Adultery

When I attended a small, Christian college in the ‘60's we had chapel every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We complained until we talked to some of the “old timers” and alumni who told us that in the “old days” they had chapel five days a week. Years later, after I left, I listened to a radio program called “Morning Chapel Hour.” And did it revive memories. I had not realized how fortunate we were to get pretty good preaching all through the week. And often we had some great speakers.

One such pastor was most students’ favorite. He was the local pastor of the big Southern Baptist Church which was just down the street. Many of the SBC pastors went by their first names, like Pastor Jerry, or Brother Bobby. I was used to “Reverend McClun” and so on. This preacher went even farther and told us to call him by his name only. So when Billy was going to preach, we were anticipating a real treat. He was funny, and told very good stories to illustrate his points.

The crowd was very ready when he approached the podium one of the days he was scheduled to preach. We expected to be entertained, enlightened, and encouraged. He took the podium, looked out at us for a second or two, (Dramatic pause) and began.

“The seventh commandment says, ‘THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY!’” He ended his pronouncement with a hearty fist slam to the pulpit. “Now I know that most of you guys (700 guys and about 40 girls) think your are exempt from this because you are not married. But a lot of you have girl friends and you are touching and kissing places that you should not touch or kiss. If you don’t have a girl right now, maybe you are looking at pornographic literature. You are committing adultery. Fornication and adultery are both included in this commandment. And those of you who are not yet convicted, if you even look at some of the town girls or the Kilgore Rangerettes and fantasize about them you are too.”

Talk about a wake up call. Many of us had never before considered what Jesus said when He said that to look at a woman with lust was to commit adultery in one’s heart. Brother Billy ended that somewhat wilfull ignorance.

His sermon came to mind as I prepared the lesson for Genesis 2:18-25. There we have the ideal marriage. Boy does our society need to get back to the basics. From business men, to politicians, to entertainers, to ordinary “guys in the street,” we are floundering with how to respond to what almost seems incessant temptation. And many high profile personages all over the landscape have succumbed. And crashed and burned.

Let’s look back to the “drawing board” to see how the prototype was displayed and perhaps find our way out of the morass in which we flounder. First, God brought all of the animals to Adam to name. (We explored this is detail in the lesson: Genesis 2:18-25, Eve. It is posted on my page on FaceBook. Video and text.) Somewhere during the process, Adam became aware of something that God already knew. There were two of everything else, but only one of him. Only then, did God put Adam to sleep and take a rib to fashion a “helper, suitable for him.”

When Adam work up, he expostulated, “This is it!” (League’s Loose Translation) “This is my bone. This is my flesh.”

Then, either he or Moses, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, spelled out the framework of the ideal marriage. (Verse 24) “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

There are three prongs to this statement. First “a man shall leave his father and mother....” This “leaving” is not an isolation or totally ignoring them. It is a spiritual and emotional separation. The family, and mother in particular, is to assume a lower place in the hierarchy of his esteem. His wife is now the highest priority of anyone or anything on earth. God is first, of course, then the wife. No exceptions.

A good way to summarize it is in the little phrase that occasionally occurs in some wedding ceremonies, “Forsaking all, I choose you.” This leads into the second prong, join. The man is joined to his wife. This is not the “one flesh” part, which comes next. This is a compact or a contract, if you please, between the man and woman that turns them from a couple into a single unit. They are no longer two individuals, but they have become one, a family of two to begin with. King James uses an archaic word that maybe we should revive: “Cleave.” Cleave means to cling together inseparably.

It is like welding two pieces of steel together. A properly done weld cannot be broken. If it is cut apart, some of each piece will remain as part of the other. The marriage agreement, likewise, joins a man and a woman into a single unit, that we call a family. And this points to the final prong of our discussion.

“...and they shall become one flesh.” This is the whoopee! part of marriage, but even more it represents the perfection of the joining process. They are no longer two, but one. Physically, they are joined in body, but more importantly, the unification of their souls and spirits is complete. Brother Billy may have been the one to suggest this picture. He said just as several threads are combined to weave a single tapestry, so the threads of our lives are woven together in the tapestry of our marriages.

The threefold paradigm can be encapsulated in leave, cleave, and weave. And adultery not only violates, it vitiates, destroys all three aspects of marriage. That is why it was forbidden in the seventh commandment. It is bad for everyone.

When we promise to leave or forsake everyone else, that means nobody or no thing can come between us. (Changing from third person to first person here. It is deliberate, Mrs. Cheney.) Entering into an adulterous liaison trashes that promise by replacing the wife with someone else. It hurts me because I have now become a liar, a covenant breaker, and probably several other things. It hurts my bride, because first, I have lied to her, then second I have devalued her. That is something I have no right to do. In fact, I am commanded to build her up. More obedience issues there, it seems.

