It was this couple at the restaurant, having dinner together in a corner of that fancy restaurant. And on their way out, in the semi-obscurity of the parking lot he noticed a wallet on the asphalt.
Inside $ 10,000 in cash and a lot of cards along with some other documents. They went back and asked for the restaurant manager. “Can you announce if any of your costumers lost this wallet?”
And the manager did: “Gentlemen, please, verify if you still have the wallet. We have found a wallet in the parking lot”. Bingo… the owner cried so loud, cheerful, that all the restaurant customers were panicked… Fire? No, just a happy guy getting back ten grants…
He was a reporter working for the town newspaper who lost his wallet after leaving the same restaurant. And he was happy and excited… speaking loud for everybody in the restaurant to hear him:
- “You are the most honest man I ever meet. Let me reward you”…
But no, the founder refused any reward and he kept a low voice: “OK sir now we are leaving”.
- “Oh, if you won’t accept money, I will do something else, said the happy reporter. I will put your picture in tomorrow’s new paper, on the first page, for everybody to know that we still have honest people in this town, people that we are proud of them”… And he was reaching his pocket for the camera… for pictures…
But that guy just said no and left the restaurant almost pushing him away with the reporter chasing him outside… Please, a picture, we need to expose your integrity.
At that moment, the guy pushed the women in the car and told the reporter: “I don’t need any exposure. You see, this woman is not my wife, so shout your mouth and let me go now”…
Sad truth, - the most honest man in town was not quite… honest...
We are continuing now our series LAW & GRACE it the Ten Commandments. Why do we even keep the 10 C? Do we keep them to be saved? No. We keep them because we ARE saved. We keep the 10 C because we love the "Law-Giver," Who is Jesus Christ.
That's why we do it. And so we don't do this to earn salvation. We do it because we have salvation, and because we want to honor our Savior.
ILL. We were driving home one night and a deer jumped suddenly in front of our van. There was no way to avoid the deer. According to the Department of Natural Resources there are over 10,000 deer killed on LA Highways every year. Do you know when most of them are killed? In November and December. That's just about when my wife and I had that encounter with the deer on Hwy 28 East around Jonesville.
Now, why are most of them killed in November/December? Because the male deer are in rut. That is when they are obsessed with reproductive activities. They chase whatever female deer is out there.
Nobody is married in the deer kingdom. We are. And I will tell you that if type of thing becomes our obsession, our life is in danger, and not just in November/December. Adultery is dangerous.
The next time you drive along and you happen to see a dead deer lying along the road, think about the high price of adulterous obsession. You could become road kill yourself on the highway that leads to eternal life, couldn't you? So, be careful.
“Do not commit adultery…” is a short commandment, but long in consequences…
If the 10 C went through a downsizing like most companies are going through now in America, and the 10 C. were streamlined, which would be eliminated? One person said:
"Eliminate the seventh commandment because nobody is keeping it anyway”. The sad statistics are that almost 6 out of every 10 marriages in America will experience adultery. Thirty years ago 4 in 10… now 6 in 10…
Adultery is a sin against God. Who told us that? Well, that's in Genesis 39:9. Joseph was in Potiphar's house and Potiphar's wife was after him and he said, ...How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?
It's not just a sin against your spouse or your children; it's a sin against God. Adultery breaks every other commandment.
Adultery is stealing. It steals the love from another. It steals someone's spouse away. It is taking love that does not belong to you. Adultery destroys trust, Jeopardizes the family. You said: "I will always be faithful to you."
Adultery is a living lie. It is done without the knowledge of the spouse. Adultery is coveting someone who does not belong to you. Adultery is the supreme example of Selfishness. I need this for me. My spouse does not meet my needs. Marriage is all about giving, but adultery is all about taking.
There are various types of adultery.
MENTAL ADULTERY AND 'NEXT DOOR GIRL" SYNDROM. . Adultery is more than just a physical plowing of someone else's property. Adultery also includes thinking about or anticipating the act…
Jesus makes this very clear in Matthew 5:27, 28: "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
If you admire something long enough you will soon want it. And if you want something long enough and bad enough you will probably find a way to get it. Sin starts in the mind. So the sin begins in looking and in thinking about that which is forbidden. The mind is the incubator of almost every deed that is done.
ILL. As a boy I grew up with chickens and farm animals around the house. I was watching the hens keeping the eggs underneath to keep them warm, in order to hatch into little yellow chicks.
I remember turning the eggs every now and then and making sure the temperature was just right. In not too many days those fertilized eggs began to hatch. Do you know what crawled out of each and every egg? A baby chicken. Never a duck, or a dog or a Kangaroo but always a baby chick. We always got out what we put in. (Illustration from http://mcdonaldroad.org)
Now, remember we're still talking about the human mind. The mind is the incubator, so what we put into your mind is exactly what we will get out of it. If we think about pure things, we are going to get pure things out. If we think adulterous thoughts long enough we will eventually have an affair. We get out of it exactly what you put into it. Proverbs 23:7 (KJV) says: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he". We get out exactly what we put in. I like that.
LONG DISTANCE ADULTERY: the Phone hot line, certain websites for lustful people… that opens up the possibilities for cyber Adultery. Long Distance adultery still sin. This is a sin. If a married person allows his or her mind to fantasize about another person they are playing with a fire that might just burn up their souls and marriage. Don't play with fire unless you want to spend some time in the burn unit.
