Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): In this age of tolerance, people are calling good evil and evil good. Pastor Bill Luebkemann reminds us that God gave us His Word so that we could follow it and be blessed.

Bill Luebkemann: God's laws are good. They're for our benefit. And when you don't follow them, you despise them. You didn't pay attention to it, you didn't think highly enough of it, you didn't care what it said, you weren't concerned about it, it didn't bother you that the Word of the Lord was something else. You thought you'll do your own thing anyway.

Maybe you thought God wouldn't notice, but God did notice. Maybe you thought God wouldn't mind, but God does mind. Maybe you thought, well, it doesn't really matter what I do, God doesn't really care what we do as long as we just have a good time and we're nice to other people, but God does care.

Guest (Male): Romans 3 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It's necessary then to know what to do when we do sin. Today on Hope From the Word, Pastor Bill Luebkemann returns to 2nd Samuel.

If you've been a Christian for a while, you probably know the story of David's adultery and the murder that followed quite well. Nine months after the sin, David is confronted, and then he experiences what God's forgiveness is all about. It's a heartwarming story of love and grace. Join Pastor Bill Luebkemann now in 2nd Samuel 12 to reveal the solution to sin.

Bill Luebkemann: The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "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." David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die. Imagine that: he stole a lamb, he deserves to die for stealing a lamb. It's not a capital offense.

He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity." Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the Word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes?

You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own." The Lord continued to pursue David here. You have to know the Lord's been pursuing him all along. He got off track at least one other time when he was off living with the Philistines.

We saw that it was questionable whether he was really serving the Lord then; he was going around raiding towns and killing all the people and taking all the stuff and hanging out with the Philistines. It seems like he wasn't really where the Lord wanted him back then, and he seems to be in one of those trips now where he's off base a little bit. Genesis chapter 6, verse 3: "Then the Lord said, 'My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be 120 years.'"

At some point, there's going to be a time when God's Spirit is going to stop contending. Ignoring His Spirit and the conviction of His Spirit and doing your own thing—the Lord telling you that this is wrong, this is not where you need to be, you shouldn't be doing this—when you ignore that over and over again, sooner or later it's going to stop and then it's not going to be there to ignore anymore. Then you're really going to be in trouble.

I think David here is fortunate that that hasn't happened for him yet. The Spirit is still contending with him. Look, David knew already that this was not what God wanted. Just a few chapters before, there was the great glorious message from Nathan the prophet about what great things God is going to do through David's life and through his kingdom and through his son. David just praised the Lord and thanked Him back in chapter 7: "Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family that You have brought me this far?"

He's just beside himself in awe and wonder and praise. Now, just a short time later—I don't know, a couple of years or something maybe—but it wasn't that much later. It just goes to show you can be really doing well with the Lord for a while and then really be off base and maybe not even know that you got there. I think David knew this was wrong when this whole thing happened. When he inquired who the woman was and he found out, "That's your friend's wife and your other friend's daughter and your other friend's granddaughter," it was like you can hear the Spirit there also saying, "Warning! Ship going down! Iceberg ahead! Turn left, don't go there."

Now you see the Holy Spirit still contending with him. I guess He needed to turn up the volume some; he wasn't getting the message. All the other things happened and David's still not getting the message. He's going around acting like nothing happened, keeping it a secret, not going to tell anybody, living a big charade. The Lord has to call it out into the open here, and the way He does it is He sends this guy Nathan, who David is well acquainted with. Nathan was probably welcome in David's house.

He was glad to see him, and he came to him and started telling him this story. He doesn't say it's a parable. He doesn't say it's a made-up story. He doesn't ask David for a judicial decision. He didn't say, "I'm here representing two men for your verdict." He just tells this story, doesn't really say the whole purpose of it or not. But there's this rich guy and he's just got everything—sheep and cattle, herds—man, he's just loaded. He's got it all.

This poor guy, he's kind of like the guy in that Christmas story with Scrooge, *A Christmas Carol*. The guy that works for Scrooge that doesn't have much—Cratchit, that's it. He's kind of like your Bob Cratchit over here. Remember in one of the versions—it might be the cartoon version, they're all the same to me, I can't tell a difference between a cartoon and a live action—but in one of the versions they put out this little tiny parakeet or something.

This little tiny bird, like this big, and that's all they had to eat. That's how poor they were. You kind of get the idea that's what was going on here. You have this very poor guy. It's a contrast between someone who has everything and someone who has nothing. This guy has just one little ewe lamb. When the traveler comes to visit the rich man, he could easily go out in his field and kill one of his animals. He's got so many animals he doesn't even know how many he has; he lost track of them all.

