Sin doesn't care anything about our morals, our love for Jesus or others or reason. It just wants to be satisfied, and it cannot. It's insatiable. It just wants its attention, and Satan is relentless in his attacks. And we know this.
That's why this story is so important to us. We're never out of sin's reach.
Okay, I get that, but I'm also never out of the reach of righteousness too, and so the war is on. Temptation stalks us.
Well, we are to learn how to put camouflage on. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Second Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
But for now, let's join Pastor Rick as he continues in Second Samuel chapter eleven with this edition of Cross Reference Radio.
Some are very strong when it comes to sexual lust. But very weak, maybe when it comes to substance abuse. You see, there's a brand for everybody.
So the four things a pastor has to watch is self—that's pride, exaltation. Yeah, I am actually pretty good. They're getting the best pastoring they're ever going to get. The best preaching has pride, sloth doesn't do his work. Gets up into the pulpit and tells stories and gives statistics because he's not digging into the Word.
When he feels that the Scripture is becoming so common to him that it's almost boring, he doesn't fight back. Then there is silver; he wants to get rich off the ministry. And then there is sex. One of those four are going to be hurled at the pastor, and it is up to him. To have countermeasures in place, unfortunately, that is true.
That he can have countermeasures, and this is also true. If that is his susceptibility, is yours too, because you have to deal with the same force and the four S's: sin, self, sloth, and sex, in some way. They're going to try to overtake you, and you are supposed to say, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." I have met men that were given to drink, and really, not other sins really didn't lure them. That was the one, and it did its damage.
So we cannot prevent unclean and wandering thoughts because they are invasive. But we can set up a perimeter. We can set up defenses to weaken them, to slow them down. That's what the salt of the earth means. The salt does not take away that which corrupts; it slows it down.
How much time do I need to get to heaven? That's how much time I need. I need it to slow it down enough for me to get to heaven. I don't want to live to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years old as Methuselah. How long did it take him to find his shoes in the morning, at that age?
My dad would say, "You're slow as Methuselah," and I never got. Who is that guy? And then I found out how old he was. Said, "Boy, if a hundred-year-old moves slow, how slowly does a nine-hundred-year?" Anyway, Paul writes to the Corinthians, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Taking every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, you've got to fight at it, and it is tough.
You say, Pastor, I've tried, and I keep failing.
Well, God keeps loving you, doesn't He? And He keeps expecting you to keep fighting it. What He does not expect you to do is quit, turn tail, and run, and plunge into the sin and justify.
Well, I tried; it didn't work out. That's a recipe for apostasy. Satan hates that you get back up. Job put it this way: Though he slay me, I will trust him. I put it this way: Though I might fail and don't understand why I don't get more help in this area, I will trust him.
Because I cannot unsee him as my savior, verse three.
So David, we're only up to verse two. We've got to get through this.
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?" You just gotta love that, right? Is this not the daughter?
So dramatic! I don't know. It transfers from the Hebrew, but whoever translates it into the English, I think they anyway.
So he liked what he saw, and he wanted to know: Well, is she married? Who is she? And the answer should have stopped him, and it did not. What a lesson! His flesh was gaining momentum; the spirit was being overruled.
Lust was morphing quickly into sin. Off and running, sin doesn't care anything about our morals, our love for Jesus or others or reason. It just wants to be satisfied, and it cannot. It's insatiable. It just wants its attention, and Satan is relentless in his attacks.
And we know this. That's why this story is so important to us. We're never out of sin's reach.
Okay, I get that, but I'm also never out of the reach of righteousness too, and so the war is on. Temptation stalks us.
Well, we are to learn how to put camouflage on, which is perplexing because why is it that when people wear camouflage, I can see them? Anyhow, we find that we may be after God's heart and still against God's. Heart and our behavior—we know that it does not have to be again the sin of David or Bathsheba. There are many brands out there. It's how we fight back that really matters.
And someone said, so others were in on this from the beginning, but none of them knew where this was going. Where was it going?
Well, it was covetousness first. And then came the adultery, and then followed the lies, and then murder, and not only murder, death, because it wasn't just Uriah who died because of this sin. There were other troops that were killed on the battlefield to cover David's sin, and it wasn't only. And I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but David was looking out for Bathsheba too. And sometimes I think, if Abigail were around the palace, probably all the times I think this.
