0:00 Second Samuel chapter 12. Here here's what we're gonna do. We just we just prayed. I want us to pray again, and, just submit every faculty to this moment and and ask the lord to really help you, allow this word to reach your heart, and ask the lord to help me bring it from my heart to you. Lord, we do thank you.
0:20 We believe that you are here, that your spirit has been given to the church for many reasons, and one of those reasons is that there would be boldness and courage and clarity. Your word says that we each have the anointing residing within us to know what it is that you have to say to us. May that anointing come into action as we come to the sacred scriptures. May there be power. May there be even a sense of precision in our own lives and its application, and may, lord, you be glorified in the faithfulness of the declaration and the obedience of the application.
0:55 This is our desire. In Jesus' name, amen. Who was here last week? Who was here last week? Okay.
1:05 If you were here last week, just gonna do this for the sake of remembrance and to remind ourselves that Nathan has been sent by God to approach David. He came to David with a parable, with a story, and we dissected that story to try to understand the method and the message behind it. And I trust that if you were here, if you listened from abroad, you benefited greatly from just the few first few verses of this chapter. But now tonight, we are transitioning from this story, this allegory to plain speech. Nathan is gonna go from veiling his message to unveiling the message, and it's going to be sharp.
1:47 It's going to be strong. It's gonna be confrontational. It's gonna be clear. And trusting that from last week to this week, we will believe that what we've gained from then, we will gain even more now as we come to this text. We will not complete this chapter, which is okay, but we will take our time to look at Nathan's second message to David that is tied into the very reason why he came to him in the first place.
2:15 Now before you and I read these verses, before we actually look at this text, you and I have to also be reminded of the package in which it was delivered in. Look back at verse one with me quickly. I want you to be reminded who it was that sent Nathan, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. The Lord. The Lord sent Nathan.
2:39 Nathan was not just Israel's prophet, at least one of them. Nathan was a personal friend to David. And the fact that the Lord chose this instrument to approach David teaches us something not just about Nathan, but about God. God sends a friend to David, a close companion. And we know that David had Nathan in high esteem because with one of the sons that Nathan rather David will have with Bathsheba, he names him Nathan.
3:18 He's going to name one of his sons after this prophet. Even up to the end of David's life, when he is on his deathbed, there Nathan is watching over him and assuring that things will be put into place before he departs into glory. So Nathan is a is a is a close friend to David, and the Lord handpicked Nathan to deliver the message. Why? Because the Lord wanted to approach David as a friend.
3:48 The Lord is going to expose this man's sin in a very scathing way, But the Lord did not come to David, his servant, as an enemy. He came as a trusted friend. And I think that is filled with instruction for us when, especially for those who are passionate about the honor of Jesus Christ, especially for those who are passionate about God's people walking straight and walking according to the will of God and and have no issue approaching somebody and correcting them or rebuking them? Are you going not just with the love for the truth, but for the love for the person who's gonna receive that truth? That makes all the difference because God here shows that he comes to restore.
4:38 He doesn't come to bring down. He doesn't come to eradicate all hope. He doesn't come to prove a point and to win an argument. He comes to win the heart. He comes to win the person.
4:49 And if we would be instrument in the hands of God in restoring brothers and sisters back to the truth, then realize that the Lord looks for those who love people, not just doctrine, not just theology, not not just being right and being pure in your beliefs or in your conduct for that matter, but to love the person that you're giving the truth to. There's much more that we can say in that, but we will continue because we don't have much time. But as we come to these verses, remember the package in which it is gonna be delivered in. Remember the instrument that God chose to bring it through, and we are gonna organize our thoughts in these next verses in three different categories. The first category is going to be the error before the sin, the error before the sin.
5:43 Nathan is going to reveal an error that led to the downfall of David. That's the first category. The second category is going to be the ruling of the sin. God is going to pronounce judgment on David, and he is going to determine the verdict and the reason for this judgment. Lastly, the last category are the consequences after the sin.
6:12 So we have the error before the sin, the ruling of the sin, and then we're going to look at the consequences that follow the sin. And so we look at the first category in verse seven, and what do we see? Nathan said to David, you are the man. I don't know. There's a lot of instances in the scripture where I would like to be to see and witness.
6:36 I don't think this is one of them. You can just imagine what happened to the atmosphere in that moment when he comes with this nice little Sunday school story of a sheep, of a lamb, of a rich man, of a poor man, and it and it stirs David, and David is in the place of of the judge as he is hearing this, and then all for a sudden the tables turn. The tables turn on David from being positioned as the arbitrator to now the perpetrator. And now he's removed from the judgment seat, and now he stands before the judgment seat. And he stands before a holy god.
7:13 It all changed with these words, you are the man. In the Hebrew, it's only two words. But here we see you are the man, and Nathan doesn't take a break. He continues by saying, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.
7:52 Those two verses are under the category of the error before the sin. If you were here in second Samuel 11, where this all started when David was on the rooftop, you will remember that we dissected and examined the failures before the ultimate downward spiral. There were things before that contributed to David's ultimate crash. One of those things was the failure to deal with passions early on in his life. This is not just something that appeared out of nowhere.
8:22 It was something that was fed and nurtured over time. The failure to conquer idleness, the failure to take heed to God's warnings, all these different failures were cracks in the foundation of David's faith and then ultimately crumbled when the temperature was just right. But when you and I come to the words of Nathan here, we realize that there is yet another flaw that he surfaces, something that we didn't see before, but now comes to our attention. It's another serious problem prior to the undoing of this man. Now as you look at those two verses and you just look at the summary of what is being said, what is the indicator?
