God’s Severe Mercy

Click here for the audio message of 2 Samuel 12:13-23

Last week we examined the incident with Bathsheeba. It essentially goes like this: David saw and desired Bathsheeba. He got what he wanted and then tried to cover things up at first by making it look like the husband was the father, then by simply having the father/husband killed.

So we see a few “small” sins cause a lot of problems. And as we saw last week and will continue to see today these problems didn’t just affect David. Bathsheeba lost her husband and as we will look at today, her child. Uriah lost his life. Joab, the commander of David’s army lost some integrity with the troops, and probably some loyalty among them as well. For sure, his leadership ability was called into question by the soldiers. And finally, several of David’s soldiers lost their life as well.

All because David saw, wanted, got, and covered up. Sometimes this type of thing happens to us as well. Hopefully, our actions don’t escalate to the level of David’s, but they could.

The idea of last week’s lesson was that these little sins can wear down our consciences to allow in more and more sin eventually severing our relationship with God. And that is exactly what Satan wants.

Now when we do sin, and we all do, we know that we can go to God for forgiveness and He will forgive. However, that does not mean that we won’t suffer earthly consequences for our actions. And that is today’s lesson.

The story starts off at the beginning of Chapter 12 with Nathan coming to David to tell him a story. He says, there once was a rich man and a poor man. The rich man was having a dinner for a friend and took the poor man’s only lamb and slaughtered it for the meal.

As we have seen before David was the best King that Israel has ever had and he tried to be fair to all. So, David didn’t like this story about a rich man taking what little a poor man had. So he told Nathan that this rich man should be punished, in fact, he deserves to die, but the law required that the man repay 4 times the price.

Nathan replies, well David you are that man! David was the rich man, Uriah the poor man, and Bathsheeba was the lamb. Nathan used a story or parable to get his point across to David. Jesus also used many parables, the only difference is most people didn’t understand the meaning. David clearly got the message here.

It is difficult for any of us to be truly objective about our own sin. I think we all realize that we aren’t perfect, but on the other hand we also think we aren’t that bad either. We don’t want to see our sin for sin because of our ego, our pride, or maybe even out of embarrassment.

Here is David, a man after God’s own heart. God has given David everything and has promised to continue to be with him throughout his life. But David wanted something else. David wanted Bathsheeba, even though he already had his three wives and all of King Saul’s wives.

He wanted more. David thought his way was better than God’s. How many times has that happened to us? We look and saw and said we want that, rather than looking at all that we do have.

Right after this story from Nathan, David goes to God and confesses his sin. Of course God forgives him as He forgives all of us, but David still has to suffer the consequences of his actions.

David committed adultery and murder, both offenses were punishable by death. Now David was spared by God, but his ancestors were plagued with violence. As we read this morning, his son with Bathsheeba died. Later David’s son Amnon is killed, so is his son Absalom and Adonijah.

Now many people always have the question why did this child die? Why did God do this? Didn’t God say he would not punish the child for the father’s sin? I cannot answer any of these questions and I don’t believe anybody can. We do not know the mind of God.

We do know that David had to live with the death of this child on his mind for the rest of his life. Maybe some of you have experienced this. That is no doubt a very tough thing to deal with.

Anytime someone starts talking about a situation like this I jump to verse 23, But now he is dead. . . Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” That is such a powerful statement.

The death of a loved one is always difficult to deal with, but we know that if they received Jesus Christ into their life as Lord and Savior, then we too can say with David, they will not return to us, but we shall go to them!

For children there is no if statement. Children go to be with God in heaven immediately upon death. And I don’t say that just to make someone feel good. I believe it to be true based upon God’s word and obviously David does too.

We look at the death of David and Bathsheeba’s son as a very sad, upsetting, terrible thing. And it is, don’t get me wrong, but look at the lives of the rest of David’s family. This child was spared all of that.

Why does God do the things He does? I have no idea, but I know that He has a plan and it’s a good one. Sure some things may seem wrong or crazy to us, but I trust God knows what He is doing.

God is good to us, even though we sin against Him. God is indeed merciful to us even though we will suffer for our actions. God is gracious to us, even when we turn our backs to Him.

Let us truly put our trust in God’s hands. Let us submit our lives to Him knowing that He does what is best, right, and just.

Closing prayer

Lord, we thank you for our time together this morning and these past several years. We are thankful for your grace, your mercy, and your love even when we can’t understand or make sense of the things that are happening in our lives.

Help us to trust you more fully with our lives knowing that you have a plan for each and every one of us individually and collectively.

AMEN