First Todd Nyvert and then Mike
Bartram. People would turn with me in
your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 12. Some of you already know by the
text what this story is about. 2 Samuel chapter 12. While you're
turning, let me express mine and Teresa's gratitude to you
for having us at this meeting. What a blessing it's been. All
of you have been so encouraging. And we've heard some wonderful
messages this morning. I wouldn't have rather been anywhere
else in the world than right here this morning. God sent two
of his servants to speak to this old wretched heart. And I'm so
thankful. I hope that I can return the
favor. But anyway, let's read a few
verses here in chapter 12 of 2 Samuel. And the Lord sent Nathan unto
David. And he came unto him, and he
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 grew up
together with him and with his children and did eat of his own
meat and drank of his own cup and lay in his bosom and was
unto him a daughter. And there came a traveler unto
the rich man and he spared to take of his own flock, of his
own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him. but
took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man that was
come to him." Can you imagine? And verse 5 says, 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. I delivered thee out of the hand
of Saul, and 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 have 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 Amon." And 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."
When the Lord reveals to chosen sinners, elect sinners, oh, isn't
that a I love those two parts, chosen, elect. A lot of people
don't. I love them too, Donnie. But
when the Lord reveals to a chosen sinner their great sin, let me
tell you, they will always, every time, take God's side in the
matter. They do. And that's when we know for certain
that a work of grace in our hearts has been done. The psalmist here, the man in
our story, tells us in chapter 51, verse 4, he said, Against
thee and thee only have I sinned. All our sin is against God. I may transgress against you.
I may do something that's wrong against you, but ultimately,
My sin is against Him. My sin is against God. And God
shows us plainly by piercing our hearts with the knowledge
that our transgressions are against Him and Him only. And when God
Almighty shows us our sin, it's a great grace. It's a great grace. For not only is our sin against
Him only, But forgiveness can come from Him only. My sin is
against Him. And He freely forgives. And we have this confidence.
The beloved John said if we confess our sins, He, God, is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What a God. What a God. Now in the story we have before
us tonight, we read of what many call David's great sin. David
is guilty both of adultery and murder. And there's really no
need to comment on it any further. There are none of us that can
point a finger or judge. I remember my mother, you know,
she always said these little sayings, and she always said
that when I pointed my finger, I had four more pointing back
at me. You think about it, you really do. And we're all guilty
of the same things, if not outwardly, inwardly. You remember in Matthew
5, if you don't, let me just read it to you. Our Lord said,
He said, You've heard that it was said by them of old, thou
shalt not commit adultery. He said, but I say unto you,
that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery already with her, where? In his heart. This is a heart
matter. These are matters of the heart.
As a matter of fact, anything that men or women lust after
and desire more than Christ our Savior commits spiritual adultery. And you might well say, well,
yeah, brother, I may have done that, but I've never murdered
anyone. But again, I call your remembrance
to our Lord's words again. In the fifth chapter of Matthew
21, He said, you've heard it said, by them of old that thou
shalt not kill. And whosoever shall kill shall
be in danger of the judgment." And again he said, but I say
unto you, I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother
without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. It's a heart
matter. It's a heart matter. We're talking
about Hearts, that Jeremiah said, are deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked. My heart? Oh, yeah. Yes, sirree. Our Lord said in Matthew 15,
for out of where? The heart, precede evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. Where do they come from? Out
of the heart. Out of the heart. Now in verse
13 of our text, we see that Nathan, he really brought home David's
sin to him. And his conscience was awakened
to a true sense of his guilt. Look at verse 13 again with me.
And David said unto Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord. And
Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin. I would have you notice first
God's wondrous grace in the fact that as soon as David said, I
have sinned against the Lord, the same prophet, the same prophet
who had brought him to the conviction of his sin gives him immediate
assurance of pardon. They said, I've sinned against
the Lord. Nathan said, Lord, put away your sin. The pardoning of great sin is
wonderful, but let me tell you something, friends. The pardoning
of great sin so quickly, so instantaneous, just as soon as the confession
is made, forgiveness immediately follows. How wonderful is that? Oh, how I wish When we forgive,
it's against those that trespass against us that we can forgive
so quickly. I was thinking about it today.
