2 Samuel chapter 12. 2 Samuel chapter 12. The fourth line of that last hymn. All needful grace will God bestow and crown that grace with glory too. He gives us all things and withholds no real good from upright souls. Keep that in mind that God gives us what we need and what is truly good for us. 2 Samuel chapter 12. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. The Lord sent Nathan unto David. Today's message will organize around five themes. Sin, love, consequences, confession, and grace. Hopefully that will help us to organize the subject that we have before us today as we continue to examine what happened with David, David plunging into sin, and now God sending the prophet Nathan to David to confront him about his sin. Let's begin by considering again the sinfulness of David here and our own sinfulness, the sinfulness of mankind in general. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 10 writes this, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. And then it goes on to list various types of sin, various types of violating God's law and God's righteousness. Neither fornicators, that is describing all kinds of types of sexual immorality that are contrary to God's design and God's ways. nor idolaters, those that worship other gods than the Lord, the one true and living God, adulterers, those that violate the covenant of marriage, nor effeminate, men that do not embrace living as a man and what it means to be a man, abusers of themselves with mankind, sodomites, Thieves, those that steal what does not belong to them. Covetous, nor covetous, that is those that desire what God has given to somebody else or that which is in the possession of somebody else. Nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. I want us to consider the deadly seriousness of sin. He, in what we just read, he says, be not deceived. Be not deceived, recognizing that there's a temptation. There's a temptation to deceive us in various ways so that we would look at sin as not that bad, not that dangerous, and thereby fall into it. We should be disgusted with sin and Sometimes people wonder, you know, why does a preacher of the gospel preach so much about sin? Why does a preacher talk about sin all the time? It's not very uplifting. It's not very positive and encouraging. And there's several reasons. One, simply, the Bible talks a lot about sin and warns us against sin. We should be we should be disgusted by our sin We should hate our sin and we're called to do so but but another reason is what what Jesus said something Jesus said He said they that are whole need not a physician But they that are sick They that are whole need not a physician but they that are sick the words that Jesus spoke here he uses an analogy of of illness and going to a doctor. And see, if you feel perfectly well, if you believe that you are perfectly healthy, you're not going to seek out or need or desire a doctor. You're not going to seek out or need or desire healing if you are perfectly well, if you believe that you are perfectly well. And this is, I believe, one of the reasons that in the preaching of the gospel, we are frequently reminded of and confronted by our sin. And so, to faithfully preach the gospel is to declare the sinfulness of man, confront man about his sin, and call to repentance. Jesus said, they that are holy, not a physician, because there were some that heard the preaching of Jesus and they believed in themselves that they were righteous and were in no need of repentance. His next words are these, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. As someone preaching the gospel, I am delighted and overjoyed to say that I have good news for sinners. Good news for sinners. The gospel has good news for sinners. But I have no good news for someone who does not recognize and acknowledge that they are a sinner in need of the grace and the mercy of God. And so we consider, we continue to consider the sin. Let's consider again David's sin and may it be a warning and an example and a lesson to us. We saw as we looked last week how David plunged himself into his sin, how David's lust led to acting out in adultery. And as a result of his adultery, this led to him committing deception and ultimately murder with the design of attempting to cover up his sin. So his lust led to more and more destructive sin in his life. And this gives us a good example about how sin develops in our lives. And we consider how it is necessary to confront sin at the first inception of the thoughts of sin and not dwell on those sinful desires. In James 1, verses 12 through 17, I'll read here, it speaks about how temptation and lust and sin develop in the lives of those in our lives. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation." So this is actually an encouragement to us to have a new framework for how we view when we are confronted by temptation. When we are confronted by a desire or the suggestion of a desire for something that is contrary to God's design for our lives, We are confronted by that. We can remember what James said here, that if we endure that temptation and overcome that temptation, we are, in fact, blessed of God. We don't think about our temptations that way. We think about it only as a grievous affliction that has come upon us. Because now this desire is being stirred up in me for something that I ought not to have, and yet that desire is pulling at me like a hunger, like a thirst for something, contrary to God's design, something that will destroy me. That doesn't feel like a blessing. But we are encouraged to persevere and overcome that temptation, resist that temptation, and we are thereby blessed in overcoming that temptation. He goes on, "...let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed." So where do sinful desires come from? Where do those sinful