13 4Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Last week we started to look at a series of practical exhortations for the church to embrace.
To the modern reader it seems to be more like a string of commands the author has just randomly pulled out of a bag.
But in reality, it’s a list of timeless Christian truths that are the endurance needed to run the race set before us…here in chapter 13 he spells out just what that endurance should look like and what form it should take.
A summary of Christian lifestyle truths found throughout the New Testament are summed up in the 13th chapter of Hebrews.
—Keep on Loving Each Other (13:1)
—Show Hospitality to Strangers (13:2)
—Remember Those Mistreated as If You Were Suffering (13:3)
—Marriage Should Be Honored (13:4)
—Keep Free from the Love of Money and Be Content (13:5-6)
—Obey Your Leaders and Submit to Them (13:17)
He starts off by making three imperative statements revealing practical instructions for those living a Christian lifestyle.
Let brotherly love abide
Show hospitality to strangers
Remember those in prison
In [4]Scripture offers some very specific instructions about marriage fidelity… this verse deals specifically and powerfully on the subject of marital faithfulness and sexual purity.
A topic that over the past few years has become controversial…the institution of marriage…let me just share something with you regarding preaching.
TWO THINGS:
…Seminary 101…you never preach to ‘someone’ from the pulpit…ever heard someone say… ‘I’m not going to that church anymore, the preacher’s always preaching at me’ no he’s not…blame that on the Holy Spirit.
…Secondly…neither do you use the pulpit as an opportunity to degrade people or to express your personal opinions…as a preacher I’m not called to give my opinion…I don’t get to say what I think…I get to say what the Bible says.
Hebrews 13:4 is emphasizing that marriage is to be held in honor…that it should be esteemed as something precious.
BUT…it is remarkable that in the entire history of the human race…almost 6000 years…how society has redefined marriage…in the history of mankind there has been a massive effort to destroy the institution of marriage.
Even in the ancient world marriage had a mixed view…many chose to refrain from marriage, believing that to choose marriage was to choose a spiritually inferior life…that being married would somehow deter you from your spiritual duties.
While some may be given the gift of celibacy [I Cor. 7:7] there is never in Scripture a call for abstaining from marriage…the gift of celibacy enabled a person to remain single so they could be devoted more to the Lord…but as in all gifts…it’s not for everyone…nor should it be imposed on anyone…the early church developed the idea that it made you more spiritual to be celibate.
The Romans believed marriage was only beneficial for having legitimate children…for them keeping up a healthy marriage could only be maintained by embracing prostitutes and mistresses.
Our culture today is not that much different from the society of the first century …today’s no-fault divorce laws and prenuptial agreements reinforce the idea that devotion is out…redefining marriage as a means to satisfy their own sexual interests.
Then there’s the Feminists Movement who continually condemns marriage as an enemy of gender equality…that marriage is a jail cell…a prison for women.
They see marriage where the insecure husband plays a god-like role and his wife, who naively initially submits to and worships him…but…eventually she matures…comes to her senses…finds her situation depressing…deplorable… degrading…and abandons him.
What the Feminists fail to see…and men fail to understand…is that a woman is as equally important to God as a man…clearly the Bible sets the standards for the relationship between a man and a woman.
God not only created Eve to meet Adam’s needs, but Adam was also required to meet Eve’s needs in their relationship.
No one emphasizes the importance of the man/woman relationship better than the well-known Bible scholar W. C. Fields who echoed that sentiment in the movie ‘My Little Chickadee’.
Fields quotes the verse: it’s not good for man to be alone…emphasizing the Biblical need for companionship…and May West, knowing the importance of companionship, responds, ‘it’s not too good for a woman either.’
Here’s where the rub comes in not only with Feminists but with married people in general…it’s because the fall ruined the harmony of marriage…Bible says so.
It twisted man’s leadership role into hostile domination in some men and lazy indifference in others…all the while twisting women’s willing submission to their husbands into manipulative dominance in some women and brazen insubordination in others.
Then there’s the most recent attempt to redefine marriage as a union between two individuals of the same gender…same sex marriage…attempting to make it the equivalent of a traditional marriage and portraying it as a human right issue.
Probably the biggest frustration with me with regards to the homosexual community is if you oppose that lifestyle…if you stand against it…you’re labeled as an intolerant bigot…homophobic…or viewed as anti-American.
Proclaiming God’s standards regarding marriage in no way implies the church hates homosexuals…here’s where that mind set comes from…from groups that identify themselves as ‘Christian’ like the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka who have tainted all Christians because of their inflammatory homophobic hate speech that has been denounced by every mainstream Christian domination.
Proclaiming God’s standards regarding marriage in no way implies the church hates homosexuals…it’s the lifestyle that is a perversion to God…no different than having an extra-marital affair…both are a perversion to God.
God refutes all these views
…that marriage somehow deters you from your spiritual duties.
…that marriage is only beneficial for having legitimate children
…redefining marriage as a means to satisfy people’s sexual interests.
…that marriage is a jail cell…a prison for women.
