Let's look at 2 Samuel chapter
13 tonight and I'll have to read this. This is kind of a long
chapter. It's one of those chapters that just, there's just no way
to look at it except all together. So let me read it. And then we'll make a few comments.
2 Samuel chapter 13. It came to pass after this that
Absalom the son of David had a fair sister whose name was
Tamar. And Amnon, the son of David,
loved her. And Amnon was so vexed that he fell sick for his sister
Tamar. For she was a virgin, and Amnon
thought it hard for him to do anything to her. But Amnon had
a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother.
And Jonadab was a very subtle man. And he said unto him, why
art thou being the king's son, lean from day to day? Wilt thou
not tell me? And Amnon said unto him, I love
Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. And Jonadab said unto him, Lay
thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick. And when thy father
cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister
Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight,
that I may see it, and eat it at her hand. So Amnon lay down,
and made himself sick. And when the king was come to
see him, Amnon said unto the king, I pray that you let Tamar,
my sister, come and make me a couple of cakes in my sight that I may
eat at her hand. Then David sent home to Tamar
saying, go now to thy brother Amnon's house and dress him meat.
So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house and he was laid
down and she took flour and kneaded it and made cakes in his sight
and did bake the cakes. And she took a pan and poured
them out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, have
out all the men from me. And they went out, every man
from him. And Amnon said unto Tamar, bring
the meat into the chamber that I may eat of thine hand. And
Tamar took the cakes which she had made and brought them into
the chamber to Amnon her brother. And when she had brought them
unto him to eat, he took hold of her and said unto her, come
lie with me, my sister. And she answered him, Nay, my
brother, do not force me, for no such thing ought to be done
in Israel. Do not thou this folly, and I with her shall I cause
my shame to go. And as for thee, thou shalt be
as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore I pray thee, speak
unto the king, for he will not withhold me from thee. Albeit
he would not hearken unto her voice, but being stronger than
she, forced her and lay with her. Then Amnon hated her exceedingly,
so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than
the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her,
Arise, be gone. And she said unto him, There
is no cause. This evil in sending me away is greater than the other
that thou didst unto me. But he would not hearken unto
her. Then he called his servant that ministered unto him, and
said, Put now this woman out from me, and bolt the door after
her. And she had a garment of diverse colors upon her, for
with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins appareled.
Then his servant brought her out and bolted the door after
her. And Tamar put ashes on her head and ran her garment of diverse
colors that was on her and laid her hand on her head and went
on crying. And Absalom her brother said
unto her, hath Amnon thy brother been with thee? But hold now
thy peace, my sister. He is thy brother. Regard not
this thing. So Tamar remained desolate in
her brother Absalom's house. But when King David heard of
all these things, he was very wroth. And Absalom spake unto
his brother Amnon, neither good nor bad. For Absalom hated Amnon
because he had forced his sister Tamar. And it came to pass after
two full years that Absalom had sheep shears in Baal Hazor, which
is beside Ephraim, and Absalom invited all the king's sons.
And Absalom came to the king and said, behold, now that servant
hath sheep shears. Let the king abeseech thee and
his servants go with that servant. And the king said to Absalom,
nay, my son, let us not all now go, lest we be chargeable unto
thee. And he pressed him, albeit he
would not go, but blessed him. Then said Absalom, if not, I
pray thee, let my brother Amnon go with us. And the king said
unto him, why should he go with thee? But Absalom pressed him,
and he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him. Now
Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, mark ye now when Amnon's
heart is married with wine. And when I say unto you, smite
Amnon, then kill him, fear not. Have not I commanded you? Be
courageous and be valiant. And the servants of Absalom did
unto Amnon as Absalom had commanded. And then all the king's sons
arose, and every man got him up upon his mule and fled. And
it came to pass, while they were in the way, that tidings came
to David, saying, Absalom hath slain all the king's sons, and
there is not one of them left. Then the king arose, and tear
his garments, and lay on the earth. And all his servants stood by
with their clothes rent. And Jonadab, the son of Shimeah,
David's brother answered and said, let not my lord suppose
that they have slain all the young men of the king's sons,
for Amnon only is dead, for by the appointment of Absalom hath
this been determined from the day that he forced his sister
Tamar. Now therefore let not my lord the king take the thing
to his heart to think that all the king's sons are dead for
Amnon only is dead. But Absalom fled and the young
man that kept the watch lifted up his eyes and looked and behold
there came much people by the way of the hillside behind him.
