“David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.'”(2 Samuel 12:13-14)
The serious consequences of sin are brought out throughout the Old Testament as well as the fact that man is unable to resist temptation in his own. The Lord grants forgiveness to all who repent but that does not mean He will remove those consequences. King David found this out when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of his his generals who was on the battlefield at the time. When Bathsheba became pregnant, David tried to cover it up so his sin would not be found out. He went to great lengths to conceal his sin, finally arranging to have Uriah die in battle. Essentially he committed murder to cover up adultery.
David’s sin had tragic consequences for his family and him. Nathan told him of the calamities and bloodshed that would befall his own household. In addition, the son born of the sinful liaison would die. This shows us just how serious sin is and that our sins can and often do have unforeseen effects on our loved ones or other innocent parties. In addition God is hurt by every sin because every sin is an affront to His holiness and goodness and a rejection of His wisdom and lovingkindness.
Sinners often think they can get away with their sins. They may be able to deceive other people and go unnoticed, but God always sees and knows. Many people sin anyway because they either do not believe in Him or are convinced that He does not mind. They have convinced themselves that there are no consequences to sin. For one example, many of us recall the catch phrase of the so-called “sexual revolution” of the sixties that justified “free love”: “Do your own thing so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.” But many were hurt and today we see the consequences of sin in the high rate of divorce, abortion, the acceptance of immorality as the norm and the widespread incidence of sexually transmitted disease. Sin always has consequences.