1. One of the most precious truths found in God’s Word is the promise that God forgives sin. The Bible says "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (I John 1:7).
2. "All sin" – this includes the sin of adultery. King David committed adultery with Bath-sheba. Adultery is a wicked sin. But the blood of Jesus Christ can even wash away the filthy stain of adultery if a man repents. And David did repent.
3. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" – this includes the sin of drinking. When David discovered Bath-sheba was pregnant with his child he made her husband Uriah the Hittite drunk, hoping he would go home and see his wife and never discover that she committed adultery.
4. But that scheme did not work. Uriah, the good and loyal soldier that he was, refused to lie with his wife while his fellow-soldiers were sleeping out in the dangerous battlefield. So David resorted to murder.
5. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" – this includes even the horrible sin of murder. David told Joab to put Bath-sheba’s husband "in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die" (II Sam.11:15).
6. Joab did as he was instructed by King David and Uriah died.
7. David was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He should have been on the battlefield with his men. Instead he "tarried still at Jerusalem" (11:1).
8. David had become lazy and carnal. He lusted with his eyes (11:2-4). He coveted his neighbor’s wife (breaking the 10^th commandment).
9. And Bath-sheba was not innocent either. She should not have been bathing out in the open like that.
10. David was lustful, and dangerous, and deceitful (11:25). And David was impenitent for a long time (at least nine months – 11:27).
11. Later on, Nathan the prophet confronted David about his sin (II Sam.12:1-12), and David repented (12:13).
12. Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 both deal with David’s repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
13. This study, we will look at David’s repentance and we will look at how God forgave him and restored him. We want to magnify God’s grace this morning. God is gracious and God is merciful.
14. But there is something else that needs to be emphasized: there are consequences to sin (cf. II Sam.12:10,13-15).
15. Young people, especially must be reminded – there are consequences to sin. There are women that were promiscuous and had abortions and now they cannot conceive.
16. I have a friend whose brother used to fool around with a lot of women and now he has herpes, a painful reminder of his folly.
17. Many examples could be given. Our nation became the laughing stock of the world because of our ex-president’s lasciviousness. Now we will look at the consequences of sin.

I. SIN HURTS THE CHRISTIAN’S TESTIMONY (12:14).

1. I remember well the scandals of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Bakker. Many people laughed at me when I knocked on the door and tried to give them a Gospel tract.
2. Sinners love to see Christians fall into sin.
3. (I do not believe Jim Bakker is a Christian but the unsaved people cannot tell the difference.)
4. It emboldens them and makes them more comfortable in their sin.
5. Sin hurts the Christian’s testimony. David sent his messengers to Bath-sheba’s house (11:3,4). I wonder what these men thought about all of this. This was David, the man after God’s own heart.
6. I often wonder what effect David’s sin had on Joab. What was Joab thinking when he had to go to battle and David stayed behind (11:1)? What was Joab thinking when he discovered David’s sin? Remember, Joab knew all about David’s sin (11:14-17).
7. Joab caused a lot of trouble for David. I suspect the reason David put up with much of it was because he was afraid of Joab. That’s what sin does to people. (cf. I Kings 2:5,6).
8. David’s messengers knew about David’s sin. And Joab knew about David’s sin. And most importantly, let us never forget that God knew all about it also (II Sam.11:27). One preacher put it this way: "Secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven" (cf. 12:12)

II. YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW.

1. There are certain fixed, unalterable laws and principles in life. For example, there is the law of gravity. If you throw a ball up in the air, it will surely come down.
2. Likewise, the Bible teaches certain unalterable principles. One such principle we see over and over in God’s Word is the principle of sowing and reaping (Gal.6:7,8).
3. This principle of sowing and reaping is so basic that even worldly people understand it. For example, a farmer knows that if he sows barley, he will reap barley. He will not grow potatoes if he planted barley. He will reap that which he sowed.
4. The world understands this principle. When I was younger and started working I remember older workers telling me, "Be careful the way you treat your co-workers. The same ones you meet going up are the same ones you are going to meet coming down."
5. Some people say, "What goes around comes around."
6. I enjoy reading old sermons by the great evangelist D.L. Moody. He often preached on sowing and reaping. His sermons are filled with true stories about sons of liquor salesmen committing suicide; Marie Antoinette going to the guillotine; King Henry III of France getting stabbed to death in the same chamber where he had contrived the cruel massacre of the Huguenots, and so on.
7. Moody emphasized that you reap what you sow and under his strong preaching many sinners were brought under conviction. Many souls were saved because they were convicted of their wicked sins.
8. Job 4:8 says, "Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same."
9. Hosea 8:7 says, "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
10. Hosea 10:13 says, "Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity."
11. Now let’s see how David reaped what he sowed. When David heard Nathan’s story about the little ewe lamb, he said: "As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold" (II Sam.12:5,6).
12. "And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man" (12:7).
13. David said the man shall pay fourfold. Nathan said to David, "Thou art the man." And David paid fourfold as we shall see in a few minutes.
14. David repented and God forgave him. Nathan the prophet said, "The LORD hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die" (12:13).
15. But this does not mean that David could escape the law of sowing and reaping. He still had to pay fourfold.
16. No one, not even the great king of Israel, not even the man after God’s own heart, and certainly not you or I, can escape the law of sowing and reaping.
17. You can go out and drink until you wind up in the gutter. Then you can repent and God will forgive you. I know a man that did it and he’s a preacher today. But he still has big problems with his liver.

III. SIN BRINGS DEATH, MISERY, HEARTACHE AND WOE.

1. "Howbeit…" (12:14; cf. 12:10).
2. "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house…" (12:10). Think of the terrible fulfillment of this prophecy! It was fourfold, just as David said.

• The baby died within the week (12:14-18).
• In the very next chapter we read of the horrible rape of David’s daughter Tamar by her own half-brother Amnon.
• And then Absalom killed Amnon.
• And then Absalom rebelled against David, his father, and tried to take over the kingdom. And then Absalom, hanging helplessly from the branches of a great oak tree, was killed by Joab and thrown into a pit. And when David heard the terrible report he cried out, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (II Sam.18:33). David paid fourfold.

3. And on and on it went. "The sword shall never depart from thine house…Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house" (12:10,11).
4. You must reap what you sow. David suffered greatly for his sin. Sin always brings death, misery, heartache and woe.
5. Here is another Bible principle: In His grace God can forgive all our sins. But in His government God must permit us to suffer the consequences. The story of David’s sin is in the Bible as a warning for us all.
6. Think of David’s agony, "O Absalom, my son, my son!"
7. I remember friends starting out with beer and cigarettes, moving up to marijuana, then moving on to pills, and finally they were shooting heroin. And then they dropped dead of an overdose and I went to their funerals and heard their parents cry out like King David, "My son, my son, why are you dead? Only 20 years old and you are gone!" It’s not a pretty sight to see.
8. We had a teenager visit our church a few times but she did not want to give up the world. She loved her worldly parties and worldly friends. I did not see her for a couple of years and then her sister visited our church one Sunday morning. She stood up when I recognized the visitors and told us her sister was shot dead by her boyfriend on Jamaica Avenue.
9. Sin always brings death, misery, heartache, and woe.

CONCLUSION:

1. Too many people, even many Christian people, treat sin carelessly. You might as well play around with a rattlesnake.
2. Nathan told David that when he sinned he was despising God (II Sam. 12:10). That’s how God sees it.
3. Fools make a mock at sin, but God hates sin. And if you love God you ought to hate sin too.
4. God chastened David and he felt the sting of that whipping for the rest of his life. And David never complained because he knew he deserved it.
5. David repented. David got right with God. Maybe some here today need to repent and get right with God (cf. Psalm 51:1-7).

"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Ps.51:7).