Confrontation!, Part 1

Not only does the right thing.

He does the right thing at the right time today from Chuck Swindoll with you and say that there are times I really question the timing of God.

I just don't know why he's so slow to carry out what I think you but you know every time I looked at it. In retrospect, I have seen how beautifully he had worked out his plan perfectly to come to pass in today's world have adopted the false notion that sin will be overlooked just as long as it never becomes public. In other words, as long as our hidden sins remain undercover will never suffer the consequence of our rebellion against God. Well, today on Insight for living Chuck Swindoll will debunk that in our study of second Samuel 12 will be reminded that sinners what they so even the secret stuff. Chuck begins today by reading the passage for us. He gave a one-word title to his message confrontation. David has fallen into sins of all time lies, adultery and even murder.

But God in his great grace, mercy and compassion is ready to get rid of Israel's king just yet. He raised up the prophet Nathan to take a message to David as we are going to see today Nathan was a man filled with courage and wisdom and humility, all of which were strongly necessary.

When he confronted David regarding all of those sins. Please listen carefully to Nathan's approach and David's response as I read second Samuel chapter 12 verses 1 to 14 from the message. But God was not at all pleased with what David had done and sent Nathan to David. Nathan said to him, there were two men in the same city one rich. The other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. He grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him. One day Trevor dropped in on the rich man he was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor so he took the poor man's lamb and prepared a meal to set before his guest, David exploded in anger as surely as God lives. He said to Nathan, the man who did this ought to be lynched. He must repay for the Lamb four times over for his crime and his stinginess. You're the man said. Nathan, and here's what God, the God of Israel has to say to you I made you king over Israel I freed you from the fist of Saul I gave you your masters daughter and other wives to have and to hold, I gave you both Israel and Judah. And if that hadn't been enough. I have gladly thrown in much more so why have you treated the word of God with brazen contempt doing this great evil you murdered Uriah the Hittite then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with an Ammonite sword. And now, because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite wife is your wife killing and murder will continually plague your family. This is God speaking. Remember I'll make trouble for you out of your own family. I'll take your wives from right out in front of you. I'll give them to some neighbor you go to bed with them openly. You did your deed in secret.

I'm doing mine with the whole country watching then David confessed to Nathan, I've sinned against God.

Nathan pronounced yes but that's not the last word God forgives your sin, you won't die for, but because of your blasphemous behavior. The son born to you will die inside for living to dig deeper into the Bible with Chuck's window.

Be sure to download his searching the Scriptures. Studies by going to Insight.org/studies and now the message titled, with one word confrontation. Bill Moyers was unknown until Lyndon Johnson suddenly took office in almost overnight. This young 30-year-old advisor became a prominent person in our nation young lawyers was a student of political science for years and had a keen right mind which he used to the fullest. So much so that when Johnson the astute politician became the president after the tragic assassination of Kennedy. It was Moyers that was chosen by Johnson to take the place of public or personal confidant to the surprise of many people. He was appointed to that position but it is believed by a number of individuals who have written on the subject in the years that followed. Because of that wise counsel of young lawyers Lyndon Johnson's administration experienced on a number of smooth times when it would otherwise have been difficult. It was a stormy administration because of the Vietnam War, but many believe that Moyers's counsel was one of the reasons that Johnson was able to operate as well as it did before his death.

Johnson was interviewed by one of the nations periodicals and the subject of Moyers came up. Someone asked him why is it that you would choose a man in his 30s to be your advisor when you had so many others many years older than he, who could perhaps have done even a better job. Johnson's response on never forget. He looked at the journalist who was writing the story and he said I can tell you the answer in one sentence.

Bill Moyers always tells me the truth to the casual reader that might seem rather obvious, but it's not. If you ever put yourself in the shoes of the personal confidant of the most powerful man in the nation. You know that the greatest temptation would become would be to become a yes-man did not approve of the things you don't really believe in simply because the person is so powerful, or to tell him what he wants to hear rather than what he ought to hear Johnson says Moyers was valuable to me because he always told me the truth 3000 years earlier, there lived a great man who served a great nation under a great God, the holy Jehovah God of the heavens. The man's name is David so powerful was David that 62 chapters of the Old Testament are devoted to his biography and no less than 59 references in the New Testament call people's attention to this man more by far than any other biblical character yet. David, the great man of God is not perfect. He made an awful blunder when he was about 50 years of age.

