Taking a look at David’s sin with Bathsheba can help us avoid getting off track in our daily life. Through David’s experience and his sin, we can learn what will please the Lord and then do it every day.

While this topic is a bit sad, it’s a great lesson for us all when it comes to matters of the heart and matters of sin.

I’ve been studying this in my Bible, as I usually do during my morning devotions, and something came up I wanted to share with you.

You know a lot of times we struggle with understanding what God’s will is, right?

Especially in those times where a lot of bad things happen and we aren’t really sure why.

Whether it’s a death of relationship…

Maybe the death of our marriage…

Whatever it is, one thing remains… we are suffering.

But there is good news.

The gospel.

Jesus raises the dead back to life.

So whether you have a dead relationship, dead marriage, or maybe some other part of your life that’s dead, maybe from sin, I want to encourage you.

2 Samuel 11 is where the reading will be today.

How Do I Get My Relationship With God Back On Track?

The first thing we need to do is start doing the right things that pleases God. If we’re not where we are supposed to be, we won’t be doing the Lord’s will in our lives.

Let’s go through 2 Samuel 11, starting in verse 1 together and see what we can learn through David’s sin with Bathsheba.

Verse 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.’

David had a lot of success in his life.

Everything he did was blessed in the previous chapters of 2nd Samuel.

You can go back and read it to see all the achievements.  He was rocking it, and it was because the Lord was him and David was doing what was right.

He did more for Israel than any person up to that point as far as kings go, mind you it was only Saul before him. But in this first verse we see that David do something strange.

He steps away from his responsibility.

He took some “me time.”

“Me time” is something that’s really easy to fall into in our lives.

I write a lot of books, but a lot of times I’ve caught myself doing taking this “me time” on several different occasions.

After a book is released I’ll take time to just step back, and while it can seem like an okay thing to do, it can get me off track right.

Why? Because if we’re in the mindset that we deserve some “me time” that means the focus is on ourself, it’s not on God.

We see this reality with David right at the start in verse one here.

Let’s keep going and learn more about David’s sin with Bathsheba and how it’s applicable to our lives.

How David’s Sin With Bathseba Started | Taking Our Focus Off God

2 Samuel 11: 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.

In verse two we see David getting up in the evening, so something was going on inside the king. What that is, we’re not sure.

It was either something on his mind or he’s just got this weird irregular sleep pattern going on, but it’s evening time and he is walking around the roof of the palace.

Remember… If he was doing the right thing which was being off to war, he would’ve never been in this circumstance where he saw the woman bathing.

But he sees her, and he sees that she is very beautiful.

This brings us to the second point.

David let his focus drift from God and focus on something else.

Remedy For Sin – Not Giving In 

David’s curiosity didn’t stop after seeing her.

verse 3 says: ‘David sent someone to find out about her.’

So he’s feeding that curiosity about this beautiful woman.

If we desire the remedy for sin, we must stop sinning. It’s so simple, yet so difficult unless you are trusting God and have experienced the power of salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.

God can help us, but we must go to Him in our time of need.

How does that happen? This is a godly habit that is built, not happened upon.

Godly habits require us to practice. Only through our dedicated focus on God and our abiding in His Word are we able to win the war on sin.

It’s not because of our power, but God’s power working through us.

Let’s get back to David.

He’s not off at war, he’s indulging in “me time,” now he sees a pretty woman and he’s thinking, ‘I got a learn more about this babe.’

Well, the man he dispatched comes back and informs David.

Verse 3: ‘The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”’

Uriah the Hittite was one of David’s mighty men. One of his special and mighty warriors. So think like Special Ops.

And then her father Eliam.

Eliam was high up in the military in the political arena of that time.

So she’s basically a military wife, and her family is super entrenched in politics in the military.

This was God’s opportunity for David to step away.

Why Do I Keep Sinning Sexually?

A person will keep sinning, no matter what the sin is, when that person is keeping God outside of his or her thoughts.

For the Christian who loves and honors God with their life, they have to lock Him away from their mind in order to willfully sin.

We see this play out in David’s sin with Bathseba in the following verse.

Verse 4: ‘Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her.’

Doesn’t go into detail about the meeting before they slept together, but I highly doubt he had some prayer time before sleeping with Bathsheba.

Why do we do this? Because we don’t let God be God in our lives.

Think about it.

How often in your own life do we think, ‘oh you know what? I can handle this, I can deal with this, this is fine, this is gonna be okay, I got this.’

And that’s what happened with David.

He had it handled.

David, while he was off-track not doing what he was supposed to, saw Bathsheba, saw she was beautiful, and learned who she was and still went ahead with the sin.

How Do We Avoid Sinning? Doing What Is Right.

First we have to be doing what we should be doing which is renewing our minds daily and keeping God on our hearts and in our thoughts and actions.

David during this “me time” that he took, removed God from the center of his life and placed himself there.

