A Restless Heart
2 Samuel 11:1-17
"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
(PHILIPPIANS 4:7)
It was spring, and King David felt restless. He'd sent his armies off to fight, but he stayed behind. One restive, sleepless night, he went out walking on the roof of the palace. He had a hole in his heart and was prowling for something to fill it.
Why wasn't he out with his armies? Why didn't he get his harp and sing praises to the Lord? Many better choices certainly were available to the king as he watched Bathsheba bathe. Instead, he chose sin. A lustful look sprouted into adultery, which grew into a snare of lies, and eventually blossomed into murder.
Jesus warned us that "out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed" (Mark 7:20). David was guilty of all of these. Fortunately, the story doesn't end there. David repented of his sins and received God's forgiveness.
Today we also have a remedy for sin. Through confession, repentance, and forgiveness, Jesus lovingly cleanses us. Like David, we are restored to be people after God's own heart.
INSIGHT
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest./ Finding as He promised, perfect peace and rest. (Frances R. Havergal, 1876)
READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
1 Samuel 26-27
Psalm 133
Galatians 3-4
2 Samuel 11:1-17
David and Bathsheba
1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. >From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite." 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10 David was told, "Uriah did not go home." So he asked Uriah, "Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!"
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, "Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die."
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
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