If maybe she died, maybe she went back to her ranch, because I feel strongly if Abigail was still in the palace, that she would have deterred David from such things. She just had that going on for her gift of her personality. Where was she? We don't read of her. She had one child with David, as far as we know, and that was it.
And again, she either died or went back to the ranch. Hopefully, nothing. Worse than that, the daughter of Eliam. This is important to the story of David's life. This would be Ahithophel's granddaughter.
Eliam was his son, according to Chronicles. And that would make Ahithophel, who was one of David's counselors, who will join Absalom in his rebellion against David. And it's likely that this event left that sour note in his heart. You know, you sinned with my granddaughter, and he probably began to hate David after this. This would account also for her close proximity to the palace.
Why was she so close to the boss? She was connected. Her family and Uriah, being the grandson by marriage, to Ahithophel. Again, I mentioned she was evidently much younger. First Kings chapter one.
So Bathsheba went into the chamber to the king. This is when David was old.
Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shuahmite was serving the king. And so they point out that he was very old, and the inference is she was not, and that would mean that David's much older than her. And you know, you can't read the story without saying. How great would David have been had he not stumbled like this? And then you have to follow up and say, "But how great a lesson do I learn about God's mercy by just watching how He treats David, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" Well, he was evidently a convert to Judaism.
A Hittite was not a Jew. They lived in that region. Their glory days were past as a people, and This did not stop David finding this out, but maybe did David justify his sin? Said, "Well, you know, he's not really a child of Abraham or Jacob. He's really not a Jew.
Did he do something? Because that's what the flesh will do. The flesh will grasp a drowning man grasping for a straw.
So the flesh will grab at anything it can do to justify the sin and blind the host." Verse four. 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.
Well, this is interesting. David sent messengers, plural. See, there is some dialogue going on. It's not he sent a messenger. What was David thinking?
I want her. And that's it. The blinders were on. The tunnel vision was in place. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes.
So David, the next thing he did was let his own ladder down to hell. That's what David did, and that's what we can do. Paul, trying to put fires out all the time when those Gentiles started flooding into the church, they did not have the benefit of the Judaic upbringing. They had so much, you know, polygamy and just the idol, just so much junk. When they came into Christianity, and all habits die hard, and he had to deal with these things, and he did.
He says, "For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man." Anybody can understand that. Verse twenty-three of Romans seven. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind. And bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. It's in my flesh.
It's in me, and I am a sinner. And so the Bible, of course, does not sweep any of this under the rug. It says, and she came to him again. There's the two it takes to tangle. No protest, no resistance.
She would have been well within her right to say, "I cannot do that. I am a married woman." She does not. And just because we attain something. Does not mean that we are entitled to it. You can find a wallet loaded with money, and it's not therefore yours automatically.
It does not mean that God approves of something simply because He does not stop it. And this is one of the great lessons of the story. It says, "And he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity." This is going to be repeated. But this is an indication that she was coming off of her cycle, and therefore she was not pregnant. But she will be.
And the historian is meticulous in giving us the essentials. She returned to her house, was likely flattered and ashamed at the same time. We have no reason to believe that she was a wicked woman. She stumbled into sin. He seduced her, being you know the king and palace, and she being youthful, and she fell with David.
There will be more suffering than this. This is just the beginning, and they don't see that. They think that they've got away with the act. Verse five, and the woman conceived, and so she sent and told David, and said, "I am with child." Well, likely at least a month later. Thus, the purification that took place in verse four.
Again, God never owes us protection from the sins of indulgences. He does give them sometimes, but he doesn't owe them. And many times he withdraws and lets us learn the hard way. And this is going to be a hard lesson. Again, had David had been out to battle with things, how much different would they be?
Being a good example as a leader is especially difficult, and God knows that. And that's why when He tells the kings, "I don't want you multiplying horses. I don't want you multiplying wives. I want you to get into the Word." He was serious about that, and that's one area that none of the kings seem to have been interested in, and even David. And now you know it sort of paved the way.
That harem that he had that he should never have had. God will bring this up. He says, David, if that wasn't enough, I would have given you more. He will get him with that through the prophet Nathan next session. But so, therefore, it was the climax of years of not listening.
