2nd Samuel chapter 12 let's read
our text and then ask the Lord to meet with us 2nd Samuel 12 Let's read the last verse of
chapter 11, verse 27. And when the morning was past,
David sinned and fetched her to his house, and she became
his wife and bare him a son. But the thing that David had
done displeased the Lord. And the Lord sent Nathan unto
David. And he came unto him and said
unto him, there were two men in one city, the one rich and
the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many
flocks and herds but the poor man had nothing save one little
ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished up and it grew
up together with him and with his children and it did eat of
his own meat and drank of his own cup and lay in his bosom
and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveler unto
the rich man, and he spared to take his own flock and of his
own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was coming to him, but
took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man that was
come to him. And David's anger was greatly
kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the
Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely
die. And he shall restore the lamb
fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no
pity. And Nathan said to David, thou
art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the
hand of Saul, and I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's
wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and
of Judah, And if that had been too little, I would moreover
have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou
despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite
with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and
hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now,
therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house, because
thou hast despised me and hast 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 sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before
all Israel and before the sun. And David said unto Nathan, I
have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the
Lord also, hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.
We pray again, Lord, that we'd see our Savior as always in your
book. See our own wretchedness and
how richly we deserve your wrath and yet by your grace we condemn
ourselves. We justify you in condemning
us. We live only because of your
mercy. Only because when we have no
pity, you do. Thank you for our Lord Jesus
and for his precious blood in his name, Amen. Now this is one of the saddest
passages of scripture in the Bible to me and yet it's
very wonderful at the same time. Sin as revealed in our last lesson
in chapter 10 and chapter 11 And then when we see this story
and see the... David's own reaction to what
he had done, sends a terrible and tragic reality for every
believer. And the truth is, it's especially
grievous in a believer. The old nature doesn't change
when God saves us. Anybody that's ever been saved
knows that. The Lord reveals, part of saving
us is when He reveals what we are to us and we know that that
old nature doesn't change. The flesh doesn't improve. We're still sinners. Paul said
in Romans chapter 7 verse 18, for I know that in me, that is
in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. And here's how I know
that. I've never seen it that way before,
but listen to what he said, I know that in me, I know it. There's nothing good, and here's
how I know that. For the will is present with
me. I want to honor God, but how to perform that which is
good, I find not. I cannot get it done, and every
believer would have to confess that and would confess that. And this is what's so heartbreaking.
As a believer, to will is present with us. We know who God is. We know what he's worthy of.
We know what it took to deal with our sin. And we want to
honor him, and we want to serve him, and we want to be true to
him. The Lord said to David, you despised
me. I don't want to do that. It grieves
me that my old heart despises God, still does. To fall short of that constantly, which we know God is worthy of,
to be unable to find how to perform that which God deserves, it would
be crushing. It would be eventually so depressing
that we wouldn't even be able to function if not for the last
part of our test. God has done something about
it. We can comfort ourselves in the
knowledge that Christ is for us, all that we're not. But our
sin, as David said in Psalm 51.3, he said, I know, I acknowledge
my transgressions. and my sin is ever before me. And he said that with regard
to what our text is. So Paul's exceeding sinfulness,
he said, sin became unto me exceeding sinful when the law, when I saw
God's law in the spiritual truth of it, and I saw who it is that
I sinned against. And he, as a result of seeing
that, He had to cry out in that same
chapter, who shall save me? Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall save me from the body of this death? And it caused him to thank God
for Christ Jesus, because only through Christ and his precious
blood can we be saved. There toward the end of chapter
seven, that's what he said. And David, as he wrote Psalm
51 and thought about his own wretchedness, He was inspired
to write this in verse 2, wash me throughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. He says my sin is ever before
me and what did that cause? Well, like in Paul, he despaired
of self. He said, who's going to save
me? I'm not going to get any better. I can't do good. So what
hope is there for me? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Did David have the same experience?
