Be Faithful

Announcements

GriefShare - Grief Recovery support group meeting at ABA on Thursdays beginning August 18. See flyer in your bulletin for information.

OCC - Nicole Bazzell

August Fellowship Meal - We’re having a hot diggity dog meal for August - hot dogs with all the trimmings, fries, and baked beans and of course desert! Come join us on August 3 at 6:30, and the Wednesday night studies will happen right after that.

Reading: Deuteronomy 5:18

Deuteronomy 5:18 ESV

18 “ ‘And you shall not commit adultery.

Pray

We are taking a deep dive into the Ten Commandments, and this morning we come to commandment number 7. Like the other commandments, this one radiates the glory of God and calls us to emulate him in our character and actions. This commandment forbids us from committing adultery.

It’s been said that for every good thing God has given us, there is a “knock-off” imitation of it that hell uses to pervert the good, the true, and the beautiful. Hell has a whole stockpile full of perversions of the intimacy of marriage. But this command centers on one: adultery. God looks at this one sin with such disgust that he forbids it in his top ten list of ethical requirements. Think of that - he could have put any number of wicked deeds here. There is no commandment, for example, expressly forbidding rape; none forbids excessive cruelty to people or animals, and none forbids leaving your dirty socks on the floor balled up. But marital infidelity is so grotesque in God’s sight he must unequivocally ban it among his people. I believe the reasons God bans adultery point directly to his character. Consider first:

What Does This Commandment Reveal about God?

God Is Faithful

Everything that God commands of us serves to shape us into his image. So when God commands us to be faithful in marriage, it is because he is the faithful God. I could quote dozens of passages that show God is faithful, but let’s just look at a couple. One example comes from an instance on the mountain with Moses - Moses asked God to show him God’s glory. God hides Moses in between the rocks, covers his eyes so he is not destroyed by seeing God’s face, then passes by:

Exodus 34:6 ESV

6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

David proclaims God’s faithfulness in Psalm 36:5:

Psalm 36:5 ESV

5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

That’s not to mention Psalm 89, which gives several examples of God’s faithfulness, even when the descendants of David were faithless:

Psalm 89:30–37 ESV

30 If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, 31 if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, 32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes, 33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. 34 I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. 35 Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. 36 His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me. 37 Like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies.” Selah

God is faithful. That is vital to this commandment. If God was not faithful, how could he rightly expect us to be faithful? But he is faithful, and that alone makes him worthy of our praise. But God isn’t just content to demonstrate faithfulness to us, he also wants us to follow his ways and display his image in ourselves. So, second:

God Cares about Covenant Faithfulness

Because God is a faithful God, faithfulness to his covenants is paramount to him. He wants us to be faithful too. Proverbs 12:22 says:

Proverbs 12:22 ESV

22 Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.

God actually delights when we are faithful, because our faithfulness points to his faithfulness. That’s why lying lips are an abomination to him: he is not content saying, “Well, you know how people are - can’t trust them as far as you can throw them.” God speaks through Isaiah:

Isaiah 26:2–4 ESV

2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. 3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. 4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

God invites the faithful into his presence, and he establishes him firmly. Perfect peace in the everlasting rock: that is the inheritance for the faithful. God is so concerned with covenant faithfulness that he bases his richest blessings on our faithful obedience. It’s good to look for God’s blessings in the little things, but the things we long for most can only be found when we are faithful to do his perfect will. One more aspect of God - but this as more to do with his works:

God Ordains Marriage for His Glory

The commandment is generally a call to faithfulness, but specifically it deals with marriage. There’s a reason for that. God sees that marital fidelity is vital because God ordains marriage for his glory. Marriage brings glory to God by enabling us to fulfill the first command God gave Adam and Eve:

Genesis 1:28 ESV

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Marriage is the God-given means for fulfilling his call to “be fruitful and multiply.” In order for us to exercise God’s dominion over the earth, we have the marriage covenant. Our faithfulness in marriage provides a stable foundation for our kids to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord our Savior Jesus Christ, and for us to be the stewards of creation God wants us to be.

Not only that, but marriage also demonstrates God’s character within himself. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct from each other, but have such intimacy and unity that they are One. Husband and wife are called to live that way:

Genesis 2:24 ESV

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Marriage mirrors the nature of God, as triune. When done right, husband and wife demonstrate for the world to see the way God is - our love for one another within marriage helps people come to know God’s love. Our marriages are God’s means of revealing himself to the world and of exercising his dominion through us. Faithfulness in marriage glorifies God.

