SERIES: David: A Person After God’s Heart
Sin Will Take You Further Than You Want to Go
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: More than fifteen years ago Jan and I attended the Praise Gathering in Indianapolis that was sponsored for many years by the Gaithers. On the last day I was tired after the third concert and I almost went back to my hotel room. The Cathedral Quartet was singing, and I slipped into the back row. They did a song that someone handed them at a previous concert. It was not a particularly great melody, but the words struck me like a lightning bolt. I wrote them down in the darkness of the convention hall on the back of an envelope.
Sin will take you further than you want to go.
Slowly but wholly taking control.
Sin will leave you longer than you want to stay.
Sin will cost you more than you want to pay.
That wasn’t the whole song, but that was all I got down. I want that message to be burned into our minds today. If you don’t believe those words, I hope you’ll listen to the Word of God this morning, for David’s story is a moving illustration of the truth of that song. We want to read again 2 Samuel 12, this time beginning in verse 9 and reading through the 25th verse. The prophet Nathan is confronting David about his sin with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah:
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. 10 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.’
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. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ ”
13 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. 14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”
15 After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. 17 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.
18 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.”
19 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.”
20 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.
21 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!”
22 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.’ 23 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.”
24 Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The LORD loved him; 25 and because the LORD loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.
For over a month now we’ve been studying a tragic incident in the life of King David, who despite his great privilege and position as spiritual and political leader of God’s people, lusted for a woman, committed adultery with her, murdered her husband, took her to be his wife, and then tried to hide the sin.
He managed to keep a lid on it for a little over nine months, but all the time his insides were in turmoil because of the guilt on his conscience. Then a prophet of God had the courage to bring the King face to face with his depravity. Due in part to the skillful way he was confronted, David openly confessed everything and wrote a Psalm–Psalm 51–that has been used for 3,000 years by penitent sinners everywhere as a pattern for restoration of fellowship with God and service for God. We studied that great Psalm two weeks ago.
As we think back over these last few messages, we see that David has sinned greatly. But he has also confessed openly and has been forgiven completely. The slate is clean.
But wait! Reading ahead through the book of 2 Samuel we find one tragedy after another coming upon this one who was the only man to earn the title, “a man after God’s own heart.” Why are all these things happening to a forgiven man? What is the reason for the continuing pain and sorrow he is experiencing? The explanation is a simple, incontrovertible law God has built into the universe–the Law of the Harvest. It essentially says that “sin is always accompanied by evil consequences,” or as Paul Stolwyk, a colleague of mine in St. Louis used to put it, “Sin wrecks everything.”
God’s Law of the Harvest is most clearly stated in Galatians 6:7-8: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
God’s Law of the Harvest is this: “The harvest reaped bears a direct relation to the seed sown.” (Gal. 6:7-8)
There are three principles that help illuminate the Law of the Harvest:
The principle of Identity: you reap what you sow. One thing you will never find is a farmer harvesting wheat when he planted corn! That which is harvested is that which is planted. Likewise, whatever a man sows he will reap. When it says that “God cannot be mocked,” it means He cannot be hoodwinked; we can’t slip anything by Him.
The Apostle then pictures the Christian life as a country estate. The flesh and the Spirit are two fields in which we may sow seed. Some Christians sow to the flesh every day and wonder why they reap corruption, moral decay, poverty, disease, broken relationships, loneliness, and depression. The reason is that such results always follow when we sow in the field of the flesh. Others sow to the Spirit every day, and because they do so, their lives are characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We should not at all be surprised by the different results–they are inevitable.
The principle of Increase: you reap more than you sow. What farmer would plant a sack of grain to harvest one sack of grain? The return is always much greater than the initial investment. This is a beautiful thing to behold, of course, when we are sowing to the Spirit. Take, for example the sowing that is represented in generous giving: financial sacrifice for the cause of Christ is always outweighed by the spiritual rewards, and often by the financial rewards. Or take the sowing that is represented in rearing one’s children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord: the effects are seen not only in the lives of those children, but in the children’s children and all who are impacted by them.
However, the principle of increase is a tragic truth when we are sowing to the flesh. Hosea 8:7 puts it this way: “for they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind.” Romans 6:21 says essentially the same thing when it asks, “What benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.”
Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a marvelous poet who sinned himself to death at age 34, bore witness to this principle in an autobiographical poem describing his ruined health and imminent death:
This is the price I pay
Just for one riotous day.