9:02 What can we pinpoint in seeing what was a problem in David's life before ultimately it manifests into this series of sin? Any idea? What's the error that the Lord highlights? He had forgotten God, yes, but more specifically. Look what the Lord is saying to him.
9:31 He could have said, you have forgotten me. I gave you your master's house. I gave you your master's wives. I made you king over Israel. I made you and I presided you over my people.
9:49 You know what I see here? David not only lost sight of God, David lost sight of the Lord's personal dealings in his life. What God had given him, what God had protected him from, what God had provided him. In essence, David had become over time unmindful, and he'd become, yes, forgetful, but more importantly, ungrateful for what the Lord had done in his life. And this led to a character issue.
10:28 Who would have ever thought this is so important. Who would have ever thought that ingratitude would have led to adultery? Who would have ever imagined that this deficiency in so many people's spirituality that we don't see the danger of? Who would have ever thought that ingratitude would have led to infidelity? And that is not an exaggeration.
10:52 That is not a subjective interpretation of this. That is a scriptural testimony from cover to cover that there is serious spiritual trouble headed for the person who refuses or is negligent in the practice of giving God continual thanks. When you read that ugly description of humanity in Romans chapter one, all the warped perversion, all the craziness in people's behavior and their sexuality, all these different perversions, all these different things, they all stem from Romans one twenty one. People forget that That that a people forgot or refused rather to give honor to God, glory to God, and what else? Thanks to him.
11:42 They refused to give thanks to God, and that was the the gateway for all these other things to come crashing in. All these plagues, all this idolatry, and all this covetousness were were allowed to come in. We're permitted to come in due to one failure, among different failures, but one key foundational issue, a refusal to acknowledge God. And so what thanksgiving does, you know what it does? It acknowledges God as the sovereign provider, protector, positioner of everything in our lives.
12:22 That's what it does. And it causes us to joyfully admit and accept that everything you and I have has been granted by a good father who knows exactly what we need for our joy and ultimately his glory. That is what gratitude does. It's more than just shooting off empty words just because it's the polite thing to do. Gratitude is much more significant than making our children seem appreciative of things outside of themselves.
12:52 No. It will keep you in line. It will keep God in the place, his rightful place in our affections and in our worship and in our understanding of the events that take place in our lives. And that is exactly what David is missing here. He did not keep before him the goodness of God personally, not not even just objectively, what he's done universally.
13:18 That's important. God was specific. And I believe that the reason that God was specific here is also to imply that we must be specific with our thanksgiving, like, detailed with what it is that we are so thankful for, or else it won't have the full effect that it desires to have. But something else happens here in verse eight, and it's in the last part of what the Lord says before he continues. Look at the last phrase, and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.
13:50 As much more. So more than just saying, David, you were capable of doing this because you forgot how good I've been to you. You do not remember what it what it is that I've done for you. More than that, he says here that you've also failed to realize that everything you need is in me. See, the thing that led David to sin was not just the ingratitude.
14:16 That ingratitude was step one. Step two was I can find good outside of God. I can add value to my life, though the value that is promised to me is contrary to the contract that I have with God. And it's as though the Lord is saying, David, if you if you really felt like you were lacking, I mean, if you really felt like you were missing something, why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you come to me?
14:47 Because here's the promise of God that when you do honestly come to him, even with that sense of irritation and frustration and emptiness and loneliness, whatever the case may be, the Lord, based on this and many other promises, the Lord assures us that he will provide exactly what we need to experience wholeness again. Exactly what we need. If that is not true of our God, then we're all doomed. I I I assure you that we will all have our heads stuck in empty, broken, dirty cisterns for the rest of our lives if this is not truth. If satisfaction in God is a theory and not an experience, then go eat and drink and be merry.
15:28 We're just we're playing pretend here. But God's not playing pretend. He looks at his servant through Nathan's eyes, and he says, why didn't you just come to me? Why didn't you just come to me? See, David for a moment believed that if I'm with Bathsheba, something good will happen.
15:46 I will know something that God could not offer. And that's precisely what James is referring to in James one sixteen. You don't have to turn there. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers, for every good and perfect gift comes from above. Again, that's not only to teach that we are to give God all the glory for every good and perfect thing.
16:06 That's also to convey that everything that you think is good and perfect will only come from above. You're not gonna find it anywhere else. It's gonna be sourced in God. It's gonna be coming from God. It's gonna be delivered by God, and it's different.
16:21 The the the the gifts are different, but the giver is the same. If you go to anybody else, especially those who are against God, contrary to his will, then you're just inviting trouble into your life. Now it's worth mentioning as a side note that some people have trouble with what the lord had said to David. What is troubling in that verse in verse eight? What sticks out to you as something like, really, lord?
16:42 You were the one behind that? Any idea? Yes. Did you hear it? Lord, you gave David the plurality of wives that he had.
16:58 In fact, Muslims will use this against Christians to try to prove that our God accepts and even condones and even provides a multiplicity of romantic relationships. And this this this would be harder to defend if if the lord isolated that statement and removed everything else. Right? If he had said, why did you do this? I gave you multiple wives, then it's very difficult to see a different interpretation other than you could have been satisfied with the roster of women you had in your palace.
17:33 Why did you go find somebody else's? And that's how even some Christians interpret this, and they just appeal to mystery. Just I guess God allowed polygamy for a season, and now now he doesn't. Not true. Add to that, there's no sense of immediate judgment upon David or anybody else in this time for that matter for their different relationships.
