(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, what I want to preach on this morning is examining David's greatest sins, examining David's greatest sins. Second Samuel chapter number 11 is a pretty famous chapter in regards to the life of David because of the fact that it highlights some of the most grievous things that David had committed within his life. Now King David is a pretty prominent character in the Bible and not just in the Old Testament but even in the New Testament. He's a name that everyone knows about. Children know of David. He's done a lot of great exploits within the Bible and in fact he's a person who symbolizes Jesus Christ. He's someone who symbolizes him. A lot of prophetic things are said of Jesus Christ through David in the book of Psalms. He's a man who was a man after God's own heart. He was the sweet psalmist of Israel. He was just a godly man and we see him and often when we look at his example, we see that those are certain attributes that we would want to have in our personal lives. We would want to be people who are after God's own heart. We would want to be people who God looks upon and favors and want to be godly and just kind of copy in a sense his attributes and characteristics. However, even though he had a lot of great exploits, he did a lot of great accomplishments, you know he had a lot of flaws too. He had a lot of sins and he made a lot of mistakes. He committed many sins, grievous sins that are forever recorded within the Bible. And this is a stigma that we see with David is that in spite of all his godliness and his desire to do right and his love for the Lord, he still did a lot of wrong and in fact the wrong that he did was pretty bad. We're not just talking about like he lied or he stole. I mean this man in this chapter we see here he committed adultery that led him to murder someone. Very wicked, very bad and obviously when we look at something like this we say man King David was behaving wickedly but it almost works together for good. Why is that? Because we can see someone like David and we see someone who is saved go into such grievous sins and we think to ourselves wow someone has gone that far but it shows us that even a Christian, someone who believes on the Lord, someone who is saved can do a lot of bad stuff. They can commit murder, obviously it's wicked. They can commit adultery, obviously it's wicked but we see the extent that a person can go to in disobedience to God. And so he was a sinner who made a lot of mistakes and there's a lot that we can learn from his sins and this morning I want to examine the most famous sins that he committed and make application to them to see what we can learn from them and so look down at your Bible verse number one. Let's examine David's greatest sin. First and foremost we see the sin of omission. So before we even get into the adultery, before we even get into the murder and the other things that he did, where did it all start? It all started when he omitted something out of his life. Now what does it mean to omit something? What is the sin of omission? To omit something basically means that you leave it out, okay? You neglect it, you exclude it and let me say this, any major sin in your life stems from a time that you actually omitted something godly that you didn't do. So when you commit some grievous sin in your personal life, if you trace it back to where is it that you took that first step, it's when you decided to omit Bible reading. It's when you decided to omit prayer. It's when you decided to omit church attendance. Something good that you didn't do led you to do something that was really wicked and bad, okay? Look at verse number one of 2 Samuel 11, it says, and it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel and they destroy the children of Ammon and besiege Reba but David tarried still at Jerusalem. Now let me just say this is that this is not here by mistake. This being written down is not by mistake to say that there's a time when kings go forth to battle. David's supposed to be out there with his men fighting the battles of the Lord but what did he choose to do? He chose to tear his still behind at Jerusalem. What is he doing? He's omitting being in the battle. He's omitting his presence from the war and from the battle. He said, is that sin? So here's the thing, if he would have gone forth to battle, he wouldn't have been placed in a position where he was tempted to sin. If he was doing what he was supposed to be doing, he wouldn't have placed himself in a position where he was tempted to sin. So these sins that we see later on that he committed were a result of him omitting his presence from the battle at hand and the Bible's very careful to let us know this is a time when kings go forth to battle. David is a king, he should be out there but what does he do? He sends Joab instead. David chose to tear his still at Jerusalem, send his men to fight, he chose not to go out to battle. Now this is not unique to David and let me just say this, when you decide to get out of the battle, how do we make this application to ourselves? When we decide not to fight against the world, not to fight against the devil, not to fight against our flesh, you know what, we're omitting something in our personal lives, why? Because the Bible tells us to quench not the spirit, grieve not the spirit, but to walk in the spirit. So when we don't walk in the spirit, we're actually quenching the Holy Spirit of God and when we do that, we make ourselves susceptible to sin, to going back, to diverting back to old sins and doing things that we're not supposed to be doing. The Bible tells us, wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. You know, it's important that you have a routine of doing godly things on a weekly basis, daily basis, making sure that you're reading the word of God every single day, making sure that you're praying on a daily basis, making sure that you're conscientiously walking in the spirit. Because the day that you decide to omit that is the day that your flesh is going to decide to have dominion over you, okay? It's the day that Satan's going to place a temptation in front of you, sin in front of you and you're going to be weak, you're going to give in and you're going to say, man, I can't believe I just did this. Well, the reason you did that was because you omitted something godly out of your personal life. And we're creatures of habit, okay? And as creatures of habit, we need to take advantage of the fact that, hey, we consistently do things but we need to make sure that we're consistently doing the right things and not omitting those things out of our lives. You know, don't live your life on a whim, okay? Don't live life just kind of letting things happen to you in your life and, you know, whatever happens today happens. No, you should schedule out your day. Why is that? Well, because when you schedule out your day, you're planning to succeed, you know? But if you don't, you're planning to fail. You need to plan to succeed whether that's, hey, I get up in the morning and I read my Bible. You know, I get up in the morning and I pray. I get up in the morning and I take a walk and I meditate on the Word of God. But you know, if you wake up every day just kind of letting life happen to you, yeah, you're susceptible to that sin then. You're susceptible to that which can draw you away and entice you and bring forth death in your personal life. We need to make sure that we're not omitting personal godly habits out of our life. The Bible says, Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth not, to him it is sin. So don't get out of the fight. And look, it's a fight to subject your flesh, right? Isn't it a fight to subjugate your flesh and make sure that you're doing that what you're supposed to be doing? It's a fight. Why? Because sometimes laziness