David Fails the Lord

Overview

We’ve been looking at the life of David, and our last in the series will be next week. We’re going to go to the book of Chronicles to find another episode in the life of David, and that’ll be the end of our series. It’s important to notice the author of 1 and 2 Samuel, the author of this book, who is seeking to give us a biography of David and who is seeking to show us the greatness of David. This is the last chapter. This is the last episode in his biography. This is the climax of his book.

If you’re trying to show us the greatness of David, why would you end on this incident, a moral failure? Why would you do that? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. By the way, many, many people look at that and say, “What a strange way … What a downer of a way to end a book on David! Is he trying to make him look bad?” No, he’s trying to show us his greatness, and we’ll get back to why this does show us his greatness.

Instead, let’s look at the story. Let’s look at the account. We can figure out what it means and move through it by noticing three things. We see here the judgment against David, the mercy for David, and the greatness of David.