Marital Fidelity
Tom Shrader presents the second session in an eight-part series on sexuality, focusing on fidelity within marriage and the sin of adultery. He establishes the Bible as the final authority on sexual matters and defines God's design for marriage as permanent, monogamous, and heterosexual. Using examples from Joseph's temptation and various biblical passages, Shrader emphasizes that sexual temptation is relentless and requires wisdom to avoid, while also offering hope for God's forgiveness and restoration to those who have failed.
“God wants Joe Theismann to be holy, not happy.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Sexuality by Design (2007)
Recorded: February 08, 2007
Duration: 43 min
Themes: marriage, fidelity, adultery, temptation, forgiveness, restoration, purity, faithfulness, married couples, struggling with temptation, recovering from adultery, seeking forgiveness, young adults, marriage preparation, sexual temptation, relationship struggles
Scripture: Genesis 39, Matthew 23, Ecclesiastes 5, Malachi 2, Proverbs 5, Leviticus 20
Theological Themes: biblical authority, sanctification, sexual ethics, marital theology, sin and redemption, scriptural authority, moral purity, covenant marriage
Full Transcript
We look at today's session 2 in what will be an 8-session series. We said what we're going to do is look specifically at some things that we've looked at, kind of touched on—no pun intended here—along the way, and that's the sexual issue. We talk about sex almost every week or every other week in terms of maybe identifying an issue here or making reference, but we're going to take these eight weeks and talk specifically about the issue of sex and we won't dodge anything.
We'll talk about abortion, we'll talk about homosexuality, we'll talk about pornography, and then we'll talk about sex inside and outside of marriage. The title of the series is as deliberate as it could be—you've got it in front of you: Sexuality by Design. The idea is that God had a plan that our lives from beginning to end, including our sexuality, are under God's plan and that we can know what that plan is in that He has given us a book called this Bible.
God's Owner's Manual for Life
The Bible tells us God's plan for all of our lives. If you will, in a sense it becomes the owner's manual for your life. So if you're wondering about what God would have you do as a parent or what He would have you do as an employee or an employer, you will find either specific instructions or principles from which you can pull out these truths as God begins to deal with you in this area.
We have to spend some time on this always, and the younger the group the more time we need to spend. So I want to make sure we get this for the tape and for all the people that will be listening on tape: the Bible is the final authority in our life. The Bible is the Word of God.
The Constitution and the Bible
I was watching C-SPAN three or four weeks ago and they were having one of those Saturday afternoon discussions. They were talking about the Constitution of the United States and they had Justice Breyer and Justice Scalia. Let me just stipulate here: I understood almost none of the discussion that they were operating about on the constitutional level I'm not familiar with.
But what I did get out of it, and Scalia especially was trying to force this issue, is that Breyer was coming at the Constitution and in essence saying the Constitution is a living document. We live in a culture, things are morphing, the document's living, it's vibrant, it's breathing. We need to look at it this way in light of some things we know now, maybe even take international law—blah blah blah.
Scalia was saying no, they wrote the Constitution and here's our job: our job's to interpret the Constitution in light of—and he did not use the word but it would be—authorial intent. What would the framers have in mind? Obviously culture is changing, but the document's not changing. So we bring the document fresh to the culture, not the culture to the document.
When I'm listening to this, it sounded exactly like 5,000 conversations I've had about the Bible. It's exactly the same conversation. So you will get people who will say, "Oh the Bible, that's a pretty cool book, got some great stuff in it, but we've either got maybe some other things that have been written or that kind of trump this, or that's just kind of dated, or we know that in here are some things that are true but there's also some things that aren't true."
The Test of Truth
Well here's the deal that I've observed over the years: if you're one of those that say there's things that are true and things that are not true, how do you figure out what's true? What I've learned over the years is the things that you think are true are the things that you agree with or like.
The test for me as I come to the Scripture is when I look at it and go, "I don't want to do that. I don't want to live this way—not naturally anyway." I want to live this way because God commands it and I want to honor Him and glorify Him, and therefore I want to obey Him. But I don't naturally want to come at this, and I'll give you a great illustration of this a little bit later this morning.
