David took a step down the wrong path late one afternoon.  It was a little warm downstairs and since he didn’t have air conditioning he walked up the stairs to enjoy the cool evening breeze on the roof of his palace.  He could see the city spread out beneath him.  He may have walked to the edge of the roof top and leaned over the rail to do a little people watching  below him.  Pretty ordinary evening.  Shops closing up for the day, moms calling the kids in for dinner.  He sighed.  Just another day.  His eyes moved on….past the dog chasing the cat up the tree, past the woman bathing on the rooftop, past the…..wait a minute, eyes back to woman bathing on the roof top.  And that is where David stepped down the wrong path late one afternoon. Surely he knew the right path but rather than going back inside and enjoying the company of  one of the wives he already  had he called a messenger to go to the womans house and tell her that the king wanted to see her.  Now why did he do that?  Probably for the same reason we buy a new cell phone when the old one works just fine.  We saw it and wanted it.

Several weeks after the night with Bathsheba she sent him a message that she was pregnant.  Ah the consequences of choices.  So then what  David hurries to do is a classic example of continueing down the wrong path and really making a mess of things.  He called Bathshebas husband home from the battlefront and did his best to get him to go home and spend time with his wife.  But he wouldn’t.  No.  How could he go home and sleep in his own bed with his wife  when the other soldiers were sleeping out in the open on the ground.  Now David could have confessed to the guy what he had done and saved himself alot of grief in the future.  It would have been really awkward no doubt, but I wonder if David could have seen the future consequences of his actions if he would have chosen to do the right thing.

The prophet Nathan went to see David and told him a story.  One evening a man with many sheep of his own was having company for dinner.  Rather than kill one of his own sheep for dinner the rich man sent his servants to take the one and only pet sheep of his neighbor.  Before Nathan could finish the story David jumped up in anger and said, “This man deserves to die, I will make him pay four times the value of the sheep because he had absolutely no pity on that poor man!”

Nathan focused his eyes on the king and said, “You, are that man!”  David knew he had sinned and deserved to die.  He wept and repented.  The Lord forgave him but as a consequence his newborn son would die.

David and Bathsheba had another son and David named him Solomon.  Now here is the verse that is the clincher for this story.  2 Samuel 12: 24 & 25.  The Lord still loved David, and He also loved his newborn son.  To show His love, the Lord sent word to David through Nathan the prophet that they should also call the baby Jedidiah, meaning Loved by the Lord.

The Lord still loved David.  Late one afternoon when David stepped off onto the wrong path, the Lord still loved David.  Yes,  David pursued sexual sin, but the Lord still loved David.  Yes,  David had someone killed, but  the Lord still loved David!  And despite anything you have done, the Lord still loves you!

For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  John 3:16