2 Samuel chapter 12 is one of
the passages of scripture that I think some people wish weren't
even in the Bible because, well, it's actually 2 Samuel 11. We're
gonna deal with 2 Samuel 12, but 2 Samuel 11 records that
event, that sad, tragic, sinful event, that incident in King
David's life where he committed adultery, murder, and deception
to satisfy his own sinful, selfish lust. And as you know, that's
the story of David and Bathsheba. David, who was king of Israel,
who reigned because God anointed him and appointed him and put
him on the throne and blessed him so much, the one who's described
in the Bible as a man after God's heart, the one who's described
as the sweet psalmist of Israel, the one under whom Israel flourished
probably more than any other time. Actually, you can put the
reigns of David and Solomon together, and under their reign, Israel
flourished greater than any other time in their history. Maybe
later on there was a few times, but it didn't last. And of course,
this didn't last. But you know, this is a story
of David and Bathsheba. Bathsheba was married to a Hittite
named Uriah. And he had converted to the old
covenant law, to Judaism, and he was a captain in David's army. And of course, you know, David,
the kingdom always had attacks from outside enemies, and they
were in a battle at this point in time. And Uriah was away,
and David, you remember, he came up on his roof, and he looked
down on the roof of Bathsheba. She was taking a bath, and she
was naked, and he lusted after her, and he sent his servants,
go get her, bring her to me. And of course, you know the story.
She became pregnant with David's child. David plotted to bring
Uriah back and get him to go into Bathsheba and to fool him
to say it was his child and it didn't work. And so then he plotted
to have Uriah murdered. You remember he told his captain,
he said, when you go into the heat of the battle and Uriah's
there, pull back from him so he'll be killed. Now that's premeditated
murder, isn't it? That's third degree or whatever,
or first degree, yeah, first degree murder. So here in 2 Samuel
12, we see the prophet of God, a man named Nathan, who was sent
by God to confront David on this very issue. Now I've entitled
this lesson Grace Abounding in Christ. And I took the title
from Romans chapter five. It says, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. And that's what we see here in
this story, that David in all of this dark time of his life,
when he himself had lost sight of the reality and the joy of
salvation, and that's what he said, but God confronted him,
brought him to repentance. And we see the grace of God active
here. Look at the first four verses
of chapter 12. This is where Nathan begins with
David. And he begins by telling him
a story. And it says in verse one, the Lord sent Nathan unto
David and he came unto him and said unto him, now here's the
story. There were two men in one city. The one was rich, 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. 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. This is how much he loved that
little ewe lamb. Well, verse four says, there
came a traveler under the rich man and he spared to take of
his own flock and of his own herd, he didn't take of his own
flock and his own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was
come unto him, but he took the poor man's one ewe lamb and dressed
it for the man that was come to him." So here's the story.
Now you can just imagine Nathan standing before King David telling
him this story. And he's obviously talking about
David, but David didn't recognize it. And you know, I've heard
all kinds of preachers, they'll go over this thing, and especially
when they go through chapter 11, they'll talk about, well,
David did all this, but oh, he must have been troubled day and
night the whole time, you know? We don't know how much time lapsed between the time that
David committed these crimes and Nathan confronted him, but
it was at least time enough for Bathsheba to have the baby. So
we'd say at least nine months or whatever, or maybe a year
or more. But the idea that we get here is not that David recognizes
himself in Nathan's story. It's almost like David has put
this out of his mind. He's put it out of his mind.
He's not going through sorrow and tears and trouble this whole
time. And I think the reason preachers all the time wanna
talk like that is because they don't really think that a true
believer could do this and then live with it. But I suspect that
if God hadn't sent Nathan to David, he'd have been perfectly
okay. He was the king. He could pretty much do what
he wanted to do. Now he knew what was right and
what was wrong. But listen to David's response.
