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back to Anchor Baptist Church. We'll go ahead and get started with our first hymn for the evening.
hymn number 191 in my heart there rings a melody 191
on the first.
I have a strong bad gene.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day,
for the opportunities and the seeds that were planted,
both yesterday for our soul-winning marathon
and today out this afternoon.
I pray that You would be with us
for the service this evening,
that You'd have Your hand of healing and protection
on those that need it in the way that You know best
how to heal those families.
I also pray that You'd be with us
as we go our separate ways into our weeks
that You would just also have Your hand of protection on us.
These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
All right for our next hymn 409 the fight is on sing it like you mean it 409 the fight is on
409 sing it out there on the first the fight
please raise your hand. The camera will bring you one. We are on verse number six of Genesis chapter one.
memory passage. Make sure to keep working hard on that chapter on the inside.
Our service times are listed Sunday morning at 10 30 Sunday evening at 4
30 and our Wednesday Bible study through Proverbs at 7 o'clock. We do have our
year-to-date statistics for soul-winning. Great job so far for the year and keep
praying for brother Theodore who's still in the Philippines just that he'd be
We do also have, just as a reminder, this Saturday we're resuming our Saturday soul winning rally.
We did take a break to do an Anadarko soul winning marathon.
So please join us this Saturday.
Upcoming events, we have August 27th through the 31st is the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship at Steadfast Baptist Church.
Definitely recommend that you go, even if you can only make it for one of the services.
And if you can't even do that, at least check it out online. It should be great preaching.
September 7th is our next men's preaching night followed by potluck and game night so join us for that
And then October 6th through the 11th is the Bahamas mission trip and man
I get more excited by that for that by the day especially last few days
There's been rough soul winning and in the Bahamas you pretty much are not going to be told
No, if you ask to preach to someone it's not really a fight to try to find someone to listen
It's just you're going to keep preaching to person after person
and so I can't wait to experience that again. On the right hand side we have our prayer list.
There was an addition this morning for Bailey Reed, but I've heard that she's improving,
but just keep praying for their family please. And we also have information on the right regarding
online giving and the visitor card. That's going to be it for announcements this evening. We'll go
All right the third song this evening number 96 God leads us along
Him number 96 96 God leads us along
96 there on the first
You're so rich and so sweet
offering plates are being passed. Turn, if you would, to Exodus chapter number 20. Exodus chapter number
Exodus chapter 20 the Bible reads and God's fake all these words saying I am the
Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of the house of
bondage thou shalt have no other gods before me thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that
is in the earth beneath
that is in the water under the earth thou shalt not bow down myself to them
nor serve them for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them
that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep
my commandments thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.
But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work.
Thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant.
Nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them is, and rested the seventh day.
Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveeth thee. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house
Thy shalt not cover thy neighbor's wife nor his man servant nor his maid servant nor his ox
Nor his ass nor anything that is in that is thy neighbors and all the people saw the
Thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking and when the people saw it
They were moved and stood afar off
And they said unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we die
Moses said unto the people fear not for God has come to prove you and that
His fear may be before your eyes, that ye send not.
And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel,
Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.
And altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings,
In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
And if that will make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone,
for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altered, that thy dankedness be not discovered thereon."
Let us pray.
Father, we thank you for Exodus chapter 20. We thank you for your word and for this service this
evening. I pray that you be with pastor as he preaches a message to us and I pray that you
give us the hearts to receive the message and just bless the service tonight. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
Man, all right, we are in Exodus chapter 20,
which is of course the famous chapter
where God is giving the 10 commandments.
And I want to read in verse number 14,
the Bible says,
thou shalt not commit adultery.
And this is the sixth commandment in the 10 commandments.
And adultery is just one of the most wicked,
heinous crimes that someone could commit.
It's something that is just detestable
and abominable to the Lord.
And just to give you some statistics on this sin,
I found this online said that approximately 15 to 20%
of married couples in the United States
experience adultery in their marriage.
So just people that would admit to this happening
in their marriage is about one in five people.
in America. You know, those numbers are just shocking to think about that one out of every five,
you know, people you see walking about has experienced this.
Specifically, 20% of married men and 13% of married women report to being physical with someone other than their spouse while married.
So just the people that would just admit to whoever's taking these polls, 20% of guys will just admit, yeah, I've cheated on my spouse.
I've committed adultery on my wife and 13% of married women.
would report the same and so we're going to talk about this this evening.
It's how my sermon is adultery, divorce and reconciliation.
And you know, this is not a fun topic to think about.
It's not a fun topic to preach about.
And it's something that I personally have always just had a personal
disgust with my entire life is adultery, something that I've always despised.
Even before I was saved, I just kind of view this as an extremely wicked crime.
And it is according to the word of God.
But, you know, the purpose of this sermon is not to if someone here or listening
has ever committed this sin, just to make you feel bad about yourself and make
you feel like, you know, you can't move on in your Christian life.
our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If this is something in the past that you've dealt with already, I'm not trying to just,
you know, rub salt in the wound, but I am trying with all of my might to prevent people who have
not gone down this dark road of adultery so that they never would go down it and never would ruin
their lives with this sin. So what are we talking about? Adultery, divorce and reconciliation. Go to
Leviticus 20.
Let's talk about number one, adultery,
and let's define what adultery is.
You know, I think that's where we need to start.
There's some confusion about what adultery is,
what's the difference between adultery and fornication.
Let's let the Bible just define it for us.
Leviticus chapter number 20 verse 10 the Bible says and the man that committed the adultery with another man's wife
Even he that committed the adultery with his neighbor's wife the adulterer and the adulterous shall surely be put
to death. What is adultery? It is when you are getting physical with someone, whether
you're married or that person is married. It's when you're in the physical relationship with
someone and one or both parties are married. That is adultery. If you are a single person
and you sleep with someone who is married, you have committed adultery, not fornication,
Even if you are sleeping with someone that is single,
I believe that that is adultery.
Because notice what this verse says.
It just says, and the man.
It doesn't say, the married man.
It just says, the man.
And the man that committed adultery with another man's wife.
Even he that committed the adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulterist shall surely be put to death.
This verse does not specify whether or not this man is married.
And I submit to you, it doesn't matter whether he is or not.
Because what is known for sure is that he's being with another man's wife.
So I believe adultery is when one or both parties in that physical relationship
married, of course, talking outside of the bounds of your own marriage. That is
adultery. And notice how serious this is to God, that here in his perfect law,
the Bible says the law of the Lord is perfect. This is a just and good law right
here. The Bible says that when you commit adultery, that you are to be put to
death.
That's how serious of a sin that God views this as, and man, if we had this in our society,
I guarantee you, we wouldn't be having 20% of people just being like, oh yeah, no big deal.
I've done this. I've cheated on my wife. You know, it's horrible. Go to Mark chapter number eight.
Mark chapter number eight.
Mark chapter number eight, look at verse number 38.
The Bible says,
Of him also, shall the Son of man be ashamed
when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
You know, some Christians today would be ashamed
of the fact that the Bible puts the death penalty on adultery.
And they would want to shy away from that
and not tell that to their congregations,
kind of keep that under wraps.
And you know what type of person it is
that is ashamed of God's words and of the Lord?
Notice it says that it's an adulterous and sinful generation.
And today we have it opposite, where a lot of people, they are not ashamed of adultery.
Adultery doesn't make them blush.
I've seen situations where people defend adultery.
They make excuses for it for other people, not to mention for themselves as well.
But you know, we need to be Christians that are instead
ashamed of adultery and not ashamed of God's Word.
Not ashamed to say, hey, I believe that adultery is a capital crime.
I believe that it is a crime that should be punished with death today.
And you know what? I'm not afraid of that commandment because I'm not an adulterer.
And it's funny today how many people will scoff and mock at the Word of God,
and scoff and mock at Christians saying, oh yeah, you know,
you preach the death penalty for this group of people.
