Galen Call's Sermon Library
"The Ten Commandments: Protecting the Sanctity of Marriage" - November 1, 1998
This is the only true lifestyle. All the others are death styles. And this morning we're going to talk about a death style as we approach a delicate subject regarding adultery. I've entitled the message protecting the sanctity of marriage. Jesus called the society of His day an adulterous and sinful generation. I wonder how He would describe ours. The sexual revolution of the 1960s has brought us to the moral relativism of the 90s, when even a president's behavior is defended and those who criticize Him are subjected to scorn. Frankly we should not be surprised that this is the case. Adultery is depicted as normal sexual behavior on the big screens and it is the subject of warm accepting humor in sitcoms. The music of our pop culture has drummed the idea of the sexual revolution in the heads of millions, teaching them that sex is a game or a toy that is to be used for one's own pleasure in life without any commitments. So as long as no one is hurt by it, why not? If it is too consenting adults, what's wrong with it? Everybody is doing it. But you see morality is not determined by the polls or by public opinion. Right and wrong is not subjective, it is not relative, it is not situational. He is a standard of righteousness that has been set by the Creator Himself. He has determined what is right and wrong, and not arbitrarily, but rather on the basis of His perfect love. You see He delivered the Ten Commandments in love. In love for us, knowing full will what is best for our personal and common good. And therefore it breaks the heart of God to see mankind disobey. Because God knows how that disobedience will bring us sorrow, destruction, disease and pain and ultimately death and judgment. God gave us the commandments including this one for our own good and for our protection. This commandment protects marriage and the home. This commandment does not rob us of anything, but on the other hand it gives to us a satisfying and wholesome life. It only protects us from what will surely destroy and hurt us and others. And so God clearly says in the 14th verse of Exodus 20, "You shall not commit adultery." This command is based upon the sanctity of marriage. Marriage was established by God, of course, in the Garden of Eden. Its purpose was to complete man and to fully express the image of God in them as male and female. Listen again to the words of Genesis chapter 2. The man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. God brought the pairs of all the animals before him so that he could name them. And yet as he went through that process, he realized he recognized his aloneness. He recognized that in that sense he was deficient, that he was not complete. And so God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. Then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. He said, "Did God really do that literally or is this sort of a story in which God is communicating some truth to us?" I'm convinced that if we could have seen Adam in his physical body, we would have seen the place in his side where God took out the rib. That's how literal it was. And it says that the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. And the man said, "This is what I've been waiting for, this is paraphrased." He says, "This is now bone of my bones. This is the flesh of my flesh. She shall be called manness, that is woman, because she was taken out of man." And then Moses says, "For this cause, for what cause? For this cause of God being glorified in the completion of man and woman. For this cause, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." In this text of Scripture, we observe several things about marriage as God established it. In the first place, marriage is monogamous. God did not create two women for Adam. He didn't create two atoms for Eve. It was one man and one woman brought together for the completion of them both. Secondly we see that marriage is heterosexual, male and female. God created them to compliment one another. Third we see that marriage is a complete identification. Adam and Eve were still two persons with different personalities, and yet they cleaved together. They became one flesh. There was a union, there was identity that was shared with them in marriage. Finally, we see that marriage is permanent. That is especially underscored when Jesus comments about it in Mark chapter 10 as he does. When he explains this text that we just read and he says, "What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." And so that is God's ideal of marriage. That lays the background, the foundation for the commandment that we're studying this morning. We begin by noting how important marriage is to God, the sanctity of it, but now we need to look at the significance of this command regarding adultery. We need to understand several things about adultery, in the first place adultery is a transgression of the covenant of marriage. In marriage a man and a woman promised to keep themselves pure in their relationship, and to give one another to the other faithfully for life. The marriage vows are not in the scriptures per se. I remember what a surprise that was for me, even as a young man preparing to go into the ministry that the vows are not found in the Bible. But they certainly expressed the truths of the Bible. And you remember that part of one of the questions says this, "Do you promise to keep only unto her, only unto him, so long as you both shall live?" And the response is yes, we do. You see there is a promise. There is a promise to faithfulness in the covenant of marriage, adultery is the transgression of that covenant. It is the breaking of that promise. Secondly, we need to understand regarding adultery that it is a sin that destroys. Destiny is a sin that is destructive, in the first place it is destructive to God's order. God's design for marriage that we've just looked at, a man and woman coming together with lifelong commitment to each other. It is destructive to God's order of marriage. Secondly, it is destructive to human society. The home is the foundation of all of human society. That's why strong societies have written right into their law codes, laws against adultery. That is true in our state. I hope it will always be there because it is a legal recognition of the importance of the home and the importance of marriage. Marriage destroys human society. Our society today is coming apart, partly because of the breaking of this commandment being so widespread. But third, it is a sin that destroys one's own soul. It is self-destructive to commit adultery. Listen to the words of Proverbs. