Flee Fornication!

I pray that you would help the kids and that you would protect them and that you would help mom and dad as they try to stand in the gap to be the shepherds for their children. Lord, I pray that you would give wisdom through this month of services as we try to examine some needy areas, some look at some scriptural wisdom on how to deal with issues and lord, we just need you. Lord, we just need you in every way. We don’t want this most important part of our life to be neglected.

And so, Lord, I ask for you to do a supernatural work among us this month, but even now, even this service, as we look in your word and we see this example that you have on purpose recorded for us in your word. Lord, help us to take from it truths that will help us and that will strengthen us and that will correct us and that lord, your name would be glorified.

For we ask in Jesus name, amen. Second Samuel chapter number 11 verse number one. The Bible says this, it came to pass and it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah, but David tarried still at Jerusalem.

Now, at this point, David is the king and David, we know that David is a man after god’s own heart. So, we can go ahead we can go ahead and put that aside. We know David is a godly man. David is a man who’s not only godly, he’s he’s he’s a man who has a a pattern of obedience in his life. He is a man who not only has a pattern of obedience as a matter of like robotic obedience, but this is a man who has deep affection for god. That’s what we mean when we say he he was a man after god’s own heart. That is it touches affection and this is the man David. So, nothing I’m going to say detracts from that fact. That is who David is.

And yet, when we come to when we read the Bible, one thing that surprises a lot of people when they read the scripture is how all of these people, especially maybe the first time around when they read for the first time, is all of these people who are so well known in the Bible, the Davids, the Moses, the Samsons, the you know, the Pauls, all of these people are each one of them to some degree or another with a couple of exceptions, our lord being the most notable exception.

The lord make sure to include not so happy things about their lives in scripture, and it’s so important that he does. First, we would, at some point in time, there would be some some group of humanity that would begin to worship them. And number two, it provides a very good example, an encouraging example to us even though to them it was a very bad time in their life, and what we’re looking at in chapter eleven and twelve is a very low point.

One of the two primarily low points in David’s life, spiritual low points. But notice in verse number one, David, you don’t see anything obvious in David’s life to indicate that David is slipping, but he is slipping. In verse number one, you see, it was the time when kings go forth to battle. But you see at the end, David tarried still at Jerusalem. And you might ask as I would ask, who says that David has to go out to battle just because this is the time of year that kings go forth to battle? I don’t I don’t know the answer to that but it doesn’t really matter because here’s the key, especially in this time, there was no situation room.

If you’re a king of Israel, at this time, you don’t sit in a situation room and watch from the monitors and not that that’s bad but you know, that’s not how you command in in a thousand BC when David lived, if you were the commander in chief which he was, you were in the battle. Your armor was on, your sword was girded, you are going into the battle but we do not see David doing that.

So, what he’s doing is he’s sending people out, those those that are his subordinates, those that are the those over whom he provides leadership, he is sending people out, but he himself is not going. He is sending people out to do things that he himself is not doing. Do you see this? And and that touches, it begins seeing how we know the whole of the the two chapters. It begins to touch on a little and hint at a little issue that’s happening with David, a little slippage that’s happening in David’s life because as a matter of his leadership, he is sending people to do things that he himself is not out front doing.

You see it? In other words, from a spiritual leadership perspective, you see his slippage because other people are doing the thing that the leader is supposed to be doing out front first before everyone else. Setting an example. In fact, if you take one thing about spiritual leadership in scripture and that’s something we’re gonna we’re gonna cover to some degree in in the August Family Focus, because leadership is so important for mom and dad with the kids. It’s so important for the husband toward his wife.

It’s it’s important in many ways, but if you were to kind of boil down and summarize biblical leadership, basically you’re looking at the word example. You could probably pick a couple of words, the word example is gonna be in the top two or three. So to be a biblical leader, you must provide an example. And to provide an example means that the thing that you Excuse me, have a My throat’s acting up here.

Sure, that’d be great. Thank you. To be a biblical leader means whatever that thing is that you expect those under your care to do, you must do that thing first. That’s what it means to provide. Thank you, sir. That’s what it means to provide an example. It’s not, I know what to do, I am smart, and I am wise, so here’s what you do. I’m I’m glad that’s basically a description of Buddhism. You know that? Description of Buddhism? Buddha was enlightened. He knew how to reach enlightenment, and so he taught his disciples, he said do this, do this, do this, do this, this is what you do, and he provided no example at all. Our Lord came into the world was subject to this world like we are, and tempted in all points, yet without sin, to include what we read in this chapter.

