"Affair Proofing Your Marriage" Series

SEEKING GOD FAITHFULLY-

A LOOK AT THE LIFE OF DAVID

Message#8

"Affair Proofing Your Marriage"

INTRODUCTION

We have been in a study of the life of David for the past two months. To properly cover David’s life, could take a whole year of preaching. But we will conclude this series this morning as we talk about the most well known incidents in David’s life, his affair with Bathsheba.

This series of messages has been well received because we have touched on a number of issues in David’s life that we can all relate to- we all have giants to fight in our life, many of us have lost things in life we banked on for security, we have had to deal with feelings of wanting to get even and retaliate, we battle issues of anger.

I had one lady come up to me after last week’s message and say to me, "this series has been so helpful because I can relate to every topic you have preached on." I thanked the lady for her kind comment and than said to her, "I hope that won’t be true for next week’s message." She looked at me and asked me why. So I told her that I the next message from David’s life would deal with adultery. She quickly assured me that she couldn’t relate to that issue.

No sin, except maybe the sin of Adam and Eve has received more press than the sin of David and Bathsheba. Movie makers have exploited this story with their "David and Bathsheba" films, making David look like a some sort of sexual addict with uncontrollable animallike drives.

That’s not the case at all. David was a man after God’s own heart. True he sinned, but his sin was no greater than your sin or mine, ours simply have not been recorded for all to read.

How would you like to have your secret sins known to all? Much like Bill Clinton’s sexual sins became well known, David was the king of Israel and he had an affair with the wife of a high ranking army official, and this became front page news in Jerusalem tabloids.

When we last left David, he was still on the run from Saul. He still had not been made king. Well eventually Saul takes his own life and David does become the second king of Israel. He was about 30 when he became king and this incident with Bathsheba occurs about twenty years after David had become King.

David’s first twenty years as King was marked by integrity and valor. David had distinguished himself as a man of God, a valiant warrior on the battlefield and as a respected leader of the people. He returned respect and honor back to the office of King after Saul’s had dishonored the office by his actions.

So as we study this incident in David’s life, understand that we are not examining the life of a sexual pervert or wild rebel. David was a godly man who fell into a period of sin and that sin had devastating consequences to his family, to his position as king and to the entire nation of Israel. Sin always has grave consequences. That is why we all need to be careful, whether you are in your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s or 50’s like David. No one is too young or ever gets too old to sin.

I want to look at some things David did that put him in a vulnerable position to fall to this temptation and then I want to share some things you can do to affair proof your marriage.

Read 2 Sam 11:1-4a

WHAT DAVID DID WRONG

He forgot who he was.

David was a well respected man who not only led the nation of Israel as their King, he also was the unofficial spiritual leader of Israel. He was a man that displayed great passion for God and because of his musical skills, put much of that passion down on paper as he wrote many of the Psalms in our Bible. For over twenty years, David had led the nation of Israel with great honor and integrity.

But for one night on the roof of his palace, David forgot who he was and he allowed his desires to overtake him.

Just about every person in this room has someone that looks up to them. If you are a parent, you have someone who looks up to you. If you are a Christian and have let people at work or school know that you are a Christian, you have people who look up to you. If you are in any type of leadership position in this church, you have people who look up to you. And when we forget who we are, we make ourselves vulnerable to sin.