Quote of the Day: Ann Landers

"If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you'll be married to a man who cheats on his wife."

~ Ann Landers

Stanwyck & MacMurray

Gents, this is a painful truth that cuts both ways.

My bride and I just watched "Double Indemnity" yesterday, a great movie that you might consider the "Fatal Attraction" of the 1940's, a film that keeps you on the marriage straight-and-narrow. In the movie, Fred MacMurray of "My Three Sons" fame plays an outstanding dirt bag, much like Andy Griffith did in "A Face in the Crowd." MacMurray is an insurance salesman who's a little too cool for his own good, and when he crosses paths with a spurned and bored wife, an outstanding Barbara Stanwyck, the two cook up a plan to off the husband and recoup the insurance payout. The only problem? Your sin will find you out (Numbers 32:23), in this film in the guise of a cigar-chomping ("Where are my matches?") Edward G. Robinson.

What do we learn from such quotes and such movies. The grass is NOT greener--it's NEVER greener on the other side of the fence. Husband, if your eyes wander from your bride now to someone who catches your eye and you trash your bride for the sake of a newer model, how long will it be before your eye begins to stray again (really, the heart of Ms. Landers' quote)?

Join me now in taking Job's pledge and make a covenant with your eyes that you will not let your eyes stray (Job 31:1). Satan desires nothing more than to see your marriage lying in ruins and your life devastated. With the power that God provides you, rebuke yourself and take your eyes and flee from those situations that cause you issue. When you hear those whispers that someone else will understand you better than your bride, identify them as the lies that they are (Proverbs 5:3-4, 7:21), and run away.

(**SPOILER ALERT**) I love the old movies because good and evil is clearly portrayed for what they are. Knowing that the wages of sin is death, it comes as no surprise to find MacMurray and Stanwyck dead at the end of the movie at the hands of the other. States may strike down laws that once made adultery illegal, but they cannot change the truth of God's word or the response of man's conscience to that truth.

Husband, love your wife by keeping your eyes upon her and by keeping your eyes upon Christ.