If you have your Bible, let's turn together in it to 2 Samuel chapter number 12. If you don't have a Bible, there should be some Bibles in the pew in front of you or near you, and turn with me there in the Old Testament to the book of 2 Samuel. And this morning, we want to continue through this book. We've been in 1 and now 2 Samuel for several months, and pick up where we left off last Sunday. If you have your Bible out, you can just notice they're in chapter number 11. and twelve chapters go together. Chapter eleven is the story of David's sin, taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of his soldiers, Bathsheba, taking her, committing adultery, lying, conniving, even committing, through the hands of others, murder. This is the end of that story, the tail end of it, the conclusion of it. We pick up in verse one then, of chapter number twelve. Let's read down to the end, verse number thirty-one. 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 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. And it was like a daughter to him. Now, there came a traveler to the rich man and he was unwilling. That is, the rich man was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd 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, the man who has done this deserves to die. And he shall restore the lamb for full because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Nathan said to David, you are the man that says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the land of the hand of Saul, and they 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 the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 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 son. 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 was 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 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. 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 yet 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. Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. He then went to his own house, and when he asked, they set food before him and he ate. Then her servants said to him, what is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive. But when the child died, you arose and ate food. He said, well, the child was alive, but still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, who knows what the Lord will be gracious to me, but 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. And David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went into her and lay with her and she bore a son and he 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. Now, Joab fought against Rava of the Ammonites and took the royal city. And Joab sent messengers to David and said, I have fought against Rabba. Moreover, I have taken the city of waters. Now, then gather the rest of the people together and camp against the city and take it. Lest I take the city and to be called by my name. So David gathered all the people together and went to Rabba and fought against it and took it. And he took the crown of their king from his head. The weight of it was a talents of gold and it was a precious stone and 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 make them toil at the brick kilns. And thus he did to all the cities of the Ammonites. And David and all the people returned to Jerusalem. May the Lord speak to us this morning. May he write his wonderful words upon our hearts. Amen. True believers in Jesus Christ can fall into sins that greatly offend God. True believers can fall into such sins that grieve the Holy Spirit. True believers can fall into sins that suspend their exercise of faith. True believers can fall into sins that severely wound their consciences. True believers can fall into sins that lead them to lose, for a time, the awareness, the sense, the experience even of God's grace. Does that sound true to you? Does that sound overstated? Does this sound impossible to you who believe in election and the perseverance of the saints? Does this make you somewhat scared? These are ways that our forefathers at the center of doors in the 17th century described the Christian, the Christian who is, yes, chosen by God, the father, yes, died for by Christ, the son, yes, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and will persevere by the grace and power of God until the end. But yes, believers still are sinners. And we are still such sinners that it is still possible for us. Even as believers on the way to heaven. To suspend our faith for a time to grieve the spirit, to offend God. To lose the awareness of the grace of God, even for a time. This is how our forefathers looked at passages like this very one. Second, Samuel Chapter 11 and 12, David and his sin with Bathsheba. Our forefathers, in fact, cite this as one of the examples, Peter being the other one denying Christ three times. What are the examples of both Old and New Testaments where we see true believers falling into great heinous, gross sin? But yet God shows in that fall his own power and his grace to revive and to restore and to renew. I want you to think about