Robert Morris — The Principle of Intimacy
We're in a series called, "Relationship Through God's Top Ten". And so, we're on the seventh commandment, and I'm calling it "The Principle of Intimacy". I believe this tells us how to have intimacy with God and with each other, and especially in marriage, because of what it refers to. So we're on the seventh commandment, and it's Exodus 20:14, "You shall not commit adultery". Five simple words, "You shall not commit adultery". I want to share with you three ways that people commit adultery, not just one, but three ways. And if you remember, we're three parts, body, soul, and spirit, so that's actually going to be my three points, is we're going to talk about your body, your soul, and then your spirit, and many people don't realize that it could affect your spirit, but I'm going to show you in Scripture how it can, all right?
So, number one is the body. Now, you can commit adultery in your body. This seems self-explanatory, but I want to show it to you in Scripture, all right? 1 Corinthians 6:18, "Flee sexual immorality". Flee, run from it. "Every", notice the word every. "Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body" it didn't say soul or spirit here. "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit". It doesn't say the Holy Spirit. "In your spirit", so again, I'm going to say how this affects your spirit as well, because it's talking about sexual immorality, "which are God's".
So first of all, did God create sex? He did. We didn't mutate from some gob of gloop somewhere. Or goop or glob, I don't know how you say it, but we didn't mutate from something, God created us. So I'm going to surprise you a little bit, all right? God actually formed your sexual parts. You'd better be careful about the Amens today. It might throw me off a little bit. Amen? Okay. I knew this was going to be a tough message! All right, so. So, God formed your sexual parts, and listen, God formed you to have pleasure. That was His idea. But, did it go awry on Him? In other words, did the sexual urges become a little more than what He thought they would? Did He do too good of a job, you know? Was this not in the plan, or did He actually form... listen, God formed male and female to fit together. He designed that. That didn't just happen. God formed male and female to fit perfectly, and He formed it for you to enjoy yourself, and have pleasure and intimacy. But we don't think of it in a good way. We only think of it in a bad way.
I remember attending a pastor's conference one time, and this pastor, he preached a message on this to other pastors. And what he was trying to do was say enjoy your sex life with your spouse, so that you're not tempted to go do something else. It was a great message for pastors, because there's almost a feeling in the church that you have to be a prude if you're going to serve God, and yet I'm trying to tell you that God actually created you to have fun, in marriage. Here's the reason I'm saying this, is because we think, well, a pastor, he couldn't understand this, but I can. But, let me tell you someone else we think, you just couldn't understand this, Jesus. We think, Lord, you don't understand how strong this urge is.
Well, let me explain two things to you. Number one, He created it. He designed it to work. Number two, He was a human. He became a human. He lived through puberty. He lived through teenage years, through His 20s, and into His 30s, and He did it pure. And don't ever, don't ever believe — there's a humongous lie that neither Scripture nor any historical document would support that there was something between Him and Mary Magdalene. And all history reports and all evidence shows Mary Magdalene was older than His mother. But first of all, He never, it never would have happened. It makes me mad that someone even suggests something like that about our Lord. But, He understands. So you can commit adultery in your body, but God designed you to have full pleasure in marriage.
So you can also commit adultery, is number two, in your soul, in your soul. Proverbs 6:32 says, "Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding. He who does so", watch, "destroys his own soul". Destroys his soul. Now this word, destroy, I'm putting the definition up so you can see it, from the Hebrew. It means corrupts. He corrupts his soul. He ruins it, spoils it, injures it, wastes, batters, and rots. The soul begins to rot. It's ruined. Now, I understand God can redeem, but if any of you had a mistake in this area, you understand how much you spoiled your life in this area. I understand that.
The soul is made up of the mind, will, and emotions. Mind, will, emotions, how you think about things, how you feel about things, and then, the decisions you make. Now, listen to me carefully. You can commit adultery in your mind, and you can commit adultery in your emotions. You can have a wrong relationship in your mind with someone, and you can have a wrong relationship in your emotions with someone. And Jesus backs this up, and it's all through Scripture, that adultery, any thought or feeling toward another person that is inappropriate outside of marriage, is wrong. You can do this as you're married, you can do this before you're married.
Song of Solomon 3:5, "Do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases". Until it's time that it's pleasurable to God, and it will be pleasurable to you in marriage. Let me show you a word that maybe you never thought of. I love words, and I love to look at the root, and I can see the root of most words just by looking at them. But let me show you this, and you might get ahead of me on this, but the word fantastic. Fantastic is appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination. I want you to notice the word unrestrained. And, maybe you didn't realize this, but here's the root of this word. Are you ready? Fantasy. Imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
See, the unrestrained part is what I'm concerned about. And I'm going to tell you something that might even shock you. God actually designed you to live a fantasy with a person, your spouse. For you to say what we have is like a fantasy. It's fantastic. This is why I'm saying this is the principle of intimacy. I'll keep taking you back to this. You can't imagine the intimacy that you can experience with one person when you keep the Lord in that relationship. It's phenomenal.
