Seventh Commandment: Adultery
0 Amens
7th Commandment
14 “You shall not commit adultery.” We are going to jump right in this morning. This isn’t going to be a real good Sunday for young kids in here. I am going to give you a little road map. We are going to start by defining adultery, then figure out why its such a devastating thing, and then simultaneously move towards Jesus and our spouse (or future spouse if single).
Adultery Defined
OK, let’s start here. This would mean that we shouldn’t have sexual relationship with someone that we aren’t married to. Clearly, it would be wrong to have sex with someone else. More broadly, it would be wrong to have any sort of inappropriate sexual contact with someone else! In other words, it’s not going to be ok to make out with them even if the clothes stay on. So if you are married, it’s a no-go do anything more than an awkward side hug with other people.
On top of all of that, it is very possible to have an emotional attachment that isn’t appropriate. More obvious forms of this would be online relationships that talk about, but don’t actually have sex. Less pronounced would be friendships with people of the opposite sex that begin to be inappropriate. Let me spell this out. It’s not really ever appropriate for a married man or woman to talk to a person of the opposite sex about their marriage problems or sexual issues or other points of emotional vulnerability. I tend to get some push back on this from singles who imagine that they’ll have close male and female friends their whole lives. But it doesn’t work this way. That’s one reason I like to see young guys swing for the fences on asking gals out! Its not like you’ll be chatting by the fire in 30 years drinking hot chocolate if you don’t marry her anyway! The reality is that you are looking for someone to fulfill needs in you that they weren’t intended to fulfill. This is how almost all sexual relationships begin, too. You have a dissatisfied spouse and another person that is very interested in them, or finds them attractive, or takes their side on marital disputes. Mix this continued emotional bonding + time and you will get sexual relationships often times. But even if you don’t, this can be nearly as painful as a sexual affair. Don’t do this. Find friends of the same sex, your RG leader, pastors, professional counselors. But don’t look for emotional fulfillment with your coworker or neighbor or spouse of a friend. Don’t. I love you and say this for your good.
For singles, this may sting, but basically everything that you act out on sexually is not good right now. I know it’s frustrating. In fact, statistics would say that most of you have basically ignored or will ignore the Bible’s teachings. I was reading an article on this a couple of months ago that said that Christian singles hit a point in their mid 20’s and beyond that basically dismisses the call to have sex only with a person they are in marriage covenant with. I guess we look at the call to have sex with only a spouse as good advice for teens, but for adults, its um…unrealistic. Very, very few post college Christian singles refrain from sexual contact with their S.O. You can have all the sex that you and your spouse want when you are married, but when you have sexual relationships with people you aren’t married to, this is a violation of the 7th command.
Jesus broadens this further. 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Oh nice. Married people. Single people. You are probably equally prone to lust. Let’s talk about it first in its broadest form. Regardless of how graphic this is in your mind, it happens in lots of us. For some it might be undressing someone naked and storing that image for later and then imaging yourself with them having sex. Others might be much less graphic. It might be imagining yourself with that person laughing over a low lit dinner and them being way into you and knowing where that dinner would take you (bed). Lustfully looking at other people…that means thinking of them in a sexual way…is a no go and a form of adultery. In fact, like anger with murder, we could say that lust is the root of adultery. My wife made this point at our group the other day. She doesn’t really struggle with lust, but she does with anger. But that helps her be gracious with those that do struggle with lust. Its one of those things that’s always just beneath the surface. You are doing fine and you erupt in anger. You are doing fine and you check out a girl’s body. You click on the internet almost casually without thinking about it. So true.
This lust issue might be seen most clearly in porn usage. I am going to go ahead and assume just about every dude in here has been online looking at porn in the past year. Married, single, whatever. Let me put it this way. At a bootcamp for church planters I attended recently, they referenced another organization that assesses planters/missionaries and nearly every one of their 900 applications had porn issues and they are no longer asking “if” the applicant struggles with porn, but “to what extent.” Before you hate on these guys and assume that these are just hypocrites, I would beg to differ. I realize there will always be a few people that want to pastors or missionaries because of some ulterior motive, but the vast majority love Jesus and want to help other people love Him. You could say these men could represent the very best of the young men of their respective churches. The thing is that I believe a very sincere guy that loves Jesus can get way in over is head here. For men, because of the easy access and the vividness of the images, it is a near universal battle.