desires come from? They come from within our own evil hearts. They don't come from God. God doesn't give us those evil desires. They come from within our own hearts. This is what Jesus said. He says, those things which proceed out of the mouth, they come forth from the heart and they defile the man, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These come from the heart. How merciful God is that he is so patient with us, even though out of our hearts are coming all kinds of sinful desires. It's been pointed out, I've heard it pointed out that people sometimes ask, why doesn't God just destroy all the evil in the world? There's so much evil. Why does God allow that to go on? Well, God allows it to go on because He is merciful and He's long-suffering to us because the evil's coming out of the hearts of man and God and His love and His mercy is patient with us in spite of that. and His mercy and love overcome our sinfulness. But this is where the sin comes from. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Now this is a really important principle for us to see, the contrast between the sinful desires for things contrary to God's order and calling on our lives, contrasted with the good and perfect gifts that come down from our Heavenly Father, who does not change. What God gives us is good and for our good. That's why I was struck by that line of that hymn. He will not withhold any good thing that is truly good for us. He will give us what is needful for us and above and beyond. cup runneth over as David wrote in a psalm my cup runneth over surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life what God has for you his people is so wonderful so fulfilling so satisfying and And so we can be satisfied in Him. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. So now let's trace it back a little bit. David lusted... We saw how he violated the law in many respects. We see David, thou shalt not commit adultery, committed adultery. Well, even before that, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. He coveted his neighbor's wife. He committed adultery. Thou shalt not murder. We'll see that David was guilty of the murder of Uriah, even though he didn't do it with his own hands. Nonetheless, he brought it about. He was guilty of murder. We see also that there was deception involved. And so at least in spirit, he was violating the principle of thou shalt not bear false witness. You imagine someone standing up in court and saying, I saw him commit this crime. And by your words, by your deceitful words, you bring about destruction for somebody. David's actions were in line with that. He was also, he's going to be characterized and likened to a thief in the confrontation that takes place here. So David, he lusted, he desired, he acted out on those desires, and it brought about death and destruction and devastation for those that were in his path and later on for him and his household. But why? Why? David was unsatisfied. David was not satisfied with what God had given him. And we could see in this that he was therefore ungrateful with what God gave. It's so important for us to recognize fleshly pleasures do not satisfy. Do not satisfy. I mean, David had, at this point, how many women? How many wives did he have? And yet he was not satisfied. If acting out his fleshly desires would bring about satisfaction, Then why did he need one more? Why did he need this woman who was forbidden to him? See, those do not satisfy. We do not find satisfaction in the pleasures of the flesh. We find satisfaction through gratitude for the goodness of what God has given us. We find satisfaction ultimately in God alone. That's the only way to be satisfied. It says, Proverbs 27 20, Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. If we think we're going to be satisfied by what we behold with our eyes, we're going to always be looking for something else. And when that doesn't satisfy us, we're gonna go looking for something else. And when that doesn't satisfy, we'll go looking for something else. In Ecclesiastes, it says, he that love a silver will not be satisfied with silver. If you love something other than God and seek to find your satisfaction in something other than God, you will never be satisfied with that thing. and you will ultimately destroy even your ability to find any pleasure often in the good things that God has created for our pleasure and our joy. See, it's also important to point out in considering these things, God is not a killjoy who does not want us to have pleasure in life or in the things that he's created. This is a lie of the devil about God that we're often tempted to be deceived into that thinking. That the reason God is forbidding us all of these things that the law of God sometimes characterizes, God is just forbidding all the things that would make us happy and give us pleasure in this life. That's not true at all. That's not true at all. God created this world. He created us. He filled this world with good things that we might enjoy many and abundant pleasures in this life here below. However, none of those pleasures are the ultimate that will satisfy us. And if we take any created thing and attempt to put it in the place of God, whether that's food or sex, whatever it is, money, any created thing, and we seek to find our satisfaction in that thing rather than in God, it will not satisfy us. It will leave us empty and hungry for more, thinking that maybe the next thing will bring the satisfaction that we are not finding. You think about David, and we saw how David's taking multiple wives. This was not of God for him to do this, David taking multiple wives. It opened him up to this temptation. But also, think about that. If any man could have been satisfied with that kind of pleasure, certainly it would have been one who had many wives