OPENING
SENTENCE: Something that stirred up controversy some weeks ago was the US vice-president, Mike Pence stated to the Hill that he practiced the “Billy Graham” rule.
INTRODUCTION: That meant that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either. This one of the four things developed by the evangelist and his to team avoid any hint of sexual indiscretion.
When Pence’s position became public the rule was immediately criticized for restricting opportunities for women to network with male colleagues. Tracey Bianchi said, "women are marginalized and cut out of opportunities to network, share their ideas, and advance in the organization." Laura Roberts tweeted, “What the Billy Graham rule does is to reduce women to sexual temptation objects, things to be avoided, it is dehumanizing, anti-gospel” and “It treats temptation to stray from one’s marriage as unavoidable, and present in every encounter with a woman, locating sin her, not you.”
TRANSITION
SENTENCE: While I agree that the rule has the potential for abuse I empathize with its intent.
TRANSITION: It was intended to avoid the scandals that have plagued evangelists and ministers over the years. A lot of adulterous affairs have begun with simple innocent encounters of members of the opposite sex. I have also seen some good men whose image was destroyed because of a woman scorned or falsely accused of inappropriate advances.
Allen Petersen, citing his own experience says, “I had just arrived in a Michigan town to begin a series of meetings in the church on Sunday. It was a small, colorless community, common people, no sophis¬tication. At this Saturday night get-acquainted reception, a church woman sat down beside me… For a moment we exchanged pleasantries. Then in a matter-of-fact way she handed me a piece of paper with her address and phone number. "I thought you might get lonely while you're here. If you'd like to drop over some afternoon, give me a call. My husband is gone all week, working in Detroit. The last speaker we had at the church came over several times; I think you might enjoy it." “I thought you might get lonely while you're here.”
SAY WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SAY: The Bible gives us the perfect account of how simple innocent encounters can lead to something more. In that light, this morning I want to ask, “What does David’s affair with Beth Sheba teach us about adultery?
TEXT: II Samuel 11
THEME: Being committed to God and our spouse protects you from inappropriate relationships.
What does David’s affair with Beth Sheba teach us about adultery?
I. Most affairs start with an innocent momentary temptation. (1-3)
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. 2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”
A. Temptation can come in the course of a normal day. with things going well.
Like David, most affairs start from innocent encounters. As Florence Littauer has said, “No man or woman gets up in the morning and looks out the window and says, “My, this is a lovely day! I’ll guess I’ll go out and commit adultery. Yet many do it anyway.” Most men are stimulated visually and have numerous episodes in any given day where brief glimpses of attraction quickly fade. But, that is where that is where his choices begin. Either man will govern his passions and find peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy,
B. Temptation can come when you are unprepared, relaxed and confident.
It was a normal day and everything was going fine. The nation was victorious in war and expanding its boundaries. Nothing would indicate the string of events that would soon be set in motion to destroy David’s reputation. As E Allen Petersen has stated, “I believe this affair came as something of a surprise to both David and Bathsheba. Neither one had planned for this an hour before it happened. It was not the result of flirtation or lecherous conniving. David was a man after God's own heart and Bathsheba was a faithful wife to her courageous and patriotic husband. David was just coming off a season of prosperity and fame."
C. Temptation convinces you that the thing you desire is good for you. James 1:13-15
Temptation never considers the consequences- it only considers the immediate gratification. James describes it this way: “… each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
The lie of temptation is that acting on the object of desire is good for us when, in fact, it is not. James 1 warns us, “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Things that are truly good are consistent with the will of God.
ILLUSTRATE: It is in these earliest stages of temptation where must practice self-control. Most of our daily actions are automated. We do them with little thought or energy. Think of driving your car to work: You back out of the driveway, and before you know it, you are there. Likewise, we "automatically" comb our hair, climb stairs, and do the dishes.
