Browsing Tag

Adultery

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Family Ties in the Social Distance #18: Proverbs 6:20-35–About Adultery

Posted on April 8, 2020

My husband, Glenn, is sharing these daily lessons  for our West Huntsville family as we are necessarily (because of the virus) spending less time physically together in worship, study and fellowship. We may be “socially distanced,” but  we’re a close-knit family and we want to keep it that way! One way to stay on track together, spiritually, is to think about a common passage and make applications for our lives together even when we are unable to assemble as frequently. I’m sharing these daily family lessons here for those in other places, whose families (or even congregations) might benefit from a common study in these uncommon days of semi-quarantine. There are Family Bible Time guides included, as well. You can adapt, shorten or lengthen them according to the ages of kids (and adults) in your family. Blessings.

From Glenn:

My Favorite Proverbs: Proverbs 6:20-35—Adultery’s Deceit

Read these verses slowly and thoughtfully:

My son, keep your father’s command,

And do not forsake the law of your mother.

Bind them continually upon your heart;

Tie them around your neck.

When you roam, they will lead you;

When you sleep, they will keep you;

And when you awake, they will speak with you.

For the commandment is a lamp,

And the law a light;

Reproofs of instruction are the way of life,

To keep you from the evil woman,

From the flattering tongue of a seductress.

Do not lust after her beauty in your heart,

Nor let her allure you with her eyelids.

For by means of a harlot

A man is reduced to a crust of bread;

And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.

Can a man take fire to his bosom,

And his clothes not be burned?

Can one walk on hot coals,

And his feet not be seared?

So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;

Whoever touches her shall not be innocent.

People do not despise a thief

If he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving.

Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold;

He may have to give up all the substance of his house.

Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding;

He who does so destroys his own soul.

Wounds and dishonor he will get,

And his reproach will not be wiped away.

For jealousy is a husband’s fury;

Therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.

He will accept no recompense,

Nor will he be appeased though you give many gifts. 

Satan makes promises every day that he cannot and will not deliver.  Today’s proverb involves a promise. It’s a promise of happiness that Satan gives a man in order to entice him to be with a woman in a way that breaks his marriage vow.  I’ve been around men who have forfeited their purity, faithfulness, and marriage to this enticement, and I have learned this: people don’t commit adultery for the wound and dishonor of it. They do it for the pleasure, and always, at the moment, they believe they’ll get away with it.  As they begin the process of adultery, they attach shame to themselves. It’s a shame that’s difficult to ever leave behind.

Consider three consequences in this Proverb that come to one who violates his or her marriage to be with another. Let’s hide these results in our hearts, so we can remember them if Satan pays us a visit with this temptation.

1. Verse 26:  “For by means of a harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread.”

This can mean one of two things. Either he, like a piece of bread, can be seen, held, consumed and destroyed; or, the consequence of sinning with a prostitute is often that a man will lose everything and find himself begging for bread.

2.  Verse 29: “Whoever touches her shall not be innocent.”  

Why does this need to be said?  Because this is the result of a major lie of the devil which so many have believed.  At the moment, a man believes he can embrace this indulgence, but his secret usually doesn’t stay hidden for long.  One such man said to me, “I didn’t mean to…it just happened.”  Another said, “She meant nothing to me, but now my wife is divorcing me.  I’ve begged her not to leave me. If only I could turn the clock back, I would.”

It is often true that a person who breaks a marriage vow and is discovered will repent with tears, beg forgiveness, and then fully expect that things can immediately go back to normal in his or her marriage.  That’s a childish viewpoint.  Trust, which is the lifeblood of healthy marriage, is crushed in a moment and rebuilt only after much time has shown the guilty to be trustworthy again.

3.  Verse 33:  “And his reproach will not be wiped away.”

This doesn’t mean that God won’t forgive a penitent Christian who has repented. He will (1 Cor. 6:9-11).  It means that some sins are harder to forget. Perhaps this is what the Spirit meant when He inspired Paul to write, “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18).

