Maybe there are words we think should not go together. Like soft diamond, or cold lava, or dry water. One pair we might not expect together are the title of this sermon, severe mercy. We expect mercy to be anything but severe: gentle, easy, kind. Mercy seems to elicit ideas of softness. And when we think of severity, we don’t think of mercy; we think of harshness, toughness, and might expect combinations like severe justice or severe punishment. So what can we make of this pair, coined by C. S. Lewis, severe mercy.

If you have been a Christian long enough, you will come to know of severe mercy. You will come to learn that God often loves His children with mercy that is uncomfortable and difficult. God often gives us what we need and must have, even when we are not ready for it and it goes down harshly. God’s mercy is often severe.

David’s life included severe mercy, and we see it clearly in 2 Samuel 12.

David has confessed his sin of adultery and murder, and Nathan tells him that instantly, his sin has been put away, covered. So what happens next? If God were like us, then what would happen next would be one of two extremes, either permissiveness or punishment. Permissiveness would be God not simply forgiving David, but leaving David unchanged, untrained, unshaped by the experience. Permissiveness wants to be done with problems, and says, “Okay David, you’re forgiven, let’s not talk about it or think about it!” But a parent who simply forgave a child and then ignored him would not be loving. It would be a cruel kind of forgiveness to accept and then neglect.

If God were like us then the other extreme would be punishment. “Okay, David, I’m glad you’re sorry, but you’re still going to pay for this! You don’t just get away with it. Now I will extract from you, through your pain, all the revenge I want to satisfy my anger.” Punishment after you have supposedly forgiven them is not real forgiveness. If the debt has been paid, then why do you still demand payment? If the offence is cleared away, why are you acting like it isn’t? Both permissiveness and punishment are human ways of thinking. When we project them onto God, we distort Him from the true God He has revealed Himself to be into some superhuman demi-god who is more like us than anything else.

Instead, in 1 Samuel 12, we see the God of mercy. Mercy is not permissive and neglectful. Mercy is not punishing and vengeful. Mercy is God’s love giving us what we need and what we don’t deserve. But God’s mercy is often strong medicine, not always sweet to the taste, and not always enjoyable to stomach. We can find three forms of severe mercy in this passage, forms that will be there, in some form, in every believer’s life.

I. The Mercy of Chastening

However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.”

Then Nathan departed to his house. And the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became ill.

The first mercy that God shows David is to chasten him, to discipline him with the promised death of his child. This is not punishment: David’s sin has been punished through the coming sacrifice of Messiah. Punishment is retribution and justice for unforgiven sin. But David has been forgiven. He is forgiven, but still untaught. He is cleansed but uninstructed. Forgiveness picks you up after a fall, but chastening helps you to walk again with less falls. Forgiveness takes away the debt; chastening teaches you how to stay out of debt. Forgiveness washes you, chastening helps keep you clean.

God is not angry with David and now going to slowly roast him over the rotisserie of punishment. Instead, David is here going to be taught through pain, as a stinging discipline does. The most effective discipline is when the pain explains to us what our sin did, and teaches us to avoid it in future. A.W. Pink tells us that “Upon the burning lusts of the Sodomites He rained down fire and brimstone from heaven (Gen. 19:24). Jacob deceived his father by means of the skin of a kid (Gen. 29:16), and he in turn was thus deceived by his sons, who brought him Joseph’s coat dipped in the blood of a kid (Gen. 37:31), saying he had been devoured by a wild beast. Because Pharaoh had cruelly ordered that the male infants of the Hebrews should be drowned (Ex. 1:24), the Egyptian king and all his hosts were swallowed up by the Red Sea (Ex. 14:26). Nadab and Abihu sinned grievously by offering “strange fire” unto the Lord, and accordingly they were consumed by fire from heaven (Lev. 10:1, 2).”

What is David learning here? In his sin with Bathsheba, many innocent lives were harmed. Uriah was killed. Soldiers near him were killed. All the parents and relatives, wives and children of those people killed now felt grief and bereavement. And here through the death of this child, David must see that his sin has a bitter taste. Innocents are harmed, innocents that are related to you.

Similarly, David is being trained by God to see that God may visit the sins of the fathers upon the son, and David will be slow to learn this lesson, neglecting to parent his sons as he should.

