1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we continue our Lenten sermon series on the 10 Commandments is taken from the 6th Commandment and it focuses on 2 Samuel 11:1-5. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Keeping the 6th Commandment and upholding God’s gift of marriage is hard. Here are a few illustrations to prove my point. When the late Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, a reporter asked them, “To what do you attribute your 50 years of successful married life?” “The formula,” said Ford, “is the same formula I’ve always used in making cars—just stick to one model.” Here’s another one. Lillian Woods’ mother was the old-fashioned kind who was firmly committed to the sanctity of marriage. Just before she got married, Lillian’s mom took her aside and said, “I’m not going to give you a long sermon. Just remember one thing: in every marriage, there are grounds for divorce. What you have to do is to keep finding grounds for marriage.” Finally, the last one. After five years of marriage, Amber and Jack began having problems. They argued so bitterly that Jack decided he wanted a divorce. Jack went to see a lawyer. At their first session, the lawyer asked Jack, “What first attracted you to this woman?” Jack replied, “Her forthrightness, straightforwardness and frankness.” The counselor then asked, “Why then are you now telling me you want to end the relationship?” Jack answered, “Her forthrightness, straightforwardness and frankness.”
3. Through the Sixth Commandment, the Lord explicitly declares: “You shall not commit adultery.” Did you hear that? God’s not talking to the pews, the carpet, or the walls. He’s talking to you! “You shall not commit adultery.” That means that you should fear and love God (fear and love takes you back to the First Commandment)—fear and love God so that you lead a sexually pure and decent life in what you say and do. Anything that adulterates marriage God forbids. Everything that enhances faithfulness and love between a husband and a wife in holy marriage is what God wants practiced. That’s for you and your neighbor’s good. Really!
4. Here’s another news flash, everyone. Hang on tight. I know it’s going to blow your mind and rock your world. Here it is: Sex is not for single people as it’s often depicted in many popular television shows. Instead, sex is a gift from God for a man and woman to use properly in the estate of holy marriage. Let me say it this way: Sex is for a married couple—a man and a woman. A one-flesh union! As Scripture teaches based upon God’s “very-good”-from-the-beginning institution of holy marriage in Genesis with Adam and Eve: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24).
5. And what does King David, of all people, do? The man after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13:14)? He sins! Blatantly. Unrepentantly. He flat out adulterates marriage. Sixth Commandment? He’s going to blow that off. Why? Well, he spies Bathsheba bathing. She’s very beautiful. Stunning. Quite the hottie! Sports Illustrated swimsuit-issue model or Scarlet Johansson or Jennifer Lawrence lovely. And King David wants her. Lusts for her. Instead of lusting after Bathsheba, David should have run three miles, thought about baseball, or taken a cold shower, but instead, he goes after Bathsheba.
6. Bathsheba is married to Uriah, one of David’s royal guards. David doesn’t care. The Tenth Commandment? He couldn’t care less. Bathsheba is the daughter of Eliam, one of the king’s personal bodyguards. David doesn’t care. He will have her. She’s all he can think about. Can’t get her out of his mind. He’s the king! And kings get what they want! No matter whom he hurts. No matter whom he sins against. He has a desire. He will fulfill his desire!
7. So he sends his royal messengers to get her. “Sneak her in the back door of the mansion, boys. Bring her to my royal bedchamber. Light the candles. Turn on the easy-listening music. A little aromatherapy. Pull down the sheets. Tell her to put on something very comfortable, if you know what I mean! Put the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob when you leave.” And then, matter-of-factly the Scripture says she, “came to him, and he lay with her” (2 Sam. 11:4).
8. There’s no spinning this. No excusing the adultery by saying that David and Bathsheba “love” each other. There’s no justifying the adultery by saying that what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is nobody’s business. The one-night stand that David and Bathsheba have is: adultery. It’s not God pleasing! Adultery is a sin against God and against your own body! Adultery adulterates holy marriage. Corrupts it. Wrecks lives. Destroys families. Ruins reputations. Proverbs 6:32 wisely warns, “He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself,” that is to say, “destroys his own soul.”
9. And yet David does it! Lacks total judgment. Puts his life before God in serious spiritual jeopardy. Lives only for himself. Exists only by his own words: “I want her! Go get her and bring her to me!” As if his words are better than the words of the Lord: “You shall not commit adultery.”
10. How about you? Have you pulled a King David? Adulterated your marriage? Abused the gift of sex outside of holy marriage? Broken the Sixth Commandment and therefore the First? Before you answer those questions, you’d better hear the Lord’s words from Mt 5:27–28. Jesus declares: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
11. So, you’ve pulled a King David! No one is excluded. All have broken the Sixth Commandment. You break it not only with your deeds, but also with the thoughts of your mind, the lust of your eyes, and the desires of your heart. And for such Sixth Commandment sinners, Jesus comes and lords his forgiveness over you. His divine forgiveness that comes from his Good Friday suffering and dying. Suffering and dying with all the sin of every sinner in his body as it hangs on the tree. Numbered with the transgressors he is! Totally. So that “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). Bearing every unfaithfulness and all adulteries. David’s. Yours. The world’s. Even the adulteries and all the unfaithfulness that was committed against you! Becoming the maximum sinner! The biggest adulterer. All sin is his on the cross. To answer for. To atone for.
12. So, I’m here to tell you today what God’s will is for you. It’s this: that he wills your forgiveness in Christ—that your sin, all sin, especially the Sixth Commandment sin, doesn’t belong to you anymore. Why? Because Jesus took it. He was cursed and damned with it when darkness came over all the land, and he cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Listen! The Lord has taken away your sin! He doesn’t count it against you at all. You are forgiven. And with Jesus’ Good Friday forgiveness, you are content to enjoy the gift of a sexual relationship only in holy marriage, not adulterating it.
13. To be a true human being who is content to live as a creature in the estate of holy marriage the way God created it. In other words, the Creator, who died on the cross for you, has good use for you, his redeemed. You are given to fear and love God so that you lead a sexually pure and decent life in what you say and do. And husband and wife love and honor each other in the estate of holy marriage as you live by faith in Jesus and fervent love toward one another. That’s precisely what you want to do, right? Of course! In the name of Jesus. Amen.
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