Lust has contempt for loyalty, but good marriage cannot survive without loyalty.  Hold on to your integrity in all parts of your life, and remember that no man or woman who ever committed adultery did so while evading the all-seeing eyes of God.  Intimacy inside of God-approved marriage is a celebration and, in fact, a command (1 Cor. 7:1-2).  But the same act outside of marriage draws the anger of that same God.

“Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Heb. 13:4). 

Family Bible Time with Glenn and Cindy

Let’s take a few nights in 2 Samuel now in the David and Bathsheba saga during the life of Israel’s second king. Parents should read 2 Samuel 11 in preparation for story time for the next couple of nights. For tonight, let’s just take the first verse-and-a half of the chapter. Explain to your children that David was the king of Israel and it was war-time. The fighting men of Israel were on the battlefield in a big conflict with the Ammonites. Be sure they know that God was not happy with the people of Ammon because they worshipped idols. He wanted his people to defeat the Ammonites and they were doing just that. Next make sure that your children know that the King (David, in this case) should have been intensely interested in two things: 1) what was going on in the battle, and 2) the law of the Lord and the Lord’s guidance in the battle. 

  1. Read Deuteronomy 17:14-20 and explain to your children the “rules” for the king of Israel as prescribed by God:
  • The king had to be an Israelite.
  • He could not be one who wanted to go back to Egypt.
  • He could not be one who had a whole lot of horses.
  • He could not have a bunch of wives.
  • He could not be chasing after lots of money.
  • He had to write his own copy of the Law of God.
  • He had to read it all the days of His life.
  • He could not be “braggy” or think he was better than everyone else. 
  • He had to obey all the commands of God.

2. Ask your children if they think God expected the king to be a great example of obedience to all of the people around him. Tell them that, in the next few nights, we are going to see the time in King David’s life when he really messed up and did  not obey.

Ask your young children if they know what the word “obey” means. Talk about examples in your house of children obeying parents. 

3. Talk now about how David is just about to disobey God in a very big way. Tell them that, while it is not wrong to walk on the roof, David would not have sinned in this way if he had been somewhere else at the time the temptation came. Sometimes we don’t know when and how the devil is going to tempt us. But sometimes we know when there’s going to be temptation and we should just avoid the place of temptation, altogether. On this night, David did not know the devil was just about to try to get him to do a very wrong thing, and so it was not wrong for him to be up there on the roof.  Still, it would have been so much better if David had been somewhere else that night…maybe reading his copy of the law or praying about his soldiers. When we do know temptation is coming, we should make sure we are someplace else. 

4. Ask your children if they have ever been tempted to do something wrong because they were in the wrong place?  Talk to them about the following scenarios and how it’s hard to do the right thing when you are in the wrong place:

  1. What if you were a teenager and you were in a place where people were drinking beer? Is it harder to make good choices when “cool” people are trying to get you to drink?
  2. What about when people around you are saying “Oh my gosh!” or “Oh my God.” What if they are laughing about something when they say it? Does this make you want to laugh, too, and pretend like it is not big deal to use God’s name that way?
  3. What if your friends are all watching something on tv that has bad words or stuff that’s not what would make the Lord happy? Is it harder to choose not to watch that if you are in a place where all the rest of the people are watching it? 

So, does the place where we are spending time sometimes make doing the right thing harder?  This is why, in our house, we do not watch movies or shows that have bad words or people laughing at things that do not please God.

David is just about to find out that staying IN the word of God and OUT of the way of temptation can save a LOT of trouble and grief. For now though, let’s leave David up there on the roof of the palace and let’s think about how important it is that we choose the best places to be…places where it is easy to obey God!

4. Sing together if you have small ones: 

Oh Be Careful Little Eyes What You See.”

O be careful little eyes what you see

O be careful little eyes what you see

For the Father up above

Is looking down in love

So, be careful little eyes what you see.

O be careful little ears what you hear

O be careful little ears what you hear

For the Father up above

Is looking down in love

So, be careful little ears what you hear.

O be careful little tongue what you say

O be careful little tongue what you say

For the Father up above

Is looking down in love

So, be careful little tongue what you say.

O be careful little hands what you do

O be careful little hands what you do

For the Father up above

Is looking down in love

So, be careful little hands what you do.

O be careful little feet where you go

O be careful little feet where you go

For the Father up above

Is looking down in love

So, be careful little feet where you go.

