This post is part of my ongoing series of writing down my thoughts on the Bible passages I read each day. Some days I hope to have great insight that the Lord gives me, and many days, I will likely struggle through the text and not know what to write down based on what I read. My hope and prayer is that as I make this a habit, just as I did daily writing for so long, that I will improve on my ability to read and understand the passages I’m reading. Please keep in mind that many of these posts may be published late at night or with little time studying and simply be my first thoughts after reading. This is in no way a commentary that one should use to discern the Bible, but my own personal thoughts.

Common sense is lost with sin.

As I read through the story of David sinning with Bathsheba and then turning around and murdering her husband, I, unfortunately, couldn’t help but think about when I have been engrossed in my own sin. There is almost a high that comes from sin that your fleshly self loves and craves.

The deeper you get into the sin, the more it feels good (and bad all at the same time). You think that you love it and that it feels great, even though in reality, every second into your sin tears you further and further down.

Here David is, having committed adultery. He could have stopped there and just fessed up. It would have not been great. All sin has consequences, but he would not have carried on the sin to a further degree.

He then goes so far as to send out a perfectly innocent man, in some ways, probably a man nobler than himself, to die in battle. He then doesn’t even mourn the loss of this man or the death of others that happened because of his desire for the man to die. David has the audacity to tell the commander who carried this out for him “do not let this matter displease you”. Don’t let death displease you because it served my purposes. What a disgusting thing.

Finally, this sin, as I mentioned before, has its consequences. David’s child with Bathsheba gets sick and is on the brink of death. David prays and prays that the child will live. He fasts and mourns, and repents, and asks for forgiveness. But even in all that, the child then dies. Does David go spinning into depression?

No, he then turns around and worships. The people are confused by it, but here is where I think we can start learning about the good side of how David handled the situation. He royally messed up on this one. But at the end of the day, he understands that he has messed up, and God’s will is that the child dies. His sin has consequences, but he then turns from it and moves on to serve God, and he doesn’t abuse his power again, as far as we sin, in the rest of his reign as king.

Don’t be like David, but be like David.