Hope From the Word

Bill Luebkemann: God is able to fully forgive your sin but often there are still consequences for disobedience. Sometimes you can be forgiven and still have the consequences of your sin to deal with. You can have an illicit sexual relationship that you can be forgiven of, but you might be walking around with some disease that can't be gotten rid of because of that. There are things that remain. I heard a story a long time ago about how sin was like nails nailed in a board and when God forgives them, he takes the nails out, but there are still holes left in the board.

Guest (Male): We're pleased to bring you Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann from Calvary Chapel of Marlton. Pastor Bill is currently taking us verse by verse through the book of 2 Samuel. Recently, we've seen the terrible sins of adultery and murder committed by David, followed by a friend who was faithful to reprove him. David repented of his sin, and though he was completely forgiven by God, there were still consequences he had to deal with.

Pastor Bill is not only going to show us the importance of handling sin properly and receiving God's forgiveness, but to also take responsibility for the consequences. We're starting in 2 Samuel Chapter 12, verse 11.

Bill Luebkemann: 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."

There's just no doubt about it. 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. Everyone else is going to be in the same boat, so maybe that will help a little bit.

But the Lord says, "I'm going to bring calamity on you and it's going to come from within 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 whatever offspring might have been there that isn't there? You brought calamity upon that household. It seems to be here 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. 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, her father and grandfather, and whoever 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. David is saying that he knows that that's the greatest sin you can have. Sure, sinning against your fellow man is very important and something that you'd want to seek forgiveness from your fellow man from, but even more so than that is the sin against God. David understands that that is even the more important thing.

Nathan tells him, "The Lord's taken away your sin. You're not going to die." Remember, death was the penalty here for this kind of illicit relationship. Death for him, death for her, death for both of them. But you're not going to have it. He repented from his sin. It took a while, but when he was called to it, if he hadn't repented, if he said to Nathan, "I'm going to kill you," which is what some other kings did to some other prophets, run him out of town, cut him in half and what have you, then maybe the outcome would have been different.

His response here, I think, is what allows the forgiveness to kick in. He believed what Nathan said. He believed that it was God talking to him. He believed that he did the wrong thing. It connected for him. He didn't deny it. He didn't try to run away from it. He didn't try to make up something. He didn't pretend it was someone else. Nathan said, "The Lord has taken away your sin. You're not going to die, but this son born to you will die because you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt."

You've given the Lord's enemies a chance to feel contempt towards you or towards him. And so for that, this innocent child is going to die. David wrote Psalm 51 right around this time. It says it right at the beginning of it: "A Psalm of David when the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love. According to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, and you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge."

Over in verse 16: "You do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it. You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." David here, he received God's forgiveness. He understood that he had sinned. He understood that God had forgiven him and he received it. But the bad news was this innocent child.

Sometimes innocent people die because of the actions of others. Some people might say, "Well, why did God have to kill this innocent child?" Well, you can ask God that yourself someday. But the fact is, all I can tell you is innocent victims do suffer sometimes and that this certainly seems to be one of those times.

After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife had born to David. This was a while later because the child was born now. David slept with her, she found out she was pregnant, and then he sent for Uriah. Uriah came back, Uriah was there two or three days, and then he went back to battle. It was only a two-day journey. All these events would have transpired in a few weeks. So now maybe she's been pregnant two months, maybe three months. But here the baby's already been born.

He took her as his wife and this charade went on for at least a half a year or more and the baby was born. David's probably thinking, "Well, boy, I'm glad that's behind me. Nobody found out what happened. It's our secret. Nobody's going to know." Maybe he didn't even tell Bathsheba that he had her husband bumped off. The kid's been born and doing well. Everybody's happy. But now this comes along. Nathan comes along and says, "God has not forgotten."

After all this time now Nathan had come. Now he leaves. After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife had born to David and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused and he would not eat any food with them. There's an extraordinary amount of sacrifice here on David's part, the fasting and the praying.

On the seventh day, the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, "While the child was still living, we spoke to David, but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate." David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead. "Is the child dead?" he asked. "Yes," they replied, "he is dead."