What about adulterers? I say bring it on.
We want to bring that law back to our country because adultery destroys everything.
It destroys families. It destroys entire nations. It is a horrific sin.
You know, you think about pastors today like Greg Locke.
Greg Locke, this ex-IFB pastor who's now like this Pentecostal, Apostle type, you know, preacher.
He actually cheated on his wife, committed adultery with his wife's best friend.
How would you like that best friend ladies?
He committed adultery with his wife's best friend, who was the church secretary, one
of his employees, then he just divorced his wife and remarried with this woman that he
committed adultery with.
Hey, I'll tell you what we should be ashamed of today.
It's pastors like that.
Greg Locke should be ashamed of himself, and anyone who would go to that church should
be ashamed of themselves for following a man who's clearly disqualified because he's not
He is remarried and instead he just continues preaching with no shame.
With no shame, he'll sit here and judge people who preach replacement theology
and say that we're heretics.
Meanwhile, he has no shame about his open adultery.
Go to Proverbs chapter number six.
Proverbs chapter number six.
You know, it's crazy today that.
As Americans, we're so desensitized to adultery that we have a president who's committed adultery several times and we just don't even bat an eye.
We just act like it's something that's normal when it's actually extremely wicked.
And you know, back in the 1830s, when Andrew Jackson was even accused of marrying a divorced woman, the nation was just in uproar.
over the fact that it was a possibility
that Andrew Jackson could be an adulterer.
Meanwhile, we got Donald Trump who said the most horrific things
about women and just the things that he gets away with
because he's a guy of power
and just how many times he's committed adultery
and Christians today just goes over their head.
They just don't care.
You know, that's really what's shameful.
Proverbs 6, verse 23.
The Bible says for the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light and reproofs of instruction
or the way of life.
Notice to keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of the strange woman.
Lust not after her beauty in thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids,
for by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread.
and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life.
You know, there's so many things we could talk about
in this chapter, in this verse here.
Starting off, first of all, notice says,
lust not after her beauty in thine heart.
That's usually where adultery starts is a sin of the mind
lusting after someone who's not your spouse in your heart.
You know, letting her take thee with her eyelids.
You know, this adulterous is described as a predator,
how she's hunting for the precious life.
and she could use her looks as one of her tools to try to seduce men or use the way that she looks at
a man as one of the tools to seduce men. So the Bible is saying, don't let her take thee with her
eyelids. Notice, for by means of a hoarse woman, a man is brought to a piece of bread. You know
that saying? Committing adultery, being with the hoarse woman will ruin your life. And you know,
They've got a good thing going, and then some stupid guy
goes out and commits adultery thinking, no big deal.
Just having some fun.
Just want to have fun with these ladies.
But then his entire life is ruined,
and it doesn't bring me joy to see someone's life get ruined.
But I'm just thinking, man, you should have taken heed
to the Bible beforehand.
And that's why I'm preaching this,
is hopefully no one in this room will ever go down this road
because you'll be brought to a piece of bread.
It will destroy your life and it says in the adulterous will hunt for the precious life.
You know, this is an equal opportunity sin right here.
And while of course we normally focus on guys kind of being the sleazy ones in this area
and they are, we got to pay attention to that kind of stuff.
We can't forget that also the Bible describes here a woman that is like this.
It's kind of known as what a home wrecker.
the adulterous that hunts for the precious life.
And so you ought not to think that it's only men
that are seeking this sin,
that are trying to entice others to commit this sin.
It can also be women.
And so we need to be vigilant about these things.
But one thing you gotta realize is that
someone who is willing to commit adultery with you,
hates you.
That's what you have to realize and people today are so foolish to think like oh yeah this chick is going to commit adultery with me
and you know I'm going to leave my wife and remarry.
But don't you realize that the type of woman that would destroy your home, that would forsake her husband,
that would violate the trust of the marriage you're in,
don't you realize that she'll do that to you in a heartbeat?
Don't you realize that the type of person that would step out on his wife and be with some other woman
that he'll leave that new woman eventually as well?
This is why you always see statistics saying that second marriages end up in more divorce
than people who are just married one time. And it's already at 50% for people who are married.
There's a 50% divorce rate in the United States. It's way higher than that for second rates.
And you just got to realize someone that's willing to commit adultery with you does not love you.
They do not care about you. In fact, they hate you.
Verse 27 says this can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?
Can one go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned?
Why is he asking these rhetorical questions?
He's telling you, if you commit adultery, there will be consequences.
You're not going to get away with it.
It's not going to be scot-free.
There's going to be issues and problems and destruction in your life.
Just like if I were to hand you, you know, some wood that was on fire,
and she's like, hey, hold this.
How long are you going to be able to hold that before you start getting burned?
before you start feeling the pain and it's the same thing with adultery.
When you commit adultery, you will suffer the consequences.
Stay there, I'll read for you Hebrews 13-4.
Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled,
but whoremongers and adulterers, God will judge.
And man, who is it that God is really judging?
It's his people.
God is gonna chastise his own children,
whom the Lord loveeth, he chasteneth,
and scourgeeth every son whom he receiveth.
Hebrews chapter 12 says.
And so, you know, if God is looking down from heaven
and seeing his children committing adultery,
he will judge that situation.
And so you ought not to think
that you're gonna get away with it.
You're gonna be the person that for sure
does not get away with it.
Look at verse number 29 of Proverbs 6.
Let's keep reading. It says,
So notice, there is no excuses for this sin.
You're not going to be able to explain away or reason away
why you committed this sin.
The Bible says you will not be innocent.
You're now guilty of a capital crime.
And people make excuses, oh, my spouse wasn't good to me or oh, my spouse was denying me
or whatever excuse you want to get, give yourself, it does not wipe away the fact that you're
guilty now of a capital crime.
And so the person that does this lacks understanding.
Look at verse number 30.
Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.
If someone is legitimately hungry, legitimately starving, they're going to steal and of course they're going to be condemned for that, they're going to be punished for that.
But you're going to be able to understand where that person is coming from and you're not going to just hate that person's soul.
You're not going to just want that person dead because they stole just to eat, just to stay alive.
Now again, that's wrong.
but you can understand where they're coming from.
But notice, but if he be found,
he shall restore sevenfold.
He shall give all the substance of his house.
But who so committed adultery with a woman?
Lacketh understanding.
He that doeth it, destroyeth his own soul.
So, it's just saying like, hey, you know, you can come back from stealing.
You can come back and you can even maybe be liked by people that you stole from in the
future if you're repented, you know, you restore fourfold, they can understand where you're
coming from.
But it's like, look, when you commit adultery, you're lacking understanding.
You're destroying yourself.
You're harming your own life.
You're destroying your own soul.
A lot of people, they never come back from committing adultery.
Some people can come back from stealing,
people can come back from drunkenness,
but a lot of times when people commit adultery,
they never come back from that type of a sin.
You know, a lot of times whether right or wrong marriages are permanently destroyed because of adultery.
Families are permanently destroyed because of adultery.
A lot of times people that commit adultery, they just never get back on track in church.
They never get back on track in soul winning.
You know, you're just destroying your own soul.
Notice verse 33.
A wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away.
This is one of those sins I am just not interested in living in a society where we destigmatize
adultery.
Where we try to cater to adulterers and make them feel okay and tell them we understand,
you go girl, your husband wasn't that great of a guy, we see where you're coming from,
it's okay.
No, no, no.
He says his reproach shall not be wiped away.
There should be a level of reproach in our society
that we just do not tolerate adultery.
We don't put up with it.
We don't pretend it's okay.
We don't sympathize with people when they commit that sin.
It just needs to be condemned outright 100% of the time.
Verse 34.
