The Seventh Commandment

Well, you know what we're going to talk about today? If you read my letter, we've been going through a series on the commandments, and we're going to talk about the seventh commandment today. We're up to the seventh already, and my goal was that we would go through all ten of them before the feast. So I've got a few months left to get eight, nine, and ten done. As we begin this sermon, I want to start with some studies that were done, and talk to you about some of those to provide the backdrop for this sermon. Because over the centuries, as it turns out, there's been a number of studies done on civilizations by various people from various backgrounds and in various countries that have always come to them a surprising conclusion. Back in 1725, there was a man by the name of John Battista, Vico, V-I-C-L, out of Italy. And he did an exhaustive study of cultures that dated back all the time before him. And he expected one thing to happen, but as he went through all the studies on the cultures to see when these cultures were great, when they were strong, when they were thriving, he came up with a surprising conclusion. He also looked at when the societies began to decline, and when they began to wane and fade from the strong cultures of the earth. He also known the common things. He says here, without strong social norms... Well, in 1725, he did the study, and he concluded that marriage between a man and a woman is an essential characteristic of civilization. Without strong social norms that encourage a man to direct his sexual attentions to a single woman and thereafter care for his offspring, Vico concluded that chaos ensued. He concluded that marriage is the seedbed of society. A couple centuries later, there was a man by the name of Joseph Unwin, U-N-W-I-N, and he was a noted British anthropologist. And he had his ideas of what should be, and he decided he was going to undertake a review of 86 different cultures and civilizations that had occurred back from the time that he had information on them. And 16 of those were in modern times, including Greece and Babylon and Rome. And he had one idea as he went in that really, family structure really meant nothing. And how people conducted their sex lives really would have nothing to do with how a culture thrived and survived. In 1934, he published a book called Sex and Culture, and it says that he tried to prove the opposite. He tried to prove that marriage was an irrelevant and even harmful cultural institution. But he was forced by the evidence to conclude that only marriage with fidelity, something he called absolute monogamy, would lead to cultural prosperity and strength of a society. Anything else, such as domestic partnerships, he concluded, would degrade society. Here's a quote from a presentation that he made to the British Psychological Society back in 1935.

He said that, the evidence was such, as he concluded his study over several years, the evidence was such as to demand the complete revision of my personal philosophy, for the relationship between the factors seemed to be so close that if we know what sexual regulations a society has adopted, we can prophesy accurately the pattern of its cultural behavior. Goes on, he says, it's an extraordinary fact that in the past sexual opportunity has only been reduced to a minimum by the adoption of an institution he calls absolute monogamy. This type of marriage has been adopted by different societies, in different places, and at different times. Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the events, and there is no apparent connection between them. In human records, there is no case of an absolutely monogamous society failing to display great energy. Not one, he said. On the other hand, I do not know of a case in which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been absolutely monogamous.

He was surprised by the conclusions that he came up with. But it's notable that in every single one of the 86 that he examined, and Mr. Vico before that, there's not one that showed a thriving society where there wasn't monogamy involved.

More recently, in the 19th century, a man by the name of Petirim Sorokin wrote a book called The American Sex Revolution. He was talking about the sexual revolution of the 1960s and what that did to America. In that book, he made the comment that America, by adopting the new mores that it was adopting in the 1960s, was committing voluntary suicide. That if they adopted this approach and stuck with it, and if society went that road, America would not be able to survive in the way that it was. And he based his conclusion on the same type of study that men before him had done. And he went through, and he reviewed societies and saw that one mark of a strong society was monogamous relationships. Sexual morals that restrained the wild abandon that we see all around us today.

He says, in a review of the book, it says, Sorokin's study of decadent cultures convinced him that a healthy society can only survive if strong families exist and sexual activities are restrained or restricted to within marriage. Sexual promiscuity inevitably leads to cultural decline and eventual collapse. More recently, David Papanow of Rutgers University just put out one sentence. He said, No civilization has ever survived after its family life deteriorated. None. Not one example. And so we see and we know how things were back when many of us were growing up. And they weren't...well, those of us who grew up before the sixties, I guess. And you know, as I think back to those days, and even in the sixties, I didn't know any of my friends who were divorced. I didn't know any...there was no...none of the sexual promiscuity when I was in high school that is so rampant now. It was more the norm for people to wait until they were married, to engage in any kind of sexual activity.