sets in. Apathy sets in. You know, you don't want to do the things that you're supposed to do, but you know, when that time comes, don't get out of the battle. Stay in that fight. Make sure that you're reading the Word of God. Make sure you're memorizing scripture. You're listening to sermons. Do what you know you're supposed to do even when you don't feel like doing it because that's part of the battle. You know, now's not the time to get lax in your Christian life, okay? When you get lax in your Christian life and maybe you've had some successes, you're doing well, you've read your Bible through, you had a successful 2019 and you're like, well, I'm just going to hit cruise control on this vehicle for now. No, that's not the way to do it. You're getting out of the battle. Okay? Well, you're saying, well, that's, that's others, but it's not me. Well, take heed lest he fall, okay? Don't get out of the fight. Now's not the time to be careless and put your guard down. The Bible says that it was a time when kings go forth to battle. And look, sometimes Christians can have that attitude, can they not? Where they say, well, you know, church is just for like, you know, fellowship and you know, the Christian life is a bed of roses and if you just live life the way God wants you to live, everything is going to be hunky-dory, roses and daisies, nothing bad is ever going to happen, but this is a lie. This is the message of the ecumenical liberal movement that says, well, you know what? If you just do what God tells you to do, if you obey God, then God, everything's just going to turn out fine. No, it's not going to turn out fine. And in fact, you have more enemies because all they that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. So when you become a Christian, guess what happens? You enlist yourself in the war against Satan. You enlist yourself in the war against your own flesh and against the world. So when you become a Christian, problems don't go away and in fact, they accumulate even more. You got more problems. But here's the thing, with more problems comes better solutions because we have the word of God. So that's how we got to see it. We got to see it as, okay, yeah, we have more problems, more enemies, you know, my flesh is fighting against me, Satan is fighting against me. I have the world against me, but you know, we have the word of God and greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world, the Bible says. You know, if we walk in the spirit, you should not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. So even though the enemies are growing, even though your flesh is constantly fighting you, we do have the word of God. We have the weapons of our warfare are not carnable, mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, the Bible says. So that's how we have to see it. We have to view the Christian life as a battle and every day it's a battle. Who's the first person you fight every single day? You. You're the first person that you have to overcome on a daily basis. Oh, it's the reprobates. The reprobates are there, but that's not the first people you have to fight. The first person you have to fight is you. The first person you have to lead is yourself. Lead yourself to read the word of God, lead yourself to pray, lead yourself to live a life that's pleasing unto the Lord. That's a battle. That's why the Bible tells us to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. If you can't conquer the battle with yourself, you're not going to conquer the battle with anybody else. You're not going to win the battle against Satan, you're not going to win the battle against the world, you're not going to win the battle against the culture and the entertainment of this world, you're going to lose. You have to be able to conquer yourself first and don't get out of that battle. The Bible tells us, wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. You know, every single one of us has an evil day coming. What is an evil day? It's when a misfortune comes upon you. It's when something bad happens to you, it happens to your children, it happens to your wife, to your husband, it happens to your bank account, it happens to your health, it happens to your relationships, it's the evil day. And here's the thing, what you don't want to do is face that evil day without the armor of God. You need to make sure that you're prayed up, read up, you're filled with the Spirit, you're walking in the Spirit, so when the time of that evil day comes, you're able to stand. You know, there's a lot of people that when the evil day comes, they just get out of church, they get out of the Bible, they just stop living for God, they become offended, the Bible says. We don't want to be like a reed shaken in the wind, okay? We want to make sure that we do everything to stand and we're able to withstand in the evil day. You know, the evil day could be the day that Satan comes and tempts you with something and you're weak and you fall out of church or you commit some wicked sin that destroys your marriage, that destroys your children, that destroys your health, okay? We are worn against the world, the devil and our flesh and we need to make sure that we don't omit godly things out of our lives. That's why it's important to just make church a part of life. Don't make it a choice, a weekly choice to go to church. I have no choice in that matter. We just go to church. You know, we don't wonder every single Sunday, hmm, should I go to church today? Now I will say this, if my kids are sick, then we choose for them to stay home, okay? Because we don't want to infect everyone else and you know, they have the coronavirus right now so we don't, no, I'm just kidding. We don't want to infect everyone else. But here's the thing, generally speaking, we don't choose to come to church, that's just something we do. And what we as Christians need to do is understand that there's certain things in life that don't require a choice, they just require for us to be us, right? You know, you shouldn't choose to read the Bible. Reading the Bible should just be a part of who you are. You shouldn't choose to pray, praying is just who you are. You shouldn't choose to do the things of God that's just who you are. And look, if you already make those decisions beforehand, if that's already who you are, you eliminate a lot of hard decisions that you need to make on a daily basis, right? You eliminate a lot of decisions that you have to make on a daily basis if you've already made that choice. If you've already purposed in your heart to not defile yourself, if you've already purposed in your heart to live a godly life, you know what, that saves you a lot of stress from having to make decisions on a daily basis because it's just something you do. And your brain is always looking to do things that doesn't require a lot of thought, okay? I'm serious, this is where habits come into play. Habits are basically your body's way of eliminating brain energy, or excuse me, eliminating certain tasks and actions that require brain energy. So they create habits, you just do them naturally, okay? That's how we want the Christian life to be. So we don't have to decide to do those things. If you omit something out of your life, look, I'm sure David didn't think he was going to commit adultery and murder. He wasn't thinking in chapter one, if I tear you behind a Jerusalem, I'm going to commit adultery and I'm going to kill Uriah the Hittite, but you know what, sin will take you farther than you want to go to cost you more than you want to pay and to keep you longer than you want to stay. Therefore what we need to do as Christians is make sure that we're constantly working on not omitting certain things out of our life, okay? Stay consistent. So what did that do? Omitting getting into the battle, what did that do for