My sin is ever before me. So what did that cause him to
do? Wash me. Cleanse me. I can't do anything
about it, but you can. Wash me throughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. And in verse seven, he said,
purge me with hyssop. and I shall be clean. Wash me
and I shall be whiter than snow." Now think about that now. Not
only will my sin be washed away but I'll be white. Whiter than
anything man has ever seen before. Now why would David say purge
me with hyssop? I've mentioned this before and
some of you were probably there when I did. But let's talk about
this a little bit. What is a tree or a bush gonna
do to cleanse David's sin? Hyssop was a bush, a tree. The
branch of the hyssop is what was dipped in the blood when
offerings were made to God for sin. And let me read you the
first example that I'm aware of. I think it's the first example
in scripture of that. Exodus 12, 22, you shall take
a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin,
and strike the lintel in the two side posts with the blood
that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out
at the door of his house until the morning, for the Lord will
pass through to smite the Egyptians. And when he seeth the blood upon
the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over
the door. and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto
your houses to smite you." In other words, everybody's going
to die. And we know what death is. It's the wages of sin. Everybody's
going to die because of their sin unless God sees blood instead
of sin at your house. And that happened with the hyssop. Why would David say, purge me
with hyssop? It's a tree. I think it was a
big bush of some kind. What sense does that make? How's
that going to do anything about your sin? Well, it's clear what he's
talking about. Purge me with the blood. Purge me with the
blood of the lamb and I'll be clean. David's hope in his wretchedness
was the same as Paul's. It was Christ and his precious
sin-atoning blood. And that's our hope too. Because
as grievous as we read about what David did, anybody who knows
the Lord by His grace knows themselves also, at least to the extent
where we acknowledge our sinfulness and that no one, and if your
understanding of your sin doesn't lead you here, then you don't
understand your sin. No one is worse than me, nobody. Nobody nobody ever has been worse
than me But David's sin Grieved the Lord
that's the word there in the last verse of chapter 11 it displeased
or grieved The Lord and the question now is inevitable and has been
asked and debated over the years If God had put away David's sin,
then how did it grieve him? In what sense did it grieve him?
Just on the surface of it, you could say, well, he grieved even
when he committed it and then he put it away, but it goes deeper
than that. We all know that all who are
in Christ are in Christ from the foundation of the world,
Ephesians chapter one. All spiritual blessings are ours
in Christ. from the foundation of the world.
So if we are in Christ, we know that we're justified in him,
we're sinless in him, we're not guilty in the Lord Jesus Christ. And how then can our sin displease
God when the scripture plainly says, he sees no sin in his people.
He hath beheld no iniquity in Jacob. Well, it's really not complicated.
In Christ we have no sin and never have had any. The true
meaning, and here's how to understand that I believe, the simplest
way to understand that. The true meaning of being in
Christ, and we know he chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. He put us in his son before there
ever was an us. And so the true meaning of being
in Christ as our representative before God, just like Adam represented
us in the garden. He's called our last Adam. Our
substitute. He stands in our stead before
God in his life and in his death. He's our mediator. He's the one
who stands between us and God, puts his hand on both and reconciles. makes atonement between the two,
at-one-ment. The true meaning of being in
Him as all those things is that when He sinned or when He sins,
we sin. When did that happen and when
will it happen? Never. So when have I sinned? When will
I sin? Never. But that's just the truth. We're in Him. Always have been
in Him. When did He sin? Never. When
did I sin then? Never. In Christ. It just hadn't
happened and it's not going to happen. But also clearly we do
sin every day, right? It's not hard to understand this.
People just like to complicate things. Have you noticed that
about people? And I'll do that unless God gives
me the grace to just plainly and simply declare the truth.
So in ourselves, sin. In Christ, no sin. Is that easy
enough? The wonderful thing is that what
is eternally true. There is that which is applicable to time on this earth. And there is that which is applicable
to eternity. God inhabits eternity. He rules
over time. He's sovereign in time, and he
ordains everything that takes place in time. But he inhabits
eternity. And what's true in an eternal
sense is ultimately true, and trumps everything else. You say,
well, I didn't know Christ until I was so-and-so years old, I
think. Most people don't. Most believers don't really know
the day that it happened. Some do, some don't. But the
eternal reality is we were always in Christ, always in him. So you see what I mean, there's
that which is, Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, the scripture says. In other words, his blood, his
atonement before God is an eternal thing. But at the same time,
it did happen in time. So we can understand something
of the difference between the two realms, the spiritual and
the physical, the eternal and the temporal, the earthly and
the heavenly. But we live now in this body
of death, what Paul called the body of this death. And that's
a little bit different from this body of death. Some people quote
that and say, who shall deliver me from this body of death? That's
not what it said, the body of this death. What we call life
is really death. But our sin is ever before us,
like David said. And rightly so, because we're
ever sinful. We acknowledge the fact that
we fall short always of God's glory. And God is not ignorant
of our present condition, you reckon? You think he's just ignorant
of the fact that I sin every moment of every day? I don't
imagine he's that naive, that he's oblivious to that, do you?