And Jonadab said unto the king, Behold, the king's sons come,
as thy servant said, so it is. And it came to pass, as soon
as he had made an end of speaking, that, behold, the king's sons
came and lifted up their voice and wept. And the king also and
all his servants wept very sore. But Absalom fled and went to
Talmai, the son of Amahud, the king of Geshur. And David mourned
for his son every day. So Absalom fled and went to Geshur,
and was there three years. And the soul of King David longed
to go forth unto Absalom, for he was comforted concerning Amnon,
seeing he was dead." So we remember what God said to David when God,
by his prophet Nathan, confronted David with his sin, with Bathsheba. Listen to it again now in chapter
12, or flip back over there if you want to, chapter 12, verse
9, because this is key. Wherefore, God, speaking through
his prophet to David, said, wherefore hast thou despised the commandment
of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah
the Hittite with the sword, and has taken his wife to be thy
wife, and has 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. Sin is against God. And the problem
with sin and people talk about Adam ate the apple and Satan
tempted him and tricked him and all this. Our problem is we hate
God. That's what he said. You despised
me. Every time we do something there's
some of that in it. That's our problem. By nature
we hate God. You've despised me and has taken the wife of
Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, behold,
I will raise 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 it secretly. But I will do this thing before
all Israel and before the son." And David was told by God a little
later in that passage there that the child that Bathsheba was
going to bear unto him would die. And in the narrative of
our chapter 13 tonight, that's already happened. And as we saw,
David was very tore up over that. And now the disaster described
in chapter 13 comes on the heels of that. Hard to imagine what
David's going through here and the anguish of his heart. And
it's all because of one decision that he made, one decision. And I say that not to say that
our decisions are so important in this life. I say that simply
to say that our decisions in this life are the problem. They are the problem. And this
is most important. The answer to our problem is
not to make better decisions. I want to make good decisions,
but that's not the answer to my problem. The answer to our
problem is the grace of God in Christ. Now I know people whose lives
are a disaster, such as we just read in this chapter, some just
about that bad, with the same types of evil having arisen in
their lives and often it can be traced back to one bad choice. Somebody taking a drug one time.
I have a nephew who's an absolute wreck. And I still remember him
as the sweetest little boy that you'd ever meet. Just as sweet
as he could be. Committing fornication one time.
Again, I have examples in my mind, and you may too. And the
rest of your life, It's a disaster. There's no need wondering why.
No need wondering why. Rebelling against parents. I
think of another one of my loved ones that was the model child except in one thing and
utterly rebelled against their parents in that one matter and
it's completely ruined their whole life. So this is something probably
just about everybody in here can relate to. As I read how
that one disaster leads to another in David's life, I cannot help
but think about these things I've seen in my life and how
it all started. It's just impossible not to think
about it. And here's my point. If your life is a disaster, You've got to honor, worship,
bow to, and hear from God. That's it. Programs and all that,
whatever. May be good, may not be good.
In the case of my nephew, my daughter put him in some kind
of a Christian program and tried to, you know, get him saved so
that that would get him off the drugs and he's worse now than
he was. And he's been through those I don't know how many times
now. He's more confused than ever
and more... He's dead. He's just dead. He's worse than dead. If your life is not a disaster,
you need to honor, worship, bow to, and hear from God. It's that
simple. And that's all you need. It's
that, oh, it's just this complicated, I don't know what to do. I know
what to do. You're gonna have to bow to God right now, and
you're gonna have to stay there. You're going to have to hear
everything He says and say, truth Lord, yes Lord, thank you Lord,
and serve Him and honor Him and bow to Him and love Him and believe
on Him. And you're not going to do that.
What I'm telling you to do, you're not going to do it. It's impossible.
