Avoiding The Traps of Temptation

II Samuel 11.1-27
Samuel 11.27 But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.

I wish this chapter never happened in David' life. But this chapter is here to show us in part what can happen to a life, to a man after God's own heart, who falls into sin and complicates it by covering it up.

David was better while a servant than when a king; for being a servant, he feared to kill Saul his adversary, but becoming a king, he unhesitatingly has a close and loyal friend of his and the Kingdom killed.

Living above sin, resisting temptation is pleasing to the LORD. It should be our aim.

We are in a battle. We cannot remove ourselves from the spiritual battle, rather we must face it. By staying home from the battle, David placed himself in a very vulnerable position. That is where the failure begins. He forsook the post of duty. To be absent from the place where you belong is to be exposed to temptation. I was tempted yesterday and this morning to stay away from this message, to bring something else.

Uriah was one of his mighty men.

2 Samuel 23:24, 39 Among the Thirty were: Asahel the brother of Joab, Elhanan son of Dodo from Bethlehem, and Uriah the Hittite.There were thirty-seven in all.

How do you avoid the trap of temptation?

1. Don't Be Lazy
David should have been with his men.

He woke up from an afternoon nap, now in the evening. Nothing wrong with an afternoon nap if it is to begin your second day as Churchill used to say, if it is getting you ready for evening work, but if you are wandering around afterward, you probably will get into trouble.

The real problem was that David was resting on past victories, unengaged in the present battle.

We will be in the spiritual battle right up to the end.- Brother Hazzard

We need to take in the Word of God regularly.
We need to pray. This is spiritual work. It requires discipline.


2. Know Your Weaknesses.
David's was with women.
Requirements of a King
Deuteronomy 17.14-20
-Not a lot of silver and gold... David gave the spoils to the Temple
-No horses- David hamstrung them
-Not a lot of wives- David's weakness

3. Don't Go Wandering Around
Stay focused
Keep occupied
Gossip can happen when we wander into other people's lives.
We all have enough trouble with ourselves!

4. Watch what your Eyes take in

Material Things
Beautiful Things
Tempting Things can be good things but not for you!

5. Guard Your Heart
It is the well spring of life.
Proverbs 4.23
The issues of life come out of it.

David's conscience smote him when he cut off a corner of Saul's robe (and Saul was his enemy) but now he is having no problem it appears in having an innocent man, one of his mighty men, struck down. A heart left unguarded can do diabolic things. The treachery of David here is almost unimaginable. A David can act like a Saul if his heart goes unguarded.

How unlike Joseph, when confronted with temptation in Egypt in Potiphar's house. Genesis 39:8-10 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.

Remember your responsibilities. David was king, there fore he carried the sword of justice. Yet he used the sword to murder an innocent man so his sin would not be found out. What a mess!
*Calling Bathsheba to his house when she knew who she was:
-The wife of one of his mighty men, some one else's wife!
-The granddaughter of one of his closest counselors
*Committing adultery with her
*Getting Uriah drunk Habakkuk 2:15 (KJV) Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!
*Getting Uriah killed
*Acting nonchalant about Uriah's death and the death of other men. A leader ought to lead the nation in the mourning of one soldier who died fighting for freedom. Each one matters. I believe one of the things that age our Presidents is that they send young men to war and that some of those young men die.

David received the news of Uriah's death with a secret satisfaction. Beware of that disposition of your heart! When you hear of something and relish it in your heart... like the financial failure of an enemy or the struggles of someone who caused you pain.

Mark 7:18-23 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean. He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

The breaking of the commandments
2 Samuel 11
10th Commandment: Coveting
7th Commandment: Adultery
6th Commandment: Murder


"As soon as ever we are conscious of sin, the right thing is not to begin to reason with the sin, or to wait until we have brought ourselves into a proper state of heart about it, but to go at once and confess the transgression unto the Lord, there and then." (Spurgeon)

David missed the grace of God by having Uriah killed. Sure it would have been humiliating for him and Bathsheba but now he has blood on his hands.

"Though we mourn over David's sin, yet we thank God that it was permitted, for if he had not so fallen he had not been able to help us when we are conscious of transgression. He could not have so minutely described our griefs if he had not felt the same. David lived, in this respect, for others as well as for himself." (Spurgeon) Psalm 51 would never have been written.

But you know that whatever we sow, we reap. There are consequences for our sin. There is for mine, always has been and always will be. And there is for yours. And that has been true from the Old Testament right into the New Testament. And sin just causes problems, so no wonder we need to do our best to stay away from it. Because God is no respecter of persons, even if it is David the king that He has chosen, He still has to punish sin.

Lead us not into temptation!