You may be seated. It's time for turning our attention to the Word of God wholeheartedly. And so I'd ask you to take your Bible and turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter 11. 2 Samuel chapter 11. A couple of weeks ago we looked at the downward spiral into lustful temptation, and today we're going to continue as we study in the life of David. But as you know, Melissa and Ariel and I were not here last week. We went down south to attend the wedding of my 84-year-old father-in-law, and I got to officiate that wedding. But there we were in northeast Georgia, right there where the hurricane swept through after it made landfall. And where we were was not so badly hurt, although the power did go out and trees did fall. But just about an hour away in South Carolina at my mom's home, the storm damage was of historic proportions. And yet, those in South Carolina are just feeling blessed that they did not experience the extreme catastrophe that befell Western North Carolina and some of Eastern Tennessee. So while we were there, though, and she didn't have power. My mom lost it Thursday night, and she didn't get it back until this Thursday. That's how extensive the problems are. But while we were there, my mom, so we had time to visit. And my uncle, his name is Ross, by the way, came over and we were reminiscing and he told us of a time when he was about 14 and he was home alone and cleaning his rifle which happened to be loaded and while cleaning the rifle it went off and the bullet fired through the ceiling leaving a visible hole and Ross became desperate. He had to do something quick to avoid getting in trouble. And so he grabbed some paper and stuffed it in the hole and grabbed some paint and a paintbrush and quickly sloshed it on and thought that all was well. Well, he breathed a sigh of relief as he finished up before anyone came home. But several days later there was a rainstorm and water began to drip through the ceiling. Ross's dad, my grandfather, began investigating the leak. And he asked Ross if he knew anything about the hole. And he said, no, I don't know a thing. And so my grandfather took Ross up into the attic and they traced the water to a hole in the roof itself. It was directly above the hole in the ceiling. Are you sure? You don't know anything about this, my grandfather asked him. Well, my uncle never fessed up. And my grandfather just kind of let it go. But deep inside, my uncle said he knew, his daddy knew, what had happened. He wasn't fooled. He realized what had gone on. And so the cover-up attempt had failed. They usually do. And this morning we turn to 2 Samuel 11 and we find David desperately trying to avoid getting into trouble. He is anxiously attempting to cope with the fear that his sin might be found out. So we come face to face with the fact that there is something worse than a single act of sin. So let's stand together and read the Word of God. 2 Samuel 11, verses 6-27. So David sent word to Joab, send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king. 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." When they told David Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to Uriah, have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house? Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths. And my Lord Jacob and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. 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. Then David said to Uriah, well, remain here today also and tomorrow I will send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord, but he did not go down to his house. In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die. And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died. Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting. And he instructed the messenger, when you finish telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Abimelech, the son of Jerubisheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebes? Why did you go so near the wall?" Then you shall say, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab sent him to tell. The messenger said to David, the men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it and encourage him. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the morning 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. Let us pray together. Lord, we bow before you, having read this, your holy word. And we are stricken once again as we think about The calamity into which David's sin propelled him, that the greatest of the calamity is the fact that it absolutely displeased you. His sin displeased you and everything he did about it. And we just come to you, Lord, glorying in the one who is holy, holy, holy, but admitting to you that we are sinners. And so we well, we can identify with David because we have displeased you ourselves. But we pray that as we examine the substance of the narrative today, that you would teach us in a very practical way how to rightly respond to our sin. and that we will glorify and honor your name. