Exodus 20:14 - Summer of Scripture

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Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we're releasing a short daily devotional for your marriage. Over these 66 days, we'll be sharing one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talking about how it applies to your life and marriage. Listen to all 66 episodes of these and you'll have a better understanding of God's Word and His perfect plan for your marriage. Let's dive in to today's scripture. Hey guys, welcome back. We're on day two of our Summer of Scripture, and today we are in the book of Exodus. The verse today is Exodus 20, verse 14. It says this. You must not commit adultery. Plain and simple.

Plain and simple.

And this is something that we've talked about a little bit on the podcast, but I love just bringing the scripture to it. And I think that, you know, most of us, we can agree, like, yes, we're not supposed to cheat on each other. Like, those marriage vows mean something. But I think that it goes even deeper than that because Jesus, when Jesus comes along later on, okay, we know that he not only takes the truth of scripture in the Old Testament, but then he adds to it. He never diminishes God's truth. He adds to it. And he says to even look at a woman or a man with lust is the same as committing adultery. And so let's talk about that, sweetie.

It is like the standard that he came to really illuminate. The principle behind this law is that we must not only be physically monogamous, we must be mentally monogamous. And we live in a world where that just is so revolutionary because people think, I can do whatever I want in my thoughts, I can look at whatever I want. It's just entertainment. It's harmless. But this is why things like pornography, things like lust, even just checking out other people, like letting your eyes linger on somebody who's not your spouse and then playing out fantasies in your head with those thoughts, it's so damaging because it gets to the heart of it goes against, really, the heart of what God intended marriage and sex to be. He wants us to be fully mind, body, and soul committed to one another. And if we're not, if we're letting our minds, our thoughts, and our actions wander toward other people and toward other things, then really we're committing an act of infidelity. The word infidelity doesn't just mean a sexual affair. Infidelity. All that word means is broken fidelity, broken trust. And when you've broken the trust or the vows that you made mentally, physically, spiritually, then it's something that you need to recognize and say, you know what, Lord, I repent. I'm sorry. I should not have done that. Help me have eyes only for my spouse. Let me have a heart with pure motives. Let me watch what I'm doing, what I'm thinking about, and be fully and wholly committed to my spouse.

Absolutely. You know, if you guys want to go back and hear more details about this and someone who's actually been there, we have our dear friends on a podcast episode called How Affairs Happen. You can go find that. Just put in that title, Google it. We may have it in the show notes. But go back and listen to their story and how kind of it can happen to anyone if we're not careful. Because really, I feel like the moral of the story and what I hear this couple talk about and many couples that we've worked with over the years is there wasn't a time when one of them said, you know what? I want to just go completely break my spouse's heart, bust up my family, risk losing my marriage, and just, you know, just light a fire, you know, in my home. That's not at all how it happens. It happens so subtly with not having boundaries, with just trying to flirt a little bit or just trying to get that attention, wearing that outfit that, you know, that person in your office will notice, or spending more time talking to the neighbor and really sharing your heart with that neighbor when you know you've never even shared that thing that you talked about with your own spouse. That's how it happens, you guys. Like in the Bible, it doesn't tell us to mess with temptation. See how far you can go, see if you can take the heat. Maybe you're stronger than the next person, and you can have a little fun. That's not what it says. That's Satan's game. But you know what it does say? It says to flee temptation. It says to run the other way. And that's what we have to do. You know, the best thing that could happen by you listening and watching this particular episode is to put boundaries in place and to completely avoid adultery and not have pride and think that that will never happen to you. Because let me tell you, we have known many people, many wonderful people who I know, love their spouse who ended up in adultery, and it was for a lack of boundaries. So don't be that person. But hear me when I say this, if you are that person, if you have lit that match and you have walked down that road and you made those decisions and you live with total regret and shame and you've believed a lie, that maybe telling your spouse is the best way, like maybe you're just supposed to internally just wreck yourself and that that's your punishment, That's a lie. Because first of all, that's not the healing process that God has put in place in the Bible. We're supposed to bring whatever is going on, especially sin, to the light and let God, you know, reckon with us. Because there is a reckoning, right? We have to repent and walk the other way. And there's consequences to our action actions. But we also, as when we have sinned against our spouse, we have to go to them and tell them what we did and tell them how sorry we are and seek their forgiveness. And then once that forgiveness happens, which really is just simply saying, I'm letting God deal with you, right? It's not letting you off the hook necessarily, but it's saying, I trust God to deal with you. Then as the person who sinned against your spouse, you can start to rebuild that trust little by little by your consistent actions. And we have lots of podcast episodes on this. But I just wanna say this, too. If this is you, I want you to know that there's still hope for your marriage. You know, yes, technically, your spouse has every right to leave because you broke those marriage vows. But let me tell you that if there's any little bit of you that is willing to forgive and to walk the hard road to restoration, I do think there's totally hope for you. We know people who've walked out of this and really on the other side of it, have a marriage they never thought they could have. But it's going to take a long time. It's going to take a lot of effort, and it's going to take getting help. So I want you to go to a place called Affair Recovery. Look up Affair Recovery. It's an amazing Christian organization with people who've been there who can walk you through this and we've known many people who've benefited from this ministry. And I just want to encourage you to do that if you are going through the aftermath of an adultery situation right now.

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So good. A few other thoughts on Exodus before we close this up. And again, because every word of Scripture has such application to your marriage. And I think some of the things you can pull from the book of Exodus for your marriage is to look at, to look at the life of Moses, who is kind of a central figure in Exodus, who led the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt. And Moses, he had an interracial marriage. And I think for like, there's so many people in intercultural interracial marriages, Moses had both. He married a woman who was from a different culture, a different ethnicity. And yet they seem to have a beautiful and healthy example of what marriage could be. And I think there are great lessons there. Moses also had a great relationship with his father in law. You know, his father in law was a man named Jethro. And looking at their relationship, I think has some really good practical application for what healthy in law relationships really could be. And then in addition to that, I think some of the best leadership, leadership examples in the Bible are really found through Moses in the book of Exodus. And for both husbands and wives to look at how to be leaders within their family, to lead their children, to lead their communities, I think there's great application there as you look at the story of Moses, the story of Israel, and what God was doing during that unique period in history. I think even beyond the obvious, the laws, the ten Commandments, all those important things that we think about with Exodus, there's so many beautiful things in the story itself that could help you and your spouse grow closer to God and closer to one another. So keep studying scripture, keep pursuing one another, and and hey, like the Bible says, don't commit adultery. But if you have, like Ashley said, embrace grace and embrace those steps to healing because God is a God of grace and healing. And we're so thankful for that every day because of what Jesus made possible on the cross. We love and appreciate you guys. Tune in tomorrow where we'll dive into a scripture from Leviticus.