Sermons from Lone
Rock Bible Church
Though our society does not treat the matter seriously, adultery is a big deal to God, and should be to His people also. 1. Jesus on marriage and adultery (Mark 10:1-2) There is nothing at all humorous when marriage dissolves. Nobody is laughing. Perhaps a lawyer or two, certainly the devil. When it falls apart, suddenly the laughter turns to tears. Interestingly, you know how God has worded the Ten Commandments, how they are all worded from a negative -- Thou shalt not -- in preventative language because the human heart, as the hymn goes, is prone to wander. The Commandment is listed in several places in Scripture. Exodus 20:14, very simply says “You shall not commit adultery.” A week ago we approached this subject from several different angles, hoping to provide biblical information to God’s people so that we might understand what really is going on the case of adultery. We talked a week ago from the 10th chapter of Mark’s gospel. The Pharisees came to Jesus asking if is ok for a husband to divorce his wife. Jesus asked them what did Moses tell you and they immediately thought “Deuteronomy Moses.” Jesus said no, “Genesis Moses.” In the beginning God designed it this way. He created the man, from the man he formed the woman. He brought the two together -- they were the only two that matched -- and said this is why a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh, just as God is one. The image of God is reflected. God and Israel and adultery Let’s remember that Jesus’ views on marriage and adultery pointed to God’s design, based on God’s character, not on allowances based on human hearts. That’s where Jesus took it. We want to move this morning to talk about God’s character and His people and the whole notion of adultery. God, Israel and adultery. It is a key analogy of God’s relationship to His people. The Bible does this. We talk about the church being the bride of Christ and being the body of Christ. This is descriptive language to help us understand a relationship that is eternal and that is binding. One way that is handled in Scripture is by likening God’s people as though they were His wife. I want to point out a key element of the character of God because the Ten Commandments are more than what God wants, more than good ideas for people. They are all that, but more than that, the Commandments are an expression of who God is. When He says you shall not commit adultery it is not just because God has a good idea or God has a will, it is because God is a God whose character is fundamentally opposed to the violation of a promise or a contract. It has to do with His character and beyond that, certainly, to His will. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 7, beginning in verse 6. I want us to see that the God of Israel, Yahweh of the Bible, is a God above all else, of loyal love, contract love, covenant love, promise love.
The character of God surfaces in these verses. It could not be more clear. He is a God of loyal love, not mere mushy sentiment. That’s fun sometimes. But a He is God of contract love. It is a big point because this determines His perspective on an issue like marriage and the dissolution of marriage from adultery. It all comes together in the character of God, and we will see that, I trust. First of all, let’s remember that God and Israel were in a covenant relationship. They were contracted to one another. (Exodus 24). They have come out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, met on Mount Sinai. The terms have been explained between Yahweh, the only true God, and this people, Israel. They make a covenant together.
Moses wrote it down. This is legal. This is binding. This is designed to be permanent.
We cannot miss that point. They have now been joined in covenant relationship with one another.
What God has joined together, then, let no man put asunder. We have a deal. God did with His people. After this point, it was a simple matter for the people, the Israelites to teach each generation, one after the other, while basking in the blessing of God. “Why is life wonderful kids? Because we have a wonderful God!” That’s all they had to do -- remain loyal to Him and teach the next generation. God said I’ll take it from there. God was in every way, wonderful. Beginning with Abraham, an old man with an old wife. They are sterile, no children. He took them miraculously from this union of two dead people in a reproductive sense and created a miracle nation, preserved it miraculously, grew it in Egypt, delivered it by a strong hand and outstretched arm. He was wonderful in every way. Israel was simply a blessed beneficiary of the goodness of God. He handled it all.