O be careful little heart whom you trust

O be careful little heart whom you trust

For the Father up above

Is looking down in love

So, be careful little heart whom you trust.

O be careful little mind what you think

O be careful little mind what you think

For the Father up above

Is looking down in love

So, be careful little mind what you think.

5. Have your older children write Proverbs 4:14,15 on an index card to place on their dresser mirrors or bathroom mirrors. Talk with them about how this passage is warning us to just stay away from temptation. Sometimes being absent from places where sin may look attractive is just the best plan. See if they can think of additional examples where this might be the case.

6. Pray with your children.  

 

  

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Why Is Adultery that Game-changing Sin?

Posted on March 9, 2020

If you are a Mrs. and you are a Christian, you are twice married and, assuming your husband is still living, there’s a sense in which you have two husbands. I hope, for Mrs. Colley, the sentiments below are always true of both my relationship to my husband and that to my Lord. When those who are in a covenant relationship with God become unfaithful to the vow made at baptism, they are referred to as spiritual adulterers in both testaments:

She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Jeremiah 3:8.

You adulterous people![c] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4

Many have posited that God is so hurt by spiritual adultery that He empathetically gives us the right to remarry in case of a spouse’s adultery (Matthew 19:9). He wants us to be able to recover and find comfort after the infidelity of a spouse. He knows how that feels.

But it could be true that one of the reasons marital unfaithfulness is the only acceptable scenario for remarriage is that God wanted to magnify this sin in our minds. Perhaps he wanted mankind to know how much we hurt Him when we place the things of this world–sin–in the position we once gave to God.

Or maybe it’s both. I do know this: As I occasionally speak with innocent parties, in marriages in the body of Christ, in which adultery has taken the trust, I’m left with the indisputable knowledge that the hurt is deeper than any I see in other scenarios of sin.

And yet there is forgiveness. If I’ve learned any thing from observation about the sin of marital infidelity, it’s that it’s possible to repent, gain forgiveness and put a marriage back on a fast track to happiness. Sometimes, righted early on, it’s possible to do this without damaging children, without hurting the influence of the local church, and without the eternal loss of souls. And God’s teaching us there, too. There’s time now, to right relationships with God in heaven. If you’ve walked away from the One who loves you supremely, you’ll never find that perfect love in anything the world has to offer. But, as time passes, it’s harder to undo the damage. Influence for heaven is lost. Lives are hurt. Sin complicates relationships and, most of all, it weakens your own spiritual resolve to be faithful. Don’t wait. Come back to the One who loved you first and best.

Espoused to  One Husband
II Corinthians 11:2
If I love You, I’ll believe You
Though what You’ve pledged is far away.
What You say about tomorrow
Is what’s real for me today.If I love You, then I long
To hear Your strong, assuring voice.
I will trust You with my secrets;
Honor You in every choice.If I love You, I’ll defend You
When others ridicule Your name.
If all the world denies You, still
I’ll  count but loss the shame.If I love You, I will be there
Whenever You’re expecting me.
I will love whatever You love.
Where You are, I’ll long to be.If I love You, I will trust You.
All my hopes on You rely.
But should faith and hope be passing,
Love abides to never die!

 

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: The Destruction of the Family Next Door

Posted on June 7, 2017
Well, I’ve talked to a lot of people who have been a part of the agony, after the fact, but, thankfully I’ve never been privy to the dialog itself…until a recent hotel stay in another state. Glenn and I were staying next door to a couple whose marriage was forever changed. The conversation I didn’t want to be overhearing was excruciating for me, just lying there in the darkness in the middle of the night. But I can only imagine the depth of pain in the room next door. I could only guess the wording of the woman’s side of the conversation, for she spoke in hushed tones that resembled the sounds you might hear around a hospital bed as the life of your loved one ebbs away. And, in fact, it was the life of the marriage itself that was likely passing in the hotel room next door.

Husband (in a very deep and determined bass voice): No! You know better than that. We’ll see how it really was.Wife responds in hushed tones.

Husband: You know that’s a lie. It was your boyfriend. We’ll see. It’s all coming out now.

Wife again responds.

Husband: We’ll see.

