Matthew 1:6 (NKJV) 

“and Jesse begot David the king. David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.” 

David’s escapades with Bathsheba and the subsequent murdering of her husband, Uriah, was one of the lowest points in his kingship. This unfortunate season in David’s life was sufficient to have derailed the divine purposes for his life and made him useless in heaven’s agenda. David’s response to the rebuke of God was so dramatic and his repentance so complete, that God decided to showcase him as a masterpiece of God’s mercy. So not only did God allow him to keep Bathsheba and permit Solomon, the seed of Bathsheba, to inherit the throne of David, God decided that Bathsheba and Solomon (of all the wives and children of David) would be the ones chosen to form part of the lineage of Jesus. How else can you illustrate the mercy of God beyond this?  

However, when the story is told, it must be told as it happened. It must not be glossed over as something in the past. For the mercy of God to be properly understood, we also need carefully to describe the hand of Satan. Could that be why in writing out the ancestors of Jesus, Bathsheba was mentioned as the former wife of Uriah whom David murdered? Yes, God forgave David, and God’s mercy poured through his life after that, but the ugliness of the scar must never be forgotten. 

When God has mercy on you, delivers and forgives you, do you report it to others, so that the mercy of God may be evident to all? Do you mention how charred your life was and how dark your darkness had been before the glorious light of Jesus came through? Part of the work of repentance is in telling the truth of your sinfulness.  

“Lord, I have had the darkest days, and from all of these, You have delivered me.  I praise You, Lord, for this. In glorifying Your mercy, help me always to tell the full story of Your redemption, so that I may fully show men the extent of Your mercy lavished on the wretched soul that I was. Amen.”