We forgive, but you've heard that old saying. We hear it all
the time. I forgive, but I won't forget. That's not really forgiving,
is it? I'm ashamed to say I still remember
wrongs against me that happened decades ago. I can tell you fellas'
names and addresses. Drove by their houses a few days
ago. But our gracious and merciful
God immediately casts our transgressions into the depths of the sea. And
it says to remember them no more. Hebrews 8.12, I'll be merciful
to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. Isaiah 43.25, I, even I, am He
that blotteth out thy transgressions, and He sends His Word for my
own sake. and will not remember thy sins."
So the first thing that we should consider from our text is that
David is made to see his sin in its true light before it was
forgiven. Nathan didn't go to him and say,
now David, you know what you've done. He didn't go and say, you
know, you've disgraced your character, you've brought dishonor upon
God, you've done all this, and God's decided to forgive you.
What did he do? Well, he told him a parable.
He told him a story. Our Lord used parables often. And this story set David's own
character before him as absolutely the most wicked, cruel man that
ever lived. We read the story. And I know
when we read it, some of you were thanking him until you said,
Who could do such a thing? Who could do such a thing? The
description of the traveler who came to the rich man and went
and took that little lamb, that little female lamb, that the
poor man loved. I'm sure a lot of you have dogs. We've had dogs that were dog-loving.
They're like members of the family, aren't they? They sleep on your
bed. Mine eat better than I do. We love them. Maybe too much,
I don't know. But anyway, that poor man loved
that little lamb. And that rich man had all this
abundance. And he took that poor man's lamb,
slaughtered it, and fed the traveler, made a feast for the traveler.
And I'm going to tell you something that was well understood and
visualized by David. And it made him mad. Who could
do such a thing, he thought, and for lack of a better way
to say it, friends, it was a trap. It was a trap in which David
was cleverly caught. You see, he was made to see himself,
though he didn't have the slightest idea at that moment that he was
a man. Nathan said to him, Thou art
the man. He was made to feel that he was
a mean and depraved wretch who deserved to be condemned to death,
and his indignation was moved against himself. I remember that. I remember when God showed me
what I was. And as I said in the beginning,
I took sides with God against myself. I knew it was so. The Holy Spirit convicted me,
showed me what I was, showed me what I deserved, and I thought
to myself, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? This is how God deals with sinners. David was made to condemn himself. And I'm convinced, and I believe
you'll agree, that no man or woman will ever see their need
of Christ until they see their greatness of their own sin. Oh, it's when we see our need.
Forgiveness is found only in one place, and that place is
in a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. The shepherd
boy who was now king, he pronounced judgment on the one who had done
this cruel and horrible thing, and he said, as the Lord liveth,
if it's the last thing I do, that man that has done this thing
shall surely die. I'm going to kill him myself.
I'll kill him myself. That's what he said. And I'll tell you what, this
awakening always comes before pardon. By the grace of God,
I've come to realize that I'm capable of doing anything. I'm
capable of doing the most horrific things if God would withhold
His restraining grace. Like David, I watch the news
and I hear the horrific things that men do. You know, not long
ago, they found those girls in that man's house. And then you
hear all these horrible things. And I was sitting there in front
of the TV, and I got mad. And I said, I tell you, that'll
take that man, and he needs to die a slow, agonizing death. That's what he deserves. And
the Spirit of God spoke to my heart, and He said, The power
of the man. If not by my grace, there you
go. There you are. That's you. You're
capable of doing the same thing. Has God shown you that you're
the one? Thank Him if He has. Oh, there
are men and women that go through this life never seeing their
need. Never seeing their condition.
You're the man. You're the man. You're the man.
You're the man. You're the woman. You're the
woman. I knew a man one time, a good
man, as far as men go, and oh, he took pride in the fact that
he had faithfully attended Sunday school for sixty-some years.
My goodness, boy, I thought he'll need a neck brace to hold that
crown he's going to get. But I was talking to him one
day and he said, you know something? He said, if I had been there
the day they had crucified the Lord, I wouldn't have let it
happen. What a foolish statement. First, it was the will and purpose
of God that Christ should die for His people. Who can stay
His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou? And secondly, this
was the part that really flabbergasted me. Our hearts are so deceitful
and wicked that we just stood in line to hammer the spikes
into the Lord's hand and feet. Thou art the man. Thou art the one. Oh, beloved,
I remember when a true messenger of the gospel preached to me.
