Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number six in your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book,
Who is a God like unto thee? Number six, let's all stand together. Who is a God like unto thee,
that pardoneth iniquity? Jehovah God, the great I Am,
? Forgives our sins through Christ the Lamb ? ? Who is the God icon
to Thee ? ? That pardoneth iniquity ? ? His anger He forgives ? His
grace and mercy shall endure. A God of truth must punish sin,
but in His love He sent a man. To satisfy the law's demands,
For sinners numerous as the sand. Who is God? I come to Thee, that pardoneth
iniquity. His anger He retains no more,
His grace and mercy shall endure. He'd hold his love and compassion
in the death of Christ his Son. A precious sin, atoning blood,
reveals the love and truth of God. Who is a God like unto thee? That pardoneth iniquity, his
anger he retains no more, His grace and mercy shall endure. He passes by the transgressions
of all His loved and chosen ones. ? In mercy God delights we see
? He cast our sins into the sea ? Who is God like unto thee ? ?
That pardoneth iniquity ? ? His anger he retains no more ? ?
His grace and mercy shall be evermore ? None can with our great God compare
He gives His Son sinners to spare His anger He retains no more
Christ died, and God requires no more. ? Who is not thy God to thee ?
? That pardoneth iniquity ? ? His anger he retains no more ? ?
His grace and mercy he shall endure ? Please be seated. Let's pray. Our merciful and just Heavenly
Father, we rejoice in being able to offer to you that worshipful
hymn, in thanksgiving that you satisfied your justice in our sin bearer, our surety,
our substitute, thy dear son and our savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, we ask that you would send
your spirit and power We confess, Lord, that we have set our affections
on the things of this earth far too much and far too often. Lord,
in this hour, would you, would you set our hearts on Christ
and cause us, Lord, to rest in him and to believe on him and
to rejoice in his accomplished work? We ask it in His dear name. Amen. Let's open our Bibles together
to 2 Samuel chapter 12. 2 Samuel chapter 12. I've titled this message, The Recovery
of a Hypocrite. The Recovery of a Hypocrite.
2 Samuel chapter 12, beginning
at verse one. And the Lord sent Nathan unto
David, and he came unto him and said unto him, there were two
men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich
man had exceeding many flocks and herds, but the poor man had
nothing save one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished
up. And he grew up together with
him and with his children and did eat his own meat and drank
his own cup and lay in his bosom and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveler unto
the rich man and he spared to take of his own flock and of
his own herd and to dress for the wayfaring man that was come
unto him. and took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man
that was coming to him. And David's anger was greatly
kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the
Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely
die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did
this thing and because he had no pity. And Nathan said unto
David, Thou art the man. And thus saith the Lord God of
Israel. I anointed the king over Israel
and I delivered the out of the hand of Saul. And I gave thee
thy master's house and my master's wives unto thy bosom. And I gave
thee the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been
too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and
such things. Wherefore hast thou despised
the commandments of the Lord to do this evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite
with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and
hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now
therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house, because
thou hast despised me and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite
to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, behold,
I will rise up evil against thee out of thine own house. And I
will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbor. And he shall lie with thy wives
in the sight of this son. For thou didst secretly But I
will do this thing before all Israel and before the Son. And
David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the
Lord also hath put away thy sin, and thou shalt not die. How be
it? Because by this deed that thou
hast great Thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the
Lord to blaspheme. The child also that is born unto
thee shall surely die. Sin always goes from bad to worse. It's always a downward spiral. When we looked the last couple
of Sundays at chapter 11, we saw that this great sin that
David had committed began with idleness. He should have been
at war with the other kings, but he sat at home and did nothing.
And his idleness led to lust and lust to adultery and adultery
to cover up and cover up to murder. And you would think that that's
as bad as it can get. But what we just read makes David's
sin worse. David has now reached the bottom
of the spiral. David has played the hypocrite. David has, you see, the other
stages of sin involve some degree of shame and sorrow, though it
be hidden. But this sin shoves those things
out of the way and puts itself on a pedestal and makes itself,
in spite of the fact that it's guilty, The judgment of righteousness. It puts himself, David has now
played the hypocrite. David has taken upon himself
the right to put down others and to exalt
himself. to present himself as the protector
of righteousness. He is now in the full sin of pride. Nathan, the
prophet of God, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, presents
David with this scenario that we just read. And David has the lack of shame
and conviction to think that the sin that this rich man was
committing against this poor man was worse than what he had
done. In Proverbs chapter 6, the Lord tells us that there's
seven abominations that he hates. And the very first one is a proud
look. A proud look. We hear a lot today about systemic
racism in our country. I don't know about that. But
I do know something that is systemic in my heart, and it's pride. It is the bottom rung, and if you will,
the cause of all sin. to exalt oneself and to... Have you ever met a humble person
that you didn't like? I mean, they don't even have
to be a believer. Something very attractive about humility, isn't
there? And there's something very offensive
about pride. May God's Holy Spirit cause us
to not look at that sin in others, but to see it in ourselves. I've
had people over the years say to me, I don't go to church because
there's too many hypocrites there. Won't hear a believer talk like
that. Why? Because they believe themselves
to be the greatest hypocrite of all. And if we try to cover our sin
with this sin of pride with an outward appearance of humility,
oh, then we become guilty of the of the greatest pride of
all, don't we? No, there's only one cure for
pride. There's only one cause for it.
