Bible Study Spiritual Adultery.

[Tenchi]

Jeremiah 2:20-21
20 "For long ago I broke your yoke and tore off your bonds; but you said, 'I will not serve!' For on every high hill and under every green tree you have lain down as a harlot.
21 "Yet I planted you a choice vine, a completely faithful seed. How then have you turned yourself before Me into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine?​

Perhaps the greatest and most common evil of which Israel was guilty was spiritual adultery. What is spiritual adultery? In the case of the Israelites, it was chasing after false gods, the gods of the pagan nations surrounding Israel, setting up "high places" of pagan worship on hilltops and in groves of trees where abominable, demonic practices were enacted, often involving perverted sexual rites and human sacrifice. This happened in large part through the marriage of Israelite men to pagan women who led the Israelite men they married into worship of their false and evil gods. Perhaps the most infamous OT example of this was King Solomon of whom the Bible says,

1 Kings 11:4-8
4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
8 Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

Long before Solomon was guilty of building evil places of worship for demonic gods, he had disobeyed God in multiplying wives and concubines and doing so from among the women of pagan nations. Though the "wisest king who ever lived," one disobedient choice after another, Solomon moved away from God and toward the incredibly dark abominations of false gods until, at the end of his days, he was accomplice to human sacrifice. And so, God finally punished Solomon's rebelliousness and sin:

1 Kings 11:9-11
9 Now the LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice,
10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not observe what the LORD had commanded.
11 So the LORD said to Solomon, "Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant.

What King Solomon did in drifting from God into worship of false, pagan idols, Israel and Judah did nationally, again and again. Though treated by God with great kindness and love, protected and sustained by Him and led into a "fruitful land," the Israelites turned repeatedly to spiritual adultery, straying from Him into vile paganism.

Jeremiah 2:5-7
5 Thus says the LORD, "What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me And walked after emptiness and became empty?
6 "They did not say, 'Where is the LORD Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, Who led us through the wilderness, Through a land of deserts and of pits, Through a land of drought and of deep darkness, Through a land that no one crossed And where no man dwelt?'
7 "I brought you into the fruitful land To eat its fruit and its good things. But you came and defiled My land, And My inheritance you made an abomination.

The Christian has been given, in Christ, a "Promise Land" spiritually. In Christ, the born-again believer has been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3; Ephesians 2:6-7; Romans 8:16) and made a "new creature in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17). This has happened by means of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9), who dwells within every born-again person, "baptizing" them into Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13; Romans 6:1-6; Titus 3:5) and making them a member of the "Body of Christ," the Church. In the Person of the Holy Spirit, the born-again Christian obtains all that God can give them spiritually, making of them his "temple" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

When, then, a person comes to faith in Christ as their Savior and Lord (Romans 10:9-10) and is spiritually "born anew," they step into relationship with God as His child with whom He wants fellowship, not mere reconciliation and adoption.

1 John 1:3
3 ...our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 13:14
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.

Revelation 3:20
20 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Like the OT Israelites, however, many born-again believers begin to play the spiritual adulterer, "cheating" on God with various false idols and evil "loves" that turn their hearts from their holy, loving Maker.

James 4:4
4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

1 John 2:15
15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

The World seduces the Christian person with the "sound and fury" of entertainment, and sensual excitement, and the gratification of the flesh; the World dangles material gain in front of the Christian, urging them to accept the idea that they deserve everything their hearts desire, that success means more stuff, that every want that possesses them should be fulfilled, that they are the apex of existence - their own "god," in fact. The "prince" of the World, the devil (John 12:31; John 14:30), wants the believer to think that their life is supposed to be lived in service to themselves, that they've got just one, quickly-fading crack at life and so must eke out of it all that they can. The devil delights in the Christian who makes "Esau's Choice," yielding up their eternal inheritance in Christ, the "fruitful land" God has given them in him, for an immediate, momentary satisfaction of fleshly desire.

God regards all of this as a kind of spiritual adultery, a treacherous betrayal of His love, mercy and grace that He's extended to His children in their Savior, Jesus Christ. He's made each Christian a "branch in the Vine" from whom He would produce the "fruit" of His Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, etc. (Galatians 5:22-23). Instead, His own "cheat" on Him, making of themselves "degenerate shoots of a foreign vine," rejecting the holy excellence of the "lover of their soul" in favor of the enticements of the World, the Flesh and the devil.

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

No Christian moves into an adulterous affair with a false god (or gods) in one sudden, giant leap. Instead, like King Solomon, they are brought to such a circumstance by a series of "small choices," a chain of decisions against God and for the World, the Flesh and the devil that, individually, seem insignificant and harmless. They mistake God's forbearance for His approval, or, at least, His tolerance, of their "adultery." At first, the believer's "affair" with a false god is just flirtation, winking at sin, looking at it, tasting briefly of its sinful offering. Watch a sin-filled movie here, and laugh at an off-color joke there; hastily scan some light porn online, or fantasize briefly about an illicit sexual encounter with a co-worker; neglect Bible study for a round of golf and Sunday morning worship for a couple more hours in bed; indulge in a flash of anger toward a fellow driver, or imagine an evil motive in the heart of another person. It's all small stuff - or so it seems - prompting a pang of conscience, perhaps, but nothing more.

But my choices develop momentum, one choice adding to the force of the next, slightly bigger one, which adds to another similar, but larger choice, and so on until, one day, I'm so far gone into sin, into spiritual adultery, that my moral sense has been entirely inverted, I'm caught in deep delusion, and I'm guilty of abomination.

Romans 1:18-32
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,
27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

No believer ever "gets away with it." Sin, God has promised, will always cost a man far more than he wanted pay, take him farther than he ever wanted to go, and yield in him a harvest of destruction far in excess of the evil seeds he's planted in his life (Romans 6:23; James 4:14-16; Galatians 6:7-8; Romans 8:5-8). This was the story of Israel, again and again; the result of a Christian's spiritual adultery today will be no different. Except a child of God repents of their sin and forsakes it, confessing it, and returning to humble, daily submission to God, the corruption, delusion and wickedness of Romans 1:18-32 will be their story.

Far worse, though, than the penalty our sin exacts from us in perverting our moral sense, and binding us in evil delusion and miring us in vile practices, is the loss of fellowship with our holy, loving Maker. He made us to know and love Him, to enjoy Him and to live to His glory. When we "cheat" on God with false gods, we are like a hammer being used to sew curtains, or a fish used to pull a plough. Our created purpose is fellowship with God and when we live in accord with this purpose for our making, we are like a well-played piano, or a stallion racing across a meadow, or an apple tree producing beautiful, red apples full of delicious sweetness. We are made to "fit" with God and so there is no greater, richer, better experience than to walk with Him in holy humility, love and joy. Spiritual adultery keeps us from the wonder and goodness of intimacy with our Creator and it is this that is, by far, the most terrible price we pay for our betrayal of our loving Heavenly Father.

Are you "cheating" on God, in an adulterous relationship with the World, the Flesh and the devil? Maybe you're just "flirting" with an opportunity to betray your relationship with Him. Make no mistake: The end of spiritual adultery is always bondage and darkness in a "far country." God has a much better end for you than this, if you'll love and trust Him and walk with Him in humble submission:

Psalm 16:11
11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Psalm 18:1-3
1 "I love You, O LORD, my strength."
2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies.

 

[reddogs]

The one that is deceiving many today is the deception of being 'woke' and spreading this 'belief' to others.