The second leg that is shattered is the joining. Just like cutting a weld in two damages both pieces, so violating the integrity of my bond with my wife is injurious to both. This is true even if I do not immediately recognize it. Just ask any of the perpetrators who “got caught.” Even if they did not get caught and publically exposed and condemned, they are damaged goods. (Aside: Second marriages fail more often than the initial marriages. You can check out the statistics and save me the trouble of making them up.) Those damages undermine any subsequent relationship.

Adultery is perhaps the most injurious activity that we can pursue out of all the human relationships in which we participate. It hurts the two participants. It hurts the spurned spouse/spouses. It hurts the immediate family–of both. It hurts the extended family. It hurts friends who trusted one or both of the adulterers. It hurts associations or even companies of the violators. It hurts observers who can only wonder how such devastation could be unleashed.

Finally, adultery decimates the one flesh. The spiritual and emotional bonds have been discussed before, but the physical union of man and woman is violated by adding a third participant. Even is the third party is remote and separate. In 1 Corinthians 6:18 Paul points out that all other sins are outside of our body. Immorality is actually taking sin into our own body.

Warning to parents, adult content here: Many people involved in immorality use a condom to avoid taking disease causing bacteria into their body, or transmitting them to another. But the damage from breaking covenant is far worse than STD’s or AIDS. Our suddenly uptight society is exacting a price for these violations. And this is not all bad. The solution, as it appears now, is that we are all willing to paste the violators to the wall and strip them of honor, esteem, and treasure.

The problem is that the same seeds lie in ourselves, and without the deliverance Jesus offered in John 8:11 the relentless train of betrayal will continue. Jesus told the adulterous woman to, “...go and sin no more.” We often dwell on the first phrase, “Neither do I condemn you....” Jesus final words were not an exhortation to try one’s best to avoid sin. It was a promise that He could deliver us from the sin that He just forgave. It is empowering. It is not only possible, it is the normal outcome of believing, receiving, and accepting His offering.

Brother Billy’s sermon is just as cogent and germane today as it was 50 years ago. God did not prohibit things to keep us from enjoying life. Rather He gave us guidance as to how to maximize our enjoyment of life as we live it down here. Leave, cleave, and weave.

As we watch the Olympics we do not see a skier deliberately ski off the side of a cliff. Instead, he follows the path marked by the organizers to achieve fame and glory–and a safe thrill. Why would we “ski off the path for happy marriage,” by deliberately turning over the side of the mountain?

“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Parenting 501

We took our kids to interesting places, especially when they were quite young, and had a problem in many of those venues. I was reminded of this when we accompanied our grandkids on a trip to a science adventure museum. We enjoyed watching them explore new and different things, but the same difficulty manifested itself.

We would enter the facility and they kids would immediately gravitate to the first attraction or display and begin to explore it. After a few minutes, we would gently urge them on to the next place. But they were having such a good time that they resisted. But we knew that there were more interesting and exciting things farther on.

After they glimpsed the “new” interest, they immediately fastened on that. Again, we had to move them on to the next place. This continued until we reached the end of the display. Ironically, the final one was a slide from the second floor down to the first.  They were a little reluctant to go the first time, then enthusiastically raced back up the stairs to repeat it. They, and a large group of the other guests, circulated from first floor to the second, slide down to first, back up to the second, and repeat. I lost track of how many times they repeated this cycle.

As I was watching, my eye roved over the rest of the museum. The formerly exciting and enticing displays were now completely neglected. They were still interesting, and informative, but another attraction had captured their fancy.

That revelation was reinforced to me as I considered the situation as some of our family was being “moved” from one place to another. They loved the first place they were, and resisted moving. I have a strong premonition that once a new venue is unveiled, they will, like the museum goers, forget the old one, in comparison to the excitement of the new.

Our Loving Heavenly Father sometimes urges us on to a “new place” so that He can reveal more and deeper enjoyment than we currently experience. He does not move us out of spite or to punish us, but to enhance our enjoyment of Him. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with the statement that man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. A lot of times, our enjoyment must be stimulated by moving to another level.

The final book of C. S Lewis’ Narnia series has his heroes entering the hereafter that we consider heaven. The first level is exciting and engaging. They begin to settle down to enjoy it. But Aslan, the Lion, is constantly urging them to leave that and go “higher up and farther in.” The concept of the story is that this continual improvement will continue forever. In 1 Corinthians 2:9, Paul said that, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

God has a plan for us that will never cease to amaze and reward us. We can see some of that “down here” before we get to heaven. So when we feel the loving nudge from a loving Father, we should not resist, but embrace the change and enjoy the “trip” to His next marvel.

