May 16, 2025 • 38 mins
Today, on Karl and Crew, we concluded our study of David. The scripture reference was II Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. We discussed David's fall with Bathsheba and the consequences from this sin. On this Freedom Friday, we also discussed God's redemptive Grace. Our special guest was Dr. Winfred Neely, retired Vice President and Academic Dean of Moody Theological Seminary, adjunct professor, pastor, and author. He shared that God loved David (and us) too much to let him (and us) get away with it. Dr. Neely also wrote the commentary on David (I and II Samuel) for the "Moody Commentary on the Bible". You can hear the highlights of today’s program on Karl and Crew Showcast.
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S1 (00:00):
Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio.
This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2 (00:08):
You know, kids will put you on the spot and
ask you questions.
S3 (00:14):
Can't wait for that. I'm excited.
S2 (00:16):
Wait till your little girl starts asking you questions. Yes,
some of them. They start simple, but they get complex
real quick. Yeah.
S3 (00:26):
I'm scared. Do you have an example?
S4 (00:27):
And the whys and the whys and the whys?
S3 (00:29):
Don't stop. You can share.
S2 (00:30):
Why? Oh, I have many examples, but recently I was
just yesterday I was talking with, you know, car rides
are great for conversations with kids. And I'm in that
stage where I spend a lot of time in the
car with my kids. I was shuttling them from one
place to the other, and for some reason, my daughter
had a ton of questions about marriage. Just marriage in general. What?
(00:51):
What kind of thing? Like, what is love? What is
just like.
S3 (00:56):
Good question.
S2 (00:57):
Philosophical questions. And then she started asking about, like, things
that cause a marriage to go wrong. And so she
started asking about, like, adultery and all these questions. And
I'm like, where is this coming from? Where is this going?
But the thing that that that was interesting is because,
you know, she's she's still young. She was like, how
(01:19):
in the world could someone do something like that to
someone who they really love?
S3 (01:26):
Yeah.
S2 (01:27):
How could someone do something like that? And of course,
if you don't have to live a lot more of
life to realize that people do all kinds of things.
S3 (01:37):
Totally.
S2 (01:38):
That you kind of go. How?
S3 (01:42):
Yeah. That doesn't that doesn't compute in my brain, whatever
the action may be. It doesn't make any sense how
you could get yourself there.
S2 (01:49):
But then at the same time, you look at your
own life and maybe you haven't committed adultery, but guaranteed
there's been some point in time in your life where
you did something, where you look back and go, how
did I do that?
S3 (02:02):
Yeah. How did I get down that road and why?
S2 (02:05):
How? How did I miss it that bad?
S3 (02:08):
Yeah.
S2 (02:09):
And you realize the funny thing about life, especially walking
with the Lord, is the closer you get to to God, actually,
the more aware you become of how desperately you need
him to not blow it in some major area. No
doubt your level of sort of self confidence like, I
got this. I could never do that. Look at that
(02:32):
person over there. Wrecking their life, wrecking their marriage, not
being nice to their kid. I could never really.
S3 (02:41):
Be very careful about that.
S2 (02:43):
Be careful. The closer you walk with the Lord, the
more you realize that old statement. But for the grace
of God, there go I.
S3 (02:53):
Absolutely.
S2 (02:54):
So the truth is, how do people do the things
that they do to other people? Sin.
S3 (03:02):
Sin.
S2 (03:03):
Because of sin, this sin sickness that we are all
infected with from the very beginning and absolutely need the
saving power of Jesus Christ. And even then, we're still
going to miss it. Even as we grow in our
sanctification process, there's still going to be ways that we
miss it. Coming up, we cannot have a week about
(03:25):
David and not address the biggest area where he absolutely
blew it. The sin of David that had such far
reaching consequence. Was he absolutely forgiven and restored? Yep. But boy,
the fallout was great. How do you recover from this
(03:46):
kind of sin? Let's talk about it coming up.
S1 (03:52):
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S2 (03:58):
Spending time looking at the life of David and David
got so much right in his life, so many lessons
that we can glean his courage, his role as a musician,
his role as a leader. But there was this one thing,
and scripture even points to it. Doctor Winfred Nealy joining
us right now. Share this verse. And then we'll talk
(04:20):
about this one time in David's life where he was
not he did not have a heart for God.
S5 (04:26):
Well, this is the spirit of God's commentary on David's life,
where it says, For David's sake, the Lord his God
gave him a lamp. This is another one of his
descendants in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, establishing Jerusalem,
because David did what was right in the eyes of
(04:49):
the Lord and did not turn aside from anything that
he commanded him all the days of his life, except
in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. And so, as
we get into this conversation, it seems to me to
use this verse as a framework for it. Otherwise it
(05:13):
could be easily misunderstood. I mean, this is a massive
statement here. Yeah. About what God thought about David's life.
And would you like to have God write that on
your on your headstone at your grave? He did what
was right in the eyes of the Lord, so forth
and so on. And of course, here is an exception.
So but this is the verse that it seems to
(05:34):
me should frame what we're going to talk about next.
S2 (05:37):
So let's talk about this now. Maybe you've heard of
the story of David and Bathsheba, but I'm going to
assume that some of you haven't. Uriah the Hittite is
who's mentioned in that first? Is that first or second kings?
S5 (05:48):
That's first Kings, chapter 15, verse five.
S2 (05:51):
So he's mentioned there. He was the husband of Bathsheba.
Give us the the just the summary narrative of what
happens in this incident so that we can begin to
unpack it.
S5 (06:03):
Well, it's mentioned this story is in second Samuel chapter
11 and 12, where there is there's a war going
on with Ammon, Amnon. And they're finishing up the job now,
and David stays in Jerusalem. And it really should have
been out there with his soldiers while he's walking on
(06:24):
the palace. He happens to see a woman bathing. Then
she was beautiful. And in Old Testament narratives, physical descriptions
are rare. And so when we have them, that's really,
really important in the narrative, right? So she's beautiful. And
David inquires about her, sends for her, he takes her
(06:48):
and lies with her, and she goes back home and
you think it's all over. Okay? The narrator says. And
the woman conceived.
S2 (06:57):
That David knew that she was the wife of one
of his men out fighting wars.
S5 (07:01):
Oh. Good night. Yeah, sure he did.
S2 (07:02):
This was absolutely known to him. So he did not
think that this was an available woman?
S5 (07:07):
No, he knew that. He knew who she was. He knew.
In fact, the Scripture says, is this not Bathsheba, the
daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And
Eliam was one of David's mighty men, so was Uriah
the Hittite and Eliam. Apparently Ilium's father was Ahithophel, David's counselor.
(07:29):
Meaning then. Not only that, but this was the granddaughter
of one of David's key counselors. I mean, these were
men in his inner circle.
S2 (07:40):
So a betrayal on so many levels.
S5 (07:43):
Betrayal on so many levels because he's been caught up
in capitulating to lust that was in his heart.
S2 (07:53):
And so then it gets worse. The woman conceived. This
is now second Samuel 11 five as she sends word
she and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David,
I'm pregnant. So now David has a problem, because now
this sin will most certainly be discovered because Bathsheba, her husband,
is out fighting the war. So he's nowhere near her.
(08:16):
So pick it up. From there, David comes up with
a pretty diabolical plan to cover up his own sin.
S5 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah. The woman conceived. That itself is startling. This
is one of the more startling conceptions in Scripture. The
woman conceived, and she sends a note to David. And
all she says is two words in Hebrew. I'm pregnant.
This is the only time she speaks in the entire story.
(08:43):
I'm pregnant. And after that, David comes up with a plan. Now,
interestingly enough, the narrator doesn't say that David is trying
to hide his sin. But that's what's very obvious by
what he does, right? You see what I'm saying? Yes. So?
