Adultery: Easier To Commit Than Explain

MARITAL MATTERS are much on the American mind this month. Actually, make that extra-marital matters. Why? Well, adultery, it turns out, is much easier to commit than to explain. That’s particularly true if you’re a politician, because if you’re in public life, people sometimes expect more of you. Exactly why is a mystery, given the public’s generally low regard for the political species. And yet it nevertheless seems to be the case, especially when it comes to present, past, and aspiring holders of high office. - Adultery and the politician - Boston.com

The above piece was written a year ago. The comments remain relevant this year. They will be one year from now. Year after year, in places high or low, here in the United States and around the world, one political figure after another is toppled from his position by an extra-marital affair.

The most prominent Biblical member of that species was David, King of Israel. It happened on a lazy afternoon in the Spring, while David's army was away on another of the many skirmishes they had with the Ammonites, descendants of Lot's son (Gen. 19:38). David was lounging on his roof when he suddenly spied a beautiful woman next door taking an outdoors bath. Her name was Bathsheba, the wife of one of David's soldiers. David sent for her and thus began a very heated affair. Next thing you know, she was pregnant. In order to cover it all up, David arranged for her husband to be killed in battle. Shortly after that she became another of David's many wives (2 Samuel 11:1-27).

That story is behind one of the most prominent of David's Psalms. Psalm 51 begins with these words:

A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. —Psalm 51:1

Politician or not, cheating husband or wife, cheated-upon spouse or not, we all have much to learn from David's experience of adultery, confession and absolution. He continues his song.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. [2] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! [3] For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. [4] Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. - Psa 51:1-4 ESV

Nathan was David's court prophet (dare I call him chaplain?). We know very little about him. He first appears as the one encouraging David's plan to build a temple to the LORD. The same night, however, Nathan receives a vision that plays on the Hebrew word bayit, house. The LORD, Nathan tells David, does not want him to build a house or temple for the LORD. Nevertheless David's house, his family, has an eternal destiny. From this family blessings for all mankind were to come. Nathan shares his vision.

He (David) shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.'" - 2Sa 7:13-16 ESV

Nathan was the channel for this astounding promise. And later, in spite of his fall into temptation, David did not forget Nathan's words. Nor did he forget that the LORD spoke through Nathan. Consequently, when Nathan challenged David for his adultery, David found courage in that Word from Nathan, courage to confess his sins and beg forgiveness. The Word of the LORD spoken by Nathan was a Word of love. David accepted Nathan in that spirit and prayed for mercy and cleansing.

This can be an important lesson for pastors, parents and friends. First make sure that you speak in the spirit of kindness and love, not in self-righteous anger or pharisaical snobbery. But then do not fail to confront the member of your flock, your son or daughter or your friend. Gently, but firmly show them their sin. When they repent and ask for mercy, remind them of the mercy and forgiveness available to us all in Jesus Christ and His cross.

More on Psalm 51 next time.

Incomplete Healing

For the past couple weeks I've been meditating on the ministry of reconciliation and focusing especially on the guidance the Apostle James gives,

"Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. ¹⁴Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:13-16).

 I pick up today's meditations at v. 15, "the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. . ."


Obviously prayer of any sort cannot save anyone. Our eternal salvation rests forever upon our Lord's sacrificial life and death (Acts 4:12). James certainly knew that. What then did he mean to say? The word save is part of our problem. We are talking about sickness, most especially sickness of heart and soul. This is far more important than the physical illnesses any of us may suffer. At stake is our eternal destiny. Should we lose our faith in Jesus, we have nothing to offer in payment for our sins—nothing. Our salvation rests completely upon our trust and faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21-25). So James speaks about the prayer of one who believes in the one and only Savior. In Jesus that believer finds forgiveness. In Jesus he receives renewed life and an outpouring of Christ's Spirit. His prayers for mercy and forgiveness turn into praise and thanksgiving.

James continues, "and the Lord will raise him up." 


