“After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.”
~ 2 Samuel 11:27
Hi James and Ellen,
What does ‘but by the grace of God’ mean to you? Ask your dad what does ‘but by the grace of God’ mean to him. ‘But by the grace of God’ is sometime said by a guy or gal who has been divinely kept from compromising one of God’s commandments that He expects all guys and gals to obey. God chose David to play a significant role in His preprogrammed plan that He is unfolding on planet Earth. God had David anointed by His prophet Samuel to be the second king to rule over His specially chosen guys and gals – who are the Israelite people groups guys and gals. God placed a tender heart in David so that David would scribe psalm songs that would praise and thank Him for helping and caring for him. God hardwired David with an extra measure of strength and faith so that he could kill a bear and a lion with his bares hands and an imposing giant with a smooth stone and a slingshot. Is there something that you specifically remember about David? There are a lot of pages in the Bible that have written on them the good things that David did and what David himself scribed. David would though over the forty years that he was king over the Israelite people groups guys and gals end up with a couple of glaring life blemishes. 2 Samuel 11 reports on one of those black moments when David put his personal emotions before God’s commandments. David had been ruling as king over the Israelite people groups guys and gals for about ten years. David sometime in April or May suddenly found himself wanting to meet a gal who was already married. The first time that David saw this gal who he just had to meet was while she was taking a bath on her house’s roof. The gal’s name was Bathsheba. Bathsheba was already married. Bathsheba’s husband’s name was Uriah. Uriah was a soldier in the Israelite people group’s army. Your grandpaa believes that David had absolutely no intention at all the evening when he got out of bed and took a walk around the roof of his palace to do something that would break a commandment that God had established to not to be disobeyed. What David did after he spotted Bathsheba bathing on the roof of her house would break four of the Ten Commandments that God passed on through Moses to His specially chosen guys and gals for them to strictly obey. What David did one evening with Bathsheba began a slide down a slippery slope that ultimately led David to have Joab – who was the commander over the Israelite people group’s army, to put Uriah out front in a battle that the Israelite people group’s army was having with the Ammonite people group’s army so that Uriah would be killed.
Uriah was a really good guy. Uriah was a very faithful warrior. Uriah’s name means ‘my light is the Lord’. When Bathsheba told David that she was pregnant and that he was the baby’s dad, David had Uriah return to his home to spend time with his wife. Uriah put fighting for the cause – which was to defeat an enemy of the Israelite people group’s guys and gals, before spending time with his wife. One consequence of a moment of weakness by the most powerful guy – who was David, in Israel’s land area was that a really good guy had to be killed so that this most powerful guy in Israel’s land area could cover up what he had done with Bathsheba. David’s coveting of a gal who was married – who he had no right to covet per God’s commandment that no guy is to ever covet another guy’s wife, had David pursuing an illicit, adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. David would end up paying a horrible cost for what he did. Verse 27 says, “After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.” David would suffer for his moral lapse – that God’s grace did not keep David from perpetrating, by God causing the baby to die.
Your grandmaa and grandpaa hope and pray that you will learn from your life lesson failures as David did. God will – if He hasn’t done so already, give you life lessons where you will have the choice of doing what He expects you to do or . . . your grandpaa is sure that every day you are taking a God-given test of having to choose between telling the truth about something or lying. Your grandpaa is also sure that you are having to every day take a God-given test of either honoring your dad and ma by doing what they ask or tell you to do or disobeying them. A life test failure is not the end of the world but . . . your grandmaa and grandpaa know that God will forgive a life failure if it is confessed to Him but they also know that a life failure has consequences. Every guy and gal who will ever live on this planet Earth will fail life tests – just as David did. Life test failures come in all forms – from bad mouthing a kid to back talking to a teacher to back stabbing a fellow employee to . . . to pass a life test is to fail it once but not twice, to not let the first failure lead to other failures and to help others not to fail the life tests that you have failed. David may have gotten to the point as king over the Israelite people group’s guys and gal that he felt that he was invincible as the most powerful guy in Israel’s land area. When the Israelite people group’s army left to fight the Ammonite people group’s army, David may have had too much time on his hands – leaving him bored. Your grandpaa is sure that even now you are being bombarded with life temptation tests – such as how to make a lot of money, playing games on the internet versus making friends and doing really well in school to prove that you are smarter than the other kids. Life failures – such as taking illicit drugs, overeating, feeding slot machines, watching TV mindlessly, all have the potential to permanently damage your future on planet Earth along with destroying the security that you have with family and friends. Your grandmaa and grandpaa know that ‘but by the grace of God’ that they have not had to bear the kind of heartbreaking pain that David had to suffer because of his moral failure.
2 Samuel 11 (565)