And this God sent preacher spoke to the people in general. I was
just one like you tonight sitting here. in attendance, and he was
talking about that sin that so easily besets us, that afflicts
us, that torments us, all of us. And God's Spirit spoke to
my heart. And He said, Thou art the man. You're the man that sinned against
God. And right then and there, like David, I signed my own death
warrant. There was nothing to plead but
my guilt. What am I going to do? Start
talking about my goodness, my righteousness? There's none that
are righteous no more than I want. What's my footing to stand upon?
I, by the grace of God, knew that I had sinned against the
Lord. And I've a thousand times wondered. I'm telling you, I have thought
about this a thousand times. Why did he send my soul to hell
right then? Been justified in doing so. God's
eternal wrath and swift justice is what I deserved. I deserved
eternal condemnation because my heart, in my heart, I took
God's precious lamb and I killed him. No wonder David sung in Psalm
136. I was reading that not long ago. 26 times in his many verses
he said, for his mercy endures forever. Can you see why he would
say such a thing? I can. His mercy endures forever. Now next, and I want to hurry
here, I want to call your attention to the simplicity of the parable
that Nathan told. It wasn't a difficult story,
was it? Why, even a small child could have understood its storyline. That's the way we need to preach.
But just as God's Word does to those whom He makes it effectual,
it reveals the guilt of our sin and the thoughts and the intents
of our hearts which are only evil continually. David's made
to know that the Word of God can search out his most secret
thoughts. the most secret things and cause
him to see his true character. And to those of you that have
bowed to God's Son by the preaching and the hearing of His Word,
I ask you, was it not the same for you? When the sinner becomes
enlightened by the light of the Word, which is Christ, he understands
that nothing is hid from his Creator. All things are naked and open
unto Him. But again, the psalmist said,
shall not God search this out? For He knoweth the secrets of
the heart. So now, I'm going to give you
the Gospel from the text. I wish Todd was here. I'd tease
him again about 30 minutes of intro. But here's the Gospel. I want you to see this. I think
this will be a blessing to you. Oh, how welcome that message
of God's mercy and grace must have been to David. How soft
and sweet those following words of the prophet must have been
to his ear after the harsher notes that he had just heard. Verse 13, the Lord also hath
put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel, let me say this,
the gospel always begins with the Lord. Salvation always begins
with the Lord. In another psalm, I don't even
remember the number right now, but it says, The Lord hath done
great things for us. Whereof we are glad. The Lord
hath. And Nathan says, The Lord hath
put away thy sin. Always begins with the Lord.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ that came to save sinners. It's the
Lord Jesus Christ that lived perfectly and died the just for
the unjust. And that's what Peter said. He
said, For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, and just for
the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Oh, He don't bring
us to God in our present state. He brings us to God perfect,
holy, and righteous as He Himself is. Oh, that's the way I want
to be called. He brings us to God being put
to death in the flesh, be quickened by the Spirit. Now that's the
Lord who suffered, it's the Lord that died, it's the Lord that
rose again, working out a perfect righteousness that is imputed,
and that simply means assigned and credited to the unjust sinner. That's substitution. That's God
doing for me what I cannot do for myself. And Nathan says the
Lord hath put away. Who? The Lord has. The one you
sinned against. And when the Lord puts it away,
friends, it's put away. It's put away. It's put away
so that he never remembers it. And as I said last night, He
puts it away so that you don't have it. It's not there. It's gone. It's as if it never
existed. Now, the next thing I want you
to see in this Gospel message He said, the Lord hath put away
your sin. Your sin. David was the one that
had transgressed in sin. Salvation is in a person, but
friend, salvation is personal. It will do me no good for the
Lord to put away somebody else's sin. Oh, I pray that He does. I'll rejoice if He does. But
if I am to have life eternal, if I am to have perfect righteousness,
if I am to stand before God as holy and righteous as He is,
the Lord must put away my sin. I'm the one that's I'm the one
that has done this evil in His sight. My Lord, the Holy and
Righteous One is justified. He's got the right when He speaks
against me. That's what He said in Psalm
51, 4. That you might be justified when you speak. That you might
be cleared. Clear of any unjust wrath when
He judges me. Why? Because my sin's against
Him. And therefore, he has the right
to put away my sin. He has the right as a just one
to justify me. For dying in my place, he is
both just and justifier." The brother read that so late. As
a matter of fact, I want him to come to Texas just to read
for me. He does such a good job. He's outstanding. Because of
this blessed truth, I receive the best news of all. And you
do too. Thou shalt not die. That's the gospel. The wages
of sin is death, but I shall not die. I've offended and broken
the entirety of God's law because he or she that offends in one
point, guilty of the whole thing. There's no doubt that I've offended
in way more than one point. But even if I had kept the whole
law and yet offended, failed in one little point, I'm guilty
of it all. But the good news of the gospel
proclaims loud and clear to those who trust in Christ as God's
surety and perfect sacrifice, thou shalt not die. Thou shalt not die. My condemnation
has been turned to comfort. Why do you love that message
that you love to hear, that you love to preach, that you love
to read about? It's the only hope I've got.