So David didn't recognize this. David, and we're going to find,
one of the things that you need to read in connection with this
is Psalm 51. And that's David's psalm of penitence. And that's where he realizes
what's happening here and God brought him to repentance. And
what we need to understand, David was a sinner saved by grace.
Now that's true. And you say, well, believers
can't do things like this. Yes, they can. And yes, they
did. That doesn't make it right. That's
not our example to follow. And God's not gonna, I'm gonna
bring this out here in a minute, that's not God teaching us what
we can get away with if we believe salvation by grace. At all. Because this is a tragic, dark
day in David's life. And David suffered for it the
rest of his life. Now I hear people say, I'll deal
with this in just a moment too, but people say, well David paid
for his sins. Well, No, I mean, David suffered
consequences. If you want to call that payment,
that's okay. But you know what the payment for sin is, don't
you? The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The wages of sin is
death. No believer, technically, in
a legal way, pays for our sins. We don't, we don't, we can't
pay for our sins. That's why eternal damnation
is eternal. There's no payment for it except
eternal death and the equivalent of that, Christ paid for our
sins. Jesus paid it all. Our debt laid
upon Him. His righteousness laid upon us. So He paid for our sins so As
far as David paying for sins, put that out of your mind. Now
there are consequences, and I'll say this now, there are not immediate
consequences to every sin we commit. If there were, we wouldn't
be able to raise our heads up. That's right, any day, even on
our best days. So understand that, but there
is grace, and here's the fact. We cannot out sin God's grace. And somebody says, well, now
I'll just go out and sin as much as I want to. And I'll tell you,
you don't want to tell him. I said, well, go on and do what
you want to. That's what you want to do. But that's not how
that affects one of God's children. one who has the grace of God
in our hearts. But look at what David said,
look at verse five. David's anger was greatly kindled against the
man. Now David thought that Nathan
was talking about somebody in his kingdom, and David's anger
greatly kindled against him. And he said to Nathan, as the
Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely
die. Think about it. David, the king,
pronounced the sentence of death, just like God pronounces the
sentence of death on all sin. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. The wages of sin is death. As sin hath reigned unto death. And in verse six, David went
on, he said, he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he
did this thing and because he had no pity. So David's anger
and judgment proved that he did not recognize himself as the
culprit in this story, Nathan's story. But his words were consistent
with God's law. He knew what the man deserved.
You know, it's been established from the very beginning that
sin demands and deserves death. Genesis 2, 17, what did God tell
Adam? In the day you eat thereof of
that forbidden fruit, you shall surely die. Dying thou shalt
die. And that's what happened to Adam.
That's what happened to us in Adam. When Adam fell, we fell
in him. We fell into a state of sin and
death where we deserve nothing but condemnation and eternal
damnation, eternal death. That's what we deserve. Now thank
God for his covenant of grace that was made and set up before
the foundation of the world because God's elect, we have been vessels
of mercy all along. But David just spoke the truth
here. And he says, that fella deserves death, he's gonna die.
Now, let me say this. Under the law of Moses, which
David was under, the old covenant, both the sins of adultery and
the sin of murder were both punishable by death. Physical death, capital
punishment under the law of Moses. Do you remember in, In the book
of John, where is it? John chapter eight, I think,
where they caught a woman in adultery, and they brought her
there, and they said the law of Moses says to stone her. Of
course, there was all kinds of things wrong with what they were
doing there in their self-righteous judgment. First of all, it wasn't
to be vigilante judgment drawn out into the street and stoned. It was to be under a trial and
executed by the authorities. And secondly, have you ever seen,
when you read that story, where was the man? She was caught in
the act. There had to be a man there too.
