The Way Back to God | Part 2

From the Love Worth Finding studios in Memphis, Tennessee, I'm Byron Tyler, here with Kerry Vaughn, the CEO of Love Worth Finding. Kerry, happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, my friend. We are blessed to be here and even more blessed to be a part of the ministry of Love Worth Finding.

Kerry, we're so thankful for our Love Worth Finding listeners. I mean, taking time daily in their cars, maybe while they're working in a construction site. Well, that's why we exist. I mean, we point people to the cross. We mature them in their walk.

And Byron, we teach them to go and do the same. And so that's the ministry of Love Worth Finding. We're in a series this month called Live Like a King. Today's message, part two, The Way Back to God. And all of the messages in the series are available at lwf.org or at mylwf.org. And the app is wonderful.

Everything is at your fingertips, so please take advantage of it. Today, Adrian Rogers is going to teach us, Kerry, about King David. Though a man after God's own heart, he was a great sinner. We see where he committed adultery and he covered it up. He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. Well, Adrian Rogers says the sin of omission is failure to do what you ought to do. And King David was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's exactly right. And he had he had walked the plank by himself.

He had no accountability. He had too much time on his hands and he stumbled. But here's the beautiful thing. We all have a way back to God. Kerry, you have a listener response that has written in. And let me just say how much we appreciate the time that our listeners take to write to us and let us know how the teaching ministry of Adrian Rogers is impacting their lives.

Absolutely. It says, Thank you so much for sharing these brilliant lessons on the air. Lately, I've liked the ones about salvation. Many Christians have lots of doubt these days. I love to be reminded of the assurance of God's love. Thank you for sharing Adrian Rogers' teachings even today.

I love that. It takes us back to why we exist. I mean, Adrian Rogers' salvation message, come to Jesus. Well, it's the good news and it's the gospel. And it's a reminder that this is a ripple effect.

I mean, we were able to put a name or a face with the impact of the ministry. Well, we're moving into that time of the Christmas season right after the Thanksgiving dinner meal as we unwind and get that behind us and the focus of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. And we have a great resource called 25 Days of Anticipation.

Well, it's inspired by the teachings of Adrian Rogers. It's a resource that will lead you in an Advent study of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled when he came to earth. But I think this 25 Days of Anticipation is truly, Byron, a mini Bible study that will enrich your life, but also the lives of other people around you.

The resource 25 Days of Anticipation is available at lwf.org. Today's message, The Way Back to God Part 2. Here's Adrian Rogers. David loved God. He was a man after God's own heart. And David fell. And great was the fall of David. And the Holy Spirit has recorded this story and he's put it here as a warning to us all.

And I'm glad that the Bible put it here, though I'm not glad that it happened. So first of all, I want us to look at the cause of David's sin. The cause of David's sin. And as I meditated upon this, I would say that his sin was primarily caused by three things.

First of all, his was the sin of idleness. Look again in chapter 11 and verse 1. And it came to pass after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. And they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But, and notice that the Holy Spirit puts the word but there, that conjunction there, he puts it there in contradistinction as to what has gone on.

But David tarried still at Jerusalem. And then notice in verse 2 the first part. And it came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed.

Now you look at that. Friend, I want to tell you that it was time to go to bed and David was getting out of bed. It was at evening tide that he arose from his bed. We can hardly believe that this is the David that we once knew. He is committing the sin of idleness. It was the time when kings went to war and David as the king and the righteous king that he was, was supposed to have led in battle. But at this time, when he should have been on the battlefield for his Lord, he was not on the battlefield for his Lord. And the Bible says in the New Testament that we as Christians are to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. And that we are to put on the whole armor of God. But David, when he ought to have the armor on, had put the armor off.

I want to tell you something, friend. Idleness is a dangerous time. And this is where David got into trouble to begin with. Just simply by the sin of idleness. Just simply by taking God for granted.

Just assuming that the blessings of the Lord are going to continue to come. But not only was it a sin of idleness, but right along with that it was a sin of carelessness. Look again, if you will, in verse 2. And it came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. Now, David could not help perhaps the first look.