17:52 And so now you're you're in some kind of a dilemma. Right? Not so. Read it carefully. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives.
18:04 Here's how people read it. And I gave you your master's house and your wives. Did he say wives? Good. Your master's wives.
18:17 Who is David's master? Saul. Saul. See, again, if you leave that part in isolation, you might have a case, but the fact that that statement is preceded and followed by other elements that focus in on what Saul had and the transfer of Saul's possessions over to David, ah, now it makes sense. What the Lord is saying is all that Saul had, his kingdom, his authority, his possessions, everything, I gave it to you.
18:53 Without your effort, without your dabbling, without your intervention, I'm the one who gave you the authority that you're enjoying. The the graces, the gifts, all these things, I'm giving it over to you. And so the relationship with these masters, wives is something that was common in that culture that when there was a succeeding king or a kingdom, you would even have the previous owner, so to speak, and whoever lived with him to be given over to the new king. And so these women were just accommodations to the palace. There is no indication that David had any sexual relations or married any of Saul's women.
19:31 They were just there. They were just there occupying something, and David had responsibility over them. There is no such thing as David being given multiple wives by a holy God who had instituted what marriage was from the beginning. That make sense? Keep that in mind when somebody tries to convince you of polygamy for whatever strange reason.
19:51 The error behind the sin. If you wanna know ultimate protection, if you wanna have a floodgate against temptation and covetousness and all these ugly things, be thankful, always, even when it's hard to be. I can assure you, if you are living in America, you can have a list of a 100 things to be thankful for every single day. Doesn't matter how difficult things are. Give God that due and watch what will happen to your heart.
20:24 Fail to do that, and I'm gonna tell you from this point on, it will get very, very interesting category, the ruling of the sin. Verse nine. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. In these verses, you and I will see how the Lord judges sin, how he judges sin.
21:04 We know he judges sin, but how does he judge sin? How does he determine someone's verdict? What does he look for? What kind of evidence is he constantly bringing before us? And that's important to know because man's judgment of sin, man's condemnation of wrong, and what he often praises is skewed in comparison to what God prizes and what he what he does not approve of.
21:30 And the the Lord being the judge of all the earth calls us to understand what it is exactly he is judging. And what you and I see here in the first question is important. Why have you despised the word of the Lord? Why have you despised the word of the Lord? The first thing that the Lord brings up in the ruling of this man's sin is his attitude towards the word of God.
21:55 Now it is true that David proved to despise the word of the Lord by breaking the law. That's obvious. But can we not say that David already had this defiant attitude towards the word of God before even he committed the sin. It was premeditated. It's it's obvious that in his contemplation, he canceled out totally God's opinion on the matter.
22:19 And so what led to the sin was a defiance of the word of God. It wasn't just proven after everything happened. The seed of it was there. It's the very thing that encouraged him to break God's law. And that's important for us to realize because the Lord did not criticize David and say you did not know the word of the Lord.
22:37 He already proved earlier by referring to Exodus twenty two one that he knew the word of the Lord. If you stole the sheep, you gotta give back four. That's in the law. So he knew the word of the Lord. The issue here is the attitude.
22:54 And that means for us that the estimation of the written word of God will ultimately determine our submission to what it calls for. Our convictions around these things will determine our conduct. It will. Not the knowledge of it. Your conviction behind what you acquire as knowledge.
23:14 That is what will be the driver's seat of where we go in our growth and godliness or in the other direction. And one way to have a high view of the word of God, if you really wanna see the word of God for what it is and allow the brilliance of it to have an effect on your soul, then you gotta see what it says of itself and then believe it. Can I show you how in this case, David failed to see the word of God for how great and mighty it was? Look at verse 10 again. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, now look what he says, because you have despised me.
23:52 Verse nine he says, why have you despised the word of the Lord? The Lord is still speaking at verse 10. And then he goes on to say, the sword will never depart from your house because you despised me. Here's the conclusion. You put those two statements together, and this is what you have.
24:14 To despise God's word is to despise God himself. To despise God's word is to despise himself. Peter have the people have the strange idea that the those two things are mutually exclusive, that I can have my personal relationship with God, and God is pleased with me, and he's happy with me and all these different things, and yet they have zero regard for the divine revelation that has been made available to all of us. What Nathan reveals here is that you've despised not just the law, but the law giver because you cannot separate those two things. When a person says that they desire to know God, do you know how you measure that?
24:56 What do they do with the word of God? You read it. You study it. You examine it. You cherish it.
25:01 You memorize it. You talk about it. Is that not right? Yeah. John, I'm on one.
25:07 Sure. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the words was God. Yes. You can't separate those two realities. You can't even separate the word and the spirit.
25:15 Jesus says, my words are spirit and life. So these people say, I'm not a I'm not a word person. I'm a holy spirit person. What are you talking about? But you see, here, among many other things, we have another testimony that the the the very object in your hands right now is directly correlated to the person who gave it to us.
25:37 So when a person says, I wanna know the will of God. Well, okay. If you wanna know the will of God, then you'll take the time to discover what his will is. It's not just some mystery thing that you just kinda skip through life with and interpret matters in your own hands. No.
25:50 No. No. No. No. When a person says or claims that they are faithful to God, then they will equally have a view of the ultimate authority of the word of God.
