Description
FIRST & 10 SERMON SERIES
WHEN THE VOW BREAKS
FEBRUARY 14, 1999
ED YOUNG
Exodus 20:14 reads, “You shall not commit adultery.” This past summer I took an unusual and unique trip to a place that I want you to experience with me. I think that it pretty much sets up the direction in which we are going in this week’s session. Check on the side screens.
VIDEO
“We are going after the most neglected game fish in North America and I believe the greatest game fish in North America – the elusive alligator gar. We have with us my son, EJ. EJ are you ready to get the gar? Ready to catch the big one? We are down here where they live on the Trinity River right near Ennis, TX and we have, in my opinion, the best gar guide in the country, Walter Kline. This guy right here has caught more giant gar than anybody I know. Walter are you fired up? How long have you been doing this? Since ’85, a little over 10 years. What is the biggest gar that actually swims in the Trinity River? Probably 200 pounds, right in this area. That is a giant gar.
You fish for them but you also bow hunt. What is the biggest one that you have ever gotten? 180. 180 pounds! How tall. Seven and a half. Now that fires me up.
All right, that’s the trick. That is how you catch the big alligator gar, we just float these baits down on these giant treble hooks and the gars just cannot resist it.
Right now we are negotiating the tricky waters of the Trinity River. I like that: the tricky waters of the Trinity River. Walter Kline, Michael Wilkins, EJ Young and yours truly, to catch the big gar. What we are doing right now is looking for some orange floats. Hopefully there is going to be a giant fish at the bottom of these floats. We would like to think fastened to a hook. We have got to be very careful as we negotiate these waters because of treacherous stumps, plus we have a front coming in. It is going to be a little hairy, a little scary but that is our middle name. Isn’t that right? Danger.
Weep brown sugar! Hey, the evil one floats a lot of bait past you and me, doesn’t he? We have got to say no to the bait. But this gar you just saw could not resist it. It has been a great day here on the Trinity River. I am dirty. So is EJ. Michael is clean, as always. Walter is a little bit dirty. But we had a great time. We caught one nice gar but we didn’t catch any more. We tried everything. We tried shad. We tried even a squirrel. But we failed! I didn’t say that, did I? But anyway. If you ever want to go out and catch some big fish, you try your luck at the most elusive game fish in North American, and perhaps the most neglected, the alligator gar. Call my good friend, Walter Kline, and he will take you after them. Now back to the service.
END OF VIDEO
One of the questions people frequently ask me goes something like this. “Ed, how do you go about preparing a message? I usually begin with a time of prayer. After I pray, I sit down at a desk and begin to write out what I feel God wants me to communicate to the church. Following that, I read a number of books and articles. I run the direction by several trusted confidants. If I get an OK on all of those things, I then write the entire message out Thursday morning word for word on something I call a message map. This is today’s message, word for word. Then I come in on Saturday, memorize it, then deliver it Saturday evening. After the Saturday evening service, we have a brief meeting usually to critique the service to try to help the message or drama in any way possible. Then on Sunday at 10am, I stand up again and deliver this word from God. It is kind of like writing and editing and reciting a term paper every single weekend. While it is an exciting process, it is also a tough process for me because it takes a minimum of 25 hours every week just to do this stuff. That is what it takes to deliver a message.
Earlier this week, though, after my prayer time I felt led to do something different. I have never really done this before. After prayer, I felt God leading me not to read any research although my file folder is bulging with information about the seventh commandment. It was very tempting to read it but I felt God saying no, just share from your heart. Just share from cliff notes of conversations, letters and trends that you have observed over the years and years of your ministry as you have dealt with so many people who confronted this commandment. So, ladies and gentlemen, that is what I am going to do this session.