But that all changed when I went to college and when I came out of college, America, and certainly over the last three and four decades, has become a totally different place than what most of us who grew up before the sixties or in the sixties recognized. I could have gone on and I could probably name you another dozen studies that have been like this, that have all come to the same conclusion. That for a strong society to exist, there has to be sexual morality. People have to be committed to one another, and there has to be a strong family structure. And all...well, many of these men were surprised when they came up with their conclusions, but not one of us should be surprised. Because that's exactly what God says in the Bible. When he created man, when he created woman, he put in motion a society and a standard by which he expected people to live. And what God always wanted was people to live in a strong, vibrant civilization. He wanted people to be successful. And he gave laws to help people be successful. And when those laws are violated, they lead, as these sociologists and anthropologists have said, they lead to chaos, they lead to misery, they lead to decline. If we truly want to be happy, if we truly want to be successful, if we truly want the society that so many say they want, then you simply have to go by what God says.

Let's turn back to Genesis 1 and see where God started it all. On the sixth day, he created man. Let's pick it up in Genesis 1, verse 26.

There it says, God said, let us, let us, God the Father and the Logos that became Jesus Christ, let us make man in our image. That's a pretty telling statement. Let's make man look like us. Let's make him, after the way we look, let's make man in our image, according to our likeness. And then he said, let them have dominion over the birds of the sea, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the cattle, the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man, it repeats, in his own image.

And as we know, as we live today, man may look like God and pattern after him, but spiritually, more and more, God wants us to look like him. That when he looks down on us, that have his Holy Spirit in us that he's given, that more and more we will look like him. We will act like him.

We will think like him. We will live like him. And here, with Adam and Eve, he's going to give them some principles to live by. And if they will abide by those, it will be well by them and more and more. They will look and act like him. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. He created the sexes. He created all the desires that people have within them.

He made that all possible. He made that all. In verse 31 of Genesis 1, it says, everything he did, he said, was very good. Everything he created was very good. Over in Genesis 2, we have kind of the mirror, kind of a further explanation of what went in there on the sixth day. And if we look at Genesis 2 in verse 18, God says, it's not good that man should be alone. He created Adam first out of the dust of the ground. And then you see in verse 19 and 20, he brought all the animals around to Adam, and he named them.

And Adam saw that among those animals, there were male and female. He saw that they all had mates. God said, it's not good. It's not good for man to be alone. He didn't create us to be alone. I will make him, he said, a help comparable to him. And in verse 21, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh of his place.

And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. So from man, God made woman. All the other beasts of the field, all men, or man was created from dust, but Eve was taken from woman. God had created a being, but he had a purpose in mind, this physical creation that he had done. And he took Eve and took her out of Adam.

In essence, the two, the one, became two. And God said, it's not good for man to be alone. Those of us who have had the opportunity to be married realize our mates often complete us. Our lives are whole because we have a mate with us. And in a good marriage and in a sound marriage, two come together and they become one. Man having his strengths, man having his emotions, woman having another set of them. And two together become a very vibrant and a very successful unit if they do things God's way. And that's what he purposed as he put man on earth.

And as he took Eve out of Adam, his design was the two would come back together again and become one flesh. In verse 23, Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

And then God says what should happen between the two. A man shall leave his father and mother. They grow up. In marriage, children are born. And in the right type of marriage, that's God fearing, those children are taught God's ways. They're taught the same principles that God taught Adam and Eve.

If you want a strong society, if you want a strong civilization, if you yourself want to be strong, happy, joyous, then you live by the laws that God established. And sometimes you do it for more than just yourself because you see, or mankind's history has shown, just what happens when we don't follow God's will. We see all around us.

We see civilization after civilization that has disappeared because they abandoned the principles or the morals that God had said. We see marriage in units that have developed over the years that have dissolved because they didn't pay attention and they didn't count as important what God had established for man and woman to be. When we marry, when man grows up and leaves his father and mother and joins to a wife, they become one new unit, one flesh. Together they are forming a new family, and their loyalty is to each other. And if they live and they work with each other, with God as their lead, they grow together.

If they complete each other, they become better as a result of the marriage. That's what God wanted. And as they have children, they teach their children the same godly principles that they've learned so that society sustains. They shall leave his father and mother and be joined. I think the old King James may say, He shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Cleave. When you look up in the Hebrew, it means literally, stuck like glue.