They didn't bring the man. Maybe he was somebody of noble
descent. Maybe he was somebody who was
somebody. But they just brought the woman. So I mean, that was
all messed up. But the law of Moses did. demand
corporal capital punishment for those sins. Now, and think about
ourselves, even though, you know, I don't think anybody in here,
I mean, I don't know for sure, but I don't think any of us have
ever committed the act of murder or the act of adultery, but I'll
tell you what, we've committed it in our hearts. You know what
Christ said in Matthew five? When he said, you heard it said
by them of old, thou shalt not kill. But I tell you, if you
have the thought of murder, that's sin, that deserves death. So
we're all, if we're in Christ, covered by his blood, robed in
his righteousness, we're all forgiven murderers and forgiven
adulterers. But under the law of Moses, that
was punishable by death. But look at verse seven. Now
here's where it comes out. And Nathan said unto David, thou
art the man. You're the man, David. Here's
God's prophet boldly proclaiming God's word before the king. If David had been what we call
an evil king, I know he was a sinner now and he did some evil things,
but he wasn't an evil king. He could have just said, lop
that guy's head off. That's what he could have said.
Thou art the man, Nathan said. Verse seven, thus saith the Lord
God of Israel. This is God's word. I anointed
thee king over Israel. I delivered thee out of the hand
of Saul. I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives
into thy bosom and gave thee the house of Israel, the house
of Judah. Now, what happens here in these verses, God is telling
David, look at what all I've done for you. Look at how I've
given you all these things. And how did you express gratitude? Well, you didn't. He says, verse
nine, wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to
do evil in his sight? I've heard preachers say that
God doesn't see our sins. Well, right here, Nathan said,
God told David through Nathan, he said, you've done this evil
in God's sight. What do you mean God doesn't
see our sins? Now, God does not impute our
sins to us. He doesn't charge our sins to
us in the way of condemnation. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputed not iniquity. Can you understand why David
would write that? And glory in that? Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord imputed righteousness without works.
David understood that his salvation was by grace. But God sees everything
we do, folks. He sees our hearts. He sees our
thoughts. He's omniscient. The thoughts
that we hide from others, God sees them. But thank God because
of Christ, because of grace abounding to us in Christ, He does not
hold us accountable in the sense of salvation for this. He does not impute sins to us.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? But you
know what? This is how God draws his people
back to himself when we stray like David strayed. Look at what
I've done for you. Think about the salvation that
God has blessed us with. Think about the blessings and
the benefits that God has freely, and put capital letters on that
word freely, given to every one of us in Christ. That means he's
given us unconditionally, without a cause, when we don't deserve
and haven't earned any of these blessings, but God has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. Think about that. What do we
owe God? We don't owe him a debt of, a
legal debt, that's paid. We owe him a debt of love, gratitude,
obedience, all of this. And so God is reminding David
of what he's done. He said, you've done this in
his sight. Verse nine, thou has killed Uriah the Hittite with
the sword, taken his wife to be thy wife and has slain him
with the sword of the children of Ammon, that is their enemies
that were attacking them. And so he goes on, he tells David
what all he's done for him and reminds him. And what we see
here, again, going back to this thing about, you know, somebody
says, well, David's paying, he's gonna pay for his sins. Well,
look at what God says. Verse 11. He says, thus saith
the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil out of thine own house. Evil's gonna come to you from
your own family. That's what he means there, his
own household. 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. Now this is God's chastising
David. You might say punishment, but
it's chastisement. It's not payment because what's
gonna happen to David couldn't pay for his sins. The payment
has to be equivalent to the crime. That's eternal death. And then
verse 12 says, for thou didst it secretly, but I will do this
thing before all Israel and before the Son. In other words, I'm
gonna do this openly. It's gonna come out. All that's
gonna happen to David. And this is chastisement. Any
time when we suffer the consequences of our sins, The Bible, I believe,
tells us that it falls under the heading of the chastisements
of our heavenly Father who loves us. And you can read about that
in Hebrews chapter 12. It's kind of like a commentary
on that. That whenever we suffer in this life, children of God,
I'm talking about, not everybody, but children of God, That it's
the Lord chastening us, which means He is correcting us. He's teaching us. He's disciplining
us. That's what chastening is. It's
not payment for sin. That's what Christ did. but He
teaches us, He corrects us, He admonishes us, and all of that
is meant to do one thing basically, and that is to bring us to repentance
and drive us to Christ more and more. Hebrews 12 talks about
after we go through these chastisements which are not pleasant, which
are hurtful, troublesome, He says, afterward it yields the
peaceable fruit of righteousness. And what does that mean? That
means we come out of those things looking to, resting in, pleading
the righteousness of Christ even more. I know that my hope is
built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And
that's what it does. And sometimes, there are times
when we can recognize that we're being chastised for specific
sins. There are times we can do that.
