“David’s Christ”

Take your Bibles, many of you know the drill, let’s get right to it. 2 Samuel 11:1-15 is the text that we’re going to start with this morning. The message title, if you’re taking notes, is “David’s Christ”. “David’s Christ,” and so what we’re going to do over really the next few weeks is look at the sin that was in King David’s members, detailed in the narrative, how he responded to that sin post rebuke from a man, a prophet, by the name of Nathan, and then of course how the gospel applies to his particular scenario. So that’s where we’re going. I do want you to hold in your hand some information though, prior to me reading the story. First of all, you need to know that King David is no longer a young boy at the time of this writing here in chapter 11 in 2 Samuel. He’s an older man. You could certainly identify him as a mature man of God. He’s been king now for most likely over 12 years, which means he’s already brought the Ark of God to Jerusalem. He’s already led God’s people in a host of military victories. Many people look up to him, and you could say admire him for his character and integrity and boldness. Not to mention, God has already deemed him a man after His own heart. And so, again, I want you to hold that in your hand as we walk our way through 2 Samuel chapter 11. I’m not going to read the chapter in totality, but I do want to look at a few sections here so that we can have the context before we arrive at Psalm 51. And so, if you want to get ahead, we’re eventually going to arrive there. Pick up with me. This is 2 Samuel 11:1-5, beginning in verse one. The text says, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.” Now, this might seem innocent at first glance. Here we have a king delegating authority to Joab, the commander, and his military to get to work. But this really is a rejection of David’s next, and we know that to be true because of the language here of the text. The very beginning says “the time when kings go out to battle”. What does that mean? That means David should be on the battlefield with his troops, but he’s not. Instead, he’s at home, and even worse, he’s on his couch. Okay, now it’s okay for a teenager to be on his couch in the afternoon, but not for a king. How do I know that? Well, look at verse two. The text says, “It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, ‘Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?’” So now he has knowledge. David knows that this pretty woman that he sees bathing on a rooftop is taken. She’s married, and she’s married to a man by the name of Uriah. Who was Uriah? Uriah was one of David’s mighty men. He had 30 of them. This man demonstrated an unparalleled loyalty toward David his whole life. Okay, Bathsheba is married to him. What is David going to do? Take a look at verse four, “So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, ‘I am pregnant.’” Now from here, what we’re going to see in the narrative is unconfessed sin give birth to more sin. This is how unconfessed sin works, family. You allow it to fester in your heart, and then that sin gives birth to babies, if you will.

