Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

HOW TO LIE AND GET AWAY WITH IT

1.

No matter what lie you’re telling, say it effortlessly.

No pausing, no making stuff up on the spot, no twitching.

You will be casual and calm or you will fail.

Pretend you’re an actor; no matter how hard the enemy grills you, you’re not going to crack because it’s just a movie.

2. Step 2

2. Maintain eye contact.

Looking up and to the left is a subconscious action that is associated with story telling and lying.

Down and to the right is remembering.

Either is suspicious.

Maintain eye contact.

Step 3

3. Believe you can get away with anything.

You are untouchable, and invincible.

You are Master of the Truth.

You don’t need it to tell you anything, because you have your own version.

Step 4

4. Make sure your stories are believable.

Give up enough truth to get you into a small amount of trouble to draw attention away from the real issue

There’s really only one problem: You never really get away with it.When it comes to our sin, you and I have an amazing ability to lie to ourselves.

As the famous Christian counselor and Church Administrator, Tony Sebastian, said: Sin makes you stupid!

O, and I must tell you that I highly represent that remark!

I remember as a kid always being fascinated with smoking.

No one had yet shown me the wrinkled faces, the cancer-ridden lungs, nor the patients gasping for air, yet so addicted that they kept on puffing.

It just seemed so cool to blow out smoke.

So, as an 8 or 9 year old boy, I thought I’d hit the jackpot when I found that almost brand new pack of Pall Mall’s laying on the side of the road.

Now these were not the filtered kind, these were just the harsh straight paper and tobacco kind.

I snuck those cigarettes into my pocket, went home, and showed them to my sister.

Now, while I think I’m of average intelligence, on that day we were just plain dumb.

Since we couldn’t play with matches, we would just light them on the stove then run to the bathroom and smoke them, thinking that somehow my mom, who was in the house at the time, would not be able to smell them.

I told you we weren’t too bright!

Well, I guess you know how long that lasted.

About two puffs!

There was a knock on the bathroom door and when we unlocked it, our smoking days were over!

Now, go ahead, call me dumb.

That’s ok, I’ll just return the favor!

When it comes to sin, all of us are that dumb.

We do our thing and commit our sin, thinking that somehow we can run to the bathroom, lock the door, and God will never smell our smoke.

But He knows the end from the beginning, and He knows about our sin.

And here’s what he says about cover-ups: “He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”

Now when God tells us that if we cover our sins, we will not prosper, He means it, and just in case we doubt what He’s telling us, He gives us some living examples of people who learned that lesson the hard way.

No where do you see that lesson taught more clearly than in the life of David, the King of Israel.

Listen to His story:

It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah.

But David remained at Jerusalem.

Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house.

And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.

3 So David sent and inquired about the woman.

And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.

5 And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”

Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.”

And Joab sent Uriah to David.

7 When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered.

8 And David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”

So Uriah departed from the king’s house, and a gift of food from the king followed him.

9 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.

10 So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey?

Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields.

Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife?

As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”

12 Then David said to Uriah, “Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.”

So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.

13 Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk.

And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

14 In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.”

16 So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men.

17 Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab.

And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.

18 Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, 19 and charged the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king, 20 if it happens that the king’s wrath rises, and he says to you: ‘Why did you approach so near to the city when you fought?

Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?

21 Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth?

Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez?

Why did you go near the wall?’—then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’

” 22 So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent by him.

23 And the messenger said to David, “Surely the men prevailed against us and came out to us in the field; then we drove them back as far as the entrance of the gate.

24 The archers shot from the wall at your servants; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” 25 Then David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab: ‘Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another.

Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it.’

So encourage him.”

26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.

27 And when her 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.

Now I want you to look at this sordid chapter again.

God’s got something to teach you and me about the high cost of coverup.

What does covering your sin cost you?

Well, in the first place, Covering your sin costs you

DIV 1: YOUR GOD-GIVEN MISSION

EXPLANATION

Here’s a truth that you must never forget: Cover-ups sacrifice our greatest opportunities.

It certainly did for David.

This woman he lusted after and committed adultery with was the wife of one of his most valiant warriors.

Uriah was one of the men mentioned in the records of Israel as one of David’s “30".

The “30" were the equivalent of our Navy Seals.

They were the premier fighters who had the value of several average fighters.

Here David was, engaged in a military campaign.

Even though he didn’t go to war himself, surely he wanted his side to win.

Even though he was not in the middle of the action, he had a stake in how things turned out.

It went even further than being involved in some military campaign.

It was the will of God that Israel prosper and that David become king of a great nation.