Date: April 23, 2020 ()

Bible Text: 2 Samuel 12 |

Series:

“You will say that these are very small sins and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to keep the man away from the Light… Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” - From The Screwtape Letters

“I have thumbed my Bible many a year; I have never yet thumbed a broken promise. The promises have all been kept to me; not one good thing has failed.” – C. H. Spurgeon

Several years ago, the Peanuts comic strip had Lucy and Charlie Brown practicing football. Lucy would hold the ball for Charlie’s placekicking and then Charlie would kick the ball. But every time Lucy had ever held the ball for Charlie, he would approach the ball and kick with all his might. At the precise moment of the point of no return, Lucy would pick up the ball and Charlie would kick and his momentum unchecked by the ball, which was not there to kick, would cause him to fall flat on his back. This strip opened with Lucy holding the ball, but Charlie Brown would not kick the ball. Lucy begged him to kick the ball. But Charlie Brown said, "Every time I try to kick the ball you remove it and I fall on my back." They went back and forth for the longest time and finally Lucy broke down in tears and admitted, "Charlie Brown I have been so terrible to you over the years, picking up the football like I have. I have played so many cruel tricks on you, but I’ve seen the error of my ways! I’ve seen the hurt look in your eyes when I’ve deceived you. I’ve been wrong, so wrong. Won’t you give a poor penitent girl another chance?" Charlie Brown was moved by her display of grief and responded to her, "Of course, I’ll give you another chance." He stepped back as she held the ball, and he ran. At the last moment, Lucy picked up the ball and Charlie Brown fell flat on his back. Lucy’s last words were, "Recognizing your faults and actually changing your ways are two different things, Charlie Brown!"

  • The Condemnation that brings repentance - 2 Samuel 12:1-14
    • The Pursuit - Luke 19:10
    • The Person
      • He was faithful to the Word of God
        This was revealed earlier in the book of 2 Samuel 7. When God told Nathan that what he had told King David was wrong, Nathan was willing to change his message. Praise the Lord for men of God who are willing to say that they may have made a mistake and the Bible says, thus and thus.
      • He was fearless to do the work of God
    • The Parable
      • The two dwellers
      • The traveler
      • The reaction
    • The Particulars
      • The revelation of who was to be punished - 2 Samuel 12:7
      • The revelation of the inexcusableness of the sinning - 2 Samuel 12:7
      • The revelation of the lists of sin - 2 Samuel 12:9-10
        • Disregard for Scripture - 2 Samuel 12:9-10
        • Disregard for Life - 2 Samuel 12:9
        • Disregard for Marriage - 2 Samuel 12:9
        • Disregard for Separation - 2 Samuel 12:9
    • The Punishment
      • Death - 2 Samuel 12:10
      • Rebellion - 2 Samuel 12:11
      • Defilement - 2 Samuel 12:11
      • Public rebuke - 2 Samuel 12:12
  • The Cleansing that comes from repentance, 2 Samuel 12:13; Psalm 32; Psalm 51
    • Acknowledge your sin
    • Accept your punishment
    • Attitude of the repentant
      • Seeking God’s grace - Psalm 51:1
      • Horrified by sin - Psalm 51:1,2,3,4,5,7,9,10, 14
      • Grief over sin - Psalm 51:3,8,11
      • Joy Restored - Psalm 51:8,12
      • Service restored - Psalm 51:13
      • Giving is a heart issue - Psalm 51:16,17

There’s the wonder of sunset at evening,
the wonder as sunrise I see;
But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul
is the wonder that God loves me.
- George Beverly Shea

There is a story about an unbeliever who was ridiculing a Christian for his beliefs. The unbeliever said, “If Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost, why is it that there are so many unbelievers?”
The Christian to whom he was speaking stopped a very dirty, scruffy looking boy and turned to the unbeliever, “Can you blame soap and water for the filth of this boy?” It was available to all, but only those who accept it experience its regenerating power. – Bible Illustrations, book one, p. 204

We are going to be looking at II Samuel chapter 12. So on Sunday we looked at chapter 11, and we were looking at the high price of sin. And the great thing is that there is chapter 12, also. Chapter 12, helps introduce the idea along with two other passages, Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, about the joy of repentance.