That they become one unit, loyal to each other, forming a family, and they become one flesh. Two people, man and woman, becoming one flesh and one unit. Verse 25 says they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they weren't ashamed. It was natural for them to be in that state with each other. No shame at this point. God created it. God made them husband and wife.

He's the one who put all the desires and all the things in their body, and there was no shame at this point. Shame didn't come in to the picture where sex was concerned until chapter 3, after Satan entered the picture. And then, when they took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then you see that the whole sexual nature of people and the sexual union between people became something that was shameful. Up to the time here when God ordained it and created it, there was no problem with it.

It was between the two of them. You see that after a man and woman are married, God blesses the union. And today, when we marry a couple, we ask God's blessing on that union. We ask Him to join that husband and wife and to make them one unit. To grow together, to love each other more, to bless the union with children, and that they will raise those children by God's standards. A covenant relationship results. And inside that covenant relationship, that's supposed to last the rest of a man and woman's life.

I will turn to 1 Corinthians 7, verse 39, but you can mark that down there. That marriage is for life, not just until a big disagreement occurs. It's a commitment. Over in Matthew 19, Matthew 19 and verse 3, Christ confirmed that commitment and what was taught in Old Testament times as well. On this occasion, He's being tested, as He often was, by the Pharisees who were trying to find Him or get Him to say something that they could use against Him. In verse 3 of chapter 19, it says, The Pharisees came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?

Christ answered, and He said to them, Haven't you read, referring back to the verses that we just read in Genesis 1, that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female? God made this. And He said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. One flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, He says, what God has joined together, let not man separate. I think the old King James says, let not man put us under. What God has joined together, when you covenant before Him, to love that person and to be with that person the rest of your life, don't let a man, any man, separate it.

He's made you one. Just as God the Father and Jesus Christ are one. What He wanted in marriage was a picture of what the relationship between Him and I were, and as He works with us and makes us look more like Him, one of the things He looks at is, how unified are you? You grow together, two people becoming one, and over time you become one. God the Father and Jesus Christ are one, and no one will ever separate them.

And He wants a husband and wife and marriage to have the very same experience. But Adam and Eve yielded to Satan when he came in, and when Satan, or when Eve, decided when she took the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to choose Satan's way rather than God's way, when she chose to do things not the way that God said, she should have remembered that God was all about success, all about joy, all about happiness. He wanted people to survive and thrive. But she chose the other way. And immediately the next time they saw God, they were ashamed of what He had created among them.

And so mankind has struggled with the sexual relationship and sexual desires. But God had foreseen that, and God gave the institution of marriage so that people would be able to share that experience with one another. Let's go to verse Corinthians 7 here. 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 1, Paul talks about the union. And in here he talks about the sexual experience and desires, and God ordained those for in marriage. Verse 1 of chapter 7. And leading up to this, and we'll get into chapter 6 here in a little bit, but leading up to chapter 7, Paul is talking about our bodies and how they work.

And he says, concerning the things of which you write to me, he says, it's good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, the New King James version says, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have his own husband. Now, the old King James says, nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every wife has his own husband. God made marriage to be a sexual outlet.

When people grow to love one another, when they decide to get married, when they go through that period, and when they covenant before God, yes, I will honor, love, and worship this person for the rest of my life, when that covenant is made into, or that covenant is entered into, then sex becomes, or then sex comes that night. God ordained sex to consummate that covenant. It's a binding thing between a husband and a wife, to be experienced only between a husband and a wife.

But it comes after the covenant is entered into. The world has it all wrong. The world today says sex should introduce a relationship. How many stories have you heard that people go out for one, two, or three dates, and the next thing that they need is, well, for the relationship to continue, we need to be in some kind of sexual relationship? No, that's just the opposite of what God said. It comes after the covenant. It consummates the covenant. It binds the people together. Sex before marriage is absolutely not biblical, and sex before marriage or sex after marriage, any sex outside of marriage condemns a society.

Puts it on the course to decline. If we take it and look at the studies that we've read already, and it does the same thing to a person. If we allow ourselves the lack of self-control to give in to what society would say, we put ourselves on a downward spiral. We cannot live. We cannot thrive. We cannot be what God wanted us to be and what society and our families need us to be if we don't have control and if we don't keep the sexual union exactly where God said it is.

