Service with hymn number 223
in your hardbacked hymnal, 223. Let's all stand together. Number
223. Arise, my soul, arise, shake
off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my
behalf appears. Before the throne my surety stands. My name is written on His hands. My name is written on His hands. He ever lives above for me to
intercede. His all-redeeming love, His precious
blood to clean, His blood atoned for all my sins And sprinkles
now the throne of grace And sprinkles now the throne of grace Five
bleeding wounds he bears Received on Calvary They pour effectual
prayers, they strongly plead for me. ? Forgive him, O forgive,
they cry ? ? Nor let that ransomed sinner die ? ? Nor let that ransomed
sinner die ? ? The Father hears him pray ? ?
His dear anointed one ? He cannot turn away the presence of His
Son. His Spirit answers to the blood
and tells me I am born of God, and tells me I am born of God. My God is reconciled His pardoning
voice I hear He owns me for His child I can no longer fear With
confidence I now proclaim Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be back in second
Samuel. chapter 11 this morning, 2 Samuel chapter 11. We looked at this passage of
scripture last Sunday and I want to go back and consider something that I hope will be
an encouragement to us. I hope that we'll be able to
leave here this morning saying what we just sang, that the Spirit
has confirmed to my heart that I'm a child of God. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
before we begin. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your Holy Spirit.
Oh Lord, how dependent we are that you would be pleased to
send him in power to open our eyes, to enable us to to look
at the revelation that you've given us of thy dear son, to
look on him, to rest in him, to believe on him. Lord, we thank
you for the truth that he is and that you've revealed about
him in your word. And Lord, we ask that as we open
our Bibles this morning that she would break the bread of
life and that she would minister grace and hope and comfort and
faith to our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We saw last Sunday the the devastation of what David
did in 2 Samuel chapter 11 concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. And I want
to introduce this message by reminding you and me that there
is no justification whatsoever for what David did. It was a
heinous sin. It was reprehensible on every
level. It was evil, even in the sight
of men, not to mention how wicked it would
have been in the sight of God. It was nothing more than unrestrained
lust, adultery, and even murder. He would suffer the consequences
of what he did in his family and in his kingdom the rest of
his life. What comfort and hope we have
that in spite of how awful this sin was that he was forgiven
and that his sin was put away and that he was not charged with
it. The Lord Jesus bore all the wickedness
and all the evil of that sin, and he had the comforting words
of God to say to him through the prophet Nathan, the Lord
hath put thy sin away. All of that being true about
what David did, we also know that the mystery of the gospel
is hid in God's word. That this book is about Christ
and it's about the relationship that he has with his bride, his
church. And we are reminded of that when
we look at Ephesians chapter 5. And where the Lord tells us
that husbands are to love their wives even as Christ loved the
church and gave himself for it. And that the wife is to honor
her husband even as the church follows after Christ. And then
he concludes that that passage in Ephesians chapter five by
saying, I'm speaking to you of a great mystery, a truth that
is hidden from the obvious, a truth that must be revealed concerning
Christ and his church, Christ and his church. So this morning, I want us to
go back to 2 Samuel chapter 11, and look at
Bathsheba as a type of the church. And consider David as he is often
portrayed in scripture as a type of Christ. In looking at this, I'm so very
hopeful that, again, that the Lord will confirm to our hearts
what we just sang, that the Spirit of God will affirm that we are
the children of God, or as we're going to see, the bride of Christ. This type begins in the garden. There is absolutely no way to
justify what Adam did in his disobedience. He knew what the
Lord had said, that he was not to eat of the fruit of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. And Eve, when she gave
it to him, we could say that Adam should have said no. No,
at which point Eve would have been exiled without the hope
of a redeemer. The scripture tells us that Eve
was deceived by the serpent when she ate of the fruit. You and
I are deceived by Satan when we sin. Adam, when he ate of the fruit,
ate of it with his eyes wide open. Adam was not deceived. Adam knew
exactly what he was doing. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the cross and God made him who knew no sin to be made sin,
when he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane and said, Father,
if there be any way this cup can pass from me, let it be.
Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done." The cup that
he knew that he was going to drink from at that cross was
going to be the cup of our sin and the wrath of God, and he
was going to be cut off. When the Lord Jesus set his face
like flint toward Jerusalem, he knew exactly what he was doing.
He knew exactly what was going to happen. He took our sin with
his eyes wide open, and in that Gospel truth, we see the picture
of Adam and Eve. Adam had to partake of the fruit. Adam had to be cut off in order
for his wife to have any hope of redemption. You see the picture? We see it with Solomon. Solomon. had 1,000 wives, 700 of them
were actually wives. They had all the benefits and
privileges of being married to the king. 300 of them were concubines. And we know what the number seven
represents, it's the perfection of God and it's the perfect number
of God's whole church and Solomon there. And the scripture says
that Solomon loved all his wives. Now we can't justify a man having
a thousand wives. That's not the way the Lord ordained
it from the beginning. And yet we see in that failure
of Solomon, and it was a failure because at the end of his life,
his wives led him into idolatry. But what I want you to see is
the types and pictures of Christ and his church because the 300
concubines are representative of the tares among the wheat. virgins who had no oil in their
lamp when the bridegroom came. There's always going to be those
in the body of Christ. We see it with Gomer and Hosea.
The Lord said to the prophet Gomer, take unto you a wife of
whoredom. Now, there's no way to justify
that. if we just look at the law. And
yet the Lord purposed to have Hosea marry this woman as a type
of what the Lord Jesus did when he took from this world of whoredom,
he took to himself an unfaithful woman. and bought her off the
slave block and made her his own. And you know, when you think
about it, everything in this life and everything in this world
and everything in time and in eternity is about a marriage. It's an arranged marriage. God
chose for his son, a bride, before time ever was. The Lord Jesus
came into this world and paid the dowry with his own blood
to redeem his bride unto himself. And when the last of God's elect,
the last one for whom the Lord Jesus died, is brought by the
Spirit of God into faith in Christ, this all over. That's it. That's the whole purpose for
everything is Christ and his church. So when we look at David, David did have six wives, but
three of them are predominant. We know of three of them more
than we know of the other three. Bathsheba, Abigail, and Michael. Bathsheba's name, Bathsheba here
now is, in all the horrible shame and guilt
that David bears because of what he did, there is a beautiful
picture of what the Lord Jesus did in redeeming us to himself. Bathsheba's name translated means
daughter of an oath. daughter of an oath. An oath
is a covenant. This oath that God the Father
made to give to his son a bride, this oath that the son made with
his father in the covenant of grace before time ever was, to
redeem that bride to himself by his own blood, and the oath
that the Spirit of God, the third person of the Holy Trinity, entered
into and said, I'll go and make them willing. I'll make them
willing in the day of my power." And in just simply the translation
of her name, we see a picture of the bride of Christ, the daughter
of an oath. Is there any way that anyone
that the Lord chose and redeemed and committed
himself to regenerate could possibly, is there any way God could fail?
The hope of our salvation is in the successful faithfulness
of our God. I'm trusting. If I'm to be saved,
the father had to elect me. I didn't choose him. I'm trusting. that if I'm going to be saved,
the Lord Jesus has to redeem me. I can't redeem myself. I
can't offer to God a ransom price for my sin. I'm trusting that
if I'm going to be saved, I'm going to have to have the Spirit
of God make me willing and open the eyes of my understanding
and give me faith to believe. I can't come up with that on
my own. So salvation is of the Lord. It's of the Lord. We are the
daughter of an oath. I've titled this message free. from our first husband, free
from our first husband. Bathsheba was married to a man
by the name of Uriah. Uriah, from what we hear, what
we read about him in God's Word, was a good man. He was a noble
man. He did nothing wrong. Everything
he did was upright and Honorable. Surely we can see Bathsheba's
marriage to her husband Uriah is a picture of the marriage
that we come into this world with. We don't come into this
world married to Christ. That marriage has to be consummated
in the new birth. We come into this marriage Under,
which is what marriage is in the Bible, the authority of the
husband, we come into this world under the authority of the law. A good man, a noble man, a man
who has done nothing wrong, but a man who cannot save. He cannot save. Any more than
Moses was able to lead the children of Israel into the promised land.
