the seventh commandment is thou shalt not commit adultery could perhaps better be framed thou shalt not fornicate inasmuch as when people hear the word adultery they generally think only of full and complete sexual intercourse between a man and a woman not married to one another but at least one of whom is indeed married to someone else but the technical meaning of fornication is far broader and it covers every form of impermissible sexual thought word or deed whether the party or parties concerned are married or not and just then just as we saw that the sixth commandment thou shalt not kill could perhaps better be translated thou shalt not do any murder or commit no murder so too I believe the seventh commandment thou shalt not commit adultery might perhaps better be translated thou shalt not fornicate or better thou shalt not commit any sexual uncleanness whatsoever and of course just as with the other commandments so with this commandment too that the negative vice prohibited requires the opposite virtue now if we listen to our Savior's exposition of this commandment thou shalt not commit adultery we'll see that all that I've just claimed is indeed so and so let us hear God's word from Matthew and chapter 5 where Jesus says beginning verse 27 ye have heard that it was said by them of old time thou shalt not commit adultery but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart few words of comment about that when Jehovah Jesus on Mount Sinai said to Moses thou shalt not commit adultery or better do not fornicate he Jehovah Jesus who gave that law then indeed meant avoid all forms of sexual uncleanness and engage in the prescribed form of clean sexual activity but at a later stage the degenerating Jewish leaders narrowed down the originally clear meaning of this commandment do not fornicate or do not commit adultery as if the only thing that Jehovah Jesus had ever commanded on Mount Sinai was simply a prohibition of full sexual intercourse between two people of whom one was married and indeed they'd narrowed it down even further than that to some extent there was at least one school of Jewish leaders in the time that Jesus was alive who practically denied that a married man could possibly commit adultery by engaging in sexual activity with a woman other than his wife but that it was only the married woman if she engaged in such activity with a man not her husband who could commit adultery and so one finds the most terrible discrimination in the Talmud between the way in which adultery was punished in a woman caught in the act and the very light and sometimes indeed non-existent way in which not the Old Testament but in which the later perverted Jewish Talmud prescribed or rather practically didn't prescribe at all the way in which an adulterer should be punished and so it is that our Savior Jehovah Jesus who gave this seventh commandment in its original form and clear meaning on Mount Sinai now at the time of his incarnation on earth again restates this commandment and by giving examples shows its original and ongoing comprehensive scope Matthew chapter 5 and verse 27 Jesus says you have heard that it is being said by the Jewish leaders today that those of the older times said thou shalt not commit adultery but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart Please notice the words there in his heart. There is a school of Protestants who have rightly seen that an adulterous glance is a breach of this commandment, but who have wrongly concluded that looking at a woman and lusting after her constitutes the full act of adultery in the flesh but this is not the teaching of the Word of God Jesus says I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her but it goes no further than the look hath committed adultery with her already in his heart now of course it is a sin against Almighty God to commit adultery with a woman in your heart but the very fact that that woman will often if not usually not even know that she is being looked at and lusted after by a lecherous man clearly shows that this is not an overt full act of adultery at all but an inward act on the part of only the man and so it is then that we need to distinguish very sharply between adultery in the heart which is sinful and adultery between consenting parties in the flesh which is far far worse I think I gave an example did I not of this a little earlier so I won't repeat that same example now and then Jesus goes on to say in verse 29 and if thy right hand offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee we could perhaps better render that as follows and if adulterousness in your right eye offends you pluck that adulterousness out of your eye and throw that adulterousness away from you our savior is not asking us to gouge our own eyes out but he is asking for us to gouge out of our eye whatever is sinful in the misuse of our eye and then not harming the eye itself to reprogram the eye to serve him this reminds me very much of Peter's statement against the false prophets whom he says amongst other things their eyes are full of adultery in other words what Jesus is saying here that if we find we have a tendency to look on someone of the opposite sex and lust after them in our heart but no further we need to tear our gaze away from that person and remove our eye from the adulterous activity of that eye very interesting if you make a study of adultery in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation you'd be amazed to find how much is said about the role of the eye in adultery for example the prostitute mentioned in um... proverbs five through seven it says that she catches the young man with her eyes if any of you have ever been to amsterdam as i have and passed down in the red light district which is an absolute disgrace uh... you will know how many of those women when they see a tourist coming by without hardly moving their head just give a quick glance with their eye and the signal is well known enough in Amsterdam to be interpreted in the sense in which the woman means it and this of course is taught in many many parts of scripture and that's why it's so important for us to see that our eyes are torn away from whatever we're looking at and beginning to lust after when we detect that sin welling up in our hearts through the unsafe action of our eye if thy right eye offend thee pluck it out says Jesus cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish that the adulterous limb that is the adultery in the limb or in the member not the limb itself be lopped off and perish rather than that thy whole body with adulterous glance and all should be cast into hell and then Jesus goes on to say and if thy right hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee again Jesus is not urging us to