That's in Exodus chapter 20 and
verse seven, I'm sorry, and verse 14. Exodus chapter 20 and verse
14, the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. Adultery is first of all a sin
that occurs within marriage because it means a sin committed with
another man's wife or another woman's husband and it is an
act of unfaithfulness and betrayal that is committed because of
the lusts of our flesh. It's a very intimate sin and
it is often done secretly, it is often pursued furtively and
it brings shame and guilt and sadness and isolation into what
God calls an honourable relationship, the honourable relationship of
marriage and wedlock. And it is an illegal and it is
a dishonourable act because the Lord tells us, whatever the laws
of the land might say, the Lord tells us in these commandments,
thou shalt not commit adultery. And adultery hurts those who
commit it and those it is committed against. And when a man and a
woman are married, they take a vow and they make a promise
to love one another and to be faithful to one another. And
adultery is a breach and a breaking of those promises. And that's what adultery is in
its narrow sense. However, many people believe
that adultery here in the Ten Commandments should not be limited
only to the violation of the marriage relationship, but rather
extended and broadened to all kinds of sexual immorality and
fornication. which are the sins that Paul
tells us a person commits against their own body. It also includes
the mind and the soul by stirring up improper imaginations. So here God is telling the children
of Israel that families and relationships and friendships are important
and they will suffer and even be destroyed if we commit these
sins. That was true in the days of
the children of Israel. It was true in the journeyings
of the people of Israel through the wilderness and when they
came into the land of Canaan, the promised land. And it has
been true in every country and every generation. and it has
not changed today. The Bible calls for believers
to love their wives and for wives to honour their husbands and
love and honour deepens a marriage relationship while breaching
these by being unfaithful weakens and often destroys those relationships
because it undermines trust and respect and confidence and it
damages our children as well. So that when God says thou shalt
not It is for good and wise reasons that he gives us these instructions. And in the Bible we find that
there are many troubles and many problems that arise from the
sins of adultery and fornication and sexual immorality. God sent
judgment on individuals for what they did. He sent it upon families. And when such wickednesses became
common and widespread, sometimes he sent judgment on whole nations
because of their adulteries and their immorality. I want to say
four quick things about this commandment that we can draw
from the scriptures and by application and think about them for ourselves,
that they may teach us, that they may direct us, that we may
be guided in the way that we think and in the things that
we do by the testimony of the word of God and the direction
that the Lord has given us. And the first thing is this.
In the New Testament, the Lord speaks about this commandment. So here we are, almost right
at the beginning of the Bible, and the book of Exodus, just
the second book into the scriptures, and Moses is giving the children
of Israel the Ten Commandments. But the Lord Jesus Christ, in
the New Testament, also speaks about this command, and he speaks
about it in what is called the Sermon on the Mount. And as it
were, he gives a commentary on this little commandment. It's
in Matthew chapter 5. And again the words of the Lord
show us how impossible it is for sinful people like us to
keep God's law holy. Some of the Jews at the time
of the Lord Jesus Christ taught that there were different levels
of these sins. There were some that were more
and some that were less serious. And the Lord Jesus called those
people, an interesting phrase, he called them an adulterous
and a sinful generation. And by that he meant that they
were adulterous and sinful, both morally and spiritually. I'm going to come back to that
in a moment or two. But here's what the Lord says in Matthew
chapter five about this commandment in Exodus 20. He says this, You
have heard that it was said by them of old, thou shalt not commit
adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with
her already in his heart. So that sin is not only committed
in the act, but is present in our thoughts, in our hearts,
in our eyes, and in our ears. And this is something that we
have to learn and understand. When I was young, we used to
go along to Sunday school and we learned a chorus there and
it went something like this. Watch your eyes, watch your eyes,
what you see. Watch your ears, watch your ears,
what you hear. There's a saviour up above, looking
down in tender love. Watch your eyes, watch your ears,
what you hear. And that reminds us that we have
