And open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 27-30. Matthew chapter 5 is on page 810 if you've got a church Bible.
!
I spoke at a conference a couple of years ago and there was a panel. I was the third guy on the panel.
And the question was, what do you think is the biggest threat facing the church today?
What do you think is the biggest threat facing the church today?
First guy said, internet pornography.
Second guy said, internet pornography.
I said, sin and sin.
And I do want you to hold that thought because I do think pornography is a huge problem.
If you look at the statistics, it's quite terrifying amongst men and growing amongst women.
If you look in the church, the statistics are terrifying equally amongst people who are in church.
There will be people in this room this morning that are addicted to internet pornography.
There will be people that are struggling with it.
And yet I want to say to you, and I want to say to myself, that is not the big issue.
It's not the big issue. Don't buy that it's the big issue.
Because the big issue is, when you come to something like pornography, is pornography is never actually the problem.
And that's what we're going to see when we get there today.
And Jesus is explaining the law of God in all its richness, in all its fullness, in all its beauty.
And when he comes to the seventh commandment, he is showing you what does it mean to not commit adultery.
And he's showing you and I, what does it look like to live a life where our righteousness goes beyond the most religious people of their day, the scribes and Pharisees.
And so what Jesus is doing, Jesus is pointing you and I to the kind of obedience that will fulfil this command.
He's not showing you how to become a Christian.
He's not telling you this is the way you get into the kingdom of God.
And he's saying, as somebody who is part of a follower of the Lord Jesus, this is how you ought to live.
Two things.
What sort of obedience is it?
Number one, it's a repentant obedience.
A repentant obedience.
Look at verses 27 and 28.
You've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery.
Verse 28.
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
He's not countering the same commandments.
He's not repealing it.
He's saying there is more depth to it than you ever realised.
Judaism, at the time, it did recognise that there was a certain depth to the law.
But it wasn't just external obedience.
There had to be an inner obedience.
There had to be a purity of mind.
The religious leaders of the day, they recognised that.
It's not as if they were just centring on not committing the very act of adultery.
But Jesus is saying to you, you need to be very careful in thinking that just because there's been an external obedience.
An external, outward kind of obedience.
Be careful of that.
Because Jesus says the commandment is much, much deeper than that.
Jesus says, listen to me, verse 28.
I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
We need to realise what Jesus is saying.
First of all, there's his authority.
Can you see that?
I say to you,
that every single one of his followers is under his authority.
But notice he's not forbidding looking.
He's not saying that it's forbidden for a man to look at a woman.
God has created a world, a universe of beauty.
A lot of beauty, isn't he?
And a lot of beauty is found in those creatures called women.
And I'm sure God does not want that beauty to be unappreciated.
And Jesus is not saying here that you can look in a legitimate way.
Especially in the area of sexual desire.
There is a legitimate God-given desire.
To be fulfilled, isn't it?
The Bible says,
The answer for sexual relationships,
it is between a man and his wife.
In the covenant, lifelong covenant of marriage.
So it's a bit like the second commandment.
Do you remember we looked at that last week?
And it said,
Whoever is angry with his brother is liable to judgment.
Does that mean you can never be angry?
We know, don't we, that there is a legitimate anger.
There's a time when you ought to be angry,
and it's right to be angry.
But we also know that our sinful nature is such that
even legitimate anger,
even righteous anger,
it's so easy, isn't it, to go over that line.
And it becomes illegitimate,
and it becomes sinful,
and it becomes an ungodly anger.
And so it's very difficult.
You can't always separate them.
But Jesus is not supposing that all looking,
not all of a man looking at a woman,
or a woman looking at a man,
is sinful.
What is he doing?
Well, the text helps us, doesn't it?
He says,
I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman
with lustful intent,
looks at a woman in order to lust,
with the purpose of lusting,
with the purpose of depersonalising that person,
and seeing them as an object.
And notice he goes to the source of it.
He says,
if you have a man or a woman,
but he looks at a man or a woman,
a man or a woman,
in order to lust,
to feed his lust,
to possess her when she's not his,
if he looks in order to lust,
he's already committed adultery with her in his heart.
