Caught Red Handed, Part 2

Do you remember when King Saul was confronted by the prophet of that day, Samuel, for disobeying God? Saul immediately comes back with, you know, well, it's actually, you know, God's fault.

And he makes excuses and he makes up lies. Will David do the same? Verse 13. David said to Nathan, first time he has to speak, I have sinned against the Lord. It's only two words, by the way, of the Hebrew language. It's two words.

But it's the volume you need to read and repeat. Have you ever been overcome with guilt because of your sin? If you try to ignore it, that guilt can fester and eat away at you.

The other option is for you to pursue the only right solution. Admit and confess your sin to God. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey takes us back to the life and example of King David. David committed some terrible sins that were destructive to him and others. He'll face consequences for his sin, but more significantly, David will experience God's forgiveness. The same forgiveness available to us when we sin. Stay with us for a lesson called, Caught Red Handed. Nathan, by the way, is using words loaded to the Hebrew ear with implication.

Let me point out a couple of them. In verse three, he said that this little lamb lay in his arms. That word is never used between a pet and the owner. It's a word commonly used for a man embracing, hugging his wife. So already he's sort of noodling around the edges here.

He also does something else. The phrase that comes next, that this lamb was like a daughter. That's actually the same Hebrew word, the first part of it, that you find in the name bat, sheba. The lamb was like a bath to him, and that must have arrested, perhaps unconsciously, David's heart pricked. Notice verse four. Now there came a traveler to the rich man and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guests who'd come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come.

Now again, Nathan is using loaded words. In fact, the word for traveler here that I read is a word for someone who was walking around. It's a different kind of word, not for someone traveling from home to some location.

It's actually a word for somebody who's just walking around. And the interesting thing is that it appears that same verb in the Hebrew language back in chapter 11 to describe David who was walking around his roof. Again, Nathan is loading it up here. David isn't necessarily connecting the dots, but there is something happening to him emotionally because he responds with rage. Notice verse five. 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. Now keep in mind David just sentenced himself. Now before we get there, don't you find it interesting to see in David our own ability to condemn others for doing less than what we have done ourselves?

Quick to see in someone even the slightest sliver of what we do and coming down so hard. The Lord Jesus talks about this and this is another sermon, but I just want to drop it in here as an aside in Matthew 7. How is it that we can see the splinter of wood in someone's eye when we have a beam protruding from our own? The splinter and the beam, by the way, are made out of the same thing, the same substance, wood.

In other words, the person who sins the most in some area is able to spot that same sin in someone else's life even though it's only a fraction of theirs. The rich man stole something. David is incensed. What did he steal? A lamb? What did David steal? A wife? A man's life? That sheep stealer ought to die.

Why? Well, because he stole something he had plenty of, because he acted without pity towards somebody who can defend himself, because he abused his power to do whatever he wanted, because he ripped a family apart with grief. Yes, all of the above and David just comes off his throne and he sputters in rage as God lives. Oh, we're going to bring God into it, but as God lives, that man who did that deserves to die. And you can just imagine Nathan pausing for a fact as David's sentence just reverberates around the palace walls. And then he gets quiet and Nathan looks David in the eye and says in verse 7, you are that man.

That rich man, David, is you. I can imagine that David's jaw, as one author said, probably dropped open. He probably blinked a couple of times looking at Nathan inquisitively at first and then his eyes opened wide with sudden recognition.

He probably slumped back to his throne as his heart began to beat against his chest. He didn't know that anybody knew outside of that closed circle and they'd kept the secret. He hadn't even thought of the fact that God knew. He knew God knew and the prophet of God has just arrived to spill it. David has been caught effectively red handed. David had stains on his heart that had already begun to eat like corrosive rust away at his peace and joy, his communion with God. Is there something, by the way, my friend, that you hope never gets out?

As you look at that text, and by the way this isn't just to look at David, it's to look in the mirror of the word at ourselves. Is there something, is there some stain that you're hoping never gets detected? Is there some evidence that you hope never surfaces? What if a prophet of God by the name of Nathan showed up at your doorstep this afternoon, what would happen to the palms of your hands and the beating of your heart? One author told the interesting story of a man named Rogers Caden Head. Happened not too long ago.

I clipped it, put it away, pulled it out. Thought it would be a timely illustration. When Pope John Paul II died, Rogers and others do this, some make a pretty decent living off it, purchased a web domain assuming it would be needed later. That web domain he purchased, he registered as www.benedict16.com. And he waited. He'd guessed correctly.

That would be the Pope's new name, the new Pope's name. He knew that Rome would want it. He had watched as another name, PopeBenedict16.com, had sold on eBay for $16,000.

Now you're wishing you had had the idea yourself and he didn't do it. He figured that his would be worth more money and it would be. The article said in a surprising twist, Rogers informed the Catholic officials who came knocking, and they did, that he didn't want money.

He was a Catholic himself and wanted the church to have the domain. Instead, he wanted two things. He wanted a free night in the Vatican Hotel and he wanted complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987. Makes you wonder what happened on the third week of March 1987. Whatever it was, that man was carrying it. He was being buried by it.

