All sin is grievous for it is against a loving and holy God, but there is something so devastating about adultery for it brings so much hurt and pain. God created marriage to be a picture of His intimate, faithful covenant love to His people. I’m sure we’ve all seen the awful hurt caused by adultery, maybe you’ve even experienced it, maybe you have committed it. In fact, when we read how Jesus defines adultery, we probably all have committed it in our hearts (see Matthew 6:28).
In our reading from 2 Samuel 11, we see a time that the great king David committed adultery and then tried to cover it up.
Like all adulterous actions, it started in the heart. David saw her bathing. He should have turned away at that point, but instead he inquires about her. He discovers that she’s the wife of a man called Uriah. This really should have been the end of the matter. She’s another man’s wife. But lust has gripped him and he sends for Bathsheba, he sleeps with her and she becomes pregnant.
Do you see how easily it happens? David’s awful sin not only offends a holy God who created marriage, but also has devastating effects for a number of families.
David has messed up. But instead of confessing his sin, he tries to cover it up. If you’d have seen David at this point, you might not have known anything was wrong. But Psalm 32 tells us how he was feeling:
“when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”
David felt crushed, he knew what he’d done was wrong, but he tries to fix things himself. He calls Uriah home from the battlefield thinking that Uriah will sleep with Bathsheba while he’s back home, and then everyone will just assume the child is Uriah’s. What a cover up! Except that Uriah has more integrity than David. Uriah won’t allow himself the comfort of sleeping with his wife while the other soldiers are off fighting.
So David decides on another cover up – murder! And it works, for a time. David arranges for Uriah to be killed in battle, and he seems to get away with it. He looks like a hero as he takes Bathsheba under his care and marries her. But someone sees. The chapter ends with the words:
“But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.”
God has seen, and God will use his prophet Nathan to expose the sin. When Nathan confronts David, David has two options. Deny it, or admit it. He is the king, he could have ordered Nathan to be killed. But David had had enough of feeling crushed, of his bones wasting away, and so he does the best thing, he admits his sin. In our other psalm for today (51) we read his confession, his true repentance. He longs for his sin to be covered. He doesn’t try and sugar coat his sin. He was wrong, and he knew better. He asks to be purged with hyssop. This was a plant that was used to sprinkle a house that had been affected by leprosy. David was saying, he wasn’t a fit place for God to dwell, he needed cleansing. How will God respond? Amazingly he is told “the LORD has put away your sin, you shall not die” (2 Sam 12:13). How could God put away his sin? David deserved the death penalty for adultery, yet here the LORD forgives him, how? David was about to lose a child, and there would be trouble in his family because if his sin, sin has consequences, but David would not die, because another of his descendants would die for him. David could be purged with hyssop, his sin could be covered, because Jesus experienced the agony of death for him, took the awful weight of his guilt for him. As Jesus was dying, they held a sponge to his lips on a hyssop branch. David’s purging could come because of Jesus’ sacrifice.
Adultery is an awful sin, avoid it at all costs. Don’t follow David’s example of lounging around and lusting in your heart. Tell yourself to stop it before you make any inquiries. Don’t start down the path. But if you have, then do follow David’s example of repentance. Don’t sugar coat your sin, admit it for what it is, you did know better, turn from your sin and ask Jesus to take your guilt, to purge you, and wonderfully you will hear those amazing words “The LORD also has put away your sin”.
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven.” (Psalm 32)
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