So he. He calls Uriah. Now, keep in mind, one
(09:03):
of the problems we have is we are so familiar
with the story. So he calls Uriah. Why is he
calling him? Is he calling him to say to him. Listen, brother,
I blew it. I did something that was terrible. Here.
He summons him back because he wants him to go
back home, spend some time with his wife and it's gone.
(09:27):
It looks like it's Uriah's baby. And that doesn't work out.
So then David tries to make him drunk. It says
he literally made him drunk. In the narrative, I just
think about this. So Uriah is drunk under pressure from
the king, and he still goes out and sleeps with
(09:50):
the men that are there instead of going home to
be with his wife. So drunk. Intoxicated. Uriah has more
integrity than sober David. See, that didn't work out. So David,
then has Uriah come and said, I have a message
in essence for Joab and the the the sealed document
(10:13):
that he gives to Uriah actually contains Darius death sentence
in it. And he takes this letter back to Joab.
Joab opens it and he says, put Uriah at the
front of the line, and withdraw from him. So forth
and so on. Now General Joab also is a smart guy.
So he's going to go along with this. So think
(10:34):
about this. Now, this is David's nephew. So now he's
got his nephew involved and in some kind of diabolical
scheme to have someone who who has converted to Yahweh murdered.
But job has got to do it in such a
way so that he doesn't look culpable. So there are
(10:56):
several men that Joab has with Uriah. So not only
is Uriah murdered, several of the Israeli soldiers are also
murdered as well. We don't know who they were. Their
names are not mentioned. We just know that some are.
Other David's servants fell as well. Right now, David decides
(11:16):
to marry her. He takes her and they get married.
And it's interesting. Humanly speaking, it looks as if David
has gotten away with this. He pulled it off. But
then the narrator stops the action. Kind of like a
timeout in a basketball game. No, this is what this
is what's happening at the end of the chapter. Kind
of a timeout where it says, But the thing that
(11:39):
David had done displeased the Lord.
S2 (11:43):
We're going to pause right there. Coming up, we're going
to have more with Doctor Winfred Neely looking at the
life of David. Wouldn't a sin like this be disqualifying?
This is a man after God's own heart, even still.
Let's talk more about it coming up.
S1 (11:59):
He was running from God, but God's love brought him home.
Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on
Moody Radio.
S2 (12:09):
It's a story in Scripture that is uncomfortable to read.
You read about David, a man after God's own heart.
He got so much right in his life. But this
one incident with Bathsheba sees a woman on the rooftop.
She's beautiful. He takes her, and then when she gets pregnant,
(12:31):
he has her husband murdered. And that's the short summary
of this horrific incident recorded in second Samuel 11 and 12.
We left it off where David thinks he's gotten away
with it because he has the husband killed. He marries Bathsheba.
And so it's certainly to the onlooker, looks like he well,
(12:51):
maybe he married this widow quickly. And then they conceived
quickly and none were the wiser. But it doesn't quite
play out that way.
S5 (13:00):
No, it doesn't quite play out that way, because God
loves David too much.
S2 (13:06):
To let him get away with.
S5 (13:07):
It, to let him get away with this. He loves
him too much. Same thing for all of us as
followers of Christ. He loves us too much and the Lord.
In the next chapter there's nothing. When you read second
Samuel 11 and 12, we have a tendency to separate
them out, when in fact, second Samuel 11 and 12
should be read together so that if you're reading your Bible,
(13:28):
if you have the time, you should read both of
them together. It's one account, not even though we have
two chapters. Okay, so chapter 12, the Lord, YHWH Yahweh
does all of the sending. Chapter 11 David does the sending.
Chapter 12 Yahweh is doing the sending, the Lord is
(13:48):
sending the sending, and he sends Nathan to David.
S2 (13:52):
Nathan the prophet.
S5 (13:53):
Nathan, Nathan the prophet to David. And he comes in
with a story. And David actually thinks the story is
about somebody else, you see. And this rich guy comes
in there and he takes this one little ewe lamb
from this fella, then slaughters it and gives it to
his friend. And David is all upset, outraged and standard.
(14:16):
I can just see him now standing up. The man
who done this is worthy of death, and the story
has done its work at that point. His defenses are
down and Nathan looks at him and said, you are
the man. And he begins to tell him. Nathan does
in the name of the Lord. He exalted you. He
(14:38):
blessed you. He used you. Why would you despise him
like that? Now this is God actually speaking in the
first person. Why would you despise me through Nathan? He's
asking him these questions and highlighting to him that sin
is a form of insanity. It's folly. It's madness. What
(14:58):
you've done here. And you've had Uriah the Hittite killed
with the sword of the enemies of God, of the
sons of Ammon, and taken his wife to be your wife.
And as a consequence of this, God says to him,
the sword shall never depart from your house. That's going
to be a sword like experience over your house for
the rest of your life. And so you think about
(15:20):
all of the consequences that are going to come out
of this. Number one, that baby is going to die
on the seventh day. It says, I suspect that the
seven days after the baby was born. Didn't make it
to the eighth day. The day of circumcision, right? The
unnamed baby dies in the next chapter. Amnon, the crown prince,
(15:42):
rapes his own sister. His half sister. He rapes her.
Absalom and his own brother is going to have him
murdered because David is passive. Now he's paralyzed. He can't
do anything about this kind of egregious behavior within his
own family. Now what? David says I have sinned against
the Lord. I've sinned against the Lord. And something unexpected happens.
(16:03):
The Lord forgives David.
S2 (16:05):
Yeah. And and that's when you think about the forgiveness
of God. Sometimes when you think about it in your
own life. Yeah. You have tremendous gratitude, of course, but
but sometimes we have a tendency when we look at
stories like this or even other people's lives, we don't
necessarily want the forgiveness of God to be extended so freely.
Sometimes when we think what's been done is too heinous. This?
S5 (16:28):
Yeah, well, that's the scandal of the narrative. Yeah, and
it's scandalized a lot of thinkers who've dealt with this text. One,
the fact that God forgave David, what he did were
capital offenses in ancient Israel. They required the death penalty.
The deliberate taking of a human life required the death penalty.
(16:53):
Adultery in connection with what he's done with another man's
wife required the death penalty. So no doubt David is
expecting that the Lord is going to strike him down
the same way that he struck down Navajo in first
Samuel chapter 25. The Lord is going, it's going to
strike me down. But instead God forgives David because of
(17:18):
his confession. The Bible does say, if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So God does
forgive David, but remember, the consequences will follow him for
(17:41):
the rest of his life. You can do something crazy,
be forgiven by God, and even restored, but the consequences
may follow you and your family for the rest of
your life.
S2 (17:54):
So what do you. What's the. I want to give
you the final word here. What's the main takeaway from
from something like this? Because obviously there's the one sin
can have, even though forgiven can have unbelievable consequences. And
I think all of us in our lives have seen
in varying degrees, the impact of, of sin. But then
(18:15):
there's also the scandal, the scandal of grace that we
are so clearly the beneficiaries of.
S5 (18:23):
Well, let me say this Two things here one, you
have the birth of Solomon in the narrative. Now, we
know from the chronicler that Bathsheba and chronicles Bathsheba as
she's named here, had four children. Solomon was not the
first child, he was the fourth one. But in this narrative,
(18:48):
the narrator goes to the future and brings the birth
of Solomon and places it right here. Wow. In the
midst of this text to highlight the grace of God
and some commentators, I think it was Walter Brueggemann who
said that the grace extended to David seems, humanly speaking,
(19:10):
more scandalous than what he had done. But that's the
grace of God. That's the grace of God. But yet
at the same time, he's going to pay a dear
price for that, as I have preached this text, one
of the things that I have said to my listeners
is this it will cost you to walk with God,
(19:32):
but it will cost you and your family much, much
more if you do not. That's the big takeaway. It
will cost you to walk with God, but will cost
you and your family much, much more if you do not.