Two Foundational Principles
So what we're doing in this series is really twofold. We are establishing again the Bible as the Word of God—authoritatively true, no errors, no contradictions. There are certainly things in there that we may scratch our head and say, "Hmm, don't know." Are there things that we wonder about that God has an answer? Absolutely, for one of two reasons: either you don't need to know, or you aren't smart enough to know. He's an infinite God; you aren't, and that's an important thing to get our arms around.
The second thing is based on the fact that we are Christians. What does it mean to be a Christian? That's defined entirely by our doctrine and our implementation of that. In other words, a Christian is one who understands who Jesus is, who's come to Him in repentance and faith, who understands that Christ died on the cross, and that at that moment that I understand and acknowledge my sin and accept Christ as my Lord and Savior, at that moment I'm as saved as I can ever be.
Now there'll be all sorts of life change, and we would call them good works. There'll be all sorts of those things that follow. They have no bearing on whether I'm a Christian or not. You get that? That's really important.
Liberation Through Grace
When I heard that for the first time, I felt liberated because I came from a denomination that said Jesus did some stuff, but you got to do yours. He did His, you do yours, and then sometimes you're in and sometimes you're out, and we'll see how this works out. Work, work, work, work, work.
No. We're saved by grace. He did it all. Now as a result of that and a response to that, my heart's been touched so my life's been changed. And now that my life's been changed, I want to live a transformed life. So even when I read through that Scripture and I see things as I said earlier that in the flesh or the natural I'm going, "I don't want to do this," now I want to do that because God's changed what I want.
So I'm a follower of Christ. I come in this area of sexuality and we see God has a plan, God has a design.
and hopefully encouragement to you. I have a billion discussions about life, many of them are cut short when I'm sitting down with a person and they'll say, "Here's what I think, here's what I feel, here's what I've heard, here's what I've read." And I'll say, "All right, here's what we got to do. We got to agree that this is the Word of God, because if it isn't, we have no basis for discussion." It's like trying to talk to somebody about math but he thinks two and two is five and I think two and two is four. We're not going to get anywhere in algebra or calculus.
So we've got to stay on that when we look at the topic today. The topic today has two key words for us. Two words of the day. Remember last week the word was *pornea*, or sexual immorality. Today what we're talking about is fidelity within marriage. What we really talked about last week was more the idea if you're single—we'll pick this up again a little bit later—if you're single especially, or married, but the idea of sexual immorality.
Two Key Words: Fidelity and Adultery
Two words today. The first, and you have them on your outline, is fidelity. It means faithful devotion to your obligations or your vows. You said you were going to be there at 7, you get there at 7. You said you were going to do it, you do it. Your yes is a yes, your no is a no.
The other word is adultery. Now last week you talked about fornication—that's sexual relations between two people who aren't married. Adultery is a sexual relationship between two people when one or both of them are married. About 50 percent of adulterous relationships involve a single person, so about half the time it's someone who's married having a relationship with someone who is single.
The Workplace Factor
Let me give you some other things. These are kind of interesting facts to me, but two-thirds of adultery takes place within the workplace. So like one astronaut would hook up with another astronaut—that's how that would take place. I mean something like that. Now we're both here, we're on the space shuttle, that kind of deal.
We're going to talk more about it in a minute, but I want you to understand—I am especially, and maybe not as applicable in this group, but over the years I have watched many men send their wives to work. Sometimes the wife is saying, "I don't want to go to work," and he's saying, "But we need the dough, you got to." You understand what you're doing most of the time, unless it's in some super job? You're sending her to work for a net gain of very little money, and you are sending her out with the sharks, my man.
She is going to walk in that door the first day and she hasn't heard a word from you about how nice she looks in 15 years. She's going to walk in that door and somebody's going to go, "Oh my gosh, that hair! That's perfect! Is that a new look?" "Well, I just changed it a little." "Is that a new dress?" "Well no, I guess you could wear anything and make it look new and fresh." That's all that's working on, and now you get in there, man, and that's what's going on.
