Turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel chapter 11, found on page 360 of the Pew Bible. And we'll notice how this chapter really is a turning point in the life of David. So let's give attention to God's word. It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Raba. But David remained at Jerusalem. And then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. And so David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Then David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity, and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, so she sent and told David and said, I am with child. Then David sent Joab saying, send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. And when Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered. And David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. And so Uriah departed from the king's house, and a gift of food from the king followed him. 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. And so when they told David, saying, Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to Uriah, Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house? And Uriah said to David, The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. Then David said to Uriah, Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart. And so Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house. In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter saying, set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die. So it was while Joab besieged the city that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the people of the servants of David fell, and Uriah the Hittite died also. Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war and charged the messenger saying, when you finish telling the matters of the war to the king, If it happens that the king's wrath rises and he says to you, why did you approach so near the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who struck Abimelech, the son of Jeroboam? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall so that he died in Thebes? Why did you go near the wall? Then you shall say, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. And so the messenger went and came and told David all Joab has sent by him. And the messenger said to David, surely the men prevailed against us and came out to us in the field. Then we drove them back as far as the entrance of the gate, and the archers shot from the wall at your servants, and some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. Then David said to the messenger, Thus you shall say to Joab, do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it. So encourage him. And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Amen. May God bless us a reading of his word. Well, we live in the age of the camera. People have cameras on their doorbells, on their dashboards in their car, constantly recording everything. And with cameras on our phones, we are capturing more and more live events. Many people in Los Angeles, they are using their in-house cameras to monitor their homes. They are seeing looters enter their homes or their homes going up in flames. Not only is there this rise of personal cameras, but there's also the rise of CCTV. And this is particularly common in the United Kingdom. The average Briton is picked up 70 times with various cameras when they go through their city. And on the road, it's even higher. There are cameras picking up car license plates so that every time you're out on the road, The authorities know about it. So no wonder Britain is described as the surveillance capital of the world. Well, why such investment in this big brother monitoring system? Well, it's to catch criminals so that nothing goes unnoticed. In our passage today, which describes David committing the sins of adultery and murder, there is no mention of God. until the end of the chapter. And there we read that the thing that David had done had displeased the Lord. There might not have been cameras in those days, but God noticed. what David had done. He saw everything, and God continues to see everything we do today. So I want you to notice you're to watch out for sinful temptations. The lie is that we get away with it, but the truth is God sees everything. Thankfully, Christ is the King who came not to take, but to give, so you know salvation. And children, I encourage you to draw a picture of eyes and remember that God is watching. He's watching you. He sees everything. So firstly, watch out when you become too comfortable. In verse one. So 2 Samuel 11 is a huge contrast to the previous two chapters. The previous two chapters we considered the loving kindness of David. David showed loving kindness to Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, and he humbly accepted it. David showed loving kindness to King Haman, the Ammonite. He rejected it. Chapter 11, David demonstrates not a loving kindness, but a self-love when he commits this adultery with Bathsheba. David's sin did not just happen when he was on the rooftop up on the palace, no, the seeds had been sown much earlier. In 2 Samuel 5, we read of David taking multiple wives and concubines. David was already engaged in sexual sin. Deuteronomy 17 gives this warning to Israel's kings. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. So we read there of the danger of taking multiple wives. It would turn the heart of the king away from God to other idols. David's heart is turning away from God. He's grown cold, and that's evident when he is not fulfilling his royal responsibilities. Notice verse one. It's this time of the year in the spring when kings go to battle. The narrator is making the point that David was not where he was meant to be. As king, his job was to lead his army in battle. Well, his men are fighting. They are destroying the Ammonites. And we considered the Ammonites last week. They were led by King Hanun, who had offended the Israelites by cutting off half their beards, by mocking them. And so we see Israel defeating them here. But absent from the battle was David. And it appears they don't need David. Joab has got it all under control. David had become comfortable. No longer was he dependent on God, now he is dependent on Joab. This has been described as David's midlife crisis. Things are going well for him. His enemies have been defeated. No longer are there the internal tensions within his kingdom. And so this is far from the early days when David was running away from King Saul, when he was trying to unite the kingdom under his reign. That was when he was dependent on God for every day of his life. Now things are going well for him. And that's the problem. Ellsworth writes, omission usually precedes commission, meaning by not doing what he should have been doing, he opens himself up to doing things he should not be doing. Well, David is comfortable. No longer is he busy. No longer is he fighting battles. He's got Joab to do that for him. He finds himself bored. He wants more out of life. And so as a result, he opens himself to this attack from Satan. He makes himself vulnerable. We often say the devil makes use of idle hands, and it's true. We live in a time of incredible comfort and ease. may be in your personal life, may even be in our congregational life. And that's why we need to be careful. If you find yourself too comfortable, maybe it's time for you to take on a challenge. Do something in your service to the Lord that you wouldn't normally do, so your dependence on Him will increase as a result. Maybe that's serving on the student lunch team meals on Sunday after the morning service. Maybe it's serving on the sound desk. Thanks, Angie, for taking it up this evening. Maybe it's inviting people into your home to serve them a meal, people that you don't know. heard of this new ministry this morning, door-to-door visitation in our neighborhood. You will certainly find you're dependent on God when you knock on a door and you have the excitement of not knowing who is behind that door. These challenges they cause you to cry out to God, asking Him for help. And as a result, you'll be less likely to do what you should not be doing. C.S. Lewis, in his excellent book, The Screwtape Letters, we read of the master demon saying to his apprentice, My dear Wormwood, I have always found that the boring periods of the human undulation provide excellent opportunity for all sensual temptations. So watch out for these seasons. Instead, it's important to be busy in kingdom work and in the responsibilities that God has called you to do. So be wary of growing comfortable and so less dependent on God. Well then secondly, when you give into temptation, it gives birth to sin, verses two to five. James in his letter tells us, each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. Sin, when it's full grown, it brings forth death. And so James tells us very clearly that temptation is serious because it leads to sin and then to death. And we see this pattern in our chapter this evening. While in Jerusalem, when David should have been in the battlefield, he walks on his rooftop and he sees a woman bathing. And that's where it should have stopped. Possibly we might say David should not have been on the rooftop that evening in the first place. But at the sight of this woman in a vulnerable position, David should have averted his eyes. He should have turned around. He should have went back inside. He did the opposite. He lingered. He kept looking. And he noticed this woman was not only beautiful, She was very beautiful to behold. And so David lusts after her. He desires her. Just like Eve in the garden looked at the fruit and she desired it. Well, instead, David should have been like Job. Job said in Job 31, I've made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman? And we must make that similar effort as Job to stop temptation from even happening. Now this is difficult. We live in a sexualized world that's even desensitized to sexual sin. It's all around us. It's even joked about. It's treated as not a big deal. This passage shows it is a big deal. It's out of control. It causes much pain and destruction. Now last week I gave the illustration of Britain retaking the Falkland Islands from Argentina. There was no way that Margaret Thatcher was going to allow this dishonor to be brought upon Britain. But while the Royal Navy was sailing down in this flotilla to the South Atlantic, the Royal Air Force bombed the airport on the island of Port Stanley. Why would, or Port Stanley, why would Britain bomb the very island that it was trying to save? Well, it was trying to prevent its airport from getting into the hands of the Argentinians so they could use it to their own advantage. And it's these drastic measures that you need to take to prevent looking at a beautiful woman or a handsome man and that turning into lustful desires. So it might be a filter on your phone. It might be an accountability app that shares what you're looking at with a trusted friend. This being very intentional that you don't get yourself into this position where you find yourself alone with a married man or married woman. It was seen as controversial, remember, when Mike Pence said he would not dine alone with another woman. That's not controversial, that's wisdom. These preventative measures stop Satan from even having a foothold in your life. But David doesn't stop after lusting after this woman. He is intrigued. He wants to know more about her. But when he finds out more, he's given warnings. She is Bathsheba, Eliam's daughter. She is someone's daughter. She is Uriah's wife. She is someone's wife. And so again and again, David is presented with these warnings to stop. But he doesn't stop. He ignores the warnings that this is wrong. Doesn't David have daughters off his own? How would he feel if someone was lusting after his daughters? Isn't David married? How would he feel if another man was staring at his wife? And so these warnings were given, but they fell on deaf ears. Well, you too are surrounded by those who can speak into your life, but are you willing to listen? Would you listen to your friends? Would you listen to your elders if they spoke the truth into your life? Now, David ignored the warnings and he sent messengers to take Bathsheba so that he could lay with her in his bedroom. David knew what he was doing. He was blatantly disobeying the seventh commandment and his insatiable lust for this woman. Well, what about the woman? What about Bathsheba? Commentators are divided, but it does seem that the narrator portrays Bathsheba as a victim in the story. He even includes why she is bathing. Verse four, this was part of her ritual cleansing. She was fulfilling her religious duties after a monthly period, describing her commitment to God. The rooftop would have been a private place, albeit except for the royal palace looking over it. And it's also the evening time. She wasn't bathing in broad daylight. Now, it would be wrong to think that the woman is always the victim. That is the narrative that is often presented today. That's not the case. Proverbs warns us about the woman with honey dripping from her lips, the seductress. Women are not always the victim. They can use their looks to seduce. And this is applicable to us. living in an era where modesty is out the window. We're allowed to dress whatever way we want, and if other people have a problem with it, well, that's their issue. But there is a difference between dressing in a seductive way and dressing in a way that is to look beautiful. And so you have a responsibility to dress in a way that's appropriate. And that's for guys, as it is for girls. And after David sleeps with Bathsheba, We read she returns home. David is not interested in a relationship with Bathsheba. All he wanted was sexual intimacy. We don't even hear of a conversation taking place between them both. The only words that Bathsheba says in the whole passage are in verse five, I am with child. This was the message she sent to David. David was wanting a short-term sexual fix. He was willing to ignore the consequences, but now Bathsheba is pregnant. David's sin had a much greater impact than he imagined. There's now this innocent child. There is the marriage of Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. And as king of Israel, his sin would impact the country. Up until now, the country had known much blessing under King David. And after this, we'll see much turmoil in the country as a result of David's sin. David's sin is seen as a turning point in his life. Brueggemann writes, for David and for Israel, we are at a moment of no return. Innocence is never to be retrieved. From now on, the life of David is marked, and all Israel must live with that mark. And Phillips writes, in a way that rivals the original fall of Adam and Eve through the first sin, because of a single sin in David's private life, one of the best eras of good things came to an end, not only for David, but for his nation as well. Then thirdly, the temptation to cover up sin only snowballs your sin, verses six to 17. So when David hears the news that Bathsheba is pregnant, he realizes his sin is going to be exposed. And so he quickly tries to cover up his sin. And we see three attempts. The first attempt, he orders Joab to bring Uriah home so that Uriah would sleep with his wife. As a result, Uriah would assume that this child would be his own. However, Uriah, in his commitment to God, evident when he mentions the Ark of the Covenant, and to his fellow man, he refuses to go down to Bathsheba, but instead sleeps at the palace door. The second attempt is David making Uriah drunk, thinking he will go home after that. But even in his drunken state, Uriah would not go to his home and be with his wife. And so David is simply making Uriah drunk. The third attempt. is David sending a letter to Joab, the commanding officer, to put Uriah in the heat of the battle, but then retreating without giving Uriah any notice, and so exposing him to the onslaught of the enemy. Effectively, David had Uriah murdered, for he knew Uriah would not survive this. And so what we see in these verses is how Uriah is the opposite of David. Uriah was an honorable man, committed to his king, to his God, to his nation. Uriah was a Hittite. He was not even born into God's covenant people, and yet he appreciated the privilege of being part of the people of God, and more than David did. This should have convicted David. Uriah was acting uprightly. David was falling further and further into sin. Uriah's death is mentioned four times in the passage. The narrator is emphasizing this fact again and again, pointing to David the murderer. And remember who David was, a man after God's own heart. He is the king, the king known for his loving kindness. He was not a cruel king, he was not a despot, and yet he is the one who fell. It's a reminder that not one of us is far from sin. It's a reminder that sin affects God's people. We're often so surprised when this happens in the church. No, we are also vulnerable. And so when you pray for one another, pray that God would protect, pray that God would strengthen each other to stand against temptation. It's no wonder that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10, therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. That's why we need to watch and pray that we do not fall into temptation. For that one sin that we think we'll get away with will only lead to more sins. The effect of David's sin is not limited to Uriah. Verses 18 to 24, we read the details of how Joab did it. The battle went right up to the city walls, a location where the Israelite soldiers were exposed. Archers shot down on the Israelites and killed a number of men, including Uriah the Hittite. So not only did Uriah die, but a number of Israelites also died as a result of David's adultery with Bathsheba. This indiscretion had resulted in the death of a number of men. Men who were loyal to David. Men who were probably married and who had children. And so their families would be affected. And so trying to cover up your sin does not work. It only leads to more sin. Then fourthly, your sin may please you, but it displeases the Lord. Verses 22 to 27. Joab tells his messenger to inform the king of what had happened, and if the king is angry at losing men and asks, why were they in such a vulnerable position in the first place, tell him Uriah is dead. David hears the account, and it's clear that he's pleased with it. He tells the messenger to tell Joab that he was not to let this thing displease him. This is what happens in battle. And so David is trying to normalize what he had done. If anything, it looks like David is showing kindness to Bathsheba in the passage when we see him taking Bathsheba into his home after she mourns the loss of her husband. And so David is probably thinking he got away with it. No, he was the one who had destroyed her life. The preceding verses show that what David had done had consequences. One of the interesting exchanges and one of the interesting consequences is between Joab and David. Joab seemed to be fully aware of David's sin with Bathsheba. That's why he mentions Abimelech dying because of a woman dropping a millstone. Such a strange illustration. It's as if Joab is saying to David, you too have been undone by a woman. This is a shameful thing. Up till now, David had been the righteous king. Joab, the unrighteous military commander and how he had killed Abner, that changes now. Now, David cannot trust Joab, and Joab loses respect for his king. And even greater consequences than that of Joab is that of God. Up till now, God had not been mentioned. Dale Ralph Davis says that silence of God does not indicate the absence of God. Now, we read of what God thinks in verse 27. The thing that David had done displeased the Lord. God saw everything. God saw David on the rooftop that evening. He saw David take Bathsheba. He saw Bathsheba return home alone. He saw David try to cover up. He saw the much blood spilled as a result. But he also saw David as a man who refused to acknowledge what he had done. And we'll look more at that next week. But throughout the whole scandal, God was there. All David had to do was cry out to God, ask God for strength. He should have repented of his sin, rather than allow it to escalate. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10, no temptation has overtaken you, except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. James writes, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. And throughout it all, David could have admitted his sin and turned from it. That doesn't mean it'll be easy. It'll be a struggle. But it would have stopped the devastating effects of his sin. More importantly, it would have pleased God. God wants a contrite heart, a life that demonstrates repentance, always turning from sin. constantly walking faithfully by God's grace. Too often we grow overly confident. No, you continually depend on God and in his strength for each day. Well then finally, notice Christ is a King who came, not to take, but to give, so you know salvation. The people of Israel were warned when they wanted a king, but having a king would have repercussions. A king in his power would deem it okay to take from his people. He would take their sons and their daughters. He would take their animals. He would take their harvests. And in our passage, we read of David taking. He took Bathsheba for himself. David, the greatest king of Israel, known for his love and kindness, Yet even he would give in to sinful temptation and commit adultery with Bathsheba. As a result, we need a king even greater than David, one that would not take for himself, one that would not give in to sinful temptation. Instead, we need a king that would give. It's only Christ that fits this description. He did not come to take from His people, but to give. Mark 10, 45, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus Christ is the only King who does not take from His people. He gives, He enables you to walk away from temptation, but He also forgives when you have lusted, when you have not walked away. His blood cleanses you of that sin. when he renews your life so you can walk in his ways. So that when you do grow comfortable or bored, you don't look to sexual desire for fulfillment. Instead, you fill your life with good things. Paul says in Philippians 4, finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. writer says, you are a new creature in Christ. Pursue and cooperate with God's transformation of your character in the realm of boredom and laziness. So watch out for sinful temptations. The lie is that you will get away with it, but the truth is God sees everything. And thankfully Christ is the King who came not to take from his people, but to give so you know his salvation. Amen. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we so often yearn for comfort, and yet that desire can be devastating. It's in comfort that we often lose our dependence on You, and we desire other things, things that are not good for us. And we pray this especially in the area of sexual temptation. Give us the strength to say no to this sin, that we would put preventative measures in place so we would not be tempted in the first place, that we would surround ourselves with friends who would speak into our lives, that when we are tempted, that you would give us the strength to run away. And Lord, forgive us when we have fallen, when we have lingered, when we have taken what is not ours. And so help us to repent and turn from our sin. Give us strength to walk in your ways. And we thank you for Christ, our King, who has given us his cleansing so we know forgiveness. He is the King who has transformed us so we can walk in his light. And so help us especially this week to depend on him. We ask this all in Jesus' name, amen.