*Photo by Umberto Shaw from Pexels

2Sa 11:1-2 (NLT) In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. They destroyed the Ammonite army and laid siege to the city of Rabbah. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem.  [2] Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath.

When kings normally go out to war – David was most open to sin when he wasn’t active in the will of God. Instead of going to war, he decided to stay home. When we take a break from God’s purposes in our lives, we can also fall victim more easily to temptations from the enemy.

However, David stayed behind – When we don’t do the will of God it will be replaced by something. Idleness is often replaced by sin. David became idle, so he also replaced his leadership with immorality (Proverbs 18:9)

He noticed a woman – Just as James 1 states that Satan will try to bait us with temptation that is specific to us, David was tempted by women. David had a habitual sin of womanizing. This sin was passed down and modeled to his children.

Unusual beauty – The enemy tempted David, with something that he specifically knew he would fall to. David was someone that constantly gives into the enemy when it comes to things such as lust. The woman that the enemy was using to tempt David was someone that he saw that wasn’t only beautiful, but was unusually beautiful and exotic, rare. This is what made David fall and it caught his attention. We also need to be aware that the enemy knows what our specific baits are and we have to be stronger than what our temptations are.

Bath – So not only was the woman unusually beautiful, but the woman was actually taking a bath and it was such a scenario that would really make David think about lusting after her and doing something. Since there was nobody else there, David was in a perfect position, as King, to just do what he wants and take an opportunity of darkness in this specific moment.

We have to know that the enemy wants to exploit every single weakness that we have spiritually, and we cannot become lackadaisical. We have to constantly stand firm on the Word of God and we have to allow ourselves to expect that the enemy is going to tempt us with what he knows that we have fallen to and potentially have fallen to in the past. We have to know that in the moment of doing God’s will, he’s going to want to attack us the most.

When all the kings were going out to battle, that was the point where God was going to expand David’s kingdom, which is ultimately God’s kingdom. However, David didn’t want to do that and he stayed back and the enemy exploited that. Now, instead of advancing God’s kingdom, David is going to be advancing Satan’s kingdom.

Can A Man Take Fire In His Bosom, And His Clothes Not Be Burned

Proverbs 6:20-35 (MSG) Good friend, follow your father’s good advice; don’t wander off from your mother’s teachings.  [21] Wrap yourself in them from head to foot; wear them like a scarf around your neck.  [22] Wherever you walk, they’ll guide you; whenever you rest, they’ll guard you; when you wake up, they’ll tell you what’s next.  [23] For sound advice is a beacon, good teaching is a light, moral discipline is a life path.  [24] They’ll protect you from wanton women, from the seductive talk of some temptress.  [25] Don’t lustfully fantasize on her beauty, nor be taken in by her bedroom eyes.  [26] You can buy an hour with a whore for a loaf of bread, but a wanton woman may well eat you alive.  [27] Can you build a fire in your lap and not burn your pants?  [28] Can you walk barefoot on hot coals and not get blisters?  [29] It’s the same when you have sex with your neighbor’s wife: Touch her and you’ll pay for it. No excuses.  [30] Hunger is no excuse for a thief to steal; [31] When he’s caught he has to pay it back, even if he has to put his whole house in hock.  [32] Adultery is a brainless act, soul-destroying, self-destructive; [33] Expect a bloody nose, a black eye, and a reputation ruined for good.  [34] For jealousy detonates rage in a cheated husband; wild for revenge, he won’t make allowances.  [35] Nothing you say or pay will make it all right; neither bribes nor reason will satisfy him.

Follow your father’s good advice – God wants us to look at wisdom and hold it very close to our hearts. He doesn’t want us to think of wisdom as something that we could flippantly pass by on or not use. In fact, the way that he describes it is he wants us to wear it as a scarf around our neck, very close to us. The scarf represents our will, it represents where we are going to direct our heads and he wants wisdom to be so close to our will that wherever we’re thinking of a direction that we need to go, it will be guarded by wisdom.

Beacon – Wisdom also acts as a beacon in such a way that we can be in the middle of darkness and not know what to do, but then a beacon of light will show itself, and that’s the wisdom of God. No matter what valley we’re in or no matter what unknown ocean of despair we’re in, the wisdom of God will be like a beacon of light to us.

Light – Light exposes what is really around you. Light, in the Bible, is metaphorical for truth and darkness is metaphorical for lies. Whatever darkness is around us, we don’t know what it really looks like because it’s in darkness and light exposes what it really looks like because it shows what the truth is about it. The wisdom of God reveals the truth of what is in our situation and how we should go about it.

Life path – Wisdom also acts as our pathway. Wherever we go in life, if we use wisdom, then we’ll have a path. If you could imagine walking into a jungle without a pathway, you don’t know where to go if there is a house or a dwelling place there; however, if there’s a path to that house in the middle of a jungle, you’re going to be able to know where to walk and how to step. Wisdom is a path, not for just a jungle, but it’s a path for your entire life. If you walk that path of wisdom, then you will never get lost.

