Title: Lust and Adultery Script: Mt. 5:27-32
Type: Expository series Where: GNBC 3-1-26
Intro: There’s a lot of literature or talk by a lot of people declaring that God gives us His law because He wants to make sure we don’t have any fun. It is truly sad that so many people have this idea of the Lord, for He is no killjoy. In fact, one of the purposes of the law is to provide boundaries that keep us from getting hurt when we transgress them. Used rightly, the law is actually a means to help us celebrate life (Ps. 84:11). The seventh commandment provides an excellent example of this principle. We need to look back to the very first marriage in history, between Adam and Eve. Genesis 2:18–25 explains that God made man and woman for each other, that He created marriage so that we would not be alone. In the marriage relationship, husband and wife come together as one flesh in a mystical union that illustrates the union of Christ and His church (Eph. 5:31–32). Marriage was created so that man and woman could be together and be naked and unashamed (Gen. 2:25). The sense of this verse includes not only physical nakedness but points also to vulnerability in a broader sense. God’s purpose for marriage is that we would have a relationship in which there is vulnerability w/ another person without fear or shame. God forbids adultery in order to safeguard this relationship. When sin entered the world, it affected everything, including marriage, and the lust that now arises in our fallen hearts can tempt us to break our marriage vows. If a husband or wife commits adultery, he or she destroys the environment in which his or her spouse could experience vulnerability safely and benefit from the most profound union two people can enjoy with one another.
Prop: Today we come to another area of Christ’s teaching that challenges us as well as our culture.
BG: 1. As we saw last week and again this week, the law of God is an essential diagnostical tool. Our attitudes toward it, our breaking or our keeping of it, are all indications of our true spiritual condition. 2. Again, need to remember that Christ is addressing life and expectations of those who are members of His Kingdom. 3. In this section, Christ addressing 2 common areas when don’t guard our hearts we cause lasting and often irreparable damage to personal relationships: anger and adultery. Last week addressed anger. This week, adultery.
Prop:
I. Jesus Clearly Teaches that All Forms of Adultery are Forbidden.
A. God Unconditionally Forbade Adultery in the 10 Commandments. (Ex. 20:14)
1. God’s Law Unconditionally forbade Adultery.
a. The OT penalty for adultery was death (Lev. 20:10) Illust- Probably Mr. Gates wouldn’t be so cavalier about his cavorting in the Caribbean had this been the penalty under which he had operated. Probably we wouldn’t either.
b. Dt. 24:1 – “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house…” This was typically interpreted as some sort of sexually shameful behavior the husband became aware of after marriage. Modern day feminists often get triggered by such passages and yet don’t understand this verse was at root a protection for women against husbands treating them cruelly or capriciously.
2. Jesus Confronts the Rabbinical Teaching that was an Absolute Abuse of God’s Intention.
a. Vv. 21& 27 – Make no mistake about it, Jesus is intentionally “poking the bear”. “You have heard it said…but I say to you…” Jesus is claiming an authority that overrides the errors of rabbinical teaching. “I say” – ego – 1st per sing, for emphasis: “I myself say…” There is a two-fold battle going on here. One is the content of the message, but the other is authority to properly interpret that content! This claim to personal authority drove the Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees apoplectic!
b. Rabbinical teaching that Christ was condemning, stated that a man could divorce his wife if he “grew cool towards her” or if he disliked her cooking! So, a law that was intended by God to safeguard the women amongst His covenant people was completely abrogated and manipulated into an escape clause for self-indulgent men!
B. Jesus’ Teaching on Adultery is Applicable to All Areas of Sexual Immorality.
1.All forms of Sexual Immorality are Addressed in God’s Word.
a. God’s Law, God’s standard requires more than just the avoidance of an activity. Rather, Jesus is saying here that it requires, and the requirement of Citizens of His Kingdom, that we demonstrate purity and integrity in our hearts and thoughts.
b. Although Jesus is specifically addressing adultery here, it is obvious that exposition is directed towards any form of sexual immorality. Jesus stresses that the root of sexual immorality resides in the same location where unforgiveness and alienation resides in the angry individual he previously illustrated: the heart! The man who looks at the woman lustfully commits adultery of the heart. Now, God made men and women to be attracted to each other, to need each other, and to want each other. Sexual relationships are part and parcel of God’s good gifts, and the supreme reason for that gift is in fact companionship! Illust: Back in the Garden of Eden, God brought Eve to Adam because it was not good for man to be alone. (Gen. 2:18) It was and is to be in that committed fellowship of family life that our sexual desires and instincts are to find their fulfillment.