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Once a person falls into sin, their first fleshly inclination is to try to manage the situation themselves. That's precisely what happened in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve broke God's singular commandment, their shame led them to cover up their nakedness, cover up their bodies, and then they hid from God when He came to them in the cool of the afternoon, as though that would help matters. And once King David knew his sin would be found out, He too tried to manage the situation himself. The narrative before us this morning expresses and exposes the failed attempts made by David to handle the results of his sin. He reveals for us the answer to the question, what's worse than sin? He reveals for us that what's worse than sin is trying to handle sin on our own. That's sin itself. It's sin upon sin upon sin. The main lesson before us this morning is that our own attempts to escape the complications of our sin only lead us further from God. Try all you can to extricate yourself from the consequences of sin. The end result will always be the displeasure of God. So we're going to explore the three ways that David attempted to handle his own sin and then finally we'll see the result of all that effort. So let's start with the attempt to cover up the sin by deception. In verses 6 through 13, David decides that the way he's going to weasel out of the predicament he's in is to bring Bathsheba's husband Uriah home from the battle. He makes it look like he wants to get a report from Uriah about life on the front lines. He asks about Joab and he asks about the rest of the men and how the war is going, but it's all just pretense. What David really wanted was for Uriah to go home and spend the night with his wife. Go down to your house and wash your feet was the way he put it. Go home, relax, take it easy for the evening. But Uriah, as we read, did not go. And so the next morning David wanted to know why Uriah explained the ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths and my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. How in the world could I go to my house and eat and drink and lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives I will not do this thing. Uriah would not even think of going home because he remained on duty He saw himself as part of the army and part of a team. And he was identifying with them in such a way that he wasn't about to enjoy what they couldn't enjoy. He looked at the campaign as the Lord's campaign and the forces were a unit. And so he would not think of taking it easy and enjoying life's pleasures when his team was on the field of battle. And it was generally expected that when engaged in battle in those days, that the men would keep themselves from sexual activity. He would render them unclean and distract them from where their minds needed to be. And if we think for just a moment about Uriah here and what he would not do, we see that his testimony sets quite a contrast to David himself, the king at this point. The Hittite was determined to behave honorably And at the same time, the lion of the tribe of Judah, or the king of Israel here, had caved in miserably. Think about it. The Hittite abstained from what he had a right to, while David had indulged in what he had no right to. David's willingness to stoop even lower still, to sinister levels, is revealed next. So plan A did not work, so David had plan B. He connived to get Uriah drunk. And evidently, he thought that if Uriah became intoxicated, his inhibitions would be relaxed. And in his weakened state, he would surely go and find Bathsheba. But no, even in a state of drunkenness, he would not go down to his house. He would not do, when he was drunk, what David had done when he was sober. In spite of his drunkenness, we rightly admire Uriah. His military family was engaged in battle, and his heart was with him, and he was not going to allow his heightened level of urgency be diminished, not even by drunkenness. His sense of honor and his heart for his fellow soldiers would withstand his lustful, even legitimate desires. Uriah. His consciousness of battle was not to be lost. The reality of battle was a reality. He was unwilling to escape. Brothers and sisters, Uriah is a means of the Lord to remind us that we are always in a spiritual battle. As such, there are times when we must forego indulgence and pleasures, even ones that are right, because of the urgency of the battle. There are many things that God has given us to be legitimately enjoyed, but for a season we forsake whatever might distract us from what is at stake. I think of Paul's exhortation to put on the armor of God. the whole armor of God. And after listing the elements of the armor, Paul urges us to pray at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication and to make supplication for all the saints. Our war in this world is against the world and the flesh and the devil. It is a war, though, that is a community affair. What we do as individuals affects the body of Christ to which we belong. It's not just an individual thing. We fight with and we fight for one another. Our alertness is not simply for ourselves, but for one another as well. This really comes out really in a powerful way through the example of Uriah, whose mind was captivated with the fact that there was a war and he was a part of the army of the Lord fighting that war. And he wasn't going to behave in a way that in any way would negatively affect his troops or his fellow brothers who were on the field in battle. And his heart was so intertwined with them that he couldn't get them off his mind. Not even David's efforts to get him to be intoxicated could take him away from his conscious awareness that he was part of a team and that his life and his efforts individually impacted that team as a whole. Our alertness as Christians is not simply for ourselves, but for one another as well. The church is a whole body. joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. And when each part is working properly, it makes the body grow so that it builds up itself in love. That's what Paul says in Ephesians 4. So Uriah has his heart on the well-being of the whole body, while David, his attention has come to be consumed with himself. And