Sermon Tone Analysis

Do Yourself a Favor Love Your Spouse

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Exodus 20:14-14

 

How can you prove your faithfulness to God?

One way is by demonstrating faithfulness to your spouse.

In his book The Myth of the Greener Grass J. Allan Peterson tells the story of a woman who was at lunch with eleven other people.

They had been studying French together while their children were in a nursery school.

One woman asked the group, “How many of you have been faithful to your husbands throughout your marriage?”

Only one woman at the table raised her hand.

That evening, this woman told her husband the story and added that she, herself, had not raised her hand.

“But I have been faithful,” she assured him.

“Then why didn’t you raise your hand?” “I was ashamed.”

That’s what we’ve come to in the good old U.S.A., we’re ashamed of virtue and godliness.

It’s just not cool to be faithful anymore.

At least that’s what T.V. and movies teach us.

You get the good life by playing the field.

And, of course, on the T.V. and in the movies there are no consequences to pay.

Our culture as bought into the lie that sex outside of marriage is good and something to be sought.

One recent survey revealed that 60% of all marriages in our nation will experience the affect of adultery.

God’s ways are not our ways.

The Seventh Commandment tells us his attitude on promiscuity in no uncertain terms.

“Do not commit adultery.”

Exodus 20:14

Sex outside the bound of a marriage relationship between a man and a woman is not permissible in God’s sight.

It is a corruption of his intent for sex.

The word, adultery, means that an impurity has been added.

If you heard that the food you eat had been adulterated you wouldn’t eat it because it had been defiled somehow.

Sexual intimacy is to be contained within the covenant relationship between a man and a woman.

To violate this command puts you in opposition to the God who created sex in the first place.

Hebrews 13:4 warns, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”

(NIV) What does that judgment look like?

Let’s ponder just a few of consequences of adultery.

\\ \\ 1.

The Awful Outcome of Infidelity

A. Adultery undermines trust in the marriage.

One psychiatrist noted that adultery isn’t about “whom you lie with.

It’s whom you lie to.”

Marriage is a sacred union where we uncover our spouse – we learn who they really are – and they uncover us.

It’s the place where you’re supposed to be totally free to be yourself.

It is the deepest, most intimate relationship possible on this side of heaven.

Adultery violates that sacred trust.

You have to cover-up and lie to keep the illicit relationship going.

It is the ultimate relational betrayal.

Intimacy is lost and the relationship is damaged.

Healing is possible, but it takes a long time to re-establish that broken connection.

For many, the damage is irreparable.

B. Adultery opens the door to STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases).

God’s plan is that two virgins meet, get married and enjoy sex free from guilt or fear.

You hear about safe sex in the media, but it’s really only possible in a committed marital relationship between a man and a woman.

Adultery, either before or after marriage, opens the door to sexually transmitted diseases.

There are twelve million cases of sexually transmitted diseases every year.

The AIDS epidemic is reaching monstrous proportions, and efforts at making sure we all wear condoms aren’t going to safeguard anybody.

The failure rate of condoms when it comes to preventing pregnancy is somewhere between 15 and 26 percent.

And the HIV virus is 450 times smaller than sperm.

God’s call to remain faithful to our spouses protects us from the pain of such epidemics.

Recently Dr. Laura said on her radio show that 1 out of 5 people between the ages of 18 and 30 will contract a STD.

C. Adultery devastates children.

If anyone here is considering an affair or engaged in one let me encourage you to take along a picture of your children to your next rendezvous.

Prop it up at the table where you’re whispering sweet nothings in one another’s ear.

Take it to the motel room and set it up where you can view it while you get busy.

By doing this you’re getting a good look at the real victims of your little roll in the hay.

One way or another they’re going to be damaged.

The number one fear of every child is the loss of one or both parents.

If you want to give them a big dose of insecurity and anxiety go ahead and pursue that selfish affair.

Just keep telling yourself that your happiness is more important than their emotional, physical and spiritual security.

That’s the choice.

Adultery devastates kids.

This is not to even mention kids who are the product of an affair.

Typically, they grow up in single parent families, which puts them immediately at a disadvantage.

Here are some statistics to tuck away.

“Almost 75 percent of American children living in fatherless households will experience poverty before the age of eleven, compared to only 20 percent of those raised by two parents.

Children living in homes where fathers are absent are far more likely to be expelled from or drop out of school, develop emotional or behavioral problems, commit suicide, and fall victim to child abuse or neglect.

The males are also far more likely to become violent criminals.

As a matter of fact, men who grew up without dads currently represent 70 percent of the prison population serving long-term sentences.”

D. Adultery doesn’t supply the happiness it offers.

According to Dr. Lana Staneli, author of a book on marital triangles, “Of those who break up their marriage to marry someone else, eighty percent are sorry later.

Of those who do marry their lover, which is only about ten percent, about seventy percent of them get a divorce.

Of that twenty-five to thirty percent that stay married, only half of them are happy.

Having an affair is an invitation to an awful lot of pain and tragedy.”

When you boil it all down you only get one thing out of an affair, a new sex partner.

But guess who studies show have the best sex?

A new study commissioned by the Family Research Council of Washington, D.C., found that the people most likely to report a high degree of satisfaction with their current sex life are married people who strongly believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong.

The study found that 72 percent of these “married traditionalists” reported sexual satisfaction.

This is 31 percent higher than unmarried non-traditionalists and 13 percent higher than married non-traditionalists.

The study went on to show that sexually happy people also tend to go to church.

Some two-thirds of the responders who attend church weekly are very satisfied with their sex lives, compared to barely half of those who never attend church.

No wonder some of you folks are so happy on Sunday mornings.

\\ 2. How to Stay Faithful

Remember that adultery begins in the mind, not the private parts.

Our thought life determines our fidelity.

That’s why Jesus made such a big deal about the internal forces behind adultery.

Matthew 5:27-30 “You have heard that the law of Moses says, ‘Do not commit adultery.’

But I say, anyone who looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So if your eye – even if it is your good eye – causes you to lust, 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 hand – even if it is your stronger hand – causes you to sin, 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 be thrown into hell.”

(NLT)

Please note that this saying of Jesus is what’s known as hyperbole.

It’s exaggerated speech used to make a point.

He never intended us to maim ourselves.

If he did I suspect there’d be a lot of one-eyed men in the church today.