“You have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife” (II Samuel 12:10).
A minister falls into adultery and it becomes public knowledge. This becomes a sad, sad day for everyone who knows him.
And yes, I am aware it takes two people to commit this sin. However, this blog is directed toward pastors and other church leaders, so the minister is the focus of our comments here.
“I think we all should consider this a wakeup call,” said a colleague of a friend who had fallen into sin and lost his ministry. The other ministers nodded in agreement.
It can happen to any of us. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Will anyone tell you “otherwise”? Oh yes. Scripture calls him by numerous names: Satan, the devil, Lucifer, that old serpent, and the slanderer. Remember, friend–he’s not called the “accuser of the brethren” for nothing (Revelation 12:10).
Jesus called him a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).
“Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (I Corinthians 10:12). Beware of feeling this sin or any other sin could not happen to you, friend.
“If Thou O Lord should mark iniquities, who would stand?” (Psalm 130:3)
You know that you are just as bad a sinner as the adulterer, don’t you? If you do not, if you believe that your sins are of a nicer variety and deserve less severe treatment from God, you have more problems than we can deal with here.
If anyone should be above the law and able to come and go sexually as he pleases, it ought to be the king, right?
One king of Israel seems to have bought into that myth.
When King David sinned with Bathsheba, and then committed manslaughter to get her righteous husband out of the way, he was in major trouble with God. Second Samuel chapter 12 tells the story.
David received many surprises when God called him to account for his behavior. He was surprised to learn that…
–God took his sin personally. “You have despised me,” the Lord said (II Samuel 12:10). Later David prayed, “Against Thee and Thee only is my sin” (Psalm 51:4). We can beg to differ with that–and we do–but to the one struggling under that great load of guilt over his wrongdoing, it felt that way. In the same way, the Apostle Paul called himself “the chief of sinners” (I Timothy 1:15). Was he the worst? Not even close. But he felt that he was, and that’s the correct way to assess one’s own guilt before God.
–-God took his sin as a rejection of His word. “Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight?” (II Samuel 12:9)
–The enemy took his sin gleefully. “By this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” (II Samuel 12:14). We can hear the enemies cackling, “Oooh, he was so righteous! But look what he’s doing. He’s worse than us!”
–The sin David committed injured him permanently. “Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house….” (II Samuel 12:10).
–While David thought his misdeeds were done in private, God meted out the punishment publicly. “Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun” (II Samuel 12:12).
We keep getting surprised by our sin. We are surprised that we get by with it as long as we do, surprised when we get caught, surprised that people were as hurt as they were, and surprised that God took our sin as a personal insult. We are surprised that the price we pay for our sin is not the slight thing we had envisioned for spiritual misdemeanors but massive and far-reaching, as though God considers our transgressions as felonies deserving the harshest treatment.
When a minister of the Gospel commits adultery, he does the most stupid thing of his life. No bad thing he ever does will have as far-reaching consequences as this. He will live with the effects of this foolishness the rest of his earthly days.
Everything about it is sad.
There must be a hundred bad things that happen when a minister falls into sexual sin. God alone knows what they are. But my observation is that when a minister falls and his act becomes public knowledge, these ten things happen:
1) HIs ministry is gone. Until he has undergone a period of counseling with his wife and receives the endorsement of friends with influence, his influence will be slim to none.
2) HIs humiliation is severe. The shame is a heavy burden to bear.
3) Those who believed in him and supported him feel betrayed. He could have told them from the first how mortal he is and how prone to temptation he is–like the rest of us–but still, they have been hurt. We can hear them saying, “We thought he was above that.” No amount of explanation can salve the pain.
4) People whom he was trying to reach for Christ now have a convenient excuse to fall away. ” I thought he was so Christlike,” they will say, as they lay aside the Bible and no longer consider coming to Christ. Whether they actually did think that or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that the devil has taken the weapon he’s just been handed by a foolish servant of the Lord and is now battering the church with it.
5) His family is wounded, perhaps irreparably. Counseling can help and must be done. The family can be restored, and in many cases will be “stronger in the broken places,” as the saying goes. But such seems to be rare, sad to say.
6) Atheists and others hostile to the Christian faith have a field day. Like the Philistines with David, these people delight in pointing out the hypocrisies of God’s preachers, particularly those who have been outspoken against sexual sin.
7) His future ministry–once it’s re-established–is more limited. We are not saying God is through with him, only that how the Lord chooses to use Him will probably be different from the original plan and in a lesser way. However–and we emphasize this–God is sovereign and can do whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3). If God chooses to reach the entire world through this one, He has the right.
