SERIES: David: A Person After God’s Heart
Cancer in the Body
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Friends, we come today to one of the saddest stories in the whole Bible–the story of David and Bathsheba. It is sad because it reminds us of the fact that human beings, no matter how gifted or godly or successful, will always disappoint us eventually. We dare not put our ultimate faith in people. It’s sad, too, because it reminds us of our own failures in life–acts of unfaithfulness, selfishness, even treachery that we may have committed.
But at the same time this is an amazing story of hope, for God did not discard David after he broke five of the Ten Commandments in one fell swoop. David certainly carried scars and wounds from this awful event throughout his life, but God continued to use him, and David ended well, as we will see when we come to the last chapter.
I’m going to do something a little different today. Instead of expounding the passage, 2 Samuel 11, paragraph by paragraph as I usually do, I want to preach a topical sermon on sexual sin and use the story before us as illustrative material. But first let’s read together 2 Samuel 11:
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab 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, the daughter of Eliam 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 uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
I’m going to stop there for a moment and make an observation. Do you notice how many questions are left unanswered by this brief tragic account.
Was David taking leisure when he should have been with his troops?
Was David a peeping Tom, or did he just happen to see Bathsheba?
Was she just careless as to where she was bathing, or was she trying to be
provocative?
When David sent for her, did she go innocently or eagerly to the palace?
Did David seduce her, force her, or was their liaison by mutual consent?
Was there an implied threat in her announcement of her pregnancy–as in
“David, you need to do something”?
I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but perhaps in the long run it doesn’t make any difference. The fact is that David committed adultery, and everything else is beside the point. There might be a thousand ameliorating circumstances, but there are no excuses for his behavior. Let’s continue. It only gets worse.
So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab 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 a 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 his house.
When David was told, “Uriah did not go 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 Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you 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 Joab 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 he will be struck down and die.”
So while Joab 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 Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
Joab sent David a full account of the battle. He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth ? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’ “
The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”
When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.
In an audience this size there is little doubt that there are individuals currently engaged in some kind of sexual immorality. Some are currently having an affair at the office. Some are addicted to pornography. Some are involved in homosexual relationships. Some of the teenagers here this morning are sexually active, even promiscuous. Now I’m not clairvoyant, nor am I personally privy to the secret behavior of any of you, and I hope I’m not shocking you with the judgment I have just rendered. But if you think I’m being overly pessimistic about my audience, I suggest you’ve got your head in the sand, for there is a veritable plague of sexual sin in our society, in our schools, and even in our churches.
When TV evangelist Jimmy Bakker experienced his celebrated fall nearly twenty years ago, fellow TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart called him “a cancer on the Body of Christ.” I have two problems with that accusation. In the first place, Jim Bakker was not a cancer–he was a soul for whom Christ died and a person whom God desired to forgive and to restore upon repentance. His sin was the cancer. And secondly, the man who called Bakker a cancer turned out to be suffering from advanced stages of malignancy himself.
Nevertheless, I think the term “cancer in the Body” is not a bad term to describe the damage that sexual sin is wreaking on marriages, families, and the church. John MacArthur has well stated, “Sexual sin has broken more marriages, shattered more homes, caused more heartache and disease, and destroyed more lives than alcohol and drugs combined. It causes lying, stealing, cheating, and killing, as well as bitterness, hatred, slander, gossip, and unforgiveness.”[i]
I have chosen to organize my thoughts today around a series of medical terms to reveal the serious issues at hand. Let’s begin, then, by talking about pathology.
Pathology
Pathology is a branch of medicine that studies the essential nature of disease and the structural and functional changes produced by them. The pathologist does research on the tissues of a patient to see if cancer is present and to identify the type.
What is the pathology of sexual sin? What is its nature? The Bible indicates by both example and teaching that sexual sin in a unique sin. I’m not saying that it is more sinful than other sins, but it has a unique potential for destructiveness–physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. You don’t have to read very far in the David story to see all of these in stark reality.
In 1 Corinthians 6 the Apostle Paul is talking about the common problem of fornication (i.e., recreational sex) in his day, and in the middle of offering a number of reasons why a Christian should have no part in such sin, he speaks in verse 18 to the pathology of sexual sin: “All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” (Please understand that while Paul uses the masculine gender here, the same truth applies to females).
