Title: Faithfully Yours
Text: Exodus 20:14; Hosea
FCF: Adultery is a perversion of the faithfulness God intended to illustrate through marriage.
Intro:
You don’t need to know this man’s identity, but you need to understand the impact his choices made on his family. The man had been married for more than thirty years when his job started taking him to Thailand. Like many of his buddies, he’d spend some time at the bar, and there he got to know one of the girls. Prostitution is fairly commonplace there, and so he was somewhat on his guard, but he didn’t run away either.
Over successive trips, his guard began to wane. Over the course of several months, he finally made the choice to break his vows. He secretly planned his own trip back to Thailand, but told his wife he was heading for California. When the travel agent called the house to confirm the details, the wife was the one who picked up. She didn’t scream, she didn’t yell, she simply slipped a little note into her husband’s suitcase.
“I know what you’re up to it. We need to talk.”
The man discovered the note on the way. He called the moment he discovered it, and needless to say, didn’t go through with his plan. Amazingly, they’re still married – and from my observations, their marriage has improved significantly since them. But I’m still in touch with his son, and I can tell you this: He may love his father, but his respect, his trust – it’s gone.
Adultery may seem like a sexual act – a few moments of forbidden passion – but it’s really not. It’s a trust thing. It’s not the physical union – in this man’s case, the act may not have even been consummated – but you and I both know it was adultery. The real crime is actually very simple. You make a promise, and then you break it. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be, and we all know it.
This morning, I want to get back into a series I began shortly after Easter. We were going through the 10 commandments, until frankly I had to stop here. The prohibition on adultery was not something that I knew how to preach.
For one thing, I can honestly say that I have never really been tempted to cheat on Susan. You guys know I love her, and frankly I can’t think of anything that could somehow be better than her. And, frankly, I know that my marriage wouldn’t survive any stupidity like that. Adultery would be a bad choice.
That said, I am also scared stiff that one day I could just be downright stupid. The guy I told you about – he wasn’t all that different from me. And that scares me. Take heed lest you fall.
Statistics tell me that one in three men will have an extramarital affair at some point in their life; one in four women will do the same. Even in a church this small, the odds are that there is someone in this room who is a lot more knowledgeable on this subject than me. I don’t know any particular details, and I want to assure you that in no way am I thinking of any particular person here. Simply speaking statistically, we must address this issue. There is a reason why God included the commandment.
In my mind, it is enough to realize simply that God is faithful. A marriage is supposed to model that faithfulness to our children and our neighbors. Adultery is the classic perversion of that. “Perversion” simply means taking something good and twisting it into something bad. Adultery is more perverted than porn.
Bad marriages are a dime a dozen these days. That’s why adultery is so prevalent. Outside of Hollywood, I don’t think anyone actually believes adultery is a good thing – they just don’t realize that adultery happens in the mind long before it happens in the bed. Because of that prevalence, I want to suggest a few things that will keep your marriage healthy.
Over the years, I have listened to good men give me some good advice, and I’d like to pass some of that along.
For me, the best piece of advice I’ve ever heard is simply this: Don’t let your marriage get to the point where this becomes an issue. Don’t take your wife for granted. Proverbs tells us, ‘Cherish the wife of your youth.’ Love her! Show her you love her; and the wife of your youth will remain in your old age.
You hear me talk about Susan a lot, but I don’t think you’ve ever heard me talk negatively about her. That is intentional. At work, I have friends who like to make fun of their wives, call her the old “ball and chain,” and things like that. I think that is just stupid. There’s no better word for it.
It’s like spending $2 million on a painting and then telling visitors to your house that the artist didn’t really know how to paint. Why did you buy it in the first place? Appreciate the work of art that you have!
Proverbs has a little verse that I love. It says, ‘Like a madman shooting flaming arrows at his neighbor’s roof, is the one who insults his neighbor but says, ‘I was only joking.’” It’s dangerous, It’s harmful, and it’s stupid. It makes no sense to me to cut down the one that I love, just for the little laugh from someone I won’t see tonight.
My second piece of advice is, I hope equally simple. When it comes to temptation, just don’t go there. We all know that Jesus said, if you lust after a woman, you’ve committed adultery in your heart. I’ll tell Susan when I see a good-looking woman. The good Lord gave us eyes to appreciate beauty all around us. But that’s as far I go. I don’t stay there. I see a lot of pretty things in an art museum – it doesn’t mean I want to take them home. But when we constantly covet that thing, we set ourselves up to wonder if we want a trade-in.