Moses had to die on the other side of the Jordan. Joshua, Moses
is a picture of the law. Joshua, a picture of Christ,
is the only one that could bring the children of Israel out of
that wilderness into the promised land. See, there's only two covenants.
There's the covenant of Sinai, and there's the covenant of Calvary,
and we either stand in the shadow of one mountain or the other. And we come into this world under
the authority of the law. Even to the carrying of his own
death sentence to the battlefield, Uriah is a picture of the law.
When the Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross and fought
for our salvation, fought our battle, he carried with him the
death sentence of the law. We're going to be now married
to another. We're going to be set free from
the rigors and the demands and the requirements of the law. You see, your first husband has
to die. Turn with me to Romans chapter
7. Romans chapter 7. I started to title this message,
Who's Your Husband? Because you can only have one
or the other. Your husband's either going to be Uriah or he's
going to be David. You're either going to be under
the authority of the law or you're going to be under the authority
of Christ. It's the only choices. Say, well, I'm not under the
authority of either. Oh, yes, you are. If you're not in Christ,
not found in him, you're under the law. End of the law. All the requirements of the law,
all the demands of God's holy law are standing over you and
requiring you to measure up. Measure up. See, the law can't
save. Only thing the law can do is
condemn. The only thing the law can do is judge us. As good and
honorable as Uriah was, He had to die. He had to die in order
for Bathsheba to become David's wife. And we're talking about
the type. We're not talking about what
actually happened. That was wrong on every level. We're talking
about the type, the picture of Christ and his church. Romans
chapter seven, we often quote the latter verses of this chapter,
but I want you to go back up with me to verse 15. I'm sorry. Verse seven. Verse seven. What shall we say
then? Is the law sin? Is the law sin? Did your eye do anything wrong?
No. The law is not sin. Nay, I had
not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust except
the law had said thou shalt not covet. Paul, in his testimony said concerning
the law, I was blameless before man. But when And he says, I was alive
once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived
and I died. In other words, when the spirit
of God took the law of God and made it known to the heart of
the apostle Paul of Saul of Tarsus, this was the law, the 10th commandment.
Thou shalt not covet. This was the commandment that
Paul realized I've never kept any one of God's commandments.
I've kept them outwardly. I've kept them in a way that
no man could charge me of being disobedient to the outward. My
outward behavior has been impeccable. But now the Spirit of God has
brought the law of God to my heart. And he's caused me to
realize that sin is what I am. Sin is this is the thoughts and the intents
of my heart. And the old man look at the outward
appearance and I've been looking at the outward appearance of
my own life and being proud of the fact that my outward appearance
is upright and outstanding. But God looks at the heart and
he sees that the heart is desperately wicked and that every thought
and imagination of the heart is only evil and that continually.
Now I realize the law has come now, you see. But sin, verse eight, taking
occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence,
for without the law, sin was dead. I wasn't a sinner before
the law came. And the commandment, which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taken
occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore, the law is holy, and
the commandment is holy, and just, and good. Was that which is good made death
unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it
might appear sin, worketh death in me by that which is good,
that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful, for
we know that the law is holy, but I'm carnal, sold under sin. Now, that begins with verse two
in chapter seven, so back up with me if you will. For the
woman, which hath a husband, is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he liveth. For if the husband be dead, she
is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, while her husband
liveth, she is married to another, she should be called an adulteress.
