A Moment of Weakness - Part 2

Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, July 5. Today we continue the study of 2 Samuel to see how David's mistakes can help us build a strong defense system that will shield us in our moments of weakness. The people of Israel are loyal to him.

They love him. He is the symbol of freedom, a liberator, a great commanding general, a man not only handsome in character, eloquent surely in speech. Read the Psalms and you'll know that there were qualities and characteristics of David that would cause anybody and everybody to look up to him. But here's a man who's at the peak of his prosperity, the peak of his honor and glory and reign and all of a sudden the shadow of immorality comes into his life. He was guilty of adultery. He was guilty of murder because what he did when he couldn't get rid of Uriah any other way and make him go to bed with his wife, he sent him out and he sent a note to Joab. He said, Joab, when you attack the city, get close to the walls of the city, but pull back from Uriah and be sure that he is slain in battle. Now imagine what Joab must have felt who had been the right hand man of David all of these years while he was running from Saul. He stood by, he would risk his life for him time after time, he went into battle with him, he defended him oftentimes and only God knows how many times Joab may have saved David's life in battle.

And here Joab takes this note that says, draw back the forces, move close to the wall, draw back the forces in order that Uriah, who was a valiant warrior, might be slain in battle. That's exactly what he did. So he was guilty of adultery. He was guilty of deliberate murder of one of his choice's soldiers. He was guilty of lying. He was guilty of deceit. He was guilty of involving other people in his crime and in his sin.

He was guilty of bringing a mark and a shadow over the whole nation of Israel. And when Nathan said to him, the sword will not depart out of your family, if you look in verse 10 of chapter 12. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house because you despise me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Nathan said, all the rest of your days, as a result of the consequence of this sin, the sword shall never depart from your life.

And if you'll read from chapter 11 on to the rest of the end of this book of Second Samuel, you'll find out how God did exactly what Nathan said. The lasting consequence was not worth the act. Now think about this.

And I think I want to say this to young people as well as adults. If in a moment of weakness you think in your heart, I'm going to do it. If you'll just stop and ask yourself this one single question, what are the lasting consequences of this act? If you, in just a brief few seconds of pure reasoning, ask yourself the question, what are the consequences? What are the future consequences of this act? And don't let Satan slip the lion under that to say, but nobody will ever know because you don't know that. Ask yourself this question, what are the lasting consequences of this act?

My friend, more than likely you won't do it. How do we build defenses against these moments of weakness in our life? Whatever that moment of weakness or whatever that type of weakness may be in your own personal life.

How do we build defenses against it? All right, number one. First, acknowledge the reality of such weak moments in your life. As long as you say, well, the other folks may have that problem, I don't have that problem.

Friends, you're headed for trouble. Acknowledge the reality of moments of weakness in your life. Now, I think husbands and wives ought to talk about weaknesses that they have, whatever the weakness may be. It doesn't have to be this necessarily.

In order to help one another, undergird each other, caution one another, and to protect one another. If you cannot say that to your husband or your wife, then you need to build your relationship. Or if you have a friend, someone whose judgment you can trust and someone whose confidence you can trust, you ought to be able to say to that person, you know, I have a weakness in my life, and sometimes Satan gets the best of me, and I want to ask you to do something. I want to tell you what that weakness is, and when you see that in my life, or you see, if I describe to you the kind of environment I get in or circumstances, and you see me heading in that direction, I want you to rescue me before I make a mistake.

I believe one of the wisest things you can do is to acknowledge the reality of it, share it with somebody else, somebody that you love or somebody that loves you, and somebody whom you have confidence and say, look, I need your help. That's the first thing you can do to build a defense against it. Now, let me tell you something. You can't have a friend and say, look, I don't want you anywhere around.

You can't do that. You've got to let them in. You've got to open your heart. You've got to be absolutely honest with them, all right?

The second way to build a defense is this. That is, analyze how you respond, what's going on in your moments of weakness. What must happen to bring about that kind of circumstance? Is it something somebody else does? Is it something, just a feeling that just comes into your life at certain periods of time in your life?

What is it? What are the circumstances? Analyze the patterns. Now, there is always a pattern, and if you're able to identify the pattern, search it out, analyze the pattern of those moments, then when you do that, you see, that's helping build a defense because you can sort of be on guard. Number three, anticipate these moments, you know, having understood the pattern, anticipate these moments so that you will not be caught off guard. Now, if you know there's a particular weakness in your life and you know the pattern, if you get into certain circumstances with a group of people, what you're going to do?