And and so that’s what biblical leadership that was exemplified by the Lord Jesus. He did everything that he expected of his disciples, that he told his disciples and by extension us, he did everything before that he expected us to do. In other words, in the battle he was out front. He was in the battle out leading the army. We are the army. That was our Lord’s example of leadership.

This is not what’s happening with David. He is not an example right now. He is commanding but not doing. So, his leadership is failing. Now, let me give you let me key you in because many of you are leaders in some way, fashion, or form. You might be a grandmother. You might be a a you might be a mother. You might be a leader in your job. You might be a a father, grandfather, whatever the case might be, husband, whatever it might be but in whatever function of leadership that you have, we all need to know this truth.

The failure of leadership starts with a personal failure of the leader. A failure of the leadership starts with a personal failure of the leader. And you can see it hinted at in verse one, because David is no longer leading in its definition. He is sitting back when his Those under him are He’s supposed to be leading them, and instead he’s sitting back, And they are going to battle without their leader. David is no longer providing an example for those under his care. Look at one Timothy chapter four.

One Timothy, don’t lose your place because we’re gonna come back to two Samuel. We know that Timothy was an example of someone who was a spiritual leader. He was a leader of a church, first Timothy four. In our school of scripture class as we did a study of the New Testament in survey, when we got the first and second Timothy, one of the things we saw together was, is the frequency with which Paul exhorted and reminded Timothy to take care of himself.

Because how can he lead a church? How can he provide spiritual leadership to a church if he himself is not where he needs to be? Because the failure of the leadership starts with the failure of the person. And so Paul repeatedly said to Timothy, he said, take heed to yourself. Pay attention to you, Timothy. You, you can’t lead others if you yourself are not right where you need to be. Look at first Timothy chapter four verse 12. The Bible says this, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. You see the word example? You know what he’s telling Timothy to do? You be the thing that you preach to them to be.

That’s what he’s saying. Verse 13, till I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give thyself, Timothy, wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself. And unto the doctrine, continue in them for in doing this, thou shalt both save what?

Thyself and them that hear thee. You see how his leadership was dependent on his personal life. Chapter six verse 11, look at that. Chapter six verse 11 But thou, oh man of god, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life where unto thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses.

He’s speaking to Timothy alone, even though this is a pastoral epistle, it’s about Timothy’s ministry, yet you can’t talk about ministry unless you talk about the man, the leader who’s ministering. We can go to second Timothy chapter two. Look at that real quick. Verse number verse number one.

Verse three, chapter chapter two verse three rather. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier. And if any man also strive for masteries, that’s a race or an or a competition, yet he is not crowned, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully.

In other words, Timothy, you have to run the race by the rules. You can’t get to the finish line ahead of someone else if you broke the rules to do it. And then he goes on and he adds to that in verse six, the husbandman, that’s a farmer, the husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits. What’s he saying? Timothy, whatever vegetables, brother Andrew, that you grow in your garden, you need to be eating the vegetables first.

You know what that is? That is an exhortation to caring for yourself as you lead others because as the leader, his leadership depends upon himself personally. You and I, we cannot be, we cannot lead others in a spiritual way, we cannot do it unless we ourselves are making sure that we’re in the place we need to be to provide that example. There is no such thing as a biblical leader that is not an example, That’s not a thing.

You say, well, I’m not a spiritual leader. It could be that you are, you’re in a place of spiritual leadership, but you’re not taking spiritual leadership. You know, we often sometimes secularize the way we view our relationships, do we not? We look at it while our relationship between our husband, the husbands and wives, between parents and children, right, between siblings. We look at these relationships and we view them purely on a on a earthly level.

But that is not the biblical way to view that. If you’re a husband, you’re a spiritual leader. If you’re a wife, you’re a spiritual leader. A mother, a spiritual leader. If you’re siblings, that is your brothers and sisters in Christ. There’s a spiritual element we should not secularize and sanitize our mind from the biblical truth. It’s just that we haven’t embraced that and said, hey, I am not just going to be a husband. I’m going to be a husband that’s that’s leading in a spiritual way my family. I’m going to be a parent that’s leading my my children in a way that is not only providing for them and all of those things but also is guiding them spiritually. That is our duty before God, but we cannot do that at all unless we ourselves are leading that example.