And last, perhaps in another shadow of the Gospel, David sees the deep truth of reality: that when guilty people live, an innocent must die. David and Bathsheba are guilty and should die, but they will live on to fulfil God’s plan for the royal covenant of David. But another will die. And when any of us guilty ones live, it is because an innocent died for us: Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God and Son of Man. He died on the cross, so that we guilty ones may live.

In fact, the discipline will go on for many years. In his son Amnon he will learn the pain of sexual sin, in his son Absalom the pain of murder and rebellion against authority.

All these lessons are there. God is not taking revenge on David. He is teaching. As C. S Lewis says, God whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain. Pain is a teacher par excellence. No one is usually more ready to learn than when deeply hurt, crushed, and wounded. The shepherd will take the wayward sheep and break one leg, and then immediately bind it up. The limping, hurting lamb now stays close to the shepherd; when he had his painless full strength, he used it to wander away.

Being trained by God through pain: painful consequences of sin, painful disease, painful setbacks, painful relationships is not a sign that God is displeased with you. It is a sign of God’s delight in you, and His mercy on you. He wishes you to succeed, and will reluctantly inflict upon you the suffering that will shape you into His image.

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” Hebrews 12:5–6

When you are being trained by discipline, then thank God for His attention on you, for His commitment to your good, for His insistence that you improve. It is a mercy to be not just forgiven for damaging things, but to be taught how not to break it again.

But before this discipline takes full effect, God allows for a second mercy in David’s life.

II. The Mercy of Pleading Prayer

David therefore pleaded with God for the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground.

So the elders of his house arose and went to him, to raise him up from the ground. But he would not, nor did he eat food with them.

David hears of God’s discipline and begins praying. He begins praying and fasting with the kind of earnestness that has probably been lacking in his life for at least a year. Now why is David doing this, when Nathan has told him that the child will surely die? Well, more than once in Scripture, a threat turns out to be a conditional one, not an inevitable one. For example, God came to Hezekiah and told him to get his house in order for he was about to die. Hezekiah then wept before the Lord, and God gave him another fifteen years of life. When Jonah preached to Nineveh, he simply announced “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” But when the inhabitants humbled themselves, God forgave them and spared them. Sometimes what seems like an announcement is more of a threat that can be changed if the targets repent. David may have held onto the hope that this was the case with Nathan’s pronouncement.

David then gives himself to prayer. In doing this, David experiences another mercy. David gets to draw near to God in prayer. David’s own heart is shaped and humbled and cleansed by prayer. David gets to participate in the divine plans.

When we are recovering from a fall, from sin, from prolonged backsliding, from suffering, what a mercy is prayer. When troubled and suffering, you can do one of only two things: you can turn inward, or you can turn upward. If you turn inward you fret, or you worry, or you carry your burdens inside you. But if you turn upward, you have the mercy of taking them to God. That’s why the Bible so often places worry and prayer as opposites.

• Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; (Phil 4:6)
• casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (1 Pet 5:7)
• Cast your burden on the Lord, And He shall sustain you; (Ps 55:22)

This is a mercy from God. And it is not just a mercy if the request goes our way and we get what we ask for. It is a mercy to be able to pray.

That raises the question: why pray? David prays for the child’s life as long as he can. But when God says no, David submits to God’s answer, and carries on with life.

David, in this passage shows a right theology of prayer. He does not fall into the ditch of unbelieving fatalism and apathy, saying, “It doesn’t matter if I pray, God has already decided the result.” Nor does he fall into the ditch of demoting God into some kind of being that can be haggled with, and then blames himself that he didn’t ask hard enough or long enough or with the right formula. No, David has the right theology of prayer.

What does that look like?

We do not think to change God’s mind. God is perfect and cannot, nor never needs to change His mind. From the perspective of eternity, God has finalised all His decisions before the world was made. We do, however participate in the decisions which God has made. When it is our turn to live, we pray, and God, knowing from eternity past what we would pray for has decided how it would play out. We think God will respond after we pray. But in truth, God is responding, if we can loosely use that term of God, before time, before we pray. One of the components that make up the way God decided was His foreknowledge of what we would pray. God knew ahead of time what we would pray for and how. This is why we pray, not because prayer changes God, but because God changes things and includes prayer as one of the means towards what He has decided. When the Bible says, “You have not because you ask not” that is a real phenomenon. God would have given, had you asked.

A good theology of prayer does not tie itself in knots about how a timeless God includes our prayer in time as part of His eternal purposes. It simply submits to the truth that it is part of that plan, and that God knew from eternity past that you would pray or that you would not pray, and ordained what would be, including your prayer. So then believe it, and pray. David took the mercy of prayer.