But, we also engage in controlled behaviors. These behaviors require conscious thought and effort. Think of driving in a foreign country, where cars are on the ''wrong" side of the road. Or assembling a piece of furniture with confusing instructions, or using a software program for the first time. Both automated and controlled behaviors are needed in life. If we had only automated behaviors, we would be like simple robots, mindlessly repeating the same actions every time. But, if we had only controlled behaviors, we'd have to intentionally plan and execute every single thing that we do. But, we can train the automated impulses.
Plato described self-control as an elephant with a rider on its back. It's a strong animal, weighing six tons. It's also prone to wander off in search of food or whatever else catches its eye. The rider is smart- he knows what needs to be done and is good at planning. The rider is also weak compared to the elephant. For a short time, the rider can control the elephant using muscle, but this never lasts long. The rider soon tires and the elephant can do what it wants. But the rider can train the elephant so it does what it should with little effort from the rider. The elephant is automated behavior-strong, powerful, but not good at planning and prone to stray. The rider is controlled behavior, who knows what needs to be done but struggles to control the elephant. Willpower( or self-control) is the strength of the rider.
APPLY: The Bible speaks of self-control as a good thing. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23). A person who lacks it is like a city without walls (Prov. 25:28). It's something that church elders should have (Titus 1:8). The practice of Christianity requires self-control. David, when he saw Beth Sheba, needed self-control but he failed to apply it at the time he needed it most.
THEME: Being committed to God and our spouse protects you from inappropriate relationships.
What does David’s affair with Beth Sheba teach us about adultery?
II. The decisions that follow the temptation determine the outcome.
4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
6 So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
12 Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
A. Adultery, pregnancy, deception, murder, family tragedy and divine judgment all started with one look. While most men’s eyes are typically drawn to attractive women but it seldom goes past the initial impulse- as it should. If David had simply looked away and gone on with his day in a short time he would have thought little of it. But, he allowed himself to let it his eyes linger too long and it stimulated him to indulge in his baser instincts.
B. Temptation affects decisions regarding your fantasies, your flesh, your faith and your future. David’s first decision was to “check up” on this beautiful woman to indulge his fantasy but then took it a step further and had her brought to his palace (flesh). He used his position as king to put her in a difficult situation. It also affected his faith- the choice to disobey God in an act he knew to be wrong. And, as we will see, it impacted his future. It became the cause of great pain in his life that would never be the same again.
C. Things don’t just happen- there are usually underlying reasons that people cheat.
No one accidentally finds themselves alone in a room together with someone you are attracted to. Small incremental decisions lead to that context. It sometimes starts with something lacking in a marriage relationship and is often a sign of a need for help, an attempt to compensate for deficiencies in the relationship due to situational stress, a warning that someone is suffering. But we must remember circumstances don't make a man, they reveal him. The way to deal with the marital deficiency is not to violate the marriage covenant yet we are always looking for shortcuts and superficially lust is an attractive route to consider but leads to a dead end.
ILLUSTRATE: C.S. Lewis offers this illustration on lust. “Supposing you are taking a dog on a leash through a turnstile or past a post. You know what happens (apart from his usual ceremonies in passing a post!). He tries to go to the wrong side and gets his head looped round the post. You see that he can't do it, and therefore pull him back. You pull him back because you want to enable him to go forward. He wants exactly the same thing—namely to go forward: for that very reason he resists your pull back, or, if he is an obedient dog, yields to it reluctantly as a matter of duty which seems to him to be quite in opposition to his own will: though in fact it is only by yielding to you that he will ever succeed in getting where he wants. The dog believes the lie that the only way forward, the only way to get what it wants, is to push ahead. Lewis, the dog-owner, affirms the longing of the dog to go forward, but he must pull the dog back in order for it to actually make any progress.
APPLY: So what should you do when you fall into sin? Ask for forgiveness and redirection. Lewis continued, "You may go the wrong way again, and again [God] may forgive you: as the dog's master may extricate the dog after he has tied the whole lead round the lamp-post. But there is no hope in the end of getting where you want to go except by going God's way."
THEME: Being committed to God and our spouse protects you from inappropriate relationships.
What does David’s affair with Beth Sheba teach us about adultery?