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Or can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is the one who goes into his neighbor's wife, whoever touches her, will not go unpunished. He goes on to say, "The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense. He who would destroy himself does it, wounds in disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out." And so adultery is a sin that is destructive and it destroys oneself. I also want to say this regarding adultery, that Jesus warns any of us not to feel self-righteous about it because adultery can occur in the heart as well in physical act. In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says, "You have heard it said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." And Jesus is not saying there that there is an equivalence to the thought and to the act in terms of its seriousness, in terms of the consequences. But he is saying that there is an equivalence in terms of the guilt in a person's life. Now I want to point that out because I am aware of at least one wife who divorced her husband because he acknowledged that he had had impure thoughts for another woman. And she felt she had legal justification before God because of what Matthew 5 says. That is not the case. But what Jesus is saying is that one does not have to actually consummate the physical act to be guilty before God of lust and of the sin of adultery, of the emotions and of the heart. Finally, we need to acknowledge this very sad thing regarding adultery, that adultery allows for the possibility of divorce. In fact, as I understand the scriptures, it is one of two allowances that God makes for divorce to take place. He doesn't command it, but he does say that adultery is such a serious sin, that it can be grounds for divorce between a man and a woman. It is that serious of a consequence. Now looking at God's plan for marriage and the sanctity of it, and on the other hand, how serious a sin adultery is, what a significance is in our lives, in our families and in society, and how it destroys us. Looking at those facts, we have to ask the question, why do men and women commit adultery? How does this happen? What contributes to a fall into sin? This morning I am joined in my message by a good friend of mine, a brother in Christ, Todd Mulligan, Todd, come on up. Todd is the author of a new book that is out called "The State of Affairs." By the way it's available out in the lobby today, I hope that you might pick up a copy of it. Todd is a Christian counselor in Roseville and does marriage counseling as well as other kinds of counseling. You may have heard him interviewed on WCCO and other radio and television stations in our region. Todd, you're a man who has done a lot of study along this theme, and you've encountered it in your counseling practice, and I'm wondering what is it that leads people into this? What are the common factors that you see over and over again that cause Christians to fall into adultery, because this is not a sin that's just out in the world. This is a sin, as you know, that is within the church of Jesus Christ. What are some of the things that you observe regarding the source of this? I think one of the things that's common for many of us is in terms of what can lead us into, especially that emotional form of adultery, is the attitude of our heart. I know that if I left this place today and on my way home I thought about all the things that my wife does that bothers me, she's going to have a long day and so am I. A lot of it starts there for us. I know I myself, I get into that attitude of what isn't happening for me today, what needs isn't she meeting for me, versus how can I bring out her best or how can I serve her today in Christ. I think a guard on our heart from that attitude is really important because they see a lot of us that that's where Satan starts to get a foothold in our lives. A second thing is understanding our personality more. I know a lot of the people that I see will worship and feel great about the relationship with the Lord and go home and get into those same patterns and marriage that have always been there that are frustrating for them and I think some of it has to do with just not understanding our own personality very well and how it impacts the people we love. In my book I talk about controllers and pleasers a little bit and I think in marriage all of us fall a little bit into one or the other. Controllers like myself are a little bit more expressive, they say what's on their mind at the time, they're spontaneous, they know what they want when they want it and they usually know how to get it and they're fairly directive in marriage, you know they kind of direct things. Whereas pleasers are a little accommodating, they're nurturing, they're a good friend, they're loving but sometimes they lack direction or end up being a little bit more easily controlled. So I think the take home message in that area for me anyway is as a controller I need to think before I speak and the pleaser needs to talk, needs to say what's on their mind, needs to have their own voice which leads into the third area that I think is really important for all