2 Samuel chapter 12. When the Lord reveals to chosen
sinners their great sin, they will always, every time, take
God's side in the matter. That's when we know for certain
that a work of grace in our hearts has been done. When God, by His
sovereign grace, shows us what we are and what we've done, we'll
no longer make excuses for we'll have been made to know by God
that we're without excuse. All sin is against God. We see
that, and I quote that verse very often to you in Psalm 51,
verse four, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight. David said the same one that
our text. is about today. 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 may not feel like it at the
time, but it's a great grace. For we see then, and only then,
that when our sin is against Him, that forgiveness can only
come from Him. And we have this assurance. The
beloved John gave it to us in the first epistle we wrote, chapter
1, verse 9. If we confess our sins, not to
a man, not a man in a box as we were teasing about the other
night, but to God, whom our sin is against, He is faithful and
just to forgive. To forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now in the story before us this
morning that we read a few moments ago of David's great sin, David
is guilty both of adultery and murder. There's really no need
to comment on it any further. There are none of us that can
point a finger or judge God's servant, for we are all guilty
of the same things, if not outwardly, inwardly. You see, God knows
if there are any here who have this morning committed adultery,
but I know this concerning all of us. Our Lord said in Matthew
5, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart. God looks on the
heart. This is a heart thing. And honestly,
I must say this, I don't see where ladies are excused here.
I don't have any reason to believe that women cannot lust after
men. Not to dwell on that, but a matter of fact that anything,
absolutely anything that men or women lust after or desire
more than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself commits spiritual adultery,
You can make anything a God. And you might say, well, preacher,
I'll give you that one, but I haven't murdered anyone. Well, before
you conclude on that matter, let me read 1 John 3.15. It says,
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and you know that
no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. And again, some
might venture to say, well, I don't hate any of my brothers and sisters.
Okay, I'll give you that one. But let me ask you this, have
you ever been angry with a brother or sister without a cause? Oh,
now we get home a little closer. That's what our Lord said in
Matthew 5.21. You've heard that it was said of them of, O thou
shalt not kill. and whosoever shall kill shall
be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, God in the
flesh is talking to you, and I tell you that whosoever is
angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of
the judgment." We're talking about our deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked hearts. For out of where, our
Lord said, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Where? Out of the
heart. This is a heart issue. And when
we looked at this narrative in our reading, this story, We saw
clearly that when Nathan the prophet had brought home David's
sin to him, his conscience was awakened to a true sense of his
guilt. Verse 13, David said unto Nathan,
I have sinned against the Lord. Against who? Against thee and
thee only have I sinned. I've sinned against the Lord.
Well, didn't he sin against Bathsheba's husband? He sinned against the
Lord. Oh, I'd have you notice, friends,
God's wondrous grace in the fact that as soon as David said, I
have sinned against the Lord, the same prophet who brought
him to the conviction of his sin gives him immediate assurance
of pardon. The Lord also has put away thy
sin. Can you imagine what good news
that was to David? Thou shalt not die. Now, the
pardoning of great sin is absolutely wonderful. Those of you that
have experienced it and now have the assurance of pardon know
that's a wonderful thing. But pardoning so great a sin,
so instantaneous? As soon as the confession is
made, forgiveness immediately follows. How wonderful is that? How I wish when we forgive others
that trespass against us, we could forgive them so quickly.
We forgive, but we seem to never forget. But our gracious and
merciful God immediately casts our transgressions into the depths
of the sea to remember them no more. That's scriptural. Hebrews
8.12, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and
their sins and their iniquities that I remember no more. Isaiah
43.25, I, even I, the Lord says, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions
for my own name's sake, for my own sake, and will not. will
not remember thy sins. So the first thing that we should
consider here is that David is made to see his sin in its true
light before it was forgiven. Now, Nathan didn't come to David
and say, David, you know what you've done. You've disgraced
your character. You've brought dishonor upon
the God that you love, but you are forgiven. He didn't do that. The prophet told him a parable
told him a story and it set David's own character before him as being
one of the most wicked and meanest kind of a man. The description
of that traveler who came to the rich man who had an abundance
of sheep and cattle and were told took that little female
lamb that the poor man considered like a family member and killed
and slaughtered it and prepared it for food and made a feast
for the traveler. Boy, I tell you, that was so
grasped and visualized by David that it just flat made him mad.
Who could do such a thing? He thought. For lack of a better
way to say it, friends, it was a trap in which David was cleverly
caught. He's made to see himself. You
see that? Though he had not, at the time,
the slightest idea that he was the man. And when Nathan said
to him those very words, Thou art the man, Thou art the man,
he was made to feel that he was mean and a depraved wretch who
deserved to be condemned to death. His indignation was moved against
himself and against his own actions and therefore the Lord saw to
it that David should not receive pardon until he had realized
the greatness of his sin. David was made to condemn himself. This is how God deals with sinners.