But then came the answer, and the answer was a no. Surely this was not a mercy. But it was.

III. The Mercy of God’s Refusals

Then on the seventh day it came to pass that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead. For they said, “Indeed, while the child was alive, we spoke to him, and he would not heed our voice. How can we tell him that the child is dead? He may do some harm!”

When David saw that his servants were whispering, David perceived that the child was dead. Therefore David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead.”

So David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house; and when he requested, they set food before him, and he ate.

Then his servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child died, you arose and ate food.”

And he said, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’

But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

It’s significant that the baby died on the seventh day, because the eighth day the boy would have been named and circumcised. But he dies before that, and David’s servants think that if David’s prayer and fasting is now answered with a “no”, he will go over the edge. But David understands why they are whispering and gets a straight answer. Once he knows the answer is no, he washes, fixes himself up, and very importantly, goes to God’s house to worship. He then eats. He is displaying a right view of prayer and a right view of God’s will. Like Job who said to his wife, “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” David knows that God’s refusals are blessings. In Psalm 84:11, David wrote “No good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly.” If something is withheld, then God is not simply being stingy, mean, or malicious. God has good reasons for His refusals, and they have to do with our good.

David answers his questioning servants with the words I cannot bring him back, but I am going to see him. And in light of this, he is comforted.

David says, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

What does David mean by this? Does David just mean, one day I will also die, a stoic acceptance that the child could not be brought back, and praying more would be futile.

Perhaps, but why then did David seem at peace and comforted? Would you be comforted once your child dies merely at the thought that you will also die and join your child in death (even if he has gone to Hell)? Hardly.

Significantly, compare David’s reaction when his rebellious adult son Absalom was killed. When Absalom died, David was inconsolable, and imperilled his own reign with his public grief. Why the comfort with the baby son and the mourning for the adult son? Understandably David had more affection for a son he knew than for one he didn’t. But it is not unlikely that David realised that Absalom was not a believer and had ended up in a place of torment for eternity.

It seems David was expecting to see this child in heaven. Remember, David himself expected to go to heaven when he died: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.” (Ps 23: 6)

This opens up the theology of whether infants that die go to Heaven. What does the Bible say about infant salvation? Let me say that it does not speak in a way that we can settle the question without any doubt. Theologians disagree on what the Bible teaches. However, I think the weight of evidence is that the Bible teaches children that die in infancy and before an age of personal rejection of God enter Heaven when they die.

Let me give you three lines of evidence for that.

• First, in certain places, the Bible describes dying in infancy as entering into rest, not as entering into torment. “Why died I not from the womb?… For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest” (Job 3:11, 13) “Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other” (Ecclesiastes 6:5).
• Second, there is circumstantial evidence in the book of Revelation that infants go to Heaven. And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.” (Rev. 5:9-10) There are tribes and nations that have never heard the Gospel, but according to Revelation 5:9, there will still be representatives from those tribes and nations in heaven praising Christ. Every tongue and tribe will be represented in Heaven. Some of these tribes and languages are long extinct, and some did not hear of Israel’s God, nor of the Gospel. How will there be people from those tribes and languages in Heaven? It seems the most likely answer is that some of them died in their infancy or childhood or without the ability to understand. The mentally-normal adults in those tribes had reached an age of moral understanding, and were guilty of what Romans 1 speaks of: …who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. (Rom. 1:18-19). But the infants were innocent of this. Very possibly, the amount who die this way may mean that Heaven will be far more populated than Hell, to the triumph of God’s grace and mercy over judgement. Yes, that is circumstantial evidence, but it is not irrelevant or implausible evidence either.
• Third, the Bible does not describe babies as sinless or innocent, but it does describe them as less culpable of moral evil. If babies were without sin, they would not die. But Romans 5:12 tells us death passed upon all, for all have sinned in Adam. We have a corporate, racial relationship to Adam, we have inborn rebellion. All babies are sinners by corporate identity and physical inheritance. However, that inherited guilt is not the same as personal guilt. The Bible describes children as innocent of personal guilt before a certain age. ‘Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. (Deu 1:39) For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings. (Isa 7:16). In other words, before a child reaches a certain age, he or she has Adamic guilt, but not personal guilt. The child is guilty of belonging to the race that rebelled, but not guilty of personal rejection of God.