But maybe, by these means, God might just put you on your knees
anyway. That's the answer. Not making
better decisions, that's not going to help you. You can be
a hell-bound drug addict or a hell-bound teetotaler. Not, you know, not
gonna help you either way. It's the grace of God, the love
of God, and that's in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and nowhere
else. Your willpower, is not enough. It's not going to do it. It's not going to prevent this. Follow Christ. Hear from Christ. Hear of Christ. Rely on Christ. Trust Christ. Your willpower
is not going to be enough. It's not going to prevent this
or something like it. Not going to prevent it. It's
not going to happen that way. Your resolution is not going
to prevent this. Your good decision-making ability
is not going to prevent this. God's grace is the only thing
that will keep you and hold you up. Christ can keep you from falling. You can't. Our helplessness in our sin is
seen in Amnon in verse 2. He was vexed with this thing. That means to bind. It was as
though he was tied up. It was done. It was already done
in His mind. And we are by nature slaves to
our evil. To our evil nature. Slaves to
our sinfulness. That's what Paul is referring
to in Romans 7.14. He said, we know that the law is spiritual,
but I'm carnal, sold under sin. He's talking about being a slave. For that which I do, I allow
not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that
I do. And he's a believer saying this
now. Our willpower is not going to get it. Our resolve is not going to get
it. Paul's talking about his old
nature, but even as a believer, he knows better than to think
that by his own willpower or spirituality, he's going to win
this battle. It's not going to happen that
way. The spirit indeed may be willing,
it is willing as a believer, but the flesh is weak. And so we need his grace and
we need it every moment. And then there's a confederacy
in sin, usually. There's also Jonadab, verses
three through five. And you remember that he's the
one that said, what's wrong with you? You're the king's son. Why
aren't you happy? You can have anything you want.
What's the problem? You're the king's son. You shouldn't
be walking around with your head down like that. And I could give you a couple
of names of people like this in my life. Always looking for
something to get into. Sneaky and underhanded and wretched I guarantee you. And his influence
does not excuse Amnon at all, whatsoever. But we are to watch
for this. We are to watch for it. In fact,
we begin to see a picture emerge in all of this, don't we? Amnon's
sin is a direct result of his father's sin. David sinned and
God said, here's what's going to happen now. And it did. That's us in the garden. Our
sin is a direct result of our father's sin. Not that Amnon wouldn't have
been a sinner otherwise if David hadn't sinned because he's a
son of Adam. And not that Amnon isn't responsible
for his own sin. Absolutely he is. He's not responsible
for David's sin. He's responsible for his own,
but here's what we see here, how it was in the garden. Our
sin is a direct result of our father Adam's sin. Romans 5.18,
therefore, as by the offense of one Adam, judgment came upon
all men to condemnation. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life. For as by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. That's everybody. If you're a
son of Adam, you're a sinner. So by the obedience of one, shall
many be made righteous. That's everybody that he lived
for and died for. He said, I don't do this for
the world. I do this for those you gave me. It's all of God's
elect, his people. Now, we are sinners in our father
Adam as our representative, but we are sinful in our own nature
as a result of that. And we are not under condemnation
for Adam's sin, but for our own. We cannot blame Adam for our
sin any more than Amnon can blame David for his sin. He did what
he wanted to do and it was horrible. It's hard to even read it. So
also, as in Adam's case, here in Amnon's story though, there
is a tempter. Remember that Satan spoke as
if Adam and Eve were being deprived of something. Did God say you
can't eat of that tree? That's the best one out here.
I paraphrased that a little bit, but that's pretty much the attitude
he was conveying, wasn't it? Boy, that's the tree of the knowledge
of good. Did he really say you can't, did he say? And that's what we see in verse
4 of our text. You're the king's son. Why would you ever be unhappy
about anything? If you want something, take it.
And here's how you do it. Let me make a little serving
suggestion for you here. It's the same pride now that
David had in coveting and taking that which did not belong to
him. I'm the king. If I want something, I'm going
to take it. You're the king's son. Take what you want. And he did. The same word is
used for Jonadab as was used for Satan. He's subtle. Shrewd
and crafty. It means wise, but clearly not
in the wisdom of God. Wise to do evil. That's all of
us now by nature. It's important to know who we're
dealing with. as well as how susceptible we are. And it just
takes us right back to what we said a while ago. We need God. We need his son. We need him
now and we need him from now on. We got to have him. There's a verse about the devil
that you might be thinking of, you know, and I did, but I want
to read the whole context of it. Turn with me, if you would,
to 1 Peter chapter 5. There's no question Satan has
a hand in this whole thing. It's pretty clear isn't it? God uses Satan. He did in Job's life. He does
here in David's life. He does every time he wants to.