26:00 Show me a person's response and relationship to the word, and I have the substantial evidence to know their walk with God. Matter how emotional they are about spiritual realities. The word. It's the word. You've not just despised the word of the Lord, you've despised the Lord, David.
26:29 Does that not draw you closer to the scriptures? I hope it does, because this is the means by which we come to know our God. And the Lord's indictment of David's sins here, perhaps we've noticed that there was a a particular summary. Because when we read second Samuel 11, it was an extensive play playbook of his craftiness and his scheme to sin. But when the Lord brings it to him, he summarizes it in just a verse or two because he sees pass through it.
27:01 Pass through what? The goal of David's ambition is second Samuel 11 is really obvious. He wanted to distance himself as much as possible from being a suspicious candidate for Bathsheba's pregnancy and for the death of Uriah. He wanted to cover the tracks, and he wanted to remove himself as much as possible. So he gets Joab involved.
27:22 He gives him instructions to put Uriah on the front lines. He has the Ammonites kill him, make it look like an accident instead of an assassination. And so with all of that, the Lord comes now and directly says, you have killed him. You did it. Wasn't the Ammonites.
27:40 It wasn't a thing of war. It wasn't Joab. It wasn't anything other than the fact that you did it. And that's important. If we wanna realize how the judge of the earth judges and how he will judge the world, then know this, that so many people attempt to justify their wrong or lighten the burden on their conscience by doing what?
28:00 By manipulating circumstances so that they are not the direct agents of the evil. So they hire, they trick, they lie, and they send, and they pay, and they do all these things because there's something deceitful about our hearts that says if I am not the the player holding the ball, if I'm just calling the shots from the sideline, then surely I am not as guilty as an accomplice. If I'm an accomplice and not a main actor, surely my guilt is not as severe, and the Lord sees past through all that trickery, all that exploitation. And he puts the pieces together, the all knowing one, and knows exactly the source. He knows exactly who is guilty.
28:42 He sees past the the the facade and everything else that we try to deceive people with, and he says, you are the man. You're the man. Now another thing that I see here is that David's grievous sin according to the the heart of God that is grieved. Look what he says here at the end of verse nine, and have killed them with the sword of the Ammonites. He brings that up.
29:06 What grieved God's heart was that David cooperated with the enemy, with the enemies of Israel, with the enemies of the God of Israel to kill who? One of God's people. To harm one of God's own and not just anybody, a faithful man like Uriah. And so the Lord sees it as a terrible thing, pay attention to this, when the people of God partner with the world to do damage to the people of God. How is that possible today?
29:36 I don't have a sword. We don't go to war. We don't have Ammonites. Oh, there's so many indications and example of it, but you remember, I brought this up not too long ago, when Paul was overwhelmed almost by the idea that a believer was going out to those who have no standing in the church to determine judgment over another believer? Is that any different than David hiring the sword of the Ammonites to kill one of the Israelites?
30:03 How is it that you are going to those who are not righteous to determine the fate of the righteous? Better to take a loss. Do you not trust in the wisdom of my word to determine and settle disputes? Do you not have any fear of God to realize that there is a watching world that wants to see why we're different and what we have to offer is different? That is just one example of many how it is possible to hire the sword of those outside of the camp of God to do damage to those who reside in our own camp.
30:39 So we see here that there are many examples and possibilities of how we can grieve God. And one of the ways that we grieve God is that when we get the world involved with the affairs of the church, with the people of God, it's serious. And he takes it into account, and he will discipline those who have no fear in this regard. We looked at the error behind the sin. We looked at, in part, the ruling of the sin, and now we look at the consequences that follow the sin.
31:09 And that's in the next few verses here in verse 11. Thus says the lord, behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. And he shall lie with your wives in the sight of his son of this son. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.
31:38 We're gonna look at David's response in a moment, but let's break this down. We see here that the punishment of the king's evil is threefold depending on how you break it down, and the division is very obvious. When you look at verse 10, the first thing is this. Therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, and we've touched on that. That from this chapter moving forward to the rest of this book, even into first Kings chapter one, there will be internal strife to the point of death until David himself dies and even after that.
32:09 And we saw that with four of his own sons. Right? Who are the sons again as a quiz? Absalom is one. Yes.
32:19 Amnon. Amnon is the one. Yes. Adanijah is the third, and who's the last? The unnamed baby that's going to be inflicted with a disease in the next few verses.
32:29 And so the lord even took David's measurement of judgment when he said that sheep should be given over with fourfold restitution. You wanna use fourfold? Then here's fourfold. I'm gonna kill four of your lambs. And four of the sons would receive bloodshed and experience bloodshed.
32:47 You sow bloodshed, you reap bloodshed. The second thing here that we see is that there would be evil against you out of your own house. Now isn't that the same thing? Not necessarily. When do you believe that was fulfilled?
33:01 Because it is fulfilled and found in the scriptures. When do we see evil arising within David's house to come against David himself? Good. Absalom, the revolt of his son, who stole the hearts of the nation of Israel unto himself to usurp the authority of the throne, to capture the throne, and to push his father out of the boundaries of Israel and then declare a civil war against him. So David himself would know the pain of betrayal.
33:29 David himself would taste his own medicine of betrayal, not just bloodshed, but betrayal. And lastly, we see something else mentioned here. It says that he, the neighbor, shall lie with your own wives in the sight of this son. You did it privately. I'm gonna make this a public matter.
33:49 When was that fulfilled? Good. Absalom. Now I want you to see it with your own eyes to see how precise the judgments of god are. Look at second Samuel here in verse 21 of chapter 16.
