[0:00] Please turn to 2 Samuel chapter 11. 2 Samuel chapter 11. I'm going to read the whole chapter.
[0:12] ! It also will be on the screen as well.! But David remained at Jerusalem.
[0:33] And it happened late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and that woman was very beautiful.
[0:46] And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, and the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he laid with her.
[1:03] Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness, and then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant.
[1:14] So David sent word to Joab, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. And when Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing.
[1:24] And how the people were doing, and how the war was going. And David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house and followed him a present from the king.
[1:41] But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all his servants, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house.
[1:53] David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house? Uriah said to David, The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in the booths.
[2:05] My lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink, to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.
[2:21] And David said to Uriah, Remain here today also and tomorrow, and I will send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem, and that day and the next. And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk.
[2:37] And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord. But he did not go down to his house. In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by hand of Uriah.
[2:51] In the letter, he wrote, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down and die.
[3:04] And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell.
[3:18] Uriah the Hittite also died. And then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting. And he instructed the messengers, When you have finished, telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, Why did you not go so near the city to fight?
[3:39] Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall, who killed Abimelech, the son of Jerubaseth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebes?
[3:51] Why did you go so near the wall? Then you shall say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So the messengers went and came and told David all that Joab had sent to him to tell.
[4:07] And the messengers said to David, The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field. But we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.
[4:17] And the archers shot your servant from the wall, and some of the king's servants are dead. And your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, Do not let this manner displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another.
[4:37] Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it. And encourage him. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.
[4:49] And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
[5:01] This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We enter into a new part of our series, which is considered part two.
[5:15] And this is the rise of the King of Kings. The series that began back in 1 Samuel was the nation longing for a king.
[5:26] We saw the king being instilled, David, replacing Saul to the reign of God's king. And today, unfortunately, we see that reign coming to ruin.
[5:43] But when man's reign comes to ruin, it somehow naturally brings God to rise as we see his greatness rise above our own.
[5:56] I got a question for you. What happens when our own sin seems to threaten the promises of God? What happens when our own sin begins to threaten the promises of God?
[6:15] Many of us know the feeling and the experience of watching something so good, it makes so much sense, logical sense. Everything is going well.
[6:26] All to all of a sudden of just unraveling because of a decision that should have never been made. Perhaps maybe it was a moment of carelessness that damaged a relationship with somebody that you cared about.
[6:42] Or maybe a private sin in your life that grew and expanded until it can no longer be hidden from others.
[6:53] It's moments like these that force us to ask an uncomfortable question. What happens when our own actions, our own sinful actions, threaten the very promise that we once trusted, that we once have experienced unfolding in our lives?
[7:15] When we arrive in 2 Samuel chapter 11 here, this is the story of David, where it appears to reach one of the most disturbing points of all Scripture today.
[7:32] We should feel the weight of the Scripture today. Up to this point, David has been the model of courage, right? He's been the model of humility.
[7:43] He's been the model of devotion to the Lord. Very wise, very restrained. I mean, he defeated Goliath in a time when the nation of Israel wouldn't, were scared to go out to battle.
[7:57] But the moment that David heard Goliath profane the name of the Lord, it drew him up out of the crowd to go forth when nobody would.
[8:10] He spared Saul's life multiple times throughout 1 Samuel. When he could have easily taken advantage of the kill shots, he united Israel in the second book called Samuel.
[8:25] And in chapter 7, God promised that David's throne would endure forever. And David's response to that promise in chapter 7, 2 Samuel chapter 7, verse 18, it's striking, it's worth noting.
[8:41] David said, Who am I, O Lord? And what is my house that you have brought me thus far? Everything seemed to be moving toward the fulfillment of God's promise.
[8:57] And then we get to chapter 11. Suddenly, the king who once modeled faithfulness becomes the very example of moral collapse from adultery to deception, leading to then murder.
[9:18] And the story unfolds. I want to pick up on some narrative details for us because I think it's important because this chapter is propelled by this word sent in the Hebrew.
[9:31] It's a name, it's a word that is repeated multiple times throughout this passage. Look with me. In verse 1, instead of going to battle as kings were expected to do, David sends Joab.
[9:47] Then later in verse 3, look with me. David sends to inquire about the woman. In verse 4, David sends messengers to take her.