I’ve thought a lot about that statement, “All other sins a person commits are outside his body.” Is that really true? What about the person who is a glutton or chemically dependent? Aren’t they also sinning against their own bodies? Yes, in a sense they are, but I think Paul’s point is that no sin reaches as deeply into a person’s very psyche and affects his or her personhood like sexual sin. There is no such thing as a physical-only sexual relationship. In the sexual act one gives away a part of himself or herself. Furthermore, many acts are sinful when done in excess, but sexual immorality is sinful and harmful even in moderation.
Immunity
David, of all people, might have seemed immune from sexual temptation. After all, isn’t he “the sweet singer of Israel,” who wrote so many of the great worship songs in the Psalms? Isn’t he the one Samuel referred to “a man after God’s own heart?” Isn’t he the one who demonstrated loyal love to Mephibosheth and to his father Jonathan? Isn’t he the one who experienced incredible success as the Lord gave him victory wherever he went? But despite all these assets, David was still not immune from sexual temptation.
The fact is no one is immune from sexual sin. This is not just a sin of youth. This is not an ethnic sin. This is not a traveling salesperson’s sin. This is not a sin of the lower classes. This is not even a male sin, as some women like to think (after all, almost every affair, you know, involves a willing female). This is a sin that can and does strike people from all walks of life, all ages, both genders, rich and poor, white and black, married and single, happily married and miserable, clergy and laity.
So, if you think this sermon isn’t relevant to you this morning, then you probably don’t know yourself. And if by chance there is someone here who is totally beyond sexual temptation for some medical reason, well, bless you. But please don’t act self-righteous and judgmental toward the rest of us–there are plenty of other sins that you are susceptible to. We’ll get to those in due time.
There was a cartoon in Christianity Today some years ago which, while cynical, conveyed an uncomfortable truth about this matter of immunity. It shows an extremely aged, wrinkled pastoral candidate, barely ambulatory with the use of a cane, walking to the pulpit. One member of the pulpit committee looks very disappointed, but the other one says, “Then again, his public morality-scandal risk factor is reassuringly low.” (I hope that isn’t why some of you voted for me three weeks ago). It’ll be a sad day when churches feel that they must choose pastors who they think are too old to crash and burn. There is no absolute immunity from sexual sin.
Diagnosis
When a doctor tries to diagnose whether cancer is present in a patient, the most important thing he does is to examine the person’s symptoms. The wise doctor will ask many questions and, depending upon the answers, he will order tests, to see whether a malignancy is indicated. He may discover, not cancer, but a condition that is referred to as “pre-cancerous,” that is, a condition that if not treated correctly and soon, could develop into a malignancy.
It’s these pre-cancerous conditions that interest me most as we pursue our metaphor. What are the danger signs that indicate a precancerous condition, which if attended to immediately might be reversed before the patient is irreversibly injured? As a spiritual doctor, I have a few diagnostic questions I would like to ask that may help some of you realize that you need help.
1. How’s your thought life? James 1 indicates that virtually all sin originates in our minds. Listen to these words, beginning in verse 13:
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
The thought is always father to the act. David saw that the woman was beautiful and conceived a plan in his mind that led to his downfall.
Most of you are familiar with the adage, “Garbage in, Garbage out.” It’s often used of computers, but it also applies to our minds. That’s why Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Please understand that sexual temptation is not in itself sinful. As a matter of fact, one cannot live very long in this society of ours without seeing things that are tempting and therefore being exposed to sinful thoughts. The question is what we do with such temptations. As Martin Luther is reported to have said, “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you don’t have to let them build a nest in your hair.” David allowed a nest in his hair.
2. What is your vulnerability quotient? I’m told that people under great stress or out of shape or lacking meaningful relationships are more susceptible to cancer than others. Their circumstances make them unusually vulnerable.
What is your vulnerability quotient in respect to the cancer of sexual sin? As we study the life of David, we find that his fall was not quite as sudden as it might at first appear. There were danger signs that should have warned him that he was extremely vulnerable. For one thing he was fresh off a series of great victories. Public adoration was at its peak. He had money, power, and fame far in excess of what is healthy for most people. Furthermore, he had already begun to compromise in the moral arena by adding wives and concubines to his royal harem.
