Adultery and Divorce

Do Not Commit Adultery

Matthew 5:27–28 (NASB95)

“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.

Jesus proclaims the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The culture and religious elite adhered to the letter of the law as they understood it. They understood the letter of the law to mean that while you were married you were not to have sex with another person. They felt good about themselves because they found this easy to do. They also made it easier by making divorce easy. What they would do is if they found another woman that they wanted to have sex with they would trump up a trivial reason to divorce their wife and then have sex with another woman. By doing this they were adhering to the letter of the law because technically they were not breaking the law because they were not married after the divorce.

Jesus on the other hand called them out by explaining the spirit of the law. He said that if you looked at another woman with lust you have already committed adultery in your heart. Jesus said that if you divorce your wife because you want to sleep with another woman, you are guilty of adultery.

So what does it mean to look at a woman with lust? Does it mean that noticing an attractive woman is lust ? NO! Lust is to go beyond noticing and fostering the notice with imagination. I like what John MacArthur points out when he says:

It is not lustful looking that causes the sin in the heart, but the sin in the heart that causes lustful looking. The lustful looking is but the expression of a heart that is already immoral and adulterous. The heart is the soil where the seeds of sin are imbedded and begin to grow.

John F. MacArthur Jr., Matthew, vol. 1, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), 303.

What he is saying is that we all have lust within us and when we allow it to manifest itself by going beyond the notice it is sin. This means that we can control our lustful thoughts. We can choose to feed the lust or squash it.

Adultery Today

There are couples today that do the same thing that the people of Israel were doing when Jesus taught this lesson. An observance that I have made is the number of divorces that occur because of adultery is increasing. However, another observation that I have made is that adultery is not the culprit for the divorce, it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. What I mean by this is that most marriages go through rough times for various issues. These issues that are able to be resolved are not and it leads to a deterioration of the marriage. It is when it looks like their is no hope for the marriage, adultery becomes more of a temptation. People who commit adultery, just don’t wake up one day and say I am going to be unfaithful to my wife. Adultery is a symptom of a much deeper issue.

Another form of adultery is when a couple cohabit without being married. They will live together and sleep in the same bed and perhaps even have children together without being married. They say they want to “test drive the car” before they buy it. This is a lie! They want the milk without having to pay for it. If you are living together and sleeping together without being married, you are committing adultery.

Finally, the age at which kids are becoming sexually active is getting younger and younger. Students, hear me when I say “Any form of sex outside the bounds of marriage is adultery!” Some may ask how far can I go before it is considered sex? This is the wrong question. The right question is how far do I need to stay away so I am not tempted.

So we may be asking, how do we keep ourselves from adultery? Jesus gives the answer.

How To Avoid Adultery

Matthew 5:29–30 (NASB95)

“If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

Obviously Jesus is not telling us to physically pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands. We can still lust if we are blind we can still steal if we cut off our hands. What Jesus is doing here is conveying the seriousness of the sin of adultery. It is true that one would be better to enter heaven blind than to enter hell with 20/20 vision. In heaven your sight would be restored. Jesus is just emphasizing the seriousness of adultery.

Do not put yourself in a position to be tempted.

Challenges to avoid adultery

We live in a society where sex is everywhere. It is in the advertisements we see, it is in the television programs we watch, it is in conversations we have with friends, and seems to be everywhere we look. The answer is you cannot avoid it totally, but you can not put yourself in a position to be tempted. For example, some will go to the beach so they can see others half-clothed or sometimes even less. Others will have the secret sin of watching pornography. Still others will join websites that promote sexual activity. Others may begin watching a TV series because it is known for its sex and nudity.

The availability and the secrecy of sexual immorality is very dangerous. I would like to share recent stats on pornography according to FHE Health, an organization that deals with mental health and addiction

Stats on Pornography

Porn is available on 12% of all websites.

If a person visited one porn site per day, it would take 84 years for them to view all the porn websites on the internet.

Up to 42% of women and 80% of men in the United States watched pornography within the last year.

A study shows that 58% of Americans have viewed pornographic materials at least once, and around 27% have watched it in the last month.

1 in 3 Americans seek out porn.

Roughly 11% of people in the United States watch porn daily.

84% of Americans believe watching child pornography should be illegal.

The porn industry in the United States generated $1.15 billion in 2023, which is the same as the revenue of the NCAA.

One particular porn site, reported more than 100 million visits per day in 2023.The same website reported 2.14 billion visits during a single month, which is more than the combined visits to Netflix, TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram.

This particular porn site is the fourth most-visited site among U.S. visitors, surpassed only by Google, Facebook and YouTube.

10 Practical ways to avoid adultery.

If avoiding adultery is so difficult what can I do?

Never put yourself in a position where you are alone with someone with the opposite sex when you travel.

When you travel alone, tell the hotel to cut off any availability to watch channels that are known for risque programming.

Have an accountability partner that can ask you the difficult questions. Answer honestly.

Give your spouse 100% access to your phone and computer.

Don’t subscribe to entertainment that has mature content.

Don’t tell a person of the opposite sex about your marital problems.

Don’t put yourself in a position where you will be tempted to have sex. Making out with your girlfriend or boyfriend.

Put controls on your computer that prevent pornography or sexually explicit material from showing up on your computer.

Replace your alone time with time spent with people you care about and love.

Engage in Christian service.

There are many other ways, but these are 10 that you may find helpful

Divorce

Matthew 5:31–32 (NASB95)

“It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Jesus knew that people were using divorce to marry another woman that they were attracted to. So Jesus plainly states that any divorce outside of an affair is not to be permitted. If you do divorce for any reason outside of that and marry another woman, you commit adultery and cause your wife to commit adultery. This is because in this day a woman had no means to support herself and often times would be forced to remarry to live.

Marriage is meant for one woman and one man for life. Jesus states in Mark 10:6-9

Mark 10:6–9 (NASB95)

“But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

Divorce is not to be taken lightly. It is destructive 100% of the time. This is why God says in Malachi 2:16

Malachi 2:16 NASB95

“For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the Lord of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”

One more reason for divorce

1 Corinthians 7:12–16 NASB95

But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?

The only other reason for divorce is if an unbelieving spouse abandons the marriage. This is for the sake of peace in the household.

Divorce is always destructive. Unfortunately it is too pervasive today. This has a terrible affect on the home today. It rocks the foundation of a family.

Conclusion

I know this has been a heavy message this morning. As well it should be. Adultery and divorce are at epidemic levels today and are obviously something that the bible address. It needs to be taught.

You may be here and say I hear what the Bible says and I am guilty. Bro. David you have not said anything about what I am to do if i am guilty this morning of lust of the heart or divorcing for an unbiblical reason. I have good news for you today! You can repent of this sin right now. The blood of Jesus can make you whole and forgive you of sin. Ask the Lord for forgiveness.

What if i have divorced for an unbiblical reason and am remarried? What should I do? Repent of your sin. Remain faithful to your existing spouse!

Jesus redeems us from all sin. Maybe you need salvation this morning. Jesus will forgive you if you repent of your sin, put your faith in Him, and follow HIm.