[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word. Turn your Bibles to Psalms chapter 51. It's a delight to be here. I love this church.
[0:11] I thank God that our church had a little something to do with it. And I tell a lot of people that I get the credit for having such a great missionary church, but I want to tell you something. The truth of the matter is Brother Austin and Brother Betty spent a year with us on furlough, and they changed our whole heart towards missions.
[0:28] So he really is the man, just like Brother Miguel was the man, and he is the man down in Peru. Amen. And I had my picture taken with him last night. I was proud to be a part of it.
[0:38] Amen. Psalms 51, I'd like to preach. You might want to show my cover because I think that's pretty impressive, Brother. Amen. But I want to preach a very brief message. I always want to do that. On how to get up when you've fallen down.
[0:53] And I'd like to add how to get up. I have so many titles it's going to take the five after. How to get up when you've fallen down and how to stay up. Or, subtitle, here's another one, The High Cost of Sin.
[1:06] Let's stand on to the Word of God. Psalms 51. I'm going to be like the hen that had a strange desire to lay an egg in the middle of the highway. The head rooster said, I'll give you two words of advice.
[1:17] Lay it on the line and do it quick. So here it is. Amen. Psalms 51. Y'all get that later because I know y'all have been through traffic. Anyway. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according to a multitude of thy tender mercies.
[1:32] Blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin as ever before me.
[1:45] Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.
[1:59] Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden parts thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
[2:11] Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out mine iniquities. Aren't you glad you've been forgiven today?
[2:23] Amen. Just don't get over it. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
[2:34] Restore to me the joy of thy salvation. We could use a revival of that. And uphold me with thy free spirit. Then, you ought to circle that word, then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
[2:50] Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. Thy God of my salvation, my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
[3:02] For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
[3:16] Do good in thy good pleasure and design. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
[3:27] And shalt thou offer bullet upon thine altar. Father, thank you for your word. I pray, dear God, as Brother Bo so wonderfully preached. Help us, God, to mix it with faith.
[3:39] And God, help us, Lord, to believe the message is just for us as I know it's just for me. And Lord, we know there is a high cost of sin. But I believe this psalm glorifies the Savior, the forgiver.
[3:53] God, the Redeemer. And Lord, I thank you that you picked me up many times and dusted me off and got me back on the right track. And I just want to thank you, as the quartet so wonderfully sang, for your mercy and for your tenderheartedness.
[4:10] God, I pray that you would deal with us thoroughly tonight. Help us, God, to be thoroughly right with you and have revival in our souls. That we can truly have evangelism that flows from a yielded heart full of your spirit.
[4:25] And we'll praise you and thank you for all that you do in and through this message. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. I meant to tell you you could be seated before.
[4:36] I was waiting for my childhood friend to be here. And I told him I wasn't going to start preaching until he got here. He said he's on the way. But I understand the traffic in this town. So I'm not going to wait for anybody. And I'm going to quit at five after eight.
[4:49] And so I hope you'll enjoy my introduction. Amen. But I really appreciate your pastor, the way he preached. This week, he made faith promise given.
[5:00] And he made missions just an act of love. And I mean, it touched all our preachers' hearts, our missionaries' hearts. Our church was revived.
[5:10] And I just really appreciate you praying for us. And I pray that we'll be a better church. And we want to be a sending church. In Psalms 51, we see the great psalmist making much of the Savior.
[5:24] And making much of his shepherd who restored his soul. And I thank God that God's a God of a second chance. And you might just show slide one, then I'll skip to slide nine.
[5:36] Amen. But I'm so thankful for the tenderheartedness and mercy and compassion of God. I want you to know, friend, this psalm tells us about the high cost of sin.
[5:46] But I want to tell you something, friend. It really exalts what a great Savior we have. And you know how patient of a shepherd he is. And it appeals to God's compassion.
[5:58] And I want you to see the ache and the complete cleansing and the guilt, yes. And the high cost of sin. And I believe we live in a day and age where sin is sort of shaded gray.
