Ten Words to Live By: Do not commit adultery
Exodus 20: 14, Matthew 5:27-30
Patter Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
9-14-2025
Your Cheatin’ Heart
What do you get when you play country music backwards? You get your house back, your dog back, your truck back, and your wife back.
All music addresses cheating but country music is the genre that most often references it in the songs.
From Hank Williams, Sr’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” to “Jolene” by Dolly Parton, to “White Liar” by Miranda Lambert, to Randy Travis’s “On the Other Hand,” country music gets to the heart of the matter when it comes to adultery.
But these songs, and others, don’t really capture the utter betrayal, the sickening sadness and anger, the lostness one feels when they find out their spouse has been unfaithful.
Over my time in ministry, I have sat with men and women weeping because their spouses have made a willful choice to commit adultery. It is heartbreaking.
God’s desires our best. God designed us in a way that if we do things His way, we thrive. And when we choose to ignore His commandments, we only bring guilt, shame, and pain into our lives.
Review
We continue our series called, “Ten Words to Live By.” We know them as the “The Ten Commandments” although that name is never used in the Bible.
In Hebrew, this top ten list is known as the “Ten Words,” or Decalogue, and we find them in Exodus 20.
Pastor John Miller reminds us of three reasons the ten words were given:
* God is holy
* Man is sinful and we need a Savior
* Shows us how to live
They are less rules about what to do and tell us more about who God is to us:
1. One God - God is God.
2. No idols - God is Creator.
3. Revere His Name - God is holy
4. Remember to Rest - God is Rest
5. Honor Parents - God is Father
6. No murder - God is Life
7. No adultery - God is Faithful
8. No stealing - God is a Provider
9. No lying - God is Truth
10. No coveting - God is Sufficient
The ten words are divided into two groups. The first four cover our relationship with God. The last six detail our relationship with others.
Jesus was asked by a teacher of the Law what the greatest commandment was and He responded:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
The four commandments are how we love God with all that we are.
The second six commandments are how we love our neighbor.
Let me lay out where we are going this morning. I want to give you a Biblical theology of marriage, a Biblical theology of sex, what this commandment means and prohibits, and how Jesus took it to a whole different level.
Please turn with me first to Genesis 2.
Prayer
Marriage
Marriage is God’s idea and it is a good gift. We see it instituted in chapter two of Genesis:
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” (Genesis 2:18-25)
Adam was not meant to be alone. As he named the animals, he saw that each one had its mate but he didn’t have anyone that complimented him.
So God formed Eve out of Adam. One woman uniquely designed and fitted for Adam.
So marriage, according to the Bible, and 3,000 years of recorded history, is one man plus one woman for life. You cannot redefine marriage because God is the one who created it. And He created it in such a way that we thrive in love and partnership with our spouse.
Another reason that God created marriage is that the man and woman can produce children.
The prophet Malachi, who we will come back to in a minute, wrote that God’s intention for marriage to to produce Godly families:
“Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring.” (Malachi 2:15).
Another, more mysterious reason that God created marriage is a an illustration of Jesus’s love for the church:
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” (Ephesians 5:22-33)
As the husband leads gently and loves sacrificially, the woman submits and respects the husband. And this provides a word picture of Christ’s love for His Bride, the church, to a lost and dying world.
Marriage is a covenant. When I do a wedding, I often read the vows and remind people that the vows are actually to God and then each participant promises the other to keep those vows.
In fact, let me read those vows and if you are married, would you hold hands:
“to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”
This is one of the reasons that adultery is so painful because promises were made, in front of witnesses, to have and to hold, till death you part.
Sex is Sacred
God created sex. It was His idea and it is a good gift.
The Bible is not shy about sex. An entire book, Song of Solomon, celebrates the sexual relationship between a man and his wife.
But it is clear about the proposes and context of sex.
Sex is the super glue that joins your souls together. God’s plan is for us to wait until marriage and then we engage in this act of becoming one flesh that literally, biologically and chemically, super glues our hearts together.
It is obviously for procreation. That’s how the human race moves forward. But it is so much more than that.
Sex is communication at the deepest level. It is spiritual, physical and emotional intimacy through which we communicate love, pleasure, and joy.
The Bible makes it clear that the only context for any sexual activity is within the sacred covenant of marriage between one man and one woman.
Fornication, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, pedophilia, rape, incest, and pornography (watching or making) are all out of the bounds of Christian conduct.
