Sunday School | David - 2 Samuel 12

We're going to continue our study that we've been in for months and months, and we are in 2 Samuel chapter 12. What happened last week? Do you guys remember? Bathsheba. So, give me the thirty-second recap of chapter 11. What happens?

He's not at all clear in his thinking, and so he takes her, summons her to the palace. They do the dance, she gets pregnant, and she goes through all kinds of steps to try and cover it up, commencing with killing her husband, who is one of his own right now. Excellent. That's a pretty good recap right there.

In spring, the time when kings go off to war. And that's kind of this very appropriate moment. But we're still having some technical difficulties here. Alright, you're banished from the kingdom henceforth.

But the way it all plays out—he's supposed to be doing this and he doesn't. And as it goes off, he ends up betraying not just his marital vows but his lord, his top leadership. All these things converge into this singular moment, and it becomes this massive turning point in the life of David.

Now what we saw last week was the sin. We saw the event occur, but there was no comeuppance. There was no judgment. There was no follow-up. And that's what's about to happen right now through the vehicle of a guy named Nathan. But before we look at what's going to actually happen, I want to talk about the nature of parables.

The Nature of Parables

When Nathan comes to David and brings correction to him, it's going to be the moment that the rest of this life story is going to get explained. But the vehicle he uses is a parable. What do you know about parables? In the simplest level, what's a parable?

It's a story with an extended metaphor. Okay, that's good. I don't know if you've thought about it, but the nature of a parable is that it is subversive. You could think of a parable like you'd think of a Trojan horse.

What does a Trojan horse do? It gets behind the walls. The nature of the Trojan horse is that somebody wheels up a giant horse to your gate, and you're like, "That's amazing. I always wanted a giant wooden horse. Come on in." And you let it in. You let in the Trojan horse. But once it's inside the gate and the doors are shut, then what happens? The soldiers jump out and it spills out. It is a subversive technique.

There's something I want to get past your walls. I don't want you to defend it. I don't want you to deflect it. I want you to let it in. And then once you've let it in and it's too late for you to do anything about it, the door opens up and the thing spills out. A Trojan horse, a subversive tactic, is exactly what Nathan's about to do. And Jesus does it all the time.

Think about what happens in this story. Watch Nathan's approach to David. He could have just knocked on the wall of the gate and said, "Hey, David, what you did was bad." But if he did that, what do you think would have happened? David might not have agreed. And it might have gone very badly for Nathan. And so we have a tendency sometimes to just use this very frontal approach. But Nathan is wise and he's subversive and he's tricky, and he knows how to get his message over the wall before David has a chance to realize what's happening. And that's exactly what he does.

Nathan's Parable

Here's the story that he tells:

The Lord sent Nathan to David, and when he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who would come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who would come to him." — 2 Samuel 12:1-4

And then right there, we don't get to hear the end of the story. That is not a whole story. That's not an entire parable. But the parable—or the fraction of the parable that we get—was so compelling that what does David do? He ends it. Okay, I've heard enough. Off with his head. Right? He hears enough of the story and responds. He basically kicks back into his role. He is the king. He is the judge. And he's heard enough that he doesn't even want to wait to hear the end of the story. He just issues a judgment. He issues a verdict.

Now, before we go any further, how is that story like David, and how is that story not like David? How is it like David? First from Nathan's perspective, what was he trying to do?

Well, David himself had everything. He had much and already had what, six wives? At least. And he goes and takes one. That's right. So you have a rich man in the David and Uriah story. You've got a rich man, a poor man. You've got a man who has everything he could possibly want and one who has one that he actually loves. You notice that, right? There's this—it's not like he's going to eat this lamb for dinner. But he loves his little ewe lamb and sleeps in his bed. It's like a pet, right? So you've got a rich man and a poor man. You've got a man who is dismissive of his many possessions and a man who treasures and loves the one that he has.

How else? Any other key things that are similarities here with David? The poor man seems to fit the model of what David used to be. David's going, yes, that's me. That's me. But then as he's being told this story, he recognizes that even though this was me—from poor to rich—this story that I've been hearing this whole time, it isn't making sense in my own conscience because I know that I've been that rich man.

How We Write Ourselves Into Stories

This is such a—I wish everybody could have heard this. I'm going to restate what was just said. As David is hearing the story, it's very likely that he's hearing Nathan's story and he's writing himself into it because we always do that. Every story that you hear, you imagine yourself in it. I'm reading the Harry Potter stories right now—finally, it's been like twenty years and I'm finally reading Harry Potter. And you read it through the eyes of Harry Potter. What would I do if I was being bullied by the Dursleys? I would hate it. I would love it if I was slaying the wicked, right? Like, you see it through those eyes.

