God's Heartbreak Sin

Let me address the parents here tonight. As a parent, you desire the very best for your children. You want them to prosper spiritually in their walk with the Lord, and you want them to honor God with their daily living, and bring glory to Him with their lives.

Is this not so? And you have great aspirations for your children, and you want them to do well in life, and succeed, and be happy. But what if your child becomes a grievance to your heart? What if your teenager, for instance, developed a rebellious spirit, and they went their own way, and they got themselves into deep trouble? Would it break your heart? Now I want us to peer into the heart of God, and see how God views us as His children, and what He goes through when we become rebellious, and go our own way through disobedience to Him in sin. And I want to look at this, friends, from God's perspective in the life of His servant, King David.

King David was a favor to God, and is referred to in my Bible as a man after God's heart. But King David entered a period of willful disobedience, whereby the gratification of his flesh far surpassed his love for God, and he fell into great and grievous sin. He commits the sin of adultery, and then he aggravates that sin further by committing the sin of murder by eliminating Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, on the battlefield.

2 Samuel is a striking record of how a good man can easily turn away from God and fall into a backslidden state that grieves and breaks the heart of God. I really believe, friends, that if we could see sin as God sees sin, we would avoid sin with all our heart and hate it as God hates it, for sin is nothing but heartbreak, heartbreak to the sinner and heartbreak to the Father. Remember this, friends.

Sin will take you further than you want to go, leave you there longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you ever realized. The title of my message this evening, friends, is God's Heartbreak, Sin, and my text can be found in the book of 2 Samuel. You can turn in your Bibles there now.

We will be in chapter 12, beginning in verse 1. Let me read us a striking passage of Scripture at this time. I want us to see how an unrepentant king had to be brought under conviction of sin by God's own prophet. May God's Holy Spirit be pleased to attend the reading of His Holy Word.

And the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds. I will pause here, friends.

The Bible says this man was exceedingly wealthy. Donald Trump describes himself as being very, very rich. This man, likewise, had much of the world's goods.

He lacked nothing. Now let us continue with the story, because it is a parable not so much of a rich man, but of a rich king who lacked nothing. David had it all.

He had numerous wives and concubines, and gold and silver, and fame and power and fortune, and God's blessings upon him. And he had God's favor with him. Now let us proceed with that in mind.

But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nursed up, and it grew up together with him and with his children. It did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. Let me pause once more, friends.

Some of you are pet owners. You have a little dog or a cat that has captured the affections of your heart. It may sleep with you, and bring you great comfort and companionship.

I myself am a dog person. I've always had a little dog, and I have derived great pleasure from my dogs through the years. And when they die, I go into a deep period of sadness, for they are like family to me.

Some of you know of which I speak. Now let us continue with our story. And there came a traveler unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress it for the wayfaring man that was come unto him, but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.

And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that has done this thing shall surely die. Aren't you glad, friends, that God does not deal with us like man would deal with us? God is more longsuffering toward us.

Only if we had a better glimpse of the heart of God would alter our own behavior. Now let us return to King David's response. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.

And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man, thus saith the Lord God of Israel. I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, and I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.

Let me pause here, friends, to make a comment. Notice the great favor and blessings of God upon David. Listen, friends.

When we sin in seasons of great favor from God, it is called aggravated sin, and it's a very grievous form of sin indeed. Say, for instance, your teenager gives you some sad story of a friend in need, and asks you for $100 to help out that friend. And your heart is touched by the story, and you give your teenager the $100.

Then they go out and buy drugs with the money. It would be a very aggravated offense. When we sin against God in seasons of blessings, it is aggravated sin and very offensive to a holy God.

Now let me resume our text. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Let me make a comment here, friends.

That is a very serious comment indeed. When we sin, God takes note of it. Nothing escapes his holy eye, nor his holy record book that he keeps on our life.

And when we die, and the books are opened, and our life is reviewed, there will be wood, hay, and ashes mixed in with the gold, silver, and precious stones. This should be a solemn warning to each of us to flee from sin, to shun evil of any kind, for it mars God's honor, and it mars our own record of service to him. Now listen to how God finishes his discourse with David, as seen in verse 11.

Before all Israel, and before the Son. This, of course, is speaking of the rebellion of David's son Absalom, whereby David's heart is pierced through by his favorite son. Now, friends, hear King David's response, now that he's been convicted of sin by God's prophet and by God's spirit.

And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against Bathsheba. Did he say that? No, he said, I have sinned against my family. Did he say that? No, listen to his own words.

I have sinned against the Lord. You see, friends, when we sin, we sin against God. Our sin breaks the Father, heart of God.

And when the Son of God hung on Calvary's cross, the Father had to look away from the Son. Why? Because Christ was made sin, a sin offering, and redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us. And God the Father could not gaze on all those hellish evil sins that the Son bore.

Jesus cried out from the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The turn face of the Father was almost too much for the Son to bear. When we understand the ramifications of sin, that sin cost the Father, his only beloved Son, that sin cost the Son, his very own blood, we begin to see the evil and blackness of sin. You see, friends, when King David disobeyed God and sinned, the best definition of sin found in my Bible is found in Isaiah 53 and verse 6, which declares, All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned every one to his own way. You see, friends, sin is going our way when we know it isn't God's way. And this is exactly what David did.

He went his own way into a sad moral declension of sin. The prophet Nathan tells David in verse 14 what his sin has accomplished. How be it because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

I'll never forget a fellow co-worker I had years ago. He was an unconverted man, and he just loved it when news got out of a local minister falling into sin. And this man just went on and on about how religious people were nothing but hypocrites.

You see, friends, our sins affect others in a far more reaching way than we realize. We are always under observation whether we realize it or not. I recall a story a fellow preacher told me about a famous radio preacher who came to preach at his church for a week of meetings years ago, and how often they'd go out together to eat with this preacher after the evening message.

And this man related to me that this radio preacher obviously had a wandering eye for ladies, even though he was a married man, for his eyes seemed to undress the waitress every time she brought the meal to the table. And this action of the traveling preacher at the restaurant greatly diminished his effectiveness in the pulpit. Listen, friends, we must live our lives as if the world was watching us, and we must live our lives with the solemn knowledge that we are continually under the watchful eye of our Creator, God Almighty.

Let us therefore guard ourselves against sin and live for God in eternity, because when King David disobeyed the word of God, in doing so he despised God himself. And this favor to God fell under the chastising hand of an offended God. Oh, friends, how this should shake us to our very core, how this should bring us to our knees in repentance.

The purpose of God in sending Nathan the prophet to the backsliding king was to bring him to repentance and to a right relationship to God. As a preacher, I have two main aims when I preach, and they are to bring a person savingly to Christ and to reclaim a backslider back to God. If a soul has not been saved tonight, then perhaps at least there's someone within the sound of my voice who's been convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin and who desires to return to the Most High in a close and intimate relationship to Him.

It is my deepest prayer that this will be the case, that you won't leave here tonight with a hard heart toward God. I will leave you, friends, with a verse from the book of Malachi, which is a great description of the heart of God, who desires our reconciliation to Him. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.

Let us pray.