I consider with you this morning, congregation, the seventh commandment, which is, as you know, thou shalt not commit adultery. At the start, let me say that I will deal with the subject as sensitively as I can. It is delicate. Please don't be offended. even though we all may be embarrassed by the use of some terms. So in dealing with this commandment, which I take as the third commandment in the second table, we are dealing with the sacredness of a man or a woman's marriage. I take man in the widest sense when I use that term. Separate from woman, if I use the term man, A man can not only be guilty of adultery, a woman can be guilty of adultery as well. So if I use man, I'm not ruling out women committing it. Text 2, as you know. So I take man often when I use that in its widest sense to include male and female. A person's marriage is sacred. It is sacred to the husband, it is sacred to the wife. Human life is sacred, it's not to be taken. Man's property is sacred, it's not to be taken. and especially a man's spouse or a woman's husband is not to be taken. The bond of marriage is not to be broken. The union is not to be interfered with. And so the commandment expresses that thou shalt not commit adultery. Adultery, you see, breaks up marriage. Adultery tears the heart and soul out of a marriage. Adultery murders affection. It steals love. It brings sorrow, even death. It's not without reason that it is called the scarlet sin. And I want to warn you about that sin this morning. you might avoid it always. And so, avoiding the sin of adultery, avoiding the sin of adultery, God says, thou shalt not commit adultery. And how do we avoid it then? How do we guard ourselves against it? How can we strengthen our heart and our resolve against falling into it? And I say unto you, we must avoid the sin of adultery by first of all realizing its heinous or heinous nature. We have never to forget ourselves about the heinous nature of adultery. It is a vile sin, and so by this commandment God would protect our marriages. And he would remind us of the heinousness of sin. Now in order to appreciate the heinousness of sin I have to remind you what marriage is. At the foundation of this command not to commit adultery lies marriage. So the first thing that we have to consider is the nature of marriage. What is marriage? We cannot really appreciate how wicked adultery is until we begin to appreciate what marriage is. So there I start by looking at marriage. What is marriage? Well marriage is first and foremost a covenant. It's a covenant. That's what it is. It's this aspect of it which is used by the church of Jesus Christ to picture the relationship between Jesus and his church. It's a marriage. And there's a bride and a bridegroom. But at the foundation of all that union and the foundation of all that fellowship that takes place in the marriage, at the foundation of it all, there's a covenant. The Bible's full of this, the Old Testament dispensation of that one covenant of grace. And now the fullness of the New Testament we call the New Covenant. It's the same covenant. But now it's cleared of all shadows and cleared of all of the trappings and the scaffolding of the synodic, and at the base of it is a covenant. His covenant to his people, his covenant to his married people, this aspect of it is set forth in that passage of Scripture that we read in Proverbs 2 verse 17. which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant." You see, she hasn't only left her husband, or the vice versa, a husband leaving a wife. They haven't only left one another, they've forsaken the covenant. There's a covenant basis. And so, here's an adulterous woman, and Solomon warns about her. from verses 16 to 19, the verses that we read. And in being a daughter, she does two things. She forsakes her husband and she forgets something. She forgets the covenant. You see, the marriage covenant is solemn. In this world, with the exception of those solemn covenants which bind us to God, there is no more solemn covenant. It is here called the covenant of her God. Because before God it is meant. This covenant is between one man and one woman. That needs to be reinforced, this perverse and adulterous generation. This is the form of its first institution in Eden's paradise. The fallen world has not changed that. It has corrupted that. That is true. But it has not changed that. In God's sight, that corruption is destructive of society, that corruption is perversion, and perversion is damnable to self as well as of others. But marriage is still in the form as it was in paradise between one man and one woman. The law of God in marriage forbids bigamy, it forbids polygamy, it forbids sodomy, it forbids unlawful, unclean, illegitimate unions. A solemn covenant between one man and one woman for perpetuity. Now, it is a solemn covenant of perpetual obligation for as long as the couple live. There are some exceptions which we will not go into. This covenant of God, this marriage institution, binds the couple to the most faithful and affectionate and loving bond. Secondly, not only is it a state of covenant, a covenantal basis between a man and a woman, it is also in a state of honor. It's honorable. It's pure. Not only something covenantal about it, there's something honorable about it. And this is brought out in such passages as Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13 and the verse 4, where we read marriage is honorable. Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled." It's an honourable estate. Honourable in all, it says. Now what does that mean? Well, it means in all classes, I believe. Among the rich, it's honourable. Among the poor, it's honourable. Among the saints, it's honourable. Among the world, it's honourable. It is honourable between any man and any woman, for it is a lawful union. There's nothing dishonorable about it in itself. No man need be ashamed of it. No man need be ashamed of being married. No man need shun it. Celibacy is honorable as well, of course. I'm not saying that celibacy is dishonorable. Celibacy is honorable as well. If a man can live in that state, It's just as honorable to be single as to be married, but what I'm saying is there's not something dishonorable about marriage, or something impure about it, or something about it that whereby a clergyman or a priest or whatever couldn't be married. No, it's an honorable estate. There's a purity about it. It was instituted in Eden, in the pure paradise, and it continues still. So it's not dishonorable for any man to marry legitimately, which is why the requirement of it for priests to not marry is contrary to God's law. It's honorable for all, though the Church of Rome, of course, through its little horn, has a very big mouth and is always speaking contrary to the laws of God. But it's as honorable for the priest as for anybody else. Honorable and all. It is a mark of apostasy that they forbid marriages. This union is sacred, it's honorable. All other unions are not. You'll see that there in the rest of the verse, the bed undefiled. So here's an honorable bed, here's a pure bed, here's a clean bed, a bed of marriage. It's the only clean bed, the marriage bed. It's the only honorable bed for two to be in it, the marriage bed. But all other unions dishonor the bed. Whoremongers, adulterers, God will judge these unclean unions. So interference with this union and unions contrary to this union bring God's judgment. So marriage is the only honorable and lawful union. All other unions are abominable. Unions I don't even want to mention this morning. Unions that the Bible condemns. Same-sex unions. Incestuous unions. God will judge them all. We've said something about marriage, more might be said on marriage, but I've said enough to suffice for the understanding of this commandment. It's honourable, that is it's pure, there's something pure about it. The bed undefiled. So keep these two things in mind. Covenantal nature, the honourable purity of it. Why then is adultery so heinous? Adultery is so heinous because it is contrary to those two departments. Adultery is impurity. It is defilement. The bed, undefiled, it defiles the bed. It takes away the purity. It dishonors a man. It dishonors a man's body. It dishonors a man's soul. It dishonors a man's bed. There's a defilement about it. The Bible constantly, I haven't time to go through all the texts, but the Bible constantly calls these wrong unions uncleanness, always called uncleanness. Uncleanness and fornication, lasciviousness and uncleanness, so on and so forth. The apostles are always bringing in the word uncleanness when they begin to deal with sexual impurity. God will judge it. I know we've got away from that. We have governments now who legislate for these things. Yes, we do. In fact, they encourage this. They bring out their coffer box, their treasure box, and they encourage these unions, and they legislate to make them lawful as if they could do that. Well, governments mightn't judge, and governments might use their treasure chest and pay their coffers out to these unclean and perverse unions, but I tell you this, God's government won't. A man will be a loser for an unclean union, and hell will be fuller for unclean unions. No government will stop God's judgment. God will judge. Hebrews 13.4 And so let's see what God says about sex outside of lawful marriage. And by that word I mean not only the act of fornication and adultery, but also the thought of it, the desire for it, the desire of it outside the marriage bed, the desire of it in the mind, the lust of it. I remind you that adultery can be committed in the mind. We read Matthew chapter 5, Whoso looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. in his heart. And it's just like the sin of murder. We can be around about the leg and say, oh, I've never done that, I've never committed that. But when we go upstream, it's different. It begins in the heart, you see. The thought of it and the desire for it and the impure thoughts and minds and looking upon that which is not. I remind you then of Matthew 5, 28 whenever I speak about adultery. But what I am emphasizing now is the impurity of the sin. It will stain your conscience. It will leave a stain on your heart. It will become an awful spirit grieving defilement in your life if you're a child of God. It will. You'll grieve the Holy Ghost. It is an uncleanness that should not even be named among the saints, the Bible says. God emphasizes this, and we haven't time to look at all the scripture references to show its unclean nature. But I remind you of Paul's letters to Corinth and Thessalonica. Paul