And David is almost certainly hearing that story through the eyes of the poor man, of the good guy, because you always imagine yourself as the protagonist. You always imagine yourself as the good guy. I heard an interview—I forget who the actor was—but there was a character actor who always plays the villain in all of his movies. He always plays the bad guy. And an interviewer asked him once, "What's the secret? How are you such a good bad guy in all of the stories?" And the actor's response was, "I've never played the bad guy."

Do you get it? Darth Vader doesn't think he's the bad guy. Darth Vader thinks he's the good guy. We should get our way. Hitler does not think he's the bad guy. He thinks he's the good guy. We always think we're the good guy.

And David is hearing that story going, "Man, if somebody took my ewe lamb, I would cut their head off. Right? We should cut that guy's head off." He writes himself into the story. He just misplaced his character. When the thing goes flip, we'll see it flip. But that's a really important thing: you do the same. You write yourself into the story, and you always imagine you're always the good guy. Always.

Any other similarity between this story and what's happening in real life that Nathan's up to?

How the Story Differs from David's Actions

Now, how is it not like David? Which is to say, how does David not get it? He doesn't see the trap. He doesn't know it's a Trojan horse. So why is it different enough that David fails to catch on?

He's preparing this for a traveler rather than it being for himself. David is obviously taking something for himself. So he just takes it at face value. It's about a traveler. It's about a sheep. You know, if Nathan had told a story like this—"once upon a time there was a king who had seven wives"—I think David would have caught on a little bit earlier, right? But he veils it enough that David is able to just swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

The thing that dies is the lamb. Good. Yeah, the thing that dies is the lamb. The thing that's lost is a lamb. It's not a woman. It's not a wife.

And so there's just enough of a veil around it that David doesn't catch on. The owner didn't die. That's right. It doesn't seem like he would kill the owner. And so you might think there's some mismatched parallels here. He's artful. Nathan is smart enough to be like, I don't want this thing to smell too suspicious to David because he wants to persuade him.

Now, we don't get to hear the end of the story. I'm sure Nathan had more to say after verse four. Instead he took the lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him. And at that point the story stops because David's heard enough.

And look what happens:

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die." — 2 Samuel 12:5

Why is that statement, why is that judgment particularly pointed? The man who's done this deserves to die. Because David does deserve to die. Now, you don't deserve to die for taking somebody's sheep. This would not be a capital offense. I mean, you have to pay back the sheep. You have to get four sheep. If you kill my dog, I don't get to kill you. Right? So it's not really true. But in fact, Nathan's like, well, it's truer than you know. Because the real meaning of the story, as we saw last week, David has committed a capital offense, and he has walked through this in the lens of somebody's gotta die here. Either me or Uriah. I pick you. So he's right about the bigger picture. He's wrong at the immediate application, but he's right about the bigger point.

Katherine made a good observation. David's never been greedy. We've never seen him just not caring for other people. This rich guy just wanted to do it his way. He's in charge, and he can do whatever he wants. But David is living under God. He's living for the Lord. So this moment of passion—it's not like he goes in lust after a while. We don't know. But he's a man. And so boom. Yes. But then such a quick decision, like, how to get out of it. It's like he was just a thought in us. That's right. He was. And David's instinct for self-preservation was so strong that he very quickly said, Well, do this. We do this. He tried a couple things to try to forestall the judgment against Uriah, but push comes to shove, at the end of the day Uriah is going down.

Hospitality and Nathan's Frame

Now here's the thing that's interesting. I talked about this a few weeks ago. Nathan is framing this whole thing through the lens of hospitality, which is so interesting. If we made a list back to chapter 11, what were the things that David did wrong? What would you have listed? What were the possible sins that David had committed last week?

Lying. Didn't go off to fight, so he neglects his duties. He's coveting Uriah's wife Bathsheba. What else? What are the two biggies, the two most obvious things? Adultery and murder. But we can come up with these secondary things. We look at the king neglect, all that kind of stuff. It would probably have been a long time until we're like, he wasn't very hospitable. But that's how Nathan frames it. Isn't that interesting?

