Thank you, Rick and Michelle and Scott, for leading us in that worship this morning. You try to sit on a box and get all those sounds to come out of it, and Scott will accept the challenge, right? I mean, that was pretty amazing. It's called a cajon, right? Is that what that box drum is called? And the extra sounds, that was neat. That was an intimate sound in our worship corporately this morning. Open your Bibles with me to 2 Samuel chapter 11. 2 Samuel chapter 11, I trust that you were able to secure a copy of the notes for our new series, our first message in this new series that we're starting for this summer. 2 Samuel chapter 11, and as you're turning there, I just was reflecting, tomorrow morning I'm going to a funeral in Clarkston of my youth pastor. And he entered heaven's gates, so to speak, just last week. Todd Bannerman, Dr. Todd Bannerman. Some of you know that name from back in the CCA years. And my mind has been kind of nostalgic as I've worked my way through the end of this week, anticipating tomorrow morning. And he was one of the men that God used in my life in a tremendous way as a coach and a youth pastor and as a friend. And as I'm thinking about my own youth ministry days, when I was the teenager up here in Michigan in the Clarkston area, I remember going on not a few youth ministry trips on the Au Sable River up north. And we would be canoeing on the Au Sable River. I remember my very first time, I was like maybe 10 years old, 11 years old doing that, and had never been canoeing, had never been canoeing on the Au Sable River. And me and my buddy were in our canoe, and we thought we were strong, man, because we got in that canoe, and it took off. And of course, as competitive young boys, we wanted to win the race down the river. So we just got into that current, and we took off, and we got in front, stayed in front. We're like, we own this. This is our river. The rest of our group's way back there, and what's their problem? As we got closer to lunch, we noticed that we no longer saw our group way in the back. What had happened is they had already predetermined that they were going to stop at a point on the Asobo River to have a little camp out lunch type thing and eat some subs and stuff like that. We were in such a hurry, we weren't paying attention, we took off down the river. Well, pretty soon we saw some youth sponsors coming down the river in their canoe waving to us in our canoe. And as they caught up with us, they said, you should have stayed with the group. They're way back there. Now we have to row upstream on the El Sable River. Well, you can imagine how unfun that was for a couple of 10, 11-year-old guys in a canoe. The adults made their way against that current better than we did. And we learned our lesson in a painful way. And that was just the El Sable River. Fast forward a couple of decades, now I'm the youth pastor, living in Richmond, Virginia, and I took our teens from our youth group, not canoeing, I took them whitewater rafting. In West Virginia, Mary, at the New River Gorge, some of the best whitewater rafting, I'm convinced, in the country, especially on the eastern seaboard. It's intense. It makes the El Sable River current feel like a creek. I mean, if you get, there's no going up current on the New River. As a matter of fact, unlike the El Sable, if you don't handle and navigate the New River Gorge correctly with white water, the swift current, the constant relentless current, can become a deadly current. The hydraulics that work around some of those rapids, Class IV rapids and even higher, can be deadly, potentially. You know, it's as I think of that whitewater rafting in the New River Gorge with my teenagers. As I reflect on that and the force of that current that can be deadly, I'm reminded of another very dangerous, very deadly current, a moral current in our day and in your daily lives. It's the current of immorality. There are categories of immorality, of course. The way I pray for the members of my family and grandkids as well is that we would engage in the power of the spirit and with the resources of the resurrection and of the gospel, that we would engage in the warfare against our purity at both the eye level, what we look at, what we fixate on, at the heart level, what we yearn for, even if nothing's in front of us, and then at the level of the body, that there would be self-control. That's where this current hits. That's where these waves crash. And it's constant. It's deadly. It's incessant. There's never a break. As a matter of fact, John will write in 1 John chapter 2, All that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, that's what I like. The lust of the eyes, that's what I lack. And the boastful pride of life, that's how I look. Every single one of those is in a battle for your purity. It's coming for you. Your flesh is coming for you. Your spiritual enemy is coming for you. There will be no exceptions under the sound of my voice in this room or online. Ever. It's coming for us, and it's deadly. This current is swift and constant. And so what I want to do this summer, something a little different this summer, since we've finished with our Peter exposition and we're looking at most likely a Pauline, Apostle Paul exposition this fall, I want to spend the time I'm in the pulpit this summer, most of the time, on this topic of immorality. And it's with a series that I'm