There is a classic book written many years ago entitled the Screwtape letters. It is an allegory that tries to present the work of the devil and his demons in thwarting the world and the Christians away from God. In one section of the Screwtape Letters, the devil and his demons are presenting, one of their purposes. And this is the conversation. It goes like this. You will say that these are very small sins and doubtless like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. So this is the devil talking to his demons and trying to help them out. And so there the demons seemed to be very disappointed because they are only getting Christians to commit small sins. So that is the discussion that we are coming in.

"But do remember the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy and the enemy is God. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that there cumulative effect is to keep the man away from the light. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without turnings, without milestones, without signposts." And that is what we find, we find a huge, I guess you would say, a huge chasm that, basically has come to place in the life of King David over this sin.

But the point that we are trying to make at the beginning is that every sin, the purpose of the sin, is to separate us from fellowship with God. What the devil desires is that we never get to the place of repentance. I give that as a quote on the handout. If you copied off the outline, C. H. Spurgeon mentions about the idea of repentance. Repentance is something that a Christian does often. And why? Because on this earth we sin. So in order to have a right relationship with God, we must be continually repenting of sin and saying, God, forgive and let me turn from that. So that is why it is very important, this idea of repentance. So on Sunday we dove deep into the text of II Samuel 11, seeing the high price of sin. But today we are going to look at the wonder of our God. And that is if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Spurgeon says this about the scriptures. "I have thumbed my Bible many a year. I have never yet thumbed a broken promise. The promises have all been kept to me. Not one good thing has failed."

So Nathan was the chosen prophet. We see that in verse one of chapter 12. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. You see Nathan earlier in the book of II Samuel chapter seven, you see Nathan here it says in chapter seven, in verse one, "And it came to pass, when the King sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies; That the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thine heart; for the Lord is with thee." And later in the text in verse four, five and six, Nathan goes away, and he goes home. And that night the Lord speaks to Nathan and changes Nathan's message. And you see a characteristic of Nathan coming out in chapter seven. And that is whatever God tells him to say, he is going to say, which is a good characteristic of a preacher. And so here Nathan in this scene, David calls for him. He asked him if he can build a house. He wants to oblige him and say, yeah, but then God says no. But actually in chapter seven, he is giving king David a positive message. What he tells him that his name is going to be great. He is going to be used of God to build a great kingdom.

And so that is what we see in chapter seven. But in chapter 12, this is not the message that Nathan is bringing. This passage reveals a very different message and it is obvious that Nathan took a lot of time to prepare for this message. I do not think this was a spur of the moment thing or he is like, Oh, you know what, it will come to me. You know, I got a call down the king, my boss, and he can chop my head off. I think I am just going to run it in there and just throw it at him. No, you can tell that Nathan put a lot of thought into what he says. I think that, yes, God helped him with the message, but I think it is very helpful in looking at that. We are going to look at that in a moment.

This passage reveals the importance of repentance. Repentance means a changing of ways because of contrition. The Bible is a book of repentance. Just the word repentance is used 46 times in the Old Testament and over 65 times in the New Testament. Repentance means that there is a change, a change of mind, and a change of ways. It means that we are changing the way we are thinking. So that is why the Bible says that you must repent in order to be saved because we have to change our mind about a couple of things. We have to change our mind about sin, about the mindset of sin. Before salvation, I may think sin is okay, but at the time of salvation I start to get a true picture of sin. And so my mind has changed about that. Then also, my mind has to be changed. I must repent about how I believe I can get to heaven. And so repentance is a very important part of salvation. But we see in this text, it is a very important part of the Christian life.

Several years ago, if you know what Peanuts are, and I am not talking about going to a baseball game, which is impossible to do now. But the Peanuts comic strip had Lucy and Charlie Brown, if you remember Lucy and Charlie Brown. So Charlie Brown was practicing football with Lucy. If you remember the old Charlie Brown comics, and sometimes they were comic strips and sometimes you had the little, what do you call those things? Cartoons. Wow. Those are going back a few years. So Lucy and Charlie Brown would practice football together. Now, not tackle. What they would do is Charlie Brown loved to kick field goals. So Lucy was the place kick holder. So if you remember this, it was very often that Charlie Brown would back up and Lucy would hold the ball for the kick and Charlie Brown would run and come. As soon as Charlie Brown was going to kick, she would move it and he would go flat on the ground. And you would see that, I can picture the comic strip. All right. So Lucy would pick up the ball, Charlie would kick and his momentum unchecked by the ball, which was not there to kick, would cause him to fall flat on his back. And it was over and over and over. And Charlie Brown at one point looked at Lucy and said, every time I try to kick ball, you move it and cause me to fall on my back. They went back and forth for the longest time.