David? Well, it placed him in a position where he ended up committing adultery with Bathsheba. Look at verse number two, it says, and it came to pass in the evening time that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. Now look, right here is where David had a choice. He could either say, I shall set no wicked thing before mine eyes, I hate the work of them that turn aside, I've made a covenant with mine eyes, why then should I think upon a maid and just be like, you know what, get my chariot, I'm going to go fight. I need to go catch up. This is the decision he had because look, we don't know exactly what's going on, you know, people have speculated and they've conjectured, oh, you know, David knew that she was going to be bathing or whatever. Well, you know what, he's going on the roof of his house, that's his house. He can be on the roof of his house if he wants. You know, he can't really control that this woman is bathing and we don't know, it's like, you don't have curtains or something or isn't there something, can't you cover yourself or like, what are you doing? We don't know what's taking place here. What we do know is this, is that, you know, this shows us that sometimes obviously we can't control the actions of other people and the actions of other people can often tempt us to do wrong, at which point we need to make sure that we make the decision to not sin, to resist the devil, resist the flesh, resist those things that are causing us to be tempted and walk away from it. But is that what he did? No. He says, and David sent and inquired after the woman. So we see that he saw and then he inquired and once said, is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So they're saying, hey, isn't this lady married? You know, isn't this, I mean, not only is she married, she's married to Uriah the Hittite, who's a faithful man, soldier of David. And David sent messengers and took her. So he saw, he inquired, he took. So what does this teach us? This teaches us that often sin begins with the eyes. I mean, think of Eve, right? She saw the tree, it was desirable and she took and she ate. What do we see with Achan? He saw the Babylonian garment, he coveted, he took. What do we see with David? He saw, he inquired and he took. It says in verse four, and David sent messengers and took her and she came in unto him and he lay with her for she was purified from her uncleanness and she returned unto her house and the woman conceived and sent and told David and said, I am with child. This is a very wicked sin that just took place. Now what did this cost David? Well, it cost the life of his child, okay? His child ended up dying because of this grievous sin that took place here. Now look, some people wonder, like, why didn't David, why wasn't David put to death? Because adultery is such a wicked sin that it's considered a crime in the eyes of God to the point where someone is worthy of death. What is adultery? Adultery is when a person that is married, okay, or even if they're not married, has a physical relationship with a married person, okay? So if a person is not married, he sleeps with another man's wife, that's considered adultery. He said, well, what is fornication? It's when two people who are not married get involved in that physical relationship. This is not punishable by death, but adultery is, okay? Because of the fact that they're violating that covenant that they made before God. This is a very grievous thing in the eyes of the Lord. But why wasn't David put to death? Well, I think because of the fact that he's the king. And I'm not saying it's right, but because he's the king, he kind of makes the rules. He kind of institutes who gets put to death and who doesn't get put to death. And you know, he's basically the law of the land, unfortunately, and he decided not to do that. He's not going to put himself to death. But this is still wicked. And let me say this, is that today in 2020, adultery is not looked upon the way it's looked upon in the Bible, okay? People commit adultery all the time. They get involved in wicked relationships. People boast of these things. It's wicked. Adultery should still be punishable by death, according to the Bible. You know, oh, no, he's just a player. No, he's an adulterer who deserves to be put to death. Now we're not saying that people should just go out and be vigilantes and put these people to death, but the Bible does teach us that this is a sin that is punishable by death. This is how wicked it is in the eyes of the Lord. And we should never alleviate the severity of this sin. It's still a wicked sin. We should still preach against it. Talk about how wicked it is. And look, if you were involved in adultery, you know, man, hey, you should amen me the most, because you know the ramifications of this sin, how it destroys a family, how it destroys children, how it destroys people just in general. This should be something that we see as wicked and vile, and you're not right with God if you're involved in adultery, okay? Now, look, even to the point where divorce is considered adultery, the Bible tells us that. Now, obviously, it's not the same in the sense of the physical act itself, where they deserve to be put to death. You know, people who get divorced in the Bible were not put to death, but it was considered adultery, just as idolatry is considered spiritual adultery, okay? And divorce is still wicked today. In spite of what the culture says, in spite of how, you know, weak the preaching is from certain pulpits that talk about, you know, adultery, or they permit it, you know, this is still a wicked sin that God does not look lightly upon. Now, look, when someone gets divorced, they commit adultery, but they're not in perpetual adultery, okay? They're not, you know, some people view it as such, and I don't believe that. You know, if someone gets divorced, and they get, you know, they get remarried with someone else, this is not perpetual adultery, okay? Like, oh, they shouldn't be allowed in the church because they're involved in adultery. Well, if they've already committed the act of getting married, it's over and done with, okay? It's over and done with, that's just it. Now, did they commit that adulterous act? Yes, according to the Bible, yes, they did. And it's still very much wicked. You know, I'm reminded when I went to Belize, and comparing the morality of the United States to Belize, it's like polar opposites. You know, here, when we go sowing, or when I've gone sowing, I've talked to people, and I often ask them, you know, what is a really bad sin, and they'll say, murder's a really bad sin. It's like, good. Well, you know, yeah, exactly. Murder's a pretty bad sin. In Belize, when I asked that, and they're like, what's a really bad sin, they said this, adultery. They're like, if I were to cheat on my husband, or on my wife, this is very bad, you know? And it kind of took me back, because I've never heard anybody here say something like that. But it goes to show you their level of morality over there, and because they have the word of God, they still have a fear of the Lord. The United States is a country that is quickly losing their fear of God to the point where adultery is just normal, okay? But it's a very wicked sin. So he takes Bathsheba, he looks upon her, he takes her, and they end up having a child. She's with child. You know, the Bible tells us in James chapter 1, verse 13, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Now let me say this, how do you avoid adultery? Okay? Well, number one, you get married, okay? Number two, you need to make sure you have a healthy, emotional, and physical relationship with your spouse. Number three, you don't put yourself in a position to develop relationships emotionally with someone of the opposite gender. At work, man. Amen? You know, when you're at work, and if there's a