We move our kids to the next item, and even though it may not be a blockbuster, it is new and enticing to them. Wise parents do not just let them camp on one experience when there are other options that we know will also enthrall them. Our Father is way ahead of us in Parenting U. Trust Him.

Prude or Prudence?

Well what do you know. Does anyone recall the hu-rah-rah that was raised when Vice President Mike Pence revealed that he did not nor would not meet with anyone of the opposite sex alone  for any type of meeting? The media and pundits in general excoriated him for taking such an old fashioned, prudish position. They lamented that this was a direct attack on the ability of women to rise in their particular occupation. This was mockingly derided as being the “Billy Graham rule.”

How many celebrities, politicians, and business men now wish that they had adopted such a policy for their personal and professional lives? Hundreds and even thousands are being accused and are suffering severe losses of both prestige and esteem. And, in many cases, they are losing lots of money as the “Me Too” campaign rips across the landscape.

I would anticipate a small army of legal and personnel experts are frantically crafting new corporate rules and guidelines along the line of, “No mixed sex meeting shall consist of fewer than three persons.” Corporations, charities, and ministries across the country are bracing for a wave of litigation in the wake of revelations against them. Even a prominent church in Memphis has been caught up in the backlash.

Did you ever notice that the root word of prudence is prude? Interesting thought, isn’t it. Maybe Mike and Billy were not so far afield as portrayed. Thank you, gentlemen, for the wise guidance.

Capital Jerusalem

A recent article in both the Tennessean (Salina Khan, 12/18/2017) and the DNJ of Murfreesboro ( 12/17/2017) condemned the recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel and the US moving its embassy there. There were two main arguments. One was that the people of Bethlehem, “probably descendants of Jesus’ family,” were so upset with the move that they boycotted Christmas. The second argument was that some “Jewish scholars” taught that the Torah, the Jewish holy book, stated that Israel should not establish a nation until the Messiah came. So even the existence of the nation was violating their own law.

We will not comment on the nationality or the religion of the residents of Bethlehem, but we can definitely rule out the claim that they are related to Jesus, except through Noah and ultimately, Adam. The people currently living in Bethlehem are not Jewish, let alone offspring of Jesus’ brothers and sisters. They are not ethnically related, and since Jesus and the rest of his family spent most of their lives about 85 miles north in Nazareth, the possibility of descent is extremely remote, if not totally impossible.

And the current political and cultural climate in that area also makes it improbable that anyone of Jewish descent resides there. That argument was totally baseless and spurious.

The reason this trails the original publication of the comments by three weeks or so, is that I consulted with Jewish scholars to confirm the reasoning against the second prong of the putative persuasion. That was that the Messiah will establish a kingdom and the Jews should not do so until He arrives. The first part of the argument is valid. The second part is not. Messiah will establish a kingdom that will last for 1000 years. There is not prohibition against the Jews organizing into a nation in the meantime.

The scholar, a Jewish descendant himself, did agree that a very small, limited, extremely conservative circle have held that position opposing any nationhood over the years. But there is no chapter and verse in the Torah or the entire Old Testament that supports such a position.

And, in fact, the kingdom established by Saul, later reinforced and expanded by David, and solidified by Solomon would have been in violation of any such an edict. There is no historical evidence for this position being exerted.

The bogus argument propounded in both papers was merely a political screed with the intent to discredit both the Jewish nation and the United States and their policies.

Recent archaeological finds have verified a Jewish presence in Jerusalem over 2700 years ago. Both international law and common sense supports the right of a nation to designate its own capital. Israel has done so, and the US, and now some other countries, have merely recognized what is fact. Finally.

Jerusalem Peace

“Nattering nabobs of negatism,” was a phrase popularized, if not coined, by Spiro T. Agnew. Evidently William Safire originated the phrase. (ASIDE: The Press and Democrats hated him more than Nixon, so he served as a buffer between Richard Nixon and impeachment. Then Agnew got caught with his hand out, in a continuation of the extortionistic practices carried over from his term as Governor of Maryland and himself was impeached and removed from office.) Back to nattering nabobs.

A multitude have joined the chorus of decrying the United States’ President’s long overdue move to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel, and to relocate our embassy there. I have not seen any other UN member having been “guided” and then derided for placing its capital anywhere it wants to do so. But somehow the meddling merchants of mendacity in New York feel that it is their purview to instruct the Nation of Israel in the placement of its capital.

Our own nattering nabobs, here and around the world are decrying the irreparable damage done to “peace in the Middle East.” This is not my analysis, but I had thought of it. The Middle East is a boiling pot of unrest, instability, and outright war from Turkey on the north, to Iran in the east, to Saudi Arabia in the south to Lybia in central Africa. Only Jordan is relatively untouched by violence and terrorism, and its status is not overly stable.