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house and at his request, they served him food and he ate. I don't have any doubt here that the child went to be with the Lord. We can look at this and say that's terrible, how could God allow such a thing to happen? But you know what? God took the child into his presence because that suited the Lord's purposes.

This also shows that you can't write your own ticket with God no matter how much you pray and fast. Some people think if they just pray enough, if they fast enough, if they just say the name Jesus just the right way enough, if you're radical in how you do it, you can get whatever you want. God's got to give it to you if you just have enough faith. Some of them would say David didn't have enough faith here, but that had nothing to do with it. David had huge amount of faith. David had great faith and he was radical.

But we can see a lesson here. There's nothing wrong with seriously seeking God. That's desirable. It's desirable to fast, it's desirable to pray, it's desirable to ask God to bring his will about. And ultimately when he does bring his will about, it is his will that he brought about. And it may not be the same as what your will is. For whatever reason, the Lord just wasn't going to allow this child to go on living. Clearly, there was some reason for it. We don't exactly know what it was, but God knows what it was and he knows everything, so we have to leave that up to him.

His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!" They thought he was crazy. He's doing it backwards. It seems like he should have been fasting and praying and weeping after he died and eating before. They're confused. "What are you doing here?" He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me."

If anybody tells you where does a child go that dies, well, here's one of the few scriptures that you can rely upon to say this child is going to go to heaven at this young age. David said, "I'm going to go to him." David wasn't going to go to hell, so I'm going to go to him, but he's not coming back here. It's a one-way door to eternity. David is saying here that there's nothing wrong with fasting and praying and weeping and asking God and maybe the Lord would be gracious and we should be. He is a gracious and merciful God.

When God told the people in Nineveh 40 days and this city is destroyed, well, they got on their knees, they got the sackcloth and ashes routine going, they closed all the McDonald's in Nineveh and they fasted and God relented and he turned from the calamity. You never know. It's good to ask God. It's good to be on your knees. It's good to pray for mercy. "I'm a sinner, forgive me, extend your grace to me, make your face to shine upon me." David said, "I thought, who knows? Maybe the Lord might do that." He didn't know what God's will was any more than we do.

We pray for God's will. That's what he was doing here. And now he realized it's over. "The child is dead. I can't bring him back. I'm going to go to him someday, but he's not coming back here. There's no point in asking God to keep him alive now. Obviously, the Lord made his decision and it's final."

Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba. She's lost a husband and a son. And he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah. David comforted his wife and lay with her and I still don't know if she knows really what happened. I guess she does. I guess she must at some point find out. I'm not sure he volunteered to tell her, "Hey, I killed your husband." But like I said, I am inclined to believe there was some complicity in their relationship anyway, so maybe that was okay with her.

1 Corinthians 7:17 says: "Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches." That's Paul writing in 1 Corinthians. Basically what Paul is saying, I think, is that you can't undo the past. David's not going to unmarry her and put her back with Uriah. He's dead. David married her. Now they're married and that's the position they're in now and that's the place where they're going to stay.

David comforted her, slept with her, she gives birth to a son, Solomon, who ultimately becomes the king. He wasn't David's firstborn, he wasn't his second born, he wasn't his third born, he wasn't his fourth, fifth, or sixth born because back in 2 Samuel 3 it gives the name of like the first six kids or something. I don't know what number Solomon was, but I'm pretty sure it was up around 8 or 10 or something. And that's really unusual that your firstborn wouldn't be king. And it's even more unusual that your firstborn would be born out of a relationship that began in such a huge amount of sin.

It's just a testimony here to the completeness and thoroughness of God's forgiveness. When the Bible says the old things have passed away, all have become new, when you get saved and you walk with the Lord, the old things are passed away. It doesn't matter what you did. I get nervous when I hear people sharing their testimony too much about what they used to do and everything because sometimes I wonder, do they miss those days or are they bragging or are they looking up to that or whatever? I think a lot of people would say no, we're trying to tell you the difference between where we were then and where we are now and I think there's some value in that.

