II Samuel 12:1-4 *
In the name of Christ Jesus, dear friends:
It wasn’t easy, but I did it. I got away with murder, or at least that’s what I thought. Don’t get me wrong. I am a firm believer in the fifth commandment. I am strongly opposed to the taking of innocent life. And if I had the chance to do make things right, I would.
Unfortunately I can’t go back in time. I can’t undo what has been done. And I will have to live with the consequences of my actions. If there is any good that can come out of this sad chapter in my life, it is that you will listen to my story and learn from my example.
It all began about a year ago, in the springtime, the time
when kings go off to war. Even though I
was the king of
One evening I woke up and wandered up to the roof of my palace. I looked out at the sprawling city. I looked at all the beautiful buildings. And then I saw her. I saw a woman bathing. She was beautiful. She was perhaps the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And immediately I knew that I had to find out who she was.
My messenger came back with the report that her name was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah, but I didn’t hear anything after her name. I didn’t care who her father was. It didn’t matter to me that she was married. I had to meet her. I had to have her. And I exercised my royal power to bring her to the palace.
I won’t go into the details of what happened next, but I do want you to know this about our relationship. It wasn’t passionate. It wasn’t romantic. It was a one night stand. It was selfish, and it was wrong. And it would have been forgotten except for the fact that Bathsheba informed me a few weeks later that she was pregnant.
I hadn’t expected that. I hadn’t planned for that. And I had a choice to make. I could confess my sins to my God and my people or I could cover it up. As you will soon see, my decision to cover up my sin opened up the floodgates to a host of other sins.
My plan was brilliant. I called Uriah back from the front. I sent him home for the night. I even gave him a gift. I assumed that he would sleep with his wife and he would assume that the baby was his. And then everything would go back to normal.
Except for the fact that Uriah was so loyal to me. Except for the fact that Uriah was much more
honorable than me. He refused to go
home. He slept on the ground. And when I asked him why he didn’t go home,
his response only intensified my guilt: “The
ark and
Uriah’s words didn’t bring me to my senses. Uriah’s righteous response didn’t bring me to my knees. Instead of confessing my sins then and there, I came up with Plan B. I decided to try again, except I got Uriah drunk first. I hoped that with his inhibitions lowered he might go home, but he didn’t. As it turned out Uriah was more righteous drunk than I was completely sober.
They say that desperate times call for desperate measures, and I was desperate. I was running out of time. I was running out of options. I was drifting farther and farther away from God. And even today I shudder at the thought of what I decided to do next.
I sent Uriah back to the front with a message for Joab. Little did my faithful servant know that he
was carrying his own death orders. I
gave my commander this command: “Put
Uriah in the front line where the fighting is the fiercest. Then withdraw from him so that he will be
struck down and die” (II Samuel
Joab understood that I was at the top of the chain of
command. He didn’t question my
orders. He executed my orders. And then he sent a messenger to report what had
happened. When I heard that Uriah had
been killed in battle I acted as if he was another sad but inevitable casualty
of war. I gave him a burial with full
military honors. I went through the
motions of mourning with Bathsheba. But
as soon as the time of mourning was over I took her and her unborn child into
my home. And when I did some people probably
thought that I was doing Uriah’s widow a big favor.
“But the thing David (I) had done displeased the LORD” (II Samuel 12:1). God wasn’t fooled, and God’s prophet wasn’t fooled either. After the baby was born, the Lord sent Nathan to speak to me, not to congratulate me, but to confront me. He didn’t confront me directly. Instead Nathan told me a story, a story that cut me to the heart, a story that still speaks to the hearts of people today, a story I needed to hear, a story that every believer needs to hear…
A TIMELY PARABLE WITH A TIMELESS MESSAGE
Nathan was more than a prophet. He was my friend. This assignment must have been extremely difficult for him. Nathan was angry with me. Nathan was disappointed in me, but he never stopped loving me. He loved me so much that he was willing to risk our relationship (and maybe even his life) by calling me to repentance. And that call came in the form of a parable:
“There were two men
in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor
man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it
grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and
even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.”
“Now a traveler came to the rich man,
but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to
prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe
lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to
him” (12:1-4).
I immediately burned with anger against the man who did
this. In fact, I was so blinded by my
rage that I didn’t see the point of the prophet’s story. With a tone of righteous indignation I said
to Nathan: “As surely as the LORD lives,
the man who did this deserves to die” (12:5)!
Nathan had been preparing me for this moment, and the moment
had finally come. It was time for the
prophet to preach the law. Not with fire
and brimstone. Not with clenched fists
and bulging veins. But with four
piercing, condemning words: “You are the
man” (12:7).
In an instant all of the sins I had worked so hard to hide, all of the guilt I had worked so hard to suppress, everything I had done came rushing to the surface. God had given me everything, but I wanted more. I wanted the one thing I didn’t have. I wanted the one thing Uriah did have. And even though I was not directly responsible for his death, that innocent man’s blood was on my hands.
What did I do next? I
did what I should have done in the first place.
I swallowed my pride. I bowed my
head. And I confessed. I said to Nathan: “I have sinned against the LORD” (
Now it was Nathan’s turn to speak. He spoke about my actions. He spoke about the consequences of my actions
(he told me that the son born to Bathsheba would die). But before he said
anything else to me, the prophet spoke a word of forgiveness: “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die” (
You are probably familiar with the word, “gospel.” You probably know that the word “gospel” means “good news.” I want you to know that “gospel” is not just a word. “Gospel” is not just a theological term. The gospel is an amazing, transforming, life-changing truth.
I can’t even begin to explain how I felt when I heard that I was not going to die. It was like a ten ton weight had been lifted off my shoulders when Nathan announced that God had taken away my sin. That is the gospel. That is the good news. That news was the best news I had ever heard.
This is my story, but my story is by no means unique. Every Christian struggles with temptation. Every believer has been troubled by a guilty conscience. I hope that you will learn from my mistakes. I hope and pray that you will not repeat my mistakes. And when you leave this sanctuary today, when you compare my experience with your own, I want you to remember two important truths.
The first truth is that there is no sin that God cannot see. Let those words sink in for a minute. There is no sin that God cannot see. Even if it was done behind closed doors. Even if it was done when no one else was looking. The Lord knows. He knows about every sin you have ever committed, every unkind word you have ever spoken, every impure thought your that has ever entered your mind.
Does that make you feel uncomfortable? Does that make you feel guilty? It should because sin is serious business. Sin has serious consequences. Sin has eternal consequences. Sin separates people from God. Your sin separates you from God. And if you let sin master you, you will be separated from God forever.
I want you to know that what I am telling you is the truth, but I don’t want you to dwell on it. Don’t let sin control you. Don’t let your sin consume you. Confess your sins, and then rejoice in a greater and more glorious truth: There is no sin that God cannot forgive.
If the Lord forgave all my sins, if God forgave my sins of
lust and lying and adultery and murder, he will forgive you too. In fact, he already has. A thousand years after I was buried in
Jesus lived a perfect life to save us from our sins. After thirty three years Jesus died on the cross to save us from death. And after three days Jesus rose from the dead to prove that his work of salvation was complete.
The next time you see the name “Jesus” in print, the next time you say the name “Jesus” out loud, I want you to remember what that name means (“the LORD saves”). And then I want you to remember, no I never want you to forget that because of what Jesus has done for you can say: “The LORD has saved me.”
Brothers and sisters in Christ, even though our struggles may be different, even though our stories may be different, we can rejoice. We can rejoice because we know that the story of every believer will have the same happy ending. Amen.