Impurity and Infidelity // Wisdom That Works, Part 6

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Here’s a statistic that will rock your socks off. Almost half of all married men and just over a third of married women will have at least one extra-marital affair in their lives. That’s a devastating statistic. And just because someone happens to be a Christian - it doesn’t mean that we’re immune.

Welcome as we kick off another week looking at stuff, life things, every day things that you and I deal with day to day from a different perspective. And yes we're continuing in a series of message that I've called, "Wisdom That Works".

Wisdom's an amazing thing, it's a seductive concept. I mean who doesn't want to have more wisdom? Who doesn't want to be wise? Ridiculous isn't it? Of course we all want wisdom; of course we all want to be wise. But well, there's a problem with wisdom. Wisdom is kind of a double edged sword.

It's about having the knowledge that comes from experience but it's also about applying the knowledge. You see the theory of knowing is not enough. Someone who knows that treating other people well and loving them and sacrificing for them, someone who knows that and yet spends most of their life not doing it, well we wouldn't call them wise would we?

In order for someone to be wise they need to know it and do it, that's wisdom. And the sort of wisdom that God shares with us is the sort of wisdom that actually works. So last week and over the next few weeks we're spending some time ransacking the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. Written by King Solomon, one of the wisest men that ever walked the earth.

And my encouragement to you as we kick off this week is that we take his wisdom, the wisdom from God, and actually apply it to our lives. Why? Because it works.

I remember back at college one of our lecturers in a subject about, I guess, foundational issues of Christian living, said to each one of us who were training for some sort of ministry or other, he said there are 3 things that can bring you unstuck. Girls, gold and glory or in the case of women guys, gold and glory.

In other words people whom God calls to serve Him often stumble in infidelity or because they start loving wealth too much, we spoke about that last week, or because they seek the glory and they fall in pride. It's not a bad executive summary is it? Girls or guys, as the case may be, gold and glory.

Well today we're going to chat a bit about the girls/guys thing or impurity and infidelity because it's huge. Statistically almost half of all marriages fall apart and in fact of those that remain only a fraction are what you'd call happy marriages. The sorts of marriages where people really thrive.

The facts about marital infidelity, sexual unfaithfulness to a spouse, are absolutely astounding. Poll's in the US show that although 90% of married people disapproved of extra marital affairs, 15% of wives and 25% of husbands have experienced extra marital intercourse. Those numbers increased by another 20% when emotional affairs and sexual relationships without intercourse were included.

So 35% of women and 45% of men have had an extra marital affair. That is absolutely frightening. I mean a marriage is supposed to be the most wonderful relationship. Fulfilling, life long soul mates. And yet almost half of all men and over a third of all women have some sort of extra marital affair. Doesn't that blow you away?

But I suspect this is nothing new, almost 3,000 years ago Solomon, he's instructing his young sons with wisdom from his years of experience, spends a whole chapter, the 5th chapter of the Book of Proverbs on this subject of infidelity. In fact it's one of the very first subjects he deals with comprehensively in the Book of Proverbs.

Maybe the stat's were pretty much the same back then as they are today. So have a listen to what he had to say to his sons. Proverbs chapter 5 beginning at verse 1:

My child be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding so that you may hold onto prudence and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a loose woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil but in the end she's as bitter as wormwood, as sharp as a two edged sword.

Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol. She doesn't keep straight the path of her life, her ways wander and yet she doesn't know it.

In other words, guys the grass may well appear greener on the other side but this seduction that promises so much is going to kill you. Even though the thought of an affair may be oh so seductive, oh so tempting it leads only to bitterness, pain and ultimately to destruction.

I remember a man that I used to work with back in my days in the IT industry who had two affairs outside his marriage. Two that I know of anyway. I knew the husband and wife quite well. He was lured into this trap, he followed his desires and his emotions and it almost destroyed both of them.

By Gods grace his wife was a Godly woman and strong and with great faith and their marriage weathered the storm but the pain. And of course as much as all maybe forgiven the memory, the memory never ever, ever goes away. And the crazy thing was they had everything.

And here's the advice that Solomon has for his sons. Here's the wisdom that really works. Proverbs chapter 5 beginning at verse 7:

And now my child listen to me, do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house or you will give your honour to others and your years to the merciless and strangers will take their fill of your wealth and your labours will go to the house of another.

And at the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are consumed and you will say, 'O how I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof. I didn't listen to the voice of my teachers or inclined my ears to my instructors. Now I'm at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly.’

The advice, the wisdom that works, keep away, simply don't go there, don't go to the door of her house, don't put yourself in a position of temptation. Don't spend time alone with members of the opposite sex. Don't form close bonds, close friendships, close relationships that could head in the wrong direction.

Keep yourself to yourself, just don't go there or it will ruin you and you will spend the rest of your life regretting it. And the alternative was? Pretty obvious, Proverbs chapter 5 beginning at verse 15:

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone and not for sharing with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

May her breasts satisfy you at all times, may you be intoxicated always by her love. Why should you be intoxicated my son by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord. He examines all their paths.

The inequities of the wicked ensnare them and they are caught in the toils of their sin. They die for lack of discipline and because of their great folly they are lost.

In other words find your fulfilment husbands in the arms of your wives. Wives, find your fulfilment in the arms of your husbands. Okay they're not perfect but let's get a revelation today, they never will be, ever.

But they are the life long soul mate that God has given you and that is the right place, the only place in God’s eyes to discover and experience and enjoy and revel in and be intoxicated with beauty and intimacy.

45% of men, 35% of women have affairs. You might think this is an odd subject for us to be discussing today but judging from the statistics Solomon was absolutely right to make this a high priority.

My prayer is that you will never ever know the pain and the bitter regret of adultery. Please listen to Gods word today, please heed His warning. This is God’s wisdom, it is wisdom that works.