Message summary:  Uriah the Hittite was an honorable man, thrust from obscurity due to King David's sin.

Listen to our message on your audio player.

“I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity” (I Chronicles 29:17). “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper” (Proverbs 28:13). “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5).

On our trip last week late one afternoon we had the opportunity to go up to Chimney Rock State Park for a special guided tour since the park has been closed since the flood. (It opens to the public tomorrow).

I was driving a van with the chaperone's wives and children and picked up their husbands at their work-sites for the trip up the mountain to see Chimney Rock.

Jesse was finishing a concrete job leaving a young man to finish and he struggled a bit in leaving early. He alluded to a character in the Bible who, as an honorable man, refused to leave his post as long as others were still serving. I recognized that he was referring to Uriah. He was asked to leave his duty, not to see Chimney Rock, but to cover up for David's sin with his wife Bathsheba !

Uriah is the name of several Bible characters but most famously this is the story referring to a Hittite, an honorable man, thrust from obscurity due to King David's sin. Otherwise it is very unlikely that we would know anything about him. Today’s study is from 2 Samuel 11.

Uriah was a soldier in David’s army valiantly serving in the battlefield. While he was away his wife Bathsheba became entangled with David resulting in her pregnancy. David, knowing the facts of life, devised a cover-up scheme. He ordered Uriah back home from the battle front and, in a gesture of feigned kindness, expected him to spend some "quality" time with his wife. Unless Uriah paid close attention to the calendar the unborn child would be reckoned as his and, voila! David was off the hook. After all that was before DNA testing!

But Uriah felt that such a privilege would be unfair to the other warriors who were fighting it out on the battlefield. Instead of going home to be with his wife he “slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house". When David was told that Uriah didn’t go home his plan began to unravel. He must have been ringing his hands as he entreated Uriah, “Why didn’t you go home?”

Uriah’s answer, his only spoken words in the Bible, reveal the code of honor by which he lived. He explained to the king, “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!” (v. 11).

So David became more dastardly. He had Uriah eat and drink in his presence, so that he made him drunk (v. 13a). Even in his impaired state of mind Uriah refrained, “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” (v. 13b).

What happened next is surely one of the most pitiable, disheartening events of the entire Bible, revealing the darkest side of David, one of the Bible’s greatest heroes. The Bible’s candid forth telling of its heroes weaknesses is a sign of authenticity and trustworthiness. I recall a point made in Bible College that other sacred literature glosses over or ignores the failings of its heroes. Not so the Bible.

David ordered that Uriah be placed in the fiercest part of a battle line to do away with him (which would also do away with the embarrassment and shame, lest David be exposed for impregnating another man’s wife, particularly that of a brave warrior). Joab, his general, was an accomplice in this. Not only was Uriah killed but also several other warriors, a lesson of how consequences of sin affect others. Uriah, on this side, never knew the ugly story. Throughout the narrative he seems clueless as to what was really going on.

David married now widowed Bathsheba and smugly thought all was well. But the chapter ends with these words, “But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD".

Lessons from Uriah’s life:

   1. He is an example of loyalty and consideration.
   2. He acts honorably right up to his death.
   3. Doing the right thing may very well not be the easy way.
   4. Covering one’s sin from others does not hide it from God.

B e encouraged today! Hebrews 3:13