Grateful for everybody participating.
If you have your Bibles, I ask you to turn with me,
if you will, to 2 Samuel.
2 Samuel, we're going to be looking at verses 11,
or chapter 11, verses 1 through 15.
One late Saturday evening in November of 2008,
so Saturday night, I received a phone call
from the former youth pastor at my last church.
And he informed me or shared with me
that one of our prominent church members
had been arrested that day.
And it came as a great shock to me
because this particular church member
had been a Sunday school teacher.
He had been a deacon.
He had even served as the chairman of deacons for a term.
And my friend, the former youth pastor,
shared with me that J.V. Huffman had been arrested
for running a Ponzi scheme.
He had run the largest Ponzi scheme
in North Carolina history to the tune of $25 million.
And after he was arrested, I visited him in jail
and had an opportunity to talk with him.
And he shared with me that over the years,
the way it happened.
When he first began being an investor,
he shared with me that he took a loan
out of his accounts that he was investing for other people.
And he thought, it won't be any big deal.
You know, I'll pay it back.
And nobody will even know.
And yet one loan turned into a second,
to a third, and so on.
He had gotten to the point where he wanted people to respect him.
He wanted people to look up to him
and think of him as this great investor.
And so he spent money like mad.
I mean, he was very generous to the church
and to others around him.
They would go on vacations every year.
College students, you might have wanted to be there
for a short time,
because he would take the college students on cruises
and pay for every bit of it.
He would take the college students out to eat
every Sunday night
and buy every appetizer on the menu.
And he would continue to just flaunt
and flourish his money,
thinking that it would never be known
and it would never come back to haunt him
and never, you know,
have the repercussions that it did.
But J.B. Huffman was arrested
and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison
without any possibility of parole.
Now you think back to 2008,
he has not even served yet half of his sentence.
And during that time, his wife has died.
He had four children.
All of them have gotten married.
He's had grandchildren born.
And he missed every bit of that
because he thought he could take out
one simple little loan
and nobody would know
and that he would be able to return that.
But he didn't notice the ripple effect
and the impact that one turned into another,
to another, to another,
to where it grew out of control
to the point where he could never pay it back.
And the impact and the effect that he had
on not only his own life
and not only his family's life,
but upon all those who had invested.
He had more than 500 investors
stretching from Kansas to Florida.
Many retirees had invested
their entire retirement with him
because he was claiming to pay more out
than what you could get anywhere else in investment.
In 2006, remember, the housing market collapsed.
Retirement went down.
I mean interest.
And he claimed he was still paying 8%,
8.5%, 9% interest.
And so people put all their money with him.
But when he was arrested,
it was all gone.
People who had worked their entire lives
to invest money for retirement,
it was gone.
It took them five years to collect anything back
and they got pennies on the dollar.
There is no such thing as a private sin.
And sin will always cost us more than we think.
And it affects our relationship with the Lord.
Those little sins that we think are private,
that we think no one else will know,
and it won't hurt anyone,
well, God knows.
And it affects our relationship with the Lord.
It impacts our relationship
because sin severs that relationship,
at least for a time,
and impacts our intimacy and our closeness with the Lord.
As Christians today,
we emphasize that God is a loving and forgiving God,
and he is.
But what we fail to also recognize
is that God has called us to be holy,
to be holy as he is holy.
And what we don't understand
or don't emphasize so much
is that even those small sins
that we label small sins,
private, secret sins,
they have a big impact in our lives
and our relationship with the Lord.
And when they affect us,
when they affect our relationship with God,
there's a ripple effect
that it has around in our families
and others around us.
If you're a father or a mother or a grandparent
and you've got secret sin in your life
that's affecting your relationship with God,
that's affecting your spouse,
it's affecting your children,
it's affecting your grandchildren
because you're not walking with the Lord
as you should be.
Well, today I want us to take a look
at a passage in 2 Samuel
that gives us a remarkable account
of how sin had a major impact upon David.
But not only David,
we will see the ripple effect
that it had throughout his entire family
and others around him.
David believed that he could commit sins
such as adultery and murder
and not get caught.
I mean, hey, after all, he was the king.
He didn't feel that he would get caught
or have the impact that it had
upon other people's lives.
But David was very wrong.
David was just as wrong
as you and I standing here today
thinking that we can have secret private sin
and it not affect our lives
or the others around us.
David was very wrong
that he could commit these sins
because he involved others around him
and it impacted his entire family
for years to come.