that's what sin will do when we try to handle it in our own strength. Let's turn next to the attempt to cover up the sin by murder. So David's attempt to cover up his sin by deception was foiled by the purity of Uriah's devotion to the Lord and to his cause. So David stooped to an even lower level in order to handle and manage the evil that he had done. Clearly, this was uncharacteristic of David. This wasn't something people would ever have thought David could do. This wasn't his manner. This wasn't his way. But he was driven by guilt and shame to do what otherwise he would not have. And there are things that you think you will never do until you've done something you shouldn't have and you don't want anyone to know. So beware. David sends a message to Joab by the very hand of Uriah. David commanded Joab to conduct a battle plan that would intentionally result in the death of Uriah. Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die. And that is precisely what Joab did. When Joab sent the messengers to tell David that the deed had been done, Did you notice how Joab prepared the messenger for the likelihood that David would be angry? Because the manner in which they had fought was foolish and negligent. And so, this approach is what it took for David's command to be carried out. So, not only did Uriah die, but others died as well on that day. David acted in order to preserve himself from having to confess to Uriah and to others what he had done, he had Uriah killed and other innocents died as well. You know, I'm not going to get, I'm tempted to go off on North Carolina and the government, but I'm not going to. Because the main thing here is what we need to know about ourselves. The innocent here died for the life of the guilty. Obviously, Uriah, like all of us, was a sinner, just like you and me. But in this matter, he was the innocent party. David's sin called for the death penalty with the law of Moses. stipulates in Leviticus that a man must not lie with the wife of another man. And in chapter 20, the sentence for adultery is set forth in verse 10. If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. In the act committed here, David and Bathsheba, according to law, should receive the death penalty. but through the actions of the king, it was Uriah who died." What a turn of imagery here to everything that we've been stressing thus far in our study of David's life. So often as we work our way through the life of David, we're rightly drawing attention to the ways in which David prefigures Christ, the greater David who is to come in his line. But in this instance, it is Uriah who shows us Jesus. Thinking he is covering up his sin, David engineers the death of the innocent. David foreshadows the Jews in Jesus' day who with hostility call for the death of Jesus. Jesus did no wrong, but the masses condemned him to death as though he did. And the self-righteous voices full of iniquity engineered a plan whereby outsiders, the Romans, carried out the murder. But it was the Jews who got what they were wanting. The God-man Jesus uncovered their sin and shame and they thought if they could just get rid of Him, it would cover up their sin. But all they did was magnify it even more. A major difference between Jesus and Uriah does exist, though, in that Uriah had not a clue. Well, first of all, Uriah wasn't sinless, but he's the image here of innocence in this narrative. But Uriah had not a clue what was coming. He did not know what was written of him. He did not know that he carried on his very person orders that condemned him to death. Jesus, however, knew all along where He was headed and why. He, the perfect and pure Lamb of God, was headed to the cross as a sacrificial lamb. He was headed to execution as though He was the criminal instead of those for whom He went. He knew what lay ahead of Him, yet He set His face like a flint to accomplish in the final analysis what was the plan of God written from ages past. The innocent died to bear the penalty deserved by those he came to save. He died so that we who trust in him might live. The one who unbendingly lived according to the Father's will died the death deserved by the ones he came to spare. Uriah's death was a human attempt at cover-up. Uriah's death did not absolve David's guilt. It only exacerbated it. Meanwhile, Jesus' death is not a mere cover-up, but it is a covering. There is remission because He suffered simply because of sin, but He was God's provision for sin so that sinners might be justified before God. Oh, what a glorious Savior. Those who are trusting in Him are forgiven, reconciled, ransomed, pardoned. They are sons of God by adoption. They are free from the consequences of sin, free from the power of sin, and praise God, one day free from the presence of sin. And it's all because the innocent, indeed the righteous Son of God, died for the guilty. Now we need to pay attention to another aspect of this part of the text. Notice the message that David sent back to Joab. This is what you shall say to Joab, he told the messenger. Do not let this matter trouble you. For the sword devours now one, now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it. What's David doing here? What do you think? What does that sound like? In this way, David designed to encourage Joab. He knew that Joab must be feeling something like he was feeling. This is bad. This is terrible. But oh, what does David say? Oh, Joab, this is really not anything. These things just happen. Sometimes this one dies, sometimes that one dies. Don't let this get you down, Joab. What is David doing? He is minimizing sin. Already David is feeling a bit of the weight of his