Well friends, please open the Bible to 2 Samuel 12 and verses 13 to 23 we're going to be looking at this evening. Now we saw something this morning of the anger of grace. God is angry with David's sin. And Nathan comes with a sob in his voice as he reveals the awful terror of God's judgment on wickedness. David acknowledges and accepts that he is at fault, that he deserves to die. But he casts himself upon the God of all grace and learns that although God in his grace is angry, he has not rejected his sinful servant, and that gives him hope. My friends, there's always hope for the penitent. And however long we have trusted the Lord and however much we are believers, we still come as believers and penitents. And I can't make that more clear. I need to say that over and over again, because I'm sure as I've said to you, sometimes there are those people who don't, who think that once you are a believer, once you've said sorry for your sin, that's it. And everything is sweet and light beyond that day. Well, no, I'm afraid it is not. We still come as believers and penitents. And it saddens me sometimes when I go to churches and I sit in the church and I listen and there is no prayer for forgiveness in the pastoral prayer. My friends, that is a shame. We need to come, we need to come every time to say, Lord, please cleanse us from our sin. Receive us in the name of the Lord Jesus and do us good. That's what gives us hope. It's not an excuse for the rebellious. but it is hope for the truly penitent. Now God will discipline his children. Forgiveness is free, but it is not cheap. The consequences of sin must be faced. And so we're going to look this evening particularly at God's grace and how God's grace is shown to David here and how we should understand something of God's grace. And the first thing I want to say is this, grace is not soft on sin, grace is not soft on sin. Now we hinted at this this morning, but I want to take it up a little bit more this evening. Verse 13, David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And as I said this morning, there are those who think that David's words are too easy, that this repentance is too easy, and there are people who've argued like that. And some use this as an excuse, I say, for continuing in their sin, or for sinning in the same way that David did. But David's words are right. I have sinned against the Lord. Now, of course, he'd sinned against others. but he is recognizing that supremely his sin is against the Lord. In Psalm 51, as I read this this morning, in the sermon, he says, against thee, thee only have I sinned. Now that is not because he is saying he's not sinned against Bathsheba, or he sinned against Uriah, or he sinned against the Israelites, which he has done, or he sinned against his household, or he's even sinned against himself, Of course all of those things are true, but supremely and ultimately, all sin is against God, my friends. And he recognizes that. And God has told David through Nathan in verse 9, that he has despised the commandment of the Lord. Why? Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? That is, in a sense, as Nathan mentions it, and as we said briefly this morning, there is almost a note of astonishment in Nathan's voice, or in God's word to David through Nathan. And he has in this despised the word of the Lord himself, the Lord himself, because in verse, not in verse 10, somewhere, I can't remember, we'll come to it in a minute, he talks about the fact that you have blasphemed against the Lord himself. I thought it was verse 10, Anyway, it's there in the passage. We read it this morning, didn't we? And we shall come to it in more detail in a moment. What has he done? Well, here are one, two, three, four, five, six. Six things, six aspects to what he has done. Firstly, he has shown contempt for God's law. by taking Uriah's wife. He should not have done that. He's shown contempt for God's law. God's law was very clear on this. And back in the Old Testament, Moses had laid this down in the, well, our Lord has laid it down, of course, in the Ten Commandments. Without a question, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. But of course, the details of the law are given in greater detail in Deuteronomy and in other places in the Old Testament and the consequences of this. But David had shown total contempt for God's law. Secondly, he had shown contempt for God's authority. His actions had been utterly selfish. He did simply what he felt he wanted to do and what he, It was completely selfish. He'd shown contempt, thirdly, for God, the judge, in living for nearly a year under the understanding assumption that he got away with it. He concealed his sin. Job knew about it, obviously. Bathsheba knew about it. But it seems that perhaps many of the rest of the people of Israel had no idea that David had done this. All they had seen was the fact that David, Uriah, had died and David had taken Bathsheba as his wife. But then there's not only contempt for God, there is contempt for God as provider. Verse 8, I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been little, I would have given thee much more and such things. God had provided for him and kept him and provided for him in a way that he could never have imagined. He was the youngest of his family, he was in charge of the sheep, he was doing the meanest of tasks. and he is raised as it were from this position and he is brought not only into the house, into the palace as he serves Saul and then in the battles and so on and then the Lord himself raises him to be king over the nation and he is described as the man after God's own heart and here he is treating God's dealings with him with contempt. And then he's treating God, he is treating with contempt the fact that God is the giver of life in murdering Uriah. That's another of the commands, the Ten Commandments that he broke, you shall not kill. And he had deliberately plotted for Uriah to kill, to be killed. And then he shows contempt for God as the gracious covenant-keeping God. It's only a few chapters earlier, in