lady who's working there, she's your coworker, you need to make sure that you keep an appropriate relationship with other ladies. And what do I mean by appropriate? You know, not going out to eat with them at lunchtime, oh, it's a business deal. No, no, no, no, you're a Christian, though. You know, yeah, but you know, we're talking business, and you know, yeah, she's a lady, but I kind of let her be in my car because we're only going to the corner. You're an idiot. You're a fool. Why? Because you're placing yourself in a place of temptation. You're giving place unto Satan. This is why I never recommend for anybody to drive alone in the car with a person of the opposite gender, okay? Now look, if it's like some lady who's like in her 80s or something like that, okay, you know, I don't think that's bad, but use common sense, though. Common sense. Oh, you know, I read my Bible today, though, you know. I read, you know, I read my Bible, and I'm prayed up, and I think I can handle this. No, you can't, okay? We need to give heed lest we fall. And look, a major part in not committing adultery is just making sure that you have a healthy relationship with your spouse, okay? Emotionally and physically, folks, and I'm going to be appropriate here. I'm not going to defile the minds of the children or anything like that, but you know what I mean by that? That's important. It's important that you keep a healthy, physical relationship with your spouse. You need to be able to satiate your desire for that physical relationship with your spouse and don't defraud one another in that regard. Why? Because if you defraud your spouse in that regard, you open them up for temptation to commit adultery with someone else, whether in their minds, in their hearts, or even physically speaking. But you know what? You say, well, yeah, that's what my spouse is doing to me. Well, still, you don't have a right to go commit adultery because that's what your spouse is doing to you, okay? You need to make sure that you man up. You need to make sure that you prayed up. And look, if you are having a difficult relationship with, you know, or difficult situation with getting your spouse to, you know, have a physical relationship with you, you know, you need to work on your marriage. And like go on dates and win your wife over, win your husband over, win your spouse over and make sure that you guys have that. That should be the greatest relationship that you have this side of eternity is with your spouse, okay? Don't give heed, don't give in to the temptation of adultery, okay? You know, we need to make sure that we avoid that as much as possible. And this is probably more so a temptation with men who work out in the secular realm where there's women, you know, where there's other women there. Or even sometimes, and look, this is why I believe that women should not work in the secular realm. Amen? Amen. Look, I know that there's people here, I know there's ladies here who have a secular job. And you know what? God bless you and we love you, but you know where I stand on this. I don't agree with that. And look, I don't condemn you. If you come to me and you say, yeah, this is my situation, I'm going to say, well, yeah, I mean, like, that's, what are you going to do, you know? But don't come to me to try to like see if I will tolerate that or give in to that and teach it from the pulpit that it's okay. It's not okay. And typically, when a woman has to work out in the world, it's because something's out of order in regards to the family just in general, okay? So here's the thing is, we need to make sure, oh, what I was saying is this, is that, you know, women can often be more susceptible to relationships out in the secular realm, okay, because they're just weaker emotionally, you know, and you have some Rico Suave guy come out, you know, at the job or whatever and you don't have a good relationship with your wife, he comes and tries to smooth talk her and, you know, the end result is adultery sometimes. That happens all the time. I've heard of horror stories of that taking place all the time. You know, we need to make sure that we keep our house in order, that the man is providing for his household, that the woman is, you know, is a keeper of the home and that you're keeping that physical relationship as healthy as possible so the adultery doesn't take place. You know, what happened to David's wife at this time? What is he doing, okay? You know, he commits this wicked sin and then it's just a snowball effect, by the way. Now what happens after he commits adultery with Bathsheba? What should he have done? He should have just confessed it before the Lord. He should have just gotten right. He should have just gone before the people and talked about his sin and said, look, this is what I've done. I'm just going to step down as king or hey, this is what I've done, God, you know, I'm confessing before the Lord and just get it right. But is that what he did? No. What did he do? He covered it up. He began to conspire against Uriah the Hittite to murder him because he didn't want him to find out, you know, what he did. Now, prior to this, what he actually does is he tries to get Uriah to go back home, have a physical relationship with his wife so that it looks like the baby belongs to Uriah. I mean, this is soap opera status right here. This is novellas right here, okay? Telemundo novellas right here. They're literally, I mean, he's like, okay, he's conspiring and saying, you know, I'm going to get Uriah to come back. I'm going to have him go home to be with his wife and then he'll have that physical relationship with his wife and then he'll think that the baby belongs to him, you know. I'm talking about Maury Povich type stuff, you know. You are not the father, right? But here's the thing, Uriah is a righteous man, which, man, even more so in the heart of David because he's just like, he's sleeping outside of the king's house. He's not going home to be with his wife. He's like, how am I going to go back and be with my wife if my men are out there fighting? It's like, David, you just are looking worse and worse. So then he realizes that Uriah is too righteous. He's not going to go to his wife's house and have that relationship. The plan has fallen apart. So what's the next best thing for him to do? He's just going to murder Uriah the Hittite. Look at verse number six. So we see the sin of omission. We see the sin of adultery that leads to the sin of premeditated murder. It says in verse number six, and David sent Joab saying, send me Uriah the Hittite, and Joab sent Uriah to David. And when Uriah was coming to him, David demanded of him how Joab did and how the people did and how the war prospered. By the way, he doesn't care. This is what we call small talk. He's just like, oh, so how's Joab? And, you know, how are the people? How are the wars? He's just like, by the way, you should go home. He can care less of what's going on. And David said to Uriah, go down to thy house and wash thy feet. And Uriah departed out of the king's house, and there followed him a mess of meat from the king. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord and went not down to his house. And when they had told David, saying, Uriah went not down to his house, David said unto Uriah, cameest thou not from thy journey? Why didn'test thou not go down unto thine house? And Uriah said unto David, The ark and Israel and Judah abide in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go into mine house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As thou liveth and as I so liveth, I will not do this thing. Ouch. He's just like, how can I do this? He's a righteous man. And David said to Uriah, tarry here today also, and tomorrow I will let thee depart. So Uriah abode in Jerusalem that day and tomorrow. And when David had called him, he did eat and drink before him, and he made him drunk, and at even he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but went not down to his house. So he's basically trying to make his heart merry. He's trying to make his stomach full, his heart merry, trying to get him in a good mood to say, you know, I'm just going to go to my wife and, you know, lie with my wife. He's not doing it though. And verse 14, it came to pass in the morning that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. This is wicked. Because obviously he's basically, this is what the mafia calls the contract, right? He put a hit on his head. And what does he do? He knows the integrity of Uriah to the point that he knows that Uriah's not going to open it up. So he puts his own death warrant in the hand of Uriah to give to Joab so that Joab can kill him. This is bad. Okay. Now, here's the thing is, this is not like David. This is not according to his character, but it is according to the character of Joab though. Joab, if you study the life of Joab, he's a very just conniving, just wicked person. Okay. You know, I wonder if he was saved. I would guess that he was just because of what we're going to look at later on in First Chronicles, but he's just a really bad person. You know, so he knows what David is up to. He knows that David wants to put this guy to death and he's willing to do it, put him in the hottest part of the battle. Verse 15 says that he wrote in the letter saying, set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle and retire ye from him that he may be smitten and die. Good night. What does that mean? He's like, look, this is what I want you to do because Uriah is going to obey. He's such a righteous person. He's going to obey. If Joab tells him, hey, I want you to go to the forefront, Uriah loves the Lord. He loves his king. He loves what he's doing and he's going to obey. He's going to go there. He says, once you go there, retire from him. In other words, it's just like, just leave him there by himself to die. This is so wicked. It says in verse 16, it came to pass when Joab observed the city that he assigned Uriah unto the place where he knew that valiant men were and the men of the city went out and fought with Joab and there fell some of the people, the servants of David and Uriah the Hittite died also. So the sin of omission led to the sin of adultery that led to the sin of premeditated murder. Okay. Now what is David doing? He's covering his sin and the Bible tells us he that covered the sin shall not prosper. You can add the layers of covering. You can add the layers of lying. You can add the layers of conspiring, but at the end of the day, be sure your sin will find you out. Why? Because you can look left and you can look right, but you know what? You always forget to look up. That's what happened to Achan. He looked left. He looked right, but he forgot to look up because God always sees what you do. His eyes are running to and fro throughout the whole earth to see what people are doing. He sees the ways of man and you know what, if you choose to cover your sin and you choose to just lie and you choose to just cover it up, you're not going to prosper. And in fact, what God's going to do is he's going to expose you. So what's the solution? But who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy, the Bible says. Just confess and forsake. And look, God is a very merciful God. And in fact, the Bible says as high as the heavens are from the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that fear him. We're going to look at an example of that later on. David should have just told Uriah right then and there, I committed adultery with your wife and I'm sorry for doing this. What can I do to make it better? You know, we're having a child, I messed up, just confess it, just get it right. But instead he decides to murder this person, take his life in order to cover his sin. This would end up costing David his child's life. You see, we don't really think about what it costs us when we sin, right? You think David was thinking, well, you know, man, my son's going to die. No, he's just thinking, how can I cover this up? But you know what? We never really understand the ramifications of sin until it takes place and God punishes us for it. And you know what? God always hits us where it hurts, right? He hit David where it hurt, losing his child, okay? Go to 2 Samuel chapter 24 if you would. Now that you're in 2 Samuel 24, go back to 2 Samuel 12 because I forgot to go over some things. 2 Samuel 11, excuse me. So he sends this letter and you know, Joab is instructing the people what to do and he's instructing the messenger that goes back to David and he's telling them, look, if when you bring this news to David, he finds out about it and he gets mad, just say, just make up this story right here, okay? So look down at verse number 22, it says, so the messenger went and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for and the messenger said unto David, surely the men prevailed against us and came out unto us in the field and we were upon them even unto the entering of the gate and the shooter shot from off the wall upon thy servants and some of the king's servants be dead and thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So this person doesn't really know what's going on, he doesn't know what's being conspired between Joab and David but Joab tells him, he's like, hey, if he gets mad, just let him know Uriah died because it's just like, man, why isn't the war prospering? He's like, well, Uriah is dead. He's like, oh, okay, good. Well, you know, this is the way of war, right? Verse 25, then David said unto the messenger, thou shalt thou say unto Joab, let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as the another. Make thy battle more strong against the city, overthrow it and encourage thou him. Wow, okay. He's like, don't worry about it. One sword devours one as it does another. This is just the way of war. Just encourage him and his mind is just like, oh, okay, great, Uriah is out of the picture because now what he's planning to do is now that Uriah is out of the picture, he's going to take Bathsheba, marry her and now it looks as though the child belongs to him and they had that child after he basically married Bathsheba. It says, and when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when the morning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house and she became his wife and bare him a son. The end, nope. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. So keep in mind while all this is taking place, God is in the vastness of eternity observing all of this and he's like, this displeases me. Now think about this because from the time that this took place, the adultery took place, up until the time the child dies, obviously it's more than a year. So over a year, David is hiding this for an entire year or at least more than nine months, right? He's not confessing it, he's not getting it right. He's thinking, I'm scot-free. Well that's not necessarily the case. The prophet Nathan goes to David and he confronts him and he says, thou art the man and he pronounces judgment upon him. David humbles himself and he says, I have sinned against the Lord. So he gets right with God but not without price because what happens is he loses his child. This is where we find the famous passage, I shall go to him but he shall not return unto me. And then after that, obviously God puts away his sin, he goes into Bathsheba again and then the child is produced by the name of Solomon and then we see that story there. But here's the thing is, the sword did not depart from David's house because of this. And in fact, if you study the rest of David's life, I mean his sons are behaving wickedly, they're dying, it's just not a good ending for his offspring because of the fact that David sinned. This omission of not going into battle led to his adultery, his adultery led to him conspiring premeditating murder and he commits murder and then what happens is that his child dies. Now let's look at the last sin that I want to focus on here. In 2 Samuel 24, go to 2 Samuel 24. You read my mind, brother Paulides, it's kind of warm in here. The sin of disobedience and faithlessness. Now keep in mind, when he committed adultery, one man died. When he committed premeditated murder, a child died. These are wicked sins and the ramifications of these sins is that one person died of each sin. Now let's look at the sin of disobedience and faithlessness. Look at 2 Samuel 24 verse 1, it says, and again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say, go, number Israel and Judah. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host which was with him, go now through all the tribes of Israel from Dan even to Beersheba and number ye the people that I may know the number of the people. So what is he doing here? He's taking a consensus and typically kings do this in order to see if they have sufficient soldiers and people to fight against an enemy. Verse 3 says, and Joab said unto the king, now the Lord thy God add unto the people how manysoever they be and hundredfold that the eyes of my Lord the king may see it, but why doth my Lord the king delight in this thing? Now this is really bad because when you have Joab like correcting you and saying, hey man, this is bad. It's like you should wake up and say, oh man, if Joab says this is bad, this is bad. Because Joab studied the life of Joab. His life is just characterized and he just has this stigma of just being a conniving person, killing people left and right. I mean he's okay with conspiring with David over the death of Uriah. This is why sometimes you study 1 and 2 Samuel and David would say that the hand of Joab was in this and he would do nothing about it. He wouldn't get rid of Joab. You know why he never got rid of Joab? Because Joab knew David's dirty little secrets, that's why. So Joab knew about David's dirty little secrets. He knew about his conspiracy against Uriah. He knew about all these things so he never got rid of him. But man, here he's just like, hey, the Lord can add unto you so much the more. Why are you numbering the people? So there's something that Joab knew that David did not take into account and I'm going to show you what that is. Look at verse 4. Notwithstanding the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the host and Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel. And they passed over Jordan and pitched an arrow air on the right side of the city that lieth in the midst of the river of Gad towards Jazer. Now skip down to verse number, let's see here, go to verse number 10. So they finished numbering the people and it says in David's heart smote him. After that he had numbered the people and David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done and now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant for I have done very foolishly. Now why was this sinful? Okay, because you wonder when you read throughout the Old Testament, you see God always commanding the people, hey, number the people, number the people, number the people. Why is it that this time it was sinful? Why is it that this was considered foolish and sinful? Well, if you think about it, go to Exodus chapter 30, hold your place there, go to Exodus chapter 30. There's two reasons why. The first reason was just blatant disobedience. Now keep in mind that every king in the Bible, God had commanded this in Deuteronomy that they were supposed to read the book of the law, they were supposed to write themselves out a copy of the book of the law that they would fear the Lord all the days of their life. So who was supposed to know the Bible more so or even as much as the priest? The king. He was supposed to read the Bible every single day. He was supposed to read the law of God every single day. He was supposed to be the one who knew the statutes, the precepts, and the laws of God. Okay. Look at Exodus 30 verse 11. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord. When thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them when thou numberest them. So what do we see back in 2 Samuel? What we see is that a plague comes upon the people. This is the punishment that David chooses for the people. And here we see that what they were supposed to do when they numbered the people was make an offering, an atonement for their souls. David did not do that. He numbered the people without making an atonement for their souls. He said, Well, that's such a small thing, not in the eyes of God. Hey, disobedience is disobedience, no matter what level. He said, Well, you know, I just sinned a little bit. Hey, sin is sin. Sin is sin is disobedience to God. And look, we always need to look at disobedience as just a wicked thing in the eyes of the Lord. You know, Oh, you know, I just I just lied a little bit. A lie is a lie, folks. Well, I just stole a little bit. Stealing is stealing, folks. It's still wicked. It's still sinful because you're disobeying God. You see, the principle here is that obedience to the Lord should always be executed at its fullest extent. Doesn't matter how big the command was or how small it was. We always need to obey God, right? So he numbers the people and by the way, this takes over nine months to number the people. Takes over nine months. And in that span of over nine months, and I think a couple of days, 25 days or so, we see that they didn't do an offering, they didn't do an atonement for the souls of the people. Verse 13 says, This they shall give everyone that passed among them that are numbered half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary, a shekel and 20 giros, is 20 giros and a half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. Now go back to 2 Samuel. So after he realizes that he sinned against the Lord, God comes to him through the prophet Gad and says this, all right, here are your three options and none of them are good. He says you can either have famine for seven years, I can have your enemies chase you, or I can send pestilence among you. Either way, people are going to die. He said, why would God give those three options if he's already confessed his sin, he's gotten it right, he knows he's done wrong. Let me explain to you why, and this is very important for us today. When you sin, you complicate things. So you can't expect for God to be fair in his judgment if you are living in direct disobedience to him. Sometimes there is no good option. There's no good option. Sometimes your sin just leaves you optionless. There's nothing good that can come out of it. It's almost as if you have to choose the lesser of two evils, or of three evils in this case. You know, I've had people, you know, we've been putting a lot of content out in regards to vaccinations. You know, I'm against vaccinations, our church is against vaccines, and we're going to be putting out a film about vaccinations in light of the Bible. And I'll get contacts from mothers all the time. And they'll say, you know, what should I do? You know, it's like, you know, they passed this law, and my child's not going to be able to be in school. And it's just like, yeah, they shouldn't be in school. He's like, yeah, but I have to work. So who's going to take care? I'm like, well, you should be the one taking care of your child. Yeah, but you know, my husband, or I'll ask them this, I was like, well, where's your husband? Well, I don't have a husband. You know, are you married? No, I'm not married. So how do you expect for God to fix that situation when you put yourself in that situation? No option is good. You see what they want, what people want sometimes is they want the sin without