wrongdoing, and yet he attempts to minimize it for both himself and Joab. Don't let it get you down, Joab. These things just happen. It's the nature of war. It's not a big deal. Here is a part of the way human beings attempt to deal with our sin. Oh, it's not that big a deal. It's so small. If we ponder it much, we'll be depressed and overwhelmed. Sooner or later, we'll all try to minimize our sin. Everybody does it. We'll say to ourselves, it's just the nature of life. And I've watched interviews on YouTube, like many of you have, of Ray Comfort interviewing people and going through the law. Maybe you've had the privilege of going through the law with somebody, too, and you ask them, you know, have you ever told a lie? And they say, who doesn't say yes? Some people try to start weaseling. Anyway, then he gets a case, so if you told a lie, what does that make you? Most people respond to that question this way. Human. It makes me human. No, it doesn't. And that rain makes the effort to show them it's not human that that makes you. It's a sinner. You're a liar. But if we're able to say it makes me human, that means that everybody does it. We are minimizing our sin. And when we minimize sin and don't take it for the cosmic treason that it is against God, then we look upon it lightly and we think, oh, it can easily be overcome. But sin against the Holy God, no matter how small we try to make it, no matter how much we try to cover it up, it only magnifies how horrific it actually is. One way or another, sometimes we tell ourselves what Joab told David told Joab, it just happens, it's no big deal, get over it, keep on fighting, win the war. No doubt, this is what David was telling himself on the inside. But look out, when you see this kind of thing going on in you, because you and I do this thing too. We need to be honest with ourselves. We really need to hear ourselves and we need to evaluate what we are saying to ourselves before God and in the light of the scripture. And if you hear yourself saying, oh, it's not that big a deal, look out. You are playing the devil to yourself. Lying. What's worse than sin? Pretending it's just no big deal. It's just a little thing. So, David, attempted to cover it up by deception and by murder. Next, we need to observe the attempt that David made to make up for the sin by marriage. He tried to cover it up first. Now he's going to try to make up for it. As sinners, we deal with the awareness of our sin by attempting to cover it up, and we may go to great lengths in order to do so. But the other thing we do to cope with sin is attempt to make up for it. Uriah was out of the way, and Bathsheba mourned his death. And once that was accomplished, David sent and brought her to his house. And she became his wife and bore him a son. To all the watching world, Uriah had simply died in battle, what a tragedy, and now here was this widow left all alone. The fact is it's even sadder than it seems, but David does a noble looking thing. He brings Bathsheba to his house and makes her his wife and will raise this son as though he is his own, which in fact he was. But the world did not know all that. But the uninformed onlooker saw, communicated what a good man David was to do such a kind thing. What a hero was their king. Perhaps that's what David told himself as well. I did the best thing I could for this woman. Perhaps even the Lord would see what a different life the woman and their son would have in his house. Surely the kindness David is showing makes up for the momentary lapse in his judgment. Does this ever occur with you? You sidestep the things you've done wrong. You just hope that they will go away. You don't address them and you don't think on them. You just try to do other things to make up for them. It happens relationally. It happens a lot in marriage. A husband wounds his wife. His words are harsh and his attitude mean-spirited. It rather dawns on him that he's wounded her. But instead of confessing the sin and seeking forgiveness, he wanders in the kitchen and starts washing the dishes. And perhaps he starts dishing out compliments. He tells her what a wonderful wife she is and how much he appreciates her. But the wound is still there. That he says nothing about. It's easier to try to make up for what he's done wrong than actually admit the wrong and correct it. That takes real humility. But the thing is. We also do this with God, not just other people. When we try to manage our sin on our own, we often sweep it under the rug before Him and do like Adam and Eve and pretend, oh, we show up with fig leaves as though nothing's happened. Instead of confessing, we try to serve God more boldly or go the extra mile for God. And I think there are many are the religious people who live like this. They try to make up for their sins, never dealing with their sins. They go to church and they don't go to places they shouldn't. They do this thing and that thing and the other thing because they hope that God will see they are such a good person or they will just see what good things they're doing and simply forget about or overlook their sins like you used to do and I used to do when our mom sent us to our room after we had disobeyed and told us you wait till your daddy gets home and we would just hope that they forgot. Or maybe we would go try to do some good things so that in the end, oh, I see all this good you've done. What was it your mom sent me in this room for? But the thing is, all the stuff that people do in an effort to get God's attention off their sins, doesn't address the damage their sins have done to their relationship with God. They can't make up for it. Our righteousness is