2 Samuel 11:6-27

⁶ And David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷ And when Uriah was come unto him, David demanded of him how Joab did, and how the people did, and how the war prospered. ⁸ And David said to Uriah, Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet. And Uriah departed out of the king’s house, and there followed him a mess of meat from the king. ⁹ But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and went not down to his house. ¹⁰ And when they had told David, saying, Uriah went not down unto his house, David said unto Uriah, Camest thou not from thy journey? why then didst thou not go down unto thine house? ¹¹ And Uriah said unto David, The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing. ¹² And David said to Uriah, Tarry here to day also, and to morrow I will let thee depart. So Uriah abode in Jerusalem that day, and the morrow. ¹³ And when David had called him, he did eat and drink before him; and he made him drunk: and at even he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but went not down to his house. ¹⁴ And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. ¹⁵ And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die. ¹⁶ And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city, that he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were. ¹⁷ And the men of the city went out, and fought with Joab: and there fell some of the people of the servants of David; and Uriah the Hittite died also. ¹⁸ Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war; ¹⁹ And charged the messenger, saying, When thou hast made an end of telling the matters of the war unto the king, ²⁰ And if so be that the king’s wrath arise, and he say unto thee, Wherefore approached ye so nigh unto the city when ye did fight? knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall? ²¹ Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? did not a woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall, that he died in Thebez? why went ye nigh the wall? then say thou, Thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. ²² So the messenger went, and came and shewed David all that Joab had sent him for. ²³ And the messenger said unto David, Surely the men prevailed against us, and came out unto us into the field, and we were upon them even unto the entering of the gate. ²⁴ And the shooters shot from off the wall upon thy servants; and some of the king’s servants be dead, and thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.²⁵ Then David said unto the messenger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another: make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it: and encourage thou him.  ²⁶ And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. ²⁷ And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

John Owen, the Puritan preacher and theologian once warned: “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” Last week, we saw David exercise his “power” to sin in committing adultery with Bathsheba. Now, this week is also about power. It is about David’s power against sin’s power. Man is weak. Sin is powerful. When left in man’s hands to deal with, sin will only grow and become more powerful. We see sin, not only trap and ensnare David, but lead him to further sin and cause others to take part in his sin. As with the rest of the Old Testament, what has been written about David has been written as an example to us (1 Corinthians 10:11) so that we might learn, grow, and, in this case, avoid the snare of sin that David fell into. One warning of 2 Samuel 11 to us is sin is not to be flirted with nor trifled with. Its power is beyond our own and when we handle sin in our own way and strength, sin only multiplies. Only with the Lord’s strength and instruction can you and I find deliverance from it. The answer for the power of sin is not our own power or our own ability to cover our sin, but it is to handle sin according to God’s Word and God’s provision in Christ. This week, from 2 Samuel 11:6-27, we learn from David’s negative example about the power of unconfessed sin. Sin will truly take us farther than we are willing to go, keep us longer than we want to stay, and cost us more than we are willing to pay. This week, we will learn three places that unconfessed sin will lead us.

First, unconfessed sin leads to degrading deception. When David got the news of Bathsheba’s pregnancy, he had one of two options for how to handle it. Option one (God’s way) would have been for him to go before God, Uriah, his family, and the nation and openly confess his sin. Option two (the one he chose) was for him to avoid confessing his sin, lie about his sin, and try to cover his sin with ungodly methods. David panicked and began to behave completely contrary to the character that he had demonstrated for much of 2 Samuel 5-10 when he walked in victory and faithfully represented the Lord. He knew that the person that had to be involved or dealt with if he was going to hide his sin was Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba. So, he devised a plan to bring Uriah home and try to trick Uriah into going into Bathsheba in order to fool him into thinking that the child that Bathsheba had conceived was Uriah’s. Before David ever set this plan in motion and called for Uriah, there was a person other than Uriah that he had to first deceive and that was himself. His first deception was convincing himself that he could hide his sin from the all-knowing God. David wrote one of the most beautiful portions of the psalms (Psalm 139:1-6) about God’s omniscience and somehow in 2 Samuel 11 convinced himself otherwise. One great quote by Peter Leithart on this matter should give all of us pause as we consider that true wisdom is guided by character, not intelligence: “David’s blundering illustrates another important truth: Logic is not morally neutral; sinners are not only immoral but stupid, and if a leader wants to retain his ingenuity he should look to his integrity.” Once David sent to Joab for Uriah, Joab sent Uriah back to David where David questioned him about the state of affairs in the battle against the Ammonites. It wasn’t that David was concerned; he was faking it. He tried to send Uriah to his house so that Uriah would go into Bathsheba, but we see David’s power to cover his sin limited by the character of Uriah. Uriah was committed to obey the Lord. Exodus 19:15 and 1 Samuel 21:5 both seem to indicate that Israelite soldiers withheld themselves from sexual relations with their wives while at war because the act would make them ceremonially unclean. Since the ark of the covenant accompanied and led them into battle, they did not what to defile it with their uncleanness. Uriah also refused because he pointed out that “The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents.” In other words, he could not enjoy the company of his wife and leisure while his brothers in arms were at war and he knew that that was where the Lord was and wanted him to be. He also refused because his heart was with Israel’s army saying, “and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields.” In all three places, he demonstrates the opposite attitudes of David. David had violated God’s law, failed to reverence the Lord, and show his heart was not with his men. Uriah was the man David had failed to be in 2 Samuel 11 and served as a living rebuke to David. In a final effort, David tried to get Uriah drunk in order to fool him into going down to his house, but instead Uriah slept in the servants’ quarters in the palace. When we fail to confess and turn from our sin, we inevitably fall into the trap of deception. We deceive ourselves and must try to deceive others to cover our sin. One sin leads to another.

Next, unconfessed sin leads to harmful hostility. David’s power to cover his sin showed its limits in that he was unable to corrupt the impeccable character of Uriah, so he devised another, even more heinous scheme. He sent Uriah back to war with Joab requesting that Joab put Uriah into the hottest part of the battle and leave him unaided so that he would be killed. Did you get that? He had Uriah hand deliver his own death warrant. With unquestioning loyalty and a taste for brutality and cruelty, Joab obliged David’s request and put Uriah in the area where he knew the most valiant Ammonite warriors were and where Uriah would take the most fire. After Uriah’s death, Joab sent word to David about how the war went and reported that some men were lost as they approached the wall of the city. Joab knew that this was not wise warfare and that David could be angry and so he had the messenger ready to respond to that with the news of Uriah’s death. In response to hearing that many of his valiant men were lost, but that Uriah had also passed, David responded with peaceful affirmation that people die in war. David had effectively murdered Uriah and lost many other good men in the process. He was so blinded by the selfish desire to hide his sin that he was willing to sacrifice many good men, including Uriah, to do so. We can be fooled into thinking that people would never sacrifice the cause of Christ or harm bystanding brothers and sisters for their own selfish ends. Here is a prime example of it in David’s life. He was not only willing to be rid of one of his best in Uriah but he was okay with losing a group of great soldiers as long as he was able to cover up his sin and avoid being exposed. His unconfessed sin had led him from lying to murder. It never fails. Someone who is holding onto unrepentant, unconfessed sin will inevitably move from living a lie to causing harm to others who threaten to peel back their mask of falsehood. Sin leads to harm of those that become obstacles to our own deception. Jesus Christ came and laid down His life as one Man for the many, but David showed the attitude that the many must be sacrificed for the one man…him. May we never walk down the dark path where we are willing to tear others down to exalt ourselves and cover our sin. If we ever find our attitude as attacking others to make ourselves look better, we have somehow crossed over to building another kingdom.

Lastly, unconfessed sin leads to corrupt covering. After Bathsheba found out about her husband’s death, she mourned for him. David’s sin had also destroyed her life. He had taken her purity and her husband from her. She would also lose the son that she had conceived because of the sin. Afterward, David took her as his wife to care for her and raise the child that was his. In David’s mind, all was well (outwardly). No one could out him. Uriah was no longer an obstacle because he had been removed and, in the eyes of the watching world, he had done his deceased servant a major service by taking care of his widowed wife. While no one who could out David knew any better and perhaps thought more highly of him because of what he did by taking Bathsheba as his wife, there was One who knew the truth. There was someone that David had no power to deceive. Verse 27 gives to us the final chilling words of 2 Samuel 11 when it says, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” These words are both a great terror and a great comfort. They are a great terror to those in sin who think that they’ve gotten by with it. They are a comfort to those who have been wronged and sinned against. Nothing escapes the omniscient eyes of the Creator. In his sin and his attempts to cover his sin David had violated the sixth commandment by having Uriah killed (murder), the seventh commandment (adultery), the eight commandment in taking another’s wife (theft), the ninth commandment (lying), and the tenth commandment (coveting). Numbers 32:23 provides the sobering warning, “be sure your sin will find you out.” What does it matter if we somehow convince everyone else that we are something that we are not. God knows. Even David’s “right” actions in marrying Bathsheba were corrupt because he did so, not out of genuine care for her or respect for Uriah, but to cover his sin. Unrepentant sin corrupts even outwardly good actions because it turns those actions from genuine acts of righteousness to actions for façade and hypocrisy. They become a corrupt covering to hide our sin.

David’s son Solomon would provide a concise warning about the importance of dealing with sin the right way when he wrote: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Those wise words heeded would have prevented the disaster that followed David’s sin with Bathsheba. It is one thing to sin. It is quite another to persist in and try to cover and hide sin. Unconfessed sin leads to degrading deception, harmful hostility, and corrupt covering. Three words of instruction may help us avoid this trap. First, we must always watch and guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23). We cannot let pride, jealousy, and self-preservation ever motivate us. Second, we must avoid being our own savior. We are unrighteous saviors and our power is limited. Our salvation will only result in more sin. Instead, we must turn to the true Savior. Lastly, we must confess our sin immediately and openly. If we have not been open about our sin to the Lord and to those that it was against and affected, we have not biblically dealt with our sin. The good news is that there is grace and mercy at the foot of the cross. Christ died for our sin not so that we could live in it, but so that we might be free from its power and rule in our lives. It is only through His power that we are set free from sin’s power. Those who are truly the Lord’s are eventually brought to repentance as we see in David’s life in 2 Samuel 12, but woe to the one who can persist in sin and never confess or repent with no correction from the Father in heaven.