Exactly the way he wants to. But look at 1 Peter 5, 5. Likewise
you younger. And this is important now for
young people especially. It's not that Simon here doesn't
want older folks. He addressed the older folks
in the early part of this. And all of it applies to everybody,
but especially now you younger people. You young folks, you
teenagers, you children. Submit yourselves unto the elder.
Listen to the authority that God has given you. In the Lord,
yea, all of you be subject to one another, and be clothed with
humility. For God resisteth the proud, and God is the one you
need here. Not you, not your support circle. You need God. So don't do things
that God hates. Submit to him and be humble before
him give he resisted the proud and he giveth grace to the humble
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he
may exalt you in due time Casting all your care upon him for he
careth for you Be sober be vigilant because
your adversary the devil is as a roaring lion walketh about
seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith,
knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren
that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who
hath called us unto his eternal glory, By Christ Jesus, after
that you have suffered a while, make you perfect. Establish you. Strengthen. Settle you. That's what we need. We need
to settle in to the grace of God and He's the one that makes
that happen. So Jonadab comes up with this
scheme and Amnon carries it out and the next thing I want us
to see tonight is in verses 14 and 15. When Amnon had done what he was
just, he just had to do so bad he was sick with it. He was vexed, he was bound. It
was like he was tied up. He couldn't do anything else.
Listen to the lesson now. The thing that you desire and
again talking about particularly young people now. Simon said
you young ones listen. Submit yourself to God and resist
the devil. Young people have goals and dreams
and there's not a thing in the world wrong with that, but listen
to me now. Two things about what happened here. He wanted, wanted,
wanted, wanted, wanted, and then all of a sudden, get out of my
sight. That's a big change, isn't it?
Here are the lessons. If you desire anything more than
Christ, it is an idol. And the thing that you desire, if it's not Christ, it's a mirage. It don't exist. That's what we're
seeing here now. And you see it all through the
scripture, and you see it all through people's lives. The things
that they give themselves to. And they live for it, and they
wake up thinking about it, and they go to bed thinking about
it, and then when they have it, they don't have anything. They're worse
off than they started. It's a mirage. It don't exist. Amnon thought that all he wanted
in the world was Tamar, and when he had her, it wasn't what he
thought it was. Sin never is. It's not going
to satisfy you. The Lord gives us the things
of this world to enjoy and to honor Him with. And to help one
another with. And we're to be happy in them.
There's nothing wrong with that. Whatever you desire more than
you desire Him is an idol. And it's also a mirage. It cannot satisfy. It's not going
to do it for you like you think it's going to. Maybe money, for example. You
think anybody's like that about money? They're just eating up
with it. Got to have more, more, more,
more, more. And then when you get it, what do you got? The need
for more, more, more, more, more. Unless you have Christ. Listen to what God says about
that now. Is that what you crave? Money, success in this world.
Proverbs 23, 4, labor not to be rich. And listen to the next
words. Cease from thine own wisdom. That's not two different things.
He's not like, labor not to be rich. You know, by the way, cease
from thine own wisdom. He's saying, you think the right thing to
do is to just get, get, get, get. Listen to what God says
and not what your heart's telling you. Cease from your own wisdom
in that. You think what you need is more
money. That's not what you need. Cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon
that which is not? Does that sound like what Amnon
did here? What he was wanting more than anything in the world
didn't exist. It did not exist. For riches certainly make themselves
wings, they fly away as an eagle toward heaven. With Amnon it
wasn't money, it was something else, but it was exactly the
same. It flew away, didn't it? And left him bitter and angry
and wretched. I want you to turn to Hebrews
13 please with me. Hebrews 13 5. I want us to see
something again now. We've seen this before but this
is so applicable to our text and so important. Hebrews 13
5. Hebrews 13 5 listen to this let
your conversation and that word in the New Testament means conduct
your walk of life your your way of life your Conversation your
conduct be without covetousness Whatever you covet money what
happened in our text It's an idol It's an idol Let it be without
covetousness. And here's how that works. Be
content with such things as you have. With what God gives you. Work
hard. Work honest. Work as unto the
Lord. And then be happy with what He
gives you. Don't let it consume you. Don't
let it come to the place where you can't worship Him, where
it's all about you and more and more and more. Be content with
such things as you have, for He hath said, I will never leave
thee, nor forsake thee. When I saw this a few years ago,
I had heard that verse of Scripture. Everybody quotes that. Be content
with such things as you have. That's a very common verse for
people to just kind of throw out there, but listen to me.
