If you would be preserved from actual and scandalous sins, labour to mortify original sin, think what an odious thing sin is, get the fear of God planted in your hearts, be careful to avoid all the inlets and occasions of sin, study sobriety and temperance, watch your passions, consult with the oracles of God, be well-versed in Scripture (Ps. 119:11), get your hearts fired with love to God.
—Thomas  Watson “Practical divinity”

Let us confess our debts, and pray for forgiveness of our sins (Luke 11:4). The forgiveness of God is passing by sin (Mic. 7:18), wiping off the score and giving us a discharge.God, in pardoning, lifts our burden from the conscience and lays it upon Christ (Isa. 53:6). To forgive is to cover sin (Ps. 32:1), to blot out transgressions (Isa. 43:25)…. When God forgives sin he blots out the  debt, he draws the red-line of Christ’s blood over our sins, and so crosses the debt-book…Sin is the cloud interposed, but God dispels the cloud, and breaks forth with the light of his countenance…. He casts our debts into the depths of the sea (Mic. 7:19)
—Thomas Watson “Practical Divinity”

When we consider this fighting life aright, we need not be dissuaded from loving it. We rather have need to be strengthened with patience to go through and to fight on with courage and assurance of victory; still fighting in a higher strength than our own, against sin within and troubles without. This is the great scope of this epistle.  Against sin the apostle instructs us at the beginning of this chapter. And here again, against suffering… He urges us to be armed with the same mind that was in Christ… The words to the end of the chapter contain grounds of encouragement and consolation for the children of God in sufferings, especially in suffering for God.
—Robert Leighton “A practical commentary on 1 Peter”

Man’s mouth, though it be but a little hole, will hold a world full of sin. For there is not any sin forbidden in the law or gospel which is not spoken by the tongue, as well as thought in the heart, or done in the life. Is it not then almost as difficult to rule the tongue as to rule the world?
— Edward Reyner.

Sin is the worst debt, because it is against an infinite majesty. It is a multiplied debt. We do not know how much we owe God… But God writes down our debts in his book of remembrance.  God’s book and the book of conscience do exactly agree, so that the debt cannot be denied.
There is no shifting of the debt… Neither man nor angel can pay this debt for us. Who shall give us protection from God’s justice? We cannot flee from God… He knows where to find all his debtors (Ps. 139:7,8)… There is a day coming when God will call his debtors to account. (Rom. 14:12)
–Thomas Watson

Since God can only rejoice in goodness, the creatures must have that goodness restored to them which they had at the first creation… The goodness of the creatures is the glory and joy of God. We may infer from this, what a base and vile thing sin is, which lays the foundation of the world’s change. Sin brings it to a decrepit age. Sin overturned the whole work of God… Let us look upon sin with no other notion than as the object of God’s hatred, the cause of his grief in the creatures, and the spring of the pain and ruin of the world.
God as immutable is contrasted with all creatures as perishable and changeable. He is unchangeable in his essence, nature, and perfections.
—Stephen Charnock, “The Existence and Attributes of God.”

These therefore must have the cream of the gospel… The Lord Jesus takes more care, as appears by three parables,  for the lost sheep, the lost goat, and the prodigal son, than for the other sheep, the other pence,  or for the son that said he had never transgressed (Luke 15)… The mind of Christ was set on the salvation of the biggest sinners in his lifetime.
The apostles, after the ascension of Christ, preached to the very worst of these Jerusalem sinners, even to those that were the murderers of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:23). Peter said if they were sorry for what they had done, and would be baptized for the remission of their sins in his name, they should receieve the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:37, 38)
—John Bunyan, “The Jerusalem Sinner Saved.”

Let us note that all such as boast as having faith in the gospel, and are not sanctified by God, betray their own hypocrisy and lying, and belie themselves by their own life, no matter what they may sing or say, just as we see many nowadays who defile and profane the name of the faith which ought to be holy. For every man will say that he is faithful, and they who have least faith are boldest to say their is no faith but in themselves. And would God that it were so, only by half! But we see even among all that bear the name of Christians that their whole life is disordered and loose, insomuch that they mock God to the full and despise all religion, and yet nevertheless in the meanwhile think  they they are greatly wronged if they are not taken as good catholic Christians.
—From Sermon One on Ephesians

If all be a gift, see then the odious ingratitude of men, who sin against the giver. God feeds them, and they fight against him; he gives them bread, and they give him affronts… Ungratefully do sinners deal with God. They not only forget his mercies, but abuse them (Jer. 5:7)… This gives a dye and tincture to men’s sins, and makes them crimson.
God gives us daily bread, let us give him daily praise. Thankfulness to our donor is the best policy… God loves to bestow his mercies where there is the best echo of praise.
—Thomas Watson

It is fit that professors of all sorts should be reminded of these things; for we may see not a few of them under visible decays, without any sincere endeavours after a recovery, who yet please themselves that the root of the matter is in them. It is so, if love of the world, conformity unto it, negligence in holy duties, and coldness in spiritual love, be an evidence of such decays. but let none deceive their own souls; wherever there is a saving principle of grace, it will be thriving and growing unto the end. And if it falls under obstructions, and thereby into decays for a season, it will give no rest or quietness unto the soul, wherein it is, but will labour continually for a recovery. Peace in a spiritually decaying condition is a soul ruining security; better be under terror on the account of surprisal into some sin, than be in peace under evident decays of spiritual life.
—John Owen

Sin is a real sickness (Isa. 1:5), yea, the worst of sickness; it is a leprosy in the head (Lev 13:44); the plague in the heart (1 Kings 8:38); it is brokenness in the bones (Psalm 51:8); it pierces, it wounds, it racks, it torments (1 Tim 6:10). A man may as well expect ease when his diseases are in their full strength, or his bones out of joint, as true comfort while in his sins.
—Joseph Alleine “A Sure Guide to Heaven.”