So when we say that we're sinless in Christ, that's not what we
mean, that he's just ignorant of what we are and what we do.
We know better than that. His sin displeased, David's sin
displeased God. And we should strive continually
to honor him as Paul said, we love the law of God after the
inward man, and what I would do, I don't do, and what I wouldn't
do, I do. But I still would do that which
is good and I would not do that which is evil. Paul did say that. I don't want to. And I do want
to. In the right way. We don't want to grieve our master. Don't want to do that. Listen
to Ephesians 4.29. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth. But that which is good to the
use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers,
whoever's listening. And grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. And
that word is very, it's pretty much the Greek equivalent to
our Hebrew word in our text. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. And clearly
the way to not grieve him is don't sin. Don't outwardly, don't let corrupt communication
come out of your mouth. And then after what he said,
don't grieve the Holy Spirit, he said this, let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away
from you with all malice and be you kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven you. So the motive is not to please
God or to be holy in the sight of God. The motive is we are
forgiven. It's not do these things so that
you'll be forgiven. Do these things because God,
for Christ's sake, forgave you. Big difference. The law is not
our motivation. It is not our rule of life. Christ
is. And that's important. It doesn't
change the fact that he said don't do this. Don't do these
things. Don't let that happen. Don't let it come out. We know
what's in our heart. Don't let it come out. Don't
let it proceed out of your mouth. And put these things away from
you. We're encouraged and exhorted to do that. Why? Because it grieves
God. If David's sin grieved the Lord,
what do you think your sin does? Now I know that people like to,
you know, dot every I and cross every T doctrinally and they
like to get their puny brains around things, you know, if I
can't understand it, you know, then it must not be true. And they say things like this,
wait, if we have no sin in Christ, then how can our sin grieve God?
Well, I can't explain that. I just know that there are two
different senses in which our sin Exists and it doesn't in
Christ. We are sinless because he is
sinless and that's what it means to be in him And I know that in myself dwelleth
no good thing So I suspect that has something to do with it.
Don't you think? But listen now because we can't
explain it let me ask you this is your way forward tonight unclear
in any way I Don't do things that God hates?
Does anybody have any doubt about whether that's the right thing
to say? Is your way forward unclear? Or is it just a matter of being
able to understand doctrinal things? And let me ask you this,
can you take comfort in the glorious truth that your eternal standing
before God is one of sinless perfection? spotless perfection
in Christ because of who he is and what he did. Because of his
life and his death. Can you take comfort in that?
And can you see that clearly your way forward is to honor
God in every way that you can and to put away the things that
dishonor him? To me that's clear as a bell
and I'm an idiot. So I suspect other idiots might
be able to get that. But you know people, if they
can't explain it, then it must not be true. Well let me tell
you something, it's true because God said it. Okay? Not because
you can understand it. Us being able to get our puny
minds around something does not make it a great and deep truth
as many imagine. The fact that we cannot get our
minds around the fathomless truth of God is what makes us know
that it's God's truth and not the doctrines of men. If you
can get your mind around it, it ain't that great. But God
explains things in simple terms, though we can't understand them.
Is it unclear what he said? It grieved him. I get that, don't
you? But also God said through Nathan,
your sin is put away. So let's not get bogged down
in trying to explain things that we're never going to be able
to explain. And just take the simple word of God as it is.
I get that. So the thing that David did displeased
the Lord, it says in our text now, but listen, in Exodus And
let me be careful about this. It does say the thing that David
did displeased the Lord. Does that mean that God was displeased
with the sin and not displeased with David? The thing that he
did displeased the Lord. There's a right way to take that
and a wrong way. If you're saying God hates the
sin and loves the sinner, that's what religion says and they're
dead wrong about that. You can't separate the two. You
can't separate them now. If you're taking that to mean
the different senses in which God has dealt with our sin, that
he hates the sin, but he sees us in Christ, and so he's not
displeased with us in Christ, I agree with you. But let me
say this, in Exodus chapter four, When Moses continued to question
God, God said, here's what you're going to do. Here's what I've
called you to do. Here's why we're here today.
