The following sermon was delivered in Truro Episcopal Church on June 12, 1977 by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Church.

Search out our hearts and make us true, wishful to give to all their due, wean us and train us with thy rod, teach us to know our faults, O God. Amen. If you really meant what you just sang, teach us to know our faults, O God.

That's the sort of prayer that Corrie ten Boom says, you pray that, you better duck. Because God will answer that sort of prayer. He wants us to know our faults that we might deal with them.

That's the theme of both of the lessons that we heard this morning. and the one I'd like to expand on was the first lesson, the Old Testament lesson, which was from 2 Samuel. If you'd like to follow along, I want to dip a little bit into the background of that story in the 11th chapter, 2 Samuel chapter 11.

Very famous story, and you may be somewhat familiar with it. The story of Nathan coming to visit David with a word from God, a word of confrontation and rebuke. We need to understand what provoked that word by looking at the story which immediately precedes it.

The story begins with the words, in the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab. It's just a wealth of implication in those words. In the spring of the year, The time when kings go forth to battle.

It's almost like an athletic season. You know, we have baseball in the summer, we have football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and come spring you go forth to war. And everybody gets ready for this.

Of course, war was on rather different scale in those days. But it's something you really look forward to, and it's a time of polishing up your armor and going forth to do battle. Only this particular year, for one reason or another, David stayed home.

If you're going to have a battle, the king is to lead his army into the battle. That's his place at the very forefront of the army. But David didn't lead his army.

He sent his general, and he stayed home. We're not told why. You can speculate about that.

Maybe he was lazy. Possibly there was cowardice here. That would be very unlike David.

Perhaps more likely, there was just a streak of arrogance. I've proved myself enough times. I don't have to go to fourth to war anymore.

Let somebody else do it. I've got the whole thing sewed up anyway. My first lieutenant could handle it, let alone Joab.

So David stayed home. It goes on to tell us it happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful.

Roof walking was a lot more popular in those days before television. Couldn't watch the guiding light and Monty Hall's Python Circus or whatever it is. so he stays home he's out on his roof and he's walking around taking the afternoon air looks down and all of a sudden this beautiful girl out there in her courtyard taking a bath you can see him calling his servant over to find out who this is only he's very subtle about it he says let me give you a little test see how well you know the neighborhood now what's that over there?

The servant says, well, that's Iggy's Pizza Parlor. He says, absolutely right. What's that down there?

He says, that's Jerry's laundry or whatever it is. And then he says, what's that over there? Uriah the Hittite lives there.

Ah, Uriah the Hittite. What's his wife's name again? Oh, yeah, Bathsheba.

He says, I'd like to see her. Bathsheba comes up and David commits adultery with her. This is David the king.

David the anointed one. David who was put in the position of rulership because Saul had blown it and proven an unworthy king. David who more than any figure in the Old Testament embodies righteousness.

David, the apple of God's eye. And he calls for this woman and in a moment yields to the lust of the eyes and the temptation of the flesh. Very shortly the woman sends him word, I'm pregnant.

This is David's first great moment to repent. He has to face the consequence of his action. But rather than repenting, his mind starts worrying, how can I cover it up?

And he gets an idea. He says, send for Uriah. So Uriah comes back from the front of the battle and David says, I want to know how things are going.

It's very odd. If David wanted to report on how the battle was going, any messenger boy could have given it. But instead he sends for Uriah. Uriah is puzzled by that.

But he gives him a report of how the battle is going. And David says, thank you very much, Uriah. I appreciate that report.

Now look, you've come a long way. It's been a hard fight. Why don't you go home and rest tonight?

Only Uriah is a man of great principle and he says, far be it from me. My fellow soldiers are there in the trenches. I'm not going to go home and sleep with my wife.

And so he stays with the servants in the palace. There's David's second opportunity to repent. To come clean with Uriah.

It's all been a fraud. My reason for bringing you home. But he thinks of yet another cover up.

He says, come on in, let's have a little celebration Uriah. And he tries to get him drunk. He figures I'll lower his resistance with alcohol.

A lot of other people have tried the same thing. Only David misjudged the effects of alcohol. And he gave him too much.

Too much alcohol becomes a depressant rather than a stimulant, and Uriah just gets sleepy. So that didn't work either, and finally he sends him back. And he sends him back with a note, a note for Joab, a sealed note from the king.

It says, when the fighting becomes fierce, put Uriah in the very forefront and withdraw from him. So this man, already sinned against, now carries the letter. calling for his own murder.

And Joab gets that letter and he being a good soldier obeys orders. And when the fighting grows fierce he puts Uriah in the very front of the line withdraws from him and Uriah is killed. So now adultery has become murder.