So look with me, if you will,
at 2 Samuel.
We're going to begin
by looking at chapter 11
and we're just going to read
the first five verses to start with.
In the spring,
at that 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 Rabah.
But David remained in Jerusalem.
One evening, David got up from his bed
and he walked around on the roof of the palace.
From the roof, he saw a woman bathing.
The woman was very beautiful
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.
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.
The woman conceived
and sent word to David saying,
I am pregnant.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we come to your word today.
We ask, Lord,
that you would speak to each of us.
Open our eyes that we might see.
Open our ears that we may hear.
And soften our hearts
that we may allow your word
to penetrate deep within our hearts.
Convict us of sin that may be in our lives.
And plant a desire in our hearts
to be holy as you are holy.
And to seek you and to know you.
And we thank you for this, Lord,
in Jesus' name.
Amen.
You know, one evening,
David must have had trouble sleeping
because he went out
and was walking on the roof of the palace.
And it was here
that he noticed
a beautiful young lady bathing.
Now, that may seem really kind of weird.
If you've been in church your whole life,
you know this story.
But if you haven't been,
this is not so strange
in that day and time.
Their buildings had flat roofs.
Their buildings were very hot
from the day.
And the heat remained
with the inside
well into the night.
So a lot of times,
they'd go sit on the roof of the house
after the sun had gone down
to cool off.
They also placed things on the roof.
I guess bathtubs was one of them.
And Bathsheba was taking a bath.
And her beauty must have been
very great
because the king noticed her
and he had to know her name.
And so he began asking his servants
within the palace
to find out about her
and to find out what her name was.
And they came back and said
it was Bathsheba,
the wife of Uriah the Hittite.
David knew that Uriah
was one of the soldiers
and he was off to war
with the other men in battle.
And so he sent a message
to have her brought to him.
It was at this time
that David took Bathsheba
and committed adultery with her.
And then he sent her back home
as if nothing had even happened.
David must have felt
that he could commit such a sin
as adultery.
Even though he involved others,
the servants in the palace,
he involved them.
But somehow he must have thought
he could commit such a sin,
keep it private,
and have no effect
or no consequences in his life.
But he was very wrong.
He was very wrong.
Even if Bathsheba
had not become pregnant,
there would have been repercussions
and an impact
upon his spiritual life.
There would have been
an impact upon those he involved.
David made some very unwise choices.
And we're going to see very soon
in the scripture
that the choices left
some very lasting consequences
to be paid by David
as well as his family,
the palace servants,
and many others.
You know, David may have felt
that he got away with his sin.
But if Bathsheba
had not become pregnant,
his sin still impacted
his heart and his life
and his walk with the Lord.
It caused,
but his sin did become public.
It caused Bathsheba's shame.
It caused Uriah's death.
Now, if you read on in scripture,
you'll notice that it was
not only Uriah that was killed.
David had Uriah sent
to the front line
of the fiercest battle.
I mean, they went up
to the wall of the city
and then were to have
all the other soldiers withdraw
and have Uriah killed.
But if you keep reading
here in 2 Samuel,
you'll see that there were
other soldiers
who were killed as well.
I mean, that was just
a no-brainer.
You don't approach the wall
because they had archers.
People could just throw rocks
over the side of the wall
and hit you
and severely injure you.
That was a no-brainer.
But David gave the orders
for them to do that.
And it caused not only Uriah,
but other soldiers died as well.
Other repercussions
were conflict and rebellion
in the house of David,
which eventually led
to his son Absalom's death.
And the fact that all this
is recorded in the Bible,
it has been studied
for generations.
It took what David thought
was a private, secret sin
and it made it very public
for generations of people
to study and learn from,
but to Daniel's embarrassment.
You know, that's one of the reasons
we know the Bible's true.
If this was a fairy tale
or if this was a book
that wasn't really God's word,
it would oftentimes paint
a picture of perfection.
And the heroes of the Bible
would always be painted
with that perfection.
And we'd never see
the flaws of men like David.
But the Bible does reveal
the ugliness of sin
that often lurks within our hearts.
And we need to learn
from this passage.
We need to learn
from passages like this
that we are no different
than men like David.
God had described David
as a man after his own heart.
When I was in seminary,
I probably heard this
from every professor we had.
They would tell our classes
at least once a semester,
if not numerous times,
if you think this can't happen to you,
then you're who I'm worried about.