34:05 Just fast forward a few chapters. Look at second Samuel sixteen twenty one. Ahithophel said to Absalom. He said to Absalom, go into your father's concubines whom he has left to keep the house, and all Israel will hear what you have made yourself a stench, that you have made yourself a stench to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened. No hesitation, Absalom's part.
34:38 Look at verse 22. So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and Absalom went into his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel. Very despicable public demonstration of one's depravity and disrespect, but it was a fulfillment of prophecy. It was just an eerily coincidental thing. God in his providence used the means of Absalom's rebellion to chastise his servant David, and it was so precise.
35:06 Reread verse 22. What do we read? So they pitched a tent for Absalom where? Isn't that where it all started? It all started on a roof, and here, god is chastising even on a roof.
35:24 And it's even more and more specific than that. You guys, if you were a a few maranathas ago, will remember this. Who is Ahi Ahithophel? Is he a random counselor to David? Good.
35:34 He's not. Can I show you who he is if you don't know? For those who know, don't say it. Don't ruin the surprise for those who don't know. If you wanna know who is, then you have to go to second Samuel 23.
35:44 Go to second Samuel 23 briefly. In this chapter, you have a list of the mighty men of David. In second Samuel 23, look here now in verse 34, and you will see exactly who this man Ahithophel is. We read in verse 34, Eliphaleth, the son of Ahash by of Maacah, Eliam, the son of Ahithophel. So this meant Eliam is ranked among the mighty men of David.
36:19 Does Eliam sound familiar? Are names important in the Bible? Oh, yes. Does the holy spirit waste any word in his scriptures? Absolutely not.
36:33 Eliam, the son of Ahithophel, was one of the mighty men of David. Second Samuel 11. Again, where it all started. Second Samuel 11. Look at verse two.
36:49 It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of lion, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite. A lion was one of the mighty men of David. A lion was also the father of Bathsheba. Eliam was the son of Ahithophel.
37:27 Ahithophel was Bathsheba's grandpa. Is it no wonder why he partnered with Absalom to kill David? You touched my granddaughter, and you killed her husband. I will make sure to crush you and to find powder. So Ahithophel knew about it, and you're gonna discover very important lessons about bitterness.
37:55 We all will when we come to Ahithophel in the coming weeks. So we see here how precise God's chastisement is. Now we come back, and we look at the list of things that David would have to endure. And part of us part of us looks at that, and we kinda we kinda say, yes. David deserves he deserves to be disciplined, but this seems kind of intense.
38:19 I mean, he's gonna endure for the rest of his life one thing after the next. It's not going to be easy for David from this time on. And we might wonder, is this too much? And I'll tell you the answer by the end of the bible study, but I also wanna make mention of this. We can debate all we want about what's going on here, but one thing is for certain, from cover to cover, there is this law at work, and it's still at work today, that sins have different consequences.
38:50 Some are more lasting. Some are not as permanent. And though we might be able to predict some of the ramifications of our trespasses, ultimately, it is unpredictable to determine the full sequence of what our sin can produce in our lives, the outcome of it. And I think, yeah, again, you can you can determine some level of it, the position of the person, the ministry of the person, the role of that all these different things, but, really, you can't figure it out. And I think that puts a holy fear in us.
39:27 That should put a fear in us because we want to try to plan our sin and how we can limit the pain. We know that it's gonna hurt things. We know it's gonna hurt us. We know that, and we try to. Isn't that in our part of our scheming to try to try to restrict as much of the collateral damage as possible?
39:44 And God gives us so many examples of how that is not controllable on our part, and I wanna show it to you one example. I mean, there's so many examples, but let me give you one example. The thing that came to mind was the 10 plagues of Egypt. Say, 10 plagues of Egypt. Why?
39:59 So many lessons about the 10 plagues. And one of the lessons that I took from it personally was that the effects of each plague were different, not always described, but in some cases, different from one another. So the plagues were not just different, but even the result of the plagues on Egypt were different. And I believe that's a picture because those plagues were the acts of judgment of God forced Pharaoh's rebellion. It's a picture of what happens with our sin at times.
40:26 Can I show it to you? Here's the plague, the eighth plague with the locusts. It's in Exodus 10. And when you see this, you're gonna realize, well, that's that's quite interesting. In Exodus 10, Pharaoh wants the locusts to leave.
40:45 I don't blame him. And he says in verse 17, it says here, now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once and plead with the lord your god only to remove this death from me. So here's a man who's saying, I want this out of here. I I wanna be removed from all of this chaos and all of this destruction. So, verse 18, he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the lord, and the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind.
41:11 Now what happens? Which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea, not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. That's the grace of God. The moment this man repents, this strong supernatural wind picks up all these ugly bugs and catapults them into the ocean In a moment, and we're told specifically not one hideous locust was found in anybody's shoe or a cupboard, nothing. They're all dispelled.
41:45 Did that happen with every plague? Go to the second plague in Exodus eight. We're not dealing with locusts here. Now we're dealing with frogs. Equally questionable as a pet, maybe.
42:01 In verse 13, what do you read of Exodus eight? Pharaoh wants to see these things go. I don't blame him. And in verse 13, we read, and the lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields, and they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank.
42:24 No strong west wind, no supernatural force to clean up the courtyards and the front yards and the driveways. God allowed the frogs to die and for them to scoop it up themselves, and it actually produced an odor across the land. Some sins will stink more than others. Some sins will leave deeper scars than others. Some sins will leave a deeper and a more potent odor than others others.
