Sexual Sin Among Spiritual Leaders by Asher Intrater
*Rend your hearts and not your garments - by Israeli sculptor Rick Wienecke
What a difficult subject! How should we respond? Let’s look at King David in Psalm 51. This is David who felled the Giant but then fell before sexual temptation!
“Create in me a pure heart, O God. And renew a right Spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence.”
Can you hear the conviction? The fear of God? David realizes the need for a deep inner change. He is painfully aware of his inability to overcome his own flesh and sin. He’s broken and crying out as he recognizes the holiness of God, understands that he could lose it all.
“And take not your holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation.”
David is crushed by the realization of his sin. It’s as if he’s saying, “I've blown it for the kingdom of God!” He committed adultery, and then he lied about it and committed murder to cover it up! He knows that he is the king of Israel, through whom Messiah the Savior of the whole world is supposed to come. He’s stunned and terrified by what he has done.
Then he adds, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (v.17). God is waiting for human beings to realize our sinfulness, come before Him in repentance, and then He will accept our response of humility and brokenness. That is a pure expression of worship.
This past year has been difficult – with allegations of sexual sin against many leaders across the world, including some we know personally. The situations are always complicated. Normally these kinds of sin take place with no witnesses present. It’s one person’s word against another’s. When leaders are involved, there is an imbalance of emotional and psychological influence, which can make the situation spiritually abusive.
We’ve had to spend hundreds of hours dealing with these cases, both in Israel and around the world. It’s all messy. Everyone is hurt. It seems that God is purging us. It’s humiliating for us human beings, but God desires to have sin exposed and removed. We are standing before a holy God. All of our good intentions of due process and covenantal relationships are not going to work if our hearts are not broken and humble before Him.
David was the head of the Community of Faith in his generation. How could something like this happen? Ephesians 4:22 says that the lusts of this world are deceptive. You don’t even see that you are deceiving yourself. You justify the action while it’s happening. We must be constantly aware that we’re living in a sinful world, and must flee its lusts (2 Timothy 2:22).
David’s Failure and Miriam’s Triumph
Now let’s go to the story of the conception of our beloved Messiah, the descendant of David.
Miriam tells the angel Gabriel “How am I going to be with child since I'm a virgin.” Coming from an Orthodox Jewish background that means she had never touched a man. Notice the word “holy” appears twice in Luke 1:35:
The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So, the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.”
Miriam (Mary) and her intended husband Joseph are descendants of David. After so many generations in which sexual sin had done great damage to the kingdom of God… she wins. She breaks the curse and keeps herself holy. It’s as if she says, “I'm the great granddaughter of the kings and priests of our people, and I have determined that I am going to keep myself holy in this perverted generation.” She’s a simple young Israeli girl who fought against the forces of sexual immorality and stood before the forces of Heaven and Hell. Yeshua’s holy conception and birth is part of the victory of God's people, overcoming the carnality and the sinfulness of the world around us. Hallelujah!
John and James speak of not loving the world and not being a friend of the world. “You adulterers and adulteresses do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4, 1 John 2:15). This is a challenging concept. We can’t be “buddies” with everyone. Though we desire to be friendly and show Yeshua’s love, we can’t seek acceptance by aligning with social norms.
How do sexual sins happen in communities of faith, not just among leaders? Believers generally do not intend to sin, but when someone is “friendly” with the values of the world, he doesn't realize that he is getting stuck in the honey and the mud. And then suddenly, he says, “What happened?!” We must come to a deeper understanding that we can’t be friends with the world around us.
Lord, our hearts are broken. We are so sorry that we have dishonored your name before the world. We tremble in fear at your word, your holiness, and your power. But we also know that your grace is with us to forgive and heal. Lord don’t take your Holy Spirit away from us; don’t cast us away. Restore unto us the joy of Your Salvation.
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