This week, several people have spoken with Glenn or me about the devastating consequences of adultery; in some cases about how to save marriages and, sadly, in some, about bridges to happiness permanently burned by unfaithfulness. These words, from Proverb 6, are extremely relevant to our homes today. I’ve borrowed the comments that follow this passage from Glenn. He’s right and these truths need to keep being said over and over again.
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 keep. 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).
I have to tell you that I never thought I would be posting a note with such an off-the-wall title. But then I never thought that this would be the question that would keep resurfacing. Several times over the past years, the question has come…” Do the Colleys teach that married people shouldn’t take off their clothes in front of one another…even during sexual activity?” Let me say up front, the answer is NO, NO, and NO again. We have never taught that, do not believe that, have never believed that, and certainly have never practiced that silly, if not impossible absurdity in our own marriage! I really hope that’s clear. The first time I ran this post was in the year 2009. that was 13 years ago. Within the last few weeks (we are now in 2022), this accusation that’s so very false was made in a fairly public venue yet again. Let’s be clear:
There are times in life when you feel overwhelmed by the kindness of God shown through servant hearts all around you. This month, as we struggled to get the podcast up and running, I thought about the people who’ve committed lots of hours in recent days just volunteering to try to work out some bugs in our system that seem to be ever-evolving and indeterminate. Matt Beard, Josh Sells, Mike Deasy, and Jennifer and Louis Benavides have all given volunteer time to try and make sure Digging Deep makes it to your screen. I’m thankful from a deep (digging deep) perspective.
This beholden girl just took a breath and thought about this blessing for a minute during the holidays. It’s always New Year’s Day when we have our big Holder clan over for a late Christmas celebration. This year surrounding this time, Glenn and I were talking through big problems with several couples and individuals. I know this was taking a big toll on the psyche of the man of God who faithfully talks to his Father about these heart-rending situations in lives around us. Glenn was also juggling his role in the “sandwich generation”—trying to take care of aged parents and traveling the four hours often to their home, while praying about specific challenges faced by kids and grandkids. He was pretty busy getting the logistics of probably the most tightly-packed speaking schedule in his lifetime. (All of the 2020 speaking appointments that were canceled were vying for the limited remaining dates of 2021.) Plane tickets, vouchers, rental cars, info for fliers, headshots, lesson outlines, deadlines were in his thoughts and correspondence at almost all moments of each day. Somewhere in this time frame, a minister in another state had called and asked for our cabin to lodge a widow who had a real need for a couple of weeks. She would be arriving just after the New Year’s gathering at our house, so Glenn was busy preparing firewood and making sure she could be warm and secure. He delivered Christmas baskets to local widows and he smoked ham for several in the church. He went caroling to shut-ins and made several visits and deliveries to people with cancer or Covid.
So I do know that, since it was a quarantining year and we could not have all the church family over like we love to do during the holidays, I could have settled for a small tree and a little less holiday fanfare. But my husband never flinched about the hugeness of the holiday at our house. He, in fact, is the one who called the tree farm to be sure they had a tree that was at least 12 feet tall. (I didn’t even ask him.) He is the one who asked if we could drive the hour-and-a-half to tag it in advance so that we’d be sure to get it. He never once complained about the piles and piles of gifts under that big tree. In fact, he commented almost every day about how proud he is that I’m a year-round bargain shopper and that I saved him from the wrapping chore. He delivered gifts to Florida for the kids who could not come and he assembled playhouses and made repairs on antique furniture gifts for the ones who could come. He purchased fruit for stockings for our huge New Year’s clan. And, maybe the most amazing thing to me was that my always financially prudent husband went out and spent a surprising amount of money on a wonderful display of fireworks that would be gone —just exploded into the sky—with nothing to show-for— in a matter of ten minutes.
He went out and set up the fireworks in the bed of the truck. He led our family devotional at the end of the day. Then he helped put food away and clean up, at least a bit, a Christmas avalanche of paper and food and toys and stocking stuffers that was North Pole-worthy.
5. All ages should learn that David violated the seventh of the ten commandments and they should be able to quote that command from Exodus 20:14. For those who have the Hannah’s Hundred 2 CD, all of the ten commandments are included in song there and this would be a great time to learn to sing them.
As you may have noticed, Glenn’s been keeping me pretty busy proofing with him, and writing for the children, on a Daily Boost that we’ve been sharing for the West Huntsville family for the quarantine period (
This is what greeted me when I checked the mailbox at the building this evening, plus a note that said I needed to go to the post office to get more. Thank you so much for doing this. 