Well, having witnessed yesterday a covenant ceremony, that of marriage, I believe that it's appropriate that we talk a little bit about faithfulness in marriage today. We were challenged yesterday, each one, I pray, in our own covenant responsibilities. And so I would like to consider today the seventh commandment Thou shalt not commit adultery." Exodus 20, 14. We sowed the seeds of free sex in the 1960s and the 1970s, the seeds of safe sex in the 1980s and the 1990s, and now we are reaping a poisonous crop ever since. Millions and millions of failed marriages. Laws that grant a divorce for any reason. No-fault divorces. Abused children because they are being raised by a single parent who is not coping with the stress of being both a father and a mother. molested children who become the sexual toys for parents and friends who happen to drop in. Hundreds of thousands of teen pregnancies every year who are being counseled by tax-supported teachers and counselors upon the campuses to abort their babies without their parents' consent. One and a half million abortions in the United States alone every year. Graphic pornography sold in grocery stores and pictured on movie screens. The acceptance and the legal protection of sexual perversion in every way. Epidemic proportions of incurable venereal diseases. and the deadly virus of AIDS. Dear ones, our nation sowed the seeds of free sex and safe sex, and then prayed for a crop failure. But the crop did not fail, and we have reaped a hundredfold what we have sown. To the biggest lies that have been swallowed by our nation today, are these particular lies, these which were manufactured in hell itself, free sex and safe sex. When one seriously considers the curse our nation has reaped from the sexual revolution, it is clear that that kind of sex is neither free nor is it safe. It's infinitely costly. and eternally destructive. You see, dear ones, people are free to break God's holy commandments and to sow their seeds of wickedness. Yet let us never, ever forget that no one is free from reaping the cursed crop that will follow. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man, a nation, a church, or a family sows, that will he also reap. And woe upon us as Christians if we do not believe God is speaking to us as well. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, younger members as well as older members of the Church of Jesus Christ. Listen carefully. We can believe all we want to believe about our own supposed invincibility. In our seeming God-like ability to escape the deathly consequences of a wicked crop that we have sown, we can say, I'm a child of God. I'm exempt from the consequences of this cursed crop that I've sown. It won't happen to me. And yet, if we sneer at God's law, and if we treat the God of our fathers a covenant-keeping God who pours forth blessing upon those who keep his covenant, but curses upon those who break his covenant, we as certainly will be crushed as those who sneer at the law of gravity and jump from a plane without a parachute. If we can so clearly see the cursed crop we have reaped as a nation, Dear ones, let us not be blind to the fact that God is no respecter of persons. He means what he says. Thou shalt not commit adultery. The seventh commandment specifically addresses, dear ones, our duty to be faithful, to be devoted, to be loyal to our God in keeping all. of our vows, all of our oaths, all of our promises, all of our commitments till death do us part. Just as God says in Psalm 15.4, we are to be one who swears to his own hurt and yet does not change. We are also called in this commandment, the seventh commandment, to be morally pure, chaste and spotless in body and in soul from all sexual defilement. For this is the will of God, the apostle Paul says, your sanctification. that you should abstain from sexual immorality. So many people are crying out to know, what is the rule of God for my life in this area of my life or in this area of my life? Well, dear ones, my counsel to all of you, Begin where you clearly know the will of God, because when you follow God's will in the areas you know, God will give you greater insight and understanding in the areas you may not know. This is the will of God, your sanctification, growing in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, not defecting from the truth, not falling from the truth, not falling from sexual purity in mind. or in conduct or in speech. God desires your sanctification, beloved. It's common for people to judge sins today according to some self-conceived standard. For example, today the issue of consent You've heard this, no doubt. Consent becomes the ruler by which one measures whether an act is criminal or not. Now, was it consensual sex? That's what's important. Now, whether they were married to the person or not, was it consensual? Well, using this standard then, murder is wrong only when it takes the life of another without his consent. So assisted suicides are all right, or suicide itself is all right, because a person gives his consent to be murdered. Or in the area of sexual relationships, adultery is viewed as not being a sin or a crime, because it is said there is mutual consent between two adults. And as we have just seen in Canada, Parliament has passed the sexual orientation amendment now so that federal employees are granted the same benefits, the same position, the same status as those who are married. Because, again, that is a consensual relationship. Dear ones, on that basis, bestiality, is a consensual relationship. Certain cases, many cases of incest are consensual relationships. Where will it end? Dear ones, do not be caught in that humanistic trap. Sins and crimes do not become such because the civil government says so, but because God says so. The civil government may not recognize adultery to be a crime, but God says it is a sin. In fact, it is a crime against not only God, a sin against God, but a crime against the nation, because it undermines the very fabric of a society. And that is why God punished in the Old Testament. and why it should be punished the same way today by death. It will destroy a society, a nation. And a nation to protect and defend itself must uphold the law of God in this manner. That's God's view of the seriousness of adultery. So then, dear ones, this commandment calls us to faithfully keep, honor, and protect the vows and covenants we have taken in any realm, whether in the nation, whether in the church, or whether in the family. All lawful vows and oaths we are to uphold and defend and stand by them. But I want to focus my attention primarily today upon that sacred institution of marriage. Hopefully, most of you can remember, if you can't remember the vows precisely, you remember something about your vows and what they said. And perhaps they went something like this. Do you promise before God and these witnesses that you will be faithful to have and to hold this one from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as you both shall live according to God's holy ordinance? Dear ones, marriage is a solemn covenant made with another. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Malachi 2.15, God says, she is your companion and wife by covenant. This is not simply a civil agreement. a mere contract. This is a vow and a covenant made unto God Almighty. And God will hold us to our covenant. A writer to the Hebrews makes that so very, very clear when he says that marriage is honorable in all. The bed is undefiled. But God will judge all whoremongers and adulterers. I often wonder if marriage vows would not be taken much more seriously if it was not ratified in a way in which covenants were ratified in the Old Testament. by the dividing of the animals and then the couple walking through that bloody mess. Very graphic, very visual, that if this covenant is not kept by me, if I do not keep the terms of this covenant, let this, kind of cutting the throat, let this happen to me. Let God rain down his judgment, pour forth his curse upon me if I do not keep the terms of this covenant. Jesus even went so far as to say in Matthew chapter 19 that whoever divorces his wife, whoever breaks that sacred covenant by marrying another except for fornication, commits adultery. The Apostle Paul elaborates as to that word fornication. It means adultery and desertion. An unjust divorce, dear ones, is therefore, according to God's holy ordinance, adultery, because it is not being faithful to the marriage vows that one has made to the living God. And I believe that many, many churches, many, many pastors, many, many elders are going to stand before God on that final day because they have approved of unjust divorces, have counseled unjust divorces, have not told that particular spouse because the spouse says, I'm just not in love anymore. I don't feel the same way that I once felt, or she's gained so much weight." It goes on and on and on, the excuses. All we seem to do is fight, and what about the children? This would be much better for the children. Is it good that they see us fighting like this? Of course it's not good that they see you fighting, but that's not the solution and the answer. God has joined two people in covenant. They have a responsibility, therefore, by that covenant to work through their problems. God has made all the provision that they need if they both will follow his word. I'd like to give some very tangible ways to apply this commandment to your life. This day, this Lord's Day, several applications of this commandment to your lives. First of all, dear people of God, are you faithful to your spouse in the way you look and think about other men and women? Some of these questions will no doubt become very personal in all of our lives. God help us to reflect upon them, however, in light of his word. You see, we can break and sin against our covenant that we have made, even by our thoughts, by dwelling upon certain things, by allowing our eyes to wander. Do you ever wish someone else were your spouse? Has that ever been something you've entertained in your mind? that you could be with another man or with another woman? Job declared, I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze upon a virgin? Jesus said in Matthew chapter five that to lust after a woman is to commit adultery with her. You see, the Apostle Paul makes it very clear in 1 Timothy chapter 5. The attitude that you who are not married, all of you younger ones, as well as those who are married, what is our attitude to be toward our brothers and sisters? Toward those who are about the same age with those who are older than us, Paul says, treat older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters with all purity. That is to be our attitude toward one another. And yet I've heard So-called Christian counselors tell couples who are having problems in the area of intimacy in their marriage to pretend that they're with someone else. But that will take care of their problems in that area of their marriage. What filth, what abomination that is in the eyes of God. And God himself will judge those who have taught. such blasphemy. We certainly know, I'm sure many of us, of churches that have been destroyed by ministers who compromise first in looking, beginning with pornography, and then eventually were caught committing adultery with someone in the church. how that devastated the church, divided the church, how it devastated the family. Oh, dear ones, this particular sin, I believe above all others, has the propensity to wreak such havoc amongst the people of God. Guard your eyes, guard your minds from sensual movies, from central TV programs, from magazines and books and music. It will pollute and corrupt your mind. It will become a part of the recording in your mind, and it will not be easily erased. Second application. Who do you dress to please and impress? I speak to you, dear mothers of Israel, you sisters in Christ, at this particular point. Do you realize that what you wear day by day speaks, yet even shouts to others either about your faithfulness to your husband or your unfaithfulness to your husband? Do you crave the attention of other men and show it by the apparel that you wear? God says through the Apostle Paul that he wants women to adorn themselves with modest apparel and in moderation, not in seductive or revealing apparel. Your clothing reveals something about your faithfulness, dear ones, to your marriage vows. Are you listening, young people, children, parents? Do you enjoy, men and women, husbands and wives, do you enjoy flirting with others of the opposite sex? Do you want the approval of another man or another woman? Third application. Listen to your speech. Do you reveal your unfaithfulness through use of vulgar, filthy, slang words or joke about that which God calls undefiled in marriage? Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled. God keep us from those husband and wife jokes, which again destroy the sanctity of marriage rather than exalting the sanctity of marriage. Don't even listen, God's word says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, don't even listen to corrupt Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, the Lord says. Ephesians chapter five. But fornication and all uncleanness of covetousness, let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor course just. Fourthly. Parents, what are we teaching our children about marital faithfulness through the way they hear us speak to one another, the way we communicate as husband to wife and wife to husband? What are we teaching our children every day about the sanctity of marriage, the blessedness of being joined as one flesh? having a companion by covenant. Dear ones, the best sex education course your children will ever receive is not necessarily the straight talk you give to them about sex, but rather is watching and observing a godly husband love and care for his wife, open doors for his wife, pull out chairs for his wife, encourage his sons to be a gentleman, a husband who will listen to his wife respectfully. And through watching a godly wife who cheerfully submits to the leadership of her husband, who doesn't talk behind his back at home and undermine his authority, but who rather builds up her husband, even though he may be very weak, builds her husband up in the eyes of her children rather than tearing him to pieces. Do you care who your son or your daughter spends time with? Do you care who they will court when that becomes a time in their life, when they reach that age? Have you given much thought to praying for the future spouse of your children? Have you given much thought, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, talking about these things, training your children in the difference between dating and courtship, that we do not date? Dating leads to divorce. All that you have in dating is going steady and breaking up, getting back together and breaking up. It trains a couple very well to divorce and think, this is just a glorified case of going steady. That's all marriage is. But when you court, you are training them to understand you are now preparing to enter into a covenant with a young lady or a young man, to give your life all of your life, the rest of the days of your life, to one person. And so you invest time into that. Do you care enough, fathers, for this is primarily your responsibility, to endure the pleas of your daughter, not to interview that young man. Please, dad, don't interview him. You'll chase all the guys away. There won't be any left, and if we hold such strict and rigid views, we won't find any man to marry. Or possibly the scorn of other Christians, other family members, who may think this is really weird. God help us to see we are training and teaching our children, even long before they marry, through what we teach them about dating as opposed to courtship, about marital faithfulness. Marriage is not something you simply jump into or out of. It is a covenant for an entire lifetime. And finally, by way of application, young people and all of you who are married or unmarried, all of you young people who are yet unmarried. Do you realize that if you cannot, by God's grace, now learn to control your thoughts, your eyes, your hands and your feet, while you are single, You have no guarantee that you'll be able to do so when you are married. It has been my experience that whatever problems a person has before they are married, they will only become magnified once they are married, if they do not seek to deal with them before that time. Yes, marriage is for the purpose of preventing fornication and uncleanness. That's true. But if a person has not been able to control that part of their life before becoming married, believe me, that will not deal with the problem simply by becoming married. Begin now to control that part of your life, young people. And yet the faithfulness which the seventh commandment requires of us goes even much farther than faithfulness to our vows and marriage. It does, as I've already said, command faithfulness in every area of our life. He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much. Faithful at work, whether it is something menial that you think that you do, that no one seems to notice women even washing the dishes, caring for the children. It's not menial work, but I know that women can many times think that this is really a drag. This is just nothing to this thing. And the society all around us condemns women for staying home and doing so. But faithfulness, dear mothers of Israel, to the task God has called you to. Faithful and little, faithful and much, you will reap the rich reward of your children rising up and calling you blessed, if you're faithful now. Men, faithful at what God has given you, whatever vocation in life, whatever calling God has given to you, be faithful in it. Serve the Lord with all of your heart in it and God will bless you. And this is true, that we are faithful in little, we will be faithful in much. This is true because this commandment ultimately addresses, most importantly, our faithfulness to our heavenly Lord and Husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul gives us understanding into this great mystery when he says in 2 Corinthians 11-2, For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ, that I might present you as a pure virgin." You see, ultimately, the seventh commandment speaks of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, being faithful to Him in every area of our life. not only marriage, but in every area of our life. According to God's holy word, dear ones, our marriages are to reflect the greater and more glorious marriage, that union between Christ and His Church. And the Christian who truly sees and understands his union with Christ, listen closely, the Christian who truly sees that union between Christ and the Church, has no problem at all understanding why faithfulness in his marriage is so important. It says what he already believes about his relationship to Christ. Mark it down, the one who is faithful to Christ will be faithful to his spouse as well. And our heavenly groom calls us not only to some kind of external standard of fidelity, but rather to a fidelity of the heart, soul, mind, emotions and body. He who gave his life for us, he who rescued us from the horrors of hell, He, whoever lives to make intercession for us and never leaves us nor forsakes us, commands our first