Jesus can and does raise us up from our sickness, just as he gave the paralyzed man renewed strength to rise from his bed and go home (Matthew 9:5-7). For that we do indeed pray, but Jesus gives us an even greater gift when we throw ourselves upon His mercy. That more significant life is received when we die with Jesus in baptism and rise with him to a life that will never end (Romans 6:4-9; 8:11). That dying and rising happens each time we confess our sins and receive forgiveness. Healed by the presence and power of Jesus, our physical being is often restored and raised up. Yet even if the Lord allows our faith to be tested by continued illness, we find peace and hope in our hearts because our sins are fully and completely forgiven and we are the Lord's.


"and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." 


When faith has been weakened by idolatry, lust, slander, shame, fear, doubt, the loss of vocation and on and on, the believer needs to hear Jesus speak to him/her individually, "Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace." It is not enough to hear some general absolution spoken in Sunday worship. The forgiveness longed for must be spoken to the specific sinner and to his or her specific sins. And then joy comes. And with that joy comes renewed strength for the next task. Listen to James.

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed." 


As I said in my previous blog, more often than not further work remains. The sins confessed have broken and destroyed relationships and lives. Before moving forward the pastor knows he must be reconciled with those who slandered and maligned him. The adulterous husband longs for forgiveness and peace between himself and his estranged wife and children. The schemer who has bilked clients out of thousands of dollars wants more than to pay off his debts. This is the healing James speaks about and it takes hundreds of different shapes and forms, but healing can and does happen when we open our lives to Jesus. He is the healer of all our diseases (1 Peter 2:24).

Yet all too often the pastor who has been driven to despair by conflicts with congregation members, accepts a Call to another congregation. His sickness has not been healed. Wounded and only partially healed of his heart illness, that pastor may carry his disease into his new congregation. Wounded and damaged by their conflict with that pastor, those same former congregation members no longer trust any pastor. When a new pastor arrives in their midst the same conflicts break out and the illness continues.

The wife offended, hurt and severely damaged by her husband's unfaithfulness, sues for a divorce. She wants nothing less than never to see him again. The pain and suffering in her heart continue. Her husband, in turn, continues to carry guilt and shame for what he has done, even though he has confessed his sins and received forgiveness. The healing for the relationship and the family is certainly incomplete.

The schemer who tricked fellow Christians out of their life savings may have repaid his debts, but he has not and cannot heal the soul sickness that he has caused. Much work remains.

Only when sinners confess their sins to one another and learn to pray for one another, can there be healing, the healing that comes only from the Great Physician. He said, "I came that you may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).

I will discuss this process in more detail next time.

The Lord Raises Up The Sinner

In earlier Blogs I wrote about the need for reconciliation and the suffering that often happens to pastors and their families. This applies, of course, not only to pastors and other professional church workers. It happens to all Christians as they struggle with sin in their and others' lives. Here's what I wrote:

. . . self-centered desires destroy lives. There is but one road to healing. The Apostle James writes about it this way:
 Reconciliation is a difficult process. It involves confessing our sins to one another. It involves confessing our sins to God. It involves the giving and receiving of absolution and forgiveness from God. And it involves forgiving one another for the sake of what God has given us in Jesus Christ. It involves accepting that forgiveness from others. It involves accepting forgiveness in your own heart. This is the ministry of reconciliation.

"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:14-16).

 In my blog immediately before this one I wrote about a long past incident in my own life as a pastor. I shared the suffering I experienced at the time because of slander and gossip. I also mentioned how weak and sick I became because of my internal pain. 


The big question is always, How does one and his or her family move beyond all this? I believe that St. James has given us the answer. I will put the answer in an ordered way, even while I know that things do not usually progress step by step, but rather move back and forth, up and down. Yet I know from personal experience and from what I have seen, there is, by God's grace, a way out from under the guilt and suffering to a new life in Christ. 