Fire in its proper context, a fireplace, warms the whole room. Take it out of the fireplace and put it in a forest, and it can burn the whole forest down.
If we can restate the seventh commandment positively - husbands and wives are to nurture their love for one another, emotionally, spiritually and sexually.
It is to celebrated and engaged in often and to not to be used as a weapon:
“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (I Corinthians 7:3-5)
It is also to be a private activity, not to be shared with others (OnlyFans):
“Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.” (Proverbs 5:15-17)
The sexual relationship deepens over time, the lovey-dovey feelings may fade, but they are replaced with a deep, intimate knowledge of each other’s hearts and souls. To be known and loved and cherished.
That is why adultery is so devastating. It is a willful breaking, shattering of that intimacy. Once that happens, it is very difficult, but not impossible to put all the pieces back together.
Adultery
The seventh commandment is only five words - You shall not commit adultery.
In 1631, the King James Version was reprinted by a London publisher. This expertly crafted edition was printed on fine paper stock imported from Sweden with high contrast ink from India and bound with exceptional Italian leather.
However, this beautiful Bible had an egregious printing error. It was discovered the simple word “not” was omitted in Exodus 20:14, making it read, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The publishers were fined the equivalent of a lifetime’s wages and stripped of their printing license. Nearly the entire print run was seized and destroyed. This became known as the “Wicked Bible” and only 14 copies are known to exist today.
Notice it doesn’t say “affair.” I never use that word because it makes light of the pain that it brings.
The word adulterate means to corrupt, to debase, to make impure. Adultery corrupts the purity of the marriage covenant.
What does this mean?
Physical: this means having sexual contact with anyone who is not your spouse.
God takes this extremely seriously. In fact, in the Old Testament, the consequences of adultery is death:
“‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10)
The Bible is clear that there are consequences to the willful choice to shatter the covenant of marriage:
“Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.” (Proverbs 6:26-29)
The Bible is clear - someone who commits adultery is a fool:
“He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.” (Proverbs 6:323)
It’s so serious that Jesus said it is a reason for a Biblical divorce (Matthew 5:32)
Emotional: We need to be careful emotionally with people that are not our spouses.
If you find yourself thinking about someone who isn’t your spouse throughout the day, you could be in danger.
If you start thinking that this other person understands you more than your spouse, you could be in danger.
If you start complaining about your spouse to this person, you could be danger.
If you start planning to meet them without your spouse’s knowledge, you could be in danger.
Adultery doesn’t just happen, it’s a slow fade. There is a step by step process that happens. Emotional adultery many times leads to physical adultery.
But I say to You
Matthew records Jesus sitting on the side of this hill [slide] and preaching the most famous sermon of all time. It was Augustine who gave it the name that we call it today, “The Sermon on the Mount.” and it starts with the Beatitudes (which we studied verse by verse a couple of years ago in a series called The Jesus Manifesto).
In this section of Jesus’ first extended discourse, we will find what Tim Keller calls, an “upside down Kingdom.” Jesus gives us a picture of Kingdom life. He doesn’t give us a to-do list. It’s much deeper than that. These are the characteristics that a Christian exhibits in a lost and dying world.
When we look at the Ten Words, I can freely admit that I’ve broken them all except this one. I bet you are the same way.
Yes, I’ve trusted in things other than God. Yes, I’ve used his name flippantly. Yes, there have been times when I haven’t rested in the finished work of Christ. I certainly didn’t honor my parents the way the commandment called me to.
But it’s easy to think this one doesn’t apply to us. I’ve never cheated on my spouse. Skip to the next commandment.
The Pharisees believed that. They were the good guys. But their obedience was only skin deep. It was all outward, many times for show.
Jesus applied the inside/outside principle to the commandments. He took it down a level deeper from behavior to belief, from action to attitude.
“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)
In September 1976, while campaigning for the presidency, Jimmy Carter gave a lengthy interview to Playboy magazine that became a major source of controversy due to his candid remarks on religion and personal sexuality.
During a closing monologue, Carter admitted to journalist Robert Scheer that he had "looked on a lot of women with lust" and had "committed adultery in his heart many times," referencing this passage from the Sermon on the Mount.
The words “look lustfully” means to desire, to covet, to long for, to linger.
Jesus is not talking about a glance. Men, especially, are designed to appreciate the female form. He is talking about the second glance and the third where your eyes linger.
We are called to protect what we see:
If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” (I John 2:15-17)
This is not limited to men but includes women as well.
