Old Testament Lesson; 2 Samuel 12:1- 13
Epistle Lesson; Galatians 2:11-21
Gospel Lesson; Luke 7:36-8:3
Sermon Text; 2 Samuel 12:1-13

Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD."

Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die."

In 1843, a famous American author had a very famous work published. The author was Edgar Allen Poe. And the short story that was published was entitled "The Tell-Tale Heart". In that short story, the narrator had murdered an old man and had buried that old man under three planks in the floor. It happened shortly after midnight.

About four in the morning, there were three police officers that came to the house investigating a shriek that had been reported in the middle of the night. The narrator invited the three police officers to come into the house. They investigated the whole place and they found nothing disturbed.

That is when the narrator asked those three police officers to sit down and to rest from their fatigues. While they were sitting around, right over the very spot where that old man's body was buried, the narrator started to get a little agitated. As time went by, the narrator wanted those three police officers to leave, because there was a sound the narrator heard and felt. The sound got louder, and louder, and louder!

Finally, the narrator couldn’t take it anymore. The narrator jumped up and said, "I admit the deed. Tear up the planks. Here, here. It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

Well, it was not the beating of that old man's hideous heart that was bothering the narrator. Rather, it was the narrator's very own conscious that was speaking out. The narrator's conscious was troubling him to the point that he needed to admit that he had done the deed of murdering the old man.

So it is with a guilty conscious. Today we come across one of the accounts of King David. Just prior to our text, David had done some awful things. In the chapter previous to ours this morning, the Bible tells us during springtime, when kings go off to war, David was walking around on the rooftop of his palace, when his eyes fell upon a very beautiful woman whose name was Bathsheba. David had an affair with her and she became pregnant.

When she became pregnant, David wanted to cover up his sin, so he asked one of his soldiers, Uriah the Hittite, who was Bathsheba's husband, to come back from war.

David sent a message to Joab, who was the commander and chief of his army. He sent that message right in Uriah's hand. Uriah had his own death sentence in his hand, because that sheet of paper told Joab to put Uriah where the fighting was the fiercest, for the Israelites to fall back so that Uriah would surely be put to death. And Uriah died.

When the time of mourning was over, David took Bathsheba into his palace. And, Bathsheba became David's wife.

David thought he had gotten away with murder and other things. But, even though David thought he had gotten away with those sins, even though he thought he had covered them up, something was troubling him. There was something that was bothering him. And that was his very own conscious. Listen to what David was struggling with, in Psalm 32, David tells us:

"When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through groaning, all day long. For day and night, (God) your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was sapped, as in the heat of summer."

David's conscious was troubling him. And yet, he tried to cover it up.

God tolerates many things. But, one thing that He won't tolerate is being ignored. David was ignoring the Lord, by trying to cover up his sin. That is when God sent the prophet Nathan to go and talk to David. That is when the prophet Nathan shared with David the short story that Pastor Bartels read, just a few minutes ago. It is the story of a rich man and a poor man who lived in the same town. The rich man had everything. He had all the sheep and cattle ‘in the world.’ And that poor man had just one, little lamb. That one little lamb was so precious to that poor man. It was like the family pet. It ate with the family, slept with the family, and played with the family. It was like a daughter to him.

But when the rich man had a guest come to town, instead of taking one of his sheep or cattle, the rich man took the only thing the poor man had, that little sheep, that little lamb. And, he had it butchered for supper.

David burned with anger when he heard this story. He said, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!"

That is when the sting of the prophet Nathan's words were heard by David. "You are the man!"

You see, David was that rich man. Uriah was the poor man. David had everything. He was the king of Israel. God said, "If that was not enough, I would have given you even more."

But David took something from Uriah. It was that ‘little lamb.’ David took Uriah's wife, Bathsheba to be his own. The prophet Nathan came to David to point out his sin. "You are the man!" Look at what you have done.

David's guilty conscious could take no more. He simply confessed,

"I have sinned against the LORD."

Now look at how it is that God deals with sinners. The prophet Nathan was then able to come with a very comforting message to David.

"The LORD has taken away your sin."

Such it is with God's Word, but particularly here with this text from scripture. We see that we cannot hide anything from God. Again, God can tolerate many things, but one thing that He won't tolerate is being ignored.

I must admit today, that I have sinned against the Lord in my dealings with you. The Bible tells us that we sin. And, I sin against God by thought, by word, and by deed. And this morning, I must admit to you that I have sinned against you by thought by word and by deed. There have been times when I have thought bad things about you. There have been times when I have said unkind things about you. And there are times when I have done un-Christian things against you.

If my conscious doesn't trouble me, then I need to hear God's Word tell me that I am a sinner, that I have sinned against you, so that I can be restored, so that I can hear you say the very same words that the prophet Nathan once spoke.

"The Lord

has taken away your sin."

Today too, you must admit that you have sinned against God in your thoughts, your words, and your deeds. There are bad things that you have thought about others. There are things that you have said that are unkind. There are un-Christian things that you have done against others. If your conscious doesn't bother you, you need God's Word to come, so that your troubled conscious comes admits, "I admit the deed. I have sinned against the Lord."

Then we can be restored when someone says, "The Lord has taken away my sin."

If this book represents all of the sin that we have ever committed in life, and this hand represents Jesus' death on the cross, God wants us to know that all of our sins were nailed to the cross, with Christ.

When Jesus died,

He died on the cross

to pay for every single one of our sins.

What is left is you. Through Jesus' death on the cross, God sees you as if you had never sinned. That is simply God's way of dealing with us, who are sinners. He wants us to come before Him in confession of our sin. And, if we don't and ignore Him, God gave us a conscious for a reason – to trouble us, so we feel guilty, so that we come before Him and confess our sins, so that He can graciously forgive us for Jesus' sake.

Yes, in 1842 Edgar Allen Poe wrote that short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart". The narrator's conscious became so troubled that in the end, he needed to admit, "I admit the deed. Tear up the planks. Here, here. It is his hideous, beating heart."

David, too, when confronted, needed to admit, "I have sinned against the LORD."

We too have a guilty conscious as we sin, and need to admit that we have sinned against the LORD, so that we can hear how our heavenly Father graciously deals with us, who are sinners.

"The LORD has taken away your sin."

Amen.