1. . . . Is anyone among you sick? Life is not working for me. I'm weak, helpless and suffering. I can see no way out. It seems that people all around me know what I am, what I have done. They mock me, make fun of me, despise me. I'm ashamed and alone. I am sick. If hell is like this, I'm already there. Because of my sin, I am in a living hell.  
2.  if he has committed sins. In liturgical Sunday worship Lutherans acknowledge that "we are by nature sinful and unclean." Not only have I not loved our Lord with all our heart, I have not loved my neighbors, my friends, yes my family as myself and now I must admit it. This is a step I realize I must now take. I can do nothing but confess my sins: I have had a part in this mess. Instead of the Lord, I have bowed at the feet of several idol or idols. I have worshipped my pride, my sexual desires, my love of money, my overwhelming ambition to succeed, my love of power, you name it. It's there. I have broken the first commandment and I am ready to acknowledge this, but I'm scared to death of what will happen if I do. 
3. Let him call for the elders of the church. Freedom from guilt and shame is a gift. I cannot earn it. I do not deserve it. I cannot give it to myself. It can only come from beyond me. Where is such a gift? If no one owns it, where is it? Only the church of Jesus has it! Jesus called it the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:18-20). All the powers of hell cannot prevail against this power. Satan, demons, other friends or enemies, as well as my conscience cannot stand up against this power. It is the forgiveness of sins! I am set free. Why? Because of what Jesus Christ accomplished by His perfect life and His suffering and death upon the cross. This power to forgive sins belongs only to Christ. And He has put it in the hands of His church. Thank God, His church calls men to administer this power in Jesus' name. The elders or pastors administer and share this Good News, this grace of God publicly, but each Christian has the keys to heaven in his or her own hands to administer and share privately with the penitent sinner. 
4. ...and let them pray over him. The pastor will ask you to tell your story. He will invite you to pour it out in as much detail as you can. Only as you bring it out into the light, only as you drag out all the details, only then can it be dealt with. This is what confession is all about. And then the pastor will invite you to pray with him as he prays over all of it in the blessed and powerful name of our Savior. He will go with you to lay your sins at the foot of the cross. He will join you there to ask Jesus to make your sins His. He will ask Jesus to send you His Holy Spirit so that you may have the power and strength to accept what long ago happened when Jesus died. This will probably not all happen in one hour, maybe not in one week or even in one month. But as you and he pray over all that has been said and done you will sense the presence and power of your Savior. 
5. ...anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Why oil? It isn't that oil has any power to heal your heart sickness. It is often soothing for the body, but sin is a matter of the soul. What then? It is simply that you—all of you, body and soul together—must know that Jesus loves and forgives you. For some of us, the touch of the hand, the smell and feel of the oil, helps us to hear this gracious word from Jesus, "Man, your sins are forgiven you. . . I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home" (Luke 5:17-26). It is true. Jesus says it. I feel it, both on my forehead and in my heart. I am forgiven. Praise God!  
6. ...and the Lord will raise him up. Only Jesus can heal us when paralyzed and made helpless by the sickness of our sins. The one who hears Jesus speak in his heart finds new power, new strength. He is able to pick himself up and go home. 

This is the beginning of healing. There is usually much more to do. Others have been harmed, made sick, caused to suffer. The process of reconciliation must continue. More on this another day.

The Ministry Of Reconciliation

My intensive week of study with some 30+ pastors and lay leaders in St. Louis, Mo. is over. We took a long and detailed look together at the heart business of the Christian church. We looked at the ministry of reconciliation, the heart and center of what we Christians are about. Here's how the Apostle Paul writes about it:

"The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:14-21).

 At every international airport, like the one here in Houston, there are money changers. You can give them $100 U.S. dollars and they will exchange it for the equivalent in British pounds, Japanese yens or whatever other money is used for exchange of goods and business in the country to which you are flying. When you arrive you can hail a cab, tell the driver your destination and pay him in his country's money. No problem.

This word for exchanging money is the one the Apostle uses to describe the accomplished work of Jesus Christ, God's Son. His life and death were exchanged in full payment for the sins of the entire world, for all men living then, now and forever. The exchange has been made. We all have free passage into the very heart and presence of the heavenly Father. It is now the business of the Christian church to proclaim and apply that reconciliation, that blessing from God to all men.

Here's an example. One of the widely abused gifts of God is the natural attraction between men and women. Again and again I have seen it bring pain and brokenness to marriages and the destruction of a man's career.

Consider the case of Bill and Marilyn. They are both active leaders in their church and apparently happily married with two children. However, Bill has a heart problem. His God given sexual drive has taken over his life. He focuses upon this desire every day. He secretly pours over pornographic websites when he should be working at his office. He visits topless bars on his way home and lies about where he has been to his wife. He keeps pornographic magazines hidden in his home office.

