Tag: adultery

Categories
Hebrews

Honoring our marriages

Hebrews

When you look at the spiritual and moral landscape of the United States, Japan, and many other countries, it’s amazing to see how the concept of marriage has deteriorated.

You don’t even need to dip into the idea of gay marriage to see this; just look at heterosexual ones. How far have we departed from God’s intention for marriage?

Marriages where two people truly become one, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Marriages where they remain one for life. Marriages where they are so united, that it would be unthinkable to cheat on their partner.

What do we have instead? Cold marriages. Abusive marriages, both physically and verbally. Affairs. Selfishness, divisiveness, and ultimately divorce.

Why? We don’t honor marriage. We definitely don’t honor the marriage bed anymore. Is it no wonder that our marriages are in the state they are in?

And so the writer of Hebrews admonishes us,

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. (Matthew 13:4)

Think about this. When you don’t honor marriage, and when you don’t keep the marriage bed pure, God doesn’t just turn a blind eye to it. He judges it.

If you stray from your marriage and go the arms of another man or woman, he will judge you for it.

When you despise the marriage bed and you sleep with someone before you are married, God judges you for it.

Why? Because you are meant for one person. You are meant to join yourself as one to only one person, not two or three or more.

So when you sleep with people before you get married or you cheat on your spouse, you despise the marriage bed and what it represents, the joining of two people as one in a permanent bond.

But you also despise the marriage bed if you are cold to your partner. If you withdraw physically and/or emotionally from them. If you’re selfish, only looking out for your own needs, and not caring a whit for your partner’s needs. If you’re abusive toward your partner.

When you act these ways, it’s totally contrary to what the marriage bed represents.

Do you honor marriage?

Do you honor your own marriage, seeking to bring true oneness to it?

Do you honor others’ marriages, refusing to engage in adulterous activity that would break that marriage up? Do you instead do everything you can to encourage that couple draw closer to each other as one?

If you’re single, do you honor your future marriage, keeping yourself sexually pure for the one you will marry?

If you don’t, God will judge you. It is no light matter to him. He will judge you.

What does God see when he sees your attitude toward marriage?

Categories
Proverbs

Captivated by sin

It’s amazing how often we see adulterous relationships portrayed on TV nowadays. Nobody even blinks at it. And yet, one wonders why people never learn from it.

Even on TV, most times there are negative consequences that come from these relationships. Broken relationships and hurt people at the least, murder at the worst.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show where the person said, “Oh, you slept with my wife? No problem. Please continue with my blessing.”

That’s one of the points Solomon makes here. He says,

Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?

Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?

So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife;
no one who touches her will go unpunished. (Proverbs 6:27–29)

He then expounds on this by pointing out that while a judge may be understanding toward a person who steals because he is starving, nevertheless he will pass judgment and the person will have to pay the price.

How much more will a person try to make another pay the price for sleeping with their wife or husband? They will have no sympathy whatsoever for the person who does so.

Solomon adds,

Blows and disgrace are [the adulterer’s] lot,
and his shame will never be wiped away;
for jealousy arouses a husband’s fury,
and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge.

He will not accept any compensation;
he will refuse the bribe, however great it is. (33–35)

So Solomon says, “Guard your heart. Don’t go after the adulterous wife, nor the prostitute for that matter.”

For the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread,
and the adulteress preys upon your very life. (26)

In other words, the prostitute will take all your money if she can, and once it’s all gone, so is she.

And if you play with an adulterous wife, you’ll likely pay the price one way or the other. A destroyed marriage and family. Or even a destroyed life through murder or AIDS or other STDs.

But from a broadened perspective, I think the same can be said of the results of sin in general.

Don’t be captivated by sin. Don’t lust after it no matter how attractive it might seem, because you’ll only be scooping hot coals on yourself, and you will be burned in the end.

While sin may look attractive, it will take all we have and utterly destroy us.

Rather, let our hearts be captivated by the One who loved us so much that he took the punishment for our sins on the cross.

Let us seek him daily, and as our hearts become more captivated by him, we will find true love and true life.

Categories
Proverbs

Delighting in your wife (and husband)

This is one of several long passages warning against adultery in the book of Proverbs.

In this world, people have lost sight of what marriage is about, and largely because of that, what sex is all about.

Marriage is about two people learning to delight in each other to the point that they become one. Not just sexually, but emotionally and spiritually as well.

And when two people can achieve that true oneness, there is no other human relationship like it in the world. You have two people that know each other in every way, and yet totally accept one another.

I read a shirt recently (one of the few in Japan that actually made any sense), and it said that “Love is blind.”

I don’t believe that is true. True love sees everything, and loves anyway. It sees everything, and still takes delight in the other person.

And when husband and wife have that kind of relationship, there is an exhilaration in knowing you are completely loved and accepted.

You aren’t constantly being judged, or compared to others. You are accepted for who you are.

Not only that, despite all your failures and weaknesses, you know that your partner delights in you and in being with you.

But what is an adulterous woman or man like? There can be no such relationship.

