Beware of Adultery!

Bible Book: Proverbs 5

Subject: Adultery; Sexual Sin; Fidelity

[Editor's Note: Dr. Kirksey uses Proverbs 5:1-23; 6:20-35; and 7:1-27 as texts for this message.]

Introduction

Clara Null shares, “My Sunday school class of first graders was learning the Ten Commandments. When we got to ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ I wondered if I would have to explain this to them. Sure enough, suddenly a seven-year-old girl raised her hand and asked, ‘What does commit mean?’”[1]

Jonathan R. Mutchler recounts, “A third-grade Sunday school teacher was uneasy about the lesson ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ By way of introduction she asked, ‘Would someone please explain what adultery means?’ A young sage answered matter-of-factly, ‘Adultery is when a kid lies about his age.’"[2]

Dr. John Phillips (1927-2010) writes, “Adultery is an act of treachery.”[3] According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, treachery is a “violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence” or “an act of perfidy or treason”.[4]

Former University of Arkansas head coach, Bobby Petrino, had a motorcycle accident early one Sunday morning in April 2012. A young woman half his age, named, Jessica Dorrell, was also riding on that motorcycle. Petrino hired this former University of Arkansas volleyball player to work as his football recruiting organizer. He was having an adulterous relationship with her, which suddenly came to light as a result of this accident.

His conduct clearly violates the Seventh Commandment. In all fairness to Mr. Petrino, I do not know if he is a professing Christian or not. If he is, it means one thing and if he is not, it means another, but the fact remains; it is sin. The Bible is clear about this issue and there is no question about it.

His confession recorded in part in interview with Joe Schad of ESPN is most telling. In August 2012, Petrino confessed, “I had an affair. . . . I cheated on my wife. . . . I’ve made mistakes. . . . I take responsibility for it and I am really sorry. . . . I’m going to be a better person for it. . . . I’m going to keep my life in better balance. . . . I broke one of our cardinal rules, which was to know the difference between right and wrong and to choose to do what’s right. . . . I just can’t believe I screwed up so bad. . . . This is all on me. . . . This is something I did and unfortunately I have to be able to live with the consequences.”

His consequences according to the article were at least two-fold, monetary and marital. First, he lost $21 Million of potential earnings as head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks. Second, he lost the confidence of his wife and family. He will spend the rest of his life trying to regain it. He also said, “It’s hard for me to say what other people think of me.” This affects the possibility of employment in other venues and ventures.[5]

Beware of adultery! As a godly father warns his son, we need to sound the alarm to the next generation. We find the words, “My son” (Proverbs 5:1, 20; 6:1, 20; 7:1) five times in these verses. Four of these times Solomon addresses the subject of adultery. From the Holman Bible Dictionary we read, “ADULTERY is the act of unfaithfulness in marriage that occurs when one of the marriage partners voluntarily engages in sexual intercourse with a person of the opposite sex other than the marriage partner.”[6]

Solomon’s father was David and his mother was Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:24). Bathsheba was happily married to Uriah the Hittite when David unlawfully took her and had sexual relations with her (2 Samuel 11). After he had Uriah killed in battle, he took Bathsheba as his wife. Therefore, David committed adultery and murder. David repented as we read in 2 Samuel 12:1-13. Rev. John Newton (1725-1807) author of the most popular hymn titled “Amazing Grace”, commented, “I would not give one straw for that assurance that sin will not damp. If David had come to me in his adultery, and had talked to me of his assurance, I should have despised his speech.”[7]

While repentance is the key to receiving forgiveness from God, some mistakenly think it removes all the consequences of sin. A cursory reading of 2 Samuel 12:15-18:15 reveals otherwise.

Allow me to share several things about adultery from our passage.

