The Truth About Adultery - Matthew 5:27-28 - November 20, 2011
Series: Kingdom Life – A World Turned Upside Down #13
Well, this morning we are going to continue with our study of the Sermon on the Mount. To this point we have worked through the Beatitudes, one by one, and we’ve seen what it is that we’re called to, and what it is that has been made possible for us, in Jesus Christ. We have heard Jesus affirm that He has not come to do away with the Law and the Prophets but rather that He has come to fulfill the very Word of God. Furthermore He has challenged us with His own words as He has said, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees …. You will certainly not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) And then we’ve begun to discover what that righteousness looks like, because Jesus gives us six examples to illustrate the point He is making.
We looked at the first one a few weeks ago. Jesus took one of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shall not kill,” and in essence said, “As long as you have not taken another’s life you feel you have kept this commandment. But there’s more to it than that. You’ve given heed to the letter of the law but you’ve completely missed the spirit of it. You harbour in your hearts, anger and bitterness and rage against another and in doing so you’ve kept alive in your heart the very things that lead to murder. You have betrayed the spirit of the Law and the heart of God.” Hatred, becomes murder, because it stems from the same heart.
And that’s where this righteousness that He’s talking about – this righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees – needs to take root. It needs to take root in the heart, because the heart is the wellspring of life, and all the things we do and say, flow forth from what is in the heart. If you get the heart right, that which comes from the heart will be right as well.
The Pharisees excelled in wearing masks. To all outward appearances they were the epitome of righteousness - but it was all external. That’s why Jesus called them, “whitewashed tombs.” They said and did all the right things, went through all the right motions, but in truth their hearts were far from God. Spiritually they had no life. And many people in churches live like that today. My desire is that we would get our hearts right before God. My desire is that we would stop wearing masks. This is God’s desire for us as well.
Romans 12, verses 1-2, say this … “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1–2, NIV)
We cannot live with this dichotomy which says, “This part of my life belongs to God and this part of my life belongs to me.” Everything we are is meant to be offered as a living sacrifice to God. Every facet of our lives is meant to reflect His glory. Worship is more than what takes place Sunday mornings. Your life can be, and is meant to be, a continuous act of worship – this is your response to a God who has loved you so deeply, and so well, and so thoroughly, that He sent His one and only Son to die for you that you might have life through Him. And to worship God in that way means we cannot buy into the world’s way of thinking and doing life.
How many of you have seen that t.v. show, “Everybody Loves Raymond”? …. There’s one episode where Raymond’s brother Robert, and Robert’s fiancé, Amy, have her parents over for brunch one morning. Now her parents are always depicted as very conservative, narrow minded, Christians. This was Amy’s upbringing. At one point during the brunch Amy decides to tell her parents the truth about her relationship with Robert. She tells them, that even though they are not married, that she has been sleeping with him. And then she says this, “I’ve decided it isn’t a sin!”
And that one sentence sums up the world’s way of thinking so very well. We live in a culture that has decided that we have the prerogative to determine what is right, and what is wrong, and so we ignore God’s standard of morality and we make up our own as we go along. (Rik Danielsen, www.sermoncentral.com) Yet Scripture says that we are not to be conformed to the pattern of this world but that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we might know God’s good and pleasing and perfect will. So here’s a question to get started with: Where do you take your cues for living from? What are you allowing to influence the way you live your life and how do you determine what is right and what is wrong?
And as you’re considering that I’m going to invite you to open your Bibles with me this morning, please, to the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew, chapter 5, and we’ll begin reading in verse 27. In all six of the illustrations that Jesus gives us to help us understand this righteousness He is calling us to, He is going to follow a pattern. Each time He will start with the words, “You have heard it said ….,” and then He will then follow that up by saying, “But I tell you …” In other words … “This is what you’ve been taught - but this is what God is looking for in your life.”
Let’s begin reading in verse 27 … “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall 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 your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” (Matthew 5:27–30, NIV)
A few moments ago I asked you to consider what it is that is shaping your view of the world. The truth is that we are living in a media saturated culture. And we’re lying to ourselves if we think that we aren’t being influenced by the media. But who’s influencing the media? Did you know that one study showed that whereas only 4% of Americans claim no religious affiliation, that 45% of those responsible for the programming that you’re watching would claim none? And did you know that while only 59% of Americans believe a woman has a right to an abortion that 97% of television executives believe they do? And, tying in with today’s Scriptures, 85% of Americans believe adultery is wrong, whereas only 49% of the people who determine what will be shown on your television would agree with that statement? (D. Greg Ebie, www.sermoncentral.com)
Do you begin to see why it is that there is so much garbage on television these days? Here’s the really sad part, we have become so comfortable with the worldview portrayed on television, that we don’t blink an eye when the main characters jump into bed together outside of marriage, when someone cheats on someone else, and a whole list of other things. Instead we call it entertainment and we sit in front of it and fill our minds with it. Here’s a challenge for you. Take your favorite show – whether it be a crime drama, or a sitcom, or whatever – and for even just one episode keep track of how much of what is being portrayed goes against God’s very heart.
