Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 28 from your spiral, gospel hymns hymnal,
hymn number 28. And let's all stand together. Luck has mercy on whom he will,
and whom he will be hard and still. To whom he will, he gives
his grace, and when he will, he hides his face. Let none despise God's sovereign
throne. He does what he will with his
own. It is his right to save or kill
according to his sovereign will. Yes, God saves some and others
leaves to reap the fruit of their own place. In the eternal ages
past, God made His choice and it stands past. Aware that I'm
a guilty man and that I'm in God's sovereign hand. prostrate I fall before His throne,
a wretched, helpless, guilty man. Lord, if you will, you can,
I say, take all my guilt and sin away. A guilty sinner at
your throne, I beg for mercy through your Son. Now trusting
Jesus Christ, God's Son, I know that I'm his chosen one. And God's eternal sovereign choice
makes this poor sinner's heart rejoice. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be in 2 Samuel
chapter 12 this morning, the first hour. If you'd like to
turn with me there, in your Bibles, we just sang to our God as being a sovereign
God. And God's people are thankful
for that. They're thankful that he's sovereign
in every part of their life. He's sovereign most especially
in their salvation. Only a God who is sovereign is
worthy to be worshiped. Any worship to a God that's less
than absolutely sovereign, in total control, all powerful,
always accomplishes His purpose and His will. Any worship done
to a God that's less than that is just pretend. That's all it
is. Let's let's ask the Lord's blessings
on our time together. Our Heavenly Father. We don't want to pretend this
morning. Lord, you've put it into our
hearts to worship you. And we know that if worship is
to be done, it must be done in the power of your Holy Spirit.
It must be done according to the truth revealed in your word. So, Lord, we pray that you would
send your spirit and power that you would open the eyes of our
understanding and reveal to us the glory of thy dear son and
enable us enable us to set our affections on him. Enable us,
Lord, by your spirit to worship Lord, we thank you for the accomplished
work of redemption. We thank you for having a Savior
who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the
first and the last, that from election to glorification, you
have performed all that's required for the salvation of your people.
Lord, we come in this hour to bow before thee, ask for your mercy, seek your
forgiveness, desire your glory. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. In 2 Samuel chapter 12, Nathan, has confronted King David about
his sin with Bathsheba. And David has agreed, David has
been brought by the Spirit of God to bow to the judgment that
God has made through his prophet Nathan. When Nathan said, thou
art the man, David said, I've sinned. I've sinned." And then
Nathan speaks to David with those great words of comfort when he
says, "...and God hath put away thy sin, and thou shalt not die." Nevertheless, there will be consequences
that will come as a result of your sin, David. And one of those consequences
will be the death of the child that Bathsheba will give birth
to. And so, in verse 14 of 2 Samuel
chapter 12, Nathan says to David, how be
it? Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to
the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, The child also that is born unto
thee shall surely die. David's going to spend the next
seven days in prayer, in fasting, pleading with the Lord to spare
the child. And the Lord doesn't. The Lord takes the child's life,
at which point David rises from the ground, the scripture says,
and washes his face and changes his clothes and goes into the
temple and worships God. And I want us to see from this
story what it is we're to do when God's will differs from
our will. We've all had that experience.
We've made plans, we prepared, we prayed for something that
we wanted and that we anticipated, and the Lord said no. What do we do? The Lord has told us in his word,
my ways are not your ways. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my ways above your ways. In the Proverbs, Solomon said,
man deviseth his ways, but God orders his steps. We make our
plans. But God orders our steps. And
then in the New Testament, when James is talking about that,
the Lord says through James, he says, do not say, we will
go to this city and to that city and buy and sell and make gain,
but rather say, if it be the Lord's will, if it be the Lord's
will. Faith vows, faith submits to
the will of God. We often find ourselves disappointed,
discouraged, and sometimes even confused when God's will differs
from our will. But we find in this man, David,
a sinner, no doubt. He has just committed adultery. committed murder, he's lied,
he's played the hypocrite, all the things that we've already
been looking at in the life of David over the last couple of
months. And yet, the Lord calls him a
man after God's own heart. And we see something of the heart
that God gave him in the way in which he responds to this
great... trial, this affliction that he's
going to suffer in the loss of Bathsheba's child. And I would say very clearly
to all of us, let us not forget, as we sang in the opening of
this service, that our God is sovereign. that what he does is always right. Our God is in the heavens, the
scripture says in Psalm 115 verse three, and he hath done whatsoever
he hath pleased. Ecclesiastes chapter three says
there is a time for every purpose under heaven and that he makes
everything beautiful in his time. He works all things after the
counsel of his will. Romans chapter 8 verse 28 says,
and you know, and you know that God works all things together
for good. For them that love him and those
that are the called according to his purpose. Our God is a God of purpose.