amputate our hands whenever they sin but he's urging us to amputate the sinful things from our hands when our hands are put at the disposal of sin in other words if we find our hand stealing things we are to lop off that thieving action by the grace of God in our hand and then rather than maiming ourselves rendering ourselves handless we are to re-employ the hand in the opposite virtue let him that used to steal what? steal no longer but let him now use his hand not having locked them off to work hard to labor and then to use that hand to give some of the profits of the labor to another man who doesn't have things in order to encourage him to accumulate wealth and so too if our hand sins in a sexual way many parts of Italy I'm told that some of these men sometimes stretch out their hand and pinch ladies that they don't even know in places where they shouldn't well what the men need to do of course is to quit doing that and to turn away from it and to utilize their hands to caress their own wives in this particular way and I believe that's what our Savior is suggesting and saying here because to allow our hands in any way to be yielded as instruments of sin in this case the seventh commandment the sin of adultery is very frankly to risk our whole body hand and all because of its adulterous nature being cast into hell because no person who keeps on committing adultery who keeps on stealing who keeps on lying Jesus says and indeed Paul particularly will finally arrive in the kingdom of God such a person of course would be totally miserable if they got to heaven where there would be no adulterers, no thieves and no liars he'll be better off in the in the pool of fire which is full of adulterers and liars and thieves and other lawbreakers if he dies uncured in that condition himself still speaking about the commandment thou shalt not commit adultery our Savior now goes on in verse 31 and says it has been said whosoever shall put away his wife whoever wants to get rid of his wife let him give her a writing of divorcement now the Old Testament did provide for divorce if something was discovered of a very shameful nature in the life of a person's spouse in other words sexual unfaithfulness sexual uncleanness generally of an irremediable nature. If that was discovered, this was a cause to institute actions for divorce. However, what the Pharisees had done, they had extended that ground of divorce from sexual shamefulness of an unfaithful nature and a continuing and irremediable nature to include every picky eunuch thing that a man could find fault with in his wife frequently of a non-sexual nature and to use that as a pretext to get a divorce if a man would reach the point where he didn't like the way his wife was wearing her hair or didn't like the color of the jersey she was wearing or whatever it was they wore in those days instead of jerseys he could in some schools utilize this dissatisfaction as a ground for a divorce as in Russia in 1922 when if you wanted to get rid of your wife all you had to do was just write that on a postcard and put it in the mailbox and a week or so later you and your wife would be notified in the mail that by that action of one of the spouses frequently unknown to the other spouse you were no longer married well clearly this is a terrible situation fraught with grave sociological consequences for the stability of the family and something like this is what these wretched Pharisees have been doing they had been misusing in other words the correct machinery and circumstances of grave sexual unfaithfulness to get a divorce for any old picayunish reason and so Jesus says it has indeed been said whoever puts his wife away he must first give her a writing of divorcement but says Jesus I tell you and here Jesus re-emphasizes the confines within which he had previously said that this writ of divorce could be given and for no other reason I say unto you says Jesus who so ever shall put away his wife or divorce his wife saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery and whosoever shall marry her that has been divorced committeth adultery the operative words there of course are saving for the cause of fornication in this particular text Jesus is saying only if fornication is found in a married woman sexual unfaithfulness to her husband of a grave and ongoing nature and I think we must say by extension only ongoing irremediable sexual unfaithfulness in the husband gives ground for a divorce and does indeed give ground for a divorce and so you see then from these few comments that I have made that the scope of this commandment thou shalt not commit adultery is very wide well now very simply question 138 of the larger catechism asks the question what are the duties required in the seventh commandment and after stating the sexual duties which we require toward one another only then does the catechism go on to discuss the sins which are forbidden I think that's the right approach and you find it throughout the approach of the larger catechism before details are given of the way in which we can sin all the possible ways we are first given details of the way in which we should be fulfilling the opposite virtue and I don't really think that there is merit much merit in going to people who are committing adultery in thought word and deed and uh... to keep on telling them that they're doing wrong and they must quit of course we must tell them that but before we tell them that uh... we must first tell them what they should be doing sexually we should spell out to them the sexual duties that they should be engaged in and will generally find well we always find with all adulterers that they are not sexual enough it's often thought that uh... Adulterous people are too sexual, over-sexed, that's not so. Adulterous people are under-sexed. They do not properly understand the sexual duties which they should perform. They don't do that. And instead, in their perversion, they perform things that are sexually prohibited that they shouldn't perform. And often, by the way, to a lesser extent. but at any rate the point is they are not fulfilling the sexual duties that God said they should so then in the healing process of adulterers and adulteresses I think it's very important while of course telling them that they are sinning against God to spell out to them the opposite virtue what they should be doing but are not doing what then are the duties the duties the sexual duties required in the seventh commandment well the duties required in the seventh commandment are chastity in body, mind, affections, words and behavior now you'll notice that this commandment does not require total abstinence in matters sexual instead it requires chastity chastity and chastity means utilizing the sexual parts