See, there is a reason that Scripture tells us we need to be careful what it is that we fill our minds with, what it is that we allow our eyes to see, because we are so easily influenced by the world around us. And the more we are exposed to that which is sin the less it offends us. What was considered unacceptable even just 20 years ago, doesn’t even raise an eyebrow today. We become desensitized to it to the point that we consider the immorality we see portrayed as being normal. And folks, what we see, and expose ourselves to, will, over time, begin to shape who we are and how we see the world.
Now, this wasn’t meant to be a tirade against television but we are fooling ourselves if we think that the media in our culture isn’t having an influence on us. Perhaps nowhere is this more true than it is when it comes to our sexuality. From billboards to magazines, to the television, the movie screens and the computer monitor, we are inundated with sexualized images on a daily basis. And this has got to be feeding into our own views on sexuality, on what is right and wrong, because sexual sin is growing exponentially in our culture.
It’s hard to find exact numbers but the statistics that I’ve seen for Canadians state that somewhere between 30% and 60% of married people will have an affair at some point during the course of their marriage. That’s disturbing. You know what? Let’s not even call it an affair. That’s the world’s way of making something wrong sound right. Let’s call it adultery because that’s what Jesus calls it.
And just to make sure we’re all on the same page here let’s define what it is that we’re talking about. Adultery is “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man or woman and a partner other than the legal spouse.” (www.thefreedictionary.com) Folks, God takes adultery very seriously and Scripture has a lot to say about it. Among the things we are told in the pages of God’s word are these: That “a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself.” (Proverbs 6:32, NIV) That “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 13:4, NIV) And that we ought not “be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral … nor adulterers … will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10, NIV) It doesn’t get any more serious than that.
God’s intent has always been that the marriage bed be kept pure. And please understand this: God has got nothing against sex. In fact God created sex. And He created it to be wonderful and intimate and fun and exciting and satisfying. But He also created it to be lived out within the context of the boundaries of the marriage relationship because He knew that this was for our own good, for the good of the family and for the good of society in general. Any other expression of sexuality, apart from that lived out in the context of husband and wife, is sin.
And yet every day, men and women who ought to know better, come to the conclusion that the sexual immorality they want to enter into is no longer sin. While I was researching statistics on adultery I came across a Canadian website whose slogan was this: “Life is short – have an affair.” And the whole purpose of this website was to help married people connect with other “like-minded” people in order to commit adultery. Over 2.5 million people have taken out memberships on this site. The testimonies and the articles posted on the site state that as long as no-one is getting hurt there’s no problem, that an affair will make your marriage better and a whole bunch of other things that I don’t even want to get into. And people are buying into this and believing it to be truth while all the time they are being deceived. And because these ideas are so prevalent in our society, today I want to share with you the truth about adultery.
Adultery, at it’s heart, is selfishness. We can make all sorts of excuses and justifications for committing adultery – “I love her,” “he meets my needs,” “my spouse doesn’t have the same interest in sex that I do,” “he makes me feel special,” “she gives me what I need,” but every one of them has it’s root in selfishness. To commit adultery you have to turn a blind eye to the vows you made before God and to your spouse, you have to deaden yourself to the pain and hurt and turmoil that getting caught will cause to your spouse, to your family, to your friends, and to your brothers and sisters in the faith. The word which Jesus uses, and which we translate “lust,” means to “strongly desire to have what belongs to someone else.” It’s taking for yourself someone that doesn’t belong to you. And it finds its root in the belief today that “it’s all about me.” It’s about my happiness, my pleasure, my needs. But Scripture says it’s not about you. It’s about God. In the book of 1 Corinthians we read these words, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (1 Corinthians 6:18–20, NIV)
Adultery is a cop out. It’s your failure to keep the covenant you made before God and with your spouse and to do the hard work necessary to improve your relationship and to build into your marriage. One of the frustrations of many pastors, myself included, is that we usually don’t hear about troubles in a marriage until at least one of the partners has already checked out and someone else is involved. The truth is though that the marriage has been going south for years and anywhere along that decline, if people had been willing to come for help and to do the hard work, that marriage could have been saved, and not just saved but made whole and beautiful and satisfying again.