And finally, Lucy broke down in tears and started crying. And she said this, she said, Charlie, I have been so terrible to you over the years picking up the football like I have. I have played so many cruel tricks on you. I have seen the error of my ways. I have seen the hurt look in your eyes when you fell on your back and you feel like it is broken. I have been wrong. Won't you give a poor penitent girl another chance? And in my mind as I am looking, and I am thinking, no, don't do it. So Charlie Brown though was moved by the tears and the display of grief. And so he said, of course, I will give you another chance. He stepped back, she held the ball, he ran. And at the last minute, yes, you guessed it, Lucy picked up the ball and Charlie Brown fell flat on his back and Lucy was laughing again. And then she said this, Charlie Brown recognizing your faults and actually changing your ways are two different things.

That is just a little bit of you know, comic strip that we see, but it is showing and revealing the idea of repentance. There are some people that say, sorry, sorry, sorry, the tears come down, but they just keeping doing the same old thing. That is showing that there is no actual repentance. So we are going to look at this idea of repentance. And see if we can gain some understanding this evening. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray as we look at this idea of repentance and the joy of it, I pray that this passage will help us. And as we look later at Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 that it can be instructive to us, Lord, as always, I ask you to do that which I cannot do, and that is speak to hearts. We ask and claim your power in Jesus name. Amen.

So we are going to look at two points this evening. We are going to look at the condemnation that brings repentance. And then secondly, the cleansing that comes from repentance. So let's look at the text here and in verses 1-14 is the condemnation that brings the repentance. What I love, first of all is in verses 1-3, you see the Lord sent Nathan unto David, right? And so Nathan gets up and he ends up going to David. And so I call that the pursuit, the pursuit. And there is a verse in the New Testament that reminds me of this pursuit. And that is Luke 19:10 it says, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." What do we mean by the pursuit? The wonder of our God that he does not leave us alone. As children of God he cares so much for us. And we address this thought last week in our prayer time when we looked at Hebrews chapter 12. And in Hebrews chapter 12, the Bible, let me just get there and I will read it for you in Hebrews chapter 12:5. "And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." So the pursuit in this passage is that God cared so much about David, that he pursued him and he sent Nathan after him. And I think this is helpful for us as we are thinking about the condemnation.

Sometimes we think that the person coming to show us our fault, man there is something wicked. No, we should be thankful because God is sending them because he cares so much. The pursuit is that he is not leaving us alone. Because I think, and this is what most believe in studying chapter 11 and 12, most believe that there is close to a year that has past here. Alright, so it is close to a year. It could be a little over, it could be a little less, but it does not seem like king David was calling for Nathan. Saying, Oh I have sinned. No he is not doing that. It seems like he is feeling, Hey, I got away with this. Bathsheba is my wife, I killed her husband. Everything seems to be going okay. Now internally, we see some different things when we read Psalm 32 and Psalm 51. But here God is pursuing and I think that is great for us to know that when we are sinning God sometimes is going to send things our way and say, hey, wake up. It is the pursuit, the Lord sent Nathan.

But then the second point under this condemnation is that we see the person. So who is the person, the Lord sent Nathan. One of the main purposes when you look at the prophets of the Old Testament was to preach against sin. The prophet was God's physical spokesman to lift the standard of holiness among the people. Preaching against sin did involve sometimes prophesizing for it would sometimes involve predicting what the future of the unrepentant sinner would be. Now days, God does not have prophets. There are some people, in fact, I think that the guy that just got arrested down in Louisiana, when he came up, he said, I am one of God's apostles. Nope, no, no I do not think so. We do not have prophets and apostles, but we do have preachers. We do have pastors, and I think Nathan can be instructive for us in understanding the person.

