SPEAKER_00: So I was recently bit by a rat in my own house in Fairfax, well, the greater Annandale metropolitan area.
SPEAKER_00: A rat.
SPEAKER_00: I was minding my own business and uh it bit my finger.
SPEAKER_00: Can you I didn't know I'm not from New York.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: But in mitigation, in the rat's defense, as it were, uh it was my rat.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I have photographic evidence of my rats.
SPEAKER_00: I think they're cute too, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yes, I heard a few yeses.
SPEAKER_00: Um I was training it to walk across a rope by putting food in front of it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it didn't bite out of like anger, it just bit like I think it thought my finger was the food.
SPEAKER_00: Um so I I'm excusing the rat.
SPEAKER_00: Plus, I like the rats.
SPEAKER_00: They're they're my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I won't tell you which rat it was that bit me because I don't want to embarrass him or her if she is listening this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If a person had it as their goal in life to not get bit by a rat, which is a noteworthy and a worthwhile goal, that person should not turn around and buy two of them and house them in their own house and feed them and let them hang out on their shoulder if it was that person's goal to not get bit by a rat.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were to tell me that your goal was to remain rat-bite-free all of your days, and then you turn around and bought two of the previously aforementioned rats, I would question your commitment to your goal.
SPEAKER_00: I would make some assumptions that maybe you aren't actually that concerned about being bitten by a rat if you, after all, you own two of them and play with them.
SPEAKER_00: This is the basic point of the passage before us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a point that is made more complicated by people trying to excuse their own sin, more complicated by people trying to downplay the point of this passage, or incorporate it into it, hey, all sins are the same kind of attitude.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' point this morning is pretty clear.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't want to get bit by a rat, don't buy some and keep them as pets.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read the text before us.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 27 of Matthew chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: It's better you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.
SPEAKER_00: If your right hand causes you to sin, cut cut it off, throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: It's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
SPEAKER_00: This is a passage that is teaching you the dangers and the depravity of adultery.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you an outline this morning, and the outline begins with the word outline, sin's outline here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus starts just by giving you the outline of what the sin is he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the sin of adultery.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying the word outline here because he's going to move into the heart in a second.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to move into the life that's behind this sin, but he's starting just at the very surface level.
SPEAKER_00: So the first way Jesus enters this discussion, verse 27, is on the surface.
SPEAKER_00: This is on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is talking about the external act of adultery, about somebody who is having sexual relations with somebody with whom they're not married.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the word adultery means in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Being sexually intimate with someone other than your wife or your husband.
SPEAKER_00: And this is just the bare minimum standard here.
SPEAKER_00: The outside standard, the connect the dots picture of holiness here is don't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he starts.
SPEAKER_00: And I say like the connect the dots outline here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about like entry-level ethics.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking lowest shelf here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking externals even.
SPEAKER_00: We're not to the heart yet.
SPEAKER_00: Just on the outside, Jesus is saying, do not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: My wife used to teach second grade, and I remember that a bunch of her students would, when they were drawing, the boy students in particular would draw spaceships.
SPEAKER_00: They constantly doodled spaceships.
SPEAKER_00: You know why little kids draw spaceships?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's a triangle with two little lines on them for lasers.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, don't forget the lasers.
SPEAKER_00: The easiest thing possible to draw.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus is talking about adultery here, that's the level in which he's sketching right now.
SPEAKER_00: Do not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Connect the dots, the triangle, and put two lines on it.
SPEAKER_00: Basics here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: This is the seventh commandment.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying this command as if it's a bad command, like you've heard it said, but I'm telling you something totally different.
SPEAKER_00: No, this is the seventh commandment.
SPEAKER_00: This is ethics in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is endorsing this commandment.
SPEAKER_00: He's underlining it.
SPEAKER_00: He's teaching it.
SPEAKER_00: He's preaching it.
SPEAKER_00: He's going through it and explaining it.
SPEAKER_00: He agrees with it.
SPEAKER_00: God made marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He made marriage before the fall, before sin entered the world.
SPEAKER_00: He said it wasn't good for man to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: He created a helper suitable for him.
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve then joins together.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, Moses says a man will leave his father and his mother, cling fast or hold fast to his wife.
SPEAKER_00: The two of them will become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This is how they fulfill the commands to go into all the earth to be fruitful and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: God invented and designed marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is designed to be good.
SPEAKER_00: It's designed to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: It is the cornerstone of society.
SPEAKER_00: It's how all everything else in society grows out of marriage, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Again, marriage was invented before the fall.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual intimacy was invented before the fall.