For jealousy is the rage of a man therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance
He will not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though thou givest many gifts
You know you catch someone stealing your food and they explained to you. I'm starving my family starving
You're gonna be you're gonna be upset they're gonna be punished
But you're not gonna just kill that person you're not gonna fly off the handle
But it's like look if you catch someone committing adultery with your wife
Like you're just ready to nuke the planet at that point.
You might just kill everything in sight,
that every living thing that moves and breathes
and walks upon the face of the earth.
You're just gonna be in such a rage
that stuff happens in this world all the time.
And it happens on both sides.
Woman catches her husband committing adultery
and she just shoots up the place
and just kills everyone and everything.
This stuff happens today.
And it's like, you could offer all the money in the world,
you could offer all the gifts in the world,
but he's not going to rest content.
This is just one of those sins that cuts people like a knife.
I couldn't imagine the pain of going through that situation of your spouse just being physical
with another person. I mean, that is a such a deep level of betrayal. It's just a scary thing
to even think about, which is why God has the death penalty for it. Because you know what?
When someone commits that level of a crime against you, they should be put to death
and you should be free to remarry someone else. Unfortunately, that's not the situation we live
But let's talk about a little bit of practical stuff on how to avoid this sin go to Romans chapter 13. I'll read for you
Job 24 15
It says the eye also of the adulterer
waited for the twilight, saying no eye shall see me
and disguised with his face.
What does the adulterer look for?
He looks for opportunity.
He wants to be in the dark.
He wants to be places where he can't be seen and monitored
and kept in accountability, kept in check by other people.
He thinks in his mind, ah, no eye shall see me.
He disguises his face.
How to avoid this in don't be at stupid places at stupid times with stupid people.
You know, the adulterer they're out there when at the twilight when it's dark.
They're out there thinking, oh, no one's going to see me.
You know, sometimes we just got to avoid places like that.
You know, there's no reason for Christians to be at places like the bar.
There's no reason for Christians to be at places like the casino and just these dark sinful areas, you know
Especially late at night when other people aren't seeing you. That's when you're gonna get yourself into trouble
Romans 13 verse 9 says for this thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet.
And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor.
that knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is
our salvation nearer than when we believed the night is far spent the day
is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the
armor of light let us walk honestly as in the day what does it mean to walk
honestly as in the day saying like you could never step out of your house at
No, it's not what it's saying.
What it's saying is walking in a way where everyone can see.
You're living a transparent life.
You're living a life that's above board.
You're not afraid of the light shining on your activities
and on who you are.
You're not afraid of your wife knowing where you are
or where you've been.
If you're afraid of your wife finding out where you're going,
sounds like you're not going to a very good place.
If you're afraid of your husband finding out
where you're going, where you've been,
It says, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering, like shacking up and wantonness,
not in strife and envying, notice but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision
for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.
People who are successful in avoiding sin in their life in certain areas, they're not
just people who have like amazing willpower.
Like, man, I'll just, I'll never commit adultery and just like, it's telling yourself, I'll never do that.
You know, it should start there, honestly, like you should purpose in your heart that you are never going to commit adultery.
I'm not saying that that's not important.
Hey, I think that in my mind, like, hey, I will never do this.
You should have that attitude, but you shouldn't just stop there.
Just be like, I'll never drink a beer again.
I'll never do this.
I'll never do that.
No, what you have to do is you have to make not provision for the flesh.
meaning if the flesh creeps up and all of a sudden your flesh overpowers your previous willpower of,
oh, I'm not going to do this, you don't provide an occasion for the flesh to even be able to do
that which it wants to do. And if you understand the Bible, if you've read the Bible,
you realize that the old man constantly wants to do all manner of evil.
and people get uncomfortable with that because, you know, they just want to have this holier than
now attitude, but I would never do something like that. No, no, no, your flesh at times
is going to want to lie, steal, be lazy, get drunk, commit adultery.
That is a temptation that is common to man.
And you know what? It is foolish to sit here and pretend like that's not the case.
What the wise person does is say, hey, this is so evil.
This is so wicked. I never want to commit this sin.
And so what do I need to do?
I need to make not provision for the flesh to fulfill
The lust thereof my wicked flesh is going to have a day where it wants to sin and I need to in advance
Set up these safeguards so that I cannot make provision for the flesh
So today, you know, there's all sorts of tools that you could do this
There's like the uh, the family apps that are out there like the life 360 apps or if you have iphone
I think it's just like automatically on there like to find my app
And you could see where your family members are and stuff like that, you know, that's wise for a lot of reasons
It's wise for what we're talking about now with adultery.
You shouldn't be hiding where you're going,
shouldn't be hiding where you've been.
You know, it just makes sense,
even just from a safety perspective,
to be able to check on your family members.
We live in perilous times.
There's dangerous violent criminals out there.
You know, it'd be good to see where your kids are
when they grow up and start driving and stuff like that.
It's good to keep track of wife and husband
and making sure everyone's safe.
And this would be making a way, you know,
not providing
a way for the flesh to mess up in this area someday.
Of course, I always talk about you shouldn't be alone
with members of the opposite gender.
And obviously in this life, sometimes,
especially if you work a job,
you might be in situations where that's literally impossible.
But still, you try to do everything.
as much as possible in the light.
You know, if you have to be alone with a woman,
you stand in front of the security cameras,
or you stand outside in public among other people,
or you record an audio file on your phone for crying.
I don't care what you have to do,
but we live in crazy times.
There are those women that hunt for the precious life
that would love to take you down.
There are men that would love to commit adultery with you
and ruin your marriage, ruin your home,
and it's just not worth it.
That's what I wish that I could just get people to understand because, of course, this temptation is strong for men.
It's strong for women as well, which is why God gave us marriage.
But I'm telling you, fulfilling this through adultery, it is not worth it.
That short amount of time, that short amount of pleasure, you know what you just end up doing?
You end up destroying your own soul.
you end up hating yourself.
You end up just saying like,
I wish I would have hearkened to my teachers,
to my instructors.
I wish I would have listened to the word of God,
but by that point, it's too late.
And so now, while your mind is clear,
you got to say, okay, I got to set up these safeguards.
I ought not to be a fool and think I could never fall into this.
No, you got to set up safeguards.
Go to Proverbs chapter 5.
And of course, the best safeguard for this is to get married and have a married life the way that the Bible tells you to have a married life and not live in this weird feminist hellhole America where wives keep this relationship from their husbands where it's something that's got to be earned.
where it's a prize to be given for good behavior or something like that.
You know, the best way to avoid this sin is to get married
and have a healthy, godly, biblical marriage.
Now, we're talking about a lot of things tonight
because I don't want to be one of these guys that just says like,
be ye awesome and all your problems will go away.
You know, I realize that people already have made mistakes
and you got to deal with those issues.
But what's the ideal here?
Proverbs 5 verse 15.
running waters out of thine own well you know if you've got this fountain you've
got the wells of water at your house and your thirsty you don't got to go
traverse land and sea to go get some clean water when you just got the fresh
water from your own well you could just draw from that water at any time
satisfy that thirst and that is how God has ordained marriage notice verse 15
Let them be only thine own and not strangers with thee.
Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice
with the wife of thy youth."
So again, this relationship should just
be on the table for husband and wife any time they want it.
And notice, it's crazy that this has to be said today.
But it says, let them be only thine own and not strangers
with thee.
You've got this weird fad today of like open relationships,
kind of making a comeback where it's like,
oh, I don't want to be controlling or jealous.
You know, we could share other people.
We could go ahead and just hop marriages and stuff like that.
No, no, no.
What does the Bible say?
Let rejoice.
I'm sorry.
Let them be only thine own and not strangers with thee.
That is abominable.
That's disgusting practice.
God's people should never do it.
Let thy fountain be blessed.
Rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Letter B is the loving hind and pleasant row.
Let her breath satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love.
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
It's like, why, what kind of a stupid person would go and commit adultery?
It's like, when you have your wife.
Just be ravished with your wife.
