The Slave, the King, and Sexual Temptation

Introduction: People say that "sex" is everywhere today, especially since it is used to market almost everything, and it seems to work pretty well in that regard. But sexual temptation is nothing new. It goes way, way back. You can see that in the stories of a couple of famous men in the Bible. One was a slave, and the other was a king.

Joseph - the slave

Joseph is one of the brothers of the family from which "The Twelve Tribes of Israel" get their names. I don’t have them memorized, but the list is: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun - and then the youngest was Joseph.  (His two sons make the total twelve.)

This was a family full of conflict, not all of which we can talk about just now. Let’s just say that, due to some jealousy among brothers, Joseph was sold as a slave when he was a young man.

But even though he was a slave, Joseph did very well working for an Egyptian named Potiphar. There is an interesting statement in Genesis which says, "When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned."

Because of the Lord’s blessing, things went so well for Joseph that Potiphar didn’t have to worry about anything. Joseph was making a fortune for him, and life was very, very good in the Potiphar house - including life for Joseph (well, as good as life can be for a slave, at least).

But then a little problem arose.

Through no fault of his own, Joseph was what people today would call a "hunk" or a "hottie." I would have no idea what that can be like, but apparently it can be very difficult, as Joseph found out.

Because Mr. Potiphar had a wife. As I heard someone call her lately, she was "Mrs. Pot-o-fire." She was, it turns out, the first "Mrs. Robinson." (And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know, whoa, whoa, whoa!") Mrs. Pot-o-fire wanted to hook up with Joseph whenever her husband was away.

I don’t know just how attractive Mrs. Pot-o-fire was. (If you remember, Mrs. Robinson, while older, wasn’t ugly.) But whatever she was, Mrs. Pot-o-fire was persistent, while Joseph was resistant. He kept saying "No!" but Mrs. Pot-o-fire didn’t know that "No!" means "No!" But this was all just talk until one day, Mrs. Pot-o-fire actually got her hands directly onto Joseph.

What can you do when sexual temptation gets that close?

Have you ever seen the episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" where Debra is giving Raymond a big kiss just before the relatives are coming over for Christmas dinner. At one point Raymond says, "Oh no! You’ve started the ‘launch sequence’!"

What can you do if someone is starting your "launch sequence" and you are not licensed to fly with that person? (Now let me give you a little inside info here: in the Bible, "licensed to fly" means one thing, and one thing only: married. It doesn’t mean "would like to get married" and it doesn’t mean "we plan to get married someday." It means "already married" as "in the sight of God and this company.")

Joseph did about the only thing you can do in that situation if you want to do the right thing. He ran away. If anyone ever tells you that you should never run away from a problem, that person is wrong. This is the kind of problem from which you definitely should run away from.

In the end things didn’t turn out immediately well for Joseph.

The shunned Mrs. Potiphar grabbed Joseph’s coat as he ran away, and she used it to accuse Joseph of trying to rape her.

Joseph got cast into prison where he had a rather hard time. But God continued to bless Joseph, and eventually he became second in command of all of Egypt! (I’ve always wondered if, when Joseph was second in command of Egypt, if Potiphar and Mrs. Pot-o-fire ever came to any big state functions where Joseph was seated right there at the right hand of the Pharoh. Did Mrs. Pot-o-fire ever get a little nervous thinking of what the now mature Joseph could have had done to her? It’s a little amusing to think about, at any rate.)

But Joseph did know what was right, and he knew how to do what was right, when it came to sexual temptation. If you ever get near the "launch sequence" and you are not licensed to fly, you had better run like - well, just run.

David - the king

It was the springtime, which you can read about in 2 Samuel chapter 11, when it was time for the army of Israel to go out and defend against Israel’s enemies. David was king.

David usually led the armies of Israel in person. But this particular spring was different. And while we don’t know all the details, we know David was a bit older now, and that - perhaps for that reason or some other - he just sent the army out and took the spring off to lounge around the palace.