filthy rags before God. So what will happen to religious people who try to be good and offer God up a pound of what they've done, hoping that He will accept that and just overlook their sins? They will go straight to hell. Because their sin and corruption is what will keep them out of heaven. And no matter what they do, they're adding filthiness upon filthiness. What is worse than sin? Trying to cover it up. Trying to make up for it. Trying to get God to look at something else and forget what we've done. He won't forget. He can't forget. So our attempts to minimize and hide and make up for sin ourselves just doesn't work as it didn't work with David. So finally this morning we need to see the failure of David's fleshly attempts to deal with his sin. The final words of the chapter bear this failure out. But the thing when all is said and done this could have been said anywhere in the chapter but it's at the end. including everything he had done. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. It didn't matter how he tried to cover it up. It didn't matter how he tried to make up for it. And it doesn't matter what you have done right or what you would say you've done right, because what you have done wrong destroys it all. That's what makes righteousness filthy rags. I used to use this illustration in EE. If you were going to make scrambled eggs and you put four eggs in that were good and one rotten egg, you stir them up and put them in the pan. Do you want this? Why not? It's only one rotten egg. Four are good. But the one destroys the whole. Even so, our sin destroys everything we do. Every cover-up and every make-up we try to do. You can't hide your sin from God. And your attempts to cover it up only multiply your sinfulness. The seemingly good things you do to try to make up for your wrongs are not the least bit impressive to the Lord. So what can you do? John tells us straightforwardly, 1 John 1, verses 8-9, if we confess, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This can be because we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is before the Father, who is the propitiation for our sins. So we can't do anything, really, except admit to God we have sinned. Do not cover up and do not try to make up for your sins. Just fess up and trust in Christ Jesus the Lord, the righteous one, who died the death of death so that we might have true life in Him. Now my uncle told that story about the hole that his gun put in the ceiling. We were actually talking about my grandfather and what a patient man he was. And he told that story in order to put an exclamation point at the end of that idea. To illustrate the patience of granddaddy. You know, God is patient too. In fact, He is far more patient with us than we are towards others. But God will not be mocked. And God will not be fooled. And we can be sure our sin will find us out. His patience and His mercy should move us all the more to come before Him with repentance, knowing He is mindful that we are thus. Let's pray. Lord God. We. Having considered David's actions. And having looked at ourselves this morning. What we reminded afresh, we can't just. Plow into your presence. Thoughtlessly. We certainly can't plow in holding up our hands and say, see how clean? Or holding up our deeds and say, see how good? We have to come in the Spirit that Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the meek. Lord, coming into your presence is not something of which we are worthy. We dare not approach you holding up anything of our own, because everything we would hold up that is ours is a recipe or is a prescription for our judgment eternally. But Lord, we're reminded that cover-ups and make-ups and attempting to make up for our sin, useless as it is, that there is a remedy, that there is hope, that there is an answer that you yourself have provided. There is a way into your presence. Thank you for Christ Jesus. Thank You that He came and unlike us never sinned, had no reason to cover anything up or make up for anything. Everything He did is righteous and worthy of You. And therefore, having died for our sins and making our intercession to You for us, we have confidence that through His work we can enter into the holy place, though we ourselves are very unholy. Lord, this clearly is a message of gospel truth to people in this room this morning who haven't come to repent and trust in Jesus. And Lord, we cry out to you that you would work to open eyes, give new hearts that people would see, mourn their sin, admit their sin, confess their sin and believe in Jesus. And for those of us who have already come to Christ, we're still reminded as we are walking the path of life in this world, seeking to be more and more sanctified. We still see many things in ourselves that are terribly wrong. And even there, Lord, we know that the answer is not to pretend that we're not. Riddled with. Iniquity. but it's to confess our sins that you would be just and on the basis of Christ's death forgive us and cleanse us and lead us in the path of righteousness for your name's sake. Lord, keep us in a humble position before you about our sin, but in a joyful position as we trust in Christ, and soak in the wonderful, glorious assurance of what He has done for us. And Lord, let us boldly, gladly tell others, because they need this message too. So many in our world that are thinking they're good people or that they've done enough good somehow to merit your favor, and they're going to heaven, they think. Lord, the gospel is so clarifying, and we pray that we would be faithful proclaimers of it by your power and for your glory. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.