Now I know in a crowd this size we have a lot of people in a lot of different stages of life. A hunk of us here are married. And if you are married, listen up. About 3,000 of us here are single adults. And singles, research reveals that most of you will get married one day. Isn’t that great! I mean if you don’t hear anything else I say today, that is something to hold onto. Listen up. I also know some of you here have been dealt a devastating blow by adultery. And I realize the pain, the suffering and maybe the guilt is intense as you listen to me and listen to God’s word as we go through this. Hang in there. We have been praying for you. We are on your side. We want the best for you. I also know that others here right now are involved in an adulterous relationship. You think that no one knows. You think that as you move around in a very clandestine fashion, people are clueless. Hey, your friends and maybe even your spouse don’t know, but God knows. You listen up. Because we have been praying like crazy that God will do something supernatural in your life.
Others here are considering adultery. You are watching that bait float by and you are swimming up to it. You are thinking about it. You are considering it. Listen up. These direct words, I believe, can transform your thought processes and your behavior. Others here have never violated the seventh commandment. And if that is you, I applaud you. I really, really do. But you can never say that you are above this. You can never say that you are invincible. The Bible says in the book of James, chapter one, when you are tempted, not if, when. The bait is going to float by. So having said that, remember that today’s goal is to confront, challenge and encourage every person here to have a strong and Biblical read on the seventh commandment.
The path to promiscuity is paved by a lot of prominent people. It is amazing what happens in this process. It starts with a distraction. Maybe you have gone through a very exhausting time at work. Maybe you are in a financial pinch. Maybe you are having marriage trouble. Maybe sex has become monotonous. A distraction. A distraction could be on the other end of the spectrum. You could be feeling invincible. You could feel like you are on a roll. You could be feeling like nothing could touch you. A distraction. It always starts with a distraction and from there it usually segueways into an attraction.
An attraction occurs in a nanosecond. You notice someone, a member of the opposite sex, at the health club, around the neighborhood, at the office. You are attracted to them. It is not a sin to be attracted to a member of the opposite sex. Billy Graham said it best. “It is not the first look that gets you in trouble. It is the second and the third and the fourth that messes you up.” We all are going to be attracted by certain members of the opposite sex. And it should stop at attraction. It should end right there. But in many cases, it doesn’t.
James 1:14-16. “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust…” See that word enticed? It is a fishing term. It means to lure by bait. “…then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” Do not be deceived. And this death is emotional death and relational death. It starts with a distraction, it moves to an attraction. And if an attraction is left unchecked, we move into infatuation.
That is where the problem really begins. That is where it festers. Not only are you attracted to the person, but also you begin to play mind games with yourself. You begin to intentionally spend more and more time with the person, a long, lingering business lunch, after hours work projects. You want to spend large blocks of time with him or with her and you say things to yourself like, “I wonder what it would be like to touch that person. I wonder what it would be like to hold that person. I wonder what it would be like to make love to that person.” A woman might say, “He understands me. He knows how to talk to me. He supports me. He thinks I am the greatest thing on the planet.” A man might say, “She is so sexy. She is so sweet and kind. She knows what makes me tick.” And delusions of romantic dinners and sex-filled and sun-drenched vacations begin to dance in your head. You are infatuated with the person.
And then, one day, you do physically what you began to do mentally a long time ago. You commit adultery. You break the seventh commandment. And you trade in a brief moment of ecstasy for a lifetime of pain. At this point, people have some different reactions. Some I have talked to, some of the guilt-ridden parties, go on their knees before God and say, “I have sinned against You and my spouse and family. I am wrong. I want to do whatever it takes to make my marriage work.” And they come clean and go through Christian counseling. I have seen people who have violated the seventh commandment, who have come clean and confessed and really done some tough work. I have seen them emerge on the other side to have strong, Biblically functioning marriages. I have seen it. And some of you in this church, I will not call out your names, know what I am talking about. You could raise your hand and say, “I am with you, man. I have been there. I have done that. And God has changed my life.” Some people have that reaction. It is my prayer that many who have violated the seventh commandment would go through those steps beginning today as a result of our time of worship.
