One of the things I find most disheartening in this ministry is the depth of deception so prevalent among God’s people concerning adultery. Many of the FAM Fellowship members are married to Christians, and a surprising number of them are actually pastors or involved in ministry. And yet they are living openly with women other than their wives, and appear to be fully convinced that God has forgiven their adultery, which they believe means they are now in right standing with God. And as difficult as it is to believe, many of them continue to go to church; some are still even in the pulpit or active in ministry of one kind or another (also still legally married), and taking their adulterous partners right along with them. Of course, the Bible passage most often used to “prove” or justify their point of view is the story of the woman caught in adultery, which is found in John 8:3-11 as follows:
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

As I’ve written previously, I personally believe the significant point of this passage of scripture is that we are not to condemn others, even when we KNOW they are guilty, unless we are ourselves without sin, which, of course, we are not. And the reason I say that IS because there’s nothing else here that is not well covered and illustrated elsewhere in the Bible concerning God’s mercy and grace; that when we acknowledge our sin and repent, our sins are forgiven. Yet, this IS the most powerful example of God’s instruction that we’re not to condemn someone even when they’re literally caught in sin; very clearly illustrating that God does not want us to judge and condemn the sin of others. But there’s NOTHING in this passage that says in any way, shape or form that God does not consider and condemn adultery as sin. Jesus knew what was in the woman’s heart, and He obviously knew she was repentant and would NOT commit adultery ever again in her life; and who would after having something like that happen! She had an up close and personal encounter with Jesus Christ, and just as with everyone else, she would never be the same again! The law and God’s view of adultery was not affected by this incident in ANY way; and the only change that occurred was in the hearts of those who caught the woman in adultery and accused her, and in the adulteress’ heart. There’s absolutely no indication that the law changed, and God’s heart toward adultery most certainly did not change. So teaching otherwise is a prime example of the danger of being deceived by such teaching, and exactly what 2 Timothy 4:1-4 warned would happen, because it says:
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Believing in ANY way that God’s grace makes it okay to continue in adultery certainly flies in the face (and plain meaning) of Romans 6:15, which says What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By
no means! And it’s certainly not taking the warning found in Hebrews 10:26-30 very seriously, because it says If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

In the months before putting it on my heart to begin FAM Ministries, the Lord put it on my heart to write a book called “Standing for Marriage”. But I hit a writer’s block one day, because I couldn’t figure out how to express something I wanted to without coming across as being judgmental. I wanted to make the point that the rampant rate of adultery and divorce and remarriage in church leadership throughout the country makes it very difficult or impossible for leading pastors and preachers to take a strong stand against it; not to mention that doing so would more than likely offend about half of their congregations. So I took a break and put it out of my mind for awhile. And then when I wasn’t even thinking about that, I heard the Lord say to me “as a dog returns to its vomit.” No matter how I tried, I couldn’t figure out what the Lord was trying to tell me, but since I knew it was in the Bible, I decided to check it out on BibleGateway.com, expecting it to be something about how difficult it is to avoid returning to our sin. And one of the verses that came up was 2 Peter 2:22, which says Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.” That was pretty much what I expected, but I decided to look at it in context, which gives the verse before and after, but I accidentally hit the link for the whole chapter. Then as I started reading 2 Peter 2, the hair on the back of my neck literally stood up and I felt chills go up and down my back, because I couldn’t believe what the Lord was showing me and how it applied to exactly what I was trying to write about. The whole chapter is about false teachers, but it was verses 18 through 21 that really affected me so strongly, because it said For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. I was so blown away to realize how intimately involved God was in helping and guiding me to write what I knew He had put on my heart to write! And there’s certainly no better way to express what I wanted to than those verses!

So it really breaks my heart to see the lack of outrage in our churches today against adultery and the resulting divorces and remarriages that are literally destroying the fabric of our families, churches, culture and society; not to mention how contrary it is to the Word of God. It’s hard to believe that there’s no longer any shame associated with adultery and divorce and absolutely no requirement for people to turn from it or to refrain from it, even among the clergy. Even worse, instead of outrage, our churches are condoning and sanctioning adultery as they do no other sin, and church leaders even promote and perform adulterous marriages. In fact, WITHOUT meeting ANY biblical requirement for repentance or forgiveness, and with absolutely NO reason to believe God has changed how HE views the sin of their adultery, once an adulterous couple gets married, in the eyes of the church, there’s no longer a question or issue of sin, very dangerously elevating the authority of man’s law above the authority of the Word of God. But I have no doubt that the very sad day is coming when many preachers, pastors and teachers are going to stand before God Almighty and give an account for what they have taught, condoned and sanctioned. And I believe their hearts will break on that day too, because I’m sure the Lord will show them the extent of the harm and destruction they have caused by refusing to stand on the truth and authority of God’s Word against the way of the world as it pursues the lustful desires of sinful human nature. Somehow our modern churches have lost sight of the fact that God’s Word and its meaning is UNCHANGING, and it’s truth and authority does not depend on how we perceive it. Just as scientist of years ago were wrong despite being certain and sincerely convinced that the earth was flat, no matter how genuinely convinced someone may be otherwise, God does not and never will overlook, bless and condone adultery and adulterous marriages. So I pray and long for the day when the majority of our Christian leaders will forsake the way of the world and once again have the courage to teach and stand on the plain meaning of God’s Word. And how I pray and long for the day when the majority of Christian leaders will be convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit to join us as we stand on the truth and authority of God’s Word for the sanctity of marriage and stop overlooking and condoning the sin of adultery and promoting the false teaching that God’s mercy and grace is a license to continue living in it.

Posted Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 10:19 pm in Seeds Of Faith.