Bible Text: Psalm 51:7-10 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:7-10

Marriage counselors agree that it rears its ugly head in the majority of broken homes. It is infidelity, and while filmmakers and TV producers make it look so natural, so romantic, and so free, its consequences are devastating beyond description.

In the 1950s, Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest had a scene in it played by Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Aboard the 20th Century Limited, she protects Grant from the espionage agents who want to kill him by hiding him in her tiny train compartment. That night, after the porter turns down the bed, Grant and Saint kiss and then dialogue:

Grant says. “I see he opened the bed.” She replied, “Yes….” “Only one bed,” he adds. Again she says, “Yes.” Grant quickly says, “I think it’s a good omen, don’t you?” “WONDERFUL,” she exclaims. “Know what it means?” asks Grant. She murmurs, “Mmmmm.” He softly says, “Tell me.” And she brusquely replies, “It means…that you…are going to sleep on the floor.”

How far we have come in only a generation! The proliferation of sex in the media today has gone far, far beyond that which film producers in their wildest thoughts could have imagined a generation ago. Try watching an evening of television without expecting to be exposed to explicit sexuality. Check the movie guide in your newspaper to see what movies are playing which are decent enough to take your child to see. One observer contends that for every media depiction of a husband and wife loving each other there are at least 15 encounters of two individuals engaged in sex who are not married to each other.

Fidelity to the one who stood by your side at the marriage altar is considered passé.   But what the media doesn’t show you is the guilt, the heartache, the loneliness and the emptiness of a life which has been plowed under by infidelity. This, of course, doesn’t fill seats in a theater or demand prime time exposure.

No relationship in all the world can be compared to that of two people who love each other, who have gone public with their commitment by marrying, giving themselves to each other sexually. This relationship is not only blessed by God Himself but involves the emotional, the physical and the spiritual. “Undefiled and pure” are the words of the New Testament writer describing it. The Old Testament allegory, The Song of Solomon, uses the relationship of a husband and wife to picture God’s love for Israel, and some say a picture of Christ’s love for His body, the Church.

In cheapening marriage and trivializing the relationship of a husband and wife, we have reduced sexuality to the level of animal lust which should be satisfied at the least possible suggestion or opportunity.

In the 1960s morality began to change. “Sleeping on the floor,” as Eva Marie Saint advocated, went out the window, and for a period of time sexual license was applauded as being free and beautiful. Then, people began to realize there is a bonding in marriage which cannot be broken apart from anger, hostility, and jealousy. Sharing your husband or wife with anyone isn’t something that can be done without tremendous emotional upheaval, and in more cases than not, results in rejection and divorce.

What the media doesn’t tell you is what David learned long ago: Infidelity is hell, and its consequences of anguish and pain reach beyond the darkness of a sleepless night. Take time to read Psalm 51 in your Bible, where David cries out to God asking for forgiveness and restoration.

“I thought I was doing what I wanted to do,” writes one friend of Guidelines, explaining why she became involved with another man, “but now I realize that I was destroying the very thing I really wanted.”   What the media doesn’t tell you, you learn the hard way.

Resource reading: Psalm 51