After he heard this news, he called for Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, and as you study the narrative, it’ll become blatantly obvious to you that he didn’t call for him to repent to him, but he rather called for him so that he could cover his tracks. So, Uriah comes back from battle. He’s been risking his life for David, not just on the battlefield here in this particular battle, but his whole life. And David says, “You know what, Uriah? I need you to take some time off. I want you to spend some time with your wife. You’ve been working really hard. You’ve been you’ve been leading God’s people on my behalf. Just spend some time with her.” You see what he’s doing, right? He’s trying to cover his tracks so that when Bathsheba starts to show, people won’t think twice, and they’ll immediately think, “Oh, that’s Uriah’s baby.” This is a sick, twisted, evil plan. So, he calls Uriah back. But what you find in the text is that Uriah was an honorable man, and he couldn’t stomach the fact that he would be enjoying the pleasures of marriage with Bathsheba, while his men, his brothers in arms, are risking their life for Yahweh and for David, and so what you find is him remaining at the base of the palace and sleeping with the guards. He’s there; they’re all just outside the palace. David finds out. He pivots and he thinks to himself, “Well, Plan A didn’t work. I’m going to try Plan B.” And Plan B was to get him drunk. So, he gets him drunk, thinking that will do the trick. Well, that didn’t work either. His plan didn’t come to fruition. There is Uriah at the base of the temple with the guards, not going in to spend time with Bathsheba. So, he pivots again, this time to Plan C. Let’s take a look at that. We’ll read this. This is 2 Samuel 11:14-17, beginning in verse 14, “In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter, he wrote, ‘Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die.’” So he just set him up for murder. Sin will make you do some crazy, insane stuff. It really will, and we know that objectively in Scripture. We read through the sacred pages of the text, and we see that we see people doing crazy things because of sin and the deceitfulness of sin. And I would go so far to say we all know that subjectively by way of experience, yeah. All sin is insanity. All sin is a sin against love. When you consider the goodness of God and the kindness of God demonstrated us through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, yeah, sin is absolutely crazy. Goes on in verse 16, “And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men, and the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite (also what?) he also died.” So his evil plan worked. Second degree manslaughter. Skip down to verse 26, 2 Samuel 11:26-27 “When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.” In other words, David plays the hero. He says, “I’ll take care of her. She’s been mourning. Her husband just died. I’ve got this. I’ll protect her. I’ll provide for her. I’ll love her. I’ll marry her.” His motives are 1,000% jacked up here. Take a look at the last line in verse 27, the text says, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” Now, as you keep on reading through this narrative, what you’ll find is that after these events transpired, instead of repenting of his sin and having that change of mind in turning and walking underneath the holy word of God, he rather stuffs his sin, he covers it, and he continues walking in indwelling sin in his members. Ever been there before? Anybody? Yeah, we all have, right? And it sucked the joy out of him for a very long season. David was miserable, and we’re going to look at that at a later time in the month of August, but he’s miserable. His sin is eating away at him. But God was faithful as He is to us, and God sent a prophet by the name of Nathan to rebuke him. Now you need to keep in mind the role of a prophet differs from the role of a priest. The role of a priest was to go to God on behalf of the people. The role of a prophet is to go to the people on behalf of God, and so Nathan goes to David and gives him a very sharp rebuke, very strong rebuke. You can read about it in 2 Samuel 12, and this was necessary because David was a strong man. He was very stubborn in this particular scenario, and so he rebukes him, and David for the first time in over nine months repents of his sin, and no doubt we can we can see that repentance, we can see that change of mind in 2 Samuel 12, but it is more holistically detailed in Psalm 51, and so that’s where we’re going to camp out today. This is David’s response to the rebuke that the prophet Nathan gave him in 2 Samuel 12. I’ve got three points. No poem today because you don’t really need a poem. But I’ve got three points.

Here’s 1. David’s plea

Take a look at verse one. David writes Psalm 51:1, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love, according to Your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.” Now, the first thing that I want you to see about this plea is that there’s a layering to it; it’s multi-layered. So, if you can visualize it this way, the top layer of David’s plea here in verse one is the blotting out of his transgressions, and we know that to be true because he says in the latter part of verse one, “according to Your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.” So, he’s going to God, he’s petitioning God, and he’s asking God, “remove my transgressions on the basis of Your mercy.” Do you see it in the text? So, you’ve got the blotting out of transgressions up here. Underneath that, the middle layer is the mercy of God, and then the bottom layer of David’s plea, according to verse one is the steadfast love of the Lord. And we know that to be true because he opens the psalm by just crying out. He’s desperate, and he says, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love.” So again, there’s a layering. Now, mercy, just by way of definition, is the act of God withholding from us what we rightfully deserve. Okay, grace is getting what we don’t deserve. Mercy is God withholding from us what we do deserve. And think about it. What do we deserve as human beings who have been born into sin and who have rebelled against God, who’ve hated God and who have sinned over and over and over again pre-regeneration. Remember, those in the flesh cannot please God. Everything that you do before Jesus Christ saves you is sin, because nothing that you do pre-Christ proceeds by faith, and what doesn’t proceed by faith is sin. What do we deserve? Well, we deserve eternal damnatory separation and punishment. Right? We deserve condemnation. We deserve what the Amorites received in Leviticus that we looked at last week. Mercy says, “I’m going to withhold that from you on the basis of Jesus Christ, my Son, and what He did in your place as the object of destruction or as the object of My wrath,” that’s mercy. That’s the beautiful perfection of God’s mercy. Keep in mind, whenever we’re dealing with a perfection of God, you can’t separate the perfection itself from God’s essence. So, God doesn’t just disseminate mercy; He is mercy. Now, maybe you’re thinking about that story right now that Jesus shared in the Gospels. You remember that story that he talks about two men entering into the temple. You remember that one? Two totally different guys, right? On one hand, you have the Pharisee.