calling Swimming Upstream. See, it's not until you fight the current do you realize its power. It's not until you press your boat into the waves that are coming your direction do you see how deadly this is. You don't notice it. Listen. You don't notice the deadliness of the river or the sin towards immorality if you're going with the current. You have no idea. It's when you turn around to fight it that you feel it. So what I'm going to do in this series is I'm going to preach several messages. We're going to have a message as we begin July called Understanding the River. This will be a theology of purity by doing a short exposition out of 1 Thessalonians 4. I'm also going to do a message in this series called The Current You Fight. This one will probably be broken into two Sundays, because this will be a series, a sermon, two parts, for you to recognize the enemy. And for this two-part sermon, we're going to do some expository work in the book of Proverbs. I'm going to do a sermon called, Staying Strong Against the Pole. And this will be a suggested plan for your safety. And it's here we'll find ourselves in the book of Genesis doing a short exposition in the life of Joseph. I'm going to do a sermon in this series called, Teaching Kids to Swim. And it's here that I'm going to do a brief exposition in one sermon. This should make you nervous. of Proverbs 5 in its entirety, an overview of how do we train our children, our young people, to survive this river, this constant war, if you will. And then following that, I'm going to do a sermon to those who are not married. And then I'm going to do a couple sermons to those who are married. So we have some plans for the ground we're going to cover or the currents we're going to cover this summer together. But before we jump in, before we jump into those messages, it's very important that you recognize the danger of this river. And so this first message is called the signs of drowning. The signs of drowning. And we, unfortunately, have an example of someone drowning in immorality. Someone going down quickly to the bottom of the river. And it's not the one we want to see this happen to, but it's our beloved King David. And it's here in 2 Samuel chapter 11. It's a very familiar story. And as David, we're gonna read, as David could look down and see the cityscape of Jerusalem anytime he wanted from his palace, it's important for us this morning to look down and see the fall of David, the fall of David. Watch it unfold so that we can take heed. And this is deadly. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 12 says, a prudent person sees evil and hides themselves. But the naive, you say, what's the naive in Proverbs? It's the one, it could be youth, or just simply someone that is clueless. They lack experience. A prudent man sees evil and hides himself, but the naive proceed, and they will pay the penalty. Proverbs 27, 12. So what I want you to do by way of introduction with me this morning is I want you to note three things. You need to note what you need to watch. Then we'll look at what you need to admit. And then you'll note what you need to know. First of all, what you need to watch. As we look at David's fall, can we not identify the eight signs of drowning? They're right here in 2 Samuel chapter 11. What are the eight signs of drowning? Let me just give you the first one and we'll go to the text. The first sign of drowning, I believe, is this, it's confidence after victories. Confidence after victories. You're in chapter 11, look at verse one. Then it happened in the spring, 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 sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. Interesting. In your regular read-throughs of scripture, when it comes to 2 Samuel, in some ways you're relieved because David's on the scene. There's been a lot of yuck as you've gone through Judges in the first part of Samuel, 1 Samuel. And David appears and then eventually we get him onto the throne and it's just like, a godly man in charge. The kingdom united and under a godly servant And if you just isolate your reading to 2 Samuel chapters 1 through 10, you have to admit, David's been having a good outing. Things are going very well. If I could give you the ESPN Sports Center review of chapters 1 through 10 of 2 Samuel, it would have these featured headlines. David has ascended to the throne. That's good. David has united the kingdom. That's good. David has conquered Jerusalem. That's cool. David has defeated not just one enemy, but in these 10 chapters, David has defeated the Philistines. He's defeated the Moabites. He has defeated the Arameans. He has defeated the Edomites. He's defeated the Ammonites. He's defeated the Syrians. And if that weren't enough good happening, in these 10 chapters, David has eventually, after a little hiccup, gotten the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. In these 10 chapters, we've seen God give David the Davidic covenant. And we also have seen in the heart of David in these 10 chapters and the kindness that he showed to King Saul's grandson, Mephibosheth. All that's happened in the first 10 chapters. I mean, if I were to make an observation at this point before I get into chapter 11, I would say things were good for David. It's almost like things were too good. Francis Nickel is a commentator from another generation looking at this passage we're looking