In this sermon, Pastor Babij begins examining the seventh of the Ten Commandments: “you shall not commit adultery.” Pastor Babij explains how the central principle of the commandment is to honor God’s institution of marriage. In application, Pastor Babij discusses several key ways for believers to protect their marriages from compromise.
Full Transcript:
Today, we will be looking at Exodus 20:14, which is the seventh commandment, along with other passages of Scripture to help us understand these commandments. Exodus 20:1-14 says:
Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3“You shall have no other gods before Me. 4“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 7“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. 8“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. 12“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you. 13“You shall not murder. 14“You shall not commit adultery.
Let’s pray:
Lord, as we continue to look at Your word and these commandments that have timeless and universal principles embedded in them, I pray Lord that we would put ourselves in the equation. That we would not think that this is for someone else, but it’s for us. I pray Lord that we would take what it says to heart and practice it in our very behavior and thinking. Lord, as we do that, we would learn how to live Godly lives and holy lives. Lives that are not perfect but lives that are moving towards righteousness and putting the things that we do know into practice. Lord increase our knowledge and make us into Your image as we know the spirit of God will do that. Lord, we want to submit and bow before Your word. Use it in our own lives Lord to honor Your name. I ask and pray in Christ’s name, Amen.
As we look at this passage of Scripture, we’re brought face-to-face with the realities of God’s plan for marriage and also for personal morality as God intended it. We are all aware that moral standards are laughed at or ignored by a majority of a people in the world. However, high standards of personal purity are what God has intended for His people.
Over 3,000 years ago, the people of Israel had to face the kind of situation we face today. They were going to settle in the land of Canaan where their neighbors are notorious for their complete lack of morality and purity. Culturally, the Pagan religions did not demand sexual purity of its devotees. The gods and goddesses were grossly immoral.
The laws God gave to the Israelites touched the areas of their lives that he knew would or could be most affected by association with the wicked culture. These commandments really are for us today because they are timeless and universal. They fulfill practical principles that we can implement every single day of our lives.
Now, it’s very clear that we are living in a kind of a pornographic society. Our culture is really bombarding us with images and designs to capture our lusts. Mediums of TV, commercials, movies, YouTube, social media, and internet sites are designed to figure out your habits, to track where you go on the site, what you buy, and they get to know you in a way. They start advertising certain things to you.
In fact, marketing professionals understand this. They capitalize on it and one area that they capitalize on is pornography. They get that out to people. Thus, our nation has been really steeped in a revolution, and we have been losing very badly in this revolution. We have been thrust from the sixties into a sexual revolution that has moved into a homosexual revolution that has ushered our whole nation into a revolution of insanity.
That’s where we live today. We live in the realm of insanity. The Bible is very clear on that. When that happens, Romans 1:24, 26 says:
Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them…26For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural
This whole thing of insanity is that there’s insanity on the street level where the Bible says in Romans 1:28:
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.
Then, that insanity trickled right up to the government. We have a revolution of insanity at the governmental level. The Bible does tell us that they do the same thing and they give hearty approval to those who practice such things. Today, we are living in that realm and we are challenged by the word of God to live according to the way God wants us to live.
Now, we come to this seventh commandment, which is brushed aside today. It’s not really practiced at all in our culture to any extent. Yet, for the church, they are to keep this. The church is to make sure that things that are going on honor God.
The seventh commandment is a straightforward command. You can even feel the force of it when you read it even though it’s so short. It impresses immediately upon your mind and your conscience that God disapproves of every kind of adultery and sexual deviant behavior. Every kind of it, God is against and it’s not the way he designed things.
In Scripture, the principle is that we have a responsibility to honor the marriage institution By remaining faithful to one’s own spouse and by respecting the marriages of other people. Again, it says very clearly:
You shall not commit adultery.
God designed you As a sexual being and placed His dynamic creative force within you. It should be reasonable that the Designer, the Maker, would not leave you or I without direction regarding the powerful sexual machinery He has placed within us.
Secondly, let me remind you that the Designer has given you precautions, and restrictions found in His instruction manual called the Bible. God is for you and me in this matter, and He is not trying to make Your life miserable, but wonderful. Since God created man’s sex hunger. God plans for man’s sex hunger to be satisfied by the reuniting of woman to man as it occurs in marriage.