42:58 Well, how do I determine that? You can't. You can't. Just avoid all sin. That's a good idea, isn't it?
43:04 Just avoid all plagues. We don't want any of it. And so we see here that we cannot forecast what this thing will lead us to, so just avoid it altogether. And in David's case, though there are different adulterers of his time, different adulterers throughout scripture, in his case, in God's perfect wisdom, allowed things to stink a little bit longer than one would wish for. Remember that.
43:33 You can never determine what sin will produce. You don't know how long it will pollute. You don't know how long it is to deal with the damage that it causes. Sometimes it's years. Sometimes overnight.
43:45 It's as though nothing had happened the day before. And there is no instruction given to us, and I thank God for it because we are tricky with our flesh to show us how we can avoid the least amount of problems because of our sin. And David hears all of this. He sees all of this. He registers all of this.
44:06 And after these blistering words that come from the mouth of this prophet, he is ready to respond. And the way that David responds, and this is how we're gonna end, is a wonderful, glorious, instructional revelation of what true repentance looks like, what true repentance looks like. And look at it with me here in verse 13 of chapter 12. David said to Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord. That moved me when I read it today.
44:40 That moved my heart to the core. David said to Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord. You wanna see the fleshed out version of that? You know what Psalm to turn to. Right?
44:53 You don't have to turn there. We're not gonna turn there tonight. Psalm what? Psalm 51. Psalm 51 is the journal entry of verse 13.
45:03 It's after David sat back and really thought and meditated and let that truth of the chastisement of the Lord sit upon his soul, and he's he just writes out Psalm 51. Don't let the brevity of this confession fool you. Don't let it cause you to judge this man's sincerity. In fact, the brevity of it makes it so beautiful. You know, sometimes we look at how people respond to sin or their failure, and we look for external evidence.
45:34 Right? We look for things that they do or things that they don't do and things that they say and the level of tears that they can gather up in a cup, whatever the case may be, when you and I have no idea what's going on in their hearts. See, before the prophet, you know what he does? He says one thing, I have sinned against the Lord. You know what was happening in his heart?
45:56 Psalm 51. Psalm 51. So you and I have to understand that the Lord, the same way he sees the motives of somebody's sin, the reason for their sin, he sees the repentance of that sin just as clearly. And I think what you see here is an encouragement. Listen.
46:13 If you are in sin tonight, what's not going to impress God's pardon in your life is your poetic expression of how wrong you've been. It's not gonna be the duration of your dejection. It's not gonna be anything other than the sincerity of the contrition of your heart. That is all that moves the heart of the Lord. That's it.
46:33 And it's as plain and simple as that, and I praise God for that. And David here shows us that you can be in one breath broken and win God's favor again because God tells him, he assures him, you are pardoned. You are forgiven. After one statement, after one simple statement like that, and that might offend people more than the actual discipline that the god gives to this man. The fact that the lord is willing to be so quick to forgive him.
47:04 Now I'm gonna get to that in a moment. What do you see in David's confession? It's one sentence, but what do you see in it that's so significant? Yes. Sure.
47:27 So he admitted it to a person. Sure. Yes. Against the Lord. I have sinned against Uriah.
47:37 No. I've sinned against Bathsheba. No. I've sinned against the government. No.
47:42 I've sinned against the Lord. The primary offender and the offendee here rather is the lord himself. So before he even not that he denied the fact that he sinned against other people, but here's the realization. I violated and harmed and wounded the god who made the covenant of marriage. I hurt, and I broke the law of the one who gave life to Uriah, who takes the life of man, and I took that upon myself.
48:13 I'm the one who stepped out of bounds with the one who gave me everything that I have. True repentance primarily recognizes God being offended. David here is not spilling his heart open because of what's gonna come to him now. David here is not even as disturbed about the fact that Uriah is gone and Bathsheba is not really his legitimate wife. That's not what burdens him, though that is part of it.
48:43 What consumes this man is I fractured my fellowship with almighty God, and this broke him because he realized who God was in the grand scheme of everything. And so here we see that true repentance prioritizes the realization of what your sin has done with the vertical relationship that you and I cherish and love and enjoy. I've seen Christians that have repented and had nothing to do with God being offended. I've seen it in their confession, in their testimonies. It's not about God.
49:20 It's about what they did to their mom, and how they disappointed their dad growing up, and how they hurt this person, and how they hurt their church. That's fine and dandy. Where's God? Where's God? And I'm telling you, if God is not in the confession, that might be an insight to prove that you didn't have God in mind when you sinned or before you even considered sinning.
49:42 What do I mean by that? That this this is more than just law keeping and having a nice reputation among the church. This is about my walk with almighty God. And David realized that that's the first thing that comes to his mind. That's the first thing that comes out of his mouth.
50:00 But there's a second point that I wanna draw to your attention. The brevity of it showcases the exclusion of excuses. I have sinned against the Lord. Compare that with Saul's repentance or supposed repentance. Remember that?
50:18 Samuel comes on the scene. I've obeyed the Lord. Then he justifies his partial obedience. Then he says it again, and I've sacrificed this for the Lord. This is set apart for the Lord.
50:27 And he just keeps going until finally he says, okay. Fine. I've sinned against the Lord and his word, for I fear the people. Now, Samuel, can you come with me so we go to the house of God, and it makes it look like that, you know, you're actually in good terms with me, and I'm in good terms with God. It just just the word vomit is so obvious, and it's actually it's actually a revelation of how his heart was not really broken.