to choose from, and yet he wasn't satisfied. So don't think that you're going to find satisfaction in earthly pleasures. David was unsatisfied. He was unsatisfied because he was ultimately, at this point in his life, he was without a fullness of gratitude for what God had given him. This is going to be demonstrated in the way that he's confronted about these things. He's going to be reminded of all that God had done for him. God had given him everything that he had, and would give him more if it was needed. God would give him anything that was needful for him. And yet he was not satisfied and he was not thankful. And this is like all the sinfulness of man. It comes out of this kind of thing. In Romans chapter one, Romans chapter one describes the depravity of humankind. And it describes the depravity of humankind as this downward spiral where one thing leads to another, leads to another, darkness, and all kinds of sinfulness, disobedience, rebellion, sexual sin. And it's just one kind of darkness leads to another darkness. And it all comes back to this in Romans 121, because that when they knew God, They glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." They were not thankful. Imagine that. Imagine that the root of all kinds of human sin and depravity is something that we might consider very subtle unthankfulness. But it's so powerful. It is a powerful difference in your own heart of whether you are able to look at your life and look at everything that God has given you. the good things He's given you, the relationships He's given you, the work He's given you, the trials He's given you, the challenges in your life that He's given you, whether He's given you abundance, or He's given you poverty, or He's given you hardship, or He's given you whatever He's given you, and receive that with thankfulness, knowing that it comes from a loving Father who knows what you need, and you receive that with thankfulness and find satisfaction in it as the gift of God, or whether we are not thankful for what God has done. The sin of Sodom, remember the city of Sodom, Back in the Old Testament, they were destroyed. There was all kinds of sinfulness and depravity in Sodom. It's demonstrated in the story of Lot and the angels that come to him. And the men of the city want to have sex with the angels. And it's just, you see all kinds of depravity in that city. The Bible describes their sin in this way in Ezekiel 16 49. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom. Pride. fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." Now, this does not minimize the sins of Sodom that were being acted out by the people there when we see them before their destruction, but it shows that at the root of it, They had such abundance. Remember that Lot chose that area to go and dwell in because it was so fertile, it was so abundant. So they were just overflowing with good things of God's creation. But instead of receiving them with thankfulness and glorifying God as God, they were proud, they were idle, and they were full with the things and the pleasures of this earth. And so they did not glorify God as God, neither were they thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." We could be liable to the same kind of temptation in our day and age and place in which we live. We have such abundance, such a fertile land that we've inherited, overflowing riches and wealth, I mean, we may not feel like it from day to day, because there's always someone richer. There's always someone with more. But you know that probably 90%, 95%, I don't know, some 95% of the people across this globe live with less abundance than we have and we enjoy on a day-to-day basis. And yet, we could still find reasons not to be thankful for all that God has given us. So again, we're considering sin here, wallowing in it, dwelling on it, because we have to see and be disgusted by our sin. We have to see how exceedingly sinful sin is, how deadly and destructive it is. When we do, our hearts are prepared for recognizing just how good the mercy and goodness of God are to us as sinners. Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So we've considered sin, let's consider love. And in particular, I'm thinking about the love of God in sending Nathan to confront David for his sin, and also the love that Nathan showed in going to David and confronting him with his sin. We have to understand and define love the way that the Bible understands and define love. Sometimes in our day and age, people think love, love is that you accept and you affirm everything about somebody the way that they desire their life to be and they desire to live. But that is not love. If you're walking with somebody and he's about to walk into a pit, What is love to do in that moment? Love is to warn him of the pit or to pull him away from the pit. Nathan is acting out in love in going to David and confronting him. He's showing love because he is speaking the truth to him. Ephesians chapter 4 talks about how in the church, speaking the truth in love. That's how we grow. That's how we mature in the faith and how we build one another up and edify one another. We speak the truth in love. And that's not always easy. It's not always easy to do. It's not always comfortable to do. It's not always safe to do. it was not safe for Nathan to go. Of course, it was less safe for him not to go because the Lord sent him and he had to obey God rather than fearing man. So it would have been less safe for him not to go, but it was not safe for the prophet Nathan to go and to confront a powerful monarch and call him out on his sin. John the Baptist. confronted the king, Herod, in his day about his sin. This is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. He confronted him about his sin, and the result ultimately for John the Baptist was he had his