But this doesn’t mean it isn’t a struggle for women. Most studies I am reading are saying that roughly 1/3 women at least occasionally looks at porn. I watched a special on one of the cable news channels a few weeks ago on this. The porn industry is in flux right now bc of the internet, but one thing they agree on: women are its fastest growing demographic they are trying to capitalize on. The trick is this struggle is so private for many women and they often lack the kind of support that guys give each other with this.
The porn struggle often is the toughest to overcome because of the accessibility. We talk all the time here about fighting two fists here. One is with a greater love for Jesus. More on that later. The second is with accountability. You’ll need covenant eyes and people asking you about stuff. Seriously, this isn’t even an option. If your struggle isn’t porn, but sexing up your boyfriend/girlfriend, then you need to love Jesus and stop being alone. It might even be time to break up if the vast majority of your relationship is about the sex. Often times, the sex distorts clear thinking and how messed up the rest of a relationship actually is.
Why so Devastating? It’s a Mirage!
Between a hook up culture, dissatisfaction in marriage, and porn, we see that lust is boiling in lots of us. It’s just beneath the surface. It’s seeking to satisfy our desires and give us a sense of significance and importance through embracing of mirages of real intimacy in relationships.
That hits it. We think the god of sex will satisfy us. We think that the porn, hook up, flirtation with someone else’s spouse will make us feel better about ourselves. These are all mirages! Even when it’s with someone else you have two individuals using the other person’s body for sex. When it’s just you, that’s you making it all up and using the image or whatever for your purposes.
Christian Smith, sociologist, when describing most of you in here, 20-30 somethings, said roughly 30% of the
A Beautiful Truth
We’ve seen lust as at the heart of the command to avoid adultery. We’ve seen this is to protect us from chasing mirages of intimacy in a way that will destroy us. God doesn’t want mirages for us, He desires wholeness in Jesus. But there’s more to it.
Marriage is a picture of God’s commitment to us. Ready for the ultimate reason to not mess around on your spouse in any way (physical, emotional, porn)? God never messes around on His church! Want to know why you shouldn’t divorce someone for a silly “they don’t make me happy anymore” reason? God will never divorce you (if you are one of His). Ultimately, sex is the ultimate picture of covenantal vulnerability and trust. It is a physical picture of the nature of the relationship. There is indivisible union. So ask yourself, single people, how your dating relationship could possible rightly express this sort of physical picture? Ask yourself porn guy or gal how your fantasy image is expressing the covenantal trustworthiness of God? The trick about sexual sin is that we are imaging out a completely false statement about God. In uncommitted, unmarried sex we are saying we could have a meaningful relationship with God with no real commitment. No, you can’t. In cheating relationships in marriage, we are saying that God is unfaithful to us and could leave us at any moment. No, He won’t.
The case I am making is to cause you to sense the affirmation and wholeness found in Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the dead that can be yours if you trust in Him and submit to Him. Instead of going from sexual experience to sexual experience to fill the lonely void in your heart, Jesus can pronounce you “enough.” Meditate on how He relates to you. Consider His faithfulness. Consider how serious his commitment is to you when you guys married up. Consider that He’ll never divorce you or embarrass you. Consider how he’s continued to accept you even in your failings in this area and many others. Wow! What a great God! And while you are returning to Jesus, I believe this will push you back to the husband/wife of your youth. If you aren’t married, it will cause you to desire this sort of emotional and physical relationship with your spouse in the future and you’ll be much, much less likely to be satisfied with counterfeits. So we go to Jesus and our spouse at the same time and loving one should cause us to love the other in a better, stronger, purer way. And get that internet filter.
Comments:
Login to post comments