SEVEN GODLY MEN AND A GAME OF CHESS

This title may seem better suited to a Sherlock Holmes Mystery or a shaggy dog story than a Bible lesson, and perhaps it is. However, it deals with a serious subject: sexual temptation. But first, let me review some of the rules of chess in case you aren't familiar with the game.

The purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, meaning that you have placed him where he cannot escape from your imminent attack. When you say “check,” that means that you have just moved one of your pieces so as to capture his king if he doesn't somehow get out of it. And there are three ways by which be can get out of check: move away from the danger, capture the piece that has put him in check, or place one of his pieces between your attacker and his king. The same three modes of escape also apply to escaping sexual temptation. In discussing these briefly, all of the examples will refer to men being tempted by women. However, the principles all apply to the reverse situation just as well (and perhaps even better).

Move away from danger

The well-known story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife told in Genesis 39 is a perfect example of this method. Joseph first tries to reason out of her attraction to him. But when that fails, he does the only thing he can – run out of the house and away from her. Unfortunately, in his case he leaves his clothes behind and she takes advantage of that fact to claim that he was the aggressor in the situation. Assuming that there is an application here, it might be that if we are trying to escape a specific sexual temptation, it is imperative to do so completely and not leave any lingering feelings behind.

By the way, I wonder whether Potiphar really believed her story or knew her, and Joseph, too well to fall for it. If he really had believed that a slave had attempted to rape his wife, he would not have hesitated to put him to death. On the other hand, to keep up appearances, he followed the best compromise by merely having Joseph jailed.

Capture the attacker

It is said that the best defense is a strong offense. This is seemingly a fool-proof method, but can also be an unwise move at times. Let me offer a fictional example first to demonstrate that point. W. Somerset Maugham wrote a famous short story entitled “Rain,” which was later made into a movie. In this story, a missionary is trapped with others in a house in the South Seas during a prolonged rainstorm. One of the others in the house is Sadie Thompson, who might be politely called a loose woman.

The rather self-righteous missionary, who is attracted to her despite himself, feels it is his duty to convert her by hammering at her unmercifully concerning her sinful lifestyle. At last, she seemingly gives in, but it is only to better seduce him into betraying his own principles. When he realizes what he has done, he commits suicide. One rather clear moral here is that we had first better be sure that we are not relying our own strength rather than that of God before attacking someone who can easily turn the tables on us.

King Solomon may also be a good example to consider. Of course, we all know that he started out well after God gave him wisdom as well as wealth. But one of the “duties” of a king in those times (and millennia later) was to make political alliances with other countries, and the best way to accomplish that was to marry the daughter of one of their kings or prominent citizens. Unfortunately, Solomon overdid it a bit and ended up with 1,000 foreign wives and concubines, who each brought their pagan religious beliefs with them. Solomon may not have been concerned at all that they would influence him spiritually, and he easily could have felt that his own godly influence would act on them instead. But apparently the pleasures of the flesh were too much for him, and he succumbed to them.

Examples such as that of Solomon may lie behind the NT injunction to not make mixed marriages with unbelievers. (II Corinthians 6:14)

Place someone between you and the attacker

I have a somewhat humorous story to illustrate this one. My father-in-law was a preacher, and he once told me something that had happened to him early in his ministry. One of the ladies who started attending his congregation was young, attractive, and unattached. She kept asking him to come over to her house because she had some things she wanted to discuss with him. At last he agreed to come over, but for some reason he was a bit suspicious of her motives.

He knocked at her door at the appointed time, and she opened the door dressed only in a flimsy negligee. He immediately shoved his mother, whom he had the foresight to take along, in front of him and started to introduce her. The woman slammed the door and only opened it again when she had gotten properly dressed. It was an awkward meeting that soon broke up without incident.

Having met his mother once myself, I can vouch for the fact that she was a more than adequate defense. However, the only sure defense in a case like that is to be armed with God's own strength.

Still sticking to the chess analogy as applied to sexual temptation, there are two additional cases to discuss.

Avoid being in check to start with

As trite as it sounds: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It is harder (but not impossible by any means) to be checkmated if you haven't first been in check. The premiere example of this is probably Billy Graham. He vowed early in his preaching career never to be caught in a situation where he was alone with any woman other than his wife. Because of that decision, which he firmly adhered to, he was completely free from any hint of sexual scandal throughout his long career. This was in marked contrast to the many other famous pastors and preachers whom we could all name who met their downfall by being seduced by the charms of fame, money and sex.

Most of the advice to young men concerning adulteresses and prostitutes given in Proverbs 2, 5-7, and 9 boils down to one thing – stay far away from them.

    “Keep your way far from her, don't even go near the door of her house.” (Proverbs 5:8)

    “Do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.” (Proverbs 6:25b)

    “She sits at the entrance to her house...and calls to those passing by... “Turn in here.” (Proverbs 9:14-16a)

Give in after a fight

On the flip side is an example closer to home for me. The minister who baptized me when I was a teenager had been pastor of the church for decades and was idolized by most everyone in the congregation. But then his wife died of cancer, and he was helpless without her. The wife of one of our deacons took pity on him and went to his house constantly to cook his food, do his laundry, etc. It was the inevitable “etc” that caused all the problems. One day, he left without warning taking the deacon's wife with him. The deacon was, of course, heartbroken and soon dropped out of the church. I saw the pastor years later when he was quite elderly and attending another church in town. He was still married to the deacon's ex-wife. It may have been a happy ending for them (although he had to leave the ministry entirely), but they left a disaster in their wake.

Concede defeat immediately

Then there are those who give in to temptation without even putting up a fight. King David is a great (or poor, as the case may be) example of this behavior. When he sees naked Bathsheba in her bath, he summons her to the palace and the rest is sordid history. Or is it her-story instead?

I once led a small group study on this passage of Scripture. Our group was generally not very talkative when it came to the discussion part of the lesson. However, they surprisingly came alive when I asked them what they thought about Bathsheba. There were two diametrically opposite opinions on the subject. On one side (and I was in this camp) were those who pointed out that Bathsheba had no choice but to obey the King's command and that she was totally innocent. And the fact that she was bathing to make herself ritually pure indicates that she was a devout Jewess despite the fact that she was married to a Hittite.

In the other camp were those who felt that Bathsheba was bored with her soldier husband being away from home so much of the time. So she decided to seduce the king to see what would come of it. As one woman in our group said, “You can't tell me that she didn't know that David would be looking on as she bathed!”

I am not 100% sure who was the seducer and who was the seducee. Personally, Bathsheba's subsequent naïve actions when she got caught in the middle of political intrigue as David was dying have convinced me that those were not the moves of a scheming and ambitious woman. In any case, David certainly did not put up much of a fight with his desires before he gave in to them. And just as in some of the sad cases above, there was disastrous fallout from his actions, beginning with Uriah's murder and then the death of David's first son by Bathsheba.