But generally speaking, the future ministry of a “fallen and then restored” disciple is a miniature version of what it couuld have been.
8) Other ministers are tainted by being in the same profession as he. The next time some pollster asks people to name the profession they trust most, they will remember this and drop all ministers lower down their list.
9) The pastor’s victim has been wounded and her family has paid a price. Whether they know it or not. Compounding that tragedy, in many cases some will accuse her of being the aggressor. No good comes from any of this.
10) The guilt from this will hound him the rest of his life. When he’s 60 years old and the sin lies in the distant past, he will be saying, “Lord, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.” The Lord, of course, forgave that the first time he repented and asked. This sin was nailed to Jesus’ cross. God’s forgiveness is so total He says He actually forgets our sin (Hebrews 10:17).
But the memory of his deeds and the sorrow for the pain he has caused will never leave.
There is however, a little good news. At least two good things can come from this tragic situation…
1) The pastor is going to find out who his friends are. This is of course the worst of all possible ways to find that out, but you do learn it.
2) The church is going to find out what it really believes. And so, incidentally, is the minister who has fallen.
Every church talks a good game of grace. But only when one near and dear to the members falls into gross sin and rebellion does this test reveal whether they believe in showing mercy and love to sinners. As with “finding out who his friends are,” this is the most brutal of all ways to make this discovery.
Pray for your ministers. Oh, one more thing: If your minister takes extraordinary steps to guard himself from temptation, do not take it personally.
A woman wrote recently saying that after her second counseling visit with her pastor, he informed her that he would like his wife to sit in on future sessions. She was offended, she said. “Why doesn’t he trust me?” She indicated she will probably not go back.
It would have been simple for me to have told her, “It’s himself he’s not trusting.” But that would not necessarily be true. He is simply being wise. This is for the protection of everyone. I suggested to the woman that she give it a try, to return to the pastor for at least two more visits, and see how it goes. She can always stop the sessions and find another counselor. But I would not be surprised if she finds herself connecting with the pastor’s wife, and forming a friendship with the blessings of Heaven.
Pray for our pastors. And support them whenever they take steps to protect their relationships, their ministries, the people around them, their families, and the name of Jesus.
I thought the article was excellent. We have been blessed to be raised from at least three generations past of Godly Christian believers. But there was a season before I was married or I made the mistake of hanging out with a married man, a boss, before work and got emotionally entangled with him. I was pretty young at the time. I honestly didn’t have any evil thoughts about him, but one day I went to work and a Godly young woman probably 19 years of age literally trembling pulled me aside and said Is it true? Everybody says that you’re committing sin but you’re supposed to be such a good Christian. I was so scared when I realized literally everybody thought that I was in sin with the man, I was scared because I was trying so hard to bring people to Christ, we were even holding Bible studies. I did not return to work for 3 days and I fasted and prayed at the church crying Before the Throne of God asking him what did I do wrong? And I didn’t understand. And then I picked up a book which any mature believer would know about these things but I just had not had the teaching and I was in my twenties, I believe it was Lester Summerall but I forget, explaining that intimacy is on three levels for a believer. Two levels for an unbeliever, emotional and physical, but then in Christ there is an intimacy in the spirit realm as well. The Holy Spirit showed me in his Mercy in the book helped me to understand I had overstepped even though I did not mean to, the emotional intimacy boundaries. I had to apologize to the man I make it clear that I had no intentions toward him. I somehow did not lose my job after disappearing for 3 days, but I switched my shift so that I was not opening the store with him in the morning. It was a hard learn lesson but I was thankful that happened before I got married. Because it helped me to set and ask my husband to set pretty strong boundaries early on. Integrity in a marriage a second only to Grace and the love of Christ. When I got allergic to our house and one of my teenager daughters was going through her lying stage as we were disciplining her for lies on occasion, and I was trying to explain to her how important Integrity is, and it’s always been a rule. If you do something wrong you’re going to be in trouble but if you lie to me about it you’re going to be twice as much in trouble. But I told her when I got allergic to our house my husband and I for 9 months had to live in two separate places, which by then we’ve been married for over 20 years, so we still kept certain boundaries, when I had to stay in a B&B I would only stay in one owned by a female, not a male. But I explained to my daughter how important integrity was because neither my husband or I had any fear, we had wisdom but we did not have any fear of what the other was doing during those 9 months apart. Now we tried to get together at least once a day especially for our daughter’s sake but it was probably the hardest thing we ever went through in our married life. But I asked her could you imagine if we had not lived 20 plus years of lives of Integrity of pretty much never lying, once a place when I slipped up I immediately confessed it. We don’t lie to one another. But the other really amazing