If you find yourself compromised and wedged between a husband and wife, know that God loves you so much. Jesus died for you. He relentlessly pursues you with a passionate love. God’s grace is available for you. If you are tired, weary or burdened, He opens His hands, arms, and heart to you, beckoning you to come to Him, be in His presence, know His love. He has compassion for you. You are His workmanship, created for a wonderful purpose. He gave you specific talents and gifts, experiences, abilities, blessings and challenges because He is shaping you for His wonderful plan for your life. He wants you to have a life that is abundant in all its fullness.
You may not have known that as God was trying to give you that full life, you have been having an enemy who is actively trying to hinder you from living that life. That enemy is Satan. He is very good at deceiving people and entrapping them. (Here’s a link to the first of a series of posts on becoming victorious in spiritual battle: http://atomic-temporary-30301605.wpcomstaging.com/2013/03/19/know-your-enemy/).
Satan knows what every person’s weakness is and he will use exactly that to lure people away from God. He knows how to surround with bombardments of endorsements from changing culture, changing emotions, changing logic, changing traditions to make that customized attractive temptation seem worth it. These are all part of His deception to keep you away and shortchange you from the God who truly loves you, wants the best for you, wants to bless you exceedingly abundantly beyond all you ask or imagine.
As the bases for decision-making (culture, emotions, logic, and tradition) change, God’s Word remains the same.
Marriage is God’s design. He hates divorce (Malachi 2:16a). It is His will that a man leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife that they may be one flesh (Gen 2:24). He considers divorce a violence to the one-flesh relationship (Mal 2:16b) in defiance to Him and His command to not separate what He has united in marriage (Mark 10:9).
Marriage is God’s work. Satan, the enemy, seeks to destroy, divide, and deceive. Becoming a wedge between a husband and wife is the enemy’s work to destroy the marriage, divide the family, and deceive the straying husband and third party. You may not have intended to be in obedience to Satan. But actions that attack a marriage directly or indirectly are not God-led but Satan-led. God will not lead you to a life of lying, deceiving, stealing, destroying, or prostituting your precious soul.
Satan knows that a guarded person will not run smack into a snare. But if the snare is cleverly designed, just as is expected from the enemy, the prey can be so blinded by the bait that they are oblivious to the systematic entrapment. Just a small compromise at a time… just a business transaction, just a coffee break together, just a human to human encouragement, until all the “just”‘s seem justified. Before they know it, they are caught in the devil’s trap where they are held captive to do his will.
2 Timothy 2:26b
…the devil’s trap where they are held captive to do his will.
There is a way out. God wants to redeem you and give you a new life. Come to Him. A promise of forever is only good until the life of the person giving the promise. Do not compromise your soul for a human who may not be here after today. God’s promise of forever is eternal as He Himself is eternal.
No human’s offer of attention, devotion, faithfulness, material provision will satisfy the true longings of your soul for God’s unconditional, eternal, unchanging, genuine, selfless, sacrificial love.
The unfaithful spouse may tell you that in his or her heart and mind, the marriage has been over and he is available. He may tell you that he has long been longing to leave the marriage and now that he has met you, he has found what he has been looking for. This may turn on your need or longing to be The Answer to someone’s problem, The Long Awaited One who will finally fulfill someone’s dreams. But before playing the musical overture, take a sober look at reality. This person who is promising you whatever he is promising you is compromising you. He is bound by a prior promise unto an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present God to be The Husband of his wife for worse, in poorer, in sickness until death. He is accountable to Someone who can do anything to him, he can’t lie to or hide from, he can’t get away from. But he has no fear of violating his promise. He considers himself above the law of God and above the law of man. This person can walk away from his vow unto God. What do you think the chances are that he will not walk away from his promise to you? He is tossing prudence, wisdom, integrity. Do you think you are on God’s side when you encourage him in some way to turn away from God? This man is responsible for leading, nurturing, raising his family but he is hurting them long-term in the worst way… as though hurting his own self because he has been made one with his spouse and his children are his legacy to the world. If he can do that to his own, you think he will protect you? What value will you put to his words? If he were applying for credit from you, what do you think is his credit rating based on past history? Where are you putting your bets on?
