Can I ask you this?
If you're hiding a sin,
have you ever had to sin more
to hide it?
And if you've hardened your heart to sin and to hide it,
how do you know you'll be able to stop?
What if you keep hardening yourself?
Maybe you'll find yourself doing
things you never dreamed
that you were capable of.
Sin demands more,
and hidden sin demands more sin to cover it,
and eventually David -
the man after God's own heart -
arranges a murder of Uriah.
You think David ever dreamed
he would become a murderer?
Verse 14,
"In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab -
(that's the general) -
and sent it by the hand of Uriah."
Uriah is holding in his hand
his own death warrant.
That's calloused.
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.'
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.
Uriah the Hittite also died.
Then Joab sent and told David
all the news about the fighting."
And David gets the news
that Uriah is dead.
The scramble is over.
The deed is covered.
David gives Bathsheba a minute to mourn,
and then he marries the poor widow.
Verse 26,
"When the wife of Uriah heard
that Uriah her husband was dead,
she lamented her husband.
And when the mourning was over,
David sent and brought her to his house
and she became his wife
and bore him a son."
The scramble worked.
We'll just tell people the baby was born a little premature.
The conscience is still screaming,
but at least his sin is not going to scream
into the city streets
when Bathsheba starts wearing maternity clothes.
David can rest.
Except that David had forgotten,
or should I say suppressed
and swept under the rug of his mind
the fact that God knows
and God exposes.
Listen to this haunting last verse
in verse 27 -
last part of the verse.
"And she became his wife
and bore him a son -
(everything's covered) -
but the thing that David had done
displeased the Lord."
There is nothing more foolish in the world
than hiding sin.
You are hiding sin from the One
for whom there is no darkness.
Psalm 139, even the darkness
is as light to Him.
There's no place you can hide before God.
He knit you together in your mother's womb
and He knows the day of your death.
Before a word is on your mouth,
He knows it completely.
There's no hiding from God.
Isaiah 29:15,
"Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the Lord,
who do their work in darkness
and think, 'who sees us? who will know?'"
Proverbs 5:21,
"Your ways are in full view of the Lord
and He examines all your paths."
Hebrews 4:13,
"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare
before the eyes of Him to whom
we must give an account."
If you fear your wife's anger so much
that you could never tell her what you've done,
then you have a super shallow view of God.
If you legitimize not telling your wife
about your infidelity
because you love her so much,
you have a terribly shallow view of God.
If you're more worried about displeasing your parents
than your God,
then you have a very small
and unbiblical view of God.
If you think your boss's anger
or losing your job is worse
than God's discipline or God's wrath
then you need a greater vision of God.
David had forgotten God.
God had seen and God was displeased.
That is all that matters.
Immanuel, if we are not a people
who deal before the face of God,
then we are not God's people.
If we are not a people who understand
that all we do and have done and will do
happens before the face of God
and the most important thing in our lives
is to deal with that God
in integrity and truth and openness
then we are not the people of God.
We are simply one more dead church on the corner.
Now what God does to David is amazing.
He does not strike him dead.
This excerpt was taken from the full sermon:
"Secret Sins."