SPEAKER_00: For a husband and a wife together, they would be naked and not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God designed it.
SPEAKER_00: Sin, of course, affects that and sin attacks that, but the idea of monogamy in marriage is not a post-fall concept.
SPEAKER_00: And I've heard people argue that, oh, you know, monogamy is something just because we're such sinful people and we live in a sinful world, God gives us that to kind of rein us in.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: Monogamy was designed before sin entered the world.
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: They needed marriage for that.
SPEAKER_00: They had to be able to multiply.
SPEAKER_00: So children are designed to come from marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's marriage is referred to as the building block of society.
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, everything good and livable about this world comes through that conduit of marriage, like your own life, for example.
SPEAKER_00: And everything else you enjoy is predicated on you having life.
SPEAKER_00: Life comes to you through the concept of family, through sexual intimacy, through your parents, bringing you into this world.
SPEAKER_00: So a family comes from this, and a home comes from this, and a home should be, as I said, the cornerstone of society.
SPEAKER_00: Your home is your safe place.
SPEAKER_00: Your home is your place where you're raising your kids.
SPEAKER_00: Kids should want to come home.
SPEAKER_00: Kids should delight in the home.
SPEAKER_00: They should make good memories in the home.
SPEAKER_00: This is the way God designed the world for it to be, again, a safe place.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the home is where children are disciplined, also, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: And discipline drives foolishness out of the heart of the child.
SPEAKER_00: The rod of discipline or the rod of correction teaches children to work hard and to demonstrate self-control and to flee sin.
SPEAKER_00: That makes children a blessing to society.
SPEAKER_00: A child who's not disciplined is not going to be a blessing to their own family, much less society, right?
SPEAKER_00: A child who's selfish and you know stealing and throwing fits and insisting on his own way all the time will be a curse to his parents, Proverbs says, and a curse to society.
SPEAKER_00: But in the home, the child is disciplined and he grows up to get self-control established and to get his foolishness out of him, a blessing to his family.
SPEAKER_00: The husband is providing for the family, the wife is nurturing the children in the family.
SPEAKER_00: This is, again, God's basic outline designed for marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Blessing comes to that.
SPEAKER_00: When you have a family that functions at that level, where there's provision, where there's nurturing, where there's discipline, then there is joy.
SPEAKER_00: Children have good memories of the home.
SPEAKER_00: They have a life there.
SPEAKER_00: You know, throwing a pet or two and you're rocking.
SPEAKER_00: This is not an income statement either.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you have to be wealthy to provide a happy home.
SPEAKER_00: A person a very poor person can live in a small house and have a happy home.
SPEAKER_00: A very wealthy person can live in a very large house and have a happy home.
SPEAKER_00: Or a very wealthy person can live in a large house and neglect his children and live for himself and have an unhappy home.
SPEAKER_00: A very poor person could neglect his children and have a very unhappy home.
SPEAKER_00: It's not contingent upon income.
SPEAKER_00: It's contingent upon obedience to God's design for marriage and family.
SPEAKER_00: He designed marriage to protect children and be the building block of society.
SPEAKER_00: Now, adultery attacks that.
SPEAKER_00: All that represents the things the devil hates the most.
SPEAKER_00: This is why he attacks Adam and Eve at the point of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He attacks Adam and Eve at the point of the way God designed them to function together.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the devil today continually attacks children.
SPEAKER_00: But God designed marriage to be kind of the stabilizing force in this world and in our fallen society.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery devastates that by inserting a lack of trust into the marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery devastates that by tearing the fabric that should be what unites you together.
SPEAKER_00: You know, your family knows you best and loves you best in this world.
SPEAKER_00: And especially the kids.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's a lot of the high school kids who are in here second hour, and sometimes you might not believe that as a high schooler, but I'm telling you, your family loves you more than anybody else in this world.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the reality.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery attacks that and introduces doubt into that and shows that there's people in this world your parents love more than themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery, by the way, as I said earlier, is first a sexual activity outside of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: With somebody, it can be a married person having an affair on their spouse.
SPEAKER_00: It could be a single person being sexually intimate with someone with whom they're not married.
SPEAKER_00: People try to dilute that command, but I'm telling you, in the Bible, it's a very broad word.
SPEAKER_00: They try to dilute it and say, oh, single people can't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, you can.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
SPEAKER_00: People want, this is why adultery, even for single people, is an attack on the family.
SPEAKER_00: People want the gratification of sex without the commitment of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And so they act on it.