[10:00] In verse 6, David sends for Uriah. And in verse 14, David sends a letter that ultimately leads to Uriah's death.
[10:15] Over and over again, David is using his specific authority to send others out to carry out consequences of his sin, to empower David to sin, to carry out his own sin.
[10:34] And the story slowly realizes or reveals a sobering truth and a reality. The problem we see in David actually is not unique to David.
[10:46] It's very important for us to realize today or begin to realize because the same pattern that led David into sin is the same pattern that continues in every heart on this earth.
[11:00] Right? Very soon, we will begin to see that God's promises are not contingent upon hearts, upon human hearts, but solely upon his divine hearts.
[11:15] That is what his promises are contingent upon. However, while they aren't contingent upon our hearts, that doesn't minimize the battle that we have in all of our hearts, even today.
[11:29] There are serious consequences that we will see unfold if we leave them unchecked.
[11:40] And for that reason, I found it helpful to unpack the passage today in three separate sections that are labeled as reminders. So, three reminders today.
[11:53] And I made it this way because I believe that we forget very quickly how sin will grow, how sin will deceive others around if left unchecked, and also how sin destroys lives.
[12:10] And so, three reminders today. The sermon title is, It Should Have Ended on the Roof. And I'm going to borrow a quote from John Owen for the main points.
[12:26] Be killing sin or it will be killing you. And I'd like to pray as we get into these couple reminders in our time today.
[12:38] And I pray that the Lord does help us to be reminded today. Let's pray. Lord, I come to you as no one special, a steward of your word, flawed as all, but so dependent upon you to speak to this church body.
[13:04] Help to empower the words to hit hearts, not because of what I say, but because of what your word says. Help us to be rooted and anchored solely in your word today as it hits us, however it may.
[13:20] Let it change us because we know that we are being sanctified in our lives if we are in Christ. And if anybody is not in Christ, we know that it is calling them to something else other than sin, calling them to your grace.
[13:36] Let the call be heard to everyone gathered here today. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. The first reminder that we have is in verse 1 through 5.
[13:53] The reminder that our sin grows in idle seasons. Verse 1 opens with what appears to be a simple historical narrative. It says in verse 1, In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel.
[14:19] But David remained at Jerusalem. This detail actually carries an enormous amount of weight when we remember what has happened in previous chapters.
[14:33] The context before. David previously, in just a couple chapters before, he was experiencing victory after victory. He had extended kindness to Mephibosheth.
[14:47] Nailed that one. Mephibosheth. And kindness to Hanan. And we see this progression.
[14:58] These enemies are being surrounded. They're being defeated. Everything is good. The kingdom is secure. And God's covenant promise that he made to David in chapter 7 is sort of reaffirmed in all of these confirmations regarding circumstances surrounding David's life.
[15:19] Right? Yet in this moment, something suddenly changed for David. It says, but David remains.
[15:33] Actually, the Hebrew is actually more emphatic with the but David remains. It's hard to translate that in English. But in other words, the seasons when kings go out to battle had arrived, David stayed behind.
[15:52] Instead of leading the army into conflict as a king after God's own heart for God's people, he remained comfortably within the safe walls of Jerusalem.
[16:07] I mean, Jerusalem was basically emptied out. He had all his military and all Israel was with this battle. And we might ask, what in the world is David doing?
[16:22] Why is the king abandoning his God-given role while the nation faces this battle? However, maybe a better question is this.
[16:35] what happens when someone slowly drifts away from their God-given responsibilities over time?
[16:48] Verse 2 provides the answer. Something happened. David rises late in the afternoon. Now, did you notice that?
[17:00] He's, that's quite a slumber. He's quite comfortable. He rises late in the afternoon and walks on the roof of the palace.
[17:14] And from that elevated vantage point, he notices a woman who is bathing. And the narrator simply states that the woman was very beautiful.
[17:26] And now, the text does a careful job not to portray this woman as the cause of David's sin. She was actually, the text actually reinforces that what she was doing in verse 4 was very noble.
[17:44] It was righteous what she was doing. She was actually in privacy of her home. The roof would be the most private area where nobody could see except the king's palace rose above all the other residents in the area.
[18:00] And so, at that very moment, she was purifying herself according to the law in Leviticus. Simply to say, after her menstrual cycle, according to the law, she was to purify herself.
