Across the country, and even in our own community, there are marriages crumbling in light of the Ashley Madison revelation. According to Wikipedia, “Ashley Madison is a Canada-based online dating service and social networking service marketed to people who are married or in a committed relationship who wish to commit adultery. Its slogan is ‘Life is short. Have an affair.’” Recently, a group of computer hackers broke into Ashley Madison’s database, leaking the names of individuals with an account on this website. This revelation is affecting thousands, from high profile celebrities to small town good ol’ boys. Now obviously, adultery certainly isn’t secluded to those with an Ashley Madison account. Unfortunately, neither does it exclude those who are “involved” with a church. According to purehope.com, 30% of church-going married adults have at one time committed adultery. It’s actually quite pervasive and scary to think about. It’s all around us!
What should this remind us of? Marriage is under attack from Satan. Why? Because if Satan can undermine Christian marriage, he can distort what is meant to be a beautiful and truthful picture of the gospel, namely the relationship between Christ and His bride–the Church (Eph. 5:22-33). When a husband or wife fall into adultery or leave one another, it says something false about the gospel. It portrays an image of a lack of eternal security in the gospel. On the contrary, the Bible teaches when a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit marks us as God’s forever. This is a picture of a no cheating, no divorce policy (Eph 1:13-14; 6:10-20; John 10:27-30; 17:1-12; 20:30-31; 1 Thes 5:1-24).
Remember that all people are sexually broken because of sin. All of us are in need of restoration. Only one man–Jesus Christ–was completely pure from the inside out. We are restored and made pure by looking to Him and depending on both His forgiving and transforming grace. Furthermore, there is hope in the gospel. Our God is the God of reconciliation. He can repair the most broken of marriages and the most broken sexuality.
As a faith family, we have to remember we are at war! Therefore, we have to wage war for biblical marriage with the gospel, remembering the eternal covenantal grace God has shown to those who are found in Christ. Let us take time to think about and celebrate God’s design for marriage! We must commit to pray for our own marriages. If you are married or thinking about marriage, pray together. If you’re taking time to genuinely pray and seek the Lord together, He will honor it. Pray God would teach you to love your spouse the way He loves them. It’s also vitally important we pray for other marriages around us, as well. Pray for those who have faithfully displayed the gospel through their marriage (celebrate, praise and give thanksgiving for them). But please do not forget to pray for the marriages in absolute shambles right now due to infidelity. Pray for the marriages around us to portray the profound mystery of Christ’s love for His bride–the church… Pray that people would see their ultimate need in knowing Christ! Pray they will find real satisfaction in knowing Christ and not in a temporal covenant breaking fling! Pray for redemption! Pray for reconciliation! It can be found in the gospel of Jesus Christ!
Adam K Rice 