Guilty

I have your Bibles with you.

Please turn with me if you would to II Samuel chapter 12 and I'm just going to read the first sentence of chapter 12 and we'll get into the rest of the chapter and the sermon. David's attitude was haughty, arrogant, unloving. It was unfeeling. It was dishonoring to you and to your people Israel. David's spiritual apathy led him down wrong paths.

Somehow he was able to erase thoughts of you out of his mind and that enabled him to commit sins that he thought he was incapable of committing. Lord, we got angry with David last week. He was a man of God. He knew the Word of God.

He wrote some of it. We think he should have known better. We didn't like seeing David get away with his sin.

This week we see that David didn't get away with his sin. You broke his pride. You shattered his arrogance.

You drove him back to yourself. Lord, we all need II Samuel 12. We all need to see that sin is not a game.

It is evil and destructive. Your wisdom in breaking David's heart over his sin was not punishment to destroy him. It was discipline to save him. Hebrews 12.6 reminds us that if we be without chastisement then are we bastards and not sons. Thank You Lord for loving us too much to not deal with our sin. Thank You for the gift of repentance for it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. The last sentence in II Samuel 11 says, The thing that David had done displeased the Lord. David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

He orchestrated the death of Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba's husband, and he did that in order that he might cover over his sin. What does God do when a true believer does something like that? Does God just turn his face away and ignore it? No. Does God take that person's salvation away and when that person dies he goes to hell?

The answer to that is no. Hebrews 12.6 says that if we be without chastisement then God deals with us. For whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives.

Folks what does that mean? It means that if you can break God's law and if you can just ignore God's principles and if you can quench the Holy Spirit of God and there's not genuine God-sent discipline in your life then what that proves is that you are not a true believer. When God's people sin God disciplines those people.

I want to share with you how it comes. It's usually in stages. There are four stages of God's discipline. And number one is that He removes the joy from us. God sends conviction when we sin and that brings about guilt and that guilt saps the joy out of our life. And it saps it so much so that we might try to move on, we might try to act as if nothing had happened, we might go through the motions but we're not happy.

We're not happy because that joy has left us. Then there's a second stage and that second stage is that God removes His conscious presence. In Psalm chapter 66 verse 18 the scripture says this, if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. That doesn't mean that God's presence completely goes away from us but His conscious presence is not there.

It's like He steps away from us. And let me tell you something, when you are praying to the Lord and you pray and the heavens are brass and you know that your words are empty and you know exactly why because there's unconfessed, unrepetitive sin in your life, that hurts. Then there's a third stage and that third stage is that God may bring sickness or calamity into your life. He loves you so much that He'll bring that into your life to wake you up, to break you, to drive you to repentance.

And then if you still won't repent after that then there's a fourth stage and that stage is confrontation. Sometimes there'll be confrontation from the pulpit. You may have experienced that. You're listening to a sermon and the preacher preaches and it's like nobody else is in the room but you and him.

And what he says to you just goes right to your heart. It might be through a scripture. It might be through an illustration. It might be through any number of things. Him explaining the passage to you but those words hit you and boom!

It just breaks your heart. Sometimes it happens from a passage of scripture that you're just reading. And it just drives, it's driven to your heart and you know that it's the Lord speaking very powerfully to you.

Sometimes it happens by a Christian friend and that Christian friend comes to you because he loves you and cares for you and he knows that you're not walking with the Lord as you should and he shares with you what the problem is. I'll never forget a Bible conference that I went to back 35 years ago. Al Martin was preaching and Al Martin is a Reformed Baptist preacher from New Jersey. Powerful, powerful preacher. But he was preaching on 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 27.

For I buffet my body and bring it under subjection lest after I had preached to others I myself should become a castaway. And he preached on the discipline that is needed to maintain holiness in your thought life. And let me tell you there was not a preacher in that room that day that did not feel like God had taken his heart and just peeled it back like an onion. That particular day Al Martin was like a Nathan to David.

It was like a Nathan to me that day. I'd been convicted and brought to my knees by just reading the scripture. I remember not long after I came to know the Lord, the Lord spoke to my heart very powerfully through a passage in Luke chapter 6. I went to work one morning, 3 o'clock in the morning.

I was working for Associated Grocers Mutual. And I was supposed to unload a beef truck that morning and I got there and nobody else was there at the warehouse but me. And the beef truck was late and so I said well I've got my little New Testament here in my pocket so I pulled it out and I started reading Luke chapter 6. I got down to verse 46 and the Lord, it was like just, I got a slap in the face.

It was like a dagger in the heart. Luke chapter 6 verse 46 is Jesus speaking and he said why don't you call me Lord, Lord and do not the things I say. That could not have been any more real to me as if Jesus was just standing before me with tears in his eyes saying Doug why don't you call me Lord, Lord and don't do what I tell you to do. That's where David is here. God has brought him to the confrontation stage. He has, the Holy Spirit has prompted him to turn from his sin over and over again and David has pushed away the Holy Spirit.