That's the only hope I've got. Know how I love this message
of God's sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord hath
also put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. I deserve to die. The
man that hath done these things shall surely die. But Christ
died in my place, so I shall not die. I can't think of any
better news than that, brethren. Would a million dollars compare
to that? Men who have billions of dollars would give it all
to have what God's chosen have, eternal life. It can't be bought,
it's free. It can't be earned, so cease
from your works. And it's not deserved, for grace
is never undeserved. It's unmerited. It's free. It's free. You consider your
years of sin, being even as others, the children of wrath, and then
you consider even the sin that plagues you now. Oh, sin still
plagues me. And you tell me that that's not
the best news you've ever heard. The Lord has also put away thy
sin, thou shalt not die. No better place to stop than
right there, but honestly, I feel as though I'd be doing you a
great disservice if I did. I want you to look at verse 14. Nathan says, Howbeit. Oh, my. I hate to say that word. Howbeit. Because by this deed,
thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to
bless thee. The child also that is born unto
thee shall surely die. And David was made to see the
greatness of his sin, and he was made to see it by the effect
which it produced upon others. Nathan said to David, By this
deed you have given great occasion for the enemies of the Lord to
blaspheme. I call serious attention to every
And I'm talking to me, too. Carelessly walking believer to
that how-be-it. How-be-it because by this deed. David was forgiven. But from
that day forward, we're told that the sword never departed
from his house. We're told from that day forward
that the child that Bathsheba carried would die. The child's
going to die. God let him know that although
he was pardoned, some of the results of his sin still remained. The guilt of his sin was gone.
Nathan said, Lord, put away thy sin. It's gone. But the evil
effect of it must be dealt with by the Lord's chastening rod. Oh, I tell you, friends, But that also. Now listen to
me. I'm about done. That's a great
grace. Hebrews 12.6 says, For whom the
Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. The earlier part of David's life
was full of music and dancing. The latter part had far more
mourning Lamentation in it. And even in his dying testimony,
full of faith, loved God with all his heart. It was marred
by the regret, although my house be not so with God. Now, I hope that we can understand
this. I hope I can. I've thought about
it. I've meditated on it. I've thought
about it so much. God didn't afflict David willingly. He did it because it was for
His good. That's where the comfort in this
is. And we know that all things work
together for good to them who what? Who what? Love God to them who are the
called according to His purpose. I believe it was Mr. Spurgeon
that once said, this folly in the natural heart that we all
are plagued with, the heart, the natural heart of God's people
cannot be driven out by anything but the rod. And therefore, the
rod must be given. And I'll tell you this in closing.
In my house, I was adopted. That's a whole other story, and
a beautiful one at that. But my mother was the disciplinary
person. She was tough, and she was a
pretty big woman. And I wasn't raised in a time
of timeouts. First time I saw that, I thought,
timeout? The only time out I had was when
they went to get the belt. There was two things she used
to say to me. The first was, this is going
to hurt me more than it does you. I never really bought that
one. But I do believe I know what
she meant. And the other thing she used
to say, she said, I'm doing this because I love you. And it's for your good. And you
know what? It was. It was for my good. It wasn't until I became a parent
that I really understood that. But, beloved, if I could leave
you with one thing, it would be when trials, when tribulations,
when heartaches and heartbreaks and sickness and infirmities
All these things come. And they're going to come. They're
going to come for every one of us. Remember who sent them. Remember who sent them. And remember
why He sent them. For your good. For your good. The Lord loveth those that He
chastened. God's going to wean us from this
world. And He's going to wing us from the things of it. And
one day soon, we'll see Him, and we'll be like Him. And the
Scripture says, He shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. May the Lord add His blessings
to His amazing Word. I'm going to go ahead and stop
this time, brother.