Nathan sees it through the lens of this traveler who comes, and you are failing to be thoughtful about the needs of others. He picks on the particular thing of you disadvantaged the one who had something that you wanted, and that was the absence of hospitality, the absence of generosity. Never mind adultery and murder. He doesn't even get to the adultery and murder. He just picks on this thing. But it's enough. That thing is enough. It's tangential, but it's enough that David burns with anger and says,

"As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die. He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity." — 2 Samuel 12:5-6

Do you know why he says that? Why David picks a four-times factor? It's Mosaic Law. It's Exodus 21. If you look at Exodus 21, go to Exodus 21 if you want to see it. I think it's verse 22. Is it 22?

"If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep." — Exodus 21:37

Why is that? Why if I steal from you, do I owe you four times back? Why don't we just like, if I steal it, I gotta give it back? It's punishment. It's restitution. Think about it like this. If I steal from Kroger and they catch me and I have to give it back, what's that going to incentivize?

You might catch me 20% of the time, and I'm dominate going in that exchange. If all I've got to do is give it back, then we're not really disincentivizing the behavior because you're not really going to catch me. So it's meant to be there's supposed to be a pattern that it's worse than it was so that you won't even think about doing it.

Zacchaeus promises to give four times back as well. That's right. Andy, you're always so good in the Gospels, man. Your mind is just you must have spent more time reading the Gospels, right? Because you always bring us back there. And when Zacchaeus says, "If I've robbed anyone"—remember that, the little dude in the tree?—"If I've disadvantaged anyone, I'll pay back 4," he's talking about this. This is the rule of restitution. It's four times. And David's like, "I should do that, plus we should kill him." Those two things, right?

And here's the great line. What is Nathan's response to David? "You are the man." You are the man. David thought he was the other guy because we always think that we're the other guy. But Nathan's like, "Dude, this story was about you." But it's already inside the gate. The horse has already been rolled in. The doors have already been shut. And so when Nathan lets the armies spill out of the Trojan horse, it falls. Right? Nathan said to David, "You are the man."

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Listen to this list. I anointed you king over Israel and delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with his sword, 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. — 2 Samuel 12

A whole bunch of stuff in there. If we were doing this in a small group, we'd slow down and we would kind of unpack this. So let's do a modified version of that. What strikes you? Just make some observations about Nathan's speech. When now he's speaking prophetically, it's no longer a story, it's overt, it's first level. What is he saying?

I'm struck that he never mentions adultery. It's curious, isn't it? I mean, the big two. Adultery isn't among the list. So odd, right? Now, it's not because it doesn't matter, but it is curious that that gets lost in this storm of other things. So what does get mentioned there? What replaces that on this priority list of Nathan's? Murder. Murder, for sure. But not only murder, right? Certainly murder.

Does he—so we say that David killed Uriah? Yes. He used the Ammonites. Yes, but he used the Ammonites, right? So he didn't put his hands around Uriah's throat and choke him out. But that distinction—the Scriptures don't make that distinction at all. You killed Uriah. What was the weapon of choice? The sword. The sword of the Ammonites, right? But David is wielding the sword of the Ammonites. So if you feel like, "Well, I didn't really kill him. He just died in battle, that's what happens." Not according to God. He killed him.

Yeah, somebody would've killed somebody. Same thing, yeah. That's exactly right. So you could hire a hitman. There's a lot of ways we could accomplish it, but David, you were the one directing this. So absolutely, completely fair to say that David killed Uriah.

Despising the Word of the Lord

David is accused of despising the word of the Lord. This is strong language. So why—what's going on with that? What does it mean to despise something, and how is David guilty of that?

He didn't have any regard for the commandments. That's right. There's this thing that I have said that is true that you should love—that you've written books about this, David. Your word—I mean, how many times can David talk about how much he loves the Lord's word over and over and over and over again? He's like, "Do you though? Because you didn't seem like it. I have told you what to do. And you're like, you know what? No." And in that very act of sin, you are despising him, okay?

Now, think—we've talked about this in this room. My favorite verse on sin, I think the most insightful verse on sin is Jeremiah 2:13. If you don't know this one, this is worth highlighting, okay? Do you have Jeremiah 2:13?

Are the fellows smiling at each other? Did we talk about this too much or something? You just whisper it? We talked about it one time at Feast, and I didn't say it out loud, and then when you asked the question, and then I was like, "Oh, man. Oh, dang it. I could have had glory." I know. It's such a drag, right?

I feel that way all the time. Jeremiah, do you have it in your brain? Jeremiah 2:13.

My people have committed two sins against me. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water. — Jeremiah 2:13

There's something about exchange. Yeah. Well, that's where Paul's gonna take it. That's right. That's right. Jeremiah 2:13 is a really insightful thing, and that's what Nathan is going after here in this moment. Jeremiah 2:13 is going to help you understand, sadly, yourself and also your spouse. So stay with that.