Whereas the Spirit of God is everywhere said to sanctify us, we ourselves are commanded and said constantly to mortify our sins—the weakening, impairing, and destroying of the contrary principle of sin in its root and fruits.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

Do we see, sometimes, the flood-gates of men’s lusts and rage set open against the church, and interest of it, and doth prevalancy attend the, and power is, for a season, on their side? Let not the saints of God despond. He hath unspeakably various and effectual ways for the trifling of their conceptions, to give them dry breasts, and a miscarrying womb. He can stop their fury when he pleaseth. “Surely,” saith the Psalmist, “the wrath of man shall praise Thee, the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain,” Psalm. 76:10. When so much of their wrath is let out, as shall exalt his praise, he can when he pleaseth, set up a power, greater than the combined strength of all sinning creatures, and restrain the remainder of the wrath that they had conceived. “He shall cut off the spirit of princes, he is terrible to the kings of the earth,” Psalm. 76:12. Some he will cut off and destroy, some he will terrify and affright, and prevent the rage of all. He can knock them on the head, or break out their teeth, or chain up their wrath, and who can oppose him?
—John Owen, The nature of indwelling sin in believers.

Psalms 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.

The world and all it’s vanities, all the world had to offer that I could not have, dazzled me more blindly than if I could have feasted upon it till I had my fill. Those supposed pleasures as I saw them, those comforts were vain, yet so enticing that I almost sold my soul for them, because rather than my afflictions drawing me towards God, which were great already by any stretch of the imagination, the pleasures I supposed that would make them lighter, easier to bear, drew me away from Him, a heart frozen in vain desire and need; I thought my need was in the world, in people, and relief from the prisoner my body held me trapped within it. Wanting some relief from such great physical suffering, seemed the most natural thing in the world. But my real binds, was not in seeing my need, not seeking God with all my heart, but only going so far then standing still, demanding God supply my need and prove his love and kindness and mercy and compassion. But the fill I wanted and demanded was from His creation, not from the Creator, and how I mourn now those years of bondage, those years of longing for the vanity that the world had to offer to others, how the blessings of others especially those who had added to my lot needlessly or thoughtlessly fuelled my desire for a world full of vanities.

I loved, I laughed, I cried, felt tormented and tortured and I railed against the God of heaven against the providence that had brought my life to this. We think that being with people will relieve our loneliness and longing of the soul our inner hungers and fill the emptiness and voids we feel. We believe that our joy, our liberty and freedom, comes by being enabled by being comfortable and prosperous and popular — finding purpose in our own self-reliance –  being important in however a minute a way in the big scale of things that sense of import means to us.

We rely on ourselves to find a way out of the hole we are in–if we are helpless to do so, we rely on others to. The natural man doesn’t see his need, his want. He sees his want, but what we want is not always what we need. That verse of David from Psalm 119, refers to his illicit affair with Bathsheba; he wanted her in a fleshly, lustful desire, his want and lust became his need in his mind–it was the thing that burned inside of him, stronger and with more passion than anything else. Even if it meant departing out of the will of the God that he had served since he was a shepherd boy. (2 Samuel 12:24)

When the child that Bathsheba conceived in adultery with David was born and was ill, as the Lord had threatened that the child would die, and that the sword would never depart from David’s house from that time on. (2 Sam 12:10-18) David prayed and fasted and wept, and sought the Lord with all of his heart. He knew that sometimes the Lord’s threatening’s could be averted by pleading and intercession and prayer. (Joel 2:13). David’s devotion to God during the time of his infants illness, by fasting, prayer and tears of penitence was a great humiliation for his sin. It was a sure sign of his sincerity for sinning against God with Bathsheba. Commonly, when men beget a child by a mistress, they detach or turn away, in these days they may even persuade the mistress to have an abortion, in order to keep the child conceived in sin a secret to protect their own comfort zone; to keep the calm peace and tranquility of their home life with their wife. The child being murdered on the abortionists table cannot witness against men as a living child and evidence of their sin and indiscretion can. In some cases, they would rather murder their off-spring, rather than their sin be found out. David, aware that his own sinful actions had brought this about, in a truly penitent spirit, begged God to spare the child’s life, even knowing if the child lived it could bring him great shame and reproach, as a living child was evidence of and would testify against him in the case of his adultery. It would have been a terrible shame for God’s anointed to bear. But he begged, prayed fasted and wept for the life of his child, willing to pay the consequences that the reproach of a living child could bring down upon his head, because he owned his sin and was truly penitent for it and contrite.