Perhaps a little older, he committed adultery, and then rather than facing it and admitting it. He covered it up with premeditated murder and adding insult to injury, he lived a lie of hypocrisy and deception for the better part of a year, and this time slowly pass one would believe that the holy God of heaven was asleep, letting it pass that Sam does actually pray that there are no wages but you and I know that that was not the case in a very marvelous move on God's part. He brought me for David a man like Bill Moyers. In fact, a man of greater integrity than that, who told him the truth. I don't think any other confrontation has ever been so brief, so effective for three letter words, did the job you are the man and David crumbled in humility and I think a fresh blush of relief came over his life tonight were looking at that very honest advisor who told David the truth now like to turn the second Samuel 11 to start with and then we'll work our way into chapter 12. The first let's look at 12 months. In retrospect, let's go back. Let's refresh our thinking, let's remind ourselves of where David is been there's no reason to dig up the filth of the story again but just let me point out two things about the active David, that was carried on without public awareness.

Number one, it was done secretly. The act of adultery. The plan of murder and the whole story of hypocrisy was a secret act. It was done secretly. Unfortunately, one of the things that accompanies the promotion of individuals to high office is the increase in privacy. The closed-door policy is accepted by those in high office and with that comes the great temptation to let lust begin to brewed and breed and begin express and begin to be expressed. So it was with David unable to handle the privacy of the office over the long haul. David finally fell and rapidly went about to cover his tragic tracks was done secretly.

The second thing I would say about the acts of David, is that they were done willfully. It was not a momentary mistake. He didn't stumble into the sand. He willfully, knowingly walked into the sand with Bathsheba killed her husband, at least indirectly, and knowingly lived a lie for the months to follow. That's easy to get the mental picture that David's life was sort of a bowl of cherries in the world of the tail that in fact what he did was hardly noticed by God. But if you look at the last sentence of verse 27, the 11th chapter you will see that that's not true. The thing that David had done was evil in the side of the Lord. I would like to add the parenthesis and don't you forget it. Parenthesis closed what was evil 3000 years ago was evil today even though many people do it to achieve a marriage with an adulterous relationship is still a willful sin, even though many carry it out this very night, in sacred places, people with wedding rings given by another person or with individuals that are not their own partners.

That does not make it right.

Public approval doesn't make it right. It is still evil in the sight of the Lord and don't you forget it. Maybe no one else noticed but God noticed and he began to mark his plan and stretch out a strategy that was that was designed to bring David to his knees at just the right time God's good at that all his accounts are not settled in the spring. He sometimes waits months, but when he comes through well. As one poet put it, his his wheels grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine, be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man whatever a woman sows that you will also read it's still in the book. It's still true. Now, lest you think that David's life was really enjoyable and that he had those long delightful nights with his wife free of guilt, lest you have the feeling that David was in a marvelous state of mind during those months that followed, turn to Psalm 32 look at several verses with me, especially the first four of the 32nd song to begin with.

Check the superscription right beneath the title of the Psalm we read a Psalm of David.

A basket you. The Hebrew word from which the word musky, real estate, it means instruction.

It's a song designed to instruct how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Listen to his admission. When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long for Jay and not thy hand was heavy upon me.

My vitality was drained away. As with the fervent heat of summer. Selah Paulus and think that through the living Bible puts it very well. There was a time when I wouldn't admit what a sinner I was, but my dishonesty made me miserable and filled my days with frustration all day and all night your hand was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water on a sunny day, until I finally admitted all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide his splendid book, guilt and grace. Alternate the brilliant Swiss writer, physician, psychiatrist talks about two kinds of guilt. True guilt and false guilt. False gift guilt says Trinity is brought on by the judgments and suggestions of man. True guilt comes from willfully and knowingly disobeying God. One psychologist has described the way people handle guilt by using the picture of the red light on the dashboard of the car as you're driving along you have on occasion red lights flash on saying notice there's trouble under the hood, you have a choice of doing two things. One, you can stop get out of the car open the hood and see what's wrong or second, you can carry in the glove compartment. A very small hammer and when the red light turns on, you can strike the light and it would allow, and you can keep on driving and the difference for a while now it works until you bring the car up and then you look back and realize what a stupid decision. It was to break out the light in the dashboard I come across Christians all the time carry little hammers in the glove compartment of the conscience and when true guilt begins to flash break it out. They snap it off but call it false guilt or they say it's just what everybody else is doing and on and on and on but all the while the motor burns up and they look back a few months previous, and they realize what a foolish decision. It was, not to stop get out and come to terms with what is wrong.

David says when I lived in the true guilt of my soul. I could not stay silent down inside, though I was through my lips. As a matter of fact I groaned all day.

You know what that means. There was this awful oppression. This misery Rios of conscience in the day and night.

I had felt the heavy hand of God on me. It was like carrying of a fever.

I couldn't get my head I couldn't handle the pressures of my work. I couldn't hold I was sick. My body wasted away flashover to Psalm 31 of 51 and look again you will get several thoughts as you read this song and again the superscription of Psalm 51, a Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. So this Psalm was written in just in in in David's Journal.

