David showed a careless attitude towards immorality and in his sin against Uriah, and a few years later he found that two of his sons, Amnon and Absalom, showed the same careless disregard for these things. David must have recognized that he had set a bad example for them. He should have guided his sons’ feet into paths of righteousness in spite of his own failures or, perhaps more importantly, because of his failures. We must not lay aside discipline as parents just because we have fallen ourselves; we should judge it (as David had done when confronted by Nathan) and then admonish our children to avoid the same sin, and thus avoid its consequent sorrow.
If I have a casual attitude toward lying, then I cannot hope to instill into my children any greater aversion to that sin than I have myself. If I have a casual attitude toward covetousness, then I cannot be surprised if my children exhibit the same trait. If through God’s grace we judge lying, covetousness, and other sins before God, then we have moral power to reprove our children’s waywardness, perhaps preventing our sins from being carried out in the next generation. May the Lord give us the grace to judge in our own souls that which He brings before us, in order that we may be able to carry out what we have here, “bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:44And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4) JND).
— Adapted