2. Jesus addresses the impropriety of lust.
a. The teaching of the rabbis that Jesus was making null and void assumed divorce for virtually any reason. Illust: This is free advice for anyone in a dating relationship…before you consider marriage to that individual, you had better know what you, as well as he/she believes about divorce! Our society today believes in “no fault divorce”. Let me ask you a question: Is armed robbery an option for you if you run out of money? No? Then divorce shouldn’t be an option due to all sorts of lesser offenses in a marriage relationship. Adultery only.
b. Lust is a perversion of God’s design. God made men and women to be attracted to each other, so as to have physical, spiritual, and mental/emotional relationships. Illust: America today is often described as a “Hook-up culture”, there is anonymity, there are “Friends with Benefits”, men and women are saturated with and addicted to porn. And ultimately it all misses the mark, it is all like eating tons of cotton candy at the county fair. Boy, it looks so tempting, and after you’ve eaten your fill you’re sick to your stomach and you have a terrible headache… Why? In order to become as the Bible describes, “one flesh”. “a man leaves his father& mother and cleaves to his wife.” (Gen. 2:24). The heart of the relationship is what’s undeniably absent in the “hook up culture”: COMMITMENT! A leaving of an old relationship and the establishment of a covenantal relationship with one’s husband or wife.
C. Applic: Adultery is such a grievous sin and is so destructive of relationships that God compares idolatry to adultery in Ezekiel 16:1–58. The commandment against adultery reminds us of the seriousness of this sin and sets boundaries to preserve our well-being
II. The Nature of Adultery.
A. Christ’s Commandment against Adultery is set in a Clear Context.
1. Adultery Always Involves Disobedience.
a. Adultery always involves theft. Adultery is a breach of several of God’s commands. The 7th Commandment: “Thou shall not commit adultery.” So, the adulterer is specifically violating the very command that prohibits his or her behavior. Adultery always involves disobedience of the Lord we are commanded to worship. Adultery always involves theft: the theft of another’s companion, as a result of coveting what belongs to another. (3 of the commands!). Most likely the adulterer has already idolized the individual with whom he/she will commit adultery, so there is a 4th commandment broken!
b. Adultery always shatters lives. Adultery is serious. Adultery shatters people’s lives, it shatters families, it shatters our relationship with God. It is not an exciting lifestyle, it is a base act. Illust: Last July (2025) Kristan Cabot (HR Director for Astronomer) and her boss, CEO, Andy Bryon, were infamously caught on the “Kiss Cam” at a Coldplay concert in Foxboro, MA. Both promptly tried to hide from view, and the lead singer, Chris Martin joked from stage that they might be having an "affair." Apparently it was not a joke. Within days the internet exploded with 100’s of millions of views of the embarrassing event. What have been the results of this fling? Both lost their jobs, at least one got a divorce, shamed publicly, family dissension, death threats, blacklisted. Although were having a lot of alcohol-influenced fun, it all came to an abrupt halt when the camera focused in on them.
2. We need to be awakened to the terrible humiliation surrounding adultery.
a. I want us to look very carefully at what Jesus is saying in this passage. We need to examine our own sin with the humiliation Cabot and Bryon experienced as a result of the “Kiss Cam”. We have become all too desensitized by our own hearts and by the media and morals of our culture. We think to ourselves: “I’ll never be caught.” “No one knows.” “It’s only porn.” No. God does see.
b. Again, why was there such a severe sentence for those who committed adultery amongst God’s Covenant people? Lev. 20:10 stated that adultery carried a death sentence! Why? Because it was intended to awaken God’s people to the true nature and effects of immorality. Even today, few actions result in pain for so many people as they do in the event of adultery.