You're going to go. You're going to do this. And
Moses kept making excuses. Do you remember what it says?
It says the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. It
doesn't say his sin made him mad. It says Moses made him mad. So let's be careful about that. God's anger was kindled against
Moses and I don't want to do that, do you? I don't want to
kindle God's anger. My eternal standing in Christ
notwithstanding, I don't want to kindle God's anger against
me today. I just don't and I know you don't
either. And that word anger there in
Exodus 4 by the way is often interpreted or translated wrath. So in ourselves, by nature, we're
the children of wrath. Paul said in Ephesians chapter
2, right? By nature, the children of wrath.
So there is a sense in which we're the children of wrath.
There's also a sense in which we have no sin and never have
and never will. So when thinking about it in
terms of in Christ and in ourselves, remember that. There is the consideration
of us in Christ and there is what we are temporarily right
now. And God's not oblivious to that.
Remember that we will not be in ourselves for long. We're
not going to be in, I'm not going to be in me long in the body
of this death. And I'm thankful for that. But
we're going to be in Christ forever. We are now and always will be.
So that's the most important. Remember also the difference
between time and eternity because that has a bearing on this. Also, we know this, we have two
hearts. Remember that. When you think
of sin or no sin in a believer, we have two hearts. We have a
sinful, depraved one now, but also David was called in Acts
13.22, a man after God's own heart. Is that the heart he was
born with? You reckon that's talking about?
I don't think so. Nobody's born like that. A man
after God's own heart. God said, I'll give you a new
heart. That's the one that's after God's
heart right there. So keep all that in mind and
don't sin against God. Is that clear? Is that simple
enough? Quit sinning. You say, well Chris,
how am I going to do that? Well, I'll tell you this, this
book is full of that. Stop it. Quit it. Put it away
from you. Don't let it come out of your
mouth. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall
we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? and not but and when you do sin remember this I don't forget
this my little children these things I write unto you that
you sin not don't do it and if any man sin we have an advocate with the
father Jesus Christ the righteous. Let me read that this way because
it's a blessing to me and I hope it will be to you too. Think
about it like that. Now Jesus Christ the righteous,
the righteous. If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ who don't sin. You see how who
he is goes back to what we are. We do sin, we are sin, we will
sin. We will sin before we leave this
building. We're sinning right now, but
our advocate is Jesus Christ, the sinless. Our mediator, our representative,
our substitute is Jesus Christ, the sinless. That's our hope.
Quit sinning, but you quitting sinning is not your hope. If
it is, you're in trouble. Our hope is we have an advocate
with the Father, and he don't sin. Oh, may God impress that
upon us. He's not just Christ our mediator,
he is Christ crucified. Listen, he said Jesus Christ
the righteous, Jesus Christ our righteous representative and
mediator, and representative and substitute. But the next
verse, verse 2 of 1 John 2 is this, and he is the propitiation
for our sins. He's not only our mediator and
representative, but he's our sin offering. The righteous one is, the sinless
one is. Notice that as soon as it says
God grieved David, God is grieved with David's sin, what did God
do? He sent his prophet to David. The thing that David did displeased
the Lord and the Lord sent Nathan. to show David his wretchedness,
wanted Nathan to teach him what a wretch he is, and reassure
him regarding his standing before God. He sent his prophet, his priest.
He didn't write on the wall with his own hand saying, you've been
weighed in the balances and found wanting, like he did with Belshazzar. And how many are sinning? Think
about this now. How many tonight are just... David now, he was hardened in
his sin, wasn't he? Bathsheba has already born a
child before Nathan is sent to him. And so he's living, you
know, living the good life with somebody else's wife, having
convinced himself, you know, that everything, the sword devoureth
one as well as another, you know, And everything is going to be
fine. Before God sends the wake up call. How many people are
living like that tonight though? Just doing what they want. Living
like animals. And David he acted like an animal. That's what animals
do. They have no regard for honor or honesty or shame or anything
like that. They just do you know whatever
their lust. In fact a lot of animals are
better than that. David But how many people are
living like that right now? That the Lord just leaves them
alone. Just leaves them alone. They
just go on being animals. Just taking what they want, doing
what they want, living how they want with no regard to God. Despising
God as God said David did. And God just, He don't send no
prophet to them. He don't send the word to them.
