God's people are called to holiness in all areas of life, and today we must constantly be reminded that men of God are called to a high level of moral purity in their sexuality. Among God's people, the goal is to have not even a hint of sexual impropriety. Sadly, this standard is rarely lived up to because the culture around us is inundated with sexual immorality and the tidal wave is pushing against Christians every day. Christian men need to turn to Christ and focus on him and rely on his grace for the strength to fight for moral purity every day. 

Alright guys, well, what's that? Stay away from the windows. So hey, You guys met Kirk here who is sitting up front with us. He just left. His wife was in the parking lot and he said, please pray for us.

And so I want to do that. His son, Johnny, that they had not seen or spoken of, I guess, in six months. He's been on heroin and meth for the last two years. Just called 911. 911 came, was dispatched to the mall, I think the Everett Mall, and they left him there.

And I had no idea that that's a policy that 911 does so his son then called him said please pray for me You know dad we come and help me so that's where Kirk is and so I said hey I'll let the guys know and we'll pray right now, so let's go and pray and then we'll get our session going so Lord we pray for this young man that I've never met and you certainly know him God we know what a what a horrific tactic that Satan has used to get so many people, young people hooked on drugs and and so much so that they can't hear Lord anymore your voice or see your word. We pray for Kirk and his wife Sherry and just pray that you give them wisdom as they have not seen their son in so long and as he's crying out for help, Lord, I pray that it would be a genuine call for true repentance and Lord something that only you can work in his life and I pray for him. I pray that you would open his eyes, open his ears, give him a, replace his heart of stone with a heart of flesh, Lord, and I just pray again for them and that it would just be a good meeting and that they would truly be able to help him.

Father, we pray that you give us wisdom as we're coming into the homestretch of our time together today and Lord help us to just have ears to hear and eyes to see and may we always be on guard for the devil who prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Lord, I pray that you protect us, protect our homes, protect our churches. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Alright guys, so thanks for praying with me.

And the topic that I want to talk to you guys this afternoon is really of huge importance in your ability to lead God's flock. This past summer here at Cornerstone Bible Church, we focused our midweek and our Sunday morning series on the family. I had never done that before, but I really felt led to do that. And then on Saturday morning, eight o'clock in the morning, get that, we had a class devoted to moral purity called Men of Honor. And I think we had, at least we started off with like probably 60 people, you know, maybe 70 guys, you know, just on that thing.

It was excellent. And I mention this because as shepherds and even future shepherds of God's flock, you must lead your wife, you must lead your children, you must lead God's flock with your own and by your own commitment to moral purity." In other words, God's man cannot toy with impurity and expect God to hear his prayers and bless his ministry. Listen to what God said to the spiritual leaders in Ezekiel's day. This is Ezekiel 14 3. He said, Son of man, These have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity.

Should I be consulted by them at all? In other words, should I listen to their prayers at all? And we know the answer to that. Men, there can be no compromise in this area whatsoever, because if there is, you cannot expect God's blessing at all in your home, in your marriage, in your family, and again in your church family. The fact that the Bible is filled with warnings against, commands about, and examples of immorality tells us something, all right?

It tells us at least two things, if not more. First, God knew from the very beginning that impurity would be a problem. He knew that from the very get-go. And second, God takes a sin very, very seriously, and so should we. Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus.

I really like, I usually don't use the NIV, but I'm using it in this verse, Ephesians 5-3. I know Scott, sorry brother, sorry to disappoint you. But listen how the NAV has this. I usually use the New American Standard, or New King James is also a favorite. But he says this, but among you there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed because these are improper for God's holy people.

So what is God's standard when it comes to purity among his saints. What does he say here? He says there shouldn't even be a hint of immorality or impurity. And man, I'm not stressing this to be melodramatic here in this afternoon hour. This high level of purity is what God is calling each and every one of us toward.

And again, the summer was just... I really felt a need that we're probably gonna need to do a class on moral purity every year in our community. And I've had people just stop in because we had a big banner outside advertising that and people came from the community also from other churches. Hey, what's going on here? Who would be so bold as to preach against porn?

I followed a card just yesterday, I believe it was, and on the back of the bumper sticker, or on the back of the sticker on the window says, I love porn, you know what I'm saying? That's the culture that we live in. Well, the author of Hebrews said this in Hebrews 13, four, he says, marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled. Here's the rest of the verse. For fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

God hates sexual immorality both within the marriage, which is adultery, and outside of marriage, which is fornication. The gift of intimacy is to be enjoyed, but only in the context, in the confines, in the safety of a marriage. Guys, it's no surprise to tell you men that impurity is wreaking havoc, not only in our society, but in the professing church today, or the confessing Church, however you want to say that. And perhaps the most instructive example of its destructiveness that we can look to in the Old Testament, I love seeing the Old Testament examples, is King David himself, right? Good old King David.

Let's turn to 2 Samuel 11 together in your Bibles. And I know that you guys are familiar with the story. We don't have time to read through all of it. We're gonna look at a couple highlights here. But this account begins with King David at the height of his career, right?