this passage this morning. You see here, David and the example of him in his heinous fall into sin and his confession of sin to the Lord's grace to restore him. I want you to look at this passage with me this morning and ask yourself, why is this story so important? Why would the writer of David's life? Writing on ancient scrolls, which had limited space, which cost vast amounts of money. Why does the writer describe the life of King David, the great paragon of Israel's kingship, the great pinnacle of their leadership? Why spend two entire sections, what we call chapters, describing David's sin? Why is it important for you and I to read it, to think about it, for me as a preacher, to preach it, for us to hear it? It's so important for us. We've seen stories like this already in the life of David. We've seen his office. We've seen especially his gowns. We've seen his high point of faith. We see his falls into sin constantly. He's no different than you and me. Just like us in sin. This is an important section of scripture and an important example and an important period in David's life for us as believers in Christ, this side of the cross and resurrection. Because we as Christians still need to know The depth of our sinful nature. We still need to know what we are capable of as fallen sinners. We still need to know and hear. How bad we truly are apart from grace. Outside of Christ and even in Christ, how bad we still in our sinfulness can be for a time. We need to hear. about our sins. We can't hide from our sins. We can't fluff our sins over. We can't hide them underneath the rug. We can't pretend they don't exist. They do. And so we come to stories and we look at the life of David and we think in our minds about the high points of David versus Goliath and faith and triumph and victory and overcoming. But yet we see and we must see, we must remember that the story also says things like this. But I know I'm a sinner, you might be saying. Why dwell on the bad news? It's bad for my ego. It's bad for my self-esteem. Why dwell on the bad stuff? That just makes me feel more depressed about myself. That doesn't lift me up very well. That doesn't make me feel very good. But you see, we must meditate upon our sins and we must understand stories like this very one because the deeper we know our sins, The higher we will understand the grace of God is. The weaker we know ourselves to be apart from Christ. The stronger we will understand his grace is. To save us from our weakness and our sins. J.C. Ryle once wrote this, A right knowledge of sin lies at the heart of all saving Christianity. Without sin, there's no grace. Without you, there's no need for Christ. Again, while says this, the more we see our own sinfulness, the nearer we get to heaven. The more we see and know and understand and perceive and feel our own sinfulness, the depths of it, the strength of it. The more closer we draw to heaven itself and see Christ and his grace for us, We turn here again to 2 Samuel this morning. I want you to see here in the story of David's being confronted in his confession, his restoration. We see here the judgment of God upon his sin. We see the mercy of God upon David. We see God's displeasure towards sin. We see God's pleasure in being faithful to his own self. Follow along with me in the story. I want you to see as we do so. Three sort of episodes, three actions here in which the story plays out. First, we see the Lord's correction. It's the heart of the story, the beginning part where the action lines, the heart of it is the Lord's correction. Secondly, we'll see David's confession. Finally, again, the Lord's covenant keeping the Lord's correction, David's confession, the Lord's covenant keeping the Holy Spirit lead us into his truth today. David said that chapter 11 now comes the Lord's correction. And these chapters, in fact, I mentioned that they're one big episode and they're arranged in such a way as the literary genre points out. They're arranged in such a way that the beginning part here where David is confronted by Nathan is at the heart of the action, what's called a chiasm. What happens in the beginning of chapter 11 parallels what happens at the end of chapter 12 and vice and so forth. In the very middle of this literary section is the confrontation. It's the correction. This is what the Lord wants us to understand and to see. And so David has done his deeds. We saw that in chapter 11. Now the Lord does his deeds, his deeds of correction, his deeds of restoration. Notice in verse one, the Lord sent Nathan to David. If you're keeping score back in chapter 11, you remember that that verb of sense or sending was used many times. And in particular, David had been sending you sent a messenger to find out who this woman was upon her. or her roof to send a messenger to draw upon the battlefield. He sends out messengers constantly. But now David no longer sends. It's the Lord who sent. David's done his thing. We know what that is. The story now focuses upon the Lord. He now sends David's passive. The Lord is active. David has sinned. The Lord now is going to come and to correct, to lead him to