that God has given us in a sexual manner in moderation and of course in subjection to and within the confines of his most holy law we then are to be chased that is subject to God's law in the utilization of our sexual urges in our body in our mind in our affections in our words in our behavior in our behavior I think it's very interesting that at this point we notice that the catechism gives us several proof texts about the statement which are very important we're told in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 that each unmarried young man needs to learn how to gain possession of the woman who becomes his wife and to do so in a holy and an honorable way and you remember that the verse then goes on to say lest no man defraud his brother in this manner for God is one that takes vengeance and I think the meaning probably here is that if uh... unmarried couples do go further sexually than they should before marriage and if then for whatever reason uh... the uh... association is broken so that they do not get married uh... then of course when that girl ends up marrying somebody else one can indeed say that the young man with whom she first went out and whom she didn't get married to in the end, has defrauded his brother who ends up marrying the girl to that extent. It's clearly the implication. Fraud. That is, offering oneself to one's marriage partner as brand new merchandise, as it were, while actually being sullied and secondhand. Of course, the thing to do, if one has been sullied before marriage, is to come clean. and frankly to admit this to the person in whom one is interested and ask their forgiveness and their help and if they will not give this well then fine it's better that they should walk away with an unforgiving spirit than to enter into that marriage and then for this to be discovered later and cause all kinds of stresses and strains which doesn't mean one needs to go into the details of one's previous sexual association, if any, before meeting the person one would like to marry, but it does indeed mean, I think, in letting them know that one has been tarnished in this regard, but by the grace of God, so that they know what kind of merchandise they are getting when you are offering yourself to them, and that they can make an appropriate decision on that basis. Now it's interesting that even within marriage we are to keep ourselves chaste I think it's very fascinating to see that the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter chapter 3 in giving advice to married women who are Christians but who are married to men that are not Christians that they are not to nag their husbands but they are to submit themselves to their husbands and that would mean sexually submit too but then it says to do so with chaste conversation coupled with fear in other words the manner in which the Christian wife in this case is to submit herself sexually to her husband non-Christian husband in this case is with chaste behavior of course this raises the matter that one would rather not talk about what does a godly wife do who is quite prepared to have normal sexual intercourse with her husband even if he is not a believer but if he asks her to engage in perversions and I think the reply to this is that what she must do is abundantly show her willingness to engage in normal natural sexual intercourse but frankly gently or naggingly but very firmly resist any advances by the unsaved husband in the area of perversions. This I would take to be an important rider from this statement of Peter to married Christian women that they are to behave and submit to their husbands in such a way that their unsaved husbands behold or become aware of their chaste behavior coupled with fear and that of course is the fear of God rather than the fear of the husband but more than that we are also told that we are to avoid unchaste words in Ephesians chapter 5 we're told let not fornication and uncleanness be named among you neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which is not convenient for no whoremonger have any inheritance in the kingdom of God shady jokes with a sexual connotation should be far from the lips and indeed even from the thoughts and the minds as much as possible from the children of the light and you see by indulging uncarefully in these kind of words one thing leads to another and then before you may know it you may be in a very awkward situation which will ultimately prove to be an embarrassment to all of those involved then too we are to know that one of the ways in which chastity or not total sexual abstinence that's not chastity but sexual moderation is to be preserved is precisely by entering into marriage if we find that it is not pleased to give us the gift of total sexual abstinence. This is a very important and a very fascinating field. I've given a lot of thought to it as I think we should and perhaps you haven't realized that the list of charismatic gifts which are set out for us in 1st Corinthians 12 is not a complete list of charismatic gifts there are other charismatic gifts than those mentioned elsewhere in scripture and in 1st Corinthians 7 we are referred to two other charismatic gifts than those mentioned in the 12th chapter and the two other charismatic gifts which are referred to in the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians of a charismatic gift of sexual celibacy that is the ability to live without indulging in sexual actions that says Paul is a charismatic gift second he goes on to say that the ability and the desire to engage in sexual intercourse within marriage is a charismatic gift very wonderful don't you think to realize that what we have here are two charismatic gifts I got involved in an argument recently with a protestant minister if you will who insisted that marriage is not a charismatic gift but he admitted that celibacy is I accused him of Roman Catholic monasticism which of course he is guilty of and you notice that Paul does not say that the charismatic gift of celibacy is more important or less important than the charismatic gift of sexual activity within marriage he says one person has this kind of gift the other person has that kind of gift in the Greek the word charism is used and then he goes on to say it is good not to be married if you have that gift but it is better to marry than it is to burn sexually in other words if as a young person or even as a person not so young one discovers that by the grace of God by the charismatic gift of God one can live a life that is above sexual temptation course you may still be breaking all of the other nine commandments and I'm sure you will be breaking some of them in one way or another but if you discover that really you can live your life either permanently or for a long