The Voice You Let In

Last Sunday we began this series with one sentence from Romans 14:12: each of us shall give account of himself to தேவன் - கணக்கொப்புவிப்பான். Everyone renders account; height enlarges it; the cross has settled it. The reckoning respects no preferences. Plenty of students who cannot stand mathematics escape into history or English or Tamil, and no subject they choose exempts them from the account every life must give. It reaches even the small things we never thought were ours to answer for - the window latched shut beside the very seat we sit in, which nobody thought to open. And the word of தேவன் sets only two columns on the page, blessing and curse, with nothing in between; left to ourselves we stand mostly on the wrong side, and the good news is that the love of Jesus lifts a man from the one column to the other. That was last week. The week closed with an assignment: name one person who is allowed to ask you anything. Today we meet the man who did that for David.

Last week we said the reckoning is real. This week we ask how it reaches us - and the answer is uncomfortable. It usually walks in through a door, sits down, and says your name. Accountability to தேவன் almost always arrives wearing the face of a person. The question is whether you have let anyone close enough to be that face. Who is allowed to tell you no?

"So David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the LORD.' And Nathan said to David, 'The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.'" - 2 Samuel 12:13 (NKJV)

"அப்பொழுது தாவீது நாத்தானிடத்தில்: நான் கர்த்தருக்கு விரோதமாய்ப் பாவஞ்செய்தேன் என்றான். நாத்தான் தாவீதை நோக்கி: நீ சாகாதபடிக்கு, கர்த்தர் உன் பாவம் நீங்கச்செய்தார்." - 2 சாமுவேல் 12:13 (TAOVBSI)

A king with an army, a palace and a crown was saved by one man who was willing to be unwelcome. The psalm the church read together this morning, Psalm 51, is David's own record of what that day did to him.

The Man With One Little Lamb · ஒரே ஒரு ஆட்டுக்குட்டி

David has taken Bathsheba and killed Uriah, and the matter is closed. The letter that arranged the death travelled to the front in Uriah's own hand. Joab read it, placed Uriah where the fighting was thickest, pulled the ranks back, and Uriah fell. Back in his village the news would have arrived the way such news always does: your son went to war and the enemy struck him down. Months pass. The kingdom carries on as though nothing happened. Business as usual.

But count the people who knew the truth. David knew. Joab knew - the order passed through his hands. Joab would not have announced it to the ranks; he would have sent Uriah off on some errand and quietly told the others, when he goes in, you fall back. So the ten or twenty men who pulled away knew this was no battlefield death; the man did not die, he was made to die. There is even reason to think Uriah himself suspected something - it would explain why he refused to go home. Uriah's wife knew. The servants sent to fetch Bathsheba to the palace knew. The men at the palace gate knew. The guards knew. David's own bodyguards knew. Put a soldier's death, a summons to the dead man's wife, and a swift royal wedding in a row, and even the four people asked in passing could finish the story: this is the Uriah that David killed. Practically the whole palace knew, and for months not one of them said a word.

Joab could have asked. He could have come back from the war and said, you gave me those instructions and I carried them out, but why? A good fighting man put to death for nothing - what is this? At the very latest he could have asked at the wedding. He asked nothing. Where speaking needed courage, everyone found silence easier.

Then தேவன் sends Nathan (நாத்தான்). He does not begin with an accusation. He begins with a story - a rich man with many flocks, a poor man with one little ewe lamb that ate from his own plate and slept in his arms. The rich man takes the poor man's lamb to feed a traveller. David is furious and pronounces sentence on the man in the story.

And Nathan says four words that end the silence: "You are the man." (நீயே அந்த மனுஷன்.)

தேவன் Sends a Man · தேவன் ஒரு மனிதனை அனுப்புகிறார்

"Then the LORD sent Nathan to David... Then Nathan said to David, 'You are the man!'" - 2 Samuel 12:1, 7 (NKJV)

"கர்த்தர் நாத்தானைத் தாவீதினிடத்தில் அனுப்பினார்; இவன் அவனிடத்தில் வந்து, அவனை நோக்கி: ஒரு பட்டணத்தில் இரண்டு மனுஷர் இருந்தார்கள், ஒருவன் ஐசுவரியவான், மற்றவன் தரித்திரன்." ... "அப்பொழுது நாத்தான் தாவீதை நோக்கி: நீயே அந்த மனுஷன்; இஸ்ரவேலின் தேவனாகிய கர்த்தர் சொல்லுகிறது என்னவென்றால், நான் உன்னை இஸ்ரவேலின்மேல் ராஜாவாக அபிஷேகம்பண்ணி, உன்னைச் சவுலின் கைக்குத் தப்புவித்து," - 2 சாமுவேல் 12:1, 7 (TAOVBSI)