He didn't want the news out, but he just wanted it wiped away. I wonder if you're hiding something from God. Is it a business practice that God would never honor, or your spouse if they found out?

Is it a relationship you're nursing along that you shouldn't have? Is it a test score you didn't deserve? Is it a diploma that you didn't earn? Could it be an award you didn't merit? A resume where you didn't completely tell the truth?

Is it something from the past you've never admitted? Is it something like David that when we look at a text like this, it surfaces and your hands feel stained all over again. It robs your joy and your sleep and your communion with God because you know deep down that God knows too. What happens next is the ultimate solution and it isn't found in some church's absolution. A church can't wipe stains away. In fact, before David can interrupt Nathan with saying anything, what we're often remiss in not noting is that Nathan continues on and delivers some consequences to David's sin.

There are three of them. First, if I could put it into a sentence form, violence and death would become a part of David's household. Look down at verse 10. 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. Now if you study the final years of David's reign from this point forward, the sword never, never stops swinging.

Never. Murder among the royal family will become the scandal of Jerusalem. It's going to be front page. It would make a serial show fit for 21st century television. It's going to stain the legacy of David's reign. Secondly, not only will violence and murder become part of his household, but illicit lust and immorality.

In fact, in the very next chapter, lust and rape will enter the palace grounds among members of the royal family. David will be powerless to remedy it. In fact, it's going to end in even more murder. There will be immorality that David would never dream of.

Why? Because his children will see his compromise and his sin and they will take it a thousand miles further than he would have ever wanted or dreamed. They're going to run with it because that mud puddle is home to them. And they'll excuse themselves on what they've seen their father do.

That's one of the challenges and penalties of being a parent or even being a leader. In verse 11, Nathan says, thus says the Lord, behold, I'm going to 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. This is, by the way, judgment on David's ongoing sin, having more than one wife.

And he, this neighbor, shall lie with your wives in plain view. Verse 12, you did it secretly but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. In other words, God is going to allow a sinner to take what David did secretly and parade it. And this is going to be fulfilled by Absalom, David's son, as he overthrows his father's throne or attempts to.

But in the meantime of that coup, as David is running for his life, Absalom takes David's harem, pitches a tent on the top of the palace roof and defiles all of them sexually as a show of his power now and certainly his utter contempt and hatred for his father. If anybody thinks David gets a free pass, you just haven't read the rest of this story. Even though David will be forgiven, there is still the principle of reaping and sowing and there are some consequences that will linger that for the believer who is asked forgiveness will continually take before the Lord for strength.

I can remember my father often telling us four boys, my father grew up on a farm and has that rural wisdom at times it comes at and he would often say to us as we grew up that we could not sow a life of wild oats and then pray for a crop failure. David's family is going to deliver to him a harvest. What David did in one week and then covered over for one year, his children are going to, many of them are going to devote their lives to delighting.

They're responsible by the way. If David had slumped back into his throne in shame by the time Nathan finishes and it probably took him less than three minutes to deliver this narrative, David is faint with grief and sorrow and so the next few words that come out of David's mouth are going to make all the difference in the world as to his own personal walk with God. You remember when King Saul was confronted by the prophet of that day Samuel for disobeying God, Saul immediately comes back with you know well it's actually you know God's fault and he makes excuses and he makes up lies. Will David do the same? Verse 13, David said to Nathan first time he has to speak, I have sinned against the Lord.

No demand for leniency, no argument with consequences, no excuses of Bathsheba's beauty or this is a midlife crisis. I have sinned against the Lord. It's only two words by the way in the Hebrew language, just two words but it's the volume you need to read and repeat. In fact one Hebrew scholar wrote in his commentary, the words are very few just as in the case of the publican in the Gospel of Luke who simply cried, you remember that story perhaps?

God be merciful to me, a what? A sinner and he went home justified. There's no excuse here from David, no cloaking, no lessening what author says of the gravity of his sin, there's no searching for a loophole, there's no blame, there's no pretext, there's no human weakness pleaded, he simply acknowledged his guilt openly, candidly and without any dishonesty. He ends by saying this Hebrew scholar, it is the simplicity of David's confession that makes it commendable rather than defective.

I mean let's just stop a minute, let's just be honest okay? I know when I study this text my first thoughts are perhaps similar to yours. We as Christians might assume because we are ignorant of the depth of grace that God isn't going to even listen to David until David is at least fasted for ten days and put in three months of community service or long nights of pleading and crying and begging and at least some trip up some stairway on his knees. Then maybe God will listen. We beloved do not fully grasp or understand the atoning work of Jesus Christ, yet future for David, past tense for us. And because we don't fully grasp the completed work of Christ on our behalf, we're surprised somewhat at Nathan's comment back to David in verse 13 as he says, the Lord has put away your sin, you shall not die.

