We’ve been studying the Ten Commandments the last few weeks. Tonight we’ll look at one of the most violated of the Ten:

Exodus 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Sexual Sin Destabilizes Nations, Ruins Churches,
and Cripples Families

Several years ago I predicted that the push for the normalization of homosexuality would lead to other sexual perversions. The “flavor of the day” is now called “polyamorous”. The Colson Center notes:

“… polyamory is the practice of having more than one sexual partner. In other words, it is what was called (until yesterday) “promiscuity.” However, as with each prior stop on the slippery slope of undefining marriage and the family, this one also abounds with creative euphemisms like “open relationships,” “non-monogamy,” “throuples,” “swingers,” and (worst of all) “polycules.” {A} New York Times article listed a bevy of new TV shows, movies, and books promoting polyamory as fun and even beneficial—a journey of “self-discovery” that could liven up your “marriage”.

A bumper sticker reads, “Life is short. Have an affair!”

The Huffington Post ran an article a few years ago entitled “There Are Now Greeting Cards For Cheating Spouses. (Yes, Really.)” that’s the actual title. One card said,

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Forget that I’m married,
I’m hitting on you!

That was the cleanest card I saw – others I can’t read from a public pulpit. If you type in “Greeting Cards For Adulterers” in an internet search engine, you’ll get over 3 million sources and sites where you can order such atrocities. Some of the cards depicted people with animals. Another source mocked the 7^th Commandment of God, saying “Adultery is ok!”.

God recognizes (but has never endorsed) that sexual sin exists, even among His people. As Jesus was teaching one day, the Pharisees asked Him, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”. Jesus quickly replied:

Matthew 19:4-6 (ESV) “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

The Pharisees then asked Jesus, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” They were referencing the Law in:

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, 2 and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3 and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, 4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Jesus corrected the Pharisees. They asked, “Why did Moses COMMAND a certificate of divorce”? God through Moses NEVER COMMANDED a certificate of divorce. God recognized in the Law the failing and sinfulness of man. He said, in essense, “IF you take a wife, THEN later are dissatisfied and YOU CHOOSE TO GIVE HER a DIVORCE – then once she’s been with another man sexually YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO TAKE HER BACK INTO YOUR BED”. Why did God put these requirements in the Law? Jesus said:

Matthew 19:8-9 (ESV) “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Under the Law – which could only PROSCRIBE (forbid) and PRESCRIBE but not cure – divorce was ALLOWED but not COMMANDED. It is only under the NEW COVENANT that God, because of the shed Blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, could the heart be CORRECTED.

God was NEVER for divorce, as Jesus makes clear. God realized that as humans we are broken, and thus our relationships would be broken. Thus God said “In your brokenness I will allow you to divorce THOUGH I AM AGAINST IT”. God condemned His Old Covenant people for their laxity in maintaining sexual purity. He said:

Malachi 2:13-16 (ESV) … You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

God made marriage to be one man and one woman united together in one covenant for life. In Deuteronomy God was actually saying, “don’t divorce … BUT IF YOU DO, and she marries another, don’t make claim on her as you wife again.” To do so would be to take another man’s wife, and THAT my friend IS ADULTERY.

Polygamy, Now Popular, Is Not New.
It Was In The Old Testament World.

Did God’s people follow God’s pattern of marriage? No, they didn’t. Polygamy – the marriage between one man and multiple wives – was common in the worldly culture of the ancient world. God did not endorse it, but it happened.

Abraham had two wives, Sarai and her maid Hagar (Genesis 16:3). This caused numerous problems for Abraham and his progeny, Israel. Israel’s current war over the Gaza strip is because the children of Hagar, the Arabs, want the land that the children of Sarah have, the Jews. Throughout the Old Testament and to the present day Abraham’s poor decision in taking Hagar to wife has plagued his children, both Arab and Israeli.

Jacob had four wives (Genesis 30), King David had many wives (2 Samuel 5:13), and his son Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines or mistresses (1 Kings 11:3). Each man suffered terribly in their lives, bringing wars into their families and among their children, because they violated God’s Law of marriage. As many wives as David had, he actually stole another man’s wife – Bathsheba – then had that man {Uriah} murdered in combat. God told David:

2 Samuel 12:9-12 (ESV) Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11 Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.