We all have been exposed to many different ideas and views concerning sex, love, and marriage. Society has loudly and frequently said that everyone must make their own personal decision concerning this matter. This is true, but according to whose agenda will one make their decision:
Are you going to view your sex drive as simply another biological phenomenon like hunger or thirst and then feed it the way you think it should be fed, or is it something far more meaningful and wonderful than that? Will you consider your sex urges as something to be satisfied now, or something to be diverted until you get married – that is, if you get married?
Whose advice will you seek and follow in regard to your sexual conduct: your parents, the kids that you grew up with, the neighbors on your block, or maybe some actors and musicians? Even better, we should get our direction from the Lord, God because He is the designer and the architect of the marriage institution.
Not committing adultery is literally sexual intercourse with someone who is married to another. It was considered to be such a breach of faith in marriage and so horrendous that it was thought to pollute the culture. God considered this sin so serious that it was punishable by death in the Mosaic law. Leviticus 20:10 says:
If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
We see the seriousness that is coming through Scripture to us concerning this matter. I grew up as a really good Catholic boy, but not a person who was introduced to anything in Scripture that would remind me of these things. Yes, I did know the Ten Commandments, but it’s not like it came to mind. I wish somebody sat down and said something to me on what the Bible says and what God thinks about the sexual union in marriage.
Basically, you are told to wait until you are married, right? Generally, that’s what people would say, which is better than nothing, but it doesn’t explain what I ought to be doing, thinking, or not doing. Those are the kind of things that when I come to Scripture, I see how weighty these things are as we read them in the word of God. Deuteronomy 22:22 says:
If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.
God made sure that His people knew that this kind of activity was evil. It was wicked. It was something that would pollute the culture. It would pollute society. It would destroy families. Therefore, God’s people were to make sure those things were not taking place and they were following with the word of God. This seventh commandment was put it very simply by man named D. Stewart, who wrote a commentary on the book of Exodus:
No one is allowed to have sex with any married person except his or her spouse. No married person is allowed to have sex with anyone other than his or her spouse.
That is very clear and very simple, and that’s the way it ought to be. That should be clear in our minds. Keep in mind as we consider the seventh commandment, adultery suggests the wrongness of all sexual impurity in deed, thought, and word. Remember, Jesus raised the bar in Matthew 5:28 where He says:
but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
In other words, God judges sin not by the fruit on the branches, but on what’s going on inside the heart since that’s where it all comes from. This is a sin against God. It divides what God has united in marriage – one man and one woman. Any other cultural construct is wrong. God alone has the authority to define marriage and determine the proper use of sexuality.
Again, adultery is sexual unfaithfulness of a married person. It is voluntary sexual intercourse of a married man with another than his wife by a married woman with another than her husband. Christians know from the word of God, beyond a doubt, God’s standard of right and wrong is very clear when it comes to sexuality.
Adultery destroys the holy oneness and the harmony that marriage possesses. It is a sin against more than one person and against God. It wrongs the innocent. The whole family is hurt. Often, children are left victims of a broken home, which leads them to visualize and understand a wrecked marriage concluding not to get married at all.
The testimony of the Christian church is maligned when it happens along with the nation being weekend. Thus, it weakens at every level and finally destroys. Yes, the sin of adultery hurts those who are guilty of it. King David, after committing adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, wrote in Psalm 51:3-4:
For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. 4Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.
In the book of Proverbs, the wisdom literature of the Bible, says the person who commits adultery lacks sense and destroys his own soul. Proverbs 6:32-33:
The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; He who would destroy himself does it. 33Wounds and disgrace he will find, And his reproach will not be blotted out.
When sex is taken outside the marriage, the fire of sexual passion will consume and destroy even the most precious things in one’s life. Adultery can be committed in and outside the family unit, which pollutes the whole community and it is coupled with serious consequences. Again, in Leviticus 20:10, we see adultery outside the immediate family unit:
If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Then, you see that adultery can be committed inside the immediate family unit where it says in Leviticus 20:11:
If there is a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
It’s a wicked spiral when sex is out of control. In Leviticus 20:12, it’s talking about incest, which is sexual intercourse between persons related by blood or marriage:
If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
Then, Leviticus 20:13 spirals into homosexuality:
If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
In Leviticus 20:14, it is referring to polygamy:
If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, so that there will be no immorality in your midst.