at this morning. And he wrote these words, I just want you to drink in. Quote, Satan chose this moment to bring upon the king of Israel a temptation that was to cause him deep humiliation and disgrace. David tragically forgot that there was an enemy greater than men. feeling himself strong and secure against his earthly enemies, intoxicated by his propensity and success, while receiving the plaudits of men, Israel's honored hero and saint was thrown off his guard. Imperceptibly, the inner defenses of his soul had weakened. until he yielded to a temptation that transformed him into a shameless sinner." End quote. It happened right now when everything was going so good. Maybe you can relate. I can give you some examples of when things are going real good for us. In your own life, it could be near the time of your salvation. Maybe you first heard the gospel recently, and either you thought you were saved before and realized you weren't, or this is the first time you ever heard the gospel. Either way, you came to Christ. You were regenerated. And now there's a joy that animates you and a Holy Spirit that indwells you and empowers you. There's a Father in heaven that accepts you because the Son has lived the perfect life and credited it to you and he suffered for your sin. Things are good, but it doesn't mean you're out of reach of the current. It may be things are going real good for you right now, really well for you right now, because you've seen God do a work in your life, either perhaps helping you finally grow through, repent of, replace a sinful habit in your life. It might have been a real public sinful habit or a very private one, but you find yourself now in a season of sunshine and warmth and victory. Maybe you've had to recently make a huge decision in your life, in your career, in your family. And it was the right decision. And things are good. Maybe you're starting to get serious about devotions and you've made it weeks and maybe months, maybe years of praying. and ingesting God's word in a systematic way and things are good. Maybe it could be that you have experienced a spiritual retreat in your own life. Maybe there's a victory that happened within your family, your close family or the extended family. Maybe you've read a good book on the Christian life that's changed your life. Maybe you have ministry and you're seeing fruit in that ministry. Maybe you've finished a degree or a certification or attended a conference and things are good. It's when things are good that verses like 1 Corinthians 10, 12 need to be in our heart. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not what? Fall. Proverbs 16, 18, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling. Proverbs 28 verse 14, how blessed is the man who fears always. But he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity. Are you thinking things are going good now? Well, just be careful. That can be a sign of drowning. But there's a second sign of drowning I'd like to suggest from this text. It's what we'll call bitterness. over defeats. Bitterness over defeat. You say, well, what do you mean, defeats? I thought David was batting 1,000 going into chapter 11. I thought the first 10 chapters were good. Didn't you just say that? Yeah, there had been victories everywhere he turned except one place, his marriage. He had victory everywhere he turned except where we read 2 Samuel 6, saying otherwise. 2 Samuel chapter 6, look at verse 20. The ark is in Jerusalem now. David had a wife at this point, several actually. But this was his first one, named Michael, Saul's daughter. You say, what kind of personality does she have? Well, Saul wanted to get a piece of David and wanted to take young David down. And the best torpedo he could shoot at David was his own daughter. She was a hurricane in a small package. And she did not like how she saw her husband carrying on in front of the celebration of the ark coming into Jerusalem. Look at verse 20. So David said to Michael, It was before the Lord who, by the way, chose me above your father and above all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord over Israel. Therefore, I will celebrate before the Lord. And I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes, but with the maids of whom you have spoken with them, I will be distinguished. And Michael, the daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death. There was one struggle that still bothered him. There was a loose end that remained untied, and it was in the home. Bitterness over defeats. You know, I had the chance early in ministry serving under a man who reminded me that often in counseling, if you're dealing with someone who's bitter, And they just won't forgive. He says, it won't take long, but keep looking around because often, immorality follows bitterness. And I just remembered that he said that. And I found that to be true, but it doesn't matter what I have found. The verse he gave to me when he made that statement, two verses, Hebrews 12, 15 through 16, groups them together for us. Hebrews 12, 15 through 16, see to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it, many be defiled, that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. Expositionally, I don't know that that's the intent of those two verses alone, But I do find it interesting that the Spirit has combined this into one bucket. Maybe that's why Paul reminds us, those