Sin on a Hot Tin Roof

Monday, March 17, 2008
Read 2 Samuel 11:1 through 14:39.

(11:1) The following spring, the time of year when kings go to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to destroy the Ammonites. In the process they laid siege to the city of Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem. (NLT)

And so the sin of David was conceived.

This is the section of the Old Testament I've been dreading. I didn't want to tread these pages, really for two reasons. The first is because they break my heart for David.

"Why weren't you with your men as you should've been, David?"

"Don't go wandering on that roof, David! Sin is crouching at the door up there, man." Interestingly, did you notice that temptation was waiting on him as he awoke from a nap? It very much takes your thoughts to a sleepy group of disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, doesn't it?

"Now what are you doing, David? You're a man after God's own heart! Why are you inviting her up to the palace?"

"Now you're having her husband killed?! That's the only thing that could be worse than having slept with her."

From this point I can never forget the words of 2 Samuel 11:26-27. "When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD" (NIV). I know later we'll read about David recovering from this fall, but still it breaks my heart for David. His life was never the same after this.

But it also breaks my heart for me... really for all of us. How could David have moved so smoothly from expressing the very grace of God to Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son, to now expressing the very depravity of man to Uriah? It scares me how easily he found it to move from righteousness into rebellion. But the same is the case for each of us. Have you noticed this? How?

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.
1 Corinthians 10:12