[6:09] And that there's not a lot of old-fashioned straight preaching like you'll have this Sunday from Brother Trent. Just old-fashioned preaching against sin. You know, and I appreciate Brother Jeff Sunday morning preaching on the second coming.
[6:22] And we need more messages on that. On the rapture. And then we ought to have more messages on hell. But I want to tell you something. Sin will take you a lot further than you ever thought it would. It'll take you a lot lower than you ever thought it would.
[6:33] It'll hurt you a lot more. I've been pastoring the same place for 35 years. And I've seen tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. I've seen people now that are on the shelf that were great mighty men of God.
[6:46] I mean preachers, missionaries. And all because they let sin have a root hole in their jurisdiction. They gave place to the devil. They became bitter.
[6:58] Or they just sinned the sin of omission. I want you to see. And you can slide down to slide 9, okay? And that's where I'm going to park. And just give you a few thoughts on the high cost of sin.
[7:11] You know, David's talking about every part of his anatomy that was affected by sin. I mean, he begins to list it. And I think that verses 1 through about 13 is all about the high cost of committing sin.
[7:29] And I want you to know David was broken. And David confessed. And David was cleansed. But I want to tell you something. Sometimes we sort of shoot up prayers like I do when I drive in Atlanta.
[7:41] Flair prayers. We get in the middle of an intersection. We say, oh, God, help us. There's three lady drivers conveying right on me right now. Amen. I'll get in trouble for that comment. I guarantee you. But anyway, let's say there's three men that can't drive.
[7:54] But anyway, we throw up flair prayers. And then we also say this. Say, Lord, forgive me. But we're really not broken about that sin. We're really not contrite about that sin. We're not really repentant of that sin.
[8:05] A lot of people are sorry they get caught. But I want to tell you something, folks. When the great detective, the sin finds you out. And the Holy Spirit convicts. Aren't you glad for conviction?
[8:16] I'm just so old-fashioned that I believe without conviction there is no conversion. I believe the Holy Spirit must convict you that you're lost. And I believe the Holy Spirit must convict you that you're not right with God when you backslide.
[8:31] And thank God for the convictor. Thank God He's the convictor that God is real. But thank God for Holy Ghost. Old-fashioned. I mean, just biblical conviction.
[8:43] But I want you to notice real quick the high cost of committing sin. And let me give you just a little background. I know you all know this. And I just appreciate how the Bible is taught. We used to have Brother John come all the way over to Dalton, Georgia every Monday or Tuesday.
[8:57] And teach the Bible. And I mean, he did that. And I was just amazed he'd come that far. And he was one of our favorite professors. I mean, everybody just sat there.
[9:07] Their mouth dropped open. Man, that's good, you know. And that's the way it ought to be. Say amen. The Bible's good. And the Word of God's rich and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. But you know the story of David.
[9:19] It's found in 2 Samuel chapter 12, or 11, if you want to glance there. It came to pass after the year was aspired at the time the king would go forth to battle.
[9:31] That David sent Joab. And to make a long story short, here's the sin of omission. Mark this down, young people. Before there's the sin of commission, almost always there's the sin of omission.
[9:43] I want to tell you something. The greatest defense against sin is just a good offense. Say amen. Like the Georgia Bulldog has. Amen, amen. I won't go to Tennessee or anything like that.
[9:55] They haven't found theirs yet. But the greatest way to resist Satan is drawing out of God. Have a walk with God. And I want to tell you something. David, he let his own self get in the way.
[10:09] He let pride get in his way. And he said, listen, I'm king. I can do what I want to. I'm not going to be obedient to the call to go to battle. I'm not going to pray. I'm not going to read my Bible today.
[10:21] I just don't need it. And he stayed in the palace, looked out, saw a lady bathing. He committed adultery. And then to cover up his adultery, he brought Uriah back.
[10:35] And then one sin leads to another. Say amen. You know that's the truth. And he said, Uriah, go be with your wife. She said, I'm not going to be with my wife. He got Uriah drunk or tried to get him drunk.