Now perhaps you have heard the phrase, "Idle hands are the Devil’s play things." There is some truth in that. David had nothing important to do. He seems to think that all the difficult "king stuff" was done. One night David couldn’t sleep (which almost surely proves he was now middle-aged!) and so he went up on the place roof. Remember that middle-eastern dwelling (places included) often had flat roofs that were more like porches.

From the palace roof David starts looking around. I don’t know the exact layout of things, but apparently you could see all around from up there. As David looked around, his eyes landed on a lady taking a bath. This lady was named "Bathsheba"- and, no, it’s not just because she was taking a bath! - and she was what we might call a "babe-o-rama." (Perhaps the original "Peeping Tom" was really "Peeing David"!)

The big problem was, Bathsheba was married.

Now, when something like this happens, there are a lot of things you can do in reaction.

David probably should have gone downstairs and stuck his head into a tub of cold water, but he didn’t. Instead, he "scoped-her-out" as we used to say.

He also abused his kingly powers, because he sent messengers to invite Bathsheba over to the place for a little ono-on-one session.

And when David knew that he was in forbidden territory, he put the rocket on the launching pad, started the launch sequence, and put a satellite into orbit, so to speak.

We don’t know much about what went on in Bathsheba’s mind during all of this. Could David’s operatives have forced her to come to the palace even if she didn’t want to do so? Was she impressed the offer of the king and willing to compromise herself? Was she just the original version of "Run-Around Sue?" While we don’t know much about this, it appears that she was at least a somewhat willing accomplice, though we can’t be sure.

In any case, it wasn’t long until they realized that Bathsheba was pregnant. What do you do when your sins are about to find you out?

That’s an interesting point because, remember that David is described by God as "a man after my own heart." Did he really think that he could hide all this from God!?! He knew God and God knew him, so to speak. These kinds of situations can "short circuit" your brain if you let them, and David did!

It is interesting to try to guess what is going through all these messed-up minds about all of this. Bathsheba is pregnant, and her husband has been off at war. When the pregnancy becomes obvious, she could be stoned for adultery. Is David now fond of her and trying to figure out how to "save" her? Is he afraid she might implicate him in public? Can you picture him denying the whole thing saying, "I did not have sex with that woman . . ." As they say, it’s a tangled web we weave.

To try to salvage the situation, David and Bathsheba try two things. First, David calls Bathsheba’s husband back from the front, and invites him to go home to his wife. If he will do this, the child on the way can plausibly be thought to be his. But even when Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, comes back to Jerusalem, he does not go home, but "stands his post" at the palace. David even tried getting Uriah drunk, but to no avail.

So David, now more desperate, plots with one of his generals to arrange for Urriah to be killed in battle. (Today we would probably kill the unborn baby - David wants to kill the husband instead!) When that is done, Bathsheba morns (or pretends to morn) for the minimum amount of time, and then she marries David. I don’t know if she had to wear loose clothing to hide an expanding abdomen, but David and Bathsheba seem to think that they have "pulled this off." And it appears that maybe, they have . . . except they forgot one thing.

They forgot about God. They forgot the idea expressed in Proverbs 15:3 "The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good."

God sent one of his messengers named Nathen to David to tell him a little story. The story talks about a rich man who steals the only sheep belonging to a poor man, and when the story is finished, it says, "David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!’"

Nathan responds to David with, "I’m talking about YOU!" and Nathan proceeds to deliver to David a message from God. God says to David the kinds of things that you say to a good friend who has betrayed you.

There are a couple of ways you can react to this sort of thing. To David’s credit, he reacts by allowing his bubble of evil pride to be burst, and he is very sorry and repentant. But there were very serious consequences which, not only David, but those around him, had to pay.

That is the way of sexual sin - not only do the guilty parties pay, often many others have to pay also. People today very stupidly think that sexual activity can be "casual" - that people can just "hook up" for a little fun and be done with it. Not so. Sexual activity is like high explosives - it can be powerful and wonderful in the right time and place, but deadly when used wrongly. And like explosives, when used wrongly, a lot of innocent people can get hurt.

And although David repents, he left a stain on his record, so to speak. For later, when God remembers His servant David, he says this: " For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD's commands all the days of his life--except in the case of Uriah the Hittite." (I Kings 15:5)