Whatever Happened to Fidelity and Honesty?, Part 2

Our times are marked by moral compromise.

Standards for upholding integrity have become optional. In fact, we've grown accustomed to unmarried couples living together, men and women choosing their own gender, and important matters like sexual purity becoming scoffed at rather than admired. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Jesus Christ. In this section of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus delivers a shocking rebuke against moral compromise, adultery, and deceit, and the consequences of failure.

Chuck titled today's message with a question, Whatever Happened to Fidelity and Honesty? Just pay close attention to what Jesus taught or you'll fall in line with the general population. You'll start thinking like they think. You'll start allowing yourself certain liberties like they do. You'll start fearing what they may say if you're not like them.

You've got to get past all of that. I think one of the reasons Jesus waited until he was 30, aside from God's perfect will for him, is that he was now mature enough to take whatever was thrown at him. Now, Jesus takes it on in verse 27. Let's do our best with the time we have with marital fidelity, and along with that the subject of divorce, and then verbal integrity, the whole issue of honesty and oaths. You've heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. Every adult in this room knows what that means.

Jesus goes further. But I say to you, long before something happens in the bed, something has begun to happen in your head. And the next verse describes that. I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So, you've got to come to terms with your eyes. Your eyes feed your mind, which builds imagination, especially in sexual, sensual areas, and you're off and running.

As lust runs its course and you're only a matter of time before you're in bed with another partner. Look at the next verse. Your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. Better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than your whole body be thrown into a hellish existence.

Look at verse 30. Your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, throw it away. The plucking out of the eye is his way of saying, stop staring at another woman. You will not lust if you do not stare. Every man in this room knows exactly what that means. Every one of us. You look and in the process of staring, you undress her.

In the process of undressing her, you imagine yourself with her. And that's what he's getting at here. Let's not kid ourselves. And how about Proverbs 5? Listen. Drink water from your own cistern, fresh water from your own well. What's that mean? Enjoy your own partner in life, your married partner.

Should your springs be dispersed to broad streams of water in the streets? What does that mean? That means you're intimate with someone who's not your married partner.

It's very clear. Let them be yours alone, not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth as a loving hind and a graceful doe. Let her breast satisfy you at all times.

Be exhilarated always with her love. And on and on it goes. Pretty intimate writing. Of course.

Because it's beautiful. He gets to the subject of divorce and, you know, I don't have time to track all of the possibilities of this happened or that happened in your life or how did it. All I can do is tell you what he said in this passage and there are other passages I'll give you in a minute. You can study on your own.

But look at what he says here. It was said, verse 31, whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. That's what the rabbis taught. You want to send your wife away? Send her away. What were the reasons? Well, you're not going to believe how loose and liberal they were.

Maybe you will. A man could get a divorce if she spoiled his food by adding too much salt or burnt his toast. Some of you had grounds this morning at breakfast.

Just kidding. Number two, if she went before the public with her head uncovered divorce, just write her up. She's gone. If she talked with another man, not her husband, or spoke disrespectfully to or of her husband's parents' divorce, get rid of her.

Here's one that made me raise my eyebrow. If she became plain looking and he found another woman more beautiful than his wife, you will always find women more beautiful than your partner. So you can always look forward to some other woman or some other man if you go by that. Talk about trivial pursuits.

If you're a trailblazer, you're different. You refuse to let anything trivial be the basis of breaking the relationship. So Jesus gets down to brass tacks when he addresses it here and he deals with one of the reasons there can be a divorce. Please observe it is not a command, it is a concession. Please observe it is not a command, it is a reluctant concession. What does he say? But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

What rabid trails we could get on and be on for the next week. Let me just say simply that he's addressing the subject of divorce, which is introduced in the scriptures in Deuteronomy 24. Read the first four verses of Deuteronomy 24. That's where Moses, through God's leading, conceded because of the hardness of the people's hearts to allow a divorce. But it wasn't as God originally planned it. God originally planned that there would be one man, one woman forever. If a partner was unfaithful, the other partner ideally will forgive, find a way to deal with it and go on. If it's impossible because that adultery continues and becomes unbearably persistent, then the partner is free to divorce. This is a divine concession.

This is not divine command. I always hesitate to use a specific example. I don't want to identify anyone, but another place, another time, someone you don't even know. I know of a couple where the man at a hotel fell and had a one night quick sex experience with another woman, not his wife. His wife found out about it.

She threw him out. Didn't talk about it. Didn't deal with it. Didn't ask what part she might have in it.

Didn't address anything as related to where he was coming from. It was overdone with. You won't ever see the children. You won't ever have anything to do with this.

That's too harsh. I know you're tempted to think like that because you're angry and you're confused and you feel betrayed and you have been. But a marriage that hangs in there is able to work through stuff like that.

Unless the partner is habitually unfaithful. That's another subject. I want to give you some passages of scripture for you to study on your own.