[10:46] And he wouldn't go be with his wife. He said, I'll sleep on the porch before I go and be with my wife. When my men are fighting out there on the war front, I'm just going to sit right here and not do it.
[10:57] And so he had a problem. He could not cover his sin. So he said to the secretary of war, Uriah, take this note to Joab.
[11:08] You know the story. And he said, in the heat of the battle, Joab pulled back, leave Uriah out by himself. And sure enough, it happened. He was killed. Then he knew that he was trying to cover his sin of adultery with this sin of murder.
[11:22] And folks, he decided he'd make himself look good. And he took Bathsheba as his wife. But the Bible says in the last verse of chapter 11, But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
[11:37] You know, you can fool a lot of people, but you can't fool God any time. Amen. He knows us. And thank God I'm glad he knows us. But I want you to know, friend, there is David trying to cover his sin.
[11:47] But thank God for an old-fashioned preacher named Nathan. And Nathan became convicted he needed to preach a little while. And he went and he gave an illustration about a man that had a lot of lambs.
[12:01] And then another man that just had one ewe lamb or one little pet lamb. And he said, the man that had all the lambs, speaking of David, with all his wives, he said, he took the one ewe lamb.
[12:14] And he said, what would you do to that man? He said, I'd kill him and he'd restore that man fourfold. And then, you know, have you ever been sitting in church and it just seemed like the preacher's finger was pointing right at you?
[12:27] Amen. Have you ever been there so much on conviction, you thought you was the only one in the service and that the preacher must have been living in your house that week? You ever been there? I have.
[12:37] And I want to tell you something. He said, thou art the man. And then I love what Nathan did next. He wasn't a good old-fashioned preacher, but he was a good teacher.
[12:49] And he said this, David, and I want you to get this. This is the gist of the message. And I could stop right here and we could give an invitation and go home and I hope you'd say you learned something. He said, I want to tell you why you sinned.
[13:02] And in 2 Samuel 12, verse 9, there's a key word that's also found in chapter 51 of Psalms in the confession. He said, wherefore hast thou despised the commandments of the Lord?
[13:18] He said, thou art the man. You're going to pay for it. And he did fourfold. You know the rest of the story. Tamar was raped by Amnon. I wonder where he got that idea.
[13:30] And then at a sheep-sharing party, Absalom gets Amnon drunk. I wonder where he got that idea. And then Amnon was killed by his own men.
[13:45] Excuse me, Absalom was killed by his own men hanging from a tree with his long hair hanging from a tree. And they put darts through his body. And then of course, the baby, the illegitimate baby died fourfold.
[13:58] Fourfold. And I want you to know it all started when David said, I'm going to take for granted the Word of God. I'm going to despise the commandments of the Lord.
[14:10] The word despise means to count as ordinary. It means to count as little value. And folks, I want to tell you something. When God tells you to do something, that's not just your daddy saying do it.
[14:21] It's not your mama saying it. It's not your pastor saying to do it. We can despise the commandments of the Lord when we treat God's Word like just any book, Brother Bo. We treat God's Word just as another story.
[14:35] Or we're raised in home schools, or we're raised in a good Christian school, or we're in a good college like this, and we just take for granted the Word of God. We just get used to it.
[14:46] You know what I'm talking about? You're in a good church like this, and a great preacher, a great pastor, and a great assistant pastor, and a great missions director, and a great everybody. Amen? You know, praise God you're going after it and doing something for God.
[15:01] But you can take it for granted. And you can just sort of get used to it. And the Bible says in verse 10, I'm going to summarize real quick. And now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me.
[15:15] God speaking. So folks, he started taking God's Word for granted, but then he started taking God for granted. I want to tell you something that will hurt your marriage more than anything else.
[15:25] It's when you start taking each other for granted. I preach a lot of retreats, and I preach a lot of home revivals. I've got to go to Eaton next week, and that's why I couldn't come Sunday, because I couldn't be away Sunday night from my church.
