn to the wise for help, because from them they can hear God’s word and because the wise have the ability to judge by the truth. The responsibility given to those who have grown this way is to show with their lives what the truth is until the day they meet God. They must not change in any circumstance, and even when their feelings waver, they must labor to overcome by faith. Faith is not something used once and thrown away, and so we must never let go of it until the day we arrive in heaven. Of course, in life we will stumble and lose heart and then recover again, but if we ask the Holy Spirit for help with every problem, we can overcome easily.

Until now David had done his utmost not to let go of the cord of faith that bound him to God, and he had even been ready to throw away his own life to save the lives of others. Yet when that same David gave in to Satan’s temptation, he fell into the abyss. While he strove to live by God’s word, David had judged so wisely, so rightly, and so quickly; but once he fell to Satan’s temptation, he was engulfed in lies, schemes, and evil passions. Because his heart was wholly in it, both when he was faithful and now in his fall, he never once thought, even as he carried out his sin, that it would bring God’s wrath upon him.

However faithful a believer’s faith may be, it takes only a moment to abandon it; that is what makes Satan’s work so fearsome. Once people sin, they are wrapped in such darkness that they cannot even discern that they are drifting away from God.

David had won great victories in every war and was enjoying a time of peace.

God had blessed David, who had kept faith even in suffering, by making him king and setting him in a place where others served him.

The time when we must be most careful is right after we have been blessed. In suffering we lean on God alone and have no room in our hearts to look at the world, but once the problem is solved and we have room to breathe, we turn our eyes to the world. When suffering disappears, people are prone to set up their own righteousness, because they fall into thinking that this ease has come to them because their faith is good or because they are capable. Once gratitude is lost, the thought begins to spread: I received God’s answer because I prayed; I succeeded by my own ability. Then the grateful heart disappears, and pride takes its place.

The abundant life David enjoyed now came from God’s mercy. Of course, David was shown that mercy because he had prayed even in suffering. But now he had forgotten God’s mercy and was swept up in lust. God had helped David conquer the strong nations around him, and David had received the throne as a gift. Yet as if he had achieved it all by his own strength, David turned away from God, and sin entered his empty heart.

2 Samuel 11:2

2At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at.

At the very time the soldiers of Israel were risking their lives in battle, David rose from his bed in the palace only when evening came. For the David who once lived by faith, this would have been unthinkable. He had always been a man who prayed for his soldiers’ lives, but once he became king he gradually lost his fullness of spirit. If no rain falls, however large a dam may be, its water dries up or goes stale, and it can no longer do the work of a dam. Even David, though he had faith, would soon go to rot if he lived by human thinking. We see this in what David did when he saw a woman bathing. In Israel people usually bathed at the well in their own courtyards, which made looking down from a neighbor’s roof forbidden. Even with such a law in place, the king was breaking it.

1 John 2:15-16

15Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s.

David, who had so feared God, grew spiritually slack, and the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes took hold of him. Scripture records that the bathing woman was very beautiful to look at, but she looked beautiful because Satan had clouded his spiritual eyes. Jesus said that to harbor lust in the heart is already to commit adultery; just so, the moment David set his heart on her, he gave birth to sin. We must understand that sin grows, and that in the end it leads to murder. Any sin left unrepented leads to lies to hide it, and to murder to cover the lies.

How grievous it is that the loyalty and faith David had shown until now were corrupted by human greed and lust. This is the moment of victory for Satan, who had watched for every chance to bring David down. Seeing him collapse in an instant, I found myself thinking: how hard must it be to keep the faith, that Jesus said we must have faith even as small as a mustard seed?

You have probably seen sculptures made of sand at the beach. For all the effort they take, they vanish without a trace at the slightest touch of seawater, which makes them a real waste. Our faith, too, if built on sand, collapses in an ugly heap at Satan’s slightest touch, however high it is piled, and when the sea of lust sweeps over it, not even its shape remains. Unless Christ becomes our fence and protects us, the work of faith we spend years building vanishes all too easily.

Satan knows this weakness in God’s people well. When our faith is full, we have the strength to refuse Satan firmly when he tempts us, but once we look to the world, we end up doing just what Satan wants. When we begin to turn our eyes to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we come to find Bathsheba beautiful, though from a distance she can hardly be seen. Satan did not miss the gap of that brief careless moment; he attacked David. When the fence of the Holy Spirit is taken away, Satan’s attack begins, and when the fullness of the Spirit is gone, people lose the power to discern, because they cannot even tell that their hearts have grown dark.

For David, too, once the faith he had kindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit was gone, he could see nothing but the woman. I hope you will take to heart that even a man of faith after God’s own heart, as David was, can easily commit such a sin, and that you will be on your guard. His servant told him plainly that the woman was Uriah’s wife, but David, already a slave to lust, ordered Bathsheba brought to him. He lay with her and sent her home, dreaming of the perfect crime, but sin always leaves a trace. When the woman realized something had changed in her body, she was afraid and sent word to David that she was with child.

Leviticus 20:10

10“‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

If the sin of David and Bathsheba came to light, they would have to die. Afraid that she might die, Bathsheba told him she was pregnant, and David, needing to solve the problem, began to devise a scheme. To cover his sin, he tried to force Uriah, her husband, to lie with the pregnant Bathsheba. Uriah, who had been on the battlefield ready to lay down his life for Israel and for David, knew nothing of this; he was summoned by David and hurried to the palace. As though he wanted news of the war, David asked Uriah how Joab and the soldiers were doing, then told him to go home and rest, and even sent food from the king after him. David was now treating Uriah as a hero to hide his own sin, trying to get him to lie with his wife. But Uriah, thinking of the ark of the covenant and the soldiers on the battlefield, did not go home; he slept at the palace gate with the guards. When David heard that Uriah had not gone to Bathsheba, he was at a loss. He called him and asked why he had not gone home to sleep, and Uriah answered that the ark and Israel and Judah were staying in tents, so how could he alone go into his house to eat and drink and lie with his wife? Uriah was an honest man of remarkable loyalty. The David of the past would probably have kept a man like Uriah close, relied on him, and set out on great undertakings with him. But now Uriah, whose faith had nothing false in it, had become an obstacle. When people are caught up in what they want and in their pleasures, they see the honest and faithful as people standing in their way.

