Even after a son was born to them, there was no sign of David admitting his sins of adultery and murder. Now God sent the prophet Nathan with a story. A rich man had a visitor, and he took the only lamb of his poor neighbour to prepare food for the visitor, even though he had plenty of sheep of his own. David was infuriated with the rich man and said he should be killed! Then Nathan reminded David that he was really the man in the story who had taken someone else's wife and even had the husband killed. David was an honest and sincere man at heart, and when he was confronted with the facts he owned up. He acknowledged that he had sinned against God. Later he even wrote a song of repentance referring to this great failure on his part. This is why David is still referred to as a man after God's own heart.

God forgave David these terrible sins. But because David had given everyone a terrible example by this behaviour and brought public dishonour to God's name, God said He would cause certain consequences that would warn everyone who heard about this. David and Bathsheba's son would die, and David would suffer much evil and confusion from his own family.

Even though God forgives our sins and blots them out from our record, He would also sometimes discipline us so that we can learn some lessons from it. There would also be natural consequences of our sin which would remind us and others who know us not to take sin lightly.