The same thing happens at work when—I would say '75, and I could be a little off on this—it was really when you saw an influx of women into the marketplace. And this is not some anti-woman message, I'm just giving you what I saw happen. What happened in that is that all of a sudden you're sharing an experience. The dominant part of your life is now you're with this guy. You're a trainee, he's the sales manager, or vice versa. And you have all these experiences that knits your heart together. You're getting shot down together, you're closing deals together. Well, almost inevitably there's a bond that takes place beyond just a normal bond. It takes place certainly among guys in the marketplace, and it takes place among men and women. Very difficult.
Setting Proper Boundaries
I was doing a panel one night and we were talking about women's ministries and the roles of women. This guy—I'm there with the lady who heads up our women's ministry and he's with the lady who heads up his—and he said, "When I look at Janet, I don't see a woman. I just see a co-worker." And I said, "Well, are you nuts? Look at her—she's beautiful. That doesn't look like a woman to you? That looks like just another co-worker to you? I don't buy that for a second. If that's true, there's something wrong with you."
So I have a very different relationship with Beth, for example. We did not even drive to the meeting together. I didn't want to be out—it was a night thing—I didn't think she and I should be in the car together unless Susan was going to be there. Susan couldn't be there, so I just said, "Hey, I'll meet you up there." I just did that. To me, there's just some wisdom in those things.
Different Definitions of Adultery
When you're talking about this idea of an affair, or infidelity or adultery, there's also different views. Men, 90 percent of the time, they defined adultery as sex with someone other than their spouse. The majority of time, women defined it as an emotional entanglement with somebody that made that person more desirable than their spouse. There may have been a physical outplay of that, or there may not.
So you just see there, all you got to do there is see the potential of danger. I don't know, a few weeks ago or months ago now, the evening news—must have been ratings time and they were trying to tease you with, "Stay tuned and here's what"—and Susan and I are watching. They did, "Stay tuned! There's a new study and here's what they've discovered: that men and women are different!" And I said, "Oh my gosh, Susan! This! I mean, men and women are different!"
They're equal, but they're not identical. We are plumbed different, we are wired different, our thermostats are different. We're just different. And so as we come to this topic, we see the differences, we apply it to these terms.
Moving Forward
Here you go, we'll work our way through it. I think there's six points here. You've got the outline and I'm going to trust you—the scriptures are attached to it.
God Emphasizes Fidelity in Relationship to Your Character
God says fidelity is important to your character. In Matthew chapter 23, Jesus addresses the Teachers of the law and Pharisees: "Woe to you Teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you neglect the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former."
What Jesus is saying is this: "We're living by the law. You want to talk about tithing? We're tithing over our spices. We're tithing over all these little things—we're faithful as can be." But He said, "You're faithful in those things, don't give that up. But you're neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness." It's the condition of the heart.
Why do you say you're going to do something and you don't do it? Because you have a heart problem. When we look at sexual sin—whether it's adultery today, fornication last week, pornography, whatever it is—the problem there is not the specific action. The action is only going to reveal to us a heart condition. Your heart's not right.
God Emphasizes Fidelity in Relationship to Your Vows Before Him
Ecclesiastes chapter 5 says: "Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it."
He's talking about things like a foxhole conversion. "Here I am God"—we have that term. "I'm in the heat of battle and here's the deal: get me out of this God and I'm telling you forever, forever, ever I will never ever, forever. I'm yours." Then I get out of it and go, "I know I said something. What was it? Doesn't matter."
Our version of that may not be a foxhole conversion, but it may be a job interview conversion or a "get this deal closed" conversion. "God, you get me this job. You get me this promotion. You make this deal. In fact God, it isn't even really about me because here's the deal: you close this deal, ten percent of it's yours. Now if I'm you God, that's a pretty good deal because you're really not doing anything. I'm doing it all."
We lose sight so fast that when I say ten percent is yours, I'm saying ninety percent is mine. The minute I look at things that way, I'll never get my view of giving straight. Here's how I've got to see it: it's all His, and the question is not how much will I give, but how much of God's money will I keep? When I look at it that way, I get a very different answer to that very same question.
God Emphasizes Fidelity in Relationship to Your Marriage Vows
Malachi chapter 2 deals with the nation of Israel when they are all messed up and in real trouble. I'll tell you how much trouble they're in: they're in so much trouble that they don't know they're in trouble, which is the worst kind of trouble you can be in. He's trying to rattle their cage and wake them up.