Everything he does is on purpose. He doesn't have, you know, people
talk about God having a plan. God never has a plan. We plan. God purposes. He purposes. And everything that happens in
time was ordained of God in eternity according to his sovereign purpose. God's people take great hope
in that. You know, the unbeliever might
end their in their thoughts of the power of positive thinking.
You know, we're just gonna, we'll think it to be and we'll make
it so. And wishful thinking is what it is. And we hear men who
don't believe say, well, you know, it's all good. It's all
good. Well, is it? Is it gonna be all good? For
those outside of Christ, it's not all good. The child of God's
the only one that can say with hope and with assurance, it's
all good. When God's will differs from
my will, it's because his will is better for me than my will. People say they believe that
God is sovereign. God is God. If he's not sovereign,
he's not God. But his sovereignty must be absolute. It cannot be limited. We don't limit the sovereignty
of God. He's absolutely sovereign. He's
the first cause of all things. Tricia was telling me she had
the TV on this morning. There was a religious woman on
there talking about, she said, my God's sovereign. But now he
didn't cause that. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
45. Isaiah chapter 45. I want you to see this verse. Most
of you know this verse. But I want you to see it in God's
word. Isaiah chapter 45 verse 5, I am the Lord and there is
none else. There is no God beside me. I
girded thee though thou has not known me. That they may know
from the rising of the sun and from the West that there is none
beside me. I am the Lord and there is none
else. And look at verse seven. I form
the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. Could that be any more clear? And men often will get angry
when God's will differs from their will. Jonah did. Jonah was angry that
God sent him to Nineveh. Nineveh was an enemy of Israel,
and Job wanted Nineveh to be destroyed. And then when they
repented, Jonah was angry at that. And then when God killed
the gourd that was shading him in the middle of the day, Jonah
got angry at that. Jonah, are you angry? What did
you do to create any of these things? Job justified himself
before God, did he not? He couldn't understand why these
things were happening and he thought he was undeserving of
these things and he accused God of wrongdoing. He accused God
of wrongdoing. God, you let me bring my case
before your tribunal and I'll prove to you that I'm innocent,
I don't deserve this. And yet both those men, both
those men, though their initial response was confusion and even
anger, the Lord revealed himself to them. What did Job say? What did Job say? Surely I spoke without knowledge. Oh, I repent in dust and ashes.
Job said, I had heard of thee by the hearing of mine ear, but
now mine eyes have seen thee. I was a man without knowledge.
I didn't know what I was talking about. God, you're right. Whatever
you do is right. Nebuchadnezzar said in Daniel
chapter four, he hath done whatsoever he hath willed. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion and his kingdom is from generation to generation. All
the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing for he
hath done with the armies of heaven and all the inhabitants
of the earth whatsoever he wills and no man can stay his hand. No man can resist him, no man
can stop him, no man can change him. I am the Lord and I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Oh, but it's not just that he's
sovereign, but that in his sovereignty, he says this to his children.
He says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts
of peace and not of evil. to give you your expected end. What is the end that I'm anticipating? What is the end that I'm expecting?
