One of the most unexpected and surprising experiences I’ve encountered in marriage restoration ministry is the attitudes of many men and women who are standing for the restoration of their marriages when they themselves have committed adultery. For some reason, I mistakenly expected that to make them more understanding and compassionate concerning the sin now besetting their spouses; but that does not seem to be the case! In fact, I have often found them to be even LESS understanding and compassionate, and I’m usually quite surprised by the level of unforgiveness, judgment and condemnation they harbor against their spouses. And since we’ve recently experienced a significant increase of men and women coming to FAMM who have been unfaithful and yet struggle with all of the same issues other men and women strive to overcome when marital infidelity occurs, recognizing and dealing with our own sin is obviously an important principle of marriage restoration. And since we all have sinned and God makes NO distinction between our “little” sins and the sin of adultery or any other sin, this is a very important matter for all of us, because none of us have justification not to forgive our spouses, much less the right to judge or condemn THEIR sin, which in the eyes of God is no greater than our own.
But first, I want to stress to those who wrongly believe that they don’t deserve to have their marriages restored because they have committed adultery or that they have done so much damage that marriage restoration is not possible, that marriage restoration is indeed possible after adultery! In fact, in the last sixteen months, we have been blessed to witness five marriages restored when the “prodigal” became the stander (ex-prodigals (EXP), as we call them)! And in three of those situations, as the result of the EXP’s infidelity, their spouses had also become involved in non-covenant relationships by the time the Lord dealt with them and they decided to stand for their marriages. And another had become emotionally involved with someone else as well. But when they started learning what the Bible teaches about their roles as husbands and wives and how to DO what the Word of God teaches, and began to put what they learned into practice, we were all blessed to see the miracle of their marriage restorations unfold before our very eyes! So the next time the devil comes calling and tries to sell you that bill of goods; be prepared to remind him of the awesome promise we ALL have in Isaiah 55 and send him packing as you turn from YOUR sinful ways and turn to the lord!
For some reason it’s easy to think that someone else’s sin is somehow greater or worse than ours, which is probably just human nature. Yet, that is definitely also an argument and pretension setting itself up against the knowledge of God and therefore a thought that we must take captive and make obedient to Christ, the Word (2 Corinthians 10:3-6). And Romans 3:21-24 makes it VERY clear that ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God and that the ONLY way ANY of us are forgiven for our sin is through faith in Jesus Christ and the power of His blood to atone for our sin. It says But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. And the following passages of scripture might come as a surprise to some, because they make it abundantly clear that GOD does NOT make the same distinction between one kind of sin and another that we so readily make, so read and carefully consider the significance of the following verses:
Matthew 15:19 – For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
Matthew 19:19 – Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ “
Mark 10:19 – You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’ “
Romans 13:9 – The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Obviously, in the eyes of God, lying, stealing, coveting, being slanderous, deceptive or misleading in any way, and failure to honor our parents and love others as ourselves are all just as sinful as murder and adultery. And as if that wasn’t enough to nail EVERY ONE OF US; let’s look at Hosea 4:1-3, which warns Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying. And then Romans 1:29-32 says They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! We’re all nailed on many counts with much of that, because it’s obvious that we’ve been no less unfaithful to God than our adulterous spouses have been to us!
But fully understanding and dealing with the error of our own ways becomes even more challenging, especially for those of us who have made the mistake of looking to the courts to “protect” us instead of truly putting our faith in the power and promise of God’s Word, when we read 1 Corinthians 6:6-11, because it states But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. So PRAISE THE LORD; no matter WHAT our spouses are doing or have done, they too can be saved, washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God just as we are! So that should be our prayer for our spouses, and that the Lord will do a work in OUR hearts and keep us from being so judgmental and condemning when we ourselves are no better. And we need to remember that it is ONLY by the grace of God that we are not in their shoes, and practice what Jesus taught about judging others in Matthew 5:1-5, where He said:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. And even though what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:6 is often left out when stating what he taught about winning spiritual warfare, we just can’t afford to ignore the importance of what he said, which is And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. Of course, that’s just affirmation of what Jesus taught when the woman was caught in adultery, because He didn’t say anything that excused or condoned her sin; he just said that those WITHOUT sin should cast the first stones! And that’s the exact same message He gives every one of us today!
And when we read The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14, it’s apparent that the Lord doesn’t even want us to focus on the sins of our mates in prayer, because it says To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” And even though the words of our prayers might not give an account of the ways in which we think we are better than our spouses, the mere mention of THEIR sin bears witness to our own self-righteousness, and God is not pleased. In fact, based on His Word, He has to oppose such prayers, because whether we realize it or not, they are in fact prideful and self-righteous prayers (1 Peter 5:5-6).
Since we have to rely on God for the restoration of our marriages and He repeatedly promises to work mightily on behalf of the humble, it’s very important to recognize that we are all sinners saved by God’s mercy and grace. And one way to insure our own humility is to spend the time normally spent keeping account of our spouses’ sin accounting for our own as we rely on God to help us overcome it. While we might understand to some extent the awesome power of prayer, praise and fasting, I don’t think we even come close to understanding and recognizing the amazing power of genuine humility. I’ve never seen anything effect positive change in relationships and situations so completely or so rapidly as the sincere demonstration of humility that usually follows when we stop looking at the sin and wrong doing of our spouses long enough to see just how wretched our own sin is in the eyes of God. And we can always tell when we’ve made it to that place in our walk and relationship with the Lord too; because that’s the ONLY way we can demonstrate love that truly covers a multitude of sin (1 Peter 4:8), covers all wrongs (proverbs 10:12), covers over an offense (Proverbs 17:9): and that we are not rude, self-seeking, easily angered, keep no record of wrong, and are able to always protect, always trust, always hope, and always persevere (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). And there’s no greater way to be blessed and encouraged as we stand for the restoration of our marriages than learning to love our spouses according to God’s Word, because that’s when we will truly experience righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy spirit (Romans 14:17)!
I realized that the sound had stopped just as soon as I started paying attention, and I realized it was Him trying to get my attention, so I began to think to myself, “What are you trying to tell me?” I immediately called my wife and gave her the news that I knew He was talking to me and wanted me to listen.