Polygamy was not categorically forbidden in the OT, but the principles of marriage laid down as early as Gen. 2:24 made it clear that one woman/one man for life was God’s ideal. Not only that, but God had specifically warned His people that leadership has a higher standard. Listen to Deuteronomy 17:14-17:
“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us, be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, ‘You are not to go back that way again.’ He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.”
Three prohibitions are offered here for the king of Israel. He is not to accumulate “horses or wives or money.” David did fairly well with the first and third. In 2 Samuel 8:4, David hamstrung all but 100 horses he captured from Hadadezer. And later, he gave very generously from his gold and silver to the building fund for the temple his son Solomon would build. But wives were another thing. In 2 Sam. 5:13 we read, “After he left Hebron, David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem (he already had at least six), and more sons and daughters were born to him.” David’s moral sense was undoubtedly weakened by his lack of self-control in this area.
What sorts of things might make you particularly vulnerable to sexual temptation? Recent success in business? A large increase in income? Extra leisure time? Unusual popularity? Lack of accountability? Lots of out-of-town travel? Communication problems with your spouse, or if you’re a young person, with your parents? What is your vulnerability quotient?
3. Are you delighting inordinately in the company of some member of the opposite sex who is not your spouse? The key is the word “inordinately” or “inappropriately.” Is there someone you look for an excuse to call, especially when that person’s spouse is not present? Are there special glances, careless touches, and secret thoughts that signal danger?
I want to be very careful about what I communicate here, for I believe we are dealing with twin dangers here: too much intimacy between people who are not married to one another and too little intimacy between people who are not married to one another. And frankly, I’m not sure which is a greater problem in the Church. I believe strongly in the value of deep friendships between brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. I did a study once of the friendships of Jesus and Paul, and I discovered that they both had many intimate relationships, though, of course, not sexual ones, with both men and women.
I remember well about 25 years ago telling the men of this church to shake hands with women but otherwise to keep their hands to themselves unless the woman was twice as old as they were. I was reacting at the time to some serious issues that were threatening several marriages in the church. But I repented of that advice. And it’s not just because there aren’t any women twice my age now!
Four different times Paul unashamedly calls church members to greet one another with a holy kiss. The cultural equivalent of a holy kiss may be a warm hug today, but it certainly is not just a wet-fish handshake. My point is that I do not want to squeeze the life and joy out of relationships between brothers and sisters in Christ. I do not want us to become so cautious and insecure and suspicious that we violate the true spirit of NT love.
At the same time, you must know when a hug is a hug and when it is something else; you must know when intimacy is appropriate and when it is not. And if it is not, you’d better stop now, for the diagnosis may be screaming out, “a precancerous condition is present; seek treatment now!”
But sometimes, sadly, it’s too late, and the diagnosis comes back, “cancer.” What then is the prognosis?
Prognosis
What we are asking here is this: what are the anticipated results if a person develops cancer? What is the life expectancy? Some kinds of cancer are always fatal. Others are usually fatal. Still others just ruin the quality of life. A few are curable, given the right treatment. A wise doctor will share the prognosis of the disease with his patient because it often serves as a motivation for people to accept appropriate treatment.
Well, what are the anticipated results of sexual immorality in the life of the person who engages in it? I can say without fear of contradiction that the prognosis is always tragic, though it is not always fatal. As the latter chapters of 2 Samuel unfold before us, we will see one theme surfacing time and again: the tragic consequences of David’s sin. There is the loss of fellowship with God, the death of his child, immorality in the lives of his children, rebellion in his nation. In fact, David never outlived the scars of his sin. In a few weeks I plan to preach a message entitled, “Sin Will Take You Further than You Want to Go.” It will enumerate the long-term results of David’s sin.