He walks in, and it would be akin to you know someone walking through those back doors and just scanning the room and saying, “Man, I am so glad that that I’m not like Greg over there, or Eric over there.” I mean, he just looks around. He’s like, “I’m better than everybody here. Thank You, God, for making me, because You know I’m better than everybody.” So that’s the Pharisee, the religious elite, the man who is relying on his own good works to save them. Then you have the tax collector, and he walks into the temple, and this man is so crushed by the enormity of his sin and the chasm that exists between his sin and God’s holiness that he can’t even look up to the heavens. All he can do is just beat his chest and cry out to God, “Have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.” Now, did that man leave the house, leave the temple with the mercy of God? Well, of course he did in a salvific sense. That that’s really the point of the parable, and that’s why Jesus said this man left you know left the temple and went to his house justified and not the other. Now, while the language is indeed similar to what we’re reading here in Psalm 51, it’s actually not a one-to-one connection. It’s not apples to apples, and we know that to be true because David is not receiving mercy in a salvific sense here. He’s already been justified. He’s a saint who’s struggling with sin in his members. You know, I read some commentaries, and they suggest that you know that story that I shared with you is a is a one-to-one connection. It’s not. This is a Christian. This is a man of God who loves God who stumbled into sin and now he has sin in his members, and for a long time he hasn’t done anything with it. He’s grieved the Holy Spirit, and his eyes are being opened now. Do not miss that David’s plea for mercy is grounded in the steadfast love of the Lord. The Hebrew word here is hesed, and when you see it in Scripture, and you really see it all over the place hundreds of times, it refers to the covenantal loyal love of God. God promised to love David with this type of love. He did. You see that everywhere in Scripture, perhaps most notably in 2 Samuel chapter seven, the Davidic covenant. Now, is the Davidic covenant about Jesus? Of course, it’s ultimately about Christ. Jesus fulfilled the Davidic covenant, but it’s also about David because he was in the covenant, and what you find in Psalm 89, right? If you flip through the Psalter a little bit more, you find an elaboration of the Davidic covenant. And I want you to see this Hebrew word has said here, the same word that that David uses in Psalm 51-1. It’s all over the place here in. The psalmist writes Psalm 89:24, “My faithfulness (speaking of God’s faithfulness) and my steadfast love (there it is said) shall be with Him (that’s David in his house) and in My name shall his horn be exalted.” Now this is a reference to Jesus Christ, the horn of David’s salvation and the horn of the church’s salvation, how do we know that? Well, Luke 1:69 says, “And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, (here it is) David.” So, there’s a duality here that we need to come underneath.

