The Ten Commandments Part 6
Scriptures: Exodus 20:14; Romans 13:13; Gen. 2:18, 21-25; James 1:12-15; Proverbs 5:18-20
Raise your hands if you know and believe that God knows your heart. Raise your hand if you know and believe that God looks at and evaluate your heart. This is part six on my series the Ten Commandments and it’s about the heart. The commandment we’re going to examine this morning is found in Exodus 20:14 and it says very simply “You shall not commit adultery.” This is the seventh commandment. If you break this commandment by default you break the eight commandment (no stealing); the ninth commandment (no lying – bearing false witness); and the tenth commandment (no coveting.) And for some people breaking this commandment leads to someone else breaking the 6th commandment (no killing.) Not obeying this commandment carries serious consequences both in the natural and spiritually.
Now before I go any further, I want to share with a story with you about the woman caught in adultery. Turn to John chapter eight. In our society today, adultery does not carry the stigma that it once did. Although people know it’s wrong and definitely would not want it to happen to them, we accept it as part of our reality when we hear about it. Even when there is a pattern of behavior, we make allowances for the individual because we know what lies in our past. While we do not condemn the person committing the act, we also do not hold them accountable for stopping, especially if they are in a leadership position. We live in a society that does not treat the sanctity of marriage as it once did. There are a few points I want to make quickly with this story and I hope you will keep them in mind as I go through the rest of the message. In this story we will see how the scribes and Pharisees interpreted and implemented God’s word according to their personal desires. Jesus accused them of utilizing their positions in ministry for personal gain while lacking justice and mercy (see Matthew chapter 23). Let me give you an example of this as it relates to adultery. Let’s begin reading at the third verse of John chapter eight.
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?’ They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” (John 8:3-11)
The first point I want you to see is that the woman was brought before Jesus and not the man. The woman was found in the very act, meaning she was caught being intimate with the man who was not her husband. The Jewish leaders seized the woman but not the man. Why would they do this? At this time in Jewish history, man ruled. Men had rights (according to how the Word of God was interpreted and implemented) that the woman did not have. During this time, only the woman could be accused of adultery. According to Jewish law, sexual intercourse of a married woman with any man other than her husband was adultery. The crime could be committed only by and with a married woman. However, and this is important for understanding this story, the unlawful intercourse of a married man with an unmarried woman was not technically adultery in the Jewish law. The ancient Jewish law, as well as other systems of law which grew out of a patriarchal state of society, did not recognize the husband's infidelity to his marriage vows as a crime, and it was not until comparatively recent times that the woman was legally entitled to enforce her husband's faithfulness, and was given the right to demand a bill of divorce for his sexual immorality. So at this time only the woman was found to be in sin.
The second point I want you to remember is that when they brought her to Jesus, He stopped the men from executing her by having them reflect on their own past/present sins. He opened the door for compassion and forgiveness. Jesus forgave the woman but He also told her to stop. I believe she was empowered to stop because she knew she was facing a death sentence and was being given a second chance. How many of you know that seeing a death sentence in your future can change how you think about your current actions? The last thing I want you to consider is the fact that in Biblical times it was the woman who was deemed sacred. A woman given in marriage went through the ceremony of kiddushin which is the first part of a Jewish wedding. It was during this ceremony that the woman was made sacred and thereby set apart for her husband alone. The husband did not have to go through this ceremony so he was therefore not considered “sacred” to his wife. This pattern of life was not how God saw marriage. In God’s eyes adultery was the same regardless of who committed it. Keep this in mind as you follow along with me in this message.
I know that the adults and young adults understand the seriousness of adultery, but I do not think that we understand the definition of the word from the Hebrew as it related to the natural act and the spiritual act. It is important to understand that our English translation and definitions do not always aligned with the Hebrew or Greek definitions. This is true with the word translated as adultery from the Hebrew. For the majority of Christians, the word “adultery” means being intimate with someone other than your spouse. And that is true. That is its primary definition. But how many of you know that if you have a primary definition, you’ll also have secondary definitions? In the Bible, adultery also includes whoredom in all its forms, premarital sexual relations, and lustful desires. Spiritually, do you remember how Jesus defined adultery? He said, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28) Jesus said the very act of lusting after another person was adultery. Also note that Jesus was talking to men who believed that adultery was not a crime if a married man was intimate with a single woman. If we begin thinking like our heavenly Father thinks then our acceptance of some things will shift.