Maintaining that relationship God granted them every opportunity. Think of it, His presence. “You want to meet with Me,” God said, “I’ll be in the tent.” He was there with them. He manifested a physical presence for them. He gave them protection. He offered them peace and prosperity and ongoing forgiveness. He gave them a sacrificial system for those times when they would sin so that they could maintain a right relationship with Him. He said if you will remain true to Me, I’ll see to it that your land is blessed and that your enemies are kept at a distance and that your boundaries are expanded and that you have the fat of the land. He told them that all they had to do was be true to Him. All they had to do was worship Him. But Israel apostatized early and often, beginning in the wilderness, beginning with the golden calf, Korah’s rebellion, the bronze serpent, all the rebellion recorded in the book of Judges, the desire for their own king in the book of I Samuel, the division of the nation and the apostate kings, and on and on it went. Israel apostatized, Israel turned away, Israel broke the contract, Israel committed adultery. Jeremiah 3 helps us understand God’s view of adultery. What He endured from His people. How it went absolutely counter to His heart. His heart of loyal love, of covenant love, and the people were not going to have it.
The divided kingdom, Israel to the north and Judah to the south. Israel went down the drain first and Judah stood by and watched, then committed the same atrocities. That’s what he is saying.
Idols, substitutes for God. Cheap, manmade alternatives. They opted in that direction.
The indictment is pretty thorough and pretty clear. First Israel, then Judah forsook the covenant. They are accused by God of committing adultery. Notice the key words that surface through that passage that describe adultery: faithless, harlotry, treacherous, pollution, deception. Nothing good. In other words, adultery. Whether it was Israel or a human being, in covenant relationship today, adultery involves treachery, betrayal, violation of trust, dishonorable exchange of loyalty. Nothing good can be said about it. At the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, an old institution, predating the Revolutionary War, the original chapel is on the grounds. On the inside wall of the chapel, around the circumference of the building there are plaques nailed there that record the name of every commandant ever to preside over that fortress. The fortress at West Point overlooks the Hudson River and strategically defends the interior of New York against anyone invading from the sea. Of the dozens of commandants who have held that post, many of whose names you would recognized, who went on to become famous people, there is one spot on the wall that is empty. It is the spot where the name Benedict Arnold would have gone. Benedict Arnold will not even be mentioned there because as commandant of West Point during the Revolutionary War he switched loyalties. He went back on his oath and sought to turn over secrets to the British that would allow them access to the fortress and hence access to the interior of New York and theoretically then could have won the war. Benedict Arnold is a traitor, a turncoat, one who is faithless, one who is disloyal, one who is treacherous. Adultery is likened that way as well in Scripture. God provides for a us a poignant and powerful object lesson in the Scriptures about adultery. He does this several times in the Old Testament with His prophets. Perhaps the prophet who felt the pain most acutely was Hosea. It’s hard to talk about adultery without talking about Hosea. Hosea was God’s special object lesson on this topic. His story illustrates how bad adultery is and how it feels to God because Hosea married a woman who turned to adultery and harlotry.
That is, a wife whose life would lead to harlotry. She was not a harlot at the time.
Your family is going to illustrate unfaithfulness for all succeeding generations. So go take a wife, and he did. Her name was Gomer and she bore three children to Hosea. Each of the children had a symbolic names as well.
A battle there, conflict there.
Lo-ruhamah means no compassion.
A wife who turned to harlotry, three children who grew up with a bad reputation in the community because of their mother’s sins. Hosea’s family life was a wreck because Gomer abandoned the family to pursue harlotry and then God told Hosea in chapter 3:1, “Go, buy her back.”
Go again, love Gomer, who is loved by her companion, yet an adulteress. Buy her back, Hosea. Make her your wife again. Why? Because God said that is exactly what I intend to do also. So Hosea’s whole life became a sad, somber object lesson of God’s relationship with Israel. So was Hosea’s relationship with his wife Gomer. Look at Hosea 1:10. Is there hope? Certainly. Is adultery the very worst thing you can do? It’s among the worst. Does that mean it’s a point of no return? No, not at all. Look at verse 10:
I will accomplish what I promised to do.
Say to your brothers, My people, and to your sisters, I do have compassion. Always, hope of recovery, regardless of the transgression because the God of Israel is a God of loyal love.