And so there's the problem.
And there is your problem.
And there is my problem.
It's the heart, isn't it?
It's a cliche,
but the heart of the problem is the problem of the human heart.
Do you remember Matthew chapter 19 and verse 20?
Out of the heart comes what?
Evil thoughts.
Got that?
Evil thoughts.
Then what does he mention?
He mentions murder,
adultery,
immorality,
theft,
false witnessing,
slander,
etc.
These things defile a man.
But it's out of the heart.
And so do you see that?
This morning,
your issue is not so much with,
maybe,
internet pornography.
It's with your heart and my heart.
The centre of our being is awry and perverse.
It's the sinful nature,
and it's from the heart
that these things come in other words.
And so you can take a commandment,
like the seventh commandment,
do not commit adultery.
And you may keep it externally,
and you may keep it literally,
but you may have committed adultery because of the way that you feed your lust in your imagination,
and in your thinking.
And you dwell on the images that you've seen and watched,
and you think on it,
and you replay it.
You store it in your memory,
and you commit adultery in your heart.
Do you see how deeply Jesus goes?
That's why when Jesus expounds God's law,
and we see how deep it cuts,
that we're driven back to the start of the Sermon on the Mount,
because we realise that it can only be those who mourn.
Who mourn over their sin.
Chapter 5 and verse 4.
And as you understand this section on lust,
and we're going to obey it,
it is always going to be a repentant obedience.
And I think if we're honest this morning,
and we look at this commandment as Jesus looks at it,
and we go beneath the external,
and the conformity,
and we go to the depths of our imagination,
and our hearts, and our desires,
we have to confess, don't we,
that we are a congregation of adulterers,
and adulteresses.
And fornicators.
And so do you see what Jesus is driving at here?
You can have, this morning,
a great sense of external conformity.
But what are the depths?
What are the depths?
This fellow was a vegetarian.
He was a teetotaler.
And he was a non-smoker.
And he actually gave people lectures on not smoking.
Do you know who that vegetarian,
teetotaling, non-smoking man was?
Adolf Hitler.
You can't tell, can you, much from externals.
You can't tell much about the depths
from the outside.
World War II in 1944.
About 3,000 German soldiers got behind the American lines.
They had American uniforms and American cheats.
They had American ID.
They spoke with American accents.
They smoked American cigarettes.
They used American swear words.
And what were they doing?
They got behind the lines,
and they stirred up trouble.
They changed road signs.
And they took down warning signs off minefields.
They watched and they plotted
American troop reinforcements
and movements and so on.
And finally, when it got so bad,
the kind of American counterintelligence corps
had to crack down.
There was chaos behind their lines.
So any jeep that pulled up
at checkpoint had a gun.
The driver had a gun put in their ribs
and he was grilled
until he found out
were they for real or not.
You couldn't just ask them
where they were from
because they had a good amount of knowledge.
You had to sniff them out
with questions
that only a true American would know.
Like,
where's the windy city
or something like that?
What is beet pan pizza
or something like that?
And that would give you an idea
whether they were for real.
On one occasion,
there was a group of lieutenants
sitting in a jeep,
supposedly,
and Americans
watching a troop of reinforcements
rush by
and someone went over
to check them out.
They had legitimate dog tags.
Their papers were checked out.
They even had army camp experiences,
they could tell.
They said that they'd trade
at Camp Hood.
And it looked so legitimate.
And finally,
they were asked one more question
before they went on.
Ever been to Texas?
Then said,
no,
stick them up.
Camp Hood is in Texas.
See,
they had to go really deep,
didn't they,
to get beneath the surface.
on the surface.
On the surface,
it looked so legitimate.
And it took so much to see
that underneath,
actually,
they were a phony.
And the law of God
is like that.
We can conform to it
and we can outwardly
conform to it.
But how deep
it cuts
our imaginations.
and if you are a disciple,
if you are a follower
of the Lord Jesus,
then you realise
that even as a disciple
and a follower of Christ,
how far
my obedience
comes from
really conforming
to God's law.