No man or woman will ever see their need of Christ until they
see the greatness of their sin. That's just a fact. When God
enables a sinner to see their need of forgiveness, He'll show
them that it is found only in one place, and in one place only. Forgiveness, that is. The Lord
Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, our beloved Substitute. You'll
see that's the only place to go. Because He's the One we've
offended. He's God. And as I said earlier, only the
one that we have transgressed against can actually forgive
us. You can't forgive me of a transgression that I committed against someone
else. And I can't forgive you of a transgression that you've
committed against someone else. All our sin is against God and
God only. And before Nathan said to David,
thou shalt not die, the king had pronounced sentence upon
himself. And he said concerning the man
described in the parable, he said, as the Lord liveth, if
it's the last thing I do, that man's going to die at my own
hands. I'll kill him myself." This awakening
always comes before pardon. Believers had long known that
they had sinned, but they had no idea that sin was such a monstrous,
horrific thing as when God showed them that they are actually themselves
what they despise, that they're deserving of nothing but death.
I've come to realize that I'm capable of doing the most horrific
things if God would withhold His restraining grace from me.
Like David, when confronted with our unrevealed sin, we say, as
the Lord liveth, the one that hath done these things shall
surely die. And the Word of God by His Spirit speaks to our hearts,
and He says, You're the one. You're the man. You're the woman.
The heart of natural man so evil that when the perfect Son of
God came in the flesh to work out a perfect work of righteousness
for His people, men hated Him so much that they killed Him.
How could someone do such a thing? One might say. Whoever is guilty
of this notorious crime should be put to death. And the Spirit
of God says, You are the one. You're the one. You're the one
that did it. I, too, am the one. There's nothing good in any of
us by nature, by birth, by practice. We, like David, find in our own
hearts ample self-righteousness. Here, David was guilty of the
very thing that Nathan is describing to him. And still so much self-righteousness
in him that he said, I'd get my hands on that scoundrel, I'll
kill him. He was the one? Oh, we're very self-righteous
to condemn one who would do such a thing. I'll kill him myself.
Thou art the man. Thou art the woman. I remember
when a true messenger of the gospel preached to me. It's been
20 some years now, 25 years. This preacher spoke to the people
in general that were there that day about this sin that so easily
besets us, afflicts us, torments us. But God spoke to my heart. And he said, Thou art the man
that has sinned against God. And right then and there, like
David, I sign my own death warrant. Only a believer can do that.
Only one whom God has shown their sin can do that. We say it often,
we take sides with God against ourselves. We don't make excuses. We're without excuse. We know
it's true, but only God can reveal that to you. And I, by the grace
of God, knew truly that I had sinned against the Lord. You
know, I've wondered a thousand times and more that my soul was
not sent to hell. Think about that often. It's
what I deserve. God's eternal wrath and swift
justice is what I deserve. I deserve eternal condemnation
because in my heart I took God's Lamb and killed Him. No wonder
David sung in Psalm 136, 26 times in as many verses, he said, His
mercy endureth forever. Every verse of that song, His
mercy endureth forever. No wonder. He had experienced
His mercy. I would call your attention to
the simplicity of the parable that Nathan told. Again, what
a picture of how our preaching should be. Even a small child
could have understood its storyline. But just as God's word does to
those whom he makes it effectual, it reveals the guilt of our sins
and the thoughts and the intents of our hearts, which are only
evil continually. And David is made to know that
the word of God can search out his most secret things and cause
him to see himself in his true character. And to those of you
that have bowed to God's Son by the preaching and the gospel
and the hearing of the gospel, I ask you, was it not the same
for you? When the sinner becomes enlightened,
and God enlightens a sinner by the light of the Word, which
is Christ, He understands that absolutely nothing is hid from
His Creator. All things are naked and open
before Him, with whom we have to do. It's He that searches
and knows the heart of men and women. As I said earlier, we
put on our best face in front of one another, but God knows
our hearts. So now I want to give you the
gospel from our text. What a beautiful picture we have
here of the gospel. What a beautiful message. How
welcome that message of God's mercy and grace must have been
to David. How soft and sweet were those
following words of the prophet to his ear after the harsher
notes of his sin were given. The Lord, the Lord. also hath
put away thy sin, and thou shalt not die." That's the gospel. As always, the gospel begins
with the Lord. Salvations of 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. Peter said, For Christ also hath
once suffered for sins the just for the unjust, that he might
bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened
by the Spirit. It's the Lord who suffered. died
and rose again, working out a perfect righteousness that is imputed,
assigned and credited to the unjust sinner. Nathan said, the
Lord hath put away. And when the Lord puts it away,
friends, it's put away. It's put away so that he never
remembers it again. It's put away as though it never
existed. Salvation is of what? The Lord. The Lord hath put away thy sins. And the next thing I see in that
little sentence that's just so full of the gospel is that the
Lord also had put away my sin. It's a personal thing. I mean,
I'm happy if the Lord put away your sin, but I tell you, I'm
extremely pleased that the Lord has been pleased to put away
my sin. I'm the one that transgressed and sinned. I'm the one that's
guilty. I'm the one that has done this evil in His sight.