The cause for it is because we've lost sight of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we've set our hearts and
our eyes on ourselves and on others. If we ever find ourselves in
his presence, humility won't be something that we'll have
to feign. It won't be something that we'll have to pretend. It'll
just be the result of standing in the presence of a God who
is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher
than the heavens. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse
8 says, the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. In other words, waiting on God
is so much better than trying to fix it ourselves. Pride goeth
before destruction. God resists the proud and he
gives grace To the humble, there's only one that we can
look to that will expose our pride for what it is and bring
about a true spirit of humility. Turn to me, if you will, to Matthew
chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. We quote from this passage often,
but occasionally we leave out certain words that are so critical
to understanding what the Lord is saying here. Verse 28, Matthew chapter 11,
come unto me, All ye that labor and are heavy
laden, now I will give you rest. Isn't it interesting that the
middle letter in the word pride and the middle letter in the
word sin is the same letter and that's really the essence of
our problem, isn't it? We have an eye problem. And we labor and are heavy laden
with this spirit of self-righteousness and hypocrisy and pride. The Lord said, come to me, I'll give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. There's no one Meek
like He is. There's no one lowly like He
is. And to stand in His holy presence and you shall find rest for your
souls. To see Him in His meekness and
in His humility is to see ourselves for what we are And to know that
where sin abounds, grace does much more about. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. Turn back just a few pages in
the Gospel of Matthew to chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. The downward spiral of David's
sin has reached its bottom. Yes, worse than his loss, worse
than his adultery, worse than his murder is his self-righteousness
and his pride. And so it is for you and me. As I said, the sins that we are
so concerned about and we fear committing, there's some fear
and some sorrow and some shame involved in those things, isn't
there? But when it comes to standing in judgment, of our brother and
setting ourselves up as David did here, then all of those things
associated with guilt are put away and we in fact set ourselves
up onto the throne of God. That's what we're doing. We're
making ourselves to be God. Look what our Lord said in Matthew
chapter seven. Judge not that you be not judged. That's what David was doing here.
And he's, the Lord's not talking about making righteous judgments.
We make righteous judgments all the time. Judge right from wrong,
judge good from evil. Make those righteous judgments.
He's talking about setting yourself up as one who is more righteous
and capable of judging another. Putting yourself above someone
else. For with what judgment you judge,
you shall be judged, and with what measure you meet, it shall
be measured unto you. Oh Lord, remind me, remind me
the standard that I use to judge others. Lord, don't let me put
a higher standard on others than what I want you to put on me. And why beholdest thou the mote
that is in my brother's eye, but considereth not the beam
that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother,
let me pull out the mote of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in
thine own eye? A mote is a splinter. A beam
is a beam. What a picture here of what we
do when we stand in judgment of others, set ourselves up on
the throne of God and pretend that we're more righteous than
they are. That only happens when we are
comparing ourselves to ourselves or comparing ourselves to others. We ever stand in the presence
of God, we will hear these words, Thou hypocrite, first cast out
the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly
to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Oh, I... You know, I was telling
somebody yesterday, talking to another pastor about problems
in the church. And I made this statement to
him. I said, if the gospel doesn't fix it, it can't be fixed. It can't be fixed. If preaching
Christ doesn't solve the problem, there's no other solution that's
really going to speak to the heart of the issue. Oh, we can
put Band-Aids on things. We can pretend things to be that.
But it's the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ that
sets everything in order. Everything. Sets our hearts in
order before God and before one another. And that's what the
Lord is telling us in Philippians chapter 3. This is not a rebuke,
brethren. This is a rebuke against me.
I truly believe myself to be the chief of sinners and I see
my hypocrisy. And I'm a whole lot more concerned
about the Pharisee in here than I am with the Pharisee anywhere
else. But I believe the Lord's saying
something to us here. I believe the Lord's exposing
what the real problem is. It's our pride. It's our self-righteousness.