He writes: "Another thing you do: You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, 'Why?'"
Let me bring this forward to our context. You're going to church. You're doing the thing. You're even giving. You're doing all those things you're supposed to do. Everything that church tells you you're supposed to do—that's what you're doing. You're serving, doing all those things you're supposed to do. They said, "Why? What's the problem?"
Well, here's the problem they had: "It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant."
Here's what had happened in Israel: Israel had reached the point where a man could divorce his wife for virtually anything. Literally—not an exaggeration, literally—if she did not properly prepare the evening meal, he could file a certificate of divorce. That wouldn't work today. It would be something like if she didn't get the takeout home fast enough, he could file for divorce. Something like that—you get it.
When this was going on, God said, "You hate this." It's right after this that God says, "God hates divorce. I hate divorce." When you said, "Here you go, for better or worse"—
When I was in Houston a couple weeks ago speaking on marriage, I said to them, "What do you want me to do? What do you want me to talk about?" We talked back and forth and I decided to do the vows. More importantly, the message that I did—we talked about this last week.
I took along a book and said, "Here's the deal. What I want to do is share with you a message that I did at the last wedding I performed. It's got to be similar to the message you heard at your wedding. But you, the bride, were so concerned about getting your dress on right? He was so concerned about getting your dress off that you didn't hear."
The Nature of Wedding Vows
The very first point that I make in every wedding that I do is that you are about to take vows that are unconditional. They anticipate problems: better, worse, richer, poor, sickness, health. There are no outs. There are no loopholes. There are no exceptions.
When I'm all done, I'll go, "Do you promise to take her for better, worse, richer, poor, sickness, health, to death do you part?" "Yes." "You promise to take him rich, poor, sick, healthy, death do you part?" "Yes." That's kind of the end of the deal. That's what you said.
You didn't say if he was going to be as good as he's been through the dating period, because he's not going to be. You didn't say if she's just as sweet and kind as she's been for these last two years. She ain't gonna be. The deal's over. You've caught each other. All the nice stuff's done. Right now we're gonna go and live together and it's gonna be tough.
The Reality of Divorce
Larry used to do this. I'd be in situations, marriage conferences and stuff, and Larry would do this: "Sue and I will never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never get divorced." And then there'd be like a break and we'd be out having coffee or something, and people would say, "Hey, you got to tell him not to say that because he's just pleading with Satan to attack him at that moment."
So I'd go and I'd say, "Doc, these people aren't getting it. Here's what they said." He said, "I'll take care of it." So he would get back up there and start the next one. He'd go, "Sue and I'll never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never get divorced. And if you think we're asking Satan to attack us, I want you to understand something: that's the very thing you said when you got married. When you say better, worse, rich or poor, sickness and in health, you're saying I'll never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never get divorced."
God hates divorce. If there are plagues on our land in this country, right near the top of the list is divorce. It's ruining families and destroying kids.
God's Emphasis on Fidelity
God emphasizes fidelity in your sexual practices. Remember what we're talking about: making promises, fidelity, and then adultery. Proverbs chapter 5, Solomon writes this: "May your fountain be blessed. May you rejoice in the wife of your youth, a loving doe, a graceful deer. May her breast satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?"
I wanted to add a little emphasis to this, so I went to Webster to look up the word captivate. Here's what the word means: to influence and dominate by some special charm or trait with an irresistible appeal. Let's read it again: "A loving doe, a graceful deer. May her breast satisfy you always. May you ever be influenced, dominated by the irresistible appeal of this woman."
Here's the principle: He's saying I want you to be captivated—not just by her physically, but by her emotionally. If I'm captivated by her emotionally, I'll be captivated by her physically, and that will be where I'll find and fulfill my sexual desire.
The Power of Emotional Connection
Several years ago, I'm watching George Herbert Walker Bush, the old man, and he's reading—he's got a new book out on letters he's written in his life. He's being interviewed and they're saying, "Read some of your favorites." So he reads a letter that he's written to his mom when he was 17 about the fact that he had just kissed this girl. He said, "That's all I've done and that's all I would do, Mom, and it really wasn't much more of a kiss than I would give you, but I am head-over-heels about this girl."