And when I see
the true intent
of God's law,
I realise
that I need
a saviour.
And as a Christian,
if you've been a Christian
any length of time
and you study God's law
and you love God's law,
you will realise that
again and again
and again and again.
I need saving.
And if we are going to seek
to obey this commandment,
we must not be naive
for every single one of us.
It will be a repentant obedience.
And I think one of the functions
that Jesus has
in the Sermon on the Mount
is that it brings
Christian people
to realise
how deep the roots
of sin are.
How deep
the roots of sin are
in our own imaginations
and thoughts
and it ought to bring us
to repentance.
And if we say
we are going to obey
this commandment,
it will be with
a repentant obedience.
And if you have not learnt it yet,
the Christian life
is one of ongoing
lifelong
continual
joyful
repentance.
And I use those words carefully.
The Christian life
is one of ongoing
lifelong
continual
joyful
repentance
of bringing your sin
to a God
who knows about it already
and who has dealt with it
in the person
of his Son
and offers you
free and full
forgiveness.
It will also secondly
be a rigorous
obedience.
Can you see that
in verse 29 to 30?
Verse 29
If your right eye
causes you to sin
tear it out
and throw it away
for it's better
that you lose
one of your members
than let your whole body
be thrown into hell.
If your right eye
causes you to sin
cut it off
and throw it away
for it is better
that you lose
one of your members
than let your whole body
go into hell.
What Jesus is saying there
is that
here is a way
for you to begin
to obey
and deal with
the seventh commandment
from the very roots
to deal not just
with external conformity
but seeking to obey
it from your heart
and here's the pattern
there's something
you can do
in order to begin
to get into
obedience on this
now what does he mean?
He says
if your right eye
and again
you need to
connect
verse 28
with verse
verse 29
and so he's just
spoken about
looking at a woman
lustfully
in order to lust
after her
I knew that a page
of my notes
blew away this morning
but I couldn't
work out which one
so
page 8
to page 10
let me just see
no
it definitely
blew away
and so
what we need to do
is we need to see
the connection
don't we
but what does
Jesus mean?
does he mean this
literally?
does he mean it
literally?
of course he can't
mean it
literally
the problem is
we're so familiar
with it aren't we
we think that
just because he can't
mean it literally
that it's
just one of those
things Jesus
says
it's
hyperbole
but it's not
that
it is
a figurative
expression
and just because
it doesn't mean
literally
that you have to
self-harm your
eye
or cut off
your arm
and the reason
why we know
it can't mean
that
isn't it
the reason
why we know
it can't mean
it literally
because if you
pluck out
your
right eye
you're still
back with your
left eye
aren't you?
and so that's
the reason why
it can't be
literal
and actually
if you pluck out
both eyes
the way lust
works is that
you'd still lust
anyway wouldn't
you?
and if you
chop off your
right arm
you're still
left with your
left arm
because the
issue of lust
is an issue
of the heart
alright
and that was
page nine
now what does
the figurative
language mean?