of us who are married in 1 Corinthians 7, 5, that a husband and a wife are to render due benevolence to each other. Their bodies don't belong to themselves, but to their spouse. And then he puts this warning in here, because he says, you can only go without the intimacy in marriage that's reserved for marriage, for a long season, except maybe for a time of prayer. But then he says this at the end of verse five, but you gotta come back together, lest you be tempted by the enemy. Maybe there's something else to what Paul warned husbands about in Colossians chapter three, verse 19. Husbands, love your wives, listen, and don't be embittered against them. I remember it like it was yesterday, but it was over 20 years ago. I was helping to put a marriage together after there had been a long season of immorality. On the wife's part, and the husband came to me in the reeling aftermath of the disclosure, and by the way, God kept them together and God did some really neat things there, but in the In the time of the disclosure, the husband declared to me, he didn't have his footing yet in the gospel, he says, my co-workers are telling me that it's time for me to have some fun now. And for a moment, that counsel landed with him, though he didn't enact it. Because where there's bitterness, bitterness often ignites the passions that find escape and revenge. Never forget that. Bitterness often ignites the passions that find escape or revenge. Bitterness over defeat is often a sign of drowning. But there's a third sign of drowning as we go into this text. It's idleness instead of action. Idleness instead of action. You see, at the end of verse one it says, but David stayed at Jerusalem. He stayed at Jerusalem. This is probably happening around April or May of the year. This is the time when weather will cooperate enough for a good, sustained, a long military campaign. You take your team on the road, so to speak. This is a time where The fields of fruit and vegetables and sustenance are ample, not only in your area, but in the area where you're going to invade. So there'll be plenty of food for your soldiers. It's on the heels of a labor-intensive harvest before the end of the year that frees up now the men to be in your military guard. The roads are in good shape. This is the time you go out. And it says here in chapter 11, verse 1, that they were going to Rabbah. Rabbah was the Ammonite capital, modern day Amman, Jordan. This was the stronghold of the Ammonite remnant that was defeated back in chapter 10, verse 14. But in their defeat, they all ran to the city. and shut themselves in that city. That was their last stand. On chapter 11, verse 1, David's going with Joab leading to take them out at their last stand. But it's strange. This is when they go out to war, and kings go out to war. But it says David stayed at Jerusalem. When kings go out to battle, at that time, David stayed in Jerusalem. It's true. What you've heard your grandfather say many times before, an idle heart is the devil's playground. Or can I just update that saying just a little bit? Spectators get into trouble. When we want to isolate ourselves and merely, we don't mind watching others do the work, we don't mind watching others carry the banner, swing the sword, just not us. Especially when, as David was here, still capable of warfare. Even when his son will lead a rebellion against him, Absalom, the counselor to Absalom will say, you know your father, and he and his men are vicious warriors. David still had it in him. He wasn't a shut-in when it came to war. And I take a warning here. If you're not pedaling uphill, you will be coasting downhill. You and I can never take a break. We can never start coasting in our fight for purity, in our fight to reflect the holiness of God, in our fight to be growing in Christlikeness. You say, do we get a recess? Do we get a day off? Do we get a summer break? No. The minute you stop fighting, the minute you start getting filled with holes from swords. Paul says in Romans 6, 12-13, Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. And the action in that verse, there's a current to that verse, too, is it never ends. This is a fight you fight until the end. My 70-year-old father-in-law at the time taking us three sons out to breakfast to talk to us about purity. And he was 70. We're up there in our 30s and the other side of the breakfast table squirming a little bit, but just, you know, this is great. But a guy in his late 80s shuffled by our table and stopped in the restaurant. He says, I hear that, or I noticed you guys, you boys prayed before you ate your food. Yes, sir, we're Christians. And then my father-in-law says, I'm here talking to my sons, really challenging them about their purity and fidelity to their wives. And I'm telling them in my 70s that the fight is still there. At least the current can be felt. And he said, how about you, sir? How old are you? And this guy says he's in his upper 80s. He says, is the fight still going on up there with you? He says, oh, yes. We take no time to be idle. You say idle people are drowning? No, but it is one of the signs of drowning. And now you enter the electronic device world that it not only consumes what sit down time we have, but now forces even more on us under the guise of work or connecting. And this is a sign of drowning. There's a fourth sign of drowning. I'll call the fourth one isolation