There are two things that I saw in the text with Nathan. He was faithful to the word of God. Remember, we picked that up in II Samuel chapter seven. David came and said, Hey, I want to build a house for God. And that seemed like a great idea. I live in a great house and God does not have anything, so I want to build Him a house. And so Nathan is like, great idea, go ahead and do it. And then when he went to sleep that night, God came to him and said, go and tell my servant David, shalt thou build a house for me to dwell in? And then he says, no, you have to go tell David you were wrong. You are not doing that. And guess what Nathan does? He does not sit there and say, no, I already said that. I can't. You know what, I have got my character and my integrity. They are going to think I am a liar. No, he just goes and he says, Hey, I was wrong. God says you are not building. So he was faithful to the word of God. And this is what we have to see. And I think it is important for us. You know, there are some times that as you grow in the Lord, you realize that something that you may have thought true in the Bible and you are like, oh, I think I was wrong on that. It is okay. God is not wrong, you are wrong, and it is okay. There is nothing wrong with that. What we should do is be faithful to the word of God. The word of God should have liberty to change us every time. It has the ability to change us.

And Nathan was a good person. Why? He was faithful to the word of God. He also was fearless to the work of God. I do not know and the passage does not tell us. Maybe between verse one and two, the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and then it says in verse one he came unto him. So I do not know if in between the Lord sent, and he came unto him, if there was like some....is there anybody else, I mean come on isn't there another prophet. There might have been some butterflies in the pit of his stomach, but he did not let that stop him from delivering this sobering message. He was fearless to the work of God and I appreciate this. When I was studying it as far as the condemnation that brings repentance, we see the pursuit, we see the person, then we see the parable.

So what does the parable reveal to us? Well you have the two dwellers. You have the rich man that had exceeding many flocks and obviously this is representative of King David. Then you have in verse three, the poor man had nothing and so that is a picture of Uriah save one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished up. It grew up together with him. So you have these two people and one is representing, King David and one is representing, Uriah. So you have the two dwellers. Then you have, look at verse four the traveller. "And there came a traveller unto the rich man." Now it is interesting in reading commentaries and reading others on this traveler. Some interpret this as being the entertainment of the thought of wickedness, which I can not necessarily disagree with the. I was reading it, I have read it a bunch and I came to that. So what some say, this is basically picturing that lust, it was the traveler. The traveler came through and it was saying, Hey, you know what, I have a need. And so they represent it by saying when we apply it to our lives today, that there are travelers that are coming through. And so I even listened to a whole message, entitled "The Traveler," which I think was more just a good title for the message because some of it did not apply. But notice the traveler came to the rich man "and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him."

So we see that we have the traveler and then we have the reaction afterwards. And that is in verse five and six because David has a reaction to the parable. "And David's anger was greatly 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." So we have the condemnation, we have the pursuit, we have the person, we have the parable. Then we have the particulars. What are the particulars? That starts in verse seven. You have the revelation of who was to be punished. "And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man." Then in verse seven, you have the revelation of the inexcusableness of this sinning. "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul." So it is inexcusable. And that is what we have to understand as far as sin. There is never an excuse and God presents that. He said, I made you king. I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And that is what we have to understand when we are looking at our own sin. We have all kinds of reasons, all kinds of excuse, and God comes to us and says, wait a minute, I saved you. I pulled you out of the miry pit. I have given you righteousness. I have given you every ability to conquer sin and here you find yourself in sin, it is unexcusable.

Then we see the revelation of the list of sins and that is found in verses nine and ten. Look at the list of sins that are listed out. "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight?" So first he said, this is your sin, King David, you disregarded scripture. A disregard for scripture. You do not care about it. And that is what we have got to understand about sin. Sin is going to come bring us to a point that we do not care about the Word of God anymore. And that is when we know and we should thank God for somebody. If it is God, if he cares about us enough and he is sending somebody to say, get back to the Bible, get back to the Word of God. And some of that can be the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can come and say, look what you have done. You have disregarded scripture. Notice secondly in verse nine, "... thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword." It is a disregard for life. And then notice thirdly "and hast taken his wife to be thy wife." It is a disregard for marriage. Then fourthly, he does not stop there "and hast slain him..." This one, it took me a little time to think about "hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon." So this is a disregard for separation.

What do we mean by that? He aligned himself with evil to accomplish his wicked ways. Have you ever seen that happen? I have. In order for me to get my way, that I align myself up with evil to get what I want. I have seen that happen. I have seen that happen on social media. People that align themselves up with wicked horrible people and are like, see. You better be careful of who you align with. Here, this is what it is saying. King David, one of the things, in particular, one of the revelations that he gave as far as his sin was that you aligned yourself with the enemies of Israel to kill this man. I would be careful when we befriend the world to get our way in sin. Look at that list of sin. It is not a good list.

