Preached Sunday, October 17, 2010
from
2 Samuel 11:1-12:31
Theme: King David’s greatest moral failure teaches us some vital lessons about the dangers of covering-up-and the blessings of confessing—our sins before an all-seeing God.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
This morning, in our study of the Kings of Judah, we turn our attention to the first and greatest of Judah’s Old Testament kings—King David.
As Christians, we don’t need much of an introduction to this great hero of faith. And even though there are enough stories from David’s life to take up many Sunday morning sermons, I believe the one we should consider this morning is a story—not of one of his great victories of faith or conquests in battle—but rather of his greatest moral failure. It’s a story that has bearing on our study of the kings of Judah because it had a negative impact on the long lineage of kings that reigned after him. But it’s also important because it teaches us several vital lessons about a crucial principle of living before God.
You see; David himself—as great and holy a man as he was—was a sinner. We all have that in common with him; because all of us likewise sin before a holy God. But the problem in David’s greatest moral failure was not so much that he sinned as that, instead of confessing his sin before God, he sought to cover his sin up and hide it. And that’s what makes this story so valuable to you and me. It shows us what happens whenever we try to cover-up our sins before God.
Now; before we get into this story about King David, let’s take a moment to look at the New Testament’s expression of the principle that stands behind it. That principle is found in 1 John 1:5-10; where the apostle John wrote,
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10; emphasis added).
To “confess” our sins to God basically means that we humble ourselves before Him, and admit that we have sinned and that what He says about our sins is true—all so that He can forgive our sins and wash us clean of them. The opposite of confessing our sins, then, is the attempt to “cover them up”—to lie to ourselves and to others about them, to pretend that we don’t know what God says about them, to hide them in the shadows, and to not allow the truth of God’s word to shine light on them.
This whole matter of ceasing to cover-up our sins, then, and to openly confess them to gracious and pardoning God, is one of the most important things we can think about in life. So; this sad episode in David’s life is very much worth studying. Let’s look at it closely, and learn some of the lessons it teaches us about ceasing to cover-up our sins, and confessing them before our all-seeing but wonderfully forgiving God.
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This Old Testament story is found in the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the book of 2 Samuel. It begins in chapter 11 with these words;
It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem (11:1).
As a king, it was part of David’s responsibility to be a military leader. But at a time when kings ordinarily went out to battle, David was not with his army. Instead, he remained behind in Jerusalem and let his general Joab handle things. It may be that he didn’t feel he needed to be out with his troops. Or it may even be that he was growing a bit over-confident and careless.
But whatever the reason, we’re told that while at home and in a vulnerable condition of heart—perhaps because he was a bit bored and idle, or perhaps because he was a little out-of-sorts in his spirit and not able to sleep—he got into serious trouble, and fell into unexpected temptation. We’re told;
Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold (v. 2).
Now; it was right then that David could have put a stop to things and turned away. He could have realized the vulnerable condition that he was in, sensed the danger he was getting himself into, and fled from the situation immediately. But he didn’t. He kept looking at the woman until an accidental glimpse turned into lust.
Then, it turned into a fatal choice of action:
So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child” (vv. 3-5).
It almost sounds like something more appropriate for the grocery-store tabloids than for a Sunday morning church service; doesn’t it? But the Bible is honest to us—even about its heroes of faith. And this leads us to . . .
LESSON 1: DON’T GIVE SIN A FOOTHOLD IN THE FIRST PLACE.
We can’t prevent temptations from coming our way. And from David’s own experience, we can even see how temptations to sin can come when we least expect them—when our guard is down because we’re tired, or lonely, or overworked, or just plain bored and unsure of what to do with ourselves. It came upon David when he couldn’t sleep—while he was up late at night, walking along the top of his palace, and doing a little “roof-surfing”.
But even though we can’t prevent temptation from coming upon us, we can resist it and turn away from it when we recognize it. We can choose not to stay in the place where the temptation has struck us. We can choose to stop it from growing into a sinful desire within us. And this is very important to remember; because unless it is stopped at the very beginning, the temptation to sin—when allowed to remain in place within us—always demands more! Instead of stopping the temptation from going any further, David chose to keep it alive by actually inquiring further into who the woman was.
And once a temptation to sin is allowed to set up a place in our hearts, it eventually leads to sinful action. As Pastor James warns us;
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death (James 1:13-15).
David chose to allow the accidental glance of his eyes to gain a foothold in his heart; and it grew into a lustful desire that took sinful action. He misused his kingly authority by ordering that the wife of another man be brought to him so he could sleep with her; and as a result, he made her pregnant.
How much better it would be at such times to cry out to God for His help, flee from the situation, and never allow sinful temptation to gain a foothold in our hearts in the first place!