Yes, I’ll regret in grief
And sorrow without relief.
Suffer I will, my friends,
Suffer until the end.
Until the grave shall
Give me relief.
Small was the thing I bought,
Small was the thing at best.
Small was the debt, I thought,
But, O God, the interest, the interest!
Einstein called the principle of compound interest the most powerful principle in the universe. What we need to know is that it operates in the spiritual harvest as well.[i]
The principle of Interval: you reap after you sow. No matter what a farmer plants, it takes time for the crops to grow and ripen. When we’re sowing to the Spirit this fact can sometimes cause us to lose hope, forgetting that sometimes we must wait a long time before we see the rewards of our efforts. Missionary Adoniram Judson labored for six years in Burma before he won his first convert. But when we’re sowing to the flesh, the same principle can cause us to be careless, believing somehow that we will escape the harvest we have sown. We will not! There will be a payday someday. It is a great truth that God can and does forgive people of their sins–but not even God will wipe out all the consequences of sin. Some of those consequences may not show up for months or years, but they will show up.
God’s Law of the Harvest is seen in the consequences of David’s sin. (2 Sam. 12ff)
I don’t know any life that better illustrates the Law of the Harvest than David’s. Again and again from this point on we see that the harvest reaped in David’s life bears a direct relation to the seed he sowed by his sinful actions.
Perpetual war plagues his reign. (1 Chron. 22:8) The prophet Nathan came to David and said in 2 Sam. 12:10, “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.” David never enjoyed international peace but was constantly being drawn into wars and battles. This, in fact, is the reason the prophet gave as to why he would never be allowed to build the Temple to God he so desperately wanted to build: “You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.” (1 Chron. 22:8)
Public calamity affects his family. In chapter 13 David’s son Amnon is murdered. In chapter 18 his son Absalom is murdered. In 1 Kings 21 his son Adonijah is murdered. Their stories involve rape, rebellion, and revenge.
Amnon (2 Samuel 13). In chapter 13 we find the sad story of Amnon, David’s son by Ahinoam. Amnon lusted after his half-sister Tamar. Accepting the counsel of a foolish friend named Jonadab, he engaged in a plot to get her into his bed. He pretended to be physically ill and summoned her to care for him. When he finally made his move and invited her to sleep with him, she rightly refused. But he would not listen to her objections, and he violated her. Then the love he had for her turned to a hatred of even greater degree.[ii]
Tamar was terribly ashamed, and when asked by her full brother Absalom what had happened, the truth came out. Verse 21 of chapter 13 indicates that “when King David heard all this, he was furious.” Isn’t that interesting? That’s all it says. He was furious. He didn’t rebuke Amnon; he didn’t discipline him; he didn’t exile him as the Law required; he didn’t grant justice to Tamar; he just got angry. Why? Well, I wonder if the reason doesn’t lie squarely in the fact that he felt he had lost his moral authority to act. I think he was afraid to hear Amnon retort, “Well, what have I done differently than you, father?”
In chapter 13, verse 22 we read, “Absalom never said a word to Amnon either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.” Two years later, however, Absalom schemed to murder his brother Amnon. Afterward, it says in verse 37, “King David mourned for his son every day.” I have my suspicions that his mourning was not just because his son had died, but also because of his own failure as a father and as a moral example. The brave warrior who defeated Goliath was unable to defend his own daughter and discipline his own son.
Absalom. (2 Samuel 13-18) We have already been introduced to Absalom as the murderer of his half-brother, Amnon, but then for several chapters he takes center stage. We’re going to tell his full story next Lord’s Day, but suffice it to say now that several years after this event, Absalom engages in a conspiracy against his father. He stages a rebellion, and David is forced to flee. In his absence Absalom pitches a tent on the roof of the palace and sleeps with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel! (16:22) Remember Nathan’s prediction? “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.” (2 Sam. 12:11-12).
Eventually Absalom is murdered and David is restored to his throne. One might have suspected that David would be relieved to be rid of such a rebellious son, but nothing could be further from the truth. In 18:33 we read that David went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said, “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!” And again, one senses, in addition to sorrow over the death of a son, a strong element of failure and shame for the part he played in these awful calamities.