Especially if you are a leader and have been entrusted
(19:53):
with stewardship and power and authority and to to abuse,
that is absolutely, absolutely devastating with massive consequences. Right. Forgiven? Yeah, sure.
He was restored. He sure was. But the consequences followed
(20:17):
him for the rest of her life, even on up
into the New Testament when we're dealing with the genealogy
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says Solomon was born
by her of Uriah the Hittite. All of these centuries later,
that's still being brought up to remind us of the
(20:37):
danger of saying yes to sin, and also the scandal
of the grace of God. This is the family that
the Lord Jesus Christ identifies himself with in Matthew. Meaning,
none of us frankly deserve anything from God. All of
us deserve to be in hell today. It's only by
the grace of God that we're on our way to
heaven as followers of Christ, and by the power of
(20:57):
the spirit, he keeps us from our own selves.
S1 (21:01):
Start your day moving closer to Jesus. You're listening to
Carl and crew.
S2 (21:07):
What? Did God love you too much to let you
get away with? I'm fascinated by that statement that Doctor
Neeley made about David, because it was actually the love
of God that caused David to to get caught. Essentially,
it was an act of mercy that his sin was exposed.
S3 (21:30):
No doubt.
S2 (21:31):
Which is the thought of being exposed in your sin
is terrifying, right?
S3 (21:36):
No one wants that. It's not a good feeling.
S2 (21:39):
But it's the love of God that allows us to
not continue on a path that ultimately will lead to destruction.
S3 (21:46):
It's worse. It's worse than having your sin made known.
S2 (21:49):
And for David, you know, Psalm 51 is a famous psalm,
and it was written by David when Nathan goes to
confront him in his sin, and David when he realizes
that he's the guy that's being described in that little,
(22:10):
that little example.
S4 (22:11):
Oh, it's me.
S2 (22:12):
It's.
S4 (22:12):
You.
S2 (22:13):
He owns it quickly.
S3 (22:16):
Very quickly. Once he realizes this is who we're talking about,
everyone sees it. Well, at least the prophet and God did.
Then he gets on his knees.
S2 (22:23):
I'm going to read to you Psalm 51. This was
David's response. He says, have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy,
blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. Against you. You
(22:45):
only have I sinned and done what is evil in
your sight, so that you may be justified in your
words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought
forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold,
you delight in truth in the inward being, and you
teach me wisdom in the secret heart. A couple more
verses here. He says, purge me with hyssop, and I
(23:06):
shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the
bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from
my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Created me
a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me. I read Psalm 51 one through ten. A
(23:27):
couple more verses, but we'll stop there. But this one,
maybe you've heard there's a song that was written, created
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me. I remember singing it in church when
I was growing up. I didn't know that it was
linked to this. But when you think about David's desire
to have a clean heart, to be purified, his acknowledgment
(23:49):
that when he says, I'm against you and you only
have I sinned says not to suggest that Bathsheba wasn't
sinned against that Uriah wasn't sinned against. But ultimately the
one that we answer to is God. Our sin is
we deal with God for our sin even more than
we deal with other people.
S3 (24:08):
Absolutely. The essence of sin, no matter what it is,
always is, stands in the presence of God and is
judged there.
S2 (24:14):
Yeah.
S1 (24:16):
Your spiritual pit stop to keep you going in the race.
You're listening to Carl and crew.
S2 (24:23):
You ever been relieved that you got caught? Because carrying
around whatever, whatever you'd lied about or tried to hide
from your parents or your teacher? Sometimes there's relief that
comes from even when you're caught. Like, oh, boy. Now
I don't at least I can stop.
S4 (24:43):
Out there.
S2 (24:44):
Lying.
S4 (24:44):
Yeah. It's done. At least I don't have to.
S2 (24:46):
Carry around this weight of. Ah. Are they going to
find out? Did I get away with it?
S4 (24:51):
Yeah.
S2 (24:51):
You know, and when you're. When you're younger, maybe it's
you cheated on a test or you didn't. Didn't. You
know the classic the kid who hides hides the report
card because they don't want mom and dad to see it.
It's like, are they going to find out? Are they.
Are they not? You know, sometimes it's the mercy of
God that allows us to have our sin exposed in
(25:14):
some way, doesn't have to be necessarily in some public way,
but allows someone to catch us and stop us and
bring us to our senses. That's what happened with David.
Nathan confronted him in his sin. At first, David didn't
get it when he set up this scenario. So what
would you say to a guy who goes and steals this?
(25:35):
What was a the the one lamb a lamb.
S3 (25:38):
Yeah.
S2 (25:39):
And David's sense of justice. Well that's absolutely wrong. And
he doesn't take him a second to realize Nathan says
it's you. You're the man. He had taken the wife
of Uriah. He had raped her, for lack of a
better word. Let's just call it what it is. She
gets pregnant. He has Uriah killed. Covers it up, marries her,
(26:03):
and then tries to go on with life. Yeah, but
the mercy of God. God loved him too much to
let him get away with it. What? Did God love
you too much to let you get away with? Let's
go to John. First time caller from Idaho. Tell me.
S6 (26:21):
So God love me too much to let me get
away with continuing to live as a drug addict and
kill myself. I was a meth head, a deviant, got
busted for manufacturing methamphetamine, went to prison where God got
Ahold of my life. And this has been a couple
decades ago now. And I'm. I'm married to a pastor's daughter.
(26:43):
I have grandkids and a family and my my family
that had disowned me because of my drug use and
theft and craziness is now part of my life again.
And I if God hadn't allowed me to go to prison,
I would have died of an overdose long ago. So
he was gracious enough to use prison to save me.
S2 (27:01):
Wow, John, first time caller from Idaho. Thank you so
much for sharing your story. That's a freedom story. Let's
go to Kathy. First time caller from Michigan. What? Did
God love you too much to let you get away with?
S7 (27:12):
I was a brand new student at Moody Bible Institute
and had only been a Christian for a year, and
a professor asked us to do a stake take home
test that we could do in our dorm room. But
I didn't know the Bible well enough. And so I
opened the Bible to answer the questions, and I thought,
I won't get a very good grade on this, but
(27:33):
I got an A, which made me feel very guilty.
I wouldn't have gotten an A unless I opened that
Bible to take the test. So a month or so later,
I wrote him a note and told him that I
cheated and he wrote me back and said, thank you
so much for telling me. And from then on, he
didn't do any more take home Bible tests for students.
S2 (27:55):
Wow. So, Kathy, the opening the Bible, I'm assuming was
not allowed for this take home test.
S7 (28:02):
Yes. You were not supposed to open the Bible, but
as a brand new Christian, I hardly knew anything about
the Bible. So that's why I opened it. But as
I continued to be a student there, then I learned
more and more what was right and what was wrong.
And then I realized, well, that wasn't a good choice.
S2 (28:18):
Oh, boy. Cathy, first time caller from Michigan. You know,
it's the love of God that sometimes allows us to
to have our sin exposed. God loves us too much
sometimes to leave us. It's the exposure of God. Sometimes
that brings hope because he doesn't leave us where we're at.
S1 (28:39):
Walking closer to Jesus every day. You're listening to Carl
and crew.
S2 (28:45):
You know you can get yourself in trouble if you
start to look at life based on what you think
people deserve or don't deserve, or what you deserve or
don't deserve. Why are you laughing?
S3 (28:57):
Because, uh. Okay, so I fall into this trap a
little too much sometimes. especially when I'm driving, I'm driving
and someone, you know, someone's just speeding or going and
I'm I'm upset with how they're driving. I go, come on, man,
can't you just like, calm down a little bit? And
then I'm driving and sometimes maybe I'm really late for something.