In Leviticus 20:15-16, it is referring to bestiality, which is people having unnatural sexual relationship with animals:
If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death; you shall also kill the animal. 16‘If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
Then, there is pedophilia, which is an erotic desire of an adult to have sexual relations with a child. Did you know that sex trafficking is the second fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, right under drug trafficking? There has to be demand for it, right? Do you know where the demand comes from? The good old United States because we’re free, right?
When were free and we leave God out of things and there’s no more structure in our society for morality or ethics, then everything goes wacko and crazy. All you have to do is turn on the news and find out what’s going on in Washington and see that there is no common sense. It’s insanity. There’s no common sense when there is insanity. The Bible is teaching us that our Lord, God is against this kind of activity within relationship of human beings.
That brings me to two things that really have to do with a marriage when it is ratified. This day that we vowed our love before our friends and God above. The day when somebody gets married, two things are going on to ratify the covenant. Number one, a verbal oath, a solemn promise, of the vows made before God and witnesses will be kept. Number two, the ratification sign, the private act of sexual consummation, which signs and seals the covenant.
So, how are we to hold the marriage institution in high regard? We must understand and accept what God’s word says about marriage; then, maintain what it says no matter how much pressure we receive from the world around us that’s trying to conform us, press us into its mold, and get us to think like they think. We cannot think like they think. We must think in a way that honors the Lord.
I want to direct your attention to a passage of Scripture in the New Testament, in Hebrews 13:4. In the context of Hebrews 13, it’s about running the Christian race. Remember, the race is not a sprint race, but it’s a marathon race. It’s not a matter of whether your first. It’s a matter of finishing. Some take longer than others, but we ought to be finishing the race in a way that honors the Lord.
Here, the Jewish audience were on the brink. Some of them were coming to trust Christ as Lord and Savior, and there were some of them not coming all the way over to trust the Lord as their Savior. Thus, he is still giving the nation the principles on how to live in this world. In that, there are four main things in order to hold marriage in high honor.
First, to maintain a correct mindset concerning marriage, the word of God is exhorting gathered believers to maintain the correct mindset and the correct thinking on marriage, which is to have a Biblical mindset. Hebrews 13:4 says:
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled…
In this verse, there are two words regarding marriage. It’s the word honorable, which means that it’s valuable, precious, costly, and to be respected. That’s the mindset that we are to hold when it comes to the marriage institution. The second word is undefiled, which means to be pure, unsullied, and unstained. That’s how we are to look at marriage.
There are always different mindsets in regard to marriage. There is the mindset of no marriage at all. People just doing what they think is right and avoiding the contract and the commitment in marriage. Well, that’s foreign to the creator’s design. Then, there is asceticism, or the ascetic mindset, which are the people who become monks and live on top of a telephone pole.
Those are the people that think marriage is really not honorable at all, but actually dirty, defiling, and filthy. They have an agnostic type of mindset where they think the body is dirty and the spirit is good. They believe if the spirit in the body come together, then the body defiles to spirit. There is also the same sex mindset. They think that they are right, but they are wrong that two people of the same sex could be married, which is foreign to the word of God. In fact, the word of God says that’s an abomination.
Then, there is the Biblical mind set. There is nothing dishonorable in marriage or defiling in the marriage relationship or the marriage bed for sexual intercourse. It is pure and holy before God. Remember, marriage itself is not a Christian institution. It is a creation institution. These mandates go out from the Creator to the creatures that are to be obeyed and lived out in the culture in which they live. As a result, the standard for the church goes up.
The Bible says that marriage is a divine institution. Contrary to some contemporary opinion, marriage is not a human institution that has evolved over centuries to meet the needs of society. Marriage was God’s idea and it is a good idea. Also, marriage is to be regulated by divine instruction. Since God made marriage, it stands to reason that it must be regulated by His commands, which we’re looking at today. In marriage, both husband and wife stand beneath the authority of the Lord. In Psalms 127:1, it says:
Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
If you’re going to build the house, then build it God’s way according to the blueprints God gave us. Then, your house is going to stand. If you go opposite of that, then you’re just laboring in vain. Then, a few troubles and mindsets will come along and there it goes. Building marriage with Gods blueprints is the point of marriage.