III. Covering up the affair is the typical and predictable response. (14-27)
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.15 In it, he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle. 19 He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, 20 the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? 21 Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth[b]? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’”
22 The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. 23 The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
25 David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. 27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
A. Living a lie for one night requires many lies to cover it up.
David, a man after God's own heart becomes cunning, treacherous, ruthless, and unconscionable. In one masterstroke of evil design, David moved quickly and decisively to do all three at once. Bring Uriah home from the war, let him sleep with Bathsheba a night or two, and send him off to war to be killed. All done in the attempt to cover up his adulterous act.
B. The strategy is always the same: protect yourself, blame others, deny the affair, eliminate the evidence.
Since Adam's time all men instinctively want to cover their tracks, "because their deeds are evil." ? What was intended to be a clandestine and passing pleasure now requires a detailed strategy of deception. Living a lie one night, if not confessed completely, requires many lies to cover it. Living a lie makes it easy to start telling lies, in fact, necessi¬tates it. It inevitably hurts marriages.
C. Three ways in which infidelity hurts marriages:
• It causes pain to the offended party. It breaks faith and their self-esteem and value to their partner. They begin comparing and asking, “What’s wrong with me?”
• It masks the real problem- it avoids dealing with the real issues of the intimacy of a relationship- issues that are most likely your own and not your spouse.
• It destroys character. He wants to restore his trust and intimacy with his wife but lies to hide the affair. It is a double bind- he loses either way. Instead of bringing her closer it sends her further away. Gal. 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
ILLUSTRATE: If you read, watch, or listen to the news at all, you probably heard a story about a certain United Airlines flight in a "disturbing scene captured on cellphone videos,” where a passenger was forcibly removed from an overbooked flight; he "screamed as a security officer wrestled him out of his seat and dragged him down the aisle by his arms.”
Naturally, outrage ensued: The "videos spread rapidly online … as people criticized the airline's tactics. With some potential PR overhauls in the works after the incident, The Twitterverse offered up a list of alternative mottos for United: "Would you like a neck pillow? Or a neck brace?" "We overbooked, but you pay the price." "We have Red Eye and Black Eye flights available!" "We put the hospital in hospitality."
"You can run, but you can't fly." As the Huffington Post comments, however, "It's unlikely United will take them up anytime soon."
APPLY: Sometimes the mistakes we make can feel like our own personal "PR nightmare" Thankfully, I John 1:9 tells us what do, "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness"
THEME: Being committed to God and our spouse protects you from inappropriate relationships.
SAY WHAT YOU HAVE SAID: This morning we learned that David's night of pleasure became a nightmare of pain. We learn that his baby died. His beautiful daughter, Tamar, was raped by her half-brother Amnon. Amnon was killed by older brother Absa¬lom. Absalom was separated from David for three years and came back to form a conspiracy against him. When Absalom was finally killed in an ambush, David broke into tears and sobbed, "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!”
TIE INTO OPENING SENTENCE: What changes a man chosen of God so that he becomes wily, sinister, a destroyer of all he and others hold dear? The lessons from David are obvious and apply to all of us. The “Billy Graham” rule was formulated because it understands how the damage adultery causes and is an attempt to reduce its likelihood of happening.
APPLY TO SPECIFIC AUDIENCE:
I. No one, however, chosen, blessed, and used of God, is immune to an extramarital affair.
2. Anyone, regardless of how many victories he has won, can fall disastrously.
3. The act of infidelity is the result of uncontrolled desires, thoughts, and fantasies.
4. Your body is your servant or it becomes your master.
5. A Christian who falls will excuse, rationalize, and conceal, the same as anyone else.
6. Sin can be enjoyable but it can never be successfully covered.
7. One night of passion can spark years of family pain.
8. Failure is neither fatal nor final.
HAYMAKER: Men and women alike need to learn self-control can be both automatic and intentional. N. T. Wright describes this process as virtue: ''Virtue is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices requiring effort and concentration to do something which is good and right, but which doesn't come naturally. And then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find that they do what's required automatically. Virtue is what happens when wise and courageous choices become second nature." Intentional habit formation is central to the New Testament's call to holiness and sanctification.