So, just stop the cycle. Pray. Think about what you love in your spouse – when it comes to temptation, just stop the madness. No temptation is ever going to seize you except that which is common to man. And God is faithful to us – there’s always a way out. It’s that simple.
I was talking to Susan this week about another statistic along these lines. Someone did a survey once about people who had affairs that ended a marriage. In 80% of those cases, the affair was over soon after the marriage. The relationship ended, and both partners regretted it. In another 20% of the cases, where the two did get married, only 10% of that twenty remained married after only a few years. And of that one in a hundred? Half say they are unhappy. You can imagine why. You don’t have to wonder if your spouse is going to be unfaithful – he already was.
At the risk of getting all theological on you, the bottom line is this: Adultery is dumb. You know it; it isn’t rocket science.
So, why did I come back to this text? For the simple reason that if I am going to be faithful to the text, I have to talk about this. Susan and I were discussing this last week when I said, “You can’t throw a dart at the Old Testament and not see this.”
Throughout the entire Bible, God is always after Israel, calling them adulterers because they are chasing after other gods. ‘Adultery’ in the original Hebrew very clearly refers to a sexual act between a man and a married woman.
Now, idolatry isn’t necessarily sexual. But remember, adultery isn’t about the sex. It’s about the breaking of a promise. The analogy is pretty simple: Keep your pledge. Remember your allegiance.
Now, the penalty was pretty simple too – an adulterer was supposed to be stoned to death. Rocks never forget what they are. You remember the story in John, about the woman who was caught in adultery? What did the men want to do? Stone her! Now, I think it says something that the Pharisees didn’t have a man to stone. I guess she was just committing adultery all by herself.
But in Israel’s case, God had claimed her, provided for her, loved her. And how did she repay him? By going after other gods. She was guilty, and she deserved death. And, when God would punish those same nations, Israel would be happy. They forgot they should have been punished too.
One of the most overlooked books in the Old Testament is Hosea. The plot is as simple as it is beautiful. God tells this preacher to go out and marry a prostitute named Gomer. And, so he does. They have three children together that speak to how God sees Israel. He names them “No pity,” “No Love,” and “Not my people.” Frankly, after the first one, if I were Gomer, I’d have suggested that I get to name the next one, but that wasn’t how it worked.
God had always used marriage to model who he was and how we wanted to live with us. But we wouldn’t listen to his Romeo to our Juliet. So, he decided to see if “Married With Children” might get our attention better. In Gomer, we have the pre-Bundies.
Still, Hosea loves Gomer and does everything for her. But she won’t change her ways. Night after night, she sneaks out and keeps on working. Eventually she leaves Hosea, somehow convinced that these men who pay for the privilege of five minutes of sensory stimulation will love her and stick by her more than the one who has stuck by her through three children.
In the end, Gomer is exposed for who she is. She is to be sold back into sexual slavery. She loses the last vestige of who she is. But God isn’t done with Gomer yet. Hosea is told very simply – go and redeem her.
Buy her back.
His own wife is on the auction block, he will pay any price to get her back, and so he does. Hosea is faithful, despite Gomer’s unfaithfulness. No matter what she’s done, he’s there, because God has told him to be.
It’s not altogether unlike the faithful one who redeemed us. You and I both know what that cost.
Would you pray with me?
Long Branch Baptist Church
Halfway, Virginia; est. 1786
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Enter to Worship
Prelude David Witt
Invocation Psalm 48
*Opening Hymn #223
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”
Welcome & Announcements
Prayers of Confession and Absolution
Prayers of Supplication
*Response Hymn “Abide With Me” #217
*Responsive Reading [See Right]
*Offertory Hymn #375
“Tis’ So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”
Offertory Mr. Witt
*Doxology
Scripture Hosea 4:1-13; Exodus 20:14
Sermon
“Faithfully Yours”
Invitation Hymn #216
“Great is Thy Faithfulness”
Benediction
Congregational Response
May the grace of Christ of Savior / And the Father’s boundless love
With the Holy Spirit’s favor / Rest upon us from above. Amen.
* Congregation, please stand.
Depart To Serve
RESPONSIVE READING
Jesus answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ ?”
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
For this is the will of God, for your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication;
Each one of you should know how to control your own body in holiness and honor,
Not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God
For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness.
Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. And God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it
Let your fountain be blessed, rejoice in the wife of your youth.
Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more.
For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name;
The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man’s youth when she is cast off, says your God.
For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.
This is like the days of Noah to me, but just as I swore that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you.
For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Matthew 19:4-6, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7; 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 Cor 10:13; Proverbs 5:18; Isaiah 54:4-10