When it comes to talking about adultery, we must talk about it from the two different viewpoints. The first is the “natural” viewpoint and the second is the “spiritual” viewpoint. Focusing on the natural viewpoint let me share with you a few statistics from a January 2018 study by the Institute for Family Studies. This study found that 20% of men and 13% of women reported that they’ve had sex with someone other than their spouse while married. The study also revealed that the more education a person has the more likely that person is to commit adultery. The study also showed that infidelity for both men and women increase between the ages of 35 and 64. The percent of people who cheat and grew up with both parents is smaller (15%) than the percent of people who didn’t (18%). The same is true for people who go to church compared to those who don’t. While these statistics are concerning, we can find hope that still a majority of people are staying true to their marriage vows in the natural viewpoint. However, from the spiritual viewpoint that might not be the case. You see, in our society people say it’s okay to look as long as you do not touch. Well if you recall what Jesus said, it’s not okay to even look because to look and desire is adultery committed within the heart. And, what does God look at? Our hearts!
Now let’s define the word “adultery” from the Hebrew. It comes from the Hebrew word apostatize or apostasy. Apostasy is “an act of refusing to continue to follow, obey or recognize a religious faith, or the tenets of faith”. Now how many of you know that you can’t refuse to follow something if you didn’t know you had to follow it? A Christian who commits adultery, not simply being intimate with someone other than his or her spouse, but also who has lustful desires or has premarital sex, knows better! And when we know better, the Bible calls it sin and God holds us accountable to repent (stop).
To understand why adultery, which is the opposite of faithfulness, is so important we must go back to Genesis 2 and look at the first husband and wife. Now before we read this passage I want you to understand something: when you look at the totality of scripture, marriage has God’s fingerprints all over it. God never intended single men and single women to have the kind of relations that a husband and wife has. Do you know that there are Christians who believe the Bible doesn’t say anything about premarital sex? If you’re taking notes turn to Romans 13:13. It says “Let us (and remember Paul’s writing to Christians) behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.” The phrase “sexual promiscuity and sensuality” refer to “unlawful cohabitations and any defilement of the bed.” In the context, the bed is the marriage bed and any sexual activity outside of the marriage bed is sin. And the Bible says if you don’t repent of such sin, you’re in danger of losing your salvation (unless you believe the Bible is wrong and you can live however you choose). I’m going to let that sink in a little before moving on.
Now back to Genesis 2. We’re going to see why faithfulness in marriage is so very important to God which means it should be important to each of us. In Genesis 2:18 we read “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him.’” Now we’re going to jump down to verse 21. “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said ‘This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife (not his girlfriend); and they shall be one flesh.”
Do you see the phrase “and be joined to his wife”? It presents the image of two individuals being glued together to become one individual. And we see this in the last phrase “they shall be one flesh”. That’s how the Bible paints marriage. How many of you remember the Elmer’s glue you used in school? It was white and sticky. When it got on your fingers and you stuck your fingers together you could still pull them apart after it started to dry. Well now we have Super glue and Gorilla glue. Gorilla glue is supposed to be the strongest available. Here is the picture I want you to see; some marriages have no glue at all – they have what the world call “open” marriages where they can continue to be intimate with whomever they please. Other marriages are held together with Elmer’s glue; some with Super glue; and the best with Gorilla glue. God wants the marriage union to be held together with the Gorilla glue versus the Elmer’s which is not strong at all. For this reason when two people are truly glued together no one can come between them. When two people are truly glued together, you won’t find any cracks in the seams where the gluing took place. When two people are truly glued together, everyone who sees them will know it. Are you seeing the image? In order to commit adultery, the husband has to rip himself away from his wife, the wife has to rip herself away from her husband. God intended the husband and wife to be in agreement spiritually. That’s the first thing. In other words, God intended for them to keep His commandments. For us that would be the Bible. God also intended for the husband and wife to serve Him in unity and integrity together. In explaining this one phrase I have just identified the primary reason why there is a lot of uncomfortableness ((I didn’t want to say “problems” or “friction”.) in many Christian homes today – the couple differ in their beliefs about what the Bible says. All married couples will go through trying times but those trying times should not lead one or both to enter adulterous relationships. We should carry our Gorilla glue so when the cracks appear we quickly apply the glue (which in our case is more love as only love covers a multitude of sin according to 1 Peter 4:8.)
