Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Wisdom from Proverbs”
Our Bible verse for today: “Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well.” Proverbs 5:15 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Adultery is stupid.”
I’m not exactly sure how often the Bible explicitly forbids the practice of adultery, or portrays it as being something really stupid to do, but it’s a lot. God started with the seventh of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:14 and went on from there. At least fifty-three times in the Bible He forbids the practice. Sometimes the concepts of adultery and fornication are used interchangeably. Fornication is addressed at least twelve times.
In the Bible adultery means any voluntary sexual relations with a person other than your spouse. The term always applies when the sexual relations involve a person who is married to someone else, but it is also generally used to describe any sexual conduct outside of a marriage union between one man and one woman. Therefore sex between two unmarried people could also fall under the general concept of adultery. Simply put, sex outside of marriage is outside of God’s law.
In Proverbs 5:15-23 Solomon portrays sexual relations between lawfully wedded spouses as “drinking water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well” but sexual relations with someone other than your spouse is described as allowing your streams of love to “flow in the streets … in the public squares.” (5:16)
The editors of “The Daily Walk Bible” offer this insight: “A well, or fountain, offers pure water for personal use. The water that runs through the street is … basically sewage.”
So there you go – indulging in sex with someone other than your lawfully wedded spouse is like drinking sewage.
The rest of the Proverb goes on to describe the pain and anguish the adulterer causes for him/her self and for others. For instance verse 23 concludes the Proverb with the strong statement:
“A wicked man’s iniquities entrap him; he is entangled in the ropes of his own sin. He will die because there is no discipline, and be lost because of his great stupidity.”
Adultery is stupid. It’s like drinking raw sewage. It entangles people in sin, destroys homes, hurts children, and dishonors God. The Bible’s clear instruction is, “Don’t do it.”
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 