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If you want to take your Bibles and turn to 2 Samuel chapter 12, the book of Romans chapter 6 verse 23, it tells us that the wages of sin are The wages of sin is death. And as we looked at last week in 2 Samuel 11, David had sinned grievously. So much so that this narrator, who's usually happy to just tell us the story, just tell us what happened without casting judgment on it, just lets us interpret what's going on, and by the way that he shades things or the words that he uses, figure out, okay, are we supposed to see this positively, negatively, or is he just telling us what happened? But here in 2 Samuel chapter 11, David has sinned in such a severe way that the author inserts himself and says, God is upset about this. The thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
He's committed at least—he's broken at least four of the Ten Commandments. I mean, if we start getting nitty-gritty about how we parse it, probably more than that, but at least—Clearly four. He's coveted Uriah's wife. He's committed adultery then with Uriah's wife. He's lied to try and cover it up, and then he murders Uriah. At least four of the Ten Commandments David breaks just in chapter 11. Have you ever been in a spin cycle of sin? It seems like you do one thing and that leads to committing another sin and another sin. This is especially true once you start getting into lying to cover it up. It just compounds and builds on itself and spins over and over. And you feel like sometimes you can't even get off of that roller coaster.
One of the most precious and terrifying truths in the Bible is that if you are a child of God, When you are in that cycle of sin, he will chase you down. He will chase you down. That's the first thing that we see here in 2 Samuel chapter 12, the first six and a half verses, is that God's grace will pursue you in your sin. God's grace will pursue you in your sin. And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
Now there came a traveler to the rich man. He was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herds to prepare for the guest who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives and 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. And Nathan said to David, You are the man. You are the man.
Verse 1, that word sent is a word we saw several times. I think it's 11 times total in chapter 11 that the word sent is used. It's usually David sending messengers to do this or to do that. David never leaves his home in chapter 11 of 2 Samuel. He's sending messengers back and forth with Bathsheba and with Joab. The action in chapter 11 is driven by sending. The actions all take place, and there's very little notice of God given at all in that chapter until the very end where the narrator tells us that God's not happy about what's been going on. But as we come into chapter 12, God himself decides to do some sending. He sends Nathan. He sends a messenger, a prophet, to David.
I think we should observe the wisdom of how he does this, though. God sends Nathan to pursue David, but Nathan doesn't come with a full frontal assault. He comes with a story, and the story isn't, now once there was a king who had a loyal servant who had a wife who was bathing on a rooftop. That's not the story Nathan tells. Instead, Nathan comes with a story about sheep, about a rich man and a poor man. One guy who had a lot of sheep, one guy who didn't have anything. Just one little ewe lamb who was like one of his children. I think there's a lot of wisdom in there for us in a day and age in which people are judged by how boldface and all caps, they clearly state everything that they think about every single thing that happens in the world and every person that's in the news. You have to have your opinion and it has to be out there loud and clear. And God's word very often isn't like that. It's clear, it's true, and the truth is unchanging. But the way the truth is presented is often a lot more subversive than that.
Because if the full frontal assault comes, often our response is just to shut it out. If Nathan had come to David, guns a-blazing, as it were, like, you have sinned, you have done this and this wrong, David might have thrown up the defenses and gotten like, hey, hey, hey, get out of here. But instead, Nathan tells a story, which is the story of David, but David doesn't see it, and gets David on his side. And he goes, David sees the injustice of the situation. He sees the lack of pity. He sees that what is going on here is absolutely wrong. And then Nathan's able to turn it and say, Now you know that that's you, David. You know that you are the one who has stolen the lamb.
Conviction is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit. But we as his messengers, we should be winsomely wise as serpents and harmless as doves in how we confront others. Notice the details of this story. The lamb ate the lamb. The poor man's food. It drank his drink. It lay in his arms or in his bosom, it says. And these are the very actions that Uriah had actually chosen not to do with Bathsheba because out of his loyalty to David, when David calls Uriah home from the battlefront, thinks I'll just send him to his house and we'll take care of this issue. We'll cover it up. Uriah, out of his loyalty to David, won't take, as it were, his sheep into his arms. Won't go drink and eat with her. But the rich man, who had more than enough, robs from the poor man. And David, he sees this. He bursts out at the injustice. And he's so passionately angry, he swears by the Lord, saying that the rich man deserves death.