And I often use the example of if you're speeding on the highway
and you get stopped by the police and they give you a ticket. Well,
why'd you get that ticket? Because you broke the law. You
sped when you shouldn't have been. There are times when we
are chastised for a reason that we don't know. I mean, not for
any specific sin. Look at Job. The whole story
of Job is about that. You know, the problem with Job's
three miserable, friendly comforters was they were trying to pick
out, Job, let's go back in your life and let's figure out what
you've done to get God to do this to you. And there was no
reason. God used Job as a shining example
of how he chastises his children in love and where he brings them
to. And Job had some hard things
to go through. He lost his family, he lost his
health, he lost his wealth. Think about that, but God kept
him and brought him to see the glory of God and all that. And
when it comes to, for example, when it comes to each other,
I mean, if you go out and commit a crime and you end up in jail,
And if you're my brother or sister in Christ, I come to visit you. I can tell you why you're in
jail. You broke the law. You did something that the law
says you deserve jail time, and I'm here to visit you. And you're
being punished for that, and that's part of God's punishment.
But many times, and I'll say even most of the time, we don't
have the wisdom or the knowledge to look at each other and make
a judgment and say, well, now you're suffering because of this
or that or that. We don't know that. And so what
are we to do? Well, we're to encourage one
another. We're to express our love and our care for one another
in Christ. Well, listen to what happens
here now in verse 12, or verse 13 rather. It says, and David said unto
Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Now David sinned against
Uriah, didn't he? Had him killed. David sinned against Bathsheba.
But David says it this way, I've sinned against the Lord. Why
does he say it that way? Because all sin ultimately is
against God because it's transgressing the law of God, breaking the
commandments of God. When we sin against one another,
we're ultimately sinning against God. And in his prayer penitence,
in Psalm 51, what did David say? He said, against thee and thee
only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. So he said,
I've sinned against the Lord. But look at the words of Nathan.
Now here's grace abounding. Nathan said unto David, the Lord
also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Could you imagine
hearing those words in David's condition? God's put your sin
away. Now, how does God put away sin?
Well, he didn't do it just by forgetting it. When God puts
away sin, he's got to do it on a just ground. And the only just
ground for putting away sin is the blood of Jesus Christ. And
that's who David's hope is, was back then and is forever. His
hope was in Christ. He expresses that all through
the Psalms. He expresses it here in the record
of 2 Samuel, because we're gonna read in 2 Samuel 23, when we
get to that point, I think it's the next lesson. David's last
words, he said, although my house be not so with God, he hath made
a covenant with me that is ordered and in all things sure. Wow,
who ordered it? God did. Who made it sure? Christ
did. All the promises of God in Christ
are yea and amen. And he said, this is all my salvation. The only thing that David had
to plead was the righteousness of Christ. And that's why he
wrote in Psalm 32, blessed is the man whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man whose transgressions are put away. All of that. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. And Nathan said, thou shalt not
die. Now, David was spared the penalty of the law of Moses,
but he's also spared the penalty of God Almighty in eternal damnation. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. And so verse 14, Nathan tells
him, how be it? Because by this deed thou hast
given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The
child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. Now let
me give you a few final thoughts here. A further consequence of
David's sin with Bathsheba was the child that she had was to
die, and the child did die. And David grieved over that.