restoration. And Nathan tells a parable. This prophet comes, he's sent by God himself. He tells a parable about David and about Uriah. There's rich man is a poor man. This is David and Uriah. And the rich man has much. The poor man has only little. He has one little lamb. And in fact, notice how Nathan described the poor man who has just one lamb and the tenderness and the care, the devotion he has towards it. The parallel, of course, is his own wife. He has this little lamb, he he raises it up, he grows it up, he feeds it, he gives it drink, he holds it close to himself. He cared for his wife, he loved her. David had merely lust for this wife of Uriah. Nathan says, by the way, there came a time when there was a traveler who passed through the land of this rich man, and as custom went, the rich man was to feed the traveler. Well, he didn't want to take of his own land. This rich man took notice that verse four, we remember from chapter eleven, David took Just like Adam and Eve took of the tree, Adam took from his wife, his wife took at the behest of the devil. David takes, he took the wife of Uriah. We're told that the rich man took not of his own flock, but of the one land that the poor man had. He took And because of that, then notice as Nathan is leading David, he wants David to have a reaction. He's leading David down the road and David's anger is greatly kindled against the man because of what he did. He had no mercy. He had no pity towards the poor man who had just one little lamb and he held it close in his arms. He had no pity. In fact, notice. Notice that David, although he is deep, deep, deep into sin. Notice how legalistic he is. He's just committed great sin, but I want you to see there where he tells Nathan that as the Lord lives, he not only deserves to die, we are told, or David says, but David says he shall restore the lamb fourfold. To us, no big deal over a small vehicle that we overlooked fourfold. You must restore this land. In fact, David here is quoting from Exodus 22, verse one, where when you took something that belonged to someone else, we had to restore it four times. David has just sinned by lying, by murdering, by committing adultery, but Missing the big sins. He knows the minuscule details of the law, not for himself, but for others. Children, it's like when you point your finger at. He made me do it. She told me to do it. You're pointing the finger at them, but as the old saying goes, three fingers are pointing back at yourself. He's pointing out this minuscule sin, this minuscule law that must be applied in this situation. He's just committed three gigantic sins. Sin can change our minds and our hearts and make us go down a path that turns us into legalists for others. Forgiving our own sinfulness. So far, it's just a parable, just a story. the hypothetical. Then comes the punchline. Thou art the man. You are the man. And in fact, David are in the in the parable. Nathan is used the word man four times. David has used it twice in his response, the seventh time the word man appears in the text. The crucial time is when Nathan says you are the man. There was this generic man and David says to that generic man, this must happen. Nathan says, you in particular are that man. You're the rich man who has stolen. You're the one who deserves to die. You're the one who must restore fourfold. And so he holds nothing back then does Nathan the prophet. He speaks the truth, the power as prophets were to do. He speaks not in general terms, but in particular terms to David. He brings the judgment of God himself. We all need this. David needed it. Sinners like you and me need this. We need a personal. Particular correction. Of our sin. When we sin, even as Paul says, as Jesus says, we must be confronted by someone in particular to tell us the sin to point it out. That's what Nathan does here. Paul tells those who are spiritual brothers, those who are spiritual must restore those who have fallen. It takes a personal person to correct us in our particular sin. He's doing on a grand scale with the king, but this is true for us all in our simple is in our fall. We need a personal correction, a personal pronouncement from someone else, a personal correction in love, of course, to point out our sins. We all do this. And the Lord drives home notice. It's not just that he says you're the man you've done. Notice that Nathan, the Lord through Nathan, drives home his correction by contrasting David's taking of Uriah's wife with the Lord's giving. Notice those verbs there. It's David who took He took to himself one single chapter, the warning of Israel to Israel for having a king. Your king will come. He will take, he will take, he will take. He'll take your flocks, he'll take your fields, he will take your sons, he'll take your daughters, he'll only take. David's done that. And the Lord drives home to David his judgment upon his sin to correct him by contrasting David only took to the Lord who gave. I anointed you. I delivered you. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives. And again, I gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. It's not just pointing out our sins and showing us the law that points to us that we need correction and to lead us to repentance. God, even at times to show us our need of repentance, to humble us, even lays out before us all the good that he's done for us. He humbles David not only by the particular pointing out, but as well by showing the lavish banquet upon the table that he's already set for David. I gave you all this. I anointed you, I gave you, I delivered you from Saul, I gave you a kingdom, I gave you all of Judah, all of Israel in fact. Here it all is and yet you sin. Because of David's sin that's recounted for us in verse number nine. The Lord's correction would come in two forms. First, David's house would be a house of war. Up to this point, David has been fighting wars outside. He's been fighting against the house of Saul and that's ended. And now he's been fighting outside the boundaries of the promised land against all these other enemies. He's been fighting out there. But now the Lord says, because you are a man of blood, you are a man of war, you're a man who holds a sword. War and fighting will come to your house. And it won't only end in David's day. In fact, as we go through and we see the end of 2 Samuel, if you read into the book of Kings, you see with Solomon, of course, the kingdom is still united. Israel and Judah, the northern, the southern. But after Solomon's death, Rehoboam and Jeroboam, the sons of Solomon, divide the kingdom. And from that point on, it's nothing but warfare, even fighting civil wars between fellow brothers in the Lord, the Israelites versus the Judahites and vice versa. Your house will be a house of war. You want to be a man of blood? You want to take when you are not to take? You want to covet and take what does not belong to you? You want to use your power to put others to death and that's what you're going to have. Your house is a house of war. Secondly, this correction comes in the form of this child by Bathsheba dying. You see that in verses 14 to 23. Time doesn't permit, but just to encourage you from a few weeks ago, I believe it was on the 30th of March, I preached in the evening on children who die in infancy. And what does that mean? Covenant children who die, do we believe they are in heaven with Jesus Christ? And we look at that passage, verses 14 to 23 in particular, to see that this is one of those examples of scripture that show the confidence that we have, the trust that we have in the Lord for his promises to save our little ones who die in infancy. I would encourage you to listen to that, but for the moment, just to notice here that this is the judgment. In fact, the child takes the place of David, doesn't he? There is something of a typological picture here to us of Jesus Christ, where David, the sinner, deserves to die, but yet he's spared and someone else, another son, takes his place. Not reading the entire Old New Testament back to the Old, but we see something of a pattern here. And we see David's hope notice for the resurrection that he that this child would not be raised up and come to him, but that he would go to him. He has a hope of seeing him again. The Lord's correction then comes to David in harsh ways. He's still a child of God is still the Lord's son, he's still the father to the son, but yet he disciplines those whom he loves and he does so even harshly at times to prove the point to impress upon him. The necessity of understanding our sin nature. The correction that leads to confession, notice verse 13, where David simply cries out in Hebrew, it's only two words, but it says here, I have sinned against the Lord. I've sinned against the Lord. Let me just read to you again what I mentioned at the very beginning this morning. How our forefathers understood sin's relationship to the child of God. We can greatly offend God. But how do I go from offending God to pleasing God? We can grieve the Holy Spirit, but how do I go from grieving the Holy Spirit? To be led by the Spirit. We can suspend the exercise of faith for a time even. How do I go from suspending my faith to exercising it? How do I move from severely wounding my conscience to my conscience being healed? I can lose the awareness of God's grace for a time. How do I go from losing that awareness to experiencing it anew? What's the key? What's the key from going from a state of sin to a state of grace? What's the key from going from a state of fallenness to a state of renewal? What's the key, brothers and sisters, what's the key in our passage? What's the key in the word of God? From moving from a state in which we are practically speaking, totally fallen in the depths of sin. To being raised up and lifted out of pits upon dry ground, upon a rock. What's the key? What's the remedy? The answer might surprise you. The key that unlocks that treasure. The remedy that brings that healing to our souls that we so desperately need is genuine repentance. The key to David's restoration was genuine repentance. We speak so often and we do so rightly, we speak so often of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, by grace alone. The heart of the gospel, without which there