I am sitting in a hotel in Jerusalem this morning, day 4 of a two-week educational tour of Israel and the surrounding country. Yesterday, we toured the original city of Jerusalem, when it was first conquered by David. I hand always envisioned a small, flat town.
In particular, this made the story of David’s infidelity with Bathsheba an odd story to comprehend. In the original account, David spots Bathsheba in the bath and decides he’d like to get to know her better. Before long, he has impregnated his neighbor’s wife and murdered her husband to cover up his misdeed.
The image of the flat town made the story harder to understand. It had always seemed to me that David had to put some effort in to see this woman bathing.
This made the story seem even more lurid. However, yesterday, we walked through the place where these events took place. The city itself was smaller than Big Sandy, though admittedly with a palace.
It is also built on a very steep rock face. It almost hangs from the wall of the mountain, with houses stacked upward and downward. It was built this way to protect it from invaders with a minimum number of walls and fortifications.
The location itself is enough to make Jerusalem nearly impregnable. The interesting thing about the city layout is that David’s palace is at the very top, looking down on the rest of the community.
David would be able to see the entire neighborhood from his house. This was during a time when everything was done on the roof of the home to escape the heat of the day. Bathsheba was bathing on her rooftop, as would have been the standard practice of the time.
David’s spotting of his neighbor’s wife would’ve been just a matter of looking out at the community. He didn’t have to seek her out. She was right in front of him. This meant that the temptation David faced was one that approached him and he needed to fend off on his own.
He wasn’t looking for it. Instead, the moral battle came out to meet him. Unfortunately for David, it was a battle he did not win in the short term.
The Bible relates one story after another of the king’s bravery in the face of enemies and challenges. The man never ran from a fight and seldom lost one. Even the city he called home was won through a daring assault. However, as great a warrior as the king was, he lost the battle with temptation, and it cost him years of family strife and difficulty.
We live in a time of significant temptation. Men rarely need to go looking for opportunities to sin with their eyes, as the internet and increasingly lax standards are making lurid images an everyday occurrence.
Like the mighty warrior king, every man faces an internal struggle with the temptation to be unfaithful with our eyes and hearts. It’s a battle that need not be lost. David could have walked away, but he stumbled and succumbed to it.
Many men stumble when they encounter provocative material. The surest way to gauge whether or not you are stumbling is found in the follow up. David went to great lengths to cover up his affair with Bathsheba.
Folks rarely cover up their good deeds, but they want their sins to hide out of plain sight forever. I think the key to overcoming this sort of temptation is found in the end of David’s story. He is approached by Nathan, a prophet, who calls him out on his behavior.
David could’ve responded by having the man executed, but instead confessed and repented. This is called accountability. Folks who are willing to be held accountable for their actions tend to be slower to fall into sin.
Confessing, and being willing to have folks in our lives that can ask if we’re stumbling, creates a powerful front line in the battle to resist temptation.
This is difficult, largely because most folks aren’t willing to be that open with anyone. However, it is the central component in fighting and overcoming temptation.
