God will punish sin.

God will by no means clear the guilty.

Exodus 34:6-7   "And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."

It is a good thing for us to remember that today we can commit a sin that will affect our children, our grandchildren, even our great-grandchildren, and our great-great-grandchildren.

If we go to a mental hospital and we see the different forms of abnormality. Many of the patients are suffering from one mental disease or another. 

"What has made many children blind?" 

"It was the sins of their fathers." (Venereal diseases).

We cannot break God's laws with impunity. 

God is always the same. 

His laws do not change. 

But oh thank God 

"He keeps mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity."

If we only turn to Him, we will find mercy.

God does not extend mercy by shutting His eyes to the guilty or by saying, "I will just forget that sin." Sin must be punished and a penalty must be paid. God by no means clears the guilty. 

What happens then? 

How does He keep His mercy and take care of iniquity at the same time? 

A sacrifice has been provided. 

The sacrifices Israel made in that day did not take away sin but they pointed to that "Perfect Sacrifice," the Lord Jesus Christ, who, when He did come, put away sin by His death on the cross.

God gave His only begotten Son to die and on the cross our Lord Jesus said, 

"… Father, forgive them …" (Luke 23:34). 

Forgive them! 

How can He forgive them? 

How can He extend mercy to thousands? 

How can He forgive iniquity? 

How can He forgive David? 

And how can He forgive you and me?

"In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace" (Ephesians 1:7). 

Every time we  find forgiveness in the New Testament, the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is mentioned. 

God never forgives sin apart from the death of Christ. 

Never. Never.

God does not forgive sin because He is big-hearted. 

He forgives because His Son paid the penalty. 

And now with open arms He can say to you and I  

"I can extend mercy to you because My Son died for you."

David knew the way into the heart of God. 

David had a great blot on his life  -  that is, his sin with Bathsheba. 

David broke two of God’s commandments. 

He broke the seventh commandment: 

"You shall not commit adultery"  -   which he did with Bathsheba.

And he broke God’s sixth commandment:

"You shall not murder"  -  when he arranged for Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, to be put in the front of the battle so that he might be killed. 

God saw the motive in David's heart. 

That was a dastardly and cold-blooded deed, for Uriah was one of David’s mighty men and one of his most faithful followers.

Now after this disgraceful incident, David did nothing, and David said nothing. 

Those who knew about it followed suit  -  they did nothing, and they said nothing. 

Actually, what David had done was a common practice at that time. Adultery was business as usual down in Egypt and in Babylon, Philistia, Edom, and Moab. 

A great preacher once said,

 "When you put together a bunch of crooked sticks, they seem to straighten each other out." 

Since all these important men engaged in adultery, somehow it gave an air of making it seem not as bad as it was.  But it was as bad as

God said it was.

On the surface it looked as if David had gotten by with it. 

But David happened to be God’s man, 

and God was not going to let him get by with it. 

David was in torment.

He tells us a little later what really went on in his heart during that interval when he kept quiet about his sin:

God placed in his heart true godly sorrow.

Psalm 32:3-4   "When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer."

David was a tormented man. 

I think that if you had been in the court of David during that period when he was silent, you would have seen him age at least twenty or thirty years. During that period in his life, he went through awful anxiety.

Now it was during this interval of David’s silence that God sent Nathan in to David. 

Nathan demanded an audience with David regarding an urgent matter and, when he entered David’s chamber, He told him a story:

2 Samuel 12:1-4   "There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. 

It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; 

but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him."

When David heard the story, this redheaded king stood up and in righteous indignation said, 

"  ...   as the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die!" (2 Samuel 12:5). 

And then we come to one of the most dramatic moments in the Word of God  -  it makes Nathan probably the bravest man in Scripture, a lot braver than David who faced Goliath. Nathan, I imagine, pointed his finger at David and said to him, 

"You are the man!" (2 Samuel 12:7).

When Nathan said this, there were 3 courses open to David. 

He could deny the charge.  He could say that Nathan was entirely wrong and was attempting to smear him! Or he could have merely taken his scepter and pointed it at Nathan. Without saying a word, the guards would have understood and would have led Nathan out and summarily executed him. But in spite of these options that were open to him, there was the third, which was to admit the charge. 