I. Solomon warns his son about the peril of adultery. (Proverbs 5:1-23)

Solomon says to his son, “pay attention to my wisdom” (5:1). We read in Proverbs 5:1-23, “My son, pay attention to my wisdom; / Lend your ear to my understanding, / That you may preserve discretion, / And your lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, / And her mouth is smoother than oil; / But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, / Sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, / Her steps lay hold of hell. Lest you ponder her path of life—
Her ways are unstable; / You do not know them. Therefore hear me now, my children, / And do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from her, / And do not go near the door of her house, / Lest you give your honor to others, / And your years to the cruel one; / Lest aliens be filled with your wealth, / And your labors go to the house of a foreigner; / And you mourn at last, / When your flesh and your body are consumed, / And say: ‘How I have hated instruction, / And my heart despised correction! I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, / Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me! I was on the verge of total ruin, / In the midst of the assembly and congregation’ / Drink water from your own cistern, / And running water from your own well. Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, / Streams of water in the streets? Let them be only your own, / And not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, / And rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, / Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; / And always be enraptured with her love. For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, / And be embraced in the arms of a seductress? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, / And He ponders all his paths. His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, / And he is caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction, / And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.”

Remember, Solomon wrote the Song of Solomon or “The Song of Songs” as it is in the Hebrew Bible, extolling the ecstasy of monogamous marriage. Dr. John Phillips (1927-2010) explains, “The shepherd is a picture of Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep. The Shulamite mirrors the Church or the individual believer devoted to Him.

Solomon represents the prince of this world armed with all worldly pomp, power, and magnificence. The court women are those who admire him and who look askance at those who turn their backs upon the world, its system, and all that it has to offer in favor of an absent and, to them, unknown Beloved."[8]

Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 7:28, “Which my soul still seeks but I cannot find: One man among a thousand I have found, / But a woman among all these I have not found.”

Commenting on Ecclesiastes 7:28, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain, “Rather, referring to his past experience, ‘Which my soul sought further, but I found not.’ One man-that is, worthy of the name, ‘man,’ ‘upright’; not more than one in a thousand of my courtiers (Job 33:23; Ps 12:1). Jesus Christ alone of men fully realizes the perfect ideal of ‘man.’ ‘Chiefest among ten thousand’ (So 5:10). No perfect ‘woman’ has ever existed, not even the Virgin Mary. Solomon, in the word ‘thousand,’ alludes to his three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines [see: “Principles Governing Kings” (Deut. 17:14-20)]. Among these it was not likely that he should find the fidelity which one true wife pays to one husband. Connected with Ec 7:26, not an unqualified condemnation of the sex, as Pr 12:4; 31:10, &c., prove.”[9]

Peter A. Kennedy shares the following about the peril of adultery, “Eliot Spitzer was known as a tough attorney general when he was elected as Governor of New York in 2006. He often pursued ‘white collar’ crimes, such as Wall Street misdeeds. But in his term as attorney general, Spitzer also prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state's organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

‘This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multi-tiered management structure,’ Spitzer said at the time. ‘It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.’

Spitzer projected himself as a family man who was going to clean up the corruption in government.

In March 2008, a federal investigation discovered that Eliot Spitzer was regularly soliciting prostitution.

In a statement prior to his resignation, Spitzer acknowledged: ‘I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.’

‘I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.’

[Kenney concludes,] Without integrity, our lives will be destroyed.”[10]

From Hebrews 13:4 we read, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”

II. Solomon warns his son about the perversity of adultery. (Proverbs 6:20-35)

Solomon says to his son, in essence, note my ways. At this point Solomon speaks from experience. It is like he is saying your mother and I have a good relationship and we want the same for you. We read the words and the wisdom of Agur in Proverbs 30:18-20, “There are three things which are too wonderful for me, / Yes, four which I do not understand: The way of an eagle in the air, / The way of a serpent on a rock, / The way of a ship in the midst of the sea, / And the way of a man with a virgin. This is the way of an adulterous woman: / She eats and wipes her mouth, / And says, ‘I have done no wickedness.’”