Notice how the verse begins: the LORD sent. Nathan did not appoint himself. He did not wake up one morning and decide to go and set the king right; on his own he would not even have known. When nobody in the kingdom had the courage to speak, தேவன் sent one man. Correction that comes from தேவன் is sent, not self-important.

David had a whole palace and no one in it who would say this. The prophet had to come from outside because the inside had gone quiet. And think about why the inside goes quiet. Conscience pricks, but conscience does not prick forever. We say, give Sunday to the Lord, do not go to work - and the conscience stings for a few days, and then when the hour comes the man is up and gone as if nothing was ever said. We say, come to the Wednesday prayer - a man comes twice, misses the third, and after that Wednesday simply drops off his list altogether; it does not even appear there to be refused. Repeat a thing often enough and it stops feeling like anything. That is why a person is needed: when the conscience has gone quiet, only a voice from outside can wake it.

Nathan told a story first (உவமை) - he got past the defences before he named the sin. Wisdom in the messenger matters as much as courage. Could anyone have walked up to a king and started with the accusation? Staying silent is wrong; correction must be spoken. But walking in bluntly without wisdom is the more foolish thing, and without wisdom it cannot be spoken at all. And Nathan went in knowing exactly what he was: an unwelcome guest. Whether he would walk back out of that room alive was itself in doubt. He obeyed anyway.

David's answer is the whole difference between him and Saul: "I have sinned against the LORD." Immediately. No excuse, no committee, no managing of his reputation. He did not say, I felt sorry for her, the house looked so poor. He did not say, this was a weakness, I was alone that day and got carried away. Nothing. He let Nathan's voice in. That is the title of this sermon, and it is the whole of it: the voice you let in.

There is a lesson here about the people we keep close. Why does anyone keep trusted men near him? Not for applause. In our own office I have told the few key people plainly: if you say yes to everything I say, I will lose my temper with you. I do not pay you a salary to sit beside me clapping cymbals (ஜால்ரா) at everything I do - the band master can supply any number of cymbal players. I keep you close for one reason: when I go wrong, you say so. David kept Joab and men like him close for exactly that reason, and when the day came, none of them spoke.

And the duty runs in both directions. Like David, we must be ready to hear; like Nathan, we must be ready to speak. Speaking is our duty; whether they change is not our work. Correcting them is not our work. Saying it is. Even if the friendship cools, even if the job is at risk - if it is wrong, it has to be said. But said with wisdom. Walk up to the man who employs you with, your accounts are crooked and your whole house will be ruined, and he will send you home before you finish the sentence. Say instead, sir, this looks wrong to me - have you checked it? - and if he wants to set it right he will, and if he insists it is fine, you have done your part. And know the boundary of the duty: it covers what has been placed in your charge - your family, your work, the people who trust you - not the shop you happen to pass on the road, which is none of your business and where you have no call to go and pick a quarrel.

One more thing about timing. At our house we once tied up a creeper - ஆகாய கருடன், a climbing yam - because somebody said that keeping it tied at the house keeps snakes away. It hung there for a long time and never grew into anything. When at last a trusted man was asked about it, he said, take it down, it looks like something hung up against the evil eye - and then added, I thought exactly that on the day you were tying it up. Then he should have said it on the day it was tied. A word held back until the thing is already being taken down is a word that helped nobody. Speak at the time, not after.

If nobody in your life is permitted to say you are the man, you are not protected by your position. You are exposed by it.

The Wounds of a Friend · சிநேகிதனுடைய காயங்கள்

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." - Proverbs 27:6 (NKJV)  |  "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend." - Proverbs 27:17 (NKJV)

"சிநேகிதன் அடிக்கும் அடிகள் உண்மையானவைகள்; சத்துரு இடும் முத்தங்களோ வஞ்சனையுள்ளவைகள்." - நீதிமொழிகள் 27:6 (TAOVBSI)  |  "இரும்பை இரும்பு கருக்கிடும்; அப்படியே மனுஷனும் தன் சிநேகிதனுடைய முகத்தைக் கருக்கிடுகிறான்." - நீதிமொழிகள் 27:17 (TAOVBSI)

Scripture says a true friend will wound you (காயம்) and a false one will flatter you. Most of us have arranged our lives to receive the second. Understand what the flatterer is doing. The person who watches you go wrong and keeps saying super, super, has a need he is drawing out of you - your money, your goods, your usefulness - and the praise flows exactly as long as the drawing does. The day you run empty, the same mouth will call you a fraud and move on. That is what the kisses of an enemy are.

