2 Samuel 12.
GOD was, so to speak, left out of the events of the eleventh chapter. There we had man in his desires and his doings. Here we have to do with God. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God” Romans 14:12; and He has said, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me” Leviticus 10:3.
The governmental dealings of God with His children is a very real thing; Jacob found it out as the result of his deceit toward his father (Genesis 27); Moses learned it through his disobedience at the rock of Merihah (Numbers 20:12; Deuteronomy 4:21). Eli proved it in the sad end of his children foretold in 1 Samuel 2:27-36; and now David was to have it impressed on himself in many painful circumstances almost to the end of his life.
David confessed his sin (verse 13), and was forgiven (see 1 John 1:9), but the little baby must die, and the sword should never depart from his house because he had despised God (verse 10). We learn how he felt at this time in the fifty first Psalm, not a word is there of excuse for himself, but the deepest contrition, and David prayed to be washed thoroughly from his iniquity, and cleansed from his sin.
“My sin,” said he, “is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight .... Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”
David besought God for the life of the baby, but when it died, he knew that his prayer could not be answered, and with deepened faith, and chastened spirit, he said to his servants who did not understand what was in his mind, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
Out of the sad marriage with Bathsheba, however there was to be blessing, for Solomon, David’s glorious son, was hers, and he called his name Jedidiah “the beloved of the Lord.” David went to the war with the Ammonites wherein he had failed before (verse 1 of chapter 11). He dealt with them with uncommon ferocity; was it of God? That judgment should have fallen on them is certain, and as a foreshadowing of the day of Gods unsparing judgment of the wicked, it may well stand.
God’s dealings with David were as with a son. “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him, for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” Heb. 12:5,6.
He had received the gift of God, eternal life, and was no more in the position of a sinner, but a sinning child of God.
“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1 Peter 4:17, 18.
ML 01/16/1927