instead of accountability. Isolation instead of accountability. Look at verse two. Now when evening came, David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof, he saw a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful in appearance. The fact is, if the enemy can isolate you, when you are alone, when there's no accountability, you're in danger. And it's interesting, this happened at the evening, probably after a late afternoon nap, siesta, and it's evening, the sun is setting, if it hasn't already set. I find that instructive because scripture has a lot to say about the lack of accountability in the dark. You ever notice that? In Proverbs chapter 7, I'll read it to you, Proverbs chapter 7 where we, and we're going to look at this text in our series, but we see a father talking to his son, warning his son of another guy about his son's age who went down in flames into immorality. And notice what time of the day this happens. Chapter seven, verses six through nine. For at the window of my house, I looked out through the lattice. I saw among the naive and discerned among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing through the street near her corner, and he takes the way to her house, listen, in the twilight, in the evening, in the middle of the night, and in darkness. Interesting, right? He's not saying that immorality only happens at night. But there is a dark solitude that can descend on you when other eyes are not on you. Even we read in Job, in Job chapter 24, verses 15 through 17, listen to this. The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, no eye will see me. And he disguises his face, for the morning is the same to him as thick darkness, for he is familiar with the terrors of thick darkness. This could be at a bar where one of my friends I was making an appeal to a long time ago before I moved back to Michigan. a classmate who had destroyed his family and was head first into immorality. I was pleading with him at a lunch to come back because I remember his profession of faith in high school. And he said to me, out of callous but still respect for the friendship, he says to me, it's just interesting, you just, it's lonely and you go to the bar, and drink to numb the loneliness, and the later you stay, the greater the chance that you won't go home alone, because others are there for the same reason. We could be talking about that scene, or, more likely, we could be talking about the chat rooms, we could be talking about social media, we could be talking about the plethora of things to stream. We can talk about how much can be done when family members are asleep. Sometimes the sounds of crickets are not good. Isolation instead of accountability. He's up there by himself, and therefore he is vulnerable. And that's where we see the fifth sign of drowning. The fifth sign. Indulgence instead of control. Indulgence instead of control. As he was walking on the roof of the king's house, from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful in appearance. Now, the bathing would happen within a courtyard of a home, which is technically still part of that home. A lot of people conjecture what was going on here. This washing, taken with how you translate a detail in verse four, many believe that this washing was her ceremonial cleansing from her regular uncleanness. But there she is, and David sees her. Sparky Pritchard, a pastor from Richmond, Virginia, writes in his book, Rubbing Elbows with Royalty, these sobering words. Students of ancient customs note that men on rooftops purposefully looked into the distance for this very reason. What did David do? It says that he saw. He saw. He gazed. He studied. The problem here is not architecture, it's lust. And the scripture here describes her as beautiful in appearance, or good of appearance, very. It's a rare description in the Bible. It's actually used of, well, David. in 1 Samuel 16, 12. Now he was ruddy with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance, and the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. But the Bible also uses that kind of descriptive terminology to refer to another wife David already has, named Abigail, the widow of the fool. Huh. He's indulging this leer, this gaze. And let me just say something. David, we're to look and we're not to look from that vantage point in the city. Just like we know what web pages to go to. We know what Google image search words to use. Arkent Hughes, in his book Disciplines of a Godly Man, says, David's look became a sinful stare and then a burning, sweaty leer. In that moment, David, who had been a man after God's own heart, became a dirty, leering old man. A lustful fixation came over him that would not be denied. I mean, it's true, the first look is unfortunate, but the second look is our undoing. Each one's tempted, James writes, when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust, and when it's conceived, it gives birth to sin. Our Lord says the issue is not just your eyeballs, it's what fuels your eyeballs, your heart, a lustful heart. We are bombarded not just with billboards now that are electronic. We are bombarded with the temptation of a curious click on a link, a TV remote with endless streaming, and still stuff that shows up in the mailbox. It's a sign of drowning. There's another sign of drowning, deafness to warnings. Deafness to warnings. No worries, I'm just