"FAITHFULNESS"
A Sermon by Pastor John Glass, D.Min.

The Ten Commandments teach us two things. First, they teach us God's will for us. Second, they teach us what He is like, that is, His character. This is especially true with the 7th Commandment. Have you memorized it? No problem. I'll say it to you once and you won't be able to forget it. In English it's five words, in Hebrew two. Ready?
"You - shall - not - commit - adultery."
See what I mean? You've got it, for life.

What's it mean? A little fellow asked his Daddy on the way home from church, "Daddy, what did the minister mean when he said we're not supposed to commit agriculture?" His Daddy didn't miss a beat. "We're not supposed to plow someone else's field." (Thank you, Reader's Digest.)

This is one of the two Commandments Jesus mentions in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5.27-30). "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' (There it is in four words. Want to take it down to two? No sinning.) But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

Ever hear of a man named John Calvin? Calvinism? In his Institutes of the Christian Religion he wrote, "If God requires chastity, he condemns everything which is opposed to it." If the act is wrong - and it is - then what about all the things that lead to the act? Matthew Henry was an old-time Bible commentator who was very popular in his day. Here's what he said: "If looking be lust, they who dress and deck and expose themselves with design to be looked at and lusted after are no less guilty." You would almost think of the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, wouldn't you? It's the first time they've used a non-athlete: Beyonce. Another comment of Calvin's is, "although men may not defile their bodies with harlots," they still "boil with lust." He called this "gross stupidity." Jesus would call it sin.

James White was one of the first General Conference Presidents of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. His wife, Ellen, once wrote a man whose relation with his wife had deteriorated to the point where he was dreaming about another woman. Here is a sample of what she wrote:

"My brother, remember that the woman who receives the least manifestation
of affection from a man who is the husband of another woman, shows herself
to be in need of repentance and conversion." (Would you agree?) "And the
man who allows his wife to occupy the second place in his affections is
dishonoring himself and his God. This thing is one of the signs of the last days.
Surely you do not desire to fulfill this sign; this is the part that the wicked are
to act."


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What would you think if you received a letter like this? Maybe you'd get on your knees and thank the Lord that someone cared enough about your soul to write you this way. I give Ellen credit for the way she wrote. Knowing his affections were still out there in left field she added,

"Your wife has her faults, -but so have you. She is your wife still. She is the mother
of your children, and you are to respect, cherish and love her. Guard yourself carefully
that impurity may not abide in mind or heart."

(In a letter to someone else Ellen said a person doesn't come down from purity to licentiousness in one step. It's a gradual process, slow at first, more rapid as it advances.)

Gordon Lightfoot sang "If You Could Read My Mind." "I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling's gone and I just can't get it back." Wrong, Gordon! Listen to the encouragment Ellen gave this man: "Christ will take charge of the affections of those who love and honor God, causing them to center upon proper objects." I think that lady had it right.

Jesus mentions two parts of the body: the right eye and the right hand. He is using an extreme metaphor when he says gouge/cut off, yet do you remember the story of Samson? Delilah was his undoing. Can't blame her; the money was nice, but it was either that or pay with her life. Samson lost both his eyes, and as a result developed inner sight. What about the right hand? Simple: ever hear of masturbation?

Paul wrote in I Thessalonians 4.3-5; "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God." "But Pastor, it's so hard..." Shall we revisit Matthew Henry? "When we are tempted to think it hard to deny ourselves and crucify fleshly lusts, we ought to consider how much harder it will be to lie forever in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone." Ah, logic. (Henry's point is well stated. However, he shared a belief common in those days that Hell is unending. Not so. Cf.The Fire That Consumes by Fudge.)

I Corinthians 6.9-11 has, I believe, a great deal of encouragement, particularly to those who know by personal experience what immorality is.

"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not
be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor
male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor
drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And
that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God."

I like this text. These kinds will be destroyed but, if you recognize yourself or your kinfolk here, not to worry: there is more than enough power in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus, to wash


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all dirt out - and to get the stains out as well! "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as the snow." "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Think about it. The wicked will be destroyed, but God loves us enough to not want to lose us. He gave Jesus to die for us, to take every sin on himself. They're paid for. Turn to Jesus with all your heart and give all of you to him, and the old, natural you will die. You'll be reborn as a brand new person. "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Doesn't clean feel wonderful?

Joseph. Handsome. Great personality. Executive ability. Sweet. Potipher's wife knew she had a dear. Everyone was out of the house except for Joseph (arranged by her?). "Joseph, today's the day. Now. Your work can wait." Joseph recoils instantly. "There is no one in this house greater than me; my master has placed everything under my care except you, because you are his wife. How can I do this great wickedness against God?" David: on his face before the prophet Nathan, tears cascading from his heart, "Oh God, against You, You alone have I sinned and done this wickedness in Your sight." All sin is against God; this sin is against God.

There's a story in the Old Testament that would make a great movie. One day God tells Hosea (one of His prophets), "Go marry an adulterous wife and have children of unfaithfulness." Enter Gomer. No commentator is quite sure whether she was that way when he married her, or simply that's the way she turned out. Sometimes a person comes along who just doesn't have it in them to be faithful; a couple of places in the scriptures it mentions people with "eyes full of adultery." (The "Wayward Wind" can apply to more than the inner yen to "get a move on, little dogie.")