Then he writes another letter about now he's married this girl, and as he's writing about Barbara, she's sitting there. He's crying about how emotionally swept away he is, and it's kind of cool because she's going, "Suck it up." That's kind of one of those interesting moments. Maybe she should have been president. But there's that moment, there's that emotional connection.
I'm just telling you: if the whole relationship is sexual and physical and it's hot and it's vibrant and it's great, it can't possibly and won't possibly last. But if it's emotional, it'll always be hot.
Personal Experience with Emotional Intimacy
To this day—and I mentioned this before—when I'm somewhere and Susan and I are sitting somewhere (we were in church the other day), and she reaches over and touches me on the arm or the shoulder or on my leg or something, it's like you've plugged me into a light socket. Electricity flows through me. She's just incredible. That has been more important than the physical part of it.
My whole reason for marrying her was entirely, purely 100% physical. There was nothing else. Did I love her? I told her I did, but I don't think I loved her until probably maybe three or four years into it. I told her I loved her and I told her I loved her and I told her I loved her.
What gets you into the marriage most of the time is not strong enough to keep you in it. There has to be that other bond that is supposed to be part of this and inevitably part of the physical part of it.
The Unique Design of Sexual Intimacy
God's so specific on this sexual part because He's saying there's something unique about sex. This is not just a biological exercise between a man and a woman. There's an exchange here. You're buck naked and you're exchanging body fluids. The two become one. This is very intimate—you cannot be more intimate than this. It was designed by God because...
It's so fragile because the psyche and the emotion and all that comes into play. If I look at it, it's just a biological function. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but at that point, I'm just a dog. It's what they do at the zoo - just biological functions. Get yin-yang and lang-lang and make little pandas or whatever they do. This is an emotional attachment between a man and a woman. That's why God says we need to protect this.
God's Serious View of Adultery
Here you go - God emphasizes fidelity and the penalty for adultery. This is Old Testament and we're not suggesting that we bring it forward to the New Testament. He writes this in Leviticus 20: "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress should be put to death." Now we're not saying that's the penalty today. We're saying do you get a sense of how serious God is?
In fact, if you want to know how serious He is, He's putting together a nation and He says I'm only going to give you ten rules. Now if you were going to put together today a nation and say I'm only going to give you ten rules, would "thou shalt not commit adultery" be one of them?
God's Forgiveness and Restoration
Here's the last point: God emphasizes forgiveness in the restoration of adulterers. I have learned having done this now for almost 20 years that there are certain topics that when you talk about them, the guilt meter just goes through the roof. When you talk about kids and child rearing, because most people have a negative experience in there somewhere, they may have had five kids, but almost always they're talking about "well, we had this problem here." When you talk about kids, almost always the guilt surfaces. When we begin to talk about other areas, the guilt surfaces.
The thing that comes closest to rival the guilt with kids is the issue of marriage and divorce. Especially in this world we live in now, because you have people that have been divorced. Here's what I want you to see: God does not say that's the unforgivable sin. If you've been in a marriage and it's failed and you have now moved on, God forgives that. That's not a license to do it.
The Humpty Dumpty Revelation
I am watching Brayden the other night and he's got this book. It's like this - it's a big plastic book and it has like six pages to it because that's about all I can handle. When you open it, it goes "it's story time." You know, "twinkle twinkle little star," the next one is "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a big fall. All the King's horsemen and all the King's men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again."
Now I'm pretty familiar with that rhyme, but here's what happened to me when I was listening to it. I thought, I want to get - and so I went and did some research. I don't know if you've ever done the research on Humpty Dumpty. There's kind of two views, but the dominant view is that Humpty Dumpty was a cannon that was taken in a specific battle to protect a fort, and they shot under the cannon, the cannon fell down, and they could not put the cannon back up again. That's not how we traditionally - we traditionally think of an egg, okay? But that's not what it was designed to be.
When I'm listening to Braden the other night, and he seems to like Humpty Dumpty because he did it again, and I listened to it again: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horsemen and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." Here's what I thought of: I'm Humpty Dumpty and nobody but God could put me back together again. That's what God does.