Psalm 89:28-35, verse 28 continues, “My steadfast love (there’s the word hesed) I will keep for him forever.” But what if he lusts? And what if he commits adultery? And what if he deceives everybody and murders one of his mighty men? And what if he plays the hypocrite for almost a year? Forever means forever. The text goes on and says, “In My covenant will stand firm for him.” Verse 29, “I will establish his offspring forever (that’s through Christ) in his throne (that’s Jesus’s throne) as the days of the heavens. If his children forsake My law and do not walk according to My rules, if they violate My statutes and do not keep My commandments.” And no doubt that happened, consider Solomon. Consider everybody in the Old Testament. Look at verse 32, “Then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.” In other words, I’m going to discipline them. “But I will not remove from him (My hesed) My steadfast love, or be false to My faithfulness.” In other words, God says, “I’m going to be true to Myself. I’m going to be faithful. I’m going to be true to the original.” We can’t say this about each other. We’re not perfectly faithful. God is. The psalmist continues speaking of God. “I will not violate mM covenant or alter the word that went forth from My lips.” Look at verse 35, “Once for all, I have sworn by My holiness; (this is beautiful) I will not lie to David.” In other words, I’m going to love him, and I’m going to love his house, and I’m going to ultimately demonstrate that love by sending Jesus Christ, My Son, the greater David, the horn of our salvation, the one who actually has the power to save, the one whose throne, unlike David’s throne, is an everlasting throne. This is the bottom layer of David’s plea in Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love.” And listen, I don’t have time to go into it in stark detail, but suffice to say, the Davidic covenant actually rests on a deeper covenant that’s called the Eternal Covenant. Okay, before the foundation of the world, God made a covenant with God, and the Father agreed to elect a people and give those people as a love gift to the Son, and likewise the Son joyfully agreed to be the mediator between God and those people, and the Spirit agreed to apply the work of Christ into our hearts, family. This plea is deep, and it’s multi-layered, and it rests fully on God, and that’s a good thing because God is not like man that He should lie, nor the Son of Man that He should change His mind. Has He said, and will He not do it? Has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it? He has said, and He will do it. He has spoken, and He will fulfill it, and it’s all fulfilled through Jesus Christ, the Greater David. This is the plea. You seeing it, David? He’s just throwing himself on the mercy of God. “Have mercy on me, Lord. I’ve been wallowing in my sin for almost a year. Withhold from me, in a sanctifying sense, what I deserve. I lusted. I committed adultery. I had Joab murdered. Have mercy.” That’s point number one.

Here’s 2. David’s repentance

After Nathan rebukes David, the first thing out of David’s mouth is actually not included in Psalm 51. We see it in 2 Samuel chapter 12. So, let’s look. This is 2 Samuel 12:13a, “David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned (against who?) against the Lord…’” So, he doesn’t just say “I have sinned,” but he raises the level of specificity and he says, “I’ve sinned against Yahweh.” This is an example of what the Bible describes as godly sorrow. Okay, Paul speaks to it explicitly. This is 2 Corinthians 7:10. He says, “For godly grief produces a repentance.” This Greek word is metanoia, compound Greek term. Meta meaning change, noia meaning to think. “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” Do you see the contrast here? So, on one hand, you have godly grief, okay, and this grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Did you experience this godly salvation? The moment you were saved, if you’re in Christ, absolutely, you did. That was actually the first time that you experienced it. You heard the gospel. Your heart was changed, and for the first time in your life, you saw your sin in light of the holiness of God and what Jesus Christ has done for you. You experienced that godly sorrow that produced in you a repentance that led to salvation without any regret, but listen, this this godly sorrow that we’re seeing here in the text, it doesn’t just stop at regeneration; it continues throughout the sanctification process, doesn’t it? And the Holy Spirit is faithful to convict us when we have indwelling sin in our members, and we feel this this godly sorrow that produces a repentance that leads to our sanctification without regret.

Let me ask you this: Think about this for a moment. Have any of you ever regretted repenting of your sin? Have you ever met anyone who will go so far to say, “You know what, my life’s really miserable right now because I keep on repenting. I mean, woe is me! I keep on turning from my sin and doing what God’s Word says. My life’s terrible.” Eeyore. No, you haven’t said. No true Christian ever right? Worldly grief is the opposite. Worldly grief is the opposite of godly grief. So godly grief says, “I’ve sinned against the Lord.” Worldly grief says, “I’m sorry I got caught. I made a mistake.”

