and worship Christ the Lord. Worship Him, Jesus Christ the
Lord. We are debtors to His grace,
the law's been satisfied, now worship Him. We are debtors to
His grace, the law's been satisfied, now worship Him. We are debtors to His grace,
the law's been satisfied, now worship Christ the Lord. Worship Him, Jesus Christ the
Lord. Tom, we're going to sing number...
I'd like to open with just a solo after the first message, just
a brief hymn, and then I'm going to sing off the top. Please,
please, please. I like this hymn. It's kind of
a personal hymn. Elizabeth Codner wrote this.
There's a story behind it. I won't relate that. If you want
to follow along the words, I enjoy the words to this hymn, number
168, Even Me. Lord, I hear of showers of blessing. Thou art scattering, full and
free. Showers the thirsty land refreshing. Let some drops now fall on me,
even me. Even me. Let thy blessing fall
on me. Pass me not, O tender Savior. Let me love and cling to thee. I am longing for thy favor. Whilst thou art calling, O call
me. Even me. Even me, let thy blessing fall
on me. Pass me not, O mighty spirit,
thou canst make the blind to see. Witnesser of Jesus' merit,
speak the word of power to me. Even me, Even me. Let thy blessing fall on me. Love of God so pure and changeless. Blood of Christ so rich and free. Grace of God so strong and boundless. Magnify them all in me. Even me. Even me, let thy blessing
fall on me. Pass me not, thy lost one bringing. Bind my heart, O Lord, to thee. While the streams of life are
springing, blessing others, oh, bless me. Even me, even me, let
thy blessing fall on me. Let's all stand together. We'll
sing the hymn that's on the back of the bulletin. Let every anxious child of God
remember God is King. Recline your weary soul on Him
who governs everything. Our Father's purpose ever stands,
and changed it cannot be. Jehovah reigns throughout the
world by absolute decree. He is the Lord of heaven and
earth, His will shall none frustrate, For who could challenge or defeat
The mighty potentate? Tis here his trouble children
find, True comfort, peace, and rest. In all things see the work
of God, For what he does is best. So let us lean upon the Lord
and trust his perfect will. All things shall work out for
our good, God's purpose to fulfill. Please be seated. For our scripture reading, let
us turn to Psalm 99. And I must say that for this
poor center here, these first three words is really encouraging. It is the Lord reigneth. Let the people tremble. He sitteth
between the cherubims. Let the earth be moved. The Lord
is great in Zion. He is high above all the people. And I like that, the Lord is
above all and in all. Let them praise thy great terrible
name, for it is holy. The King's strength also loveth
judgment. Thou dost establish equity. execute his judgment and righteousness
in Jacob, that we are the sons of Jacob. That's the old man. Exalt ye the Lord our God, and
worship at his footstool, for he is holy. Moses and Aaron among
his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name,
they called upon the Lord, and he answered them. He spake unto
them in the cloudy pillar. They kept his testimonies and
the ordinance that he gave them. Thou answered them, O Lord, our
God, thou wast a God that forgave us them. You know, those are
encouraging words. Thou wast a God that forgave
us them. How could God do that in the
Lord Jesus Christ? Though thou tookest vengeance
of their inventions, exalt the Lord our God and worship at his
holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy. And that's what we come
here to do. Let us pray. Lord, we come before
you now and we just asked that you would be pleased again to
reveal the Lord Jesus Christ, truly thou art a holy God, and
only in him can we come before you, that you would give us grace,
give our brother grace to speak, give us grace to hear. Father,
we depend upon you for everything, Lord, and we have nothing unless
you give it to us. Lord, we are a poor and needy
people, so we ask now that that we might see the glory, get a
glimpse of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and cause us to
rejoice in it before we ask it in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number 97, number 97 from the South Back Temple. Repeat the last line in each
verse. The gospel call goes out to all
as sinners hear the word. Sinner, fall down before Christ's
throne. Repent and trust the Lord. Repent and trust the Lord. Believe on Christ and you'll
be saved. The Word of God is true. If you believe on Jesus Christ,
His blood was shed for you. His blood was shed for you. But sinners dead cannot believe
you have no will or power to trust the Son of God unless made
willing by His power, made willing by His power. May God be pleased in sovereign
grace to send his spirit down. And by the gospel wake the dead
and take you for his own. And take you for his own. Please be seated. If you'd like to turn with me
and your Bibles to 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel chapter 12. Very familiar story, but arguably one of the most
shameful events in the 2,000 year history of Israel in the
Old Testament. Not just because of what was