He just leaves them alone. What God is going to tell David
is not pleasant. But what a blessing that he tells
him. What a blessing. Is there anything worse, really,
that God can do to a person in this life than just leave him
alone? You're your own worst enemy.
So if he leaves you to yourself, he's left you to your worst enemy. Now he does deal with David's
sin. Before the Lord told the woman at the well of the living
water, he said to her, go get your husband. You remember that?
Go get your husband. And she said, I don't have a
husband. And he said, that's right. Spoke to her about her adultery.
Ungodliness. Before he taught Nebuchadnezzar
who he is, who God is, he showed him what an animal Nebuchadnezzar
was. Left him out in the field for
a while, didn't he? How long did he leave him out there until
he knew who God was? He woke him up. Before God will
clothe a sinner, He'll strip him. He'll strip that sinner
of his filthy rags, his self-righteousness. Before He'll lift up your head,
He'll bring you down into the dirt. Look where He brought Saul. The Apostle Paul. Saul of Tarsus. What a difference between the
way we see our sin and how God sees it. In chapter 11 verse
25, David said to the messenger, tell Joab, don't worry about
it. Don't let him be displeased about this thing, for the sword
devoureth one as well as another. We didn't actually kill Uriah,
you know, one of the Ammonites did that. Listen to the way God describes
it in chapter 12 verse 9. Wherefore thou hast 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. Big difference. The sword didn't devour Uriah
David, you did. You just used a sword to do it.
You used a weapon of war to do it. And you didn't even have
the courage to do it with your own sword. You ever thought about
that in this? At least be a man and just run
him through with your own sword. He didn't even have the courage
to do that. He did it with somebody else's. Now God tells David a
story about himself, but obviously David doesn't know it's about
him and think about this For God to show us our sin In order for God to show us to
give us some sense of the wretchedness of our own sin We're so good
at justifying ourselves We're so quick to make light of what
we've done and to just to think of excuses for it. In the garden
we see Adam doing that. We're so good at that that in
order for God to cause us to see our sin a little bit more
like he does, God has to show it to us as though it was somebody
else's. That's very telling about our
nature. Now, if it's somebody else's
sin, oh, I can see that. Oh, that's horrible. Oh, that
deserves punishment. Oh, he can't get away with that. And then God says, it's you. You are the thing that you hate. And that's what it has to come
to. God reveals now, and in the revealing
of it now, not only did he show it to him as somebody else's
sin, but he showed him who he sinned against. You despised
my commandment and you despised me. Listen to what Job said in
Job 42.5, I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now
mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself I hate
I despise myself and I repent In dust and ashes And David had to see more now
than just what a terrible thing he did to Uriah and Bathsheba God had to reveal and it was
terrible you read that story and it's heartbreaking I But
he had to learn that what he did was even worse than how terribly
he wronged them. In the first part of verse 13,
David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. That's
where he had to come to. I've sinned against God. This is not anymore just a man
thinking that another man did something so bad that he ought
to be executed for it. This is God. This is me standing
before God and being found wanting and doing something much worse
than the story conveyed and realizing, well, what did Isaiah say? I'm
undone. I'm a goner. I'm a goner. Not Bathsheba, not Uriah, not
Joab. the Lord, of sin against the
Lord. And notice now, he doesn't make
a plea. He doesn't make an excuse. David's in the right place now.
God's brought him. He didn't come on his own. God
brought him to the right place. And the right place is, I am
a sinner. I have sinned against God, period. No excuses, no extenuating circumstances,
not even presuming upon God what to do about it. And that doesn't
mean we don't cry for mercy. But look, we in God's hands,
David was just to the point where guilty, guilty. But this is the nature of our
self-righteousness in verses five and six. David can clearly
see the sin in somebody else, but not in himself, even when
it's described to him. And notice how he described his
own sin when he thought it was somebody else's. I like that
last part now. He says this, and because he
had no pity. The last part of verse 6. Because
he had no pity. And David still, he don't get
it. You see, we see ourselves, it's like looking in a mirror.