Jesus
saying this
really clearly
he's saying
you should be
willing to go
to nearly
any extreme
and he's
saying you
and I need
to be willing
to take
drastic measures
and you need
to be willing
to take any
sacrifice
make any
sacrifice
and you should
be willing
to endure
severe hardship
in order to
avoid
illicit sexual
lust
or any
sin
and that
leaves me
with a real
big problem
and it
humbles me
again
because
do you know
what
I don't
really share
that view
of sin
do I
and I
suspect
neither do
you
to have
such an
animosity
to have
such a
hatred
towards sin
and particularly
towards illicit
sexual lust
that Jesus
is speaking
about here
he's so
opposed to it
and he's
saying his
followers should
be so opposed
to it that
they're willing
to go to
almost any
extreme
to avoid
it
and Jesus
has a view
of sin
that's far
more extreme
and accurate
and right
and I
don't begin
to measure
up to that
and sometimes
I come
every Sunday
and I confess
and I say
it is terrible
but that
isn't always
my practice
in any
given area
and our
view is more
flippant
than Jesus
view and so
it humbles
us
and what it
does tell you
is it tells
you that the
Christian life
Christian
discipleship
is one of
ongoing
struggle
it is a
war
and it is
a fight
not just
with this
particular sin
but with any
sin
that's what
he's telling
you
and we
need to
take hold
of that
because there
is a view
of the
Christian life
that's preached
in lots of
churches in
London today
that's basically
this
it's let
go
and let
God
do it
Dr. Martyn
O'Jones
says there's
a view
which goes
like this
that when
you get
a particular
kind of
experience
then you
can kind
of live
off the
fumes
of that
and your
Christian life
will go
to a higher
plane
and you
don't have
to struggle
with sin
anymore
I don't
know a
Christian life
like that
John White
was right
when he
entitled his
book on
the Christian
life
and it
is a
brilliant
book
the fight
he called
it
the fight
and what
you have
here
is Jesus
saying are
you willing
to go to
any extreme
are you willing
to take any
measure
no matter
however
drastic
in order
to avoid
sin
and that
is a
passion
with you
he's not
saying don't
be passionate
Jesus
saying be
passionate
be passionate
in your war
against the
wrong type
of lust
what kind
of motivation
does Jesus
use here
how does
Jesus try to
stimulate you
to obedience
and evaluate
the situation
well he says
this he says
get your eye
and scoop
it out
and throw
it from you
and take
any measure
you can
that you
must
in order to
avoid sin
or any
sin
and the
motivation
he uses
is this
it's better
for you to
lose one of
your members
either an eye
or an arm
or a leg
than that your
whole body
is thrown
into hell
then he repeats
it in verse 29
for it's better
for you to lose
one of your
members
than for your
whole body
to go into
hell
so what's the
motivation
motivation is
fear
and we might
be really
disturbed
by Jesus
like this
you might say
you should
never motivate
anybody like
that
that is
negative
we don't
like that
we particularly
don't like that
in our culture
our church
culture
but I do
want you to
see that
it is
Jesus
the gracious
son of
God
who talks
about
hell
and one
of the
reasons it
doesn't disturb
us very much
is because
hell is just
a four letter
word for most
people isn't it
there's no
reality to it
and it's
basically empty
we use it
all the time
but do
notice it is
Jesus who
talks about
hell
C.S. Lewis
and Walter
Hooper
are sitting
in Lewis'
study
reading one
particular day
it's a sunny
day
and Walter
Cooper makes
the comment
a little bit
too loud
Lou it's
as hot as
hell in
here
and Lewis
says how
do you
know
and Jesus
is really
serious about
this isn't
he what is
he saying
he's saying
on any
given sin
but particularly
in this
case
illicit
sexual
lust
he is
saying
any
given
sin
that's
unattended
unchecked
unatoned
for
that is
nursed
that is
kept
that is
cuddled
will
place you
in hell
and he
says it's
better that
you take
any measure
that you
must take
to avoid
sin
any measure
that you
can to
the utmost
of your
ability
than to
end up
in hell
with your
sin
John 5
there's a guy
that's been
paralysed for
38 years
and Jesus
raises him up
and he sees
him later on
in the temple
and he says
don't go
on sinning
lest
something
worse
happen to
you
and I
don't know
exactly what
Jesus was
saying but
did you hear
what Jesus
said he
said there
is something
worse than
38 years
of utter
paralysis
it's an
amazing
statement
and so we
need to
stick seriously
his word
when he
says sin
unattended
sin
indulged
sin
left
alone
sin
nursed
will place
you in
hell
we might
say that
he's
motivating
us by
fear
but there's
nothing wrong
with that
as long as