SPEAKER_00: They say, you know, God designed marriage to be the uh sphere in which that happens.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody says, I don't want marriage, it's a lifelong commitment.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage involves me committing myself to one person and raising children and having a family for my life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want that.
SPEAKER_00: I want sexual intimacy without that.
SPEAKER_00: All I want is to gratify my own desires.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want like a lifelong commitment or anything.
SPEAKER_00: That's the excuse that ends up attacking family and attacking marriage.
SPEAKER_00: As people pursue satisfaction apart from the means in which God designed them to have it.
SPEAKER_00: A society that channels people towards sexual intimacy outside of marriage is a society that will be marked by divorce, of course.
SPEAKER_00: It will be marked by abortion, it will be marked by sexual brokenness, it will be marked by families that aren't cohesive.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery literally dismantles society.
SPEAKER_00: It is good to want intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to want sexual intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: God designed that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a motivating fact that drives people towards marriage, 1 Corinthians 7 says.
SPEAKER_00: You have passion, you're burning with passion, get married, the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: But if you act on that outside of marriage, you're diluting marriage, diluting family, attacking the way in which God made the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it is very popular today to say to downplay sexual sin and say, you know, sexual sin is like every other sin.
SPEAKER_00: But no, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like every other sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual sin is in kind of its own category.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says this to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: He says, every sin a person commits is outside of his body, except for sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: The person who commits sexual immorality joins his own body to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: It brings the reputation of the church and the body of Christ into it.
SPEAKER_00: It is an attack on holiness and on the way God made the world differently than other sins.
SPEAKER_00: And even today, people get so defensive about sexual sins because they say, you know, I identify, they identify themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They get their own self-identity from their sexual desires.
SPEAKER_00: They say, I identify this way, so that can't be a sin because that's who I am.
SPEAKER_00: And the response to that is always, no, that's exactly why it's a sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's who you that's what makes it such a serious sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's so close to you, you identify with it.
SPEAKER_00: You won't repent with it.
SPEAKER_00: You're making it part of your identity.
SPEAKER_00: That makes it worse, not better.
SPEAKER_00: That makes it more severe.
SPEAKER_00: More severe.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, ultimately, it becomes ironic.
SPEAKER_00: Person says, I don't want to be married.
SPEAKER_00: I want to fulfill my sexual desire this way.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage defines you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want that.
SPEAKER_00: I want this to define me.
SPEAKER_00: But they end up defining themselves by their sexual desires.
SPEAKER_00: There's a way to get around marriage, which would define them.
SPEAKER_00: It's ironic and it's circular and it attacks society.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is why God says, Don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Do not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: It'll ruin your life, it'll ruin your world, it ruins society in a very literal sense.
SPEAKER_00: It leads to all kinds of other sins.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the seventh commandment, sixth commandment, don't kill someone.
SPEAKER_00: Seventh commandment, don't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: They go in order.
SPEAKER_00: On the sixth day, God made mankind, made Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: On the seventh day, God rested, and society launches.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 23, verse 27 says it this way: A prostitute is a deep pit.
SPEAKER_00: An adulteress is a narrow well.
SPEAKER_00: I just think about that word picture for a second.
SPEAKER_00: A deep pit.
SPEAKER_00: You fall in it, you're not getting out, man.
SPEAKER_00: You fall in it, you're s- There's no tactical team of the Jerusalem fire department in Solomon's life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you fall in a pit, you're stuck.
SPEAKER_00: You're there.
SPEAKER_00: It's a narrow well.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when when I was a kid anyway, there's always these news stories about little kids falling in wells.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it was about like the 1980s that wells are swallowing kids.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen those kind of stories ever since then, but it was a big deal back then.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: Man.
SPEAKER_00: It was so hard to get them out of wells in the 80s.
SPEAKER_00: You fall in, you're not getting out.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're n it's narrow and it's trapped.
SPEAKER_00: It leads to all kinds of other sin.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Solomon means.
SPEAKER_00: You know, adultery could be a one-time act, but then you're stuck there.
SPEAKER_00: You may move on, you may go back to your home and back to your family, but all of the other, the fabric is there.
SPEAKER_00: It leads to deception.
SPEAKER_00: There's probably deception going into adultery, but there's certainly deception going out of it.
SPEAKER_00: It leads to stealing, leads to murder.
SPEAKER_00: You get caught committing adultery, you could get killed.
SPEAKER_00: The person whom you're sleeping with, their spouse catches you, he might murder you.
SPEAKER_00: Very typical outcome.
SPEAKER_00: Leads, even if you don't get murdered by the person who is wronged, you may go home and lie to cover it up.
