INTRODUCTION
• VIDEO SLIDE
• SLIDE #1
• Kevin James’ character seemed to be a bit occupied.
• The subject matter of today’s message deals with an issue that has the potential to destroy many lives.
• As Jesus continues with His six ways that our righteousness can exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, He turns to a subject that to this day has hit many homes and has been the cause of many marriages ending up in divorce and many lives being destroyed.
• Today we are going to see what Jesus has to say adultery. At what point are we committing this sin and what can we do to protect ourselves from allowing this sin to destroy our marriages and our families?
• Jesus is going to tell us that He is setting a higher standard for those who belong to Him. Once again, Jesus is going to deal with the heart of the problem.
• SLIDE #2
• Let’s begin with Matthew 5:27
• Matthew 5:27 ( ESV ) “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
• Let us begin by seeing what the old standard was.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. A FORBIDDEN ACT.
• Jesus goes right on to the next area in which our righteousness is to exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees if we want to enter the kingdom of God.
• The sixth commandment (thou shall not murder) protects the sanctity of life whereas the seventh commandment (thou shall not commit adultery) protects the sanctity of marriage.
• What does it mean to commit adultery?
• In the Old Testament adultery was understood to involve sexual relations between a man (married or single) and another man’s wife, or a virgin engaged to be married to someone else (Lev 18:20; 20:10; Deut 22:22).
• The primary concern in the command against adultery was the violation or defiling of another man’s wife. This sin was punishable by death.
• Both the adulterous man and woman were viewed as guilty, and the punishment of death was prescribed for both (Lev. 20:10).
• I wonder what would happen if…
• This showed the severity of this sin on God’s eyes. God made faithfulness to the marriage relationship central to His divine will for marriage relationships.
• God created sex and He created it to be enjoyed within the boundaries of marriage. We need to understand that any activity outside the boundaries of marriage is against God’s will for you.
• Adultery is a big problem in the US today.
• Therapist Peggy Vaughan, author of "The Monogamy Myth," conservatively estimates that about 60 percent of married men and 40 percent of married women will have an affair at some time during their marriage. Maggie Scarf, author of "Intimate Partners," basically agrees. http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/tabor/050922
• The exact numbers are hard to find because not everyone who commits adultery would admit it.
• The Law said that you were guilty if you actually participated in the act.
• I realized that most of us are probably not going to run around on our spouses.
• Most of us would never carry out the act of cheating on our spouse.
• The religious leaders felt that as long as they did not act out the deed, that they were innocent before God.
• However; for most, the battleground is going to be in the mind. The greatest temptation we face is the invitation to participate with our minds in a world of virtual reality where we don’t think we are actually cheating on our spouses. Instead we’re lured to do it in our hearts.
• Let us turn to verse 28.
• SLIDE #4
• Matthew 5:28 ( ESV ) But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
• Jesus is going to go right to the heart of the problem.
• SLIDE #5
II. A DESTRUCTIVE DESIRE.
• Think about this, if there is no desire for another person, you will not commit adultery!
• Jesus tells us that if we look at a woman with lust that we have already committed the sin of adultery with her in his heart. Wow!
• Another way to translate this passage is to say that when a person looks in order that he may lust or looks to stimulate his lust.
• This is not noticing another person it is fixing your eyes and thoughts on them. You are playing out the deed in your mind.
• The word that we translate “look” indicates a continued action. The word also denotes purpose.
• Lust is an over mastering desire for something that is not ours. Jesus tells us that if we allow our look to be driven by an overmastering desire, then we have crossed the line. (Playboy without pictures)
• Temptation in itself is not sin. Jesus was tempted in all ways (Hebrews 4:15), yet was without sin.
• SLIDE #6
• James 1:14-15 ( ESV ) But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire (LUST) when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
• Jesus is not speaking of unexpected and unavoidable exposure to sexual temptation. When a man happens to see a woman provocatively dressed, Satan will surely try to tempt that man with lustful thoughts.
• But there is no sin if the temptation is resisted and the gaze is turned elsewhere. It is continuing to look in order to satisfy lustful desires that Jesus condemns, because it evidences a vile, immoral heart.