Also, marriage is a covenant agreement between two parties based on mutual promises and solemnly binding obligations. God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants is summarized in the statement:
I will be your God and you shall be my people.
Marriage is the statement, “I will be faithful to you, you be faithful to me.” Marriage is called a covenant, the most intimate of all human covenants. The key ingredient in a covenant is always faithfulness. Faithfulness to the covenant vows and obligations.
Marriage is also a whole person commitment. God meant it to be a total commitment of a man and a woman to each other. It is not two solo performances, but a duet. In marriage, two people give themselves unreservedly to each other. What God has joined together, Scripture says let no one separate.
God has declared till death do us part. That is not a carryover from old-fashioned romanticism, but a sober reflection of God’s intention regarding marriage. Ultimately, marriage is a divine illustration of the love relationship that God establishes with His people. Thus, the Christian marriage should be an object lesson in which others can see something of the divine human relationship reflected in it.
In Ephesians 5, we see that a husband is to love his wife like Christ loves the church and wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. As our marriages grow and develop and our minds are changed by the word of God, then we will reflect that kind of picture more and more as we put God’s word into practice.
So, how are we, the church, to keep marriage honorable? By never allowing its honor to be defiled by sexual violations, which is the first. Second, we are to maintain a correct behavior in marriage before and in marriage. Again, Hebrews 13:4 says:
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Fornicators and adulterers are two words that bring defilement into the marriage. Fornication, which is where we get the word pornography from, is one who practices sexual immorality or a fornicator. This is defiling behavior that dishonors marriage in advance of marriage, or before someone gets married.
Fornication is what happens when somebody doesn’t have a good understanding of what marriage is and how God designed it, so they act out their sexuality before marriage with someone else. This term really designates those persons who indulge in sexual relationships outside the marriage bond both heterosexual and homosexual.
This includes all kinds of impurity and unnatural vices. All kinds of sexual deviant behavior are not to be acted upon even before one gets married. Then, the second word is the word adulterer, which is defiling behavior that dishonors marriage after marriage has been entered into. This term indicates those who are unfaithful in their marriage vows.
These two adjectives – fornicator and adulterer – covers all who recklessly engage in forbidden practices against the one who sets the boundaries and rules for such relationships, which is God himself. Meaning, it is the responsibility of Christ’s church to view marriage as honorable and undefiled. We are never to disgrace this institution by sexual unfaithfulness. You must have the correct behavior of marriage before you enter into marriage and you are to maintain that mindset and behavior while you’re in marriage.
Thirdly, we should maintain a correct view of God. In Hebrews 13:4, God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Illicit sexual sins defile the marriage bed and profanes what God has made holy. Therefore, a healthy fear must be kept in regard to our Lord God. Anyone who defiles marriage through any illicit sexual encounter will face the certainty of divine judgment. Some theologians actually point out that this verse, and others like it, also includes the final judgment that determines your destiny. Ephesians 5:5 says:
For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Someone who practices this activity thinks they’re getting away with it because that’s the choices they made, that’s the road they have been led down, or they think that they’re just going to get a pass on it since everybody else is doing it. However, according to Scripture, it could be that very sin that sends you into a lost eternity because God is holy, just, righteous, and He is the judge.
God is serious about fidelity, purity, and morality. God is a moral being and he created people in His image as moral beings. Consequently, God holds people morally accountable. When humanity rejects God’s rule and asserts its own rule by violating and perverting God’s fixed order and moral law, then there are serious consequences. That’s what’s coming out of the word of God from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible.
God is serious about His marriage institution. More than any other picture, it reflects God’s faithful relationship to His covenant, to His word, and to His people. It has become also a picture of how Christ loves and is faithful to His church and how the church is to be faithful to Christ and respectfully and lovingly submit to Christ.