My people have committed two sins. He doesn't mean we've only sinned twice. That would be lovely if you'd only sinned twice. What he means is that every time you sinned, it was a double step. It's always two things. It is on the one hand a rejection of God. Right? You have forsaken me, the spring of living water. He comes to you and he offers you living water. He offers you something nourishing and valuable and good for you, and you're like, no. You despise it. You're like, I don't want it. Give it away from me. Not Jacob. Who's Jacob's brother? The soup kid. Esau. Esau despised his birthright. He's like, who cares? I don't really want that. On the one hand, we're like, I don't want that. And then we go and we dig a mud puddle. I could have your fresh water. I could have this fresh water, I don't want that. In fact, I'm gonna dig a mud puddle, this broken cistern, this leaky pot that can't really hold water. And sin is always that.

The Pattern of Exchange

The reason Hannah had the word exchange in her mind is because when Paul describes the great—if I had one passage, I'd go Jeremiah 2. If you give me a second one, I'm gonna go into Romans 1 into Romans 2, where Paul explains the way sin works. And his key word there is what, Hannah? Exchange, exchange, exchange. It's that we trade in God for something else. Every time you sin, you were doing these two things. You were forsaking the Lord, the spring of living water, and you are digging for yourself. You know what? I know what you want me to do, but I don't like it now I'm gonna do it this way instead. I know what you're offering me, but that's going to take too long. This will be faster. I know what you want, but that just sounds like I'm not sure it's going to work, but I'm certain that this will get me at least part of the way. Right? It is always an exchange. And what Paul says in Romans 1 and 2, is that we're exchanging the truth of God for a lie. Right? We're trading him in.

And that is why probably the verse that most people know best about sin, is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Do you know that verse, Romans 3:23?

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. — Romans 3:23

All have sinned and fall short. It's actually a really crummy translation. Fall short means nothing. What the Greek word there is lack. All have sinned and lack the glory of God. So do the arithmetic on this. Why do you lack it? Why don't you possess it or have it? Why? Because you traded it in. Right? That's how this works.

What David is doing is he is despising, I don't want that. I don't need that. Forget that. I don't want that. I got a better idea. Bathsheba's a better idea. I could go do what you asked me to do, but I'm not, stupid idea. Just trust me. I got a better idea than you do. He goes and he despises the word of the Lord. And as always happens, when we despise it, we trade it away. We don't value it. We don't want it. We always create a substitute. Nature hates a vacuum and so do we. I'll take this away. I'll replace it with something else. And then what comes will come, and David's gonna see what comes. Alright? That's what's happening. There's deep insight into how sin works.

Now, Katherine, thank you for your patience. I was thinking of if David had not been confronted, that sometimes when we sin like that, it's almost like we have to keep doing it to justify that we did it.

Oh, yeah. And he would've. David probably would've been wracked with eventually so much guilt, but he might have had to even keep fighting against that. It was like a downward war, the enemy trying to bring him down. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

God's Judgment as Mercy

So there's a principle I think you're getting after here, Katherine, is that all judgment—all judgment up until the final judgment—is itself a mercy. Because if, in what happens in Romans, once they exchange the truth of God for a lie, what is God's response in that passage? It happens three times. They exchange Him for whatever else they want, and what is His response? Do you know this? He gives them over. To give them over is to say, alright, fine. How about it.

Knock yourself out. See where this goes. And when God gives you over, which is to say when he fails to bring a corrective judgment in, it's bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. You do not want to be given over. You would be much better off if you were found out and got exposed to light because it interrupts the process. If we don't get interrupted in our sin, if your sin doesn't get interrupted, it doesn't stop. It just spins down and spins down.

Every time you get caught, didn't you hate that? It's better to get caught than to have the thing spin out of control because the work you've got to do to justify it in your own heart, the way things spin out, then you're going to do it again. It's just going to grow and get bigger. You're going to callous your heart and you're distant from the Lord. And the Lord loves David, so he jumps in. He's like, "No, right now. Boom. We're gonna shove our hand in the fan immediately, and we're gonna stop the whole thing, and all this crazy is gonna spin out, but it's gonna retain this relationship that otherwise would be lost if we just let you go and go and go and go." There's a lot happening here.

So let's keep going. Nathan says to David, "You're the man." Any other insights here from verses seven to ten that you want to pull out? Things you noticed about Nathan's little speech?