Adonijah. (1 Kings 1) In the first chapter of 1 Kings we see still a third example of calamity in David’s family. The king himself is very old and near death when his son Adonijah, as recorded in verse 5, “put himself forward and said, ‘I will be king.’ So he got chariots and horses ready, with fifty men to run ahead of him.” Then notice this parenthetical thought: (“His father had never interfered with him by asking, ‘Why do you behave as you do?’”). The result is another attempted coup and the eventual murder of Adonijah by Solomon. Again, we are forced to ask why David didn’t discipline his sons. And again, the answer comes back that one of the awful consequences of his sin with Bathsheba was that he felt he had lost his moral authority.
The prophet predicted calamity one David’s house, and it happened exactly as predicted. It was both a natural consequence of sin and a divine judgment.
Bathsheba’s child dies. (2 Samuel 12:15-23) The story of the death of David’s son by Bathsheba is full of pathos, and there is much that we can learn from it. When the child got sick David pleaded with God for a reversal of His judgment. He fasted and prayed and spent nights lying on the ground. He was so obsessed with the fate of the child that when seven days later the child died, David’s servants were afraid to tell him for fear that he would commit suicide.
Amazingly, however, David’s whole demeanor changed immediately for the better when he learned the child had died. He got up, washed, changed his clothes, went to the house of the Lord, worshiped, and then went home and ate. His servants were flabbergasted because the custom of the day was to mourn for the dead. David knew, however, that this was no ordinary situation. This illness was entirely a matter of divine chastisement (not true, of course, of all illness). The time to pray for mercy was before the judgment was passed. Afterwards it is time to worship and make sure it never happens again.
God’s prophet predicted that the child would die, and he died.
So far, we have examined God’s Law of the Harvest in general and how it is applied to David’s sin. But I want you to notice a third truth that must not be overlooked.
God’s Law of the Harvest is softened by grace. (2 Sam. 12:13-25)
I would never want to convey the notion that the Law of the Harvest is set in concrete with no mitigation or relief possible. Frankly if God were not a God of grace and mercy, all of us would be immediately consumed and destroyed by the consequences of our sin.
I see three ways in which the grace of God softened the consequences for David.
Forgiveness of sin and guilt. (13) After David openly confessed to the prophet Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin.” This is an amazing truth that we must not allow to be lost in our emphasis upon the consequences of sin. David was a child of God, and no condemnation comes upon the one who is a child of God. Confession results in cleansing and forgiveness of sin and guilt, restoration of fellowship, and even continuing service for God. All this is due simply and only to the grace of God.
Merciful cancellation of the death penalty for David. (13) Nathan goes on, “You are not going to die.” Here he is referring to the death penalty which rightfully applied to David because of his murder of Uriah. God said He wouldn’t require that penalty. It’s hard to rehabilitate someone who is dead, and our God is a God of rehabilitation and restoration and redemption. Certainly, there are some sinners who have put themselves beyond hope of rehabilitation, but David had shown through his repentant attitude that he was not one of them.
A new son for Bathsheba. (24-25) After their son died, we read in verse 24, “Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him.” Now most of us would not have given David and Bathsheba another chance. Most of us would have cursed them with barrenness. But God is not like most of us. He showed his grace and mercy.
God’s Law of the Harvest is still in effect today.
The Law still applies. God has never revoked the Law of the Harvest. It operates as much today as it did in David’s day. Rock Hudson was one of the first popular entertainers to die of AIDS. The TV newscasters went to great pains to interview and then criticize certain “fundamentalists” who were so brazen to suggest that such a tragedy may have had something to do with God’s judgment. But Cornelius Plantinga, a brilliant Christian philosopher, wrote perceptibly:
“Serious Christians are reminded by the AIDS phenomenon that God is not mocked. When someone sins, someone pays. A seed wrongly sown may yield a bitter harvest.”[iii] But then he goes on to clarify that homosexuals are not by any means the only ones to whom the Law of the Harvest applies:
“Happy heterosexuals who ignore their spouses and children cannot hope for solid homes. Nicotine-stained souls should not be surprised by the dreaded report that one day comes back from a lab. We should all know by now that drunkenness yields hangovers and deaths, greed produces stress and enmity, promiscuity issues in disease. The notion that we shouldn’t bother our heads over private immorality (the kind that “doesn’t hurt anyone”) suddenly seems naïve…. When misery follows hard after sin we are reminded that divine prohibitions and judgments are in fact a merciful early-warning system. None of us … can hope to live as we want without taking sin’s wages. It is not in the nature of the universe. Thus, the sprightly beer commercial asks a question veteran Christians can answer: ‘Who says you can’t have it all?’ God.”[iv]
Consequences still follow. God does not generally give preferential treatment to believers in respect to sin’s consequences. Christians are just as susceptible as are pagans to sexually transmitted diseases or cirrhosis of the liver or lung cancer when they participate in sinful or harmful activities.