Iron sharpening iron makes noise and sparks. Set two blades against each other and there is grinding, sparks fly, heat comes off the metal - and both edges come out sharper. There is no silent, comfortable sharpening. So examine the comfort. If everything around you is pleasant, if everything you hear is sweet, if every conversation in your circle is comfortable, nothing is being sharpened - and you should conclude that you are standing in the wrong place. There should always be something uncomfortable. A brother named Richard Samuel, who once gave the message at our fasting prayer, prays a prayer worth copying: Lord, disturb me. Do not let me sit comfortable. Do not let me just eat and lie down and sleep. You have work for me, so trouble me and do not leave me alone. Are our prayers anything like that?

Nobody actually lives the unwounded life, however much we ask for it. When a match is being arranged, the list comes: he must understand me completely, he must never hurt me. Ask anyone who has been married whether that clause survives. The promises made before a wedding are not lies - the one promising means every word with a sincere heart - but life does not permit them to be kept. Husbands wound wives, wives wound husbands, children wound parents, parents wound children. A life in which nobody ever wounds you does not exist. So if you have built one - comfortable, unchallenged, nobody saying anything to you - you have not found safety. You have found the wrong place.

So test the voices around you: in the last one year, who has told you something you did not want to hear? If someone has - an unwelcome correction, advice that stung, a fault named to your face - count yourself blessed (பாக்கியவான்): you have someone. If nobody has, that is your answer, and it is the worse answer.

A wound from a friend heals. Flattery does not wound, and it does not heal either; it simply lets the rot go on quietly. And a believer can afford the wound: the தேவன் who binds up wounds is with us, so what is it to me if the truth cuts? The one to pity is the man with no one to dress the wound, not the man willing to receive it.

Choose your Nathan before you need him. Nobody appoints one in the middle of a fall.

No One Is Too Senior · ஒருவரும் மேலானவர் அல்ல

"Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed. ... I said to Peter before them all..." - Galatians 2:11, 14 (NKJV)

"மேலும், பேதுரு அந்தியோகியாவுக்கு வந்தபோது, அவன்மேல் குற்றஞ்சுமந்ததினால், நான் முகமுகமாய் அவனோடே எதிர்த்தேன்." ... "இப்படி அவர்கள் சுவிசேஷத்தின் சத்தியத்திற்கேற்றபடி சரியாய் நடவாததை நான் கண்டபோது, எல்லாருக்கும் முன்பாக நான் பேதுருவை நோக்கிச் சொன்னது என்னவென்றால்: யூதனாயிருக்கிற நீர் யூதர் முறைமையாக நடவாமல், புறஜாதியார் முறைமையாக நடந்து கொண்டிருக்க, புறஜாதியாரை யூதர் முறைமையாக நடக்கும்படி நீர் எப்படிக் கட்டாயம்பண்ணலாம்?" - கலாத்தியர் 2:11, 14 (TAOVBSI)

Peter walked with the Lord. Peter preached at Pentecost and three thousand were brought in under one sermon. Remember too how these two men's paths first crossed: when Paul came to the apostles, it was Peter's side that would not receive him, and Barnabas who vouched for him and brought him in. Now the roles reverse. At Antioch Peter is eating freely with the Gentile believers - and the moment the men from James arrive, he washes his hands of it and goes and sits with the circumcision party, and the other Jews play along with him, until even Barnabas is dragged into the pretence. One foot on this side, one foot on that side. Facing one group, praise the Lord; facing the other, a different game altogether. And Paul withstood him to his face, in front of everyone, because he was wrong: you, a Jew, living like a Gentile - how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews? Is what you are doing right even in your own eyes?

