The Cry of a Fallen Leader

You ever wish you had a delete button so that you could quickly erase a thoughtless act or a misguided action, something you've said that you wish you could take back? King David certainly would have liked that. Today on Truth for Life weekend, Alistair Begg considers King David's regretful dilemma involving Bathsheba. And the compounding effect of trying to conceal his sin from others, even God. we're looking at Psalm fifty one.

The story goes like this: There were two men in a certain town, one of them was particularly rich. and the other one was very poor. The rich man had a considerable number of sheep and cattle, And the poor man had had simply one little ewe lamb. He had bought it when it was tiny. And he had raised it, it had grown up both with him and with his children.

It shared his food. It drank from his cup. and it even slept in his arms. Indeed, it was like a daughter to him. A traveler comes into town.

and goes to the home of the rich man. The rich man, in seeking to provide for the physical needs of this individual, chooses not to go to his own herds and flocks, but goes instead and intrudes on the flock. Of the poor man, a flock of one, as you will recall, and takes the ewe lamb from this gentleman and uses that as the means of preparing food for the traveler who arrived at his gate.

Now, there's an obvious moral incongruity of that. Those of us who listen to it say that's not right, and that's exactly what David said when he heard this story. When Nathan came to him and told him the story, David was filled with anger and he declared, the man who did this, deserves to die. He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing. And he had no pity.

The story was a moral outrage. It struck David. And then in that instant, The dagger pierced the The heart of the king. Because Nathan the prophet immediately then seized on the story that he had told. This, he says to David, is a parable of your life and particularly of your activities of late.

Because he said, you are the man that I am describing in the story. And the awful actions of this leader. were described in the words of Nathan.

Now, the background to that, of course, is another story with which many of us are familiar, but not all of us. David. had after a long climb to the top. made it through the struggles and challenges of political life. And he was finally there.

He was in his mid-forties. He was the most significant person in the land. He was the commander-in-chief of the forces. He was the civil leader. There was no one greater than him.

He had the ability to do things that others couldn't do. And so, although it was the time for kings and soldiers to go out to war, The biblical record tells us that he decided to stay home. And so he stayed home, secure in his mid-forties and ready for his own midlife crisis. She was exceptionally beautiful. She was particularly vulnerable.

And she was, after their trist, unfortunately pregnant. What he might have figured as being a one-night stand, because after all, he was a prominent person with a reputation to maintain. He surely wouldn't want the court reporters to be going around spreading news of what had taken place. He must be discreet in all of his dealings and hopefully he would be able to avail himself of the opportunity and be gone, as it were, under the cover of darkness or the early hours of the dawn. And it all went so horribly wrong.

And so this leader was confronted by a moral dilemma. Actually, by an immoral dilemma. Because this lady was married to one of his army officers, a man by the name of Uriah.

So what was he to do?

Well his instinctive reaction was to cover it up. And so that's what he decided. He would recall Uriah from the. campaign from the border securing task which he had. and he would get him to come back.

And he would encourage him to sleep at home. Didn't work. This first plan was A dreadful miscalculation. Because, as it turned out, Uriah was more noble than the leader. Because when he called Uriah back and he invited him into the palace, he said, Hey, how are you doing?

How's it going? Uriah must have said to himself, I don't know what this is about. And when he followed it up by saying, Why don't you go home and spend a few nights with your family and particularly with your wife? Why don't you go home and wash your feet? Uriah must have walked out of the palace, and whether he smelled a rat or not, I don't know.

He must have said to himself, this is one strange deal. I'm out there fighting. I get called back into the palace. He has this conversation with me and then he says, Go home and sleep with your wife. I wonder why he's so concerned that I would go home and sleep with my wife.

So he doesn't go home and sleep with his wife, he goes home and sleeps with the servants. Beside the servants. The king winds him and dines him on three successive evenings. Presumably says, Now on you go, and he goes down and he says, I can go and enjoy the privileges of marital bliss while my friends and my colleagues are out facing the peril of their lives on the forefront of battle. This was a noble guy.