If you think you can't be tempted to sin
or be pulled into sin,
then we're worried about you
because we're all vulnerable.
We all can be tempted into sin.
That's why the Bible tells us
to guard our hearts,
protect our hearts,
and make sure that we're not
lied to and deceived
by the enemy
to be lured into sin.
Do you realize the impact
that sin has in your life?
Do you realize the impact
that sin has upon those around you?
For some individuals
that you have relationships with,
you might be the only glimmer
of Jesus Christ
that they have in their lives.
You may be the only one
truly walking with Christ
that they see the image of Jesus in you.
And when we allow ourselves
to be lured into sin,
what an impact negatively
that has on those individuals.
Too often we play around
with small sins
only for it to grow
until it is out of control.
I've shared these statistics before,
but I want to share something with you
that might blow your mind
a little bit.
And men, you can look around
or you cannot.
But statistics show
that one in four men
inside the church today
is addicted to pornography.
I don't know how many men
we have here,
but if statistics are right,
there's men sitting in here today
that are addicted to pornography.
I didn't bring my phone,
but it is so easily accessible.
We have it at our fingertips
and it's so tempting
to people to get into that.
And I had a man in my last church
who came to me
and admitted that he was addicted
to pornography
and he was trying to take the steps
to break that addiction.
And what he found out
was pornography
is a greater addiction
to break than cocaine.
that once you get sucked
into pornography,
you almost can't get out of it.
You can't get those images
out of your mind.
And so we need to make sure
that we are guarding our hearts,
guarding our minds,
guarding our lives
to make sure
that we don't ever even
look at something
just out of curiosity.
Also, studies indicate
that the morality
inside the church
in America today
lags behind in society
by only 20 years.
That means that the morality
within our churches
in America today
is the morality of society
about 2003.
I don't know about you,
but that doesn't say a lot,
does it?
You know,
because the morality in 2003
wasn't that great.
I remember when it turned 1980
and everybody's like,
hey, it's the 80s,
you know,
let's lighten up,
loosen up.
Is that the morality
that we have
in our churches today?
You know,
not long ago,
there was a new TV show
that came out.
It was the hottest,
the best TV show
everybody had to watch it,
Yellowstone.
And that was the type
of thing I thought,
I liked Kevin Costner
and I thought,
I could watch,
get into that,
out in Montana,
beautiful scenery.
I started watching it
and it didn't take very long
that I was appalled.
The cussing,
sexual content,
violence that's in that,
no Christian should watch.
And if you're hooked
on Yellowstone,
I'm sorry.
But TV shows like that
and others,
we should not entertain
our minds with these shows
because the more we entertain,
the more we accept sin.
We compromise our morality
that God has told us
in the Word of God.
And as we compromise,
we accept,
we normalize sin
to the point
where it begins
to come out
in our lives.
There's not much
on television
you can watch today.
Maybe go back
and watch
Annie Griffin,
Little House on the Prairie.
But we need
to be careful.
We need to guard
our minds
and our hearts
and not allow sin
into our mind,
not into our heart,
because before long
we'll have those
secret, private sins
lurking within us
and it will come out.
You know,
if Satan can get you
to think about something
long enough,
he can get you
to act upon it.
If you entertain
thoughts that are sinful,
Satan will,
he will
get you to act upon it.
David made a mistake here
in that he should have done
exactly what Joseph did.
He should have run.
He should have fled.
He should have not
entertained his ideas
of being with Bathsheba.
He was a married man.
He should have not
committed that sin.
Sin is to be taken
very seriously
because it will always
take us further away
from God
than we intended to go.
Today,
if there is sin
in your life,
unrepentant sin
that is lurking
in your heart,
the only thing
you can do
is to confess
that sin
to the Lord,
repent of that sin,
turn away from that sin,
and turn to Christ.
We have to not only
just turn away
from sin,
but you have to
pursue Christ
and run,
run to God,
seek God.
And I want to tell you
one of the ways
of doing that.
You'll notice
at the doors
there's a bookmark.
Every quarter
there's a new one.
Pastor Daniel
has put these out
for us as a church
to stay in
the Word of God.
If you don't have that,
it's on the back
of your bulletin.
Every week,
the scriptures
that we should be reading.
If we're not in the Word
and we're not studying
the Word,
Satan will twist
whatever we think
is in our mind
and he'll make us
believe that it's truth
and he'll get us
to follow his deceptions
and lies
and we'll be
in predicaments
like David
or J.B. Huffman
or others
that fall to sin.