Perhaps that was chance. But he was careless with his thought life and a look turned to lust. And what he saw he soon sought and sent after and inquired. And then you will remember that he committed the horrible sin of adultery. And in order to try to cover the sin of adultery, he had Bathsheba's husband Uriah the Hittite set in the hottest part of the battle and he was slain. And God held him accountable therefore not only for the sin of adultery, but also for the sin of murder.

So idleness turned to carelessness and carelessness turned to callousness. Now it is bad enough that he committed adultery. That was a hot blooded sin.

But when he committed murder, that was a cold blooded sin. I cannot believe that it is David. David who allowed Uriah the Hittite to be put to death.

All the sin of callousness. But the question comes, was David a saved man? Could a saved man do this? Reluctantly I must say yes. David was a saved man. We will meet David in heaven. You say, if I'm living in adultery, is it alright for me to call myself saved?

No. Unless the hand of God is so heavy upon you that you know that you know if you don't get right you're going to die soon. Let me tell you something friend. If this is your way of life. If you have grave, deep, vile, unconfessed, unrepentant of moral sin in your life and God is not dealing with you. You have no right whatsoever to think that you're saved. I want to tell you when a child of God sins, he pays a fearful price to buy that sin and he enjoys it.

Just a brief time. And the consequences, even though the sin may be forgiven, the consequences of that sin go on and on as they did in David's life. But I want us to move from the cause of David's sin.

I want us to see something else. I want us to see the covering of David's sin. David at first did not confess his sin. David covered his sin. I'm talking to some of you tonight who once walked with God. And you're truly saved.

But rather than confessing your sin, you've been covering your sin. There used to be a time when you'd get in your automobile and just praise God. I mean you'd roll up the window so nobody would hear you and you'd just sing and shout and pray and love the Lord Jesus Christ. You'd get in your bedroom down upon your knees and have a glorious time.

You'd read your Bible and weep and pray before the Lord and Jesus Christ was nearer and more real to you than your members of your family. But it's all gone now. And sin is in your heart and sin is in your life because you have failed to confess your sin. You're covering your sin. And there's no joy. There's no peace.

There's no victory. And the Bible says, He that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, the same shall have mercy. Now I want you to notice not only the cause of his sin and the covering of his sin, but I want you to notice the confronting of David's sin. When a child of God sins, God confronts the child of God with his sin. And as I've looked at it, I've determined that generally God confronts the child of God in four steps with his sin. There are four ways that he'll confront you if you're truly saved with your sin.

The first thing he will do, as we've already said, is he will bring conviction. Remember Psalm 32 verse 4, For night and day thy hand was heavy upon me. God will convict you of your sin. And if you sin and God doesn't convict you of your sin, don't think that you're saved. It is impossible for you as a child of God to sin and not be convicted of your sin. You've not been saved, you've not been born again if you can sin grievously and God does not convict you of that sin. Now, secondly, as God confronts you with your sin, first of all, there comes that conviction.

If when you're convicted of your sin, you confess your sin, forsake your sin, you'll have mercy. But if you do not, when God convicts you, the next step is chastisement. God will chastise you. And that chastisement may take many forms. It may be sickness, it may be sorrow, it may be death to someone or something that you love.

It may be a loss of money, it may be a loss of health, it may be a loss of answered prayer. But God will chastise you, not because he doesn't love you, but because he does love you. God had been chastening David and that's what Psalm 32 is about. The hand of God was upon David.

David knew physical sickness and other things that had come to him. For the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 6, For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. And I want to tell you that word scourge is a strong word.

A scourge was a whip, a cat of nine tails. He's not talking about a slap on the wrist. I want to tell you, dear friend, it's a dangerous thing as a child of God to sin. And after God convicts that you still stubbornly, willfully, deliberately go on. God is more interested in your obedience than he is your driving Cadillac.