Now, you've got to remember, David doesn't necessarily know that this is a parable, right? David, as the king, they didn't have the same separation of powers like our government does. David is the king. He's also the supreme judge in the land. And so Nathan's bringing this case to him and David may well think, well, he's bringing a case for me to judge. And David's so caught up in what Nathan is saying that he says, this man deserves to die. But then he pauses, like reels himself back in, his emotions, and says, okay, well, legally, what should happen is he pays him back fourfold. Exodus 22 and verse 1 says if somebody steals an ox, you pay him back five oxen. If somebody steals a sheep, you pay him back four sheep. And so David makes a legal judgment here saying, well, he needs to pay back fourfold what's been taken. But he understands that That even though the letter of the law is fourfold restoration, there's something going on here deep down, like spiritually, morally, this man deserves death. The wages of sin should be death in this case. And then Nathan turns it right back against him and says, you're the one who deserves that condemnation, David. You are the one who stole, though having much. David is the man who took Uriah, took everything from Uriah, from his wife to his life. David is the man who, under the law, deserved to die.
Every single one of his actions that he takes in that whole process, adultery deserved death. Murder deserved death. Lying under oath deserved death. The second point we see here is that just like David, your sin is senseless in view of God's kindness. Second half of verse seven through verse nine says, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
In verses 7 and 8, we see that the focus is four I statements. God says, let's pull the attention off of you for a second, David, and let's look at what I, the Lord God, have done for you. I anointed you king over Israel. Did David do anything to deserve that? No. God went and chose him from the flock, pulled him out of the field, and anointed him king over Israel. I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. Multiple times, David's life is hanging by a thread. Saul is about to capture him, and God preserves his life. And I gave to you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave the house of Israel and Judah. God just says, I poured out all of these blessings upon you. All of these things that Saul had were transferred to David. David took possession of everything that was owned by Saul. He didn't earn any of it. God gave it to him. And then fourth, if this were too little... It's like God takes a knife and twists here. I've given you all of this, and if that were too little, I would have given you more.
Is there anything more, I don't know what the right word is, crushing? When you sneakily, maybe you remember doing this when you were a kid. And you try to sneak something, you take it, you get caught, you get in huge trouble for stealing it. And your parents come back to you and they say, you know, if you would have asked, I would have given you that and then some. But now you've tried to take it, you don't get it. God says, I would have given you much more if what I had already poured out upon you graciously and abundantly were not enough. I would have given you much more. Think of James 4.2. You do not have because you do not ask. Matthew 7.7, Jesus says, Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.
If David's eyes had been fixed on God, first of all, he would have seen the blessings that God had already poured out on him. Number two, if he really felt he needed more, he could have just asked. But he didn't. He wasn't looking at God. He was looking at his circumstances, and he thought, boy, she looks nice. And he reached out to take for himself. God had given David everything he could have asked for, and then some. Why is David selfishly and senselessly grabbing for his own satisfaction? God lays the blame for this squarely at David's feet again. Nowhere is Bathsheba blamed. Nowhere is even Joab blamed for sending Uriah to the front. This is all laid at the feet of David. And God calls it the sin that God calls out here. I mean, there's the individual sins, but the big overarching sin is that David has despised the word of the Lord. He has despised the word of the Lord. And that phrase in the scriptures is the exact same thing as despising God himself.
Now that might be a little bit of a hard bridge for us to get to. Like, how is it despising God if I just ignore some of what he says? Like, I'm still going to listen to most of what he says. I just despise this a little bit over here. How is that despising God? I think, hopefully a helpful analogy... My analogies is kind of a toss-up if they'll ever be helpful or not. But hopefully this will help us again. Andy and I, when we were dating, used to write letters back and forth to one another. And we still have these letters, I think all of them, probably all of them, in boxes or in binders, and hopefully hidden from the children to where they won't find them until after we're dead, because it's kind of sappy and very sappy. But if I were to take those letters, and say hey and you come out here i want i want to do something and then i lit a bonfire with them would i just be burning up some old papers or would i be making a statement about this is what i think about our love this is what i think about all these emotions this is what i think about you by despising her words and all those letters that she wrote to me i would be saying something about what i thought about her And so when God gives us his word, when God gave David his word, he's not just saying, yeah, I want you to write it down and read it, David, although he's supposed to do that. He's also supposed to obey it and live in a way that honors the word of God. And when David ignores that, and when David despises the word of the Lord, he's despising God himself.