God and us and adultery Let’s talk a little more specifically about God and us and adultery. The whole point of discussion His relationship with Israel is simply to underscore the fact that He totally understands this and He is absolutely opposed to it. He knows precisely how it feels. God is a God of loyal love and adultery is a denial of loyal love. God’s will and His design for us, make no mistake about it, is one partner and faithful for life. That is what God wants. That is His design. Remember we talked from the first and second chapters of Genesis. We talked about how it was that God formed Adam from the dust of the ground. He saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone. Meanwhile, God had created all kinds of other creatures, all of them from the dust of the ground, but He did not create the woman from the dust of the ground as He had the other creatures. He put Adam asleep and through a way only God knows, He fashioned the woman from the man. Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. The Bible very clearly says she corresponded to him. Interesting word. It meant they matched. He gave the woman to the man and he was ecstatic. There is an insertion there at the end of the 2nd chapter of Genesis, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” Two people, one flesh -- that is God’s design. Creation and common sense, then, rules out all perversion and all deviation from the one man, one woman, for life model that God has set up. On these very grounds the Bible speaks clearly against any deviant form of activity, bestiality, homosexuality, incest, fornication, polygamy -- all of them are ruled out by God’s very creation of the institution of one man, one woman, loyal love for life. That is His model. That is His ideal. Why is that His will? Why is that God’s rule? Two reasons. The first is very simple. Because that’s how God Himself is, and we are created in His image. Clear enough. If only we want to emulate God, which is a wonderful thing in and of itself, that is enough. The Lord is your God. The Lord is One. A man and a woman come together, joined to be one, that’s all we need to know, because that is how God is. There’s more, because God knows that that arrangement is also what is best for people. What is His goal for you and me? What does He want of us in this life? He is preparing us, molding us, shaping us for the next life. Don’t we call that “making us more like Jesus?” Isn’t that what He is out to do? Isn’t that what He is doing with His people? I think it is. If that is the case, we have a lot to learn. What better arena in which to learn it. Think of it. We learn in marriage. We learn with this one partner, faithful for life. We learn a lot of things, or we should. We learn about devotion and about commitment, just like Jesus. Commitment, simply by living it out. I have a friend who had a very difficult marriage. He married a gal who became mentally ill and her mental condition deteriorated to the point where she threatened his life. She had him outsized two to one; she could have done it. They had to live in separate homes for awhile because he was in danger. Things calmed down, but they were never good. He went this way for years and years. When I knew him he had probably been married for close to 40 years. He told me one time as we visited, “I’ve been asked why I don’t just get a divorce. Why don’t I just move on with my life. I have a lot of miles left on me.” He said very simply because I made a commitment, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. When we make a commitment before God and this company in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we had best hold to it. We learn about devotion and commitment in the arena of marriage, do we not? Is it always fun? But we do learn and we grow. Secondly, we grow in our ability to communicate and have communion; that is, a close relationship with another. I thought about this many times. Do we believe that God is sovereign? Do we believe that He brings couples together? Yes, He does. So even when things are tense, even when things are uncomfortable, perhaps the atmosphere is a bit electrically charged, do we remember that God’s most obvious direct line to our character flaws is going to be through the one He put closest to us. Who else would know us any better? Doesn’t that make perfect sense? If God is going to deal with knocking the rough edges off our lives, shouldn’t it naturally come through the one He has put closest to us, with whom He has made us one? Certainly. Third, we gain humility. Was Jesus humble? Yes. Are we? Naturally, no. So how will that humility be cultivated if it is not in the arena of at least a biblically based marriage, where husbands love your wives -- that means put her needs and interests first. That takes humility. Wives, submit yourselves to and respect your husbands. Does that take humility? Yes. If we are not growing in humility in our marital relationships, we are not growing. Because that is an ongoing dynamic. It is here to stay. So we gain humility through love and through submission. That builds character and that character looks more like Jesus. We are being fitted then for what He has for us in glory. Finally, in the context of a family, we are role models for rearing the next generation of God’s people as that character is being developed, as God is working in our lives. That cannot go unnoticed as it becomes a way of life in the home. Saints tend to beget saints, and that’s how it happens. Why adultery is off limits? Because our God is a God of loyal love and He wants us to be people of loyal love as well. "Scripture
taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Jim Carlson 2006, Lone Rock Bible Church, Stevensville Montana, USA |