But if her husband be dead, she is freed from that law so that
she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Now, those that are under the law are going to interpret that
only one way. But let's read on, because the
Spirit of God is inspiring the Apostle Paul to make this gospel
application to that truth. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another, even to him that is raised from
the dead, and that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For
when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by
the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead, wherein
we were held, that we should serve in the newness of the spirit
and not in the oldness of the letter. First husband's gotta
die. We were under the law, the demands
and the rigors of the law, the perfect law, the law that was
holy, the law that was just, the law that was good, the law
that is unable to save, the law that took notice of everything
in our lives that was not measuring up, which was everything. But now, We've been freed from
that husband. Bathsheba has been delivered
from Uriah that she might be married through death. You see
why I'm saying Uriah had to die? In order for this type to be
fulfilled, Uriah had to die. And in order for you and I to
be saved, we can no longer, we can no longer
be under the authority of the law in our attempts to save ourselves. In our story, And I'm, well, let's just read it. Chapter
11 of 2 Samuel. In verse two, and it came to
pass in eventide, that David arose from off his roof, off
his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house. And
from the roof, he saw a woman washing himself. And the woman
was very beautiful. Just as Pilate tried in vain
to wash his hands of his guilt in sentencing the Lord to crucifixion,
so those who are married to the law spend their whole lives trying
to make up for their sins with the works of the law. You see, in Bathsheba, what David
saw Bathsheba doing is what the Lord sees us doing. We're trying
to wash ourselves. We're trying to clean ourselves.
But we can't, a leper can't change his spots and an Ethiopian can't
change the skins. We can't remove the filth of
sin from our hearts by law keeping. We have to be delivered from
the law. We have to be dead to the law
as Paul says in Romans chapter seven. That we might be made
alive under Christ. So that now our service is not
by the rigors of the law. the letter of the law, but by
the spirit of grace. What a more powerful, powerful
motivation. And freedom, where the spirit
of God is, there's liberty. Christ has made you free, you're
free indeed. Free from what? free from the
condemnation of the law, free from the rigors of the law, free
to serve God from the heart, free to love him, free to worship
him. Without the threat of that husband,
he's dead. We're not adulterers. We're married
to one. We have a new husband. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he has saved us
with the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy
Ghost. Here's how we're saved. Not by
works of righteousness, which we have done. Oh, wash yourself, wash yourself,
wash yourself. Oh, and can't get clean. But if he washes us, oh, these are they. John saw
the church, the bride of Christ in heaven, and they were all
robed in white robes of righteousness. And the Lord said, these are
they which have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.
The blood of the Lamb, they've been made clean. The law can't clean us. The law
can't save us. Uriah had to die for Bathsheba
to be married to David. And Uriah could not
be, you remember David tried to get Uriah to go home to be
with Bathsheba so that he could cover up his own sin and blame
it on Uriah. Uriah could not be the father
of a child. Any more than the law can bring
about life. No keeping of the law will bring
about spiritual life. We're dead in our trespasses
and sins and the law can't bring life. And I love what it says about
David seeing that she was very beautiful. And it reminds me
of how the Lord sees his bride. You read the Song of Solomon
and, oh, he sees her with such beauty. He's talking about his bride.
He's talking about his church, about his wife. And she's comely
because of his comeliness. He said, I put my comeliness
upon thee. I made you beautiful in my sight
so that we are perfectly, the law couldn't do it, but he did
it. He did it. Oh, we see ourselves,
we look at ourselves, all we see is our, the ugliness of our
own sin. But God says, when I look at
you and I see you in my son, I'm seeing exactly the same thing
I'm looking at when I look at my own darling son. When I look
at my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. I'm as well pleased
with you and you are as beautiful in the sight of God as is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Father thou has loved them even
as thou has loved me. That can only be, that can only
be believed. It can't be seen, it can't be
understood. If we think that, we think, well,
of course God would love me. Oh, we look at ourselves and
think that we've got something in ourselves that would cause
God to love us. We believe it. Bathsheba is the mother of Solomon,
the successor to the throne of David. She's in the lineage of
the Lord Jesus himself. You see the types? You see the
picture? Oh, it's such a beautiful, a
beautiful picture. And it's an encouragement to
those who are looking in faith to the Lord Jesus for all their
salvation. We're born in this world with
a husband. His name is called Uriah. He must take his own death sentence
to the battlefield. He must die in order for us to
be married to another. Abigail, you remember the story
of Abigail. David is, he's hiding out from
Saul is what he's doing. And he's got 300 men, 600 men.
Think about Solomon's wives, 600 men. And they're in need of supplies. And there's a man by the name
of Nabal, a very wealthy man who had plenty to provide for
David, just to give him a small portion of what he owned to supply
what David needed. And so David sent his servants
to Nabal to ask for some assistance. And Nabal responded. He said, who is David? I don't owe him anything. I'm not giving him anything.