So here in verse 1, he says that, or verse 2, and then he says, in verses 3 through 5, what the marriage should be like. Let the husband render to his wife the affection to her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife doesn't have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Don't deprive one another, accept with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. Some religions out there, some people say sex is only for procreation, only to reproduce yourself. God didn't design it just for that. Certainly that's one of the key things that he gave us for, so people could reproduce themselves, and a godly marriage, godly offspring are produced.

But here, verse 5 tells us, no, God understood and God created it to be for more than just procreation. Don't deprive one another, except if you give yourselves for a while to fasting and prayer, and then come together again so that Satan doesn't tempt you because of lack of self-control.

Within marriage, all needs are met. The wife's needs for protection, for love, for a provider, a husband's needs to be respected and admired, and sexual needs as well. The needs of man come together in marriage. It's the way God provided it. It's the way that God intended it to be. And if we follow what he has to say, lives are successful, people are happy, children are happy, societies thrive, societies grow, and civilizations grow. Turn over to Hebrews 13.

Hebrews 13, verse 4.

It says, marriage is honorable among all. It's an honorable institution. It's a natural union ordained by God, given his blessing, a special covenant relationship, a gift from God, just like sex is a gift from God. Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled.

No shame about sex in marriage, the bed undefiled. But he goes on and says, fornicators and adulterers, God will judge.

So with the backdrop of everything we've discussed, remembering the studies that we've talked about that show the direct benefits of a monogamous society, knowing and just seeing in the people around you what happens when infidelity and immorality occurs within a marriage and the destruction and the heartache and the pain that it causes, knowing that God wants to set up a society and people that are happy and thriving and growing and looking more like him day by day, he gives the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery. The world looks at that commandment and they say it's limiting. God's trying to limit our experiences. Not at all. God gave that commandment as a blessing because he wanted strong people, strong families, strong civilizations, marked by success. The seventh commandment is there is a blessing to people, an instruction on how to live if you want everything you say you want. All his laws are that way. He gives us laws that benefit us. They don't limit us. If every society had always abided by you shall not commit adultery and the things that that commandment includes that we'll talk about in a moment, societies like Rome, societies like Babylon, societies like Greece may still be existent. But every single one of them started off just like America started off with plenty of morals back in the 1600s and 1700s. But over the course of time they abandoned those and pretty soon they had a society that was just rampant with infidelity and with everything that went unimaginable. And the studies say that within two or three generations after society stops those type of standards you could pretty much predict it's going to fall. See, God's laws are there. And if we abide them, whether we know this, whether he's called us to know all the truth or not, when we abide by principles, they work. Babylon proves that, Greece proves that, Rome proves that, America proves that. Societies that are built on godly principles do well. But when we abandon those principles, they don't. So God gave us the seventh commandment not to limit any kind of experience, but so that all our lives could be fulfilled. And so that strong people could result. Now, if we look at the word adultery, and that's in Exodus 20, verse 14, it comes from the Greek word naiaph, n-a-a-p-h. It means to commit adultery, and figuratively it says that word means to apostatize. Apostatize. When we apostatize, we abandon what we've adopted. People that leave their religious beliefs, they become apostates. They committed and they were following a religion, but when they leave, they become apostates. The dictionary says that it also means the desertion from a party to which one has adhered. So when we enter into a marriage relationship, if we leave it, or if we betray it, or if we, well, we just leave it, we become an apostate.

There's a separation that occurs there.

You know, God experienced what it was like to be in an adulterous relationship. He experienced the pain of that because he covenanted with Israel back at Mount Sinai, and he said, I'm going to provide everything you need. I'll be your guide. You be my people. Everything you need, I will provide.

And he absolutely kept that covenant. Always kept that covenant. But Israel, who stood right there at the base of Mount Sinai and said, yes, everything you say, we will do. They broke it. They didn't honor that covenant. Over in Jeremiah 3, we were in this chapter recently, but over in Jeremiah 3, God explains the pain. Or we can see in these verses the pain that comes from someone who abandons that covenant relationship, who breaks the covenant.