Adultery is a failure to guard your heart. Proverbs 4:23 warns us with these words … “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23, NIV) Jesus says that to even look on another lustfully is to commit adultery. And the word, ‘look,’ means more than just to see. It means to see and to become aware of, or take notice, of something. When you look upon a person lustfully in this way you become aware of something in them that you desire for yourself. Men for example are very visual. They can see a woman with an attractive figure and it doesn’t take much to move from appreciating her beauty to wondering what it would be like to touch and to hold and to caress her and to have sex with her.
They begin to compare her with their own wife and their wife is always going to fall short. Why? Not because of anything inherently wrong with their wife but because they know her. She’s familiar. They’ve done life together for 20 years. He’s seen her when she wakes up in the morning and it isn’t always pretty. And maybe the years have taken a toll on her once trim body. And maybe the stresses of life have affected their sexual intimacy. But the woman they’ve begun lusting after is unfamiliar and exciting. None of the stresses of married life are present with this other woman. And so they begin to imagine the possibilities and in doing so they have failed to guard their heart. Job understood this. That’s why he declares, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.” (Job 31:1, NIV) And his wife seems to have been a real piece of work. When tragedy fell on their lives she told him to “curse God and die.” And yet Job refused to entertain the possibility of adultery. He kept their marriage bed pure by making that covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully upon other women.
For women it’s often different. When they move into adultery it’s frequently because they have found someone who will pay attention to them the way their husband used to do. Someone who makes them feel special and alive. Someone who’s willing to listen to them and to be there for them in a way their husband doesn’t seem to. But whether you are male or female, when you find yourself lusting after something that is not yours, it is because you’ve failed to guard your heart. And feeding that desire, that lust, with imagined possibilities brings you to that place where you would if you could.
Which leads us to another truth about adultery. Adultery never just happens. You don’t just wake up one day and say to yourself, “Today I think I will commit adultery.” That’s not how it works. It is a process of time, and imagined possibilities, and untamed desires. It comes about as you fail to guard your heart and to place a hedge of protection around your relationship with your spouse and around your marriage bed. Physical adultery happens because you’ve already allowed the possibility of it happening, in your mind. You’ve already fantasized about what it would be like. From there it’s just a slippery slope to the next step. All that’s needed is the opportunity. That’s why Jesus equates looking lustfully upon another with adultery. The one leads to the other. They come from the same heart. James writes these words … “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:14–15, NIV) That’s the exact process that results in physical adultery.
Here’s another truth about adultery: Adultery will not be blessed by God. But someone’s going to say, “God’s a God of love, and love is never wrong, and I love this person with all my heart – how could God not bless that?” Well you loved another person at one time as well – your spouse. Love is not a feeling that comes and goes. 1 Corinthians 13 makes it clear that love is a choice to act a certain way towards another person. If you’ve fallen out of love with your spouse and into love with someone else it’s because you’ve made a choice to stop loving the one and to start loving the other. God will not bless the adulterous heart no matter how great the love for the other person, no matter how poor the marriage is, God’s heart is not for you to give your heart to another. His desire is that the marriage you are in would be everything that He ever intended marriage to be. Friends, don’t dare to presume to ask God to bless that which He has declared to be sinful. Our question should never be, “How can I have God bless me in spite of my sin?” but rather, “What would God have me to do?” (Questions adapted from Joe Beams post on www.Christianpost.com) And when we start asking that we remove all the excuses we could ever come up with.
Adultery most often results in a second failed relationship. Hilda Houlding, co-ordinator of the Calgary Family Service Bureau, made this comment “An affair is often an attempt to find a little bit of paradise on the side, pursuing the belief that if one just finds the right sexual partner there will be instant happiness and everything will fall into place. An affair is often able to fulfil this myth, until it itself becomes a relationship that has to be worked at and looked at in a long term light. Seen in this way “paradise” soon becomes a prison.” (Dennis Guptill, www.sermoncentral.com) Folks, something like only 3% of people who commit adultery end up with the person they committed adultery with. Adultery is not a path to happiness; it’s a path to destruction.
Finally, adultery does not have to be the end of a marriage. Scripture makes allowance for divorce on the basis of sexual infidelity but it does not require it. About 2/3 of marriages where adultery is discovered do end in divorce. Of the remaining 1/3 some of them work through it and rebuild their marriages. Confession, repentance, counselling and restoration are the order of the day.
Lust is a desire that would express itself if the opportunity presented itself. And the seriousness of a desire like that was enough to have Jesus say, “It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” He’s not talking about actually maiming yourself – gouging out an eye or cutting off the hand will not keep you from sin – it’s the heart that needs to be dealt with because everything we do and say comes from the overflow of the heart - but He is talking about doing the hard things to keep yourself pure and to stay away from sexual immorality.
