10c No.7 High Fidelity

In the spring, at the time when kings go after war, David sent Job out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem. 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, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, isn't this Bathsheba, daughter of William and the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Then David sent messengers to get her.

She came to him and he slept with her. She had purified herself from her uncleanliness. Then she went back home.

The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, I am pregnant. So David sent this word to Job, send me Uriah the Hittite. And Job sent him to David.

When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Job was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. So Uriah left the palace and the gift from the king was sent after him.

But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to the house. When David was told Uriah had not gone home, he asked him, haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home? Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents. And my master Job and my lord's men are camped in the open field.

How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as I live, I will not do such a thing. 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.

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.

In the morning, David wrote a letter to Job and sent it with Uriah. In it, he wrote, put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so that he will be struck down and die.

So while Job had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. When the men of the city came out and fought against Job, some of the men in David's army fell. Moreover, Uriah the Hittite was dead.

When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of the mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. What the thing David had done displeased the Lord.

And let's read together from the book of Exodus. Moses in the 20th chapter, speaking the word of the Lord, gives out 10 commandments. As we've noted several times in this series, not suggestions, commandments.

And the 14th verse of Exodus 20 gives us the 7th. You shall not commit adultery. Now listen to one or two more verses.

Job chapter 31 and verse 1. I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. Let's go to Matthew's gospel. In chapter 5, our blessed Lord speaking.

You have heard that it was said do not commit adultery. I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.

It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Let's go to Corinthians and the first letter in chapter 6. The apostle Paul doesn't mince matters when he talks about the nightclubs in Corinth. And in the 15th verse of 1 Corinthians 6, astonishingly he's addressing the church and he says this. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never.

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said that two will become one flesh. But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Do flee from sexual immorality.

All of the sins a man commits are outside his body. But he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You're not your own.

You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. And Philippians in the fourth chapter, verse 8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me put into practice, the God of peace will be with you. Last time, maybe four times ago to be accurate, I touched on this sort of subject. I got a rather hot letter from someone who, bless their hearts, didn't feel that such things should be handled on a Sunday night.

Those of you who are visitors, we're making our way through the Ten Commandments and we don't think there are any exceptions. And although I, for one, would like to hop over this in terms of a public address, that would defy the commitment that this pulpit has. And that is that every aspect of God's Word is for reading and for application sensitively.

And maybe in these days it's wrong to make some sort of apologia, some sort of excuse for ministering on this particular area. After all, the media have it to themselves, by and large. It's not often that full-blooded ITV or BBC will allow someone of our particular convictions to expound what is biblical teaching.

We're into the area of sexual conduct. And whenever one is speaking in this area, one thing is sure, nobody goes to sleep. Matthew will discover that when he goes to OM and the grilling that they get at Love Europe, the full night of prayer on a Wednesday is always followed by George Verva speaking on sexual ethics on the Thursday and no one goes to sleep.

Psychologically, it's well tucked into the program. We live in days when most novels, most TV drama, films take immorality as the norm. That's probably a fair reflection on society as it is today.

There has been a titanic move even in sexual code and practice in this country in the last 10 years. Within the last 15, the statistics of people living together before marriage has moved from something like 6% to 50% and that's a tremendous swing. More and more it's questioned that the biblical ethic really has any relevance to the 20th century.

And here the Bible comes along in the Old Testament and tells us quite bluntly you're not to commit adultery. And our Lord hires the stakes in the New Testament and puts what's almost an impossible goal for us to live. It was difficult then, it's even more difficult now.

And he tells us that mental purity, the thought that gives birth to the act has also to be controlled. Because a thought that is accepted is equivalent to the act. Therefore we are to be disciplined not only in our behavior but also in our thought life.

The commandment that Moses gives in the name of God is obviously directed with the idea of marriage very much in mind. The Old Testament ethic is sharpened and woman's rights are declared in the New Testament where they seem to be overlooked to some degree in the Old. I mean by that you shall not commit adultery.

Though an absolute statement in the Old Testament didn't seem to bring any particular condemnation to Samson. When he went down into the sort of sophisticated boudoirs of Philistia and had relationships with women folk down there. When David is censured for the sin against Uriah, no mention is made of the sin against his own wife or wives.

In the Old Testament era it seemed as though the thing that was prominent in their understanding was that it was wrong for another man to take someone else's wife. Because it endangered the progeny, the offspring of the one who had been offended. Women were dealt with rather severely if they committed adultery.

There was stoning and later on there was censure by the officials and a refusal to allow a marriage to the person with whom a relationship had been entered into. But when you move to the New Testament you discover of all people that it's the Apostle Paul who moves an amendment for women's rights. And suggests that that same fidelity that a man expects of his wife also ought to be expected of the husband.