period without really needing sexual intercourse well then the thing to do is to conclude that God has given you the charismatic gift of celibacy don't then go looking for a spouse don't seek to get married and uh... let me add one other thing uh... that if on the other hand is an unmarried person you find that uh... you really cannot function without engaging in uh... sexual action uh... of some other nature then you need to conclude that it is not please god to give you charismatic gift of celibacy and you're the last person on earth that should enter into a convent or into a monastery what you need to do is to take the prescribed remedy and the prescribed remedy is not a vow of celibacy prescribed remedy is marriage but now you can't just conclude that you have got the charismatic gift of marriage and not the opposite charismatic gift of celibacy and go up to the first person that is attractive of the opposite sex on the street and say, will you marry me? Because marriage is not like a horse. If you buy a horse and you don't like it after a while, you can always sell it, but marriage is for life. And so you need to be very, very careful when finding your marriage partner that that person is indeed the kind of person that you're going to be able to spend the rest of your life with. Even those who do not have a successful marriage will be the first to admit that this is the only frame in which anyone ever should enter into any marriage, that it's a lifelong commitment, you see. However, it may be several years after you discover that you do not have the charismatic gift of celibacy, but that you have the opposite charismatic gift of desiring, enjoying, and being able to give and receive sexual intercourse before you meet the person in your life that you will know is God's choice for you say three years and frankly what is now required is three years of total sexual abstinence until you meet that person and so what one has to do in that situation which of course every teenage person has to do until they meet that person and get married is to plead with God to give one a temporary gift of celibacy as much as it should please God and then frankly when you find the right person you need to pray that God will remove that uh... temporary gift of celibacy and give you the opposite charismatic gift because those people who get married but who desire to remain celibate within marriage are deceiving their marriage partners uh... just as much uh... as uh... the people that go the whole the whole uh... length sexually before marriage and then bust up and one of them marries someone else have deceived the people who ultimately do get married to one another and so this is a very important consideration well now we are to behave then in a chaste way now the catechism goes on to say that we are to preserve this chastity in body, mind, affections, word and behavior not only in ourselves but also in others in other words we are to aid one another and to help one another preserve our chastity of course this is also true between engaged couples before marriage it's also true between married couples after marriage again I say chastity does not mean total sexual abstinence it means moderation according to the laws of God so even in marriage we are to live chastely but that certainly doesn't mean and never should mean total sexual abstinence but it should mean moderation sexually even within marriage on definite lines prescribed and laid down by God in his holy word but we're also then one another's keeper and for this reason we do have a duty to all people to help preserve their chastity and that's why I believe that Christians are to crusade against pornography I've got a tract at the back there on pornography that you may have seen and I feel for us to be silent with this flood of pornography that is poisoning the minds and the hearts of millions of people really is for us by our silence to incur a degree of guilt of adultery in not doing everything that we can to remove a pitfall from our weaker brothers and our weaker sisters who are being exposed to those things. Then the catechism tells us that we are to exercise watchfulness over our eyes, I've already dealt with that, and over our senses. And I would submit that this means don't go lurking around newsstands where they sell Playboy or Playgirl. Get rid of these things. Burn them if you have them or inherit them. But don't put yourself or anyone else into a situation where these things could very, very easily become a snare for others and perhaps two even for each one of us here. there is to be temperance and keeping of chaste company temperance there means be careful about what you drink at parties to in the footnotes here it points out to do not look at the wine when it is red because if you do you may see the strange woman that is the prostitute when people have had too much to drink their self-controls are lowered, their sexual resistance outside of marriage is lowered and the one thing can very lead to the other. There's also to be modesty in apparel. Modesty in apparel. This is a very difficult subject to know how to handle and yet I believe it needs to be tackled. I once had the very difficult job of asking two married people, a man and his wife who brought their baby to me to be baptized, Christian people, the woman always, she was a very beautiful woman, always went around wearing a very, very short skirt. And the fact is that this skirt was so short, and I knew it, that when she bent forward with this child to be baptized everyone in the pew would be seeing her underwear and in front of her husband of course I said to her now may I please make a personal request of you particularly this baptismal Sunday I said I'm pretty sure and I would certainly hope and I'd like to believe that you're not doing this on purpose but have you considered the effect of the congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ when I would be baptizing the child and you would be leaning forward what I'm saying is your skirt is far too short and I'm happy to say that they took it very well at least in my presence and I didn't hear of any static in the congregation after that And one needs to say these things. And frankly, I think that we need to preach against immodest apparel from the pulpit. Because the word of God makes it quite clear that we are to wear modest apparel. Of course, this goes for men too, but it's particularly crucial in women, inasmuch as men usually get much more easily sexually aroused by looking at a scantily clothed woman whereas normally and usually women only tend to get aroused sexually when they actually touch men and not viewing them in a semi-naked condition at a distance and so is our dress really becoming and glorifying to God well the