We read in Proverbs 6:20-35, “My son, keep your father’s command, / And do not forsake the law of your mother. Bind them continually upon your heart; / Tie them around your neck. When you roam, they will lead you; / When you sleep, they will keep you; / And when you awake, they will speak with you. For the commandment is a lamp, / And the law a light; / Reproofs of instruction are the way of life, / To keep you from the evil woman, / From the flattering tongue of a seductress. Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, / Nor let her allure you with her eyelids. For by means of a harlot/ A man is reduced to a crust of bread; / And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life. Can a man take fire to his bosom, / And his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, / And his feet not be seared? So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; / Whoever touches her shall not be innocent. People do not despise a thief / If he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving. Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; / He may have to give up all the substance of his house. Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; / He who does so destroys his own soul. Wounds and dishonor he will get, / And his reproach will not be wiped away. For jealousy is a husband’s fury; / Therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will accept no recompense, / Nor will he be appeased though you give many gifts.”

In Numbers 5:11-31 we read how they dealt with the suspicion of adultery. They called it “the spirit of jealousy”. Someone explains the difference between envy and jealousy, “You are envious of what others have that you lack. Jealousy, on the other hand, involves wanting to hold on to what you do have.”[11]

Paul warns about the perversity of adultery in 1 Corinthians 6:9b-11, “Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

III. Solomon warns his son about the perpetrators of adultery. (Proverbs 7:1-27)

Solomon says to his son, “keep my words” (Proverbs 7:1). We read in Proverbs 7:1-27, “My son, keep my words, / And treasure my commands within you. Keep my commands and live, / And my law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; / Write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister,’/ And call understanding your nearest kin, / That they may keep you from the immoral woman, / From the seductress who flatters with her words. For at the window of my house / I looked through my lattice, / And saw among the simple, / I perceived among the youths, / A young man devoid of understanding, / Passing along the street near her corner; / And he took the path to her house / In the twilight, in the evening, / In the black and dark night. And there a woman met him, / With the attire of a harlot, and a crafty heart. She was loud and rebellious, / Her feet would not stay at home. At times she was outside, at times in the open square, / Lurking at every corner. So she caught him and kissed him; / With an impudent face she said to him: ‘I have peace offerings with me; / Today I have paid my vows. So I came out to meet you, / Diligently to seek your face, / And I have found you. I have spread my bed with tapestry, / Colored coverings of Egyptian linen. I have perfumed my bed / With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; / Let us delight ourselves with love. For my husband is not at home; / He has gone on a long journey; / He has taken a bag of money with him, / And will come home on the appointed day.’ With her enticing speech she caused him to yield, / With her flattering lips she seduced him. Immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, / Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, / Till an arrow struck his liver. As a bird hastens to the snare, / He did not know it would cost his life. Now therefore, listen to me, my children; / Pay attention to the words of my mouth: Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, / Do not stray into her paths; / For she has cast down many wounded, / And all who were slain by her were strong men. Her house is the way to hell, / Descending to the chambers of death.”

From Proverbs 22:14 we read, “The mouth of an [adultress] immoral woman is a deep pit; / He who is abhorred by the Lord will fall there.” Dr. Louis Lotz preached a message titled “Adultery: You Can’t Have Your Kate and Edith, Too” based on Genesis 39:6-20. Here we read, “Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, ‘Lie with me.’ But he refused and said to his master’s wife, ‘Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her. But it happened about this time, when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was inside, that she caught him by his garment, saying, ‘Lie with me.’ But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside. And so it was, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside, that she called to the men of her house and spoke to them, saying, ‘See, he has brought in to us a Hebrew to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And it happened, when he heard that I lifted my voice and cried out, that he left his garment with me, and fled and went outside.’ So she kept his garment with her until his master came home. Then she spoke to him with words like these, saying, ‘The Hebrew servant whom you brought to us came in to me to mock me; so it happened, as I lifted my voice and cried out, that he left his garment with me and fled outside.’ So it was, when his master heard the words which his wife spoke to him, saying, ‘Your servant did to me after this manner,’ that his anger was aroused. Then Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined. And he was there in the prison.”

A church member whose husband had passed away was having a sexual relationship with a married man. When her children confronted her with her sin, she said she was not committing adultery. She said he was but she was not. She refused to believe that any sex outside a God ordained marriage is sin when the Bible is clear on the matter. We read in Proverbs 30:20, “This is the way of an adulterous woman: / She eats and wipes her mouth, / And says, ‘I have done no wickedness.’”