done, but because of who did it. David, a man after God's own
heart, the sweet psalmist of Israel. David, the one the Lord
Jesus Christ is called the son of. the king of Israel. And as we're going to see, as
always is the case, the cover-up is worse than the crime. My hope this morning is that
you and I will be able to see ourselves and David, that we
will resist any thought of trying to take a higher moral ground
than King David and cast aspersions on him for what he's done, but
that we will see that the Lord has placed this story in his
word in order to show us that thou art the man. Thou art the man. that God would
send his prophet to speak the gospel to our hearts, and that
we would see that the things that David did are exactly the
things that we do. And that we would be brought
by the Spirit of God to respond to that truth, that judgment,
thou art the man, by saying with King David, I have sinned against
the Lord. And then we would hear the voice
of the prophet again, that we would hear better than that,
the voice of God, speaking peace to our hearts in saying what
Nathan said to David, and the Lord has put away your sin. The Lord has put away your sin. The deceit, the hypocrisy, the
treachery, besides the adultery and the
murder, the self-righteousness and the cover-up committed by
David are inexcusable. And so are my sins, and so are
yours. David, the scripture says, in
the 11th chapter of 2 Samuel, in the time of the year when
kings would go out to battle, David sent Joab and the army
of Israel to fight against their enemies, and David stayed home. He provided himself The ease
of Zion. He provided himself an opportunity. He gave way to the flesh. And he became irresponsible in
his duties as king. How often times that's true of
us. Take the easy way out. We're looking for the easy life,
the good life. And the scripture says that in
the evening, David went up on the roof of his house and he
looked down and he saw a woman bathing who was very beautiful
to look upon, the scripture says. David lusted after her. And he
sent one of his servants to get her, to find out who she was.
And the servant made it clear, this is the daughter of Eliam.
This is the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David disregarded that
and sent for her anyway, brought her into the king's palace and
led with her and sent her back home. She sent word to the king
that she was pregnant. So David, in an attempt to cover
up his sin, sends a messenger out to the battlefield and tells
Joab to send Uriah back to Jerusalem. What a picture of Christ Uriah
is in this story. Uriah stands in stark contrast
to David. Uriah is so virtuous and so sinless
in this story that he reminds us of Christ. And Bathsheba,
in a sense, is a type of the church. And so we could see this
as a gospel story in that in that our husband, the Lord Jesus
Christ, had to be put to death. Had David not tried to cover... I'm not justifying David's sin.
You understand that. We're trying to understand how
the Lord would portray for us the gospel in these stories.
And just like with Adam, you know, Adam is a type of Christ,
and Adam went into sin with his wife Eve, and had he not, Eve
would have been cut off by herself, and Adam, by sinning, became
her savior. And so, Uriah, by putting, if
Uriah had come home and found his wife pregnant, the law would
have required her to be put to death. And so, David putting
Uriah to death, in a sense, was his way of delivering his wife
from her death. And so it is with our Savior,
isn't it? But here, Uriah comes back according
to the command that the king gives, and David calls him in
and says, how's it going? No, just pretending that he's
just interested in knowing how the battle's going. And Uriah
tells him, and David says, go on down to your house and wash
your feet and lie with your wife. And Uriah refuses to go. He goes outside the king's palace
and he lays on the ground with the king's servants and sleeps
there all night. And the next morning, David says,
why didn't you go down to your house? And Uriah says, The Ark
of the Covenant and my master Joab and all the children of
Israel and of Judah are sleeping in tents out in the battlefield. And with God as my witness, I'm
not going to go home and comfort myself with the people of God
suffering like that. So David doesn't know what to
do. So David says, we'll stay a little longer. So the next
night David schemes a dinner and he invites Uriah to the dinner
and the scripture says he gets Uriah drunk. And he tries to
get Uriah to go home again to his wife. And Uriah refuses again. You see, the cover-up is worse
than the crime. It really is. David's heart becomes so hard
and so cold. And he's a believer. No question
about that. I mean, if anybody in the Old
Testament scriptures, you know, besides Abraham and Moses, you
can't deny that David is a child of God. No doubt about it. And David writes a letter to
Joab and folds it up and seals it with the king's seal and puts
it in the hand of Uriah. Uriah, the man who's been cheated
against, the man who has done everything right, puts his own
death sentence in his own pocket and tells him to take it to Joab.