Wife responds.

Husband: Well, we’ll just see, won’t we? I don’t believe that for a minute. You said you couldn’t even walk to the second floor, so how do you expect me to believe that story? How, Donna?

Wife responds.

Husband: Well, I guess we’ll know soon. We’ll see.

At this point, my heating system came on and muffled the noises coming from the next room. Thankful for the respite from the awful crash of a falling marriage next door, for the warmth, not just of the heating system, but of the contented and godly Christian man who lay sleeping peacefully beside me, the few quiet moments of the night were welcomed intervals of relief. But then the system would kick off and, again, the agony on the other side of the wall was apparent.

Husband (By now his voice was not as deep and there was weeping between his words.): Oh  Donna! Just tell me why? Why? Why were you willing to throw it all away like this? Why?

Wife responds.

Husband: But can you tell me why? What is it? What was wrong? Did I somehow do something to cause this? Why…a thousand times, Why?

Wife responds.

Husband: (speaking quietly, but gravely): No. I’m not going anywhere. This is my home. These are my kids.

Wife responds.

Husband: No! I tell you I am not leaving. I am not going anywhere. I did not make this mess.

Wife responds.

Husband: But I AM thinking of Lizzie. I’m thinking of Josh and I’m thinking of  Jessie. They are mine, too. I’m not leaving. But if you could just tell me why. Why? Why, Donna?!

I guess the heat came on again, because the next morning when I was awakened by Glenn’s alarm to summons us to hurry and get up and ready to go finish up a marriage seminar in this particular town, I, too, was still wondering why? Why do people throw it all away? It made me want to linger there in that bed with his arms around me for a few more minutes. It made me want to spend a few more minutes in thankfulness to God that day; for Glenn, for the Word that blesses us with sanctification in our marriage, for our children and for our happiness. It really just made me want to never, ever see a night like the people in the room next door had just endured.

But it also made me understand the exception of Matthew 19: 9…you know, the “except it be for fornication” part. God understands the pain of marital unfaithfulness. God knows the full extent of the damage done by Donna. He understands the depth of that cry: “Why?!” (Read the book of Hosea and understand with me the hurt of spiritual adultery against the One who has chosen us.)

I pray the alarm will go off in Donna’s room, too. Perhaps she will hear the wake-up call, before it’s too late. Perhaps her three children will never have to know the sorrow that comes in the wake of divorce. Glenn and I checked out of the hotel shortly thereafter. We left, at the hotel desk, a complimentary copy of our book about God-centered marriage with our contact info, for the couple next door. But I left determined to teach a little more passionately that day, to love a little more deeply and to thank God a little more frequently for the amazing blessings of marriage with Him at the center.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: That Night of Adultery…So Stealthily it Comes and Goes

Posted on March 17, 2016

o-ADULTERY-facebook-3What was about to happen to David and Bathsheba in II Samuel 11 is very “Hollywood-ish”. In fact, Hollywood or Broadway would have had a heyday with Bathsheba’s bath time. It has everything that makes for the “R” rating (nudity, passion, adultery, and pregnancy by the wrong man) and yet they truly were “in love.” Lines like “The passion was bigger than both of them,” or “They just could not fight the feeling any more,” or “David had spent his lifetime running from Saul. He refused to run from his own desires,” would have been the trailer captions if Hollywood were doing the story.  But the Holy Spirit handles sin much differently than does Hollywood.

David had been called by God  the “man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22). There were times when he surely had been given the chance to kill his arch enemy, King Saul, but he so deeply respected God and His anointed, that he could  not smite the King (1 Samuel 23:14-24:22; 26). He had shown bravery, wisdom and kindness on multiple occasions. When it came to women, however, David surely thought he knew better than God. So many men (and women) today can handle most any temptation except the sexual one.

In Deuteronomy 17:16-20, God had, interestingly and prophetically regulated the throne of Israel, even before they had asked for a king. Notice this regulation:

But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.’  Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.  “Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites.  And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.