Israel really was in its heyday during King David's reign and then in Solomon's early years, I would say. From childhood David had been a passionate lover of God and possessed a immense integrity of soul as God himself said when Samuel came in to look at David's brothers and and God spoke to Samuel said hey not those guys There's another one that I'm looking at. And this is what he said in 1 Samuel 16, seven, he said, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I've rejected him. Talking about David's oldest brother, He said, surely this must be God's anointed, right? And as soon as he walked in the door of David's house, he said this.

And then he goes on in verse 7, he says, for God sees not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but what? The Lord looks at the heart. So when God looked at David's heart, he liked what he saw. He liked what he saw. Thus King David hardly seems like a likely candidate to fall into such a moral disaster that he did, but that's exactly what happened.

Now the answer as to the question why lies in some, I would say, some unguarded areas of David's life, which left him open for moral failure. And again, if it could happen to godly King David, a man after God's own heart, then don't think for a single second that it can't happen to one of us, right? How many of you guys deal with sexual sin in your churches? All the time, correct? All the time.

I was telling Pastor Scott here that I just had, just this week, somebody call me up. Wrote me an email and said, hey, I think this is it for me and my wife. And you know, I think basically he was talking divorce and I said, where are you at? And basically I packed up my stuff and I was there in a half an hour. And so we talked about what was going on in his marriage and just trying to help out.

But you see marriages crumbling down all around us. This is not just in society, it's in our churches as well. Now in 2 Samuel chapter 5 we find David's rise to power in Jerusalem. And Almost as a side note in verse 13, look at what it says there, 2 Samuel 13 verse 5. He says this.

Just one second. He says, 2 Samuel 5 verse 13, he says, He took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he came from Hebron. In Hebron, David already had six wives. We read about that in 2 Samuel 3. Not even counting Michael, Saul's daughter, who had been his very first wife, and we saw that in 1 Samuel 18.

Even though it was culturally accepted during that day for men to have more than one wife, it was nevertheless, I believe, sin because it violated God's clear command for kings not to multiply wives. And again, the original creation, we could go back to that as well. God created how many wives for Adam? That's right, just one. Thus David's embrace of this socially permitted sin, I would say desensitized him and made him easy pray for the fatal sin yet to come.

And again guys I think this is a great warning against the many culturally acceptable sins that the church has allowed into her doors of today. Maybe it's the long hours of indiscriminate TV watching, right? We can just call it screen time. Facebook, music, movies, video games, guys. Have you guys been attuned to what's going on in the video game world?

Instagram, just surfing the internet, right? Those are all acceptable, both outside and inside the church, but make no mistake, they can be very, very deadly to our morality. So we need to be very careful, and I believe Satan is doing his very best to get a foothold into our lives and into the lives of our children through screen time. And again, it's a thousand different things. So, you need to ask yourself, are you hiding guys behind any one of our society's accepted sins, right?

Are you allowing that into your life? Are you dabbling in the so-called acceptable sins of our day? And if so, then you're setting yourself up for a much, much bigger fall in the not-too-distant future, I believe. Once again, Ephesians 5-3, God says, is in his inspired word not even a hint of immorality or impurity and hints not a very big thing is it guys? Hence not very big.

The second flaw in David's conduct was his resting from the rigors and discipline that had characterized his early life as a king. David was somewhere in his 40s and 50s at the time that this was written. He was in his midlife and everything was going well. His military campaigns had been so successful that it was no longer necessary for him to go out and join the war, the battles that he typically would go out into. So he gave that job to his very capable, wicked, but capable general, Joab.

Look at 2 Samuel 11 verse 1. 2 Samuel 11. Then it happened in the spring at the time when kings go out to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah, but David stayed at Jerusalem." So here we see David retiring early, we could say, right? He started resting. David relaxed for a bit, for a time and a season, and his physical relaxation, I would say, trickled down to his moral life.

I don't believe it was premeditated. David never woke up that day, I don't believe, for even a second. Said, well, what a beautiful spring day outside. You know what, today's a good day, I think, to go out and commit adultery. And again, guys, may this lesson not be wasted on any one of us.

Just when we think we're safe, when we feel like we have no need to keep our guard up or to work on the inner man, the inner integrity of our hearts, really the need to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, right? 1 Timothy 4-7. And that's when temptation will strike. Let's go to the next two verses, verses 2 and 3, 2 Samuel 11. Now when evening came, David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house.

And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful in appearance. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" So here we have David walking out in the cool of the evening in one spring, late afternoon, early evening, and there was an accidental first glimpse of a beautiful young lady. David continued to look and ponder instead of immediately turning his head away. No doubt David was familiar with Job's words.

Job 31.1. It says, I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze at a virgin? We don't know if David had ever made a covenant with his eyes, but it certainly doesn't seem like, or at least it wasn't holding to it at this point in time. Men, when lust fills our eyes, then what happens?