What is the end that God has given me faith to believe? Is
it not to be with him? Yes. And David said, before I was
afflicted, I had gone astray, but now, now I've kept thy word. I believed. Oh, the Lord knows
each one of his children. Perfectly. And he knows exactly
what they need and exactly when they need it and exactly in what
measure they need it. And oftentimes that providence
of our God who is full of mercy differs from what we would like,
differs from what we would desire. You know, We use the word good and bad
when it comes to our circumstances, but in fact, in fact, our circumstances
can either be hard or easy. And we like easy, don't we? I
like easy, I don't like hard, I like easy. But they're never
bad. So may the Lord give us faith
to Turn with me to that verse in
Jeremiah that I quoted a moment ago. Jeremiah chapter 29, I want
you to see this. God had taken his people from
the land flowing with milk and honey, from the land of peace,
the land of God's blessings, and he had, brought in a pagan
nation from the other side of the Jordan and taking them captive
into Babylon. And 70 years they stayed in captivity. And here we have a picture of
our experience in this world. We are living in Babylon. Three score and 10, the Bible
says, is the life of a man. That's 70 years. And that's exactly
how long they were in Babylon. And then the Lord returned them
back to the promised land. And there's our hope that the
Lord would bring us back across the Jordan into that land of
peace and prosperity. like we've never
known in this world. So look at Jeremiah chapter 29.
Jeremiah is writing during this Babylonian captivity. And in
verse 10, he says, for thus saith the Lord, that after 70 years
be accomplished at Babylon. Now that's what God's doing.
He is accomplishing his purpose. And faith bows to the faith to
say, Lord, I've got all these plans, I've got all these desires,
I've got all these wishes, but Lord, you see everything from
the beginning to the end. And we say with our Lord in the garden,
what did our Lord say in the garden? Not my will, but thy
will be done. After 70 years be accomplished
at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward
you in causing you to return to this place. I'm going to perform
my purpose in bringing you to your expected end. I'm going
to return you back into my presence. For I know the thoughts that
I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not
of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall you call upon me.
and you shall go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you
and you shall seek me and find me when you shall search for
me with all of your heart. Is that not what David's gonna
do now? Go back with me to our text. So Nathan has told David in 2
Samuel chapter 12 that the child's gonna die. In verse 15, and Nathan
departed unto his house, and the Lord struck the child that
Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick. And David
therefore besought God for the child. And David fasted and went
in and lay all night upon the earth. And the elders of his
house arose and went to him. to raise him up from the earth,
but he would not. Neither did he eat bread with
him. And it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died.
And the servants of the Lord feared to tell him that the child
was dead. For they said, behold, while
the child was yet alive, we spake unto him and he would not hearken
unto our voice. How will he then vex himself? That word becks his harm. They
were afraid that David was gonna harm himself. They knew that
David was eaten up with guilt and shame, that this was all
his fault. And that he's been fasting and
praying for seven days, pleading with the Lord not to do it. And
now the Lord has. And his servants who knew him
best thought, he's gonna kill himself. That's not what David did. Not what he did at all. If we tell him that the child
is dead at the end of verse 18, But when David saw that his servants
whispered, David perceived that the child was dead. Therefore
David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said,
He is dead. Then David arose from the earth and washed and
anointed himself and changed his apparel and came into the
house of the Lord and worshiped. And he came to his own house. And when he required. They set
bread before him. And he did eat. Then said his servants unto David,
what thing is this that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and
weep for the child while it was alive. But when the child was
dead, thou did rise and eat bread. And he said, while the child
was yet alive, I fasted and wept. For I said, who can tell whether
God will be gracious to me that the child may live? David wanted
that child to live as any parent would. David knew that his God
was a God of mercy. God had a different purpose.
He had a different purpose. Now that God's purpose has been
fully revealed, David bows to his God. He doesn't just resign
himself You know, well, what will be, will be. No, he bows
to his God, knowing that his purpose is perfect. But now that he is dead, wherefore
shall I fast? Can I bring him back again? I
shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. There's only one direction to
go. I'll follow Him, but I cannot
bring that child back. What do we do when God's will
is different from our wills? Well, we rejoice and believe
that our God's will is right, and it's sovereign, and that
it's good, and that it's according to His purpose. And we're not just hanging the
hopes of our souls on a doctrine called the sovereignty of God.