The Judgment Pronounced

Let's look at verse 11:

This is what the Lord says... — 2 Samuel 12:11

But what's the punishment? What's the threat of this from Nathan?

Verse 10, now therefore the sword will never depart from your house. — 2 Samuel 12:10

The sword will never depart from your house for the rest of your life. But when it says never depart from your house, that might be generational. So that's true. I think it is chiefly talking about David's life, but if what he means is beyond David's life in this line of kings, does that prove to be true? It does.

David is the type of the Messiah that's supposed to lead to the one. How are his kids and his grandkids and his great grandkids going to do at the job? Have you ever considered if all of that disaster that becomes the rest of the history of Judah, does that too find its root in 2 Samuel chapter 11? It might be that it's not just the next thirty years, but the next five hundred years until his house is actually going to lose the throne. That's coming about three hundred years.

The whole Absalom situation—the Absalom, Amnon, Tamar disaster is probably going to be the primary expression of this. It's going to get really, really rough. If you don't know that story, you can read ahead, but we'll unpack that in the weeks to come.

Remember that when it talks about the sins of the father being visited upon the third and fourth generation—that's right. It's going to play out immediately. What is the first and most obvious judgment that's going to fall on David through this? The baby's going to die. That's like, "Wow, that's weird." What about it? It's not the baby's fault. That's a hard thing. But the baby is going to die.

Verse 11, 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. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before Israel. — 2 Samuel 12:11-12

There is an interesting correspondence here. David's sin was sexual in nature, and though it's not included in that paragraph, he doesn't say, "Hey, you committed adultery." The punishment is sexual in nature. He's saying you completely ruined this, and so there will be a recompense in your life in the same category of your failing. So it's kind of where he finally gets around to it, but it is strange that it's not listed more explicitly. But I think it's invoked in that thing.

And keep going. Watch this.

After verse 13, David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." — 2 Samuel 12:13

He's busted. He's got him dead to rights. Nathan knows all.

And what I appreciate about David is that the complaint stops. He just sees it, he gets it, and he doesn't play any more games. He's just, you got me. And he basically confesses and begins a process of repentance. We're gonna watch the way it plays out. But he's got it. He's done.

And then after David says it, Nathan replies, "The Lord has taken away your sin." It's an interesting line. I want you to remember this. Everything else that's gonna happen is under the heading of the Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die. I'm gonna screw around with your theology in about two minutes.

Notice the difference between David and Saul. David confesses. He acknowledges that there's no more games. Now we gotta deal with it all, but he's not hiding. And Saul was playing all kinds of silly games.

David even wrote Psalm 51. Yes, he really did take it. He was a man of God, and he didn't come back. Psalm 51 is a reflection on this whole Bathsheba disaster where David, in inspired scripture, is acknowledging:

Before you and you only I have sinned.

Which is a crazy line in this. So David's really going to enter into this. He's going repent. It's going be genuine. It's going to be real.

Grace and Consequences

However, and this is where I want you to stretch your mind here. Listen to it again. "The Lord has taken away your sin. You're not going to die. The son born to you will die." Well, hang on a second. Did we take away the sin or did we not take away the sin?

What are some of Christian's favorite verses about totality of grace?

He forgets it as far as the East is from the West.

We love that. And it's good language, right? He's separated our sins from as far as the East is from the West.

Blessed is a man whose sin is not counted against him.

That's David, quoted by Paul in Romans 4. There's another one:

The Lord is faithful and just to forgive us.

That's 1 John 1. And then there's the mother of all, Romans 8:1:

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Now, all of these things are wonderful. Right?

For by grace you have been saved through faith. It is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of yourselves the works, so no one should boast.

We love all that. The problem is, I think we misunderstand those things to say because there's no condemnation, there are also no consequences. Because we're saved by grace, there's nothing expected of us. Because the Lord does not count our transgressions against us, nothing bad will happen when we sin. And all of those conclusions are false.

It's absolutely true, 100% true, that if you are hidden in Christ, his righteousness is imparted to you. It's this trait we call the great exchange, this double imputation. My badness to him and his goodness to me. All of that is true. But if you go to some rager and you get drunk and you drive home, you may be forgiven, but you might also hit a car and kill three people. And those consequences don't get magically unwound.

There are direct consequences to our behavior. And this child's death is a consequence. It's not a natural consequence. It is a supernatural consequence. And even though God has just told David, "I've taken away your sin," that child's going to die. These are compatible ideas.