He'd kill a few and he wouldn't even be missing it. It would be no skin off his teeth. But he goes and steals this pet, this little lamb that the kids in the other household look up to, that the kids play with, they pet the thing, it eats dinner with them. It's a pet, it's a family member. They enjoy the company of this animal; they don't have much. And he steals it. David just burns with anger. It says here in verse 5, man, he is really mad.

You have to really be convicted about your own sin before you can be forgiven. You have to know what you did was wrong. You have to be convicted of it. This is the way that God brought this conviction to David, kind of in this third-person story being told to get the point across that this is bad, this is not right. David burned with anger against the man. Well, he was really burning with anger against himself and he didn't know it yet. It helped him to see how wrong what he did was.

He said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives"—in other words, he emphasizes here, this is emphatic—"as surely as the man lives, the man who did this deserves to die." Stealing a sheep was not a capital crime; nobody ever died for that. Over in Exodus 22:1, "If a man steals a sheep or an ox and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four head for the sheep." So you steal a sheep, you pay back four sheep.

David wants him to do that also. He says, "The man who did this deserves to die; he must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity." So he's saying that guy deserves to die, and by the way, before you kill him, you better make sure he gives back four sheep to the people. He has no idea that he's talking about himself here at this point. If he had any clue it was himself, he would have had to have said something different.

But he's convicting himself here when he says this. He's just closed all the doors, locked himself in the room, painted himself into the corner. He is stuck now; he ain't going nowhere. Nathan's got him fair and square here. And then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!" Now this has to really shake the guy up. "What's he talking about? How did he find out what happened? How did he know? Who told him?" David here underestimated the fact that God knows all of our secret thoughts.

Anything done in secret will be seen in the light. David thought that if he didn't tell anybody, nobody would know, it would be our little secret. "I'm not proud of what I did. I'm unhappy about it. I'm really trying hard not to do it again. I'm trying to clean up my act. I promise it won't happen again." But you have to really realize the gravity of your sin before you can repent. That's what was going on here; he realized it at this point.

Nathan said, "You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul." First of all, I made you the king. The other guy was the king, but I made you the king. And then the other guy tried to kill you and I delivered you from him for all those years that Saul was chasing David around. All those years, I prevented you from ever getting caught. Don't think you got away from your own craftiness because you're some super-duper athlete; you can run fast, fight battles, or whatever.

You got away because God protected you. "I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms." It was traditional sometimes that the king would inherit the wives of the previous king. "I gave you the house of Israel and Judah." He gave all the tribes that came under him, the whole nation. It took a while, but I gave you everything, consolidated your kingdom, gave you more land. The kingdom was as big here in David's day as it ever was before or since until today. It's never been that big again.

Just think how much bigger it might have been if some of these guys had stayed following the Lord instead of getting themselves so messed up. God said here, "And if all that had been too little, I would have given you even more." All you had to do is ask. Is there something you're lacking? Make your needs known to the Father. If I missed something, let Me know. He didn't need half the stuff the Lord gave him anyway; he was blessed beyond imagination. The Lord promises to give everybody what they need.

He gave David way more than what he needs. He gave him way beyond that into the wants and even into the lusts with all the wives that he had, way beyond what he needed to have. "I would have given you even more." In other words, what the Lord is saying here is, "How could you do this when you had everything given to you just so completely?" God asks him this question in verse 9: "Why did you despise the Word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites."

David despised the Lord; that's what's going on here. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. God's precepts, His commands, His law—they're good. He doesn't give them to us to prevent us from having a good time. He doesn't sit up there and say, "Oh, how can I make their lives miserable today?" Now, that's what Tevye thought in *Fiddler on the Roof*.

What's God going to do to me today? Just once, he said, couldn't someone else be Your chosen people? He had a lot of really funny lines. Not true, though. Tevye didn't understand. God's laws are good; they're for our benefit. And when you don't follow them, you despise them. That's what's happening. God is saying here, "Why did you despise the Word of the Lord by doing this stuff that's evil?" In other words, you didn't pay attention to it, you didn't think highly enough of it, you didn't care what it said, you weren't concerned about it, it didn't bother you that the Word of the Lord was something else.

You thought you'll do your own thing anyway. Maybe you thought God wouldn't notice, but God did notice. Maybe you thought God wouldn't mind, but God does mind. Maybe you thought it doesn't really matter what I do, God doesn't really care what we do as long as we just have a good time and we're nice to other people, but God does care. He does notice, and so he despised God. This is what the Lord is saying: "Why did you despise Me by doing what's evil in His eyes? You struck down this guy."

David could say, "I didn't strike him down; he got caught in battle. Somebody had to be in the front. If it wasn't him that got put in the front"—in David's mind he could have rationalized this all different ways. "Yeah, I put him in the front, but someone else had to be in the front, so someone would have got killed." So I gave him hazardous duty pay. But the fact of the matter is, God says, "Nope, none of that matters. You murdered him. You killed him. Period."