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Now; we need to appreciate what a serious thing this was that David had done. He seduced the wife of another man and committed adultery with her; and this was something that, according to the Old Testament law, was worthy of death (see Leviticus 20:10). And David’s was a particularly heinous act of unfaithfulness; because this woman was Bathsheba—the wife of Uriah, one of his most trusted soldiers. Uriah was a foreigner; but one who had apparently come to trust the God of Israel, and who became one of David’s top-thirty mighty men (2 Samuel 23:39). What’s more, Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam—another of David’s most elite soldiers (2 Samuel 23:34). This sin of David’s, then, was not only a great crime before God but also a serious violation of trust before his most trusted and loyal men.
The best thing David could have done was to immediately confess his sin before God and before those he had wronged. But instead—even though there was now a baby on the way because of all this—David sought to cover-up his sin and hide it from view.
He called his trusted soldier Uriah—Bathsheba’s husband—home from the field of battle and tried to steer him toward his wife. The Bible tells us;
Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered. And David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah departed from the king’s house, and a gift of food from the king followed him (11:6-8).
David’s suggestion that Uriah ‘go to his house and wash his feet’ was, most likely, a euphemism for spending an evening with his wife. David even sent the equivalent of a romantic candlelight dinner along—probably with a ‘wink-wink’ and a ‘nudge-nudge’ for good measure.
But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing” (vv. 9-11).
It wasn’t working. Uriah was too much of a man of character to do what David was suggesting. He was shining light on the darkness in David’s heart. And notice the kind of tactic that David then stooped to in an effort to cover his own sin:
Then David said to Uriah, “Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house (vv. 12-13).
David went so far as to make his trusted soldier drunk in order to get him to compromise his principles and do what David wanted. But Uriah apparently had more character drunk than David had in his deceit!
Finally, things took a very desperate and evil turn.
In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die” (vv. 14-15).
Think of it! David sent Uriah to deliver his death sentence by his own hand! David knew that Uriah could be trusted to deliver the message faithfully to Joab without looking at it. And Joab did as David commanded. As a result, Uriah—David’s trusted soldier, who went obediently into the line of fire as he had been commanded—died alone on the battlefield. He was murdered at David’s command—making David guilty of yet another sin worthy of death (see Leviticus 24:17).
The Bible then goes on to tell us;
When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD (vv. 26-27).
And I suggest that this leads us to . . .
LESSON 2: CONFESSING THE TRUTH IS MUCH EASIER THAN HIDING THE SIN.
Those closing and rather ominous words—”But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD”—remind us that cover-up attempts may successfully hide our sins from the eyes of men for a while; but they cannot hide them from the eyes of an all-seeing God for even one second. As the Bible tells us, in Hebrews 4:13, “there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
What’s more, David’s experience shows us that the sovereign God who sees all things, and to whom we must give account, is able to make sure that our attempts to cover-up our sins are constantly frustrated. David found his cover-up attempts foiled by God over and over again; and in such a way as to shine more and more of the light of God’s righteousness on that which David was seeking vainly to hide!
And there even appears to be a self-corrupting dynamic to it all. The more we cover our sins, the more we become willing to commit further sins in order to cover them up. David’s cover-up took him from a misuse of his authority, to the manipulation of people, all the way down to the outright murder of an innocent man—causing him to descend into deeper and deeper levels of guilt before God.
The hiding of sin consumes an enormous amount of work—and God sees to it that the work is constantly frustrated! How much easier it would be for us if we would just confess the truth to Him as soon as possible!
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So; about a year had passed since David had first sinned with Bathsheba; and had begun his downward spiral into deception and murder. He had kept it all hidden as best he could; but we can be sure that his conscience torment him daily. Every time he looked at Bathsheba, or every time he’d hear their baby cry, or every time he had a progress meeting with general Joab, David would remember what he had done—and know that God had seen it all.
Finally, David received a visit from a prophet of God. The prophet Samuel had long-since passed from the scene; but God had raised up a spokesman for the times—Nathan—to speak His word to the king. And Nathan was a wise man. He knew how to bring a message from God to David in a way that would be heard.
At the beginning of chapter 12, we’re told;
Then the LORD sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: “There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him” (12:1-3).
I suspect that this story would have brought a sentimental tear to David’s eye; don’t you?. After all, he himself had been a shepherd at one time. He had probably even kept a little lamb, like the one in this story, that he had adopted as a beloved pet. But Nathan goes on;
“And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity” (vv. 4-6).
Now; doesn’t it seem to you that David went into just a little bit more of a rage than was necessary? After all, it was just a story. And what’s more, doesn’t it seem that David’s verdict on the man in the story was rather extreme? In the law of Moses, the penalty for this kind of act was restitution—not death; and it was the restitution of the full price of the animal plus 20%—not “fourfold”. Isn’t it obvious that David’s rage revealed the guilt-ridden condition of his own conscience before God? He condemned the man in the story; but he was really condemning himself.
