Nathan was a wise and wonderful prophet. He was speaking to King David and he didn’t want to come into King David’s presence and say, “David, you are a great sinner.”

He told David a simple little story about a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had many sheep and some to spare. The poor man had only one sheep and it was the love and pet of all the family. Nathan began to unfold the picture. The rich man was ruthless and cruel, brutal and selfish. He took the poor man’s sheep and butchered it for a meal for his visitors.

David listened intently and saw the picture being painted. He said, “That man is going to die. Not only is he going to die, but he must repay fourfold what he has taken from the poor man.” It was then that Nathan put the final touches on the picture, and said, “You are the one, Oh David. You are the guilty one.” David saw himself and knew that only the grace of God could change him.

David cried out and prayed in bitterness and hurt, saying, “I have sinned against Thee, oh God.” David poured out his soul and found forgiveness from his sins.

Do you want good news? Every Christian ought to be an eternal optimist. The Christian has good news. As a matter of fact, the Christian church has the greatest news on earth, when we are at our worst. When we are willing to repent of our sins, God is eager to forgive us. There are times when most of the news is depressing. If you are looking for good news, you do not turn to the six o’clock news, it will not be there! If you find good news in these sources you are lucky.

You will find on page one, man’s brutality against man. You may learn some bad news. You may learn that prices are going up, interest is going up. The skeptical Rousseau once said, “If there wasn’t a God, we would have to invent one in order to keep people sane!”

Benjamin Franklin, in addressing the constitutional convention at the age of eighty-one years said, “I have lived a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see this truth, that God governs the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His knowledge, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? The greatest mistake a government can make is to seek to govern without the help of God.”

The pattern of the failing of great civilizations is the same everywhere on the globe. Every history student will tell you that you are going in the wrong direction when you accept low morals, seeking pleasures, high taxes, breaking up the family and the greed of government.

We may exist, but we can never live a happy life without loving one another. When we leave God out of our lives, our activities, our thoughts and plans, we are moving in the direction of other civilizations who finally found total destruction and defeat. St. Augustine said, many centuries ago, that we were made for God and we will never rest until we rest in Him.