Sermon: The Tentacles of Sin

Well, before we turn to God's word, second Samuel chapter 11, verses six through 27, let's pray for the reading and preaching of God's word.

Our Father, we are thankful this morning that your mercies are new every morning, and that we have a true sign of it as we sit under your word. And as we hear it red and as we hear it preached and we say that we are in need of your word, we pray that you would thunder in our souls as we each have need. And we would find that you are breaking what is too often hard hearts and that we would find that your grace is sufficient

for sinners such as us today. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ, our Lord and our savior. Amen. Second Samuel chapter 11 verses six through 27. This is the holy and errand sufficient word of God. I'm gonna go back to verse five for a little bit of context. And the woman conceived and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. 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. Uriah went outta 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 of 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, Joab, and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife as you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. And David said to Uriah, 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, 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. As Joab was besieging the city. He assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men in the men of the city came out and fought with Joab and some of the servants of Joe David. Uh, among the people fell Uriah, the Hitite also died. Then Joe AB sent and told David all the news about the fighting, and he instructed the messenger.

When you have finished 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 near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Adam Maleek? The son of j uh, Jerabeth did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died in 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 Joe Abby sent him to tell. And 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 archer shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the kings servants are dead, and your servant Uriah, the Hittite is dead. Also, David said to the Mus 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,

though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks. Speak to God. Amen.

Passage ended last week with words that shook David's world. Bathsheba had sent word to him where she said that I am pregnant. And you know that it shook his world because he immediately takes action. He sends word to Joab Joab, the commander of his army, and he says, Jim, send me Uriah the Hittite. And you'll remember that this all began with David not doing what he should have done. He was supposed to be out with the army.

He was supposed to be out fighting the enemies of Israel. And that sin of omission led to this sin of commission where he takes the southern man's wife and now she's pregnant. And so he sends word to the commander of his army, Joab, and he asks that Joab would send Uriah the Hittite, who is the husband of Bathsheba back from the front to come to David's palace.

Uriah is one of the mighty men. Uh, he is one of the elite guard, one of the navy seals of David's army. And he is a faith-filled faithful man. And David is a scheming center.

What I wanna do first is wrap our minds around the narrative first and then we'll walk through a few things that we can pull from this narrative. So I wanna walk through it first, Uriah has come from the front, from the army, from the front lines, one of the mighty men, one of the elite guard. And he has come now to the palace and David's scheme has begun. He disingenuously inquires about the army and about the nation and about Joab

and about Uriah himself and about the war. He should have already known these things because he should have been out there. He was supposed to be on the front lines, at least with his army. It's a feigned interest.

He's not interested in the people, he's interested in himself. He's plotting, he's scheming. You'll notice that David is fearful, but this is not godly fear. He's simply fearful of earthly consequences. He's committed a heinous sin. He's forgotten who he is. He's forgotten that he's the king, that he's supposed to be bathsheba's protector, that he's supposed to be uriah's lord, that he's supposed to be the commander of the army, and that especially that he's God's man.

But the judgment of God, the abusing of God's law, the harm that he has done to others does not trouble him. He's in a very bad place. He's in a very dark place and he's not seen clearly.

And the downward scheme continues. He instructs Uriah as his king, as his commander. Go down to your house and wash your feet. And as Uriah goes, David follows it with some of his servants who have a present that they are bringing to the house to follow Uriah in. We don't know what was the present. Don't know, maybe some wines, some flowers, dark chocolates, some figs we don't know. But what we don't do know is that he's saying You're home.

Enjoy yourself. Enjoy yourself very particularly.

And the downward scheme continues.

Uriah, he's a faith-filled faithful man. He was a soldier. He's identified with the people of Israel. David as a scheming sinner is consumed with self. Uriah is consumed with God's people. David is gratifying self. Uriah remains true. He's home, and yet he chooses to to sleep at the door. He, he lies there with the servants of David and he refuses to go into his house. Did he desire to do so? I am absolutely positive he did.

And David, when he hears the report of Uriah messing up his sinful scheme, he's perplexed and he calls Uriah to himself and he wants to know why. And your eyes' response is a response of a faith filled faithful man.

The ark in Israel, he says, and Judah dwell in booths. That is their, their intents. And my Lord, Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Why didn't you go down? Because all the nation, all the people, they're out there. They're on the front lines in danger. And the very arc of the covenant, God's dwelling place with his people, it's out there.

Why didn't you go into Bess sheep? Because he wasn't consumed with pleasuring himself, with his beautiful wife. When the people of God were facing hardship and even the prospect of death, he's more about the people of God. And God is before his eyes and gratifying his immediate passions as David gave in so readily.