In Jeremiah 3, verse 6, God speaking to Jeremiah says, have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She's gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there she's played the harlot. She said she would keep herself only to me. She said, I agree, you will be my only God. But then as the years went by, she looked for other gods. She kind of looked outside and looked at the way other people were living and thought, I want to do that as well.

And God, who was in a one-on-one relationship with that nation, was hurt by that betrayal. And I said, after she had done all these things, return to me. He was willing to forgive her. There was an indiscretion, but God, who was in the covenant relationship for life, was willing to forgive. He just wanted Israel to repent and turn back to him.

He turned to me, but she didn't return. And then he says in verse 8, I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, he finally put her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. And he talks about Judah, who should have seen what was going on, should have seen that the adulterous actions of Israel, who God gave a promised land, who he blessed richly, but when they started being unfaithful, disloyal to God, they fell further and farther away.

And eventually they lost everything. Because when we're not faithful, when we're not loyal, we lose what we have. Strong societies are faithful and loyal to the covenants they make. If Israel hadn't been unfaithful to God, she would have continued to be a shining light in all the world. But she was disloyal, unfaithful, and eventually she lost everything. Verse 9, it came to pass through her casual harlotry that she defiled the land. Even it was defiled by her actions. No longer holy, no longer special, no longer what God had made it to be.

And she committed adultery with stones and trees. Verse 12, go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, Return backsliding Israel, God says, and I won't cause my anger to fall on you, for I am merciful. They made a mistake, but he was willing to forgive. I won't remain angry forever. Just acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree and acknowledge that you haven't obeyed my voice, says the Lord.

They broke the unity. They were no longer one with God. And what God wanted was that relationship back. He didn't enter into it for just a temporary period of time. He wanted it for all eternity. But Israel didn't live up to their end of the bargain. He was a prophet by the name of Hosea.

And God had him marry a prostitute. Remember Hosea? He had him marry a prostitute named Gomer. He wanted Israel to see and to feel what the relationship between him and Israel felt like. It wasn't strong. It wasn't binding.

It wasn't God's fault. He committed and kept that covenant perfectly. It was Israel. Every single study of civilization shows a society falls when a covenant is broken. Marriages that we've known of friends, maybe sometimes family, maybe something you've experienced, fall apart when disloyalty and unfaithfulness enters. And God says in the 7th commandment, You shall not commit adultery. You shall not be disloyal to your spouse. You shall not be unfaithful. Keep yourself only unto her or him. When you look at the Bible and you see what adultery is, let's give it a definition that fits what God's purpose here is.

Adultery most naturally refers to any sexual activity outside the marriage covenant. You can look at dictionaries and they'll talk about one specific sex act, but Bill Clinton changed the nature of a lot of that in America when he decided he would define sex one way, and any other sexual activity he was having with a young woman in his cabinet, or not cabinet, in his office was defined another way.

But God doesn't define it that way. Adultery is any sexual activity outside of marriage. Any sex belongs in marriage and only in marriage. And when we talk about any sexual activity outside of marriage, that includes premarital sex, because that's sex outside of marriage. That includes sex after marriage, because that's sex outside of marriage. The only place for sex is inside marriage. The only way for a strong family, strong people, strong society, strong civilization is sex within marriage. Back in Malachi 2, verse 13, God inspiring Malachi to write here, he's talking about some various things.

In verse 13, he says, This is the second thing you do. Israel, you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying. So he doesn't regard the offering anymore, nor does he receive it with good will from your hands. The offerings that you give, God's not paying attention to anymore. And you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously. You haven't been loyal to her.

You haven't kept the covenant that you entered into. Yet she's your companion, he says, and your wife by covenant. He looked at a nation whose morals were declining, who were disappearing. And he goes, said, I'm not going to pay attention to what you do anymore. You're not keeping your covenant. You can't be strong, and you can't be strong with God unless you're keeping your covenant. Verse 15, didn't he make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring.

Therefore, take heed to your Spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. God counts marriage and the covenant that we enter into before Him very highly. It's extremely important to him. It's the building block of society, those families.

When the professor out of Rutgers University talked about families, when John Locke, back in the 1600s, talked about families being the building block of every society he studied, God said that first. When you build those families, keep them strong. Verse 16, the Lord God of Israel says, He hates divorce, for it covers one's garment with violence. Therefore, take heed to your Spirit that you don't deal treacherously.

