A Desperate Cover-Up
(2 Samuel 11:14-27)
I. The Cycle of Unrepentant Sin
A. Temptation
B. Infatuation
C. Flirtation
D. Commission
E. Guilt Alleviation
F. Self-deception
II. Lessons To Be Learned
A. To avoid sin’s power, avoid the first step
B. Temptation is constant; so should be our prayers
Introduction
For a decade after 1918, an Italian sculptor, Alceo Dossena, reproduced numerous pieces of Renaissance sculpture and sold the majority, at an average price of $200, to an art dealer, who claimed that he disposed of them as copies. However, as they were such clever imitations, the dealer sold the pieces as originals for fabulous sums to the world’s leading art museums and private collectors.
Dossena happened to learn the fact in 1928 and sued the crooked art dealer for a part of the huge profits. The resultant publicity made Dossena and his imitations so famous that, at an auction of his works in New York five years later, the Italian government felt it advisable to give each buyer an official document that guaranteed his purchase to be a genuine fake of the sculptor (15K-WS).
Last week we began a four-part series entitled, “When Good People Do Bad Things,” focusing on that infamous period of sinful behavior in David’s life. In the first sermon we looked at the sinful act itself: adultery with Bathsheba. This morning we will study in detail the immediate results of David’s sin: getting caught in the cycle of unrepentant sin.
Please turn with me to 2 Samuel 11. As we read this account, I want you to take note of the perils of getting trapped in sin. Sin, like quicksand, pulls downward with terrible force. Once one foot is stuck, we are tempted to use the other foot to free ourselves—and soon we lose the battle. This passage demonstrates for us that the way to avoid being sucked under by sin is to keep ourselves from taking the first step into sin’s quicksand. As I did last week, I would like to read the entire chapter.
The Cycle of Unrepentant Sin
The cycle of unrepentant sin is a deadly trap that each of us is susceptible to once we commit a sin. Each step of this cycle takes us further from the influence of the Holy Spirit and deeper into the clutches of sin. One commentator points out, “In the course of his downward slide from temptation to sin, David manages to disobey three of the Ten Commandments: ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife’; ‘You shall not commit adultery’; ‘You shall not mur-der’ (Exodus 20:17, 14, 13)” (EBC, vol. 3, pp. 927-928). Let’s examine the cycle of unrepentant sin.
Temptation
The first step in the cycle of unrepentant sin is temptation. I want to make it clear—even as the Bible itself declares—to be tempted is not sin. Temptation is simply a natural part of life in this fallen world. I think it safe to say that we should expect to be tempted on a daily basis.
While temptation itself is not sin, we can do things to lead ourselves into temptation. From the example of David, he wasn’t where he should have been, and so he opened the door for temptation to enter his path. When he looked down from his rooftop, a place that he should not have been, temptation came in the form of a beautiful woman bathing herself. A quick glance turned into a burning desire.
In the same way, we are often guilty of setting ourselves up for failure by inviting temptation to come our way. It may be certain place, or group of people, or an activity that provides the opportunity for temptation to begin to germinate and grow with intensity to the point that we can no longer resist it. Temptation is not sin, but we must be on our guard that we are not guilty of providing a fertile spot for temptation to grow.
Infatuation
From temptation, the cycle of unrepentant sin progresses to infatuation. This is the act of giving a “second look” to temptation. In David’s case, it was a literal second look at Bathsheba. As he continued to gaze upon her, he coveted her and began to devise a plan to have her. This is the point where sin enters: to gaze at the proposition set before us; to fix our hearts on enjoying the things that the temptation promises to us.
It’s like one of the scenes from the Disney movie, Aladdin. In this particular scene, Aladdin, a poor boy living on the streets of Agrabah, and his monkey, Abu, are about to enter the Cave of Wonders. Just before setting foot inside, they are warned not to touch anything inside except the magic lamp. Everything begins well. They find a magic carpet that leads them right to the object of their quest. It seems as though they would be successful.