Let’s contrast David’s response with King Saul. I want you to see one example. We’re not going to spend a ton of time here, but 1 Samuel 26:21, “Then Saul said, ‘I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Behold, I have acted foolishly and have made here it is a great mistake.’” Listen, this sounds emotional, perhaps even sincere. He even uses the word “sin”, but it’s not godly grief; it’s worldly grief, and we know that because we just keep on reading the narrative. King Saul didn’t repent. No, he hated David. He hated Yahweh. Listen, when you have godly sorrow, you know in your spirit that what you have thought and said, “a sin against a holy God, and not a mistake.” A mistake is going to the grocery store with a honeydew list with pictures and detailed descriptions and then coming home without the right stuff. That’s a mistake. Don’t ask me how I know about that. That’s a mistake. Contrast Saul’s response again with David’s. Let’s look at Psalm 51:2-3. David writes, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.” I want you to notice the personal pronouns here. It’s obvious: me, my iniquity; me, my sin; I, my transgressions; my, me. True repentance says it’s mine. It doesn’t blame shift. It doesn’t make excuses. It doesn’t say, “You know what? I was alone on the couch. I didn’t really have anything else to do, and I was lonely because leadership can be lonely at times. And I saw this woman; she was really pretty, and my feelings told me to do it, so I just did it.” No, true repentance doesn’t say that. In fact, true repentance deals with your sin before trying to help someone else see their sin. Jesus speaks to this explicitly in Matthew 7:3-5. He writes begins with a question: “‘Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that’s in your own eye?’” Speck here, log here. We’ll go ahead and answer this. Yeah, it’s because of pride. Yeah, we stand over the Word of God. We fail to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ and do our part in sanctification. And what happens? We begin majoring on other people’s sins and minoring on our own. Jesus goes on. He’s got more questions. “‘Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye, when there is the log in your own eye?’” And then He says something very politically correct. He says, “‘You hypocrite (“you hypocrite”, that word means wearing of the mask), first, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.’” Do you struggle with this? I do. I do. I struggle with this in my marriage. At times, I’m so quick to see the speck in Erica’s eye that I miss the log in my own. And what do I need? I need the sanctifying mercy of God. That’s what I need, and I have that in Christ Jesus. His mercy is new every single morning. In our context today, in Psalm 51, David he sees the log, and he says, “I’m the man. I’m the man who should have been on the battlefield, and I’m the man who lusted. I’m the man who committed adultery, and I’m the man who deceived everybody, and I’m the man who murdered Uriah. And I’m the man who’s played the hypocrite after a long season of hiding.” And guys, if you trace this back, latter part of 2 Samuel 11, you’ll see this. We’re talking about upwards of a year, and I know that to be true because the baby had already been born, almost a year of hiding and just suppressing and just covering it. Now we see him. What we see him coming clean, throwing himself on the mercy of God, having that change of mind, repenting.

Psalm 51:4, he elaborates and he says, “Against You and You only have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” Now I don’t want you to be confused here. When David makes this statement, Psalm 51:4a, he’s not saying that he’s only sinned against God. Okay, because no doubt he sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba. That’s low-hanging fruit. That’s easy to see. But he also sinned against his own family. He had a family, and he sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah’s family, and he sinned against his military. I mean, those men were looking up to him for leadership and for example, and he sinned against the entirety of the nation of Israel. You got to keep in mind back then kings were bound by what was called the king’s law, and so the king of Israel had delegated authority from Yahweh to represent God. He sinned against 1000s and 1000s of people. So again, don’t get confused by saying that he’s not bypassing those realities, but rather acknowledging that all sin is ultimately vertical in nature, and it rises up to the highest court of law. This is true repentance. We’re seeing it. A man had sin in his members. He heard the word, and now he’s repenting. He goes on in verses five through six, and he says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” Take note of these two words here, church: inward and heart. When you sin, one of the temptations that you’re going to experience is to fake it and to go through the motions from a religious standpoint, all while harboring, indwelling sin in your members, in resisting the Holy Spirit, and not coming under the Word of God. David got pretty good at this for a season. The Israelites were really good at this. You could call them professional fakers in a sense. This is Amos 5:21-23. You’re not going to see this text on a coffee mug. If you do, send me a picture and prove me wrong. And don’t customize a mug and send it to me. God says, “‘I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.’” This is strong language, guys. Does God still feel the same way about certain assemblies around the world? He does. He doesn’t change the assemblies that are man-centered, that are Christless and gospelless, and preach a gospel that’s contrary to the one that we find in the Bible, which we know per Galatians chapter one, is no gospel at all. God hates those assemblies. He goes on in verse 22, and he says, “‘Even though you offer Me your burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them. (So, they’re going through the motions.) In the peace offerings of your fat and animals, I will not look upon them.’” Verse 23, “‘Take away from Me the noise of your songs to the melody of your harps, I will not listen.’” Now, is God saying that He hates the feasts and He hates the offerings and He hates the sacrificial system that He hates the temple worship that He set up? No, He prescribed those things to point us ahead to Jesus Christ. He’s saying that He hates their version of them. You got to remember, David’s been sitting in this sin. He’s been playing the hypocrite, if you will, for almost a year.