going to do the first point with you. Some of you look nervous, okay? We'll split this in two, it's okay. Deafness to warnings. Look at verse three. So David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, who was one of David's mighty men, mighty 30 men, and the wife of Uriah the Hittite? This one woman is connected to two of David's most loyal special forces. They're in the top 30 in the nation. Verse four, David sent messengers and took her. And when she came to him, he lay with her. And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. And the woman conceived. And she sent and told David and said, I'm pregnant. What is this sign of drowning? Deafness to warnings. Deafness to warnings. How many times did we read it here? The wife of someone in the group that David sent to her door to knock was trying to warn David. You know Uriah, and you know his father-in-law, who's been with you from the start. Yeah, this is his daughter. This is Uriah, who's fighting right now at Rabah. For you, and your crown. It's his wife. She's the wife of, we're gonna see it in verse 10. We're gonna see David saying, you've come from a journey, why did you not go down to your house? David is very much aware that the wife is at the house, right? Chapter 12, verse 10, even God is gonna say, you've taken the wife of Uriah, the Hittite. Yes, Sheba's name's only mentioned, I believe, twice in this account. This is interesting, especially when you get into the New Testament and you read the genealogy in Matthew chapter 1, verse 6. And once again, when she's mentioned, so is Uriah. Someone is trying to warn David. She's taken, David. She's taken. And you know, even in saying Uriah's name, who was a Hittite who had converted to the true worship of Yahweh, The name Uriah means Lord is my light. Just saying his name should have jolted David back from the edge of the cliff. But he couldn't hear him. It's like yelling at the football game from your couch. They're not listening to you. I wonder how many sermons you've heard recently and in your life. about the importance of God's holiness and its impact on your purity. Have you heard them? How about those testimonies you've heard of people that got real close to that cliff and God rescued them before they fell? You've heard those testimonies. That's a warning for you. Or maybe they fell. And the long, painful journey back was possible, yes. And they've given a testimony, but they're pleading with you, it's not worth it. Get away from the cliff. But we just don't hear. Maybe you in your life have had personal, close calls. In the area of touching or emotional attachment. Maybe you are bringing it on yourself through your thought life and what you expose yourself to online. Deafness to warnings is a sign of drowning. Well, there's two more. A willingness to deceive. a willingness to deceive, or a willingness to cover. That's a sign of drowning. Look at chapter 11, verse 6. Then David said to Joab, saying, send me Uriah the Hittite. That makes zero sense on a campaign at a last stand. Give me one of the key players, one of your starters. I want him out of action with me. So Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked concerning the welfare of Joab and the people in the state of the war. And then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. What does that mean? Well, that's what you did before you went to bed. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and a present from the king was sent out after him. But Uriah, he slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. Now when they had told David saying, well, 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? And Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go down to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? By your life, King, and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing. And David said to Uriah, stay here today also, and tomorrow I will let you go. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. Now David called him, and he ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his bed with his Lord's servants, but he did not go down to his house. A drunk Uriah was more on top of his game spiritually than a sober David. Now in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. He had written in the letter saying, place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him so that he may be struck down and die. So it was as Joab kept watch on the city that he put Uriah at the place where he knew there were valiant men on the other side, their special forces. And the men of the city went out and fought against Joab, and some of the people among David's servants fell, and Uriah the Hittite also died. Then Joab sent and reported to David all the events of the war. He charged the messenger, saying, when you have finished telling all the events of the war to the king, and if it happens that the king's wrath rises, and he says to you, tactically, why did you go near to the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Anticipating that question, a tactical question, Verse 21, who struck down Abimelech, the son of Jerubashef? That's an example from the book of Judges. A man went close to the wall and a woman threw an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebes. Why did you go so near the wall? And Joab says, then you shall say to David when he says this, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. What is this? It's a sad story of a man after God's own heart who is going to get red in the face trying to cover his error, trying to conceal his indulgence. We saw three things, three attempts here. He offered her husband, Uriah, a free weekend at home to enjoy his wife. No way. And then he said, well, I'll just try to grease the skids a bit and get him drunk and see if he'll go into her then. No way. And so he tried a third thing that worked. I call it postal murder. This is the king that once, no twice, protected the soul of his enemy Saul when it was in his hand to kill him. And here now he's striking out against one of his most loyal special force guys. And the plan worked. Uriah is dead. It's interesting, isn't it? How any one of us, men or women, will go to any link to defend, quote, my kingdom, end quote. And by the way, when David and Bathsheba committed adultery, according to Leviticus 20 and Deuteronomy 22, they both deserve death now. David just went one up, though, when he had Uriah killed, according to Leviticus 24, 17. That's a second reason he deserves to die. David deserves death. There's one more sign of drowning. I call it pious hypocrisy. Pious hypocrisy. Look at verse 22. So the messenger departed and came and reported to David all that Joab had sent him to tell. And the messenger said to David, the men prevailed against us and came out against us in the field, but we pressed them as far as the entrance of the gate. Moreover, the archers shot at your servants from the wall. So some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead. And David said to the messenger, thus you shall say to Joab, do not let this thing displease you. You lost a good man today. For the sword devours one as well as the other. Make your battle against the city stronger and overthrow it, and so encouraged Joab. Now when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she mourned for her husband. When the time of mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and then she bore him a son. I see here a dripping, pious hypocrisy It's sickening. Unfortunately, it's common. David here is invoking implicitly God's sovereignty. You know, both sides lose people in war, Joab, just cheer up, man. They'll lose some, we'll lose some. It's sickening. But it's also sickening when Christianity Today reports that out of a survey of 1,000 non-pastor readers, 23% had affairs, 45% continuing on in inappropriate relationships. You say, what about the pastors? They were only half as bad. That's sick. We can go and sing the power of the cross and then go indulge our hearts, our eyes, and our bodies. Pious hypocrisy. Okay, so look. I'm not saying that you have gone down or are going down if there's confidence after victories, bitterness after defeats, idleness instead of action, isolation instead of accountability, indulgence instead of control, deafness to warnings, and a willingness to deceive and a pious hypocrisy. I'm not saying that you've gone down or are going down. I'm just pleading with you and saying, be careful. These are the common signs of going down morally. Just looking at this list from this familiar story and just reading the statistics of our day and evangelicalism, and even replaying some recent scenes in your own life, perhaps. You have to admit, the current's pretty strong. You're gonna have a few weeks to pray through these eight signs of drowning till we come down to finish this message. And here's what I want you to do, church family. Here's what I want all of us to do. I want us to pray through them. I want us to take to the people closest to us. If we're married, it's our spouse. If we're not married, it's those who are closest to us, and ask them if they're seeing that there's reason to be concerned for you in any of these areas. And don't defend yourself. Maybe someone else can see something you can't see. Maybe something you think you can handle, others are concerned about. God, in his kindness, may be rescuing you. This part one of this message is really a lifesaver for someone under the sound of my voice right now. You might not even realize you're drowning, but you're going down. So I need to change the illustration now from a river and a current to a shepherd and a sheep. This message, this example from King David's life is a reminder to you that before you go down, turn around and look. Your shepherd is coming for you. Jesus is keeping his promise to come for you. Will you hear him? Repent. Repent with significant concreteness from a list like this and a story like David's. and pray for the grace that we're gonna read of in the remainder of this study and this summer. Father, thank you for this difficult scene to watch. It's almost strange to use those words together, those phrases together. Thank you for something painful to see. But if this painful scene, the undoing of the man after God's own heart, is used by your spirit to rescue us, whether we see we're in trouble or not yet, What a mercy. Your promise to us to save us from our sins penalty is way more than just that. It's to save us from the power of sin. So I pray that all of us, in every decade, in this building right now, and online, will hear you. In this culture, is yelling too. The enemy of our souls is yelling too. The current is from them. So Lord, show yourself our rescue again, strong and mighty. In Jesus' name we pray.