But then we see the punishment under the condemnation. Then we see the punishment and there are four things that I see that are punishment here. In verse 10, "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house -- death. We talked about that on Sunday, that sin brings death. Then in verse 11, "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house." -- Rebellion. He says there is going to be rebellion. Then in verse 11 at the end, "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 sun." -- That is defilement. And then verse 12, "For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun." -- That is a public rebuke. Then you notice that is kind of a fourfold list of sins and it is a fourfold punishment.

And did you notice what David said? David's anger was kindled. Look at verse six, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold. Notice you see, and it is pretty clearly listed out. There is a fourfold punishment. David himself gets to decide his own punishment. He might not have been thinking about it. So then we come to, I would say the good part, and that is in verse 13. And we also find this in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, we are especially going to be looking at Psalm 51, and this will be kind of the last half of the message. The first part we were looking at is the condemnation that brings repentance. We see that all the way through verse 13 and 14, but now we switch over and we see the cleansing that comes from repentance. Notice what verse 13 says, "And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord."

So notice three things about repentance in our life. First of all, we must acknowledge our sin. I have sinned. There are a lot of things we could talk about as far as that acknowledgement, but in this passage, and you notice it in Psalm 51. In Psalm 51 it says, "Have mercy upon me, Oh God, according to thy lovingkindness." And then he talks about blotting out my sins. Verse three, "For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me." Then verse four, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." And some people have used that. Some people that are wrong, sometimes take verse four and they say, you know what? This is just between me and God. Alright, well they are taking it out of context, because what did second Samuel 12 already say?

Second Samuel 12 and verse 12 already says, "For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." That is not what the passage is saying. That is not saying that, you know what, this is just between us. You need to do it privately. No, that is not what it is saying. What it is saying though is that my sin always is against God--always. And you may say, yeah, well, this was between me and my fellow neighbor. Still, it is between you and God though. So between you and God is a sin, but also you and your neighbor, and that is why sometimes we get out of whack. We are taking scripture and twisting it because in the context we see that God says, no, I am going to make this public, and sometimes we get very irritated because our sin is taken care of publicly and God says a lot of times, Hey, you asked for it.

You might have done this in secret, but really was it secret? Is your sin so secret, most of us, we know it is not. The cleansing that comes from repentance is that I acknowledge my sin and the first and foremost person that I need to take that in consideration with is the Lord. I have sinned against God. If you really get to the point that your sin, you get broken about your sin because you realize you have broken God's heart and you have hurt God and you have hurt his cause, that is helping you on your way to repentance. Acknowledge your sin. Then the second thing is accept your punishment. Nowhere in the passage, later, anywhere in the text do you see David whining like Caine? Remember Caine, Caine and Abel. So God comes and according to the passage, the blood of Abel is crying out to God. And so God comes down and says, Hey, where is Abel? I do not know, why am I my brother's keeper. Then God is saying, well his blood is crying out and so he gives him punishment and what does Caine do? Wining, this is to hard. He sounds like some little kid that is bent over and you are giving him some whippens. It is like, Oh, it hurts. Well what do you expected it to do? You accept your punishment and you are not whining about it. Now you see that David fasts and he prays for the son, or for the child. We do not really know what it was, but the child. God said, I am going to take that child. And David fasts and he prays, but after that he gets up, eats and he keeps going. He accepts his punishment. He accepts his punishment. Then in Psalm 51 and that is where we are going to kind of close out.

In our last point, we see the attitude of repentance. In Psalm 51 what is the attitude of the repentant? First of all, "Have mercy upon me, Oh God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." So we are seeking God's grace. I put grace, actually it is mercy. You are asking God's mercy, asking for his mercy. Why? Because you deserve everything you get. But it is okay to ask mercy from God, have mercy upon me. It is okay to ask for mercy with God. So we cry out and that is an attitude. Have mercy upon me, oh God. Realizing that God has the right to smash you. He has the right to punish you all the way. So the attitude of the repentant is seeking God's mercy. And then in verses one, two, three, four, five, seven, nine, 10 and 14. So I will give you an example. You are horrified by sin. "Blot out my transgression." Verse two, "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Verse three, "For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me." Verse four, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." Verse five, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. "Verse seven, "Purge me with this hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Verse nine, "Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities." Then I said in verse 10 and verse 14 we should be horrified by sin. And that is the attitude of the repentant.