Only God Can Make Us Whole
I really got into this - I'm going to develop this point either this Sunday or next Sunday at church. That's what God does. God has reconciled us to Him. We're shattered, broken people - that's who we are. You may pretend you're tough, you may pretend you're self-reliant, you may try to give this kind of image that you've got it all together, but you don't. You're a little baby broken boy on the inside or a little baby broken girl on the inside.
All the king's horsemen and all the king's men, all the deals, all the houses, all the praise, all the jewelry, all the stuff, all the achievement, all the accomplishment, all the booze, all the drugs, all the sex - none of that is going to make you a big boy or a big girl. All the king's horsemen, all the king's men, all the world's stuff, none of that can put you together. Only God, and that's what He does. God and sinner reconciled - you're whole, and now He said to you, you have a ministry of reconciliation.
So if you have sinned, God can forgive you. He will forgive you. Don't let that be a license to run out and say, "if I'm forgiven, I might as well go ahead and do this anyway." But God will forgive you.
Joseph's Example
A couple of points here, just by way of illustration, we get from the life of Joseph. Genesis chapter 39, this is a great story. We got about 10 minutes here. "The blessing of the Lord," verse five, Genesis 39, "the blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had." Potiphar - he's the head of Pharaoh's secret service. "So that he left Joseph in his care of everything. And with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate."
Joseph is a young man, been sold into slavery by his brothers, ends up at Potiphar's house, ultimately becomes the second most powerful man in the world. God uses that to teach us wonderful lessons and to save really Jacob and his people. So Joseph, and I like this, "Joseph was well-built and handsome." Sometimes when we read these Bible stories, I think we project into them our image of what a Bible figure would look like. So we see Joseph more like Woody Allen than Brad Pitt.
Well, he wasn't Woody Allen. He wasn't this little mouse, he wasn't Pee Wee Herman. He was Brad Pitt. He was handsome, well-built, in form and structure. And after a while, this master's wife, Potiphar's wife - those are the three characters now: Potiphar,
Joseph, Potiphar's wife, took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me." Now, you've got to understand, thousands of years ago, not as liberated as we are today. He refused. With me in charge, he told her, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house. Everything he owns, he's entrusted to me. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master's withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. How then could I do this wicked thing and sin against God? And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, persistent, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. However, one day when he went into the house to attend to his duties, none of the other household servants were inside. She caught him by the cloak and said, "Come to bed with me," but he left his cloak in her arms and in her hand and he ran out of the house. So at this point, he's likely running out of the house naked.
Four Lessons from Joseph's Example
There's the background. Four things.
The Impact of Adultery on Others
Number one, recognize the impact that adultery has on other people. Here's what Joseph said: wait a minute, Potiphar's left me in charge here. How can I possibly have a relationship with you? What do you think that does to Potiphar?
I'm with a guy the other day and he said, "My wife and I have been married something like 27, 28 years and about three years ago, we've had 28, 27 years of really lousy marriage. And about three years ago, we called the kids in and at the time they were like 23, 21 and 17 to tell them we're getting a divorce. Got the attorneys, got it all decided. My attorney said, 'Listen, she's going to take you, she's going to get everything.'" He said, "Whatever." So we sat down with the kids and the kids just began to weep, 23, 21, 17. "What are we going to do? This destroys us."
Wait a minute, are you saying to me that even if I'm not happy, I should stay together for the sake of the children? Yes, yes. Now I would hope it would be way more than that, but yeah, this is not about you being happy. This is about you being obedient. God hates divorce. And when you divorce or when you have sexual immorality or when you commit adultery, you're pulling somebody else into that relationship. You're destroying the world.
This country is breaking apart because the fundamental building block of this society, the family, is eroding away. 40%, roughly, 37% to be specific, 37% of the births in this country now are among unmarried women. 70% in the black community, 25% in the white community. Divorce rate is somewhere around 40 to 50%. The bill on that, just the economic toll on that is huge. This is not about you.
Fidelity to God
Here's the second thing. Recall the importance of fidelity to God, the promise that you made. That's what Joseph says in verse nine of chapter 39: "How then could I do this wicked thing and sin against God?" God has a plan for marriage. If you need to, you can write it down, and I'll give it to you in three words. Marriage is to be permanent, monogamous, heterosexual.