David made a confession of his sin and he said that he was wrong. 

And David was not just an ordinary man  -  he was the king! 

By tradition the king can do no wrong.

He is above reproach, and no one dared to point a finger at the king. 

But Nathan did, and the interesting thing is that David openly confessed his sin.

There are 4 things that can happen to a Christian when he sins.  If you are a child of God and you sin, at least 1 of these things must happen, for God says it will happen.

1) The1st thing is that you will lose the joy of your salvation. 

That’s the first thing that happens when a Christian sins. 

After David confessed his sin, that is what he asked God to restore to him:

Psalm 51:12   "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit."

David did not say that he had lost his salvation. He had not. But he had lost the joy of his salvation. 

We have no notion how miserable David really was. 

We see that a genuine child of God cannot enjoy sin. When John wrote his first epistle, talking to the child of God, he gave one of his reasons for writing the epistle:

"And these things we write to you that your joy may be full" (1 John 1:4). 

But we simply cannot have fullness of joy if we have unconfessed sin in our lives. 

That is the reason apostle Paul said to the Ephesians, 

"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30). 

Our salvation is sealed to the day of our redemption, but we can grieve the Holy Spirit.

We can grieve Him, but we can never grieve Him away. However, we can grieve Him so much that in our lives there is no manifestation of Him whatsoever, and as a result our life becomes static and stale, meaningless, joyless and powerless. 

That happens to the child of God when they sin and do nothing about the sin. 

They hide it and tell lies to cover it. 

So today there are 2 classes of believers: 

those who are living with a grieved Holy Spirit and those who are living with an ungrieved Holy Spirit. 

Many, many  today are in sin,  and they can fool their preacher, their neighbors, their friends, they may even be able to fool their wives or husbands  -  but one thing is for sure: no one is fooling 

God today.

God knows every detail of our sin.

There is simply no place to hide.

But for the sinner there is a place to hide, and that is in the cleft of the Rock  -  that Rock, Christ Jesus, who was rent for us. There the storm of the wrath of God will pass over. But that is the only place. 

Do not deceive yourself with the idea that, because He is characterized as a lamb, He is not going to punish sin. He is going to punish sin. He does punish sin. The wrath of the Lamb is a reality.

If dear reader you are in sin and you have joy, then, you ought to examine your salvation because I don’t think you have the real article. You cannot have fullness of joy and have unconfessed sin in your life. And if your joy is gone,  you know it and you can say with David, 

"When I kept silent, my bones grew old every day." 

There is nothing that will age a Christian like living in sin.

Oh it is heartbreaking today to see many, many people who are presuming upon the grace of God and they act as though they have happiness but they are only fooling themselves there is no way they can fool God.

That is the reason there are so many people who are going to psychiatrists and so many others who are falling by the wayside.

It is all a result of unconfessed sin in their lives.

The real true joy of Christ Jesus deep in the heart  -  which is not the happiness the world gives,  is lost.

2) The 2nd thing is that either we must judge ourselves or 

God will judge us. 

Listen to king David:

Psalm 51:4   "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight  -  that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge."   

David recognized this and took his whipping.

Then when his own son, Absalom, rebelled against him, drove him out of Jerusalem, and was leading a revolution against him, poor David did not even lift his hand to those who were against him. 

Instead he said to his followers, 

"Do not say anything or do anything to these who are against me, 

because God has permitted this to happen to me. 

I know that God is punishing me."

We either judge ourselves or God judges us today. 

1 Corinthians 11:31-32   "For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged."

That is, when a Christian sins he has the permission of God to deal with his sin. He can judge it.

God forgives us our sin but He does not undo done things. We can be forgiven for murder but that will not bring the dead person back to life. Sin has consequences. There is always a price to pay when we speak the truth. Our sin cost God everything. His only begotten Son. Our precious Lord Jesus Christ suffered and bled and died for our sins yet man today makes light of his sin.

When our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, God took an attitude toward the entire human family that they are all saveable and God is reconciled to them  -  it does not make any difference who they are. Our Lord Jesus saved a man on the cross to show that any man can be saved, and the other thief was not saved to let us know that we do not dare presume 

on the grace of God.

