Day 57: 2 Samuel 11:18–27

David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this matter upset you because the sword devours all alike. Intensify your fight against the city and demolish it.’ Encourage him” (v. 25).

Did you find yourself secretly hoping the story had changed this time? Imagine how the Father’s heart is wounded when we behave so unlike one of His children. He was no doubt grief-stricken by David’s sin, even though He saw it coming. Considering the events we’ve read, David’s heart was obviously further away from God than we imagined. If David were accused of a faraway heart and tried in a court of law, how much evidence would there be to convict him? As members of the jury—not the judge—consider four evidences of David’s faraway heart.

1. David resisted many opportunities to repent of his sin and lessen the charges against himself. Most of us have been carried away by an overwhelming and sudden craving of the flesh, but we’ve often cried out for help before sin was heaped on sin. Other times, we’ve thrown ourselves into a revolving door of sin, just like David, and continued in a destructive cycle.

Why do you think David didn’t stop and repent? You might consider the answer from a personal standpoint by asking yourself, “Why have I not at times stopped and repented in the earlier stages of sin?”

After David committed the act of adultery, even though the consequences of the pregnancy were already at work, he could have fallen on his face before God, repented, asked for mercy, and begged God to help clean up the mess he had made. Throughout his encounters with Uriah, he had many opportunities to consider his actions and recant. He didn’t.

David was a man with God’s Spirit in him! You can be assured the Spirit was doing His job of conviction! Sadly, David had quenched the Spirit to such a degree that he was able to resist conviction repeatedly. Little should frighten us more than realizing the Holy Spirit’s conviction has grown so faint we hardly sense it. We are dangerously far away when we can sin with little conviction. We should run home to the Father as quickly as we can!

2. David was unmoved by Uriah’s integrity. David’s faraway heart was unaffected by an encounter with authentic integrity. Psalm 78:72 says David once shepherded his people “with integrity of heart.” Uriah’s integrity should have spurred such a sense of loss in David that he could not bear to remain so far from the Father.

Unfortunately, when people have moved this far away from God, someone else’s righteous behavior often only serves to make them angry and send them further into denial. While they recognize their faults, at that point the pull of sin is often stronger than the desire to set things right.

David surely recognized integrity. For most of his life, his character had been replete with it! When I confront godly character, I never fail to say to myself, “I want to reflect character like him, Lord!” or, “Please, God, make me an example like her!”

3. David tried to cover his own sin. Have you ever gotten tangled in a web of sin while you tried to cover the first one? Most of us have tried to cover our sin at one time or another!

In Psalm 32:1, David reminded us that the blessed person is the one “whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” How sad that he learned the lesson through such bitter experience.

The word “covered” in the Hebrew is kasah, meaning “to cover, conceal, hide; to clothe; . . . to forgive; to keep secret; to hide oneself, wrap oneself up.”16 When we try desperately to cover up our sinful ways, we are bound for disaster as sin perpetuates. Only through repentance will God “cover” us and “clothe” us with His loving forgiveness. Only when we run to Him in the nakedness of our sin will He wrap us up with “garments of salvation” and a “robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61:10). David was trying to cover his tracks; God wanted to cover his sins. The latter means life; the former means death—to something or someone.

4. David involved many others in his sin. Apparently, David never stopped to consider the position in which he was placing others. We, too, can become so self-absorbed that we do not care what we are asking from others. We can be unmoved by the compromises of others on our behalf. Intense selfishness accompanies a faraway heart.

In David’s selfishness, he involved a servant in his plans; he invited Bathsheba to a season of guilt and grief; he attempted to entice Uriah to compromise his values; he involved Joab in his sin; and he had Uriah killed. Most importantly “the thing David had done displeased the Lord” (v. 27). Still he did not repent. We may rightly conclude that David had ample evidence to convict him of a faraway heart.

The results were tragic.