And when you look back at what God has done for David, It's utterly senseless. It makes no sense at all for him to do this. God has been incredibly kind to him. But not only is it senseless, it is dangerous in view of God's holiness. Third point is, your sin has consequences because God is holy. Beginning in verse 10, it says, Now therefore, this is still Nathan speaking on behalf of God. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this son. For you did it secretly. But I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. And 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. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die. Then Nathan went to his house.
And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he became sick. David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all that night on the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. And on the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead. For they said, Behold, while the child was dead alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him, The child is dead? He may do himself some harm. But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, Is the child dead? They said, He is dead.
And David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshipped. He then went to his own house. And when he asked, they set food before him and he ate. And his servants said to him, What is this thing you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive? When the child died, you arose and ate food. He said, While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.
God reveals here to David four consequences for his sin. It's interesting because David has, in his judgment against the fictional rich man, said he needs to pay four times over. Well, God gives David four consequences for his sin. The first, in verse 10, is that the sword will not depart. And within this, we see a fourfold consequence as four of David's own sons will die. The first son is the son that we just read about here in verses 15 through 23. But then Amnon will die, Absalom will die, and Adonijah will die. Four of David's sons will perish. And it all flows from David's sin. Chapters 13 through 20 of 2 Samuel are defined by the reality that the sword will not depart from David's house. And then it continues on all through the history of Israel. All of the wars, all of the intrigues, all of the jostling for power in Judah and in Israel stems back to David's sin with Bathsheba.
The second point we see here is that God says, I will raise up a challenger. I will raise up evil from within your house. And that's what we begin to see in the chapters that follow. Absalom would for a time depose David, kick him off of his throne, and chase him out of Jerusalem. The third thing that we see is that after Absalom does this, He will take this sin that David has committed in secret by taking another man's wife, and Absalom's going to do it in public. He takes David's throne, chases him out of Jerusalem, and he goes to Ahithophel, the counselor, and says to him, What should I do to really establish myself? And Ahithophel says, Take your father's concubines and go into them. Have sex with all of your father's concubines. So they build a tent for Absalom on the roof of his house so that all of Israel can see what's going on. And Ahithophel's advice is heeded by Absalom as he brings all of these concubines to himself.
The fourth consequence that we see is that the child who will be born to Bathsheba will die. The baby will die. There is no getting around, as we read these consequences, how devastating sin is. And we have to remember that there's really no such thing as a private sin. David thought he had sinned in private. He thought he had covered it up. But no sin stays private. The consequences of sin are never limited to just yourself. David's sin obviously affected Bathsheba, Uriah, this child who had died. But the consequences flow into the whole kingdom through all the following history of Israel as affected by this decision of David, these decisions of David.
What sins are in your heart that you're telling yourself aren't a big deal? They aren't hurting anyone else, or at least you can keep it quiet. A holy God will not leave your sin undealt with because he loves you. He's not just holy, he's loving. It's important to note here as we look at Nathan's confrontation of David, here's the big difference between David and Saul. It's not that Saul was bad and David was good. David's sins are objectively worse than Saul's by far. David's sins are worse than Saul's. But when in 1 Samuel, chapter 15, the prophet Samuel comes to Saul to confront him, all we hear from Saul is excuse, excuse, justification, excuse. And here, Nathan comes to David, and David's statement is so short and direct. Six words, I have sinned against the Lord.