But now he knows that all true repentance begins in here before it really manifests itself out here, and that all true repentance is ultimately a work of God in His Word, it was the Word that generated David’s repentance. Hebrews 4:12. Speaking of that, it says, “For the Word of God is living and it’s active, (so it’s not a dead book) sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul (deep) and of spirit (deepest) of joints and of marrow in discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” This is what the word did in David’s life in 2 Samuel chapter 12. When Nathan found him church, Nathan didn’t give him his opinion, and he didn’t give him a moral pep talk. No, he gave him the word. That again, that that was the role of a prophet to speak on God’s behalf. Nathan did that. David received it in the word “cut” David, but it didn’t cut him to harm him. It cut him to heal him. It cut him to lead him to a repentance that would lead to his onward sanctification without any regret. This is David’s repentance. We’re seeing it right here.

Here’s 3. David’s Christ

After David looked at Nathan and said, “I’ve sinned against the Lord,” you remember that we read that? Nathan responds, and he has something to say on God’s behalf to David. 2 Samuel 12:13b, “…And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.’” Now, how would the Lord do this? How would the Lord put away David’s sins? I mean, he had a lot of them, and they were quite grievous. Let’s answer that question from the mouth of a couple witnesses in the scriptures. We’ll begin actually with David again, Psalm 51:7. I want you to see this. He says, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Now, hyssop was a flimsy plant with many branches and leaves, and it’s a plant that was actually used within the context of the Passover. A very impressive, amazing shadow in the Old Testament that points us forward to Jesus Christ. I want to show you this. This is Exodus 12:21-23, “Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb.’” So we’ve got the last plague here. Pharaoh has hardened his heart. Here is the plague of the firstborn. Moses gave the elders of Israel instruction. Verse 22, here it is, “‘Take a bunch of hyssop (here’s the plant that David was referencing. Take a bunch of hyssop) and dip it in the blood that’s in the basin.’” That’s the blood of the Passover lamb that was sacrificed. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. So, pretty clear instructions. Take the hyssop plant, dip it in the blood of the Passover lamb, and then take that blood and smear it on the lentil and the two doorposts of the home, and stay in your house until morning. Verse 23, “‘For the Lord, (that’s Jesus) will pass through.’” We covered this last week. This is salvation through judgment. God didn’t teleport them up to the second heaven and say, “Just chill out here for a little bit. Well, I do My thing down here.” No, He saves them through judgment. “‘For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when He sees (what? When He sees their adherence to the command, when He sees their good works? No, when He sees the blood) the blood of the Passover lamb on the lintel and on the two doorposts. The Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the Destroyer to enter your house to strike you.’” Now, did this happen historically? Of course it did. I mean, we’re reading about it right here. It’s historical, it’s literal and grammatical, and it’s Christological in nature. It points us ahead to a greater redemption that we have in Christ as a result of His shed blood. We see this in substance form.