Let her breast satisfy the at all times.
Partake of her.
Drink waters out of thine own.
Well, this is the godly way of doing things,
and this is the best way to avoid adultery.
So let me just make some very clear statements.
If anyone commits adultery, it is your fault, period.
I don't care the circumstances.
I don't care if you tell me, my wife was withholding
or my husband was withholding.
Adultery is off the table, period.
it is a wicked, abominable sin, it is a capital crime.
Now, let me also say this.
If you're not an idiot, you would not withhold this relationship from your spouse.
Because there's a difference between what's right and what people do.
And you know what? You should never commit adultery.
But if you're one of these feminists, or if you're one of these weird guys too,
that this exists with guys too,
where you're just going to withhold this relationship from your spouse,
or you're going to act like this is some treat to bestow upon a good boy for doing his chores or
something like that, you're asking for trouble.
you are asking for serious trouble in your marriage
and you ought to never go down this road.
And I don't care what people say about us,
oh, we're crazy fundamentalists, something like that.
This is what the Bible says.
And it's like, do you want this ever to occur
in your marriage?
Hell no, I never want this.
And so just don't go down this feminist road
of denying your spouse or anything like that.
No, no, no, the Bible says,
let a breath satisfy thee at all times.
Go to Malachi chapter number two.
So we talked about number one, adultery, let's talk about number two, divorce.
Why? Because people are going to be stupid and they're not going to listen to what the Bible says.
A lot of people are not going to listen to what I'm preaching right now.
And they're going to go commit adultery anyways.
And you know what often is going to happen as a result of that?
Their spouse is going to divorce them.
Now is that right? Absolutely not.
But this is something that people do.
Let me read you some statistics here for divorce.
Infidelity is a major factor in 20% to 40% of US divorces,
with 88% of couples in one study citing it as at least
a contributing factor to divorce.
So it's like, why is divorce happening today?
One of the biggest reasons why divorce happens is adultery.
And so you never want to go down this road of adultery.
It leads to this, even this terrible sin.
Look at Malachi 2 verse 14.
The Bible says yet ye say, wherefore, because the Lord hath been witness between thee and
the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, yet is she thy companion
and the wife of thy covenant.
And did he not make one, yet had he the residue of the spirit, and wherefore one, that he
might seek a godly seed, therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously
against the wife of his youth.
the God of Israel saith that he hateeth putting away.
For one covereth violence with his garment,
saith the Lord of hosts.
Therefore take heed to your spirit
that ye deal not treacherously.
You have wearied the Lord with your words, yet you say wherein have we wearied Him?
When you say everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth
in them?
Or where is the God of judgment?
A couple things about this passage.
Notice how in verse number 14, the wife here is described as the wife of thy covenant.
You know what that leads me to believe is that God believes in the marriage vows.
God believes in the covenant of marriage and I've had a lot of people over the years tell me, oh, you know
You shouldn't do marriage vows. You shouldn't make those promises before God. Well here
God is acknowledging the wife of thy covenant
And you know what? This is a lifelong covenant that you're entering into and you should
Get there in front of your wife and promise to be with her and promise not to forsake her and vice versa
God says she's the wife of thy covenant
Then it says in verse 16,
for the Lord, the God of Israel,
say it that he hated putting away.
That verse is not out of context when it comes to marriage.
This is talking about divorce.
That is the primary context of what this is saying
that God hates putting away.
For one, covereth violence with his garment.
Violence could sometimes mean to violate.
And what I think this is talking about is someone violates their marriage covenant
and they want to cover it up.
They want to make excuses for it or cover it, hide it or something like that.
But God still hates that, putting it away. He sees it.
And these people are wearying God with their words.
How is God being weary? It says, when you say,
Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them, or where is the God of judgment?
You know, I guarantee you God is very weary with all of the people in this country,
whether in church, whether in the secular world, that will just weary God by saying that evil is good and good is evil
by giving you an excuse to divorce your spouse.
That wearies God because here the Bible says God hates putting away.
He hates it when you deal treacherously with the wife of your youth.
He hates it when you cover violence with a garment.
He hates it when you weary him with your words, when you're perverting judgment.
And let me tell you, God hates it when anyone legitimizes or gives excuse for
or puts their stamp of approval on or condones divorce for any reason.
You see, the Bible teaches that you should never divorce your spouse for any reason.
You say, you don't understand, Pastor, what would I do if my spouse commits adultery on me?
Here's what you do. You stay married.
But he's a horrible person.
But he literally committed adultery on me.
You stay married.
That's what the Bible says.
And look, I'm sorry, like I feel horrible for you.
And let me tell you something, if your spouse commits adultery on you, you are a victim.
You are the victim of a crime and in a godly society, your spouse would be put to death
and you would be free to go marry someone else.
But guess what?
Our government doesn't do that and so you don't get to just escape out of your marriage
for adultery.
And you dead sure don't get to just escape out of your marriage for whatever reason you
want.
Because the modern versions will be like,
oh, you could divorce your spouse for sexual immorality.
So what is that?
Having a lustful thought for someone?
Looking after another woman with lust?
Looking at a man with lust?
Thinking about a man plus something like that for wives?
That'd be a big problem.
There'd be a lot of divorces rubber stamped by churches if that was actually what the Bible says,
but you know, my Bible says that God hates putting away and that it is always wrong
and realize this, that two wrongs do not make a right.
You know, you could sit here and you could give me the most well-crafted, solid story ever
and you could tell me how terrible your husband is and you could say,
but look at all the things that he did.
Look at how he cheated, how he did this and that and you might even be right.
And you might be a legitimate victim of that, but guess what?
That does not make divorcing your spouse okay.
It is always wrong to divorce your spouse.
If you think that you're ever gonna come to me
and present the reasons why I should excuse you to divorce,
I will never ever do it.
I will never condone of any divorce for any reason.
You know, even if your husband was some horrible reprobate,
the Bible does not say you could divorce that person.
You know, I didn't see Abigail divorce an abal.
I saw her be a good wife and be honoring to the Lord and fearing God until God struck Nabal dead.
And you know, hey, if you're married to a literal reprobate, a pedophile or something like that,
I understand, you know, for your safety, getting away from a pedophile,
and I understand praying for a pedophile's death, I'll pray with you.
But I will never say, yeah, go ahead and divorce your spouse.
It is always wrong 100% of the time.
Why? You made a covenant.
What does the Bible say? Go to Deuteronomy chapter 23.
What does the Bible say we should do when we make a covenant?
Let's look at it Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 21
When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God thou shalt not slack to pay it
For the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee and it would be sin in thee
Did you make a vow to stay with your spouse till death do us part? Yes or no?
Yes, you did. Then it would be a sin to divorce. I don't care what the reason is. It would be wrong
Look at verse 22, but if thou shalt forbear to vow it shall be no sin in thee. Hey, no one forced you to get married
No one put a gun to your head and said you have to marry this person you and in the pastor even asked you like hey
If you have freely and deliberately chosen each other as companions for life then take hands
So you're standing there saying I am freely of my own power
Deliberately choosing this person you stand there before the audience of your friends and family and God Almighty in heaven
And you promise till death do us part. Guess what that means till death do us part
you should honor your vows that you make to your spouse. It doesn't matter what
your spouse is like after that. It says in verse 23, that which is gone out of
thy lips, shout thou keep and perform.
Even a free will offering according as thou hast vowed unto the Lord thy God
Which thou has promised with thy mouth hey if you don't want to commit to this level of relationship
Then don't get married because marriage is for life. It's not a game
And by the way, this should make you think carefully before you just rush and get married
Before you just meet some girl and two weeks later you're getting married.
You know you ought to really take the time to pray and seek counsel and spend lots of quality time with this person
to really get to know the person that you're marrying because this thing is for life.
And there is no escape but death.
That is the end of marriage is when you die and of course in heaven you're not going to be married.