So, affairs start in the soul, before they ever get to the body. Let me show you what precedes lust. See, lust precedes adultery. Let me show you what precedes lust. Look. "You have heard it said of old, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust has already committed adultery". So, lust precedes adultery, but let me tell you, this is such a simple thing. Looking precedes lust. You cannot imagine how many times I'm driving down the street and there is an athletic woman jogging, and I'm not going to look, because I know what that leads to. I'm just going to look the other way. I've had to train myself to do this.
Potiphar's wife, the Bible says, cast longing eyes on Joseph. She looked before she lusted. David saw Bathsheba from his balcony. He looked, and that stirred up lust, which caused adultery. Job 31:1, "I've made a covenant with my eyes", and I've literally said and done this. I've done this personally. "I've made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman"? You have to make a covenant.
When I was a young man, and God began dealing with me about this, I heard Pastor Olen share something like this that he did. And so, I said to Debbie, I said, I need to talk to you about something. So she said, okay. I said, I have a problem looking. You know what she said? You think? You might think you're being sly, sir, but it's noticeable. So I said, well, I don't want to do it. So I said, if you see me looking, I said, I want you to confront me and pray for me. Confront me and pray for me. Now, here's the problem. I didn't define how to confront me.
So a few months later, we were on vacation and we were seated at the pool, which is like being seated at a bar for an alcoholic, you know? It's just, you know, a pool's not a good place if you've ever had a problem in this area. So you know, we're reading magazines and I'm looking over the top of the magazine. And this girl walks by, and I made a mistake. Men, you know, when you've got sunglasses on, you can move your eyes, don't move your head. Because then they know, okay? So, I followed her like this. All of a sudden, I felt this excruciating pain! Debbie reached over and started pinching me. This, by the way, is the eleventh commandment, thou shalt not pinch thy husband on the back of his arm! She started pinching right here, and she said, do I need to pray for you?
So, adultery can happen in the body, but it can also happen in the soul. But I'm concerned, because here's point number three, the spirit. Something happens in the spirit that most of you do not realize with adultery, most of you, most. Genesis 2:24, when marriage began, says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh". Now, I want you to notice a couple of things very important here. Flesh, so one body. "They shall be joined", I'm telling you again, God created the male and female parts to fit together. They'll be joined together. They become one flesh, it says. It doesn't say one spirit here. It says one flesh. They'll come together, they become one, and a man will leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife.
Do any of you remember the Old King James word for joined here? A man will leave and cleave, right. It used to be in the marriage vows. Do you commit to cleave only to this woman, you know, till death do you part? Cleave. Okay, leave and cleave. Okay, so there's a leaving and a cleaving. So, this Scripture is repeated in the New Testament four times. Jesus says it and Paul says it. Three times it refers to marriage, but one time, it's in 1 Corinthians 6, where I told you to turn, and I want to show it to you. Watch this, 1 Corinthians 6:15. "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ"? Your bodies are members of Christ. I wish you could think about that all week, about how you treat your body. Your bodies are members of Christ. "Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not"! Or, an immoral person. "Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two", He says, "shall become one flesh".
Okay, so this Scripture, that's about marriage, that a man leaves his father and mother and is jointed to his wife, says but if that same man then joins himself to another woman, he now becomes one with her. There's a leaving and a cleaving, and there's a oneness that happens. And we're talking about in the body, but we're about to show you how it happens in the spirit, also. Okay. Here's the problem. There's a leaving. I have actually had parents tell me, we could tell you within a few weeks when our son began having sex with his girlfriend, because he left us. We could feel it.
Okay. So, that's not, that wasn't in the body, even though he joined himself in the body. Something in the spirit realm happened. How else would they know that? I've had couples tell me, the offended party in an adulterous affair, the offended party, the one that was innocent, say, I've had this happen many times, I can tell you within a few weeks, or even sometimes even within a few days, when my husband began having an affair, because I could feel something change in our relationship. Here's what she felt. He left her. Maybe not physically, in other words, of the sense of leaving the home, but he left. Because in order to cleave, you have to leave. Are you all following me? In order to join yourself with someone else, you have to leave someone.
Now, we're talking about in the body, and in the soul, in the mind, or the emotions, because you can leave emotionally, too. But I'm telling you, something happens in the spirit. Okay, we stopped at Verse 16. Look at Verse 17. "But he who is joined", same word, "to the Lord is one spirit with Him". Remember we read that first, down in Verse 19, it says, "Glorify God in your body and in your spirit". You have a spirit. And when you join yourself with the Lord, you become one spirit with Him. Okay, but when you commit adultery, listen. In order to become joined to someone else, you have to leave someone.