Finally God has said that's enough. Alright there are four principles or points that I want to share with you today as we look at God's chastisement of David. The first one is God's merciful commission.

Once again verse 1 the first part. And the Lord sent Nathan to David. This was not a situation where Nathan just heard some gossip that was going on and decided that he would go and talk to his friend David and just see what was really happening and see where David's heart was.

Nothing like that at all. The scripture says that God sent Nathan and God had given Nathan a revelation of what was going on in David's life. And so he didn't go just having to guess what David had done.

He knew exactly what David had done. Now who was Nathan? Nathan was a statesman prophet.

He was a prophet who would go before his king and give him political and spiritual direction. When David was going through a tough time when he didn't know exactly what to do he would go to Nathan and say Nathan please help me out here. Go to the Lord.

Find out what God would have me to do. Give me a word from God and Nathan would do that. So David knew. He loved. He respected Nathan and they were friends.

But I want you to know this is not a friendship meeting. The scripture says that God sent Nathan to David. And friends when God sent Nathan to David all hell couldn't keep Nathan away. I believe that he went with a boldness and a resolve to David. To let David know that this was not just a human criticism. To let David know that this was not just a little nit picker that had some complaint against David.

But that he was a messenger that was sent from God. Now picture Nathan walking into the palace. He walks into the palace. There are soldiers that are all standing around there and the guards that are there.

He just is going to walk right through them. And the guards begin to say wait a minute you can't do this. And they scream at Nathan and they say look did you have an invitation from King David? And he says no I don't but I have an invitation from King Jehovah so move out of the way.

Well there's some commotion that's going on because of all that. The soldiers are trying to stop him. David sees what's going on. And David says no no let him go. This is Nathan the prophet. Nathan come to me. And Nathan walks up to the throne before David. David has no idea the magnitude of this meeting. His fellowship with God over the last months has been almost non-existent. And he knows that Nathan is God's spokesman. He knows that beyond a shadow of a doubt. So I can imagine his heart just jumping up in his throat just beating his Adam's apple to death.

He knows that this is not going to be a fun meeting. David had committed a capital offense. He was guilty of murder. He was guilty of adultery. And if Nathan had come in there for the purpose of killing him that would have been a just thing to do.

But that's not what happened. What happened was a very merciful thing that happened. Nathan came to share the word of God with David. He came to share the word of God that David might fall under deep conviction of sin. And that David might be led to repentance. That's mercy folks.

That's mercy. I read an article not long ago by a liberal preacher who was castigating Christian conservative pastors. Because they were intolerant of homosexuality. And he was just castigating them.

And I can remember him saying in that article. Don't you understand that God has called us to love these people? And I said yes God has called us to love these people.

But what does love to them look like? If God has said that homosexuality is an abomination before God. And that no practicing homosexual will enter into the kingdom of God. Is it a loving thing for me not to warn them of what's coming? Is it a loving thing for me not to warn them that there's a cliff up ahead?

And they're going to be falling into a spiritual damnation? That's not loving. What's loving is what happened right here with Nathan and David. Nathan called David to repentance. Alright that takes us to point two.

A wise confrontation. Look at verses one through six. And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him. There were two men in a certain city.

The one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb which he had bought. And he brought it up and he grew it up with him and with his children. He used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms.

It was like a daughter to him. There came a traveler to the rich man who was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd. To prepare for the guest who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man and he said to Nathan. As the Lord lives the man who has done this deserves to die.

And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Injustice to the poor. That's a topic that is truly explosive. Folks people who have any semblance of compassion become very angry and very volatile when they hear about poor people being mistreated and taken advantage of. Back in 1995 our government just kind of ground down to a halt for several days. They were working on the budget. They were trying to balance the budget. And President Clinton didn't want to balance the budget. The Congress did. President Clinton wanted to keep on spending. And the Congress said no that will destroy our economy.

We can't do that. So President Clinton made a very crafty move. He told the American people that the Congress was neglecting and purposely ignoring the needs of America's poor people.

The budget cuts that Congress was proposing had nothing to do with the poor. But the President knew that mistreating the poor was a volatile issue. And within days people were calling Clinton's opponents names. They were saying they were harsh. They were cruel. They were uncaring. It's a brilliant political move because the President knew if America believes that its poor people are being mistreated then they get mad.

They take up an offense and then they would side with Bill Clinton. And that's exactly what happened. As we move into chapter 12 we see the prophet Nathan doing pretty much the same thing but only in a very godly manner. God tells his prophet Nathan to go and confront the most powerful man on the face of the earth King David. And he goes to confront him.