And our Lord, as I've indicated, lifts the whole thing just from the level of the physical to the level of the mind. And he tells us that we are to be pure in our thought, in our thinking. So we stand back and ask ourselves, how do we relate to this particular teaching? If we believe the Bible to be the word of God then we can't duck it, there's no way around it.

We have to accept that what the Lord God said to Moses and what the Lord Jesus says to us is that we work through in the warp and woof of our lives. And even in this whole area of mental purity we are to try to do what John Stott once said in Distilled Wisdom. That he gave when asked how one should cope with the challenge of the Christian life, daily dogged discipline was his response.

There's a remarkable book written by the Professor of Ethics of Fuller Theological Seminary in the States. It's a commentary on the Ten Commandments. It's entitled Mere Morality and it's published in this country under the cover of Lion Paperbacks.

He suggests that in our world today we have two types of people. There are those who he calls covenant makers and there are those who he calls maximizers. Covenant makers or covenant keepers are those who are prepared to live at the level of the vow that they have made.

And he's speaking particularly in the area of sexual ethics and marriage relationships. The self-maximizers are those who feel that life is basically a ball that is at their feet. And that they are to get the best that they possibly can out of every situation.

They believe that the erotic is something that is to be fulfilled constantly in their lives. That they have a right to expect enjoyment and excitement despite any other responsibility that could be external to themselves. The covenant keepers are those who are prepared to subsume, to minimize sometimes their own desires in the interest of others and particularly in the interest of one's partner.

The self-maximizers are those people who are more likely to later on at some stage take into their relationship someone else with whom they can have a physical sexual relationship. And Smedes tells us that as far as Christianity is concerned we are not to be self-maximizers. We are to be covenant keepers.

Those of us who are married have been called to live in fidelity with our wives not for one month, nor for one year, nor for one decade, rather one partner for life. One partner for life. And to move outside of that as a married person is to engage in adultery.

Adultery knocks down at least three skittles of the commandments. Few sins are simple. Most sins are compound.

Somebody has said of a mathematics teacher that he is a person who is called to make vulgar fractions look decent to children who find arithmetic hard. Sin is vulgar. And when you think in terms of adultery you've knocked down the commandment you shall not covet.

You've also knocked down the commandment you shall not steal. And then there is the commandment basic to itself, you shall not commit adultery and I suppose you could say that the first commandment also is gone because that says that we should love the Lord our God and make him the exclusive object at least the main object of affection in our lives. So you see what I mean when I say that the breach of this commandment also knocks down other commandments.

You say but your comment is cast within the setting of marriage. Does that mean to say therefore that prior to marriage sexual relationships are permissible? The answer from the Bible is no. But there is a distinguishing element between what happens before marriage and what happens after.

The Bible calls promiscuity fornication. It talks of sex after marriage with someone else in terms of adultery. But both are wrong.

God asks one person to keep him or herself for one other in a marital relationship that is to span the whole of life. Why? Because he's a killjoy. Well that would seem to be the response of modernity of people today.

But you know one of the things that we have discovered about the Ten Commandments is this that actually they are analogous to a manufacturer who produces a piece of merchandise and gives you instructions not because he wants you to blow the video set up at the first time of plugging in but because he wants you to get the best out of what you have purchased. And that's the basic reason behind the commandments. It's also the specific reason behind sexual morality as it is defined in the Old and in the New Testament.

There is hardly any book I rephrase that. There is no book that speaks with such wisdom and with such enthusiasm in regard to sexuality. As Douglas Barnett, an English evangelist once commented the first sexual thought in the Bible came from God.

He said of Adam that it wasn't good for him to be alone and when he created Eve he said that the two of them should become one flesh. When you get to the Song of Solomon, that lyrical book in the Old Testament an immediate reading indicates that as far as sex is concerned the Bible is not against it but is for it as one of the good and perfect gifts of God. What the Bible is against is the exploitation the degradation the pollution that happens when sex out of its context becomes like a fire that conditions and controls society.

I'm not a visionary but there are two or three occasions, maybe just a few more in my life when I think that God has spoken to me through visions. One occasion was when I had a glimpse of the road on which I live and it seemed as though the sewage pipes which are generally under the ground had been lifted up and in the houses all the structure of pipes had been rearranged and the outflow came from the lounges the living rooms of people but the outflow had become the inflow and what was in the lounges and in the living rooms of many was a sort of sewage or garbage. The meaning I think was quite obvious that in the 20th century and in the latter part we're allowing into our homes and into our lives and into our minds that which our forebears didn't have to cope with because they didn't have the curse of some of the modern things that you and I have in our homes which used wrongly can become indeed a curse.

