And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die. — 2 Samuel 11:14 & 15
It was not so long ago that I watched a movie where the main character was a liar. It all started out as a small lie, but to cover that initial lie it took another lie. The lies kept compounding until soon he was buried so deep in lies that he could find no way out of the situation. To be honest, that is exactly how it seems to happen when you try to cover sin.
There may not be a better example of this than that of David in the Scripture. David had sent his men off to battle, but the Bible quickly tells us that he stayed behind. David should have been with those people he sent to battle. That was his first mistake.
David then went out onto the roof and saw a woman washing herself. Rather than removing himself from the situation and realizing the mistake he had made, David lusted after her in his heart. Throughout each step of the story, David committed act after act to try and conceal his sin. It started as something simple, but as he continued to try and hide it, it led to the murder of Uriah.
God sent Nathan to David to share a story with the King. David’s anger was kindled over the story, but then he was convicted because he learned that he was the one the story was about. He was the one who committed the wrong. David’s sin ended up having a great cost. His sin ended up costing the life of one of his children in Chapter 12.
When we have sin in our lives, the proper thing to do is confess it and ask God’s help with that sin. Instead, it seems that we oftentimes try to cover our sins just like David or the character from the movie. That is human nature. Our nature is to try and hide the things that we do wrong.
God does not call for a Christian to be perfect. He realizes that we are part of a world that is not perfect, but that does not mean we have God’s approval to do anything we want. God says that we should be different, set apart from the sin and wickedness of the world.
Rather than trying to cover our sin, God wants us to deal with it and address it. He wants us to confess it and ask for His help to stay away from that sin. If we don’t, things will only continue to get worse until our sin finds us out and costs us more than we ever imagined. Is it really worth the price you may pay?