When we commit adultery, we deal treacherously. When we have sex before marriage, we deal treacherously with the wife or the husband that will marry in the future. As we grow, as we develop, as we learn things when we're growing up, we have a purpose in life, children as well as adults. We grow up, we get married, and our responsibility is to be loyal to that mate all our lives. So people who say there's no problem with sex before marriage, they don't know what they're talking about, because you're not being loyal to your mate if you have sex with anyone outside the marriage covenant.

Let's go back to Deuteronomy 22. In Deuteronomy 22, verse 22, we find God's pronouncement that adultery is punishable by death. It says, if a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, both of them die. That's how important he was to him, that people remain faithful to their spouses. Both of them die, the man that lay with the woman and the woman, so you shall put away the evil from Israel. Put away the evil, put away the things that can crack society and crack people.

But if we back up here to verse 13 of the same chapter, we find another principle that we can adapt into the modern-day society. We remember back at the time of Deuteronomy 22, there were marriages that were arranged back at that time. Many times, husband didn't even meet his wife and vice versa until the wedding day. That was just the way they did things at that time.

With that context, let's read through verses 13 to 21, and let's bring it into modern-day life as we live in America today. Deuteronomy 22, verse 13, When we went in to consummate the covenant, I found that she wasn't a virgin.

Then the father and mother of the young woman shall take and bring out the evidence of a young woman's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. And you find, through sometimes Jewish cultures, they will keep the marriage bed sheet as evidence that the young woman was a virgin. And the young woman's father shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man, his wife, and he detests her.

He doesn't want to live with her. He's bringing these accusations against her. Now he's charged her with shameful conduct, saying, I found your daughter wasn't a virgin. And yet these are the evidences of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city, and the elders shall take that man and punish him. Now, they saw the evidence. They saw that she was a virgin. And then they take the man for bringing those false accusations and punish him.

They'll find him these things that he will have to give to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He can't divorce her all of his days.

No grounds for divorce once he does that. He will be with her the rest of his days. I want you to see how important it was that as people entered marriage, that they were pure.

On verse 20, it says, if the thing is true, that evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman.

If she had been engaged in some kind of sexual activity outside of marriage, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones.

Wow! God was serious. He was serious. Sex should be only in marriage.

And thus, young woman, when it was found that she hadn't been that way, they stoned her with stones, because she had done a disgraceful thing in Israel to play the harlot in her father's house.

And then in verse 21, he says the same thing that he says, for the adulterous relationship. In verse 22, we read, so you shall put the evil away. Put away the evil from among you.

Think God was serious about how important marriage is? Think he was serious about how important it was to not commit adultery? And that would be any sexual activity inside or outside of marriage?

Let's go back to the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 6.

Now, out of John, we run into 22, I want you to leave you with how important that relationship is to God, and to see what in Israel that God knew that fidelity and families were a key part of his society. In 1 Corinthians 6, verse 13, Paul is talking to hear about the body. Let's pick it up in the second half of verse 13. He says, now the body is not for sexual immorality, but the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

Don't you know, he says, in verse 15, that your bodies are members of Christ? He gave us our bodies, fearfully and wonderfully made. Don't you know that they're members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh. When you engage in that activity, you become one, but you wouldn't want to become one with someone like that. He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Verse 18, flee. Flee. Run away from sexual immorality. The old King James says, flee fornication.

You can go on the Internet and you can see arguments that fornication isn't, in some people's mind, a problem. But they will acknowledge in some churches and in some discussion groups that, yes, adultery. When you marry with someone, you should be faithful. But what you do before marriage doesn't really have an impact on marriage. Absolutely false. We know that. We've seen in Deuteronomy 22, we know what God ordained. And here Paul says, flee fornication. Because some people say fornication only applies to sex acts before marriage or outside of marriage.

And adultery only applies to sex acts outside of a marriage. Not true. Not true. Fornication comes from the Greek word porneia. P-O-R-N-E-I-A.

When you look it up in Strongs, when you read the uses of the word, fornication includes adultery.

Fornication includes incest. It's any immoral sexual activity.

Adultery is any activity outside of marriage. Fornication includes adultery. And God says through Paul, flee it. Get away from it. Don't let it be something that you're marked with. Because it will lead to your destruction. He goes on to say, every sin that a man does is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. He sins against himself. If we don't realize what God created man and woman for, if we don't realize what he created marriage for, when we do those things, we hurt ourselves.