And in Romans 12:2 we are warned: ‘Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then (So after you do that)Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.’

When we keep God at the center, we don’t get into the world’s point of view which says we are number one.

When you put “me” at the middle of everything and you don’t put God at the middle, you start feeding your flesh.

You decide not to go off to war, you decide not to volunteer in that class anymore, you decide not to go to that Bible study that you were going to faithfully for years.

You decide to skip a Sunday morning, maybe two Sundays, you decide to skip devotions one morning and then it turns into a week and then a month.

When we let ourselves go off track it leads us down a path of distancing ourselves from God.

It’s not good.

Sometimes we get off that track and can get right back on, but other times, like in this instance for David, it leads to one thing after another and soon sin and destruction happens.

Sin Always Has Consquences

In verse five says: ‘The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”’

So now David is dealing with consequences for the sin that he committed and it doesn’t stop there!

Verse six: ‘So David sent this word to Joab (Joab was a commander of the army and he said): “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 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. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.’’

David got Bathsheba’s husband back to town off the warfront and told him to wash his feet which basically means go home to your wife and enjoy her. But he didn’t do that.

See the mess sin causes?

It doesn’t stop for David.

Verse 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?”’

What David is doing right now is he’s trying to get Uriah to sleep with his own wife so that the pregnancy can be covered up as just Uriah’s kid.

He’s trying to cover his mess that he has already made by sinning and committing adultery with Bathsheba.

David’s sin with Bathsheba started out on a rooftop seeing a pretty woman, but now it’s going from bad (she’s pregnant) to worse (someone has to die).

Verse 11 says: ‘Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, 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!”’

Uriah is on the correct path. He knows what he should be doing and he was under David’s command. This guy was trained as a soldier knew exactly where and what he should be doing.

He was focused.

This truth about his soldier had to just drive the dagger of guilt deeper for David.

Does he give it up? No. David digs in deeper.

Sin Progression Leads To Death

Verse 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. 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.’

So now David gets him drunk and drunkenness isn’t okay with God, but we are seeing David’s continued attempts to fix the sin mess that already happened.

He’s trying to get Uriah drunk so he’ll stumble home and make love to his wife and give into his inhibitions.

But he didn’t. It didn’t work out how David thought it would.

So he keeps going…

Verse 14: ‘In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 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.”’

David has tried everything in his mind that he could cover this up, and now there is one thing left to do–kill Uriah.

Verse 16: ‘So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 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.’

Now we see that not only did Uriah have to die because of David’s sin, but other men in the Army as well.

David’s sin with Bathsheba simply started with David stepping out onto the balcony during some needed “me time.” And one thing led to another, he slept with another man’s wife, and then he ended up getting people killed as a result.

What To Do About Sin Moving Forward

Our sin can seem petty in a moment of weakness.

For example, seeing a pretty girl.

That’s the problem with sin though, it’s only pleasurable for a moment.

Just as you can see in the story, sin leads us down a path to destruction.

We must never take our focus off God. We must never take a break from what we’re supposed to do.

That means prayer, that means Bible reading, that means keeping God at the center of our lives.

If we keep God at the center of everything we do day in and day out, we don’t have the opportunity for sin to come into our life and destroy us.

That doesn’t mean you’re never going to have temptation because we still have to carry these fleshly mortal bodies with us.

And there is going to be times you slip off track, and you got to get right back on there.

Repenting and asking Jesus to forgive you.

And as far as knowing God’s will, when we’re continually keeping God at the focus and at the center, we’re going to know what His will is because were not conforming to the world.

The world says you are the center, the world says how you feel is the most important thing.

The world says take a pill, take a drink, take a drag, take whatever you need to to feel okay.

God says come to me.

In Romans 12:2 again it says: ‘Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.’

If David was on that balcony at the palace and he was renewing his mind daily and staying focused on God and not in an episode of “me,” it would’ve never happened.

Without that renewal you conform to the pattern of the world which says feed the flesh, focus on yourself, focus on your pain, focus on the problems.

David’s story and David’s sin with Bathsheba not only shows us that even pillars of faith had struggles, had problems in life.

It doesn’t matter what kind of mess you got yourself in, it doesn’t matter how bad you think of person you might be.

David committed adultery and he got people killed.

No matter what mess you got going on, God can still use you.

Did God remove his hand from David?

He sure had a lot of problems after this point in his life, but God still used the house of David to ultimately bring Jesus into the world.

Remember Jesus is the one that can raise the dead parts of our life back to life.

He is the only one that can bring joy in a dark time.

He is the only one that can fill that void in your life and it’s only through the power of Jesus Christ that we have hope, that we have true eternal salvation.

In conclusion, we need to make sure that we are renewing our mind daily through keeping our focus on Jesus Christ our Savior.

It’s through having a centered focus on God that we can avoid the mistake that David did, we can avoid stepping out onto that balcony and inviting sin into our life.