Don't Play with Fire

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, 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.