50:49 He could say so much because his heart was still so light. And David just has one statement, and he says, I have no excuses. You know what some people do? Well, yeah. I've sinned against the Lord, but well, I've sinned, but true confession never has the word but in it.
51:12 Never. True confession never has the word but in it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
51:18 Yeah. You're right, Nathan. But, you know, she should have been bathing like that. She knows that I go up on the roof. She knows that I can see all things from that point point.
51:24 She she she shouldn't have done that. It's kind of her fault. Yeah. Okay. I did it.
51:28 Yeah. But, you know, I was hoping that the Ammonites really wouldn't have killed him. Maybe wounded I don't know. Like, he didn't say anything of that. He what about Joab?
51:37 You know, Joab kinda was was in the night. Like, he didn't know the full thing, but he should have at least stood up to me. Should we get Joab into this conference call? Nothing. I've sinned against the Lord.
51:49 And that's what our human nature wants to do. Right? It's ever since the beginning. We wanna point the finger. We wanna bounce the problems off of us and the full accountability and at least share it with somebody else.
52:00 Here's the thing. When you have God in the equation, realize that it's your sin, regardless of the sin that instigated you to sin, it never justifies your sin. And it primarily, your sin affects your vertical relationship with the Lord, so let the Lord deal with other people's wrongs. Let the Lord deal with other people's wrongs even if their wrongs was mixed into why you did that and why you said that. Just just cancel all of that and just realize, okay, I sinned and it affected my relationship with the Lord, therefore I have sinned against the Lord.
52:42 Isn't that refreshing to hear? And there's a beauty in the simplicity of this. There there is just this this holy moment in the quietness of David. Now I told you I wouldn't wanna been there when he says you are the man, but I would like to peak my head when David said I've sinned against the Lord. I would have loved to just look through those royal curtains and see how he looked.
53:06 Did he have his head down? Were there tears? Did he whisper it? Did he shouted? Here's Nathan and David, and David says, I have sinned against the Lord.
53:24 And what so moves me, not just how he does not include one other excuse, but how Nathan responds. And Nathan said to David in the same verse, the Lord has also put away your sin. You shall not die. How quick is that? Are you offended by that?
53:46 What are you offended by more? The list of judgments that were gonna be on David's life until he went into glory, or how quick, how swift forgiveness came to him the moment he confessed. Some would be offended by that. It's just that's all it takes. I've sinned against the Lord.
54:06 Yeah. If it's just lip service, but if there's a Psalm 51 roaring in your soul, that's a different story. I've sinned against the Lord. And right there, this prophet who has these special antennas to hear from heaven gets a word, you're forgiven. You're forgiven.
54:23 Do you know why? Because the same psalmist who sinned penned in Psalm eighty six five unfortunately, you won't see this in the ESV. You'll see it in the King James, New King James, and ASB. We're told in Psalm eighty six five that the Lord is ready to forgive. And the ESV says good and forgiving.
54:45 That's nice, but you look at the Hebrew, ready to forgive. You know what it tells me? He's waiting to forgive. He's right there ready to swing the door open. But what is he waiting for?
54:56 The knock of repentance on our end. That's what he's waiting for. So the readiness to forgive is triggered by our readiness to repent genuinely, void of excuse, void of pointing the fingers, void of the buts, and just saying, it's obvious, it's clear, I've sinned against God. And he says in Psalm 51, against thee and thee only have I sinned. And the Lord is willing to forgive when a man comes broken like this man does.
55:33 No sin, no pounding against the wall, no probation time on God's part, by the way. I have sinned against the Lord. Well, okay. Good. That's nice and dandy.
55:45 Go into that penalty box for seven days and come back, and let's see if your heart is just as smashed as it is now, and then I'll determine if you can have fellowship with me again. That's not God. That's man. We're just all a bunch of Jonahs. Right?
56:02 Wanting to look at the city of Chicago and say, you're all going to hell, and you deserve it. And the Lord wants to save them, and we're like, Lord, are you sure? Look at all the bloodshed. Look at all the abortion. Look at all the gangs slaughtering each other.
56:18 And the whole point of the book of Jonah, I've said this many times, and I can't stop saying it because it moves me. Such a short prophetic book, but it has such powerful implications. The the point of the book of Jonah is men, even the greatest men, even the greatest prophets are less merciful than our god is. They are less quick to forgive than our god. They are less tender and soft and inviting and welcoming than our god.
56:44 And god is so tender even in the book of Jonah itself, God even mentions the death of the cattle. He even thinks about the life of the animals. Now I'm not advocating animal rights here, and the sheep are on the same level as humans. And if a dog drowns and your neighbor's drowning, maybe you can argue which one has more worth that's crazy stuff. But God does have value and appreciation for life, all life.
57:09 And we see here that this man is receiving that forgiveness because God was ready to forgive. But look what happens here in verse 14. Nevertheless, Nathan says, because by this deed, you have utterly scorned the Lord. The child who is born to you shall die. Then Nathan went to his house.
57:33 I mean, talk about concluding a sermon. Talk about closing Friday night bible study with that. You're forgiven. Your sins put aside. Your son, he's gonna die.
57:53 No apologies. No lengthy explanation. No theological presentation of why God allows us, though we do have the rest of the Bible to determine why this is the case. Let me end on this thought, and I will end here because we're not gonna touch any other verse. The Lord's pardon for our sin is not his only goal in our sanctification.