I'm not going to be in here schmoozing and snoozing. While my guys are out on the field getting chalked up with lances and with swords.

So Plan A. Hits the dumper. Plan B. He has to go to.

So he instructs his General Joab to engineer events in such a way that this army officer, Uriah, will be killed in battle. Put him up somewhere at the front, he says, and wait for the right opportunity and make sure he takes it in the throat, so to speak. And then we'll have a funeral, and after the funeral, I'll marry the grieving widow. And then when the grieving widow uh gives birth to this uh child that I will have already adopted. I will make this child a prince in the loyal the royal line, which will be a nice memorial to the national hero, namely Uriah.

And that's exactly what he did. Cynical?

Sordid. Dirty filthy horrible plot. Immediately Put into action. Everything in his power, and powerful he was, was unleashed in order to ensure that the dirty business would never actually make it into print, would never actually become the conversation of the common man. He must have said to himself, as the dust began to settle, that was an unfortunate business.

He may even have said, you know, that was an improper relationship. But he said to himself, it's time to move on. After all, there is a country to care for, there are matters to be addressed, there are political issues and there are matters of national security to be dealt with. Surely, I'm not supposed to belabor this and stay here. That was his great Miscalculation.

The reason it was such a great miscalculation and such a tactical error was because of this. cannot be sealed away in the past. Sin and guilt are not eradicated simply as a result of saying, oh well, I don't want to think about that anymore, oh well, that's in the past, oh well, that's okay. No, it's not. Even if the courts don't punish it.

Even if public scandal doesn't expose it. Even if by hypocrisy we manage to conceal it, Singing our hymns, attending our services. preaching our sermons, going about our business. Even if by hypocrisy we manage to conceal it, Eventually, the rotting carcass will smell so bad that everyone will know. There is no way to avoid it.

That, of course. is the good news And the bad news. You see, you don't have to be a Christian to understand that. Pagans understand that. Boys at school understand that.

Girls understand that. As they lie in their beds and they bury their heads in the pillow, they know, man alive, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. Is there anyone to whom I can go? Is there any place that I can turn? Is there anything that I can say?

Well, the only safe thing that can be done with guilt. is to have it washed away. And there is only one. To whom we may go? to have it washed away.

To whom then? Can this fallen leader go?

Well, to the one whom he addresses. In the sun. He says, I'm coming to you. And my cry, he says, is have mercy on me, O God. according to your unfailing love.

According to your great Compassion. Who is this God?

Well, He is the God who has revealed Himself as a God of unfailing love. And he is the God who has shown himself. To be great in his compassion, and it is to this one that we may go with the request: blot out my transgressions. You see, because when a man or a woman is made aware of their guilt, When I become aware of my wrong I know Within myself, that I'm going to have to deal with God. I may try and suppress the notion, I may try and deny the idea, but I know by my very nature as being made in a moral being that there is one to whom I am accountable.

And God knows. That I know, and I know that he knows, and I know that this God, no matter what my anthropology teacher told me, no matter what the sociologist tells me, no matter what a postmodern community tries to instill in me, I know that this God is not some cosmic force, I know that he is not an impersonal being, I know that he is not simply an energy, I know that he is a moral being, and I know that he is the judge of all the earth who will do right. And on account of that There is a fundamental question which confronts me. How then can I be sure that if I go to this God, He will accept me? How can I be certain that if I dare to come to Him with all the terrible stuff that lurks inside of me, with all my mess and all my filthiness, how can I be sure that He's not going to slap me in the face and tell me, Hey, hit the road, Jack?

The answer is because of who he is, because of your unfailing love, according to your great compassion. David only had a few books of the Old Testament, but he understood who God was. We have not only the books that He had, but all the books that follow, ultimately forming up in the person of the Lord Jesus and ultimately bringing us to the cross of the Lord Jesus. Where do we see this unfailing love? Where is this great compassion declared?