the consequences and the ramifications that come with that sin. They want the sin, but they don't want the consequences. They get mad at God when none of the options are good. Well, I don't want this one. Well, too bad. You should have thought about that before you committed fornication. Hello? Well, I don't like the pestilence. Well, you should have thought about that before you went out and slept around and had babies out of wedlock. Yeah. Well, that's not very nice. Well, yeah. You know what? God thought the same thing when you committed sin against him. But it's interesting how you can care less what God thinks when you're in the midst of your sin, but all of a sudden, God's not fair when you're now faced with the consequences and the ramifications of your wicked sin. Think about that. And by the way, teenagers, this is a reality check for you. It's a public service announcement for you to say, hey, you know what? You need to make sure you stay pure. You need to make sure you don't get involved in fornication. Hey, ladies, make sure that you don't just fornicate and sleep around and act like a whore. Why? Because guess what? One day you're going to get three options and none of them are going to be good. Well, maybe I'm the exception. Do you want to risk that? Do you want to gamble on that? Plenty of people and they get mad at me like, oh, that's not that's not a good answer. It's just like, well, here's a good answer. You shouldn't have slept around. This is the consequence, folks. Yeah, man, you're a little mean when it comes to that. Yeah. Well, the reason I want to be mean, the reason I'm angry is because I want to make sure that our young people in our church avoid this wicked sin. They get married legally, by the way, legally get married while we just believe in the institution of the church and no government, then go somewhere else. I don't recognize you as a marriage in that case. Don't come to me with that nonsense that, oh, you know, we just want you to marry us. We don't believe in the government. We're anti-government, not me. I'm not anti-government when it comes to that. Both are necessary, folks. And look, this is a good example for us to take to say, look, when you commit a wicked sin, often the options are not good. Why? Because sin complicates things. None of these are good. Pestilence, famine or have your enemies chase you for three months. It's just like it's like tofu, vegetables or horse meat. I don't like horse meat. It's too bad. You should have thought about that. You can have rats. You can have a possum or you can have, what's another rodent? What? Squirrel. Raccoon. It's like none of them are good. None of these options are good. You see, here's the thing, when you live for God though, and you obey God's word, all the options are great. They're all delicious. You know, ribeye, New York steak or Louisiana barbecue ribs? Yes. No, which one do you want? Yes. And you know what? When you live for God, often you get all three. You can have all three. When you live for God, you have many options and guess what? They're all good. Right? But you know, in like manner, when you decide to disobey God and sin against Him and just live your own life and sow your wild oats and go fornicate and go be a whore and a whoremonger, the options are not good. And don't get mad at God when He gives you bad options. That's your fault. Your fault. Okay. You know, oh man, I got an STD now. Hey, you should have thought about that. That sucks, man. Yeah, you're going to have to keep that for the rest of your life. Well, that's not fair. You know, I thought God loves me. Yeah, He loves you. Yeah, He does. But you know, your STD is not a testimony of how much He doesn't love you. Your STD is a testimony of how stupid you are. It's a testimony of your lack of intelligence and understanding that you shouldn't have gotten involved in that relationship. Sin complicates things. None of the options are good. And look, if you get nothing from this sermon, get this, avoid sin so that you have good options. Amen. Avoid sin. You know, some people, whether it's prior to Christ or after getting saved, they got involved in a relationship with a person who's not a Christian, and maybe that person's not in church. They're not saved and want nothing to do with God. Sorry, that's the consequence sometimes, you know. And that's difficult. Look, from the pulpit, I'll pound it out, I'll trumpet this, but you know, when you talk to me face to face, I'm not going to condemn you for it. I understand people make mistakes. I've made mistakes. I know you've made mistakes. People make mistakes. We have flaws. We have sins. But you know what? At the end of the day, we just need, if we made our bed, we need to sleep in it, okay, and not blame God, not charge God foolishly for the decisions that we made, okay? You know, I was a little upset when that person said that. You think God, so you just want God to be this being in heaven that just allows you to sin and fixes everything you do and doesn't get mad and doesn't allow you to have any consequences for your actions. That's an unjust God right there. You know, you claim that God is not fair. He's unjust. What am I supposed to do? Take my kids out of school? Yeah, you should have done that a long time ago. It's called homeschooling. And look, we believe in homeschooling here, man. I believe you should homeschool, you know, oh man, all these people are like freaking out over all these laws that they're passing about vaccines. We're not freaking out because we don't have a Christian school. No problem here. We're not freaking out because we definitely don't believe in public school, let alone a Christian school. Often the Christian school is worse than the public school because that's like a factory for reprobates, just producing reprobates left and right, okay? You know, they lose their minds and they're like, what are we going to do? We need to move. And here's the people's solution when it comes to vaccines sometimes, like, oh, we just need to go somewhere else. We need to go to like our right wing state. You're still in the United States, right? You're only prolonging. You don't think it's going to go there too? I mean, let's think about this, folks. You know, it's just like, oh, we just got to run away. It's going to catch up to you. The solution is not to change location. The solution is to get right with God. That's the solution. Oh, you guys are in California. You poor suckers. You guys have all those wicked laws out there and all the fags and all the sodomites and all these things taking place. It looks like we're fine here. Is there any fagging in here? Any fag at all? Because look, we don't allow homos in our church. You know, people think that like Los Angeles is just a cesspool of homos. I literally don't see any homos around here ever. I live in Montebello. I never see homos in Montebello. Now you, you know, Montclair or whatever, sorry, but Mark, obviously there's places in this, in Los Angeles where there's a lot of sodomites, you know, but it's not here. And look, what are you going to do? I'm just going to get right with God. I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to pray. I'm going to go soul winning. I want to live for the Lord. I want to be in church. Well, that's not going to rescue you. I believe it is. I believe it is. What if they pin you down and just give you vaccinations? Well, thank God for the resurrection. If they force vaccinations on me, I'll be like, good riddance, this, this body's going in the ground anyways, you know, though my outward man perish, yet my inward man is renewed day by day. So what I'm saying is this, is that, you know, a lot of people, they don't like the options that God gives them, but it's not the option that God gives them, it's the only options available for you because of your