It's our hypocrisy. It's our pharisaical spirit. And it's all because we've not
seen him. Turn with me to Philippians chapter
three. Philippians chapter three. Oh,
you know, My pride, I speak for myself,
my pride will attempt to put on an appearance of humility
for the purpose of impressing you. Boy, that's the worst kind of
pride of all, isn't it? Philippians chapter three. Well, I'm sorry, Philippians
chapter two. I couldn't find my text. I was
in the wrong chapter. Philippians chapter two, verse three. Let nothing be done
through strife and vain glory. Don't pass over that. All strife
between men come as a result of vain glory. I didn't get the
attention I think I deserve. I wasn't promoted. I wasn't appreciated. I was shamed and my glory, which
is God calls it vainglory because that's what it is, it's empty
glory. Let him who glories glory in the Lord. But my vainglory
will cause me to be angry at you and to create a spirit of
strife with you because you didn't give me what I think I deserved. Strife and vain glory always
go together. You show me strife, you scratch
the surface, you don't have to dig deep, you just scratch the
surface, you're going to find some vain glory. But in lowliness of mind, let
each esteem other better. than themselves. Oh, if we believe
ourselves to be the chief of sinners, we'll not be able to
do anything but esteem others. You know your sin better than
anybody else. I know my sin better than anybody
else. And the... Pride is so insidious. The tentacles of it go into every
dark recess of our hearts and our thoughts. It's systemic. It truly is systemic
in a sinner's heart. Pride, self-righteousness, hypocrisy. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. Now, how
do I do that? How do I do that? Without pretending
to be humble when I'm not. Let this mind be in you, which
is also in Christ Jesus. Who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God. but made himself
of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and
was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even,
even the shameful death of the cross. As is true with all of God's
attributes, all of his characteristics and all of his graces, they are
on most full display at Calvary. And so it is with humility. Look to what the Lord Jesus did
when he went to the cross for you. He's the omnipotent, all-powerful,
sovereign God. He said himself, I could call
12 legions of angels right now and they would come deliver me.
And not only would they, you read these Old Testament stories,
God sends one angel, wipes out a whole army with one angel.
A legion is 660 Roman soldiers, times 12, whatever that number
is, is what the Lord Jesus said, I could call the angels in heaven. Don't you know that they were
all standing with swords drawn, waiting? Just one word, one word. That's all he had to speak was
one word. And they would have come and
not only delivered him but wiped out this entire evil world. But he didn't. He humbled himself. And he became obedient. Obedient
to his father. Obedient unto death. Yea, even
the death of a cross. What a shameful death. Bearing the sins of his people,
the wrath of his father. Suffering separation from his
father. Drinking of that bitter cup.
What humility. You see, when we become, when
God makes us humble, we're just taking our rightful place. And it's just a step back. Here we have the full display
of humility where the God of glory left his rightful place
in heaven and was born made of a woman
under the law, lived a sinless life, set his
face like a flint toward Jerusalem and came into this world to die. He humbled himself. This is the only thing that will
bring true God-given grace of humility to
our hearts. Not for us to try to be humble, but to look to Christ, to look
to Christ and to see what he's done for you. Is there anything more humbling
than that? Wherefore, God also hath highly
exalted him and given him a name that is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things of heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. Wherefore, my beloved, as you
have always obeyed, not only in my presence only, but now
much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear
and trembling. For it is God that must work
in you for you to will and to do of his good pleasure. We can't
work out what God doesn't work in. What does he work in? I've sinned. I've sinned. Lord, I'm so proud. I'm so self-righteous. I'm so
judgmental. Lord, I've sinned. David's greatest sin was what
he said to Nathan. when he put himself up on a pedestal
and took God's place and in all of his guilt, pushed all that
away and pretended himself to be able to judge another. Not taking the beam out of his own eye. Work out your salvation. How
do we work out our salvation? Look to Christ. Look to Christ. He'll work in you. What does
He work in us? He works in us the mind of Christ.
Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. He works
in us the mind of Christ, the spirit of Christ, the humility
of Christ, and by His grace enables us to be meek and lowly. And all
the strife that comes from vainglory, all that just goes away, doesn't
it? It just goes away. How can I,
the chief of sinners, hold you to a standard higher than what
I want to be held to? And then Nathan said, and the
Lord hath put away thy sin. Now, turn with me in closing
to Psalm 51, because we're going to see such an amazing contrast
between what David said to Nathan, that man should die. That man
should die. Oh David, thou art the man. What a blessing it is when God
sends a preacher, a prophet, a word from God to say to us,
thou art the man. Thou art the man. What a blessing that is. Because
there's no recovery. Until we realize that I'm my
worst enemy. I'm the problem. It's not anybody
else. It's me. I'm the man. And then David. after he hears
these gracious words, for where sin abounds, grace does much
more bound, and God gives grace to the humble. David, in Psalm
51, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him after
he had gone into Bathsheba. You see that small print in your
Bible? Before verse one, that's part
of the text. The Lord is telling us exactly
when David wrote this. This is the spirit of Christ. Oh, have mercy upon me. Oh God,
according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude
of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly
from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge
my transgression and my sin is ever before me." That parable that Nathan gave David and David's hypocritical response
To that parable, I believe David's more convicted by that than he
is by what he had done with Uriah and Bathsheba. He's more convicted by the fact
that he's taking God's place against thee. and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. You see, you said,
well, his sin was against Uriah, his sin was against Bathsheba,
his sin was against this, that. Now he's talking about the same
thing the apostle Paul was talking about. When Paul said concerning
the law, I was blameless before men. But when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. And what was the commandment?