SPEAKER_00: It leads to all kinds of other sins.
SPEAKER_00: This is why David, you know, commits adultery with Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: That produces other lies, that produces a military blunder that kills Uriah, but who knows how many other people died.
SPEAKER_00: David commits murder, he commits lying, he lies to cover up the murder, he lies to cover up the lying.
SPEAKER_00: A person who lies about adultery will lie about anything.
SPEAKER_00: Or let me say it differently.
SPEAKER_00: A person who lies about adultery will lie about everything.
SPEAKER_00: That's the outline.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus starts here.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it said, don't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: And I definitely don't want to downplay that command.
SPEAKER_00: That's the outline of sin, adultery.
SPEAKER_00: But the heart behind sin, this is where Jesus goes, is lust.
SPEAKER_00: The heart is lust.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've had any level of biblical counseling, if you've been counseled or you've read any books in biblical counseling, you understand the most important way to deal with sin is to get to the heart issue behind it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to deal with surface issues or superficial issues.
SPEAKER_00: You want to get to the heart issue.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery, by calling it a superficial issue, sounds like I'm diminishing it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not diminishing it.
SPEAKER_00: It's obviously very, very extreme, but it is superficial.
SPEAKER_00: The heart that's behind adultery, that's where the battle is, that's where the war is, that's what God is concerned about.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery, as I said, devastates society, but God is after the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says in verse 28, a contrast, I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the eye is the window to the heart.
SPEAKER_00: You know from what we read earlier, if your eye causes you to sin or your hand causes you to sin, cut them off, throw them away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is targeting the eye and the hand here because the eye and the hand are windows into the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus calls the eye the lamp to the soul.
SPEAKER_00: Your eye is not a free agent.
SPEAKER_00: Your eye doesn't look at whatever it wants to look at.
SPEAKER_00: Your eye looks at what you're interested in.
SPEAKER_00: The heart directs the eye.
SPEAKER_00: You could say this way: the mind directs the heart.
SPEAKER_00: In a mature person, the mind directs the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The heart then directs the eye.
SPEAKER_00: The heart directs the hands.
SPEAKER_00: The hands represent what you do.
SPEAKER_00: The eye represents what entertains you, what you watch, what you study.
SPEAKER_00: They're all reflections on the heart.
SPEAKER_00: If you're an author, your hands type.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a contractor, your hands build.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a contractor, you're not going to wake up one day and find that your hands typed a book last night while you were sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: If you're an author, you're not going to wake up one day and find that your hands, you know, took the afternoon off and went outside and built a shed.
SPEAKER_00: Your hands do what you are.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Your eyes watch what you love.
SPEAKER_00: So you're feeding your heart through your eyes because your heart is steering your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: It's circular for sure.
SPEAKER_00: So again, Matthew 6 in the Sermon on the Mount, this very same sermon, Jesus says the eye is the lamp to the body.
SPEAKER_00: It's like riding a bike.
SPEAKER_00: You teach your little kids to ride a bike and they bike into the curb or they hit the car.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a wide open cul-de-sac I live in.
SPEAKER_00: One car is parked, they have the whole cul-de-sac, they hit the car.
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you hit the car?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm looking at it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, okay, take your eyes off of it.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna bike into what you're looking at.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll do.
unknown: Dunk.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus is talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking at the person with lust, you're going to bike into it.
SPEAKER_00: You will hit it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why are you looking at a person with lustful intent?
SPEAKER_00: I love the ESV translation here.
SPEAKER_00: It's so good in this verse.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you looking at someone with lustful intent?
SPEAKER_00: Because your heart is lustful.
SPEAKER_00: That's the root issue.
SPEAKER_00: That's the root ball here that you need to deal with is lust in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You pull a weed, you know, if you're doing weeds, you're not just snipping off the leaves of the weeds with scissors.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to pull the weed out by the roots.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery comes from the root ball in the heart of lust.
SPEAKER_00: It comes from something wrong inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: Misplace affections inside of you, misplace desires inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: And that pours out through the eyes, of course.
SPEAKER_00: That pours out through the eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this all over the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's from the first sin.
SPEAKER_00: The devil comes to Eve and says, Did God really say?
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: Eve starts questioning it, but then everything turns when the text says, Eve then looked at the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: And then she saw that it looked tasty.
SPEAKER_00: She knew what God had commanded her.
SPEAKER_00: She knew very well what God had said.