Ephesians 1:7, Paul writes, “In Him (that’s in Christ) we have redemption (here it is, it’s) through His blood (it’s the blood of the Lamb, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God) the forgiveness of our trespasses…” This blood that Paul speaks of here in Ephesians one is, in fact, the blood that washed all of David’s sins away and provided him a greater redemption that the Israelites experienced out of Egypt. That was just a type, just a type. I grew up on the East Coast, not you know a Texan through and through. We moved here. We’re coming up on eight years in December. Actually, born in Florida and then moved to the Carolinas when I was five. And I don’t remember much about my upbringing, but I do remember my parents brought me to church pretty much every single Sunday, and I didn’t know it at the time because I wasn’t regenerate. But they brought me to a gospel-centered church. It was called Colonial Baptist Church, and Stephen Davy was the pastor there, and he preached the gospel. In flowing out of a sound theology, their doxology was on point, meaning their worship songs-they were centered on Christ. It wasn’t, you know, a bunch of fluff like a lot of the modern day stuff today. And you know, we sang a bunch of hymns. I love the hymns. I’m glad we still sing them here. And one of the prominent hymns that we sang in that church was called “Nothing But the Blood,” and I, you know, I listened to it yesterday. Listened to it this morning, and you know, the question that gets repeated throughout that song is, “What can wash away my sin?” And the answer, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” The blood of bulls and goats couldn’t do it. It took the blood of the Lamb, the greater David’s blood, to wash away his sins. This blood speaks a better word. Perhaps you’ve heard that language before. It actually comes from Hebrews 12:24. Look at what the text says, “And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant into the sprinkled blood (this is the blood that would go on the mercy seat. It would cover the mercy seat) that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” Now here, the author is actually pointing us back to the first book in your Bible. But not only that, the first family. You remember the story? You got two bros, Cain and Abel, and they both bring offerings to God. And Abel’s offering is accepted, and Cain’s is rejected. Now, what does Cain do when he finds out that Abel’s was accepted and his was rejected? Did he throw Abel a party? No, he kills him in cold blood. Right there, boom. In the first family in your Bible, you have brother killing brother. Yet again, another striking example of our need for a Savior. Now you might be out there thinking, “I haven’t murdered anybody.” Yes, you have. You’ve murdered them in here, in your heart. Yeah, you need a Savior too. You do, everybody does because we’re born into sin. This is what God says to Cain after he kills his brother. This is Genesis 4:9-10, “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel, your brother?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’” In other words, “Het off my back. I do what I want when I want. Who are You to talk to me like that?” This is pride. Verse 10, “And the Lord responds and said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood (look at this) is crying to Me from the ground.’” But what does it cry out? Have you ever thought about that before? What does Abel’s blood cry out? Well, no doubt it cries out, “Avenge me.” Furthermore, it cries out, “Justice”. So, why does the blood of Jesus speak a better word than the blood of Abel? Here’s why: the blood of Jesus doesn’t cry out “justice”. The blood of Jesus satisfies divine justice. Not only that, the blood of Jesus cries out the very thing that David was pleading for in Psalm 51, verse one, namely “mercy”. That’s what it cries. “Withhold from the elect what they rightfully deserve on the basis of My blood.” Does the blood still speak today? Yeah, you bet it does. It does through the Word of God. It speaks to the children of God, and what does it say? It says, “Forgiven, cleansed, washed, covered.”

This is Romans 4:7-8, Steve, I think, handled this maybe two years ago or so, the first service laughed too. I was trying to be factual. It is kind of funny, anyways. Paul is quoting David, and he says, “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are look at this covered.” Covered by what? Covered by the blood of Jesus Christ that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. It’s beautiful. Then he goes on in verse eight, and he says, “Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” Now David sinned a lot in 2 Sam 11; he sinned grievously, but because he was in the covenant, all of his sins were actually laid on Christ. And if you’re in Christ, yours were too. So, He doesn’t count them against you because He already counted them on His Son, and there’s no double jeopardy with God. He’s not going to punish the same sin twice. This is the good news, guys. This is the good news that we wake up for every Sunday. We come and we don’t beat you over the head with the law. We beat you over the head with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the best news you’ll ever hear. Sins covered, all because of the blood of the Lamb. Look at Psalm 51:9. David continues crying out to the Lord. He says, “‘Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.’” In other words, remove them. He’s on repeat.

