Thursday, November 08, 2007

Anatomy of a Fall - Pt 2

2Sa 11:2-4
It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, "Is not this Bathshe'ba, the daughter of Eli'am, the wife of Uri'ah the Hittite?" So David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her. RSV

When the ‘connecting’ (emotional attraction) with another person of the opposite sex begins the dangerous path to a fall has begun. Let this be a warning, it happens all too easy and will ultimately result in sexual immorality if not stopped at this point.

Here are the road signs on the road to destruction:

  • You talk with the other sex about your marital problems.

  • You tell them you are sharing only with them deep intimate things for their ears only.

  • You enjoy their company more than you do that of your spouse.

  • You anticipate seeing them and begin to arrange being near them or actually in their presence.

  • You begin to act silly in their presence, actually flirting with them.

  • You begin to use email or instant messenger as a means of secretly communicating with them.

  • They become to you all the things your spouse is not fulfilling at that time.

  • They begin to press your ‘needs’ button. You enjoy the ‘strokes.’

  • You begin to fantasize about that person.

  • Even though your spouse knows you are ‘distracted,’ you keep them in the dark about your feelings of attraction to the opposite sex.

  • You convince yourself that this new relationship is okay; after all they are Christian or a friend ‘walking you through this tough time.’

  • You try to hide your friendship from everyone and when people become suspicious you cover it up.
Pastor or Pastor's wife (or anyone for that matter), if you see yourself in any one of the listing above – you have begun on that deadly road of destruction!

More to come on how to guard against it-

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

David,
First I want to commend you for addressing such a difficult subject. Probably one of the easiest jobs the enemy of man has is tempting people in the area of sexual sin. Too quickly people are ready to give in, then try to justify their actions.
It would seem there are no easy answers. And yet the answer of trusting Jesus to deliver from this temptation would be easy if a person would take time to ask for guidance. Too many times though we turn to Him as a last resort, for forgiveness instead of guidance.

Ronni Hall said...

Also something we really need to consider is the lack of women pastors. How often would this be an issue if there were women that other women can go to? Many times the "pastors wife" isn't equipped or able, or even wanting to be in that position. Also for women who are having issues, sometimes they are just making it into a church, and not having a woman that is qualified, and mature enough to approach is a HUGE problem. I at least 5 or 6 ladies who ended up coming to me, even though I'm not a pastor because they had nobody "official" to turn to. With women as the backbone of the family, we need to address their issues much more than we do. So many churches pour into childrens, teen, mens, programs but womans always seem to be the last to be dealt with. I've seen this in a number of churches and it just breaks my heart. It also make it so that if a woman really feels like she needs to speak to a pastor, she has no choice but to go to a man, and this can open up all kinds of cans of worms.