And you're meant to see the juxtaposition. You're, you're meant to see the, the difference between this, this faith-filled faithful man and this scheming sinner

and the downward scheme continues. David instructs Uriah to remain another day. He then invites him to a dinner. And there at the dinner he lavages him with all kinds of food. But it's the wine particularly that he wants him to take part of so that he can make him drunk and downward we go,

Jesus said in Luke 17, to the disciples, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come.

Yet still even having been tempted into drunkenness, Uriah did not succumb to David's scheme. He, he slept on the couch and still did not go down to his wife Bathsheba. And on the downward scheme continues, verse 14, David writes a letter to Joab, and in this letter he has the goal and he has the hardheartedness to descend it with Uriah. As Uriah goes back to the front, he's carrying his own death warrant with instructions.

Joab, put your eye in the front and attack the city. You don't attack a city, you're besieging. You're waiting it out, attack the city, put him in the front and then pull back and leave him out there so that he dies.

This faith filled faithful man. Be killed. Why? So David could hide his sin.

Our first point this morning, men will fail us. Men will fail us.

It bears repeating from a couple of weeks ago as we started this David narrative that that David is in many ways he, he, he's in many ways one of the best men in the Bible.

He set up for us over and over as an example. He, here's a faith filled man. He's the best of us.

And it's not a mistake that what happens is, is that you then get into this narrative where, where we begin to see this, this great faith-filled man, this man that is often set up as a model for us of what it looks like to have a heart after God, to be seeking God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. That he's also the man that could scheme in this kind of sinful way. That it's this man.

And it often surprises us and causes anguish,

especially when we see this in leaders among God's, people who will often fail the very people of God as they fail God leaders can become self-consumed and self-focused and severe and harsh and cruel as we see here. This is true of fathers, it's true of mothers, it's true of husbands, it's true of wives, it's true of elders, it's true of pastors, it's true of kings. And the effect can be great. And it's not an excuse.

Those in leadership are to see themselves as servants of those they have been given responsibility for. And we are to honor them and we are to lean into them. And we are to try and trust them as much as we can and speak well of them and support them. But at times and sometimes in drastic ways, they will fail us. Why? 'cause they're mere men.

And we're given the example of David and such technicolor to say, look, even the best of us, you can't wholly trust in and it's meant to point you to another, to that son of David that that you can say, look, look, that one, you can a hundred percent trust in that one. You can 110% trust in that one. You can a thousand percent trust and you can add all the percentages. There possibly are infinite and eternal. And that one you can completely trust in

because he is the faith-filled, faithful son of God who never fails.

He can't and won't.

Often people will critique Christianity and let's say Christians are complete fakes. Sometimes that's the case. Sometimes those who claim to be Christians are not changed by their claim. There's no life in them. There are false shepherds, there are false pastors. There's those, there are those plain. The part of Christians, there are weeds among the weeds, but on the whole Christians are not fakes.

We're just sinners. And we're sinners in need of grace saved by grace.

That means they will fail, hopefully only at times, hopefully only in small ways. Not scheming downward, spiraling ways.

But there's a warning here.

Alexander White, an old Scottish Presbyterian, is warning his readers about this passage. He said this before, you begin to read and think, as long as you can find your reading and thinking to the reading and thinking of children and fools, you will think it's impossible that all the self deceitfulness and internal hypocrisy that could possibly be in David and in the devil taken together could have so blinded David to the blackness of a sin

and the absolute certainty of God's dreadful judgments. But when you become a man in the books you read and in the matters of your own heart, and especially in the superlative, deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of your own heart, you will stop all your child exclamations over David and will say to yourself, I myself am David. I myself am a self deceiving man. I need grace.

All the roots of all the sins in all the world are right here.

They're in me.

And sin is so deadly.

Our second point, and notice that sins, tentacles reach far sins, tentacles reach far, they always go deeper.

David is busy scheming. He's lost Control. She's pregnant and he thinks now he can Regain control.

You're never in control With sin. You don't control it. It controls

It has you. You don't have it. Sinatra sin, his idleness gave birth to a look which gave birth to a lust, which gave rise to ruminating, which gave birth to adultery, which gave birth to scheming, which gave birth to lying, which gave birth to feigned care, which gave birth to drunkenness, which gave birth to murder.

Momentary delight for waves of pain,

you don't have sin. It's got you.

David thought he could take control. He just dig a little deeper, just dig a little deeper and he'll cover over that sin. He, he can hide it. A child, I remember, I don't know why this was particular about my grandparents' backyard, but in my grandparents' backyard, I always was digging in their backyard and they, they would say this to me all the time as a child, they would say, Jason, if you keep digging, you're gonna hit China.

We lived in Illinois. I have no idea. Is China on the other side of the world from Illinois? But as a child, I thought, if I keep digging, there are gonna be soup dumplings on the other side of this and maybe some noodles and,

but when you dig, you don't hit soup dumplings, let alone light.

When you dig a hole, it just gets deeper and darker.

The deeper you dig, the darker it grows.