B. How Do We Live in a Fallen Society and Remain Faithful to God and His Word?
1. Know the Difference Between Looks and Lust.
a. Jesus does not forbid “Looking” but He clearly forbids “Lustful looks”. It is not wrong to appreciate and even admire the looks, gifts, and graces of individuals of either sex. God is the One Who has so gifted and we can recognize those gifts in others. However, we all know when we go too far in appreciating or when we take the second or third look, that our tendency to sin is being appeased and our will is weakening.
b. Job 31:1 and I Tim. 5:2 gives us two guiding principles. Job said: “I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” (Women too!) Paul gave instructions to the young pastor in ITim. 5:2 to “treat the older women as mothers and the younger women as sisters, in complete purity.” If you are dating your brother or sister in Christ, treat him/her like a brother or sister in Christ, UNTIL you can treat them as a husband or wife.
2. Set Out to Take Seriously the Mortification of Sin
a. Illust: Pastor Richard has recently put up on the sign out front a quote by John Owens, the old English Puritan pastor: “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” Friend, the Holy Spirit empowers the believer to put sin to death and to grow in righteousness in the Christian life.” When we indulge our sin we never experience the true joy we have in a holy life in Christ. True joy, resurrection joy, always lies for the Christian on the other side of our sharing in the sufferings of Christ. That is just as applicable to our maintenance of sexual purity as it is to any other area of our lives. Let me say this as well. Sexual infidelity before marriage will negatively impact your sexual enjoyment in marriage.
b. Let me give us three helpful boundaries in this area, especially if you are to this point unmarried.
1. Marriage is for life. Again, before you consider dating or marriage, you have to decide what you and the other individual believes about divorce. Under what circumstances is divorce an option? As a Christian you only date or marry another Christian. Period.
2. Keep your hands to yourself. I Thes. 4:1-8 “This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel (body) in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion.” Jesus is telling us in this passage that there is to be no sexual immorality before or during marriage. Illust: It always concerns me when someone asks me, “Pastor, how far can we go?” (Probably have already gone too far! Remember this: Your boy/girlfriend is not your husband/wife. Your fiancé is not your husband/wife. Might want to ask self, who’s dating your future husband/wife? Does it matter how they treat them? Jesus tells us that we need to take extreme steps vv. 29-30 to address the behaviors that lead to lust and adultery. We need to guard our hearts.
3. Don’t act cheap. If you belong to Christ you are the child of the King! You should not act cheap and you shouldn’t dress cheap. Now, that doesn’t mean that you have dress like you just walked off the Mayflower! Style is fine. Cheap is not. How we dress often communicates something about our heart and how we view ourselves. Illust: If you dress how Paris Hilton used to dress, you will probably find a guy who thinks he can take you out on a date and then sleep with you at the Hilton! (Farrar, p. 85) Young women, especially, maybe you didn’t have a good relationship with your father, maybe he didn’t tell you how valuable you are. Maybe he didn’t treat you as valuable. Your heavenly Father loves and values you so much He died for you!
C. Applic: It was Robert Schuman who said: “When I was a young man, I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I found here-but alas, she was waiting for the perfect man!” There is only 1 perfect man, Jesus Christ, and He’s not dating you. Can I encourage something: Every Christian who is not actively dating/engaged/married, should be willing to go out at least once with a Christian member of the opposite sex if asked.
III. Jesus’ Conclusion About Adultery and Divorce?
A. Jesus Specifically Addresses the Distortions Created by the Jews’ Traditions.
1. Jesus specifically attacked in the injustice of religious tradition of His day.
a. Illust: As Christians, we need to be guided by the WOG and not our religious traditions. When I was an assistant pastor had an elderly woman in our church. To be honest, she was a bit of a crab…Mrs. Harwell was her name. Very closed around others. No family. I began to get to know her because would help drive a van giving people to rides. Mrs. Harwell had grown up in a kind of Christian holiness sect in SC and walked away in 1930’s. In her 20’s fell in love and married an older man. During that time she came back to the Lord. Her previous church had told her that because her husband was previously divorced, now that she was a Christian, she needed to divorce her husband, and in time she did. That was a tradition devoid of clear Scriptural content.
b. What Jesus is addressing in this passage isn’t too dissimilar. The passage that was supposed to regulate man’s rebellion against God’s purpose in marriage became so distorted by religious tradition so as to turn it into an excuse for divorce. So because of the hardness of their hearts, the very law that was meant to restrain evil behavior was used to justify their own ends.
