The Story Chapter 12 Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• STORY OF WHEN I WAS A BOY WITH THE MUD AND THE SHED AND TONY.

• That mud was calling my NAME!

• The allure, the draw, the desire. The attraction. Sin can really pull us in. You may not have mudded up the neighbors shed, but we can all identify with my situation in three ways.

• First, we have something inside of us that wants to do wrong (THE DESIRE TO THROW THE MUD AT THE SHED). Second, our lack of goodness affects others (I GOT TONY IN TROUBLE ALSO). Third, there are always consequences to our choices (CLEAN THE SHED).

• We see all these things at work in The Story.

• David has it all, God has been so good to him. David has the Midas touch, he never loses a battle, and he expands the Kingdom when he finally takes the helm of the whole nation.

• It is good to be David. He is at rest and we learn from 2 Samuel 11 that David lets down his guard and as a result makes tragic choices that cause a crucial shift in David’s life, family and Kingdom.

• It begins innocently enough, as many sins begin.

• SLIDE #2

• 2 Samuel 11:1–2 (NIV) 1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. 2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,

• SLIDE #3

• A moment of weakness can lead down a pathway of bad decisions.

SERMON

I. Sin doesn’t end with the initial act.

(David commits sins and tries to cover them up.)

• How many times have we done something we knew we should not have done and in order to cover it up, we did things that were even worse than the initial act?

• Sin usually does not end with the initial act as we see in the case of David.

• Boy if the saying IDLE HANDS ARE THE DEVILS WORKSHOP (which is not a biblical quote, but does have roots in the Bible) were ever true it was true with David’s situation.

• David’s sin starts out with a seemingly innocent decision.

• In verse 1 we see that David was really in the wrong place, he should have been off to war, leading his army, but instead he chose to send out Joab.

• Then one evening when David was having trouble sleeping, he made the fateful trip on to the rooftop.

• He sees this smoking hot woman taking a bath. Now, seeing the naked women was not so much the problem, I mean it does not appear that he went on the rooftop to see what he viewed, but what he did with the situation made the issue a real problem!

• SLIDE #4

• 2 Samuel 11:3 (NIV) and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”

• He just could not walk away, it was like me, mud, sticks, and a nicely painted wooden shed for a target!

• David did not resist, he was the King, why would he have to resist, and then he takes the next step.

• SLIDE #5

• 2 Samuel 11:4 (NIV) Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home.

• That is bad, David is in the wrong place, then he followed it up with the wrong reaction, then the wrong action, then he will make things worse with the wrong reaction!

• Well, that was fun and it is over, right?

• SLIDE #6

• 2 Samuel 11:5 (NIV) 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

• Oops! NOW WHAT! David is the King, this cannot happen! So David comes up with a plan, he does not want to get caught! BTW, Do you think God knows what is happening?

• In Verses 6-14 David comes us with a plan, he is going to have Joab send Uriah home and David is going to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba! She is hot, should be no problem right?

• Well, there was a problem. Unlike David, Uriah is a man of integrity and refuses to sleep with his wife as long as his companions are in the field of battle!

• SO now it will go from bad to worse, David hatches plan “B”. He cannot get caught so he did what he thought he needed to do.