Getting married, vows were made to remain faithful to that one person you are getting married to and to forsake all others. Even in situations where such vows were not made, the institution of marriage connotes the height of commitment possible in human society, a lifetime commitment to that person till death.
The percentage of people who are able to stay true to this is what is unknown. Several cultures have had to adopt that in its various interpretations but in most, it is generally unacceptable not to be faithful to the marital vows.
But more and more, people break these expectations and vows to flirt around and commit all sorts of lewdness breaking each other's hearts and trust. Families have been scattered and marriages terminated because someone decided to defile the marriage bed.
It's difficult to expect that your spouse would go out of his or her way to sleep with another person. It shouldn't even ever be expected. Though we hear these days that some would do that with each other's consent, but we need to understand that the mutual consent doesn't make it right. It is taking perversion to another level.
That unfaithfulness is wrong and unfair isn't something we can feign ignorance of. Yet the knowledge of that wouldn't stop the temptation to flirt and, in so many cases, to fall, even if it draws guilt and pain.
Some see the solution as not being caught and would pay whatever ransom to keep it unknown but that too further creates problems. The fear of exposure with the guilt already there will definitely create untold psychological problems.
The answer isn't in mutual consent to live unfaithfully, neither is it in cover ups and definitely polygamy won't stop it, or how many women in a man's life will stop him from thinking of another one he is yet to sleep with? Except that polygamy or keeping a harem of women is hypocritical on many fronts, trying unsuccessfully to curb sexual immorality in men, without thinking of how to curb same in women. King Solomon with a thousand women in his life still craved for the wife of his youth, unsatisfied with the harem.
Even though, sexual immorality is a just reason for divorce, I don't think it should always end up there because if every sexual immorality in marriage ends up in divorce, how many marriages would remain?
But that code teaches us something in principle, that just as powerful as death is in separating a marriage, so also is sexual immorality. It teaches us that, sexual immorality and unfaithfulness is as if the person murdered his or her own wife or husband.
I have heard the argument that if God doesn't want us to sleep around why did he allow our libido to be inflamed towards others outside our spouses? But it's an irresponsible mentality. The question would be if you are to sleep around with every person towards whom your lust pushes you? How would that be?
The answer isn't in self justification but in self control with good reasoning. King Solomon said he who commits adultery has no sense. It takes a high level of thoughts to overlook and to avoid.
Some people would convince themselves with the illusion that they had married the most beautiful woman or the most attractive man. Maybe to make their spouses feel good or to make other people look less attractive, the truth however is that you may not have married the most beautiful person on earth but you have every responsibility to be faithful to him or her even if such has the world record of unattractiveness. To wait till you marry the most beautiful person before being sexually responsible is never to be faithful to anyone for life.
But it is possible to remain true. I can understand that it is possible to love your spouse and still fall into sexual immorality with another but it is not possible to be thinking correctly and fall.
As Christians, who are born again and recreated, we are built to be holy and to maintain the honor in marriage with the bed undefiled. We know God judges such. We have the capacity and grace and we need not shirk it rather, we should employ the riches of God's grace, the gift of righteousness and the quickening of the Holy Spirit to overcome.
When the home is working as it should and the love we have for each other is expressed, it will be difficult to fall. When we look out for each other and we respect each other's opinions about our lifestyles we become safe.
When we stay together, as friends and companions, it becomes difficult to fall. To be sexually immoral requires some degree of independence, secrecy and covering up and so interdependence, openness and togetherness between couples are deterrents. Except when the relationship has totally broken down and both have lost respect and sense of responsibility towards the other.
But the most basic of all deterrents is that self desire not to be involved in such acts for God, for spouse, for family and for self. It is a desire that must be deliberate with cogent decisions to go with, to consciously watch against vulnerabilities and engage every spiritual and physical resource to war against it and also employing the power of marriage itself to deal with it.
Marriage seals us normally with the commitments it comes with if we won't despise them. When the Bible says we should get married to avoid sexual immorality, God knows there are things in a godly marriage that should keep a child of God from sexual immorality.
In a functional marriage spouses wont be sex starved to the point of seeking relief outside marriage, if we don't want to be heartbroken, we need to do what we have to do. Yet, just that you are sex starved isn't enough reason to go out there sleeping around, it is like justifying rape by how the rape victim is dressed. Being sex starved in marriage is a problem that can be solved if help is sought, it shouldn't be a reason for adultery.
It is a matter of integrity to remain faithful to your wife or husband for life. It makes the other person sure of your reliability even in other areas. If you have been secretly nursing how to do things behind the back of your spouse or you are already deep into such, know that you are exposing yourself to hurts, guilts and shame of sexual immorality that may not quickly go away not just for you but for people you truly love and care about around you.
As we approach the new year, let this be a thing to seek and to do. When such decisions are made, God backs them up with His grace and power and with time we only wonder in retrospect how what people call impossible had become possible in our lives.
It is possible, let's do this! I wish you a happy new year 2019. God bless you.
Hebrews 13:4 English Standard Version (ESV)
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
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