It does not say be content with such things as you have because
if you need something more, God will give it to you when you
need it. It does not say that. It says you have Him and you
ain't ever not going to have Him. So how can you not be content? Is that clear there? I will never
leave you. Whatever the things that you
have are, it's perfectly fine. Not because God promises you
anymore. You may never have more. You
may have more now than you're ever going to have in your life.
But I'll tell you what He does promise to you, believer, Himself. Whatever you cannot live without,
if it is not Christ, it is a mirage. It is a mirage. And more importantly
than that now, more important than the fact that what you want
is not what you want. That's sad and that's terrible
and you need to know that up front. It's not what you want. You just think it is. And you
need to know that. But more importantly than that, is you've missed everything
if you miss Him. You've missed everything. Do not miss Christ. Think of Tamar for a minute in
this. She left there with her hand on her head crying and just
absolutely devastated. What is her hope? Christ. She was terribly mistreated.
What's her hope? Now listen, if you're Amnon or David in the previous chapter,
as we saw, your only hope for forgiveness for being the horrible
monster that you are is Christ. And if you're Tamar, your only
hope for any comfort and peace is Christ. And all of us need both forgiveness
and comfort. And it's found in Christ. Only
in Christ. Some of you know that. Some of
you think I'm crazy. And some of you think I'm crazy
and one of these days you're going to maybe remember and say
that was the truth. Christ is all, sure enough. Then in the later verses of this
chapter Absalom plots Amnon's murder and in verse 29 Amnon
is murdered by his own brother because of the evil that he had
committed And I want you to think about something now. You might
think, well, at least Absalom had some sense of honor here,
avenging his sister like he did. But no. It's not long now before
we find out that Absalom is also an evil monster. Just like Amnon was. And you
think about this at the very last verse of this chapter. How
sad. It says that David's heart went
out with Absalom. Now his son Amnon is dead and
he's comforted to some extent because it's been a couple years.
And so his heart goes out to Absalom now. Oh Absalom, my son,
I'm gonna just, I'm gonna love him. It would have been better
if Absalom would have died too. As far as any comfort that David
might have hoped for. Because Absalom turns out to
be also a monster. An absolute monster and nothing
but a horrible grief to his death. David thinks, well, Amnon's dead. Again, he's devastated. We see
David on the floor again, don't we? You remember in 2 Samuel
12, 16, David therefore besought God for the child. that Bathsheba
was bearing and had born, and it was very sick. 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." Get up off the ground, David, and eat something. But
he would not. Neither did he eat bread with
them. And of course, we see in verse 29 this truth. When Amnon is killed, this is
David's son, whom he loved. And he's killed, and we remember
James 1.15. When lost hath conceived, it
bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished. Think about this. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death. And what is sin? Is sin just
like some dark cloud floating around in the air, you know,
trying to get in? No, sin is us. What this is saying is, when
sin, when we're finished, when we've done all that we're going
to do, what Amnon, oh Amnon, everything that he cared about
was Tamar. And when he was finished doing
what he was going to do, what he was determined to do, what was the result? Death. That's a picture of every sinner.
When you get done doing what you're going to do in this life,
without God, You're going to die, and you're going to die
not the way you think. Your heart's just going to stop
beating and you're going to float off into the ether or something.