(29:21):
Or maybe I feel like I need to get somewhere
and it's urgent or important or extreme, and I, you know,
sometimes it has been extreme where I've needed to get
somewhere quickly. And it's not a good thing if I don't.
And so I, I'm driving fast and I'm cutting around
people and I go, well, it's justified because I have
something that I need to do. And I'm like, well,
(29:42):
you know, everyone in their car is thinking the exact
same thing. Yeah. What are you doing? Getting upset at
those people. But then sometimes you're doing the same thing
that you're getting upset about.
S2 (29:50):
Or have you ever had, like, there's like a long
line where everybody's supposed to merge and everybody's kind of
weaving in. Then there's that one car that just cuts,
like goes on the shoulder, goes all the way to the.
S3 (30:01):
Front, the shoulder drivers.
S2 (30:03):
And then, you know, there's this, this strong sense of
like justice of like, this person doesn't deserve to be
let in right now.
S3 (30:10):
Absolutely. You're like, man, if I just saw them coming,
I could have got on the shoulder and I could
have blocked them from going any further.
S2 (30:16):
They didn't wait their turn like everybody else. Nope. Right.
S4 (30:19):
Like that construction, you know, it all comes down to
one lane, and people just stay in that other lane
as far as they can, and they cut in. But
you've been sitting there and sitting there and sitting there. Yep.
Get over this.
S2 (30:30):
Trips up my son more than anything else.
S3 (30:33):
He's a high justice.
S2 (30:34):
He is a high justice. And his sense of what's fair,
what's like call balls and strikes, like there's no gray zone.
And so he was in third grade and he was
really struggling in PE class. He's a great student. PE
class was giving him trouble not because he wasn't able
(30:55):
to do the sports because he's a good athlete, but
he couldn't get past his sense of fair. And so
it kind of came to a head where he was
like his PE teacher had to keep like telling him
to calm down because he's freaking out, because the third
grade girl in his class didn't touch the base when
she's rounding the kickball bases. Therefore, how dare she not
(31:17):
be called out? And he is losing his mind.
S3 (31:21):
He's got a point.
S2 (31:21):
Losing his mind. She did not touch the base.
S3 (31:27):
Can't touch second.
S2 (31:29):
If she's a third grade girl, she needs to touch
the base. They shouldn't get the point. My team shouldn't.
And they don't even let people declare winners and losers.
S3 (31:39):
Oh, that's.
S2 (31:40):
Also makes him really frustrated because.
S4 (31:43):
Yeah, because.
S2 (31:44):
He's kind of like, everybody gets to finish.
S4 (31:46):
Right?
S2 (31:47):
Drives him nuts.
S3 (31:48):
I'm sure it does.
S2 (31:49):
And it doesn't even matter if he doesn't win. He
would rather lose than nobody be declared the winner.
S3 (31:56):
I think that's I think that's pretty Honorable. I like
that one. I think on that one, I don't think
he's going too far.
S2 (32:02):
It's it's just this idea of right is right. Wrong
is wrong. Fair is fair, I deserve this. They don't
deserve this. I don't deserve it. And so he will say,
if I don't deserve a medal or a trophy, don't
give it to me.
S3 (32:16):
Yeah.
S2 (32:17):
Don't give me the. Everybody gets it.
S4 (32:19):
The participation.
S2 (32:20):
Doesn't want.
S4 (32:21):
It. Yeah, yeah I don't want it fair.
S2 (32:24):
When we think about our life in Christ, we can
fall off on two different sides of this. Okay. The
high ridge Carl likes to talk about. We can start
to get in our minds what we think we deserve
from God.
S3 (32:43):
Yes.
S2 (32:44):
Right.
S3 (32:44):
Yeah.
S2 (32:45):
I deserve things to go this way. I've done this
for you, God. Therefore you should X, y, or Z.
You should reward me in this way. Or we can
start to get so fixated on how messed up we are.
S3 (33:00):
Yeah, too fixated on how messed up we are.
S2 (33:04):
That we can let our idea of being so undeserving
of the grace of God actually keep us from it.
S3 (33:10):
Yes.
S2 (33:11):
How could God ever want somebody like me? I don't
deserve the grace of God.
S4 (33:15):
Yeah.
S2 (33:16):
True statement. None of us do. Correct. None of us
deserve the grace of God. So when it comes to
our relationship with God, we have to get the idea
of fairness deserving out of our minds on both sides
because we deserve nothing from him. But yet he still
extends to us. Grace. Mercy. Forgiveness. There's no way God
(33:42):
should have saved someone like me. But he did. Tell
me your story. That's your story too. It's all of
our stories. There's no way he should have saved someone
like me. But he did. 805 five. Five. 55, 78, 98.
But it's not fair. I'm glad it's not fair. 805 55. 7898.
(34:02):
Grace isn't fair. Wilfred. First time caller from Florida. You
did not deserve the grace of God. But you got
it anyway. Tell me about it.
S8 (34:13):
Well, ma'am, I was given a life sentence. I wasn't
a good guy. And, uh, God overturned that life sentence, and, uh,
I'm out here. I have an awesome job. I'm an
HVAC technician. I never thought I'd ever be anybody in
my life. And God has restored my family. My daughter,
(34:36):
my granddaughter. I you know, I that is the grace
of God. That's a miracle.
S2 (34:43):
Yeah. Wilfred. First time caller from Florida. Thank you for
your call this morning. Do you have a story, a
freedom story? Uh, I'm being a little tongue in cheek here.
There's there's no way we don't deserve the grace of God.
The grace of God is the free gift extended to
it to us. But you get it. You get where
I'm going, right? We. You look at your life. You
look at your story and go. There's no way God
(35:04):
should have saved someone like me. But he did. 855
five 7898.
S1 (35:11):
A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke. Ali is
in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2 (35:20):
The idea that we're sort of good people is one
of the most dangerous lies of the enemy. This idea
that I'm a mostly, I'm a pretty good person. I mean,
I do more good things than I do bad things.
I am, you know, I try to be charitable to people.
(35:40):
I hear people say this when it comes to thinking
about their spiritual state. Most people look at their own
sense of goodness as their way to sort of prop
themselves up and and make themselves okay. And the reality
spiritually is that there is no one good. All of
us are born into sin. We cannot meet God's perfect standard.
(36:04):
The Bible says, for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. It's true of every single
person who's ever lived except for one Jesus. And so
the bad news is that we've all sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, and that we deserve death.
None of us will ever be good enough for God
(36:25):
because perfection is unattainable for us. We are sinners. Here's
the good news that because of Jesus who took our place,
who took the penalty that we deserved because what we
deserved was death. Jesus went to the cross. That's why
he died. That's why he had to die to satisfy
the wrath of God, to take that penalty so that
(36:48):
we had the opportunity in our imperfect state to take
on his perfection. So that when you or I stand
before God, when we are in Christ, we stand in
the righteousness of Christ. We are not going to be
evaluated based on does our good outweigh our bad? That's
not the question that ultimately matters. It's have I put
(37:11):
my faith in Jesus Christ for salvation or not? That,
and that alone is what our entire eternal future hinges upon.
Our answer to that question have I put my faith
in Jesus Christ for salvation? So today, if you're tired
of trying to be a quote unquote good person, give
(37:34):
up that fight because you never will be a good person.
You can be a forgiven person. You can be a
saved person. You can be a person who's perfectly righteous
even because of Jesus Christ. How does this whole thing work?
There's some mystery to it. But by the power of
the Holy Spirit, I believe it's becoming clear to you
that when you confess that you are a sinner, that
(37:57):
you need a Savior, that that is Jesus the only way.
He's the way, the truth and the life. There's no
other way to peace with God except through Jesus Christ.
So today, I want to invite you to put your
trust and faith in him. Just confess that you're a sinner,
that you need a Savior. Cry out to God, and
(38:19):
I believe that he will save you because His word
says so. If that's you, you have that honest conversation.