But just as Aladdin reaches the place where the lamp was, Abu sees the biggest ruby he had ever laid his eyes on. The magic carpet tries desperately to distract Abu, but it cannot convince him to stop looking. Finally, Abu, overcome with greed, touches the ruby, and sets off a cataclysmic chain of events that almost cost he and Aladdin their lives.
That’s what happened in the life of David—he took a second look at temptation and set off a cataclysmic chain of events that he could not have imagined and were outside of his control. And the same things happens to us when we allow ourselves to become infatuated with temptation—we look again, begin to believe the lie, and sin gets a hold on our lives. Jesus, David’s ancestor, taught His disciples “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
Flirtation
The third step in this cycle is flirting with temptation. This is the act of seeing just how close we can get to the overt sinful act without actually “crossing the line.” For David, it was sending for Bathsheba and inviting her for a royal tour of the palace. He wanted a closer look to see if what he saw from a distance was just as appealing up close.
David is not just an exceptional case. He is not an example of an especially depraved individual. The truth is, more often than we are willing to admit, we find that we are also guilty of foolishly taking a closer look at temptation. Some of you are probably saying to yourselves, “Whoa. Wait a minute. What do you mean, Pastor? You must be mistaken about me? Surely you must be talking about someone else.”
Taking a closer look at temptation or flirting with temptation simply means that we have actively put ourselves into a situation where it is going to be very difficult to resist physically accepting temptation’s enticing offer. Some examples of this could include: entering a particular aisle in the grocery store where alcoholic beverages are stocked; thumbing through the videos that are intended for “adults only”; getting a copy of answers to next week’s exam at school; or acquiring some “tips” on how to make things look better for you at tax time. There is a multitude of ways in which we take a closer look and flirt with temptation. And once we begin to move in that direction, our minds begin to tell us things like, “I wonder what it would be like?” “It really won’t hurt.” “Go ahead, just this once.” “It’s no big thing.” “You can control it.” “Who’s going to find out?” “What does it really matter after all?” Now you’re just one small step from plunging in all the way.
Commission
The fourth step in this cycle of unrepentant sin is the culminating point. Up to this instance, everything has been played out in the arena of the mind. The only one involved tragic drama is the one who continues to toy with temptation’s tantalizing offer. We are now standing at the threshold of committing an outward sinful act.
David had a critical, life-altering decision to make: to follow his passions or God’s; to satisfy a pleasure for the moment or please his King. We know that he chose to abandon his commitment to God for a night of casual sex. Sin became the victor.
David finally convinces himself that it will be okay to give into his passions—just this once. “No one will get hurt. No one will ever have to know. It’s just a harmless fling.” So he takes Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, and commits adultery with her. David allowed the power of temptation to overcome him, and he sinned.
It seemed to be of little consequence or harmless enough at the time—no major commitment involved. It seemed as though it really was no big deal—in the morning it would be all over and forgotten as quickly as it began. It seemed as though it just didn’t matter. But as the story unfolds, we quickly discover once again that looks are deceiving. Benjamin Franklin had this to say about sin: “Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, it is forbidden because it is hurtful.” In a fleeting moment of lust-filled passion, the man after God’s own heart becomes the man far from God’s own heart.
At this juncture, David had a new decision to make—repent of his sin or excuse himself and rationalize it away. He could submit himself to God’s law (declare his guilt, seek forgiveness and make restitution), or stand above the law and serve as a law unto himself. We know that David chose to ignore the enormity of his transgression and simply chose to send Bathsheba on her way home without giving another thought to what he had done.
David’s response to his sin is a lot like our own at times. We like to convince ourselves when we do wrong that it’s really not that big of a deal. We rationalize and make excuses for our failures and then seek to blame it on our circumstances or on others. We don’t like to own up to the responsibility of our actions, especially when it involves admitting that we are wrong. So we choose to hold on tenaciously to our pride and forfeit the grace and forgiveness of God.
