Podcast: The Trouble with Cheating

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“You shall not commit adultery.”
-Exodus 20:14

I would like to make a statement that, while it is a very obvious statement and obviously true, is something that almost no one believes. That statement is this – God’s plan for us is for something better than what the world wants for us.

Almost no one believes that. Almost everyone sees follow Christ as a burden, while the world offers us freedom. Almost everyone sees God’s Law as something only neatniks and prudes would really follow. We routinely hear that people don’t want to follow God because they want to have fun.

Which is weird, because those people really don’t seem to be having any fun.

This view of Jesus is in stark contrast with His own statements, such as when He said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus never suggests that following Him would mean being a prude or a legalist. In fact, He made fun of people like that. In truth, the rules He gives us are like the rules of a good parent – not there to ruin the child’s fun, but to make it more lasting, more wonderful, and more honorable.

When we talk about sexual sin, people get defensive. They want to do whatever they want with whomever they want. More than one person has fled from religion completely just because of this topic.

Adultery is most often used to speak of a married person who has sex outside of the marriage, and yet here it is used more completely to encompass all sexual sin, including even lust. Jesus tells us, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

Isn’t God trying to ruin our fun here? Isn’t He just being a prude scolding us for enjoying ourselves? That’s what we sometimes think, but it’s actually quite the opposite. He wants us to enjoy each other more fully.

This is the truth of everything in life – we gain to the degree that we give. God tells us over and over again that the last will be first, that the servant will be exalted, that we gain our lives by giving them up. So it is even here. God designed sex to be most wonderful, most fulfilling, most exciting when in a loving, giving marriage. It is meant for two people, a man and a woman, devoted to one another for life. It gets tainted by pornography, sexual histories, infidelities. It is these things that prevent us from being free sexually. You loss the sense of oneness, the spiritual connection. Love is giving. Lust is taking, and you’ll never experience the awesome wonder of love if all you deal in is lust.

In my experience, the couples that have only known each other are happier with each other longer. It is those who had partners before marriage or look at pornography that end up divorced.

Our marriages are supposed to tell us something of the joy that is to come when we are united with Jesus forever. He is compared to a faithful husband in the Bible, coming to earth in such love that He died for His bride, the Church. He gave up all for us. That love, faithful and true, lasts forever. Even though we had turned out backs to Him, He did not use that as an excuse to discard us. Instead, He chased us, determined to take us back from the very hand of death. Because of that love, we can have life eternally, a life without pain or sorrow.

If God gives us commands, it is only to guide us closer to Him, closer to that full life that Jesus promises. To guide us toward eternity. Sounds fun.

If you’ve made mistakes before, it’s not too late. You aren’t excluded from this life. See, we have all made mistakes, and none of us deserves the love of Jesus. But love, by its very nature, is giving, whether it is deserved or not. Jesus came to save us from death. Repent of your old mistakes and believe in Him, and you too will be saved.