We're not going to be married in heaven.
We're going to be like the angels that are in heaven.
But you know, on this earth, as long as your spouse is alive,
when you've said those vows, when you've married that spouse,
you are married.
Let me remind you of your vows as you turn to Romans chapter seven.
This is what people say.
I say your name, take the spouse to be my wedded husband, wife,
to have and to hold from this day forward for better for worse.
for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health,
to love and to cherish till death do us part.
That's what you said.
You said, for better or for worse.
Hey, for better, oh, your husband's a great guy,
and he's a spiritual leader,
and he takes you to Acre Baptist Church,
and he leads a family in Bible reading and soul winning,
and he makes good money, and he's strong,
and he's a provider, and he's a protector.
Hey, for better, great.
That's what you want, right?
You know what else it says?
or your husband's a deadbeat, or your husband's an alcoholic,
or your husband's a drug addict, or your husband is going to the strip club.
Hey, reverse it. Men, you stay with your wife when she is obedient,
and when she is lovely and kind, and when she makes good meals,
and when she cleans your house, and when she gives you all the love that you want,
or when she is rebellious and loudmouth and disobedient.
and a gossip and a tale-bearer and just whatever the horrible situations that are out there or
an adulteress you said for better or for worse you said for richer or for poorer oh my husband
doesn't provide he doesn't make any money you don't get a divorce him for that you don't get a
leave him for that in sickness and in health i just don't want to take care of him anymore he's just
too much of a burden i don't want to take care of her anymore she got sick i'm going to leave her
that's wicked as hell amen you see this all the time after war
where like men will get maimed in war.
They go out and sacrifice their body
and go through all the mental torment of warfare
and they come back and their wife commits adultery
and leaves them to be maimed for the rest of their life
and things happen in reverse the other way too.
You know, that's horrible.
And what a terrible testimony as Christians when, you know, here we are, we believe in
something called eternal security.
You know what that means?
It doesn't matter how many times I sin, how many times I screw up, how many times I offend
God by my own rebellion and my own stubbornness and my own sin.
God doesn't forsake me.
He doesn't stop loving me.
He doesn't stop keeping me in his hand.
I'm always saved.
Once you're saved, you're always saved.
Marriage should be a good reflection of what we believe as Christians,
that, hey, you married this person, it's till death do us part.
Let's look at this further in Romans chapter seven, verse one.
Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law.
how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth.
Right? We are under laws in this world.
As long as you live, that's how it works.
Verse 2, for the woman, which hath an husband,
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth.
How long does a woman have to stay with her husband as long as they are both alive?
Well, she could leave. No, she can't.
The Bible says she's bound by the law to her husband to just excuse away people leaving their spouse,
separating from their spouse. Let's be honest, separating from your spouse is just one tiny step behind divorce.
It's just divorce without the legal paperwork yet.
But what does the Bible say?
so long as he liveth.
She should stay with her husband for how long?
As long as they're alive.
But if the husband be dead,
she is loosed from the law of her husband.
When is it that you are loosed from the marriage covenant?
It is when one of you dies.
And when one of you die?
Look at verse number three.
So then if, while her husband liveth,
she shall be married to another man,
she shall be called an adulteress.
But if her husband be dead she is free from that law so that she is no adulterous though
She'd be married to another man. Look if you have ever been married and you're separated from your spouse
But your spouse is still alive and you go ahead and marry someone else that is adultery
Now look, people get this weird idea where they think like if you've ever been physical with someone
that you're now like married in God's eyes, that is a false doctrine.
Marriage has a legal aspect of it.
The Bible talks about how we should provide things honest in the sight of God and, man,
I'm 100% for the legal marriage document.
You know, sometimes you get these libertarians that are like,
oh, we don't need the government and marriage.
Yes, we do.
Because the Bible says we're supposed to provide for things honest in the sight of God.
and man marriage has these two aspects it's the or maybe three the vows in the
covenant that you make the legal document of your marriage and the physical
consummation you have to have all of those things to be married if you've done
that you cannot divorce your spouse and you cannot remarry someone else if you
do that is adultery according to the word of God
But once your husband's dead, but if her husband be dead,
she is free from that law so that she is no adulterous,
though she be married to another man.
So widows and widowers, when their spouse has died,
they are now able to get married.
And this even is the will of God for most people,
because if you read 1 Timothy chapter five,
it talks about, hey, I will therefore
that the younger women marry.
Bear children, guide the house,
give none occasion to the adversary
to speak reproachfully for some,
are already turned aside after Satan.
And so, you know, that physical relationship
that is a strong temptation for man and woman,
how is that gonna be fulfilled in a godly way?
You gotta get married.
And especially in 1st Timothy 5,
where the context is talking about widows,
saying, hey, if you're under 60,
it's probably wise to get remarried.
You've already shown that that aspect of your life is important to you because you've been married before.
So if you have a spouse that dies, especially in your youth, you should seek remarriage.
But let me say this.
If you divorce your spouse and you separate from your spouse,
you are to remain single for the rest of your miserable life.
I mean, doesn't that sound terrible?
Doesn't that sound awful?
Just being separated and just you never get to experience that again.
You never get to have the companionship of a spouse ever again.
You remain single for the rest of your life.
You know, that would suck.
And let me tell you, divorce is terrible.
Divorce ruins your life.
And all the time, people think that the grass is greener
on the other side.
and they're having issues in their marriage,
and instead of having the character to honor their vows,
no matter what, instead of bearing the cross,
maybe that's their cross in life that they have to bear,
they go and get divorced, and then they wake up
and find out their life is 10 times worse
when they're divorced, when they're financially ruined.
Talk about the biggest financial ruiner in America.
It's divorce.
It is divorce for sure.
And then you wake up and you realize,
man, I'm gonna get old.
And I'm going to spend my old age,
no one to take care of me,
no one to have companionship with me.
You know, the physical relationship is off the table,
obviously, you know, financially you don't have anyone
to help provide for you.
If you're a lady, just destroys people so badly.
Go to Matthew chapter 19, Matthew chapter 19.
I don't know how you can get around
Romans chapter number seven.
that, hey, the wife is bound by her husband, by the law of her husband, as long as he live it.
What if he's immoral in this area? You're bound.
You have to stay married.
And anyone giving you advice or telling you that you don't have to stay married to your spouse is lying to you.
They are teaching you false doctrine. They are teaching something that's wicked.
Matthew chapter 19.
Verse 3, notice the Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him,
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
Now notice how the Pharisees here, they are not sincere. They are tempting the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know what? People that just dig into this idea and they don't just accept the plain words that we just read in Romans 7 and other verses.
You know what it's coming from? It's coming from a heart that's not sincere.
It's not that you really want to know whether or not the Bible condones divorce or allows for divorce and remarriage
or what God's thoughts on adultery is.
It's that you just already have an answer that you want to hear.
And so you just try to ask all these insincere questions.
Notice how this conversation goes.
It says verse number four and he answered and sent unto them,
Have you not read?
That he which made them at the beginning made them male and female so notice
Jesus is like haven't you read the Bible? Like this is a stupid question
Asking me can a man just put away his wife for any cause
It's like if any sincere person had read the Bible you would already know what God thinks about this
You would already know the truth and this is the same stupid question people ask today
Can I get a divorce in this situation? Can I divorce my spouse for any cause?
Notice verse number five
and said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother
and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.
He's like, haven't you read the Bible?
Haven't you read Genesis?
You don't have to read the Bible very far to figure out this idea
that marriage is one man, one woman for life.
By the way, this also debunks the idea of polygamy being okay.
When it's hey, no, they twain shall be one flesh.
What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder how much more clear of a statement from the Lord
Jesus Christ do you need?
I mean, we got in Malachi, God hates putting away.
God hates it when you deal treacherously with your wife.
God hates it when you cover violence with a garment.
You got Deuteronomy saying,
don't break your vows.
