(2 Sam 12:1-15 KJV) And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him,
and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other
poor. {2} The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: {3} But the poor man
had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and
it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat,
and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
{4} And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his
own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto
him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to
him. {5} And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to
Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:
{6} And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and
because he had no pity. {7} And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus
saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered
thee out of the hand of Saul; {8} And 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 too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and
such things. {9} Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do
evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast
taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children
of Ammon. {10} Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house;
because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to
be thy wife. {11} Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee
out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give
them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this
sun. {12} For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all
Israel, and before the sun. {13} And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned
against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy
sin; thou shalt not die. {14} Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given
great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is
born unto thee shall surely die. {15} And Nathan departed unto his house. And
the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very
sick.
Introduction:
A Sunday School teacher tells this story:
During one Sunday school lesson, I was trying to teach the children that we all
need God's forgiveness. After the story I quizzed one of the girls. "Lisa, when
is a time you might need God's forgiveness?"
Noticeably perplexed, Lisa was reassured by my son, who whispered, "It's okay,
you don't have to tell her." Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, "We
don't have to tell you our problems. This isn't the Oprah Winfrey show."
-- Ranai Carlton, Waterford, California. Christian Reader, "Kids of the
Kingdom."
We do all need God’s forgiveness, but Oprah Winfrey notwithstanding, the
confession of our wrongdoing is an important aspect of receiving God’s
forgiveness. The hue and cry of our media and a good number of democrats in our
congress seems to be to forgive the President for his adultery, and for his
dishonesty. Indeed, forgiveness is one of the hallmarks of the Christian faith.
The question for us this morning is what steps are involved in forgiveness, and
did the President meet those steps? It is no secret that I feel Bill Clinton’s
actions and words do not ask for forgiveness, but let us look to God’s word to
see the steps involved, and to discover what we might about receiving
forgiveness.
In our passage of scripture, we see King David coming to terms, and facing the
consequences of his murderously adulterous affair with Bathsheba. King David had
made some serious mistakes, and committed some very serious indiscretions. As
King, he had seduced the wife of another man, a man laying his life on the line
for the country. If this adulterous liaison were not enough, David compounded
his sin by deception, trickery, manipulation, and ultimately murder. As we pick
up the story, Nathan has come into the King’s presence to tell David that God
intended to punish him. I think in this story of Nathan confronting the King, we
will see a cycle, or pattern, of behavior that will lead to forgiveness. We find
first that David realized his sins, repented of his sins, and took
responsibility for his own actions, and finally, paid restitution for his sins.
If we are to receive forgiveness, these same elements must be present in our own
actions and words. If the President is to receive the forgiveness of God as well
as mankind, he to must show evidence of these scriptural elements.
Forgiveness requires realization.
Nathan came before David and told him a heart wrenching story of a rich man who
took advantage of someone with less than he. It is a story of a man taking
advantage of, or abusing his authority. A story which we are all to familiar
with this week. During Nathan’s discourse, David got extremely angry, vowing to
punish this person with death, and require a four-fold restitution. Somewhere
along the line, David’s eyes had been blinded to his own actions. Somewhere
along the line, the life of sin became easier and easier, and self-justification
became almost a second nature. David was no longer tormented by his actions. His
conscience was no longer pricked by his lifestyle. Nathan served to prick his
conscience again. When David realized what he had done in verse 13, "And David
said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD." He took steps to make some
changes. David realized that the blame fell on him and him alone. We don’t see
David trying to shift the blame to Bathsheba for being on the roof. We don’t see
David blaming Nathan for calling it to his attention. We don’t see David blaming
Uriah for having a lovely wife. David doesn’t curse his family, or lay the blame
on his troubled childhood. He doesn’t try to shift the focus to social
conditions. David doesn’t cite the pressures of running the country, nor does he
use the ongoing war effort as an excuse. No, what David does, is say to Nathan
"I have sinned against God!" I deserve to be held accountable, it was MY sin. If
we are going to find forgiveness, we must first come to the realization that we
have done something wrong. If we never admit that we have sinned, if we never
accept the sin as ours, then we are in no position to repent. And forgiveness
requires repentance.
Forgiveness requires repentance.
Repentance is more than just saying I’m sorry. It’s more than being sorry we
were caught in our actions. Repentance involves us changing our actions. Not
because we were caught out, but because change is what is necessary. What
repentance is not is doing what looks right at that given time. In other words,
making statements or temporary changes in our lifestyle because it is expedient,
politically or otherwise is not true repentance. Repentance is in no way a
crutch to be used to get you out of trouble. In Christianity Today an author
wrote:
What happened to the reality that forgiveness of sin, before God or before
humankind, is a spiritual cleansing, not just a coping skill?
Katie Funk Wiebe in Border Crossing. Christianity Today, Vol. 40, no. 5.
Repentance involves some deep down changing, and some intense soul searching. It
is never easy, and is usually not something we enjoy doing, but it is absolutely
necessary for forgiveness. David showed in his life a repentant heart. He was
grief stricken that he had sinned against God, and was willing to make things
right again. Samuel Johnson wrote that Repentance is always difficult, and the
difficulty grows still greater by delay
--Samuel Johnson in The Quotable Johnson. Christianity Today, Vol. 41, no. 11.