And that’s when God’s prophet lays it on the line.
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun'” (vv. 7-12).
Do you remember that I suggested that David’s sin in this story would end up having a negative impact on the whole lineage of kings that would be born from him? David used the sword of his enemies to slay Uriah and cover-up his own sin. And as a result, God promised that the sword would never depart from his ‘house’. The sword of battle would be a plague on the kings of Judah from that day forward. What’s more, Absalom—David’s own son—would one day rise up against him, and even dare to pitch a tent and sleep openly with David’s concubines “in the sight of all Israel” (2 Samuel 16:22).
And this leads us to . . .
LESSON 3: COVER-UP SIN TODAY, AND CONVICTION WILL ONLY HIT HARDER TOMORROW.
We cannot avoid the conviction of hidden sin; even though we may try to postpone it for as long as we can. David tried to do so for nearly a year. But God made sure that the day of conviction finally came—even sending the conviction “special delivery”. As was true of David, so it would be true for us that even the least little thing may be used by God to finally break us down.
And what is particularly tragic is that the conviction often brings unwanted consequences along in its tow. For David, it was the loss of a condition of peace—both in his personal life, and in the nature of the lineage of kings that would come from him.
As Proverbs 28:13 puts it; “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” How much better to confess sin now in a time of mercy; lest we make it necessary for the conviction from God to come in a harsher way later!
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But as painful as it was, praise God that the conviction of sin finally came! David’s heart was broken; and the relief of confession finally came upon him. We’re told,
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” (v. 13).
What mercy from God! David had broken the commandments of God against coveting his neighbors’ wife, against adultery, and against murder. He committed two sins that each warranted the death penalty. But once he confessed, God put the guilt of his sin from Him and showed him mercy.
But sadly, the damages of his sin remained. Nathan went on to say,
“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” (v. 14).
And this leads us to . . .
LESSON 4: CONFESSION OF SIN IS THE FASTEST WAY TO GOD’S RESTORED FAVOR.
It’s true that the sad consequences of David’s sin were not taken away from him. And that, I believe, is one reason why God hates it when we sin against Him and try to hide the truth from Him. Sin brings unwanted consequences upon us that God—who loves us—does not want us to have to suffer. David’s story teaches us that our God is a graciously pardoning God toward those who confess their sin; but the fact that sin carries consequences also teaches us that should never treat sin lightly and presume upon His grace.
But the wonderful thing is that as soon as we confess our sins, God really does take the guilt of sin from us, embrace us, let us know He forgives us, and promise to help us to be restored in a walk of holiness with Him. No sooner had David confessed his sin, than he heard the prophet say, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” Truly the best way to run away from the wrath of God for ours sins is to run right into His merciful arms with humility in our hearts and a confession upon our lips. David certainly discovered this.
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Now; there’s one more very important thing to be learned from this sad episode in David’s life; and that leads us to . . .
LESSON 5: THOSE WHO CONFESS THEIR SIN FIND GOD TO BE GRACIOUS IN THE END.
The Bible goes on to tell us,
Then David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon (v. 24).
And it may have been that David and Bathsheba feared that God would be severe toward them for again having another child. But it’s then that we’re told,
Now the LORD loved him, and He sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet: So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD.
It was Solomon that God gave to reign over His people after David was taken from this earth. And his reign was the most glorious reign in all of Israel’s history. What’s more, the Bible goes on to tell us that God even gave David victory over the very people that his general Joab fought in his place—back when David stayed home instead of going out with his army (vv. 26-31).
Surely, those who sincerely go through the difficult trial of confessing their sins to God always—afterwards—find Him to be gracious and good.
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So then; this story from David’s life teaches us some vital lessons about one of the most important things we can ever think about–the confession of our sins to God.
And before we end our time this morning, I believe I would be remiss if I didn’t ask: Do you have sin in your life that you have been seeking to cover-up and hide? Perhaps God has permitted me to be a little bit of a ‘Nathan’ to you this morning. And if so, I hope that you can see from this story that even the best of us fall into sin at times; but that those who try to cover-up their sins will not prosper. God knows the truth; and is able to frustrate our every effort to hide the truth from His eyes.
But I hope you’ll also remember that wonderful passage I quoted at the beginning of our time together. Do you recall the wonderful promise it contains?–that
. . . if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:6-7).
God sent His sinless Son Jesus to die for us on the cross. He paid the death-penalty of our sins in our place. He has done all that is necessary for God to be able to forgive us freely. And now, if we will simply confess our sins to God, the promise is that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” All the guilt will be removed. God will no longer angry with us. The horrible burden of conviction will be taken away; and we’ll be set free to walk with God in joyful fellowship with Him.
I hope that you will learn the lesson from David’s cover-up; and confess your sins to our loving God today.