2 Samuel 12:13
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Good evening, church. It's good to be with you tonight. Our passage tonight is found in 2 Samuel 12, verse 13. You can look at the front of your bulletin or turn there in your Bibles. Our passage is, 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. So this passage takes place right after the prophet Nathan or in the midst of Nathan confronting David over his sinful action in having an affair with Bathsheba and then having her husband Uriah killed and then taking Bathsheba as his wife.
Nathan had laid out the punishment that God would bring upon David. Violence would come to his home. And David's own family would end up rising against him. And his wives would be taken by other men in the sight of the people. And in the middle of the listing out of these consequences, David acknowledges his sin against the Lord. That's the verse we're in tonight. And Nathan shows God's grace by stating that David would not die for his sin.
And then he proceeds after this verse to then list a final consequence. The child born to David in Bathsheba in this adulterous act would die. So my Devo tonight has three parts. Number one, David's confession. Two, the Lord's forgiveness. And three, sin's temporal consequences. So point number one, David's confession. There are two features of David's confession that I want to draw our attention to tonight.
First, notice that David's confession is that he sinned against the Lord. In Psalm chapter 51, written in light of this very sin that is being addressed, David prays against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Now, when David says you only, he doesn't mean exclusively. He clearly sinned against Uriah in taking his wife and in killing him. And he sinned against Bathsheba and against his household and against his nation.
What he means is ultimately and preeminently he sinned against the Lord. Beneath every horizontal sin lies a much deeper vertical sin against the holy God whose law has been broken, whose commandments have been disobeyed, and whose image bearers have been wronged. We must own the sin we commit horizontally against one another. But we must also recognize that sin is first and foremost a rebellion against our holy God.
So David's confession gives us the right interpretation of sin. A man's wife was stolen. The man was murdered. But David understands that as bad as that sin is horizontally, his sin was ultimately against his holy God. Second thing I want you to notice about his confession is that he doesn't blame shift. Now juxtapose David's confession with Adam's response to God in the garden when he's caught in his sin. When God asked Adam, have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
Adam's response was, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Now notice the relative clause, whom you gave to be with me. Adam isn't only blaming his wife, he is implicating God in the giving of his wife. Some of the blame he is suggesting is on the giver. Now, David does not give the excuse that Bathsheba was bathing in a place that would have surely been visible from the king's rooftop. He doesn't throw shade at Uriah. He names the sin and he lays it down.
It's tempting for us to excuse away our sin in different ways. Sometimes we shift blame outwards, the way Adam did to the Lord. Onto a spouse, onto a circumstance, even onto God's providence. Other times we minimize inward, telling ourselves that a sin was small because no one got hurt. Or because it only happened in our hearts or minds, or because it only happened on a screen. David could have blame shifted.
He could have excused his sin. or tried to at least, he did neither. Do you blame others for your sin? Do you sin in ways that don't involve other human beings and then try to convince yourself that those sins are somehow better because they're victimless? Beware of that temptation. Point number two, the Lord's forgiveness. I want you to notice three things about the forgiveness that God extends to David. First, it's immediate. Perhaps you can remember a time when someone asked you to forgive them, and then you said you'd think about it. Maybe you were sneakier, and you said that you would forgive them, but in your own mind you thought, you're going to have to earn my forgiveness back over time. That's not how God's forgiveness works. When he forgives, he forgives immediately. Second, it's complete. There are no additional things that David has to accomplish in order for forgiveness to be offered. Nathan tells David that God will put away his sin.
What an exact statement. God will put away your sin. Contrast that complete forgiveness with what we know the false religions of the world command of their adherence. Islam has five pillars, daily prayer, Ramadan fasting, almsgiving, and the hajj. The function, they function as ongoing acts that wipe away sins, but there's no assured forgiveness in Islam. At the final judgment, deeds are weighed on scales, and Allah's mercy is not guaranteed. Hinduism has prescribed atonement rituals that vary by caste and gravity, and karma binds sin to consequences that must be further worked out, often across multiple lifetimes through reincarnation. Roman Catholicism teaches that even after a priest pronounces absolution, the believer must still make satisfaction through assigned penances, and that whatever temporal punishment remains at death must be worked off
and purgatory, a process that indulgences are said to shorten. Now contrast those with what Nathan says to David. The Lord has put away your sin. Full stop. No assigned penance, no purgatory, no scales, no further lifetimes. The sin is gone because the Lord has put it away. And third, God's forgiveness does not downplay the gravity of the sin. In fact, we know that David's sin was put away because it was put ultimately on the son of David.