As you saw with Lucy, remember that illustration at the beginning with Lucy and Charlie Brown and what was Lucy doing? Lucy is there and she is crying and weeping. And then as soon as Charlie Brown agrees to do it again, she is like, yes, I got him, right. And he comes and she pulls the football. Hhe falls down and she is laughing, right. And then says, Oh, you know what saying I am sorry and changing my actions are two different things. So she was not really horrified by her actions. She just wanted to con him so that she could see him fall on his back again. And that is what some of us do, we inour sin, we are not being repentant. Why? Because the sin is not so horrible that we do not do it again. We should be horrified by sin.

In Psalm 51 verse three, eight and 11 show that there should be grief over sin. "For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me." Verse eight, "Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." So the idea is that these bones are broken, that there is, there is something in disrepair. There is grief, literal grief and sorrow over sin. What is the attitude of the repentant? We seek God's mercy. We are horrified by sin. We grieve over our sin. What is the attitude of the repentant? There is joy that is restored, that's found in verse eight and 12. "Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." Verse 12, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit." Joy is restored again. And then look at verse 13, "Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee." Service is restored. This is the beauty, the joy of repentance is that even in our text, okay, let me go back to our text in chapter 12. In chapter 12, you see that he says, I have sinned. And then you see him kind of fasting and weeping and praying, saying, Hey, maybe God will save the child.

And then the child dies and it shocks the servants by his actions. It says in verse 20 of chapter 12, "Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat." You say, wait a minute. What is going on? It is the idea of the repentant. The repentant has service restored. What does that mean? I do not sit there and wallow in my past and that is what a lot of people, they are not showing repentance because guess what they do all the time. Well, I do not know if God can use me anymore. I do not know. Did he forgive you? Then get up, do the process of repentance. Take the punishment because there are some consequences to sin. But once that is understood and you have to bear that, get up, change your clothes, wash up, get some food, go down to Taco Bell, grab a bean burrito and let's get at it. And then you are going to be sick. All right. But service is restored. Let's get up and get going.

It is the beauty that we see about David. There is not some psychologists or therapists that is called and we have got to have 10 or 12 sessions and after 10 to 12 sessions, we can analyze this and we can see. And that is what we see about true repentance. True repentance is that we understand when I get this taken care of, when I come through this, I can teach transgressors their way and sinners will be converted. Why? Because I can get up and go again because it is taken care of. Service is restored. And in Psalm 51 verse 16 and 17, "For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise." And some people say, Oh see it is not about the gift, but it actually is. God does desire a gift. That is what he says here. He does want a sacrifice. And what you find is giving is a heart issue. That is what it is indicating to us. God cares about the inside, but he also cares that you give. And so a truly repentant person, what you see them doing as you see him seeking God's mercy, you see him horrified by sin. You see them grieving over their sin. But then there is a process of that joy is being restored and service is being restored and they get back to giving because that is the Christian life. The Christian life is about others. It is about giving. And I have to touch on this because this is such an example of our society.

You notice all everybody is talking about with the Covid-19 is themselves. It is all they cared about. I may die, They do not care about others. And then if you do go outside though, that is when you do not care about others. But actually what you are saying is I may give it to you. And so again, you are self centered and selfishness is just so much in our society. And it is an evidence of a sin filled society. A society that has godliness in it is a giving society. And we are not that much of a giving society. What we are is a taking society. What a wonder that God is so willing to forgive us if we come to him. We should praise the Lord for his abundant mercy towards us. George Beverly Shea wrote a song, and this is what he said, "There's the wonder of sunset at evening, the wonder as sunrise I see, but the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul, is the wonder that God loves me."

There is a story about an unbeliever who was ridiculing a Christian for his beliefs. The unbelievers said, if Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost, why is it that there are so many unbelievers? The Christian to whom he was speaking stopped, and there was a very dirty, scruffy looking little boy, and he turned the unbeliever and he said, can you blame the soap and water for the filth of this boy? It was available. It was available to those men that were walking and it was available to this scruffy, dirty little boy, but only those who accept and use it experience it's regenerating power. And that is what we have to understand about repentance. Repentance, yes God will pursue and praise the Lord for that. And he sends people our way. But really we have to repent. We have to change. We have to come to that point. It is a choice all of us have to make. And when you truly understand biblical repentance, as we find in second Samuel 12 and then in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 what you are going to find is there is a joy in repentance. May God help us to find that joy of repentance.

 

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