In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the story of David's attempt to cover his sin after committing adultery with Bathsheba. He highlights the common human tendency to try and hide our sins and guilt, as seen in Adam and Eve's attempt to cover their nakedness in the Garden of Eden. David's first attempt to cover his sin was by bringing Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, back from battle and encouraging him to go home and spend time with his wife. However, when Uriah refuses to go home, David resorts to getting him drunk in the hopes that he will go home and cover up David's sin. The sermon emphasizes the importance of relying on God's strength and the power of His Spirit to overcome our fleshly desires and live in righteousness.

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 1 And now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith It is interesting that as we have come to the end of chapter 10 We have come to about the peak of the strength of the nation God has subdued their enemies round about They're strong, they're powerful It is noteworthy that at the time of the great strength Was the time of David's fall The Bible warns us that a man needs to take heed When he thinks he stands, lest he falls When I feel that I am weak, when I know I am weak When I know that I'm not able to handle the situation I am more apt to depend upon the Lord For I know that I can't do it in myself And thus, those times when I know that I am weak, I'm really strong Paul the Apostle said that he would glory in his weaknesses For when he is weak, then he is really strong Because he knows, I have to trust in the Lord, I can't handle this And the Lord's strength is made perfect in our weaknesses The time that I am in real danger is when I think, well I am strong I don't need any help here Lord, I am able to manage this quite readily by myself And it is in that time that I am usually going to fall Because I am not relying upon the Lord, but I am relying in my own strength In my own will in this point And that is the time when you are really in danger And you are subject to falling David had come now to the peak of the strength of the nation And it is interesting that it is at this point that David stumbled And fell into this great sin So it came to pass After the year was expired They had subdued their enemies, they are in great strength They have not thoroughly put down the Ammonites And so the kings go forth to battle David sent Joab and his servants with him and all of Israel And they destroyed the children of Ammon And they besieged the capital city of Rabbah But David tarried still at Jerusalem Up until this point David had led the troops year by year in their conquest of the nations But now that things are pretty well settled He sends Joab with the troops over to Completely subdue the uprising of the Ammonites against Israel They had gained victory over them the year before They had not totally destroyed them And now they are going to bring them into complete subjugation But again David feels that it is not necessary for him to go Joab can do the job quite readily Now it came to pass in the evening tide That David arose from off his bed In the areas where there are hot climates It is usually a custom to take a siesta And so David really got up from his siesta And he was walking on the roof of the king's house Now that sounds a little peculiar perhaps to us But if you were over there it wouldn't be peculiar at all Their gardens were usually on the roofs It was the patio area of the house quite often Even to the present day you find a lot of activity on the roofs of the house That's where the ladies hang their washing And there are patio tables and all And there's a lot of activity on the roofs of the house Actually they are flat roofs And it's really a good way to pick up a lot of square footage Of a nice yard you know just have it up on the roof And David was walking on the roof of the king's house And from the roof he saw a woman Who was bathing And she was very beautiful To look upon And David sent and inquired after the woman Who is she? And one said is it not Bathsheba The daughter of Eliam The wife of Uriah the Hittite And that should have ended it for David completely right there She's a married woman Being the daughter of Eliam We are told that Eliam was the son of Ahithophel Now we will be coming to Ahithophel pretty soon Ahithophel was a friend of David's In fact he was one of David's counselors A close friend in fact turn to the 55th Psalm Verse 12 And we find David making a reference to Ahithophel He said for it was not an enemy that reproached me Then I could have borne it Neither was it he that hated me That did magnify himself against me Then I would have hid myself from him But it was you A man my equal, my guide, my acquaintance We took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God In company When David's son Absalom rebelled against his father And drove his father out of the kingdom Ahithophel became a counselor to Absalom He turned against David Now Bathsheba then would have been the granddaughter of Ahithophel And it is interesting that though there is this tie Ahithophel turned and sided with Absalom In the rebellion against David He was a Might say a poor loser He gave counsel to Absalom And David had a friend who also counseled Absalom And the counsel that he gave to Absalom was different from Ahithophel's And David took the counsel of Hushai, this other fellow And it made Ahithophel so mad he went out and killed himself But we'll get to this fellow Ahithophel more as we move along with the story David sent messengers As I said he should have just stopped when they said the wife of Uriah Uriah was one of David's mighty men He was one of the captains of David's army He was numbered with the 39 mighty men of David David sent messengers and took her And she came in unto him And he lay with her For she was purified from her uncleanness And she returned unto her house And so David called her and Had an adulterous relationship And as a result she conceived And she sent and told David and said I'm with child, I'm pregnant There is a scripture that Moses declared to the Men of Gad and Manasseh He said and if you don't do this you have sinned against the Lord And you can be sure Your sin will find you out People talk about secret sins but That is a misnomer Sin is against God and The Bible says everything is naked and open with him With whom we have to do. In other words you can't hide anything from God There is no secret sin God even knows the thoughts that precede the sin The desire The intent And so David David sinned against the Lord He violated the commandment of God He went into another man's wife And as a consequence she became pregnant Sent the message to David Now David's first attempt was to cover his sin A very natural Characteristic of man Try to hide my sin Started in the Garden of Eden Where Adam and Eve After they sinned, conscious of their nakedness, sewed together fig leaves To hide their nakedness and trying to hide Their