[15:41] And you know, the greatest way to energize your marriage is one word. Respect. Respect. If you start taking each other for granted, I guarantee you that's the sin of omission that can lead to the sin of commission.
[15:56] And there's a lot of affairs started because we don't have an affair in our own marriage. That's all I'm going to talk about. The home. Bring the Holy Spirit home. But I want to tell you something, friend. You need to keep the fires warm at home.
[16:11] Amen? Don't take for granted. By the way, 2 Samuel chapter 6, the Bible says that Micah despised David. That word despised is pretty powerful, isn't it?
[16:23] He said, hey, listen, she was making fun of him for dancing before the Lord, worshiping the Lord when the ark of the covenant came home, you know, and the Lord just took over in David's life, and I've never danced before the Lord.
[16:38] I've been in Jamaica and seen them dancing in the Lord. I thought it was what they were doing. Amen? And it was scary, to tell you the truth. But I know it was in the Spirit. I wasn't going to criticize it.
[16:48] Amen? A lot of things I don't agree with, or I've not been raised that way. But praise God, they want to worship that way. Go ahead. But it's going to take a whole lot of movement of the Spirit of God for me to start dancing up here.
[16:59] Amen? I'm kind of tired. Amen? But I'm just saying, friend, listen, don't despise the commandments. And thus, don't despise God. Don't despise your mate.
[17:10] Don't take for granted this great church. Don't take for granted this great college. Don't take for granted your children, your parents that teach you the Bible. And maybe every day you have devotion.
[17:21] And every day you have a home altar. And I hope you do. But folks, because if you do, the sin of omission always leads to the sin of commission. David never thought he would commit adultery.
[17:32] David never thought he would commit murder. David never thought he would start in pride numbering the folks and cause 70,000 deaths. But I want to tell you something. It all starts with, I'll do what I want to do.
[17:44] And I'll be where I want to be. You know, we're independent Baptists by conviction. But I want to tell you something. We ought to be dependent Baptists by conviction. We need God. I need God.
[17:57] And I want to tell you something. When you think you don't need God, that's when you'll fall. And I'm telling you, the devil can destroy your marriage just like that. The devil can destroy your ministry.
[18:07] He can destroy your future mission field. Brother Jason is all excited to be getting married. Amen. Praise God. He was bragging on his wife before she's even his wife.
[18:19] Amen. At the missions revival. I like it. Praise God. But I want to tell you something. If they start taking each other for granted over there in Bikina Faso Law.
[18:29] Okay. Amen. You know, it's going to be bad. It's going to be bad. Because the devil can get in there. You give the devil an inch, you'll become a ruler. You'll get that later.
[18:41] Amen. Anyway, that's the truth. High cost of committing sin. Let's go to Psalms 51 real quick. I'm going to close in 15 minutes. Amen. I want to see me do that myself.
[18:52] Amen. But look, high cost of committing sin. First of all, it stigmatizes the eyes. Look at verse 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.
[19:05] I want to tell you something about sin. It will preoccupy you. It will distort your vision. It will magnify others' faults. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it just amazing how sinners can find fault with the man of God?
[19:21] I mean, it's amazing. You backslide and all of a sudden, well, that preacher don't preach like y'all. And those singers, you know, they just don't sing right. You know, it might be that God has distorted your eyesight.
[19:32] Folks, I'll tell you what, before we try to get the telephone pole out of everybody else's eye, I mean, the toothpick out of everybody else's eye, I want to get the telephone pole out of our own eye. Sin magnifies others' faults and it minimizes our own faults.
[19:47] David could not see anything but his sin. He couldn't read his Bible. You can't see God when you have the cloud of sin. Our church in the last eight or nine months has had a cloud over it.
[20:02] Because some leaders fell into sin. They're no longer there. But it still breaks my heart to think about what they used to do for the Lord and how God used them and wonderfully talented people.
[20:18] And it just shook our whole church. And for about eight months now, Brother Wayne, we've had a cloud over our church. And boy, I'll tell you what, you can't worship sometimes thinking about what sin tries to do to you.