It was the 10th commandment. Thou shalt not covet. And Paul said, those things which
I thought were gain, those things, those outward performances that
I thought were better than other men, now the law of God has come
and has struck the evil of my heart and shown me my own hypocrisy. You see, that sin, though we
can sin against one another, that sin is against God because we've robbed Him of His
glory and we've set ourselves up as a judge. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.
Lord, you know. You know my heart, you know how
wicked, deceitful. Behold, I've been like this all
my life. I can't remember a day when pride
didn't rear its ugly head in my heart. I was shaping an iniquity. I was born that way. and in sin did my mother conceive
me. Before I was born I was a sinner. I inherited this nature from
my father Adam. Behold thou desirous truth in
the inward parts and in the hidden parts thou shalt make me to know
wisdom. Oh purge me with hyssop. Here's
the Here's the scourging of the Lord Jesus on Calvary's cross.
The priest in the Old Testament would take that hyssop and dip
it in blood and sprinkle it on the people. And if the sprinkling
of that blood, according to the book of Hebrews, made all things
clean, how much more the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, wash
away our sins, cleanse me with hyssop. Oh Lord, put away my
sin. and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. You can't rejoice in Christ.
We cannot rejoice in Christ. and believe ourselves to be more
righteous than someone else. Can't do it. Stand in judgment of other men,
set ourselves up on the throne of God. You can't rejoice in
Christ and be, David said, return unto me the joy of thy salvation,
the bones which thou hast broken. Self-righteousness and pride
brings about such unhappiness. It brings about such bondage.
You know, I think about the parable that the Lord told about that
king who had two servants and one owed him an astronomical
amount and the other, well, he had one servant. And the king
forgave his servant of that great debt. And then that servant went
to his servant, which owed him just a penance of what he had
been forgiven. And he refuses to forgive his
servant. And the king finds out about it, and what happens? The
king takes that servant whom he had forgiven. That first servant's
me, that's us. The king's God. The second servant
is our brother, our fellow man. Our refusal to forgive is only
an evidence of the lack of understanding that we have of our own forgiveness.
And what happened? He said, you take that first
servant, put him in prison. An unforgiving spirit puts the
heart in prison. It just doesn't it? You've experienced
it. I've experienced it. Hide thy face from my sins and
blot out mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart and
renew a right spirit within me. What is a clean heart and a right
spirit? It's a humble heart. And that can only come in looking
at what the Lord Jesus did, who humbled himself and became a
man and was obedient even unto death, the death of the cross. Cast me not away from thy presence. You see, as long as David was
feeling the shame and the guilt of what he had done in chapter
11 before Nathan came to him in chapter 12, David was crying out for, you
know, but he still had hope that he was asking for mercy, he was
asking for I'm just certain that David made
more sacrifices during that year. He was trying to work out his
salvation, but he was doing it with works. Now, this spirit of pride has
taken hold of him. Now when he sees what he's done,
oh Lord, you cast me away? Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation, and hold me right by thy right spirit.
Then I'll teach transgressors thy ways. I'll do it from a spirit
of grace and humility. Yes, the scripture says, you
see your brother, Galatians chapter six, let's close with that passage. You see what a difference there
is in David's words in Psalm 51 and what he said to Nathan
when Nathan first gave him that parable? Look at chapter six of Galatians,
verse one. Brethren, if a man be overtaken
in a fault, you which are spiritual, not gonna be spiritual with a
spirit of self-righteousness and pride and hypocrisy and pharisaical,
judgmental attitude. That's not gonna be spiritual.
Spiritual is realizing you haven't done anything I couldn't do.
God didn't restrain me. Nothing I'm not capable of. I'm
dependent upon the Lord to keep me and restrain me. Restore such a one in the spirit
of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. You see, as soon as we take a
position of judgment over our brother, then we're saying, I
wouldn't have done that. Sin is always a downward spiral,
isn't it? It always goes from bad to worse. And the worst sin of all is self-righteous,
pharisaical, judgmental hypocrisy. That's when we set ourselves
up on the throne of God, isn't it? Isn't it? All right, let's
take a break.