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Today's Devotional

Now, the crime of unchastity, in any of its aspects, is a blow levelled at this blessed family constitution, of which God is the author; and no wonder, then, that is is ... so strictly and severely forbidden.... And though almost all nations, even the darkest and most corrupt, have passed laws at least against adultery ... yet ... few are the nations ... where poetic genius has not exerted its powers against the seventh commandment, and more or less directly reviled the family constitution. Over immense countries, fornication, polygamy, and frivolous divorce, are treated with perfect indifference.

....It has been justly remarked, that there is no sin which more speedily and irretrievably destroys character, both in high and low, and which introduces more misery in less time. It implies and leads to other crimes, such as fraud in cases of seduction, perjury in cases of marriage, not unfrequently to murder and suicide....

The word of God has declared his mind in no doubtful terms. “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Ephesians 5:5 ESV); also, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4 NIV). The sexually immoral (who are classed with murderers) ... shall have “their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

....Let us be persuaded that nothing can warrant the dissolution of the conjugal relation once formed, but the crime which destroys the very end of marriage [adultery], and see at once the guilt and folly of the modern infidelity which, under the pretence of adding to social happiness, would, by destroying the permanence of the conjugal tie, overspread society with a deluge of crime and wretchedness. Let us ... show our sense of obligation by strictly maintaining the law of chastity ourselves, and guarding, so far as in us lies, against its violation in others.

About the author and the source

The Christian’s Daily Companion was the work of thirty-one contributors from the Church of Scotland, each of whom provided morning and evening meditations for the days assigned them. Today’s author, J.G. Lorimer, was a minister in Glasgow.