A well-known Christian leader who fell into moral sin but who repented and was later restored to ministry, wrote these profound words:
“The results can be (and usually are) loss of integrity and credibility, humiliation, grief, regret, remorse, fear, and more than a little self-dislike. And what of those who live with the side effects? The betrayed spouse? The exploited friend? They often live with pain they can hardly describe…. In the final analysis, few broken worlds touch only one life. Like a hand grenade, the effects of one person’s terrible choices explode outward to wound many others.” [ii]
Better yet, listen to the prognosis of sexual sin as found in Proverbs 5:8-14. Solomon is speaking of the adulteress, whose lips drip honey and whose speech is smoother than oil. He warns,
“Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your best strength to others and your years to one who is cruel, lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich another man’s house. At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent. You will say, ‘How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors. I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.’”
Fortunately, the prognosis of cancer, even when severe, is usually not hopeless. There is some treatment that can be offered.
Treatment
Sometimes radical surgery is indicated. At other times radiation is required, or chemotherapy, or all three. Unfortunately, the treatment is at times almost worse than the disease. There is generally no such thing as painless treatment for cancer, and there are no guarantees. So some people choose self-treatment.
Self-treatment. They reject the treatment the doctor offers and instead try apricot pits or herbs or other home remedies. Rarely do they work, though occasionally you hear about anecdotal evidence of improvement. Now, having said that, I ask that you not send me books and articles about homeopathic medicine. I am already convinced that there are legitimate treatments for a variety of ailments that modern medical science has overlooked in their infatuation with drugs and surgery. But by the same token, I believe the person who rejects medical science and relies solely upon self-treatment is, in my estimation, like the person who serves as his own lawyer–he has a fool for a client.
Unfortunately, those who are suffering from the cancer of sexual sin often try only self-treatment. David did. He first tried deception. David recognized the seriousness of his action when it was reported to him that Bathsheba was pregnant. So, he conceived a scheme to hide his paternity of the child. He orders her husband, Uriah the Hittite, home from battle. David feigns interest in the commander, in the soldiers, and in the war, and then sends Uriah home, hoping that Uriah would make love to his wife and assume that the child to be born was his own. It might raise a few eyebrows when an 8# baby is born two months premature, but stranger things have happened. But the deception doesn’t work because Uriah refuses to go home. Instead, he sleeps at the entrance to the palace with David’s servants.
I want you to consider the character of this man Uriah. Whatever David lacked in self-control, Uriah demonstrated to the Nth degree. Remember that his wife was very beautiful and that he had been a long distance from home for some time. Just the thought of a little unexpected R. & R. at home must have been incredibly appealing to him. But when David asked him the next day why he didn’t go home, he responded, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” Uriah’s loyal love to his fellow-soldiers and to his country is almost without parallel. I think it surpasses even what David demonstrated to Mephibosheth.
Deception doesn’t work, so David tries another self-remedy–entrapment. He asks Uriah to stay over one more night and invites him to eat and drink with him. And we are told that David made him drunk. I suppose that means he spiked his wine with some hard stuff. But even that doesn’t work, for that evening Uriah sleeps again on a mat among the servants; he still does not go home. There is something amazing here. Uriah inebriated is a better man than David sober.
Deception has failed; entrapment has failed. David tries still another self-treatment tactic: murder. He orders Joab to put Uriah into a place in the battle where he would surely be killed and then to withdraw support. I can’t help but admire this man Uriah. He is so trustworthy that David sends his own death warrant in a letter and asks Uriah himself carry it to Joab. David trusts him enough to know he won’t read a letter not addressed to him.
Well, the diabolical murder plot is carried out and David thinks, “Finally, the cancer has been treated.” He sends for Bathsheba and she becomes his wife and she bears him a son.
By the way, does it surprise you that no one complains? The messengers in the palace know what has happened. The king’s administrative assistants know about it. The Secret Service know about it. But no one says anything, for it’s just accepted that the man at the top writes his own rules. It’s always been that way.
Finding a man with integrity at the top of the pile is very difficult. President Kennedy had a long-standing liaison with Marilyn Monroe and shorter ones with numerous other women. Apparently, half the people in the White House were aware of it, but everyone looked the other way. President Clinton’s affairs of state were widely known, but that didn’t keep him from being elected and re-elected. And even after he was forced to admit his gross indiscretions in the Oval Office and his perjury afterward, not one single member of his cabinet or staff resigned in protest! Not one! That still stuns me.