If you vow a vow to the Lord, you better pay it.
And if you don't want to pay it, then you shouldn't have made the vow.
You got Romans 7, 8.
You're bound by the law to your spouse as long as they live.
You have Jesus here saying,
what therefore God has joined together?
Let not man put us under.
How many Bible verses do you need?
And I just I get to the point where I'm just like if I show people all this and they still want to tell me divorce is okay
I just realized this is an insincere person
This is an insincere
Person verse number seven they say unto him
Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away?
He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts,
suffered you to put away your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so.
Again, there's a difference between what's right and what people actually do. And God knows this. God tells us,
here's what's right. Here's what I command you. Here's what I expect of you.
But if anyone is an idiot and
rebellious and doesn't listen to this, well, here's what you do in this situation, right?
Just like how in first John talks about how, hey, these things I write on to you that you
sin not, but if any man sin, you know, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous.
That's not God saying, hey, it's okay to sin.
Hey, it's fine, go ahead and sin.
We have an advocate with Jesus Christ.
No, no, no, he says, don't sin.
I'm actually writing to this, this to you
so that you don't sin.
But if you do, here's the situation.
So it's like divorce has always been wrong.
It's always been 100% off the table,
but there was provisions given in the law
that if someone did this, what did they have to do, right?
And look at verse number.
Number nine, it says, and I say unto you,
whosoever shall put away his wife,
accept it before fornication,
and shall marry another, committed adultery.
And whosoever shall put away his wife except before, what, fornication.
That's not adultery.
What is what is the sin called when you step out physically in your married relationship? That's adultery
What is this fornication? This happens before marriage and so if someone has committed fornication
Say a woman is saying hey, I'm a maid. I'm a virgin and then the wedding night comes and the man finds some uncleanness in her
That's an example that the law talks about he can basically put her away
Before that relationship is consummated and it would be
not considered adultery.
Now, again, the Bible isn't even saying like,
that's a best case scenario.
That's what you should do.
That's what you would do if for the hardness of your own heart,
you know, you already have made those vows.
You should pay those vows no matter what.
But in that case, that type of an annulment would be permissible
and it would be like not adultery.
It wouldn't be like a great situation,
but it would not be adultery.
But for anything else that says,
and whoso merrieth her which is put away,
doth commit adultery.
His disciples say unto him if the case of a man be so with his wife it is not good to marry
But he said unto them all men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it is given
So, the Pharisees hear this and they're like, man, this is hard.
This is a tough saying.
If this is true, you know, who's going to want to marry?
And there's a lot of people that sadly have that attitude today.
A lot of people are giving up on the institution of marriage.
You know, you shouldn't give up on the institution of marriage.
You should just make sure you marry someone that's on the same page that divorce is always
off the table.
That adultery is off the table.
that getting divorced and remarried is off the table and Jesus acknowledges this.
He says, Hey, all men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it is given.
Jesus notices or realizes that this is hard preaching.
And, you know, this statement of adultery and divorce always being wrong
and that you cannot divorce your spouse and marry someone else, you know,
that offends a lot of people.
It's like, what I've noticed is what really offends Christians is preaching on alcohol
and divorce and remarriage.
This will really fire people up, but you know what?
The truth is the truth.
And so, let me make it very clear.
If your spouse is a raging alcoholic and is a terrible person, you better stay married
to him.
If your spouse commits adultery on you,
you better stay married to your spouse in all situations.
If your spouse is a member of the Mexican cartel,
you better stay married to your spouse.
I don't care what you say.
You understand what I'm saying?
I don't care what you say.
I don't care what situation you give.
Once you are married, you must stay married to your spouse.
And it's just, if anyone in your life...
is giving you marriage counsel and they have any other goal in mind
than to preserve your marriage, you need to run screaming the other direction from that marriage counselor.
If you have a pastor in your life that is giving you any other advice, then I want to help restore your marriage.
I want to help you stay with your husband. I want to help you stay with your wife.
I want to help you guys in the best way possible to move past your issues and to stay married.
You need to run away from that counselor because that is not what the Bible teaches.
Never does the Bible say that divorce and remarriage is okay.
Go to Ephesians 5.
Ephesians chapter number five and man what I'm saying to you right now I hope it
makes people take marriage more seriously. I hope that young people who are
not yet married today think long and hard before they marry someone because
once you marry them you are stuck with them.
And you know, I feel like the girls, the typical stereotype of like,
yeah, let's marry the bad boy, you're an idiot because you're going to be stuck with him.
And you know, ladies have a lot more on the line to lose.
I hope you ladies are very picky with who you marry.
And some guys will get upset with that. I don't care.
Ladies, I hope you are very, very picky because what you are doing
is you're signing up to submit and obey this man for the rest of your life.
Man, you better hope he's a righteous, godly man.
Because what if your husband is an ungodly, drug dealing, alcohol drinking, going to the
club guy, you know you should obey him, follow him, submit yourself to him.
It's quiet because it's a hard saying, but it's true.
This is what the Bible says whereas like as a man, you know, obviously please still take marriage seriously
It's it's one of the most important decisions you could ever make in your life
But like at least I'm in charge at least I get to lead this woman at least I'm setting the plan for the family
But you ladies you're signing up to follow a man. So you better make sure you're marrying a godly man
You better make sure you're marrying someone who's serious about the Lord.
You better not just marry the bad boy.
You better marry the guy who goes soul winning, who reads his Bible,
who's three to thrive, who shows up to work, who's got a vision for his life,
who's on the right trajectory in his life.
And you know, like people will get mad at ladies for like marrying older guys.
It's like, I understand why ladies will do that sometimes.
Because a lot of times, you know, you just marry some 18 year old,
you're really rolling the dice.
But it's like, I can understand why ladies would be like,
all right, here's like a 29-year-old.
Here's like a 30-year-old, and he has like a good career.
And he has like a house, and he has a car, and he goes to church.
I understand that and like if I had to choose which obviously I'm really far away from this
But if I had to choose that just like my daughters have to marry like someone their age and just like as soon as they turn 18
They have to marry some 18 year old and kind of just roll the dice
Just like hope things are okay, or it's like marry a guy that's older than them
Who's really responsible and godly and mature and has money like I'm not gonna fault them for making that decision
People just like freak out about this, they're like,
oh, she's so terrible, she married some older guy.
Or like a guy who's older and established
and is a marketable guy who has money,
who has pull in the market,
like he wants to marry a younger girl.
Oh, he's a pedophile, it's weird.
Like what planet do you live on?
Like women want security.
Women want to be taken care of women want to feel safe. It's like guys want pretty girls. This is how the world works
I don't know if you needed this to be explained to you
But it's like you're not a pedophile if you want to marry like a young beautiful girl
And you're not some like gold digging whore if you're a younger girl
And you want to marry a guy who's financially stable and wise like use your brain a little bit
Marriage is a serious deal, and I don't recommend that just every 18-year-old marries another 18-year-old.
You know, hey, if you can get married young, praise God.
Me and my wife got married young. I thank God for that. I wouldn't have changed a thing.
But I'm not going to sit here and say, like, every person who turns 18 needs to get married.
You know, some people need to mature for a little bit longer.
Some men need to get a job. Some men need to work hard.
Some ladies need to you know get just with some wisdom in life and some experience in the kitchen for crying out loud
You know, don't marry some woman that doesn't know how to cook. All right, when does that come?
I don't know what age it comes at but don't marry her until she's come of that age that she can cook. Well
It's a big decision
Ephesians chapter number five verse 22 notice
Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Well unless he's a bad person
Well, unless he doesn't have a good job.
Well, unless he was looking at something he shouldn't have been looking at.
No, you submit yourself to your husband as unto the Lord, period.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church,
and he is the savior of the body.
Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,
so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything.
There's no excuse for leaving your husband, ladies.
The Bible says to submit to him.
You know?