guilt, their sin Moses, when he killed the Egyptian, tried to bury him Thought that no one saw him. He looked this way, he looked that way, it said And then he killed the guy and tried to bury him Thought that no one saw him It's just a common thing for a person The first reaction when I realize that, hey, it's catching up with me Is try to hide my guilt So David sent to Joab And he said, send me Uriah the Hittite And so Joab sent Uriah to David And when Uriah was coming to him, David demanded of him How the Joab was doing How the people were doing And how the war was prospering Just sort of like, you know, talking to one of his captains How are things going, you know, how's the war progressing What's been happening and how's the morale And is everything all right And so he was getting a report firsthand From one of his captains concerning The battle against Rabbah The capital of the Ammonites And David said to Uriah Well, why don't you go home And wash your feet And Uriah departed out of the king's house And there followed him a portion of meat from the king However, Uriah slept at the door of the king's house With all of the servants of his lord He slept in the guard house With David's bodyguards And he did not go down to his own house Now, of course, David in trying to cover his guilt It was a smart ploy He thought, well, you know, bring Uriah home from battle For a couple of days, let him go home with his wife And he'll no doubt, you know, have relations with her And so later on when he finds out she's pregnant He'll just figure, well, it was when I was home on leave You know, that it happened So Uriah is thwarting, in a sense, David's plan He stayed in the guard house, he didn't go home And when they told David, saying Uriah did not go to his house David said to Uriah How come you didn't go from your journey? Why didn't you go to your own house? And Uriah said to David The ark and Israel and Judah live in tents And my lord Joab and the servants of my lord Are encamped in the open fields Shall I then go into my house and eat and drink And lie with my wife as thou livest And as my soul liveth, I wouldn't do such a thing And so Uriah seemed to be a pretty honorable guy He, you know, was thinking about how that, you know The people are living in tents And Joab and all the troops are out there on the open ground At night sleeping And man, for me to have that kind of comfort Go home and eat and drink And go to bed with my wife No, I can't do that, you know Not when, you know, my friends are all out there Suffering the discomforts of war So David said to Uriah Well, spend the day here And tomorrow I will let you depart, let you go back So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day And tomorrow And then when David called him He did eat and drink before him And David just had his servants keep pouring his cup Until he was drunk Now David figured if he gets drunk enough He won't know what he's doing, he'll go home So he made him drunk And at evening he went out to lie on his bed With the servants of his lord But he didn't go home He just staggered out to the guard house again And there flopped down and wouldn't go home So it came to pass in the morning David is faced with a dilemma You know, 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 you're so embroiled That you're doing abhorrent things That you never dreamed you would ever do Tragic how that sin has a way of just Well, leaven is a good type of sin Because you put a little bit in the dough And it just permeates through the whole loaf And so sin, a little bit of tolerated sin in your life Will permeate until it just fills the entire life Leprosy, another type of sin Which slowly spreads through the whole body Beginning at the extremities and the fingers or toes Leprosy deadens first of all the nerves It kills the nerves, so leprosy is painless But because you can't feel pain If you have leprosy in your hand You can put your hand down on a hot plate And not even know it's hot Until you smell the seared flesh Then of course the gangrene and the loss of the hand And leprosy is a horrible loathsome disease That gradually just destroys 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 Some are bound to fall and shame And when the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead She mourned for her husband Now the general period of mourning was For 7 days or for a notable person 30 days She probably mourned for his death for 30 days And when the mourning 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 We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study Through the book of 2 Samuel in our next lesson As we continue to follow David's attempt to cover his sin And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now I'd like to remind you That if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy For that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting One of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you With the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again, that toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience You can order online anytime When you go to thewordfortoday.org And while you're there Be sure to browse through the additional resources That include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs And so much more Once again, that's the word for today Online at thewordfortoday.org And for those of you who still prefer to write You can use our mailing address Which is The Word for Today P.O. 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 be with you and God bless you May He give you the strength To walk with Him In all purity, holiness, and righteousness That we might be as God would have us to be Living in complete trust in Him Not relying upon our own strength But relying upon His Spirit And the power of His Spirit To give us victory over our flesh And the things and the deeds of our flesh And thus, this week, may God set you free And may you experience His victory And His power working in you For the glory of Jesus Christ, our Lord We'd like to draw your attention To a couple of very special resources By Pastor Chuck Smith That answer some of the many questions About the third person of the Trinity The first of these two resources Is entitled The Person of the Holy Spirit And contains 12 messages That explain the baptism of the Holy Spirit In detail As well as how the Holy Spirit works In the life of the believer Now, the second resource Is entitled The Gifts of the Holy Spirit And consists of 19 messages Covering such subjects as Healing, prophecy, and faith Pastor Chuck not only explains How and why the gifts of the Holy Spirit Are available to the church today But he also encourages believers To fully understand the working of the Holy Spirit In a Christian's life Once again, you'll be asking for The Person of the Holy Spirit And the Gifts of the Holy Spirit For those of you wishing to call Our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 Once again, that's 1-800-272-WORD This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California