"You struck down Uriah the Hittite." "I didn't strike him down; the Ammonites did that. They struck him down. He just happened to be in the way. Somebody's going to die in battle." No, God says, "You struck him down. You gave the order. You said put him in the front. You said pull back. You said put him too close to the archers. You struck him down. And then you took his wife to be your own. A vile, evil, ugly thing. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own."

Despising God's command is equal to despising God Himself. If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C; you learned that in third grade. Well, if you despise God's command, I'm telling you here you're despising God because God wants us to live our lives in accordance with His ways, which are for our benefit, by the way. Sin does matter. Some people think sin doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I do, God doesn't care, He doesn't mind, it's okay if I live my life that way.

If I cheat on my taxes, sleep with my girlfriend, whatever else it is that sin is, He doesn't mind. God doesn't care. 1 John 1:6: "If we claim to have fellowship with Him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth." Now there's something we can take to heart because you can read the newspaper, the magazine, and see how many people claim to have fellowship with God and are living in darkness. Homosexuality is just one of the sins that's going on in the world. It's not the only one.

There are lots of other ones that are going on in the world. There are lots of people doing lots of things that are not within the scope of God's laws, and they think it's okay. I had a couple once that wanted me to marry them, and they were still married to other people. I said, "There's a problem here." I gave them all the scriptures in the Bible—well, not all of them, but a lot of them—and I said, "You're already married. It's not like you're not divorced. There's not a grounds for the divorce. Sometimes there are, but there's not in your case. You're both still married to someone else. Why are we here?"

And they said, "Well, we know all those scriptures." And I said, "Well, great. Then why are we here?" "Well, we just really think Lord's really in this. The Lord's really calling us to get married to each other. We just know this is from God." It says here, "If we claim to have fellowship with Him, yet walk in the darkness, we are lying, and we're not living by the truth." That's what David's problem was over here. David was claiming to be doing something right—I mean, he wasn't volunteering to anyone in his kingdom what he had done.

And sin does matter. People today on the whole homosexuality issue say, "God doesn't care, He doesn't mind, they're born this way." Babies are born without limbs, without organs, they're born with diseases, they're born drunk because the person was an alcoholic, addicted to crack cocaine because the parent was—just because you're born a certain way doesn't mean it's good. If that was true, the world would be a different place.

But there are people today—it's very common—to think it doesn't matter what we do, sin doesn't matter. But it does matter. That's what the message is from here. Despising God's command is the same as despising Him Himself. Verse 11: "This is what the Lord says: Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.

You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel." Whatever your sin is, it's going to be made known. It might be on Judgment Day, it might be before then, but it's going to be made known and it's going to be embarrassing. If there's any redeeming thing there at all, it's that it's forgiven. And if there's any other redeeming thing there at all, it's like everyone else is going to be in the same boat, so I guess maybe that'll help a little bit.

But the Lord says, "Look, I'm going to bring calamity on you out of your own household. You brought calamity on this other household. This father doesn't have a daughter, this grandfather doesn't have a granddaughter, this guy is dead, this household is gone. Who knows what other offspring might have been there that isn't there. You brought calamity upon that household." It seems to be here, well now God is saying, "I'm going to bring calamity upon you and it's going to come out of your own household and it's going to be before your very own eyes that I'm going to take your wives and give them to someone who is close to you."

It's going to be his son, by the way—Absalom, who sleeps with several of David's wives while David has been run out of town a few chapters into the future here. And he did it on broad daylight on the roof of the palace where everybody could see it. For everyone to see. God says, "You did it in secret, but I'm going to do this thing in broad daylight before all of Israel." Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord."

Nathan replied, "The Lord has taken away your sin; you are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die." David recognizes here rightly that he sinned against the Lord. David sinned against a lot of people here. He sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, he sinned against her father and grandfather, he sinned against whatever else. He sinned against several people. And I think he knows that here. But he knows his sin against the Lord is even greater. How can it be greater than killing a guy? Well, it is. We killed the Lord also because of our sin. He was held to the cross by our sin. He stayed up there because he wanted to, not because he couldn't get down.

Guest (Male): Jesus went to the cross to pay for our sin because of His love for us. That is a wonderful gift. It's important for us to realize the gravity and the serious consequences of our sin, as David did. You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill Luebkemann's study of 2nd Samuel. If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at ccmarlton.org and download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find podcasts.

If you're thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton where Bill serves as pastor, we'd love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You can also livestream from home when you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. For more information, go to ccmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon.

Before the day is done, we'd like to connect with you. Share a praise report, prayer request, or what you're learning from this series. You can easily email us from our website, ccmarlton.org, or just call us at 856-983-1662. There's more to come from Bill's study of 2nd Samuel, and we'll have that for you next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.