Where is this cleansing detergent to be discovered? It's to be discovered on a Roman gibbet. For the grace of God Reveals one who loves us so much so as to make Calvary possible. And who hates sin so much so as to make Calvary necessary. And we have never understood neither sin nor the death of the Lord Jesus Christ until we have faced this fact.

That there, when he hanged upon that cross, he was bearing in his own body our sins. Paul, when he describes the circumstances to the Colossians in Colossians 2, He says that he took Our sins in himself. and that he bore them. And that he took all of my stain and he nailed it to the cross, granting to us forgiveness. That's why the message of the gospel is for sinners.

God saves sinners. I have no right to claim forgiveness. And yet I must come and accept it. Forgiveness is something God gives as a free gift. But we don't receive it automatically.

It doesn't come like one of those Visa card things in the mail.

So people think, well, somehow or another, as I go on my merry way, one day I'll go in my mailbox, I'll take out the mail, and it will say, Hey, dear Fred, just want you to know you're forgiven. I thought you should know that.

Now, cheer up and get on with your life. Mm-mm. No? Forgiveness is a free gift of God, but we come and we ask for it. And we ask in confidence that we may receive it.

Not because we deserve it. But because of the nature of the God who loves to give it. Have you ever come to God and asked Him for forgiveness? Oh, I don't mean in some generic way. I don't mean the sort of, oh dear, what a mess.

Here I am again for the forty-seventh time with no sense of confession. Our cleansing. But have you ever come to God with all of it and said, Lord God, There's clearly no one else to whom I can go. Secondly, there's only one thing that I can say. That is verse 3.

I know my transgressions, my sins are always before me.

Now, when a man or a woman is prepared to say, I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me, I'll tell you what they're not doing. Number one, they're not making excuses for it. When I know myself to be found out, when I know myself to be busted, when I know myself to be clearly in the wrong, I have to get down before God and say, you know what? I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. I'm not here to excuse it away.

I'm not here to blame it on capitalism or socialism or hormones or diet or my grandmother's influence on my life or whatever else it is. Oh God, I am totally in the wrong.

So, you can know that genuine repentance and godly sorrow does not attach itself to a litany of excuses. Nor does the genuinely repentant person Try and hide behind some form of pseudo-moral indignation that goes like this.

Well, you know, a lot of people have been doing a lot of bad things lately. Who's to say? What's the deal? Let me tell you. When the Spirit of God convicts the heart of a man, About the awfulness of his sin.

He's going to go run and find a place all on his own to cry out to Almighty God. He's not interested in the sins of his wife. His cousin, his brother, his sister, the guy up the stair, his boss, or anything else. He says, Oh God, I know my transgressions. And my sins are ever before me.

I can't run. And I can't hide. I'm here to say one thing. I'm saying no to excuse, I'm saying no to indignation, and I'm saying no to repression. If a man or a woman is going to find peace of heart and mind, then there is only one to whom they may go, there is only one thing that they can say, and that is verse 4: against you and you only have I sinned.

My offence is against you, O God. I've done evil in your sight. Say, well, wait a minute, didn't he sin against Bathsheba? Didn't he sin against Uriah? Yes, but in the final analysis You and I will never come to terms with sin or with guilt until we have personal dealings with God about it.

There's only one to whom we can go. You see, real guilt is not just a psychological hang-up. There is false guilt.

Some people feel guilty all the time. They make themselves feel guilty and they have nothing to be guilty about. But real guilt. You can psychologize real guilt away. There isn't a psychiatrist in the in John Hopkins University can get rid of real guilt.

For you. Even if he tells you that sin is a Christian neurosis, even if he externalizes it for you, even if he tells you that it's over there, it's not in here, there's no help to you. And if you've been there, you know. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying psychiatrists can't help you.

