2 Samuel 12, and of course I won't read this again to you, but this is the chapter before us. Children, have you ever doubted whether your parents were good? Have you ever wondered if your parents, if your mother or if your dad, if they loved you? Now, one of the times where you may have thought about this is when they punished you, or perhaps to put it a better word, when they chastened you. They recognized that you were in rebellion and they disciplined you. And maybe during that time you thought to yourself, my parents are not good. Why would they bring me pain? Why would they disappoint me and take away something or even spank me or something like that? And what's interesting is that it's during these times where God's love and His goodness is demonstrated. A big part of it is during those times. And of course you may not be a little kid here with parents that still discipline you, but maybe you have gone through or are going through a time where you sense and you feel specifically the consequences of sin in your life and you wonder if God is really good. And this passage of scripture touches on these ideas and what we see specifically in 2 Samuel 12 is actually the goodness and the love of God to his people who wander away. And that's a big idea here. Now, if you recall the context, David has just committed something that is horrible. It's difficult to even read chapter 11. much less chapter 12, but chapter 11 in our English Bibles here, it's hard to see the adultery, the lying, the deception, the murder, the blasphemy of a man who was very godly and who was the king. David has just done these things and time has gone by. We don't know exactly how much. It's a warning in itself to us that we can go for months and not be rebuked and think everything's okay. There's reasons to believe that David was more or less under that assumption. probably eight, nine months after he killed Uriah, Bathsheba gives birth, and this is when it all comes out. What I want you to see tonight is how God's goodness is revealed. God's goodness is revealed in that He rebukes, He chastens, He restores and forgives His wandering people. God's goodness is revealed that he rebukes, he chastens, he forgives, and restores his wandering people. I want to bring this whole chapter to you, this lesson, under four points. First, I want you to see God's goodness in rebuke. First nine verses, God's goodness in rebuke. Let's look at this rebuke that Nathan the prophet gives David. God is very good to David in this way. A couple of things to think about. This rebuke is very wise. It's very wise. You take verses 2 through verse 6. And you have more or less a parable that Nathan brings to David. Nathan does not just go straight to David and point the finger, of course he could have done that. But he knows David's spiritual state. He's wise. David is not walking with the Lord. And he speaks to him in such a way to provoke in David a willingness, at least more easily able to accept the rebuke. Because he arouses in him this righteous anger as it were. Who would do something like this? Here is a poor man who has one ewe lamb. One little lamb. And this rich man takes that lamb and uses it to feed one of his friends. How unjust is that? Of course that is exactly what David did. And God is very wise. Nathan is very wise. This kind of thing would have happened If you recall Solomon, and how Solomon as a king, so David would have done this as well as the supreme court if you will in the land. Two harlots come to Solomon, there is one living child and one dead child, you know the story, and Solomon is going to render judgment. So David probably assumes this is the case, this is a real event. And he's angry. He actually goes past the law of God, verses 5 and 6. According to God's law, he should not have been put to death, but he should have performed restitution, given back the lamb fourfold. So there's wisdom here. There's also, it's a clear rebuke. It's loving and it's good to give someone a clear rebuke. There's no confusion. Nathan's definitely rebuking David. You are the man. He points out his sin to him. He mentions the despising God's commandment, the killing of Uriah and the taking of his wife. And he does so in the context of grace. He reminds him, verses 7 and 8, what has God done for David? I mean, it's just to magnify the sin of David and to make him even more willing to receive this. I anointed you king over Israel. I delivered you from the hand of Saul. And he gave him all these different things. He was very gracious to David. And what did David do? Now, this rebuke is best seen to be loving and good. When we go back to verse one, we just notice this first phrase. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. I want you to think about that. As far as we know, no one knows what's going on. You know, a few house servants that kind of knew, you know, that one guy or just someone. Notice in verse 3 of chapter 11, someone said to David, is this not Bathsheba? You know, there was just a very few people who knew. But the Lord sent Nathan to David. Imagine for a moment, imagine for a moment a parent who only provides and only facilitates their children's life, but never corrects them, never instructs them. Just imagine that for a moment. Now, would that parent be a good parent? I mean, God is just in letting the wicked just go. In fact, Paul says this happens. Romans 1 is a dreadful thought. How God lets the wicked go. Romans 1 verse 34, therefore, if you recall the context in Romans 1, there's all this sin, the natural man, apart from God's grace, going about his life. Therefore God also gave them up. He gave them up. Verse 26, for this reason God gave them up to vile passions. Verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. But God demonstrates His love to His wandering people and that He comes after them and that He does rebuke them. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction. For whom the Lord loves, He corrects. Whom the Lord loves, He corrects. And this is important for us to notice, especially if you are being rebuked in some way. Children, maybe your parents, or maybe it's a friend, a Christian friend, or even in some other cases, our government rebukes us. God is gracious to us and he comes after us. We would miss out a big part of God's love if he did not correct us. I want you to think about this point. It's a loving thing. Secondly, God's goodness in chastisement. I could say punishment, but it's more specific than that. Because what's going on here is God is attempting to restore His child. And it's called chasing. It's kind of like Jonah. God did not just punish Jonah, if you recall my sermons from that book. God chastened Jonah to get him to turn, to get him to change. It's called chastisement. Now there's four different ways in which God chastens David. Look at verse 10, he starts to enumerate these, of course they play out in the rest of the book. This chapter and this sin of David controls a large portion of the rest of the book of 2 Samuel. Notice the sword, the first of four ways in which David is chastened. Now therefore, verse 10, The sword shall never depart from your house." Who's going to come after David? His own son, Absalom. And if you think about it from the perspective of his descendants, David's descendants are going to be hunted after to the point where in the first and second Kings, the Lion of David is on just one son. And there's enemies coming after David's seed. Notice also the internal issues. Verse 11, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your house. The next chapter we have a wicked deed by David's son Ammon which is creating adversity, harm. Absalom is going to rise up. Adonijah is going to rise up and try to take the kingdom. These are the ways in which God is chastening David Public disgrace, thirdly, public disgrace. What David did, his sin was in secret, but something like that is going to happen in public. Chapter 16, Absalom, verse 22. Verse 12, for you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun. What is God doing to David? he's chastening, he's chastening him, he's punishing him, he's allowing him to feel the consequences of his sin. Even after repentance, even after a confession, there's the pronouncement in verse 14, the child will die, which is the fourth way in which David's chastened. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die. The child will die. Now I commend to you, and this is a big, this is important, that all of this is actually good. It's actually good that this is happening. Chastening is useful, and it has a good end when God does it. I want you to think about this in two ways. The first way that this chastening is good is how it prevents sin. It prevents further sin in God's people in the life of David. We see this in the Bible, Deuteronomy 13, 11. Moses is giving the law to God's people and he's warning them against idolatry and the sin of idolatry and the effects of idolatry. In Deuteronomy 13, 11 it says, so all Israel shall hear and fear. This is what they're gonna do to idolaters. What they do to them, they'll hear that. So all Israel shall hear and fear and not again do such wickedness as this among you. The punishment serves to give God's people, wow, this is serious. We really can't go after false gods. Capital punishment was, it's in the New Testament as well. Ananias and Sapphira, what did they do? They lied. They lied and God punished them. Acts 5.5, Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. They received what they deserved, sin. Punishment of sin is death. Because of that, it made God's people fear. God is a holy God. It prevented sin. The second way this is good and perhaps the chief way for us tonight to think about and for David is how chastening sanctifies. Chastening sanctifies. God uses chastening to make us holy. I remember I remember in my own life a time, I think I've shared this with you before, but I was a cadet at West Point, and I did something really foolish. And in addition to being punished by the chain of command, my coach, my rugby coach, suspended me from the team for two weeks. And it humbled me. I deserved it. I didn't like it. But if he had not done that, or if he had released me two days later, I wouldn't have learned my lesson. I would have still been proud. I would have still been proud. That was two weeks. It was embarrassing. It humbled me. Where does the Bible point this out? Proverbs 29, 15, the rod and rebuke give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. There's learning going on. There's learning going on in the chastisement. Hebrews 12, 9 through 10, furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us. paid them respect, shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed," this is the point Hebrews 12.10, "'For they indeed for a few days chastened us, as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.'" How do you view God's chastised children? How do you view your parents when they punish you? Is it a good thing? Is God good to us when he does this? There is a lie in our culture that's alive and well. The lie says something like this, that if you love someone, then you'll always be kind, and you'll always be tolerant, and you'll always be nice to them, and you'll never