David never imagined that this night of casual sex would lead to pregnancy. He thought that it would amount to no more that a little uncontrolled passion, void of all consequences. But Bathsheba conceived. Now David had a real problem. Their secret rendezvous would soon become public knowledge. His sin would be exposed. The people would know what kind of king they were serving.
The fire that seemed so small and harmless was suddenly raging out of control. And David clearly understood the penalty for committing adultery as laid out in Leviticus 20:10, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” There were no exceptions to the law—not even for the king.
Guilt Alleviation
Now we come to the fifth step in the cycle of unrepentant sin: guilt alleviation. Once we have made the decision to push aside our need to seek forgiveness for our sins, we create a whole new problem. The normal consequence of sin is guilt. The only sure and appropriate way to get rid of guilt is to seek God’s forgiveness. When we decide not to go that route, we must find another way to remove this feeling. So we begin to plot a cover-up.
David’s plan for guilt alleviation involved a three-stage cover-up scheme. One commentator has noted that it began with a clean cover-up, followed by a dirty cover-up, culminating in a criminal cover-up. The first thing David tried was to get Uriah to spend time with Bathsheba as a normal, healthy response of a husband who has spent a significant amount of time separated from his wife. V. 8, Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah foiled his first attempt because of his unwavering integrity and commitment to God.
So David turned to plan B. His second plan was to invite Uriah to dinner and get him drunk because he thought that this would knock him off kilter and prevent his natural inhibitions from controlling his actions. However, the end of v. 13 tells us, But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home. Plan B proved to be futile also.
At this point, David becomes desperate. His first two attempts at a cover-up had failed. He was hanging on tightly to his pride and was unwilling to let it go. He felt as though he was running out of options—Uriah was not going to make this easy for him. So David decided that the only remedy to his problem was to have Uriah killed. Vv. 14-15, In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” With the aid of his trusted army commander, David finally succeeded in temporarily covering up his crime.
I am convinced that one of the main reasons that there has been such a rise in the need for professional counseling services in our country in recent years is due to an increasing need for forgiveness. As our nation has moved further from its Judeo-Christian roots, we have left behind our traditional means for obtaining help and guidance. We have turned from God for the answer to our problems and have sought to find the answer in ourselves—through jobs, money, technology, and other individual pursuits. But instead of finding answers, we’ve only succeeded in creating new problems.
There is no other way to find release from our feelings of guilt outside of finding it in the mercy and forgiveness of God. We can try our own methods of cover-up, but in the end we will undoubtedly discover that we have not been able to hide the truth well enough. The suppressed guilt that we carry inside will, in one way or another, come to the surface and it will expose us. That’s the lesson that David learned which we will look at next week.
Self-Deception
The final step in the cycle of unrepentant sin is self-deception. This is our natural response when we think that what we have done has gone unnoticed. When we are unwilling to repent for our sins and simply sweep them under the rug, we move to deceiving ourselves into believing that we have gotten away with it.
For the moment, it appeared as though David’s plan to clear himself of all guilt and responsibility had finally worked. After having Uriah murdered, he took Bathsheba to be his wife and she bore him, what appeared to be, a son through legitimate means. No one knew what had really transpired, or so it seemed. But the end of v. 27 makes it very clear that David’s sin and attempt to cover it up had not gone unnoticed nor would it go unpunished: But the thing David had done displeased the Lord. God saw all of David’s actions and He would see to it that David would eventually have to face what he had done. And be assured, friends, God still sees everything that we do, and He will call us into account for our actions someday.
The cycle of unrepentant sin as seen in the life of David is a case and point of what James warns his readers about in his epistle. He writes, each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death (1:14-15).
Lessons To Be Learned
What is God saying to us through is message this morning? I’d like to draw your attention to two lessons we can derive from this passage.