Fourthly, as I consider the passage altogether, marriage is to be held in honor among all. We must take Hebrews 13:4 very seriously and live it out every single day of our lives. We’re always fighting against sin and temptation. Through the word of God and the power of the spirit of God in us, He gives us the ability to resist that temptation and put into practice what is written in the word of God.
It doesn’t mean that the temptation goes away because you had victory one-time. We’re going to get bombarded and knocked from pillar to post when it comes to temptation. It’s going to be at different levels. It’s usually going to be when we least expect it. It could be at the time when you think you are the strongest in your Christian walk, then boom! You get hit with that.
You must have your mind come back to this passage. You must have your mind go back to the Ten Commandments. One of the things that will help us in temptation is loving God, which is a level of maturity. We must love God more than we love our sin. Thus, we must maintain a consistent and correct conduct that aligns who we are and what pleases God concerning marriage.
The Apostle Paul understood the allure of sexual sin, so in his epistle, to the formerly idolatrous Thessalonians, he provides a perspective that is too often neglected in a sexually intoxicated culture like theirs and like ours today. In 1 Thessalonians 3:13, Paul gives instructions that is practical for us:
so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.
This is how we are to conduct ourselves as we go in and out of living our life on the Earth. Not only is there unattained maturity that we are to obtain, but there is lifestyles and cultural practices that must disappear completely from our life as we grow more and more like Christ. The scripture now gets very specific as to what that means. 1 Thessalonians 4:7 says:
For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.
Let me start off by asking and answering some questions. First, what is sexual purity? God’s will is our sexual purity. In 1 Thessalonians 4:3, it says:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality
This is all over the Bible. You cannot get away from it and I believe the reason why is because it’s so powerful. It’s so tempting. It’s so easily falling into as a sin. God’s design is that man and woman would exercise their sexuality and experience sexual pleasure in only one context, which is in the marriage relationship.
Any sexual impurity dishonors our marriage and defies our marriage bed. It is taking the affection that we vowed to our spouse alone and giving it to another. It is a horrible offense against our spouse, so a definition would be this:
To be sexually pure is to receive sexual pleasure and satisfaction only from your spouse and to give sexual pleasure and satisfaction only to your spouse.
If you are single, then this means abstaining entirely from sexual pleasure and satisfaction as long as God keeps you single. In the meantime, you are to pursue the greatest kind of pleasure and the greatest kind of satisfaction, which is knowing God. In fact, you are to do that before you get married and you are the continue to do that in your marriage.
This is really the key to a happy marriage. I say to young couples the key to a happy marriage is Jesus Christ and the principles of the word of God that is going to rescue you from all kinds of trails and temptations that you can get dragged down into.
To be honest, it is uncomfortable preaching about stuff like this that is so direct, but I wish someone did it for me when I was younger and reinforced where possibly our parents are stumbling around trying to communicate. You are going to go to the young people, to school, or college and get bombarded with completely the opposite of this.
In fact, it’s going to be stuff that they’re going to be convinced of by people that they may have some respect for such as a mentor in their life. Nonetheless, believers need to stick to the word of God, stick to what it means, and practice it every day. This is something we ought to practice every single day in our culture.
If you are here today and you have fallen into wrongful sexual practices, and if you think in your mind to have sex without even the act, that’s sin. That’s pretty serious before the Lord. Some of these habits seem impossible to break, but only by the power of God can it be broken. It will be broken, and it should be broken.
The Lord, Jesus Christ stands ready to forgive you for past sins and to enable you to keep free from sin in the future. In sanctification, we are to cooperate with God concerning what the word of God says about how I’m to be behaving, what I’m to think, what I allow into my mind, and what I allow my mind to dwell upon. All those things are super important for you and me to have victory over this prevailing sin in our culture.
You must be willing to do your part and cast yourself on the mercy of God and the strength of God’s spear to deliver you when that temptation comes. Remember, temptation is not sin, but it will lead to sin if you give into it. If you play with it, if you entertain it, and if you feed it, you’re going to get hooked. There’s going to be a point where you won’t be able to resist anymore.
In this area, young people, adults, married couples, and everyone needs to put into practice this particular principle that says you shall not commit adultery, and what that principle means in practical implication. As I close, here are some practical things in how to protect against slipping. Now, this is going to relate to those people who are possibly single or even those who would eventually get married.
