Relinquishing Past Regret - 2 Samuel 11:1-12:25
I don’t know what made David sleep with a married woman and then have her husband killed. We honestly expect a bit more out of him, don’t we? But I think that is why I like David so much. Much like Peter, David makes mistake after mistake and still is a man after God’s own heart. It gives us hope for all the mistakes we have made and that our relationship with God can be close too.
Regret of our Past
I have always thought that story of David and Bathsheba was a bit odd. We tend to focus on David’s adultery and not Bathsheba’s. I wonder when she began to regret her adultery. Was it only when she learns that she is pregnant? How did she fall under David’s spell with such apparent ease? The Bible doesn’t tell us of a struggle within her, but there didn’t seem to be much time in the wooing. David didn’t have to court her much before she fell into his arms. Yet her husband was an upstanding man who thought of his fellow soldiers and didn’t want to have home leave when they could not. It implies that Bathsheba had a decent husband, nothing like the man that David’s second wife married (you recall Abigail and the fool Nabal?).
We know nothing of Bathsheba other than she was a beautiful woman who turned a king’s head. Perhaps her own was empty. Maybe not since she gave birth to the wise Solomon. We know that Bathsheba was to be found out and others would talk. We learn of her regret when she sends word to David and makes it his problem. The unfortunate thing is that this sadness or knowledge-acknowledgement of wrongdoing didn’t seem to make a difference to her. Bathsheba didn’t take notice of the regret as a way to turn to God. She turned to man to take care of this problem.
Response to Regret
David too looked to an earthly solution to the problem. He tried to get the man home to sleep with his wife, got him drunk and still the man wouldn’t go home. So, David had the man carry his own death sentence to the battlefield. And Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, was killed in battle. Where did the man after God’s own heart disappear to? David does not turn to God at the adultery. Nor at the pregnancy. Nor at the deception of the husband, twice over. Nor does he call out to God before taking the man’s life.
One mistake led to another and another and another. May I be so bold as to say: one sin led to another and another and another sin.
Bathsheba experienced regret when she knew her sin would be made public; her pregnancy was a blaring sign of wrongdoing. David doesn’t seem to express this. He wants to cover the mistake, which would also cover hers. I think we experience regret so that we can correct what we have done, but here we have a classic example of man’s ‘correction’ and not God’s.
Regrets should turn us to God
It takes the prophet Nathan telling an allegory before David sees his own sin. The regret that David expresses is not sorrow for the act itself, but he says, ‘I have sinned against the Lord’ (2 Samuel 12:13). The regret has everything to do with the actions being against God. Many of us experience regret of the past but it is what we do with it that makes the difference. David finally took it to God. In the very same verse, it says ‘God has taken away your sin.’ Wow. Immediate forgiveness. David must have carried this around for a good long while since the child had already been born. We know that months have gone by where this sin festered. But the moment that David acknowledges the sinful situation, it is forgiven.
Forgiven is not the same as ‘without consequences’
David then faces the consequences of his ‘poor choices’ (wow, why am I noticing all these euphemisms for ‘sin’ today!). I don’t think that all actions that we regret and confess to God have such dire consequences, nor are they usually so linear. Sin’s consequence here is that the child must die. David clearly does not desire his son’s death and so seeks to change the outcome. Maybe he could have changed God’s mind, just as the persistent widow in Luke 18. But our sins have consequences and it is how we deal with them that matters.
Our response to regret and consequences
David worshiped God. That was the next thing he did. He learned that his child had died, and he cleaned up so that he could go worship God. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. He is still worthy to be praised.
David washed, worshiped and ate. He took care of what was necessary, and worship is necessary. Worship takes us to the place that David came to: I cannot change the consequences by acting badly or mourning the loss. David accepted the loss and comforted his wife.
I can’t say ‘and he went on with life’. Afterall, the point of regret is to get us to change what we were doing.
God corrects regret
The adulteress in the New Testament that Jesus comes upon just before she is stoned to death comes to mind. The point of regret is to sin no more. Jesus says, ‘Neither do I condemn you, go now and sin no more,’ (John 8:11). Yet another adultery story with only one half as the focus – where is the man? Just as we had a focus on David above. The point is to change our behavior, but that requires the intervention of God. The lady encounters Jesus and has a change of heart. David acknowledges to the Lord that he has sinned and has a change of heart. The change of heart is what leads to the ability to alter behavior. God corrects our hearts, changes our hearts more like him. But he can only do that when we meet him, go to him.
