Sin can ruin your life. No one ever plans for that to happen, still that is always the result unless God in His mercy intervenes. Sin is a free will choice. The consequences are inevitable. God’s principle still stands: reap what you sow (Gal. 6:8). It usually always starts small and seems ‘innocent,’ but the results are disastrous. Warning signals are ignored and destruction is inevitable. That happened to the Titanic and it will happen to us, too. Examples of this are myriad. Although he is often used as an example of this, there are still many lessons we can learn from David.
DAVID’S WEAKNESS FOR WOMEN God had clearly said that His kings were to only have one wife (Deut. 17:17). When David disobeyed that, the end result was inevitable. That passage also said the king wasn’t to build up a large army and depend on his own military might but to trust in God (Deut. 17:14-16) and David was able to obey this part and trust in God. If only he would have obeyed and trusted in the second area, too. As big a temptation as trusting in pride and power are for men today, lust is even a bigger one.
David’s first wife was Michal, the daughter Saul gave him for killing Goliath. When Saul turned against David he took her back and married her to another man. David then married Ahinoam, Abigail, Maacah, Haggith, Ablital, Egal and Bathsheba. He later got Michal back as a wife, too. In addition to these eight wives David had at least ten concubines. By his wives David had twenty-one sons and one daughter. David had a very large, messed-up family and suffered many negative consequences of his actions.
A lust for women was the crack in David’s armor, and he passed this on to his son Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines. They turned his heart from God (I Kings 11:3). That is what God’s warning in Deut. 17 said would happen. Solomon broke the first prohibition, too, for he built up the army and started putting his faith in it instead of God.
POLYGAMY TODAY Do you have a weakness for women? Be honest with yourself. Most men, even good Christian men, are susceptible to lust and sexual sin. What about you? How many wives do you have? Many Christian men have more than one wife. They have the women they are married to. Then they have a second wife: sexual fantasies. A third wife may be pornography. From there it gets even worse. We might not see them as other wives, but that’s what they are. They steal our affections and sexual desires, leaving our first wife short-changed or her due. They substitute. They steal our hearts. They take our time and money. They alienate our affection. They are ‘other wives.’
David couldn’t buy a pornographic magazine or watch cable TV or a video. He married another wife. That was his centerfold. Today we don’t have to marry another woman, we can seemingly get them ‘free’ in a magazine or on TV. You can even download another wife off the Internet! Men, just how many ‘other wives’ do you really have?
And remember, these wives have children, too. Their names are “shame,” “guilt,” “defeat,” and “misery.” They can even be “poverty,” “divorce,” “disease,” and “death.” Who needs wives and children like these? Who needs to take away from the woman God provided?
(The story of King David and his victory over sexual sin will continue in the next blog.)
(If I can answer questions or offer personal counsel, or if you would like a free copy of my Spiritual Warfare Handbook, email me at Jerry@ChristianTrainingOrganization.org or download it from http://sw.christiantrainingonline.org/. My next book, Spiritual Warfare in the Bible, which is a more advanced treatment of spiritual warfare, is also available for free.)