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As it happens, I'm a baseball fan. And my baseball team, the Detroit Tigers, have been doing very well this year. They are, have the best record in the major leagues. Last time I checked. And very excited about that. Not sure how long it will last, but I brought to mind 1968 when I was a very young. And there was a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers named Denny McLean. Denny McLean that year, 1968, won 31 games, which is an unheard of number. Nobody had done it for years and years. And nobody's done it since. So in the next 57 years of baseball, nobody's won 31 games. The Tigers went on that year to win the World Series. In the following year, Denny McLean won 24 games. So he won what's called the Cy Young Award two years in a row. But then in 1970, there was this report in Sports Illustrated that Denny McLean was under investigation for consorting with gamblers, with mafia, basically. And so he was suspended for the first half of the 1970 season. He came back, hurt his arm, never pitched well again, and retired from baseball a couple of years later. Nobody heard of him for a while until about 1980, when it appeared in the news in Detroit, which is where I lived, that Denny McLean had been arrested for racketeering and drug trafficking. One of the sportscasters, Al Ackerman, went down to interview McLean in prison. And I'll never forget him saying, I just don't know how I got from there to here. I just don't know how I got from there to here. As the passage that Reed read says, let no one say when he is tempted that he's tempted by God, God does not tempt anyone. Now, that might seem self-evident, but you wouldn't believe how many people, when they're in the middle of a moral crisis, ask this question or one very similar to it. How could God let this happen to me? When in reality, if you knew the condition of your own heart, the question could rightly be asked, why didn't this happen a lot sooner? Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. When lust conceives, he gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. James is using a fishing illustration. The way you catch a fish is you entice it with a lure or with bait to think that it's food and it attacks from the safety of the weeds, and it is carried away to its own death. So if God isn't tempting us, where does the temptation come from? We're tempted when we're carried away by our own desire. The Bible says, lust, but in the originals, the word for desire can be translated over desire. What makes a desire an over-desire? What makes a desire too much of it? If it's your desire to obey God, there can't be too much of it. What about a desire for too much sex? Is there such a thing? It's like the country song, Too Much Fun Ain't No Such Thing. But what makes an over-desire is a desire that goes beyond the boundaries of God's law. Now, years and years ago, I heard a concept called A and B Choices, which is the title of the sermon. And the idea is that when you come to a choice, some choices are black and white. So the A choice is, we'll just call it the white choice, and the B choice is the black choice. It could be the other way around. But the A choice is the right one, and the B choice is the wrong one. And some choices are more gray than others, but you always know the one that's a little less gray. And when a person begins to choose the B choices, that begins the process of being dragged away by their own desire, and they usually don't notice it. It begins with a choice hidden in your heart. And with each B choice, your discernment of right and wrong is diminished. Your senses become dull, and you become increasingly willing to make choices which are further and further outside the boundaries of God's law. So with your fourth or fifth or sixth B choice, you do something that you would never have done with your first one, because you've literally become desensitized to right and wrong, to good and evil. Hebrews chapter 5, verse 11, concerning him, we have much to say. And it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing, for by this time, you ought to be teachers. You have need, again, for someone to teach you elementary principles of the oracles of God. You have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. For solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. The desires God gives us are good gifts. They come down from the Father of lights, from the Lord of glory, if they are exercised within God's law. Now, we're not picking on David necessarily, just using the story of David and Bathsheba as an example of what B choices look like. Now, in the passage, maybe you can see some of the B choices. But there is a B choice that happens before we ever get there. In Deuteronomy chapter 17, it says that the king shall not acquire many wise for himself, lest his heart be turned away. So multiple wives would cause the heart of the king to be turned away from God. Second Samuel chapter 5, David realized the Lord had established him as king over Israel and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel. Meanwhile, David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he had come from Hebron, and more sons and daughters were born to David. So he was already making some what turned out to be fatal B choices before we ever get to our passage. But let's look at our passage. If you have your Bible, you can keep it open to Second Samuel 11. And it says, at the time when kings go out to battle, what do you see as the first B choice? David stayed in Jerusalem. So David, although he's a king and it's a time when kings go out to battle, chooses to stay in Jerusalem. Now, I don't know about you, but there are times when I've gotten in trouble because I'm somewhere where I shouldn't be. And that's the case here with David. David should have been with his people in battle at the time when kings go out to battle. But he stayed in Jerusalem. And while he's in Jerusalem, he walks around on the roof of his palace. And he looks down, and he sees a beautiful woman bathing. We can just imagine that she's bathing in the same attire that most people bathe in. And when he sees her, his desire comes to the fore. And that's not a sin in and of itself. But he's already dull in his senses because of his other B choices. So he sends and inquires about her. Well, what should he have done? He's got other wives and concubines that he's not supposed to have, but he has them. And when he sees Bathsheba, he could have done what? Walk back into his palace and read his Bible, or wrote his Bible. But instead, he inquires about her. And when he finds out who she is, that should have been the end of it. You see, what's really pernicious in all of this is that Uriah is one of David's 30 mighty men that you read about that helped David gain the throne in Israel. Uriah and his father were some of the closest to David. David was