BLESSED EXHORTATIONS (PART 4)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Hebrews 13:4

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In our study of Hebrews, chapter 13, we have been looking at a succession of blessed exhortations that serve as the backbone for this current message series. To date, we have found the Word of God telling Christian believers to do the following:

1. To love others as brothers and sisters, using the Lord’s love to do so.

2. To extend hospitality to others, even those who we may not know.

3. To remember the incarcerated as if we were imprisoned with them.

This brings us to today’s scripture verse, verse 4 in this chapter. Here’s what the Lord commands:

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

To really get the full gist of this and why the Lord has it in place, we need to look at some numbers.

First of all, current data shows that within marriages inside the United States, 25 percent of all husbands and 16 percent of wives have had affairs while they were married and unfortunately, these numbers only reflect those who were bold enough to admit their infidelity. One would have to think the numbers are much higher.

Now, maybe these percentages seem like they aren’t too much of a big deal because they look small. But before you form that opinion, you have to look at this matter through the lens of the number of marriages in America and that equals over 133 million. For ease of calculation, we will use 133 million as our number and when we apply this to the aforementioned percentages, this is what we find.

Number of husbands who admitted cheating on their wives: 33.3 million.

Number of wives who admitted cheating on their husbands: 21.3 million.

If you’re not staggered and troubled by these numbers, then you are either a non-believer or you think you are a believer but are spiritually dead.

The statistics show us why the Lord has to command people to maintain purity in marriage for these issues with unfaithfulness have gone on since the first century A.D.

So what’s the solution? How is this disturbing trend ever going to reverse itself?

Well, we read where God will not sit by idly and allow this transgressive behavior to continue unchecked. For as we read in our passage today, the following is promised for the marital partner who commits infidelity:

...for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

This God, the Lord God Almighty, said this when He delivered His famous ten commandments to Moses and the Israelite people at Mount Sinai:

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

When God says not to do something, He means don’t do it. Period. And He will hold the disobedient accountable for their sinfulness.

God ordains marriage and He is the only One who can sustain it so it becomes a relationship that honors Him. This means a husband and wife are to seek to satisfy His desires within their marriage, not their own which is the root cause of infidelity as husbands and wife chase after meeting their needs before the needs of the Lord.

An honorable marriage then becomes one that is God-centered, seeking the relationship purity that only He can produce. Too many people are not getting this, almost 55 million as stated earlier, and my prayer is that this message goes out to the masses so we can reduce the current number of unfaithful marital partners. If you can, please share this with everyone you know so the word gets out.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.