of us to guard against which can lead us into eventual emotional or physical adultery and that is our inability to handle our conflicts well and that dangerous emotion of anger. As a controller in the scriptures, you know it says in Ephesians in your anger do not sin, so my interpretation of that is we're all going to get angry sometimes but the key is for us not to sin in our anger and as a controller I think I sinned in my anger by what I say when I'm upset, how I hurt my wife, my kids. Or as a pleaser I think they have to guard against what goes in and the resentment that can build and build and build, they tell the walls built up so high that they have lost track of their walk with the Lord, they've lost track of their love for their spouse. So those are the three areas I've seen that have been most common, very briefly you know a typical scenario that I talk about in my book, chapter six talks about an emotional affair, emotional adultery. Karen and John came in and they were eight years into marriage and Karen was getting very frustrated with what wasn't happening for her in marriage and she started to spend quite a bit of time with a couple next door that her husband got involved with too and she thought the husband next door was a little bit more confident, a little bit more secure in himself, carried himself better and she started to look at what wasn't happening for her. Now praise God she came in because she saw the warning flags going up and she wanted to get help but a lot of times those folks that see that they don't want to get help satan said in a foothold so much that they didn't want to get help at that point. So those are three areas that I've seen that I think we have to guard against and that typically lead people into emotional or physical adultery. There's no plan to commit adultery normally, it sort of grows, it happens, there's this attraction and then either emotionally or sexually their caught in a trap is it possible to get out of the trap, how do they recover from that? I think the most important thing that can happen and it's wonderful as Christians that we know can happen is when that person who's involved in adultery physically or emotionally develops a contrite and remorseful heart before God, goes right to God as their loving father and says I have sinned. Philip and Karen came into my office and Philip was a man caught in his third affair, a little more typical kind of personality style as you see in our president and he came in because he was caught but he wasn't sorry really, thankfully he used to know Jesus and he talked to a good friend of his who loves Christ who said to him brother I love you but you are in sin and we've got to get you out of this. And so his ability to choose the right friend and that friend's ability to be a Nathan to David, to be a person that didn't say well that's okay, we all struggle and maybe God's calling you out of marriage, I mean I don't agree with it but I mean there's so many people that do that, Galen and so that Philip's ability to first get his heart right before God and then rely on a friend or two that loves Christ to get him out of it was the key for him, then his wife Karen could forgive because she really could tell that he was sorry, that there was true remorse, it's difficult to rebuild trust if the remorse of the adulterer isn't there. And then I think the things that help us from that point are if we can get to that place of remorse and we can get to that place of forgiveness it gets to the place where I was talking about earlier is, I mean if the risk of sounding simplistic, Galen one of the reasons in my opinion why the sins of the Father carry down to the generation, the next generation, the next generation is that I know myself I don't save my best for home, I save my best for God's house which is great, our first fruits go to the Lord, but we need to leave and save our best for home, usually we save our best for work for our friends, for other people we don't save our best in the Lord for home and it's not about performance and guilt but it's about that contrite heart before God and then to save our best for home. So you're saying children pick up those patterns, those attitudes? They do, they see that, a lot of times people will save me, well I've got to see, I've got to spend about 30 hours alone with each of my kids this week, I don't know how I'm going to do that and they've got to be involved in 10 activities each and we've got to do all these things for our kids and we have to, we have to love our children but the best gift I can give my three daughters is for them to see an intimate loving Christ-centered relationship between my wife and I, that's the best legacy I can give them. Good, thanks Todd, I'd like to continue the conversation but I want to finish my sermon. It's very interesting to talk to you about this and I commend you on your book which is written by the way for not just for the Christian audience and so Todd is very judicious in the way that he approaches the subject and if you have a non-Christian friend who is involved in an affair or is moving in that direction this will be a fine book to give to them and it may help them to come to some understanding not only of their own lives but of their need for the Lord. I've heard a lot of excuses frankly in my quarter of a century in ministry about justifying this breaking of this commandment, why it's okay for me to do this. I've heard people say well I married the wrong person and therefore it's okay if I do this. I've heard people say well I deserve a little happiness in my life and so often they have friends who are well meaning but wrong headed who will agree with them. Yeah you do deserve some happiness in your life. The problem is what they're doing is not going to lead them to happiness. A couple of times I've even heard the statement well I'm discipling this person. I'm really helping her come closer to God so