His Death Sentence

 

It is easy to focus on King David as the great king he was and the valiant young man that slayed the fearsome Goliath.  But just like so many human leaders, he was a broken man and his sins had great consequences for him, his family and his lineage.  Our reason for talking about it here isn't to denigrate but to remind ourselves of our humanity, our predilection towards sin and our need for grace.  Sometimes we forget how much grace we are shown.

King David was known as a man with a heart for God.  His early years showed cunning, prowess and courage in the face of insurmountable odds.  His faith and anointing definitely gave him a well earned confidence.  Yet, a point came where he wasn't leading his men to battle.  In fact, on the one such occasion he stayed back and Bathsheba just happened to catch his eye.  They say, "Idle hands make for the devil's playground."  His lack of focus on the battles his nation was fighting definitely allowed a window of opportunity for sinful thoughts and actions.  His taking of Bathsheba (which really is what he did because you don't say no to the king) was horrible and as usual covering up the crime with murder was even worse.

He thought he had gotten away with it by the time that Nathan arrived to tell King David of the story of the rich man's taking of a poor man's little lamb.  He was outraged from hearing the story and demanded that, "...the man that has done this shall surely die!  And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing because he had no pity."  Hearing that he was the culprit...well, it brought reality crashing down on him.

I'm not going into detail here too much but what we can say is that David's sin was costly.  He was told by God through Nathan that "...the sword shall never depart from your house," "I will raise up evil against you in your own household" and "the child also that is born to you shall surely die."  We know that vengence is His and that we aren't to go seeking revenge.  We also know that we have a merciful God and sometimes he has to be both firm and graceful.  Forgiveness never removes the consequences of sin and David's would affect him, his family and his nation.

David would keep his life but it is believed that the blessing on him was gone.  He would have had "the rich man" killed and would seek 4x retribution for the act.  Well, it seems part of that still came to pass as 4 of his sons (his first with Bathsheba, Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah) would all die some violently.  Lust and temptation would affect his line and sin would see the split of Israel and ultimately several nations taking it over.  Thankfully, his grace would return it to existence.

There is much to read into the lives of each of David's children and his line on the throne.  Does the punishment fit the crime?  David thought so when he stated it.  I guess that is another reason why vengeance shouldn't be ours...we might go overboard.  Yet, personally, I believe it had to so the lesson can be learned.