Yeah, it's lonely at the top. It's difficult, but there are other things that God gives to sustain. And you have to learn them and work to fight them, fight those appetites. Verse six, then David sent to Joab saying, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David.
Now we know he's going to end up killing Uriah, and I think that is the worst of the crimes. The adultery was bad enough. This one was just pushed it over the top. But when we get into David's reasoning, we understand. But that doesn't make it acceptable.
It just warns us. It says, "This is the stuff. If you're not careful, this is where you're going to be." And any of this is not meant to tell us, "Don't worry. You know, God has ways out of these things." That is true. But at what price are you willing to pay that pound of flesh?
Well, Joab's at the city, besieging it. The cover up begins, and it is a plan that is destined for doom, ending in many deaths. The Bible paints men as they are, and women. It doesn't cover up, you know, the blemishes. It puts them out in front.
Proverbs twenty eight verse thirteen. This applies to David. He who covers his sins will not prosper. But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. David will hide this sin for almost a year, at least.
Well, the term of her pregnancy before he marries her, and then Nathan deals with that. And there's at least nine, nine and a half months. I mean, of just that part of it, and then there's the time on the battlefield. This happens after the siege is over when Nathan confronts him. But I'm getting ahead.
Verse seven, when Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war prospered. David did not need this information from Uriah. He, in verse eighteen, makes it clear. He's other. Uriah knows that.
Why is the king asking me? It's like a private being called to the general, or even a sergeant. You know, called into the general's office. And so, how's it going on the battlefield? It's like that's not.
This is a staff officer question, not for an enlisted man. Yeah, there's maybe some exceptions, but that's certainly out of protocol. It is all attempt to hide his sin.
So Uriah is probably saying, "This is a little strange." Verse eight, David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house, wash your feet." So Uriah departed from the king's house, and a gift of food from the king followed him.
Well. Uriah is being told, "Wash your feet" is belongs to a euphemism, an idiom within the Hebrews. In other words, before you go to bed, you wash your feet. I want you to go home and sleep with your wife. And though he can cover up the pregnancy and say the child is Uriah's, be a problem if Uriah is not redheaded and the child comes out with red hair.
Right? Those questions, because we know David had red hair. That you know, we do this mildly humorous, but. Most of the harems, and for instance in Turkey, the overseers of the harems were Africans of dark skin, and that was one of the reasons why they did that. Anyhow, you know, suspicion would be aroused, and you'd have big problems from those sultans.
David is underestimating the character of Uriah, and Uriah is overestimating the character of David. It's messed up in life. I don't like that, but this is a fact.
So David sends a candlelight dinner or a fruit basket at least. He sends a dinner, but this is the awkward part. Bathsheba gets the candlelight dinner for two, and she's home alone. That's her first hint that David's trying to fix this, and it's not working because Uriah does not come home. He stays at base housing or in the barracks, I should say.
But Uriah, verse nine, slept on the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. He doesn't sleep at the doorway. David would trip over them when he got up in the middle of the night to get that glass of milk. But it's base housing. He's there at the palace, the palace guard.
He doesn't go home. Verse ten.
So when they told David, saying Uriah did not go down to his house, interesting how they others are involved. In the cover-up, they know when they escorted Bathsheba, and they knew this was wrong. But he's the king, and they're going to be loyal to him. David said to Uriah, verse ten, "Did you come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?
You came all this way. Why not? Any sane man would want to see his wife. It would be almost comical if it weren't so." Sin-filled and sin-involved. Anyway, some suggest that David was actually looking for the lesser of two evils.
And as this progresses, I'd rather kill Uriah than have Bathsheba stoned to death. That is the condition he created. The two of them created together. The sins we do, two by two, we answer for one by one. And he was going to have Uriah die a hero on the battlefield.
Is how it turns out to be. And may we never find ourselves in such a position. Verse eleven. 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 and eat and drink and to lie with my wife as you live?" And as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.
Uriah's devotion will get him killed. What? It's a man of God. Going to be killed by a man of God? The sin is ruthless.
It's God is saying no chokes. This is serious business. How? What are you going to do, Christian, when faced with such things in life? The name Uriah means Yahweh is light, and in those days, light.