You got your pen ready. These are the passages I would study if I were going to bring a series on marriage, divorce and remarriage. Genesis 2, 18 to 25.

That's called a passage of primary reference. It's the first time marriage is mentioned and God sets the stage for it. Genesis 2, 18 to 25. Next, Deuteronomy 24, 1 to 4.

That's when divorce comes in the picture. Malachi 2, 16. The prophet writes clearly as God leads him, I hate divorce.

Malachi 2, 16. And you may too, but be a victim of it. I understand that. Remember, Jesus is the one who stood alongside the woman, taken in adultery and defended her.

Not her adultery, but the whole setup was wrong. This makes an interesting message. Someday we may do that out of John 8.

But a man of enormous compassion and understanding. Then you've got Matthew 5, 27 to 32 where we are. Matthew 19, 3 to 9. Be sure you read that with this passage.

19, 3 to 9. 1 Corinthians 7, 1 to 16. Ephesians 5, 22 to 33.

1 Peter 3, 1 to 7. Something is wrong when people know reasons for divorce better than they know how to cultivate a good marriage. Something is out of whack when you care more about protecting your rights and property when you get married than you do about giving yourself to another person. Become a good student of marriage or don't marry. Just don't marry. Understand what you're getting into and what is involved in it. There are always two sides.

Always two sides. Probably a good time for me to tell you the hardest work of my life is cultivating and sustaining a healthy and wholesome marriage. And I have a great wife, but it's hard work. It's harder than rearing children. It's harder than leading a church. It's harder than dealing with difficult people.

Marriage is everyday. A constant check on selfishness. Constantly having to deal with the fact that you want this but the other wants that and how you give and take in that. How you learn to listen better than you talk. How you learn to forgive because you've been forgiven and on and on and on. Marriage is a horrendous responsibility. I've talked many a couple out of it who've come to me early on.

And I ask them a few leading questions and they're not ready to answer them and I'll say, Till you're ready to go there. I know a couple that married in less than a year, they were in a terrible auto accident. She was paralyzed from the neck down.

True story. He's at the hospital. He happened not to have been hurt. She was thrown out, broke that vertebra in the neck and terrible. His doctor said to him, look, take a little advice.

I'll cover for you. You walk out that door and don't come back. And my friend looked at him and said, I got the wrong doctor. Many a person would say, well, of course.

What are you going to get out of a marriage like this? By the way, they went on to have three children. Wonderfully well adapted to each other.

She lives in a wheelchair. Marvelous Christian people. Where he realized marriage includes for better or for worse. Will you remember that? Would you be man or woman enough to say I'm the worst? It would have been awfully hard for Cynthia to live with me. She hadn't been that tough to live with. I'm just so grateful she didn't walk out. You know, I'm a tough guy to live with.

I'm hard on myself and I tend, therefore, to be hard on others. Got to learn to live as a couple with that. We married when we were 8 and 10. Believe me, she was 18, I was 20. I didn't know my butt from a hole in the ground.

I mean, I probably shouldn't have put it like that, but that's the way I feel. And I got to tell you, we have grown up together. We have learned together. We've adapted together. We've gone to hell and back together. We've gone through the misery with kids. We've gone heartbreak with individuals. I just won't even get into it, but I'm telling you, we're still together.

And that shouldn't surprise anybody because that's what God designed. So will you please mark it down that if you're going to marry, be ready for the hardest work of your life? And I might add, to keep it all fair, the most rewarding. When I lay down by her at night, it's just about the greatest moment of my day to have her right there. And I'm so grateful that I was raised right by a couple who stuck it out and hid us kids and lived it, modeled it. I want that for you. I really want that for you. And I know your situation is enormously challenging. Well, cry me a river. Everybody's is enormously challenging.

Everybody. Some are unbearable and then you've got to deal with it and that calls for extreme measures and you've got to take that on. I'm not dealing with that here. I'm just dealing with what Jesus taught. Now, finally, the matter of oaths. What is an oath? An oath is a promise. A promise. He said again, you've heard that ancients were told you shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord. What's a vow? Promise. There are oaths that we take that are absolutely appropriate. Stand in the courtroom. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.

So help me God. I stand as a possible candidate for President of the United States and I put my hand on the Bible when I'm voted in and I take what's called the oath of office that I will defend and protect the Constitution of the United States of America and the citizens who live here in this nation. That's my oath. That's my promise. You don't have to turn around and say, I really, really mean this. Or, I promise this on the stack of Bibles.

That's what he's getting at here. You don't have to do that. I've heard people say, on my mother's grave, really?

You have to say that? Or, Jesus in my heart, whatever that means. It means what I say you can't really rely on, so understand Jesus is in my heart.

He needs to be in control of you, not just in your heart. So that's what he's getting at. That's why he says at the end of this passage, let your yes be yes or your no, no. Isn't that refreshing when you're around a person and you ask them a question, they say no. No explanation?