We are that, that we require of them. And that’s what we see David failing at right here. Second Samuel chapter 11, go back there if you would, look at verse two. And it came to pass in the evening tide that David rose arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. I don’t necessarily think Bathsheba was in the wrong here, I can’t prove that, but I don’t think so, although others have different opinions on that, but I have observed in Asia, people bathing with all their clothes on, and it it was just bathing, you know, that’s that’s a common thing. So, I’m not gonna pin pin anything on Bathsheba, this is all David.

He walked upon the roof of his of his house. Now, think, had David been the leader that he should have been, had he been setting the example he expected others to follow, he wouldn’t even have been at home but here he is. So, so the the issue is starting way upstream.

And it says, he walked upon the roof of the king’s house and from the roof, he saw a woman. Now, stop right there. He saw a woman. Did you did you know? We don’t always control. I’m I’m speaking primarily to the men. We don’t always get to control what we see. You know that? There are things that are thrown in front of our eyes that we see before we even have a chance to react. That’s just life in this world.

How many of you have gotten an email from some spammer in whatever Moldova who just puts a a filthy picture on your email or or you have a pop up come up and you know, where did that come from? And it’s it’s in front of you and you didn’t choose to see. That happens. In other words, David’s walking and maybe he should be here, maybe not but he saw something.

He saw something. But you know there, you know, you think about the the case of of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Joseph didn’t didn’t ask for that temptation. It was thrown in his face. Now, that’s one thing.

But there’s other times that we foolishly put ourselves in a position to see. And then when we see, oh, where did that come from? When we have made provision for the flesh, Romans thirteen fourteen. And we act surprised, you know what that is? That’s plausible deniability. Oops. But we have put ourselves in that place. You know what that is? When when you and I put ourselves in a place of temptation, that itself is a sin against God.

Because the Bible says, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Listen, listen, sir. If you go to the website that you know is going to be a source of temptation to you, you are making provision for that thing.

If you know you having that app on your phone is going to make provision and you you know that better chance than not that something filthy is going to come up on there. Delete that thing.

Make not provision for the flesh because it all starts with what you see. Look at first Corinthians chapter six. First Corinthians chapter six. Look at verse 18. This is what David should have done when he saw. Whether he should have saw or not is irrelevant at this point. He has seen.

This is the answer. You see something? This is the answer. First Corinthians six eighteen. Flee fornication. That’s the answer. Run. Run. Josh, on one of our mighty men preaching on Wednesday night, he preached a message and one of the things he said in there was, he said, be a chicken. Something like that. Be a chicken. This idea of fleeing fornication. You know what the word flee means?

You know, obviously it means run run away, but it implies something. When two people are when two people are fighting or they’re about to fight and one of them realizes that he ain’t got a chance, what does he do? He runs. Because that’s a smart move. Rather than stand there and get the get the devil beat out of you.

So, you run and god tells us in this passage in first Corinthians six eighteen, he says, gentlemen, he says, run from fornication. Don’t stand, don’t fight because you know what? You’re not going to win.

Young man, sir, I’m talking to myself too. You’re not going to win if you stay and look. Now, the thing that might that popped up might be something that you didn’t put in front of you and I hope that’s the case. But if you stay and you don’t run, you’re going to lose the battle, you’re going to get the snot beat out of you. Spiritually.

Because you’re too weak. You cannot face that foe and so god tells you, don’t fight him. Run. Like Joseph did, run. Let me tell you something, a an addiction to pornography begins with a look where the person who sees refuses to run. That’s where it starts.

And it actually starts before that. There’s a progression here. But God says, flee fornication because you can’t win. It’s a warning of our nature. If you make provision, if you give opportunity, if you do not run, you will fall. Go back to second Samuel chapter 11.

Look at verse three. And David sent and inquired after the woman And one said, is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? David saw in verse two, but in verse three, David inquired. This verse three, David’s you know what that is? This is the first moment that we know for certain where David makes an active decision.

It’s not his fault that he happened to be on the roof and she’s down there bathing. It’s not his fault that she’s she’s pretty to look at. That’s that’s all a largely, you could argue out of his control but this is in his control. Now, he didn’t flee, so now he’s asking.