• It is impossible in our society, where sexual images pervade our media, to keep lustful thoughts from flickering across our mind’s eye. Nor are we culpable at this point.
• We are guilty, however, even of adultery, when we fan those flickers into flame.
• The standard that Jesus sets for us is not an easy one because there is a steady stream of sexual immorality in everything from books, to magazines, to TV shows and commercials, to movies, to music, to the Internet that constantly calling for us to "look lustfully," as Jesus put it.
• Looking Never Hurt Anyone, does it? Pornography in the United States is a $12-13 billion a year industry - greater than the combined revenues of the Coca-Cola and McDonnell Douglas corporations.
• Here are some statistics according to Jerry Ropelato from the Internet Filtering Software Learning Center.
o Every SECOND:
$3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography
372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines
SOURCE- http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html
• Let’s look at an example in the scriptures of what we are talking about found in 2 Samuel 11:2-5. David and Bathsheba. (Saw, inquired, acted)
• SLIDE #7
• 2 Samuel 11:2-5 ( ESV ) It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
• OPPS!
• David was not at fault for seeing Bathsheba bathing. He could not have helped noticing her, because she was in plain view as he walked on the palace roof.
• His sin was in dwelling on the sight and in willingly succumbing to the temptation. He could have looked away and put the experience out of his mind.
• The fact that he had her brought to his chambers and committed adultery with her expressed the immoral desire that already existed in his heart.
• Even in Old Testament times Job understood the principle of what Jesus would teach centuries later
• SLIDE #8
• Job 31:1 ( ESV ) “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?
• A minister and his family were walking down a street in Daytona Beach, Florida. Two women, wearing "skimpy" bikinis passed by. The minister remarked, "How disgusting!" His wife retorted, "If it is so disgusting, why do you look?" The 12-year-old son spoke up with, "I think Dad likes to be disgusted."
• Let us finish with verses 29-30
• SLIDE #9
• Matthew 5:29-30 ( ESV ) If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
• Let us look at a draconian cure!
• SLIDE #10
III. A DRACONIAN CURE.
Here is the solution for the problem. GET A SAW AND POKER
We recognize that this is obvious hyperbole. Taken literally, Jesus’ words would be rather gory. Besides, it would do no real good since our dominant organ of sin is our brain, not our appendages.
• The passage we are looking at has been read by many since God inspired its’ writing. Some have taken the verses to the extreme.
• There have been many false views about sex promoted by the church over the centuries. Origen (A.D. 185-254), one of the outstanding early church Fathers was so convicted of his own sinfulness by reading Matthew 5:27-30 that he had himself castrated.
• No comment!
• What is Jesus telling us to do?
• We are to remove the object of our lust as far from us as possible, even if it means giving up something very dear to us.
• The right eye, hand and foot represented the best a person had during the Old Testament period. Jesus is saying that it would be better to give up the thing that is dearest to us rather than lose our whole self.
• To “stumble” or “cause to sin” basically means to cause to fall, but in the form that it is used here (makes … sin), it was often used of the bait stick that springs the trap when an animal touches it.
• Anything that morally or spiritually traps us, that causes us to fall into sin or to stay in sin, should be eliminated quickly and totally.
• The best thing to do is to fill the mind with other thoughts than what typically happens in our minds.
• SLIDE #11
• Philippians 4:8 ( ESV ) Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
• Keep your eyes on Jesus keep your thoughts on Jesus. When you are tempted to let that look linger, think of the person as a brother or sister.
• Jesus tells us to remove the thing that entraps us. Another way we• can do that is to FLEE from sin.
CONCLUSION
Does it hurt to look? It does when that look is done in such a way that we stimulate our lust. Can we appreciate beauty? Yes, but we had better leave it at that.
If our righteousness is going to exceed• the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, then we need to make sure that we are not only refraining from the ACT of adultery, but that we are not allowing adultery to take place in our heart.
Think about it, Jesus goes to the heart of the problem, if there is no desire, there will be no act.
In the heat of passion with your spouse, do you want them thinking about someone else, or mentally replacing you with another?
In our society we are being hit from all directions, when we belong to Jesus, we need to do all we can to protect ourselves from fall into the trap of adultery.
Next week we will take a BIBLICAL look at marriage and divorce.