Gordon Ketty commented in the attempt to maintain a sanitized facade and avoid public exposure, the guilty or prepared to add sin to sin layer upon layer and so become ever more deeply enslaved to their wickedness trying to cover over sin always leads to more sin and evil and it's always, always, always self-defeating.

David thought he would protect himself. He's killing himself.

Augustine said this, take it to heart. Be very sure of it and believe it. There is no one who does evil without, first of all, doing mischief to himself. David is scheming in his sin, trying to hide it, dig deeper, and he's hurting himself more and more. Oh, David, all you had to do was just confess and just repent and just believe

should have just cried out.

We often wonder, we, we look at lives around us where something just erupts or we experience it in our own lives. You've experienced it where it just erupts in your life and and you have that thought, how, how did we get here? How did that happen? I say, well, it happened with a fly.

I remember that wonderful little children's storybook.

Some of you children will remember this, maybe heard it recently. There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed the fly. She won't say why. There was an old lady who swallowed a spider that wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don't know why she swallowed that fly. She won't say why. There was an old lady who swallowed a bird. How absurd. Swallow a bird. She swallowed a bird to catch the spider.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don't know why she swallowed the fly. She won't say why. And on the book goes to cats and dogs and goats and to a cow. How do you end up eating a cow? It starts with a fly

and you try to cover up the fly and sends tentacles. Always seek to go deeper.

As we said last week, Kill it. There's That conviction. It comes to light in your mind and your conscience. It's sitting on your heart. You feel that burden. You just confess it to the Lord. You repent. You kill it before it kills you.

Someone told me the end of that storybook this morning, they said, it's actually a horse. And the end is what happens when you eat a horse, you die. Of course. And that's better Kill it.

Since tentacles also go wider, not just deeper but wider.

David's sin is already affected Bathsheba, but it doesn't remain content. She, she doesn't keep

within the boundaries. Sin doesn't do that. She always seeks to undo our plans. It always seeks to, to, to unsettle our schemes. More people are always affected. Lives are always altered. Lives are always change. Not simply your own. It's not just your personal sin, the child, Uriah Joab, the other soldiers that die in that battle. The nation will be impacted. Never think that your sin can be hidden as some kind of private exhibition.

It always affects others. It always stretches out a tentacles and it always goes wide.

That's the Lord's mercy. I thank the Lord for this all the time. It's a great mercy of the Lord that I don't know every way that my sin affects every situation or every person. Because if I understood all the ways that all the effects that my sin has has upon other people, I would be undone.

I'm thankful he doesn't overwhelm us with that. But that does not negate the tsunami of destruction. It does affect sin is never content. Don't think you've covered it over

our third point.

God is faithful. God is faithful. David was not, but God is. Notice when we read through that you, we read through the entire narrative. And God, he's never mentioned in the narrative.

It's as if he's not involved. It's as if he's not there. David's just scheming. He's plotting, he's doing his thing. It's as if he's in control. He can scheme, he can hide, he can even orchestrate. We so often think our deeds are hidden in darkness, hid with lies, hid with lis whispers, hid with side glances, and in secret are only known by us not true.

There's a play on words in the Hebrew that the English doesn't capture. It's in verse 25 and 27, verse 25. David comforts Joab by saying this. He says, this is what it says literally in the Hebrew. Don't let this thing be evil in your eyes. That's the literal, don't let this thing be evil in your eyes. And in verse 27, the thing David has done was evil in Yahweh's eyes. There's great comfort in that.

Psalm 1 21. We are told that we have a God who neither slumbers nor sleeps, he, he doesn't close his eyes. It's comfort to the troubled soul. He sees all, nothing is hidden from him. He misses nothing. Psalm 66, verse seven, nothing escapes the gaze of God. And you see it even in the text, even in Uriah's faithfulness. This is a sign of it. It's the Lord's mercy in the person of Uriah. David is frustrated with Uriah, but it's God that is frustrating David through Uriah.

It's an act of mercy. God's pursuing David. He's not going to let him go. Uriah would not go down to his house, to his wife because God would not provide David with such a cover for his sin. God sees God is work as at work and God is faithful always.

So as we briefly mentioned last week, that Paul can save himself. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of who I am the foremost. And every Christian can say that I am David.

I'm the worst. I'm worse than David. I'm un unfaithful

and he is faithful.

I can say as a Christian, I, I'm David. I'm worse than David because I know my heart.

I know my own self-deception and what lurks I, I know in part what my heart has chased after what it's excuse, what it's desired, what I think I've hidden.

I know my shame and my malice and my envy and a portion of these things and a portion of pride and lust and coveting. And, but I know it more than I know any of yours.

And we know how we excuse ourselves, how we rationalize, how we treat our own folly as something to quickly paper over

and we will be incensed with that person sin.