[20:34] And then number two, it stupefies the mind. Pardon the expression. It says, Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden parts. Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. I'll tell you, folks, you can't think right when you have sin in your life.
[20:48] David begged for wisdom. And thank God after he got right with God, I believe he wrote great psalms like Psalms 23. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
[20:59] You know, there's contentment in the will of God. Say amen. And I've never seen contentment in sin. Anxiety, tension, nervousness, preoccupation. Folks, it all started when he despised the commandments of the Lord.
[21:15] Then it stops the ears. Look at verse 8. Make me to hear joy and gladness. The bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Folks, I want to tell you, folks, unconfessed sin stops the ears.
[21:30] It deafens the sound of joy. You can't hear from heaven. Your prayers are cut off. Psalm 66, 18 says, regard iniquity in your heart.
[21:41] He won't even hear you. But I want to tell you something. You need to hear from God every day. It sickens the body. Look at verse 8. It says, the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
[21:54] It not only sickens the body, but it soils the heart. And here's the detrimental part about the high cost of committing sin. Look at verse 10. The Bible says, created me a clean heart. Oh God.
[22:05] A clean heart. Folks, dirt is a doctor's enemy. But I want to tell you something. Sin is God's enemy. It messes things up. Cold hearted.
[22:17] Callous hearted. Indifferent. Folks, I want to tell you something. Sin can quench the compassion in your soul. Where you just don't really care about others that are having a hard time or lost or dying and going to hell.
[22:29] And then I see also that sin separates from the brethren. Look at verse 11 of Psalms 51. The Bible says, cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
[22:43] Only Old Testament saints would pray that prayer. Folks, listen. You ever been distant from God? You ever been out of fellowship with your wife and not speaking?
[22:54] You know, Stephen, tell mama to pass the salt. Stephen, tell daddy to get up and get his own salt. I mean, just not speaking. I mean, cold war. You ever had that happen?
[23:05] I know you haven't had that yet, Brother Jason. But one day it might be like that. And you need to quickly make reconciliation. Amen? Because you don't want to go get your own salt.
[23:16] But anyway, you need to realize, folks, lonely and dejected. You think everybody's against you.
[23:27] Yeah. You ever been there? Done that? The folks, the fact was he was against God. And the fellowship with God had been broken. Not the sonship, the fellowship.
[23:38] I'm glad God doesn't divorce us or disown us. He's a heavenly Father that's got quite a bit of patience. Thank you, Quartet, for that song on mercy. Separates us from God.
[23:49] Separates us from the brethren. And then it sours the Spirit. Look at verse 12. So, restore to me the joy of thy salvation. About seven or eight of those slides were on how to have joy.
[24:02] Joy through answer of prayer. Joy by raising your children in the truth. Joy in His presence. You know, there's joy. Fullness of joy in His presence. There's no greater joy.
[24:13] People make fun of you for coming to church on Thursday. I'm going to tell you something. Look at their faces. They're not happy. Their team loses 75% of the time. Especially if you root for Kentucky.
[24:24] No, not really. I'm saying, Fred, listen. I can't get personal in this message. But I want you to know, it sours the Spirit. Cranky, crabby. I don't want to be old and cranky and crabby.
[24:35] Do y'all? All you that are over 50, you want to get old and cranky and crabby. I've met some old folks. I don't even want to be around. Folks, I want to get sweeter. I want to shout it out until I go to heaven.
[24:47] I want to at least smile a little bit. Say amen. Folks, sin's a leech. Sin's a parasite. Sin will choke all the joy from your soul.
[24:58] And then, most detrimental of all, verse 13, And then will I teach transgressions. It's silence the testimony. You know, it's hard to witness somebody when you're backslidden.
[25:09] And it's hard to write a psalm when you've got sin in your life and trying to cover it. Folks, listen. There's a high cost. Losing your influence. You know what the greatest thing you have, teenagers?
[25:20] Is your testimony. Don't lose it. One of the greatest things you have is your testimony. And I want to tell you something. Brother John, I've seen some great men of God lose their testimony. I wouldn't walk across the street, Brother Wayne, to hear them preach.