And we might be reading this and think, boy, shouldn't there be some groveling, long, extensive public apology? Instead, we just get this simple statement, accepting responsibility, acknowledging before whom he had sinned. David says, I have sinned against the Lord. We'll look, Lord willing, next week at Psalm 51, which is a longer meditation of David's prayer of repentance before the Lord after this had happened. We'll look at how do you pray when you've sinned, when God has confronted you with the evil inside of you? How do you respond to him in those times?
For now, I think we should be instructed by what brought him to repentance. He was brought to repentance by hearing someone else speak the word of God to him. David had the law, and if he's been obedient to Deuteronomy chapter 17, he has a copy of the law that he has copied down with his own hand that's been approved by the priests and that he reads day by day. David has the word of the Lord. He meditates on it day and night. I think we should be fairly confident of that. But the heart, Jeremiah 17, 9 tells us, is deceitful and desperately sick. It's desperately wicked. And so even if we are personally reading the word of God by ourselves, we can trick ourselves into thinking that we're obeying it. Which is why we need to gather with other believers in small groups and in public worship to hear the word read and to hear the word taught so that we can be confronted with God's word from outside of us. We need it privately. We also need the gathering to hear the word together so that we can together be confronted with God's word, both its comforts and its harder edges that call us to repentance.
David's heart was exposed and he repented. And the Lord spares his life, we see in verse 13. But the consequences remain. Though the Lord forgave him, though the Lord spared him, the child died. And this might make David's actions in verses 15 to 23 confusing to us. Hadn't God already proclaimed that the child was going to die, and yet as the child gets sick, David... loses it he is he's on his face on the ground pouring out his heart he won't eat he won't sleep they're begging him come on get some rest eat some food and he says no i'm going to pray i'm going to ask the lord that he would be merciful and that he would spare this child and we might read that after god's already said the child's going to die we might read that as well david's just like fighting with god here But I think what we should see in David's actions are actually that he has turned back to the Lord and that he knows God is a gracious God and he may well spare this child. He may well be gracious in that way. And so he turns and he desperately pleads with God for the life of his son.
But then the servants are even more confused when the child dies. They're afraid to tell David. They say, if he's going to act like this while the baby's still alive, what's going to happen if he finds out he's dead? He might hurt himself. He might commit suicide. But David sees that they're whispering to themselves. He sees what's going on, and he says, he's dead, isn't he? And when they say yes, when he gets a straight answer in verse 19, he does what they totally don't expect. He bathes? Puts lotion on himself, which, I mean, those actions for someone who was in mourning in that day would have signified that he was at the end of his mourning period. He's cleaning up. He says, okay, I'd like to eat now.
As the child dies, it seems he comes out of his period of mourning. and they're confused they ask him what what's going on and he tells he gives them the reason in verse 22 while the child was alive i fasted and wept for who knows i said who knows whether the lord will be gracious to me that the child may live but now he is dead god god's fulfilled his word to david god told him this was going to happen and now it's happened And David says, there's no reason for me to fast now. I can't bring him back from the dead. David's confronted here even with his own mortality. He says, I will go to him. David knows that one day he will die. He will join the place of the dead, the child. I will go to him, but he will not return to me.
David's sin has horrific consequences, up to and including the death of his own son. The fourth thing we see, though, is that God's grace provides. Beginning in verse 24, Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him, and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah because of the Lord. Jedidiah means beloved by the Lord. Now Joab fought against Reba of the Ammonites and took the royal city. And Joab sent messengers to David and said, I have fought against Reba. Moreover, I have taken the city of waters. Now then gather the rest of the people together and encamp against the city and take it, lest I take the city and it be called by my name. So David gathered all the people together and went to Reba, fought against it and took it. And he took the crown of their king from his head. And the weight of it was a talent of gold. And in it was a precious stone. It was placed on David's head. And he brought out the spoil of the city a very great amount. And he brought out the people who were in it and set them to labor with saws and iron picks and iron axes and made them toil at the brick kilns. Thus he did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
So we see in verses 24 and 25 that God's grace provides a beloved heir. And I think we see grace here especially to Bathsheba. As much as to David, after this child has died, David comforts his wife and went in and lay with her and she bore a son and they called his name Solomon. Now Solomon obviously does not replace, doesn't replace the child who died. Can't replace a child. But I do think it is a grace of God to Bathsheba that she who has been on the receiving end of a lot of sin in this story, She's taken from her husband. Her husband's murdered. Now her child dies. It's through her, of all David's wives, that God chooses to give the chosen king, the chosen son, the son who is to follow in David's throne and expand the kingdom and build the temple and be in the line of Christ, the Messiah. It's through Bathsheba that God chooses to bring forth the chosen son, the fulfillment of 2 Samuel 7, the son who would be loved into the world. God's grace provided a beloved heir.