[18:13] She was seeking the Lord. She was obeying the Lord's commands. Everything Bathsheba was doing was honorable.
[18:26] And at the very moment that David notices her, she's obeying the law of God and David's attention is captured by the desires of his own heart. Being this far detached from this narrative, we could probably all explain like, well, we could tell you what David should have done, right?
[18:47] And y'all can look at the sin in your own life and look back, right? Hindsight 2020 of what you should have done, but he didn't.
[18:59] He should have turned away. The story should have ended right there on the rooftop, but it did not. Verse 3 tells us that David inquired who's interested in this woman.
[19:13] And when the report returns, it's filled with warning signs. Hear these voices coming back to David as he's inquiring about this woman obeying the law of God. They say that, is this not the Bathsheba, right?
[19:29] Is that not the daughter of Eliam? Is that not the wife of Uriah? In other words, she's not just an object, David.
[19:43] She has a name. She has a father. She has a husband. And not to mention, this husband is out fighting your battle.
[20:00] David has lost his perspective of humanity. What a reminder for those of us here in this room who are tempted even by a click on the internet with porn, right?
[20:14] where human beings are reduced to disposable objects in every warning sign is ignored.
[20:29] We know what we ought to do, but we talk with, we align with Paul. We do what we not ought to do, but we do the things that we not ought to do and the things we not ought to do, we do.
[20:41] We're stuck in this battle. So despite these warning signs, David presses forward. And verse 4 doesn't really give much details.
[20:53] It's very brief and is brutally brief for that. He sent, he took, he lay. That's it.
[21:04] And for the first time, we see David becoming the very kind of king that Samuel warned the nation of Israel about in 1 Samuel chapter 8.
[21:16] A king like all the other nations that they wanted would take, he would take, and he would take. And look at what's happening here.
[21:27] This contrast is shocking. This is not the David that once spared Saul's life. This is a king who now uses his authority to satisfy his desires.
[21:45] Let's pause right there for a moment because I believe that some of us today may be standing on a similar brink. The temptation may look a little bit different than this situation, but the pull and the desire to lean into our sin and to just have a little sin here and there, but still kind of maintain control.
[22:11] Maybe it's an adulterous relationship that maybe you fantasize about in the quietness of your heart. Nobody else around you knows, but the Lord knows your thoughts.
[22:23] Maybe it's you're embarking in this endless click of pornography on the internet, whether you're a man or a woman. We know that both are a struggle, especially in our sexualized culture that we live in.
[22:40] It's everywhere. It's on ads. It's on TV. It's on these kids' channels that our kids are watching. It's pitiful. Maybe it's dishonesty in your business.
[22:52] Maybe it's academic shortcuts or just simply bitterness that's taking deep root in your heart. I think some of us may be standing on a similar brink of leaning into sin.
[23:08] And sin's whisper always seems harmless at first, doesn't it? Seems satisfying. But from the very beginning of Scripture, we see the same pattern. It's nothing new.
[23:19] Genesis 3 tells us that Eve saw that the fruit was good. It was delightful to the eyes. It was desirable. And she took and ate of it.
[23:35] Church, this is what happens when human desire is allowed to rule in the place of God's commands. Just as David abandons and sits and watches the nation going out to battle as he sits in the comfort of his own home, waking up in the afternoon, living his best life now, this is what happens when you let your guard down.
[23:58] In that David's sin begins, it's cultivated in this season of idleness. It's a reminder for us today.
[24:09] Sin grows in idle seasons. When things are going well, we tend to slip, right? It takes on many dimensions.
[24:23] I can't nearly hit every dimension that takes. Allow the Holy Spirit to minister to your own heart of what that season looks like in your life, but it's simply to say it should have ended on the roof.
[24:35] Shouldn't it have? The consequence appears immediately as verse 5 records Bathsheba sending a message to David, I am pregnant.
[24:51] that's hard. With that message, there seems to be an avalanche now in David's life that's occurring that began from David's actions.
[25:12] And here we see the second reminder, our sin will never be satisfied. David now attempts to cover up these consequences.
[25:28] The pregnancy, the pregnancy is the problem, right? He fooled everyone, nobody saw him sleep with Bathsheba, he can cover that one up easy, but a baby, not so much, especially after her menstrual cycle when her husband was out.