SPEAKER_00: But she looked instead to her own heart and to her own desires and thought, I know God said no, but man, that looks good.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph, when he was seduced later on in Genesis by Potiphar's wife, Potiphar's wife is coming after Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: And it says she set her gaze on him.
unknown: She
SPEAKER_00: Kept feeding her own lust by staring at Joseph, filling her heart with lustful intent before she goes after him.
SPEAKER_00: Samson.
SPEAKER_00: You know the thing of Samson and Delilah?
SPEAKER_00: That's a story of sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: You know where it started back in Judges 16, it started with Samson seeing Delilah and watching her, following her with his eyes.
SPEAKER_00: That preceded everything else.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, again, David was on his roof, and he was staring at Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with Job, Job 31, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Job says, I made a covenant with my eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Made a deal.
SPEAKER_00: Job says, Eyes don't look at a woman with lust.
SPEAKER_00: Heart, don't feed the eyes, eyes don't feed the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Shake hands, break.
SPEAKER_00: That was their plan.
SPEAKER_00: Job made those two, made his heart and his eyes get a deal together.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, verse 37, turn my eyes away from looking at sin, O Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about that prayer for the psalmist has.
SPEAKER_00: Turn my eyes away from looking at sin.
SPEAKER_00: The sin's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so sin's outside of the psalmist here.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is on the stage over here.
SPEAKER_00: Psalmist is minding his own business.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is on the stage.
SPEAKER_00: The sin is happening.
SPEAKER_00: God sees the sin happening.
SPEAKER_00: Why does the psalmist not want to see the sin happening?
SPEAKER_00: Why is it a big deal where the psalmist would pray, God, keep me from looking at it?
SPEAKER_00: What's the danger?
SPEAKER_00: That he would see it.
SPEAKER_00: God sees it.
SPEAKER_00: The danger is that it would fuel his lust.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be an overflow of his own heart.
SPEAKER_00: So obviously, like the most basic practical level here, watch what you watch, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to what you're feeding your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to what you're putting in your mind and into your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Don't feed your heart lust.
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to what you're paying attention to.
SPEAKER_00: A week ago, there was a fire on my street.
SPEAKER_00: I know this because we were sitting at our table for dinner, and one of the kids said, There's 50 firks on our street.
SPEAKER_00: I look outside, and lo and behold, I don't think 50 was even an exaggeration.
SPEAKER_00: It was like every fire truck in northern Virginia came to my my little cul-de-sac.
SPEAKER_00: And uh there was a fire like four houses up from us in the chimney, and they called 911 and they sent everybody.
SPEAKER_00: And they laddered the house.
SPEAKER_00: I I went out to see if I could help because I'd seen a movie about a firefighter once, so I was I was ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: No, I I went out because I was super curious.
SPEAKER_00: And they laddered all of the windows.
SPEAKER_00: The fire department got there, put ladders on every window in the house.
SPEAKER_00: They put two of the big ladder, you know, trucks up to the ceiling.
SPEAKER_00: They ran hoses.
SPEAKER_00: We have three fire hydrants in our street.
SPEAKER_00: They ran hoses from all three of them.
SPEAKER_00: They charged all the hoses.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't need any of it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there was a fire in the chimney, and they sprayed like a chemical down the chimney and it put it out in like a minute without using a drop of water.
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of incredible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but they had set everything up.
SPEAKER_00: The hoses were charged and the trucks were there and the ladders were up.
SPEAKER_00: And the weirdest thing happened because of that, because they charged all the hoses from the hydrants, the water line on our street broke.
SPEAKER_00: And water started spraying up.
SPEAKER_00: And I am not exaggerating, like two feet up out of the asphalt.
SPEAKER_00: Like not even a hole in the asphalt, just water shooting up from the asphalt.
SPEAKER_00: Fire department came back by our house like an hour later, knocking on all the doors, saying, Do not go outside, do not drive on your road because it's a sinkhole danger.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who steps in that can't, the if you drive a car in there, they say that you'll fall in.
SPEAKER_00: So they roped everything off, roped off all the driveways and everything.
SPEAKER_00: The guy's house, by the way, totally fine.
SPEAKER_00: Totally fine.
SPEAKER_00: I asked him, you need to play Satanite?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't know, no, it doesn't even smell like smoke in here anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: We can't drive for the rest of the week, but this is what lust in your heart is like.
SPEAKER_00: You think you can feed your heart lust and it's not but you're okay because you don't actually commit adultery?
SPEAKER_00: Great, you didn't actually commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Good job.
SPEAKER_00: But there's now sinkholes everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: The hoses are all charged, the ladders are all up.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna resist it for another day or two, or another week or two, another month or two, and give yourself a gold star.