word of God says we must be modest in our apparel and then it says that the duty required in the seventh commandment is marriage by those who do not have the gift of continency if you know that you do not have the gift of total sexual abstinence it is your duty to almighty God to get married in God's good time according to the catechism and don't rush into it but know that this is your duty and pray that God will lead you as our baptismal formula says so beautifully God leads every man's wife to every man as by his own almighty hand I think one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible is where Isaac needs a wife and someone goes off to look for a wife for him and he's just come in from the herds one day and he's in his tent walks out of the tent and here comes this gorgeous creature toward him on the camel and he sees her and he falls in love with her and he takes her as his wife and that's wonderful and this happens at times we pray as we should do I did this and I went to a camp and I just saw this girl and I knew she was what I wanted I prayed more and indeed I ended up marrying her even though for three years after I first saw her I never saw her again didn't know her name didn't know where she lived but I just remembered what she looked like never even spoken to her I kept praying that somehow God would lead me back to that girl, whoever she was, wherever she was, however God wanted to, and he did in a very remarkable way, which I shall not discuss at this point. So then, marriage is required in the case of those who do not have the gift of continency. and then another sexual duty required by the seventh commandment is the duty of conjugal love and that means that if you are married you must have regular enjoyable sexual intercourse with the person to whom you are married Proverbs chapter 5 has a very interesting statement in the 19th verse Let your wife be like the loving hind and the pleasant roe to you. I read this recently and I thought, well, a hind or a roe is a deer and perhaps this is why people who are in love call one another deer, although of course that's D-E-A-R rather than D-E-E-R. Then it goes on to say to husbands, let your wife's breasts satisfy you at all times. doesn't say there once a month rationed out like petrol in World War II but let your wife's breasts satisfy you at all times it is encouraging a married man to fondle his wife's breasts and then very appropriately it goes on to say be thou ravished always with her love now that word ravished is a very ambiguous word in English sometimes it can mean be raped but that's not the meaning in the Hebrew the Dutch translation is much better verlustigt and that means you must sexually desire yes sexually lust after your wife at all times if there is that not that intense sexual desire between man and wife there should be and both parties need to pray if it's broken down or grown cold that it will be revived and then the marriage is healthy otherwise it's just a matter of one person without sexual desire yielding to the other well they should do that too and I'm going to go on to say that but this is not desirable uh... both parties within marriage should have that sexual desire for one another now the apostle paul says something very important about sexual intercourse within marriage in first corinthians seven by the way i do not believe the apostle paul was a bachelor as many people do i think if you read that chapter carefully you see he was a widower uh... why am i saying that well in order to have been a Jewish rabbi as Paul was before he was converted it was required to be married just as Roman Catholics may not become priests if they are married so too oppositely Jews were not allowed to become rabbis unless they were married you see and so it seems to me that Paul speaks here as a widower but frankly even if he had been a bachelor it would make no difference because he's still speaking under inspiration of the Holy Spirit and what Paul says is this the husband must give his wife the sexual fulfillment which he owes her and the wife must willingly give her husband the sexual fulfillment which she owes him the wife does not have the sexual control over her own body but her husband does and the husband the word means housebound the husband, the housebound does not have sexual control over his own body but his wife does do not deprive one another of sexual gratification except by mutual consent and even then only for a short time a time of giving oneself to prayer so that means before I fly to New Zealand I say to my wife I believe the Lord wants me to preach in New Zealand for a month do I have your permission to go and if she says well frankly I'd like you to be here to caress me and I don't want you to go away for a month and I don't go to New Zealand not even for the purpose of serving the Lord but if my wife says yes that's not too long a period you go and enjoy yourself and I am enjoying myself very much but I don't want to stay away too much beyond the 15th of December nor should I as a married man I'm removed from my wife for a short time with mutual consent and we are to come together again God's word says lest Satan tempt either of you to seek gratification outside of marriage you see so then God's holy word requires regular sexual intercourse inside of marriage enjoyed by both persons and that sexual intercourse may only be discontinued within marriage for a short time with mutual consent well of course there are circumstances that arise in every marriage when that mutual consent is readily given ailing health of the wife I would think many men would say pregnancy of the wife certain phases of the pregnancy of the wife husbands prolonged absence to look for a job in another part of the country Any normal wife would give consent for her husband to go look for work in that kind of situation. And yet, this is not to be prolonged. This is not to be prolonged. I could give an illustration of this, but perhaps I will. Yes, maybe I will. Someone I know quite well, a very godly man who is reasonably wealthy, but he has had this urge all of his life. not to be a kind of a horticulturalist which he is at the moment but to become a kind of an artist I won't specify what kind of an artist to preserve his identity and now he's made enough money to be able to support himself without income while he's at the school of learning and training this kind of art he has left his wife and children for a period of not less than one year going back to see them now and then over a weekend while he's at art school. Well his pastor pleaded with him either not to do this or otherwise to take his wife and his family with him. But rightly or wrongly they have all concluded this isn't necessary. It may be, I hope not, that