love. Even above spouse, above children, above parent, above our closest friend, he commands our first love. The problem with the Church of Ephesus, though she was faithful in so many ways, she had left her first love. And that fidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ, that first love, relationship we see having been compromised as well in the other churches who tolerated sin to exist within their midst, or tolerated false teaching to exist within their midst. We can't claim faithfulness to the Lord God and yet have a pluralistic idea about the truth. God is not double-minded. He has given to us his truth. We are to stand firmly for his truth. And ministers and elders and churches must not promote an indifferent attitude toward the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to shame the covenant which they have made with the Lord God. You see, this was the very problem that we find occurring in Israel and Judah of old. That they were the people of God, they had been joined and united with the living God, and yet they had fallen into various areas of false teaching and false worship. They had departed from their first love with the living God. And so we cannot minimize. This is not simply an emotional response that we have for the Lord when we talk about Him being our first love. It is a commitment of our entire person, our mind, our emotions, our body, unto the living God. And when we consider the vast implications of this commandment, we see there is no way we can possibly keep it in our own strength. Since the fall of man, no man can keep God's commandments perfectly and live. The commandments of God point out to us very clearly our sin and our need of a Savior. When we see how desperately needy we are in this area of our life, The Holy Spirit brings to our mind, to our soul, the awareness that we need the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who has kept the law of God for us. He is the one who was truly faithful, who did not sin in any area of his life, who was fully committed in mind, emotions, will, body, in every way committed. He fulfilled those commandments, dear ones, for you and for me. for his church, for his people. And by trusting in him, we enjoy the glorious righteousness of Christ, that we stand before him pure, not in our own righteousness, not in our own strength, but forevermore in the righteousness of our Savior, our heavenly bridegroom, the one who has sought us out and joined us unto himself. God told Hosea the prophet, go again and love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulterous, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods. Here is our covenant keeping God. Who goes out to seek those who have committed adultery before him. who have committed adultery by worshipping false gods. Because any time we put anything before the living God, we commit spiritual adultery. It is though we brought our own little whore, adulteress, in the very presence of God and committed adultery before him. That is the nature of our sin when we have our secret gods and sins that we hide in our hearts. And yet God says, go out, tell them that the Lord is yet seeking them, that they are loved by their husband. Beloved, this commandment reveals our duty to be completely faithful to a perfect husband. How often unfaithfulness in marriage is blamed on the fault of the spouse. If you only knew my husband or wife, you'd see how I just can't live with this person. But we've been joined with a perfect spouse. We've been joined with a perfect husband. And he is the one who has sought us and bought us and brought us unto himself. We cannot offer that excuse before the Lord. And so the Lord again reminds us of our duty in our covenant unto the living God. Thou shalt not commit adultery because God himself is faithful to us. God will grant to us the grace to be faithful unto himself. Let us stand in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we praise thee for thou has constituted marriage by giving even thy first daughter Eve unto Adam. As the father of the bride, thou didst bring Eve unto Adam so that they might be one flesh. And our God, thou hast constituted our divine union, our spiritual union with Jesus Christ. Thou hast brought us unto We have been betrothed unto Him, and Lord, we praise Thee this day that we have a pattern as husbands to follow the Lord Jesus Christ as He loved the church and willingly laid down His life for her, and that wives have a pattern in Thy word in following the example of the church and submitting themselves unto their husbands as the Church submits herself unto the Lord Jesus Christ. O Father, we pray that Thou would bless the marriages represented in our congregation, those which will yet be constituted in years to come, that God Thou would cause our young people to desire a godly marriage with a godly man or a godly woman, one who holds to the Reformed faith, who stands for the truth. O God, we pray that in Thy grace Thou would bless our grandchildren and great-grandchildren for many generations to come, that Thou would extend Thy covenant through them, that Thou would use us as parents and grandparents even now. to see our duty in praying, training, teaching. For God, this commandment, thou shall not commit adultery, pertains to them even now. Lord, we pray that thou would bless marriages, that husbands and wives would treat one another with respect and love, that children will learn how to love their future spouses by observing their parents. O Father, we thank Thee for Thy Word. We thank Thee that again it has cleansed our mind and our thoughts. It has reformed our thinking to reflect the thinking of the living God. We ask, Lord, that Thou would send us forth with much joy that we have heard Thee this day speak, speak to us. from Mount Zion, from thy holy mountain, the living and abiding word of truth. For it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. You are welcome to make copies and give them to those in need. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. 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You may also request a free printed catalog And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart, from his commentary on Jeremiah 7.31, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The prophet's words then are very important when he says that God had commanded no such thing and that it never came to his mind. As though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.