Let No Adultery Separate

Adultery creates a type of pocket universe with two people living selfishly inside of it and disregarding the needs of those they have sworn to love. Flee from this sin as if your life depends on it because, in many ways, it does.

Marriage cannot work with three people in it.  

While that may seem like common sense thinking, it apparently is not.  Many marriages end due to an adulterous relationship when one makes allowance for another person to engage in privileges that should be reserved solely for a spouse.  One of the first commandments given to God’s people to distinguish them from the godless culture around them dealt with marriage and adultery.  

You shall not commit adultery.

Exodus 20:14

A common misconception of adultery is that it starts as a physical rendezvous.  While that can happen, it usually occurs much more subtly.  As Christians, we have a real enemy.  Satan is trying to destroy your family right now (1 Pet. 5:8).  You may not be completely aware of his ploys, but he has already set things in motion to take down your marriage and to devastate your children. He has enlisted help through the efforts of selfish, seductive flirts and unfaithful, unresolved spouses, but he loves to use any props necessary to destroy a marriage.

One of his 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 some time.  

Satan is very good at allowing people to see the benefits of an affair while hiding 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 pain for mere passing moments of pleasure.

The fun of adultery will last for a moment, but the pain of adultery will last for a lifetime.

You may think that the person flirting with you wants your body, mind, or companionship, but Scripture says that the person enticing you to commit adultery wants to take your very life (Prov. 6:26).  People don’t usually see the person with whom they are having a fling as desiring to ruin their lives.  Most likely, the person with whom the affair is happening with seems to care for that person genuinely.  Make no mistake about it, the flirt might have flattering intentions, but he or she is enticing you to make decisions that will forever devastate your life.  You may find gracious reconciliation after an affair, but your life will never be the same after it.

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 this matter will destroy himself (Prov. 6:32).  Such actions as adultery are so vile that they don’t belong among those citizens of the Kingdom (Eph. 5:5).  

God commanding something should serve as sufficient reasoning to abstain, but if you need additional logic, realize that adultery will impact every single 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.  Committing this transgression alters a person in significant ways.  Do 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 family and painfully betrayed the mother of those precious children.  Do 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?  How can you ensure that you won’t do this to one another in a few years from now?

There are a few textbook scenarios that usually start affairs.  When a need goes unmet, someone goes looking.  When a disconnection widens, a person puts out feelers.  When discontentment grows, a desperate person resorts to desperate measures.

Adultery doesn’t start in the bed; it begins in the heart.  Jesus said that infidelity starts with lusting after someone in your heart (Matt. 5:28).  Is there someone with whom you can picture yourself?  Any fantasies that linger in your mind?  Are you comparing your spouse with someone else?  Be very careful.    

If you are currently in an affair or dangerously close to it, there is only one solution: coldly drop that person and never speak to him or her again.  If that seems harsh, let me remind you that it is not nearly as severe as what you have already done to your spouse with that person.  Your fling is not your responsibility.  Your spouse is your priority.  Your marriage is God-ordained, and your affair was satanically organized.  While physical connections, emotional weight, and relational dependence has unfortunately been created through this affair, you have to end it now and stop concerning yourself with that person’s well-being.  You have another person’s well-being to worry about – the one whom you promised to God that you would be faithful to until the end.      

What God has joined together, let no adultery separate.