From Proverbs 2:16-19 we read, “Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, / from the wayward woman with her seductive words, / who has left the partner of her youth / and ignored the covenant she made before God. Surely her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.”

Peter A. Kennedy shares, “In July 2004, Mike Torchia, a 47-year old, divorced, personal trainer, wrote the following in Newsweek Magazine. ‘In 30 years in the training business, I've probably had affairs with more than 40 married women. Most of them were in their 30s, married eight to 10 years, with kids, and their husbands weren't paying attention to them. They felt neglected. They didn't feel attractive. Their husbands had become preoccupied with work.’

Torchia described one scenario where the woman was feeling neglected: ‘I suggested we have lunch, and she said, 'How about dinner?’ And that's where I went wrong. For a couple of months after that, we would work out, go back to my place and have sex. I would whisper sexy thoughts to her when I was spotting her at the gym. And then it ended. We got caught by the husband. He wound up calling me up and crying like a baby, asking me to stay away from her.

I don't feel bad about having had affairs with married women, because they were feeling neglected and they just wanted to be loved.’

[Kennedy concludes,] Adultery does not cure a problem; it hurts all who are involved with it.”[12]

To perpetrate is “To be responsible for; commit”.[13] Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer states, “God gave us the commandment ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ We should never be ashamed of believing that he knows best. And with the command comes the divine enablement to live up to this standard. Blessed are those who are not ashamed to obey his Word.”[14]

Conclusion

Recently, I read the following, “THE WICKED BIBLE of 1631 reported the Seventh Commandment as ‘Thou shalt commit adultery,’ a mistake that infuriated King Charles. He ordered all copies destroyed and fined all printers whose hands had touched the edition.”[15] Let me assure you that we find the Seventh Commandment correctly translated in Exodus 20:14, “You shall not commit adultery.”

Job declares in Job 31:1, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; / Why then should I look upon a young woman?” Here, he refers to the look of lust. Of adultery, he states, “For that would be wickedness; / Yes, it would be iniquity deserving of judgment” (Job 31:11). Peter warns in 2 Peter 2:14 about those “having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children.”

Jesus comments in Matthew 5:27-30, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. ‘Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.”

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore ‘put away from yourselves the evil person.’”

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:1-11, “And I wrote this very thing to you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow over those from whom I ought to have joy, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you. But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you to some extent—not to be too severe. This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man, so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. For to this end I also wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.”

Please note Paul refers to church membership not church leadership in 2 Corinthians 2:1-11. We find the scriptural qualifications for church leadership in 1 Timothy 3:1-13. Sadly, many churches disregard God’s Word to their own peril!

Just because some call adultery “an affair” does not change the fact that it is sin. It carries special consequences. We read in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For ‘the two,’ He says, ‘shall become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Dr. Thomas W. Jenkyn (1794?-1858), late president of Coward College, London, from 1840 to 1850, shares, “Zaleucus, the king of the Locrians, had established a law against adultery, the penalty of which was, that the offender should lose both eyes. The first person found guilty of this offence was the king's own son. Zaleucus felt as a father toward his son; but he felt likewise as a king towards his government. If he, from blind indulgence, forgive his son, with what reason can he expect the law to be respected by the rest of his subjects? and how will his public character appear in punishing any future offender? If he repeal the law, he will brand his character with dishonor, for selfishness, in sacrificing the public good of a whole community to his private feelings; for weakness, in publishing a law whose penalty he never could inflict; and for foolishness, in introducing a law the bearings of which he had never contemplated. This would make his authority for the future a mere name. The case was a difficult one. Though he was an offended governor, yet he had the compassion of a tender father. At the suggestion of his unbribed mercy, he employed his mind and wisdom to devise a measure, an expedient, through the medium of which he could save his son, and yet magnify his law, and make it honorable. The expedient was thus: the king himself would lose one eye, and the offender should lose another. By this means, the honor of his law was preserved unsullied, and the clemency of his heart was extended to the offender. Every subject in the kingdom, when he heard of the king's conduct, would feel assured that the king esteemed his law very highly; and though the offender did not suffer the entire penalty, yet the clemency shown him was exercised in such a way, that no adulterer would ever think of escaping with impunity. Every reporter or historian of the fact would say that the king spared not his own eye that he might spare his offending child with honor. He would assert that this sacrifice of the king's eye completely demonstrated his abhorrence of adultery, and high regard for his law, as effectually as if the penalty had been literally executed upon the sinner himself. The impression on the public mind would be, that this expedient of the father was an atonement for the offence of his son, and was a just and honorable ground for pardoning him. Such an expedient in the moral government of God, the apostles asserted the death of Christ to be. They preached that all men were ‘condemned already;’— that God had ‘thoughts of peace, and not of evil,’ towards all men; — that these thoughts were to be exercised in such a manner as not to ‘destroy the law;’ and that the medium, or expedient, for doing this was the sacrifice of his ONLY SON, as an atonement, or satisfaction, to public justice for the sins of men.”[16]