If you know they were unfaithful to their partner in sleeping with you, there’s got to be at least a seed of suspicion that they could be unfaithful to you.

If they are comparing their partner unfavorably to you, what will happen when they find another lover and start comparing them to you?

Even the adulterous person has no idea where their “love” will take them because they’re just unthinkingly going wherever it leads them. And they have no idea just how warped the path they’re taking is.

As Solomon wrote,

She gives no thought to the way of life;
her paths are crooked, but she knows it not. (Proverbs 5:6)

As a result, you can never have any kind of long-term relationship with an adulterous person.

It may start out “delightful,” but always ends leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.

Solomon put it this way,

For the lips of an adulteress drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
but in the end she is bitter as gall,
sharp as a double-edged sword.

Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight to the grave. (Proverbs 5:3–5)

Following the way of adultery can lead to eternal death apart from Christ.

Solomon warns us at the end of the chapter that God is watching us and that he will judge us for our sin, namely (in this passage), for adultery.

But adultery can even lead to physical death. At the hands of a jealous husband or wife. Or as a result of AIDS or other STDs.

Even if it doesn’t go that far, how many people have been ruined financially because of adultery and the divorce that resulted?

And how many people have gone to that other woman or man, only to find that that person only sought to use them for their body or for their wealth?

So Solomon tells us,

Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well.

Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?

Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.

May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love. (Proverbs 5:15–19)

In other words, don’t spend all your time and energy (sexual or otherwise) on relationships that can have no happy end.

Instead, delight in your wife. Delight in your husband. Be captivated by their love. Learn to love them as God does. And learn to be loved by them as God loves you.

That’s the only way you can find true marital and sexual satisfaction.

Categories
Exodus

Ten Commandments: A vital relationship

It’s interesting to me which human relationship God chose to address first and foremost in the Ten Commandments: the relationship between parents and their children.

He said, “Honor your father and your mother.”

And as Paul mentioned in Ephesians 6:2–3, it’s the first commandment that comes with a promise,

that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.

(Paul paraphrased a bit God’s repetition of this command in Deuteronomy 5:16.)

Why is this relationship so important in the eyes of God?

Because it shapes all of our other relationships as well.

A child’s first relationships are with his or her parents. If children relate well with their parents, there’s a good chance that they’ll relate well with the people around them.

A child learns how to honor other people, especially their elders, by honoring their parents.

If they don’t learn to honor their parents early in life, it becomes difficult for them to honor other people.

When I was working with elementary school and high school students here in Japan, I saw students with an utter lack of respect for their teachers.

The teacher would be talking, and the students would be talking in loud voices, totally ignoring the teacher.

Other students would sit in their own corner doing their own thing while the rest of the students did their schoolwork.

Why? Most obviously, they never learned to honor others.

Many of these kids probably come from dysfunctional families, where they never learned to honor their parents. And so they have no clue what it means to honor the people in authority in their lives.

But if they never learn that, it will cause problems as they try to live in society, dealing not only with teachers, but with other authority figures in society—bosses, the police, etc.

Our relationship with our parents also affects our other relationships too, including our marriage relationships.

One thing I desired in a marriage partner was a woman who honored her father.

Unfortunately, there are too many women who don’t respect or honor their fathers, and as a result, they have little respect for the husbands they marry.

I suppose the same goes with men who don’t know how to respect their mothers. If they don’t know how to honor their mothers, how in the world are they going to know how to honor their wives?

If you’re considering marrying someone, I recommend you take a close look at the relationships they have with their parents.

If they do not respect or honor their parents, it may be a big warning sign on how they may treat you.

I consider myself very fortunate to have found a woman who respects both her mother and father.

But our relationship with our parents also shapes our relationship with God.

How we relate with our parents, and especially with our fathers, can have a strong bearing on our relationship with God.

Children who do not honor their parents, who have never learned to trust their parents, to love them, or to obey them, often have problems doing so with God, who is our true Father.

But when children honor their parents, it bodes well for their future relationships with others, for their lives in society, and most of all for their relationship with God.

That’s why God could say that if you honor your parents, your life will go well, and you will enjoy a long life on this earth.

Do you honor your parents?

As children, honoring includes the idea of obedience. As long as you live under their house, you live under their rules.

But although you are no longer bound to obey them after you leave to start your own life, you are to honor them.

Respect their feelings. Respect their opinions.

You don’t have to always agree with them. But let them know that you value them as people—as your parents.

Maybe you have parents that you don’t feel are worthy of respect. They may not be.

But God did not say, “Honor your parents only if they are deserving of it.”

God just said, “Honor your parents.”

Part of that means praying for them. Praying that God would touch them and bring change to their lives.

But also praying that God would show you what things you need to do to honor them in your life.

Do you honor your parents in your life? And as a parent yourself, are you teaching your children to honor you?

Are you a parent who is easy to honor and respect?

If we honor our parents and teach our children to honor us, we and our children will find the life that God desires for us to have here on this earth.