Many people today think that repentance means shedding a few tears and then going merrily on their way. It is much more than that. It is making things right by making restitution to the individual who has been injured. We are to confess our sins to God, that is true. But we must remember that our Lord also said this: 

"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matthew 5:23–24). 

The world has the idea one can shed a few tears and eat humble pie for a while and then everything is right again. That is what is called the "sorrow of the world" in Corinthians, and that kind of repentance is meaningless.

In other words, Paul says that if a Christian has unconfessed sin in their life and they will not judge it themselves,  then God will move in and judge that sin. 

Now someone is sure to say,

"Wait just a minute,  I have seen Christians who have committed a sin and God did not seem to do anything about it."

Well, sometimes that is the way God moves. Notice what it says in 

1 Timothy 5:24   "Some men’s sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later." 

I do not know why, but sometimes when a child of God sins and refuses to deal with it, God does not do anything about it right away. But that sin follows the believer to judgment and he will be judged. 

God has His own reason for that. 

I think it may be when our sin involves another Christian and  God is going to wait until we are both in His Presence  and then it will be settled before Him!

We must never ever forget the God is Holy, Righteous and Just and He never changes. Never!

Someday Christ Jesus is going to appear and we shall stand in His Presence. Oh dear reader when  I come into His presence, I do not want to be ashamed. 

Apostle John said that it is possible to be ashamed at His appearing: 

"And now, little children, abide in Him; that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming" (1 John 2:28). 

When I see a child of God being punished, my feeling is  "Lord, You’ve punished him enough." I am very frank to confess that I feel like God whipped David enough. And when David became an old man, I want to say to God, "Please leave  him alone now Lord."  But David never said that; he never complained. 

For the rest of David’s life God never took the lash off his back. 

But we never hear David whimper or cry aloud  -  he knew God was punishing him for his sin.

3) The 3rd thing that can happen to a child of God when he sins. There is that, that there is a sin unto death.

1 John 5:16   "If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death."

Now, this is not spiritual death at all  -  it has no reference to that. It is physical death. 

What is the sin leading to death?

We do not know what it is. I think one of the reasons that God does not tell us is because it is different for each individual believer. For Ananias and Sapphira, it happened to be lying to the Holy Spirit. That is not true today in most cases, because there are those today who definitely lie to the Holy Spirit and nothing happens to them. But if I knew today what the sin leading to death was in my life, you can be sure of one thing  -  I would avoid that one. But there is a sin unto death that a child of God can commit, and when he does commit it God says to that one, "Come on home." Or God will put him out of operation  -  God will remove him from the place of service. God does that today, my beloved. I have seen this happen in my own family. This is something that is in operation in our day. It is like the law of gravitation in that it always works. Drop a book and it will fall right down because that law always operates. Likewise, this law always operates: there is a sin unto death. Sometimes God has to say to a child of His, "Come home, My child. I cannot allow you to keep on committing that sin."

When David committed his sin he did not know that would happen to him. But he prayed, "Do not cast me away from Your presence. Do not remove me, oh God! Give me another chance. I’ve done an awful thing and You have a right to remove me, but please don’t remove me. Give me another chance!" 

And God did so. 

A child of God many times needs to cry out to God, "Oh, God, this thing I’ve done is terrible, but don’t remove me! Don’t let this thing be the cause of my undoing!" 

And I do believe many times God is gracious, as He was to David, although He may discipline, for He did whip David.

Then we come to the fourth thing. 

4) A child of God can confess their sin and every child of God should that when they commit sin for

1 John 1:9   "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."

This is exactly what David did. He went to God and said, 

"For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me" (Psalm 51:3). 

David also said,

"Wash me and cleanse me," and God did that. 

But David had to learn that God could not allow him to get by with sin. And God did not.

Let’s turn back to 2 Samuel 12 in which Nathan was speaking:

"‘Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 

For you did it secretly, 

but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’" 

So David said to Nathan, 

"I have sinned against the Lord." 

And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 

However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die."

God told David, 

"You caused My enemies to blaspheme  -  I cannot let you do that.

So you’ll have to be punished." 

After this, David went into the privacy of his own chamber and there made his confession to his Lord and God.

That is the background of Psalm 51, one of the greatest confessions that has ever been written. By studying it we learn how we should confess our sins before the Lord.

