To end our 2024 Bible studies on the life of David in 2 Samuel 11 is a sobering experience. Here, the king who has made it through the wilderness experience of unjustly being hunted by Saul, who has withstood feigning insanity before foreign leaders and who has shown mercy, grace and forgiveness to many is seen to be an ordinary mortal like the rest of us. The depths of sin to which David falls in this chapter – self-indulgence and complacency leading to lies, deceit, lust, coveting, adultery and murder – remind us that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer 17:9) and that if we think we are standing firm, we must be careful not to fall. (1 Cor 10:12).
David remained in Jerusalem while sending his army out to fight. He opted to stay in bed until evening and ended up lusting after Bathsheba, being prepared to accept the culture’s views on sexual morality instead of following God’s specific commands to kings (see Deut 17:17-20). So often we accept our culture’s ways instead of being led by God’s word; we live in a culture where sexual sin still abounds, where abortion and euthanasia are widely accepted, where God’s laws are being forgotten. Such cultural conformity will inevitably lead to sin.
David shows us that sin mushrooms; there is an insidious, incremental element to sin. We can cover it up and hide our sin from many; we can rationalise what we do so easily, even when it involves deception and murder. The only way we can overcome temptation is to defeat it with the word of God as Jesus did. (Matt 4:1-11)
James reminds us that temptation is not the same as sin (see James 1:13-15). Paul reminds us that God is faithful and will not give us more than we can bear, that He will provide a way out from temptation. (1 Cor 10:11-13) But David reminds us that no one is immune and that the only way back is through confession and repentance.
We will find out ultimately that God is a forgiving and compassionate God (see Ps 145:8-9, 2 Samuel 12) But we end the year with a sobering reminder that sin is always crouching at our door, that the devil is a roaring lion seeking to accuse, deceive and trip us up (see Gen 4:7, 1 Pet 5:8). We must remember that it’s only in Christ that we can overcome the enemy and that we are called to take up our cross daily, deny ourselves and die to sin. (Mark 8:34-35, Rom 6:1-11)