Can I be forgiven of purposeful adultery?
Question:
Hi,
I am in need of answers and guidance. I much appreciate it.
I was in a relationship for five years and had a child. We were married. My former husband cheated and I forgave him but things didn't work out. I cannot pay for a divorce and he refused to help me with the expense.
After this relationship, I was feeling depressed and humiliated God uplifted me. I fell into sin the past few weeks with a man I have been dating. My heart has been heavy because I know I failed the Lord. I knew this was wrong, but it felt good to me and I struggle with these sexual urges.
Yesterday in church a brother in Christ said he had a vision of three women that stayed behind in the rapture and he sobbed bitterly. I felt like I was one of those that were staying behind. I have been going to church sometimes and still have done nothing for God. I feel like I let God down. I feel like a rotten person. I am indifferent, and I feel like I have grown hard because of my trials.
Can I be forgiven, even though I sinned knowingly? Can God have mercy upon me?
Answer:
I see numerous problems here. You call your marriage "a relationship." In doing so, you make it equivalent to all those who just shack up with some person. It doesn't acknowledge that you had made a covenant with your husband.
You never divorced your husband; thus, calling him your "former husband" is false. You abandoned your husband because he had committed adultery, but then you turned around and did the same thing. "Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things" (Romans 2:1).
This all came about because you chose to date another man, knowing you were married.
In addition, you have been playing at being a Christian. You go when it is convenient, but you have not submitted your will to God's will. The church you attend at times doesn't follow the teachings of God because it believes in modern-day revelations. (See: Once for All.) The church also teaches premillennialism. (See: The Ruse of the Rapture.)
Stop putting your desires ahead of God's will. "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10). No more adultery, no more dating men who are not your husband, and no more "woe is me" attitudes. You've been living a life of sin and it needs to stop.
Can God forgive? Of course! (See: Are You Unforgivable?) The question is: Can you obey God?