complete was the deception in the mind. What is really needed of course is to put away excuses and self-justifications to deeply repent of the affair whether it's emotional or it's gone to the sexual stage and then to seek help pastoral help counseling help and then to recommit oneself to one spouse and to the promises that were made before God. The very best defense against sexual sin begins with what you said I believe Todd and that is by guarding our hearts. The writer of Proverbs says this let me read to you the verse. It says in Proverbs 4 verse 23 watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life. Watch over your heart with all diligence that has to do with our thought life what we allow ourselves to think about the fact is that any of us can be tempted to lust as part of the flesh that we live in and as part of our fallen world but it's when you and I begin to allow those thoughts a place in our hearts and we treasure them up and we store them and we come back to them and we play with them that we begin to go down this road of the breaking of this commandment and so we need to guard our hearts up front that our minds remain pure to the Lord. Today as we come to the Lord's table it's fitting for us to examine our hearts in one other respect and that is with relation to the sin of spiritual adultery we need to be aware of the sin of spiritual adultery listen to the words of James who says you adulterous people do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God or do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose that he jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us or that may be understood as the spirit he made to dwell in us jealously desires us and so he says draw near to God and he will draw near to you clench your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded and it seems to me that right there is what adultery is all about it's about double-mindedness whether it be in the human relationship realm or if it be in the spiritual realm it's double-mindedness and today as we come to the Lord's table not only do we need to think of this commandment in terms of physical adultery marital adultery but we need to think of it in terms of spiritual adultery and if there are those of us who have declared ourselves to be friends with the world we need to recognize that that is adultery in the sight of God and he says that our need is to confess and to cleanse our hands and to draw near to God and so let us do that as we come to this table this morning and allow his spirit to search us and to wash us from our adultery that we might be a pure and chaste bride for the Lord let's pray together father in coming to this table of the Lord where we remember the sacrifice of Jesus I pray that you will shine the spotlight of the spirit upon our hearts and wherein we have become double-minded and we claim to love the Lord and yet love this present passing world bring us to repentance bring us to brokenness bring us to confession of our adultery that we may be pure in our communion in our fellowship with you and be of single heart in mind in loving Jesus we partake of this bread asking you to work in our hearts to this end amen this is my body sacrificed for you eat it and remembrance of me Lord Jesus as we partake of the cup we do it with gratitude for the blood that cleanses us from all sin and wherein there may be agitation and conviction of your spirit this morning within our hearts may we come and find that cleansing that you have made available through your sacrifice amen. I hear the Savior say I strengthen this room. I pray that you will shine the light of my God. I pray that you will shine the light of my God. Jesus we are all in love. Sin and laughter brings us to you. I wish to fight us. For now we are by the way of God. I wish to fight us. I wish to fight us. I wish to fight us. I wish my God. In the blood of God of God. Jesus we are all in love. Sin and laughter brings us to you. I wish to fight as you. My Jesus I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. (piano music) - Our Lord said this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Drink it as often as you do in remembrance of me. We have celebrated our Lord's death for us, but let us rejoice also in His resurrection that He lives for us and He lives in us. This morning's message is a delicate one, but it may be that God has used this as a shot across the bow for someone who is here. And the God wants you to turn. I hope that you will do that, that you will avoid what could be ahead if you persist in the direction. I have a strong impression that this is the case this morning. And so I want to impress it upon you once again. If this is a shot across your bow from God, you had better turn and better turn now, and avoid the destruction of the disaster that can be ahead in sin. And you can begin by coming after the service, if you wish, or contacting us during the week and saying, "Pastor, I need to talk with someone on the staff." We'll be glad to do that and arrange it to help you. Let's pray together. Oh, Spirit of God, I pray that you will not allow the conviction of this moment to escape any of us who need to hear your voice, who need to turn from sin, who have begun going down a road that is filled with danger and destruction and death. Oh, God, I pray that you will recover that you will restore, that you will bring back to yourself, back to single hearted devotion to yourself and to the spouses, those who have begun playing with sin. And I pray that as a result of that, you will work your salvation in ways that we could not imagine this morning. Perhaps in saving souls, but certainly in saving families and saving marriages and saving homes and saving your glory. And so we commit to you this message and its impact upon our lives and our own individual response to it in Christ's name, amen. In Christ's name, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]