Text the word new. We want to encourage you with
some practical next steps. Text the word new to 805, 55, 7898.
Just text the word new to 805, 55, 78, 98.
(38:42):
This song I handpicked because I want you to hear
this one right now.
Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio.
This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2 (00:08):
You know, kids will put you on the spot and
ask you questions.
S3 (00:14):
Can't wait for that. I'm excited.
S2 (00:16):
Wait till your little girl starts asking you questions. Yes,
some of them. They start simple, but they get complex
real quick. Yeah.
S3 (00:26):
I'm scared. Do you have an example?
S4 (00:27):
And the whys and the whys and the whys?
S3 (00:29):
Don't stop. You can share.
S2 (00:30):
Why? Oh, I have many examples, but recently I was
just yesterday I was talking with, you know, car rides
are great for conversations with kids. And I'm in that
stage where I spend a lot of time in the
car with my kids. I was shuttling them from one
place to the other, and for some reason, my daughter
had a ton of questions about marriage. Just marriage in general. What?
(00:51):
What kind of thing? Like, what is love? What is
just like.
S3 (00:56):
Good question.
S2 (00:57):
Philosophical questions. And then she started asking about, like, things
that cause a marriage to go wrong. And so she
started asking about, like, adultery and all these questions. And
I'm like, where is this coming from? Where is this going?
But the thing that that that was interesting is because,
you know, she's she's still young. She was like, how
(01:19):
in the world could someone do something like that to
someone who they really love?
S3 (01:26):
Yeah.
S2 (01:27):
How could someone do something like that? And of course,
if you don't have to live a lot more of
life to realize that people do all kinds of things.
S3 (01:37):
Totally.
S2 (01:38):
That you kind of go. How?
S3 (01:42):
Yeah. That doesn't that doesn't compute in my brain, whatever
the action may be. It doesn't make any sense how
you could get yourself there.
S2 (01:49):
But then at the same time, you look at your
own life and maybe you haven't committed adultery, but guaranteed
there's been some point in time in your life where
you did something, where you look back and go, how
did I do that?
S3 (02:02):
Yeah. How did I get down that road and why?
S2 (02:05):
How? How did I miss it that bad?
S3 (02:08):
Yeah.
S2 (02:09):
And you realize the funny thing about life, especially walking
with the Lord, is the closer you get to to God, actually,
the more aware you become of how desperately you need
him to not blow it in some major area. No
doubt your level of sort of self confidence like, I
got this. I could never do that. Look at that
(02:32):
person over there. Wrecking their life, wrecking their marriage, not
being nice to their kid. I could never really.
S3 (02:41):
Be very careful about that.
S2 (02:43):
Be careful. The closer you walk with the Lord, the
more you realize that old statement. But for the grace
of God, there go I.
S3 (02:53):
Absolutely.
S2 (02:54):
So the truth is, how do people do the things
that they do to other people? Sin.
S3 (03:02):
Sin.
S2 (03:03):
Because of sin, this sin sickness that we are all
infected with from the very beginning and absolutely need the
saving power of Jesus Christ. And even then, we're still
going to miss it. Even as we grow in our
sanctification process, there's still going to be ways that we
miss it. Coming up, we cannot have a week about
(03:25):
David and not address the biggest area where he absolutely
blew it. The sin of David that had such far
reaching consequence. Was he absolutely forgiven and restored? Yep. But boy,
the fallout was great. How do you recover from this
(03:46):
kind of sin? Let's talk about it coming up.
S1 (03:52):
Get to know the team behind the scenes follow cast
and crew on Facebook and Instagram.
S2 (03:58):
Spending time looking at the life of David and David
got so much right in his life, so many lessons
that we can glean his courage, his role as a musician,
his role as a leader. But there was this one thing,
and scripture even points to it. Doctor Winfred Nealy joining
us right now. Share this verse. And then we'll talk
(04:20):
about this one time in David's life where he was
not he did not have a heart for God.
S5 (04:26):
Well, this is the spirit of God's commentary on David's life,
where it says, For David's sake, the Lord his God
gave him a lamp. This is another one of his
descendants in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, establishing Jerusalem,
because David did what was right in the eyes of
(04:49):
the Lord and did not turn aside from anything that
he commanded him all the days of his life, except
in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. And so, as
we get into this conversation, it seems to me to
use this verse as a framework for it. Otherwise it
(05:13):
could be easily misunderstood. I mean, this is a massive
statement here. Yeah. About what God thought about David's life.
And would you like to have God write that on
your on your headstone at your grave? He did what
was right in the eyes of the Lord, so forth
and so on. And of course, here is an exception.
So but this is the verse that it seems to
(05:34):
me should frame what we're going to talk about next.
S2 (05:37):
So let's talk about this now. Maybe you've heard of
the story of David and Bathsheba, but I'm going to
assume that some of you haven't. Uriah the Hittite is
who's mentioned in that first? Is that first or second kings?
S5 (05:48):
That's first Kings, chapter 15, verse five.
S2 (05:51):
So he's mentioned there. He was the husband of Bathsheba.
Give us the the just the summary narrative of what
happens in this incident so that we can begin to
unpack it.
S5 (06:03):
Well, it's mentioned this story is in second Samuel chapter
11 and 12, where there is there's a war going
on with Ammon, Amnon. And they're finishing up the job now,
and David stays in Jerusalem. And it really should have
been out there with his soldiers while he's walking on
(06:24):
the palace. He happens to see a woman bathing. Then
she was beautiful. And in Old Testament narratives, physical descriptions
are rare. And so when we have them, that's really,
really important in the narrative, right? So she's beautiful. And
David inquires about her, sends for her, he takes her
(06:48):
and lies with her, and she goes back home and
you think it's all over. Okay? The narrator says. And
the woman conceived.
S2 (06:57):
That David knew that she was the wife of one
of his men out fighting wars.
S5 (07:01):
Oh. Good night. Yeah, sure he did.
S2 (07:02):
This was absolutely known to him. So he did not
think that this was an available woman?
S5 (07:07):
No, he knew that. He knew who she was. He knew.
In fact, the Scripture says, is this not Bathsheba, the
daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And
Eliam was one of David's mighty men, so was Uriah
the Hittite and Eliam. Apparently Ilium's father was Ahithophel, David's counselor.
(07:29):
Meaning then. Not only that, but this was the granddaughter
of one of David's key counselors. I mean, these were
men in his inner circle.
S2 (07:40):
So a betrayal on so many levels.
S5 (07:43):
Betrayal on so many levels because he's been caught up
in capitulating to lust that was in his heart.
S2 (07:53):
And so then it gets worse. The woman conceived. This
is now second Samuel 11 five as she sends word
she and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David,
I'm pregnant. So now David has a problem, because now
this sin will most certainly be discovered because Bathsheba, her husband,
is out fighting the war. So he's nowhere near her.
(08:16):
So pick it up. From there, David comes up with
a pretty diabolical plan to cover up his own sin.
S5 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah. The woman conceived. That itself is startling. This
is one of the more startling conceptions in Scripture. The
woman conceived, and she sends a note to David. And
all she says is two words in Hebrew. I'm pregnant.
This is the only time she speaks in the entire story.
(08:43):
I'm pregnant. And after that, David comes up with a plan. Now,
interestingly enough, the narrator doesn't say that David is trying
to hide his sin. But that's what's very obvious by
what he does, right? You see what I'm saying? Yes. So?
So he. He calls Uriah. Now, keep in mind, one
(09:03):
of the problems we have is we are so familiar
with the story. So he calls Uriah. Why is he
calling him? Is he calling him to say to him. Listen, brother,
I blew it. I did something that was terrible. Here.
He summons him back because he wants him to go
back home, spend some time with his wife and it's gone.