Others, though, don’t go there. Others who are guilt ridden don’t deal with it. Others begin to get involved in a deep and diabolical and destructive pattern. Jesus talked about Satan’s strategy in John 8:44 when He said, “There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies.” When you commit adultery, the first one on the scene is the father of lies, the evil one. He begins to whisper lies to you. He is the father of lies. He speaks lieneese, lie after lie after lie after lie. Listen to the popular lies that I have heard from people involved in affairs. Maybe they sound familiar.
The first one is the wedding lie. “Ed, when I got involved with this person and when I married my spouse, I didn’t really love them, now that I am involved with a third party, wow. This is different. I didn’t really mean the words I said before God and my friends. I didn’t really mean it.” Satan has the ability to lie to such a degree that he takes us back, way back before the wedding and somehow people rationalize. Well, I didn’t really love him. I didn’t really love her when I walked down the wedding runner. Amazing stuff. Diabolical stuff. Destructive stuff. Adultery is one of the most devastating sins and blows that can hit the family. And in almost every divorce case there is almost always a third party involved. Almost always. The wedding lie.
The feelings lie. I will never forget the conversation I had several years ago with a man who was bailing out on his wife and his family, a man who was involved with a third party. This man looked at me and said, “I understand what I am doing is wrong but I am miserable in my marriage. Now I am happy and God wants me to be happy. Surely, Ed, God wants me to be happy.” I looked at him and I got choked up. I said, “Happy. God wants you to be obedient. He wants you to do the right thing. He doesn’t want you to crater on this covenant, on this commitment. If you do what is right and obey Him and hang in there, then your feelings will follow.” You see, it is easier to act your way into a feeling than to feel your way into an action.
Another lie is a denial lie. People look at others and just lie. They live on the basis of denying. “Me, an affair? On no, I am not having sex with someone else. Not me. No way.”
A young lady wrote me this letter a couple of days ago. “Dear Ed. Our marriage was not perfect but it was ours. It was all we knew. He was my best friend and I trusted him totally. There were signs. I didn’t ignore them but I became suspicious and very observant. I finally got up the nerve to ask him, pointblank and face to face, “Are you and your co-worker having an affair?” And my husband and best friend of many years looked me right in the eyes and lied. There were times when I knew he was talking with her on the phone. Many times I would put my hand on the phone receiver by my bed and consider picking it up and listening. Then I would know for certain. No more speculating. But I couldn’t do it because if it were true, it would hurt too much and what would I do? Finally, my suspicions were replaced with facts. My thoughts and actions spun out of control. I became obsessed with his lies, details of the affair and the events that led to it. I kept trying to put all the puzzle pieces together. I was taken over by obsession, images of my husband and his lover would flash through my mind day and night. I constantly awoke to dreams of him and her in bed together. It would play over and over and over. I stopped feeling positive about myself and about life. It was all negative. Jealous. Enraged. Diminished. Frightened. Lonely. Mistrustful. Exposed. His deception blinded me from how I saw myself. I started doubting and questioning everything about myself. It must be me. I must have caused this to happen. I must change myself. I felt the fate of our marriage was in my hands.”
The wedding lie. The feelings lie. The denial lie. Some people lie just to bide time, to hide finances and to protect themselves when a divorce actually comes down.
There is one more lie I want to hit. It is an important lie. The support lie. When someone has broken the seventh commandment and when a guilt-ridden party does not come clean, when they don’t confess their sins to God and to their spouse and work through the pain and alienation and the problems that an affair incurs, some of them use the support lie. Strategic, sinful, sympathizers in people’s lives surround the person who is committing sin and they identify with the person, pat the person on the back and say, “Hey, it’s OK. Hey, you deserve it. Hey, she looks pretty good. Hey, he is great. Hey, keep on doing it. Don’t feel guilty. Everything’s OK.” And these people walk around and say, “My new friends support me. My new friends give me counsel. My new friends say that I am doing the right thing, busting up a marriage and ruining my children’s lives and getting involved with a third party. My new friends say that.”
