1.The failure in cover-up
5And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
2 Samuel 11:5 (ESV)
9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9 (ESV)
Confession requires truth. (Psalm 51:6)
Repentance requires action. (Acts 26:20, Luke 3:8; Luke 3:12-14)
2. The deception in cover-up
When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.
2 Samuel 11:6-7 (ESV)
8Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” . . . 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.
2 Samuel 11:6-9 (ESV)
10When 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?” 11Uriah 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.” 12Then 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.
2 Samuel 11:10-12 (ESV)
13And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk ...
2 Samuel 11:13 (ESV)
No matter how hard David tried to bring deception to the situation, God did not allow the plan to succeed.
Oftentimes we will also lie, twist the truth, or paint a picture in a way that makes us look like the victim to perform a type of deception, just as David performed. (Proverbs 28:13)
3. The escalation in cover-up
14In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 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.”.
2 Samuel 11:14-15 (ESV)
20then, 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? 21Who 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?...
2 Samuel 11:20-21 (ESV)
25David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.” . ...27And 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.
2 Samuel 11:22-27 (ESV)
The author uses the concept of “displease” or “be considered evil in your eyes” in 2 Samuel 11:25-27 to reveal the callous rationalization of David’s heart that had strayed from the light of God’s truth. (Luke 8:17)