likely at the wedding of Uriah and Bathsheba. And even though he knows now who she is, he sends messengers to get her. And it says he had sex with her. And then he hears she's pregnant. So then he devises a cover-up plan. You can see one B choice after another. One B choice. He devises a cover-up plan, which is what? Was to bring Uriah home. Why is he bringing Uriah home? He figures, well, Uriah will come home. He'll sleep with his wife. And then I'll send him back to the front. And maybe a year later he'll come home. She'll have a baby. He'll think it's his. He'll be none the wiser. And I'll get out of this. But it doesn't work. Can you imagine how irritated David was with the righteousness of Uriah? I mean, it's a good indication that you have become dull of hearing in your discernment of good and evil when the godliness of others is a source of irritation to you. So when that doesn't work, he gets Uriah drunk. And when that doesn't work, he has him killed. And after that's done, he plays the hypocrite and he finally marries Beth Sheba. So here's David, the king of Israel. The Bible says the man after God's own heart, the spiritual leader of an entire nation. And he's a liar, an adulterer, a murderer, and a hypocrite. Now if you would have asked David beforehand, do you want to be a liar, an adulterer, a murderer, and a hypocrite, he would have probably had you killed for the suggestion. Then how did it all happen? And it was one B choice at a time. And what are the results? Well, the prophet Nathan tells him a story about a poor man who has a ulam. And this ulam is like a pet. And a rich man who has visitors. And instead of taking from his own abundant flocks, he takes this one man's ulam and has it slaughtered and served as food for his guests. It says in verse 5 of chapter 12 of 2 Samuel, David's anger burned greatly against the man. He said to Nathan, as the Lord lived, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. But he must make restitution for the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and had no compassion. So you see, David's discernment has been dulled because the second thing he says is what the law calls for. If you steal somebody's property, you have to make restitution fourfold. But he wants him to die. And then Nathan says, you are the man. Thus the Lord God of Israel says, it is I who anointed you king over Israel, and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house, your master's wives into your care. I gave you the house of Judah and Israel. And if that had been too little, I would have added many more things to these. Why have you despised the word of God by doing what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword. You've taken his wife and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. So David has judgment pronounced on him, and as a result, he has to pay fourfold. In his four sons, four of his sons, Absalom, Adonijah, Amnon, and this son born to Bathsheba all died prematurely. He damaged himself, he damaged his church, he damaged his nation. The division of the north and south can be traced to this act. Now I'm not telling you this about David, so you can say, what a terrible guy David was. No, I'm telling you this so you can say, if this can happen to David, a man after God's own heart, the king of Israel, then it can surely happen to you and me. How does a man like David forsake the fountain of living waters and go to dig his own wells, which hold no water? Psalm 36 says, your steadfast love extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds, your righteousness is like the mountains of God, your judgment are like the great deep. Man and beast you save, O Lord. How precious is his steadfast love, O God. The children of mankind take refuge. In the shadow of your wings they feast on the abundance of your house. You give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life. In your light we do see light. Psalm 68, bless God and the great congregation. The Lord, O you who are Israel's fountain. So it's not as though David didn't realize that God is the fountain of life. Now a lot of us are sitting here saying, well you know, this doesn't apply to me. I've never committed the sin that David did. I've never done that. So what does this have to do with me? Well here's the thing. God calls idolatry in the Old Testament adultery. So there's physical adultery but there's spiritual adultery. In Ezekiel 16 he talks about how Israel has gone after other gods and they are an adulterer. And all of us, whether we want to admit it or not, have violated the first commandment that you will have no other gods before me. All of us have at some point or another had another savior other than Jesus and we've committed spiritual adultery. Which in the end is just as bad or even worse. So how do these beat choices work? It's like walking into a fog. We tell ourselves that we will always stay near the edge, be able to see where it's clear so that we can get out. But then we become enshrouded. Our senses are dulled and we are without escape, deep in the fog not knowing which way to turn. Such is the case with David. So what do we do? What do we do? You start making eight choices for one thing. You make eight choices from the time you get up until lunch and then if you eat lunch and then till dinner and then until you go to bed and the next day you get up and do it again. But what about all the beat choices we've already made? What do we do with them? Well there's a king, another son of David, who lived a life without sin, without once succumbing to the temptation. He never made one beat choice. He did not seek his own wealth. He did not seek position or power. He did not multiply wise for himself as David did. Instead as the one true husband of the church, he loved her and gave himself up for her. Jesus is the true son of David. Although David's son died as a consequence of David's sin, it is Jesus who died to remove not only David's sin, but his own mind too. Jesus Christ the King, the redeeming King, lived a perfect sinless life of only eight choices. Never once succumbing to even one beat choice. He knew what was at stake. Had he once given into temptation, he would have been a cause of blasphemy. Had he allowed himself the luxury of one beat choice, he would have secured our place in hell forever. He did not choose one time to disobey even in the face of agony. The agony of the cross, the agony of the garden, the agony of separation from his eternal father. Yet in the face of it all, though he was tempted in all things, just as we are, he was without sin. He died for you, if you believe. So the very first thing you can do is believe in the one who is without sin, yet became sin on our behalf. Then instead of asking, how did I get there? How did I get from there to here? You will one day on your entrance to heaven be praising God and thanking him for getting you from here to there. Let's pray.