(09:27):
It looks like it's Uriah's baby. And that doesn't work out.
So then David tries to make him drunk. It says
he literally made him drunk. In the narrative, I just
think about this. So Uriah is drunk under pressure from
the king, and he still goes out and sleeps with
(09:50):
the men that are there instead of going home to
be with his wife. So drunk. Intoxicated. Uriah has more
integrity than sober David. See, that didn't work out. So David,
then has Uriah come and said, I have a message
in essence for Joab and the the the sealed document
(10:13):
that he gives to Uriah actually contains Darius death sentence
in it. And he takes this letter back to Joab.
Joab opens it and he says, put Uriah at the
front of the line, and withdraw from him. So forth
and so on. Now General Joab also is a smart guy.
So he's going to go along with this. So think
(10:34):
about this. Now, this is David's nephew. So now he's
got his nephew involved and in some kind of diabolical
scheme to have someone who who has converted to Yahweh murdered.
But job has got to do it in such a
way so that he doesn't look culpable. So there are
(10:56):
several men that Joab has with Uriah. So not only
is Uriah murdered, several of the Israeli soldiers are also
murdered as well. We don't know who they were. Their
names are not mentioned. We just know that some are.
Other David's servants fell as well. Right now, David decides
(11:16):
to marry her. He takes her and they get married.
And it's interesting. Humanly speaking, it looks as if David
has gotten away with this. He pulled it off. But
then the narrator stops the action. Kind of like a
timeout in a basketball game. No, this is what this
is what's happening at the end of the chapter. Kind
of a timeout where it says, But the thing that
(11:39):
David had done displeased the Lord.
S2 (11:43):
We're going to pause right there. Coming up, we're going
to have more with Doctor Winfred Neely looking at the
life of David. Wouldn't a sin like this be disqualifying?
This is a man after God's own heart, even still.
Let's talk more about it coming up.
S1 (11:59):
He was running from God, but God's love brought him home.
Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on
Moody Radio.
S2 (12:09):
It's a story in Scripture that is uncomfortable to read.
You read about David, a man after God's own heart.
He got so much right in his life. But this
one incident with Bathsheba sees a woman on the rooftop.
She's beautiful. He takes her, and then when she gets pregnant,
(12:31):
he has her husband murdered. And that's the short summary
of this horrific incident recorded in second Samuel 11 and 12.
We left it off where David thinks he's gotten away
with it because he has the husband killed. He marries Bathsheba.
And so it's certainly to the onlooker, looks like he well,
(12:51):
maybe he married this widow quickly. And then they conceived
quickly and none were the wiser. But it doesn't quite
play out that way.
S5 (13:00):
No, it doesn't quite play out that way, because God
loves David too much.
S2 (13:06):
To let him get away with.
S5 (13:07):
It, to let him get away with this. He loves
him too much. Same thing for all of us as
followers of Christ. He loves us too much and the Lord.
In the next chapter there's nothing. When you read second
Samuel 11 and 12, we have a tendency to separate
them out, when in fact, second Samuel 11 and 12
should be read together so that if you're reading your Bible,
(13:28):
if you have the time, you should read both of
them together. It's one account, not even though we have
two chapters. Okay, so chapter 12, the Lord, YHWH Yahweh
does all of the sending. Chapter 11 David does the sending.
Chapter 12 Yahweh is doing the sending, the Lord is
(13:48):
sending the sending, and he sends Nathan to David.
S2 (13:52):
Nathan the prophet.
S5 (13:53):
Nathan, Nathan the prophet to David. And he comes in
with a story. And David actually thinks the story is
about somebody else, you see. And this rich guy comes
in there and he takes this one little ewe lamb
from this fella, then slaughters it and gives it to
his friend. And David is all upset, outraged and standard.
(14:16):
I can just see him now standing up. The man
who done this is worthy of death, and the story
has done its work at that point. His defenses are
down and Nathan looks at him and said, you are
the man. And he begins to tell him. Nathan does
in the name of the Lord. He exalted you. He
(14:38):
blessed you. He used you. Why would you despise him
like that? Now this is God actually speaking in the
first person. Why would you despise me through Nathan? He's
asking him these questions and highlighting to him that sin
is a form of insanity. It's folly. It's madness. What
(14:58):
you've done here. And you've had Uriah the Hittite killed
with the sword of the enemies of God, of the
sons of Ammon, and taken his wife to be your wife.
And as a consequence of this, God says to him,
the sword shall never depart from your house. That's going
to be a sword like experience over your house for
the rest of your life. And so you think about
(15:20):
all of the consequences that are going to come out
of this. Number one, that baby is going to die
on the seventh day. It says, I suspect that the
seven days after the baby was born. Didn't make it
to the eighth day. The day of circumcision, right? The
unnamed baby dies in the next chapter. Amnon, the crown prince,
(15:42):
rapes his own sister. His half sister. He rapes her.
Absalom and his own brother is going to have him
murdered because David is passive. Now he's paralyzed. He can't
do anything about this kind of egregious behavior within his
own family. Now what? David says I have sinned against
the Lord. I've sinned against the Lord. And something unexpected happens.
(16:03):
The Lord forgives David.
S2 (16:05):
Yeah. And and that's when you think about the forgiveness
of God. Sometimes when you think about it in your
own life. Yeah. You have tremendous gratitude, of course, but
but sometimes we have a tendency when we look at
stories like this or even other people's lives, we don't
necessarily want the forgiveness of God to be extended so freely.
Sometimes when we think what's been done is too heinous. This?
S5 (16:28):
Yeah, well, that's the scandal of the narrative. Yeah, and
it's scandalized a lot of thinkers who've dealt with this text. One,
the fact that God forgave David, what he did were
capital offenses in ancient Israel. They required the death penalty.
The deliberate taking of a human life required the death penalty.
(16:53):
Adultery in connection with what he's done with another man's
wife required the death penalty. So no doubt David is
expecting that the Lord is going to strike him down
the same way that he struck down Navajo in first
Samuel chapter 25. The Lord is going, it's going to
strike me down. But instead God forgives David because of
(17:18):
his confession. The Bible does say, if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So God does
forgive David, but remember, the consequences will follow him for
(17:41):
the rest of his life. You can do something crazy,
be forgiven by God, and even restored, but the consequences
may follow you and your family for the rest of
your life.
S2 (17:54):
So what do you. What's the. I want to give
you the final word here. What's the main takeaway from
from something like this? Because obviously there's the one sin
can have, even though forgiven can have unbelievable consequences. And
I think all of us in our lives have seen
in varying degrees, the impact of, of sin. But then
(18:15):
there's also the scandal, the scandal of grace that we
are so clearly the beneficiaries of.
S5 (18:23):
Well, let me say this Two things here one, you
have the birth of Solomon in the narrative. Now, we
know from the chronicler that Bathsheba and chronicles Bathsheba as
she's named here, had four children. Solomon was not the
first child, he was the fourth one. But in this narrative,
(18:48):
the narrator goes to the future and brings the birth
of Solomon and places it right here. Wow. In the
midst of this text to highlight the grace of God
and some commentators, I think it was Walter Brueggemann who
said that the grace extended to David seems, humanly speaking,
(19:10):
more scandalous than what he had done. But that's the
grace of God. That's the grace of God. But yet
at the same time, he's going to pay a dear
price for that, as I have preached this text, one
of the things that I have said to my listeners
is this it will cost you to walk with God,
(19:32):
but it will cost you and your family much, much
more if you do not. That's the big takeaway. It
will cost you to walk with God, but will cost
you and your family much, much more if you do not.
Especially if you are a leader and have been entrusted
(19:53):
with stewardship and power and authority and to to abuse,
that is absolutely, absolutely devastating with massive consequences. Right. Forgiven? Yeah, sure.