If you are involved in adultery right now, ask yourself this question. Who are you getting counsel from? Because the evil one will have your life so packed with these sinful sympathizers that it is tough to look above the fray and see people who will speak the truth in love. Talk to someone who has a commitment to God and to marriage and to others. Let them speak truth to your life. Don’t listen to the sinful sympathizers given to you by Satan himself. They do it to ease their guilt, to remove their responsibility. It always makes us feel better when we can look around and say that a lot of people are disobeying the seventh. It must be cool, hip and OK. Lies. Just plain old lies.
Is that bait floating by in your life? Is the evil one beginning to lure you from cover? Are you past the distraction into the attraction and maybe even into the infatuation stage? Are you infatuated by this person? If you are, I want to communicate to you some suggestions on how to do what is right, how to go about this in God’s way, with God’s agenda. When you feel the attraction moving into infatuation, the first thing I challenge you to do is push the clock forward. Push the clock forward. If you trade a brief moment of ecstasy in for a lifetime of pain, think about the lifetime of pain. Think about the damage. Think about what it will do to your spouse, your children if you have any and to God.
Several weeks ago a man who had committed adultery penned these words to me. “Ed, I have taken full responsibility for my actions. I was the one that sinned. Instead of looking to Christ and keeping my focus on Him when my marriage was first in trouble, I looked for someone else’s approval who I had no right being with. It took me a long time before I would admit to God that I had sinned. I could justify everything in my mind. I did not think that God would even listen to me if I prayed, let along forgive me.” And then he does some damage assessment. Do you want to know what it would be like, men, to have sex with that cute little girl at work? Do you want to know what it would be like to have sex with that attractive man? OK, look past the sex, past those romantic dinners, past the delusions of sun-drenched and sex-filled vacations and listen to the damage this man writes that he is experiencing right now.
He lists seven problems. “Number one, my spouse no longer trusts me. But then, why should she? Number two, I damaged my spouse’s and my own spirit and soul and both of our relationships to Christ. Number three. My kids don’t know yet, but soon may. I will not know for years what I have done to them and I may not ever get to know. Number four. My friends and family may soon be gone. Number five. Crying in grief and even being physically sick with having to deal with this situation that I have created. Number six. Soon there could be divorce and all that goes with that. Number seven. And all that I don’t know about that may happen.” He concludes this letter by saying, “The seeds of lies have been planted and I am reaping my crop. I am not adding my name because I do not want to cause my kids or my spouse any additional grief. You may share my story, though, if you feel it will help someone else.”
Push the clock forward. The bait tastes so great for awhile but think about those penetrating hooks. Think about the fight because, hey, I practice catch release even with alligator gar, Satan does not. He will put you in the frying pan after he has filleted you and gutted you and he will say, “You are not worthy to serve again, worthy to live again. Look what you have done to your family. Look what you have done to your friends.”
Another suggestion after your have pushed the clock forward, recognize your various times of vulnerability. Like I said, you could be kind of on a roll. Or maybe you are exhausted. Or maybe you are going through some marital problems. Jesus, after His baptism, after a spiritual high, was driven out into the wilderness. After He went without food for 40 days and 40 nights, then the evil one emerged on the scene to tempt Him. He knows when you are most vulnerable. He knows when you are the most susceptible. He is waiting, waiting to float that bait by. He is saying, “No one will ever know. Try it. Just taste the bait. It will be OK. Everybody is doing it.” And you mix this with a steady diet of romance novels, trashy magazines, videos and gentlemen’s clubs and you have got someone who is right there, taking the bait.