Do you really think that you can take the members of your body, the members of Christ, and join those with the members of a harlot? Do you really think you can do that? Do you think everything's okay in your relationship with God when you're committing adultery in your body or your soul? You have to leave the Lord. Now, I'm not saying you lose your salvation. Your salvation's based on grace, and thank God it is. But, you lose your intimacy with God. Don't every try to convince yourself that you're in a vital, ongoing, passionate, intimate relationship with Jesus when you're having an affair on Him. Don't ever think you can convince yourself of that. But here's what you need to know. You leave Him in the spirit. There's a leaving. There's also a cleaving, and do you know what you join yourself to? A demonic spirit.
I was speaking to a youth group one time, and one of the young ladies said, and this was a young lady, and we were talking, so we were talking very honestly and openly. And she said, I'm a little embarrassed to ask this question, but I don't know why, I don't understand. She said, if we're two Christians and we're going to get married anyway, we love the Lord, and we're trying to finish our degrees first before we get married, our parents have told us, by the way. By the way, we never told our children that, because we thought entering marriage pure was much better than entering marriage with a degree. Personally. And we told our kids, because most people say, we won't pay for it. We've told our kids, and the ones that married into our family, we'll pay for your education. We'll keep paying for it. Because we know there's a strong desire. If you think you can go two or three years and not fulfill that strong desire, I doubt it. You're a lot stronger than I am, I can guarantee you. So we told them, you get married and then we'll take care of the schooling.
All right. So, in order though to have, she asked this question. If we really love each other and we're going to get married anyway, what difference does a piece of paper make? I said, none. None, zero. The piece of paper makes no difference. That's not what makes the difference. It's the blessing of God. It's the principle of God's Word. So I said, but let me explain to you why, and I said to her, I said, I want to explain. This is your boyfriend sitting beside you, right? Right. Yep. You love each other? Yep. You're asking a really honest question. I'm glad, but I want to tell you how you will ruin your message if you give him what he wants right now, and he wants it, I just know. But I'm going to tell you, young lady, how you will destroy your marriage if you give it to him before marriage.
In order to have premarital sex, you have to sneak around to do it. You don't just say, this is what I told this youth group. You don't say, your parents say, where are you all going tonight? Going to have sex! Great, have a good time! You have to lie. We went to Suzie's house, we went bowling. You have to lie. You have to be deceptive. You start developing a habit, and lots of habits that you shouldn't develop and God never intended you to develop. And, you have to sneak around to do it. So, you actually develop an appetite that God never intended you to develop. Listen to the appetite you develop. You develop an appetite for sneaking around sex. And He never intended you to develop that. So, you develop an appetite for sneaking around sex, but then you get married, and guess what happens? You don't have to sneak around anymore, until you have kids. But, you don't have to sneak around anymore. You don't have to sneak around.
This is why, and I said to this young lady, this is why, if you develop this appetite in him, once you get married, you'll never be able to satisfy it. And this is why he'll start talking to an administrative assistant or a co-worker at the office, and this is why you might actually start developing some emotional feelings toward someone, because he listens to you. But let's just take it with the man. He'll begin talking with someone and flirting, and you know what he's doing? He's sneaking around. He's not even doing anything in the physical yet, but maybe some texts, or maybe an internet chat room or something, and he'll start flirting around. He'll start fueling that appetite, satisfying this appetite that you, young lady, created in him, but God said don't do this, and He had a reason. And so, pretty soon he'll begin to think that he loves her, and not you, because he feels the same way now when he's with her as he used to feel when he was with you, before you got married.
Now, listen how unbelievably foolish Satan is to get us to believe this, because here's what'll happen. Then he'll divorce you, and marry her, and guess what happens? He doesn't have to sneak around anymore. So, he doesn't feel now the same way with her that he used to feel before. This is literally why some people say we'd rather just live together than get married, because when you get married, it ruins it. Because they know, deep down in their hearts, even if they don't know the Bible, that they're doing something wrong. This is why some people have been married three, and four, and five, and six times, because they created an appetite that cannot be satisfied. It can't be satisfied.
So, what do you do? What do you do if you had premarital sex, or you have had sex after you got married with someone else? You repent. You confess and repent. You bring it out in the light. You say, why confess it? Because Satan works in the darkness. And every time I preach a message like this, we have many confessions. You say, does that bother you, Pastor? No, because I know, I can just tell you, let me tell you who falls in this area. Humans. And I pastor humans. So, it doesn't bother me that we have many confessions, because it actually excites me we can finally get it out of the darkness into the light. So, we may have some confessions this week. We'll help you. We'll help you. But, to the offended party, please let me say something. It may be very tough to hear it, but you're on the first step to God doing something very, very wonderful in your life, very wonderful. Please, please understand, if you violate this commandment, you will not have an intimate relationship with your spouse that God intended, and you will not be allowed an intimate relationship with the Lord.
God gave us these Ten Commandments as ten principles, and each principle allows us to have a deeper relationship with God, and a deeper relationship with someone else. In the same way, the principle of intimacy allows us to have intimacy with God and intimacy with others, and especially our spouse. So I want to encourage you, if you've messed up in this area, turn back to the Lord. Let the Lord restore that intimacy with Himself and with others and especially with our spouses.