Oh, there are times when God may sovereignly and graciously alleviate some of the consequences of sin. I think it’s appropriate to pray, as David did when his infant son was sick, that God will not give us all that we are due. However, it would be a mistake to expect Him to remove all of them, for the Law of the Harvest plays a very important role in continually reminding us of the need for holiness in our lives. Frederick Myers has the courage to offer this prayer: “Purge me from sin, but never from the pain.”[v]
Grace is still available. First, there is grace for the unbeliever who has sinned greatly. That grace emanates from the cross of Christ. Sin is never acceptable to God, and someone must pay. But instead of you having to pay, Jesus stepped forward and said, “I’ll pay,” and by dying in your place He satisfied God’s wrath toward sin. While sin is never acceptable to God, repentant sinners are. Jesus said to a woman caught in the very act of adultery, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” Tainted people can come to God by faith and receive, in effect, a transfusion of Christ’s blood. God declares all those who receive Jesus and trust in Him, “not guilty.”
But what about those who have already received Christ and been cleansed from their guilty past? What happens when they sin? I John 1:9 answers, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God does not promise to remove all the consequences but to “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The context is one of fellowship, indicating that sin interferes with our communion with God, not our position with Him. Confession and cleansing restore that communion.
The source for cleansing for the believer is the same as for the unbeliever, namely the sacrifice of Christ. It is a distortion of the Christian doctrine of salvation to suppose that Jesus saves us from original sin when we are converted, but that we must atone for our own sin if it occurs after salvation, through penance, sorrow, sacraments, etc. When we become a child of God through the new birth, the blood of Jesus saves us from all sin–past, present, and future—and from all its aspects–its guilt, its power, and eventually even its presence.
Conclusion: What I am most interested in today is prevention. I would say, especially to our young people today, with all the force I can muster,
Sin will take you further than you want to go.
Slowly but wholly taking control.
Sin will leave you longer than you want to stay.
Sin will cost you more than you want to pay.
But I also want to encourage those who may be suffering from harvests past. It’s easy to get bitter about the consequences of our own sin. We’re quick to say to God, “Enough is enough!” But only God knows when we’ve had enough. I think Chuck Swindoll’s advice is correct when he urges those suffering the consequences of sin to “ride out the storm.”
“It is a lonely experience; no one can do it for us.
It is a learning experience; we must make sure the lessons take hold.
It is a transforming experience; we must let God have His way with us.
It is a temporary experience; it won’t last forever.
And it is a humbling experience; only pride gives up.[vi]
Prayer: Lord, we are reminded again that the consequences of sin are Your megaphone to get our attention and sometimes to keep our attention. Father, we invite you as the Divine Surgeon, to use your scalpel on our lives so that we may be healed. Purge us from sin, but never from pain, if the pain is needed to draw us close to You. Amen.
DATE: April 3, 2005
Tags:
Sin
Law of the harvest
Grace
Forgiveness
Consequences
[i] This principle operates positively as well as negatively. This past week I heard a fascinating report that came out of the Pregnancy Crisis Center here in Wichita. One of the volunteers there led a young woman to profess faith in Christ. A short time later she was involved in a terrible accident in which her unborn baby and one of her other children were killed. The Center surrounded this woman with love, and in turn she began to show love to others. While she was standing in a WalMart line recently, she ministered to a woman behind her who was pregnant with triplets, and now it is possible she may adopt that woman’s three children. Love compounds, as well as evil.
[ii] Lust may be closer to hate than to love. When acted upon, lust often creates feelings of contempt, both for self and for the victim.
[iii] Cornelius Plantinga, “The Justification of Rock Hudson,” Christianity Today, October 18, 1985.
[v] Psychologist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen reminds those who will not listen to the voice of God in Scripture that there is the more muted, but often devastating voice of God in history and nature. Special revelation warns against drunkenness, greed, and adulterous discarding of faithful spouses–but so does general revelation. The Bible condemns sexual promiscuity. So do AIDS and herpes and broken psyches.
[vi] Chuck Swindoll, church newsletter.