If you get in a position that a lot of money comes your way, what you're prone to do? If you get around a certain person or in a period of isolation, you know what you're going to do. In other words, if you'll be honest, you can figure out what the pattern is and then anticipate these things. And you see, if you and I will identify what the pattern is and get that in our mind, we'll be able to spot it 40 miles down the road on its way. And you can't say, well, you know, I didn't know it's going to happen.

Yes, you did. And you see, what we say, we just throw up all these excuses. Well, Lord, you know, I didn't have any idea. And God says, yes, you did, because here's the pattern. And every single time, if the same thing happens every time you get in that situation, don't tell God you don't know it's going to happen.

You know it's going to happen. And you see, all of us, if we'll be honest, I'm not saying that everybody here knows the pattern. Maybe you never even thought about there being a pattern.

It's there. A weakness in our life always has a pattern. That's why the devil is so successful.

You know why? Because he knows your pattern. Now, if the enemy knows the pattern and you don't know it, you're in real trouble. So if he knows it, which he knows it perfectly, he's not omniscient, but he knows the pattern, how could he miss it?

Look how successful he's been. So he knows the pattern, you ought to discover the pattern. Anticipate these moments before they come. Number four, accurately identify the precise weakness and the timing at which it hits you. You don't say, well, now I know I have some weaknesses and you could just name all two or three things that bother you to know. Identify, identify the precise weakness, or if they are plural, weakness says, and the timing.

That is, be very specific about them. Acknowledge the reality of them, analyze the pattern, anticipate their coming, accurately identify the precise weakness. Now, you see, you may say, well, I think this is my weakness or I think this is it. Maybe you hadn't thought about the fact that the same old problem you have is a weakness in your life. But you see, you let the Lord sift through your life and let him show you what is the thing you continue to have a problem with. What is the thing that if Satan really wants to get you, he can divide your mind with that when he can't hit you with anything else.

Precisely identified and the timing that usually it comes in your life, all right? Number five, be consciously aware of your accountability to God for that weakness. Be consciously aware of your accountability before God. Now, this was a mistake that David made. Here is the king, he's a sovereign unto himself, whatever he says is the law.

If he says, I want Bathsheba tonight, he can have Bathsheba tonight. But what he must remember is that he is accountable to God. He may be the law in Israel, but there is a judge and a law higher than his law, and that's the law of God. And the law of God says, Thou shall not commit adultery.

You see, if you and I will live, listen, not under the fear of God's judging hand, but what? Under the umbrella of our accountability to God. Anybody who is not accountable to somebody is in automatic trouble sooner or later. And you see, David saw these pagan kings who were accountable to nobody. But David knew in his heart he was accountable to God. But you see, in a moment of weakness, he forgot. Or he put aside, which is what I think he did, he put aside the fact that he was accountable to God.

You see, in a moment of weakness, when your mind gets divided, it's awfully easy to just brush out everything else to get what you want. You're accountable to God 24 hours of every day, 60 seconds in every minute. Accountability to God, he says, for every one of us shall stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and give an account for those things in our life.

We are accountable to God. And you see, this unbelieving world that just lives in the muck and mire of sensuality, they don't believe this book. And they've decided there is no God, and the Bible is just an antiquated book because you see, they cannot live in their vile sensuality and sexual perversion and live with a dirty conscience. So they say there is no God, the Bible is antiquated. If there is a God who loves everybody, everybody's going to get to heaven. What they're saying is, I want to live my life and do as I please, but I don't want to give an account to anybody, including God. You show me an immoral man, and I'll show you a man whose theology is all warped.

Because what he does, he chooses his morality, and then he constructs a theology about God that fits the way he wants to live. And what that's really doing is simply saying, I want to be accountable only to myself. So an awareness, a consciousness of our accountability to God. All right, number six.

We're building defenses now. Watch this one. Abandon, abandon, that means man, throw it overboard. Abandon habits, practices, thoughts, and those patterns that contribute to your moments of weakness. The only way you're going to overcome the weakness and to become strong in the point of, watch this, listen, let me deviate here for a second. These weaknesses in our lives should become points of interest and priority because you see, if we will allow God to point that out to us, listen, I believe, watch this, whatever it might be, if there's one major weakness in your life, I believe there is a gem, a tremendous opportunity, humongous potentiality. There's something absolutely super that God wants to do in your life, but you see, somehow it's wrapped up in that weakness.

