In our text this morning we find one of the saddest and most sobering passages in Scripture. It is sad because it records the fall of David, the man after God’s own heart, in a time when everything seemed to be going so well in his reign as king over God’s people. Sadly, in 2 Samuel 11, it all begins to spiral down. David was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the temptation arose; he saw a beautiful woman named Bathsheba and when he should have looked away he chose to leer, and one thing led quickly to another. Commentator, Walter Brueggemann, observes the tone of the text, “The action is quick. The verbs rush as the passion of David rushed. He sent; he took; he lay (v. 4). The royal deed of self-indulgence does not take very long. There is no adornment to the action. The woman then gets some verbs: she returned, she conceived. The action is so stark. There is nothing but action. There is no conversation. There is no hint of caring, of affection, of love – only lust. David does not call her by name, does not even speak to her. At the end of the encounter she is only ‘the woman’ (v. 5). The verb that finally counts is ‘conceived.’ But the telling verb is ‘he took her.’” Upon learning of Bathsheba’s pregnancy David goes to great lengths in an effort to cover his sin and it ends in the murder of her husband. How could the man after God’s own heart commit such heinous deeds?! How could this man who penned such deep and penetrating psalms carry out these horrible sins?! This is why 2 Samuel 11 is one of the most sobering passages in Scripture. For if David could sink to such sinful depths then surely we can as well. Indeed, to underestimate the sinfulness of our heart is the height of folly. May we humbly and continually be aware of our proneness to wander from our Lord. Robert Robinson captured this sobering truth in his hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart; O take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.” As we contemplate this important text, may we humbly realize our own sinful propensity to wander away from our God and may we learn to humbly rely on His grace which is able to keep us from stumbling.