Ten Commandments (1972)_b.pdf - Herbert W. Armstrong

102 The Ten Commandments
have already discussed the first of these: "Honor thy
father and thy mother...."
The other law directly governing the home and family
is contained in the seventh. commandment: "THOU SHALT
NOT COMMIT ADULTERY" (Ex. 20:14).
Almighty God gave this commandment to protect the
honor and sanctity of marriage. Immediately after the
sixth command which declares the sacredness of human
life, God gives this law to safeguard the highest earthly
relationship. For marriage and the home is the BASIS of all
decent society.
The words of the command directly forbid adultery as
violating the sacred rights of the marriage relation. Its
spirit makes evident the fact that all unchaste conduct
before marriage is a wrong done to the future marriage and
unfaithfulness before marriage is violating the command
as much as adultery committed after marriage.
In this "permissive" modern age, it is important to
remind ourselves that God has promised to reward those
who break this commandment with the penalty of DEATH.
"And the man that committeth adultery with another
man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his
neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall
surely be put to death" (Lev. 20:10).
Again, in the New Testament, God says: "For the
wages of sin is DEATH" (Rom. 6:23).
WHY is the sin of adultery so great as to merit death,
and, in God's judgment, eternal death in the lake of fire ­
unless really repented of? The answer is this: The reason
adultery is such a TERRIBLE sin in God's sight is that
marriage is such a precious, righteous, holy thing that
MUST NOT BE DEFILED!
The meaning of marriage and its great PURPOSE in
God's plan needs desperately to be understood in this age
of unhappy marriages and broken homes.
The PURPOSE of ~arriage
It is impossible to understand the true meaning of
marriage without first understanding that sex and marriage
are God-given and God-ordained. To leave God out