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Exo 20:14  Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thomas Watson was one of the great Puritan preachers in London, England. The following excerpt from "A Body of Practical Divinity." See if you don't agree that it is as vital in our day as when it was first published in 1692.

Here are some directions to keep from the infection of adultery:

1. Look to your eyes. The eye tempts the fancy, and the fancy works upon the heart. Eve first saw the tree of knowledge, and then she took (Gen. 3:6). The eye often sets the heart on fire.

2. Look to your lips. Take heed of any unseemly word that may kindle unclean thoughts in you or others:

Psa 141:3  Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.


3. Look to your heart:

Mat 15:19  For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
 
Thinking of sin makes way for the act of sin. Suppress the first risings of sin in your heart.

4.  Take heed of lascivious books and pictures that provoke lust. The reading of the Scripture stirs up love to God, and the reading of unclean material stirs up the mind to wickedness.

5. Take heed of idleness. When a person is idle, he is ready to receive any temptation. When David was idle on the top of his house, he espied Bathsheba and took her to him.

2Sa 11:1  And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.
2Sa 11:2  And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
2Sa 11:3  And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
2Sa 11:4  And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.


6.  To avoid adultery every man should have a chaste love for his wife. Solomon prescribed a remedy against adultery:

Pro 5:18  Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

It is not having a wife, but loving a wife, that makes a man live chastely. Pure love is a gift of God, and it comes form heaven; but, like the vestal fire, it must be cherished that it go not out.

7. Labor to get the fear of God into your hearts:

Pro 16:6  By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

How did Joseph keep from temptation? The fear of God pulled him back:

Gen 39:9  ......  how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?


8. Take delight in the Word of God:

Psa 119:103  How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

He who has tasted Christ in a promise is ravished with delight. How would He scorn a motion to sin!

9. If you would abstain from adultery, use serious consideration. Consider that God sees you in the act of sin. He is both witness and judge. Few who are entangled in adultery recover from the snare:

Pro 2:19  None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.

Pro 5:3  For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
Pro 5:4  But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.

When the senses have feasted on unchaste pleasures, the soul is left to pay the reckoning.

10. Pray against this sin. When lust begins to rise in your heart, go to prayer. Prayer is the best armor to quench the wildfire of lust. If prayer will "cast out devils," (Mark 16:17) why may it not cast out lusts from the devil?

Mat 5:28  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.