that period of absence may prove longer than it should have been in which case problems could emerge in that situation and so we need to take first Corinthians chapter 7 very very seriously as Paul very frankly describes this duty of sexual intercourse regular sexual intercourse within marriage however we're not only required to have regular sexual intercourse within marriage but we're also required to cohabit now One of the sad things about this word cohabit is that it's often applied in modern legal terminology to the act of sexual intercourse but that's not the meaning in our confession. To cohabit simply means to live in the same house, to eat at the same table, to sit down and enjoy the same discussion with one another. You see, I guess we could say it's possible for a man and his wife to have intercourse with one another but not to cohabit with one another. that is not to live together in the same home and enjoy the same interests and live together in the total context and this frankly is an aspect of adultery if we are not cohabiting with one another within marriage even if we are having sexual intercourse with one another within marriage it's interesting that God's advice to Christian husbands is likewise husbands keep on dwelling with your wives as the weaker vessel women especially married women need protection protection that their husbands promise to give them when they propose to them and if that husband is not living in that house to chew away burglars when they break in the wife is unprotected you see And that's why that cohabitation is so important, particularly for the sake of the children too. If the father is never home, not home frequently enough, so that the mother has to take upon herself temporarily the role of the father too, this is very hard for her. Also, to some extent, it might defeminize her. and having assumed that role of father temporarily when the father does come back there may be some problems in the husband and the wife adjusting to the role of the two when the husband is home and that's why it's so important I think for a married man to live with his wife and frankly if a married man who's earning ten thousand dollars at home supporting his wife seeing her every day is offered a job as let us say a traveling salesman $25,000 which would require that he be absent from home 7 days out of 10 I really wonder whether he's wise to accept that unless he can take his wife with him I really do and if they've got children how can they take the children with them so cohabitation further thou shalt not commit adultery requires diligent labor in our callings if you're married to a woman it is your duty to work hard and diligently and earn enough money to support two people not just yourself and when the children arrive to support three, four, five, whatever and this is why I will counsel my daughters never to marry a lazy man That man that dates my daughters is going to be told by me. What kind of a job do you have? Are you happy in your job? Is it the kind of job that you want to have? How long have you had it? What is your income? What are your prospects? And now you want to talk about the hand of my daughter. Well, sit down. And if you haven't qualified up to here, I think you'd better march. because a man has no right to propose to a woman unless he has the economic clout and the prospects under God of course we can never tell absolutely but it would seem we have reasonable prospects of being able to support her without her needing particularly after the children come along but I would say even before the children come along without her needing to go out and hold down some kind of a job outside of the home to augment the income to reach a level that really is the rock bottom level necessary to support those two people. I know you say that I am from before the flood, well you can say it but I'm telling you what the word of God says. Now, do not think that this means that it's only the man in marriage who need to legend diligently in his calling. I don't hold to that. I always get very infuriated when people say, Dr. Lee, Does your wife work? I said, what do you mean, does my wife work? She works harder than I do. Ah, well, I meant to say, yes, I know what you meant. You meant, is my wife gainfully employed? The answer to that is no, she's not. But my wife works at home harder than I do. And she is a wonderful economic asset. Proverbs 31 woman. And you'll notice that the Proverbs 31 woman does not work outside of her home but she works like mad in her home and is home-based she gets up when it's still dark she feeds her servants and then she sits in front of the old testament predecessor of the sewing machine and she makes all of the clothes herself for her entire household as my wife does except such things that i would wear as a man but she doesn't yet know how to make um... and then having made some of these things and made more of these things at home that's the point making them at home than the family needs she then takes them to market and sells them and with the income that she realizes from selling on the market her home made home-based merchandise she considers a plot of land probably adjacent to the house and she buys it and plants some orchids So, should married women work? Of course they should! Every bit as hard as a married man. As much as a woman is capable of working hard. Should she work outside of the home? Absolutely not, if it can possibly be avoided. She should be home-based in the place where she works. And of course, market things made at home, externally. Again, you may say I'm old-fashioned, but I'll tell you this, it works. and I'll tell you this that with the exception of the first year after our marriage when I was studying full time in my doctorate and frankly my wife and I would have fallen over one another we were living in two rooms at the time and we thought perhaps in that situation it would be good if she goes on working just so that she doesn't keep pestering me going around in the confines because I'm at home studying all day long but after one year of that in a very wonderful way we moved into a little cottage and she quit that work immediately and she has never been gainfully employed since and I want to testify that that's a very economic arrangements that means I've been earning just a little more than half of what many other people would earn but then of course that means I pay less income tax It also means that my wife doesn't have to feel that she's got to squander a great deal of her income, dolling herself up and dressing to the nines to hold a job and having a second or a third car and going out and earning this income and paying tax on this income and then getting back tired as a dog and then the endless wrangle at