challenge them, you'll never rebuke them. Do you believe this? Do you believe this? I was reading an article from the Huffington Post. If you're familiar with that, it's an interesting paper. And they define love. Love understands and accepts differences. Let's face it, we're all different. Real love doesn't make other people wrong for being different. When people truly love another person, they accept their differences. And this is just an example of what I'm trying to explain. How do you view God's goodness? Do you see God's goodness in that He rebukes and that He chastens? Imagine a parent who never corrected their child. Now the goodness of God is perhaps most evidently seen in the next two points, the rest of the chapter, how God forgives and how God restores his people. And we see this forgiveness in verse 13. So thirdly, God's goodness and forgiveness. And we can't miss this, God forgives David. 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. Now who does God forgive? Does God forgive every single person? Since the death of Christ, because of the death of Christ, every single person is forgiven. Who does God forgive? He forgives those who repent. That's exactly what David's doing here. He confesses his sin. I have sinned against the Lord. And this, of course, is brought out more in Psalm 51. We're going to sing this at the end of the message. Psalm 51 says, To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bethsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God. And he goes on and he, by this psalm, teaches us a lot about repentance. There's genuine confession here. We see this the rest of this chapter. What is David doing? He hears the sentence from Nathan that the child is going to die, but he has a sense of God's grace. What does he do? He prays. He fasts. Maybe God will be gracious, he says. Maybe God will be gracious. He deals with his servants in a more gracious way. The text in verse 18, it hints at the idea that during this time of sin, David seemed to be kind of a jerk. I mean, he was, not saying anything while the child was alive. And they're like, what's going to happen if he finds out the child's dead? He's going to do us harm. It's kind of implying something about David and how he was acting at this time in his life. But he was humble. And he was gracious to them. He wasn't angry with them. And he went to the house of God and he worshipped. What's all this indicating? It's telling us something about David's heart and what he's doing. He's trusting in the Lord again. He's repenting. He's confessing his sin. And in verse 26 through 31, which I'll return to again, but we have to see new obedience here. This whole story of Bathsheba is really started and ends with the people of Ammon in war. What did David not do at the beginning of chapter 11? He did not go out to war. When kings go out to war, when kings lead their men, their armies in battle. He didn't do that, and yet he did do that by the end of this chapter. New obedience, he's repenting. And to these people, God forgives. And we see two aspects of this forgiveness. We see that it's merciful. Nathan says to David in verse 13, the Lord also has put away your sin, you shall not die. Now, that's interesting. You shall not die. What's being referenced? Well, David should have died according to the law. An adulterer and an adulteress, according to the Mosaic law, were to be put to death. Leviticus 20, verse 10. The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. There's mercy here. When God forgives sinners, He's always merciful to them because of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who pays the penalty for sin. And I want you to see something, I don't want to push this more than it needs to be pushed, but there is a death in this chapter. The child dies. The child dies. Now, I'm not saying that the child died for David's sin. I don't believe that's what is being stated here. One thing that's important for us to note is that we suffer for our own sins. Ezekiel 18.20, the soul whose sins shall die, the son should not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. There's actually an interesting statement here in verse 23 about the soul, the eternal state of this child. Perhaps you've had a miscarriage. Perhaps you've had a child die in infancy. How do we understand, where do they go? They're real people. They have a soul and a body. Well, verse 23 is, Interesting, David says, but now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. And the idea is that, and this is a brief treatment of the point. My whole point in bringing this up is that we shouldn't think that the child was in the place of David in a complete sense. The idea is that elect people Whether they be babies or not, go to heaven. And they go to heaven for the same reason. They're united to Christ. Now a child, especially an infant, may not have exercised faith like an adult will. We've got to remember that salvation is an act of God. The Holy Spirit regenerates the heart and gives them faith. And infants who are elect go to heaven for the same reason. They're united to Christ. And as believers, I believe we can even say more. I cannot say that all of our children are elect. I don't think we can say that. We should have a bias toward that position because of the nature of the covenant, God covenants with his people and their children. It's always been that way. Genesis 17, seven, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you." Our children, the children of at least one believing parent, they're special. The covenant is for them. Acts 2.39. A lot can be said about this verse, but just notice the