The Seventh Opportunity

The Seventh Commandment states that we are not to commit adultery (Exodus 20:14). When God made the first man Adam He saw that it was not good for him to be without a companion (1) (Genesis 2:18). However, no animal was worthy to be called the helpmate or wife of the man (Genesis 2:20). Therefore, God put the first man Adam to sleep and from his side took cells from which he made a woman, and Adam named her Eve (Genesis 2:21-23. Genesis 3:20). This is the pattern for the nuclear family on Earth – one male and one female united for life (Genesis 2:24). Not two males or two females (1) – again, the pattern was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve or Eve and Louise! Consequently, the phrase “same-sex marriage” is an oxymoron.

Within this male and female marriage relationship God provided and blessed sex (1) in order for the two to enjoy an incredibly pleasurable intimacy (i.e., “into-me-see”) spirit, soul, and body (1 Corinthians 7:3-5). This pleasurable union where the married male and female are joined as one can result in the physical joining of the male sperm and the female egg where literally the two become one NEW flesh – a baby! (Matthew 19:4-6. Ephesians 5:31. Genesis 4:1) God designed sex to take place between a married male and female with any deviation from this referred to as adultery. Adultery is sex with someone that we are not married to that is married to someone else or is not married.  Sexual immorality (fornication) is sex before marriage, self-sex, same-gender sex (Leviticus 18:22), or sacrilegious sex (e.g., bestiality (Leviticus 18:23,24), anal, oral, incest (Leviticus 18:6), or violent sex, etc.), etc. Adultery destroys trust in and out of marriage – it is being unfaithful. It is rejection and betrayal of the cruelest type; consequently, God forbids it (Exodus 20:14).    

The Law of Consequence for Violating the Commandment

Biblical Warnings about Licentiousness

The Bible is replete with warnings for those that chose to ignore God’s command to only have sex (1) within God’s definition of marriage and behave licentiously:

You shall not commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14 NET)
You must not commit adultery. (Deuteronomy 5:18 NET)

And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight, thinking, ‘No eye can see me,’ and covers his face with a mask. (Job 24:15 NET)

God says this to the evildoer: “How can you declare my commands, and talk about my covenant? For you hate instruction and reject my words. When you see a thief, you join him; you associate with men who are unfaithful to their wives. (Psalm 50:16–18 NET)

For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your loyal love! Because of your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! Wash away my wrongdoing! Cleanse me of my sin! For I am aware of my rebellious acts; I am forever conscious of my sin. Against you—you above all—I have sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. So you are just when you confront me; you are right when you condemn me. (Psalm 51:1–4 NET)

For wisdom will enter your heart, and moral knowledge will be attractive to you. Discretion will protect you, understanding will guard you, to deliver you from the way of the wicked, from those speaking perversity, who leave the upright paths to walk on the dark ways, who delight in doing evil, they rejoice in perverse evil; whose paths are morally crooked, and who are devious in their ways; to deliver you from the adulteress, from the sexually loose woman who speaks flattering words; who leaves the husband from her younger days, and forgets her marriage covenant made before God. For her house sinks down to death, and her paths lead to the place of the departed spirits. None who go in to her will return, nor will they reach the paths of life. (Proverbs 2:10–19 NET)

My child, be attentive to my wisdom, pay close attention to my understanding, in order to safeguard discretion, and that your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her seductive words are smoother than olive oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. Lest she should make level the path leading to life, her paths are unstable but she does not know it. So now, children, listen to me; do not turn aside from the words I speak. (Proverbs 5:1–7 NET)

For the commandments are like a lamp, instruction is like a light, and rebukes of discipline are like the road leading to life, by keeping you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the loose woman. Do not lust in your heart for her beauty, and do not let her captivate you with her alluring eyes; for on account of a prostitute one is brought down to a loaf of bread, but the wife of another man preys on your precious life. Can a man hold fire against his chest without burning his clothes? Can a man walk on hot coals without scorching his feet? So it is with the one who has sex with his neighbor’s wife; no one who touches her will escape punishment. People do not despise a thief when he steals to fulfill his need when he is hungry. Yet if he is caught he must repay seven times over, he might even have to give all the wealth of his house. A man who commits adultery with a woman lacks wisdom, whoever does it destroys his own life. He will be beaten and despised, and his reproach will not be wiped away; for jealousy kindles a husband’s rage, and he will not show mercy when he takes revenge. He will not consider any compensation; he will not be willing, even if you multiply the compensation. (Proverbs 6:23–35 NET)