[25:45] So, this is quite a pickle here. David now attempts to cover up the consequences of the sin of verse 5.
[25:58] And so, he goes to plan A. Plan A is pretty simple. Operation, convince Uriah that this child is not David's, but it is his, right?
[26:13] And so, from verse 6 to 8, David summons Uriah from the battlefield and pretends to inquire about the progress of the war, right?
[26:25] And then instructs Uriah to return home. So, he calls Uriah from the battlefield and then says, like, you know, a little small talk. I'm not a fan of small talk.
[26:35] I know some of you struggle with that. It's an art, but we're all growing and sanctifying ourselves through that, some of us more so than others. And he has this pointless small talk about the war.
[26:48] He doesn't care about the war at all. He cares about what he needs to accomplish with Plan A. And so, he instructs Uriah, you know, just go home, bud.
[26:59] You've been fighting hard. Go wash your feet, he says. Now, this is code language back in the day. This is an expression of implying rest, but also sexual intimacy with your spouse.
[27:10] So, go wash your feet. In verse nine, it reveals that Uriah refuses to go home. Instead, he sleeps among the servants of the king.
[27:26] He refuses to rest in the eloquence of the palace. to even go home and sleep with his wife and even just go bathe.
[27:39] He refuses to. And when David questions him in verse 10, Uriah's response exposes a stunning contrast between Uriah and David. He says, the ark in Israel and Judah dwell in tents.
[27:54] Shall I then go to my house and lie with my wife? The irony is striking here. Uriah, a foreign soldier, a Hittite, foreign soldier demonstrates a level of honor and loyalty that David himself is failing to display.
[28:16] This is a great reversal. In other words, the pagan soldier behaves like the righteous king, and the righteous king is behaving like a pagan soldier.
[28:30] This is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Imagine the conviction that this would have subliminally put upon David as he's playing his small talk, trying to get him to get this plan A going, and to realize Uriah is acting more righteous.
[28:50] Imagine that conviction. A soldier of the army refuses comfort because the rest of his men and the ark of God are out dwelling in tents, not in any comfort at all.
[29:02] Well, needless to say, by the end of verse 11, plan A failed. So, David, he's wise, he's very crafty, he figures plan B will be intoxication.
[29:18] We'll get the help from Jim Bean, or whatever your favorites are. Verse 12 through 13, David invites Uriah to meet, to have a meal, and deliberately gets him drunk, completely drunk, hoping that a clouded mind will accomplish what a clear conscience could not, right?
[29:43] Yet, even in drunkenness, Uriah refuses to go home. He literally passes out on the front lawn of the palace, and what turns out to be in this great unpacking of irony, Uriah drunk is better than David sober.
[30:03] I mean, David is unraveling here, trying to cover up his sin. Church, David believed that deception was a better solution than repentance.
[30:17] Repentance being that Christianese word of turning away, of turning away from our sin, and pursuing something, not just a blind turn, but actually pursuing something better.
[30:31] And furthermore, the tragedy is that we do not know what might have happened if David simply confessed his sin to God, and to Uriah, and trusted God with the consequences.
[30:47] Oh, what a beautiful psalm that would have been. the power of sin is disarmed by confession.
[30:59] The power of sin is disarmed by confession. You see, doing what is right is not about controlling the outcome, but it's about trusting God even when the consequences are so painful.
[31:15] Do you hear that? Doing what is right is not about controlling the outcome, it's about trusting God even when the consequences are painful. That is the very heart of repentance.
[31:27] That's what repentance accomplishes. Repentance is not merely admitting that we are wrong. Repentance is surrendering ourselves to God and trusting Him with whatever the truth is going to cost us.
[31:46] That's repentance. David refuses that path and it becomes a lesson of sin's spread.
[32:00] Sin will never be satisfied, church. Our sin will never be satisfied. once it corrupts one area of our life, it's bound and determined to demand more and a deeper compromise and a greater deception.
[32:18] It only compounds. It is the nature of sin. It's a great reminder that sin is never satisfied. And notice one thing.
[32:29] I want to point out something very interesting up to this point. notice the silence of God in this narrative. David once inquired of the Lord before he went out to battle, before he made his plans.
[32:44] David is all on David's strength right now. Let's see where it gets him. This third reminder here, we see our sin always creates collateral damage.