Another suggestion, extinguish the flames of unfaithfulness. Extinguish the flames of unfaithfulness in your life. Certain flames might be surrounding you and you must extinguish the flames. Think about your friends. Read the studies. Many affairs occur when one couple is really connected with another couple. Your best friends, husband and wife, should have the same commitment to fidelity, to God and to the marriage as you do. If they don’t, you are messing around with some fire. And if that is not true for you, back off your friendship, back off your relationship and ask God to bring some Christian friends into your lives. We have a ministry here that supports this church called Home Teams. It is clusters of singles and married adults that get together at least twice a month all over the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. It is a wonderful way to meet other people. We have Connection Classes, Men’s Ministry groups, Women’s Ministry groups. The list is limitless. That is part of the local church, to build a social and relational base for singles and couples so we can all be operating off of the same page.
Another way to extinguish the flames is to think about what comes before your eyes. Think about the things that you watch on your computer screen, the things you read, the things in your video library. If they fan the flames of unfaithfulness, get rid of them. Pornography is big business, over eight billion dollars a year. Trash it. Get rid of it. It is not worth it. You don’t want to sign up for boatloads of pain and anguish that will slowly and strategically cause you. Because Satan will use it to lie to you. Well, if that person can do that…
Ladies, let me say a direct word to you. Dress tastefully. Make sure what you wear is a tasteful outfit. I am not saying to wear a bag over your body. I am all for fashion. But some of the outfits that women wear, they fan the flames of unfaithfulness. Think about it.
Do you feel the presence of flames in your life? Is it getting scary? Let me say a word about touchy-feely people. “I have just got to touch. I have just got to hug. I have just got to flirt a little bit. It is just a little suggestive talk to close this business deal.” You are messing around with fire. You might be touchy-feely and say to yourself that no one can take it the wrong way. But you will be touchy-feely one day with someone who will take it the wrong way. And those suggestive comments, those jokes, it can take down the barriers, stir the embers. It is a slow, methodical process.
Let me give you another one. This is huge here. Embark on a lifelong journey to enrich your marriage. Won’t you do that today? Just make a commitment before God. “God, I want to embark on a lifelong journey to enrich my marriage.” It takes work to have a great marriage. You never arrive, you never say that you have figured it all out. It takes one little act after another little act, then all those acts begin to build a great marriage.
“Dear Ed. I am writing you this letter because I know that in a couple of weeks you will be giving a message on thou shalt not commit adultery. I will be in the service that day, but my spouse may no longer be with me. I am sending this letter for a couple of reasons. Number one. I am praying for a miracle that something God says through you today will save my marriage and my spouse will forgive me. Number two. If not, that this short letter may serve as a wakeup call for others considering these actions or others who have been involved with someone. None of what has happened in our marriage has been a big all-at-once problem. Our problems were one little thing at a time. Just little steps of moving further and further apart.” A marriage is messed up by one little problem, one unresolved little conflict at a time. A great marriage is built by one little act of service, one little act of caring at a time. That is why we have marriage retreats, seminars and weekends coming up at the Fellowship Church during the next six months.
About a year ago I did a message about marriage. After the message I had four or five people rush up to me and say, “Ed, when are you going to preach the next one on marriage? We can’t hear it enough. When?” One of the reasons that we have a bookstore is to put resources as tools in your hands to solidify your marriage. I have some tape series available. TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. STATE OF THE UNION. You can pick them up and listen to them. They teach you how to build a great marriage. We have books by John Trent, Gary Smalley, Bill Hybels. Check those books out. Read them. Delve deep into what it takes to build a strong marriage and you will be so glad you did. It is a divinely ordained institution.
One more and then we will shut her down. This will sound weird. I want to challenge you today to do the Moses thing and to write out your very own Ten Commandments. That’s right. I want you to write your very own Ten Commandments. No, I don’t want you to jump onto a Lufthansa jet, like we are going to in May, and then take a puddle jumper to the base of Mt. Sinai. I am not talking about that. I want you to write your own Ten Commandments of Marital Commitment. I want you to write them out and display them in a prominent place. What are ten things that you need to do to keep a great marriage? What are some things that you must live by? I want to share with you Ed’s Ten Commandments of Marital Commitment. You don’t have to imitate these but these are the ones I live by. You can jot them down if you want to.