After Nathan had paid that fateful visit. David admits in the middle of it verse to wash me thoroughly for my sin for my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me while he wasn't relaxing, taking life easy. He had sleepless nights, he woke up and sit across the ceiling of his room when he did his thing in the kingdom he saw it written across the walls he sought on the plate where he ate his meal, he saw the faces of his counselors. He lived alive and he couldn't take it. It went on and on until finally you notice he says in verse verse 12 restore to me the joy of thy salvation, yet no joy. He stopped writing you don't read many Psalms written by David during the 12 month interval. In fact he says in verse 10 create in me a clean heart of God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

He was unstable. He felt inferior he was insecure he couldn't handle the blows of the office because he was living a lie. Sin does that to you as part of the wages that sin inevitably pays the carnal Christian will dance all around and try to tell you everything's fine. Don't press me on doing well, you just haven't any idea but down inside it's there in a true Christian cannot deny that. Is there oppressively there constantly. There, that's why David says renew a steadfast spirit in me. Meaning I haven't headed for a long long time.

Second Samuel chapter 12 is the story of this incredible confrontation were Nathan stepped into David's life and told him the truth. Let's work our way through it to begin with. When you notice that Nathan was sent by the Lord.

Verse one then the Lord sent Nathan to David the most important word in the entire sentence is the first then why why is that so important well stop and think. When was he sent right after the act of adultery. No right after Bathsheba said I am pregnant. No right, every murder of Uriah. No right after he married his pregnant bride.

No letter to the birth of the baby no wrong again, is believed by many Old Testament scholars that there was a 12 month interval that passed before Nathan paid the visit. The baby was at least three months old. God waited until just the right time. He let misery do its full work and that he stepped in level with you and say that there are times that I really question the timing of God.

I just don't know why he's so slow to carry out what I think he ought to do. But you know every time I have looked at it. In retrospect, I have seen how beautifully he had worked out his plan perfectly. It come to pass. God not only does the right thing. He does the right thing at the right time now. If you are the one who was called upon in today's future to confront someone in their sin learn a lesson from that word, then the timing is as important as the wording simply to tighten your belt and grab your Bible and take a trip and confront a person who is in sin at your convenience is unwise to be sure that your sent by the Lord. Nathan was now want to put yourself in the sandals of that fearless problem. No profit was ever given a more difficult commission than Nathan. He was to stand before the most powerful man in the nation and tell that man what the man had denied for a year and no one else around. The place would tell David there were some raised eyebrows. There were some tongues and cheeks, but nobody would be honest and forthright enough to say David, you are in sin. Through his courage and insight.

Nathan provided a timeless tutorial on how to confront someone who's living in sin and there's much more that Chuck Swindoll wants to show us in this emotion filled passage so keep listening.

This is insight for living. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit us online@insideworld.org Chuck titled his message, confrontation, and whether you picture yourself as Nathan or David. All of us can learn something from this awkward exchange in the coming days will discover how the exposure of David secret actually launched his recovery, but the lessons he learned along the way were painful as we witness David's journey. It should become our highest priority to prepare for unexpected temptations and anything that might derail our growth in Christ.

Whether it's the temptation to compromise or struggle with jealousy and envy every follower of Christ needs to gain a strong hold on the wisdom of God's word and that's the purpose of Chuck Swindoll's classic book called strengthening your grip. Chuck addresses 16 relevant topics such as managing your money. Coping with the aging process making time for leisure and setting proper priorities. Each chapter is designed to help you strengthen your grip on the things that matter most to purchase a copy of Chuck's book strengthening your grip call us if you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8880 or visit this dedicated webpage for details insight.org/offer bear in mind that while you're listening to Chuck's teaching today are joined with fellow listeners around the world.

Insight for living is translated into different languages and were hearing from grateful listeners from all points on this extension of our ministry is made possible through the voluntary and need contributions of friends like you to give a gift today. Call us if you listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org/don't reach yourself to a vacation you'll never forget on the inside for living ministry screws to the great frontier with Chuck Swindoll. Honestly, I had no idea that a cruise to Alaska could be so much fun without a doubt stunning views, took my breath away God's artistic genius is on the last impact. I guarantee this. You come home refreshed and filled with all for his shift to create one point I simply think he thanked often playing in the way. It was amazing that plenty of time for pictures on shore lingering conversations around meal and strolling through the idyllic ports of call real part of some of the best part of our day laughing, singing and celebrating our God plan to come with the dates are July 1 through July 8, 2023. To learn more, call 1880-447-0441 888-447-0444 or visit insight.org/events Alaska is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend Bill Meyer join us. When Chuck Swindoll continues his message about confronting David about his secret sin. That's our topic tomorrow on insight for living. The preceding message confrontation was copyrighted in 1978, 1988, 1997 and 2009 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll.

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