You're going to die forever under the wrath of God Almighty. Sin,
when it is finished, when you've done everything that you want
to do, can do, desire to do, it all comes to fruition. The
result is death. physical, spiritual, eternal,
infinite death. Christ, when he was finished,
when he did what he came to do, the result is life. When all that he did was brought
to fruition, he said it's finished. And the result is life. everlasting, eternal, infinite
life. It's us or him. But here David is back on the
floor again. And he's going to do a lot more
floor time before this is all over with. The Lord said in 1210, the sword
will never depart from your house. And David remembers why. Do you think maybe as David is
laying there on the floor again that the thought might have entered
his mind, all of this is my fault? All of it. I can just about guarantee
you it did. God said, wherefore hast thou
despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight?
Thou hast killed Uriah, you've taken his wife, you've slain
him with the sword. Now therefore the sword shall
never depart from thine house. Never. That's harsh now. Because thou hast despised me. Because. There's a cause for
Amnon being killed by Absalom. And David, it's you, God said. We know there are other causes.
There was their sin. They did what they wanted to
do. They're responsible for what they did. You think that comforted
David at all as he's laying on the floor? Look at verse 36. And it came
to pass, as soon as he had made an end of speaking, that, behold,
the king's sons came and lifted up their voices and wept. And
the king also and all his servants wept very sore. What a scene. But Absalom fled
and went to Talmai, the son of Amahud, king of Geshur. And David mourned for his son
every day. Most of us will never experience
what David went through here, but seeing has its effect on us. Our sin. Our sin. It has its effect on
us every day, doesn't it? Every day. You see, when Paul cried there
in Romans 7, we talked about from Romans 7 where he said,
I'm sold under sin. I can't do what I want to do
and what I don't want to do, I can't keep from doing it. Anybody like that here? And when he says, oh wretched
man that I am, do you think he's just thinking about the doctrine
of total depravity when he cries that? Maybe he's reading John
Gill and he's going, and I read John Gill and I recommend him. And the doctrine of total depravity
is just the truth of God. But there's an important lesson
here now. You think he was reading John Gilligan going, oh wretched
man that I am, lookie there, I'm a sinner. God help us now. He's not just thinking about
the doctrine of total depravity, He's living it. He is it. And that's where God's got to
bring us now. That's where He's going to bring us. And we're
going to cry it every day to some extent or another. Every
day. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who's going to save me? That's what he said. Who's going
to deliver me? That word is save. Not help me, not meet me most
of the way. Who's going to save me? Who's
going to save me? That's what I need. It's one thing to agree with
doctrine, and it's important. I guarantee if you know him,
you're going to believe what he says. And this is the doctrine
right here. What men write, if it's not according
to this, then it's false doctrine. But it's another thing when God
reveals to you what you are. Every day, David's heart was
broken. Oh, wretched man that I am. But if God ever reveals to you
what you are, He'll also reveal to you who His Son is. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. That's how we're saved right
there. And you know, He's still saving me. Is it that way with
you? He saved me today, again. He'll have to save me before
I leave this building. His salvation is eternal. And though David had grief in
his heart for the rest of his life over his family, yet this
was his dying testimony. Although my house be not so. Boy, that's the title of the
message today. Not so. That's what we just read
in chapter 13. That's the not so. It was not
so with his family. Although my house be not so with
God. And it broke his heart every
day. Yet, he hath made with me an everlasting covenant. Ordered. Boy, this is so important. This is
not, let's make a deal. This is not God making a deal
with you. If you will, I will. His covenant
is ordered in all things insure. The terms of the covenant have
already been met by his son. You're just going to benefit
from it. If you're His. If He did it for you, then you're
in. And David said, by God's grace
I'm in. It's ordered in all things in
sure, and this is all my salvation. What God did, what God did, is
all my salvation, and all my desire, although He make it not
to grow. Because of all we've seen in
this chapter, This message is called not so but there's another
key word in David's final testimony Yet Yet God is gracious David
now you think about this David in a very real sense now
is the cause of all of the misery in his family and So that word
yet is not just well, God didn't save my children, but he saved
me. The word yet is even though I'm the biggest wretch in the
bunch, God saved me. That's what yet means. You see
that there? Yet. Even though it's all my
fault. Even though I'm a walking disaster, God made His covenant with me.
The covenant of grace, the blood of the everlasting covenant was
shed for me. And in Christ, I'm without sin. This is all my salvation and
all my desire. May God give us grace to apply our hearts unto His word. Lord, thank you for your...