And my Lord, the Holy and Righteous One, is justified." Now listen,
He's justified. He has the right when He speaks
and He's clear when He judges the sinner because our sin is
against Him. That's what David went on to
say in Psalm 51. That you might be justified when
you speak and that you might be clear when you judge. Why? Because our sin is against
Him. Therefore He has the right to
put away my sin. You see that? He's got the right
to. He's got the power to. He died
in our place, in His people's place. Therefore He has the right. He has the right as the just
one to justify me. For dying in my place, He's both
just and justifier. He Himself became the sacrifice. That's the amazing thing. That's
why we call this the Gospel. That's why it's good news. He
Himself became what God Himself required. What a mystery. Who
can understand these things? We just believe them, don't we?
We just believe them. And because of this blessed truth,
I receive the best news of all. Thou shalt not die. 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 is guilty of the whole law. There's no doubt that I've
offended in way more than one point. Yet, even if I had kept
the whole law and offended, failed just in one little point, James
said, guilty of all. But the good news of the gospel
proclaims loud and clear to those who trust in God's surety and
the one mediator between God and men, thou shalt not die. You're not going to die. My condemnation
has been turned into comfort. How I love that wonderful message
of God's sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would
anybody want to hear anything else? I don't need somebody telling
me how to live. I can't live right. I don't need
you to tell me how to live. I know how I have to live. I have to live in faith and obedience
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Him as doing everything
perfectly for me. If not, there's no hope for me. I don't need anybody telling
me how to live. I need somebody to tell me how He lived, how
He died, and how He rose again and now sits at the right hand
of God making intercession for me. That's what I need to hear.
And that's all I care to hear. I deserve to die, for the man
that hath done these things shall surely die. But Christ died in
my place, so I shall not die. I cannot think of better news
than that. Thou shalt not die. Everybody's searching for the
fountain of youth. Want to live forever. You can't
buy it. It's free. You can't earn it. It's not by works. And you sure
don't merit it, because it's unmerited. That's what grace
is. It's unmerited favor. Oh my. You consider your years of sin
being even as others, the children of wrath, and then consider even
the sin that plagued you now. I never knew that someone that
professed to love Christ, and that as much as they could in
their own heart love Him, is still so wicked. We're messed
up. And that sin that plagues us
even now is forgiven. All sin. The Lord also hath put
away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. Now I'd stop right there. I'd
leave you on that note. That's where I want to leave
you. It really is. That's where I want to be left. Thou shalt
not die. That's my hope. That's my comfort. I honestly feel I'd be doing
you a great disservice If I didn't have you look at verse 14. Notice
the very first word, how be it? Oh my, I hate to say that word. The Lord has put away thy sin,
thou shalt not die. 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." You see,
David was made to see the greatness of his sin by the effect which
it produced upon others. Nathan had said to David, we
read it in the reading, he said, By this deed thou hast given
great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. God
let him know that he was pardoned, but some of the results of his
sin still remain. The guilt was gone, as Nathan
said, the Lord hath put away thy sin, but the evil effect
of it was still manifest. That must be dealt with by the
Lord's chastening rod. But that's also a great grace.
Because Hebrews 12.6 tells us, For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Now the earlier part of David's
life was full of music and dancing, and the latter part had far more
mourning and lamentation in it. Even in his dying testimony,
if you'll remember, Though full of faith, even it was marred
by the regret, although my house be not so with God. God hath
made with me an everlasting covenant, but not with all my family."
All the things that we read in those verses that would happen
to David. Verse 10, Now therefore the sword
shall never depart from thine house, because thou hast despised
me. But friends, God didn't afflict
him willingly. He did it because it was for
his good. You're going to have trials.
You're going to have tribulation. You're going to have heartaches.
You're going to have heartbreak. And it's God that sends it. Our
Lord's in the heavens. He's done whatsoever He's pleased.
He works all things after the counsel of His own will. All
things work together for the good of them that love the Lord,
who are thee called according to His purpose. Why? Because
God does it. And He did all this for David's
good. And He'll do it for our good.
The folly and the heart of God's people cannot be driven out by
anything but the rod. And therefore, the rod must be
given. I hope and pray that you've seen this morning that God can
and will forgive sin. He's gracious. His mercy endures
forever. And if we repent even of our
greatest, most horrific sin, our grossest sin, He's faithful
and just to forgive. Every single one of them. It
doesn't matter. Yet we're all so taught that
sin is an evil thing and it's against God. And though the guilt
of it may be removed, the evil consequences of it can cling
to us. It can. And be a subject of sorrow
to us Oh, there's so many things in my life that I regret. It
clings to me. I'm sorrowful over it. I just
wish it wasn't so. But listen, friends, one day
God's going to wipe away all tears from our eyes. And in that, I rejoice.