Isaiah 53 writes that upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. The ultimate consequences of David's sin were felt by Jesus on the cross. Christian, this should drive our worship. Like David, our sin has been put away by God, not because God overlooked it, but because his own son bore it. Psalm 103 verse 12 tells us that those sins are put away as far as the east is from the west. That is an infinite amount of putting away. If you're here tonight and you're not a Christian, friend, I want to plead with you to confess your sin and to put your trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sin. Now you might not have stolen your neighbor's wife or killed him, but I want to remind you that every sin that you commit is an act against this holy God. Every bitter thought, every evil deed, sinful. And because he is holy and just,
he, that sin, that sin bears the consequence of death. But forgiveness is offered through the person of Jesus Christ through the work of Jesus Christ he lived a righteous life that we could not live he died the death that our sins deserved as a substitute for all who put their trust in him and on the third day he rose again giving the father's verdict that the sacrifice was accepted and the death itself had been defeated non-christian that forgiveness is offered to you if you would do what David does in this passage and confess your sin.
1 John 1.9 states, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Point three, sins, temporal consequences. The final thing I want to zero on tonight is what happens immediately before and after our text. Even as Nathan testifies that the Lord has forgiven David and his life is saved, there are other very real consequences. Violence did come to his family. Really, from this point onwards, David sees calamity after calamity falling upon him. The child that was born through this adulterous affair dies. One of David's sons rapes one of his daughters. His son Absalom is killed by David's military leaders. David faced real consequences.
Now, I want to be careful to state, friend, that not everything bad that happens to you is a consequence of your own actions. We live in a fallen world where horrible things happen to Christians by the very nature of the world that we live in. But sometimes the bad things that happen to us are the consequences of our sin. As Christians, we must recognize that being eternally forgiven from our sin and being saved from the penalty of eternal death does not mean that we escape the temporal consequences of our sin. Often the Lord allows us to experience the consequences of our sin in order to prune us and sanctify us. Hebrews 12 6 reminds us that the Lord disciplines those he loves. I want to speak directly for a moment to those of you who are sitting in this room right now going and dealing with the consequences of your sin. The marriage that has not yet been healed the relationship with a son or daughter that has not been restored the financial wreckage that hasn't been climbed out of the reputation that hasn't been rebuilt
or the trust that hasn't been restored the enemy whispers in those moments if God had really forgiven you this wouldn't still hurt do not believe that lie the point the pain in your life right now is not God's wrath against you. Christ has drunk that cup of wrath dry. The pain is the long, slow, sanctifying work of a father who loves you too much to leave you unchanged.
Don't buy the lie that you're not truly forgiven because you still face temporary circumstances. Receive the discipline as the kindness of a father and not the punishment of a judge. Brothers and sisters, the verse we've looked at tonight is one of the most hope-filled sentences in all of the Old Testament. A king has committed adultery and murder, and he confesses those things in five words. And in the next breath, the prophet announces that the Lord has put the sin away.
No penance, no purgatory, no scales, just pardon. Because the Lord, our perfect God of justice and mercy puts the sin of his children away. But we must never forget the cost. The reason that Nathan could say to David, you shall not die, is that one day a greater son of David would die. Jesus would bear in his own body the wrath that David's sin and yours and mine deserved.
When Jesus cried, it is finished from the cross, he was finishing what Nathan stated in this verse. So tonight, friends, confess like David. Don't blame shift, don't hide, name your sin. Name it as a sin against the Lord and receive the pardon that Christ has purchased fully, freely, and immediately. And when the consequences do come, and sometimes they do, let them drive you not to despair, but to deeper trust in the Father who disciplines the children he loves.
Let's pray. Lord, we acknowledge we are sinful human beings. We were born in iniquity. Our flesh is weak. We cannot help but sin, Lord, because of our flesh. It is a horrible battle. And yet you say to us, you have put away our sin. Thank you for the greater David, Lord. Thank you for the son of David, Jesus, who died to rescue us from our sin.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.