Verses 26 through 31, we kind of see the wrapping up of the story that we almost lose sight of this war with Ammon. And chapters 10 through 12 begin and end with this war with the Ammonites, and at the start of chapter 10, David had sent Joab out, and then we read at the beginning of chapter 11, where we have the whole narrative with Bathsheba, that David had remained in Jerusalem at the time when kings go out to war, and he sent his men out. But here, at the end of chapter 12, Instead of David sitting back in the city, now he has gone out. Joab's called him out and he's gone out and actually acted like a king. He's remembered his role. Joab has captured most of the city. Rabah was a very strategic city in that it had the headwaters of the Jabbok River there. And Joab has captured the part of the city with the water supply. So he says, hey, I know that we're about to topple them. We're about to take them. You need to come out and finish this off, David. Otherwise, I'm going to get credit and we'll name the city after me. So David comes out. They conquer the Ammonites. The king's crown weighs a talent. It's like 65 to 75 pounds of gold. This is an enormous... He probably didn't wear this around in his spare time. This is an enormous crown that's given to David. God graciously provides victory in this battle that set the backdrop for all of these events.
But I think the final thing we see In conclusion, is that God's grace provides a substitute. Look back just very briefly at verses 13 through 14. David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, The Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die. In these verses we see David forgiven. We see the death sentence that he deserved commuted. It's removed. And thus we can understand the joy that he would have in a place like Psalm 32, verse 6, where he writes, You forgave the iniquity of my sin. My plan, my hope in a couple weeks is to look at Psalm 32 and the joy that there is in being forgiven.
But David's son still dies. And without wanting to stretch the analogy too far, I think it's important for us to see that even though God is slow to anger, quick to forgive, abounding in steadfast love, the wages for sin is always death. Someone has to pay. A son of David has to pay. Romans 6.23 that we open with says, The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And if, like David, we want to experience the forgiveness of God when we repent, when we acknowledge our sin, when we pray for forgiveness, someone has to take that punishment of death that we deserve. And that's exactly what Jesus did on the cross. That's what Romans 6.23 means. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We don't get eternal life as God just like passing it out like candy. Someone died so that we could have forgiveness. The greater son of David died so that we could be forgiven. David's sin and my sin, your sin, the sins of everyone who will repent of their sins and trust on Jesus for salvation, was taken by him on the cross so that they could receive his righteousness and be covered, be clean, be white as snow. Will this wash away the earthly consequences of our sin? Not necessarily. But you can face the consequences in faith. David's son died and he rose up and he clothed himself and he went into the tabernacle and he worshipped. Knowing we can be like that. We can rise up in the face of even when we're facing the consequences of our own sin. We can rise up and worship, knowing that because of Jesus, we are no longer condemned. We have eternity with him. Hebrews 12 calls those consequences for our sin in this life. If we're God's children, it's like his fatherly loving correction of us. We can see every trial that comes from his hand as part of him loving us, shepherding us towards him.
Would you pray for me? Father God, we thank you that you are a loving God who pursues us even in our sin. What marvelous kindness and love you have poured out towards us. You sent your son into this world to seek and to save that which was lost. You send the son, the good shepherd, he'll leave the 99 to go chase down the one wandering sheep. Lord, when we wander, would you make us quick to sense that we have wandered away? Would you make us receptive to the voice of your Son? My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. When we are in sin, Lord, would you help us to be quick to say, I have sinned against the Lord, and to turn to you, knowing that because of your Son, Jesus, we can have forgiveness, and that for those who are in him, there is therefore now no condemnation. We are safe eternally because of Christ. What a precious gift. We thank you for it.