We're hanging the hopes of our immortal souls on a God who is
sovereign. And that's so much different. You know, watching, we've got
a mosque right on the other side of our parking lot, and I've
gotten to know some of the Muslims over there, and very friendly. And I've come to realize they
are absolutely convinced that Allah is sovereign. I think the Muslims believe in
the sovereignty of God more than most people who call themselves
Christians. I mean, they will blow themselves
up for the sovereignty of God. It's whatever will of Allah is,
it's God's sovereign. You see, our hope is not in a
doctrine of sovereignty. Our hope is in a God who is lovingly
and gracious and mercifully sovereign. He delights in showing mercy. And we bring our petitions before
him in prayer. Prayer is not an attempt
to get God's will to conform to ours. Prayer is the means by which
the Lord prepares our hearts to bow to whatever his will is. We pray. You say, well, David had a word from
God that the child was gonna die, yeah. And Hezekiah had a
word from God that he was gonna die. And Hezekiah, the scripture
says, turned his face to the wall and prayed. And then Isaiah
the prophet went back to Hezekiah and said, God has heard thy prayers.
And he has extended thy life by 15 years. Because Isaiah had
already told him, you're going to die. He was sick. Hezekiah
was sick. He was on his deathbed. And Hezekiah
died. Isaiah said, God sent me a word.
You're going to die. And Hezekiah. poured his Howard
out. The children of Israel, when
Moses was on Mount Sinai, and they built the golden calf, and
Moses came down, and God said, I'm gonna wipe them all out,
I'm gonna start over, Moses, with you. And Moses interceded
for the children of Israel. And the scripture says, and God
repented. And he didn't kill them. So what do you mean that God
repented? Our God is not only sovereign, he's immutable. I
am the Lord and I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. I'm the same yesterday, today
and forever. Our God's never changed his mind. He's never
learned anything. He's never had to ask anyone
a question about anything. He is a God of absolute purpose
fulfilling his purpose. And yet we see in these examples
an encouragement for us to pray and to seek his face. Maybe he
will. David said, I thought that perhaps
the Lord might be pleased to show mercy. What is prayer? I got a text
from a dear, a sister and friend in another state last night who's
going through a great affliction. And here's what she said after
describing some of the things that she's going through. She
said, would you all please help us in prayer as we wait on the
Lord? I like that. Would you all please
help us in prayer as we wait on the Lord? The best example of all of this
is the Lord Jesus himself, who came into this world to go to
the cross. He said, my hour has come. When
he was in the garden, he ate with the disciples at the last
supper just before he went to the garden of Gethsemane. And
what did he do in the Garden of Gethsemane? He poured out
his soul to his father, sweating great drops of blood, and said,
Father, if there be any way, if there be any way this cup
can pass from me, let it be. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. You see, whatever our circumstances, Prayer is always the right thing
to do. It's always the right thing to do. And in that prayer
time, God is preparing us for what he has purposed and we don't
know what he's purposed until it happens. David, we don't know
what's gonna happen in the future. You know, it's like we've heard
it said, we don't know what the future holds, but we know who
holds the future. And that's so true. It's so true. Every detail of it. And so we, I used to know somebody who used
to use the term prayer warrior. There's nothing militant about
praying. Those two words don't even go
together, prayer warrior. Prayer is a humble submission
of the heart before God. Lord, thy will be done. Lord,
would you be pleased to do this or that? And then give me the
heart to just believe you and trust you and worship you. What
did David do after the child died? He worshipped God. He worshipped. He bowed before the God who had
just killed his child. Yes, God took that child. Say, well, you can't tell people
that. They'll get mad at God. I'd rather you be mad at God
than not submit to him. Either he's absolutely sovereign,
which means that he's the first cause of everything, and if that
makes you mad, I'm sorry. But I'd rather you be mad at
him than to think that he's something less than absolutely sovereign
and that he can be that he can be changed and swayed by something
that we do. You see, our God is God, isn't
he? He's God, we rejoice in that. We rejoice in bowing to him. No. Prayer warrior is a horrible
term. This same person used to say,
you know, let's get together and storm the gates of heaven.
