Why Moral Women Fall Series

1. Illus. of doing marriage seminar

• Talk about various aspects of marriage: communication, etc. Part of seminar is about preventing adultery in the Christian home.

• During the discussion time, a woman very kindly said, “I think this session is sort of a waste of time. Committed Christian women are immune to this kind of thing.”

2. That’s a pretty common idea here in America. Unfortunately, it isn’t true! Even Christ-loving and committed Christian women find themselves involved in extramarital affairs. If you asked a hundred pastors, “have you ever had a committed Christian woman in your church get involved in an affair?” it’s my guess that close to a hundred would answer “yes!”

3. I want to introduce you to just such a woman. Her name is Bathsheba, and her sin is recorded in the pages of II Samuel. We don’t know much about Bathsheba, but most likely she was a godly woman. Her husband was a godly, moral man. It is unlikely that such a man would marry an ungodly, immoral woman. We have every reason to believe that this woman was a committed servant of the Lord. Yet she was guilty of adultery with King David!

4. Text: When we read II Samuel 11-12, we find that there were some risk factors present in this woman’s life that perhaps made her susceptible to David’s improper advances.

5. Today: As a Christian women you may find yourself being more susceptible to the improper advances of another when one or more of these risk factors are present in their lives.

6. What are these risk factors? We see three of them illustrated in the life of Bathsheba.

I. RISK FACTOR #1: A LACK OF AFFECTION

1. What do we know about Bathsheba’s husband Uriah? Very little. One of the things he do know is that he was a career soldier. Now this is not “thus sayeth the Lord.” It’s reading between the lines. As a rough old career soldier, he was probably much more comfortable with swords and battle cries than with flowers and sweet words. If that is so, one of the things that might’ve made Bathsheba susceptible to David’s advances was a desire for affection and attention.

2. I’m willing to go out on a limb on that one because it’s been borne out so frequently in my personal experience. In most of the cases I’ve seen over the last 30 years where a committed Christian woman had an extramarital affair, it was because of an unmet need for affection and attention.

3. Illus. of poem, “an unfaithful wife to her husband.” (Red Lights, pp 30-32)

• Written a century ago by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

• Note that statutory cause was old fashioned legal way of saying divorce was because of an extramarital affair.

4. Modern Christian counseling agrees with Ms. Wilcox. You’ve probably never heard of a Christian psychologist named Willard Harley. He wrote a book called, His Needs, Her Needs. In this book he summarized what he and his staff have learned from the thousands of couples they have counseled over the years. It is his conclusion that the number one emotional need a woman has is that of non-sexual affection. I’m talking about hugs, kisses, compliments, flowers, dates etc. He believes that a woman’s need for affection is so intense that the unfulfilled desire for it can lead to an extramarital affair.

5. There is a warning there for men and woman.

 Men, do not neglect to give your wife affection and attention (See Genesis 1:27. Men do not understand this need, but we need to realize its real and its powerful- so powerful that it could destroy your home if you are not careful!).

 Woman, if you find yourself in a situation where attention and affection is lacking, BEWARE!

II. RISK FACTOR #2: A LENGTHY SEPARATION

1. Uriah had been away at war for some time. We’re not told the exact length of his absence, but it was long enough that Bathsheba knew the baby she had conceived wasn’t Uriah’s. Would she have resisted this temptation had Uriah been at home? We don’t know! The fact remains that she committed adultery after a lengthy separation from her husband.

2. Listen to this quote from Henry Virkler, professor of Christian Counseling at Liberty University. “Some jobs require that the employee spend long hours at work, or spend several nights a week away from home… boredom, loneliness and even resentment may grow… in such cases, both spouses are at an increased risk of an affair…”

3. Ladies, if you are married to a man who has to work excessively long hours, or whose job takes him away from home on a regular basis, you need to realize that it puts you at an increased risk of an affair.