is no church, there is no gospel, there is no salvation for you and me. But we forget at times as well that as believers, how important repentance is. We think of justification rightly as a once for all declaration and action of God himself, which cannot be altered. And rightly so, but yet the ongoing struggle of the Christian life, we have to think more about repentance and genuine repentance. Well, what is repentance? For us as believers in Christ, we have the New Testament, there are two different verbs that are used for repentance, there's one that speaks of a change of mind and there's one that speaks of an entire change of direction of life, two different verbs, change of mind and a change of direction. Well, what makes that change of mind or that change of lifestyle, that change of direction genuine? What makes it real? What makes it stick, as it were? Notice what David says. First of all, there's a personal responsibility. Genuine repentance has personal responsibility. I have sinned. His repentance, notice, does not Bathsheba was on the roof. She had no clothes on. The clear of day. Maybe she had a false motive. His repentance is not the devil made me do it. Children, we do this all the time, don't we? He told me to do it. He told me to go there. He told me to say that. She told me to do this. She told me to take that. We have to take personal Responsibility. I. Have seen. We see we see on Good Friday in this church, we're seeing that great hymn that has this line, who was the guilty, who brought this upon the speaking of Jesus Christ, the cross. Alas, my treason, Jesus, have undone the. Twas I, Lord Jesus, I, it was denied the I crucify the that's personal responsibility. What makes repentance genuine? Personal responsibility. Secondly, acknowledgment of the true offended party. I have sinned against the Lord. It's not I'm sorry that you're sorry. It's not. The big. If I've offended you, I apologize. We hear that all the time, don't we? We see it in politicians, we see it in sports figures, we see it all across the world. People saying, if I've offended you, if I've done something wrong against you, if you felt bad because of me, then I'm sorry. There's only if then. There's only I have sinned against the Lord, against you, the person. And so David says, I've sinned against the Lord. I have violated your commandments, Lord, the Lord God of the universe. I've sinned against you. That's why in Psalm 51, which is the psalm that comes out of the story, David says against thee, the only half I sin and done this evil in thy sight. Not that he sinned. He did sin against Uriah, yes. Not that he sinned against Bathsheba, yes. Not that he shouldn't sin against Joab, making him lie and tithe and cheat, yes. I have sinned against you and you only, Lord. Must we confess our sins to each other? Must we say that we're sorry to each other for our sins and offenses? Absolutely. But ultimately, the real offending party is God. We wanted to be, oh, I'm sorry for how you feel and how I made you go or this and that. That doesn't work. That's not the point. One of our hymns says it like this, could my zeal no longer know, could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. We can cry a river. You could be so zealous. to make restoration and to make someone feel better or make you feel better about yourself. These could not for sin atone in an instance. Only God is the one that we've sinned against, and he alone is the one that can save us. It's not about feeling sorry. That's not what repentance is, not feeling sorry. It's not about being emotional. It can be those things. It's about genuinely personally acknowledging offending God. And that he alone can remedy the situation, how we need this genuine grief, loved ones. We need this genuine repentance. With each other, but before the face of Almighty God, we need this. We confess our sins this morning. We confess every Lord's Day corporately. We hear the law. We confess our sins. And yes, we can do so out of ritual and custom and rogueness. We can do that. But we must again and again and again, whether it's on the Lord's Day or personally, we must a new and a fresh be struck with our sins. We must be struck again and again and how holy God is. how vile we are. We need the Lord to, from time to time, show us our sins, to rip off the scales from our eyes, to show us at times what it is to be outside of Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be a sinner? It means to be outside of Christ, utter peril, no hope without God in the world. We need to know That apart from Christ, we stand before a consuming fire who will singe us to dust. We need to know that we stand before a holy God. The prophet Isaiah says the nations, all the nations are like a drop in a bucket. If all the nations are like one drop, what are you? They're a drop. You're a molecule. Who am I that I could stand before God? Who am I that I think that I can hide my sins? Who am I that I think somehow that I don't need to take personal responsibility? I have sinned and that I think that I can somehow slough it over or somehow hide it against the Lord. But there's