When you are single going out with someone of the opposite sex, on a date, courting, or whatever you want to call it, then you must stay active. You have to stay with others. You should not allow too much time alone with each other. Plan that time together so it is filled with absorbing wholesome activity. That’s what you have to do to start resisting temptation.
Then, you can’t lower your inhibition or dull your judgement or your conscience by letting your conscience to be seared in anyway by some kind of thing that will deaden your God-given higher faculties of soul. You have to allow your judgment, your conscience, your reason, and your self-control not to be short-circuited. If you allow that to happen, then you’re actually saying, “I don’t care, and I want the temptation to come on because I’ve been desiring and think about that for a long time.”
You have to depend on the holy spirit of God to keep self-control. Another thing is that you can’t allow your mind to be all tied up with sexual thoughts. You have to divert your thoughts onto other interests such as hobbies and things you like to do like music and noble endeavors that are going to keep your mind occupied. Of course, the word of God definitely comes into that. Philippians 4:8 says:
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
You also have to avoid self-defeating behavior. If someone says to you, “can I even look at another person?” Yes, you can just as long as your prolonged looking does not foster unwholesome thoughts. Don’t even practice this kind of self-defeating behavior because it’s going to end up giving you trouble. Even Job, one of the first books of the Bible, concluded:
I have made a covenant with my eyes;
How then could I gaze at a virgin?
He realized that’s going to get you into trouble. In your mind first, it’s going to get you into trouble. There are various services that filter out some of the inappropriate web pages and email information that comes across your computer. Parents, if you don’t have it and if you may need it for yourself, there is something called “Covenant Eyes,” or “Safe Eyes.”
These are things you should have on your computer. Just the very fact that you would not be led into temptation. You know how things get on your computer. If you’re going to certain sites, they have these little cookies that connect to your programs and then they send these kinds of messages into your computer.
Pornography is just a click away and you can do it in private and nobody knows you’re doing it, but God knows, which is the point. God knows you’re doing it and God takes it so seriously, so don’t think you’re getting away with it. It has serious consequences. Then, we want to resist temptation. Psalms 119:11 says:
Your word I have treasured in my heart,
That I may not sin against You.
The word of God is going to be a very important ingredient that saturates your mind so you would not be led into a sin and you’ll be able to resist the temptation when it comes. I think the great advice that Paul gives to young Timothy, who was going to pastor the church of Ephesus is simply to run. In 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul says:
Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
Flee, but don’t leave a vacuum. If you leave a vacuum, you will get sucked back in, so pursue something. Call upon the Lord with a pure heart, which is a heart that is seeking and wanting the will of God in their life. See, that’s what we ought to be doing. Flight is usually the best approach to sexual temptation. To stand and resist temptation is possible, but it’s much easier and makes more sense to run from it and pursue what you ought too.
Then, keep the line between the unmarried state and the married state. It should be drawn distinct and clear. Chastity before marriage is what pleases God. Purity before marriage is what pleases God. If you practice it when you’re single, you will also practice it when your married.
Don’t ever get caught in some illusion that you’re never going to be tempted just because you’re married to a sexual sin. You will, but you got to be ready for it. Don’t get caught in that trap.
We must have a clear view of marriage as something set apart, something sacred, something special, and granting a special place of privilege before God. See, that’s what the Lord calls us to do. Let’s pray:
Lord, may we be in command of our bodies. The holy spirit of God has been given to us for self-control. May we have the strength to flee from temptation. Not only that we find happiness in this life, but we find our happiness in You. Also, Lord, that we might stand before You unashamed one day because our lives have honored the name of Your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, for all of us, whether we are married or not, we would, from our very thought life and heart, start thinking the way You want us to think. Lord, when we are tempted, we would immediately go to what Your word teaches us, and the principles found in the word of God. That we would resist it. Lord, give us the wherewithal to know when to run and when to stay away from things. Give us wisdom in this area, Lord, so we don’t get caught in the cultural complications that are going on all around us. I pray, Lord, in doing that we may honor Your name in our behavior and in our activities with other people. I pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.