ROOFTOP PRINCIPLE
Don’t even go there!
By Pastor Chris Kam
Our Christian life is constantly challenged. Taking personal responsibility for our own lives is a call to remain steadfast, disciplined and resilient in our faith. There are too many careless Christians who allow themselves to be tempted to a disastrous outcome.
I coined the Rooftop Principle while studying and teaching from the life of King David in 2 Samuel 11. Up to that point, David had reached the height of his glory as a king. He ruled over a vast empire and accumulated much spoils of war in his capital. In the midst of all these successes, he fell into the sin of adultery, which set off a chain of events that caused him to break almost all the Ten Commandments.
Here’s a man purported to be a man after God’s heart (1 Sam. 13:14, Acts 13:22) and yet, in a simple careless act, he compromised his entire future. He forfeited his own personal right to build the Temple of God (2 Sam. 7:12-13, 1 Chron. 22:7-8). The privilege went instead to his son, Solomon. From 2 Sam. 12:7-12, we notice that to David, there was the withholding of financial blessings (v.8), the doors were opened to a spirit of violence (v.10), it brought about a curse (v.11), he was exposed to public shame (v.11-12) and a spirit of infirmity and death came upon the family (v.14-15). On top of that, he experienced the heartbreak of rape and murder within his own family. He even lost his throne to his own son, Absalom, for a brief moment as well.
If you trace these tragedies to their very root, it came about from 2 Sam. 11:1-2. When kings were supposed to go to war during spring, David decided to take a holiday. An innocent thought no doubt, but it was disastrous to the very core in its outcome. After siesta one evening, he walked on the rooftop of his palace, enjoying the cooling effects of a day coming to an end. We may not be looking for temptation but often it finds us at our unguarded moments.
David saw a beautiful woman bathing and sent someone to find out about her. Curiosity and lust got the best of him in spite of finding out that Bathsheba is Uriah’s wife. An unwanted pregnancy followed this adulterous affair. Hoping to cover his track, he invited Uriah back from the frontline in the pretense of finding out how the war was going. He then sent him back home hoping that he would sleep with his wife, thus covering up the source of the pregnancy. Uriah, being a man of honour, refused to go back and instead slept at the servants’ quarters. David’s second attempt by making him drunk yielded the same result. What a man who held his honour even when he is drunk!
With that failure, David set in motion plan B by writing a letter to General Joab to send Uriah to the frontline where the fighting was the fiercest. Uriah carried his own death sentence in his hand and after the mourning period, David married Bathsheba.
ON GUARD
As I reflected upon this story, I can’t help but go back to the palace rooftop. What if David had not gone to the rooftop? Often, we can place ourselves unwittingly on the rooftops of our lives, where we are most unguarded spiritually because everything seems to be going well.
This reminded me of my early career years as a sales engineer. Being one of the top performers, we were regularly sent on incentive trips to places catering to a man’s sexual fancies. At international conferences, men would disperse to ‘tourist spots’ after dinner and I knew I had to proactively do something to prevent myself from even going near these places.
Christians would often naively say that they can go to some of these places to identify with their non-Christian friends but they need not indulge in sinful activities. How one draws that moral line defies my logic. I know how wicked my heart can be and I don’t trust it. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
So I fled. I prayed for a Christian friend to fellowship with and God gave me a fellow engineer from Singapore, whom I caught up with each time after dinner during these conferences. I suppose you can say we saved each other from our rooftops!
Being careful with our lives is not only about starting well, but finishing well too. A single careless and foolish act can cost us everything. No committed Christian seeks to sin deliberately but through an unguarded moment, we can compromise ourselves.
There are relationships we should not be careless about, business deals and career promotions we should not take. Be very harsh and disciplined with yourselves. It’s not worth the pain and heartache to you and your loved ones.
What or where are these potential rooftops of your life? Don’t go there or near them! That’s wisdom in life!
Asian Beacon: Jan – Mar 2018 (Vol 50 #1, p37-38)