[25:34] Because they've lost it. They've lost their children. They've lost their wife. They've lost their sweetness. They've lost their joy. They've lost their consistency. See? My old friend, listen.
[25:47] Sin will take you a lot lower than you ever thought it would. Keep you a lot longer. But I want you to see, second of all, the high cost of confessing sin. Now this is where it gets positive in a pretty dark chapter.
[25:59] Thank God it gets a whole lot more positive when you see the psalmist back playing the harp with the joy of the Lord and writing psalms.
[26:10] And thrilling our hearts when we get down. Some of his psalms lifts us up. You know why? Because he was lifted up. And I thank God for the mercy of God. And that's what this psalm is all about.
[26:23] Not just about the darkness and the high cost of sin, but it's the high cost of getting cleansed from sin. I want you to notice verse 3, the high cost of confessing sin. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquities and cleanse me from my sin.
[26:36] Notice those words. I acknowledge, verse 3, my transgressions. And my sin is ever before me. One time a gentleman invited me to come and pray with him down at the altar.
[26:49] And he started praying, now Lord, we've done this and Lord, we've done this. I want to interrupt and pray and say, hey, don't include me in on that. We've done this and we've done that. I said, hey, I don't think I was there.
[27:01] Get personal. Folks, I want you to know the spiritual definition of confession is found in 1 John 1.9. You know the word. It says, if we confess our sins.
[27:17] What's the rest of the verse? It says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful. And He is just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[27:29] Aren't you glad about that? And folks, I want you to know what confess means, though. Confess means call sin what it is, sin. Hey, it means say the same thing about sin that God says.
[27:41] I know it means in the Greek list, but I want to tell you something. It means a whole lot more than that if you'll read in context. Folks, it means judge sin as God judges it. And see sin as God sees it.
[27:53] Folks, David even admitted his sinful nature. He said, I'm conceived in iniquity. He wasn't saying he's an illegitimate child. He said, I've got an Adamic nature. By nature, I'm a sinner.
[28:04] Cleanse me. Oh, folks, this shallow confession don't get the job done. Well, sin, confess, marry as I go. I'm sorry I lie, but I'll do it again if I don't get caught. No, there's a godly sorrow, 2 Corinthians 7.
[28:17] And folks, verse 17 of this beautiful chapter, Psalms 51, tells us about confession. Look at it. It says, the sacrifice of God or a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou will not, what's the last word, class?
[28:32] Despise. Amen. There's that word again. You know what I'm saying? If you're broken, if you're contrite, if you're humble, he counts that as a great value.
[28:45] You know, brokenness is an avenue to revival. And I guarantee you, David wasn't just saying, well, I, you know, I did this, did this, and Lord, you know what I've done, and I'm sorry, and I'll do it again.
[28:57] No, he was sorrowfully broken. Folks, listen, if sin only affects the mind, that's regret. If sin affects the mind and the emotion, that's remorse.
[29:08] But if sin affects the mind, the emotion, and the will, that is repentance. Broken and contrite heart.
[29:18] I'll not count as little value. And then I want to show you, last but not least, the high cost of cleansing sin. This is the best part. Look at verse 16.
[29:30] For thou desirest not to sacrifice, else I would give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offerings, the sacrifice of God, or a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, thou will not despise.
[29:44] Not count it as little value. Folks, he was saying, Lord, you don't want no religious ceremony. You want to just come down the aisle popping gum and saying, I'm sorry.
[29:56] So I can get my wife off my back or my daddy and mama off my back. No, it's before God. God, you see that sin as God sees it. You call it what God called it.
[30:07] And you judge it as God judges it. And God said, I'm willing to blot it out. But he said, the way I'll blot it out is through my blood.
[30:19] Martin Luther dreamed a dream of all the sins listed on a blackboard. And he said, but the nail pierced hand came down in the scene. And that blood dripped off that hand and erased every sin on that blackboard.