- I shall have no other human relationships before Lisa, including the kids. My kids are important to me. We have four. But Lisa is more important.
- Remember your date night and keep it holy. People often ask me about my marriage because I have a great marriage. God has blessed me with an incredible wife. I married way over my head. We have a wonderful connection together. One of the things that revolutionized our marriage is our date nights. We try to have a date night at least twice a month. Some say that they cannot afford to. You cannot afford not to! Take out a loan. Do whatever it takes. I don’t care what you do. You can go to McDonalds or the Mansion. It doesn’t matter. “Well our kids, you know, they are kind of weird with the sitter.” Many times when we walk out of the door of our house, two of the four kids are crying. We say we are sorry but Mommy and Daddy are going out. So, parents, in a Christian way, get over it. Do the date night thing. It will teach your children some autonomy. Just go.
- Honor, Ed, your anniversary and special days, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord has given you.
- I shall not take the covenant of marriage in vain by apathy. When I am apathetic, when I am flippant, causal, or have it on cruise control, I am not doing what I should do before God as a husband. What you use to get them, is what you use to keep them. Think about that. What did I use to get them? OK, I am going to use that to keep them. There is truth in that.
- I shall not ride in a car or eat in a restaurant alone with a member of the opposite sex.
- I shall not travel alone. This is recommended here by the Board of the Fellowship Church. I have the opportunity to travel around the country at least once or twice a month and speak to pastors and other leaders. I never travel alone.
- I shall not counsel a woman with the doors closed. All of our pastors here never talk to a woman with the doors closed. And let me give you a quick word about counseling. Counseling is not my gift. I think that I have gifts in other areas but one of my weaknesses is counseling. We have some pastors who are much more gifted in counseling than I am. I am the kind of counseler who says, well you have got a problem. You need to get right with God. Then I pray and say thank you very much. I am not that cold, but you hear what I am saying. It is not my gift. You have to be honest in your gift assessment. Where you are strong, you are strong. Where you are weak, you are weak. All of us have strengths. All of us have weaknesses.
- I shall not share the details of our marriage with others. Do not share the intimate details with your best friend, or especially with a member of the opposite sex. Don’t do that. Every time I share a story from our family, or from my relationship with Lisa, I always get her permission. One time, about three years ago, I said something that I did not get her permission for and after the service, she walked up and said, “Honey, I would rather you not share that story again.” I understood. I was wrong.
- I shall not watch, read or expose myself to sexually explicit shows, books, videos, etc.
- I shall remember the implications of breaking the seventh. Here is what scares me to death. I cannot imagine telling Lisa that I have cheated on her. I have known her for 24 years. She is the only woman I have ever had sex with or plan to have sex with. I could not even entertain the thought of hurting her like that. Another implication, I couldn’t even look at LeeBeth who is 12, EJ who is 7, the gar hunter, Laurie and Landra who are 4. I could not imagine having them know that their Dad cheated on their Mom, that he turned his back on a commitment and covenant before God. I also would never want to do anything that would harm the Fellowship Church and the cause of Christ. I think this church is the greatest church I have ever seen. You people have inspired me and encouraged me and helped me more than you will ever, ever know. I feel like the most blessed man in the world, just the opportunity to pastor you guys and gals. It is unbelievable. To do something that would damage that which is more near and dear to the heart of Christ, I would not do. I also think about the judgment of God. I have a fear of God. Yes, God is a forgiving God. He is a counselor. I know that but I sincerely believe if I committed adultery that I would be living on borrowed time here on earth. There is no telling what God would do to me, to my family. It scares me to death.
We had better all run through the implications. If we do not it is just a matter of time before we feel the hooks behind the bait. Get right with God on this one. You know who you are. You know what you are dealing with. You know what you are thinking about. Get right with God. When you do, you will have a strong vow and your vow will never, ever break. If you have committed adultery, God can change your life and transform you beginning today. Don’t live a lie any more. Do what God wants you to do because His way always, always works.