When we consider David’s plight, that he had to make an enemy of a man like Uriah, who loved his nation and its people, we see how fearful sin is. With his own survival hanging on Uriah’s death, David thought up a second scheme.

2 Samuel 11:13

13When David had called him, he ate and drink before him; and he made him drunk. At evening, he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but didn’t go down to his house.

How it must have grieved God to watch David trying so hard to get honest Uriah drunk and send him to Bathsheba, all to cover his sin! Uriah would have taken it that David was honoring him for his labors, and been grateful. Drinking the wine the king gave him, he probably esteemed the king as a generous man. But the David facing this loyal Uriah stood in the very middle of a sin that left him no choice but to forsake both God and Uriah. In Satan’s grip, David rushed headlong toward murder. Let us try to picture this scene. David had longed for Uriah to go home and lie with his wife. When he was told that Uriah had once again not gone home, what did he feel? Perhaps his heart recoiled in horror, for he knew he must not kill Uriah.

Sin is like a snowball rolling downhill, growing as it goes. When Uriah would not do as he was told, David wrote a letter to Joab. It said that when the battle with Ammon began, Joab was to put Uriah in the very front and make the enemy kill him. When Joab killed Abner to avenge his brother, David had wept aloud. Now it was David who ordered that same Joab to commit murder. This is how leaving God leads us to join hands with the wicked.

Seen with right faith, Joab was a murderer who deserved to die, yet David had entrusted everything to God and was waiting for God’s time; now he was instructing Joab to commit murder. However much faith a person has, sin has the power to hurl them in a moment into the pit of evil, so we must be careful. David took hold of the hand of sin called Bathsheba, whom he had harbored in his heart, and became Satan’s servant. Once someone has let go of God’s hand, it is hard to keep themselves under control. We can imagine Joab laughing out loud in scorn when he received David’s letter.

2 Samuel 11:17

17The men of the city went out, and fought with Joab. Some of the people fell, even of David’s servants; and Uriah the Hittite died also.

Uriah, who died so unjustly, was one of the thirty-seven mighty men David cherished. His death was a terrible loss to the nation, and the men who died with him were mighty men too; their deaths were a grief. Yet David and Joab felt no grief for the deaths of their men. David, who had not shrunk even from acting like a madman to save a life, killed people who loved God to cover his own sin. When the soldier Joab sent reported that Uriah was dead, David consoled him that anyone can die on the battlefield, told him not to be troubled over Uriah’s death, and bade him fight all the harder and take the city.

True, the sword makes no distinctions; it kills indiscriminately. But to put Uriah deliberately in the front line and cause his death was plain murder. David was now rejoicing that his plan had worked, giving no thought to God’s wrath. How tragic that David, once so wise and discerning, lost his sound judgment because of sin and did not realize how deeply he was disappointing God.

You too can end up in David’s seat. Because sin robs us of all discernment, we cannot see how far from sound we have become, and we commit great sins without fear. Once sin has hold of us, we deal in excuses rather than honesty, we do not stop lying until every relationship is damaged, and we act foolishly. So the last fruit we bear is separation from everything.

Those who heard that Uriah had died because of David and Bathsheba were perhaps so disappointed in David, once a great king, that they turned away from God. David had killed not only Uriah but the souls of many people; God’s wrath was likely all the greater for it. Had David truly repented before God, he would have felt shame for the moment, but he would not have gone as far as murder. Then Uriah would not have died, no one would have left God in disappointment over David, and he would not have had to endure Joab’s scorn.

2 Samuel 11:27

27When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.

When Uriah was dead, David brought the pregnant Bathsheba to the palace. To call Bathsheba to the palace while she was still mourning Uriah’s death was the act of a wicked man. God could not forgive this evil sin of David’s, and for that reason he could not bless the child born to them to be David’s fruit.

Friends, if God truly loved David, he could not give a man who had committed murder the fruit of life. That is because God means the pain to make David look back on his own sin. Unless God permits it, things will never go as David wants. If someone lives wickedly and things still work out as they wish, they may take it that God has utterly abandoned them.

God is so rich in mercy that he blesses the moment a heart turns even a little, so David had to repent first. Bringing Bathsheba into the palace was not what was urgent; first he had to repent of killing Uriah. Had David confessed his sin and turned from the way of evil, God might not have taken the life of his son.

David’s human plan succeeded, but spiritually he failed. When Uriah died, David must have thought everything was working out smoothly, but that wicked decision brought great suffering upon him. God loves David, and for that very reason he will now begin to put him through the fire. However painful and agonizing the rod may be, God will surely work to establish David again as his child. He will bring pain through what people call the refiner’s fire, and with the discipline of love he will press David with suffering so that he cannot run away, urging him to repent.

What are you looking at now, and how are you judging it? By what standard do you decide, and are the results you have reached good ones that can receive God’s grace? I hope you will not commit a sin like David’s, but will receive the grace and love of God, who is rich in mercy.

If you always judge carefully and live wisely, God will fill you, as you live good lives, with great grace to overflowing. May you always be blessed through an upright faith.