I can imagine what home life for Hosea must have deteriorated to. You love and give yourself to someone, then watch them go off with someone else someone else someone else. Enough to break your heart. The kids get big enough to begin asking questions. Jezreel: "Daddy, where's Mommy?" Little Lo-Ruhamah: "Daddy, I want Mommy." The littlest son, Lo-Ammi: "Mamma. Mamma." No mamma. She's gone.

Time passes. Life is tough for a man when he's trying to earn a living and take care of three little children at the same time.

Months pass. The wounds scab over and leave scars.

One day an old friend stops by to renew acquaintances. Just before he leaves: "Say, Hosea, I remember what I was going to tell you. Know what I heard just yesterday? Your Ex, Gomer." "Oh?" "Yeah, kind of a tough situation. She got herself into slavery and she's supposed to be put on the block - tomorrow." "Oh." "Well, gotta be off. See you." "Yeah."



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That night Hosea can't sleep. Ringing in his ears are the words of the God, "Hosea, go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress." How...?

Next morning the bidding starts. Hosea waits on the side. One slave, then another, then... Yes! There she is over there. They put her on the block. The bidding starts. Hosea bids. Another bids against him. The price rises. Hosea bids, "15 shekels of silver!" (That's all the money he has.) Someone else, "15, and a homer of barley!" Let's see, what else? "15, a homer - and a lethek!" Will it suffice? "Going..? Going...? Gone! Sold to...well, if it isn't Prophet Hosea. She's all yours, Prophet. A bargain at that price. You can pay my secretary over here."

I've tried to picture that meeting, when Hosea walks up to the woman who had once been his wife and shared his bed, the mother of his children. His children? Highly doubtful. Who's to say who the real father was, or fathers? (Paternity didn't start with Anna.) I've tried to hear the words he said to her, to hear her quiet response - if there was one. "Gomer, you are to live with me many days. You must no longer be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you." How many STD's did she bring? What did she say to her children when she met them at last? Were there grandchildren? What would she have said?

How could a man do something like this for a woman like her? She wasn't worth it. Go ahead; find another woman, one that understands what faithfulness really means. In the book of Hosea it's very understandable. Hosea is a type of God; Gomer is a type of Israel.
Faithfulness was something Israel never learned; they still don't have it. Faithfulness is what God is; He cannot help Himself. Hosea was expressing God's relationship to Israel by the way he related to Gomer. Faithfulness for adultery? Loyalty for betrayal?

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords.
His love endures forever." Psalm 136.1-3 (entire chapter)

"For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies." Psalm 108.4

"The Lord is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made." Psalm 145.13b

"God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." I Corinthians 1.9

Love...faithfulness...covenant loyalty...steadfast love...hesed. He loves us, always has, always will, and there's nothing we can do about it except reject it, or be like it.



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Several years ago Mike Harden had an article in the Columbus Dispatch. "When Frank Steger pushed himself into an upright position in the hospital bed, the heart monitor's fluid cursive line disintegrated into an erractic scribble. 'I told the doctor,' he said, peeking at the edge of the curtain to make sure that his wife, Mary, was not within earshot, 'I told him that I felt like I was drowning. He said this is what happens when you have congestive heart disease. I told him I'd rather he throw me off the roof instead."

Mary returned to the room, drawing a chair to his bedside. 'Thirsty,' he complained. She lifted the straw to his lips as he pulled the oxygen mask aside. The medicine made him sick then. She fetched the basin, wrapped a firm arm around his spasm-racked shoulders, mopped the sweat from his forehead. In sickness and in health. They were supposed to be preparing for a Florida vacation, not holding on to each other in a cardiac care unit. 'Help me sit up,' he whispered hoarsely.

In the end, love comes down to this; not Clark Gable's devilish first appraisal of Vivien Leigh, not Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr rolling in the surf, but, 'Help me sit up.' A sharp-toothed rain spattered against the windowpane. In the room, a procession of medical courtiers came and went, trading pills for blood and tinkering, ever tinkering, with the buttons and dials controlling the tubes and wires to which their patient was trussed.

One evening Frank was sitting asleep in the chair next to the bed. Mary paused in the waiting room to remove her street shoes and put on her slippers. She did not want to wake him now that sleep was such a rationed luxury. Soundlessly, she slipped into the chair next to his. In the end, love is not the smoldering glance across the dance floor, the clink of crystal, a leisurely picnic spread upon summer's clover. It is the squeeze of a hand. I'm here. I'll be here, no matter how long the night, even when you want most to close your eyes and be done with it all. Water? You need water? Here. Drink. Let me straighten your pillow.

'Help me into bed,' he said, he who had once been warrior triumphant in the business world. He was tough, demanding, but never as much on others as himself. If you gave him your best, no one could hurt you. If you gave him less, no one could hide you. She had been with him and beside him when the future was golden, beside him when health sent his career into eclipse. 'I'm thirsty,' he said. 'Here,' she said, 'let me get you something.'"

As Mary Janz, pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran in Racine sums up: "When all is said and done love is not rapture and fire. It's a hand steadier than one's own squeezing harder than a heartbeat."