And Joab sends word back to David that the battle is going very poorly and we've lost a lot of soldiers but he says to the messenger when you've given him all the bad news, put on the end of it, and Uriah the Hittite is also dead. He expected that David would be very angry. David has never lost a battle before.

It's just been success after success since becoming king. He's sure to be furious when he hears that we're losing. But put on the end, Uriah is also dead.

And when the news comes, David's response is, well, you win some and you lose some. Story ends with the words that began our reading this morning. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she made lamentation for her husband.

When the morning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, And she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done had displeased the Lord. You can hide it from everybody else.

You can cover up a cover up. But you can't hide it from God. The thing David had done displeased the Lord.

And so he sent Nathan with a word of confrontation. I want us to notice several things about that word. The first is that it was an expression of love.

God's love, but also Nathan's love. When God confronts a man in the midst of his sin, it's that he might repent. God is not merely angry, but he wants restitution to take place that the sin might be forgiven.

God's word of judgment, God calling a man to repentance, is a word of love. but it's also love on Nathan's part Nathan was David's friend it was a very heavy thing to go and confront the king of Israel and say you're a sinner but David was willing to risk the friendship for the sake of the friend and I praise God for those men and women who have loved me enough to come with the word of God and say to me you're wrong you're wrong and hold me to a higher standard praise God for those who love us enough to risk the friendship for the sake of the friend that's the first thing that this harsh word is a word of love second thing I want us to notice is that Nathan is moved by God to tell a parable he doesn't simply come out and say you've committed adultery and murder but he tells him a little story and David maybe in his arrogance He doesn't even notice that the story is about himself. It's a rich man who has taken away this poor man's one-ewe lamb.

And David rises up in fury against him. That man deserves to die. He's going to pay back fourfold what he's done.

And Nathan turns around and points his finger at him and says, You are the man. God's standards are not foreign to our own opinion. It's not only God who says we're wrong, but we pronounce judgment on ourselves.

We know. However much we've covered it up, glossed it over, rationalized it, covered up the cover-up, hidden it from the whole world, we know when we're wrong. And all we need to do is to see the same thing in somebody else.

and it's very easy to pass judgment. David hears a story about a rich man. He deserves to die.

David condemns himself. It's not that God has some other kind of set of standards totally foreign to everything we know and think. But when we see ourselves as God sees us, we confess the same thing.

In fact, that's what the word confession means. Literally, it means to say the same thing. Con with fashion.

To say the same thing. I say the same thing about myself and my sin as God says about it. Jesus says the judgment you give will be the judgment you get.

But the third thing, the good news, praise God, is that repentance is always possible with a God of great love. Having been called to task by a God of holiness and righteousness, having seen ourselves as sinners and condemned, there's a good news here that we're able to repent. David repents at this point and is forgiven.

And that's the point of the whole story. sometimes there are human consequences that are not reparable David can't give back the life of Uriah David can't undo the adultery and in fact David's son dies the child of this unholy union is taken from him it might have been the one through whom Messiah comes but there were consequences human consequences that couldn't be undone. But as far as God's forgiveness goes, the slate is wiped clean.

And that's what God would cause us to see this morning. When He pronounces a word of judgment, it's that we might repent and be restored. And I want us to see finally that repentance calls for as much restitution as is possible as an immediate byproduct.

Immediately we pray to God, Lord, forgive me my sin. There's a human reaction to do as much restitution as possible. From this moment on, David is a changed man.

From this moment on, there's a new beauty and a new humility in his leadership. He's a different man. God calls us to acknowledge our sin before him, to confess, to say the same thing about ourselves.

As he says, it's not primarily an emotional response. It's not primarily remorse, so there may well be remorse involved. But it's a determination with God's help to make right what has gone wrong so far as I'm able and to determine never to do it again.

J. Adams defines it this way, Repentance is a change of mind leading to a new outlook in which faith in Christ brings about a change of purpose and a change of direction. A change of mind leading to a new outlook, a change of purpose, and a change of direction. let us pray together Father we thank you for this story because we see in David sin on a gross and obvious level and we would see ourselves standing next to Him as sinners who need also to repent as He did.

We thank You for Nathan's willingness to be the bearer of a hard word. And we thank You for those Nathans in our lives who have called us to higher standards, to obedience, and to righteousness. Thank You, Father, that we can see also something of ourselves in David's response.

How easy it is to condemn somebody else. How difficult to see the same pattern in ourselves. But thank You, Lord, when we finally have seen ourselves as You see us, Your Word is, if we confess our sins, You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

help us Lord not only to repent but to take quick action to do as much as is humanly possible to make reparation for the things that we've done amiss for we ask it in Christ's name Amen