chapter 7, that God had re-established the covenant and developed it and given him additional promises in the terms of the covenant, the ongoing covenant of God throughout the Scriptures. God had chosen him as king and anointed him as king over Israel and given him this great responsibility, and David treats it with contempt. But when his repentance comes, it is repentance toward God. And that's why this is so significant. Psalm 51 demonstrates that. Psalm 32 demonstrates that. And there are other psalms which speak of that in this way. Psalm 51, as I said this morning, is the fullest statement of his repentance. And Psalm 32 also, similarly. It is no half-hearted nor simply verbal statement. It is the expression of his heart. I read some of the words this morning, and I'm sure we began the service this evening by reading some of those words again to help us to see something of the heart relationship we've got with David over this. Now, my friends, this is so important, isn't it? Because so often people are casual about their sin. And if we are honest with ourselves, I'm sure there have been times when we have been like that. I'm certain that that is true sometimes in my own life when I have sinned against the Lord and I have treated it perhaps with the contempt which I should not have done. And many assume that their sin is just a small sin, that they're just incidental, that they're mere peccadilloes and that's all they are. They're nothing of any consequence. And surely God would be tolerant of them because there are much greater sinners than us. My friends, how can we compare our sins in the sight of Almighty God? No one surely will condemn me for such a small matter. I've heard people say that to me sometimes. Surely I can't be expected to suffer because I cheated on my wife or my husband. God will understand. I mean, the relationship had broken down anyway, but why has the relationship broken down? And do you expect God to turn a blind eye to your sin? The world may live like that, but you're not in the world. You're a member of the people of God. Sin is against God anyway. It is not simply against your wife, or your husband, or your children, or your boss, or against society. Sin is rebellion against God. And sin, however small and insignificant it may seem to you, is offensive to God, first of all. Now, we dealt with that this morning. David is now supremely conscious, supremely conscious of the holiness and the majesty of God. And his confession is not to Nathan, nor even to Bathsheba at first, but to God. To God. And he accepts the sentence and the judgment of God. He deserves to die. And he knows that. He expresses that in Psalm 51. He expresses that in Psalm 32. He makes no excuses. He doesn't try to shift the blame. He doesn't try to shift the blame to Uriah's wife. He doesn't attempt to plead extenuating circumstances. He acknowledges that he deserves to perish to die. As one has written, it was as though David said this, I deserve to perish to die. The punishment is right and proper. I recognize that I am hanging over hell and I deserve to drop into it. You see, my friends, there's no pretense. There's no sham in David's words. The words here in 2 Samuel 12 seem to be, as it were, short-circuited, but they are not. They are the expression of his heart, and God knows his heart, and he reveals his heart to us in the Psalms, and in other places as well, actually, but we haven't time to go into all of those this evening, but certainly in Psalm 51 and 32 and in other ways. These are not crocodile tears of repentance. They are the genuine tears of repentance. Grace is not soft on sin. And now He has confessed His sin. And now He has acknowledged His guilt before God. Does He receive forgiveness? God looks for a broken heart before He speaks. And He never despises a broken heart. And what does David say? Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. That wasn't, of course, his first prayer in Psalm 51. What does he say? He says earlier on, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. He said, Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop. and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Those are incredible words. And if I was expounding Psalm 51 to you, I would explain to you the meaning of these words, the significance of them. The whole concept he has of cleansing is utterly complete. Verse 2, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Cleanse me through and through. Purge me with hyssop. Wash me. Wash me. Cleanse me. Cast not your crack away from my presence. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. William Cooper had that wonderful hymn where he said, oh dear, gone from me. Dear, I suffer from this from time to time. Now I'm getting old about our sins. And I hate the sins that made thee mourn and drove thee from my breast. Those are the words. I hate the sins that made thee mourn and drove thee from my breast. What an amazing sense that William Cooper had, and David has that as he speaks these words. And God looks for a broken heart. He never despises the broken heart. But before he speaks words of grace to you, my friend, he'll break your heart. Because you need to come to him with a broken heart. And when true repentance is evident, then God's grace floods in at once. Grace is not soft on sin. Secondly, grace is not soft on punishment. Verses 14 and 15. Now when we read the Scriptures, of course they are filled with wonderful illustrations and lessons for us. And I think it is incredible as we read the Old Testament account of Saul and of David, and look at the sins of Saul and look at the sins of David, it would be by many of our understanding, I would think, we would recognize and we would say that actually David's sins were greater and worse than some of the sins of Saul. Why is David forgiven and Saul not? The difference between Saul and David supremely was not their sin, but their reaction to their sin. And Saul refused to repent. David is filled with repentance. Saul shows remorse, but he never shows true repentance. And Saul is a