home. My wife is fresh at home as a woman should be fresh at home when her husband comes home. And I feel very, very sorry. for married women who hold down a full-time job outside of their house and who then do a great part of the housework after that, do you wonder that the romance in the family begins to lose its attractions and that the guilt comes off the gingerbread? Far better off reducing the total income and living on one salary, the husbands of course which he should have the wherewithal before he proposes than in this thing and if that means that you won't be able to buy your luxury yacht or your third car or your second colored TV well if you've got love it's much more important better to have love than just a little than to have a great deal and less love so diligent labor in our callings shunning all occasions of uncleanness and resisting temptations thereunto. I'm going to be a lot shorter in now moving on to the negative aspect. What are the sins forbidden in the seventh commandment? Most of us would be aware of this but I thought it important to put the emphasis on what we should be doing sexually rather than on what we shouldn't be doing. The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment Besides the neglect of the duties required, do you see that? If you and I are neglecting the duties I've just been discussing, you are sinning against Almighty God. You are an adulterer or an adulteress if you are not regularly sleeping with the person to whom you are married. That's quite an insight. Which brings me back to Professor Hepp and his books that I touched on earlier, do you remember? Beside the neglect of the duties required, the sins forbidden are adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts, which of course would include lesbianism and buggery and all of these words for oral sex which one doesn't even want to mention. all unclean imaginations, thoughts, proposals and affections, all corrupt or filthy communications, all listening to them all wanton looks, impudent or light behavior, immodest apparel here's an interesting one, prohibiting of lawful marriages and dispensing with unlawful marriages you remember that Saint Paul whom some say was a bachelor, whom I'm claiming was a widower, but whom we all agree was not married at the time he wrote it, speaks of the sin of those who forbid others to get married. It is a sin to forbid people that want to get married to get married. Also allowing, tolerating, and keeping of stews or brothels or resorting to them. We should do what we can to exterminate brothels. People say, how are you going to do that? It's the oldest profession. No, it's not the oldest profession. The oldest profession is not prostitution. The oldest profession is gardening. Adam was a gardener, not a prostitute. And so we need to do what we can to move against these things. Here's another one. Another sin forbidden in the seventh commandment is entangling vows of single life. if you make a vow never to marry a man or a woman as indeed some Roman Catholic teenagers are urged by misguided nuns and monks now and then this is a sin against Almighty God to make this kind of a vow or to encourage others to make it undue delay of marriage don't propose to a girl to marry her if you know you're not going to be able to marry her for another five years. Don't let the engagement last too long or too short. And please don't ask me how long is long and how short is short. But engagement is a contract that should still be legally enforceable as it used to be to marry the person to whom you're engaged within a reasonable period of time. Having more wives or husbands than one at the same time unjust divorce or desertion, idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company, lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancing, stage plays. I won't read it but it was quite a revelation to me to discover in the Bible. The Bible knows nothing about playboy but it does know about playgirl. If you read Ezekiel 23 you'll see it condemns women looking at pictures of naked men on the wall and lusting after these scantily clothed men which I think is a comment on the extreme depravity of the female sex in the time of Ezekiel these things are forbidden and all other provocations too or acts of uncleanness either in ourselves or others perhaps we should ask what we are allowing our eyes to look at in the eyes of our wives and children on the TV. And with that, I'll close and ask if there are any questions. How does that seem to you? They often stipulate what? They often stipulate that a family not be brought and that a man like... I think it's a very unhealthy practice I don't think that seminaries should encourage that practice particularly not in respect to black Africans who on the whole have a very healthy attitude I think to the importance of family life and marriage And let me put it this way, you will never succeed in promoting a theology of celibacy amongst black Africans with any great success. They have too great a regard for marriage. And another problem is, of course, that in many black African countries, polygamy is still allowed. And some of this rubs off on the Christians. And so honestly, for a black African student to leave Africa for three or four years away from his wife, there's no telling what may happen while he's separated from his wife. I have known some very, very fine black African people studying in the United States whose moral behavior has been exemplary. I've also known others who are married and who started dating girls at the seminary and even married them and ended up in a bigamous situation fraught with all kinds of problems as to their visas and I think that seminaries frank two things I think that we should take the seminary to the person in whose culture it is to be trained I don't think it's terribly a good thing to bring black African seminary students to the United States or New Zealand or Australia or wherever and train them there I think we need to get seminary started for these people where they live and the second thing I think is if we do during a transition period while seminaries are not yet available for them in their country, train them in other countries, frankly I think that the seminary should encourage the man to bring his wife and family with him. I would regard it then as a very unnatural situation, particularly as far as black Africans are concerned. On the other hand, let me say this, that if war breaks out, men are separated from their wives, often for years. And I believe that as we pray, God gives us the grace to be faithful. But I must say this too, war is hell. and there's nothing like a world war which separates husbands and wives for five years to bring about an astronomical increase in