My child, keep my words and treasure up my commands in your own keeping. Keep my commands so that you may live, and obey my instruction as your most prized possession. Bind them on your forearm; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding a close relative, so that they may keep you from the adulterous woman, from the loose woman who flatters you with her words. For at the window of my house through my window lattice I looked out and I saw among the naive— I discerned among the youths— a young man who lacked wisdom. He was passing by the street near her corner, making his way along the road to her house in the twilight, the evening, in the dark of the night. Suddenly a woman came out to meet him! She was dressed like a prostitute and with secret intent. (She is loud and rebellious, she does not remain at home— at one time outside, at another in the wide plazas, and by every corner she lies in wait.) So she grabbed him and kissed him, and with a bold expression she said to him, “I have fresh meat at home; today I have fulfilled my vows! That is why I came out to meet you, to look for you, and I found you! I have spread my bed with elegant coverings, with richly colored fabric from Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let’s drink deeply of lovemaking until morning, let’s delight ourselves with sexual intercourse. For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a journey of some distance. He has taken a bag of money with him; he will not return until the end of the month.” She persuaded him with persuasive words; with her smooth talk she compelled him. Suddenly he went after her like an ox that goes to the slaughter, like a stag prancing into a trapper’s snare till an arrow pierces his liver— like a bird hurrying into a trap, and he does not know that it will cost him his life. So now, sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words I speak. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways— do not wander into her pathways; for she has brought down many fatally wounded, and all those she has slain are many. Her house is the way to the grave, going down to the chambers of death. (Proverbs 7:1–27 NET)

The woman called Folly is brash, she is naive and does not know anything. So she sits at the door of her house, on a seat at the highest point of the city, calling out to those who are passing by her in the way, who go straight on their way. “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here,” she says to those who lack understanding. “Stolen waters are sweet, and food obtained in secret is pleasant!” But they do not realize that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave. (Proverbs 9:13–18 NET)

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who rejects discretion. (Proverbs 11:22 NET)

The mouth of an adulteress is like a deep pit; the one against whom the Lord is angry will fall into it. (Proverbs 22:14 NET)

This is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have not done wrong.” (Proverbs 30:20 NET)

The words of King Lemuel, an oracle that his mother taught him: O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, Do not give your strength to women, nor your ways to that which ruins kings.
(Proverbs 31:3 NET)

I discovered this: More bitter than death is the kind of woman who is like a hunter’s snare; her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is captured by her. (Ecclesiastes 7:26 NET)

You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you. Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth.“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.” (Malachi 2:13–16 NET)

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God. Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11 NET)

“Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both.” The body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now God indeed raised the Lord and he will raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body”—but the immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:13–18 NET)

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God! (Galatians 5:19–21 NET)

For you can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let nobody deceive you with empty words, for because of these things God’s wrath comes on the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:5–6 NET)

So put to death whatever in your nature belongs to the earth: sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, evil desire, and greed which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience. (Colossians 3:5–6 NET)

Marriage must be honored among all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers. (Hebrews 13:4 NET)

So also Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, since they indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire in a way similar to these angels, are now displayed as an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7 NET)

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:26–32 NET)

But to the cowards, unbelievers, detestable persons, murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic spells, idol worshipers, and all those who lie, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. That is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8 NET)

Well, you say that you have never done those things? Have you ever fantasized (1) about having sex with someone perhaps while performing self-sex?  Then you are still guilty (Matthew 5:27,28. Job 31:1). If You Can’t Say “Amen”, Say “Oh Me!” (1)

The Opportunity of Blessing for Keeping the Commandment

Those that choose to only have sex within the confines of God’s definition of marriage will find that it is the oil of marriage that minimizes the friction in life. Just as in Commandments 10 (1), 9 (1), and 8 (1) to walk in love towards your spouse (1) will fulfill this law (Proverbs 5:18-23. 1 Corinthians 7:3-5. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5).

The Ten Commandments Series:

• The Ten Opportunities
• The Tenth Opportunity
• The Ninth Opportunity
• The Eighth Opportunity
• The Seventh Opportunity
• The Sixth Opportunity
• The Fifth Opportunity
• The Fourth Opportunity
• The Third Opportunity
• The Second Opportunity
• The First Opportunity
• The Null Opportunity

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Shalom
(Security, Wholeness, Success)
Peace

Dear friend, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul. 
(3 John 1:2 NET)

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