Ps 146:3 NIV Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. 4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Jer 17:5 This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
Like a drug, an affair can address certain needs. It may feel right.
Feelings are not definitive measure of truth. It will not vindicate one from crime or sin.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12 NIV84) Ask God to reveal to you the needs from the depths of your heart that you are trying to fill through this compromise. If you haven’t found completion in the all-sufficient God, all the more you will not find it in a limited human being. If that person is looking for an escape, he will only expect you to complete himThe fun will wane. The stages of human love will take their course. (Link on stages of human love below in “Perfect Valentine” http://atomic-temporary-30301605.wpcomstaging.com/2012/02/14/perfect-valentine/). Something forbidden or unattainable is thrilling to get. But reality will come.
Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”
If the entirety of life consisted of just flesh and whatever one sees with the naked eye, it will be alright to pursue fleshly gratification at all costs. But the unseen spiritual aspect of life is real. Eternity is real.
Mark 8:36 MSG says: “What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?” People trivialize and brush off the concept of hell until a close call with death or until that last breath. But the reality of hell does not stand on whether people believe it or not. After the flesh becomes dust, the destiny of the soul is set whether people believe it or not. And if a day or month or year of temporary deprivation to make one’s life right with God is painful, that day or month or year can not compare to eternity in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
Wait for God’s best for you. The consequences of sin are never worth the temporary pleasures and benefits it promises. Like drugs, sin can consume and own a person. Pray for a way out and get out as soon as you can no matter what it takes.
Dear Lord,
You love everyone (John 3:16). You want everyone to be right with You (2Pet 2:9). You heart is to bless. If there is someone who is wanting to be made right with You but does not know how, please reach out to them right now and allow them to feel Your perfect, unchanging, unconditional, gracious, eternal love for him/her. May You reveal Yourself mightily to this person. May You allow him/her to experience Your presence in such a real way that he/she will know that You are alive and waiting for him/her to return to You. Let him/her know that You offer the forgiveness of all sin through Jesus Christ. Please let him/her know that Jesus did not come to condemn but to save, that no one is beyond redemption, that there is no sin so great that You can not forgive. May You rescue him/ her from the trap of the enemy and give him/her true freedom, true riches, true life. Please fill him/her with Your Holy Spirit that (h)she may be filled with Your love, Your joy, Your peace. Please help him/her to turn away from his/her sin and live a new victorious life in You in Jesus’s name and for His glory, amen.
Here are some of the things from God’s Word regarding dividing a husband and wife that show how great a value He puts into keeping intact the sanctity of marriage and to prevent man from putting asunder a marriage:
Genesis 20:3 But that night God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him, “You are a dead man” for that woman you have taken is already married!”.
This is what God told Abimelech even before he actually touched Abraham’s wife, Sarah.
Hebrews 13:4 (AMP) Let marriage be held in honor (esteemed worthy, precious, of great price, and especially dear) in all things. And thus let the marriage bed be undefiled (kept undishonored); for God will judge and punish the unchaste [all guilty of sexual vice] and adulterous.
Leviticus 20:10 The (wo)man who commits adultery with another’s spouse, even his neighbor’s spouse, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Proverbs 6:32 But whoever commits adultery with another person’s spouse lacks heart and understanding (moral principle and prudence); (s)he who does it is destroying his own life.
Revelation 2:21-23 21 I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to turn away from her immorality. 22 “Therefore, I will throw her on a bed of suffering, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer greatly unless they repent and turn away from her evil deeds. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. And I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.
Excerpts from 1Corinthians 6 Flee Sexual Immorality
13 “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both.” The body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 Now God indeed raised the Lord and he will raise us by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body”—but the immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.
Previous Posts:
Redemption in The Flesh: Ann Blas, From An “Other Women” to Godly Counselor
Real Hope For New Life After Adultery: Kay Arthur Testimony
A Betta Life: Transformed by Grace
BUTTERFLY IN THE SPRING 
Amen!