I'm saying that they cannot remove guilt. There's only one person who has the deterrent. Not enough to have a psychologist. Help me. It's not sufficient.

that the person I've hurt forgives me? It's not enough to feel bad. It's not enough even to be angry with myself. The only day that you and I can come to terms with guilt. It's when my mind is no longer filled with thoughts of how it affects me.

how it affects others. But when I start to feel seriously burdened by how my sin affects God. Because only God as the detergent. There's only one thing I can say. And lastly, There's only one solution to be found.

And that is a heart transplant. Verse 10. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Don't cast me off from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. David was probably thinking about what happened to Saul at the end of his days.

What a mess he was in. He says, Lord, you're going to have to change my heart and my spirit. The centre of my will, the The core of who I am. Change my heart, O God. My need is crucial.

I can see that the solution is radical. I'm glad. that the surgeon is gentle.

Some of us I've lost loved ones because the only solution that was left to them was a brand new heart. And it wasn't possible to affect that change. And so they were gone. And some of us wander in and out of our days. And the only solution that is there for us is a brand new heart.

It's not that we haven't been told, it's not that the surgeon hasn't come and made the diagnosis and offered the cure, it's not that we misunderstand the radical nature of the solution, it is simply that we do not want it to happen. If you're here this morning and you remain unforgiven. You're sitting around with a bucket full of guilt. I want you to know there is one to whom you can go. There is something that you can say.

And there's a solution to be found. There are many ways to become a member of the community. There are many ways to become a good dad. There are many ways to assimilate religious principles. But all of that on its own or put together does not equal a religious conversion.

For a religious conversion takes place only at one place, can only be affected by one person and only in response to the saying of one thing: I have sinned, I have transgressed, I'm in a total mess. And when that heart is then cleansed and made new, when the heart transplant takes place. than civil, religious, familial. Personal duties. Follow in light.

That's the message. You say, Well, I'm glad I'm not in this. I'm not a leader. And I didn't do any of this stuff. Look at verse 5.

Surely, I was sinful at birth and sinful from the time my mother conceived me. You see, guilt is not a fungus to be scraped away. Guilt is a defect in our character. There's no little island of innocence in our personalities from which we can launch a counterattack. The core is corrupt.

It's twisted. It's stained where our write-off For those of you who are involved as insurance assessors, Or in body shop work. The car gets hauled on its sorry way into one of those places. The insurance assessor comes. The expert looks at it, you're on the receiving end of the telephone call, and the guy comes on the phone and goes, it's a write-off.

What does that mean? It means you're going to have to have a brand new one. Because this thing will never go again. That's the description. It's not that we came into worship this morning and we need a new fender.

Or we need a couple of new headlights, or do you fancy a couple of spiritual fog lamps? You know, do you want a Christian sunroof? Or, you know, here, I'm a pretty nice guy, and I just wonder if you could kind of fit me out with a sort of package you have. What sort of packages do you have here? I'm interested in what you have to offer me.

Well, you know, I think we got a tremendous amount to offer you, but before we would offer you any of the other stuff, there's only one thing. to offer And that is an introduction. to the only one to whom we can grow. A description. of the only thing.

that we can realistically say And a reminder. that there is only one possible solution. to the predicament. that we face. For listening to Truth for Life Weekend, that is Alice Derbegg with a message titled The Cry of a Fallen Leader.

You know, throughout his life, in both good times and bad, King David turned to the Lord in prayer. prayer was his greatest source of peace and comfort, and and regardless of your age or where you are in your faith, prayer may be something you've struggled with most of us do. All too often we find ourselves either at a loss for words, or just repeating the same words over and over again.

Well, I've got good news. For a limited time we're offering a free audio book and digital study, one of Alistair's most beloved books, Pray Big. Learn from the Apostle Paul's example how to pray with increased confidence and boldness, as you look to God to move in big ways. You can get your free audiobook of Pray Big along with the digital study guide when you visit truthforlife.org/slash pray big. I'm Bob Lepine.

Thanks for taking time out of your weekend to study the Bible with us.

Next weekend, we'll find out why the ancient message Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians is the same message we need to hear today. I hope you can join us. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.