When the infant died, his calm composure, putting on fresh clothes to go meet with God out of a holy reverential fear and honour of going to meet with the Living God,  to worship Him, knowing that the child’s death was God’s divine disposal and he could not now do a thing to change it. By his going to worship he practiced what Job spoke in “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the Name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)  He had tried with his whole heart to avert the threatening of God as concerned the child when he was still alive, knowing that where there’s life there is hope, but once the child died, he accepted it in quiet resignation knowing it was final and there was nothing more he could do. He went to worship God, thankful that God had had mercy on him and spared him, and also pardoned him for his adulterous act. It is widely thought that after Nathan left David, after reproaching him, that is when David penned Psalm 51. When he says, his sin will be ever before him, and asks for the Lord to purge him like hyssop, he was not really talking of the external ceremonies of the law, but to purge him, make him clean. Purging from the Lord normally comes by way of affliction. And when he says in  Psalms 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word. he is clearly alluding to this affair.

You see in David’s longing, his lust was for a beautiful woman, he was over-whelmed by temptation in what he saw in her. Things pleasing to our senses particularly the eyes have a power in the way of temptations and are more alluring to us.

My Bathsheba was the world outside my window and all that lay out there that I could never taste or partake of. My isolation and sense of abandonment by both God and man made me hunger and yearn after it more than anything I have previously known. I was already sick unto death, yet the afflicted state of my body and inability made it all seem the most  natural thing in the world that anyone in my shoes would want if it was them. Why? Because I knew not God nor myself. About a year or so ago things got worse still, though not by my own making, yet I was suddenly alone with God. Very alone. Totally alone–still sick unto death.

I even said goodbye to some folks of my own choosing, feeling that in all I felt by being so very alone, even more so, that to continue on in friendship of a kind, would be more destructive than cutting those ties, because it was like throwing crumbs to the starving, a little taste but not near enough to fill a belly that had been empty so long, and  made me hunger more and feel more alone than ever and more hurt over my lot in life, and when hurting so much already, they could only wreak more destruction. I chose finally, to go it alone with God, and turned my ear and heart to learning, by the sound advice I had been given repeatedly by someone of, the only way I was going to find life tenable, was to live a more spiritual life.  I also put other similar counsel into practice. I started pouring over eternity, reading such things as Baxter’s Everlasting rest. I started to know God better, and in doing that, alone with God, I started to know myself. I started to understand the actions of people I esteemed that had sometimes been a confusion to me. As I got to know both God and myself better, the penitential tears and a contrite and broken spirit started to be wrought. Yet, unlike in previous times of grief and mourning, like David, they were tears of repentance for past things that I found pierced me, and even to this day when I feel my afflictions I weep anew, not because I don’t believe I am forgiven, but because I know that before I was afflicted so severely, I went astray, and those times of mourning and grief and penitential sorrow are times of cleansing and purging even further. My aims and goals are not any longer to be rid of my sufferings or find relief at any cost–to sell my soul for relief from this great affliction– but live out my life to the glory of God. Yet I believe that there will likely always be times of great penitential mourning, because sometimes everywhere I look in Scripture reminds me of how I rejected the Word of God and God Himself, and how He had to bring me so low, that I could finally see Him for who He is, and in that he raised me  up for his honour and gave me the dignity I longed for, that I felt had been taken away from me by the actions of people I had known, that I thought I could get from the world, yet it was alone with God it was given to me. God is my portion alone as far as people, day in day out, even when in this condition physically, and yet I am fuller than ever before in a multitude of ways.  He is the strength of my countenance, and I know that, because He is my portion Alone when sick unto death. If I was surrounded by comforts and loved ones it is likely I would not be so sure of that, because it can be a very fine line about what or who we have as our chief portion, where our comfort and delight comes from if there are multiple channels of it coming to us,  and the lines can easily become blurred. Psalms 73:26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. The world is still outside my window, with all its streets of gold, yet it’s a gold that will turn to rust, and inside this room, alone with God, He and me with his strength and by His grace, are building an incorruptible treasure that can never be taken from me and will never rust in the least. In a million years time in eternity, The Lord and His heavenly treasure will still be as shiny and dazzling,  even more so than now, when all the streets of gold have long rusted and corroded and  long been forgotten by those who ever walked on it along with those who walked on it also long forgotten.

The treasure any of us need, first and foremost, whatever our place in life, however rich or poor our estate, is the Living God and the treasures He has to offer,  yet it can be so easy to indulge in the world and its pleasures at the cost of falling short of the mark. Pleasures and recreation are not sinful in themselves, it’s only where we place them on our priorities or how much time we indulge in them that makes them so, if we are intemperant.

I may have more to say on the David and Bathsheba affair, as it’s such a rich history with so many strands. One final note on this however, for now, is Proverbs 31. The virtuous woman. The woman all godly women long to be, was also told to Solomon by his mother, Bathsheba, and she had obviously also repented of her sin with David. Because she warns her son against the very things happening to him by taking a bad course, that had come about upon David’s house, because of her and David’s adulterous affair. (Proverb 31:1-3)