He was restored. He sure was. But the consequences followed
(20:17):
him for the rest of her life, even on up
into the New Testament when we're dealing with the genealogy
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says Solomon was born
by her of Uriah the Hittite. All of these centuries later,
that's still being brought up to remind us of the
(20:37):
danger of saying yes to sin, and also the scandal
of the grace of God. This is the family that
the Lord Jesus Christ identifies himself with in Matthew. Meaning,
none of us frankly deserve anything from God. All of
us deserve to be in hell today. It's only by
the grace of God that we're on our way to
heaven as followers of Christ, and by the power of
(20:57):
the spirit, he keeps us from our own selves.
S1 (21:01):
Start your day moving closer to Jesus. You're listening to
Carl and crew.
S2 (21:07):
What? Did God love you too much to let you
get away with? I'm fascinated by that statement that Doctor
Neeley made about David, because it was actually the love
of God that caused David to to get caught. Essentially,
it was an act of mercy that his sin was exposed.
S3 (21:30):
No doubt.
S2 (21:31):
Which is the thought of being exposed in your sin
is terrifying, right?
S3 (21:36):
No one wants that. It's not a good feeling.
S2 (21:39):
But it's the love of God that allows us to
not continue on a path that ultimately will lead to destruction.
S3 (21:46):
It's worse. It's worse than having your sin made known.
S2 (21:49):
And for David, you know, Psalm 51 is a famous psalm,
and it was written by David when Nathan goes to
confront him in his sin, and David when he realizes
that he's the guy that's being described in that little,
(22:10):
that little example.
S4 (22:11):
Oh, it's me.
S2 (22:12):
It's.
S4 (22:12):
You.
S2 (22:13):
He owns it quickly.
S3 (22:16):
Very quickly. Once he realizes this is who we're talking about,
everyone sees it. Well, at least the prophet and God did.
Then he gets on his knees.
S2 (22:23):
I'm going to read to you Psalm 51. This was
David's response. He says, have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy,
blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. Against you. You
(22:45):
only have I sinned and done what is evil in
your sight, so that you may be justified in your
words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought
forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold,
you delight in truth in the inward being, and you
teach me wisdom in the secret heart. A couple more
verses here. He says, purge me with hyssop, and I
(23:06):
shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the
bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from
my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Created me
a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me. I read Psalm 51 one through ten. A
(23:27):
couple more verses, but we'll stop there. But this one,
maybe you've heard there's a song that was written, created
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me. I remember singing it in church when
I was growing up. I didn't know that it was
linked to this. But when you think about David's desire
to have a clean heart, to be purified, his acknowledgment
(23:49):
that when he says, I'm against you and you only
have I sinned says not to suggest that Bathsheba wasn't
sinned against that Uriah wasn't sinned against. But ultimately the
one that we answer to is God. Our sin is
we deal with God for our sin even more than
we deal with other people.
S3 (24:08):
Absolutely. The essence of sin, no matter what it is,
always is, stands in the presence of God and is
judged there.
S2 (24:14):
Yeah.
S1 (24:16):
Your spiritual pit stop to keep you going in the race.
You're listening to Carl and crew.
S2 (24:23):
You ever been relieved that you got caught? Because carrying
around whatever, whatever you'd lied about or tried to hide
from your parents or your teacher? Sometimes there's relief that
comes from even when you're caught. Like, oh, boy. Now
I don't at least I can stop.
S4 (24:43):
Out there.
S2 (24:44):
Lying.
S4 (24:44):
Yeah. It's done. At least I don't have to.
S2 (24:46):
Carry around this weight of. Ah. Are they going to
find out? Did I get away with it?
S4 (24:51):
Yeah.
S2 (24:51):
You know, and when you're. When you're younger, maybe it's
you cheated on a test or you didn't. Didn't. You
know the classic the kid who hides hides the report
card because they don't want mom and dad to see it.
It's like, are they going to find out? Are they.
Are they not? You know, sometimes it's the mercy of
God that allows us to have our sin exposed in
(25:14):
some way, doesn't have to be necessarily in some public way,
but allows someone to catch us and stop us and
bring us to our senses. That's what happened with David.
Nathan confronted him in his sin. At first, David didn't
get it when he set up this scenario. So what
would you say to a guy who goes and steals this?
(25:35):
What was a the the one lamb a lamb.
S3 (25:38):
Yeah.
S2 (25:39):
And David's sense of justice. Well that's absolutely wrong. And
he doesn't take him a second to realize Nathan says
it's you. You're the man. He had taken the wife
of Uriah. He had raped her, for lack of a
better word. Let's just call it what it is. She
gets pregnant. He has Uriah killed. Covers it up, marries her,
(26:03):
and then tries to go on with life. Yeah, but
the mercy of God. God loved him too much to
let him get away with it. What? Did God love
you too much to let you get away with? Let's
go to John. First time caller from Idaho. Tell me.
S6 (26:21):
So God love me too much to let me get
away with continuing to live as a drug addict and
kill myself. I was a meth head, a deviant, got
busted for manufacturing methamphetamine, went to prison where God got
Ahold of my life. And this has been a couple
decades ago now. And I'm. I'm married to a pastor's daughter.
(26:43):
I have grandkids and a family and my my family
that had disowned me because of my drug use and
theft and craziness is now part of my life again.
And I if God hadn't allowed me to go to prison,
I would have died of an overdose long ago. So
he was gracious enough to use prison to save me.
S2 (27:01):
Wow, John, first time caller from Idaho. Thank you so
much for sharing your story. That's a freedom story. Let's
go to Kathy. First time caller from Michigan. What? Did
God love you too much to let you get away with?
S7 (27:12):
I was a brand new student at Moody Bible Institute
and had only been a Christian for a year, and
a professor asked us to do a stake take home
test that we could do in our dorm room. But
I didn't know the Bible well enough. And so I
opened the Bible to answer the questions, and I thought,
I won't get a very good grade on this, but
(27:33):
I got an A, which made me feel very guilty.
I wouldn't have gotten an A unless I opened that
Bible to take the test. So a month or so later,
I wrote him a note and told him that I
cheated and he wrote me back and said, thank you
so much for telling me. And from then on, he
didn't do any more take home Bible tests for students.
S2 (27:55):
Wow. So, Kathy, the opening the Bible, I'm assuming was
not allowed for this take home test.
S7 (28:02):
Yes. You were not supposed to open the Bible, but
as a brand new Christian, I hardly knew anything about
the Bible. So that's why I opened it. But as
I continued to be a student there, then I learned
more and more what was right and what was wrong.
And then I realized, well, that wasn't a good choice.
S2 (28:18):
Oh, boy. Cathy, first time caller from Michigan. You know,
it's the love of God that sometimes allows us to
to have our sin exposed. God loves us too much
sometimes to leave us. It's the exposure of God. Sometimes
that brings hope because he doesn't leave us where we're at.
S1 (28:39):
Walking closer to Jesus every day. You're listening to Carl
and crew.
S2 (28:45):
You know you can get yourself in trouble if you
start to look at life based on what you think
people deserve or don't deserve, or what you deserve or
don't deserve. Why are you laughing?
S3 (28:57):
Because, uh. Okay, so I fall into this trap a
little too much sometimes. especially when I'm driving, I'm driving
and someone, you know, someone's just speeding or going and
I'm I'm upset with how they're driving. I go, come on, man,
can't you just like, calm down a little bit? And
then I'm driving and sometimes maybe I'm really late for something.
(29:21):
Or maybe I feel like I need to get somewhere
and it's urgent or important or extreme, and I, you know,
sometimes it has been extreme where I've needed to get
somewhere quickly. And it's not a good thing if I don't.