had to deal with sexual misconduct in both of those churches. And there it has the pestle he clearly called the sexual misconduct on cleanness, a tenuous nature, defiling the bed, impurity. In other words, it's dirty. It cannot be glamorized. It cannot be turned into Hollywood movies and glamourites and mad knights. The modern movie corrupts the Word of God, perverts it. Have you ever met a film of David that makes Uriah the body? It makes Uriah the one who's faulty. It makes Uriah the husband who neglected his wife and went off to the wars and left her alone. And he was hard to her and bad to her. And she needed comfort. And she fell into the arms of David and he was so good to her. That's Hollywood. It's not the Bible. If there's any man of God amongst the three of them, it was Uriah. Oh, you're right, I loved the Lord. He loved the Lord. I haven't time to show that to you, but he did. He was a man of God. And David, for all his psalm writing, he let the Lord down at that point. That's for sure. So it can't be glamourized. His life was never the same after that. Read it in Samuel. His life was never the same. The peak was reached. And after he committed adultery, it was pretty much downhill. Certainly his house wasn't the same. Adultery will never leave a man the same. It never will. It'll never leave a man's house the same either. It never will. So avoid it. The heinous nature of it. But in this other department as well, it's heinous. Because not only is marriage honourable, marriage is covenantal. So it's not only impurity, it's treachery, it's unfaithfulness, it's contrary to the solemn vow made between each other. It's a breach, a breach of a solemn vow. It's a breach of a compact that is one of the most solemn compacts in the earth among men. And it's treachery. It's on faithfulness as well as indecency. And this is how the Bible paints it. And so the basics of marriage is love, love manifested. How is love manifested? Is it manifested in lovey-dovey and kissing and lust and all the rest? No. Essentially it's manifested in faithfulness. Faithfulness tells you if you love. That's what tells you. Same in the thing of God. Is it putting your hands up and getting all worked up in a motive and praise services and all the rest that tells you if you're faithful that you're in love with God? No. It's faithfulness. Faithfulness to the Word. Faithfulness to the will of God. Just love the Lord and you're faithful to Him. That's the evidence. And so in marriage, And this solemn vow is a vow she preached supremely of faithfulness. And adultery is treachery. It's betraying your spouse. It's being unfaithful to your spouse. It's treacherous. And that's how Proverbs 2 paints it there, didn't we see? She forsakes her husband. She betrays him. She's treacherous to him. We read from Malachi chapter 2, did we not? You will observe the reason why we read Malachi chapter 2. Because there we read of this aspect of adultery brought out. Treacherously is the word used. Verse 14, thou hast dealt treacherously. She is thy companion. And verse 15 at the end, let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. And then again at the end of verse 16, take heed to your spirit that ye deal not treacherously. And the context here is the priest's spouse, the priest's wife. These priests being unfaithful to their wives, like Eli's sons. You know what they were like. It's not uncommon in the priesthood. There's treachery here. Betraying, breaking into relationships, betraying. people betraying their spouse, so on and so forth. That aspect is brought out. And God has witnessed this. I haven't time to expound verses 14 to 16. We could do that and look at adultery as expounded in the text of the Word of God, but I'm just looking at it in a general way here today. Adultery is treachery. To the wife of your youth, it's wicked. I tell you, treachery. There's a sin not easily blotted out. It's not easily forgiven by a man or a woman. Treacherous. It's the hardest sin of all to forgive in someone when they're treacherous to you. God can forgive it and does, but I want you to feel the heinous nature of it. Treachery! So don't interfere with somebody else's marriage. Make them treacherous. Don't break your own marriage by treacherous, treachery to the wife of your root. Betrayal. Think of betrayal. Think of Judas Iscariot. Think of treachery and betrayal. That's what Judas Iscariot did spiritually. The Lord brought him in. I'm sure he was baptised or whatever. I'm sure perhaps he was even at the Lord's table. I know there were some people who think that he wasn't, but it appears to me that he was at the Lord's table that day. The Lord knew. But he brought him into the visible, made him a treasurer. And all the while he knew there was treachery in his heart. He was the traitor. You must learn the heinous nature of it to avoid it. Godly Joseph did comprehend its heinous nature. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? But then I want to remind you not only of the heinous nature, also I want you to be reminded of its destructive nature. I've already hinted at this. Every sin is destructive, but this one is especially so. Whoredom and whine take away the heart. A man loses something by means of perversions. Takes away a heart. Your heart is your principal thing. You know, this often happens, you see men getting caught up in adultery and they become stoned. Their heart's gone. They're never the same. Only the grace of God sometimes reaches them and restores them, but many don't get restored. It's an awful thing to watch. Takes the heart away. A man loses his reasoning faculty. It's impaired. A man becomes more like a beast, the Bible says. Neighing like a horse after a neighbour's wife, like an owl horse. Nay, the folly of it, the destructive nature of it to a man's logic, to a man's thinking, to a man's desire like. It perverts a man. It destroys a man. So avoid it. We saw also in our text in Proverbs how it is brought out there. Her house and plain is unto death. This is the adulteress. Go to her house. Oh, she'll come out with her smooth words. You go in and be taken up by it all. But don't forget this, when you go into her house and you go into her bed, her paths are going to death. They're going to death. Twice it says that, on to death, her paths on to the dead and the man. will not return again, and neither will he take hold of the path of life. He'll never get onto the path of life again. He'll never get back into the way again. This is the word of God. I know that grace makes some exceptions and comes in even in the case of David and others, but the generality of the truth of the matter is this. The adulteress's bed leads to death. Don't forget it. Solomon has quite a bit to teach his son about this. Proverbs chapter 6, I draw your attention to also, verse 32, Whosoever committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding. He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away." Not get on the path of life again, not get his reproach wiped away again. That's it. It's finished. It's over for him. Many a minister has had his ministry ruined forever by this. He may have got forgiven, but he couldn't be trusted in the office again. By reproach, that would never be wiped away. No, there's no return. Don't go down this path. The man lacks understanding who goes down this path. And as well as that, the destructive nature of this sin. Think about this too. It's a sin that doesn't destroy just one soul, it destroys two souls. It destroys two souls because it takes two to commit the act. It is a sin that requires a partnership. It is a sin that requires a dual action, dual consent, enticement perhaps, but consent by both, and the entire fulfilling of the consent by the couple, it's the destruction of two souls. Think about that. Oh, you might recover. You might recover if you go down this path. You might get delivered again by the grace of God if you go down this path. But I should rather think the grace of God would keep me from going down this path. Pray that it will. But you might recover if you have real grace in your life. You will recover, there's no doubt of that. But what about the other soul? What will you do to her? What will you do to him? You might recover, but you might damn someone else deeper in hell in their scarlet sin. So it's a sin that involves the soul of someone else. Think about that when you're tempted to it. Those who wallow together in a bed of defilement will not find it so pleasurable when they are tormented together in the flames of hell, and they will not lovey-dovey each other then, I can tell you. They will torment each other throughout all eternity. That's the nature of their punishment. A sin in union and a torment in union as well. So think of that. The adulterer must remember this, that he not only destroys his soul, he destroys someone else. And should he get repentance, the other might never. And then thirdly, and quickly, let us reinforce ourselves and avoid this sin, not only by discovering and realizing its heinous nature and its destructive nature, but also, thirdly, by observing some cautionary rules and preservatives against it. And I give you two departments of this. First of all, negative rules and preservatives, rules of avoidance, rules of separation, and then positive rules to implement in your life. First of all, then, negatively, the rules of avoidance and separation. This adultery comes about not suddenly, usually. You don't just fall into adultery. You don't just fall into adultery. It's a big link of chains along the way, and at the end of it is adultery. And what you are to avoid is to avoid all those links along the way. That's what you're to avoid. And so I first mentioned drink. Drink and alcohol is often a path to adultery and sexual perverseness. So avoid drink. whining and downing and that kind of being socializing among the unconverted and worldly groups. This social, and now we have social network, you don't even have to go out the door, you can do it on the computer and you can develop a relationship on the computer and the social network and phew, it all is the same. And you have to avoid these links, this vain socializing, this drinking and boozing. And another thing that is a link in the chain of this is idleness. We know certainly that was a factor in David's adultery. The idle man, time when kings went forth to war, he wasn't going forth to war. He had a siesta and then he got up. He had a bit of time to spend, he had a walk around, he had a look at a naked woman. And lo and behold, next thing she's in is bed. Idleness! Avoid idleness! Don't be