Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2981
“And David said unto Nathan, Ihave sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. However…” 2 Samuel 12:13,14.
“HOWEVER.” There was a qualification to the pardon granted to David. There is no need for me to enter into any of the details of his enormous sin. To make any excuse for it would to be become a partner in it. It was without excuse and if David, himself, were here with us, there is no one present who would so bitterly condemn him as he would condemn himself. He would be provoked to the utmost indignation by any attempt to offer an apology for the great transgression into which he fell, surrounded, as it were, by so many circumstances which tended to make it even worse than it otherwise might have been.
In reading this narrative, one cannot help being struck with the fact that when Nathan had brought home the sin to David—and the conscience of the monarch which had been sleeping for some months was awakened to a true sense of his guilt, pardon was at once granted to the sorrowing penitent. As soon as he said, “I have sinned against the Lord,” the same Prophet who had, by God’s Grace, brought him to conviction of sin, gave him the assurance of absolution—“The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” Truly—
“Wonders of Grace to God belong.” The pardoning of great sin is amazing, but the pardoning of great sin so rapidly—the forgiveness immediately following the confession—is among the things to be set down as worthy of special gratitude in the heart and special praise with the lips. One fears, however, lest, by the preaching up of the abounding mercy of God in suddenly putting away great sin, some might be led to think lightly of sin. It has been often raised as an objection to the full proclamation of the Grace of God that it tends to make men think that the escape from sin is very easy and, consequently, causes them to imagine that sin, itself, is a less deadly thing than it really is. Now, I will not deny that Antinomianism is natural to the human heart and, as there have been men who have turned the Grace of God into licentiousness in the past, so there will be, in the future, men who will make out of God’s mercy an argument in favor of their sin. Those who act thus are among the very worst of sinners, “whose damnation is just,” as Paul wrote concerning those who said, “Let us do evil, that good may come.” I have read that a spider will extract poison from the flower from which the bee extracts honey so, surely, from that very Truth of God from which a renewed heart extracts reasons for holiness, unregenerate men have been known to extract excuses for sin! If they do so, I can only say that they are “without excuse.” Some have actually caused the precious blood of Jesus Christ, Himself, to be to them a savor of death unto death by using the Doctrine of the Atonement as an excuse for their transgressions! If they do so, however, it certainly is not the fault of the Truth of God, nor the fault of the Infinite wisdom and prudence of God, for He has, in many remarkable ways, taken care to put safeguards around His free mercy. He does forgive and He will forgive, blessed be His holy name—and however men may pervert His mercy, He will not cease to bestow that mercy upon sinners! He will still continue His loving kindness, yet He has put safeguards around the Doctrine of forgiveness—and of the safeguards I am now going to speak.
And, first, I shall speak of the safeguards which were provided in David’s case. And then, secondly, of those which are provided in our own case. This will lend us to notice, in the third place, God’s grand aim with us and what other great endeavor should be in connection with that aim.
I. First, then, let us notice THE SAFEGUARDS THAT WERE PUT AROUND DAVID’S CASE, lest David, or anyone else, should think that because sin was readily forgiven, it was in itself a little thing.
For, notice, first, that David was made to see his sin in its true light before it was forgiven. Nathan did not go to him and say, “David, you have committed a much greater wrong than you have supposed. You have disgraced your character and you have brought dishonor upon the God you love—but you are forgiven.” No, he uttered a parable which set David’s own character before him as being of the very base and meanest kind. The description of the traveler who came to the rich man, who then went and took the one ewe lamb from the poor man with which to make a feast for the traveler, was well conceived. It was a trap in which David was cleverly caught and made to see himself, though he had not the slightest idea, at the moment, that he was seeing himself at all. But when Nathan said to him, “You are the man,” he was made to feel that he was a mean wretch who deserved to be condemned to death. His indignation was awakened against himself and against his own actions—and thus the Lord took care that David should not receive pardon till he had realized the greatness of his sin! This would be a strong check to him in the future, keeping him from ever falling into that sin again.