Oh, he was some terrible person.
It doesn't matter what you say.
The Bible says to submit.
And same thing for guys.
Oh, my wife was such a bad wife.
No, no, no.
Love your wife.
Stay with your wife.
Look at verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives.
Even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
But my wife did this.
It doesn't matter.
It's just like what I'm talking about the ladies. There's no excuse you can give. Oh, you know, she spent all the money
Oh, she was lazy. Oh, she didn't do this. She didn't do that. No. No. Love her
Lover as Christ loved the church again. What is God's love for us? It doesn't run out once you're saved
You're always saved and no matter how many times you screw up Christ is always there to forgive
Christ is always there to restore that relationship with us Christ is always going to keep us
Saved we're not gonna lose our salvation. You know what once you're married. You can never walk away for any reason
Go to second Chronicles chapter number 22 second Chronicles chapter number 22
And you know, people who are sincere, people who love God,
I can show them these verses and things will click
and they'll agree with me.
But what I've noticed is that it usually just takes one or two bad counselors
and someone's life to ruin it.
And another thing I've just noticed over the years,
I feel like people who have the biggest marriage issues
and just like the worst marriage problems,
it's the marriages where the in-laws are the most involved in the marriage.
And you want to have a healthy marriage, keep your in-laws away from your marriage.
Not saying stay away from them as like family members or spending time with them, but keep
your marriage issues away from the in-laws.
Do not complain about your wife to your parents.
Do not complain about your husband to your parents.
Do not involve them in your marital strife.
I love when I got married.
Pastor Thompson said, hey, if the daughters that I marry off, if they ever come knocking
I'm not going to get involved in the marriage stuff.
You're not going to find a safe haven.
This isn't the city of refuge.
You go back to your husband's house.
And you know what?
I'm going to tell my daughters the same thing some day.
You know what?
That'll make people think before they get married,
that there's not just an escape hatch called your parents'
house.
No, no, no.
You work things out with your spouse.
You stay.
You don't listen to ungodly counselors.
Notice Second Chronicles 22 verse 2.
42 years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem.
His mother's name also was Athaliah, the daughter of Amri.
He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, notice, for his mother was his counselor
to do wickedly.
Wherefore, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab, for they were
his counselors after the death of his father to his destruction.
A lot of times, it's mother that's going to counsel you to do wickedly.
Why?
Because sometimes that emotion of her care for you can cause her to trump over what
the Bible says.
And we all can do this.
We all can be susceptible to this of our emotions ruling us rather than what the Bible says.
This is why you should not be getting counsel
within your marriage and involving your marriage issues
from the in-laws.
Because a lot of times I've seen it over and over again.
It's like, daughter goes and tells her mom and dad,
here's all the horrible things my husband did to me.
And they're just like, that's awful.
This is my baby girl who I love.
Yeah, leave him, separate from him, divorce him.
And they just throw their biblical standards out of the door.
Excuse me if I'm speaking weird.
Throw their biblical standards out the door.
Or vice versa.
You know a man has issues and he goes tells mom and dad and they're like oh my baby boy
they're going through all this pain yeah leave them yeah divorce them and just the bible goes out the window
and so any person in your life think about this seriously any person in your life who is encouraging
you to separate from your spouse to divorce your spouse you should stop listening to that person
You should not listen to that, because that is an example of someone who is your counselor to do wickedly.
This guy right here, his mother, was his counselor to do wickedly.
There's a lot of mom and dads that are enabling their children's sin today.
And look, it may hurt if your child has been hurt by their spouse.
Of course it will, but you know what? Two wrongs don't make a right.
You know, there are a lot of people today, there are a lot of pastors today that are unfortunately counselors for people to do wickedly.
You know, I've read these old IFB books by pastors who I like overall, but then you get to the marriage section
and it's like abuse, abandonment, adultery, sexual immorality, looking at women or something like that.
Yeah, you can divorce them and they just rubber stamp adultery.
And when you do that, you're causing them to commit adultery and a lot of times even pastors today are counselors for people to do evil.
No pastor should ever, for any reason, rubber stamp or condone or do anything other than tell them, go back to your spouse.
Stay married. Not even just having like a hands off thing like, well, you know, if it kind of happens, it happens.
If you're going to ask me what I think about it, if you're going to involve me in it,
it's always going to be stay married period. There will be no other answer.
That is what the Bible teaches.
Proverbs 13.20 says,
You will destroy your life by being a companion of foolish people that don't want to harken to the word of God that want to put all these
unbiblical
Ideologies in your head that the Bible doesn't teach. How about this? How about this one? You deserve to be happy. Well, really show me that in the Bible
Show show me in the Bible where I deserve to be happy
I could show you in the Bible where you deserve to burn in hell for all of eternity
I could find that I could find that I deserve to burn in hell for all of eternity
I missed that part in the Bible that says you deserve to be happy. No, no, you deserve to obey God
You deserve to obey his commandments.
You deserve to not step out on your spouse and commit adultery.
You deserve to not divorce your spouse.
You deserve not to remarry.
It's wicked.
You know, or the, or the, you go girlism, the girl power,
leave your husband trade up for another man.
You go girl, you deserve better.
Or same thing with guys.
No, you know what?
Don't listen to people like that.
And by the way, the whole happiness thing,
you will always be happier in God's will anyways.
Christians, just so you know, Christians who follow God's plan for marriage and they're in a monogamous relationship till death and the husband loves the wife and the wife obeys the husband, happiest people on earth.
Guarantee you. Way happier than the fools of this world that go on all their adulterous parties. Way happier than the CEO of this AI company who was caught on the live stream, if you will, at the Coldplay concert hugging some other woman and his life is ruined.
He lost his job as a CEO.
She lost her job as the head of HR.
You know what?
Who the real happy people are?
Married, godly Christians that stay married for life.
And anyone telling you anything other than that is a fool.
Let's talk about quickly the last point,
which is reconciliation.
Man, sometimes people, you know, you get up,
you preach against adultery, and they'll go commit adultery.
And you preach how you should never divorce,
and people will do it anyways.
And you say, hey, don't separate, work things out.
they'll do it anyways. What do you do if you're in that situation? Because again,
I don't believe in this ministry model of be awesome as I am awesome. Well, just
don't sin and you'll have no problems in life. Yeah, but people sin and people
get in bad situations. What do you do? Hey, you've been divorced. You've left your
spouse or you're separated from your spouse right now. What do you do? Here's
what the Bible says. 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 10. Not my opinion. Notice
what the Bible says.
And unto the married, I command, yet not I, but the Lord,
let not the wife depart from her husband. There's God's command.
Don't depart.
But and if she departs, here we go again.
But and if she departs, let her remain unmarried
or be reconciled to her husband
and let not the husband put away his wife.
What does the Bible say?
Don't leave your spouse.
Don't divorce your spouse.
Don't leave your husband.
Don't leave your wife.
But if you do, you have two options.
Option number one is to remain single
for the rest of your life.
Anyone want to sign up for that?
It doesn't sound very fun to me.
OK, that is what the Bible says.
Option number two is to be reconciled to your spouse.
That is what you must do.
If you found yourself in this situation,
you've divorced, but you've not yet remarried,
that husband or wife that you divorced,
you can reconcile with that person and you should.
As soon as possible, the sooner the better,
reconcile with that person, that's the right thing to do.
And if not, if that can't happen,
then you need to remain single for the rest of your life.
And you know what?
It would be so wicked for you to set the example.
For other people who are in that situation,
I know people that are in that situation.
They've been divorced and they out of character
are remaining single because that's what the Bible says.
You know, it's very discouraging for that person
when they see other people who are divorced
just getting remarried,
and especially when the church just acts like it's okay.
And so, if that happens, I'm not going to just act like it's okay.
If someone who is divorced gets remarried to another person, I'm never going to officiate
that wedding.