And the letter says, take Uriah and his men and go into battle
where you know that you're going to be killed and retreat and
leave them. And that's exactly what Joab
did. And Joab now sends a message
back to King David with a report of the battle. And he tells the
messenger, he said, you go tell the king what happened. And he's going to get angry.
And he's even going to bring up Abimelech. who in Judges chapter
9 was killed by a woman because he got too close to the wall
and they threw a piece of a millstone off the wall and killed him and
David's even going to bring that up and David's going to say things
like, can't we learn from our mistakes? Do you see the deceit, the hypocrisy
in David's sin? How many times? Do you do and think and act the
same way over and over and over and over again? Our Lord said, you've heard it
said of old. that if you look upon, that if
you take your neighbor's wife, you're guilty of adultery, but
I say unto you that if you look upon a woman lustfully, you're
guilty before God. You've heard it said of old that
if you commit murder, you're guilty of judgment, but I say
unto you, if you have ought in your heart toward your brother
without a cause, how many times you've been in a bad mood, been
angry at somebody without a cause, you're guilty. You see, David's sins are the,
this thing of sin, I don't wanna portray David's sin as being
more wicked or more evil than your sin and my sin. The truth
is, if God makes you to be a sinner, you're gonna see yourself in
David. And not only that, but how many times have you turned
away from Christ because you weren't satisfied with him? And
you committed spiritual adultery, trying to find your happiness
and your contentment in something else other than the Lord Jesus
Christ. And let me ask you this, were you there at Calvary when
they nailed the Lord to the cross? Were you there? If God's made
you to be a sinner, you were there. You know you were there. David only killed Uriah. We killed the Son of God. Who's
guilty of a greater sin? You see, when Nathan finally
said to David, thou art the man, the only hope that you and I
are gonna be saved is if the God, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit
of God says to you effectually, this is you. This is you, thou art the man.
I'm the man. These are my sins. And when Nathan
finally did confront David, he told David in chapter 12, he
said, well, let's finish chapter 11. Nathan takes, Uriah takes
his death sentence back to the battlefield. Joab does exactly
what he told him to do. And now the messenger comes back
to Jerusalem and tells, and Joab told the messenger, he said,
when David gets angry, When David gets angry because we didn't
fight the battle the way we should have fought it, just tell him
Uriah's dead. Tell him Uriah's dead. And David's
wrath begins to build up as he's listening to the story and the
messenger says, and Uriah's dead. Uriah the Hittite's dead. You
know what David says in chapter 11? He said, oh, okay. He said,
go back and tell Joab. He said, you know, some good
people die, some bad people die. There's nothing you can do about
it. Stay faithful to the battle. That's the voice of David. He thinks, all right, it's all
covered up now. It's all covered up. Child's born. We don't know how old he was.
Before Nathan comes along, and confronts David in chapter 12.
And Nathan, the prophet, tells David
a story. He said, there were two men in
a city. One of them was very wealthy and had many flocks and
herds. And one man was very poor and
had one little ewe lamb that he had bought and raised with
his children. It was a pet. Nathan goes on
to say, he ate from his master's bread, and drank from his cup,
and slept in his bed with him, and it was unto him as a daughter. This was like a child to this
man. And the rich man has a guest come to town, and rather than
taking his own sheep, which he had plenty of, he takes the one
ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and slaughters it and
offers it to the to the wayfaring traveler. And
the scripture says in chapter 12 that David's wrath was kindled
within him. Oh, the hypocrisy, the self-righteousness. You see, here's the cover-up.
And your problem and my problem is not the sins that make us
feel the worst about, but it's the hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the
worst sin of all. And David says, now David's a
king. David says, a man should die.
And also he needs to pay that poor man back fourfold. And Nathan
says, Thou art the man. Thou art the man. God made you
king over Israel. He gave you your predecessor's
throne. He gave you all of his wives.
He gave you all of his wealth. And had this not been enough,
he would have given you more. That's what Nathan says to David.
God would have given you more. But you weren't satisfied with
what you had. You had to go after more. You have to go after something
that God forbids you from. And after David hears the story
from Nathan, David's got a broken heart and he says, oh, I have
sinned against the Lord. Look at verse 13 of chapter 12.
