David and Bathsheba - Part 4

A story of sin, judgement, repentance and restoration

Part 4: Restoration

In this series we are looking at the story of David and Bathsheba. The story marks the lowest point of David’s spiritual life but it also provides one of the best examples of God’s mercy and kindness and has many parallels with the New Testament. Importantly the story gives us many practical warnings and lessons to apply to our lives today.

In the last three weeks we have looked at how David took his eyes off God, opened himself up to temptation which led to sin, and then how he tried to hide his sin before God finally intervened sending Nathan to confront him and to bring God’s judgement resulting in David’s repentance.

This week is the final part of the series and looks at how God restored David. The story is recorded in 2 Samuel 12: 15-19 and 24-31 as follows:

The Death of David’s Son

And the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became ill. 16 David therefore pleaded with God for the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. 19 When David saw that his servants were whispering, David perceived that the child was dead. Therefore David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?”  And they said, “He is dead.” 

Solomon Is Born

24 Then David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. Now the LORD loved him, 25 and He sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet: So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD.

Rabbah Is Captured

29 So David gathered all the people together and went to Rabbah, fought against it, and took it. 30 Then he took their king’s crown from his head. Its weight was a talent of gold, with precious stones. And it was set on David’s head. Also he brought out the spoil of the city in great abundance. 31 Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

When we sin and that sin is exposed there are often two ways we can respond. We can be truly sorry we committed the sin or we can simply be sorry we got caught! David was truly sorry for the sin he had committed. He expresses this sorrow by writing Psalm 51, part of which is as follows: 

1 Have mercy upon me, O God,
         According to Your loving kindness; 
         According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, 
         Blot out my transgressions. 
 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
         And cleanse me from my sin.           
 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions,
         And my sin is always before me.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
         Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 
 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
         And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 
 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence,
         And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

When we repent we should do it with a broken spirit and a desire for God to create in us a clean heart. It is not enough to simply ask for forgiveness, we should also ask God to change us so we will not sin in that way again.

The end of the story in Samuel 12 is a fantastic demonstration of the mercy and kindness of God and shows the restoration that follows true repentance. Firstly, David does not lose his anointing and the Holy Spirit remains with him; secondly, David and Bathsheba have another child, Solomon, who becomes the next King after David; finally David goes to battle against the Ammonites and leads his people to victory.

There are many lessons for all of us in the story of David and Bathsheba:

• We need to be careful to stay at the centre of God’s will. Let’s not take our eyes off God and let’s not let others fulfil our calling.
• We must recognise that we have weaknesses so we need to be careful to avoid temptation by praying not to fall in to temptation. When we are tempted we need to use the word of God to resist it and we need to cut out situations and things in our life that cause us to be tempted to sin.
• If we do sin we must repent immediately and never try to cover it up with more sin. Sin has consequences and unrepented sin will bring judgement. When we repent we need to ask God not just to forgive us but also to change our heart. 
• We need to make ourselves accountable to others and let others speak in to our lives. We also need to be like Nathan, willing to confront sin in others, but with an attitude of love.

Finally we should all believe in the amazing mercy and kindness of God who will forgive us, wipe out our sin and restore us. Let’s never write ourselves off because we have stumbled but rather let’s believe we will be restored with a clean heart and steadfast spirit to carry on serving God. 

Remain blessed and highly favoured. 
Paul Thomson (Mr.)