adultery with all of the terrible problems of family disruption after that. Can the government legislate to prevent? Oh yeah, absolutely, yes, yes. even in the United States today it's a federal offense to send pornography through the U.S. mails which is very severely punishable if apprehended sure yeah oh yeah yeah I mean profit after profit you know warns the Israelites to take stern measures against allowing these pagan practices to creep into the Commonwealth of Israel I'm not saying it's easy to enforce. I am saying that yes, of course a country should protect its citizens against moral corruption from overseas and internally too. Well, I would argue that pornography is always wrong even in small doses. I would not argue that the moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages is always wrong. I would argue that drunkenness and immoderate use of these beverages is always wrong. Yes, it would be preferable, certainly preferable to the government legislating would be the people to reach such a moral degree of attainment that there wouldn't be much of a market to it. But because man is depraved and because very many citizens at this moment of every society on earth without exception are depraved and because sexual depravity is relatively easy to fall into and uh... very enslaving i would argue strenuously that the government has the duty to move against pornography just as it does to move against the importation of habit-forming drugs and uh... most australians all australians and new zealanders would you would say against the importation of firearms too although i have my own views on firearms but we need to go into that the moment uh... but things which the government rightly or wrongly considers to be morally disastrous to the public the government should keep out but now of course what the government needs to do is to uh... determine through prayerful reading of the Word of God exactly what is morally disastrous. Of course if the government doesn't do that then indeed the government could become tyrannical and keep out things that God does not prohibit. But I can't honestly think of any statement in the Word of God at all that would ever suggest that pornography is okay in small doses. Seems to me the bearing of scripture is against it as all was wrong under every possible situation. So I don't see how morally we can easily make much of a case of objecting to the government's moving against pornographic material. Any further questions? It seems that in our age, particularly in Christian circles, there's been a tremendous increase in publishing on sex, and particularly within marriage, more directly on sex technique. You may like to comment on that. I'd be interested to hear your comments on the rectitude of that and what you think about it. But is it also something that's just peculiar to our age? Or is this being part of the church in your knowledge of it in previous ages? I think we are seeing more books published today by Christians about the subject of sex within marriage than I would think we've ever seen. The reason for it I would say is an overreaction to a period of Victorianism when it was regarded as absolutely taboo for these books to be written. Now I think we can be grateful to have such manuals to the extent to which they are biblical just because a Christian writes a book doesn't mean that the content of the book is Christian I'm really wondering though whether we don't have more than enough of these manuals on the market and I'm wondering whether the subject of sex even within marriage really is quite as centrally important and it is important but whether it's quite as centrally important as many of these books might suggest or might be regarded as suggesting to the extent that if you do not read this book your marriage is likely to come to grief it does seem to me that our grandfathers who didn't have these books and grandmothers who got married I would feel not only had a much lesser degree of divorce than we have today, the divorce rate in England, I think it was, was 1 in 55 in 1900, 1 out of 55. Today, of course, it's astronomical. It could be said all well, but a lot of women in Victorian England were sexually unfulfilled. Yes, some of them were, no doubt. Exactly how many? were not likely to be able to discover in this life but I think today that in spite of all of these sex technique books on the market that some women and men are still sexually unfulfilled today even after reading all of these books and what's said in one book may sometimes be a bit of variance of what's said in another book and these statistical tables that have drawn I'm thinking here particularly of the famous Kinsey report where wasn't it in the Kinsey report that the statistical claim was made that one out of every three men had had some kind of a homosexual contact before marriage and one out of every five women or something to that effect now I would like to think that that statement in the report is truthful and not garnished or exaggerated in respect of that handful of people whom the people in the Kinsey Report actually approached and that the answers which the people gave were accurate and that's another matter but now from that sampling to conclude that that is a representative sampling of society I don't know and it seems to me that variations of sexual intensity and and regularity are so great between one person and another one marriage and another I must honestly say I really wonder whether any of us while reading these books should attach too much importance to what the book says that we may get some help from it seems to me that each marriage is such a personal matter that no marriage is going to have the average sexual pattern which the book statistically tries to establish as being average so after you've plowed through the book what then? seems to me a better procedure might be to get to know one's mate lovingly and to seek to give them the due sexual benevolence and to enjoy that oneself After all, you're marrying the woman and not the book, right? And vice versa. Same to me. All right, perhaps we can take a five-minute breather and then start on that. 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. It is likely that the sermon or book that you just listened to is also available on cassette or video, or as a printed book or booklet. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email. at SWRB at SWRB.com by phone at 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Avenue Edmonton that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N Alberta abbreviated capital A capital B Canada T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin, 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 731, 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.