SPEAKER_00: You feed your heart adultery, you don't know where that water is gonna shoot up.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know where the pipes are gonna break, you don't know what what roads are gonna have to be repaved when you feed your heart lust.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know whose lives will be affected.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is connected like this, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You feed your heart lust, just as a practical level.
SPEAKER_00: You feed your heart lust, but then you don't act on it.
SPEAKER_00: So you think you're exercising self-control, but listen, it pours out in other places.
SPEAKER_00: You get angry with your parents, you get angry with your kids, you get angry with your spouse, you get angry with your boss, you get frustrated at work, you're tempted to steal or cheat on your taxes or whatever, you get angry in traffic, you get angry at everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're feeding your heart lust, and you think, but I'm not committing adultery, yeah, but you've got the pipes of sin are pumped full right now.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna come out in the most random places.
SPEAKER_00: That's what lust does to you.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus says, you've already committed adultery in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the action is.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, you've seen the outline of sin, adultery, just the basic level of it.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen the heart that's behind it, lust.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart is filled with lust, that produces adultery.
SPEAKER_00: But the substance of sin is a life away from God.
SPEAKER_00: The actual life that Jesus is talking about here is a life that is spent distant from God, absent from God, that will ultimately be punished by hell.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this is going.
SPEAKER_00: So again, adultery is the problem, but that's not even the one that Jesus is mostly concerned about.
SPEAKER_00: He's getting to the heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the lust is coming from.
SPEAKER_00: But there's even a bigger deal than that.
SPEAKER_00: If your heart is filled with lust, your whole life is being spent absent the blessings of the Lord, absent a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 29, if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: Better that you lose one of your members and your whole body be thrown into hell.
SPEAKER_00: Did it with your right hand, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: And so the the observation here is pretty simple.
SPEAKER_00: If your hand or your eye is causing you to sin, cut it off, throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: Better to go to heaven with missing a limb than to go to hell with all your digits intact.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I just want to say a few things about this.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's a true statement.
SPEAKER_00: It is better to go to heaven, period, than to go to hell, period.
SPEAKER_00: Take the body parts out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven better than hell by an infinite amount.
SPEAKER_00: But just a little observation behind this: the implication here is that the person who's feeding their heart with lust is on their way to hell.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't people get wrapped up with should you cut off your hand or not cut off your hand?
SPEAKER_00: People with two hands talking about whether or not you should cut your hand off.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss the main point.
SPEAKER_00: The heart that's filled with lust is going to hell, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: Unless something changes.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: If you, you know, you've heard it said, don't murder, which again, don't murder someone.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're angry with your brother in your heart, you've already committed murder in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, if you're doing that, verse 22, you're liable to the fires of hell.
SPEAKER_00: His main point, the heart that's filled with anger is on its way to hell.
SPEAKER_00: The heart that's filled with lust is on its way to hell.
SPEAKER_00: So what can you do about it?
SPEAKER_00: Cutting off a hand gonna help?
SPEAKER_00: Again, your hand is representing what you're doing in your life, and you think, um, people go to hell because of their actions.
SPEAKER_00: People go to hell because of what they do.
SPEAKER_00: When they die, Revelation says they stand before God for judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The book of their works is opened up and they are judged according to what they did.
SPEAKER_00: And so you get that, then your logic is like, okay, if I'm gonna be judged for what I do, let me not do a sinful thing anymore.
SPEAKER_00: If I, again, your hand represents what you do, let me get rid of doing things, let me get rid of my hands.
SPEAKER_00: If my eye represents the lustness of my heart, let me not look at anything anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Will that get me into heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if it would, it'd be better to go to heaven, again, minus a hand or an eye, than it would to go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: This week I read just a funny, funny line in the commentary.
SPEAKER_00: It made me laugh out loud.
SPEAKER_00: Said, quote, I wrote it down.
SPEAKER_00: Amputation causes much pain and discomfort and often inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: Often inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Is that Jesus' point?
SPEAKER_00: Cut off your hands, you'll inconvenience yourself in life.
SPEAKER_00: Often.
SPEAKER_00: Think of the monks, you know, who went off to the wilderness, the Catholic monks to the monasteries, the Byzantine or the Coptic monks out to the wilderness, build walls up.
SPEAKER_00: They're sometimes touted of as paragons of virtue and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Godliness, you know, going to a monastery.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever read anything by a monk?
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not godly.
SPEAKER_00: These dudes leave their wives, they leave their kids, they walk away from their families to wall themselves in and go to battle against sin in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: There's books by monks that have spent like four years in monasteries eating like a piece of bread a day, kind of thing, taking vows of silence, and they're more wicked and more sinful, and the battle in their heart is more extreme than when they went in.