The other was a Victorian tenement block of houses. They were all beautifully whitened with whatever that ingredient is that you put on the outside of walls equivalent to the emulsion that you put on the inside and then I saw a little boy who was a chimney sweep and he came out of the top, surprise surprise, of the chimney all dirty and it seemed as though the message was this there are many whitened houses and inside there's an awful amount of filth. Cromwell said the mind is the man.

What you think, you are. Conditioning you more than the food you take in is the reading that you allow your eyes to have the pictures that you see. Some of us who are older know how difficult it is to expunge to eradicate, to rub out bad pictures of experiences that should never have been ours.

So our blessed Lord, when he speaks about the mind and when he speaks about relationships he tells us that we are to watch not only our physical conduct but we are also to watch what we allow our minds to receive. Let's go back for a moment to David. David is one of these self-maximizers.

When he's in a better mood he's a covenant keeper. His particular problem in the passage that Matthew read to us was this. He was where he should not have been at a time when a tempting situation came into his vision.

He did not have the same sort of courage that Joseph had when he was repeatedly offered sexual activity by the wife of his master. David instead of clearing off from the roof where he was allowed himself to be absorbed by the scene that greeted him the Bathsheba washing. And ultimately you know what happened.

You remember I said that sin is a vulgar thing? Well this is demonstrated as far as David goes in this particular incident. Bathsheba finds herself to be with child so what does David do? Well he wants to cover. He wants to blind Israel to the fact that he has reneged on them as a king who claims a spiritual dimension.

And so he brings Uriah her husband back from the scene of battle and coaxes him in some pretext to go back to his wife feeling that when they have resumed their own marital relationships there will be a smoke screen covering over David's activity. That doesn't work because Uriah is such a dedicated soldier and does not return to his home but to the barracks. David brings him back the second night, has him take more alcohol than he should do and as a result feels that the stupefied Uriah will go back to his wife but he doesn't.

So then what does David do? He takes out his pen and he writes a letter and he sends it to Joab who is the commander of the crack battalion of David's army and David had a good army per se but the crack men were amongst them was none other than Uriah. So David tells Joab to put Uriah in the front of the battle and to go near the city that is being besieged than is military advisable and should it be that Uriah dies Joab is not to feel too uncomfortable and if you were listening you got the drift of what happened. Uriah did die.

But you know David is now over a barrel as far as Joab is concerned. Joab has got a letter from David which will always make David indebted to Joab. A man by the name of Hercus with a great imagination writes a book on the life of David and he's got Joab from that moment on always asking David for extra privileges and when David starts to cough and sputter Joab takes out the letter.

He's got him you see. When you surrender your moral purity you do so at the disadvantage of your spiritual credibility. So David is in great difficulty and when his sin is discovered and made public as sin invariably is this side of eternity all before the judgment seat of God David then appreciates that what he has done is not just a crime against his own family it's not just a crime against Israel it is a crime against God, against you.

You only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. The man, the woman who engages in immorality the man who falls foul of the commands of the Lord is in effect questioning the whole basis of life as God has structured it. He is the self-maximizer.

He is saying Lord what really matters is not the ongoing purposes of God through the human family what really matters is my indulgence and my enjoyment and to hell with the rest. The language is strong but do you know of a case of adultery that didn't bring jealousy? Do you know of a case of adultery which did not bring shame? Do you know of a case of adultery which did not bring hurt? Do you know of a case of adultery which in the better moments does not bring a sense of regret on the part of the person who has engaged in it? So you say well this is all very nice well it's not so nice but at least it's blunt but what about now the problem with this particular series is that you could have a series on each one of these commandments and then not exhaust the teaching. What about the marriage that starts to go bad and the woman who backs off or the man who backs off and the problems that that creates within the marriage.

There is a verse in scripture that says my grace is sufficient for you. I live opposite a home which looks after people who have multiple sclerosis. That home is to me a sermon almost every day I see some faithful man pushing his wife in a wheelchair or a reverse situation and I think of the incredible fidelity that that person is representing.

You cannot relate to someone sexually says the apostle Paul at a sort of superficial level. You remember the address or the little snippet I gave you from the Bible from 1 Corinthians 6. I meant what I said when Paul was dealing with Christian people who were going to the nightclubs in Corinth. Don't think of these early cities, towns as being any different from modern places.

There were opportunities for promiscuity. There were prostitutes and so on and so forth. And the apostle Paul when he writes to the Christians at Corinth he reminds them that when they engage if they are tempted so to do in an immoral act the two become one flesh.

There is something about this intimacy this bonding that transcends the mere physical. It's a soulless thing. It's a spiritual thing.

There are not really words to describe it. This is why the Old Testament makes its own word and refers to one fleshness. If a man or a woman have been together in this sort of area they can never really be the same again.