actions. That's what it is. In fact, let's look at some of those options. Let me turn there myself. He says in verse number 13, verse 12, go and say unto David, thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things, choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. So God came to David and told him and said unto him, shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? Or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies while they pursue thee? Or that there be three days pestilence in the land? Now advise and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait, yeah you are, he's like, oh man, let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man. Now he's very wise, David is very wise, because obviously none of these options are good, but he's saying, you know what, I'd rather fall into the hands of the Lord, because he knew God to be merciful. He knew if he allowed his enemies to chase him for three months, his enemies are not merciful, whereas he knew that the mercies of the Lord were great. And you think about when he was about to lose his son, he's like, why were you fasting? Why did you not eat? He goes, who can tell if the Lord would be gracious? So he always depended on the mercy and the graciousness of God. Now he chooses the pestilence, and it kills 70,000 people. So when he committed the act of adultery, when he committed premeditated murder, two people died, Uriah the Hittite and his child. When he disobeyed God in this area, and was faithless and numbered the people, 70,000 people died. Now what's the lesson there? When you sin, sometimes you not only affect yourself, you can affect a lot of innocent people. You can take a lot of innocent people with you because of your sin. You think he thought 70 people were going to die? No. But because he chose that option, because he numbered the people, because he disobeyed God, 70,000 people died. Now let's see here, go to 1 Chronicles chapter 21. I'll finish with this last point here because I want to talk about the so-called contradiction. Now in 1 Chronicles 21, it's the same story being reiterated with some variation and different information. It says in verse number 1, and Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. So in 2 Samuel, we see that God is the one who moves David. Here we see that Satan is the one who moves David in provoking the people to number them. Now this is not a contradiction. This is basically showing us that God, it's a Job situation where God permits Satan to move David to go number the people. Now this is not necessarily the so-called contradiction that I want to see here. What I want you to notice is verse number 12. It says, either three years famine or three months to be destroyed before thy foes while the sword of thine enemies overtake thee. So in 2 Samuel, it's seven years famine. Here it's three years. Now the question is, you know, what's going on here? Now a lot of people will try to say, well, this is an inconsistency in the King James Bible. You know, they translated it wrong. It's supposed to be three, not seven, blah, blah, blah. What it is is that, here's the thing, when you run into portions of scripture like this and it seems to contradict, obviously we understand we just accept it by faith, right? Just believe it. But often what it is, it's not necessarily that God is withholding information from you. What it is is just you need to read the story more and understand the details of what's going on here. Because what's taking place is that a couple chapters prior to 24, I believe it's in 21, God is already judging Israel for the sin of Saul. And the way in the manner in which he judges them is he sends a famine in the land for seven years. So when he begins to number the people, he's actually already in the fourth year. So three years have gone by since that famine has already started. When he begins to number the people, it takes nine months and about 25 days, which is in the fourth year. Therefore, in 2 Samuel 24, when he talks about, or excuse me, right here in Chronicles, it says either three years famine. So what he's doing there is basically saying the remainder three years of these seven years is what he's referring to. So it's not a contradiction. What it is is that famine is already in the land due to Saul's sin, okay? Seven years. After those three years, this is actually when he begins to number the people, nine months pass by, that's the fourth year. And therefore, here we see that he talks about those three years, the remainder of those years. In 2 Samuel 24, he says seven because he's including those last four years that we saw in chapter 21 of 2 Samuel, okay? So there's no contradiction there. Two points of view, giving different information there, okay? Now go with me if you would to, go to Jeremiah 17. Why was this so sinful? Well, number one, because he disobeyed God, but he just lacked faith. Because when God said to number the people, it was God saying number the people, whereas David was the one who was doing this, which basically showed that he was faithless. He probably wasn't depending on the Lord, okay? And look what the Bible says in Jeremiah 17 verse five, does say the Lord cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness in a salt land and not inhabited. So what does the Bible teach us? The Bible teaches us this, is that we need to trust the Lord, okay? Trust the Lord, and by the way, his disobedience towards the word of God shows us that he wasn't trusting in God. He was numbering the people, and this is why Joab said God can give you so much more. Why are you doing this? Because he didn't have faith, okay? And the lesson there is this, is that sometimes circumstances and situations in our life cause us to question, and sometimes obeying God doesn't necessarily seem logical, okay? It's just like, I don't know how this can work together for good, but what you need to do is lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Look, all things do work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. So even if you have three options, right, you have three options that are not good, God can still work that out together for good, okay? As long as you love the Lord, you try to live a life that's pleasing unto him. What are the lessons that we learned from David's sins here? Well, first and foremost, don't admit good things out of your life. Stay consistent in doing right. Stay consistent in your Bible. Stay consistent in confessing your sins and going to church and living for the Lord, okay? Because you can avoid all this nonsense. If you just do right, you can save yourself a lot of heartache, and in fact, you can save yourself, you can save the people around you from your bad decisions. Hey dads, this is for you too. You know, your sin can affect your whole family. Your sin can destroy your children. Your sin can affect the generations to come after you. Therefore, hey, don't omit these things out of your life because of the fact that it can affect the generations to come. Amen? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the life of David. Help us, Lord, to not be disobedient, Lord. We're not perfect. We make mistakes. We sin. But we know you to be merciful, Lord, and we know that if we just remain consistent in your word, we consistently love you. Make the effort to love you, to love your word, to pray, to serve you, Lord, that all things will work together for good. And sometimes when we're suffering the consequences of our immediate sins, it may not seem that way immediately as far as the solution is concerned, but we know that it will come one day. And I pray, God, that you'd help us to not omit things out of our lives, to remain consistent in those areas, and to think upon our actions and the decisions that we make on a daily basis. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.