In the Philippines, since 2016, AN AVERAGE of 500,000 marriages take place each year.

An among those
millions of marriages, PSA recorded 40% marriage-breakup statistics – 10,000 of those are filed in court
for annulment.

According to Department of Justice, 26% of married Filipina women were charged with adultery (having
extramarital affairs), and 42% of married Filipino men were charged with concubinage. 28% women
were charged as concubines.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at
a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”    —Matthew 5:27-28

The second commandment Jesus addresses in the Sermon on the Mount deals with adultery. In context,
it refers specifically to when a husband or wife sleeps with someone outside their marriage, though it
can include all kinds of illegitimate sexual behavior

The attitude behind adultery is lust, the selfish intention to use someone else to satisfy our own desires.
Lust is more than innocent attraction; it is thinking that if we could get away with it, we would sleep with
a person, regardless of their or our marital status. This is a form of coveting, the opposite end of the
spectrum from love.

According to Jesus, adultery is not only the act of having sex outside of marriage; it is also something you
do in your mind. Job, who understood this, had said, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look
lustfully at a girl" (Job 31:1). Job knew the danger of his heart being led by his eyes (Job 31:7).

Interested in knowing how God views adultery? “You shall not commit adultery,” He wrote as the
seventh commandment. He hates it. Infidelity alters both human relationships and the relationship
between the adulterer and God Himself. “But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ [accept my worship] Because
the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless,
though she is your companion and your wife by covenant” (Malachi 2:14 ESV). God “places the lonely in
families,” Psalm 68:6 explains. He wanted much more for us than to just leave our neighbor’s spouse
alone! He made us. He knows human nature far better than we do ourselves, and He knows adultery
destroys people and destroys families, the safe place He designed for people to flourish.

David allowed his heart to be led by his eyes when "he saw a woman bathing"; he saw that she "was
very beautiful," and then he sent for her and "slept with her" (2 Samuel 11:2-4). David first committed
adultery with his eyes and then with his body.

While recognizing that sexual attraction between a man and a woman is a gift from God, we must
remember that looking lustfully at another person is a sin against that person and against God. As a
pastor, I have seen the destructive results of sex outside of marriage and the bitter, high price people
have paid for a few moments of selfish pleasure.

What then are we to do? Jesus says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it
away... And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away." With the use of shocking
descriptions here to get our attention, Jesus is saying we should not let our eyes lead our heart, and we
should not let our hands do what is wrong.

Pero, adultery is more than our physical desires.

Adultery is a sin so grievous that the Lord uses it as a metaphor for what happens when His people love
other gods in His place (Ex. 20:14; Hos. 1). We may be tempted to think that we are not guilty of
breaking this commandment and having affairs with other deities as long as we do not commit crass
idolatry. But the new covenant development of this theme tells us that if we are not careful, it is
possible to betray Christ our husband, despite thinking that we are following Him.

James 4:4 shows us that we can commit spiritual adultery, even if we are not deliberately following
other gods. In today’s passage, the apostle labels his original audience as an adulterous people, despite
there being no indication in the epistle that sexual sin was a significant problem for his Jewish-Christian
addressees. This indicates that spiritual adultery is what James has in view. At the same time, however,
there is no hint that James’ original readers were guilty of some kind of crass, pagan idolatry. No, the
lover the audience pursued was something more subtle than outright idolatry and was therefore more
dangerous.

“Friendship with the world” describes the problem for the original readers, “the world” being the one
with whom James’ audience was committing adultery. “The world” in this context is being used much as
it is throughout the Johannine literature of the New Testament, that is, as a designation for that system
whose values, loves, and deeds are wholly at odds with what pleases our Creator ( 1 John 2:15–17). In
the case of the first readers of the epistle of James, the audience was betraying Christ and following
after the world by embracing the worldly way of treating people according to socioeconomic
distinctions, favoring rich believers and ignoring the plight of poor believers in the church ( James 2:1–7).
An embrace of ungodly speech, jealousy, and selfish ambition also demonstrated how many in the
audience loved the world and not the Savior (chap. 3).

In this fallen world, we are all affected in some way by these vices. We must guard ourselves against
those ungodly values of the world that can readily become patterns for our thoughts and deeds. If we
embrace this system, we are no better than those who cheat on the Lord with more obvious “gods.”