Marriage is neither a human invention nor an evolutionary development… marriage is ordained by God…it’s the oldest institution on the planet…created as the union between one man and one woman for a lifetime.
God’s purposes for establishing marriage has not changed:
for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. [Gen 2:24 / Eph. 5:31]
My intent here is to focus on the importance of marriage with respect to it being the institution that God gave us…in fact…in 2004 then President George Bush called for a constitutional amendment to uphold marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Marriage is the formal recognition by society and the laws of society to be the most profound relationship that can exist between a man and a woman.
Social science tells us that by virtue of its function and purpose in society, marriage is an essential institution.
But with respect to the last half of verse 4…regarding fornication and adultery… let me share with you why sexual impurity… whether it’s homosexual or heterosexual, is so devastating and why scripture speaks out against it so passionately.
Let me show you how God deals with any kind of sexual impurity…[Rom. 1:24]
Therefore, God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
The word ‘gave up’ in the Greek means to hand over…it’s not referring to eternal abandonment…it means God left them to their own self-determination…God gives people the control of their own actions…over to their sexual impure desires resulting in the dishonoring of their bodies.
People who think only in terms of gratifying themselves are the people God has given up on or allowed them to follow through on their own sensual desires.
When God is cast off…once people have consciously put God out of mind and allowed Satan to have dominion in their thoughts and in their lives, they enter into a downward spiral.
Here’s the thing…God will allow them to carry out their desires…allowing them to go all the way to the end of the road they have deliberately chosen.
How God deals with us on a personal level is a microcosm of how God will deal with the world collectively at the end of time.
With respect to America…as we seek to eliminate God from our minds…our lives…our schools…to eliminate the complete awareness of the consciousness of God…we see the inevitable downward trend of a society that is going deeper into the consequences of immorality.
Not holding the truth of God anymore…here’s the results…it’s scriptural:
The result is a nation filled with… unrighteousness…fornication…wickedness …covetousness…murder…strife…deceit…proud…boastful…inventors of evil …being haters of God…disobedient to parents…without understanding… without natural affections…all are the inevitable consequences of man removing God out of his life and out of society.
WATCH how God views any kind of sexual misbehavior…whether heterosexual or homosexual.
When a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one flesh with her…when having an intimate relationship with your wife…the two shall become one… what makes having a relationship with someone other than your spouse any different? …it doesn’t…you become one with her.
Here’s what happens…not only has that person defiled the temple of the Holy Spirit living in him…but it doesn’t stop there…it gets worse…he takes the whole church with him.
In law enforcement there is no such thing as a victimless crime…somebody has to be the victim or there’s no crime…in religion there is no such thing as a sin that’s not hurting anyone…any and all sin hurts you…and it hurts the church.
That’s why Paul says…regarding the man who was sleeping with his father’s wife…Paul says I’ve already judged him…this refutes the idea that ‘I’m not supposed to judge anyone’ …Paul says…throw the man out of your church.
He doesn’t say counsel him…doesn’t say pray with him…he tells those believers to not associate with or even share a meal with him…(1 Cor. 5:9, 11) Sin in the church affects everyone.
That’s why the church cannot have known unrepentant sinners in their midst… it affects the whole church.
Throughout the book of Hebrews, the writer constantly reminds us that we are enrolled in heaven…that’s good…I shared my sermon ‘you have come to’ with the senior living folks last week to emphasize that salvation is forever.
BUT…what is notable about this verse as well as many others is how the twin themes of salvation and judgment are constantly intertwined.
In verse 12:23 He mentions that God is the Judge of all…here he again mentions God judging…this is not the side of God the church in America wants to hear about…but God’s judgment is a common theme throughout the Bible:;
God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad [Ecc.12:14] …many scriptures hammer home this warning.
There is no way to sugar coat what the author writes regarding those who practice sexual immorality… ‘God will judge’ …there’s no way to soften that… as believers we do not need to fear God’s judgment…BUT…WARNING:
Scripture is clear that if you habitually practice sexual immorality… you may not be a genuine Christian…and if you are…God will discipline you severely if you engage in sexual sin.
TWO THINGS ABOUT SIN
—FIRST…Here’s the thing about sin…any sin…God will forgive sin…but He will not remove the consequence of sin…sometimes the consequences of sin can haunt us for years to come.
—SECONDLY…There are no degrees when it comes to sin…no one sin is more severe than the other…now it does seem that sins of rebellion are worse than sins committed in ignorance…and some sins carry a more severe consequence …mistreating orphans and widows…sexual immorality seems to kind of fit in that classification as well…BUT…the result is the same for all…death.
Let me end this on a good note…the complexity of what is said in [v 4] could be a series of sermons…encompassing the duties…responsibilities…and directives regarding the role of the husband and wife …but…here the author is teaching the critical importance of sexual purity.
Reminding us of the need for personal purity…knowing that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit…just as the physical act between a husband and his wife is a union of their two bodies becoming one, so is the spiritual union of every believer with Christ.
The warning in this verse is to remind us of the need to be aware of how we treat…and what we do with, our bodies…a warning to take heart and seek to live holy lives in thought, word, and deed, for His name’s sake.