“How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” –Genesis 39:9-10 {NIV}
“And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.” –2 Samuel 12:7 {KJV}
Joseph was a slave. David was a king. Joseph owned nothing. David had it all. Living in Egypt, Joseph was a young man on his own. Reigning in Israel, David was a middle aged man surrounded by people who adored him. Both of these were men of God whose had brought Him glory during their lives. Each of them loved God greatly and thirsted for righteousness.
Sexual temptation had just pounced upon both of them. Joseph stood firm. David staggered faithlessly. What prompted them to respond as they did to the lure of a woman who did not belong to them?
King David’s story is scandalously well-known. It is a streak of coal on the golden canvas of his life. The stouthearted shepherd, the sweet songster, the saving sovereign of Israel mightily fell at the sight of a woman’s naked form bathing in the night. David was not the first among us, brothers, nor could he ever be the last as all men of faith have lost the battle of the eyes on occasion. David went to the extreme and committed adultery, proving James 1:14-15 to be eternally true. Heaven’s man ruined his earthly testimony as he committed to successive steps of bringing bathing Bathsheba into his bedroom. A cover-up followed the dirty deed; deeper and more complicated measures had to be taken when she was found to be pregnant. Her faithful and ignorant husband was set up by the man who was stealing his wife to be killed in military battle. Following the murder, David arranged a miserable farce of a wedding to the new widow in an attempt to fool the nation that the conception of the child was God-blessed. Nobody believed it as most could count the months between the wedding and the cries of a newborn under the Jerusalem sky. David, what has happened to your heart? What made this pathway so precious to you that you chose not to repent? How did your reputation come to outweigh your redemption? The prophet, Nathan, visited the king of Israel one day and proclaimed his guilt to him. He bravely told David that his sin was known and that there would be a heavy fine from God. David could have resisted the temptation. David could have repented of the sin. David chose to remain in his deceit and his life was never the same.
Forgiven? Of course. Graced and welcomed again to God’s favor? Indeed. Immune from the aftermath? Not at all.
Joseph had endured a life-long stripping away of all that he cherished. He had a mouth larger than his discernment when he was a teenager. His lack of control on his words provoked his carnal brothers to jealousy. They knew that he was Jacob’s favorite and they decided to put an end to their baby brother’s boastful bravado. He was roughed up by them, cast into deep quarry and fished out to be sold into a slave caravan. Down into the depths of pagan Egypt went the father’s beloved. His dear daddy was told that he had died. There would be no search and rescue, no knight in armor, no last moment snatch from the jaws of the enemy. Joseph’s sweet life fell to pieces in a short time as he found himself alone in a land far from his family and, seemingly, his God too. Yet Joseph kept his spiritual wits about him. The intense heat of persecution, humiliation and deprivation brought the gold forth from the furnace of his heart. His trouble fused integrity throughout his testimony. He thought right, he spoke right and he did right. God blessed the boy in his affliction until he would eventually become a man in his glory. In the midst of the process, the wife of his Master tempted him to sensual encounters with her. Not just once, but repeatedly this young man avoided and declined the seductress. On the day she cornered him alone he shone with holy valor and refused to sin against her husband and his God. He passed the test but paid the price. Unbelievable accusation found the young man who had chosen and acted in righteousness. He was thrown into prison with his good name sullied and his heart broken. All he had left was the cushion of a clean conscience and it would be his only friend for several years to come. Joseph had resisted the piercing temptation of lust and, down in the depths of Egypt, he was unable to hear the applause of Heaven.
Friends, consider today that the reason God is placing you in humbling circumstances may be so that you will gain strength to resist some temptation coming your way. David was strong and able, yet miserably failed God. Joseph was afflicted and deprived, and able to resist going astray. Is it any wonder that the Apostle Paul taught us to be content in any station of life that we find ourselves? Is God before you? Then tarry there whether the blowing wind is hot and stinging or cool and refreshing. Tarry there as long as you can before God. Temptation cannot own our eyes when they are affixed to Love of our soul.
David failed to remember what he had learned of Joseph. We cannot fail to remember what we learn from David.