Look at what David said. You're talking about not even
understanding, still at this point, what had happened. He said he shall restore the
lamb fourfold. Is that going to make everything
okay? Think about that. That lamb was
precious to that man and it grew up with his children. It was
precious to his family. And knowing that the guy that
did that is dead, And, oh, I get four, okay, everything's
okay. I've got four new lambs, you
know. That doesn't replace what was taken. And the simple spiritual
truth of that is we can't make up for what we've done. How are
you, they said you've killed, they preached in the book of
Acts, you've killed the prince of life. And they said, what
are we gonna do? They're not saying, give me something to
do and I'll do it. They're despairing. They're saying, how am I gonna make up
for that? That's where we gotta come. There's nothing, what are
you gonna do to make up for that? Well, my good outweighs my bad.
People say, well, I've done some bad things, but my good, it's
important now, our good's got to outweigh your bad. How are
you gonna outweigh killing God in cold-blooded hatred for God
Almighty? How are you gonna make up for
that? by helping a little lady across the street. Do you see
the insanity? We don't even understand what
our sin is. He's going to restore it fourfold.
What are you talking about, David? What are you talking about? And
that's just a little shadow of what David did. How's he going
to make up for that? How's he going to make restitution
to Bathsheba, much less God Almighty? We don't even know what it is,
do we? When God wakes us up, we get
a little glimmer of it. And we're just stuck. I've sinned
against God. What else am I going to say?
I don't think David even had the
heart or the energy to cry for mercy at that point. He just
said, I'm a goner. What are we going to do? And
because he had no pity, Think about David's version of having
no pity. Killing that little lamb, what
a horrible thing that would be when you got a whole field full
of livestock of your own. Talk about no pity now, just
to take somebody else's wife because you can. I'm king, I'll
take what I want. I'm just a, I'm a sinner, I'm
a sinner and I can't think of anything worse than that. I believe
that's why God describes our sin against him as going to whoring,
as spiritual adultery against him. No thought whatsoever for anybody
else. None. David's sin is going to have
effect upon generations after him. In his own family, the sword's
never going to depart out of your house, David. But also think
of the families of those that he wronged. Never be the same
again for generations. But he didn't care about any
of that. No pity. No pity. David not only didn't have any
pity on Uriah and Bathsheba and their families and loved ones,
but while he's pronouncing the sentence of death on this person
described by Nathan, as long as he thinks it's somebody else,
he's not willing to have any pity on them either. And you
think, well, should he have pity on somebody like that? Well,
not really. No, not really. But here's what I got to say
about that. Thank God he's not like we are. Thank God. Truly, that man deserved no pity.
He didn't deserve any, but still, thank God he's not like we are. He had pity on David, who is
an unthinkable wretch before God, just like us. And I want to remind us again
now that as infuriating as this story is to God, to David, to
anybody that can hear it, David is the rich man in the story,
and Uriah is the poor man, and Bathsheba is the little ewe lamb.
And anybody who heard this story would hate that rich man, and
would want to see justice come to him. But how many know that
it's them? How many know that they're the
rich man? And not only is it them, but this story is nothing
compared to what we are and what we've done. And think about this
now. There are several levels to this.
The killing of the ewe lamb, horrible. Nobody could hear about
that and say anything but what David did. But what David did
is way worse than that. But what we did is way worse
than that. What David did is way more horrible
than what happened in this story. But think about what we've done.
We took God's only well-beloved, only begotten son. Because we could, because God put him in our hands according
to his purpose. We killed God's lamb. And we richly deserve eternal
death for that. And I hope we can see that. Do
you remember when you realized that it was you? Because let
me tell you something now. If you've never realized that,
you don't know God. When God reveals himself, he
reveals you to you. Do you remember when you realized,
it's me, I'm the problem. And people, theologians, they
talk about original sin, you know, and that's sound doctrine,
original sin, total depravity. But what we've got to see is
not the doctrine of total depravity and original sin. What we've
got to see is I am the sin. There's a big difference now
between mentally acknowledging that we're totally depraved as
a race and what happened in the garden affected everybody, when
Adam died and all that. Sound doctrine. But salvation, when God brings
us, when he stops our mouth and causes
us to become guilty before him, We can't blame our sin on anybody
else. We can't blame it on God. And we can't just see it as a
doctrine that's true of all men anymore. It's me. It's me. The publican didn't say, God
be merciful, because, you know, total depravity and all that.