thing and I’ve learned over the years, if I get attacked with a Temptation whether it’s my flesh or the devil that serious like adultery or something like that, this is coming from somebody who is borderline bipolar so I battle a broken brain pretty regularly, what they call intrusive thoughts can be really painful at times and I’ve cried out to God and he is rescued me time and time again, but a general rule of thumb is if I can’t beat it within 2 weeks with just me and Jesus, my pastors are hearing from me until we beat it together. And yes, all of my pastors have an open Office rule. But the one time I really struggled and I don’t know why, I will never forget because it was one of the most beautiful things after 2 weeks I told God I’m going to go tell my husband if I can’t beat this stupid thing, and apparently God didn’t think that was a good idea because the next day two very dear friends that have been missionaries in the Middle East, a husband and wife who raised their children in a war zone, showed up at my door from Israel the next day, apparently just passing by LOL I confessed listen to them and they prayed over me and I didn’t have a problem with it again. But pastors hear me, the reason I was learning to be so careful to walk with God was because when I was 16 a young woman that was very beautiful in my youth group we found out was a Satanist. This was many years ago before the church denomination that I am in was more careful with the open door policy. The youth pastor had no evil intent I know that, but he walked into his office to counsel her, and they were the only ones in the church at the time, and she was Stark naked. I’m sharing this because I don’t want you guys to be unaware of the evil that is out there. I know God has forgiven my sins, but I walked in on that youth pastor because one of my parents was often in the church and I just happened to come in shortly after the girl had left and he didn’t confess the whole sin to me he just was crying and said something was really wrong and I know God has forgiven my sin, I was 16, but the holy spirit said to tell the senior pastor and I didn’t. Because the youth pastor said no no I’ll tell him it’s okay I’ll tell him. The youth pastor 6 months later came down with MS. I went to college and years went by. The senior pastor of that church I lost touch with for many years but then we regained connection probably 30 years later and I asked him whatever happened with the youth pastor when he told you the sin with this young woman? And the senior pastor said what are you talking about? And I was sick to my stomach because I found out later that his wife had divorced him and taking his children, this was a sweet Godly Man, I’m telling you guys please watch out for each other. Please please heed the spirit of God. And I shared with the senior pastor and I said oh my God have mercy and I don’t mean using the lord’s name in vain here I mean it quite seriously, and my heart is sick for the fact that I didn’t confront it when I should have. Again I know I’m forgiven but I wish I had done better. But the worst thing, beloved for whom Christ died, is that means that that young woman who was a Satanist, was never confronted with her sin. The youth pastor was young and he was too afraid plus there was demonic stuff at work. Please brothers and sisters for whom Christ died. Heed the words of this Godly pastor who has written this article. Guard your heart with diligence. Pray for one another and help raise those under your care to understand, we are in a battle. The battle is for Souls. Now I believe that God resurrects the dead. And I believe he hears my prayers and answers them because he said he would. And I’m grateful for the men that God has called to be pastors. And I pray by some miracle that that young woman who would know be much older, at some point gave her life to Jesus Christ or that at some point she will give her life to Jesus Christ and ask him to forgive her sins that she might live and not die. And I pray for Mercy over the youth pastor and his wife and his children that God might heal and restore and that if he has never spoken the truth because now we’ve lost touch with him don’t know where he is and we haven’t been able to find him, but at some point God have mercy and restore him in if he has never confessed the sin, pray to God he come to Jesus and find somebody that he can speak the truth to and if there’s any way to make anything right at this point that it still might be done but if not we serve the one who at the cross Cried Out father forgive them. Because they do not know what they’re doing. And in that hour, our Lord forgave the Pharisees who in the name of God commanded his torture and death. Our Lord forgave Mary Magdalene and every prostitute across time and space. Our Lord forgave the adultery of Israel and every believer who who claims to love God but also flirts with the world, loving the world, using time energy money and resources for the flesh and the things of this world instead of the kingdom of the Living God. In that moment in time he forgave the Roman soldiers the pagans that were actually pounding the nails into his hands and feet, pagans who would even put their children out for the animals to eat if they were unwanted at Birth. He forgave the abomination of pride and lies. He forgive the disciples who in cowardice ran away and Peter who denied him. How great is the love of God! How great is the love the father has bestowed upon us. May we also be careful, to honor and love him fully. Not to commit adultery. Not to lust after the world or the things of this world or be greedy which is as the sin of idolatry, but to walk with him and to hear his heart and just cry from Genesis to Revelations for the lost and the hurting the poor in the oppressed. May we love God with all of our hearts minds and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves willing to lay down our lives even as Christ did, even for his enemies. He is all together lovely. God’s peace