And Nabal's servants went to Nabal and said, David was like
a wall unto us. David protected us and he protected
our flocks while we were out in the field so that none of
the enemy dared come near to us. You should show your appreciation
to all that David has done. Nabal said, I'm not gonna do
it, I'm not gonna give one bit of what I own to him. And word got back to David, David
got his men together and was determined to go and wipe Nabal
out. Nabal had a wife, her name was
Abigail. She was of good understanding,
the scripture says, and of a beautiful countenance. But she was married
to a man that was just the opposite of Uriah. She calls him, when
she goes to David, she finds out that David's coming to wipe
out her whole family. And she takes what Nabal should
have given her, given David and runs to David and meets him out
in the field and gives him and pleads with him for to be merciful
and she says of her husband, she said, my husband Nabal, he's
a churlish man. And even as his name is, and
his name means fool. His name means fool. And he's
unreasonable, that's what churlish means. You can't talk to him. You can't reason with this man.
He's gonna have his way anyway. He's just that kind of person. And David was moved by her intercession
and David determined not to, not to kill Nabal. Well, Nabal
put on a big feast that night. Nabal got drunk, woke up with
a hangover and Abigail told him everything that had happened
with David and what David was going to do. And Nabal had a
stroke. That very morning he had a stroke.
His heart died within him, but he didn't die for a week later.
So Nabal dies, the fool Nabal, the churlish man, the unreasonable
man, the man that, and Abigail, the woman of good understanding
and a beautiful countenance becomes David's wife. Just as Bathsheba was married
to the law, and her husband had to die in order for Bathsheba
to become David's wife. So we are married to sin, which
is what a picture of Nabal is. The foolishness of our unbelief
and our rebellion, our churlish attitude, our unwillingness to
be reasoned with. God says, come reason with me. And we said, no. And the fool
has said in his heart, no God. And by nature, we will stand
up against God. Just like Abigail, we were married
to a fool. And just as we read already in
Romans chapter seven, that fool had to die. He had to die in
order for David to take us as his wife. The third wife that we read about
of David is Michael. Michael was Saul's daughter. David was of beautiful countenance,
the scripture says. He was very handsome. He was
very popular. The whole nation of Israel was
singing his praises. Saul is slaying his thousands.
David is tens of thousands. David was a warrior. David was
the most popular man in the whole nation of Israel. And the scripture
says that Michael loved him. She was a young woman. She was
infatuated with him as any young woman would have been. I mean,
he was the most promising bachelor in all of Israel. And Saul knew
his daughter. And Saul said, I will give David
Michael and she will be a snare unto him. A snare unto him. Saul told David the dowry will
be a thousand four skins of the Philistines thinking, well, David
will never survive that battle. David came back, I mean 100,
four skins of the Philistines, David came back with 200. And
Michael became David's wife. Wasn't long after, David is on
the run, Saul takes David's wife back and gives her to another
man. Gives her to another man, Peliel or something like that. David later establishes his kingdom,
unites the Northern Southern kingdom, becomes the one King
of Israel. And David says, I want Michael
back. And David sends his servants
and he forces Michael to return to him. And the man that she's
married to follows her all the way weeping. She doesn't want
to leave him. He doesn't want to leave her.
David is forcing her to come back and be his wife. And the scripture says that Michael
despised David in her heart and she never bore him any children. And in the record of the Bible,
record of God's word, That husband that she had, his death is never
recorded. In her heart, she was still married
to him. She despised David and never
was able to bear life for David. Those are the three wives. What's
the difference between Bathsheba, Abigail and Michael? With Bathsheba
and Abigail, their first husbands had to die. Abigail never, never lost her first husband
in death. Her husband that Saul had given
her to. Who's your husband? You see, if we're married to
the law, married to our sin, under the authority of all those
things, what do we read in Romans 7? We're adulterers. We think we're
married to another. The first husband died, freed
from it, free. Serve him in the newness of the
spirit. Paul said, when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. I realized that my only hope,
my only hope is to be married to David. I can't hold on like Michael
did. to that old husband. You gotta
let him go. All right. All right, let's take a break.