And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. I'm
the hypocrite. I'm the adulterer. I'm the murderer. I'm the deceitful one. I'm the
one that's not satisfied with what God's given me. I'm the
one who's constantly looking away from Christ. I'm the one who keeps doing the
same thing over and over and over again. No, I haven't learned
from the battle. Rocks have fallen on my head
as they did for Bimelech, and yet I still keep going to the
same thing. Or there's no excuse for my behavior. If God makes you to be a sinner,
you will know that you are your worst enemy. That's just it. and you will
know that you can't do anything but sin. I mentioned this Wednesday night,
that the hypocrisy of the religious people in this world that are
taking their high moral ground and casting judgments against
our governing authorities because of policies that they've made,
and they, you see the chief of all sinners is the chief of all
sinners. He doesn't have any high ground
on which to stand and cast judgments against anyone. He's at the bottom
of the barrel. And if God makes you to be a
sinner, you'll know that you're the chief of all sinners. You
won't be able to stand in judgment against David. You won't be able
to say, well, how could David do such a thing? You'll know
I'm doing the same thing. I'm doing the same thing. I can't
help myself. And I'm playing the hypocrite
and I'm covering up my sins and I've sinned against the Lord. David didn't say, and when he,
another, You know, our God is so glorious. He's able to bring
good out of evil. And He brings so many blessings
to God. We wouldn't have this story.
We wouldn't have Psalm 51. I've told you before, when I'm
lying on my deathbed, the last words I want to hear is Psalm
51. That's just where I'm at. My
sin is ever before me. God, against thee and thee only
have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou might
be justified when thou judgest. Lord, oh, have mercy upon me. Lord, I need you to forgive me. I need you to
show grace towards me. How can you look down your self-righteous
nose at anybody? At anybody? You can't. Not if God's made you to be a
sinner. You just can't do it. If God has said to you, thou
art the man, and you've heard the voice of God, and they shall
be all taught of God. I'm thankful that the Lord's
faithful in teaching his children. I'm thankful the Lord said, Father,
I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
the prudent and revealed them unto babes." Oh, there I am,
Lord. I'm just a baby. All I can do
is mess myself up. That's all I can do. That's all
a baby can do. Unless you have faith as a little child, you
should not enter the kingdom of heaven. Mess himself up and cry. That's
the two things babies are good at. Are you good at that? We're talking about before God.
Now, let me make a distinction. You may have a relationship with
another man that you've done everything in your world to reconcile
with, and you can't do anything else. Now, we're not talking
about your relationship with a man. You know, if another person's
not willing to be reconciled to you, then you've done everything
you can do. to reconcile with them, then
that's to their charge. You just leave that alone. But
that's never the case with God. Never the case with God. If you're
not reconciled to God, it's not his fault. It's all your fault. Every bit
of it. Ain't that true? I have sinned against the Lord. Lord, have mercy upon me. I'm
the sinner. I'm the sinner. Oh, what grace
God gives. Isn't this the wonder of being
around God's people versus being in a religious setting where
everybody's trying to outdo the other person and see who can
be more religious and they're acting just like David. God's people know who they are.
They know what they are. They know what they're in need
of. They're in need of grace. They're in need of mercy. They're
just mercy beggars. That's what we are. And if the Lord puts it in your
heart to know that you are the man, and if the Lord puts it
in your heart to say, I've sinned against the Lord, then you will
hear, if the Lord puts that in your heart, then you will hear
the voice of God say this, the Lord also has put away your sin. He's put it away. Not because you asked for it, not
because you did it. Nathan knew that the Lord had
put his sin away from David before David ever asked. He put it away
already. The Lord hath put your sin away
from you. He hath separated it from you
as far as the east is from the west. He hath buried it in the
depths of the sea. He hath covered it with the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. When did He do it? When did He
do it? He did it before Adam was ever
made. Before Adam was ever created.