God is more interested in your relationship with him than he is your health. God is more interested in your being right with him than he is, dear friend, your influence or your not being put to an open shame. God will deal with you with chastisement as he confronts your sin. But first of all as he confronts your sin there comes conviction and you let that conviction pass. And then God brings chastisement and you let that chastisement pass, then God will bring you a challenge, a challenge. God will challenge you. God will bring somebody, something into your life to challenge you right head on about your sin. And this is where God is getting toward the end in his dealing with you before he takes you prematurely to heaven. God will challenge you.

He challenged David with a prophet named Nathan. God had sent conviction. That was not enough. God had sent chastisement.

That was not enough. And then God sent Nathan the prophet to boldly and clearly and deliberately challenge the king. Now the challenge may come through someone else, something else. It may be your wife that God uses. It may be your husband that God uses. It may be your pastor that God uses. It may be a friend that God uses. It may be a circumstance that God uses. It may be a sermon that God uses.

It may be a newspaper article that God uses. But God will give a challenge and you will know that it is God speaking to you. You will remember that Nathan the prophet came to call upon King David and chapter 12 tells us about that. Let's go to 2 Samuel chapter 12 and let's just look at the scripture for a moment. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David.

2 Samuel chapter 12. Notice now God sends Nathan. Now this doesn't mean that a year has passed and God has not been interested. God has already been interested.

God has already started to work the first two ways. But now the Lord sent Nathan unto David and he came unto him and said unto him, There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds but the poor man had nothing save one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished up and it grew 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.

And there came a traveler unto the rich man and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him but took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man that was come to him. And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.

And then Nathan reminded David of his sin in spite of God's blessing upon David. David had a challenge from the Lord and had he not listened to this challenge, I am convinced that David would have died. This would have been the end of David's life. God would have killed him. God would have killed David.

And as a matter of fact, I'm going to show you why I believe that in just a moment. God gave him a challenge. As I look at the Bible and understand this, the challenge generally comes just one time. Nathan gave a challenge and thank God David heard the challenge because what comes after the challenge?

First the conviction, then the chastisement, then the confrontation of the challenge, and then the consummation. If a person refuses God's challenge, when God says, all right, this is it, you will not go any further, and he refuses that, he commits a sin that the Bible calls a sin unto death. A sin unto death. 1 John 5 verse 16, If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say he shall pray for it. That is, there's a time that a Christian, a brother, can commit a sin that the Bible calls the sin unto death, and his life is consummated.

I believe I've seen this happen many times. Well, not many, many times, but enough times that I believe I've seen it with my own eyes and experienced the sin unto death as I have seen other people, rather, as they transgressed against the Lord. The Bible says there's a sin unto death. The Bible says keep back thy servant from presumptuous sin. It's one thing, my dear friend, to sin warm bloodedly.

It's another thing to sin cold bloodedly. David sinned warm bloodedly, and then David sinned cold bloodedly, and then David sinned obstinately as God for a year dealt with him, and finally God sent his prophet Nathan to put his finger in the king's face and say, Thou art the man. Thank God, thank God David had enough sense to realize he'd gone as far as he could go. You can read in the Old Testament about a prophet named Balaam. Balaam was a man that loved God. Some of the most remarkable prophecies in all of the Bible are prophecies that Balaam made concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. But Balaam was an obstinate prophet. He got out of the will of God. He was a man after God's heart like David, but he got out of the will of God, and he was on a journey going a certain place. When he was riding his donkey, his donkey stumbled and fell beneath him. The donkey could see something that Balaam could not see, for the angel of Jehovah was there with a drawn sword, and the angel said to Balaam when finally his eyes were open. Listen to what the angel said to Balaam. He said, If you had come any further, I would have surely killed you.

I would have surely slain you. Who? The angel of the Lord. I want to tell you this just so far that God will let one of his children go.

Just so far that God will let one of his children go. David was at the point of death. God was about to take David's life. God had sent to David a conviction, and then God had sent to David chastisement, and then God had sent to David a challenge.

You say, Why do you believe he was about to die? Well, look in chapter 12, if you will, and let's look in verse 13. And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. At last he confesses it. Now it seems like it wasn't much of a confession, just a simple sentence. But if you'll go back and read Psalm 51, Psalm 51, which was David's confession, was written after Nathan came to him.