. The longer we wait to be repentant, the harder it becomes. Partially because
we grow accustomed to our sin. We become comfortable in our sinful lives. As we
procrastinate, we devise new and ingenious ways to ‘wiggle out of’ the situation
we find ourselves in. Much as the President attempted to cloak his deception in
a mish mash of half-truth’s and flat out lies in the effort to hide the reality
from the American people. Consider this story:
Erin, a young girl who was usually the model of good behavior in church, was
particularly wiggly one Sunday morning. After distracting all those around her
for some time and ignoring her father's warning to be still, her father finally
scooped her up and began walking to the rear of the church for "attitude
adjustment." Just before they got to the back door, Erin screamed, "Help! Save
me!" The heartfelt plea of the penitent sinner was never more sincere, but it
didn't do much for decorum that morning.
Robert E. Hays, D. Min., Lawton, OK. Christian Reader, "Lite Fare."
Perhaps like this little girl, the President’s cries of mea culpa are too little
too late. (Or perhaps, more to the point of the situation, we could tell the
familiar story of the little boy who always cried wolf.) This little girl truly
meant her screams of "Help," and "Save me!" She was very sincere, but it was
just too late. Her time for repentance had passed, and now she must pay the
price for not being repentant. If we are to receive forgiveness, we must have
repentance. And along with repentance comes accepting responsibility.
Forgiveness requires taking responsibility.
As has already been noted, David accepted the responsibility for his actions, as
distasteful as they were. He accepted responsibility. In the President’s speech
on Monday it seemed he was a long way from accepting personal responsibility for
his actions. He tried to make the American public believe that he is simply a
victim of circumstances. He is a victim of circumstances, but they were
circumstances of his own doing. I have heard some pastors in recent years try to
say that it was Bathsheba’s fault that David sinned. That if Bathsheba hadn’t
been on the roof that night, David would not have seen her. This sounds almost
as ridiculous as the reason Billy Graham put forth for Bill Clinton’s adultery.
Billy Graham said in essence that Bill Clinton couldn’t help it that women were
drawn to him. While that may be true, and with all respect to the great man of
God that Dr. Graham is, it is Bill Clinton’s fault that he allowed these acts to
take place. For the president, or for us, to receive forgiveness, we must accept
the responsibility for our actions. It wasn’t Bathsheba’s fault that David
sinned, and it isn’t Ken Starr’s fault that the American public had to learn of
a sexual indiscretion by our leader.
Governor Neff, of Texas, visited the penitentiary of that state and spoke to the
assembled convicts. When he had finished he said that he would remain behind,
and that if any man wanted to speak with him, he would gladly listen. He further
announced that he would listen in confidence and that nothing a man might say
would be used against him.
When the meeting was over a large group of men remained, many of them
life-termers. One by one they passed by, each telling the governor that there
had been a frami-up, and injustice, a judicial blunder, and each asked that he
be freed. Finally one man came up and said, "Mr. Governor, I just want to say
that I am guilty. I did what they sent me here for, but I believe I have paid
for it, and if I were granted my freedom I would do everything I could to be a
good citizen and prove myself worthy of your mercy."
This of course was the man whom the governor pardoned.
There can be no hope of forgiveness until we accept responsibility for our own
actions. We alone allow sin into our lives, we alone act upon that sin, and we
alone must atone for those sins. We must pay the penalty, we must make
restitution.
Forgiveness does not negate restitution.
One of the distinctive sights for residents of and visitors to Bogota, Columbia,
is the Church of the Penitents. It stands at an elevation of 10,400 feet above
sea level. It was built over 300 years ago by penitents who carried up two
bricks for each sin committed.
A spectator beholding the building and recalling that each two bricks represents
one sin could exclaim: "A church of sins!" or "A church which sins built!"
Although none of the original penitents are alive today, the bricks nevertheless
perpetuate the memory of their sins.
----Christian Victory
Receiving forgiveness does not negate paying the punishment for our sins. David
was forgiven, Nathan tells him that God will spare his life, yet he does not get
away without punishment. In fact, the four-fold punishment that David pronounced
upon the hypothetical man Nathan was telling him about would come to pass in
David’s own life. David lost his child as punishment for his actions. He lost
his kingdom, his own children plotted against him. David paid a huge price for
his sins with Bathsheba, yet he was forgiven before the punishments took place.
He still had to pay the price. In a spiritual sense, the price has been paid for
us. Our sins are forgiven because Jesus Himself paid that price. The spilled
blood of our Savior paid a debt that we could never pay. Yet we still face
consequences for our actions here on earth. We don’t have the option to live our
lives carefree and do things however we like without thought for the
consequences. The reception of grace does not mean that we are allowed a free
ticket to sin. We don’t possess a "Get out of Jail Free" card. When we sin, when
we break a law, when we bust a commandment to pieces, a price must be paid. The
payment of this price is part of the package of forgiveness. David payed a
price, and so shall we. And so shall the President of the United States.
Conclusion
The hue and cry is for us to accept the actions of our President, and grant to
him forgiveness. We have just outlined the steps for forgiveness straight from
God’s Word. Forgiveness in this instance is not ours to give. And if it were, it
is my personal opinion that forgiveness was not sought. The steps to forgiveness
have not been met. The President of the United States has violated the trust of
the citizens, and must be called to pay for that violation. He violated the
trust of his marriage bond, and must be called to account for that violation. He
has committed acts of deception, and must be called to account for that
deception. The only honorable course of action left for him is to submit his
resignation, and accept the consequences of his actions. Forgiveness can come
only after we realize our sin, repent of our sin, take responsibility for our
sin, and finally make restitution for our sin. If we don’t follow these steps,
we won’t find forgiveness. May we never take for granted the Grace that God has
extended to us.
copyright 1998 by Rev. Charles S. Mims, All rights reserved.