language of Peter to Jews. For the promise is to you, And to your children, what promise? The promise of salvation, the mediator, the great promise. For the promise is to you and to your children, to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call. And so on one hand, I don't want to over push this and read the New Testament into the Old Testament and say that, oh, a son of David has died. At the same time, I also want us to see, and this is my point to come back to forgiveness, is that there is a pattern, we do see a pattern here. Sin and death. One commentator writes, Nathan assured David that he would not die, but a death would occur. The child to be born would die. It is as if the child is David's substitute. It is as if the child is David's substitute. You wanna know the goodness of God? God sent his son to die for sinners so that you would not die. And the goodness of God is manifested perhaps preeminently in the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ. Christ came to die for sinners. The wages of sin is death. I spoke to you this morning about how the wrath of God is coming. It's coming upon sinners. God is a holy God. He's a just God. But He doesn't just give the world over to their sin. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. And what you need to do with your sin is take it to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to turn to Him. And you need to submit to Him. Children, again, have you turned to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe in Him? Because God is good in that He forgives sinners freely, mercifully. Just as he forgave David of his sin and the judgment and the punishment that he should have paid. And God is good. God is good in this way. Fourthly, we see more goodness here. more of the love of God, more of the mercy of God. I struggle with this fourth point. If you have your bulletin, I say it's God's goodness and restoration. Perhaps it's better just to say additional blessings or additional mercies. God pours out His love and His goodness to David, gives him more than he needs to or he didn't have to do all these things. He didn't even have to forgive him for that matter. But the goodness of God, verse 24. And verse 25, he restores a child to David. We have to see that a child has died, but yet God has not forsaken David. And he sends Nathan the prophet to tell David, listen, I love this child. You may have been questioning my love for you and this, the fact that I, this child died, I killed this child. We can say that's exactly what happened. And yet he loves, this child, Solomon, and he gives him this child. Of course, Solomon would be a mighty king, a mighty king. Now, verses 26 through 31. Now, David repents and he does the work of a king. He fulfills his duty to go out to war, but he also succeeds. He succeeds. He doesn't have to succeed. God blessed him in battle, and he's again subduing the Ammonites, the enemies of God. We need to interpret verse 31, which has got strong language about essentially slavery here. What's going on here is that David is subduing the enemies of God. The people of Ammon are the enemies of God, and Christ will subdue his enemies. And that's what we see here. God is under no obligation to restore and to pour additional blessings on people who sinned, but he often does. I was thinking about Tim and his ministry to prisoners and some of my interactions I've had with prisoners. In many cases, there's genuine repentance, there's been reconciliation with God, but those consequences remain, and they're there. In other cases, God is very, very merciful. He pours out blessings. He restores. I think of a man that I knew. He became a ruling elder at one of my PCA churches years ago. And he wanted the congregation to know something. And he was ordained. But he wanted the congregation to know that when he was a young man, he had a child out of wedlock. And this child is still around. He's still this child's father. And he had since, of course, been married, and he had a dear wife, and God had blessed that man. The consequences, in some sense, were still there, but he was very much growing and useful for God, just as David is still gonna be useful for God. God's goodness is revealed. God's goodness is revealed in that he rebukes, he forgives, he chastens, and he restores his wandering people. And if you're tonight questioning whether God is good to you and you're specifically doing so from the perspective of affliction, from punishment, I want you to think again whether He restores you fully or whether you're very discouraged about this. I want you to look to and remember the forgiveness of God that's available to you in Christ Jesus and what He's done for you. Isaiah 40, verses 1 through 2. Comfort. Yes, comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The Lord has forgiven you. He's wiped away your sin. Though you may still feel pain, your sins are pardoned. God is good to you, even in difficult, even in punishment. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you tonight and we ask your blessing upon the word of God. We pray that you would give us faith to believe that you are a good God, that you're merciful, not just in things such as the gospel and things such as forgiveness, but also even in the hard things. even when you rebuke and chasten us, and even when we feel the consequences of sin to some degree in our life. Lord, help us to have faith, to remember that you have given us a double portion, that you have forgiven us, and that we will be in heaven forever as your people. No more consequences and no more pain of sin. We pray this in Jesus's name, amen.