Laws without Fear

Deuteronomy 22:13-24 - If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, 'I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin, then the girl's father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. "The girl's father shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, "I did not find your daughter a virgin." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. "So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl's father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. "But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you. "If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

Marriage is serious business in the Bible and it ought to be in the world as well. Look at the heavy consequences for sexual immorality. If you're found guilty of sexual impurity and unfaithfulness, you get stoned in order to "purge the evil from among you." (v21, 22, 24) Now, let's look at the situation today. Surveys have shown that over 95% of Americans have sex before marriage. Research indicates that potentially 40-50% of current marriages have or will end in divorce. More alarming than this is the statistic that 70+% of Americans now are convinced that divorce is morally acceptable. It can only be a matter of time before the actual divorce rate aligns with the general public consensus. The promise to love and cherish your wife/husband is consistently broken, all in the name of love. Real love never ends and real love takes work. We seem to have this notion that love is simply a feeling and when that feeling is gone, we can find someone else who we have feelings for. That cannot be further from the truth, a promise to be faithful is a promise that must be upheld! Making a covenant before God means absolutely nothing in today's world.

What a good reminder the Word of God is. What a stark contrast between God's ways and our ways! This passage may seem a bit extreme and outdated. We don't stone people today for committing an affair, it is not even affirmed as a crime. If anything, you get a light slap on the wrist and that's it. Our laws have no fear and they strike no fear. Is it no surprise that our world is as corrupt as it is today? Look no further than our laws. There is no fear of God before the eyes of men (Romans 3:18)