The Lord Jesus Christ is described as the lamb that was slain before
the foundation of the world. It's called the eternal covenant
of grace. When God chose a particular people
and put them in that covenant, He reckoned what Christ would
do on Calvary's cross to their account way back then. Way back
then. That's why he's able to say,
I've loved you with an everlasting love. There's never been a time
that God didn't love his people. They've always been viewed in
Christ. And when the Lord shed his precious blood on Calvary's
cross, it was the seal to that covenant. It was the necessary payment
that had to be made in order to put away all the sins of all
God's people. Oh, Lord, David said another
place, Lord, if thou shalt mark iniquity, who can stand? If thou shalt mark iniquity,
who shall stand? That means that if God took notice
of one good thing that you've done in your life and reckoned
your righteousness based on that, you'd go to hell. If God should
mark iniquity, who can stand? It's a rhetorical question. Nobody
can stand. I've sinned against the Lord,
and what's Nathan say? The Lord's put him away. He's
put him away. He's satisfied with the sacrifice
that the Lord Jesus Christ made. Now, David, there's going to
be consequences for your sin in your life. You read the rest
of the story. And we have to suffer those in
this life, don't we? The sword was never removed from
his house. David's son took his wives from him. And David had
a horrible life after that in this world, in this world. And then he says his last words. His last words, although my house
be not so with God. And David's home wasn't. He messed
up his kids, his kids messed up their kids, just like you've
messed up yours and I've messed up mine and our kids are gonna
mess up theirs. Why? Because we're sinners, we're
sinners. Although my house be not so with
God and the tabernacle of his flesh, the house of his body
was filled with sin. Every imagination of the heart.
The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? That's what
God says. That's what we are. Yet Yet, He has made with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. Here's my hope, David says. God
established a covenant of grace that didn't have anything to
do with my sin. Didn't have anything to do with
what I do or what I don't do. It was all according to his good
pleasure and his will that he would establish this covenant
of grace and that he would order it in all things and make it
sure. The sure mercies of David is
the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary's cross. And David finishes his
life by saying, this is all my salvation. This is all my desire,
though he make it not to grow. I don't see any growth in my
life. If I'm growing anywhere, I'm
just becoming more of a sinner. More of a sinner. More in need
of a savior. The more I see the beauty, the
holiness, the glory, the immutability, the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the more I realize how far short I fall of that.
And the more I need him. When we say we're getting worse,
it just seems like we are, doesn't it? That's the way it seems when
we look at ourselves. If you're growing in grace, you
just feel like you're getting worse and worse. Has God said to you, thou art
the man? Or do you still think that it's
someone else's fault? Has He brought you to pray that
prayer and make that confession? You know, the religious love
to start out their sentences with I, don't they? I accepted
Jesus. I did this and I did that. There
is one time when it's appropriate for you to begin a sentence with
I. There's one time. I have sinned
against the Lord. Isn't that what David said? If
you're gonna start a sentence with I, that's a good one to
do, isn't it? And the Lord has put away your
sin. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that you would speak those words to our hearts. that you would cause us to find
all the hope of our salvation in that one who made the covenant
sure. Make him to be all our salvation
and all our desire. We thank you for this table.
We thank you for the bread and for the wine and how it reminds
us of the sinless life and the sacrificial death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we pray that you would bless
it to our hearts as we receive it in faith. Give us eyes to
see far beyond the physical elements. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Ask the men if they'll come,
please, and distribute the bread and wine. We're going to sing
number one from the Sop Act hymnal. You can remain seated. See the table spread before you. See the feast of bread and wine. These are symbols of our Savior. Tokens of his love divine Bread
that's broken is his body Crushed beneath the wrath of
God, Mine poured out is a reminder Of our Savior's precious blood. Children of our God, remember
how he bought your soul and mine. In remembrance of our Savior,
eat the bread and drink the wine. Jesus came, the God incarnate,
to fulfill God's holy law. On the cross he made atonement
and retrieved us from the fall. Let us ne'er forget the promise
Jesus made to come again. Soon He comes, our King, to call
us home to glory. Praise His name! With this hope and expectation,
We rejoice to keep this feast, Celebrating our redemption, Till
we lean on Jesus' breast. This table is for those who are
able to celebrate their redemption. It's what we just sang. It's
not for everybody. But if you're here and you're able to celebrate,
to rejoice, Paul put it like this, we are the true circumcision. We are the true circumcision
which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. What a rejoicing it is to know
that this bread symbolizes his sinless life laid down for his
sheep. Rest of that verse I just tried
to quote was, and have no confidence in the flesh. No confidence in
the flesh. This is the covering. It's the
only covering God's, it's the only thing that covers our sin
from God. And it does. We do this in remembrance
of him. And all God's people said, Amen,
amen. Today's Bert's birthday. I'm
going to ask him to close our service with a word of prayer.
Let's stand together. Lord, we do thank you for gathering
us here today. Once again, we're reminded that
you are that land that's slain for the foundation of the world.
And everything, Lord, We have done what we are doing. We're
about to understand, wash away, uncover, that we are free, truly free
indeed.