I'm never going to attend a wedding that is divorced and remarried.
If someone does that, you should just expect that there's going to be a sermon on that
topic and if you want to stay here and move on with your life, you better be able to just
endure the hard preaching because I don't want other people to think that that is okay.
A lot of churches, they just tolerate it.
They act like it's no big deal.
And look, some people say that it's a perpetual adultery.
I don't believe that.
I believe divorce and remarriage
is a one-time act of adultery.
But you know what that one time needs to be dealt with.
And if you do it, I'm gonna preach super hard on it.
I'm not gonna officiate your wedding.
I'm not gonna go to the wedding.
And this is my rule now.
This is my personal rule.
If I find out that you're divorced and getting remarried
and you're like inviting church members to the wedding,
I will kick you out of church.
because we cannot have that type of a relationship
encouraged and normalized in society,
and especially here at Anchor Baptist Church.
So that's where I stand on it.
You know, we're not dealing with this right now,
but it's something I'm sure we will deal with someday.
I've seen it before.
It's a horrible situation, but you know,
what are your options?
Stay married or, sorry,
stay single for the rest of your life
or reconcile with that person.
I'm going to Matthew chapter number five.
Matthew chapter number five now again, let's play the what if game what if
Someone divorces their spouse and they say you know what? I'm not going to remain single and I'm just gonna marry someone else
What does the Bible say that is Matthew 531 it had been said whosoever shall put away his wife
Let him give her writing of divorcement
But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication
Causeth her to commit adultery
Why? Because when you put away your wife, you know what she's going to do?
She's going to marry someone else, and that's adultery.
And whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committed adultery.
So even if you've never been married, but you marry someone who's divorced,
you are now committing adultery as well.
Divorce and remarriage is adultery.
Now, again, I quoted this verse earlier, let me read it again.
1 John 1-9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I understand that we live in an ungodly society and a lot of people did not grow up in church,
and if they did grow up in church, they often were growing up under unbiblical teaching
and bad counsel from their pastor telling them that it's okay to divorce in certain situations.
So the reality of our world is, man, is there a lot of divorced people out there.
Man, is there a lot of divorced and remarried people out there?
And look, if you're in that situation,
I'm not trying to discourage you from going forward in life.
I'm not trying to discourage you from serving God.
But I do want you to realize, though, that you sinned.
And I want to make sure, hey, ask God for forgiveness.
Move on with your life. He will forgive you.
But do not make an excuse for yourself.
Don't sit here and try to justify your sin.
It just is so frustrating to me how people just can't do this today.
How it's like, whenever they're guilty of something, they can't just say, like, I messed up.
It's like, hey, I lied. I'm sorry. Hey, I did this. It was my fault. I'm sorry. Hey, you know what?
I got divorced and remarried and Jesus Christ, my creator, my savior, said that that was adultery and you know what?
It is and I'm wrong and I'm sorry. Hey, you can move on when you have that type of a heart,
but don't go corrupting other people and poisoning their mind. If you have any influence over someone,
if one of your friends or family members or, you know, if someone listening to this is in the ministry,
And you ever have a situation where someone's going through this problem,
don't be that evil counselor.
Don't be that counselor who tries to say,
hey, separation's okay, divorce is okay.
You know, stick with what the Bible says and always encourage them to do what's right.
We'll look at two more passages, Isaiah chapter 5 and Titus chapter number 2.
Isaiah 5 and Titus chapter number 2.
Isaiah 5 verse 20 says,
Wo unto them that call evil good and good evil.
that put darkness for light and light for darkness,
that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter,
woe unto them that are noticed wise in their own eyes
and prudent in their own sight.
Hey, woe unto the person that wants to use their human logic
and human reason to explain away and excuse away
their reasons for adultery or their reasons for divorce
or their reasons for remarriage.
You know what, we ought to just lean on what the Bible says.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,
lean not unto thine own understanding,
in all thy ways, acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths."
Titus chapter two.
Titus chapter number two.
Notice this.
Verse number three, the Bible says the aged women likewise,
that they be in behavior as becomeeth holiness,
not false accusers, not given to much wine.
Notice this, teachers of good things,
that they may teach the young women to be sober,
to love their husbands, to love their children,
to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home,
good, obedient to their own husbands,
that the word of God be not blasphemed.
This sermon is not only just for pastors who counsel people or men who counsel friends and stuff like that.
You know, ladies often are involved in situations like this too, and those of you ladies who are already married or those of you ladies who maybe have grandchildren,
it's very possible that someday your kids could have a rocky spot in their marriage. It happens to people.
It's possible that your grandkids someday could have a rocky spot in their marriage.
It could be possible that ladies in this church will have a situation
negative in their marriage, and you know what you ought to do if you're a godly lady,
you're already married, maybe you have some influence over one of these other ladies,
here's the option of things that you're allowed to teach them. To teach them to be sober.
to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet,
chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands
that the Word of God be not blasphemed.
A lot of times in churches, it's the loudmouth feminist women
that would love to encourage the younger ladies to leave their husbands.
Or they'll say, oh, but the husband did this, the husband did that,
she doesn't have to obey anymore, she can leave now, no, no, no.
You teach them to do right by obeying their husband,
by loving their children, and not assisting people
in the destruction of their home.
And you know, it pisses me off because kids grow up
in broken homes and it ruins their lives.
There are real consequences for adultery and divorce.
And just because you're upset and just because you're
emotional about a situation does not
mean you get to now start counseling people to do evil.
And here's another thing.
If I ever catch someone encouraging people to get divorced, that's going to be seriously
dealt with as well.
I mean, what an evil thing to do to sit there and encourage someone to leave their husband,
encourage some husband to leave his wife.
You know what a real friend would do is they would say, hey man, you know, man up and work
on your marriage.
Man up and love your wife, like Christ loves us.
You know what a godly woman would do?
They'd say, hey, you know what?
You need to be the best wife you can,
regardless of what type of husband he is.
Because you know what?
You're supposed to obey him as unto the Lord.
You're supposed to please the Lord.
You're supposed to do that,
which is right in the eyes of Jesus Christ.
And I'm telling you,
there is hope for people's marriage today
when you have the mentality of never divorce.
But man, if you're looking for an excuse
to leave your marriage, you will find it.
Don't think that that every marriage is like perfect and will never have issues every marriage will have issues
Every marriage will have its ups and downs every marriage will have situations that you'll just feel like man
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Can things get better?
And if you have the mentality of never divorce it can get better
If you have godly people around you encouraging you it can get better
If you read what the Bible says and you stick with the teachings of Jesus Christ, it can get better.
But you know what? Your life can only get worse by getting divorced.
It can only get worse.
You go out and commit adultery because you're unsatisfied with your marriage, your life will only get worse.
You know, you go in and say, oh, the grass is greener on the other side.
Let's go ahead and get remarried if your life will only get worse.
Let us be Christians that honor the vows that we make to God.
And let's be counselors for righteousness.
Let's encourage people to do right.
Let's get back to pastors encouraging people to do right.
And male friends encouraging their male friends to do right.
And loudmouth women to shut the hell up.
And if you're gonna encourage ladies to do anything,
it's to love your husband and obey him.
Let's pray, Lord, thank you for this day
and thank you for the teaching in your word.
I know that this is difficult for a lot of people to hear.
I know that a lot of people in America don't want to hear the truth on this
subject, Lord, but I pray that at Anchor Baptist Church we would be the
exception in this country, that we would be faithful to our spouses, that we would
never step out in adultery against them, that we would set up safeguards in our
lives to help us never go down this dark road, help us never to give up on our
spouses, help us to always stay married, Lord, and help us always to find people
that encourage others to do right.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Our last hymn this evening, 207.
Only a sinner.
Hymn number 207, 207.
Only a sinner.
207 there on the first
and simple my heart, causing my footsteps from God to depart.
Jesus hath found me.