But you know what, they had another child, and that child was named
Solomon. And it was through him through
that human fleshly line, through Solomon, and through David, Bathsheba,
Solomon, and on through, that the Lord Jesus Christ would come
according to the flesh. Now think about that. Isn't that
mind-boggling? You say, out of that great sin
came the greatest of all works of God, sending his Son into
the world. Now doesn't that tell you that
in all of this, even though God cannot be accused of sinning,
God's in control here. All of it. And that's mind boggling. And somebody said, you mean God
ordained all of this? Yes, and I have no embarrassment
in saying that. Well, how can God do that and
not be a sinner himself? I can't answer all those questions,
I just know that God has no nature of sinfulness within himself.
He's holy, he's just. But I do know this, he overrules
and guides and directs all affairs of the kings and of everybody
under them, all men and women, to accomplish his goal of glorifying
himself in the salvation of his people, God's elect out of every
tribe and nation, through the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you, people will
reject this God, they'll reject that, and that's all right, if
that's what they wanna do. But that's the God of this book.
That's the God with whom we have to do. That's the God we're gonna
stand before, either in Christ, washed in his blood, clothed
in his righteousness, or on our own, even though we could say,
well, we haven't done what David did. Well, my friend, we're sinners. And without Christ, all we are
is condemned sinners. That's all we are. Without Christ,
without His blood to wash away my sins, without His righteousness
imputed to me, to give me a right standing before God, all I am
at my best is a condemned sinner who will die eternally without
Him. Now, I know what unbelievers
do with things like this, and here's what, remember what Nathan
said to David. Howbeit, verse 14, because of
this thy deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies
of the Lord to blaspheme. You know, that's probably one
of the worst things that comes from a child of God who strays
to the point of doing things that publicly bring scandal on
the gospel. Right there. I mean, we could
talk about all the bad things and all the chastisements and
all that, but probably one of the worst things that happens
when a true child of God strays to the point of bringing public
scandal on the gospel is that they give the enemies of God
occasion to blaspheme. And you know what people say,
unbelievers, especially self-righteous religionists, will use this as
an occasion to speak against our God and our Savior and our
gospel. They'll say our claim of salvation
is totally, they say that our claim of salvation totally by
God's free and sovereign grace, that's worthless, that's powerless. Look at you, you believe you
can sin all you want to. Well, no, we don't believe that,
but that's what they'll say. And so I wanna leave you with
this. Let's all remember that David's
sin, the sins of God's people, especially those in the Old Testament,
because we have the sins of Noah, the sins of Abraham, the sins
of David, we could go on and on. These things are not recorded
in God's word, obviously, to be examples for us to follow.
You're not to follow David in committing, I know we're all
guilty of heart murder and heart adultery, I know that, but we
know better than to think that we can just go out and get away
with it because we're saved by grace. These things aren't recorded
to show how much we can get away with because we're saved by grace.
Look at David's life after this. David, the sweet psalmist of
Israel, who wrote some of the most precious psalms even after
this, his life was pretty miserable. His own son tried to take him
off the throne and overthrow him. That's when Nathan said
that evil's gonna rise up out of your own house. His wives,
his sons, his kingdom, And that's why at the end of his life he
said, although my house be not so with God. My house, my family,
my kingdom is an absolute mess. But my state and my standing
before God is secure in Christ. And so understand that. We see
this whole episode was well within God's sovereign predestinating
purpose. even though we cannot accuse
God of sin, it shows how God sovereignly overrules the sins
of mankind to accomplish his purpose. And I would suggest
that you take time sometime today or this week, read Psalm 51. That's a beautiful Psalm. It's
David's Psalm of penitence when it was exposed and brought out
and understand now, It expresses when David said, restore unto
me the joy of thy salvation. David didn't lose his salvation
here. The righteousness of Christ was not perverted here. It was not contaminated here.
But he says, restore unto me the joy, the peace, the rest
of thy salvation. Okay.