So what do we need to do?

What Does This Commandment Require of Us?

We Must Be Faithful to Our Spouse...

Since God is faithful, we must be faithful. And other than with God, that faithfulness belongs most to our husband or wife. Read through the entire book of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon, whichever your Bible happens to call it) and you’ll see this faithfulness extolled over and over again. Proverbs 5:18 counsels us:

Proverbs 5:18 ESV

18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

We are to rejoice in her, men, because of that marriage covenant we’ve made with her. And ladies, you too are to rejoice in the husband of your youth, for you are just as much a part of that covenant as the man.

One of the reasons that God chastises his people is their lack of faithfulness in marriage. In Malachi 2:10-12, the prophet quotes God’s anger at idolatrous Israel, worshiping other gods. He immediately transitions in Malachi 2:13-16:

Malachi 2:13–16 ESV

13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

To be faithless in marriage is to be faithless to the God who has brought husband and wife together! And what God has joined together, let not man put asunder. That faithfulness isn’t just in action, either. We must be faithful to our spouse...

…Including in Our Hearts

Just as anger is the heart problem that leads to murder, Jesus identifies the heart problem of lust that leads to adultery:

Matthew 5:27–28 ESV

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

This commandment is not just to keep from acting out bad thoughts. It’s a commandment not to let lust take root in the first place. Right after these verses, Jesus tells us to cut off or get rid of any body part that causes us to sin; he tells us it’s better to be maimed in heaven than whole in hell. We must to whatever it takes to be faithful within our hearts and minds and souls and bodies - to faithfully love our spouses with all our being.

But you might ask, “what about those of us who aren’t married?” Maybe you’ve never been married, or maybe your spouse died some time ago. Or maybe you’re divorced. What about you? Well, we must be faithful to our spouse...

Whether We Are Married or Not

If you’re not married yet and never have been - be faithful to that future wife. Don’t compromise marital fidelity before you’re even there yet.

If you were married and they have passed on, then still be faithful to God. You never know what he might have for you - maybe there’s another spouse to come. Perhaps not.

But what of the divorced? Jesus actually address divorce in Matthew 5:31-32:

Matthew 5:31–32 ESV

31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Jesus’ standard is high - divorce is a breaking of the marriage covenant and is detrimental to the glory of God. There are times were divorce is necessary - especially in instances of abuse and infidelity. But those exceptions prove the rule - God intends marriage to last. We must be faithful to our spouse. This leads to a second requirement of this commandment:

We Must Take the Marriage Covenant as Seriously as the Divine Covenant

It is just as serious for us to have other gods (Commandment 1) as for us to have other lovers (Commandment 7). We know that’s true because God regularly, through the prophets especially, refers to idolatry in terms of adultery. Nowhere is this more poignant than in the book of Hosea.

Give brief outline of Hosea 1-3, possibly including some verses

God takes infidelity seriously. By the way, almost every biblical-era culture did, too. Even pagan cultures saw marital infidelity as a dark stain on society. In our day, infidelity is still looked on badly, though not as much as it should be.

There’s one more requirement I want to note. Since marriage done right is designed to glorify God,

We Must Ensure Our Marriages Increase God’s Glory

Paul describes marriage in a couple of epistles. Here’s what he said to the Ephesian church:

Ephesians 5:22–33 ESV

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

We bring God glory by living out his character in union with our spouse.

There’s one more point that needs to be addressed. Maybe you have committed adultery. Maybe you’ve listened to all this and realized that you haven’t been faithful in marriage. That was the case for one woman who was caught red handed in the act and brought before Jesus. The leaders thought they would trap Jesus with this woman. John 8 tells the story:

John 8:3–11 ESV

3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Did you catch that? The one who was sinless, who had every right to condemn this guilty woman to death, instead forgave her. What an amazing truth:

God Forgives Repentant Adulterers

No matter how badly you might have screwed up in the past, no matter how loose you have been or how many times you have cheated, God will forgive you. Will you repent of your sins today? We’re going to sing an invitation song. You come, confess to God and seek his forgiveness. Let him take charge of you, while we sing.