SPEAKER_00: The only difference is they abandoned their family to go in.
SPEAKER_00: Monks aren't an example of virtue.
SPEAKER_00: They're an example of ungodly and unbiblical divorce and the totally misplaced focus on sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: You think, oh, I eat two pieces of bread in a day, I'll have more lust in my heart than if I just eat one.
SPEAKER_00: It's completely absurd.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason going behind a monastery doesn't help sanctification is because you bring your heart with you, you know?
SPEAKER_00: It goes with you.
SPEAKER_00: There's a valid point Jesus is making.
SPEAKER_00: If something's causing you to sin, get rid of it.
SPEAKER_00: But you understand that your hand and your eye are not actually causing you to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart's causing you to sin.
SPEAKER_00: The lust that you're feeding is causing yourself to sin.
SPEAKER_00: If you could fix that by taking off a hand or an eye, that's a good investment, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not if you just practically, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Try it.
SPEAKER_00: You're dealing with lust in your life, try closing your right eye all day.
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna help?
SPEAKER_00: No, your left eye is gonna work twice as hard.
SPEAKER_00: You're doing sinful things, do them one-handed.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna help.
SPEAKER_00: Just makes it harder.
SPEAKER_00: It makes you angrier.
SPEAKER_00: There is a practical application of this though that I do want to lean in on.
SPEAKER_00: The practical application, the logic behind Jesus' statement here, is that sometimes there are things in your life that are causing you to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there are things in life that are facilitating sin, and you should get rid of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you if you get overcome with lust when you go to the gym, then get a treadmill or something, okay?
SPEAKER_00: If you can't go to the gym without filling your heart with lust, then stop going to the gym.
SPEAKER_00: If you can't have the self-control to not look at inappropriate things in your phone, if you're looking at pornography or whatever in your phone, get rid of your phone.
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, but my boss really wants me to have a phone.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, get a new job.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you get 50 bucks a work from your month for your phone, and so it's you're gonna bring pornography into your heart and into your household for 50 bucks a month?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but if I don't have my phone, my boss can't call me whenever he wants.
SPEAKER_00: That's an argument on my side, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I'll go get a new job.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: If you can't have your computer in your bedroom without sinning, then get your computer out of your bedroom.
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, but what if I want to watch Netflix?
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Rank your priorities a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: If something is causing you to sin, tie it to a brick and launch it into the lake.
SPEAKER_00: Drop it at the bottom of the Potomac.
SPEAKER_00: The point, though, is in reality, that cutting off your hand of your eye won't actually help.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in Matthew 10, verse 28, don't fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
SPEAKER_00: You cut off one hand, that's just another hand that's going to hell with you.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 18, verse 9, if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: What stands out to me about Matthew 18, verse 9, that's at the end of Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Sermon on the Mount is at the start end.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus brackets his ministry with the same illustration.
SPEAKER_00: That's encouraging to me as a preacher if I use an illustration a few years ago.
SPEAKER_00: So did Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: Better to eat inner life with one eye than with two eyes be thrown into the hell of fire.
SPEAKER_00: So the basic point: get rid of that which is causing you to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Cutting off your hands and your eyes won't actually help.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it won't help.
SPEAKER_00: If it could, you should do it, but it won't, because again, the problem is inside of you in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: So now I want to give you a contrast.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to preach a second sermon, but I do want to just sneak in another outline real quick.
SPEAKER_00: All of that is contrasted with holiness.
SPEAKER_00: That's this takes you back to the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: What's Jesus doing in the Sermon on the Mount?
SPEAKER_00: What's the point of the Sermon on the Mount here?
SPEAKER_00: What's he actually doing?
SPEAKER_00: What he's doing here is he's giving you the contrast between the superficial kind of holiness and the heart change that God desires.
SPEAKER_00: So if the outline of sin is adultery, again, like if they connect the dots of what sin is adultery, what is the outline of holiness?
SPEAKER_00: Well, don't commit adultery, right?
SPEAKER_00: Don't murder.
SPEAKER_00: The very basics of holiness is abstain from the lust of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The very basics of holiness is don't commit adultery, don't commit murder.
SPEAKER_00: But go beyond the surface for a second.
SPEAKER_00: What's the heart behind holiness?
SPEAKER_00: Let's move beyond don't do X.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get to what should you do?
SPEAKER_00: The heart behind holiness is the love for God.