He’s making a choice to open the web browser and put the website address in and pull up the website. He’s making a decision to search for that person on the app. He’s making decision to open the app or to download it from the app store. That’s what he’s doing. He’s choosing to go there.

There is no plausible deniability at this point. He is guilty. He is guilty. He did not flee fornication, instead he sought it. Now here’s the danger brothers and sisters, on the subject of filthy things on the Internet, and why am I talking about this? You know why? Because you want to talk about something that is hardwired to your family?

This sin of of looking at trash on the Internet, of pornography, and sometimes we say pornography, I I I’m you notice I’m kind of shying away from using that word too much. You know why? Because we have in our mind pornography is one thing, but there’s a lot of things that lead up to that point. A lot of bikini clad women and people ungodly women putting themselves online and all that stuff and you all know about it.

And and it and it’s going to that thing that we we categorize as pornography but all of it’s all of it is sinful. It’s not just the the worst of it, but this is hardwired. This is a lightning rod to destroy your marriage and your family. It is a light In other words, it’s connected straight to lightning and if it strikes your marriage will go boom.

It is not a joke. It will destroy Listen, looking at filth on the internet will destroy you, it will destroy your wife, it will destroy your marriage, it will destroy your kids and everything else around you.

It is hardwired to to the lightning. And so it is foolish. It is the height of foolishness for us to presume that once we have entered into this sin of lust, we’ve made the decision to go to that site, to look at that thing, to search that person. That once we’ve entered into that, that we can just at any time take the off ramp whenever we like. It is not that simple.

Because once we’re on that road, once we’re on that highway, we’ll we’ll find out that there aren’t nearly as many off ramps as we thought. And the lust be and the reason for this is that the lust of the flesh, this part of our our wicked, adamic nature that is not saved. In other words, it is the reverse of saving. It is full of hell. It it will completely take over. If you hand the reins of your of your flesh over to lust, you will not have an off ramp.

It will lead us further and further and further down and David is a perfect example of that. It started with a look. It’s well, it started before that. In other words, the lord wanted to occupy David in good things and that’s how that’s how the lord does. He gives us good active things to do to occupy us because he knows our wicked nature. If we’re not occupied in that, there’ll be something other than that to occupy us.

But now, we’re we’re several steps down the way. In other words, we didn’t flee and now this thing’s in front of us. Now, we’re looking for it and before you know it, we’re watching it. Now, we’re, you know, we never did the whole pornography thing but now, we’re on the actual sites where all the all the most wicked stuff is and now we’re doing and now we’re watching it every week or now we’re watching it every day and we excuse it and we say, well, you know, everybody’s, I know all my coworkers and this and that and the other. It is not okay. It is not normal. It is wicked.

Amen. It is wicked. It displeases god. It destroys you. It destroys your family. But it starts in progression that’s not so obvious. And it leads to compounding sins. First, David’s role as a leader is compromised because he himself is compromised. And then if you I won’t read it all for time, but you read chapter 11 verses six to 25, you know what you see? You see this this stacking of sins in his attempt to hide it. He he has Uriah killed using the sword of the children of Ammon.

He gets Uriah drunk before that happens. All of these things, he and so the sins are starting to compound and we even see David as a result of this using his leadership to for self serving ends. In other words, he’s he’s all whacked out personally.

He and the whole reason these sins are being stacked is because he is personally himself compromised. And this is exactly what happens. If you if listen, if you’re looking if you’re looking at any any wicked sites like that, if you’re looking at that, the shame and the fear of exposure will lead you to lie and to deceive and to be a hypocrite and and will lead you to mistreat your wife and mistreat your kids. Listen, that is a fact. That is well established.

It’s the implosion of the family. You know what it goes back? It goes back to sir, what you are doing? Because as a leader, you’re personally compromised. What was originally a gaze and a search has led to far and far greater and numerous sins.

And so we get down to verse 25, chapter 11. Then David said unto the messenger, thus shalt thou say to Joab, let not this thing displease thee for the sword devoureth one as well as another. I just that the glib way David responds to a man’s death, I just, but it But here’s the thing, it causes us such disgust because it’s where David is, but let us not be too judgy.

