2 Sam 12:13, Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. 
	In today’s reading, we find the entire issue of David’s adultery, murder, and deception laid out in overwhelming detail. The prophet Nathan had the terrible responsibility to bring the word of Jehovah to the king of the nation. That was never an enviable task with the undoubtedly angry response that would be heaped upon the bearer of that word. There were prophets, in the course of the history of the nation, who were imprisoned in wells, and cells and even forfeited their lives for speaking the Lord’s word to the various, less than gracious monarchs.
	However, in David, as we know, a man whose heart was after the Lord, this was not the case. He probably expected this word of God to be voiced against him because he knew that his relationship with God had been cut off as a result of this utterly vile and selfish abuse of his position as king of the people of God. 
When the prophet declared that David was the man who had so distained what the Lord had given and so caused the death of Uriah to cover up David’s transgression against the Lord in his deliberate act of adultery, there was the numble contrition in the heart of David. It would not be a far stretch to say that this was not solely because of what Nathan declared. Being a man after the Lord, David, as we can read so eloquently expressed in many of the Psalms that he wrote, was in travail over his sin and the loss of fellowship that he had been part of for all those years as a boy and a young man with the Lord.
There must have been a complete lack of peace and anguish and droning on of his conscience before God. He knew that his worship of Jehovah in that daily time spent with The Lord had to have been hindered, if not temporarily extinguished. There could not be that freedom to worship Yahweh with the guilt and the separation of heart that would have been the consequence of his sinful heart. There was no justification, no means of arguing the course that he had devised in his thoughts and heart to cover up what he had done. 
Nathan came to David with the words of the Lord at the exact time that David was ready to hear and receive the rebuke and the chastisement that was necessary to cause his response, in this morning’s text. David was at the point where he needed to confess his transgression because the weight of it was far too exceedingly heavy to bear any longer. The full breadth of how he had so direly disappointed the testimony of the Lord was utterly weighing down any possible movement as king or as a man of God. 
David had to give voice to the error of his way before the Lord in confession that he was absolutely wrong and that his sin was against the God whom he loved beyond all human understanding. His every prior movement had been to honor and to show reverence and love for Jehovah and for His precepts. 
Yet, in this utter failure before the Lord and before the nation, David was distraught. He not only accepted the consequences, but was in full accord that his actions had sullied the witness of God that he so desired to be unto the nation of Israel as well as the nations surrounding them. 
Nathan gave voice to that reality in the following verse, 2 Sam 12:14. He declared what would happen because David had so belittled the placement of God in his heart and as the regent upon the throne of Israel. 
2 Sam 12:14, However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." 
	This is one of the great aspects to sin which many of us fail to take into account before we commit the sin and sometimes even after we do make confession and ask the Lord’s forgiveness. We will often consider how it all affects us. We will recognize that we have lost that relationship with God in the course of our walk together. 
	The focus somehow remains centered on what we have forfeited and how we have suffered and how we are sorry that we did this sin because of the way it reflects upon us. We can be so self-centered, even in the midst of our humbled state of contrition, as it is all about me. 
	Nathan reminded David and reminds us that it is really how the testimony of The Lord is sullied and muddled when we give into sin. It is the reflection of His Holiness and His Righteousness that is truly the most urgent and vital aspect of the failure of humanity to obey and to honor the Lord God Almighty with all our heart and with all our mind and with all our strength. 
	Yes, we do suffer the loss of relationship. We find ourselves absolutely lacking the peace of God that usually indwells our beings. Yes, we have to deal with the severe consequences of our sin. In the case of David, it was the death of that child born of his adultery, as well as the betrayal from within his own household, that will be related in our future reading. 
But as tragic and unsettling as all this may be, it is absolutely lacking in what God suffers. This is as a result of our selfish giving into the sin that so easily infests us because of the residue of that old nature. 
	The power of this age delights itself in parading forth all the sinful indiscretions and abject failures of those who are God’s people. It becomes a means for the enemy to put forth the lie that it makes no difference if one is a Christian or not. We are all the same and therefore subject to the same issues and downfalls. The essence that is blared forth is that God is not strong enough to make us any different, so why put ourselves under useless restrictions that hinder us from enjoying the delights that this age offers. 
It is all a smear campaign against the Lord God Almighty wherein the people of this age use our sins as an excuse for their enslavement to the deeds of the flesh. The accusation of “hypocrite” and the distain for “holier-than-thou” nonsense echo resoundingly through the hollow caverns of the sinful justifications for not believing in a God Who would sentence sinners to hell. It makes no difference so why not just enjoy the sin for what it is. We live, we die, that is all. “There is no God,” or “God is dead is the mantra” that justifies the shouts and taunts of this age as a Christian fall from grace fills the airwaves of this perverse society.
The greatest damage of any sin is that perceived accusation that God is not sufficient and therefore non-consequential. Throughout the history of the nation of Israel of old, that was always the reality of the course of their turning their backs upon God as they sought after the idols and the images of the nations surrounding them. The people who were to show the difference that God makes in the lives of His own, were so vilely and relentlessly enticed by the power of this realm precisely to make them a spectacle. This was used deceitfully as demonstrating the vile and false indication that God was not enough. Because His people so easily turned away from Him, the justification was that Jehovah was unable to do all that He said He would do. 