[33:00] Our sin always creates collateral damage. I think I emphasized always later on, but I'd like to emphasize that. Let me put it up for you.
[33:13] Our sin always creates collateral damage. And this is looking at verse 14 through 27. So David, being crafty, he advances to the most destructive plan of all, plan C.
[33:29] Plan C is to get rid of the variable. Get rid of Uriah. David writes a letter instructing Joab to place Uriah in the front of the battle and then withdraw the soldiers from around him.
[33:46] And in one of the darkest moments of irony in Scripture, David sends Uriah with his own death warrants in his hands.
[34:02] Verse 16, Joab reads the plan. He executes the plan, expands it a little bit better to make it not look so obvious. David simply, his craftiness, he is all David right now.
[34:15] He isn't even thinking clear of how obvious that would be to pull people away from Uriah in battle. So Joab fills in a couple details. We got to sell this one to everyone around.
[34:27] And so he thought maybe let's pull a bunch of soldiers around Uriah and put them close to a wall where archers would ultimately get all of the men in the city wall.
[34:40] And that's exactly what happens. In verse 17, we see Uriah dies. But not just Uriah.
[34:51] other men who were with Uriah around Uriah got caught up as collateral within David's selfish desires.
[35:05] All while David sleeps into the afternoon dwelling in safety. Verse 18 all the way to 21, Joab sent a verbal report of the news back to David with the potential rebuttals of why.
[35:23] This would be odd for a man like Joab, who is wise in war, to send men so close to a city wall. Because you learn from history, right?
[35:34] Most, some of us try to learn from our mistakes in history. Well, Ahimelech in Judges learned that lesson as a millstone fell on his head from a woman and he got too close to a wall.
[35:46] And so he's justifying this in these verses saying that, you know, we were there, but it was a battle worth pursuing. We had to risk our lives and get closer to that wall.
[35:59] And even though it didn't work out for Ahimelech, we had to do it that way. And look at this, when the report returns to David in verse 22 and 23, his response is chilling in verse 25.
[36:22] David said to the messenger, thus shall you say to Joab, do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another.
[36:38] Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it and encourage him. See what David just said? From all of this collateral damage to cover up his selfishness and to mask his sinful desires and the consequences of his sin, he says, war happens, right?
[37:02] Time to move on. Man, man, what has sin done to this king? The shepherd who once wrote psalms about the Lord who now speaks casually about the loss of human life, like he's manufactured here.
[37:28] This is a king whose conscience has been numbed so severely by sin, and that numbness is dangerous. A numb conscience means that we have drifted from God's commands and are headed towards destruction.
[37:47] Notice how far this sin has spread too. We're quite a distance away from that roof, aren't we? That roof is far away. And furthermore, this passage reminds us that sin never remains private.
[38:05] There's a communal nature and a communal effect of unrepentant sin. It spreads damage far beyond the original moment of temptation.
[38:19] It's no wonder why Paul was so emphatic about sin to be purged and addressed in the church through church discipline. And why this is important and why it matters is not just being mad, it's about our sanctification and God's glory at stake.
[38:37] And here we are. Uriah is dead. Several soldiers are dead. Bathsheba grieves as a widow.
[38:52] And multiple families have lost husbands. Lots and multiple children have lost fathers. It should have ended up there on the roof.
[39:05] What began on a rooftop now ends in battle. Sin always creates collateral damage.
[39:20] And so it is for our sin. Our sin always creates collateral damage. Whether you realize it or not, it does. David appears to have succeeded here.
[39:31] The scandals hidden. Bathsheba becomes another one of his wives. And it seems like everything is resolved. But there's one final sentence that nearly thunders from heaven.
[39:48] Look with me. The last verse, verse 27. God says, the king may have fooled everyone else around, but he did not fool God.
[40:09] Not a single human being on this earth, no matter how crafty you or I are, we cannot fool God. God sees all, he knows all, and all of our actions, all humanity's actions, will be subjected to God alone to be judged.
[40:30] That's a reality of our propensity of masking our sin in our lives. If there is a story of scripture that makes us uncomfortable, this is certainly one of them, isn't it?
[40:50] I ain't playing. I'm uncomfortable, but this is God's word. I want you to think about that for a minute.
