Peter Barnes | 2 Samuel 12:7b-15
SERMON NOTES
SIN HAS CONSEQUENCES
2 Samuel 12:1-15a; Romans 4:1-12
This chapter, together with Psalm 51 which flows from it, shows us that sin is no light matter. Bonhoeffer warned against cheap grace, and Dale Ralph Davis even writes of ‘the fury of grace’.
1. The believer sins against God’s kindness.
– 12:7-9. What is sin? 1 John 3:4; 5:3.
– this is worse, see Isa.5:3-4. When Christians sin, we sin against His kindness.
2. ‘His blood can make the foulest clean’.
– Charles Wesley: ‘His blood can make the foulest clean.’
– 12:13. The law condemned David – death for adultery and death for murder.
– Pharaoh and Saul could utter that (Ex.9:27; 1 Sam.26:21). But it did not mean much. The sinner’s prayer is no proof of repentance.
– Against everything that he deserved, David experienced God’s forgiving grace.
3. Sin still has consequences in this life.
(a) terrible trouble in his family life – 12:10-12. Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah e.g. 2 Sam.16:22.
(b) the death of the child – 12:14. Be warned that sin has terrible consequences, but be grateful, that His blood can make the foulest clean.