The Great Evil of All Sin - Part 2 — Richard Owen Roberts

In sin did my mother conceive me. There are a lot of folk that don't like it, but the simple truth is we are all born sinners. We are not, contrary to popular belief, born as children of God. We're born as children of the devil.

Sin's Roots and Humanity's Need for Redemption

So why do you suppose Christ is the Redeemer? Is it not because we were in bondage, both to sin and Satan, and Christ had to set us free? And David is here acknowledging that the problem of his sin was not merely a problem of bad conduct, but bad roots.

He was, from his conception, from his birth, a sinner. He was born with a sin nature. He was born with a propensity to do that which is evil. He was born with all that it took to be contrary to God and to violate God at every turn of the road.

David's Confession in Psalm 51

But our focus now is not upon that issue as significant as it is, but upon the words of verse 4. Will you look at these words? Against thee, the only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in thy sight.

Now some of you are aware of the fact that David is writing this 51st Psalm as a result of a confrontation that he had with a prophet of God, in which that prophet accused him of great evil. And I invite you to go backward in your Bible to the passage of which I have just made reference in 2 Samuel chapter 12, and I shall read a portion of the passage to you and ask you to direct your mind and your heart toward four specific statements that the prophet makes to the king.

But I read first the introductory matter, verses 1 to 5 of 2 Samuel chapter 12. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said, There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he bought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and was like a daughter to him.

Now a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather, he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.

Then David, in a rage of indignation against such wickedness, said, verse 5, verse 6, verse 7, first the introductory words, David's anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, surely this man who has done this deserves to die, and he must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.

And the prophet takes his bony finger, pokes it in David's face, and says, Thou art the man. Now most of us are familiar with that passage, but perhaps the majority of you have never paid close attention to the words that follow.

Listen with great care. Note now what Nathan says. Having said, You are the man, he declares in verse 7,. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, It is I who anointed you king over Israel. It is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul.

I also gave your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these.

And then this urgent statement, Why then have you despised the word of the Lord? By doing evil in his sight. Well, there was evil in the adultery. There was evil in the murder that David arranged. But the great evil of David's sin is found in the four specific accusations that are made against him.

Despising God's Command

First, why have you despised the command of the Lord? Every time you sin, you demonstrate that you despise the command of the Lord. Now, David knew better. David was once that young boy who spent his days and weeks with the sheep and whom God had called out of that rural life into that position of extraordinary honor and consequence, the king of Israel.

It was David who wrote such lovely psalms as, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not walk. He maketh me to lie down in green pasture. He restores my soul. He leads me in the wilderness and on and on. Why have you despised the command, the law of the Lord?

As if that were not enough, verse 10, now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me. Do you suppose when David lustered after that woman, he said to himself, I'm going to show the Lord how I hate him, how I loathe him, how I long to treat him with disrespect.

Oh no, no, he neither planned to violate God in his word or God in his person, but he did. And look at the third accusation the prophet lays upon David, verse 12, indeed you did it secretly. Whenever someone sins and pretends as David did that no one knew what he had done and that not even God was aware of it, how do you suppose David spent those nine months following the adultery and the murder before Nathan confronted him?

Did he not spend those months secretly supposing he was getting away with it and yet consciously knowing he had not done so after all? He did write Psalm 32 and he did write Psalm 38 in which he acknowledged that his sin had brought him into a wilderness experience.

But not only was he accused of despising the law and despising the person and despising the attributes of God, you see when you think you do something secretly and not even God knows, you just show that you hold in contempt the attributes of the almighty God whose eyes roam to and fro throughout the whole of the earth beholding both the evil and the good.

Sin Gives God's Enemies Occasion to Blaspheme

Yet there's a fourth accusation, verse 14, however, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. My dear friends, do you realize when you personally sin, every single time you sin as a professed Christian, you give the enemies of the Lord opportunity to blaspheme the Lord.

I said already the real problem in the world is the problem in the church. Some of us have never come to grips with the fact that there is a much more dangerous and dastardly form of sin than the sin that sends men and women to hell.

All of us need to learn to distinguish between sin as a passport to hell and sin as a thief of God's glory. When the Christian sins, he robs God of his glory. He gives occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme.

And when sin lays hold of the church and the church becomes the laughingstock of the world, which it currently is, the world blasphemes God because it sees the hypocrisy and the ridiculousness of the church, pretending God is with them when in truth the evidence overwhelmingly says God is no more with you than he is with us.

Moses called this to God's attention in Exodus 33 when in pleading with God he asked the urgent question, how can they know that I and my people are yours unless you are with us? So think seriously now these four accusations against David.

Despising the law, despising the person, despising the attributes and despising the reputation of God Almighty, and say to your own heart, every time I sin, I am in the same place David was when Nathan confronted him.

The Seriousness of Every Sin

Oh, you say, but his sins were gross. So are yours. Every bit as gross as his. Your secret lust, your pride, your prayerlessness, your failure to love God. You can't classify certain sins as worse than others on the basis of their grossness.

Indeed, your sins are worse than David's. You have a great deal more knowledge than David has. You have been given far more of the revelation of God than David received. You are responsible for incredibly more truth than David was.

When we sin, each of us must face this. When we sin, we like David, sin against God's command and against God's person and against God's attributes and against God's reputation. But let's focus now on verse four of that passage we have read in Psalm 51.

Weigh carefully now this statement of David against thee. Thee only have I sinned and done this evil, or what is evil in thy sight. Now listen, is it not true that when David sinned, he sinned against Bathsheba?

Did she not come to his bedchamber by compulsion? Did he not send an order to bring her there? How could he say, against thee, the only I have sinned, when he sinned against Bathsheba? Did not David sin against Uriah, her husband, when he arranged his murder?

Did not David sin against his own family when he committed these dual crimes? Did not David sin against Israel, over whom he was appointed majesty? Did he not sin even against the church, for out of his line came the Messiah?

Did he not sin against his own body, because all sexual sin is sin against one's own body? How did he dare to say, against thee, the only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight? He said it because he understood that the great evil of all sin consists in this fact.

Every Sin Is Ultimately Against God

It is against God. Have you faced that? The great evil of all sin consists in this fact. It is against God. Your gossip, your pride, your neglect, your mean-spirited tongue, all sin, without any exception, is against God.

Now, let us allow our hearts to be made solemn and wise before the Almighty in weighing this matter. Do you realize that all sin is against God's sovereign rights? You didn't create yourself. God created you.

He did not create you for yourself. He created you for himself. In America, we have learned to delight in our rights. And one of the biggest issues that we are faced with as a nation is this constant clamoring for our rights.

The homosexual says he has his rights. Prisoners in jail revolt, insisting they have their rights. Everybody thinks they have their rights. Now, where did they get whatever rights they have? Well, according to the constitutional documents under which we are governed, we have been endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.

The right.