an idle man or woman. This was Sodom's fault. You know, Ezekiel, I haven't time to go to the verses 16-49 if you want to reference it, but pride and arrogance and abundance and materialism and uncharitableness and idleness, those were all the sins of Sodom. You'll say, well why does Ezekiel not mention sodomy? Because everybody knows why it was all burned up for sodomy. But everybody doesn't know why it become a perverse society of unclean unions. Why did it become that? It's always the same. Our history is the same. Our western civilization, it's the same history. And we'll have the same end too. Abundance, selfishness, uncharitableness, idleness in a society will bring and multiply sodomy and unlawful unions and perverseness. Give a man poverty, give him where he has to work his works, his fingers to the bone, and you're not likely or less likely to get unclean unions there. but in a decadent society of whirlingness and materialism and abundance, as Sodom was. Sodomy was just the crowning sin of it all. Modesty in dress is something else to be invited, and that needs to be proclaimed in this day and age. Too tight dresses, too low dresses, too high dresses, and I say the same of men, not that they wear dresses, but they can dress immodestly as well. And also foolish talking has to go here and foolish jesting and bantering with the opposite sex in the office place. Being flirtatious in speech or appearing to be in speech and it's coming across as flirtatious. Avoid all of that. and dancing, and theatre, and cinema, and watching things that stir up the lusts, and that fire and inflame the body, and being alone with the opposite sex, being found alone with the opposite sex, under the pretense of comforting them perhaps, bantering with them. Avoid it! Avoid it like the plague, for your testimony and for the glory of God. And then be careful about what you read. Magazines and papers are always portraying immodesty and glamorising uncleanness. And endeavour not to be long periods away from your spouse. Work and necessity means, of course, that there must be some separation, but let the separation be occasioned by duty and business, not by leisure and idleness. Those are negative rules to avoid it. Positive rules. Reject advances. Frown. Frown on bantering or flirtatious talk from the opposite sex. Frown on it. Give them a cross look. They'll not do it again. So don't welcome that kind of banter or approach from the opposite sex. Recoil and let them see you're uncomfortable about it. Break the chain. Don't let it go down the road to the scarlet lake. There are clear barriers of decency and respectability. There's a space around you and you rebuke anybody who goes into it. Develop and nourish a loving relationship with your spouse. Do everything together that you can. Spend time together. Spend time together with the family. May it be your best time, your most looked forward to time, the time that you always want. Cultivate and develop loyalty to your spouse, and there's nothing does that better than praying with them. Some of the man of God's most blessed times have been times when he has spent times of prayer with his wife. They have been the most blessed times. And I tell you, they developed loyalty. They developed the bond. Then, be faithful at the means of grace. Love God's house more than the social groups and the outings which are full of the unconverted and the ungodly and the opposite sex. Why do you have to go to them? You have the house of God. You have the place of the saints. So be faithful to the means of grace, read the Word of God, read wholesome Christian literature, be earnest in prayer, keep your heart with all diligence, watch your mind, guard your thoughts, watch what you watch and watch what you read. Let the Word of God dwell in you richly, especially its warnings against uncleanness. Keep a tender conscience in this regard, and remember it's not only your soul, but someone else's as well. and especially walk closely with Jesus Christ. Let me also say in closing, and remind you of the gospel, that I preach the law, not that you might be saved. Keeping this commandment won't save you. It doesn't make you pure. But teaching this commandment will teach you your sin. It will remind you of the scarlet nature of sin. And it will become a schoolmaster to bring you to Christ. Come now, the gospel says in Jesus Christ. Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, yes, even scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. The marvellous grace of God in the gospel. Perhaps someone has committed this sin. even in the very deed, the dark, scarlet, secret sin into which you fell. I'm a gospel preacher. I preach not the law to despair you, but to drive you to Christ. For the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. All sin. Washes us from all iniquity. And so I preach the law that you might get to Christ, that you might fly to Christ, and having fled to Christ and be washed in his blood, you might seek his grace to live by the law. Though not saved by it, you live a righteous life by it. And so there is forgiveness. But the gospel says, as Jesus said to the woman taken in adultery, does no man condemn you? Neither do I. No condemnation for you, you adulteress by me. That's grace. But the same breath says, go and sin no more.