There are studies out there that show that people that have sex before marriage are never fulfilled within marriage, or not as fulfilled as people who waited for that time.

It's a simple fact. When people do those studies, they're surprised, too, when they do the questionnaires, that people who waited for each other until marriage rate their sexual satisfaction in marriage much higher than those who engage in premarital sexual activity. It shouldn't be a surprise, because what God ordained was sex inside marriage. He wanted it to be a blessing and a joy to people. But when we abuse it, the blessings disappear. You know, when I said the word, porneia, you should have thought of a word that's used quite a bit in the car culture today. Pornography comes from that word, and pornography is certainly fornication.

Anything that is of a sexual nature that's different than what God had designed for would be that way. That would include homosexuality, incest, bestiality, any premarital sex, any sex outside of marriage. It's a perversion of what God had intended. And today in America, pornography is almost in some circles, wadded. Accounts say that in America, $12 billion a year is spent on pornography. It's hard to even fathom how big that number is. And yet people will say it doesn't do any harm.

Who am I hurting? Well, they're hurting themselves, and they're hurting society. You see, sex, marriage is bigger than us. We have a responsibility to each other to live by the laws of God. We have a responsibility to each other to comply with what He said before we're married and after we're married.

Remember what David said back in Psalm 51? After he realized what he had done when he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband murdered, he said in verse 4 of that Psalm, Against you, God, against you only have I sinned.

David felt a sorrow and a hurt so deep because he knew that he had transgressed, that he had been not only disloyal to his wives and to himself, but he had been disloyal to God. Because God's got a purpose. He had a purpose for Israel. He has a purpose for each one of us. He's got a purpose for his civilization and his society, and it will be marked by the laws, the gifts of the laws that he gave us. And in the kingdom, people will live by those laws, and that kingdom will last forever and ever and ever. Because people will live by those principles.

And they will know joy they never understood in this life. They will understand strength and prosperity, protection and satisfaction that they never understood in this life. That only come when you obey God's laws. Back in verse 9 of chapter 6 here, it says, Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, covenants, drunkards, or revilers, or extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Those sins will keep you out. Those sins, those acts of treachery against God, those acts of treachery against yourself, against your mate, current or future, will not be permitted. And people with those attitudes won't be in the kingdom of God. Let's go back to Matthew 5.

Matthew 5, Sermon on the Mount. And in this chapter, Christ goes back and reaffirms the commandments, but He, as you recall, expands their meaning to no longer just a physical obedience to them, but a spiritual obedience as well.

In verse 27 of chapter 5, he addresses the seventh commandment. You have heard, he said, that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Just the thought. Just the unbridled thought, Christ says. Weed that out, too. Don't be disloyal in thought or action. There's a spiritual purpose that He's building us. There's a spiritual purpose for marriage.

We grow together as one, but we also grow together as God and Christ are one, and we become more unified with Him as we live year by year. Don't even think about it. Take that thought and move it out of your mind.

Don't be disloyal to your wife or to your husband in any way, even in your thoughts. And we know that can only happen with God's Holy Spirit. You know, from time to time, and just recently someone I know outside of the church had this happen in their family, and a marriage that I didn't know the people that well, but I knew of them as one of their children, I thought it was pretty strong. And then they called and said, yeah, we've got a mess here because, you know, his wife is now leaving him, and divorce looks imminent. And it has, and it threw the kids and the whole family into a state of just totally different.

We talked to them today. Everything is scattered in the way it was at all. And I didn't ask many questions on it. I was surprised. But it all started with a relationship at work. The wife knew someone at work and had become pretty close with the guy who worked there.

And there was nothing going on at all, but over time they became close. They shared thoughts with one another. They shared what was going on in each other's marriages with one another. They became close to one another. Too close. And then all of a sudden, the marriages broke. What they never would have thought would have happened a year before, and an innocent relationship with someone of the opposite sex, the divorce results. God says, be loyal to your spouse, in body, and in mind. We don't look at other people to lust after them sexually.