SPEAKER_00: And this is all over the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: You've got the Ten Commandments that are followed by, this can be summed up with this word, it's a word in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word that sums up the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Love.
SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.
SPEAKER_00: The second greatest commandment, love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So you want the heart that's behind holiness, it is the heart of love.
SPEAKER_00: First towards God, second towards others.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God is after.
SPEAKER_00: He's after a heart that loves and worships him.
SPEAKER_00: And the substance of that kind of life is the substance of worship.
SPEAKER_00: The substance of the life that is thrown into lust is going to end in hell because you'll be judged according to your works.
SPEAKER_00: But the substance of the life that is filled with worship is a life of a relationship with God in this life and a relationship with God in the next life through heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So very, very different.
SPEAKER_00: But you can go through the same kind of exoskeleton approach here.
SPEAKER_00: The outside, adultery, or the outside, obedience to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: The inside, lust and anger and vices, or the inside, a heart that loves God and loves others.
SPEAKER_00: The substance of that kind of life, a life that's distant from God or close to God.
SPEAKER_00: And you understand if the goal of your life is to fill up godliness inside your life, to make sure every member of your body is used in service to the Lord, you get why cutting off your hand or your eye doesn't help because it's just reducing the part of your body you have to worship the Lord with.
SPEAKER_00: Bites you back later.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the big picture contrast.
SPEAKER_00: Back to the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: This starts with you recognizing you're spiritually bankrupt.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have the ability to love God and to be righteous on your own.
SPEAKER_00: Your life is filled with sin.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do with it, deal with it on your own.
SPEAKER_00: You can't fight your sin enough.
SPEAKER_00: You can't slay your sin enough.
SPEAKER_00: You are consumed by it until you realize that you are spiritually bankrupt and you surrender your life to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You say, God, I give up.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do the outline of holiness here.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus steps in.
SPEAKER_00: This is verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: The word fulfill means to color in from the inside, not connect the dots.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus colors the whole drawing.
SPEAKER_00: He fills up the law from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: He demonstrates what holiness and godliness is.
SPEAKER_00: Now you, through faith, can have your sins forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: You place your faith in the death of Christ who died on the cross to bear the punishment for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: You place your faith in that death.
SPEAKER_00: You place your faith in that resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus forgives you of your sin, changes your heart, and gives you a heart that loves Him.
SPEAKER_00: And now you're growing in sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Now you've got a heart that's beating the right blood in your body, and you're growing in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly you still sin, of course, but you you read the Sermon on the Mount and you're like, okay, I don't want to feed my sin.
SPEAKER_00: But you recognize that the forgiveness, the free gift of God is forgiveness of sin, and that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So when you give your life to Christ, he takes away the consequence of your sin eternally.
SPEAKER_00: You still deal with it in the world, you know, the temporal level, but he takes it away from you eternally, covers you with the righteousness of Christ, forgives you of your sin, puts you in a right relationship with him, and fills your life as a life of love.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast.
SPEAKER_00: You want to spend your life at war against your own body when you spend your life at submission to God's word, worshiping Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Two very different ways to live.
SPEAKER_00: Very different ways to live.
SPEAKER_00: God, we're grateful that you have given us such a clear contrast.
SPEAKER_00: The righteousness of Christ or the folly of sin.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's people in our congregation that have committed adultery.
SPEAKER_00: I pray they would find forgiveness through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness in the family and in the home.
SPEAKER_00: We know some omelets can't really be put back together again, but we also know that your grace can transform and bring something even better out of it than what went in.
SPEAKER_00: This is just the wonder of your kindness and your mercy.
SPEAKER_00: You take our worst moments and you make them into something beautiful and redemptive.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for in the second hour here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking specifically of all the high school kids and college kids that are in the service, I pray.
SPEAKER_00: And she would cause them to love you and your perfect life more than they love their own flawed life.
SPEAKER_00: And they would find and experience forgiveness for sins through looking at Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For anyone here today that has never trusted you, Lord, I pray today that you would convict them of their sin and cause the eyes of their heart to turn towards you.
SPEAKER_00: For those of us here today who are believers, Lord, we do feel convicted by a passage like this.
SPEAKER_00: We examine what's in our heart and what we feed our heart, and it can be scary.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we pray that your grace would motivate us to bask in your love, really, and to delight in your love and to pursue a life of holiness, not in our own strength, but in your strength, which is working in us and through us to will and to act according to your good purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, this is all about your love.
SPEAKER_00: We want to love you more.
SPEAKER_00: You fulfilled the law for us.
SPEAKER_00: What's left for us to do is to love you because love in our heart fulfills the law as well.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.