To Avoid Sin’s Power, Avoid the First Step
The first is, to avoid sin’s power we must avoid the first step. This means not giving temptation a second look, for that’s where sin gets its foothold. If Satan can convince us to look at sin’s offer just one more time, there’s a good chance that we will go ahead and succumb to its call.
In practical terms, this means that we must go about our lives recognizing that life in this world means facing temptation as a regular occurrence. We have to be aware of where our weaknesses lie and make every effort to see that we do not set ourselves up for failure. It involves taking the time to consider all of the “small sins” that threaten to undo us personally—the first drink, the first affair, the first theft from petty cash, the first “doctored” books, the first glance at a classmate’s answers. Along with avoiding what we know we shouldn’t do, remember to be faithful in doing what we know we should do—a lesson we learned last week.
Temptation Is Constant; So Should Be Our Prayers
The second lesson we can learn from this account is that temptation is constant, and so should be our prayers. Temptation begins in the mind and seeks to control every aspect of our being and make us a slave to sin. It is not a physical force; it is a spiritual force. In order to win the battle against spiritual forces, we must use the spiritual strategies and weaponry that God has provided for us. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 states: The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Furthermore, we are not going to know the battle plan un-less we are tuned into the Commander in this battle, God Himself. This means that we must make certain that the lines of communications between our Commanding Officer and us are open and utilized. We must constantly rely upon Him for the battle plan in order to be successful in the fight. The way we get the battle plan is through prayer. We must constantly check in with God to win against Satan’s attacks. If we fail to communicate with God every step of the way, we will be destined for failure. Prayer is our primary means of receiving God’s strategy for victory and it is guaranteed to be 100% foolproof.
Conclusion
2 Samuel 11 records the failures of one of the Bible’s greatest men of God. It stands as a warning against all who would become spiritually proud, for it demonstrates that even the greatest among us is susceptible to sin if our gaze is not firmly fixed upon the Lord at all times. It also stands as a warning against becoming caught in the cycle of unrepentant sin—a downward spiral that leads us farther away from God and deeper into sin’s quicksand. Two important lessons we can learn from this story and apply to our daily lives are that we can avoid sin by not taking the first step into sin by giving temptation a second look and that we can overcome the power of temptation by staying in constant communication with God through prayer.
Perhaps this morning you find that you have already taken that first step this past week and you would like to get out of it before you get in any deeper. There is a way out. Confess to God your faults and seek forgiveness from Him and from those whom you’ve offended. You will find the release your soul longs for. Do it today. You can begin to do it this morning right there in your seat.
Maybe there are some here who have been carrying around a past sin for a long time and you recognize that you are caught in the cycle of unrepentant sin. Perhaps for the first time you’re ready to be honest and admit that your attempts to cover up the sins of the past are not working. Would you like to break out of that cycle and know the peace of forgiveness and release from guilt? There is a way! Confess to God your faults and seek forgiveness from Him and from those whom you’ve offended. You will find the release your soul longs for. And I encourage you to do it today as well. You can begin to do it this morning right there in your seat.
I would like each of you to bow your heads and close your eyes. It is important that no one is looking around—this is a sacred moment. If God has spoken to you about a sin that you’ve recently committed or about sins from the past and you want to know His forgiveness today, then I encourage you to respond to His voice. I’d like all those who sense a need for God’s forgiveness from sin and freedom from guilt to pray right now and ask Him to do just that. In the silence of this moment, confess to God whatever is burdening your heart. Don’t try to sugarcoat it—tell it like it is—because He already knows it like it is. Ask Him to forgive you and give you the faith to believe that He has forgiven you. After you confess your sins to Him, then I want you to ask God to give you the courage to face those you’ve offended and seek their forgiveness as well. I’m going to give you a few moments to do business with God right now.
While everyone’s head is still bowed and every eye closed, I’m going to ask all those who sought for God’s forgiveness and strength this morning to please let me know of your decision so that I may join you in prayer for God’s strength in the coming days. Would you please just quickly raise your hand if you did that today so that I can pray for you?