God be merciful to me, the sinner. That's where we gotta be now.
You can't blame it on God. That's what we do by nature.
We excuse and blame. We got to come to the place where
we know that it's us. We are the problem. That's what
God. We are the sinner. We've sinned against law and
grace. God reminds David of all that he'd done for him. He not
only broke clearly, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt
not kill, but also he'd sinned against grace. God said, look
what I've done for you. And you still hate me? You despise
me? Verses 7 and 8 where he tells
him all that he had done. And then David repents. David
changed his mind about what happened. He ceases to minimize and excuse
his sin. He ceases to be hard hearted
about it. And we see that in Psalm 51. All we see in our text
is, I've sinned against God. But we see more in Psalm 51,
that's where David is now in Psalm 51, and we'll read a little
bit of that, or maybe I may just leave it to you, because we've
only got a few minutes left. How did God bring him to repentance?
Remember what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2.25, in meekness
instruct those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. So how did God
bring David to repentance? Well, he sent him a spokesman.
He sent him somebody to teach him, to show him what he was
and who he had sinned against. And also that his sin was put
away. There are going to be earthly
consequences for his sin and trouble and suffering that's
going to be described in the next verses after that. But first and foremost, before
he even tells him any of that, he said, God also hath put away
your sin. You shall not die. And again,
God has put away your sin. You shall not die. So everything
that is going to happen to David is not punishment for sin. God hath put away your sin. You're
not going to die. The punishment for sin is death, and not just
physical death. Eternal death, spiritual death,
infinite death. And that's not going to happen.
You're not going to suffer any consequences for your sin. Your
sin's put away. But here's what's going to happen
in time, temporarily. But notice that he said God hath
put away. your sin. Not he's going to when,
you know, several thousand years from now my son's going to come
to the earth and he's going to live and he's going to die on
a cross and it's already done. People balk at the idea of eternal
justification. I can't explain that but we're
dealing with God, not a man. What God does is eternal. It
just is. And I can't explain that, but
he said, God's already put your sin away. How did he do that
unless Christ has already died? Because he's the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. His blood is eternal blood, his
atonement. That's a great blessing now.
That's not just a point of doctrine that people argue about. That's
a great blessing. Before any of God's people ever sinned or
had been even born, God had already put their sin away by Christ
and what He did for them. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. Before there was ever a sinner,
there was a Savior. That's a blessing to me. I don't
want to argue about it. I'm just thankful that God's
already put my sin, He had put my sin away a long time ago. And David understood how sin
was put away. Well, where's that in the text?
Well, it's in Psalm 51. And listen, have you read the introduction
to Psalm 51? Listen, let me read it to you. So, upon this event
in his life, he sat down somewhere and wrote a song. Before, David
justified his sin. And listen, I'm keying in on
that word after in the introduction to Psalm 51. After he had gone
in to Bathsheba, when the prophet came to him. Before God's prophet came, David
was justifying his sin. After, he says in verse 4 of
Psalm 51, that God is justified in condemning him for his sin.
Against thee and thee only have I sinned, that thou may be clear
when you judge me, and justified in your condemnation of me."
Before, David had no pity, did he? He had no mercy. He sinned
without a thought for anybody. After, the first thing he says
is this, have mercy on me, oh God. That's how the psalm starts. according to thy loving kindness. Not because I deserve it, not
because there were mitigating circumstances, not because I've
done some bad things but I've done some good things. Because
of your love for your own, have mercy on me. And when Nathan said the Lord
hath put away thy sin, David understood how that happens.
As we read a while ago, purge me with hyssop. There's only
one way a branch of hyssop is going to purge you from your
sin. And that's if it's the blood, it's dipped in the blood. Wash me. Oh, who shall save me from the
body of this death? Wash me, Lord. Don't leave me
like I am. Wash me. And I shall be whiter
than snow. How does God wash us from our
sins? Revelation 1.5 and from Jesus
Christ who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the
dead and the prince of the kings of the earth unto him that loved
us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. and hath made us kings and priests
unto God and His Father, to Him be glory. To the one that washed
us, it took His own precious blood to wash us, and He gave
it freely. To Him be glory. To Him be dominion. May He be the one that's in charge
forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray.