In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the story of David's attempt to cover up his sin. David initially tries to manipulate the situation by having Uriah, the husband of the woman he had an affair with, killed in battle. However, his plan fails and he is confronted by the prophet Nathan. Nathan tells David a parable about a rich man who takes a poor man's lamb to feed a traveler, which angers David. But Nathan reveals that David is the man in the story, exposing his own sin. This sermon highlights the tendency for humans to judge others harshly while excusing their own sins.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit, like a dove Will descend upon your life And make you whole David's attempt to cover his sin As we pick up in 2 Samuel 11, verse 14 Now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith David is faced with a dilemma, you know, that this first ploy is not going to work This guy's not going to go home So it came to pass in the morning that David wrote a letter to Joab And sent it by the hand of Uriah He wrote in the letter saying, set Uriah In the forefront of the hottest battle And then retire from him that he may be smitten and die So David is conspiring to murder Uriah Sin has an interesting way of compounding You get involved in something and it's Not very serious maybe at first You know you shouldn't, it was wrong But then things start piling up You try to cover it And it gets deeper and deeper and deeper until your soul embroiled That you're doing abhorrent things that you never dreamed you would ever do So David, infected with sin Finds the thing growing, finds the thing compounding Until he finally is sending with Uriah A note to Joab that is the death knell for Uriah David is in conspiracy to murder him And it came to pass when Joab observed the city, that is he had been studying it That he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew the strongest men were of the enemy And the men of the city came out and they fought with Joab And there fell some of the people of the servants of David and Uriah the Hittite also died Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war He charged the messenger saying when you have made an end of telling the matters of the war unto the king If it so be that the king's wrath arises And he says unto you Why did you approach so close to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? And he makes reference to a case in the book of Judges Which shows that the book of Judges was written by then They had their history recorded by this point Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerebosheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall? And he died in Thebes? Why did you go so close to the wall? If David is challenging Joab's strategy Then you're to tell him Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead So the messenger went and he came and he showed David all that Joab had sent him for 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 That is we pursued them right back to the gate Which was a poor battle strategy And the archers shot from the wall upon your servants And some of the king's servants are dead And your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead Then David said to the messenger Go and tell Joab don't let this thing displease you For the sword devours one as well as another Make your battle strong against the city Overthrow it and encourage him So rather than sending back a message That would castigate him for this poor strategy Just go back and tell him well can't help The sword is going to fall Some are bound to fall Shame And when the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead She probably mourned for his death for 30 days And when the morning was passed David sent and called her to his house And she became his wife And she bore him a son But the thing that David had done Displeased the Lord Now David Really thought that You know that takes care of it it's all over And probably just sort of congratulating himself On his clever treachery David is sort of a hero now In the eyes of the people He has taken into his harem The poor pregnant wife The widow of one of his fallen captains So that the people Say my look at the way he stands behind his men you know He takes care of their widows when They are killed in battle my what a marvelous king Magnanimous David And David no doubt felt that You know pretty clever Bases are all covered You know and I got this new wife But the Lord Sent Nathan unto David And he came unto him and he said unto him There were two men In one city The one was rich The other was poor The rich man Had exceeding many flocks and herds very wealthy But the poor man had nothing except one Little ewe lamb Which he had bought and nourished up And grew up together with him and with his children It did eat of his own meat drank of his own cup It lay at his bosom and was as Unto him as a daughter it was just a family pet There came a traveler to the rich man And he would not take one of his own flock Or one of his own herd To dress it for the wayfaring man that was come to him But he took the poor man's lamb And dressed it for the man that was come to him And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man And he said to Nathan as the Lord liveth The man that has done this thing shall surely die David pronounced the death sentence Upon a man for such actions And he shall restore the lamb fourfold Because he did this thing he had no pity And Nathan said to David Thou art the man It's interesting how horrible our sins look When someone else is committing them When I'm doing them I can always give an excuse I have a rationale there's a reason But if you're doing it Horrible, how could you? I'm disappointed In that human nature isn't it Let someone else do it man I'm quick to judge I'm ready to sentence them to death Our sins look horrible When someone else is committing them But if I'm committing them it's not really that bad Our Lord talked a lot about forgiveness Gave some interesting parables concerning forgiveness Knowing human nature He realized that we have a tendency to Hold grudges against people But really the things for which we often hold grudges Are far less than our own offenses against others And so the parable of the Master who had a servant who owed him 17 million dollars He called him in and he said Note is due I want you to pay And the fellow said I can't give me some time And I'll try and work it out And he said well Tell you what forget it This same servant went out and got a fellow servant that owed him 15 bucks Took him by the neck and said alright You pay me And the guy says oh I can't pay you right now give me a little time And I'll get it to you He says no way man you've had enough time And he had him thrown in debtors prison Word came back to the Master of what he had done And he called him in and he said hey How much did you owe me? 17 million bucks And did I not forgive the debt? Yeah How is it that I heard that you went out And you had a fellow servant thrown into prison because of a 15 dollar debt And he said take this fellow and throw him in prison until he is paid The last penny Speaking of Forgiveness Again It's so important that we have a forgiving spirit God has forgiven us so much We need to forgive others We have a tendency to forgive ourselves Very readily very easily But to forgive others is something again David was judging himself That man shall surely be put to death as the Lord lives Nathan said David You're the man And thus saith the Lord God of Israel I anointed thee King over Israel David a man who had experienced the anointing of God upon his life Then I delivered thee Out of the hand of Saul A man who had had God's anointing a man who had known God's deliverance And then he said I gave thee Thy master's house Thy master's wives Unto thy bosom I gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah And if that had been too little I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things I would have given you whatever you needed David Notice I anointed thee I delivered thee I gave to thee And so we've been anointed of God We've been delivered by God And oh the gifts of God to us and yet In spite of all of this David went out and coveted more Lusted for more Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord To do this evil in His sight David you hid it from man but you didn't hide it from God You did it in God's sight God was watching that whole Nefarious affair God was watching you did it in His sight Remember that whenever you sin You're doing it in His sight Why would you do this to violate the commandment of God And do this in His sight For you have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword And you've taken his wife to be your wife You've slain him you're guilty You slew him with the sword of the Ammonites Just as much as you've run the sword through him yourself David You're guilty Now therefore The sword shall never depart from your house Because you have despised me And you've taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife David's oldest son Amnon was killed by his brother Absalom David's second son Absalom Was killed in his Rebellion against his father In the battle David's third son Adonijah Was killed by Solomon when Solomon took the throne The sword did not depart from his house David saw his three oldest sons Well he didn't see Adonijah but he saw the two older sons slain He experienced the grief of the sword Coming to his own house You're guilty David you're the man You've done it The Lord said thus saith the Lord verse 11 Behold I will raise up evil against thee out of your own house I will take your wives before your eyes and give them unto your neighbor And he shall lie with your wives in the sight of the sun For you did it secretly but I will do this thing before all of Israel And before the sun Now when Absalom rebelled against David And was coming from Hebron with an army David fled from Jerusalem he didn't want to fight against Absalom He couldn't bring himself to fight against his own son And so rather than fight David fled from Jerusalem and said We'll let the Lord take care of it the Lord wants to Give the throne to Absalom fine you know he just committed the whole thing to the Lord When Absalom came and took Jerusalem then this fellow Ahithophel His counselor said now You want to really establish yourself in the eyes of the people as the king The best way to do that Is on the top of the palace there on the roof put a little tent And put David's concubines in the tent And then in the sight of all of the people you go into that tent to David's concubines Actually when a new king took over the kingdom He inherited the concubines or the harem of the previous king And that was just a sort of a cultural thing it was signifying hey I'm the new boss around here and so Absalom Right there inside of all of Israel would openly go into the tent of the concubines Thus David was disgraced and humiliated by his own son As his wives were Used by Absalom in the sight of all the people You did it secretly David it's going to happen to you Before the sun now at this point at this point Let's turn to Psalm 51 And let's read the response of David To this news from God You see we have the problem that God said that David was a man after his own heart And when we read these kind of activities we say Wait a minute how could David be a man after God's heart And do these horrible things Psalm 51 will give you the insight Having heard And notice what the title of the psalm is It is to the chief musician a psalm of David When Nathan the prophet came unto him After he had gone into Bathsheba David's been faced with his guilt thou art the man David prayed unto the Lord Have mercy upon me oh God According to thy loving kindness According unto the multitude of your tender mercies Blot out my transgressions Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin David crying out unto the Lord crying for mercy Crying that he might be washed and cleansed For I acknowledge my transgressions And my sin is ever before me Man it's been on my conscience I couldn't escape it I acknowledge my transgressions Let the wicked forsake his ways The unrighteous his thoughts Let him return unto the Lord For he will abundantly pardon David acknowledging confessing And then he said against thee And thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight What we need to realize is that all sin is against God It may affect other people It may be involved with other people But the sin is against God because it is God's command that I'm violating So every sin is against God And God sees, God knows There is no secret sin Against thee and thee only have I sinned I've done this evil in thy sight That you might be justified when you speak And be clear when you judge Behold I was shapen in iniquity And in sin did my mother conceive me I confess to my nature of sin My fallen nature But behold you desire truth in the inward parts And in the hidden part you shall make me to know wisdom Now purge me with hyssop And I shall be clean Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow Make me to hear joy and gladness That the bones which you have broken may rejoice Remember he talked about the bones being weary within him Like an old man Hide thy face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities Create in me a clean heart, O Lord And renew a right spirit within me Give me a clean heart, God Let me start over again Cast me not away from thy presence Take not your Holy Spirit from me And restore to me the joy of my salvation That's the thing that David had lost The joy of walking with the Lord The joy of fellowship with God, it was gone And that is always the consequence of sin Is the broken fellowship with God And the joy of that fellowship And David is saying, restore to me the joy Of thy salvation And uphold me with your free spirit And then I will teach transgressors your ways And sinners shall be converted to you Deliver me from the blood guiltiness, O God For thou art the God of my salvation And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness O Lord, open my lips And my mouth shall show forth thy praise For you do not desire the sacrifice, else I would give it You don't delight in burnt offerings But the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit And a broken and contrite heart, O God You will not despise Do good in your good pleasure unto Zion Build up the walls of Jerusalem And then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness The burnt offerings, the whole burnt offerings And shall offer the bullets upon thine altar So David's prayer unto the Lord at this time When he is facing the awareness of his guilt We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study Through the book of 2 Samuel in our next lesson As we continue with The Death of David's Son And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now, I'd like to remind you that If you 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Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include the call letters Of this station with your correspondence And now, on behalf of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you who share In supporting this ministry with your prayers And financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith Continues his verse-by-verse study Through the book of 2 Samuel That's right here On the next edition of The Word for Today And now, once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith God bless you And give you a beautiful week May the Word of God dwell in your hearts Richly And may God minister to you In a very special way His love this week May there be special demonstrations To the extent that You'll just sort of Be awed By how much God does love you As He reveals Himself Through Jesus When a family is torn apart because of Drug or alcohol addictions Or any addiction, they need help to Restore their loved one to a normal And functioning life. That hope Is U-Turn for Christ. U-Turn for Christ Is a residential drug and alcohol Program specifically designed to help Men and women overcome An addiction and live a productive life All through the power of Jesus Christ Hi, this is Pastor Chuck I'm well acquainted with Pastor Jerry And the ministry of U-Turn for Christ It's my estimation That it is one of the most effective Ministries I know to help people Turn their lives around Without reservation I recommend This ministry For more information about a U-Turn for Christ Location nearest you Visit us at our website at U-Turn for Christ dot com Or call us at area code 951-943-7097 This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California