We've got to stay
in the Word of God.
But we need
to confess sin.
1 John 1.9,
I didn't put this
in the PowerPoint,
but 1 John 1.9
says,
if we will confess
our sin,
he is faithful
and just
to forgive us
our sin.
But repentance
is turning away
from it.
It's not just saying,
oh, forgive me, Lord,
and then we go on
and keep doing it.
Repentance
is turning away
from that sin
and not doing it anymore
and asking God
to fill our hearts
with the Holy Spirit
and empower us
to break the chains
that bind us
and free us
from sin.
We must turn
away from that.
Which, by the way,
men,
I'm leading a Bible study
on Wednesday nights
at 6 o'clock.
If you're not
with the youth
or in the choir already,
a great way.
And we follow,
we have a Bible study
based on
a passage
that's being read
on the bookmarks
throughout the week.
if you're interested
in getting
in a men's group
that we hold
each other accountable,
we uplift one another,
we pray for one another,
and we help study
the Word,
we wrestle with
the Word together,
come in the back
entrance
by the overhang.
That's the only
door I unlock.
I think Brian
will have the front doors
unlocked for choir,
but you'll have to
wander through the building.
Come to the back
of the building,
come in the overhang,
and we have a great time
at 6 o'clock
on Wednesday nights.
Well, let's look
at what happens
next in David's life
because he gave
in to sin
and left the sin
unconfessed.
Let's look at
verses 6 through 15.
So David sent
this word to Joab,
send me Uriah
the Hittite.
And Joab
sent him to David.
When Uriah
came to him,
David asked him
how Joab was,
how the soldiers
were,
and how the war
was going.
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
slept at the entrance
to the palace
with all of his
master's servants
and did not go down
to his house.
David was told
Uriah did not go home.
So he asked Uriah,
haven't you just come
from a military campaign?
Why didn't you go home?
Uriah said to David,
the ark
and Israel
and Judah
are staying in tents
and my commander
Joab
and my lord's men
are camped
in the open country.
How can I go
to my house
to eat and drink
and make love
to my wife?
As surely
as you live
I will not
do such a thing.
Then David
said to him,
stay here
one more day
and tomorrow
I will send you back.
So Uriah
remained in Jerusalem
that day
and the next.
At David's invitation
he ate
and drank with him
and David
made him drunk.
But in the evening
Uriah went out
to sleep
among his master's servants.
He did not go home.
In the morning
David wrote
a letter to Joab
and sent it
with Uriah.
In it he wrote,
put Uriah
out in front
where the fighting
is fiercest
then withdraw
from him
so he will be
struck down
and die.
These verses
do not show
a very common
composed response
from David.
No, it appears
that David
realizes
he is going
to get caught
and he begins
to panic
and so he
immediately
sends for Uriah
under false
pretenses.
When Uriah
arrived
David tempted
him with the
privilege
of going home
to wash his feet
and to rest.
You know David
was actually
trying to get
Uriah to spend
the night
with his wife
so that it
would not look
as if this
child that
was conceived
was his
but would be
Uriah's.
However,
Uriah refused
to go home
and he slept
at the entrance
of the palace
with the other
servants.
David then
tried to get
him drunk
and send
him home.
However,
even intoxicated
Uriah would
not go home.
He showed
greater righteousness
than David
even drunk
and he would
not go
because the
Ark of the
Covenant
as well as
the armies
of Israel
were in
the field
of battle.
So out
of desperation
David
became more
aggressive
to try
to cover
up his
sin.
By writing
a letter
to Joab
who was
the commander
of the armies
he planned
a strategy
to have
Uriah sent
to the front
line of battle
and ultimately
killed.
And as I said
a minute ago
it wasn't just
Uriah that was
killed because
of this.
There were
several other
soldiers that
were killed
as well.
But David's
actions
could never
be covered
could cover
up his sin.
These actions
only made it
worse and he
got deeper
and deeper
into sin.
This act
of adultery
with Bathsheba
just continued
to grow
to now
not only
an adulterer
he is
a murderer.
It's hard
to imagine
a man like
David who
God had
described as
a man of
God's own
heart.
A man who
had gone
through the
things he
had gone
through as
he knew
God won
the battle
to defeat
Goliath.
He knew
God had
protected him
and spared him
when King Saul
was chasing him
and trying to
kill him.