And then one afternoon his attractive secretary and he decide to spend an hour in a local motel. This activity goes on for several weeks until one day his wife discovers it. And, well, you can imagine the rest of the story. Bill's and Marilyn's lives together are ruined. They have severely damaged the lives of their children. And hundreds of other people's lives are also hurt by what has happened.

Why is the pain and suffering so widespread? Because Bill is—or was—a pastor! He was responsible for the spiritual well being of a flock of over 1,000 people. They and the entire community in which Bill and Marilyn lived have been touched by Bill's faithless activities.

This is tragic, but even more critical is the question of reconciliation. How can Bill, Marilyn, their children and so many other people be reconciled to one another? Where will they find the power and strength to forgive one another? How will they be able to move beyond what has happened?

This is but one example, not even a unique one, of how our self-centered desires destroy lives. There is but one road to healing. The Apostle James writes about it this way:

"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:14-16).

 Reconciliation is a difficult process. It involves confessing our sins to one another. It involves confessing our sins to God. It involves the giving and receiving of absolution and forgiveness from God. And it involves forgiving one another for the sake of what God has given us in Jesus Christ. It involves accepting that forgiveness from others. It involves accepting forgiveness in your own heart. This is the ministry of reconciliation.

This is what we were studying this past week. I'll have much more to say about this ministry another time.

 

 

 

Sin, Sickness And Healing

When you study the New Testament seriously you come upon some curious passages about illness. I consider the following one of them. It's about a woman who appears to have had idiopathic scoliosis, advancing for the past eighteen years. We don't know that, of course. All physician Luke says is that she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. He goes on to record Jesus' healing and this comment by Jesus to the ruler of the local synagogue (Luke 13:11-17).

"And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" 

Why does our Lord describe her illness as a binding by Satan? Curious, to say the least. The idea of binding is common in the N.T. Strong men are tied up, a demoniac couldn't be bound with chains, colts are tied to a post and—note this—Jesus gives Peter and the other disciples the authority to bind and to loose (Matthew 16:17-19). This authority is called "the keys of the kingdom of heaven" and is invariably understood within the church to refer to the authority to forgive or retain forgiveness of sins.

Is there a connection between illness and unforgiven sins? Most assuredly or should I say sadly. Here's what the Apostle James writes:

"Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" (James 5:16).

When James describes people being sick he chooses a verb (kamno in Greek) used only one other time in the N.T. in Hebrews 12:3. In that chapter the Hebrews author talks about struggling with sin, particularly when the struggle is against others who are hostile and angry with you. As I read that I can't help but think about the many families in which there are daily conflicts between husband and wife, between parents and children and between siblings. The quarrels and hostility never end. That's why the Hebrews writer urges us to consider Jesus so that we don't get weary (kamno = sick) and lose heart, become discouraged and give up in body, mind and soul.

I can imagine this woman enduring 18 years of this kind of life until she was bent over with discouragement and hopelessness. She would never get out of her marriage. She would never be rid of the man who beat her down with his bitter words, his endless demands, his demeaning remarks and  his frequent physical attacks.

Then along comes our Lord, fully aware of what has been going on, intimately aware of the true nature of her sickness. He calls her to Himself and, laying his hands on her, says, "Woman, you are freed from your sickness, your weakness, your disability." In other words, "Ma'am, God loves you even if your husband hates you. I love you and accept you into my fellowship. Feel my hands upon you. I want to be in touch with you right now and forever to bless and guide you. You are not the stupid, ignorant, useless pile of garbage that man has been saying you are all these years. You are a precious, wondrous and beautiful daughter of God. So straighten up. Move on. I'm with you and together we'll make it through the days ahead until one day we will dwell together in the Father's house."

Perhaps this good news will help you, dear reader, as well. Satan cannot condemn you now that Jesus is in your life. He may send demons to accuse, mock and malign you through members of your family, people at work or your so-called friends. Their ugly words may be making you sick, bending you over with and weighing you down with suffering, pain and weariness. But consider Jesus. Go to your pastor or a believing brother or sister. Tell them about your sin, weakness and sorrow. Confess your part in all of this. Then open yourself to allow them to speak the words of Jesus upon you so you may be forgiven, loosed and freed. Discover the freedom that is rightly yours in Christ. And then move on with your life under the blessing of Jesus, your Savior and Redeemer.