So what does he do? That thing becomes a part of our life. We say, now wait a minute, if God's going to use this, how can there be a pearl of great price in a weakness in my life? God lets it loom up before you in order to deal with it because there is potential, there is strength, there is energy, there is wisdom, there is something in that area of weakness that God wants to work in your life to be positive, not negative. You see, I believe it has to be that way or the devil wouldn't use it against us the way he does.

There must be something absolutely super in that. Now let's take maybe a weakness or so here. Let's say for example that your weakness is the way you handle your money. God may see that you have a tremendous potential for finances, but you see, you're totally out of balance.

If you could get that straightened out, there's no telling what you could do. Let's say for example that you have a problem over here with sensuality. If God could deal with that, there is absolutely no way of estimating the potential of how God could use your life if you diverted that interest to something else. You can take any weakness, and I think, and we don't have time to go through all that now, but you can take any weakness and if you'll analyze that and ask yourself the question, now here's something that keeps defeating me, but what is there in this weakness that shows positive potential that if God will conquer this thing in my life, what positive way could that become an asset to God?

And I'm here to tell you every single weakness has tremendous dynamite potential in it. But you and I need to do what? Abandon those habits and those ideas, those thought patterns that contribute to this thing.

You know, once you discover the pattern, friend, you'll absolutely be able to, it won't take you long to be able to pinpoint the things that contribute to the fall, all right? Number seven, allow extra time for prayer and meditation in the Word of God. Allow extra time for prayer and meditation in God's Word.

For example, now listen, now watch this. Let's say that whatever your circumstance and your weakness may be, and you know that a certain circumstance or situation is coming up, you see it coming up. It isn't something you can avoid. You've got to get right in the middle of it, all right? You know you're going to be in the middle of it. It isn't something you can avoid, but you can build your defenses by going through these and then if you'll spend extra time in the Word of God, saturating your mind with what God says, getting on your knees before God. I believe that on your knees before God in the Word, that Almighty God will energize you and empower you to conquer anything, all hell, that every demon in hell can throw at you. You can be absolutely victorious on your knees in the Word. But friend, you get in the hurry and close this book and head off and you move right into that situation, you know that you're in it, you know it was coming and what happens? If you don't start dealing with it before you get there, you're going to fall flat on your face.

when you get there. And you see that's exactly what happened to David. He knew better. He allowed himself to get in a situation instead of building some defense again. And you see he knew the truth.

I mean if anybody ever knew the truth, he knew it. Now I'm saying all of that to say this. We all have our weaknesses and we have to learn how to deal with them. If you'll analyze them in these first seven points, and then if you and I will begin to build defenses against them, listen and watch, if you miss this, you're going to miss the whole point, listen. Building the defenses does not mean just overcoming them, but ask yourself the question, what jewel, what priceless jewel is there hidden within that weakness that God wants to turn it over?

Put it into my life and use it to magnify God himself. That will keep us from being discouraged and aggressively we will tackle the weakness with a positive confidence that we will overcome and that God will be able, listen, to do what? He will be able to help us to reach a greater potential as a result of the weakness. If you say, well this is just one of my weaknesses in life and I'll never overcome it, I'm here to tell you that's straight out of hell and it's the devil's lie. But if you'll say, in this weakness in my life, God wants to show me something and he'll just turn that thing over and work it and osmosis it into my life in such a way that one of these days, the Lord God Almighty will use me to the very maximum.

He'll do that if you allow him to do it. Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us. Thank you for David. Thank you for all the mistakes and all the weaknesses of his life, for all the tremendous feats. Thank you that he died, as you said, in a ripe old age, loved of God and loved of all of Israel. What a beautiful example of the amazing grace that is bestowed upon every sinner to be saved and every saint to be forgiven. We praise your holy name tonight for saving all of us, for the forgiveness that flows every single day into our life and through our life. And Father, we surely want to be examples and we want to be conveyors of, proclaimers of, sharers of the message of forgiveness, that the last thing in the world we would do is to be critical or condemned, but rather to call out to others that Jesus Christ saves, that Jesus Christ forgives, that Jesus Christ cleanses, that he gives new beginnings in life. And I pray to Father tonight, somebody here in the name of Jesus Christ would trust him as their personal Savior and all of us, Father, to go through these elements in the next week, examining our hearts building those defenses whereby you will be able to use us to the very maximum of our potential as we trust you, acknowledging our weaknesses and knowing in our heart that Christ Jesus, our living resurrected, all powerful Lord, living within our heart is our victory day by day, every day. And this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to A Moment of Weakness. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.