David: A lesson in hiding sin

The story of David in Samuel 11 is a perfect example of how the enemy will use our desire to hide to his advantage to get a foothold in our lives.

In Samuel 11 it says this:

/ / In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. They destroyed the Ammonite army and laid siege to the city of Rabbah. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem.

Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty take a bath...

And we aren’t going to read the whole story, but here’s the synopsis. David finds out who she is and they tell him that she’s a married woman. He tells his people to bring her to the palace. He sleeps with her. She gets pregnant. And when she tells him, his big idea is to get Joab, the leader of his army to send Uriah home so he’ll sleep with his wife and be none the wiser… But Uriah has too much honor and sleeps on the steps of the palace because he said, “While my brothers are out at war, how could I be at home celebrating with my wife?” So he says, OK, stay one more day, invites him for dinner, gets him drunk to try and send him home and sleep with his wife, but that still doesn’t work. He sleeps at the palace gate with the guards again.

So David, King David, the guy who wrote the Psalms… writes a letter to Joab, the leader of his army, and hands that sealed letter to Uriah to bring to him. Uriah delivers the letter to Joab and the letter reads, “Put Uriah at the front where the battle is the fiercest, and then pull back so that he will be killed.” Sure enough. Uriah dies. Bathsheba mourns her husbands death. David invites her to the palace and makes her one of his wives.

Talk about the story of hiding after hiding after hiding. David chose to HIDE from:

RESPONSIBILITY

Or instruction. His duty. what He’s supposed to do.

2 Samuel 11:1 says, When kings normally go to war....David stayed behind in Jerusalem.

A little hiddenness will be ok, right? I know I’m not supposed to do this, but just this one time. I know it’s not right, but just this one time. The enemy sees a chance to get his foot in the door.

If David was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing, this would not have happened.

Listen to what I’m saying here, this is intentionally choosing to hide from who you are and what you are created to be. That’s the issue. God has laid something out for you and you are actively ignoring it, or hiding from it.

TRUTH

They tell David exactly who she is. She’s Bathsheba, the WIFE of Uriah the Hittite. Don’t worry about that. We’ll cover that. Bring her to me, he says. Let’s disregard what I’m being told. Like me and smoking, You know it’s not good for you, you know it will ruin your voice, your lungs, breathing etc… ya ya, I’ve got this. Ignoring the truth for our own reason.

Have you ever noticed that given enough time we can convince ourselves of anything? And the enemy will always try to convince you to keep thinking about it until you’ve talked yourself into a solution that you think you’ve come up with yourself.

I’m the king. I’m just going to invite her over. She looks like a nice girl. Uriah is a Hittite, he’s not even an Israelite. The Hittites were actually one of the groups of people that were supposed to be completely destroyed when Israel took over the promised land. There shouldn’t be any Hittites alive. Maybe David convinces himself the Hittite doesn’t deserve one of his Jewish people as a wife. Maybe he’s convinced himself that he’s king and he can do whatever he wants. Maybe he’s just made a mistake, and now he’s in it, and doesn’t feel like he can get out. So what’s he do next?

ISSUE

In David’s case this was hiding his direct sin. Now we really get in to it. Let’s cover up the sin. Let’s cover up what we’ve done wrong. How can we do that? How can we make someone else think they’re responsible, or at least get the eyes off of us?

Again, I want you to see how this isn’t always about sin. I used to be so insecure about who I was, my weight, how I looked etc.. that I would make fun of myself before someone else could, I was constantly picking on myself in hopes I would hide the fact that I was so afraid someone else would. I was hiding the issue. I was hiding the thing I was afraid of.

David realizes he’s done wrong. Instead of repenting, owning it, exposing the sin, he does everything he possibly can to cover it up and hide it.

Hiding turns into more hiding, which turns into more hiding, because the more we hide the more the enemy has a foothold and the harder it seems to get out. Soon we hiding in our...

FEAR

David reacts in fear. We all do. What will happen. What if they find out. Shame begins to control our every move. dictating how we can get out of the situation we’re in. We make worse decisions when we are afraid. I always think about a cat backed up into a corner. A person living in fear is much like this. As you approach them they keep backing up more and more until they feel pressed up against the wall and then what happens? They spring. Someone gets hurt!

This fear, this shame, pushes David to murder… and often times, in the end, we try to

JUSTIFY

When report comes back to David that Uriah has been killed, his response in 2 Samuel 11:25 is, “Well, tell Joab not to be discouraged. The sword devours this one today and that one tomorrow! Fight harder next time, and conquer the city!”

But we all know David had told Joab to back off, forfeit the fight, and any other soldiers that would get caught up in this, just to see his problem go away.