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We're going to be in 2 Samuel chapter 11, so you can go ahead and turn there. While you're turning, I want to read a couple of verses out of the book of James. These verses are going to kind of frame the sermon. I think 2 Samuel 11 is something of an extended illustration of James chapter 1, verses 13 through 15.

Say, let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

Can we ever say, the devil made me do it? When you sin, what is your first response? To blame shift to another person? That's what Adam did. Adam, where are you? What have you done? Well, the woman made me do it. Maybe to blame shift to the devil. The devil made me do it. That's what Eve said. It was that snake. He told me, he tempted me, and I ate. Perhaps most common in our age is to just blame outside circumstances, the economy or the state of your own personal finances, your job situation or your home situation growing up. Maybe the chemicals in your own brain are responsible for your decisions. To be sure, each of those things that I've mentioned and a thousand things more affect us. They have real impacts upon us. But the Bible never shifts the blame for sin. Not once. Or the penalty. Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death. And these truths, again, they're dramatically painted for us in 2 Samuel chapter 11.

So the first thing we see is verse 1. David is at ease. 2 Samuel chapter 11 verse 1 says, In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabob. But David remained at Jerusalem.

Now if you remember the last several chapters of 2 Samuel, including chapter 10 last week, David had been fighting with and destroying the Ammonites. The Lord had promised David peace on every side back in chapter 7, and he was providing him that peace through military conquest. After the last defeat of the Ammonites in chapter 10, verse 14, they had fled back to their capital city, back to Raboth, because it was a natural shelter, a natural fortification. It had a good high position. It had lots of sources of water. It was an easy city to defend. So when the Israelites defeated the Ammonites, the Ammonites all flee back to Raboth, and apparently it's moving towards a time of year that isn't isn't great for fighting. And so Joab brings his men back to Jerusalem.

But now it's the spring. And instead of going back out to attack and sack Rabah himself, David has sent Joab. Joab is leading the men and David remains in Jerusalem. And this is strange for David, right? If we're reading the first and second Samuel, Narratives. David has always been a man of action. In 1 Chronicles 28 and verse 3, God calls David a man of war. That's the reason God gives him there for not allowing him to build the temple because he has been a man of war. There's too much blood on his hands.

This man of war, this ultimate action hero from the Bible is now sitting at home. He sends Joab to lead. Ten times in this chapter, the verb send or sent