Should I Tell All?

What it means to be honest with your spouse

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

Welcome to the broadcast of Become a Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones, and today's episode is entitled Should I Tell All? Should I Tell All? So here we are again trying to discover God's will for our lives and the problems of life that affect the home. And today we have a problem. There's not a very pleasant one to address, and yet far too often it's becoming again and again the situation that we face even in Christian homes. We see more of this kind of thing in our counseling every week. So someone writes, I've been unfaithful to my wife. I am sorry about this, and I no longer am involved with the other woman, and I don't want to be, but I'm concerned about something. I know God has forgiven me, but should I tell my wife? I don't want this to become a problem between the two of us. Well, there is a question, and there may be some woman or some man out there listening today, and I'm almost certain that there is, who's exactly in the same place. You've committed sin against God and against your life partner. Let's call it for what it is. It's sin. It's adultery. But maybe you're very repentant over this. You recognize it was sin against God and you've gone to God and you've asked for forgiveness, and you know God has forgiven you because you are a believer in Jesus Christ. But now the question comes that gnawing concern deep down that's bothering you, maybe for weeks or months or even years. Should I tell my wife? Should I tell my husband? Well, let me answer for you. The very concern that this listener has and the very concern that you may have answers the question. Indeed, asking the question answers it. That concern comes from guilt that is yet unresolved. There is still something between the two of you. There is an issue that has never been set to rest. So you've got to tell her or you've got to tell him. You see, only when this matter is fully and thoroughly resolved with all of the parties who are affected by it can it be put into the past. It's true that God has forgiven you, it's true that the matter has been set to rest in one sense before him, that is, the offense against God as you broke his law in which he said you shall not commit adultery has been dealt with in Christ, and you have acknowledged that by confessing your sin before him and asking that you may have that forgiveness which was purchased in Christ. But now there is another party. You also must love your wife with all of your heart and mind and body and soul and strength. You must love your wife as yourself just as you love God. That means you have sinned not only against God, but also against her, and you must seek her forgiveness. You say, but she doesn't know about it. How can that hurt her? It's already been hurting her. The very fact that it's between the two of you that it's bothering you, that it has been there over these weeks or months or days or years or whatever it has been, it's been between you. You see, as in Ephesians five, when Paul speaks to the husband and says, Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. Then when he quotes the Old Testament passage in Genesis 2 twenty four, for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. When Paul says these things, do you know what he's saying? He's saying that the Christian husband and the Christian wife are to represent the relationship between Christ and his church. That relationship of which Christ gave himself for his church and the church now lives for her husband and the Lord Jesus Christ. That close, intimate relationship of Christ and His Church, which now ought to be mirrored in the close, intimate relationship of a husband for his wife. But you see, you can't in any way divorce your relationship from Christ from your relationship to your husband or wife. And if you commit adultery with another woman, spiritually speaking, that is, you go off and worship a false God when you have been united to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you not have to come to him and seek forgiveness and confess this matter to him as well? Of course you do, because that idolatry has come between the two of you. It's become between you and Christ. So also a husband who has in some way been unfaithful to his wife or a wife to her husband could not in any way expect that this close of a relationship could not be torn apart and would not be injured and suffer from the fact that someone else has come in between the two parties in the marriage. But you say what she doesn't know won't hurt her. Oh yes it does. It's already been hurting her. The truth hurts, of course, as people say, but it never hurts like a lie. The truth that is held in also obsesses. That truth hurts day after day after day and gets worse and worse. In a hundred ways that truth has already hurt your relationship by the very fears that you might be found out. By the very guilt of your conscience, you have been pulled away from your wife. And that one flesh relationship, which really means one person, so the two of you have become like a single body, like a single person functioning together has been torn apart. It's almost like ripping a person in two. No, you can't have this kind of a lie held down deeply inside and expect your relationship with your wife or your relationship with your husband to be a solid, good one that is going to be close, a cleaving relationship, a one-person relationship, as this passage in Ephesians 5 and Genesis 224 speaks about. And you will not properly be able to exhibit the love of Christ for his church and the love of the church in response to Christ. If there is anything like this between the two of you, when you tell the truth, then and only then can the problem be dealt with. Then and only then can the tooth be pulled, and the abscess be gone and the pain cease. One good hard pain, and then it will be over with. The healing process starts. Instead of that nagging, gnawing day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute agony that a person endures when he hesitates to get the matter out on the table where repentance and forgiveness can heal. The truth does hurt, but telling the truth is like the surgeon taking the knife and he hurts you in order to heal you. Yeah, it'll hurt your partner when you tell him or when you tell her, but in the long run, that partner will say, I'm so glad to know at last what it is that's been between the two of us. Now, by the grace of God, we can do something about it. One final word. Let me suggest that you go to your pastor when you tell this to your wife or to your husband, and have your pastor or a good Christian counselor nearby to help pick up the pieces in those initial stages and to help you and your wife or you and your husband to build this marriage together tightly again. Again, Lord, give us grace and courage and strength to those who must do the hard thing today so they can be healed forever. For we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, I hope that helps. We've got too much of this going on inside our churches and outside of our churches nowadays, and there's a lot of hurt that's being distributed unfairly. These are difficult circumstances to deal with, but they must be dealt with. But they must be dealt with biblically God's way. So if you have any questions or concerns, like I've said before, send me a t an email at Bible help for you. That's Bible help the number for you at gmail dot com. And until then, be blessed.