[41:02] Consider the fact that, we've heard some of these stories, similar stories, we see the scandals in churches all over the nation, all over the world, of all of a sudden, you know, sexual abuses come out, and women come out as survivors of abuse, whether physical or sexual, and things like that.
[41:22] These are on the headlines, not as much as they should be, but these are often sometimes on the headlines, and we kind of, don't we just shake our heads at it and say, man, there's a lot of terrible people in this world.
[41:37] Did you hear about that? Man, but it stops there, and we shake our heads and we go on about our lives, God wants to preserve this message for us today, and the reason becomes clear as we reflect on these reminders that we've set out, because as it was for David, so it is for us.
[42:11] Our sin grows in idle seasons. It's nothing new. As it was for David, so it is for us. Our sin will never be satisfied.
[42:23] As it was for David, our sin always creates collateral damage. David thought he was hiding his sin from people, but he could not hide it from God, and neither can we.
[42:40] By now, we realize that David is not the king, that this nation was hoping for. Neither is any pastor in a pulpit in the United States or around the world to be your savior.
[42:56] The man after God's own hearts has become an adulterer. He's become a murderer in just 27 verses. how the mighty have fallen.
[43:12] But this clues us into something important. David was never meant to be the ultimate king. David was never meant to be the savior.
[43:25] Centuries later, another king would come, a greater son of David, far greater than David, a king who would never abuse power, a king who would never take what was not his, a king who would not take life but would give life.
[43:42] It's King Jesus. Where David failed, Jesus obeyed. Where David took, Jesus gave. Where David brought death, Jesus brings life.
[43:58] In that the darkest story, in the scope of redemption, the darkest story of humanity becomes the vivid story of God's grace.
[44:13] Because in Jesus, all the covenant promises that were made to David come to fruition, come to fulfillment, because God is a covenant keeper.
[44:26] Humanity, this is where we are. But God is faithful to his covenant. I know it's not explicitly in this passage, but we have to look a little bit forward because we know how the story ends.
[44:41] And we need to see how that story connects to the passage today. Through years, I've also learned about my own sin.
[44:53] I used to believe that the key to overcoming sin was just to remember the moment at the moment of temptation with sin to remember the shame that follows when we commit sin.
[45:10] I used to believe that, but I was wrong. Why was I wrong? Because not even the depths of shame or the consequences of sin none of that can ever restrain a heart that is so inclined to lean in to sin.
[45:34] If you would have told David at that moment of inquiring that this isn't going to go, well, you're going to be the baby daddy. It's not going to be good. He still would have done it because sin's lure is almost unable to be restrained at a certain point of temptation.
[45:54] No matter if you focus on the shame, no matter if you focus on the consequences, you somehow justify, well, I'll deal with that tomorrow, but this is good right now. Don't fall for that lie.
[46:09] Yes, David should have never been on the roof, we could probably say, but he had, but had he been oriented before this incident, sin would have lost its power, right?
[46:24] He shouldn't have been on the roof, but if he was oriented before that, he'd probably be out at the battlefield, right? Same goes for us, if we hadn't been home alone, when we know it was a bad idea, if we wouldn't have left, if we would have left our phones at the door when we got home, maybe we wouldn't have gone to that website, or had that conversation, or said that thing, or if we just had done what we're supposed to do, the battle of sin might have been a little bit more manageable, and so the better question for us is, is our heart prepared to be on that roof?
[47:08] Are we oriented for the battle of temptation? Because that battle wins or loses long before he gets to the rooftop. If it isn't prepared, we will fall, hook, line, and sinker every time.
[47:26] And we are assured that our sin ends through our faith in Christ who bore the penalty for our sin. John gives us good news in 1 John 1-9.
[47:38] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God allows us to see the depths of sin so that we might see the heights of his grace.
[47:57] What a reassurance for if you're not in Christ today, if you're not a believer today, what a reassurance for you. By your faith in Jesus, everything can change.
[48:07] Your status, your standing with a holy, perfect, just God can change. Jesus changes everything. And so you might see the heights of his grace even today.
[48:19] No matter how small or how great your sin is, the invitation is here for you to come to battle. But also what reassurance for believers as well, that God's promises are not dependent upon our actions, but always dependent on his.
[48:39] He is a covenant keeper. So in our day today, as John Owen says, be killing sin or it will be killing you.
[48:50] Let's pray.