So how can we protect our marriages? #1 – Commit to God’s standards for your life. I began this message telling you just how influential the media today is in our lives and how even many Christians are being influenced by the world. Don’t let that be you. Let this book of God’s word [hold up Bible] be the fount of wisdom and truth by which you choose to live your life. In the book of Galatians Paul writes these wise words … “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. … The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:16–25, NIV) Don’t take your cues for your life from the world, but rather from God who has created you and given you life and who’s heart is for you.
#2 – Determine beforehand what you will do. When Potiphar’s wife put the moves on Joseph, Joseph didn’t need to consider what to do. He had already determined it and so when the time came, the response was instant. Men, what will you do when you see that attractive woman walking towards you and your thoughts begin to stray? Ladies, what will you do when that man at work seems so willing to listen to the things that are on your heart? What will you do when someone sends you a suggestive e-mail or when someone other than your spouse invites you out for coffee? Men, what will you do if some attractive girl asks you to give her a ride home because her car broke down? Men and women both – what will you do when your marriage isn’t what it should be? What commitment will you make to one another to work on that marriage and to get help when it’s needed rather than when it’s too late? Get together and talk about these things and do it soon so that you can determine beforehand what you will do.
#3 – Consider the Consequences. Count the cost. Adultery always hurts someone. It can cost you your marriage, your children, your home, your savings, your friends, your job, your respect, your integrity and your witness for Christ. That verse from Proverbs that I shared earlier states that the one who commits adultery destroys themselves. No one else does it to them – they have done it to themselves.
#4 – Build a Hedge. This really ties into determining beforehand what to do. If you determine to never be alone with a member of the opposite sex you are building a hedge around your marriage. You are putting things into place that help you maintain your integrity. And maybe you’re thinking to yourself – “That’s pretty old fashioned. I don’t need to worry about that because I am never going to commit adultery.” But remember this – adultery never just happens. It’s a process of time, and possibility and desire and what starts out completely innocently can turn into something much more.
Along the same lines don’t confide in a member of the opposite sex, don’t share your intimate thoughts, or secrets, or frustrations with them. Don’t tell them about your needs or how your marriage is falling apart. This creates an emotional bond that won’t lead anywhere you really want to go and it won’t help fix your marriage. Which leads us to the next point …
#5 – Keep Communicating. Marriages often get into trouble because people aren’t communicating well anymore. So talk to your spouse and just as importantly, listen to your spouse – and not just to the words but to the heart behind the words. And don’t assume that your partner is a mind-reader. What’s obvious to you is probably not obvious to them and vice versa. So if there is a part of your marriage that you find unsatisfying, don’t let resentment and frustration build. Talk about it with your spouse and seek to work it out together.
Be open too about your struggles. Men, and women too because it’s an increasing problem for women these days, if you struggle with what you see on television, or what you have access to on the internet, share that with your spouse. You don’t need satellite television and you don’t need the internet. And if you do need the internet for some reason then there are filters that you can buy which won’t let you access certain types of sites and images. When things are kept in the darkness they have power over us but when they are brought into the light they lose that power.
If someone makes an advance on you, whether in writing, on the phone, via texting, or in person – inform your spouse right away. I read of one pastor who said that whenever he gets an inappropriate note from a woman he immediately gives it to his wife. Then he asks her to respond to it. He said he’s never heard from one of those women again. And that’s how it should be. And finally …
#6 – Bless your Marriage. And what I mean by that is this – build into your marriage, build into your spouse, build into your relationship. A good marriage isn’t easy. It takes a lot of hard work. But it’s worth it. So try to have a regular date night with your spouse. I know it’s hard when life is so busy and the kids are young and money is tight and you feel tired all the time. But I want to encourage you, as someone who has not done that but ought to have, to make that time for your spouse. We’re working at it now but I sure wish I had been diligent about it years ago. My wife is worth it.
And if your marriage isn’t going so well right now then bless your marriage by getting the help you need. There is no shame in having rough times in your marriage but there is a lot of shame in not doing anything about it. Go to marriage workshops and seminars. They aren’t just for people who are struggling – they are for people who realize that a great marriage doesn’t just happen but that it takes work. It’s an investment of time and energy and desire and will, but it will pay off like no other investment in all the world.
When it comes right down to it, if you want to bless your marriage you need to guard your heart for it is the wellspring of your life. If you get the heart right, everything else will fall into place as well. So those of you who are married, will you do something this week – I was going to say do it for me but I don’t want you doing it for me – I want you doing it for you and your spouse and your family and God Himself and for your church – would you begin to guard the wellspring of your heart? Would you commit to God’s standards and begin to build into your marriage? And for those who are not yet married but one day hope to be, would you take these things to heart and commit to them beforehand so that when God does bring that special someone into your life you will have a head start?
Let’s pray …