This is intended to be a mirror, not a club. Make thy battle more strong against the city and overthrow it and encourage thou him. Verse 26, and when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when the morning was passed, David sent and fetched her to his house and she became his wife and bear him a son. But the thing, note verse 27, this is one of those slap you in the face verses. If you’ve ever read this passage, it will slap you in the face. David has spent all of chapter 11 hiding his sin and here at the end of verse 27, but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

This verse, this phrase can be a powerful, have a powerful effect upon a child of God. The knowledge that God sees us in secret, the knowledge that God has the ability to reveal secrets, the knowledge that God can and very likely will do the very thing that we try to avoid, that is expose our sin to others. That fact, that knowledge of who God is can be powerful to you and you can use it.

Listen, you have trusted in not an idol, not a God made by man, but you have trusted in a living God. And a living God knows all, the living God has an opinion on what’s going on, and he has the power to pull the sheep back and let everybody see what’s been going on in secret.

What’s the answer to that? Fear God. And if there’s one piece of advice I can give to men, to boys, is this, the greatest thing that you have that can prevent you from getting into pornography and filth on the internet is the fear of God.

In my opinion, and I think I have scripture, I’m gonna show you just a minute. In my opinion, the greatest power you have against that sin is the fear of the Lord.

Well, that just means reverential awe. Not if you get on the wrong side of it. Here’s the verse. Proverbs 16 verse six. By mercy and truth iniquity is purged, and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. By the fear of the lord, men depart from evil. You know what? The evil of looking at at at an ungodly things on the internet including pornography is something that departing from that is something that the fear of god will help you do.

Because when you come to you come to understand that there is a God in heaven who sees everything, every site you go to, he sees every picture that’s on your screen, he sees everything you search for, he sees the secrets of the heart, and and if you come to understand that he is the same God who said be sure your sin will find you out. He is the same God who not only can, but will and does pull the sheet off for everybody to see that will cause you to shake in your boots and that rightly so.

What is God doing with David? With Nathan the prophet, You know what God is doing? See, I know all about it. But not only that, what is God doing with the fact that it’s in the Bible to begin with?

See? See, we have this idea that we say, we get in trouble and we say, oh Lord, oh, missed Lord, please don’t let anybody find out. What you don’t understand, what I don’t understand, what we just don’t get is that God is perfectly happy to expose us. The lord is not in the business of trying to keep our sins quiet.

He is not in the business of that. If you if you and I are are are going to the lord to ask him to cover for us, we are barking up the wrong tree. He is not going to and that’s provable from the Bible over and over again. He tells us now.

To strike the fear of God in us. You know there’s all kinds of apps that you can get, apps that you know the Bark app, know Tim Tebow, he pushes I think the Bark app or the Wolf app or whatever.

There’s these different apps that you can get that put guards and accountability apps and all of these things and that’s all finding good in its proper place. That’s all finding good in its proper place. Having accountability partners, that’s a good thing. Establishing good guardrails, that’s a good thing, and I hope to talk about that tonight. But above all things, the biblical answer is the fear of God.

Those things will always have a gap. But the fear of God will enable you as a man, as a young man, to depart from evil even if there’s no guardrail because there’s bound to be times when there’s no guardrail.

Back in second Samuel, notice once David had sinned, there was no He had He lost all control over the consequences. All these terrible things that happened in chapter 12 verses 10 through 12, the sword shall not depart from thine house because thou hast despised me, the Lord says, and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, behold I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house and I will take thy wives from before thee and give them unto thy neighbor and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this son.

For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel before the sun. I emphasize, I repeat, you are not asking the right person if you want God to cover your sin.

Now we get down to verse number 13. And David said unto Nathan, so Nathan has confronted and exposed David. God has told David he’s going to expose him. It’s exposed in chapter eleven and twelve of the of the Holy Bible in perpetuity.

And David’s response is this, and David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die.

I wanna speak to you. I don’t know what happens in private in the secret of your of your life. I don’t. I know the secret of my life and that’s it.

So I can’t, I’m not targeting anybody in this room. But if you’re involved in looking at trash on the internet, be it straight up pornography or pornography light, whatever it is, I wanna tell you that God offers mercy and he offers forgiveness.

But that only comes after confession. And confession is the complete opposite of everything we’ve seen David do. Confession is the complete opposite of concealing one’s sin. To get this sin right in your life, it requires no excuses. No blame game. No, it was my wife’s fault because of this or that or the other. Or, you know, I’ve been very stressed at work. No excuses. This is a confession to God and to man. David confessed to both. I have sinned against the Lord. He’s speaking to Nathan.