There's another kind of adultery: XXX You get burned when you allow your mind to feast on pornographic images which you pay for, dirty magazines or XXX rated websites. You need to avoid steamy movies, videos and some TV programs. In the book of Job, Job came out with an excellent method. Job would have been immune to that today because he says in Job 31:1 (NLT) - "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a young woman." That's a good covenant to make.
We need to eliminate anything that stirs us up with this type of temptation. Maybe we need to go home and clean out our magazines in our house. Maybe we need to get rid of some of the videos in our house. Maybe we need to call the Cable Company and cancel certain channels.
ILL. Paraphrasing Mat.5:29 - “If thy right eye, or thy high definition screen offend thee, cut it off… because it is profitable for thee that your subscription to be canceled and your Sony HD blue ray be throw out from your living room, than thy whole body be cast out in Ghehena”…
Look at your own spouse and take care of her/his needs. 1 Cor. 7:3 (NIV) says we need to take care of each other's physical needs. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
PRE-MARITAL ADULTERY. And then there's another type of adultery. We would call that Pre-Marital Adultery, or fornication or cohabitation. And this is a bad type. In fact, did you know that if you cohabit that you are 33% percent more likely to divorce than if you didn't? Purity is also expected if you are unmarried. It includes those who live together before marriage. A girl who is shacked up with her boyfriend is very likely going to suffer physical abuse and being beaten up.
Official statistics. A child who lives in such a home with their mother's boyfriend is 73 times more vulnerable to experience fatal abuse than a normal child.
…Adultery does have consequences, doesn't it? Hollywood seldom shows the consequences of Adultery. Movies and TV soaps teach us that adultery is all love and fun and everything is fine. But, I will tell you that eternal life is certainly jeopardized. Health is endangered. Happiness is squandered. The reputation is cheapened. The marriage is often irreparably destroyed. The children suffer and so much often they are marked for life.
Can we really afford adultery? We need to go home and love our spouse. That's what it is all about. Simple. I believe the Ten Commandments are a fence, a barrier protecting us from all sorts of ills and things. These are good. God put them here for our benefit. All the commandments including the Seventh Commandment are tailor made to keep us out of trouble.
The 7th commandment is a safeguard to marriage. We Americans live in a Post-Christian age. America used to be a Christian country. Now instead of turning to God's Commandments for protection we turn to Condoms.
I am told that the HIV virus is 400 times smaller than sperm. The commandments are the only protection. That's why God put them here. Aids would not be much of a problem if God's Law were followed by everybody. Love your spouse!
ILL: There is a story of two Buddhist monks walking in a drenching thunderstorm. They came to a stream, and it was swollen out of its banks. A beautiful young woman stood there wanting to get to the other side but was afraid of the currents. Ready to help, one of the monks said, "Can I help you?" The woman said, "I need to cross this stream." The monk picked her up, and carried her through the water, to the other side. He and his companion went on to the monastery.
That night his companion said to him, "I don’t like what you did and I will report you to the superiors. As Buddhist monks, we have taken vows not to look on a woman, much less touch her body. Back there by the river you did both." The first monk said, "My brother, I put that woman down on the other side of the river. You are still carrying her in your mind."
Jesus wants to protect marriage obviously. Why is that? Because marriage is a symbol of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Christian. It's the symbol of that close bond that we have. God wants to protect that and therefore, conversely, for that same reason Satan works overtime to destroy the Christian Home because it represents that connection.
I wasn't to tell you that true love is a commitment. Animals go by their instincts and feelings. Mature Christians should not go by feelings. Some people go by feelings and several people have told me "I just don't have the feeling anymore. I don't have this feeling for my husband anymore." Let me tell you, love is not a feeling. Love is a commitment. If love were a feeling, then why would Jesus love me? Why would He love you? His love is not based on how He feels about us, about our behavior, His love is based on the depth of His own character, not about our behavior.
Jesus is committed to us. Marriage is not a contract to be broken if you don't feel like it anymore, but love is a commitment or sacred covenant to be kept. Hebrews 13:4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. That's what God wants for each of us.
I believe that God has invented marriage to keep people holy and to keep them happy. Often at a Wedding the Minister says, "We are gathered here today to unite this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony." Your marriage and my marriage = holy.
The purpose of the seventh commandment is to build an atmosphere where two people can experience the highest joy and deepest intimacy as they both grow more and more into the fullness of the image of Jesus Christ.
ILL. Cindy Cohen found an add in Travel and Leisure Magazine offering a Vacation at a Caribbean resort. It was at a time when she could go and at a good price, so she signed up.
She flew off to this vacation and there somehow she got linked up with three other ladies from Dallas. One day the four of them decided to go snorkeling with Frederic, a diving instructor. He charmed Cindy in a way that made her feel young and pleasing.
She had never been that type of easy woman but she just fell into it and she and Frederic spent some intimate moments. A week after Cindy returned to New York City she came down with what she thought was a bad flu.
The glands in her neck swelled, her muscles ached and she had a vise-like headache and a fever of 103. Cindy discovered she had come down with HIV. (Signs of the Times Magazine, November 2002, page 14).
I think these things that are here in the Bible are here for our protection. We ought to praise God for the things that are in the Scriptures. They are here for our benefit. And I think that the true gist of the seventh commandment is that we ought to go home and love our spouse.
CALL. We need to keep our eyes on each other and keep our eyes on Jesus. As Christians, we want to be like Jesus. We respect Jesus. We want to stay behind that fence. Avoid the big bad bull. The fence is there for your protection.
On the other side of the fence things may seem greener and more exciting, but you might be ripped by the horns of a raging bull. It might be more exciting, but we're going to get hurt. Praise God for each of His gracious Commandments. They are beautiful.