David said, 

Psalm 51:6-7   "Behold Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." 

God desires truth on the inside.

"Purge me with hyssop,   I shall be clean: wash me and I shall be whiter than snow"   -  is the application of the death of Christ to the life.

Psalm 51:9   "Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities."

Blot out  -  David needed a spot remover. 

Psalm 51:10   "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me."

The word for "create" here is the same word as is in Genesis 1:1 

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"  -  bara, out of nothing. "I need a new heart," 

David said. "Create in me a new heart," 

and the word create  means "out of nothing." 

In other words, there was nothing in David’s heart  that God could use. 

He was not asking for renovation or reformation. 

He was asking for something new. 

Sometimes we hear the invitation, "Give God your heart." 

May I ask you, 

"What do you think God wants with that old dirty, filthy heart?"

He does not want it. 

God is not asking anybody to give Him their heart. 

He wants to give us a new heart. 

That is what He wants to do. 

"Create in me a new heart" this was what David was asking Him to do for him.

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). 

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

Let God give you a new heart.

A heart that will seek after Him. 

A heart that will desire to do His will and fulfill His purpose. 

David has another request:

Psalm 51:11   "Cast me not away from Thy Presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me."

The Spirit of God came upon David as king that he might be God’s man.

No Christian today can pray that prayer, because if you are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He will never leave you. You can grieve Him, and you can quench Him, but you can never grieve Him away or quench Him away. We are told,

"And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30).

Therefore no child of God can lose the Spirit of God. However, the Holy Spirit can be inoperative in a Christian’s life, and that is what happened to David.

Therefore he was asking God please to allow His Holy Spirit to continue to work in his life.

He pleaded with God.

Psalm 51:12   "Restore unto me the joy of my salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit."

David did not lose his salvation. He lost the joy of his salvation, and he wanted his communion with God restored.

David found out, as the prodigal son found out, that there is not nearly as much fun in the far country as there is in the Father’s house.

David wanted all this for a purpose:

Psalm 51:13-18  "Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness. O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise.

For Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering. 

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.   Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem."

David wanted to praise God again.

Psalm 51:19  "Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar.

David not only wanted to praise God, he wanted to please God.

The Lord Jesus went to dinner in the home of a Pharisee. A woman who had been saved came in from the street and although Simon the Pharisee only knew her by her past  -   he would have passed her by on the other side of the road rather than meet her  -  but according to the custom of the day, when he had guests she had a right to come into his house and stand and observe. She however got to the place where our Lord was reclining (they used couches rather than chairs in that day), and she stood at His feet behind Him, weeping. She washed His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with ointment. 

Simon the Pharisee became critical. 

He began to find fault with her. 

And our Lord really rebuked him. 

He said, 

"When I came into your home you did not even give me a bowl of water to wash My feet.. You did not even extend to Me the common courtesies. But this woman has not ceased to wash My feet with her tears. 

She’s been forgiven.

You have not" (see Luke 7:44 mine a paraphrase).

Then our Lord Jesus said to him,

"… Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little" (Luke 7:47). 

We think we are all right. 

Dear reader, God cannot clear the guilty, and He says that we  are guilty before Him. 

The only way that He could save you and me is to give His Son to die. 

For the worst sinner in the world that is all that is needed. 

And this is the only way that you and I are saved. 

"… To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." 

What is the measure of our love?

It is our estimate of our own sins. 

Is it possible that we do not confess our sins? 

When was the last time we wept over our sins? 

When was the last time we cried out in the night because of our failures? 

Thank God, there is forgiveness.

Thank God for the Lord Jesus.

But there needs to be confession on our part.

Crown Him with Many Crowns.

The Lamb upon His throne,
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing
Of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity.

Crown him the Lord of love;
Behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified.
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For Thou hast died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail
Throughout eternity.

Crown Him the Lord of life,
Who triumphed o'er the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
For those He came to save.
His glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died, eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of heaven,
Enthroned in worlds above,
The King of kings to whom is given
The wondrous name of Love;
His reign shall know no end,
And round His pierced feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend
Their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown Him with many crowns,
The Lamb upon His throne,
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing
Of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity.

AMEN!

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