So when the harping harridans of hopelessness harangue the President and the United States for destabilizing the Middle East, we can wonder what they have been smoking. Is it the famous hashish of Turkish and Arabian tales and legends? There is no peace there, so what can the recognition and move “upset?”

The vaunted “land for peace” initiative(s) have failed to produce any peace. In fact, I heard recently that Yassar Arafat said, and the record seems to bear this out, if he did not explicitly voice this phrase: “The Palestinians would force Israel out of the land by one thousand slices of land for peace.” The reality has been that none of the renunciations of terrorism, followed by land grants actually led to a tangible peace.

So the President has taken a bold stance to do what the American people, and Congress mandated back in 1995. Do you recall any other legislation whose implementation began over two decades after being passed and signed into Law?

Good job, President Trump. It’s about time.

Just Random Thoughts

A mayor in Germany was stabbed in the neck by a thug who disagreed with the mayor’s ideas on immigration. Ironically, the victim was saved by a fast thinking kebab shop owner, an immigrant incidentally.

Supposedly protesting the importation of “terrorists,” a “loyal” German became a terrorist and was countered by a peace and life-loving immigrant. Can it get any more incredible?

Page 2. A lady in Virginia hit “something” as she left home for work, but did not check the front of her car until she arrived at her destination 50 miles away. Upon walking around to the front, she was “greeted” by an angry hiss. A bobcat had been trapped in the grill of the car.

Animal control sedated the wildcat and removed it. It will be returned to the crossroads where it was originally struck. Can’t you imagine the conversation with her compatriots?

“You will ever guess where I have been and how I got there....” Talk about “Mr. Frog’s Wild Ride.”

Page 3. I had a dream the other night about a clandestine security force whose task is to surreptitiously guard sensitive installations and facilities. They do not wish to be publicly identified or even associated with the facility proper. And the property cannot be linked with their activities for the purpose of lawsuits and other such retaliatory events.

They also focus on “deterring” repeat incursions by the trespassers without leaving any evidence of the interaction. (If you get my meaning.) Their motto is, “We leave no marks, but make a lasting impression.”

Outta my head. In two ways.

Page 4. I shoulda been a liberal arts major, like sociology or political science. No hard facts to remember and laws which control reactions. A prof at a Florida University (unnamed for now) has developed a new class: White Racism.

Silly me. I thought that educational institutions had a curriculum of history, science, and things like that which were amenable to measurement or documentation. World Wars I and II, the Korean War, VietNam, Desert Storm, and all of those events can be documented. But to teach a class on “attitudes and prejudices” seems a little less rigorous than General Physics, Organic Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics, and Medieval Art. How will he grade the class? Do you have to parrot his prejudice back to him or can you roam the field?

Oh, wait. He is not prejudiced. He is pointing out others’ prejudices. (Remember the old “three fingers point back” rule?)

Page 5. Remembering old times. I played basketball in high school and had a great time. I just recently connected with a cousin of mine who also played on that same team. I recently bought a new pair of sweat/lounge/sleep pants and as I admired them I recalled an incident from that ball team.

A bit of background. There were three “big” men in our area and conference. One guy who stood 6'4 and attended a big, Class B school about 50 miles north of Stratton. Another guy closer to home, whom we played two or three times a year, was 6'5. And our champion was 6'6, the tallest one of all. So we had in interesting competition with those three schools, as I believe that all three were in the same class. But we were the smallest school.

When we were sophomores we ran into them, probably at a tournament. We had some fairly new, but pedestrian warm up jackets that we were proud of. Well, these guys came out of the locker room with complete, new, flashy warmup UNIFORMS. I recall their pants swishing around their ankles as they raced through their warm up routine. They looked like the Harlem Globetrotters. We all were mesmerized.

The coach noticed our fascination with their warmups and quickly gathered us together to take our minds off of their intimidating procedure and clothes. “Hey guys,” he encouraged us. “They put their pants on and take them off, one leg at a time, just like we do. They will only have five guys on the floor. We can take them.”

We all glanced at our big guy and sighed a little bit of relief. At least, they would not be playing too far above our heads. As we huddled before the tip off, he reiterated, “One leg at a time.”

About that time, they took hold of their belts and “whoosh!” jerked them off in a single motion. I don’t know if they were velcro or snaps, but it was impressive.

As I recall, we did not ever beat that team. It was not their pants. They had five guys (Hey, that would be a good name for a burger joint) ...five guys who were better than our five. But I still hoped we would prevail. I bet we could beat them now. NOT.

So when I hear that people take off their pants one leg at a time, I smile.

SCOTUS case on prayer

You might want to join me in prayer about religious freedom.

https://www.afa.net/activism/action-alerts/2017/11/religious-freedom-on-trial-pray-for-jack-phillips-and-the-us-supreme-court/