head removed from him. But he did not regret speaking the truth and standing up for what was right and what God sent him to do. And his reward in the resurrection is far greater than anything to be compared with what he suffered here below. But that doesn't mean it's safe or comfortable or not awkward to speak the truth and confront someone. But it is, if done from a heart of love and desire for the good of the one that's being confronted, it is an act of love. And that desire is important, right? The story of the prophet Jonah, famous story. And I remember hearing this story, maybe told as a Bible story when I was a kid, and always wondered, why didn't Jonah want to go and preach to the Ninevites? If you're not familiar with it, quick refresher. God calls the prophet Jonah, prophet of Israel, to go and to preach to the city Nineveh, a Gentile city, which was involved in all kinds of wickedness, and go to them and preach to them and say, basically, God's going to destroy this city in 40 days because of your wickedness. And Jonah doesn't want to go, so he gets in a boat and he goes the opposite direction. And if that's, you know, I remember as a kid hearing, you know, basically that and thinking like, well, Jonah probably didn't want to go because he was scared. You know, that would be, that would probably be how I would feel if God said, go to this wicked city and go around telling them they're going to be destroyed in 40 days. I'd be scared to go. I'd be afraid to go. But actually, that wasn't why Jonah said he didn't want to go. Later on, he says why he doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to go because he knew God was a merciful God and he did not like the Ninevites. He didn't want God to be merciful to them. That's at least why he says he didn't want to go. And he's upset when they repent and God is merciful to them. Jonah did not have a love for the Ninevites, and so he did not want to go to them and declare God's judgment against their sin. And so when we have love for someone, we will desire, as God gives opportunity, to seek their restoration and reconciliation to God. James 5, 19-20, Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. It is a great act of love to speak the truth in love to someone, even when it's uncomfortable. And most of us don't enjoy doing that. Unusual. I think there are sometimes people who maybe like confrontation, maybe enjoy that. I think most of us, we don't like the awkwardness, we don't like the uncomfortableness, we don't like the tension. We like to make people happy, to make people feel good, but When we truly have a love for someone's good, we can do like Nathan did, as he was called by God to go to David, he was sent by God, and He confronted him, whatever the risk, whatever the cost. And so with that, let's get more into the text here. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and he came unto him and said unto him, there were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. So Nathan also goes to David, and the way that he confronts him, he confronts him with a kind of wisdom. He confronts him with a kind of wisdom. In a way, Nathan uses a kind of deception himself. I don't mean that in a bad way, but in a good way. He catches David off guard by redirecting his focus. He tells him a parable. This is exactly the kind of thing that Jesus did when he was teaching. Jesus would appeal to the sense of judgment on the people that he was preaching to, sometimes by telling them a parable and then having them pronounce their own judgment on themselves. Nathan is going to do that here. He's going to tell David a parable, a story, and appeal to David's sense of judgment and justice, and thereby catch David off guard. And Nathan, as we said, Nathan is doing this out of love. Nathan was a friend of David's. He was not just any prophet. He was the prophet that David went to and confided in when David had the desire to build the house of the Lord. And God is the one that David, uh, God is the one that Nate, uh, spoke to Nathan and sent the message to David about how God would build up David's house and that David wouldn't be the one to build the temple, but his son after him would all these things. So they had a, an existing relationship and. a friendship, and Nathan is now here, the one that God uses. Now, God didn't have to use a friend of David's. He could have sent any prophet, but in this case, he does. Someone that David trusted and knew. And he comes to him and he tells him this story, this parable. So let's consider this. There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up. and it grew up 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. So he sets the scene with this story. And so we're given here, we're given here a story. And it's going to, it's going to make us think it's kind of, kind of strange to us in our modern day. But David, remember David was a shepherd. David also, remember what it said about David, about how he led the kingdom with judgment and justice? David was a just and a righteous king as he executed judgment. So Nathan is here presenting him this situation. There's a rich man. He has such abundance. There's a poor man. And all the poor man has is this little ewe lamb. He's got basically this lamb. But it's not just any lamb. It's not just a lamb, any lamb. It's a pet. It's a pet, the family pet that he loves, and he lets it eat out of his own food and drink out of his own cup and lay in his bosom. And Nathan is here just appealing to David's sense of compassion and sympathy. Here's this poor man, and all he's got is this little lamb. And he loves this lamb. It's like a daughter to him. It's so close to him. And I guess that maybe the closest you can think is if you've ever had a pet that is such a part of your family, that pet starts to feel like it's part of