solemn warning to us, because he is often filled with remorse, especially when he was found out. But true repentance is rare and difficult, and men do not like to admit to being in the wrong, but God knows our hearts. The consequences of sin are far wider than we can imagine. And the result of David's sin, verse 15, was that the enemies, verse 14, is that the enemies of the Lord blaspheme. What a terrible consequence. Remember how David had reacted when Goliath blasphemed the name of God. The holy, righteous, righteous anger that arose in David's heart as he spoke to Goliath, if you remember the account and how he speaks of the fact that Goliath has blasphemed the house of Israel. and the attempt of this, when he says, You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield, but I come to you in the name of the Lord God of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. You have blasphemed against God. This day will the Lord deliver you into My hand, and I will smite you and take your head from you, and I will give the carcasses to the hosts of the Philistines this day. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with the sword and the spear, for the battle is the Lord's." And so on. My friends, now David is causing the ungodly to blaspheme. And this is one of the dreadful effects of sin amongst the people of God. And the world looks at us, perhaps, well, maybe not us, but sometimes, and they see Christians in their bad witness and they say, if God cannot keep his own people from sin, then why should I bother with what he says? What point is there in following a God like that? My friends, let's never bring dishonor upon God's name by our sin. Our first concern must be that God be honored and his kingdom established in the hearts of men. David's sin had terrible effects upon his own family as well as among the ungodly. And I think this is so relevant to today, for today the danger of young people, the lusts of the flesh are especially strong and temptation surrounds us. And the world's standards pervade and influence and affect everything. And I don't know about you, but I tremble for my grandchildren growing up in the current climate. But I think actually, if we go back a generation, I think my parents and my grandparents tremble for the generation we grew up in. And the danger is also for older folk like myself. If you've been a professing Christian for many years, then if you fall, you bring much greater scorn on the gospel. And it saddens me when I see men who've been in the ministry sometimes for years and they fall into grievous sin and bring dishonor upon the name of God. Pray for us, my friends. Pray that we may be kept by the power of God. For years a witness can be destroyed at a stroke, and the fall of men of God and women of God can cause the opportunity for the enemies of God to blaspheme and despise the gospel. How we need to pray that we shall be kept from temptation. The Lord's Prayer, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We need to pray that prayer. Don't simply repeat the words by rote. to make sure they're the prayer of your heart. That's why simply to say, I'm sorry, is sometimes not enough. Otherwise, the world says if God forgave him, why can he not forgive me and let me carry on as though nothing has happened? Matthew Henry says, these are your professors. This is he that prays and sings psalms and is so very devout. What good can there be in such exercises if they will not restrain men from adultery and murder? But of course, there's more at stake here. The honor of God. And God brings justicement on David. The child must die. And Nathan departs, verse 15, to his house. He has brought the word of the Lord to David. Grace is not soft on sin. Grace is not soft on punishment. Thirdly, get a grip on grace. Get a grip on grace. Verses 16-19. Now to us it seems perhaps unfair that the child should die and not David, but God knows what he is doing, and God never makes a mistake. God has said that he will visit the sins of the father sometimes on the children, and sometimes that happens. If a father is a bad father, then often he reaps the consequences in his children. If a mother abuses her body with drugs while she's carrying her baby, the child may well be damaged and harmed. Is God to suspend the laws of his world because of man's folly? Have we not got to learn the actions and the consequences of our actions? Here is a token of God's displeasure. God knows what the child was spared by taking him early. We have that, don't we, later, of course, in the Scriptures, when we read of that child that was taken, and they said, why was he taken? And God said, because there was some good thing in him, and I would take him. God took the child young. And when you consider the terrible state that prevailed in David's family, beginning in chapter 13, with incest, and rape, and murder, and wickedness. And God spares this child from all of this. Now remember that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and apart from the grace of God, all will perish. But remember three things, my friends. Children are not innocent in that sense. That's the first thing to say. The Bible makes that abundantly clear. David makes that clear. We're born in sin. We're born with a sinful nature. Secondly, though, it is better to go to God before the corruption of the world can pollute us. And thirdly, remember, God never does anything that is evil. All that he does is perfect, even when we cannot understand. But see how David has a grip on grace. What does he do? He prays. He knows God. He may have sinned, but he knows what God is like, so he pleads with God in prayer. How does he pray? Well, I don't know, the Bible doesn't tell us. But I suspect, and I don't think this is hypothetical, maybe he prays, God may yet hear my prayer. I do not deserve an answer, but I know enough about God that he hears the cry of his own. And I know that whatever God does is right, so it is better to cast myself upon his mercy and grace. Calvin, as he expounds this, talks of a man who falls over in the