4.8.35 7.24.2022 Honoring Marriage Exodus 20.14
10 Words, 2 Tablets, 1 God, 1 People: the Gospel in the 10 Commandments • Sermon • Submitted
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Entice: When you take each commandment and examine it on its own there is peril and promise. The promise is understanding how our just God thinks about us. The peril is trying to figure out how to discuss something like adultery, in public, on Sunday morning.
My "favorite" line in the marriage ceremony is when I have each partner declare
"forsaking all others..."
"forsaking all others..."
Parents. Children. Best friends. Bosses, colleagues, and confederates. Maybe we ought to repeat those words before God every day of our lives. If more people did maybe we would not need such stark commandments.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
Engage: People like sex, and that is OK. It is God's idea. We also eat, but not all the time and not indiscriminately. We also defecate, bathe, brush our teeth, and dozens of other bodily functions, habits, tasks, or quirks that require us to behave in context and with propriety. For some reason sex seems to force some individuals to abandon their inhibitions.
Yes, society sometimes excuses it. Then society itself gets hammered by consequences and pays the price.
Expand: God is no wet blanket. He gave us the equipment. He established parameters. He made sex both pleasurable and productive. He defined the consequences. He basically even told us why. Personally I cannot understand why any man, in his right mind would want to be beholden to more than one woman...yet we persist in our hard-headed self-indulgence. This command is definite and unambiguous.
Excite: Let me remind you that in addition to the prohibition we are discussing today, Paul reminded us of a proactive, preventative measure we can take every day...
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Explore:
Marriage is the foundation to all relationships--if you'd ruin it you'll likely ruin the rest.
Marriage is the foundation to all relationships--if you'd ruin it you'll likely ruin the rest.
Explain: The command is unambiguous and the consequences are clear.
Body of Sermon: Adultery is
1. Risky Spiritually.
1. Risky Spiritually.
1.1 External Apostasy.
7 “How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores.
13 They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery.
1.2 Internal Corruption.
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.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
1.3 Eternal Responsibility.
7 And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.”
8 But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.
9 He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”
Next, Adultery is
2. Reckless Physically.
2. Reckless Physically.
26 for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life.
27 Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?
28 Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
29 So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.
30 People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry,
31 but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold; he will give all the goods of his house.
32 He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
finally, adultery is
3. Ruinous Personally.
3. Ruinous Personally.
3.1 Expensive.
3.2 Generates Indifference.
3.3 Normalizes Deception.
Shut Down:
If you cannot keep a covenant with your spouse, if you cheat on her you are likely to cheat on God, your boss, your friends and everybody else. Jesus had it right. It all begins with a wandering mind distracted by the distortions of our fallen culture. The entire person colludes in the crime. Spiritually, physically, personally. And the entire person shares the consequences.
The same is true in a faithful relationship. The entire person spiritually, physically, and personally is blessed, as parters--husband and wife contribute to a culture of trust.
The NT teaches us that the Church is the bride of Christ. He has done everything possible so save, sanctify, and love us. Let us cling to Him, love Him and serve Him with our whole heart. That faithfulness to Him will inform and strengthen our faithfulness to our spouse and increase our mutual Joy.