And your relationship, your close relationship, is with your wife, with your husband. You have things to discuss. You discuss it with them, and you be loyal to them. Because it's treachery if another relationship begins to preempt that relationship between you and her. Christ says, loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness begins in the mind. And then he goes on here and makes some figurative language again, showing how important this commandment is to him.

He says in verse 29, if you're right, I cause you to sin, pluck it out, and cast it from you. Well, he doesn't mean to do that, literally. But he's saying, you know, if that's the thing that offends, sacrifice it. Sacrifice yourself. Sacrifice your own will. Sacrifice your own desires for the good of your mates, for the good of your family, for the good of society, for the good of God. Isn't that what love is about?

That we would sacrifice our own will for the good of someone else. And even though it may be enticing, and even though it may be inviting, and even though it may be exciting to do those things, we say, no, it's wrong. And we sacrifice our desires for the good of other people and for the good of what God has commanded us to do. So he says, sacrifice it.

Goes on in verse 30, if you're right hand calls you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For it's more profitable for you that one of your members perish than your whole body to be cast into hell. Sacrifice your own desires. Give it to God. Use the Holy Spirit and use the strength that he gives and ask him to give you the strength to be loyal to the covenant that you've kept.

To the wife of your youth, as it says in Malachi and other places. The 7th commandment is all about building and growing together. It's all about becoming strong. It's all about becoming and learning and knowing about God. In Ephesians 5 verse 25 it says, marriage is the picture of our relationship with Christ.

How would God ever use anyone who's disloyal to his or her spouse? Because if we can't be loyal on this level, why would he ever expect that we would be loyal to him for eternity? To tremendous blessing, a tremendous honor, a tremendous gift that he's given us. And the 7th commandment there protects that. He gave it to us to protect us and to abide by it.

Let's turn back to Proverbs 5. Proverbs 5, 6, and 7 are just some hallmark chapters on adultery and fornication. And in it, God inspired Solomon to write about what the effects of this is. Let's read through a few of the verses here in Proverbs 5. We'll just read through it because it's a pretty good summary here of what we have talked about today. You can see the progression of what happens when people yield to their senses rather than yield and remain loyal to God. Proverbs 5 says, My son, pay attention to my wisdom.

Lend your ear to my understanding, that you may preserve discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. Oh, it looks awfully enticing. Oh, it sounds awfully good. It appeals to everything about us. And we want to hear those things. Or our senses want to hear those things. Verse 4, But in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood. Poison to you. It may look good, sound good, appeal to things, but in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. That's where immorality. That's where infidelity.

That's where being treacherous with your spouse leads to. Her feet go down to death. Her steps lay hold of hell. Lest you ponder her path of life, her ways are unstable. They're not strong. They don't produce anything lasting. They lead to instability, destruction, pain, torment. Her ways are unstable. You don't know them. Or you were never taught that way. Therefore, hear me now, my children, and don't depart from the words of my mouth.

Remove your way far from her. Put it aside. Follow the things that God said. If you want strength, happiness, joy, stability in life, don't go that way. Put it away. Children, don't depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from her. And don't go near the door of her house. Lest you give your honor to others. Don't even click on that website. Don't even open the page of that magazine that's on the rack in the store.

Don't go down that path at all. Lest you give your honor to others and your years to the cruel one.

Lest. And God, through Solomon is saying here, this is what results. Lest aliens be filled with your wealth. Just like study after study showed that civilizations disappear or are conquered by others when they let their sexual mores disappear. Lest aliens be filled with your wealth. And your labors go to the house of a foreigner. And you mourn at last when your flesh and your body are consumed. And say, when it's too late, how I hated instruction. How my heart despised correction. I haven't obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me.

I was on the verge of total ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation.

And Solomon instructs his children, God instructs us, drink water from your own cistern.

Satisfy yourself in your marriage, and running water from your own well.

Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets, let them be only your own. They're not for strangers with you.

Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth.

Stay loyal to her. The wives stay loyal to him.

Build the picture. Catch the vision of what God was doing when he created families and when he created us male and female.

Catch the vision of what he wanted. Catch the vision of what the kingdom of God will be like, and part of where that strength will come from.

We'll be in the fidelity, the faithfulness and the loyalty of husband to wife, wife to husband, all of us loyal and faithful to God.

Never acting treacherously with each other, and never acting treacherously with him.

God gave the seventh commandment as a gift. You shall not commit adultery.