This commandment, “You shall not commit adultery” is directed toward protecting the sanctity of the home, which is the fundamental building block of society – not just here in America but all over the world. Adultery is the most violent act that can happen to a marriage. The fatal blow to any marriage in an adulterous affair where one or both spouses think they finally found his or her soul mate in someone else. An adulterous affair produces guilt and shame, a loss of trust and intimacy, divorce, loneliness, and even illness. And the impact on the children is impossible to fully understand. So why does a spouse commit adultery? Let’s let the Bible answer that question and believe me when I tell you it has nothing to do with the behavior of the other spouse. Go to James 1:13-15. It says “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
The Bible says we are tempted by our own lust. The word “enticed” is interesting. It means the person, (the Christian) is so excited about what he sees that he’s willing to flirt with it for the possibility of gratifying the flesh. This is not just a heat of the moment thing. The person has thought about this over a period of time. You see, we see someone else that we want and THEN we justify the lust by blaming our spouse or the spouse of the other person as the reason its okay to commit this sin. This justification makes the sin easier to do and feel good about. And this makes his decision to “give” in a deliberate decision. Notice how “lust” is related to “conception”. James is painting the image of someone romancing the lust, the temptation, until it –now listen to me – until the lust conceives and gives birth to sin. Do you see this? Now pay attention to this: once lust has been conceived it leads to death. What James is telling us is that when we give in to temptation, when we romance it, when we get so excited about what this romancing is going to do for our flesh, it leads us into sin and ultimately this leads can lead to our spiritual death. Adultery is not something that happens on a moment’s notice. It is planned. I’ll say it again. It is planned.
How can we make ourselves “adultery-proof”? Turn with me to Proverbs 5:15-19. It says “Drink water from your own cistern and fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be exhilarated always with her love.” The Bible says that husbands are to “drink from their own cisterns”. The image here is the husband drinking from the water that is only found in the loving embrace of his wife – water that is pure and blessed by God. Husbands love your wives as the precious treasure that is loved by God who has been entrusted her to you care. And wives, love your husbands as the one God has put His trust in for you. When the husband and the wife do this, adultery will drown in the loving waters that flow from their love for each other.
Now earlier, I gave you the definition of adultery from the Hebrew word that means “apostasy.” In the New Testament it’s the Greek word apostasia, which also means “apostasy”. I want you to hear how it’s defined: “a falling away, defection, withdrawal, turning away and going in a different direction, or to sever the relationship.” Based on how this word is defined, and we need to understand this, anything that causes us to turn away from what the Bible teaches is considered spiritual adultery. So you see, God’s definition of adultery is much broader than ours. For God, any rejection of what He says – if He says one thing but we believe another – can be labelled adultery. And this is the history of children of Israel who were often called whores – the Bible uses the word “whoredom” – because they also served other gods.
The thing that I want you to notice about this definition is that the person who falls away, defects, withdraws, turns away, goes in a different direction or severs a relationship does all of this knowingly. And that is the thing that angers God more than anything else. We know what the Bible says. We know what God demands. But it is often filtered through a personal belief system that may not agree with the Bible says or with what God demands.
Turn with me to James 4:4. It reads “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Is there anything in this verse about sexual intimacy? No. But we are said to be in adultery if we have friendship with the world, when we choose to agree with the world which means we’re choosing to disagree with God. Every time we choose to agree with how the world views something and God views it differently, the Bible says that at that moment we become God’s enemy. Folks, God has no enemies in Heaven. According to what we read here, adulterers – and we’re talking about Christians – do things that cause God and all of Heaven to take the position of an army that opposes them. That is not a good place to be.
Turn to First John 2:15 and 16. “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” In these verses we see another reference to the world. But First John breaks down loving the world to one word – lusts. When we lust for the things the world offers, we are committing adultery. The phrase “loves the world” paints the image of a person looking at what the world values then looking at the Bible says God values and then choosing the world. In a nutshell, that’s the definition of “pride”. When we boast, when we brag, about what we have, what we have accomplished, about the jobs we have, about how money we make, the Bible says we are committing spiritual adultery. You may ask “How is this committing adultery”? When we talk like this we’re telling people “I did this. I accomplished this. Me. Me. I don’t need God’s favor. I got this.” Lucifer was guilty of lust too. He lusted after things that belonged to God. It cost him heaven. When you lust after the things of the world that oppose the things of God, it could cost you heaven.
When we “love the world” – when we choose to think the way the world thinks – Jesus says it shows us what is going on inside of us. It’s an issue of the heart and He tells us this in Matthew 15:19 where it says “For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, slanders.” The things that come from the heart are the things that we think about over time before we decide to do them. Those who “love the world” produce thoughts that lead them to do what Jesus identifies in this verse. So my question to us this morning is “How much do we love Jesus?” Do we love Him enough to say “no” to the world when what it believes disagrees with what the Bible says? It’s a question we will either answer here on this side of glory when we stand in judgment – when it’s too late. I choose this side of glory.
God never intended for His people to live in sin or rejoice in it. Some people see it as a victory the more people they sleep with, even if they are married. Some people think it’s okay to lust after someone else that might look better than their spouse as long as they do not act on their lust. In both cases the person is wrong. Adultery will kill a family and not just the current generation. If it is not dealt with, it will continue to kill the generations that follows because each generation will be subject to repeating the sins of the previous generation until someone breaks the cycle. It’s God’s word that can help us break the cycle while also giving us the strength to change and help others change.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. Our service Sunday worship starts at 9 a.m. and Thursday night Bible study at 7 p.m. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