good news to us. and for us. Again, David, the child of God, and he hears his sins straight in his face, sees them pointed out, I have sinned against the Lord and we need to hear this. We need to know this. We need to ourselves under this from time to time and see our sins and we must repent of them personally. We must repent of them before the Lord himself and confess to him and him alone. But there is good news. The story doesn't end on this note of death. Devastation. Doesn't end here with threats and judgment. Notice that as David confesses right then and there, Nathan absolves him, he assures him, he declares him forgiven. The Lord has put away your sins. You shall not die. The son dies in his place. Another dies for him in his place, taking David's place. The wages of sin is death. David deserves death. He deserves that sentence that he himself pronounced. The Lord's put away your sin. You shall not die. Your son shall die. And we see David's grief. We see his anguish. We see his travail. He's there for seven days pleading with God. Save this child's life. It doesn't happen. David is spared. Why is David spared? This is the good news, loved ones. David is spared because God has already made a covenant. David is spared because God can't change. David is spared because God doesn't lie. David is spared because God is faithful to what he's already promised. And he does not relent. He does not go back. He does not change his mind, his heart. His covenant, his counsel stands forever, the Psalms say. The Lord has made a covenant with him. Read Psalm 89 this afternoon. You'll see what that looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like to David. The Lord has made a covenant, his sure mercy that endure forever. Why is David spared? Why does the son die? Why David? He's just done all the pain, the sin. Why is he spared? Because God has made a promise. And it's not just to David and for David's sake that God has made a promise. But in fact, we saw several chapters ago that the covenant with David was As the story described, it was instruction for mankind. It was Torah for the world. The covenant with David to have a have a child of a king upon his throne, chapter seven said, was instruction for all mankind. Why is David spared? To save you. Why is David spared to bring us Christ? Why is David spared to bring salvation to the end of the earth? So when we turn to this end, which seems to us an anticlimactic ending of the story. David gets up, he confesses his trust that he'll see his son again. And then we read that he comforts his wife. We have another child, Solomon, which his name is changed to Jedidiah, the love of the Lord himself. And it ends with this fight. This battle where David is hailed as king and he gives peace to his people over the Ammonites, his rest in the promised land. It's not anticlimactic. It's not an appendage that was just added on later on, or it's not a part of the story that was spliced together by different editors of some critical scholars say, no, this is good news. The Lord continues through sinner David to be faithful. He continues his project, his promise to bring salvation to the ends of the world. The Ammonites are defeated, there's peace, there's space now for David to rule, to have sons, to bring about Solomon, to bring us the line of Jesus Christ. The Lord's covenant keeping them. Yes, the Lord brings correction. Yes, the Lord brings rebuke. Yes, the Lord brings the law. Yes, the Lord brings justice here. But the Lord is a covenant keeping God. His nature is always to have mercy, we pray one of our prayers. And even for us, after he sends the savior, the one that the Lord kept his promise with par excellence. For us, even after the Savior has come and the covenant has been kept, even for us, whose sinful nature so powerful and so pervasive, and even to us who are still capable of greatly offending God, breathing the Spirit of God, losing the awareness of God's grace, severely wounded the conscience and so forth. Even for us, there's good news. The story does warn us, it puts us on notice to be self-aware and to be self-examining. The story does put some fear into us of our sins. And it does say to us, yes, should we fall into some great outward sin? Yes, should we sin against the Lord in some way? Yes, he will discipline us because he loves us. But it says to us that when we do the remedies repentance, personal repentance, genuine confession to the Lord. And it promises us. That when you and I repent of those sins. We will experience a new and a fresh. No more powerful way, we will know a sense in a greater sense, the power and the grace, the promises of God to renew us unto repentance. It's an evangelical grace, in fact, the gospel great. that he grants repentance to us. And he does so because he's faithful. He's promised us everlasting life. He won't change his mind towards us. Even if we fall like David or like Peter or like any of the other saints who fell, the Lord promises us if we deny him, he cannot deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. That's the promise to us this morning. Hallelujah. What a Savior. Let's pray.