And we know he sees, he knows my heart and I know he gives grace and mercy.

He's not blinded to us, but he came to live and to suffer for us to give grace to such wayward sinners.

So what do you do? You repent. Oh, David, just confess it. Repent and believe there's grace. Sufficient. Ah, wow. Did you mess up? Wow. Is your sin, grievous, confess, you repent and you believe.

I looked to him who's ever faithful?

I was taking out my garbage yesterday and 90-year-old plus neighbor was walking by and he has various health problems. So we were talking and I was asking him, is he ready to die? And sharing Christ with him. And he, uh, he said, I hope when I show up to the pearly gates, I haven't messed up too much. I said, oh no, you have,

you've messed up and you've messed up too much. But thankfully, that's not the way in

looking to Christ and faith is we enter only by his grace and his grace is sufficient To cover over all your sins.

Now Christians, let me speak to you for a second. Having said that, you, you're recipients of that grace

and, and so you've received that grace and so you're to fight sin, you're to see it for the enemy that it is. And so you don't try and hide your sin. That little piece of gossip, that occasional drunkenness, that's stealing a glance at pornography, that small indiscretion on your taxes, that tiny bitterness harbored toward a sister in Christ. That little sowing of a bad rumor about someone to someone else, that little piece

of nugget that you found so much pleasure in that little critique, that little white lie, Kill it.

No one knows wrong. No one's hurt by it wrong. Nothing comes of it wrong.

You can't hide it.

He sees it and it's Opposed to him and it's destroying you and it's affecting others.

Kill it.

It always, always wants to burrow deeper. And it always, always wants to spread wider. It has tentacles. It's like water that finds the lowest point. Sin will keep spreading and find the lowest point until you drown or you stop it up and get rid of it.

Confess, kill it, and live to Christ.

To do this, you must examine your heart regularly. It takes effort. Now, there are some of you in the room that are overly introspective and you're constantly looking within and you're beating yourselves up about everything and anything. That's not what we're talking about. We're not looking within to beat ourselves up. We're looking within. We're examining ourselves so that as we find sin, then we can quickly run to the cross.

The cross of Christ is ours. His blood is shed for sinners. Forgiveness is ours. Repentance is possible. Confession is right and it's needed.

But that requires knowing your heart to some degree, which requires that you examine yourself to some degree so that you can confess to some degree so that you can repent to some degree so that you can seek forgiveness so that you know the life-giving joyful delight of the grace that flows from the cross.

And that requires effort. You have to search.

Why did that lie so easily? Come off my lips.

Why was there so much anger in me when I heard that? Why did I defend myself first? Why didn't I say something in response to that blasphemy? Why was I so cold to their sorrow and to their pain? Why was I so critical?

Why was I so bitter?

They're so good at being experts of examining others.

Search deep and don't you settle with surface answers. Inquiry of yourself. Don't allow false names or innuendos or sham terms as labels for your sins. Name 'em. Name 'em so you can confess them so you can repent from 'em so that you know, oh, you know the freedom of that grace of forgiveness and the joy that accompanies it and the peace that flows from it.

Finally, Would you be much in prayer for your own soul? Be much in prayer for your own soul.

John Owen said he that would be little in temptation. Let him be much in prayer. Jesus taught us to pray, didn't he? And that motto, prayer lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

We so often pray for family needs and for bodily needs. How much more should you and I be praying for our souls?

We want, as apostle said, to pray always. It makes you watch for it orients you to God. It will help you to be careful. It will make you soft to his grace. It will make you more resolved against sin. And our father is faithful. He hears and answers such prayers.

David lost sight of God,

but God didn't lose sight of him.

He's just leading him as we'll. See, next week we get a little taste of this week. He's pursuing him, he's after him. And as we'll see next week, he's not going to let him go. He's leading him to where he should have been at the very beginning when the fly was there. Just, just confess it, David. Just repent from it. David, just receive the forgiveness for it, David, and then walk

because he's faithful. His grace is sufficient.

David lost sight of God, but not God of David.

Pray for your souls and let's pray for each other's souls. Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful that you are a God who does not leave us trapped in our own darkness and sin that you shed the light of your truth. And you have provided sufficient grace to cover over all of our sins in Christ.

Truly. Your grace is greater than all our sin

that you have chosen to reconcile. Rebels, adulterers, murderers, liars, thieves, slanders, gossips, blasphemers rebels to be children of yours.

What a great God you are and what an incredible salvation you have given. And we know the grace of your forgiveness and the joy that there is in our salvation. That is holy of your grace. And may we present our bodies to you as a living sacrifice, hating sin, and living to your glory with the grace and the strength that you give us by the power of your spirit. We would be wholly and acceptable living sacrifices before you, for you are worthy, so very worthy.

Thank you for being our faithful God and making us your people. We pray all of this in the strong name of Christ or Lord and Savior. Amen.