Self-control week1

 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.

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, 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.” 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. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”     2 Samuel 11.1-5

‘In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war' is the sinister ‘once-upon-a-time' with which the author begins his tale of King David’s affair with Bathsheba. Why are the words ‘at the time when kings go off to war' so significant? We may infer that this was probably the first time in his reign when David, unlike other kings, did not go to war.

From this short phrase, we understand that David sent his army into the field without him. He opted to forgo the rigours of field bivouac in favour of a life of ease. While his soldiers were suffering through the trauma of war, David wasn’t suffering at all. In other words, David, who had always before chosen a life of self-denial, was now determining to live a life of self-indulgence.

‘Taking a load off' is how comfort-loving society phrases it. But taking a load off leads to secondary indulgences that the king allows himself while enjoying the castle comforts instead of living in the open field. At ease morally, he watches one of his soldier’s wives take a bath. And watching Bathsheba begets lusting, and lusting begets adultery, which results in a pregnancy, a murder and a huge cover-up operation that the king institutes to hide his sin and protect his reputation. When indulgence comes into our lives, self-control leaves by the back door. In David’s case, a great writer of many psalms and praises to God is debased to an indulgent adulterer.

Once we permit ourselves one sin and squelch our inner remorse, that remorse loses its voice. We commit other sins, leading to a spiral of despair. The only hope we have is to make self-control the keeper of our inner lives. Our path to maturity in Christ is paved by self-control. It is God’s instrument, given by Him, to lead us to victory.