[30:33] That's the way our soul is. When God gives us that mercy and that grace. Now what's the end of the story? Well, you find in 2 Samuel chapter 12 and verse 22.
[30:48] 2 Samuel chapter 12 verse 22. He said, and he said, while the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept. And I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live?
[31:00] But now he is dead. Therefore, shall I fast? I'll bring him back again. I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. Many preachers have preached funerals of babies. They said, you know, you can't bring them back, but you can go be with them.
[31:12] But I like the next two verses. And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, went into her and laid with her. And she bare a son. And he called his name Solomon. Which means the peace of God.
[31:23] And the Lord loved him. And he sent by the hand of Nathan. Here comes Nathan again. Amen. Amen. His last lesson was, you despise the commandments. Thus, you despise God. And then he says, hey, we've got a little name change here, David.
[31:37] He said, don't call him Samuel, Solomon. Call him Jedediah because of the Lord. Jedediah means beloved of God.
[31:51] Folks, look at the picture. David deserved death fourfold. He deserved to pay for it. As he condemned the man in the parable that Nathan gave him. But God in his mercy saw a broken and contrite heart.
[32:06] And he said, I won't count that as little value. And God gave him another baby. Isn't it a blessing? God gave him another baby. He says, we're going to be solemn.
[32:17] He says, no, no, no. Nathan shows up again and says, I hate to be pushy and I hate to be a preacher that butts into all your business. But God told me, call him Jedediah. Beloved of God.
[32:28] If that's not a picture of the grace of God, I'll never see it in the Bible. Folks, listen. I know this is a dark picture of the high cost of sin. And the high cost of confessing sin.
[32:40] Praise God. The high cost of cleansing sin. Was because Jesus took your hell. Jesus took your death. And Jesus took the payment of sin.
[32:54] And he bore it on the cross of Calvary. And he took your place. John was baptizing. John chapter 1 verse 29. The next day John seeth Jesus coming to him.
[33:05] And he said, behold the Lamb of God. Which taketh away the sin. Of the world. Aren't you glad for the mercies of God? How to get up and stay.
[33:18] Hey, how to get up after you've fallen. And stay up. Realize where sin's taking you. Realize the cost of sin. Realize what it takes to confess sin.
[33:32] I mean deal with it as sin. Somebody came and. I didn't even introduce my wife. But I figured y'all knew her. If somebody came and killed my dear wife. And that bloody knife that they killed her with was laid out on the pavement.
[33:47] I wouldn't get up and play with it. I wouldn't get up and put it in a trophy case. I wouldn't even try to cleanse it. I wouldn't even try to touch it. I wouldn't even want to see it. Because that knife killed one that I loved.
[34:00] And folks, that's exactly what we ought to treat sin. That put Jesus on the cross. That's the reason he had to go to Calvary. Folks, I believe this day and age.
[34:13] We live in a day where people take sin lightly. But I really believe they take Calvary lightly. And I thank God. That he paid it all.
[34:26] And all to him I owe. And I love the songs about the cross. Because it reminds me I deserve hell. But Jesus took my place. The high cost of committing sin.
[34:39] The high cost of confessing sin. But thank God for the high cost of cleansing sin. His precious blood. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this opportunity of a lifetime.
[34:50] That's to preach in this great church. And I don't take it for granted. And I appreciate the privilege and honor. But most of all, Lord, I appreciate the privilege and honor to preach the truth.
[35:03] Because, Lord, we know the truth will set you free. Lord, the truth of the matter is David just showed us the high cost of sin. It affects every part of our life.
[35:15] Our relationships. Our children grow up like Amnon and Absalom. And they follow in the steps of sin. And we see it reaped.
[35:28] And we see we throw to the wind and reap the whirlwind. But dear God, thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy. And Lord, I just want to thank you for your blood.
[35:41] I want to thank you for Calvary. I want to thank you for becoming sin for me. That I can be made the righteousness of God in you. All because of the precious shed blood of the Lamb of God.
[35:56] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfredo, Georgia. For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times, location, contact information, and more audio and video recordings.