You know, sometimes it’s true that we don’t want to confess our sin in this way to man because we know we wanna just deal with it deal with it with God because we know if we confess it to man, the moment other people know, we know there’s gonna be accountability and we wanna bury the hatchet but a little with that with the with the the shaft sticking out a little bit. So if we wanna return to it, it’s a little bit easier to do that but when everybody knows the secrets that we have been involved in, it’s a lot harder to do that.

And so we want to make sure we keep it close, instead of confessing it to those that we have harmed. But look at the grace of God. David says, I’ve sinned against the Lord, and Nathan said unto David, the Lord hath put away thy sin.

God does not put us on probation. Do you know why? Because god sees our heart and he knows in an instant if our heart of confession is sincere. Man doesn’t but but god does. His forgiveness is instant because he knows our sincerity. And at this moment in twelve thirteen, at this instant, David is immediately forgiven by the Lord for his sin against God. Be it be it as it may. And his relationship with God is at that instant restored.

You see this? Restored, how? Confession. No excuses, confession. And this is what forgiveness before God looks like. And the reason forgiveness like this exists is because God is merciful beyond our comprehension.

And if you’ve been involved in something like this, God will forgive you, but you gotta come clean. You gotta lay it out before God and man. But there’s one other thing I want you to see.

Verse 14. Howbeit because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. Now I know this is his literal child, and I know the child died, I get that, but you can lift the principle out of this, which is, did this have an effect upon his family? It had a direct effect upon his child.

And it not only had an effect upon his child, it provided an opportunity for others to blaspheme the Lord, to speak against God. Here’s the point I want you to see. Yes, David is forgiven instantly, completely because God is a God whose mercy endureth forever. But the reproach remains.

Forgiveness from God does not remove the reproach. And it does not undo the consequences that our sin set in motion. Now, we do have god’s grace to deal with that reality but we do not have help from god to undo it.

You say, well, that is mean. It is true. But isn’t that exactly what we want? We wanna confess to God our secret sin and then we want His help to keep it quiet.

But you can’t do both. As I said, God doesn’t help people hide the shame and reproach that their sin has brought upon them, He just doesn’t do that, that’s not His business.

In fact, it’s a violation of His own law, which is the law of sowing and reaping. And sometimes, even that has a silver lining of the grace of God, you know why? Because sometimes that pain of reproach from our sin and confessing it is the thing that will keep us. It hurts so bad that it’ll keep us from repeating it.

We have to remember the consequences of pornography and indeed all secret sins, they are dreadful. Verse 14 talks about how that David provided an occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. In other words, here’s what I want you to see. Whenever we’re involved in that kind of sin, sir, or even ma’am, whenever we’re involved in that kind of sin, that sin’s effects and consequences are going to ricochet like a bullet in our life, in the life of our wife, and in the lives of our children for many years to come.

And it’s going to ricochet and cause damage in ways over the horizon. Beyond that which we can see that we don’t even we don’t even understand at this point. We think it’s just right now, but it’s going to affect things way down the road.

And though everything I’ve said sounds awfully depressing, I admit, God has put it in the word of God and his design is a stern warning to us against secret sins like pornography. Our Lord is kind to us because He records the secret sin of His servant David in Scripture in infamy, so that we have an early warning of our sins’ dire consequences, so that we might avoid it altogether.

Yes, it’s mean, but it’s mean because it’s designed to avoid it entirely. So I would ask you, I would ask us all to soberly and to humbly take the warning, which is flee fornication. Flee fornication.

Two things I want to say to close. First of all, if you have been involved in a sin like this and it’s a secret, I wanna tell you indeed, wanna command you in the name of Christ to repent.

To turn from that sin, forsake it and burn it to the ground. The second thing I want you to I wanna say to you is this, if the Lord’s willing tonight, I wanna come back to this subject, not this passage, but I wanna come back to this subject and I wanna look at some ways we can do that.

Some ways we can radically go to war with this sin and absolutely destroy it from our life, annihilate it. And the reason is this, we cannot have families that are strong for the Lord if the one who is leading is compromised?

Impossible. And it’s my studied opinion that one of the reasons that godly leadership in the home is in such a bad way is because so many men are compromised.

And so I invite you to come back tonight and so that we can set our focus on this and see what scriptural truths we can and principles we can see to really help us totally obliterate this from our life. Let’s pray.