In the student ministry, all the boys were required to memorize Job 31:1:
“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.” (Job 31:1)
Near the end of my time working with students, we expanded this verse memorization to the girl small groups as well.
We taught them the beauty of tree frogs. Tree frogs live, well, high up in the trees.
I was with a group of high school boys walking down to a lake at a music festival. A group of high school girls were walking back from the beach, all in bikinis.
One of our senior leaders announced a very usual tree frog that we all needed to admire as these scantily-clad girls walked by. When they had passed, he encouraged us not to look back to keep our eye on that beautiful frog!
Oswald Chambers rightly warned us that "We cannot think anything without the thought having its consequence.
Lust lies at the root of adultery. In fact, adultery and the tenth commandment go hand in hand. A lingering look leads to coveting leads to objectify the person for our own personal pleasure.
Jesus goes so far as to use hyperbole and say if if our eyes or hands causes us to sin, we should go to extreme measures to protect ourselves from temptation.
Of course, a blind, handless man or woman can still lust because it is a matter of the mind and the heart.
King David was on his roof when he saw a beautiful young woman bathing. She thought no-one could see her because the only building higher than her roof was the palace and David should have been with his army.
David was presented with a temptation and he utterly failed. Instead of finding a tree frog to gaze at, he had her brought to palace, committed adultery with her, and when he found out she was pregnant, had her husband killed. In the end, the baby died, his children rebelled and his kingdom was brought down. (See 2 Samuel 11)
Joseph was said to be well built and Brad Pitt handsome. He had been sold into slavery by his brothers and ended up in the house of a man named Potiphar, where he prospered and ran all his business.
Potiphar had a wife that wanted Joseph in the worst way. Day after day, she begged him, Come to bed with me,” and day after day he refused.
"But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.” (Gen 39:8-12)
Samson, David., Solomon all ran toward adultery. There are times, like Joseph, we have to run away.
I was finishing up a training to a room full of nurses, when Mike, my marketing representative, grabbed me by the arm and nearly drug me out of the room. He literally put me in the car and drove away. When I asked him what in the world was going on, he told me this story.
One of the young nurses had started asking Mike some personal questions about me. She asked him if I was married, and when he said yes, she asked, “Happily?” He said that every hair on his neck stood straight up!
At that, Mike grabbed me and drove me away from her. You need other people that can hold you accountable.
“Flee from sexual immorality. (Pornai) 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.” (I Corinthians 6:18-20)
Let me return to the prophet Malachi’s words that reminds us that we need to be on guard:
“Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.” (Mal 2:15)
In my 25 years of ministry, about 90% of the really difficult sin issues that I’ve had to deal with have had to do with sex and marriage.
Kevin DeYoung writes:
“No relationship can be as intimate, sweet, life giving, and joy filled as the marital relationship, and no experience can be as intimate and powerful within marriage than sex. So, of course, the devil is going to go after sex and marriage. We should expect confusion, misunderstanding, perversion, and pain - not because sex and marriage are bad or not worth the trouble, but precisely because they are such good gifts. God’s best gifts are the ones most apt to be twisted and perverted by the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
Spiritual adultery
You may be sitting there thinking, “I’ve never committed adultery on my spouse, I don’t look at pornography, I keep my eyes in check. I’m good. This still doesn’t apply to me.”
God makes it clear that we have all committed spiritual adultery:
Jeremiah quotes God as saying to the Israelites:
“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes. They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for another man’s wife. Should I not punish them for this? declares the Lord. “Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?” (Jeremiah 5:7-9)
God makes clear that there are spiritual consequences to adultery:
“Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.” (Malachi 2:13-14)
James calls them “adulterous people.” Throughout the Old Testament, God laments the Israelites have committed spiritual adultery on Him.
But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you, Israel, have been unfaithful to me,” declares the Lord. (Jer 3:20)
In fact, there is an entire book in the Bible dedicated to showing us our spiritual adultery, Hosea.
Hosea is a prophet who is told by God to marry a prostitute named Gomer. She is unfaithful time and time again, to the point she is sold into the slave market.
Hosea, this Godly man, goes to the slave market to try to bid on his own wife to redeem her.
Sound familiar, God sent Jesus to redeem us from our spiritual adultery and slavery to sin. He bought us out of the slave market not with money but with the blood of His Son shed on the cross.
Applications
Let me first address
* those who are currently being tempted to shatter your covenant.
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (I Corinthians 10:13)
You can, with the Holy Spirit’s power, say no.
