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3. And yet, at this very moment, when the greatness of the crisis is revealed to him, his thoughts do not turn to any of these things. Not the gathering storm-cloud, not the fatal ascendancy of Joab, not the existence of a perilous secret, not the loss of respect and of power — not any of the thousand perplexities and troubles in which this one act may involve him rises up before him now. One thought dominates his soul. He remembers only One, whom he has grieved and alienated, One who is invisible and yet very present, One — this is the terrible thought which overwhelms and crushes him — One who is " of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." " And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord."
I.
Penitence. " I have sinned against the Lord."
1. What a Divine simplicity there is in the words of the text: " David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord." That is all. In the original, two words are enough to revolutionize the man's whole life, and to alter all his relations to the Divine justice and the Divine Friend. "I have sinned against the Lord " — not an easy thing to say ; and, as the story shows, a thing that David took a long time to mount up to.
Eemember the narrative. A year has passed since his trans- gression. What sort of a year has it been ? One of the Psalms tells us — " When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long ; for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me ; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." There were long months of sullen silence, in which a clear appre- hension and a torturing experience of Divine disapprobation, like a serpent's fang, struck poison into his veins. His very physical frame seems to have suffered. His heart was as dry as the parched grass upon the steppes. That was what he got by his sin. A moment of turbid animal delight, and long days of agony, dumb suffering in which the sense of evil had not yet broken him down into a rain of sweet tears, but lay, like a burning conscious- ness, within his heart.
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And then came the prophet with his parable, so tender, so ingenious, so powerful. And the quick flash of generous indigna- tion, which showed how noble the man was after all, with which he responded to the picture, unknowing that it was a picture of his own dastardly conduct, led to the solemn words in which Nathan tore away the veil.
2. " I have sinned." Similar words were uttered by Pharaoh (Ex. ix. 27); Balaam (Num. xxii. 34); Achan (Josh. vii. 20); Saul (1 Sam. xv. 24-30); and the Prodigal Son (Luke xv. 18).
(1) Pharaoh. — Pharaoh uttered these words as a plea for mercy. He merely wanted to escape the punishment incurred by his guilt. His mock repentance was worse than nothing, for he became hardened, and rushed on in impenitence to his doom.
(2) Balaam. — In greedy haste after the promised riches, and when stopped by an angel, Balaam said, "I have sinned"; but his heart was set on "the rewards of divination," and he went on in his sin, perishing at last, hardened and impenitent, an example of an insincere repentance.
(3) Achan. — Achan confessed on compulsion, when found out. His trouble was, not that he had sinned, but that he had been detected.
(4) Saul. — Saul, king of Israel, said the same words to Samuel, but they were forced from him only after many vain excuses ; and so, as the result shows, were no sign of a lasting repentance. His confession only worked despair, madness, and suicide — an example of the sorrow that " worketh death " (2 Cor. vii. 10).
(5) David. — On three occasions David confessed his sin in these words. His is an example of a genuine repentance, that " godly sorrow " which " worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of." He sorrowed " after a godly sort," and it worked in him carefulness, indignation, fear, vehement desire, zeal and revenge against sin (2 Cor. vii. 10, 11).
(6) The Prodigal. — The Prodigal Son is the next example —
I dreamed of bliss in pleasure's bowers. While pillowing roses stayed my head:
But serpents hissed among the flowers; I woke, and thorns were all my bed.
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Then he came to himself, and said, " I have sinned," a spontaneous confession ; he returned home, was welcomed, forgiven, and re- instated in the position and privileges of a son.
3. What is true Penitence ? There are four parts in a com- plete act of penitence, and they are all necessary. First there is the seeing of the fact, next the acknowledgment of the moral character of the fact, then the owning of responsibility to God for the wrong-doing, and last the consciousness that the wrong- doing is a wrong-being, that the sins are sinfulness. It may come upon a man all in a flash, as it did on David ; or it may grow hardly, fought against stoutly, conquering step by step for itself, taking years, perhaps, to get entire possession of the nature. But it must come, and it must all come, or the man's sins are not genuinely confessed. When it has all come, a man need not question how it came — slowly or swiftly, calmly or violently; however it came, the confession is perfect, and in the utterness of his humiliation there is nothing more that he can do.