July 2

Jul 2 - Today from Proverbs 2 we look at verses 16 & 17
"(Wisdom) will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God."

Adultery isn't nearly as big of a problem as it used to be. Not because it has become more rare in our culture. On the contrary, it has probably become more common. It's just not as much of a problem any more because we have become more tolerable. To be sure, adultery is still a fiery issue with those who are its victims of betrayal, but it has lost much of its shockingly scandalous impact in society at large. We have evolved to postmodern tolerance, and we shall not sit in judgment of what people do with their private lives. Even our highest office, the President of the United States, can be guilty of adultery and still maintain a high popularity rating. Values are no longer universal, they are a matter of personal preference.
Wisdom is understanding life the way God meant it to be. His Word very clearly reveals the sanctity of marriage and the relationship between a man and his wife. No matter how much man exalts tolerance as a virtue, moral tolerance is sin and in the end it leaves the stench of death. The Kingdom of God is not a democracy whereby mankind can change moral law by a popular vote. Ecclesiastes 3:14 says, "I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it." Man cannot amend God's law.
The problem with moral failure (sin), is that the consequences are not always arrived at in a calculated fashion. If the consequences are not immediate, man tends to think that the imperative was conditional. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes puts it this way in chapter 8 verse 11, "When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." Such people calculate that if there is no immediate consequence, then there must be no moral absolutes. If there are no moral absolutes, then experimentation with all other former moral boundaries is acceptable in order to see where one determines their own self-conceived boundaries to be. Soon, in God's eyes, they are filled with schemes to do wrong. In man's eyes, it can no longer be determined to be judged as wrong. Man has arrived at the virtue of moral tolerance. Any private act between two adults that has been mutually consented to is considered acceptable within their own moral boundaries, and society at large is not allowed to openly judge their conduct. Freedom of choice. But it becomes a slippery slope. If a society recognizes that the act is no longer universally immoral, the next step is to sanction the act so that the participants are 'protected' under the law. The law, which had formerly been the guardian of morality, now becomes the protector of immorality. Man's law, not God's.
God gives man the right to make his own choices, but God reveals that there are consequences to wrong choices. It's built into the system. Sin is persistent. For example, it may take 100 blows of a sledgehammer to split a boulder, but it wasn't the 100th blow that did it. Every blow caused micro-fractures that contributed to the final outcome. To believe that we can sin with impunity because we experience no consequence is deception. People who live immoral lives are walking disasters waiting to happen. One day the 100th blow will hit and their lives will fall apart. Sexual sin is a sledgehammer. Whether the consequences are immediate or not, it will do its work. Not only to those who participate, but the blows of the hammer also affect many others; children, parents, friends and neighbors.
Wisdom will save you from sexual immorality.