It was a penitent, heartbroken, wholehearted confession. David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord, and Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Thou shalt not die.

Nathan had come expecting to say, Mister, you're going to die. God's not going to put up with it anymore. But at last now, here was David who was broken, and here was David who confessed his sin, and God says, Thou shalt not die. Now there's one other thing I want to say about David's sin.

I want you to think not only of the cause of it, the covering of it. I want you to think not only of the confession of it, or the uncovering of it, or the challenge of it, whatever we said, but I want you to think one last thing. I want you to think about the cleansing of David's sin, and I'm going to spend just a very brief moment with this, but turn to Psalm 51 for a moment. Psalm 51. Now something that some of you may not know and you need to know is this, that a little superscriptions above the Psalms are part of the inspired word of God.

Did you know that? The little words up there without any numbers by them. All right, this is an inspired part of the Psalm. It comes right along with the Psalm, and notice what it says, to the chief musician, a Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone into Bathsheba. So we don't have to doubt, there's no guessing about when Psalm 51 was written and why it was written. This is the Psalm that David wrote after the man of God had come to confront David with his sin, and I want you just to see very quickly, I'm not even going to preach on it because I'll spend maybe a whole message on it later on, but I want you to see, I don't want to leave you right here.

If you're like David, out of fellowship with God, sin in your life, whether great or small, here's the way to deal with it. Three simple steps. Number one, there must be confidence. Number two, there must be confession.

Number three, there must be cleansing. Now I want you to notice the confidence of David. Look, if you will, in verse one. David says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Do you know why David was such a great man? He knew God so intimately, and David knew for a multitude of sins there were a multitude of mercies. And David knew that God's loving kindness will never forsake one of his children, and so he could cry out to God, David had a confidence that no matter what he had done, God still loved him. Now I want to tell you something, friend.

I don't know what you've done. Perhaps you've not sinned as badly as David, but I can tell you tonight as God's man, with all of the authority, function, and unction of my soul, that God loves you. And for a multitude of sins there are a multitude of mercies, and where sin does abound, grace doth much more abound. Amen? Hallelujah. Praise God.

I want that confidence in your heart. Now the second thing, after confidence, is confession. Notice how David confessed, beginning in verse two. He says, Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. David confesses his sin, what he did. He confesses his sinful nature.

I was born in iniquity, shapen in iniquity. He confesses that his sin is his own sin, nobody else's fault. He doesn't blame his wives. He doesn't blame Bathsheba. He doesn't blame Uriah the Hittite. He doesn't blame anybody.

He says, It's me, it's me, it's me, oh God, standing in the need of prayer. Confession. There's one thing that God will never accept for sin, and that is an alibi.

There's no alibi here. There is a clear confession. Confidence, confession, and then hallelujah, there is cleansing. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be whiter, excuse me, and I shall be clean.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Do you know what hyssop was? Do you remember in the night of the Passover they took hyssop and they would sprinkle the blood of the lamb on the doorpost? Hyssop was a little shrub that they applied the blood with. When he's saying, Purge me with hyssop, it's just the Old Testament way of saying, Cleanse me with blood.

And what blood? Well, the New Testament tells us the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. There it is, friend, and the same God that forgave David, restored David, and used David is the same God that will forgive you, restore you, and use you. We don't have to carry around our own condemnation anymore.

We can be clean. What good news today. If you have questions regarding placing your faith in Jesus Christ, we'd love to offer you an insightful resource on our website. It's our Discover Jesus page. There you'll find answers you may need about your faith. We have a response section where you can share how this message or others have made a difference in your life. Go to lwf.org slash radio and click the tab that says Discover Jesus.

We can't wait to hear from you today. Well, are you carrying around any unconfessed sin in your life right now? Get right with God. Confess those sins to Him. Ask for His forgiveness and His cleansing. And we hope you'll join us next time for more from Adrian Rogers right here on Love Worth Finding.