Attribute #1 – Lust: One of the traits that the enemy is going to want to attack us with is lust. We see in Proverbs six where lust is dressed in a way that we would want to fantasize about it, and that could happen in fashion, that could happen in the physical body and it attacks our eyes. We want to know that our eye-gates are one of the ways that the enemy attacks us and the Bible also teaches us just to look away. If you expose yourself to pornography and immoral images and sinful movies, we constantly look at things, we start allowing ourselves to give in to the temptation of lust and the Bible teaches us not to do that.

Attribute #2 – Pursuit of Prey: Proverbs six teaches us that not only will this adulterous spirit be in a form that makes us want to lust after it, but it also pursues us like prey. We have to understand that when it comes to lust, the enemy is like a predator and we are like prey and the enemy will pursue us and corners and put us in a position where we feel like we can’t do anything, and then we give in to lust and that is a strategy of the enemy.

Attribute #3 – Lust is for Fools: Proverbs six also teaches us in verse 32, that adultery is a brainless act. Meaning, whoever commits adultery and whoever gives into lust is somebody who is foolish -the Bible also describes that in different translations as stupid. We want to know that when we give in to lust, unfaithfulness, and impurity, it’s unintelligent; it’s not seen in the Bible as wise – it’s actually seen as the opposite, which is foolish. Whenever we give in to adultery, we know that we’re a fool falling into the trap of the enemy. If we want to live intelligent wise lives, then we have to live pure lives. If we want to live lives that are foolish and ultimately stupid, then we give in to our bodily appetites of lust and fornication, and we will go down the pathway into hell.

Attribute #4 – He makes no allowances: Once the enemy gets us into a position where we fall into lust, then the attack is an onslaught of destroying who we are. This onslaught can destroy our reputation, our family, our marriage, our relationships, and our relationship with God. Once the enemy gets into our lives, he will ultimately destroy everything and anything that he can.

Resist the Devil and Flee from Temptation

James 4:7-9 (NKJV) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  [8] Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  [9] Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Submit to God – The first step in spiritual warfare is submitting our lives completely to God. The enemy will often use places where we aren’t in full submission to God to attack us. For example, if there’s an area of a lack of stewardship of money, the enemy could come and attack us with debt or financial emergencies. If there is an open door to pornography, the enemy can exploit that and attack us with greater sins like adultery or divorce. The enemy will always use a small open door to attack us with a greater impact on our lives but if we’re in full submission to God, then we close all of the doors possible. The enemy is also very crafty, it says in the Bible, and we have to know that he will try and swivel into any situation and any decision we make so that he could destroy God’s will over our lives.

Resist the devil – No matter what, when we are under attack, we have to know that the answer to victory doesn’t lie in partnering with the enemy. The only way that we can truly walk in freedom and victory over darkness is to completely and humbly submit to God and wholeheartedly resist the enemy and run away from the enemy. By runaway, I mean, not give in to any of his temptations and not gaze upon the enemy and want to partner with the enemy in any way.

He will flee from you – The Bible promises us that if we submit to God and we resist the devil, that’s the formula for making the devil flee from us. Once the devil flees from us, we can expect that the devil will try and come back and attack us. But we should also grow in faith, knowing that God has defeated the enemy on the cross, and now that power lives inside of us, which is the Holy Spirit.

Draw near to God – As we go through this process, we should also always get closer to God. All of these processes will sovereignly be worked out for God’s will. For those that see God wholeheartedly, God will take everything and use it for his glory. Everything that happens to us in warfare should bring us to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

Cleanse your hands – The next part of the process is to change. Take captive all of the thoughts in our minds and also change the way that we live. This is cleansing our hands. We need to change what we do with our hands and change what we think with our minds.

Mourn and weep – If we do fall into sin, we know that it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance and it’s our mourning over the sin and the loss that also brings us to repentance. We have to be able to use both of these dynamics in a way that draws us closer to God and further away from sin. 

Confessing Sins From the Past

Common practice – God wants us to have a normal rhythm in our life that when we are getting attacked, when we are dealing with our spiritual immaturities, or when we are being tempted with sin, or we give in to temptations that we are always in fellowship, where we are talking with each other. The word that God uses here specifically is ‘confess’. And the word ‘confess’ acknowledges the fact that we have fallen into sin and we have done wrong before God. The idea here is that once we confess it, then we repent it, but we’re also accepted back into God as we’re going through this process of repentance.

Pray for each other – When we are together, we’re not supposed to allow ourselves to be in sin and give false grace. We’re supposed to give unconditional love and wisdom on how to get rid of sin. In that process, that’s how we spiritually mature together. But just as a child needs to learn how to live a righteous lifestyle with Jesus, we have to learn how to live a righteous lifestyle with God. The same way that a parent loves their children, that’s the same way God loves us as we’re learning how to humbly walk with him and mature into living like him as well.

Prayer of a person living right with God – As we live this lifestyle, we know that God will hear our prayers. God won’t hear our prayers, for example, if we disobey him or in the rebellion of him or also dishonor our wives, as it says in the Epistle of Peter. But in the same manner that if we wholeheartedly seek God, we live humbly before him, then we will also be able to know that he is listening to us in our prayers. If God is listening to our prayers, then as Elijah, we know that powerful things will happen around us.