Think he was scared? David if he got mad he could have him put to death. And so he could have been shaken in his boots but I don't think he was. You see Nathan knew that this was King David. He was the king of Israel but he had a commission from another king. And that was King Jehovah who was king over everything.

The king of the universe. He went to David with respect but not fear. So after much thought Nathan decides to use the same issue that Bill Clinton used and that was injustice to the poor. He would tell a parable to David about injustice to the poor and he believed that that would be used in David's life to wake him up. Nathan says David I want you to listen carefully.

I need to tell you a story. And David just perked up and he looked right into the eyes of Nathan. Nathan said there was a man who was a very very rich man. Tremendously rich. He had great flocks of sheep. He had many herds of cattle.

He was a very very rich man. Right next door to him there was a very poor man who lived in a little shack. And he didn't have hardly anything. About all he had was a little ewe lamb. And the children and him they loved that lamb. It was almost like family to them. It was everybody's pet. They played with him. They cared for him.

It's almost like family. I think a lot of you know Ray Green. He's one of our deacons here. Ray's got a little dog named Henry. And Ray loves Henry to death. He takes him everywhere he goes. If Ray's going to a restaurant to eat he'll take Henry with him.

Leave him in the car. Henry knows what's coming. Ray's going to bring him a piece of chicken or a sausage or a piece of ham. And he knows it's coming. Ray treats that little dog like family.

The little dog sleeps up on his chest at night. Ray was in the hospital two weeks ago for two weeks. And Pat told me that that little dog sat by the door and wailed for Ray for that entire two weeks until he finally came through the door.

I think Ray's love for Henry was a whole lot like this man in the story's love for the little lamb. By this time Nathan has painted such a picture of Pathos that David is sitting there with tears in his eyes thinking about the plight of this poor man. And Nathan continues. He says one day a traveler came by the rich man's house and he needed to make supper for him. And so instead of going out and getting one of his own lambs he went right past all of his flocks and all of his cattle and he went to the poor man's house, his shack. And he walks back behind the shack. Nobody's there that day and there's the little lamb that's tied to a tree with a rope. And he walks over to the little lamb, looks around to see if anybody's there, takes out his sharp knife. He cuts the rope and then he leads the little lamb back to his own property. When he gets back to his own property he throws the lamb down on the ground. And he takes his sharp knife and he slits his throat and then he skins the little lamb.

He cuts the meat off the bones and throws them into a pot for supper. And there they have a meal, a feast, a feast with the poor man's lamb. Perhaps Nathan described the children's dismay. As the children get home they run back into the backyard and the little lamb is gone. And they see that the rope has been cut. Maybe Nathan tells them about the father who goes with the children. They follow the footsteps and those footprints go all the way to the neighbor's property. And they get to the neighbor's property and they look and they see the blood-stained sand where their little lamb had been slaughtered. I can imagine Nathan telling the story of this little girl, the little daughter, as tears are just flowing down her cheeks and she's crying and the father just reaches around her and holds her and hugs her to his chest trying to give her comfort. But whatever, David is furious.

And David jumps up from the throne. He is, I mean steam's coming off his head. And he said, this is the meanest thing I've ever heard. Does that man have no conscience?

Does he have no sense of right and wrong? He said, I'll tell you what you do. You go out, you bring that man to me and as I live, that man will not live.

I will take his life. Verse five and six again. Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man and he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Alright, point three is David's sin condemned. Verses seven through twelve.

Nathan said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel. I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.

And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 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 a sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, behold I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.

For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. That reaction from David was exactly what Nathan was waiting on. David standing there, his face as red as a beet, steam coming off his head. And as that's going on, Nathan the prophet takes his arm and starts lifting it up slowly. And then he points that long bony prophet's finger right in the face of David. And he says to David, David, you are the man. Thou art the man, David. You are the man in the story. You are the rich man, David.

Thou art the man. David, you could have had any single woman in Israel, but no. What did you do? You took the wife of someone else. You stole that wife away. And the wife that you stole it away from was one of the most loyal soldiers in the Israelite army. He was one of your most loyal servants.

And then not only did you take his wife, but you had him killed in order to cover over your sin. Folks, those words came out of the mouth of Nathan. By the time they got to the ears of David, they were the words of God. Nathan used a parable to break into David's heart. Who else taught in parables?

Jesus did. Why did Jesus teach in parables? Because people remember parables.

A lot of times people forget a principle and they'll forget a command. But when a parable is told with power, people don't forget that. I think also another spiritual truth about parables. A parable will speak a message only to those who God intends it to speak to. In Matthew 13, after Jesus told the parable to the sower and the seed, the disciples asked the question. They said, Jesus, why do you teach in parables? And Jesus said this in Matthew 13, 11-13. And He answered them, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. The soldiers and the guards who were there heard that story too, but they only heard it with their physical ears.