2. Make no mistake, Jesus Clearly Confirms what God had previously stated.
a. Mal. 2:16 – God clearly states that He hates divorce. The only exception that is made in this passage is the marital unfaithfulness of one spouse. Matthew uses the word porneia, which carried a wide variety of meaning in relation to sexual immorality and unfaithfulness. Even today, we use that word in the English language to describe the media which contributes most of the largest attacks in our world resulting in immorality and unfaithfulness. According to most recent statistics, 87% of American men 18-35 yrs of age view porn weekly, with 67% on their phone. Although far behind their male counterparts, at least 30% of American women of the same age group are also addicted. (ECare, 8-19-25)
b. Illust: Now, lets go back to the passage, and equally, the importance of the context of the passage and the time in which Jesus lived. Palestine was under Roman occupation. In the OT, when Israel and later Judah were independent countries, the penalty as I said previously, for adultery, was death (Lev. 20:10). Obviously, when the penalty was exacted, the marriage abruptly came to an end, and the living partner was free to marry. However, under Roman occupation the penalty was not allowed to be enforced. The adulterer lived. But Jesus’ teaching here seems to suggest the rightness of acting as though the penalty had been carried out. In such a case, the wronged partner was free to marry again.
B. What are the Salient Points of Christ’s Teaching that We Must Always Remember as Believers (Christians have a wide variety of interpretation of these verses!)
1. God’s design for marriage is a permanent commitment between one woman and one man. Whenever that marriage is destroyed it results in carnage.
2. This passage provides us with Jesus’ corrective for the Jews’ divorce on demand which resulted in disastrous consequences for families/especially women. Illust: No fault divorce is the law of the land in the US today. California, ever the progressive state, was the first to sign it into law, but not by a Democrat governor. Ronald Reagan was governor of California when, a few days after Labor Day 1969, he signed the nation’s first no-fault law. His statement: “I believe it is a step towards removing the acrimony and bitterness between a couple that is harmful not only to their children but also to society as a whole.” Divorce is a “tragic thing,” but the new law will “do much to remove the sideshow elements in many divorce cases.” Prior to that, divorce required a wronged spouse, a sinning spouse, and some kind of proof to a legally satisfactory standard. As American Christians, we are still to operate under God’s standard and not our cultural standard.
3. Jesus’ teaching here demonstrates that divorce on unbiblical grounds complicates sin rather than cures it and implicates others in sin rather than absolving them.
4. Jesus recognizes the Bible taught that sexual immorality can destroy marriage bonds. In the OT, sexual sin was governed by a death penalty, setting the other partner free from the marriage. Although no longer used, its effect is still relevant today. But, as Christians, let me also address this…instead of looking at the “case study” for divorce, let’s look at what it takes for marital faithfulness. Marriage is a life long promises/covenant: “to have and hold, for better/worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as you both shall live.” Every day strengthen that commitment by having and holding your partner, decide to do nothing that will breach that covenant, love and cherish each other, cherishing them by God’s grace. Gouge out of your heart anything that might destroy the joy of your special relationship.
C. Applic: Let me challenge you to extend the opportunity of grace. Even in the worst marriages God can work His wonders of reconciliation and blessing. Illust: I know a couple of couples who married pretty young in the early 1970’s. IN each instance men were involved in addictions, crime, and violence. In both instances the marriage fell apart due to adultery as well as other sinful factors. In both instances a spouse got saved and forgave and the other followed suit. And in both instances, each recently celebrated 50 years of God-honoring marriages!