God disappears. God disappears. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once made the observation that when lust takes control, this is what he said, and I quote, at that moment, God loses all reality. Satan doesn't just fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. I thought that was well said.

So when we're in the grip of lust, the reality of God fades into the background. We don't want to read his word. We don't want to pray. We don't want fellowship. Right?

All we want is to be left alone. Proverbs 18 one says, he who separates himself seeks his own desires. He quarrels against all sound wisdom. When a person is typically gone from our church for a week, I usually don't get too concerned. Two weeks I'm starting to question, okay, what's going on?

Maybe they're on vacation. The third week, that's when I start getting really suspicious. Okay, why are they gone for three weeks in a row? That usually doesn't happen. And it's usually something that they've separated themselves.

They don't want any accountability, so they start walking backwards. Right? But David just didn't stop there. He continued to descend into the next level down, and we see that again in verse three. When his intent became apparent, one of his servants even tried to stop the king, and he said this, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, and here it is, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

But by this time some serious rationalization had already taken place in the king's mind. Again, I believe, you know, Satan didn't fill his heart with hatred towards God, but rather forgetfulness. All right? Friend, never underestimate the mind controlled by lust, because when it is controlled by lust, when we fixated on that object of desire, whatever it might be, then we have an infinite capacity for rationalization. I look at where David's downward spiral ended, verses four and five.

Verses four and five. David sent messengers and took her. And when she came to him, he lay with her. When she had purified herself from her uncleanness, She returned to her house. The woman conceived and she sent and told David and said, I am pregnant.

Now guys, we're all familiar with this story, right? And we're all familiar with David's despicable behavior as he became a liar, right? A deceiver and an eventual murderer, right? Trying to cover it all up, what had happened. And from this point on, I don't know if you guys have noticed it, but from this point on, we see David's reign, you know, God's smile upon his reign just go downhill from here.

His reign lost the smile of God and they began it never regained its former glory and stability. As a matter of fact, David's own family became a hotbed of lust and murder. The same sins that had trapped David by, they followed him into his son's lives. And brothers, I'm sure that David would never have given Bathsheba a second glance, a second look, a second thought, if he could have foreseen the devastating results of his sin. As I've heard many times as a biblical counselor, As I've been to many conferences and guys have used this phrase before, they said this, you can choose your sin, but you cannot choose the circumstances.

That's exactly right. Richard Baxter said this. He said, when you're looking on the cup or gazing on alluring beauty or wantonly dallying in pleasing your senses with things unsafe, listen to this, you little know how far beyond your intentions you may be drawn and how deep the wound may prove, how great the pain or how long and difficult the cure. All I can say is well said, Richard Baxter. Man, this historical account is not only meant to instruct us, but I sincerely, wholeheartedly believe that it's also meant to frighten us, and it's meant to really scare the sin right out of us.

And we know this because Paul said this in Romans 15 for whatever was written in earlier times of what was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and the encouragement of scriptures we might have hope. Right? You might have hope. So guys if we claim to be Christians, that is, little Christ, then it's vitally imperative that we live pure and godly lives in the midst of the Sodom and Gomorrah that we're living in. Guys, it's only getting worse and worse and worse.

It's those little compromises. We were just talking about Joshua Harris earlier. I can't tell you, that's absolutely blown me away. Harris earlier and you know I can't tell you there's that's absolutely blown me away and it made me really sad when I first heard those rumors and then I found out that it wasn't just a rumor, it was confirmed fact. And then we see his slide just basically, it won't surprise me one bit if he doesn't come out as a homosexual very soon.

But We see that slide happening all around us. And again, we need to focus on Christ and we need to help our people focus on Christ. We need to help our wives and our children. And again, when our family's strong, then our church will be strong, right? So The church can have no power apart from purity.

The minister can have no power and effectiveness apart from purity. And your sheep, again, I start with your wife, your children, and God's flock that he might have placed around you, however big, however small that might be, they will never have any real power apart from purity. So brothers, you must help them fight for the purity of their hearts and minds and that all begins by your own example. Amen. Guys, let's pray.

Father, we thank you again for the instruction from your word. We know that, Lord, we all need it. And I know that as society gets worse, we typically just try to stay above society a little bit, Lord, as they descend deeper and deeper into sin, we're just a little bit above them. But we're descending all the time, Lord. So I pray that you would help us to become aware of where we've made little compromises.

Lord, where we've allowed a hint of immorality and purity into our lives, and I pray, God, that you would help us to repent fully from these things and embrace Jesus Christ wholeheartedly. And we just thank you again for the perfect example that we have through our Savior our King our Lord and we just pray that God I pray for these men I pray for their purity and I pray for their families and I pray for their purity and also for their church families Lord And we know that as Ezra studied the law of the Lord and then it said in the second step he worked hard to practice it and then only then did he have the right to teach it to others and I pray that we would follow that same pattern in our lives, Lord. Pray these things in your son's name. Amen.