Paul did not go around Peter; he went to him - முகமுகமாய், face to face. Not a whisper to others, not a letter to a third party. Notice, though, where each correction was delivered. Nathan spoke to David alone - and even there தேவன் told David that the thing done in secret behind four walls would be answered openly, before all Israel, before the sun (2 Samuel 12:12). Paul spoke before them all, because the error was public and was pulling everyone watching into it. Private sin, private word; public error, public word. But in both, the correction itself was plain: black and white, no grey. Yes or no. One cut, two pieces (வெட்டு ஒன்று, துண்டு இரண்டு) - if the cut leaves three pieces, something is wrong with the cut. To a question like that Peter could not reply with a long sermon; the only answers available were yes and no. And Paul did not stand on his own opinion for any of it. He stood on the word. Correction that does not come from the word (வசனத்தின்படி) has no authority; correction that does needs no other.

Seniority in the faith is not immunity. Ten years in the church, twenty years, the Scriptures practically dissolved and drunk, mighty in prayer, rich in spiritual gifts - is anyone here a bigger man than Peter? Anyone greater than Paul? Then no one here is beyond a question, and no one here is beneath asking one. The longer a man has served, the more carefully people will avoid correcting him, and the more he will need it. From this pulpit that has been the standing word for years: if I do anything contrary to the word, open the verse and show me immediately - whoever you are - and I am ready to accept it on the spot.

And notice: Peter is still Peter afterwards. Correction received did not end his ministry; it protected it. Years later he is writing warmly of "our beloved brother Paul" (2 Peter 3:15). A church where the senior man cannot be questioned is not a strong church. It is a church waiting for something to go wrong quietly - a church already headed toward ruin, whatever its size.

One more word about the sting itself. When the preaching pricks you, do not say, he is aiming at me alone - the word aims at everyone. If it pricks, be glad: your conscience has healthy nerves, the way a sound body feels even a light scratch sharply. The person to worry about is the one it never pricks - a conscience gone sugary, like the diabetic whose foot takes a nail and reports nothing, and the unfelt wound is the very one that festers to destruction. If nothing preached ever stings you, pray what David prayed after Nathan left:

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." - Psalm 51:10 (NKJV)

"தேவனே, சுத்த இருதயத்தை என்னிலே சிருஷ்டியும், நிலைவரமான ஆவியை என் உள்ளத்திலே புதுப்பியும்." - சங்கீதம் 51:10 (TAOVBSI)

Conclusion · முடிவுரை

தேவன் sends the voice. The wound of a friend is faithful. And no one in the room is senior enough to be exempt.

The question is not whether correction will come. It is whether it will find a door open when it does. Whether தேவன் will send someone to set us right was never the question; He sends. The question is whether we receive the one He sends. When the knock comes, do we open? When the fault is named, do we own it?

David kept his throne because one man was willing to be unwelcome for an evening - and more than his throne. David's name stands in the genealogy, and Jesus Christ was born of David's line; take Nathan out of the story and David is destroyed where he sits. So thank தேவன் for the Nathans. And remember that the ledger has a second page: if தேவன் has stationed you as somebody's Nathan and you have kept quiet - to keep the friendship, to keep the job, to keep the peace - He will ask about that too. I placed you there to speak, He will say; you had one question to ask, and you did not ask it. Pleasing the people who trust us cannot be the first aim. Doing right by them is.

Who is that one person for you?

Declaration Prayer · அறிக்கை ஜெபம்

பிதாவே, என் வாழ்க்கையில் உண்மை பேசுகிற ஒருவரை அனுப்பும். அவர் சொல்லும்போது நான் கோபப்படாமல், தாவீதைப்போல 'நான் பாவஞ்செய்தேன்' என்று சொல்லுகிற இருதயத்தைத் தாரும். இயேசுவின் நாமத்தினாலே, ஆமென்.

Father, send into my life one person who speaks the truth. And when they speak, give me a heart that does not flare up, but says like David, I have sinned. In Jesus' name, Amen.

One Thing This Week · இந்த வாரம் ஒன்று மட்டும்

Go to the person you named last Sunday and tell them out loud that they have permission to ask you anything. Permission unspoken is permission not given.

Next week - Part 3 of கணக்கு ஒப்புவித்தல் (Giving Account): வீடு. The memory verse to carry in, ready to recite next Sunday: 2 Samuel 12:13 - அப்பொழுது தாவீது நாத்தானிடத்தில்: நான் கர்த்தருக்கு விரோதமாய்ப் பாவஞ்செய்தேன் என்றான்.