It didn't have the impact on them because it didn't really relate to them. But folks, when David heard this story, it was a different ballgame. For David heard this story, it went not to his physical ears, but to his spiritual ears. You see, this story was a parallel of his life, and God was speaking a message to David's heart that only David could understand.

And Nathan continues, he says, David, the sword shall never depart from your house the rest of your life. He says, David, God will raise up adversity against you, and even your wives and your concubines who are in your house will cheat on you, and they will be unfaithful to you, and your heart will be broken. And David, you did what you did and tried to cover it up.

But what God does in punishing you will be open before the world. It takes us to point four, David's confession. Look at verse 13. So David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the Lord also has put away your sin.

You shall not die. If there's ever been a case of heartfelt, genuine repentance, this is the place. And if you want to see what God does to the human heart when repentance is real, and what it takes for repentance to be real, then go to Psalm 51. Psalm 51 is David's prayer after his encounter with Bathsheba. Now how soon did it take place after that encounter? There are some scholars who think that David actually prayed that prayer right in front of Nathan. I don't think so.

It might have, but I don't think so. I think this was the one-on-one prayer between David and God. I think Nathan had left. David went off and got by himself before the Lord and cried out to the Lord. Let me share with you what verses one and two says in Psalm 51. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

This is a prayer from a broken heart. Folks, this is not a situation where David feels remorse. You see, remorse is just being sorry that you got caught. David is not just sorry that he got caught. David is glad now that his sin is in the open, that God is dealing with it. He is glad that God loves him enough that he's not going to let him continue in this lie. He is not at a point where he's just sorry that he got caught. He's sorry that he broke God's heart. And he's sorry that he's destroyed a family. And he longs for that fellowship that he has missed with God that he hasn't had in the last several months. Folks, this is not remorse.

This is not regret. This is true repentance. In Isaiah chapter 66 verse 2, God said, A better description could not have been found for David at this point in time. He is so broken that he falls prostrate before Nathan. He's crying great tears of anguish and repentance. And he cries out to Nathan, I've sinned!

And he cries out to God, I have sinned. Remember this is a man David who knew the word of God. In fact he wrote some of the word of God. He wrote Psalm 101 verse 3 where he said, I will set no wicked thing before my eyes. He was a man who knew the law of God and loved the law of God. I think the Ten Commandments were emblazoned on his mind. Don't think for a minute that David did not know the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. David knew the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill. And in Psalm 119 verse 11, David said, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. This prayer of repentance that God led David to pray is recorded for us in Psalm 51.

I'm going to move away from 2 Samuel for just a few weeks. And for the next few weeks we're going to be looking at Psalm 51 in order that we might understand what is necessary in genuine God-sent, Christ-exalting repentance. In Roger Ellsworth's book called The Shepherd King, he ended this section by giving us four principles that we should take home with us. And let me read these principles to you. He said, The Bible never glosses over the sin of its greatest heroes, but he lays them bare before our eyes.

Its purpose in doing so is to help us learn some very important and vital principles about governing in our own lives. What are we to learn from the part of David's life that we have been examining? The following lessons emerge with crystal clarity. Number one, a true child of God can fall into horrible sin and remain in it for a time, but he will never be happy in it and will ultimately come to repentance. Number two, the messenger of God who refuses to tiptoe around our sins but faithfully rebukes them does us a great service and should be prized as a true friend. Number three, true repentance is no light matter. It does not shrug off sin or seek to excuse it in any way but sees the enormity of it, condemns it and resolves to break with it.

This is done with a spirit of true brokenness and deep sorrow. Four, God's mercy is such that he does indeed forgive the sins of his people and restores their joy, but his forgiveness of their sin does not necessarily mean the removal of the consequences. God leaves those consequences so that others will take note and will guard against sin. These lessons shine like beacons from David's experience. We can look at his experience, accept these lessons and guard diligently against sin and our own lies, or we can refuse to learn from David's example. We can assure ourselves that we are the exception to the rules, that we can play with the fire of sin and not get burned.

The choice is ours. Someone pointed out that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We might say that those who refuse to learn from David's experience are doomed to find the misery that he found.

Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, today we studied a prophet. His name was Nathan. David had great respect for this man and Nathan loved David. But you led David to do a very dangerous and difficult thing. Nathan was commanded by you to confront David with his sin. David was the most powerful man on earth. He could have turned on Nathan and executed him.

Most kings would have done that. David did not. Nathan spoke riveting truth to David's heart. Truth that ripped through David's calloused heart like an arrow. Nathan's truth was just God's truth.

David knew it. He could hide no longer. He could no longer run away. He had to quit running from God and start running to God. His confrontation with Nathan sent David to his knees where your Holy Spirit inspired him to write Psalm 51. We praise you for that Psalm. For every child of God here needs those truths every day. Lord, forgive us like you forgave David and restore to us the joy of our salvation. For it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.