Came from the sun or from fire, the flame. Yahweh is the flame, and he is certainly devoted to God. And when he says, and Uriah said to David, "The ark of Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents," that had to especially sting David. Because you know, where is God on Uriah's behalf? That's a whole question we're going to get into.
Because there are solid answers, I'm not sure I'll have time to get into that. Of why doesn't God rescue Uriah? What if it were me? I'm a godly man. I'm serving a godly man, and he's going to put a hit on me.
And why doesn't God do more protect my marriage? And we'll come to that at some point. But anyway, back to this, we have to remind ourselves.
Well, I guess maybe this is the answer to remember: God is not exhausted by death. Death is really not death to God. Uriah will count this a small thing when he gets to eternity. I'm getting again ahead of myself, but think of this: David, Bathsheba, and Uriah share the same heaven at this very moment, and they've been sharing it for thousands of years. You think they're up there with a grudge?
Of course not.
So we have to retain that when we go through these spots that God has a divine and eternal perspective, and we don't share all of that, nor should we, because we might be ending our lives to hurry up and get to heaven, which would be. A sin and wrong on many tiers, but the ark in Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents. He says David had to cringe at these words because they were his words to the prophet Nathan. I'm dwelling in this palace of cedar, and the ark of the covenant is in a tent. Uriah learned as so many of them learned.
We talked about Abishai. All these guys, he learned so much from David about God, and here is Uriah saying. I can't do this. The Ark of the Covenant was likely taken with them to the battlefield. It could have been in Jerusalem, but was likely taken with them to the siege.
It's really not that important. What is important is that it was under a tent, and he was identifying that his duty was on the battlefield, as the Ark of the Covenant had its duty given to the people by God. And this haunted David that he was up to no good. It haunted him throughout the year of broken communion. Psalm thirty-two, which he wrote after the ordeal was finalized.
When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groanings all day long.
So this bugged him. He was not casual about this. The thought that he was going to take out Uriah, he hated it, but he felt this was the lesser of two evils. And he put up a fight as always, but he could not reverse the deed. It was what it was.
It was too late for that now. And he says, "And my lord Joab and the servants of the lord are encamped in the open fields." Which is another shot at David. The king should have been there. Uriah should have been saying something like that about David. Shall I then go to the house and eat, drink, and lie with my wife?
And what was David going to say? Yeah. Of course, he could not say it to such a caliber of man as Uriah. Maybe Uriah felt he was being tested. Is David testing me?
Why is he asking? Why is he doing this? Seems a little precise. He had to pick up on some of it. He couldn't have been just like that dense.
Maybe he was. Anyway, he says, "As your soul lives, I will not do this thing." He slammed the door shut on pleasure first. What does David do?
Well, he makes plans to cover up this sin. He takes it to the next stage. His guilt is compounded by his betrayal of a loyal man, of a man that will not betray others. David, the king, and he knows it's eating him alive that he's doing this. But yet, the scent of sin—he's caught it.
And again, I feel strongly that he likely fell in love with Bathsheba, and he's going to protect her no matter what from the stoning. The law would call for both of them to be stoned. Nobody's going to stone the king. Saul killed the priest. Nobody lifted a finger.
He's pretty much safe. She is the one that would suffer the most. Verse twelve. Then David said to Uriah, "Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. This is a slow motion train wreck.
That's what we're watching. Verse thirteen.
Now David called him and ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go to his house.
So he tried getting him drunk. Maybe that would work. Intoxicating substances. That you know they are thieves. They enter the body and they attack the brains.
I didn't say the brain singular though. That does that to the brains, the person's ability to reason. But it doesn't mess up Uriah. David is trapped. He's trapped by the integrity of a man that is interfering with his nefarious cover up.
This has been the latest edition of Cross Reference Radio. Pastor Rick Gaston is teaching through the Book of Second Samuel, which details the reign of David as king of Israel. There are so many life lessons to be learned during these years of David's life. We're glad you've tuned in to hear more from God's Word. This radio ministry comes to you from Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Mechanicsville, Virginia.
If you're interested in Accessing more messages, just like this one, you can listen online or download these messages at crossreferenceradio dot com. You can also subscribe to our podcast by going to your favorite podcast app. We can't wait for you to step into the next teaching that Pastor Rick has for us.
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