Paul wrote to Titus:
“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:11-14)
In the movie “Fireproof” Kirk Cameron is “married” to Catherine, played by Erin Bethea. At the end of the movie, the script calls for Kirk to kiss his onscreen wife and he refuses, rightly stating that he would not break his wedding vows.
The producers employed a little movie magic to make the scene happen.
Maybe you have already committed adultery on your spouse and have read this verse:
“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (I Corinthians 6:9-10)
Does this mean that if you have committed adultery in the past, you are going to hell?
No! It does not! That word is in a verb tense which means a constant, unrepentant, habit of committing adultery on their spouse.
The reason that person is not going to heaven is, that by their willful, unrepentant actions, they prove they are not born again.
Listen to the next verse and hear the hope and healing offered by the Gospel:
“And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (I Corinthians 6:11)
There is forgiveness in Jesus Christ. He will take your sin and through it as far as the east is from the west and make you a brand new creation (I Cor 5:17)
Christianity is the only religious system that offers this:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
But, and this is important, that doesn’t mean the spouse has to take you back. Jesus made it clear that adultery breaks the covenant and are a grounds for a Biblical divorce.
I talked to a very successful man who had committed adultery on his wife multiple times, while she was battling cancer. After he got caught, he “found Jesus” and started quoting Bible verses to her to try and guilt her into staying with him. This isn’t Jesus. That’s called narcissism.
I had the privilege of performing her second marriage and celebrating the fact that she is cancer free!
and to the broken hearted. Maxine and I have two very good friends whose husbands cheated on them publicly in a small town. It was terrible. God is close to the broken hearted and those who are crushed in spirit. He is faithful, even when your spouse isn’t.
Just to tell you the power of God, we know three couples who have experienced adultery and not only survived it but are now thriving and helping others. It took the love and care of a small group of Christians around them, Christian counseling, and a recommitment to each other and to Jesus.
Water the grass
A long time ago, a mentor of mine told me, The grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence. “The grass is greener where you water it.”
Here’s some things I’ve learned along the way in 33 years:
Don’t give up.
I love what Mary told me about their 60th anniversary. I asked her what their secret was and she profoundly replied, “Neither of us gave up at the same time.”
Maxine and I made a commitment to never use the divorce word and in 33 years we haven’t. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had real struggles. There are three times that we look back on that could have sunk our marriage.
It’s like a copier machine in church. It breaks down all the time. But you can’t just throw it to the curb. You’ve got to fix it.
But we were committed to making it work so we had to figure it out. Christian counseling has been vital to our thriving in our marriage over the years. And I’m glad we did.
2. Don’t play with fire
Do you love your marriage enough to protect it? One of the most helpful books I’ve read in this regard is called, “Hedges” by Jerry Jenkins. He states that the greatest gift you can give to your spouse is to set up some boundaries with members of the opposite sex which include, but are not limited to:
- Avoid flirting.
Don’t be alone with the doors closed when you’re with a member of the opposite sex.
Follow the Billy Graham rule
Be careful about how you touch a member of the opposite sex.
3. Recognize your weaknesses.
Many fall into sexual sin because of overconfidence. Listen to the warning found in 1 Corinthians 10:12: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
If you think that you are not capable of committing adultery, you are already in dangerous territory.
Imagine Satan has a deck of cards and each card is a different area of temptation. He patiently throws the cards at you until one of them sticks.
When I first became a Christian, he could have thrown the card of cocaine at me all day but it wouldn’t have stuck. But when he threw the “blonde haired, blued eyed, sorority girl" I knew I was in over my head.
4. Protect your heart.
Solomon warned his sons, and us,
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23)
Many people have asked me, what is God’s will for my life? Sometimes the Bible comes right out and tells us:
“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.” (I Thessalonians 4:3-8)
5. Invest in your marriage.
"May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer - may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?” (Proverbs 5:18-20)
When I taught this verse to middle schoolers, there was always giggling about the word “breasts.” I would stop them and tell them that the most important word in that sentence is “intoxicated.” It’s the idea of of being drunk with love for someone. Does your spouse still intoxicate you?
A strong marriage doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of work, a lot of grace and forgiveness, and a lot of laughter and tears.
Attend a marriage retreat. Learn to fight fair. Talk kindly to each other. Forgive and forget. Don’t bring up the past. Live the great adventure of faith until one of you lays the other into the arms of Jesus.
Ending Video : Slow Fade by Casting Crowns (YT)
Ending Song: I Set my Hope on Jesus.