David was soundly punished for his act of adultery and murder. As he did, it would be done to him. Though David repented, God required the consequences of David’s actions to follow him till he passed from this life. When God commanded:

Exodus 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Word Study: He was warning us against a terrible poison. In the original Hebrew text there are only TWO WORDS here:

lō’ nā’ap̄ (pronounced naw-af’)

Literally “NO ADULTERY”, or more specifically, “NO BREAKING THE BOND OF MARRIAGE”. God in the Law required that the sin of adultery be treated just as a murder would be treated. If you were caught in adultery, the state (in this case, Israel) was to put you to death. The Bible says:

Leviticus 20:10 And the man that committeth adultery (nā’ap̄) with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery (nā’ap̄) with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterER (nā’ap̄) and the adulterESS (nā’ap̄) shall surely be put to death.

Both The Law And Jesus Are Against Sexual Sin

One day Jesus was teaching, when the Pharisees brought a woman to Him, saying “Master, this woman was TAKEN IN ADULTERY, IN THE VERY ACT” (John 8:4). They reminded Jesus that the Law of Moses required she be executed, then asked Jesus what He thought should be done. Jesus did not initiually respond to them, but instead said:

John 8:7 … He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Jesus was actually quoting the Law of God. God said in Deuteronomy 17:6-7, “The HAND OF THE WITNESSES SHALL BE FIRST TO PUT HER TO DEATH, and afterward the hand of all the people” (Deuteronomy 17:6-7). If these men “CAUGHT HER IN THE VERY ACT” then, as witnesses, they should cast the first stone. Further, if they caught this woman “IN THE VERY ACT”, then where was THE MAN?

The Law demanded that BOTH the adulteress
AND the adulterer be executed.

Jesus used the Law, and put it back on the “witnesses”.
He caught them in a lie, and they knew it!

After they left, Jesus asked “Where are your accusers?” The woman replied, “None accuse me, Lord”. Jesus then replied,

“Neither do I condemn you: GO AND SIN NO MORE”

Jesus did not justify her act of adultery, but recognized it as sin. Nonetheless, Jesus followed the Law explicitly. As the man was not there, the woman could not lawfully be tried. Jesus told her to “GO AND SIN NO MORE”. This is God’s standard for the believer in Him. God has given us commandments that are for our own good. The Apostle said:

1 John 5:1-3 (ESV) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

God’s commandments – including this Seventh Commandment – are NOT burdensome, but are a blessing. In the hardness of our hearts we often turn away from what God has directed, but we break ourselves when we break God’s Commandments. Sexual immorality destroys lives. The Apostle reminds us of the dangers of sexual sin. He writes:

1 Corinthians 10:8 (ESV) We MUST NOT INDULGE IN SEXUAL IMMORALITY as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day …

The Apostle is referrring to when Israel bound herself sexually to the daughters of Moab, followers of the pagan god Baal (see Numbers 25:1-9). God sent a plague on Israel that killed 24,000 people – 23,000 of them in one day! When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the Priest stood up and publicly brought the death penalty on a high ranking tribal head named Zimri the son of Salu and Cozbi the daughter of Zur for their adulterous activity, God withdrew the plague from Israel.

Beloved, as the children of God we are NOT to minimize sexual sin and the destruction of Biblical marriagew, regardless as to who it upsets.

I recently watched a “Priest” wearing a rainbow painted scarf say “God is gay. God is a lesbian. God is trans. God is gender non-binary. God is straight. God is cis gender.” This is not the God of the Bible. God never endorsed people’s sins. Jesus came commanding that we follow Him, regardless as to how it effected our status with our families. Jesus said in:

Matthew 10:34-38 (ESV) Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

The Scripture repeatedly calls the believer to walk apart from sin. We are called to “live lives worthy of the calling you received” (Ephesians 4:1). We are told “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND” (Romans 12:2). Saved by Grace, as Christians we “declare the praises of Him WHO CALLED US OUT OF DARKNESS, and INTO HIS WONDERFUL LIGHT” (1 Peter 2:9).

As Christians, we honor our God when we live not to please the world, but to please our God (John 15:19; 17:15-18).

1 Thessalonians 4:3 (ESV) For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality

and again,

Colossians 3:5 (ESV) Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

and again,

Proverbs 6:32 (ESV) He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.

If you will not follow Christ on this earth, you need not believe that you will follow Him in Heaven. Saved by Grace now, we live to honor Him. Dear friend, do not believe that you can reside in sexual sin, and will one day enter Heaven. The Bible is clear:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (ESV) Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:5 (ESV) … you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Revelation 21:8 (ESV) … But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Those who are saved remain in the bonds of marriage, loving the Lord by loving their wives and husbands. May God help us to keep our marriages fully focused on honoring our God and Savior. Amen and Amen.