You don't have to explain it. Are they willing to do it? Yes. You say, sure, we all do that.

Well, let me ask you a few questions. You signed up for the long haul in that loan, you said you'd pay it back every month, do you? Or are you late? You said you'd be on time.

You gave your worth, that you would be faithful to your marriage regardless when you took your vow at the altar. Had you been? Something simple, like you said you would be there at 2 o'clock, were you?

Or did you keep them waiting? Not realizing that one of the greatest acts of selfishness is procrastination. Show up or don't say 2 o'clock.

And if you're going to be late, call. It's a matter of keeping your word. This is never more important than between a husband and wife, that's why I think the subject follow one another. I've seen more lying going on in a marriage than any other place in my entire experience. Couples lie to each other. Chances are good, you've lied to your partner. And that creates a gap.

It starts when you're courting and it goes on into marriage. Stop the lying. Look at what he says.

That puts it beautifully. Nor should you make an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your statement be yes, yes, or no, no. Anything beyond these is of evil. Truth is the most powerful thing on the planet. When we live in it, we have no skeletons, we have no fears, we have nothing to be found out, we sleep well, we die with a clear conscience. No elaborate verbiage needed, just tell the truth. Now how do we fulfill these teachings of Jesus? Very simple.

Here we go. First, when you marry, marry for all your life or don't marry. Marry for all your life or don't marry.

Let's just start today. We won't try to worry over the mess you've made of your life in the past. That's for you to work out with the Lord. From this moment on, if you're going to marry, marry for the rest of your life. And be sure you understand you're not marrying a perfect person.

Neither is the one they're married, qualified for perfection. Marry for all your life. Permanence is a big part of a partnership. Number two, when you speak, say what you mean and mean what you say.

When you speak, when you talk, say what you mean, then mean what you say. Not long ago, Cynthia and I had the distinct privilege of being in a home where there is the presence of cancer that's killing the wife. It's now inoperable and to be there is heartbreaking. Because we loved them both and we knew them when she was healthy and now we know them as she's dying. The disease has stolen her beauty. The reason I speak of beauty is he showed me before we left through their home and in their hallway are lovely pictures of their wedding. She's gorgeous. And they move on in life and a young woman begins to bear their children, beautiful woman, aging but beautiful, beautiful in every way.

And then the disease hits and she's wrinkled and curled up and can hardly look up. He showed us to the door after we had communion and prayer together. It was a great moment and I thanked him for being a mod. He said, no, no.

Let me explain something. Way back when, saw that first picture, married. Just before we married, she said to me, do you promise that no matter what you'll be true to me? And if I ever come to the place where I need you to survive, that you'll be there.

He said, I said yes. All I'm doing now is keeping my promise. That's about it, isn't it? That's about it. My heart breaks when I think of another situation where a woman who was in our church, and I did, when she got cancer that day her husband left.

Nobody ever saw him since. What's that about? How heartbreaking.

She was never bitter, remained generous to the end of her life, torn by cancer. So folks, be a trailblazer, okay? We've got enough of the politically correct.

We've got enough of the people listening to the media, enough of the folks going along with the crowd. Listen for the heavenly drumbeat that comes right out of the scriptures. Let that be your guide. You'll never go wrong if you follow the teachings of the scriptures. You will often go wrong if you follow the advice of the crowd. Even friends will tell you wrong.

Stay with the book. Lord, we walk through this rather quickly but not casually. We care very much about pleasing you. And we know you will love us even when we don't, but how great it is to realize we took you at your word and you helped us through. Thank you for a wife that has stayed with me. Thank you for the joy of a marriage that's had many challenges.

Thank you for the rewards that come in having her by my side now that we've reached this age. Thank you for the privilege of being able to teach these things without a fear of someone shaking a skeleton from a closet. That'll ruin my reputation. Thank you for your help in keeping me pure. Now, Lord, I realize that we're just sinners, and the enemy will come after us with both guns blazing. Because we've heard this, the test will begin. Help us to be true to your truth, faithful to your commands, and vulnerable with one another. In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Everybody said, Amen. The words of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount are timeless. Today's study is titled, Whatever Happened to Fidelity and Honesty? And this week on Insight for Living, we're looking at Matthew chapter 5. To learn more about this ministry or these messages, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Whether you're going through a difficult season in your marriage or someone you love has suffered the consequences of infidelity or divorce, we believe you'll find this teaching from Jesus very helpful. To learn more, we invite you to request Chuck Swindoll's book called Simple Faith.

It includes an entire section on today's topic. In addition, Chuck also explains what it means to keep our walk with God very simple. And he writes about the dangers of putting on a show to impress our friends and family with our spiritual virtue.

After all, Jesus exposed the dangers of hypocrisy, and He made it very clear that we can easily replace performance-based religion with the far better joy-based kingdom living. To purchase a copy of Simple Faith, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888.

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