to be careful not to come into places where we are going to
be tempted and where we are going to struggle because of the things
that we do. We might like to draw lines and
say that we're not going to cross this line and we're not going
to cross that line. But God's law finds us guilty
in our hearts because of the desires that lie latent there. That's the first thing that I
wanted just to draw your attention to. The second is this. This
is the point about the Lord speaking to these people as an adulterous
and wicked generation. He says to them that because
he's telling us that sometimes the Bible speaks about spiritual
adultery and spiritual fornication and describes unfaithfulness
to God and unbelief in the same terms as unfaithfulness to a
husband or a wife. And this shows us, I think, the
seriousness of both. The fact that these two things
are lumped together, the fact that they are brought together
and explained together. One of the worst things can be
to fail to trust the Lord, and yet to lose that trust because
of deception and betrayal in a relationship shows how serious
it is as well. If we commit ourselves to the
Lord, then we are to act in ways that express that commitment. If we act rather in ways that
deny or bring the truth that we profess into public shame
and disrepute, it's like committing adultery against God and betraying
his trust. Third thing I want to mention
is this. Paul in his letters, in his epistles,
likens our family relationships, and these are precious relationships,
the relationships that are forged and developed within families. Paul likens our family relationships
to the gospel blessings that we possess in Christ. And these
gospel blessings show us the real standards that we should
aspire to as believers in our dealings one with another. Remember we spoke about this
second table of the law being to do with our relationships
one with another, the first table speaking about our worship to
God, the second table speaking about our relationships with
our fellow men and women. Well, the gospel and Paul's epistles
tells us about these standards of behavior that we should aspire
to. Love and honor. and reverence and respect and
gentleness and faithfulness and trust, even forgiveness and sacrifice
are qualities that we should all try to bring to our relationships
with each other because we see them evidenced in the Lord Jesus
Christ towards us. We are to act towards one another
as we see the Lord acting towards us. The Lord loves us. The Lord has blessed us. The
Lord has shown us his goodness. He has sacrificed himself for
us. He gives us the forgiveness that
we need. He is gentle and he is kind. He is merciful. And we are to
be followers of Christ and emulate and replicate and copy with one
another those qualities that we see in the Savior. And finally, I just want to make
this point. When the Bible shows us such
high standards, we soon realize that we can never
keep the perfect standards that God requires. And we might try
to control our actions, but even our minds and our hearts are
deceitful and wicked. And we might try to honour our
family, but we always, always end up acting selfishly. We might
try to honour God and to trust in Christ, but we are plagued
with unbelief and lack of faith. and the devil tempts us because
he knows how weak we are in the flesh. And it is as we realise and see
our own weakness and our own sin that we truly begin to understand
the need we have for God's help and God's mercy and God's grace
and Christ's cleansing in our lives. It's not our own strength
that will enable us to stand for the things that are true.
We must turn to the Lord for His strength and to the Lord
for His forgiveness, the forgiveness that He gives us in the Lord
Jesus Christ because of the sacrifice that the Lord made on the cross
for His people. When we fall, and we will fall,
We need his help because there is forgiveness with God. In the Bible, the Psalmistic,
the King David, is set before us as an example. David was guilty
of many sins in his life, but he found God to be faithful and
forgiving. even when he had been unfaithful,
even when he had committed adultery and fornication, even when he
had murdered a man to keep his secret sins out of the public
view. David says in Psalm 51 verse
2, wash me throughly or wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me." That's a beautiful prayer from
a man who had come to realise his need before the Holy God. wash me from mine iniquity, cleanse
me from my sin, I acknowledge my transgressions, my sin is
ever before me. And then, when the Lord gives
this repenting sinner a sense of hope and a sense of forgiveness,
David writes in faith, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and
renew a right spirit in me. Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. There are warnings in the Word
of God. There are warnings in these verses
to those who are young, and there is hope for the guilty and grace
for the repentant. May the Lord uphold us all with
his free spirit in these matters. Amen.