INTRODUCTION
Bruce Larson tells of an old priest, who was asked by a young man, "Father, when will I cease to be bothered by the sins of the flesh? The priest replied, Son I wouldn’t trust myself until I’d been dead for 3 or 4 days
Today we are going to deal with a subject 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 has hit many homes and has been the cause of many marriages ending up in divorce.
As I planned this message I realized that most of us are probably not going to run around on our wives, or cheat on our husbands. We’re not going to get involved with promiscuous men and women. In fact, many of us will never even be tempted to actually do those things.
For most of us, 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.
The religious leaders felt that as long as they did not act out the deed, that they were innocent before God.
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.
The title of my message is “It Doesn’t Hurt to Look?”
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. It doesn’t hurt to look, 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.
Can’t we just look as long as we do not act? In 1990, over 300 million X-rated videos were sold. That’s more than one for every man, woman and child in the country. Since then sales and rentals of adult videos have risen by 75%.
In our society, we are being bombarded by temptation in the area of sexual purity. According to a 1995 article in the American Family Association Journal, 88% of all sexual activity portrayed on prime-time TV occurs between people who are not married to each other. “It doesn’t hurt to look, or does it?
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?
SERMON
(The outline comes from John MacArthur’s commentary on Matthew)
I. THE DEED V 27
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?
Sheryl Tedder of Omaha, Nebraska tells the following story. As children’s pastor, I listened as a fourth-grade Sunday school teacher shared a concern. Completing a quarter’s lessons on the Ten Commandments, he had asked the kids, "What is the hardest Commandment for you to keep?" to which most of them responded, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." We couldn’t understand why fourth graders would find that command a problem until a mother quizzed her son on what he thought committing adultery meant. Without blinking, the boy replied, "Thou shalt not sass back to adults."
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 betrothed to be married to someone else (Lev 18:20; 20:10; Deut 22:22). The primary concern in the injunction 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). 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.
The Law said that you were guilty if you actually participated in the act. By the way God designed sex. 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. God created sex and He created it to be enjoyed within the boundaries of marriage. We need to understand that any sexual activity outside the boundaries of marriage is against God’s will for you.
Jesus is going to go to the heart of the issue, He is going to raise the bar of conduct to such a level that if we follow it, we will not fall into this trap.
II. THE DESIRE V 28
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.
The word that we translate “look” indicates a continued action. The word also denotes purpose. This is not the casual though that pops into the mind that is pushed out. It describes a person who allows those initial thoughts to flourish. Jesus does not condemn looking but lusting.
Looking at a woman lustfully does not cause a man to commit adultery in his thoughts. He already has committed adultery in his heart. It is not lustful looking that causes the sin in the heart, but the sin in the heart that causes lustful looking. The lustful looking is but the expression of a heart that is already immoral and adulterous. The heart is the soil where the seeds of sin are imbedded and begin to grow
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. Tough man research
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.
Temptation in itself is not sin. Jesus was tempted in all ways (Hebrews 4:15), yet was without sin. JAMES 1:14-15 says this, But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
There are many people who would not commit the physical act, but they will look longer than they should at someone and then they allow that look to lead to other things that happen in the mind.
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)
Let’s look at an example in the scriptures of this. Look in 2 Samuel 11:2-5 at the situation with David and Bathsheba. (Saw, inquired, acted)
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.
What we take into can cause us problems. (READ MATTHEW 15:17-19)
Job realized this and said the following in Job 31:1 "I have made a covenant with my eyes; How then could I gaze at a virgin?
Pornography damages our relationship with out spouse because when we are with our spouse, our minds will wander to what we have been watching. Then our physical relationship with our spouse becomes one with another person. Some of the romance novels and soap operas do the same thing.
If lustful looking is so grievous a sin, then those who dress and expose themselves with the desire to be looked at and lusted after… are not less but perhaps more guilty. In this matter it is not only too often the case that men sin but women tempt them to do so. How great then must be the guilt of the great majority of modern misses who deliberately seek to arouse the sexual passions of young men. And how much greater still is the guilt of most of their mothers for allowing them to become lascivious temptresses. (An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974], p. 83)
Proverbs 5:18-10 is a passage that all of us need to read. Listen to the passage. Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love.
Does it hurt to look? Yes it does, you can’t help but notice, but we are not to look!
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." This was anonymously submitted as a true story told by a minister while preaching a sermon on the sin of the lust of the eye. Would you put your name on this one?
III. THE DELIVERANCE V29-30
READ VERSE 29-30
Here is the solution for the problem. GET SAW AND POKER
Part of us wants to take this literally because we do want to be faithful to Jesus and we don’t want to go to hell. Furthermore, we know just how sinful we can be. Then common sense takes over and 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.
What Jesus is saying here is that 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” basically means to cause to fall, but in the form that it is used here (makes … stumble), 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.
PHI 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
2CO 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,
Keep you 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.
1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us to flee immorality.
1TI 6:11 But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.
2TI 2:22 Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
JAM 4:7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
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.
Also, 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.
Introductory material comes from a sermon from Rick McGinnis found on www.sermoncentral.com