What we see here is God's completeness and thoroughness at doing the forgiving job. It's so complete and so thorough that he can take this relationship which began in adultery and redeem it to the point where they not only don't die and they're not only forgiven, but the guy continues to be king and the son born out of this relationship becomes king also. And to me that is just amazing. In fact, God says, "You're going to have a special name for him, Jedidiah, which means loved of the Lord." Because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, this could have been the next fighting season now because really, the kid's been born and some time has gone by. This could be the next spring when more wars are going on. Meanwhile, Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and captured the royal citadel. Joab then sent messengers to David saying, "I have fought against Rabbah and taken its water supply. Now muster the rest of the troops and besiege the city and capture it. Otherwise, I will take the city and it will be named after me." Joab goads David on here, but guess David's still back in Jerusalem.

I'm tired of getting out here and doing all the fighting. If I conquer the city, I'm naming it after me. If you want it to be named after you, you better get out here and do the job yourself. So David mustered the entire army and went to Rabbah and attacked and captured it. He took the crown from the head of their king. Its weight was a talent of gold and it was set with precious stones and it was placed on David's head. That's about 75 pounds, a talent. And that's just the gold. So when he put it on his head, he had to walk around like this. This was a ceremonial kind of a thing. He didn't walk around every day, "How's my new crown today? You like it?" It was kind of a thing that he put it on to show his victory, I think, over this other king.

I got the crown and you don't, king. He took a great quantity of plunder from the city and brought out the people who were there, consigning them to labor with saws and with iron picks and axes, and he made them work at brickmaking. He did this to all the Ammonite towns. Then David and his entire army returned to Jerusalem. He pressed them into service making bricks, the Ammonites. He didn't kill this particular town's worth of people and his expansion here is fairly well complete.

But now in the future here as we move into some sad chapters because he said, "That guy must surely die and that guy's going to pay back four times for that sheep," and it seems like David's going to lose four sons. He just lost one, the son that was born out of this relationship. And now he's going to lose Amnon in the next chapter and eventually Absalom and later on Adonijah. And they're all going to get killed by each other. This son of Bathsheba was killed because of David's sin and Bathsheba's sin.

These other sons: Absalom kills Amnon and then Absalom revolts against David and even though David says don't kill him, Joab, the commander of the army, kills him anyway and he gets his due eventually when Solomon becomes king. And I don't remember how Adonijah dies but it seems like this price was paid back fourfold out of his own family. And the events that happened were caused by people in his own family, the one brother killing the other, Absalom killing Amnon, and then Absalom having this revolt against his father the king and getting killed for that, and this baby here getting killed because of the sin.

You can clearly see that God says, "Yeah, good idea, fourfold just like you said. That's what we're going to do." David was forgiven here, but you still have, sometimes you can be forgiven and still have the consequences of your sin to deal with. You can have an illicit sexual relationship that you can be forgiven of, but you might be walking around with some disease that can't be gotten rid of because of that. There are things that remain. I heard a story a long time ago about how sin was like nails nailed in a board and when God forgives them, he takes the nails out, but there are still holes left in the board.

And so there's lots of believers that have cirrhosis of the liver because they used to be an alcoholic or they have hepatitis because they used to be a drug addict or what have you. And so there's still a price to be paid for the sin. God's forgiveness is complete and total, but he doesn't always heal and restore and cure all the different particular things that happen because of the sin.

One thing I wanted to mention too is towards the end here in verse 24, David comforted his wife Bathsheba. I think that's the first time she's called in that chapter Bathsheba without mentioning she was Uriah's wife. If you look through the chapter, I think it says mostly refers to her as Uriah's wife until the very end. So it's kind of like he wants to rub it in here, whoever wrote 2 Samuel wants to rub in the fact that, well, God wrote it by his Holy Spirit's inspiring hand upon whoever the human author was. It's kind of like he wants to make sure we know a few extra times that she was Uriah's wife. But now her name is referred to as Bathsheba.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in a study of 2 Samuel. You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet, or if you prefer to listen via podcast, go wherever you find your podcasts and sign up there.

We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives and we want to pray for you, too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662.

We'll continue our study in 2 Samuel next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.