Storm the gates of heaven, that's just religious talk. What are
you gonna do? You're gonna overpower God and
convince him to do something that you want him to do? No, that's not what prayer is. Prayer is bowing. When you pray,
pray like this, our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be thy
name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. Lord, give me the grace to submit
to your will and to your purpose. Yes, offer up your desires before
the Lord. Don't cease doing that. The last thing I want you to
see in this story, and we've seen this time and time again
as we've considered the life of David and seen him as a type
of Christ. And I've already mentioned how
the Lord, knowing that he was going to the cross, he said,
I must do my father's business. I have come to accomplish the
purpose of my father. And many times they tried to
take him, and he just disappeared from their presence. Why? Because
he said, my hour's not yet come. But now his hour has come. He set his face, the scripture
says, like a flint towards Jerusalem. He was on a purpose to go to
the cross. And yet before that, he prays
with his father. Father, if there be any way.
There was no other way. No other way for sin to be put
away. If there was any other way for God's justice to be satisfied
and for our sin to be put away from the sight of God, God would
have had another way. There was no other way. A perfect
sacrifice had to be offered. The Lord Jesus is the only one
that could do it. He's the only one that could
satisfy the justice of God and received the full wrath of his
father to put away the sins of his people. And he knew that. Nevertheless, he prayed. Lord,
is there any way? Any way? He prayed that three times. And
he rebuked the disciples because they didn't They didn't pray
with him. Could you not pray with me for
one hour? He said to the disciples, they felt like they'd fall asleep.
They just had a big meal, it was late in the night. The Lord's
gone to pray and they're just falling asleep. The Lord knew
that whole night. They rested him, took him into
the... Well, we know the rest of the
story, all that they did. And the next morning, Took him
to Calvary. Here's a picture of our Lord
praying that death might not be the judgment. And yet it was. The judgment of God was death. And once the judgment was exercised,
what does the scripture say? Look at verse 20, then David
arose from the earth and washed himself and anointed himself
and changed his apparel and came into the house of the Lord. What
did the Lord Jesus do? He arose from the grave. He satisfied
justice. He fulfilled the law. The resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the proof that God was satisfied
with what he accomplished. He arose from the earth. He washed
himself. He changed his apparel. He was the same but he was different.
He was different. The disciples knew that it was
him because of the wounds that he showed them, but his glory
was different. He had changed his apparel. And then on the Mount of Olives,
he went back to his house. That's what David did. David
went back to his house and he worshiped God. And he took his
rightful place at the right hand of the majesty on high. And he
ever lives there interceding on behalf of his people as our
substitute. In verse 24, and David comforted Bathsheba.
Bathsheba. Bathsheba's going to end up in
the lineage of the Lord Jesus. She's going to give birth to
Solomon. She was an adulteress. She was much like Ruth, the Moabitess,
who's now in the lineage of the Lord Jesus. Bathsheba, he went in to comfort
her. And that's what the Lord does
to us. He takes his residence in the hearts of his people. Paul said, when it pleased God,
who had separated me from my mother's womb, saved me by his grace to reveal
Christ in me, in me. There's our comfort. Christ in
you is your hope of glory. And now David's gonna come into
Bathsheba, his wife, to comfort her. And he went into her and
lay with her, and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon,
and the Lord loved him. And he sent by the hand of Nathan
the prophet and called his name, Solomon's name, Jedidiah. Beloved of the Lord. Beloved
of the Lord. Hearing His love. Hearing His love. Here's the
definition of love. Not that we love God. That's
not the definition of love. We do love Him because He first
loved us. But our love is so fickled. It's
so shallow. It's so selfish. Herein is love, not
that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son to
be the propitiation of our sin. Greater love hath no man than
this. They lay down his life for his friends. The love of
God. Our God is the first cause of
everything in creation, in providence, and in salvation. The first cause. And the first cause of our salvation
is love. Scripture says, I have loved
you with an everlasting love. Oh, we don't just resign ourselves
to our circumstances as some sort of fatalist thinking, well,
you know, it's all gonna be good in the end. No, we pray and we
bow and we worship to a God who loves us. A God who does everything
to give us our expected end. And that God is worthy to be
worshiped. All right, let's take a break.