When a person has power and influence and money, there are always plenty of people who will cover up for him. But even though the text indicates that none of the servants or assistants or palace employees were displeased with David’s actions, the last phrase of the chapter sounds forth like a bomb in its quiet simplicity: “But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.”
David has tried self-treatment. He has tried deception, entrapment, even murder, but all he has been treating are symptoms; he has done nothing about the disease itself, which is sin deep in his own heart. Let me say just a few words about God’s treatment of the cancer of sexual sin.
God’s treatment. A full discussion of God’s treatment will have to wait for two weeks, when we will examine chapter 12 and God’s confrontation of David through the prophet Nathan. But I can give you this preview: God’s treatment for the cancer of sexual sin is radical intervention, involving full confession, thorough repentance, and the appropriation of forgiveness. If any of those steps is left out, there will probably be a recurrence of the disease. And even if all those steps are followed, scars remain.
With the little time we have remaining today I want us to deal with one more topic–that of Prevention.
Prevention
The best defense is a good offense, and while I have a burden for those already suffering from sin committed, I have an even greater burden to help those who have not yet fallen into sexual sin. I have four steps I want to suggest.
Face the reality. 1 Cor. 10:12 David refused to face the reality that he was vulnerable; he thought he was above the rules, but he found out differently in a bitter moment. In 1 Cor. 10 the Apostle Paul reiterates much of the history of Israel, particularly the moral tragedy that marred so much of their history. Then he says in verse 12: “Therefore, let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” In fact, chances are great that we will fall exactly at the place where we feel the strongest. Oswald Chambers wrote, “The Bible characters never fell on their weak points but on their strong ones; unguarded strength is double weakness.”[iii] We must face the facts squarely.
Fear God. 1 Thes. 4:6b-8. Somehow David temporarily lost his fear of God. Perhaps because everything was going his way, he began to view himself as bigger than life. But 1 Thes. 4 brings us up short as it promises, “The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.” We cannot fool around with sin and expect to escape the Lord’s discipline.
Fight to win. 1 Cor. 9:24-27 David got lazy–spiritually lazy and perhaps also physically lazy. He forgot that he was involved in warfare, and he sent others to fight in his place. At the Olympic games last summer we saw athletes give the last drop of their energy, having trained for 8 hours a day for 4, or even 8 years, to get that gold medal to hang around their necks. With the Olympic games in his mind, Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 9:24-27:
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”
Self-control and self-discipline are the name of the game. But we must not get the idea that sexual temptation is something we can always beat with self-control and self-discipline. There are times when the best offense is to run.
4. Flee temptation. 1 Cor. 6:18 David cultivated the evil thought. Joseph on the other hand, fled from it. When Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him, he hightailed it out of there, preferring even to leave his coat, through which he could be incriminated, than to leave his purity, through which he could be destroyed. 1 Corinthians 6:18 picks up Joseph’s actions and immortalizes them: “Flee from sexual immorality.”
Conclusion: Friends, sexual sin is a cancer in the Church, the Body of Christ. It always destroys lives, and it is often fatal. As we close today, I think there is only one legitimate question to ask: “Is this passage about me?” When Christ told his disciples at the last supper that one of them would betray him, they didn’t look at one another and whisper, “I wonder if Pete, the bigmouth, is the one.” Or, “Bartholomew has been acting a little suspicious lately.” Or, “Thomas has been missing services; it’s probably him.” Each one said, “Lord, is it I?”
It’s a lot easier to think about those we know have fallen or those we suspect, but I think God would have us look inward and examine our own hearts. I want to urge anyone who may be suffering from the cancer of sexual sin not to wait for a single day to seek help. Go to a friend, or a pastor, or a counselor, but seek help! If the Holy Spirit of God is speaking to your heart today and convicting you, you simply must not put Him off.
Jesus Christ died for this sin, as He did for all others. He paid the penalty for you, and He offers His life as the one and only sacrifice for your sin. Turn to Him today and receive His forgiveness, and eternal life to boot!
DATE: February 20, 2005
Tags:
Sin
Adultery
Sexual promiscuity
Vulnerability
Forgiveness
[i] John MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 1 Corinthians, 147.
[ii] Gordon MacDonald, Rebuilding Your Broken World.
[iii] Oswald Chambers, quoted by MacDonald, 40.