But David had taken lots of wives and concubines, already (II Samuel 5:13). Certainly David’s copy of the law was not arresting his attention that night as he looked down from the palace roof and saw the beautiful Bathsheba as she bathed. The king for which the people had clamored to “ “go out before us and fight our battles” (I Samuel  8:20) was home during the battle and up on the palace rooftop looking at a beautiful woman as she bathed. This combination of failures was to be the huge blot on the record of David. This is the night that became his undoing in many successive and pivotal ventures. Lust, adultery, deceit, betrayal, making accomplices of subordinates, and murder followed each other in rapid succession in David’s mind, will and actions. His bedchamber must have turned into a dark, sleepless and torturous room of guilt, rationalization and plotting.  In fact, Scripture tells us in retrospect that the Bathsheba incident was the one time that David turned from following the commands of the Lord (I Kings 15:5). He should have had all of his defenses in place. But on that night, when his armies were succeeding, his personal, spiritual battle was lost as he looked from the roof and saw Bathsheba bathing.

It was a huge departure. How many times in later life must David have wished his distance vision had not been quite so good? Maybe he wished his spiritual distance vision had been a bit better!  How many times did he later wish he’d been out on the battle lines that night with his men as their active commander-in-chief? Sometimes large regret is born when we are in the wrong place, even for a short time.  Two people were in the wrong place on this particular evening.

Defenses are important. Prevention of opportunity…denial of tempting places and situations IS the best defense against adultery. David could have asked the question Joseph asked “…thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). But he didn’t take the time to ponder the impending damage to the one to  whom Bathsheba belonged, that the message he was about to send was wicked, that its intended result was great wickedness, and that His sin would also be against the God who had faithfully delivered him on numerous occasions.  One night, one bath, one leisurely rooftop stroll , one message, one response, one tryst…all likely occurring in just a few hours…and the pain of Psalm 51 tells the rest of the story:

 

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment. (vs. 3-4)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Married with Children (and a Few Extra Lovers)

Posted on April 22, 2013

(The post today is lengthy. I hope, if you are in the Digging Deep study, that you can take the time to read it before the podcast tomorrow night. Whether or not you get the time to read, please be sure to join us at 7 CST on the 23rd for a discussion of a heartbreaking read. If Hosea can’t bring us to crave sanctification, I’m not sure it will happen.)

Hosea chapter three has got to be one of the saddest passages in all of scripture. It’s heart rending to realize that this man of God was commanded to go and then actually did go and get a prostitute to marry and bear his children. So far as we know, Hosea had never been intimate with a woman. He gave his all to Gomer, the prostitute. He loved her. He rescued her from a life of cheap one-night stands and wrapped his world of respect and honor around her. He took the girl out of harlotry, but, alas, he could not take harlotry out of the girl. Gomer tasted respect. She nursed the precious babies of Hosea. She was granted his affection and his provisions. But she walked away from all that was good and right and re-entered a world of disease, sorrow, humiliation and death. She preferred being used and discarded by multiple lovers to the security and integrity she had gained in her union with the man of God.

Finally, we see Gomer, living with a man. She has left Hosea, who was, to her, both husband and friend. Adding insult to deep injury, God tells Hosea to go to the “auction block” as it were and buy her back. Hosea, at the behest of God Himself, bears the reproach of purchasing his own wife for a paltry amount. He feeds her the food of a slave and restrains himself from bringing her home to his bed and to her children. He must treat her as a slave, feeding her course meal and giving her time to prove that she can be his and his alone, before he has marital relations with her again.

And then, of course, we come to realize that the spurned husband is God, Himself. Gomer is representative of Israel, who, chosen by Jehovah for His spiritual bride, spurned His love, turned her back on His goodness and went whoring after gods of wood and stone. She actually convinced herself that a life of cheap idolatrous pleasures was preferable to the honor of being married to Jehovah, participating in His holy worship and being guided by his faithful hand. In fact, the Israel represented by Gomer would remain separated from Him until the time of the cross, when the marriage chamber would once, again be opened to her.

Let’s just think about that as wives, for a moment. If you are in a godly marriage, you know what it is like to be wrapped in the caring arms of a faithful provider. You long for that protection when you may be out alone at night and someone scary is driving along beside your car in the lane next to you. You are thankful for a man who always makes sure there is food on your table. You know that he would give his life to protect you or your children. You have seen him stand up to evil. You love hearing his tender voice on the phone when you are apart, at night saying, “I will always love you.”

