Henderson Hills Baptist Church

This week we will explore together further the idolatry of sex. Yesterday we studied the life of David when he committed the sin with Bathseba and the subsequent cover up and further sin of murder. Read the passage today to refresh your memory.

2 Samuel 11(ESV)
In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.  It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.  And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”  So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.  And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”  So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.  When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.  Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king.  But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.  When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”  Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”  Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.  And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.  In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.  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 he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then, if the king’s anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?  Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ”   So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.  The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.  Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”  David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”  When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.  And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

We are called to the exclusive worship of God and God alone. Our bent is to worship idols instead of God. An idol can be anything that replaces the preeminence of God in our lives. David really set himself up for failure in this passage. He neglected his duty as king when he didn’t go to war with the others in the spring. He had too much unfocused free time. He was successful and probably thought he was above committing sin. We are not given any evidence at all that he was keeping up with his spiritual life. There were no safeguards in place to protect him from falling.

Creating an idol in our life doesn’t usually happen overnight. It didn’t in David’s either. The background was in place, the setting was just right, and slowly step by step he created an idol that took him down a path he truly didn’t want to go down.
How about you? Do any of these things describe your life today? Are you doing what you are supposed to be doing at work? Do you have a lot of free time on your hands, idle time with nothing to accomplish? Are you living up to your responsibilities at home and work? Are you successful and therefore believe that you are above failure? How is your spiritual life? Do you spend time daily in God’s Word and respond in obedience to what you read? How is your prayer life? Do you regularly bring your thoughts into captivity in obedience to Christ? Do you have any friends who hold you accountable to live a holy life? All of these and more are ideas that could have helped David from taking the next step into the sin of idolatry. All of these are also ideas to keep us from believing the lie that this could never happen to us.

The media today is full of examples of politicians, religious leaders, and sports heroes committing sexual sins. Hollywood is creating thousands of examples of infidelity in each movie and TV show available to us. Today’s popular music cries out to experience the freedom and happiness sex gives. We are bombarded daily with the lie that Satan pushes our way, that there are no consequences and that we are free to do whatever we feel like. Stop today and recognize the danger ahead. Commit your thought life to the Lord. Seek to honor Him with your sexual thoughts and actions. His Word is very clear in this area. Pray today and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you if you have any idols in this area. Let’s tear down these idols together this week.

Prayerfully,

Dennis