I mean isn't that a bit quick? I think the reason we think that way is because as one theologian wrote on this text, we wrongly assume that intensity, the intensity of our repentance somehow contributes to the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work. I've got to earn that atonement. I can't simply honestly confess, I've got to show God something before I could ever expect God to respond, right?

Let's learn something all over again that's deep and incredible and wonderful. David is struck with this prophetic encounter. He's effectively caught with his hands stained. He knows they're stained.

He's tried to sit on them for a year. He's done everything to cover it up and guilt is eating away at him, but now he's confronted. He's laid bare and after listening to both the exposure of his sin and the justice of God, how it's going to play out in his life, he humbly and contritely and genuinely and broken heartily says the only thing you can say, I have sinned against God. This is, by the way, as odd as it may sound, further proof he is a man after God's own heart.

How so? A man or woman after God's heart is not sinless, but they are, among other things, utterly submissive to the accusing Word of God. Whether or not we are becoming men and women after God's own heart is revealed and how we respond to the accusing Word of God in relation to our sin. In fact, the Apostle John will pick up that same idea and definition of genuine confession when he writes, when we confess our sin, confess, homologa o say the same thing as God says about it. When we agree with God who accuses us of sin and we say in response, you're right, that's sin, then he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

David is utterly subdued, he is totally smitten by the Word of God. And you know what will keep you hiding that sin? You're not quite convinced that God's all that correct.

Maybe it's not that sinful. We are watching here in the life of one of God's children nothing less than the vigilant grace of God who has hunted David down. There's a third consequence, let me briefly mention it. Certainly this harvest of David's adultery and murder is going to play out in the lives of those who will use him as their excuse to wallow in the mud of sin. But in addition to that, thirdly, Nathan informs David that the son born to David and Bathsheba will be taken by God in death. If you look down at verse 14 at the end of this visit from Nathan, he informs David after David confesses that the child which had been born to you and Bathsheba will die. This is one of those passages that's left with that explanation and wouldn't you like a verse or two? The reasoning behind the death of this little boy remains for the most part locked away in the mystery of God's secrets. Deuteronomy 29 29. And yet we know that whatever God does is right. Daniel chapter 9 verse 14.

In fact for the believer, those two verses will give us greater trust and assurance and security and hope when we understand there are some things that belong to God's files of secret mystery and that what he does is right. I think we can glean from this probably a couple of things as we think about it and I certainly have. One of the things that came to my mind was that the taking of this little boy immediately to be with the Lord was a mercy to him. He would have grown up the scapegoat of every slur, every hateful thought in this regard and the false guilt heaped upon him every day of his life would have been unmerciful. He would have been accused as the reason for Uriah's murder, for the intrigue of murder and incest and rape and immorality that will beset the royal family to the very time of David's death.

This baby boy will grow up to be the brunt of every cruel accusation. This is a mercy. But I also see in this the gospel. Nathan in this text connects the message that David can live with the fact that this baby will die.

There's very little wiggle room around the language. I tried to find it and I'm just going to announce there isn't any. David is assured that he will live but and because a death will occur. One Old Testament scholar writes here it's as if the child although we're not told there's the implication it's as if the child is David's substitute and here's the gospel. Think of it.

Think of it. Can you think of somebody who's innocent who died so that you can live? Think of the fact that every one of us who are redeemed, every one of us who have been forgiven will one day live forever because a son of David dies. The son of David.

Your substitute and mine. In the mystery of God's grace and mercy a son of David will be born and will die so that we can live forever. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. So don't hide your stained hands. Confess what stained them and the son of David Jesus Christ who already died to pay the penalty that who literally became stained on our behalf as he bore our guilt and shame. That prayer of confession. Not only that initial prayer which brings you into the family of God but those daily prayers as we daily stain our hands and our hearts know from this testimony that God is not measuring the amount of our tears and if you get to one inch I'm gonna listen.

If it's two inches you've got my full attention. He doesn't have a stopwatch out testing the length of our lamentation. He's waiting for a simple honest genuine admission of guilt and it is his delight, it is his pleasure, it is his business to forgive. To take your crimson stained hands and mine and our hearts and make them as white as snow. Jesus paid it all. All to him we owe. Sin had left a crimson what? Stain.

He washed it white as snow. This is the mystery of his mercy to pardon you and me. Why upon the foundation and basis of the death of the son of David? Because of that he pursues us with his vigilant grace. Since all of us are sinners it's encouraging to be reminded of the truth that God offers his forgiveness and restoration to all of us.

This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. I hope you've been challenged and encouraged by today's lesson. Sometimes our sin can cause us to have questions about our salvation.

We worry and wonder does God still love me? We have a resource that I think will help you. During the month of February our free resource is a copy of Stephen's ebook, Blessed Assurance.

Salvation is Eternal. This ebook will explore this in more detail and it's free for you to download this month. All you need to do is visit wisdomonline.org. Right on our homepage you'll find a link to this resource.

It'll take you to our online store but it's free this month and you can download a copy for yourself today. Again it's wisdomonline.org. Well thanks again for joining us. We're so glad you are with us and I hope you'll be with us next time on Wisdom for the Heart.