Dr. Mack Morris shares the following in his pastor column in the August 11, 2012, edition of the Press-Register, “Without reservation, the church does have a role in standing firm on truth. We must, however, communicate the truth in love. God deeply loves all mankind, and so must we! If you find yourself in a struggle over a lifestyle addiction or any other sin, find a church which will look you in the eye and be honest. You will find help and hope for tomorrow!

Over the years, we have observed many who were caught up in lifestyle choices that were destroying their lives. We have seen Jesus Christ dramatically transform their lives. He can do that for you too!”[17]

From 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 we read, “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”

In Hebrews 3:7-15 we read, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, / Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, / In the day of trial in the wilderness, / Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, / And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, / And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, / And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, / ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, / Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’”

Beware of adultery!

[1]1001 Quotes, Illustrations, and Humorous Stories: For Preachers, Teachers, and Writers, ed. Edward K. Rowell, (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today Intl., 2008), p. 380, Database © 2008 WORDsearch Corp.

[2]1001 Quotes, Illustrations, and Humorous Stories: For Preachers, Teachers, and Writers, ed. Edward K. Rowell, (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today Intl., 2008), p. 291, Database © 2008 WORDsearch Corp.

[4]Available from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treachery Accessed: 08/09/12

[5]Joe Schad, “Bobby Petrino emotional, regretful”, Updated: August 9, 2012, 4:40 PM ET, Available from: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8251166/bobby-petrino-fired-arkansas-razorbacks-coach-apologizes-interview-espn Accessed: 08/11/12

[6]Holman Bible Dictionary , gen. ed. Trent C. Butler, “Adultery”, Michael Fink, (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1991), p. 21

[7]The Christian Library: A Weekly Republication of Popular Religious Works, Volumes 1-2, “Remarks Made by Mr. Newton in Familiar Conversation”, (New York: Thomas George, 1835), p. 504

[8]John Phillips, Exploring the Song of Solomon, (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1984), p. 9

[9]Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, (Edinburgh: Collins & Company, 1875) , Available from: http://bible.cc/ecclesiastes/7-28.htm Accessed: 08/07/12

[11]Available from: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/envious.html Accessed: 08/09/12

[13]The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, (Boston, M: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009), Available from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/perpetrator Accessed: 08/09/12

[14]Biblical Sermons: How Twelve Preachers Apply the Principles of Biblical Preaching, ed. Haddon W. Robinson, Erwin W. Lutzer, “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” Chapter 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 1989), Database © 2008 WORDsearch Corp., p. 39

[15]Available from: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/b/bible.htm Accessed: 08/06/12

[16]Thomas W. Jenkyn, The Extent of the Atonement, in its Relation to God and the Universe (Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, 1846), pp. 4-5

[17]Mack Morris [pastor of Woodridge Baptist Church, Mobile, Alabama], “What happened to the home?”, Mobile, AL: Press-Register, Saturday, August 11, 2012, Religion Section, Page 1

By Dr. Franklin L. Kirksey, pastor First Baptist Church of Spanish Fort 30775 Jay Drive Spanish Fort, Alabama 36527

Author of Sound Biblical Preaching: Giving the Bible a Voice Available on Amazon.com and WORDsearchbible.com

http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Biblical-Preaching-Giving-Bible/dp/1594577684

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