I’ll illustrate it to you this way. In the Old Testament, the Day of Atonement, the great high priest he would take two goats. Okay, the first goat was the sacrificial goat, and the high priest would take his hands and place it on the goat, illustrating a transfer of sin from the people to the goat. And then that goat would die as a substitute, as a sacrifice for the sins of the people. Now, could that goat take away the sins of the people? No, but it was a temporary assuagement from the wrath of God, and it was a shadow. It pointed ahead, was a type, pointed ahead to Christ. And then the high priest would do the same thing with the second goat. The first part is the same. He would place his hands on the goat, illustrating that transfer of sin. But unlike the first goat, this goat would be sent away outside the camp to never return, illustrating the beautiful reality that Christ Jesus hasn’t just fulfilled the first goat. He didn’t just die making payment for the sins of the elect, but He also has removed our sins from our account to be remembered no more, and to be thrown into the sea of God’s forgetfulness. It’s great news. This is why David can say in Psalm 103:12, right after he gets done magnifying the steadfast love of the Lord, the hesed of God. Right after that, in verse 12, he says, “As far as the east is from the west, (so an incalculable distance) so far, does He (Christ) remove our transgressions from us?” This is David’s Savior. This is David’s scapegoat. Sin paid for, sin covered, sin removed, all through His blood. The blood of bulls and goats couldn’t do it, but the Lamb of God could. The Lamb of God could.

I’ll close here in Hebrews 4:14-16. This has been on repeat throughout the Roman series. It’s fitting to come back here. The author says, “Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens.” By the way, this language here, “passed through”, it’s a perfect active participle in the original, so it speaks to an event that was completed in the past that has ongoing results. “Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.” Meaning He’s fulfilled the law, He did the work, it is finished. And after that, He appeared for 40 days, and then He ascended to be with His Father, and He sits at the right hand of the throne of God forever, making intercession for His people. “Since then, we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. (Isn’t that great?) But one who, in every respect (in every respect) has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Then, verse 16, “Let us then.” This is a huge word, “then”, “let us then”. So, based upon that, and based on all of what was written in Hebrews prior to this moment. Remember, this text is written within the larger context of the rest that we have salvifically in Jesus Christ, and how we can cease striving to earn something or keep something. “Let us then with confidence (not with hesitation, but with confidence) draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time (of what? In time) of need.” Did David have a need? He did, and that need was what? That need was mercy, and that need was met in and through the person in the finished work of Jesus Christ. I’ll put it to you this way in closing. David’s plea in Psalm 51 can be your plea this morning. Yeah, you can throw yourself on the mercy of God that’s rooted in His hesed. You can run to Him, and you can stop playing the game, and you can stop running away, and you can run to, and you can stop thinking in your head that God needs a cooling off period because He’s not angry with you. Is the Holy Spirit grieved? Yes, but God’s not angry with you. There’s no more residual wrath. That all went on the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And so, the invitation this morning in the gospel is for the unbeliever. Come and receive justifying grace and be saved. And for the believer, come and receive the sanctifying mercy of God. Have your sins blotted out. Experience that cleansing that John talks about in 1 John chapter one. Come, just come. Listen, His arms are open like this. They’re not like this. It’s like this. “Come, just come. I’m ready to give you mercy. I’m ready to cleanse you. I’m ready to restore your joy.” Just come, family. The place to deal with indwelling sin is in the Father’s lap. His arms are open, and His mercy is new every single morning. And last time I checked, it’s a new morning. It’s a new morning. So come. There is no upside, none at all, to continuing on in your sin. That’s in your members. None, zero, absolutely none. But there is all the upside in the world to coming to Him. That’s where we’ll leave off today, and that’s where we’ll pick up next week.

KEYWORDS

1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Psalms, David’s Sin, Nathan’s Rebuke, Priest, Prophet, Mercy, Grace, Psalm 51, Steadfast Love, Mercy, Repentance, Godly Sorrow, Ungodly Sorrow, Uriah, Bathsheba, Indwelling Sin, Covenantal Loyalty, Davidic Covenant, Eternal Covenant, Jesus, Forgiveness, Pride, Hypocrite, Log, Speck, Parable, Sanctification, Gospel, Heart, Blood, Clean, Horn, God, Hesed, Metanoia, Hyssop, Cain, Abel, Passover, Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus, Sacrificial Goat, Scapegoat, Bible Church, Non-Denominational Church, Grayson County Church, Bible Teaching Church, Bible Preaching Church

Speaker

Matt Hahn