your own family. And you love that, and you care about that. Of course, it's not a human person, but you still just have such a love and sympathy for that. So that's the kind of scene that he describes here. Also, the language he uses here, relates back to what Uriah said to David when Uriah either knowingly or unknowingly rebuked David. He says, I'm not going to go back to my house and eat of my food and drink and lie with my wife. And there's a parallel here. You have a rich man, he has everything. He has abundance. He has, you know, hundreds of lambs. And this poor man just has this one lamb. All right, now, verse four. So this just sounds Really bad, really bad. This rich man, he's got hundreds of sheep, and a traveler now comes to his door. He's like, oh, we need to feed this traveler. I'm going to feed this traveler, not with one of my own flock. I have plenty. But I'm going to take this lamb of this poor man. And so he takes the lamb, he slaughters it, he dresses it, he feeds it to the traveler. Nathan brings this story to David, as if it's a story, as if it's an account of something that just really happened in Israel, and now David needs to render judgment upon this. Now, if you're a really good Bible student, you may already know what the judgment of the law for this situation would have been. Actually, the law speaks about this exact thing. Now, not in these terms, but the law says what to do if you were to take a lamb from someone else. If you were to steal a lamb from someone else, the law required that you restore fourfold that which was stolen. OK, keep that in mind. David knows the law. David knows the law. But he's angry. He's angry. This is not right. And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man." Notice that language, the man, the man. He was 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. David's response is striking in several ways. One, it's kind of strange. He shall die and he'll restore fourfold the lamb. So David knows the law, but David is angry with this man. He's angry for the lack of pity he showed. It's just, it's not just, it's not just that he stole a lamb. This man acted in such a wicked and pitiless kind of way. Unsensible kind of way. And David said that the sentence that this man should have is death. Now that's David's judgment. That's not the judgment of the law of God, but that's what David's judgment is upon this situation. And I think that also demonstrates something about when we are hardened by sin in our lives, often we have a skewed sense of justice. And one of the ways our sense of justice is skewed, it might be that we react overly harshly in certain situations. Another way that it's skewed is we often minimize and excuse and justify our own sin while being very zealous and pitiless and merciless with regards to the sin of others. This happens all the time. This happens all the time. Especially when someone's heart is hardened by sin, they will all day justify, excuse, and bear with, and expect patience for, and forbearance for their own sin, while being merciless towards the sin of others. And Nathan said to David, art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed the king over Israel and delivered thee out of the hand of Saul." So, before we go on, Nathan says, thou art the man. So this is the moment when Nathan explicitly confronts David about his sin. He says, you are the man. You are the rich man who took that which belonged to someone so much poorer than you, for your own sake. And we learned something about the nature of a parable. It's not that everything in this parable has an exact one-to-one correspondence. You can't read it that way. But it's demonstrating a principle, the principle of this merciless, pitiless kind of greed that is demonstrated in the rich man. And Nathan says, you are the man. You are the man. And then he's going to go on and he's going to remind him of all that God had given him and how David's response to all the goodness and provision of God was to commit this wicked, horrible sin. He says, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, and I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore, hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in His sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon." Side note about what Nathan says here, I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom. Sometimes this is misunderstood as if that God gave Saul, this is talking about Saul, David's master, as if God gave Saul's wives to David as wives. But that's not what it says. It says, I gave his wives into your bosom. That is that Saul's household, everything that pertained to the household of Saul, now came under the care of David. There's no record anywhere that I'm aware of that David ever married one of the wives of Saul and took them to be his own wives. He doesn't say, I gave thy wives, thy master's wives, to be thy wives. He says, I gave thy master's wives into thy bosom. What the Lord is saying through Nathan, this is the word that God gave to Nathan to say to David, is, David, everything that you have, God has given you. And He's given you so much abundance. And if it wasn't enough, He would give you more. He would give you everything that you need. And instead of gratitude, you repaid with ingratitude and evil. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in His sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and has taken his wife to be thy wife, and has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon." tool David used were the enemies of God's people. He used the enemies of God's people as an instrument to destroy one of God's faithful servants, Uriah the Hittite. Uriah was a godly man who served faithfully in David's kingdom. Now therefore, and here's where we begin to get to consequences. Sin has consequences. Some of those consequences will endure indefinitely throughout this life. Some of those consequences are unpredictable. You cannot predict the consequences of your sin. You cannot sin and say, I know exactly what the cost to my life and the lives of those around me is going to be by my sin. It's unpredictable, but it's destructive, and sometimes it's enduring, even after we experience and receive the forgiveness of God for that sin. Sometimes the consequences endure and persist. And sadly, for David and his household, that's going to be the case. And it's going to play out before our eyes in the chapters that follow. The consequences on David's life, his household, his kingdom, the nation of Israel and its well-being are going to flow from this sin. There's going to be consequences. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this son. We're going to see exactly this happen in the later chapters. Tragic, tragic consequences. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the Son. Where did David's lust begin? It began, he's walking on the roof of the palace, and it's in that very place that these things that God foretells will take place. There will be great consequences for David's sin. As we see, sin has consequences. They're not always predictable. They're not always measurable. And many times, they endure throughout our lives. And so we see those consequences come. But now we have David's confession. And David, verse 13. Many, many months have passed. A year has passed since David committed this sin, more or less, about a year. His heart was hard for a very long time, but at last, he is confronted with this sin, and he at last sees the evil of his ways, and he confesses it. I have sinned against the Lord. Such concise and simple words, David says here. No excuses, no long justifications. He acknowledges the sin and He recognizes that for all the devastation and destruction and harm that it's done, ultimately, and most importantly, His sin is against the Lord God. Sin is against the Lord. And His confession and the... Sorrow of his heart and his appeal to God for God's mercy and God's forgiveness is elaborated in a psalm that David wrote on occasion of this thing, Psalm 51. But here, speaking to Nathan, in this moment, his confession is a simple and straightforward acknowledgment of his sin. I have sinned against the Lord. And lastly, this brings us to grace, the grace of God. Nathan said unto him, Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Now whether the rich man in the parable deserved to die or not for what he had done, aside, David certainly under the law of God deserved death, and yet, Nathan declares to him, good news, God, he says, has put away your sin. Think about David's circumstance for a moment that he finds himself in, and we see demonstrated to us the absolute necessity of the grace of God for any sinner to be saved. David could not, by his works, make up for the destruction that his sin caused. No good deed that David could do could bring Uriah back. No good that David could do could undo the adultery that he committed. No good work that David could do could pay the debt of sin that he owed. The only hope for David to be forgiven, to be saved from the just penalty for this sin, is the free undeserved grace of God. And so it is with the salvation of any sinner. So David himself would write, Blessed is he whose transgressions is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. The Bible speaks to us about the righteousness which comes not by the works of the law, but the righteousness which comes by faith in God through Jesus Christ. The righteousness which we know fully comes only because of the free offering of Jesus Christ upon the cross for the sins of His people, because He died to pay the penalty of sin for us, so that we could be forgiven and cleansed of our sins. That is the grace of God, and that is the only hope that a sinner has for salvation. So when Jesus says, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, He calls sinners to repent and to turn to Him with the hope that is grounded in the fact that He would offer Himself as an atonement sacrifice for the sins of His people. And so David and you and I could find forgiveness in God, though we do not deserve it. This might be the most offensive part of this entire chapter of Scripture, that God takes away David's sin. But it is possible for God to do that and to be just, to be righteous and a just and a fair and righteous God, and to be the justifier of Him that trusts in Jesus, that is possible because of what Jesus Christ did upon the cross. Because He paid the penalty for sin. He provided atonement for sin so that God is righteous even in justifying sinners. To justify means to declare righteous, to not count his sin against him. Oh indeed, David would experience the consequences of his sin, but he would in such fullness experience the grace and the mercy of God who said, the Lord also hath put away thy sin. Psalm 51, As we close this message, let's reflect on these words which more fully articulate the mercy of God that was needed and experienced by David. Psalm 51. To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan, the prophet, came unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgression. 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, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offerings. Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar." And then I wanted to read just one more verse that I remembered following up on what I read before, where we saw that characterized the sinners who will not inherit the kingdom of God. But in the very next verse, 1 Corinthians 6.11, he writes this, And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified. But ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.