it's a true
fear
you don't
motivate people
by untrue
things
do you
but if it
is someone
and something
that is true
then it's
perfectly right
what would
we do
if someone
ran in here
this morning
and they
screamed fire
fire
would we
say oh
will you
stop being
so negative
come on
you can't
motivate us
like that
we ought to
be motivated
by grace
well that
warning is
proper to
take isn't
it
a legitimate
motivation
and what
Jesus' word
requires is
vigorous obedience
if we're
willing to do
practically anything
in order to
obey his
commandments
in order to
harness this
matter of
illicit lust
and so on
what does it
require
well it means
that we'll take
measures won't it
so that our
lust isn't fed
we'll avoid
situations that
stimulate lust
but again
you've got to
realise the
problem is
the heart
you've got a
betrayer within
you
the problem
is with
your sinful
nature
that remains
it's true
we deal with
all the
outside stimuli
that we
can
we get
internet
accountability
we meet
with people
and confess
our sins
we get
people to
ask us
the hard
questions
but we've
got to realise
the problem
with that
is the
problem
with the
heart
isn't it
the primary
problem
the primary
issue is
evil
nature
within
so there's
kind of
craze
we must
have really
close
accountability
groups
but we
all know
really
accountability
groups don't
work
why don't
accountability
groups work
because if
you're going to
sleep with
your brother's
wife
you're going
to lie
to your
brother
about it
aren't you
you'll keep
yourself
from that
because the
problem is
it's my
heart
we
automatically
think
don't
we
I've
talked
about it
a number
of times
internet
pornography
but there's
something much
deeper going
on here
and we need
to be aware
don't we
of the
culture that
we live
in
and our
culture's
approach to
relationships
and what
is normal
and what
is allowable
behaviour
and to recognise
that according
to the bible
the only
place for
sexual
relations
is within
the context
of a marriage
relationship
lifelong
between your
husband and
the wife
and I know
that you
can't fly out
of the world
I know you've
got to go to
work tomorrow
and you've
got to go to
school and
you can't
escape this
but actually
we have to
change our
thinking and
our minds
and we need
to see
sexual behaviour
outside of
marriage for
what it is
which is
pathetic
and I don't
say that
lightly
we need to
deal with
the visual
is it
and the
mind
there's
going to
be different
issues
to different
folks
there'll
be different
temptations
but it's
the same
answer for
each one
it really
is
it's
simple
it's not
easy
it's pluck
out your
right eye
and cut
off your
right hand
that may
mean you
get out
of your
smartphone
so I'd
be seen
as a total
dinosaur
people will
laugh at me
well
total
dinosaurs
and people
who are
laughed at
will be in
the kingdom
of heaven
the stakes
are too
high
maybe that
you just
don't get
into that
I'm not
a raving
radical
I just
think if
we take
Jesus'
words in
verse 29
and 30
seriously
then whatever
makes you
susceptible
in this
area of
sin
in so far
as it
depends on
you
you'll
want to
get rid
of it
and you'll
not expose
yourself
to it
and that
is going to
look differently
in different
people
isn't it
there's no
one
straight rule
I wish there
was
but there
isn't
but the
principle is
caring about
following
the Lord
and so
what does
Jesus require
of us
in the
seventh
commandment
Charlie Brown
and Lucy
Charlie Brown
cartoon character
says
beauty is
only skin
deep
Lucy
says
I deny
that
beauty
goes down
layer
after layer
and she
looked in her
mirror again
and said
I have
very thick
beauty
what's
Jesus
want
of his
disciples
in obedience
to the
seventh
commandment
he wants
very thick
obedience
that goes
down
into the
depths
of our
hearts
and our
imaginations
and also
that reaches
up to the
heights of
being willing
even to
sacrifice
some good
things
good things
which are
not wrong
but if in
our case
they lead
us to sin
we'll want
rid of them
and so he
wants a very
thick obedience
don't think
people of
God
don't think
that Jesus
wants to
squash your
lust
he doesn't
Jesus
wants you
to lust
he wants
to stir
up your
lust
he wants
to inflame
your lust
he wants
you to
lust
after purity
and so
it's so
helpful
isn't it
that we
come to
the table
we come
to the table
of the Lord
for sinners
for people
that struggle
with their
sin
that struggle
to know
that they
are cleansed
from their
past sin
and yet we
know the
blood of
Jesus
his son
cleanses us
from all
sin
as we
heard earlier
this morning
and we
ask that
as we
eat of
the bread
and drink
of the
wine
that he
would stir
us up
he would
strengthen
our desires
for purity
let's
pray
those
!