If you do have this kind of husband, and you have a good heart, you cannot imagine turning your back on him when he is hurting. It nauseates you to think of being in the arms of a man who would take your physical pleasures without committing his heart and life to you. Even though your man is not perfect, he is good. He wants with all He is, to be what you need. He wants to lead you to heaven.

I hope you have this prince in your life. I hope, if you do, you will never, ever allow yourself to be drawn to the adulterous life that will surely end in sorrow for you and Him.

But, sisters, you are spiritually married to God! He is the perfect One. He has brought you out of the slavery of sin (Galatians 4:3). He purchased you at the greatest personal price imaginable. He paid the blood of His Son (I Peter 1:19) for your freedom. He brought you home with Him and wrapped you up in His blanket of mercy and gave you hope of eternal salvation. He listens every time you speak and He gives you always what is best. You…yes, you are His spiritual Israel, the apple of His eye (Deut. 32:10).

I know you do not want to hurt this loving Husband. I know you want to bring honor to Him and you would never shame Him. The world around you is spitting on your Husband today. People everywhere are mocking Him. They are laughing at Him. Their actions run the gamut from ignoring His existence (even though He keeps giving them sustenance and wealth) to blaspheming His name. The world shouts insults in His ears and throws obscene gestures in His face. They eat His food, drink His water, enjoy His nature and breathe His air while they ridicule the “happiness manual” He mercifully gave them.

Hosea 4:2 gives a succinct list of behaviors exhibited by the adulterous wife:

Here are the characteristics she displayed.

  1. She cursed. (According to a recent study by Family Safe Media, American television profanity rose 69 percent in a recent five year period.)
  2. She lied. (We don’t need, nor could we get a correct statistic on this evil. Will liars tell you that they lie in a survey? We’ve been inundated with lies in the public arena in recent years; i.e. Clinton, O.J. Simpson, Jodi Arias, John Edwards, etc…)
  3. She was a murderess. (American women kill over a million babies each year. Although Boston, Sandy Hook, Columbine, The University of Alabama in Huntsville and many more examples of death by violence can be cited, abortion is by far the most common and accepted form of murder.)
  4. She stole. (For the sake of space, think about only one form of American stealing. According to The Educational Testing Service/Ad Council campaign, 73% of all test takers, including prospective graduate students and teachers agree that most students do cheat at some point. 86% of high school students agreed. Cheating no longer carries the stigma that it used to. Less social disapproval coupled with increased competition for admission into universities and graduate schools has made students more willing to do whatever it takes to get the A.)
  5. She committed adultery. (According to truthaboutdeception.com, somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of spouses will cheat during marriage. Again, it’s easy to see why we don’t have accurate stats about adultery. Spouses don’t file accurate “cheating reports”. But, as Christians, we know that whatever the reported numbers about adultery are, they are actually way too low to reflect reality because large numbers of “marriages” today are actually adulterous unions.)
  6. She broke all restrictions. She went wild. (This one reminds me of the 2012 widespread looting in major American cities. Incidentally looting has broken out in the West, Texas wake of a deadly explosion over the past weekend. It reminds me of the in-your-face homosexual demonstrations of recent years and of the uncontrollable sex, filth and immorality of the Wall Street protests of 2012. There is a restrictions-free subculture in our country that is growing its way into mainstream at a frightening pace.)
  7. In her world, “blood touched blood”. (This refers to one act of violence being barely finished before another was reported. Does this remind you a bit of watching the local news?)

I know I didn’t really have to list these parenthesized modern American parallels to make you connect the dots. We can see that the world around us is truly bereft of morality. But,as much as we would like for things to be different in our beloved country, let us remember, that America is not married to God. The church of Christ is married to God. The United States of America is not the chosen race of God. His Israel–His chosen people–is the church. Thus, we as God’s wife, must decide how much we love Him. Do we love Him enough to give up the pleasures of the world around us? Maybe it’s time we even ask it this way. Do we love God enough to stay with Him even if the “other man” is the American culture in which we live? See, as the America that, in years past, was somewhat nurturing of our relationship with Jehovah turns into the object of our adultery, there grows a sense in which we must decide between God and America. Oh, as long as there is an America, it is never to late to pray for the country and to work for America’s betterment, but if I have to choose between love of the country and love of God, let me be sure I will be true to my husband!