And so I, I'm driving fast and I'm cutting around
people and I go, well, it's justified because I have
something that I need to do. And I'm like, well,
(29:42):
you know, everyone in their car is thinking the exact
same thing. Yeah. What are you doing? Getting upset at
those people. But then sometimes you're doing the same thing
that you're getting upset about.
S2 (29:50):
Or have you ever had, like, there's like a long
line where everybody's supposed to merge and everybody's kind of
weaving in. Then there's that one car that just cuts,
like goes on the shoulder, goes all the way to the.
S3 (30:01):
Front, the shoulder drivers.
S2 (30:03):
And then, you know, there's this, this strong sense of
like justice of like, this person doesn't deserve to be
let in right now.
S3 (30:10):
Absolutely. You're like, man, if I just saw them coming,
I could have got on the shoulder and I could
have blocked them from going any further.
S2 (30:16):
They didn't wait their turn like everybody else. Nope. Right.
S4 (30:19):
Like that construction, you know, it all comes down to
one lane, and people just stay in that other lane
as far as they can, and they cut in. But
you've been sitting there and sitting there and sitting there. Yep.
Get over this.
S2 (30:30):
Trips up my son more than anything else.
S3 (30:33):
He's a high justice.
S2 (30:34):
He is a high justice. And his sense of what's fair,
what's like call balls and strikes, like there's no gray zone.
And so he was in third grade and he was
really struggling in PE class. He's a great student. PE
class was giving him trouble not because he wasn't able
(30:55):
to do the sports because he's a good athlete, but
he couldn't get past his sense of fair. And so
it kind of came to a head where he was
like his PE teacher had to keep like telling him
to calm down because he's freaking out, because the third
grade girl in his class didn't touch the base when
she's rounding the kickball bases. Therefore, how dare she not
(31:17):
be called out? And he is losing his mind.
S3 (31:21):
He's got a point.
S2 (31:21):
Losing his mind. She did not touch the base.
S3 (31:27):
Can't touch second.
S2 (31:29):
If she's a third grade girl, she needs to touch
the base. They shouldn't get the point. My team shouldn't.
And they don't even let people declare winners and losers.
S3 (31:39):
Oh, that's.
S2 (31:40):
Also makes him really frustrated because.
S4 (31:43):
Yeah, because.
S2 (31:44):
He's kind of like, everybody gets to finish.
S4 (31:46):
Right?
S2 (31:47):
Drives him nuts.
S3 (31:48):
I'm sure it does.
S2 (31:49):
And it doesn't even matter if he doesn't win. He
would rather lose than nobody be declared the winner.
S3 (31:56):
I think that's I think that's pretty Honorable. I like
that one. I think on that one, I don't think
he's going too far.
S2 (32:02):
It's it's just this idea of right is right. Wrong
is wrong. Fair is fair, I deserve this. They don't
deserve this. I don't deserve it. And so he will say,
if I don't deserve a medal or a trophy, don't
give it to me.
S3 (32:16):
Yeah.
S2 (32:17):
Don't give me the. Everybody gets it.
S4 (32:19):
The participation.
S2 (32:20):
Doesn't want.
S4 (32:21):
It. Yeah, yeah I don't want it fair.
S2 (32:24):
When we think about our life in Christ, we can
fall off on two different sides of this. Okay. The
high ridge Carl likes to talk about. We can start
to get in our minds what we think we deserve
from God.
S3 (32:43):
Yes.
S2 (32:44):
Right.
S3 (32:44):
Yeah.
S2 (32:45):
I deserve things to go this way. I've done this
for you, God. Therefore you should X, y, or Z.
You should reward me in this way. Or we can
start to get so fixated on how messed up we are.
S3 (33:00):
Yeah, too fixated on how messed up we are.
S2 (33:04):
That we can let our idea of being so undeserving
of the grace of God actually keep us from it.
S3 (33:10):
Yes.
S2 (33:11):
How could God ever want somebody like me? I don't
deserve the grace of God.
S4 (33:15):
Yeah.
S2 (33:16):
True statement. None of us do. Correct. None of us
deserve the grace of God. So when it comes to
our relationship with God, we have to get the idea
of fairness deserving out of our minds on both sides
because we deserve nothing from him. But yet he still
extends to us. Grace. Mercy. Forgiveness. There's no way God
(33:42):
should have saved someone like me. But he did. Tell
me your story. That's your story too. It's all of
our stories. There's no way he should have saved someone
like me. But he did. 805 five. Five. 55, 78, 98.
But it's not fair. I'm glad it's not fair. 805 55. 7898.
(34:02):
Grace isn't fair. Wilfred. First time caller from Florida. You
did not deserve the grace of God. But you got
it anyway. Tell me about it.
S8 (34:13):
Well, ma'am, I was given a life sentence. I wasn't
a good guy. And, uh, God overturned that life sentence, and, uh,
I'm out here. I have an awesome job. I'm an
HVAC technician. I never thought I'd ever be anybody in
my life. And God has restored my family. My daughter,
(34:36):
my granddaughter. I you know, I that is the grace
of God. That's a miracle.
S2 (34:43):
Yeah. Wilfred. First time caller from Florida. Thank you for
your call this morning. Do you have a story, a
freedom story? Uh, I'm being a little tongue in cheek here.
There's there's no way we don't deserve the grace of God.
The grace of God is the free gift extended to
it to us. But you get it. You get where
I'm going, right? We. You look at your life. You
look at your story and go. There's no way God
(35:04):
should have saved someone like me. But he did. 855
five 7898.
S1 (35:11):
A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke. Ali is
in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2 (35:20):
The idea that we're sort of good people is one
of the most dangerous lies of the enemy. This idea
that I'm a mostly, I'm a pretty good person. I mean,
I do more good things than I do bad things.
I am, you know, I try to be charitable to people.
(35:40):
I hear people say this when it comes to thinking
about their spiritual state. Most people look at their own
sense of goodness as their way to sort of prop
themselves up and and make themselves okay. And the reality
spiritually is that there is no one good. All of
us are born into sin. We cannot meet God's perfect standard.
(36:04):
The Bible says, for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. It's true of every single
person who's ever lived except for one Jesus. And so
the bad news is that we've all sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, and that we deserve death.
None of us will ever be good enough for God
(36:25):
because perfection is unattainable for us. We are sinners. Here's
the good news that because of Jesus who took our place,
who took the penalty that we deserved because what we
deserved was death. Jesus went to the cross. That's why
he died. That's why he had to die to satisfy
the wrath of God, to take that penalty so that
(36:48):
we had the opportunity in our imperfect state to take
on his perfection. So that when you or I stand
before God, when we are in Christ, we stand in
the righteousness of Christ. We are not going to be
evaluated based on does our good outweigh our bad? That's
not the question that ultimately matters. It's have I put
(37:11):
my faith in Jesus Christ for salvation or not? That,
and that alone is what our entire eternal future hinges upon.
Our answer to that question have I put my faith
in Jesus Christ for salvation? So today, if you're tired
of trying to be a quote unquote good person, give
(37:34):
up that fight because you never will be a good person.
You can be a forgiven person. You can be a
saved person. You can be a person who's perfectly righteous
even because of Jesus Christ. How does this whole thing work?
There's some mystery to it. But by the power of
the Holy Spirit, I believe it's becoming clear to you
that when you confess that you are a sinner, that
(37:57):
you need a Savior, that that is Jesus the only way.
He's the way, the truth and the life. There's no
other way to peace with God except through Jesus Christ.
So today, I want to invite you to put your
trust and faith in him. Just confess that you're a sinner,
that you need a Savior. Cry out to God, and
(38:19):
I believe that he will save you because His word
says so. If that's you, you have that honest conversation.
Text the word new. We want to encourage you with
some practical next steps. Text the word new to 805, 55, 7898.
Just text the word new to 805, 55, 78, 98.
(38:42):
This song I handpicked because I want you to hear
this one right now.
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