58:20 God eagerly desires to also deal with the presence of sin in our lives and its power in our lives simultaneously. So when God wants to wipe away our sin, that is his chief. And because that will bring us back to him and reconcile us to him. But as a good father, he also wants to ensure and do what he needs to do so that we would not repeat the offense and continue to harm us and others and more importantly, our walk with him. And so the Lord will take extra measures to to bring about preventative things in our lives in very real ways so that it becomes much more difficult to repeat that very offense that got us in the mess to begin with.
59:07 And the means by which God does this, this might shock you, but it's true, the means by which God does this is something called discipline, chastisement. In other words, God permitting and even authoring painful experiences in our lives in connection to our sin so that what we thought was sweet is actually sour. And just like when you discipline a child after they do something wrong, we make the connection with that wrong and realize this is what it's gonna actually produce in my life, and it makes it less attractive than what we thought it was before it all happened. And so God as a father knows exactly what to prescribe. He knows the right measure of pain to implement in order for us to be repulsed by, and if not repulsed totally, at least fearful of the thing that we did to fracture our fellowship with him.
1:00:16 And in David's case, you know what it was? I have to kill your son. How do we feel about that? Here's the thing that you and I can be comforted with and comforted by. The discipline of God is not subject to potential error.
1:00:38 Fathers, even godly fathers, are capable of going too far when correcting their son, when correcting their daughter, and they're equally capable of having too low of a standard when it comes to the growth and the maturation of their children. But the reason why you and I can look at that and actually be comfortable with the decision of the Lord ultimately, he's God. Who who can question his ways? But we can be comforted to know that he's perfect in all of his ways, not just in his love, not just in his grace, not just in his gifts, also in his discipline, even in his discipline. Again, let me say it.
1:01:16 He knows the right prescription to give to create a procedure in your heart that will uproot those roots that have stimulated you all these years. You remember, David did not do this out of nowhere. This was a deep seated issue. He had no problem taking wives and taking more woman unto himself, and it manifested this way in adultery and murder. But what was the root cause of it?
1:01:43 What was like, we learned early passions early on that he did not deal with. And God says at this point, now we're gonna deal with it. And the way we're gonna deal with it is gonna be painful, but the pain is necessary to uproot that which keeps bringing you back to this cycle. A new believer, when you ask them how it is that you believe that Jesus loves you, and they'll say John three sixteen, for god so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. Right?
1:02:09 A mature Christian who walks with the lord will not necessarily quote John three sixteen. They will also quote places like Revelation three where we are told, whom I love, I discipline. Whom I love, I discipline. So as a father who loves, the expression of his love is not merely taking you deeper in the depths of the truths of the gospel, but it's also to implement punishment to produce righteousness and holiness in us. And that's exactly what David would require.
1:02:43 There's an interesting proverb, and I love to see a proverb and then see a biblical example for it. Here's one. It's in Proverbs 20 verse 30. I'm gonna quote the second part. Strokes make clean the innermost parts.
1:02:58 The first part says, blows that wound cleanse away evil. Strokes make clean the innermost parts. In other words, oftentimes, painful means do the deepest work of cleansing in people. And not only would the discipline of the Lord cause the sinner to be repulsed by their sin, it'll actually discourage observers from that very same sin. So that's Proverbs twenty thirty.
1:03:28 Listen to this in Proverbs twenty one eleven. When a scoffer is punished, the simple become wise. When a scoffer, somebody over there who's a scoffer is punished whether by the law or by God himself, the simple, the unlearned, the ones who are swayed left and right, those people, when they observe that, go, oh, man. That's messed up. That's what happens when you do that.
1:03:57 No. Thank you. I don't want it. And so there's a multifaceted purpose with God's discipline in even one person's life, and David would be accepting of that punishment. There is no protest here.
1:04:14 There's no fist to disguise, just a broken willingness to embrace what's about to take place in his life. Here's how it'll end. Did I say that already? We have men's meeting in the morning. Should we just stay up until then?
1:04:35 There's a prophetic picture here. Isn't it isn't it an awesome thing to see prophecy or some shadow depicted in an obscure text like this? I love it. Your son is gonna die. Is the son innocent?
1:04:58 Yeah. He is innocent. And in God's wisdom, who's the author of life and the removal, the author to remove life, he can do what he pleases. And we have the joy of the same chapter to realize that this baby is gonna be in heaven. The death of your son, David, is gonna pay for your sins.
1:05:29 And there is coming at this point another son of David that would arrive several hundred years later who would do the same, not just for David, but for all of us. There is an innocent boy that will come from the seed of David who will, in his death, cover the sin of all mankind. So even in this dark picture, this heartbreaking scenario, we see a sliver of gospel truth. There is a son of David who will come and his death will cover past, present, and future sin because that is the preciousness of his blood. Let's pray.
1:06:21 Laura, we look to you Laura, we look to you tonight with all these truths that have been presented before us, and we ask that it would cause us to worship you. And Laura, as we heard, to despise your word is to despise you, but to love your word is to love you. And we wanna express our love to you every Friday night as we come to your word. And we pray that as we sing, as we sing, Lord, we would not sing divorce from the truth that we heard, but it would stimulate us to give you the praise and honor that is due to you, because you are the one who breathed this book into our hands. We love you, Lord, and we ask that you would indeed sanctify us as you see fit.
1:07:20 In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand as we close, and I'll let you go. Some of you look heavy eyed, but give it what you have for the lord Jesus before you head on to your bed. And bless him in the night with an evening sacrifice.
