Uriah replied, “The Ark and the armies of Israel and Judah are living in tents,^[a] and Joab and my master’s men are camping in the open fields. How could I go home to wine and dine and sleep with my wife? I swear that I would never do such a thing.”  (2 Samuel 11:11 NLT)

Uriah was a man of integrity, yet I have never heard a sermon preached about him.  Our righteous acts on occasions seem to go unnoticed, but the best rewards are those of an eternal nature.

King David committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.  David then had arranged to have Uriah killed in battle to cover up his sin (vs.14-16).  Before this, David devised a plot to bring Uriah back to his wife from the battlefield to mask the identity of the child that David had spawned (vs. 6-10).  Because the Ark and army of God were camped in the field, he refused to go home and sleep with his wife.  Uriah’s reward for his selfless act was that he lost his life.  We live in a fallen world, and often the innocent reaps the consequences of other peoples’ wrong choices.  If we read this story just from a human perspective, it can appear to be a tragic event.  But remember, God never misses one of our righteous acts, and he never, ever forgets.

Doing righteous acts and receiving a blessing is a good thing.  Continuing to do good when you are only receiving bad is a great thing.  Someone once said, “do right because it is right to do right.”  Uriah was a man that did well, and I can just imagine the reception he got when he arrived in heaven.

I worked for seventeen years as a missionary with Youth With A Mission.  My missionary work has taken me to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Spain, and Ukraine.  I hold a Masters of Education in curriculum and instruction from Virginia Commonwealth University.  [email protected]