It's hard
to imagine
a man like
this has sunk
and fallen
so deep
into sin.
However the
story continues
to unfold
as you get
into the next
chapter of
2 Samuel
we won't
read it this
morning.
But God
sends a
prophet because
David did
these things
and then just
went on about
life as if
nothing even
happened.
And so God
sent the
prophet Nathan
to confront
him.
And once
David realized
that he had
been caught
and that God
knew his sin
and that Nathan
had pointed it
out, David
breaks down and
acknowledges his
guilt.
He confessed
his sin and
pleaded with
God for
forgiveness.
And yes, God
forgave him.
God is a
forgiving God.
But there are
often consequences
to be paid for
our actions and
our sin even
though we've
been forgiven.
for one, the
son that was
conceived died
that was born
to Bathsheba.
Also because
David was guilty
of having Uriah
killed, Nathan
told him that
God would never
remove the sword
from his own
household.
This meant that
David would have
to endure
constant conflict
and rebellion
within his
household.
If this could
happen to David,
it could happen
to any one of us
today.
You know, this
story should serve
as a strong
warning for us
to take sin
seriously.
There's no such
thing as a small
sin or a private
sin.
We need to not
play around with
what we think is a
small sin or a
secret sin.
If we allow it to
remain in our lives,
it will lead us
further and further
away from a
relationship with
Jesus Christ.
It will lead us
to where we do
not have that
intimate, personal
love relationship
with Jesus.
And the further
we get away from
Christ, the more
we allow these
things to get us
off track, the
easier a target you
are for Satan to
just wreak habit in
your life.
Jesus said that
Satan is a thief
and a liar and he
came to kill, steal,
and destroy.
And he wants to do
that in your life.
And he will do it
with lies of
deception, of
luring you into
small, private,
secret sin.
And he'll lead you
from there to take
another step, to take
another step.
And before long
you're so far away
from the Lord you
don't know how to
get back.
But Jesus said I
have come to give
you life and to
give you life more
abundantly.
The commandments that
God gives us is not
to try to take us
away from the Lord or
keep us, you know,
squash our fun in
life.
It's to give us a
life more abundantly,
to have an abundant
life.
If we follow the
truths of God and
his commands, he
created us and he
knows that this is
what we need to have
the joy-filled life
of peace that he came
to give us.
You know, 1 John 1.6
says, if we say that
we have fellowship with
him and walk in
darkness, we lie and
do not practice the
truth.
We cannot walk in
fellowship with both
God and a lifestyle
of sin.
Therefore, if we as a
believer have
unconfessed sin in our
life and we refuse to
confess that to him, to
repent of that sin and
turn to him, then we're
in danger of being
disciplined by the
Father.
If you're a true child
of God, the Bible tells
us that he will
discipline us.
And 1 Corinthians 11.30
indicates that at times
this could even mean
death.
You know, Paul warned the
believers in Corinth because
of the way they were
mistreating the Lord's
Supper that some of them
had become weak, some of
them were sick, and others
of them had even died.
And if God fails to
discipline you, that's a
whole other story.
If you're a child of God
or you believe you're a
child of God and you can
sin and never feel
convicted by the Holy
Spirit or you don't sense
God's discipline in your
life to bring you back,
like Paul felt a thorn in
the flesh to humble him
and bring him to his
knees.
If you can sin and not
feel conviction or
discipline in your life,
then you need to
reevaluate your relationship
with God.
Because the Bible clearly
tells us that if we are
children of God, he will
discipline us.
And he disciplines out of
love.
Out of love.
Not anger, but out of love
to bring us back into an
intimate relationship with
him, walking in his ways
that will bring, you know,
that abundant life that he
desires for us to have.
This morning, do you have
unconfessed sin in your
life that seems to have
dominion over you?
Do you have unconfessed
sin or have you complacency
of just being complacent and
not seeking God?
We're going to have a time of
invitation in just a moment.
And this time, I don't want the
congregation to sing.
Brian, if you'll just sing, I
want you to have a time of
meditation and reflection and
allow the Holy Spirit to speak
to your heart.
Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal
truth into you and you respond
as the Lord is leading.
you loves DANK to have a
story about building and
clearly being答 Friday.
For those, the rest, if you
were in the Chat room, take
me to appear.
If I would just a crow
invite you back to come to
Psalm 1 and Eli
with your partner.
All right.
Is that what I want you to
charge for again?
Yes.