The apostle suggests that it's more than just a physical act. It's something that affects the personality. It's something that affects the depths of the psyche.

And says the apostle Paul Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Therefore if you disgrace yourself in this area you grieve the Holy Spirit of God. And as far as Christians are concerned in terms of sexual conduct one of the reasons for fidelity is not just because I honor and respect my partner. I honor and I respect this God who gives me the very oxygen for me to breathe and grants to me the grace of life.

You say I find it hard to keep my mind clean. You've just joined a majority club. There is not a man here and I doubt whether there are many ladies who don't at times have the same problem.

I have counseled 70 year old women sometimes with problems in this area. One wished that one could say to young people that when you're 18 look forward to being 28. And when you're 28 look forward to being 38.

And when you're 38 look forward to being 48 and so as you get older you decline. It's not so. I am as enthusiastic and as energetic now as I was when I came here.

The battle for mental purity is one that all of us has to fight every day of our lives and we have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to help us so to do. Whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are of sound report these are the things on which to stay your mind. So Jesus says if your eye offends you plug it out.

If your hand is causing you to sin cut it off. If you can't cope with your video then get rid of the blessed thing. And if you can't cope with your television it's fairly easy to get through life without a box.

You see what I'm doing is just making the practical statement that our beloved Lord I believe would be making in these days as he takes that extravagant language the hyperbole which he uses in terms of plucking out your eye and cutting off your hand. What he is saying is this that sin actually occurs in the mind in the tempting situation and before you ever get down onto that slippery road there are certain things that you can do to prevent your descent. You cannot stop when you're on the slope.

The point at stopping is the point two or three jumps before and that you can cope with. My time's nearly gone but I want to say a word two more things basically. Give me a few more minutes will you.

These subjects are important. What about relationships within Christianity across the sexes? I teach those who come to our marriage classes which Tim and Bob Mortimer and others sometimes help with. I teach in my particular category that relationships can exist in four areas.

There is the relationship of desire. There is the physical attraction. There is the relationship of emotion the love that one feels towards someone else.

There is the relationship of spirit a spiritual common denominator which two people can have in common and there's the relationship of intellect you can share your mind your conversation with other people. Now obviously if you take away the first in terms of its sexual connotation it is possible for you to have a friend. Many friends who are not of your sex and enjoy a good and pure and clean relationship with them.

Says the Apostle Paul when he's writing to Timothy treat the young women in your church as though they were your sister. Don't exploit them. Don't ignore them.

If it was wrong to have friendships within the sexes and across the sexes how impoverished some of our singles would be. But there are parameters there are lines which are clearly drawn by Scripture. To go over those lines is exploitation and that you would not do for the respect you have for the individual and more for the commitment that you have to the Lord.

And if you find a friendship like that beyond the bounds that you can handle you back off because of the love that you have for the individual and the love you have for the Lord. Two things up was one. The last you say but what do I do? Those who have fallen foul of a command maybe physically or maybe in your mind.

Look there was a time when it seemed as though the evangelical pulpit thought that sex and sexual misdemeanor was about the only sin worth mentioning. There are many sins and there is only one sin that cannot be forgiven and that is the sin of unbelief. The blood of Jesus Christ God's Son keeps on cleansing us from all sin.

You say but you don't know the problems I have with my personal sexual habits. How hard I try to give up. How difficult I find the task to be.

How much at times I hate myself. I come back the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses us from all sin. We do not sponge on the grace of God.

We hate the sin and we say here I am it's me again and when the Lord sees your heart brokenness he forgives and when he asks for his strength he empowers. Go from this church and appreciate this that the God of the Bible is the God who gave the good gift of sex. Is the God who is upset when what he has given which is good is polluted.

Is the God who understands the frailty of human nature and the difficulty some have in handling their sexual desires. He's the God and Father of our Lord Jesus who wants to give you forgiveness and self respect when you've erred. As he forgave David and allowed him to build again out of the debris of his situation when he broke the law of God he forgave his brother so many times.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father there's not a man or a woman here who doesn't confess that in some areas the mind is a difficult beast to control but we thank you that we can offer our minds to you. You can cleanse our thoughts.

You can forgive us our misdemeanors. You can allow us to back off from the tempting situation and where we've cheated and done wrong to find forgiveness if our repentance is full. We thank you for the frankness of your word and we ask that you will enable us to live by it and we pray that we might know the constant cleansing of our Lord Jesus and the ability to recognize the lie of the devil when he suggests that the self maximizer gets the best out of life.

Help us to understand that happiness comes through covenant keeping and that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus wishes us to know all joy and all peace and all satisfaction. And may your grace be on us all. Holy Father Amen.