So if you're trying to figure out, I want to know what God's got to say about marriage. Should two guys be able to get married? I'll give you the three words. Permanent, could they pull that off? Maybe. Monogamous, could they pull that off? Maybe. Heterosexual, eh. We didn't make it. That's God's plan for marriage.
And with God's word, He is saying, I'll give you a caveat. Because you're a sinful, lousy people, I will allow you to divorce in the case of infidelity or the desertion of a non-believer. But even then, that's not a command, that's just permission. So when I sit down with somebody and they say, "She's been unfaithful, can I divorce her?" Well, do you have the right before God? Yeah, but here's the deal. It's not a command. And imagine if you hang in there and God puts this marriage back together again. Imagine the testimony that you have to the world around you.
Rejecting Persistent Temptation
Two more things. Reject the invitation to abandon your principles. Do you see this? She pursued him day after day. Sin, and we're talking about adultery today, but sin, you fill in the blank, sin is relentless. Maybe you're looking at this and going, "My word, I've wasted 45 minutes here because I don't struggle with this at all." Well, you're struggling with something. And whatever that is, it's relentless. It comes at you day after day and you need to be smart about it.
I've told you the story before, and it's not just one or two. I've had this happen a half a dozen times to me. A guy, I'll say, "How are you doing?" "Fine, how are you doing sexually?" "I'm pretty good most of the time." All right, well, most of the time is a problem. So I'll say, "What's the problem?" "I have a problem once a month. I'm in this bowling league and once a month after we bowl, we go to a strip club and we go to the strip club, I always end up in trouble."
Now, I'm not trained and I don't have a degree, but what I would say to them is, don't go to the strip club. "Well, it's part of what we do in our bowling thing." Well, then you need to get into a co-ed bowling league and take your wife with you. Use your head.
It's the lady that came up to me and said, "Will you pray for me today?" "Sure, what do you want me to pray for?" "I have at home in the refrigerator a box of turtles. You all know what turtles are? If you don't know what turtles are, buy a box and bring them to me. I've got at home a box of turtles. I want you to pray that I won't eat those turtles today because I'm really struggling here."
And I said, "Why waste your prayer? Those turtles got a shelf life of about an hour. You're going to eat, you didn't buy them to throw them away. You bought them to eat them. The time to cut this off is at the point of purchase when you set the turtle down and go, 'No, I don't want these.' Use your head."
Here's the last point that we need to make. Remove yourself from the temptations to weaken your resolve.
Here's one of the great myths we have: that somehow God wants you just to be happy. Several years ago, Joe Theismann got divorced and his wife wanted her share of the deal. Her attorney asked her to say why Joe wanted the divorce. And here's what she said. He said, and I quote, "God wants Joe Theismann to be happy."
God wants Joe Theismann to be holy, not happy. Now, if he's holy, he'll be happy. God does not want you just to walk around necessarily with everything working out perfectly. God has a plan for you, and frequently that plan includes suffering, pain, hardship, difficulty. He for certain will bring enough of that on His own. He doesn't need you to make stupid decisions to complicate it along the way.
Rights Versus Responsibilities
We live in a time when people are absolutely infatuated with their rights. One author writes this: "Teach a society their rights and you'll spark a revolution. Teach a society their responsibilities and you'll spark a revival." There's the stakes.
When it comes to marriage, here's what God's saying: I've got a design. One man, one woman, permanently together in a monogamous relationship. Sexuality by design. Single, celibate. Married, celebration.
We'll pick up right there next week.
Father, thank You for these truths. Take them in and put them in our hearts to understand what You have for us, what's Your plan for our life. And God, You've been really clear: one man, one woman, permanently united, monogamous situation.
God, to those that are here that are hearing this and all of a sudden as they're processing it, they're seeing that there's sin in their life, give them the courage to confess it, to experience Your forgiveness, and then to live in a way that brings honor and glory to You. To others, let this be a source of encouragement. You've placed them in this relationship for them to love and to enjoy. God, we pray that You would do that in their life. We pray that to You in Jesus' name, amen.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week.