Adultery ruins lives, but no one would engage in something if they knew that was the result. So how do people end up there?
One of Satan’s greatest tactics against marriages is his fantasy-type portrayal of adultery. The adventure of seduction awakens many bored spouses. The danger of it all provides an excitement that may have been lacking for sometime.
Satan is very good at allowing people to see the benefits of an affair without revealing the consequences. He helps them imagine sex with the other person. He provides opportunities to develop an emotional connection. Conveniently, he neglects to reveal the lifetime of consequences for such passing moments of pleasure.
The fun of adultery will last for a moment, but the pain of adultery will last for a lifetime.
What Scripture Teaches About Adultery
You may think that the person flirting with you wants your body or your mind or your companionship, but Scripture says the person enticing you to adultery wants to take your very life (Prov. 6:26). People don’t normally see the person with whom they are having a fling as desiring to ruin their lives. Most likely, the person whom the affair is happening with seems to genuinely care for that person. Make no mistake about it, the flirt might have flattering intentions, but he or she is enticing you to make decisions that will forever ruin your life.
If you play with fire you are going to get burned (Prov. 6:27). God is clear that anyone who sleeps with another man’s wife will be punished (Prov. 6:29; Heb. 13:4), and his lack of discipline (Prov. 5:20-23) and sense in such a matter will destroy himself (Prov. 6:32). Such actions as despicable as adultery don’t belong among those citizens of the Kingdom (Eph. 5:5).
What Common Sense Teaches About Adultery
God commanding something should be sufficient reasoning to abstain, but if you need additional logic, realize that adultery will impact every area of your life.
- While a romantic encounter is pleasurable, is it worth making your children have two birthday parties each year because you and your former spouse can’t be in the same room?
- Are you willing to lose all common friends and watch them turn against you in defense of your spouse?
- Is adultery worth losing all that you have built with your spouse – spiritually, emotionally, and even financially?
When adultery has taken root, you no longer think of those consequences because you believe your love will be sufficient. In adultery, you can never be in love but only in lust. The old preacher-ism applies to adultery so well: Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.
The irony of adultery is that as soon as you get the person your pursued, he or she ceases to be the person you admired.
Adultery changes a person. You admire him as a dad? If he has an affair with you, he is now a shameful father who has broken the heart of his children and painfully betrayed the mother of those precious children. You admire her as a caring person? She’s not caring if she is willing to have an affair with you and destroy those who love you the most. As soon as you sink your claws into that person, he or she is no longer the type of person you want anymore.
How can you even start a relationship with someone you can’t trust?
Adultery doesn’t start in the bed, it starts in the heart. Jesus said that adultery starts with lusting after someone in your heart (Matt. 5:28). Is there someone you can picture yourself with? Any fantasies? Are you comparing your spouse with someone else?
Be very careful. Adultery will ruin more than you can possibly imagine.
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.