mud, and he says you don't expect him to remain there, but to get up. So when God convicts us of falling, don't remain there, but get up, do something about it. Well, David does something about it, he prays. Because he's got a grip on grace. And he knows the God of all grace. And he casts himself upon the mercy of God. And I believe this in itself is part of the evidence of his true repentance. His genuine repentance. No man who is only speaking words will act like this. And here is a man who is wrestling with God in prayer. He's on his face before God for seven days. Matthew Henry suggests, and I agree with him, that part of his prayer would be that if the child was to die, God would show mercy and grace to the child and save him. And I don't think Matthew Henry is reading anything into the passage when he says that, as I will explain in a moment or two. And the child dies on the seventh day. He hasn't even received the sign of the covenant in circumcision. But David can trust God in that all is well. And that's another sign of David's grip on grace. He knows that God delights in grace. Do you believe that God can answer prayer? Do you believe that God can save children? Do you believe that God can work? You know, I've met, sadly, I've met people, even in Christian churches, who don't think that children could be saved. They think they've gotta wait till 12, or till teenage, or something like that. Well, no, no, they can't be saved. My friends, nonsense. I believe God saved me when I was seven. And I know there are people here who know that God saved them when they were younger than that. Wonderful. Of course God can save children. And God can save children when? Well we know that Jeremiah was regenerate in the womb. The Bible tells us that. So God can save people. And David knows that. And David is confident in God. And David can trust God. And he knows that God delights in grace and so get a grip on grace. But fourthly and lastly, let grace get a grip on you. Not only get a grip on grace, my friend, but let grace get a grip on you. Verses 20 to 23, look at David's reaction. They surprised his servants. They are taken aback that once the child has died, David gets up and he gets washed and changed and he goes to the tabernacle to worship. and he returns and eats a meal. My friends, that's the reaction of a man who knows God. That's the reaction of a man who has genuinely repented of his sin. He returns. Here is a man who has not only got a grip on grace, but grace has got a grip on him. Wonderful. When Job heard of the death of his children, he worshipped and prayed to God. He humbled himself under the mighty hand of God. Matthew Henry says this, weeping must never hinder worshipping. Of course we weep when loved ones die. Of course we weep when people We went to a funeral some years ago of a very dear couple of ours whose first baby was stillborn, and we went to the funeral, and I wept. Now, I'm an emotional man, as you know, but I wept. I wept for the family, and the providence of God, the Lord blessed them with two more children. This was many years ago, and their children are now grown up, well, they're in their early teens. But you weep for people. Of course you weep. And I know people who've lost children, babies, young ones, and of course we weep with them. But Matthew Henry's point is this, weeping never hinders worshipping. And that's the wonder of the gospel, my friends. Of course we sorrow, we do sorrow. And if anybody comes along and says that Christians shouldn't sorrow, don't you listen to them, because that's not what the Bible says. There are times when we sorrow, when we grieve, and of course we grieve, but we don't grieve as those who have no hope. That's the wonder of it. We have a hope, a sure and certain hope. And here is the answer of a man who is gripped by grace. What does he say? I cannot bring him back again, but I shall go to him. I shall go to him. And I think David gives us an incredible insight into eternity. I'm not saying that every child who dies in childbirth or in a young age goes to heaven. I'm not saying that and the Bible doesn't say that. But David has an assurance that the God of all grace has heard his prayer. in those seven days on his face before God. And even though God has not spared the child's life, David is assured that he will meet the child again in eternity. That's the sense of those words. I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. Not that we are thereby warranted to say that all who die in infancy will go to heaven. But I believe there is strong hope there for Christian parents who lose babies in infancy. As with the dying thief, only one was saved that none may despair, but only one that no one may presume. And David knows that God delights, delights to show grace. That is what God is like. Dale Ralph Davis in his wonderful commentary on 2 Samuel says this, for David, grace is not a doctrinal concept, but the peculiar bent of God's nature, the very nature of God to show grace. My friend, do you know this God of grace? This God of grace? Has God's grace gripped you? This grace that is not soft on sin. You are a sinner and you need salvation. Your sin must be punished. And if God the Son does not take it because you come to God in Christ, then you will have to bear it. Your sin must be punished. Grace is not soft on sin, and He's not soft on punishment. But if your punishment is not taken by Christ, then you have to bear it yourself. So get a grip on grace, and let grace grip you, and save you, and confess your sin, and turn to Christ in repentance, as David did, and find that God's grace is sufficient. even for you. Well, let us come and sing our closing hymn. 378. Another great hymn that reminds us of these things. I heard a lecture on this man, Cornelius Elvin, many years ago. I know very little about him, but this is the only hymn in most hymn books written by him, but it's a wonderful hymn reminding us of the glory of the fact that when we come with broken hearts and contrite sighs as trembling sinners to the Lord, God is merciful to us. 378.