Let everyone of us take this to heart as we dabble so willingly in the sin that so easily besets us. It is God Who bears the full brunt of our shame and our disgrace in the sins of our choosing! That is the result of the lie that is so twisted around by this world in its perverse delight in our failure and our lack of obedience to God. He is blamed and He is ridiculed and He is minimized in the eyes of those who are watching so very intently the actions of those who call themselves Christians.  
Therefore, it is not just us who are so innately on display in our successes and our failures. It is the Lord God Almighty Who has so invested Himself into us and into the course of our walk on this earth with Him. We need to learn to look beyond that earthly focus that it is all about me, myself and I, and how everything only has value in terms of how it relates to me. That is the absolute epitome of what this world puts forth in its deception and vile subjugation of those who will so adhere to the wicked and manipulative elevation and realization of selfhood. 
The entire crux of the value of true life is so cloaked in the smoke and mirrors of this age with its mantra that the end justifies the means. It doesn’t really matter if we choose to sin, nothing will happen as the serpent so hissed in the ears of Eve in the Garden. What is the difference if we take just a bite to experience the self-realization of our human spirit and soul? We are beset with all the arguments and the philosophies of those supposed great thinkers and protagonist of the human mind.
However, the fact of true life is fully held forth in Jesus Christ! Truth is so simple in the reality of the great and awesome love and gift of God’s heart to us in the Only Begotten of the Father. Those who are born of the Spirit, endued with the new resurrection life of Jesus Christ are the partakers of the true life. In Him, we are brought out of the darkness of this realm into our living relationship with God. 
We are removed from the slavery to sin and death and brought into a union of obedience and trust in Jehovah. He works to show, through His people, the great love with which He so loves those who will but respond and accept His free gift of salvation. In Jesus, the Son of God, Who died our death, and then rose in absolute victory over all the forces of this age, we are given everlasting life. He will shine forth as the noon sun to show those who are still in darkness the truth of Who God is and all that He has done, is doing, and will continue to do. This includes cleansing His own from the residue of that old nature.
Yes, there is still that pull of our self-will which tries to manifest some semblance of control. But it is in its death throes as God works so lovingly and patiently and fully to manifest the victorious life of Christ more and more perfectly in evidence in us as we trust Him and obey Him. All the smear campaigns of this age against the mighty work of God will forever fail to touch the manifested truth that God is exactly Who He says He is and He will do exactly as He has always proclaimed!
There is no other truth that will stand the test of time! As much as the proponents and the haranguers and the accusers of this age protest and hypothesis and minimize and marginalize the power and the Holiness and the Righteousness of God, all will be before Him on the great day of His just and pure judgment of each man, woman, and child. Everyone who has drawn a breath will be there to give an account of unto whom they have lived the life that He has given. 
In truth, there will be that recognition by all that He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. There will that universal acclamation that He, Alone, is worthy of all praise and adoration! This will be despite the many lies and deceits that were hurled wantonly against Him throughout the centuries of this world’s rotation. 
As well, because the people of God have been under the working power of His cleansing Hand, they will be seen only in the covering of Christ’s redemptive Holiness and Righteousness. All the flaws and all the stains of living in this realm will be washed away. There will be purity and a godliness that will emanate profusely from those who are covered over by the blood of the Lamb.
All of this leads back to the fact that as Christians, as those who are the redeemed of the Lord, there should be in evidence that troubled heart when we disappoint the Lord. When we are party to the sinful actions of the residue that is being cleansed from us, we should find ourselves asking for the Lord’s forgiveness. There should be that recognition that we have sinned and disappointed Our Beloved and Holy and Glorious Lord God Almighty!
We return to the example of David for this expressed lamenting of having done wrong as detailed in 2 Sam 24:10. David had chosen to count the people through a census. This was forbidden by God. However David wanted to elevate his own stature as the king over a people that he could number and thus show the rest of the world how mighty he was with these many people under his sovereignty. But that was not what the Lord wanted and had expressly forbidden.
This passage then shows the remorse that was part of David’s relationship with God. 2 Sam 24:10, Now David's heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have acted very foolishly." 
	Notice that David recognized the sinful action that he had taken. He did not try to hide it, but sincerely asked the Lord to forgive him this trespass. There was that within David that was shaken by the lack of peace with God because he had been so foolish. This is something else that we need to realize in our own hearts every time that we put ourselves on that pedestal instead of humbly living in the proper relationship with God.
	We need to have the heart that is sensitive to the way of the Lord and the manner in which our actions can so hinder and block access to the throne of God’s peace and joy and loving kindness. These are the things that we choose to sacrifice when we sin in the course of the walk that we now have in Jesus Christ. Our testimony on this earth is to express the mighty power and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit so that all may see that He is truly sovereign in our lives and in all of His creation. So be it.
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Eccl 12:13. The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. Amen.