Many times I have heard preachers use the following amazing passage in reference to America:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (II Chron. 7:14).

But that verse was written for Israel. The modern-day Israel is not America, at all. See America is just not the chosen people of God in any sense. It never has been. The Israel of God today is the church, the body of Christ (Gal. 3:29). If II Chronicles 7:14 applies to us today as the spiritual Israel of God (and it does), it applies to those of us who are the children of Abraham by faith in Jesus, those of us who comprise the body of Christ.

May we, as the body of Christ, decide that our sacred marriage to Christ (God, the Son) is far more important than any covenants we may have with country, employer, relative or friend. When my “friends” become a distraction to my marriage to God, they (just like a “friend” who would tempt me to physical adultery) are not really my friends anymore. May I become very uncomfortable in their presence. In fact, may I seek to avoid them.

James 4:4 reminds me a lot of Gomer and Hosea. It’s for today though. It’s for you and me. It calls us what we are when we give our husband’s devotion to the world.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

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Spiritual Pornography?

Posted on October 17, 2011

It’s heartbreaking to work with couples who are dealing with the problems that pornography brings into a relationship. Lack of trust, jealousy, feelings of worthlessness,  guilt, lust, and uncertainty about the future are all a part of the grim picture that accompanies it. What is most surprising to me is that there are people, some even “experts” who would have us to believe that the use of pornography is not a bad thing…maybe it’s even a good thing, and healthy for marriages. This is preposterous and anyone who is God-centered at all in his thinking reckons the loss that  accompanies the use of pornography as being profound in its ramifications. Often, when adultery is traced back to its insidious roots, pornography was involved long before the actual adulterous encounter. Jesus, of course, called this looking and lusting adultery of the heart (Matthew 5:28).
When studying James 4 recently, I pondered the obvious truth that, as members of the bride of Christ, we can commit spiritual adultery by our entanglement with the world. Notice the first six verses of this very serious discussion:
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
These verses made me think about how a member of the body of Christ might make God jealous in the same way that I might provoke my husband to jealousy—the kind of jealousy that is normal in a husband. What if I were to talk negatively about Him to people outside the family? What if I were to break my appointments with Him? What if I were to make fun of Him and laugh when others made fun of Him? What if I did not want to share generously with Him of my time and money? What if I enjoyed being with others more than I enjoyed His company? What if I did not take the time to read what he wrote to me or to respond when He gave me a gift?  You can understand readily, especially if you are married, how we can begin to court the world rather than being faithful in our marriages to Christ. 
But then I thought about the sin of pornography and how that, long before a spouse forsakes his wife, he may look at other women with passionate desire. He may lust for another woman. He may be busy facilitating his adultery before he knows the woman with whom he will one day commit the sin. 
Do we sometimes do that spiritually? I mean long before a person actually leaves the Lord for the world, does she sometimes look at the world with passion and desire? Does she place the lure of the world right in front of her eyes? Does she gaze longingly long before she become a full-fledged friend of the world? I believe we often do this through our entertainment choices. Are you looking with favor on that which is enmity with God? I think when we choose to be entertained by movies, television shows and music that are filled with profanities, obscenities, lasciviousness, fornication, homosexuality, adulteries and/or uncleanness, we are allowing ourselves to gaze on that which is off-limits to the bride of Christ. The more we gaze, the more comfortable we become with these desires for the world. The more we look, the more we want to look and the more anesthetized we become to the shock factor that sin should bring. Soon, just as a pornography addict is a short step from adultery, we are a very short step from committing the overt sins of the world–spiritual adultery. That which once entertained us becomes less something we watch and more something we do. 
Being entertained and aroused by looking at pornography often leads to the commission of the overt sin of adultery. This destroys marriages and families.
Being entertained by the sinful things of the world often leads to all kinds of worldly alliances and actions. This destroys our relationship with God and our relationships within the family of Christ. Is this spiritual pornography? I think so.
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