But I think we would do well to remember that what God punishes is not merely original sin, but man’s wilful rebellion. Notice Christ’s words:

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. “But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

God punishes sin, but particularly the sin of wilful unbelief and rebellion. We must then ask if such is true of babies, according to Scripture. The answer lies in something we might call moral responsibility. God knows when a human has come to a point of understanding good and evil, and therefore is able to accept or reject the truth.

How then would a baby be cleansed of inherited guilt? The answer is, by God’s application of the death of Christ and its atoning work to every infant that dies. People who reach the age of knowing to refuse the evil and choose the good must be saved by grace through faith. But people who don’t reach that age (or that state because of brain damage or deformity) can be saved by grace without faith. God has purchased salvation at the cross, He may sovereignly spend it on whom He wants.

At this point, some introduce the notion of elect and non-elect. They say, only elect babies are saved by sovereign grace, the rest perish. Well, I would agree, God must choose to sovereignly save an infant, but this is God’s work, not man’s. It is futile to baptise babies in hopes of getting their sins paid for. Only grace can save a human, not works. Scripture is clear that children will not be punished for the sins of their parents, but the flip side is that children will not supposedly inherit the righteousness of their parents either. An elect baby is certainly not a baptised baby, or a baby born into a believing home. Election is “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (Jn. 1:13). Instead, if God ordains that someone should die before that age of understanding, or even as adults who lack that understanding, then it appears God sovereignly applies the death of Jesus Christ to that someone. That is to say, the proof of their election is their death before they can accrue the personal guilt of unbelief. Charles Spurgeon said in his sermon on infant salvation, “but we believe that all persons dying in infancy are elect…If they die in infancy, I do not mind who is father nor who their mother, they are saved;…All of them without exception, from whosesoever loins they may have sprung, will, we believe, not by baptism, not by their parents’ faith, but simply as we are all saved through the election of God, through the precious blood of Christ, through the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit, attain to glory and immortality, and wear the image of the heavenly as they have worn the image of the earthy.

In the universal salvation of infants we see God’s love for the world. It is not to children that God says, “Depart from me, ye cursed”. It is not to little ones that God says, “I never knew you” To them, He says, Allow the little children to come to me. To them he says, “It is not my will that one of these little ones should perish.”

So now we can see why God’s refusals are mercies. True, the death and the loss are painful, but to His children, God only takes away with one hand what He intends to more than replace with the other. He takes away years to spend with the child, but He gives in its place the eternal happiness of the child, and the opportunity to see and spend eternity with him.

As I scanned over the church list, I saw parent after parent who had lost a child. Some to a tragic drowning or road accident, some to cancer, some at birth or still in the womb. It was a severe mercy, but a mercy nonetheless. One poet wrote this of an infant’s death:

Short was my life, the longer is my rest,
God takes those soonest whom he loveth best,
Who’s born to-day, and dies to-morrow,
Loses some hours of joy, but months of sorrow.
Other diseases often come to grieve us,
Death strikes but once, and that stroke doth relieve us.

Another put it this way:

“O blest exchange, O envied lot,
Without a conflict crowned,
Stranger to pain, in pleasure bless’d
And without fame, renowned.”

For David and Bathsheba, God’s refusal to heal their child was another severe mercy. The child would experience none of the sorrows and pains of life, none of complexity of being a child of David’s sin, none of the confusion of his mother’s betrayal of her first husband. David and Bathsheba had the severe mercy of a child taken to Heaven.

If we look back on how many of the things we asked for that God refused, we can only thank God for the mercy of His refusals. How many things did you and I wish for and want and beg God for, which had He done so, would have harmed us permanently.

One of the Puritan prayers in the Valley of Vision says

“I thank thee that many of my prayers have been refused —
I have asked amiss and do not have,
I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.
Go on with thy patient work,
answering ‘no’ to my wrongful prayers,
and fitting me to accept it.
Purge me from every false desire,
every base aspiration,
everything contrary to thy rule.

If you are a believer then you know that God’s mercy is not all smooth strokes. God’s mercy includes painful blows, bitter medicine, difficult lessons. God loves you with the mercy of chastening, with the mercy of pleading prayer, and with the mercy of God’s refusals.

Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word. Ps 119:67
It is good for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes v71

Can we then say with the hymnwriter:

When all thy mercies, O my God,
my rising soul surveys,
transported with the view, I’m lost
in wonder, love, and praise.

Thank God for severe mercies.