We have a tendency to think that if we're forgiven in him, none of the terrible things we've done are going to matter, and it's simply not true. It's just not true. You will stand before him cleansed. You'll be admitted. You'll be raised from the dead at the final thing. He loves you. All those things are true. But we do not have in Christ a protection from the consequence of our sin. And that may be disappointing news to you, but I'd rather you knew it now than learned it later and concluded wrongly.

Here's the thing: you could conclude wrongly that because the consequences have not been taken away, I'm not really forgiven. And you could fail to believe the goodness of his mercy to you. You've got to have a theology that can stretch around the reality that there is no condemnation, but there may very well be consequences. Even in that, among those consequences, it's probably the case that he's going to mollify those. The consequence should have been that David died, but he doesn't. But there are consequences to be sure.

So does your world stretch that far? Can you get your head around all those things? It's a little bit complicated. But both of these things are what the Scriptures teach and affirm.

Jennifer and then John had a question. They say the wages of sin is death. So David says he's not gonna die. You know, David's told he's not gonna die. Somebody died for him and that was his son. Jesus died for us. So there's always a death atoning. I don't think that's a stretch at all. And in fact, I think that's the pattern of Scripture. We see it the first time we ever see it in the garden.

If you eat this fruit, you're going to die.

Do they die? Eventually they die, but it actually says "the day that you eat it, dying you will die." And they don't die, and instead they get dressed in animal skins. And what is required in order to make animal skins? The death of an animal. Right?

The Biblical pattern over and over again is: sin equals death, sin equals death, sin equals death. But it doesn't have to be your death. It can be the death of another. And so I don't think it's inappropriate to see that there's something emblematic of atonement even in the death of this child.

Alright, last thing. This is like a situation where a man commits murder, gets caught, gets convicted, and after going to prison, accepts the Lord. He's forgiven, but he still has to live with the consequence of what he's done. We struggle with those kinds of stories. We don't know the reality of somebody's heart. Has he really repented? Maybe he has, but the Lord does. He knows all things. We don't need to worry about being able to see through that.

David's Strange Response

Okay, last thing. I'll just hit this really quick because we're out of time. David responds strangely to all of this. Do you remember this? There's one more surprise in this. He gets the word that your son is gonna die. And so what is David's response? Fast. Pray. Day after day.

David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted, went into his house, spent his nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused. He would not eat any food with them. — 2 Samuel 12:16

Why is David doing that? He's trying to change God's mind. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's a good thing. David knows the story. He's like, Okay, I get it. I know what you said. But you also said that I would die, and I didn't. And who knows? You are merciful. You're compassionate. You're gracious, and I'm going to appeal to you and appeal to you and appeal to you.

It's the same thing as Jonah's message to the Ninevites. He doesn't even tell them that God is going to murder them. He's like, "Forty days and you're destroyed." That's what he hopes is going to happen. But they're like, "You know what? Maybe not." And they cover the cows in sackcloth and they repent, and God relents in sending calamity.

David knows that God is gracious. Remember that we've talked about this. God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. He's like, maybe. So let's just see. And so he fasts and he repents.

All of his friends are like, "Man, now that when the kid finally dies, they're like, well, I don't know what. David's going to go off the deep end. He couldn't stand it when his kid was sick. He's going to lose his mind when the kid finally dies." And instead, what does David do? He gets up, gets dressed, takes a shower, shaves, has something to eat. And they're like, "What gives? You were sad when the kid was sick, and now that he's died, you're just back to business? What's up with that?"

What is David's explanation to this?

While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. And I thought, who knows? — 2 Samuel 12:22

The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live. But now that he's dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me. — 2 Samuel 12:22-23

David is in this weird place of being able to accept reality. And as soon as reality has asserted itself—the child has died—it's time to move on. But prior to that, he's like, "Lord, I don't know. You might relent, and so I'm going to cry out to you."

I think that David is getting back in the space of being the guy that we want to follow. Right? You may be facing some dreadful situation, and the Lord's called to you and said, "Perhaps. Who knows? He is gracious. He is compassionate. He's slow to anger. He's abounding in love. So cry out to him." The situation is over, then the situation is over, and you can live in that. But until then, who knows?

The Theology of Perhaps

Samuel's story is full of the theology of the perhaps. None of us are smart enough to know what God will do, but he has revealed what he is like. And we can ask him to be merciful, and he might do that in your life right now. Who knows? He might relent. He might bring a blessing that you don't deserve. He does that all the time.

Okay? Good enough for now. We'll stop to chapter 13 next week. Thanks for coming.