Daily Devotional For Friday, September 20, 2024

Good morning. It’s not “Freaky Friday,” but  Fabulous Friday. I hope God uses you today to help people come to Christ and help Christians grow in their walk with Christ. We are making our way through the greatest and most famous sermon ever – Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount. It is found in Matthew chapters 5, 6, & 7. Yesterday, we looked at Matthew 5:23-24. Verses 25-27 are a continuation of the same idea. In Jesus’ day, unpaid debts were quickly dealt with. Whoever you owed could take you to court and have you thrown into prison until the debt was paid. The problem is: if you are in prison, you cannot earn a wage that goes towards paying your debt. Unless someone else paid your debt, you were in prison for the rest of your life. Today, we come to Matthew 5:27-30:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; (28) but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (29) If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. (30) If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell” (NASB).

What Jesus does here and much of Matthew 5 is show our hypocrisy when it comes to certain sins. We tend to think that if we do not do them physically, then we are safe and free. Jesus says that before sin goes to the hands, it starts in the heart just like we saw previously with murder. What is true with murder is true with adultery. 

Look at Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is” (NASB). We are enamored with external appearances. When God called and anointed David as the next king over Israel, (to succeed King Saul), he warned Samuel about his own tendency to judge by external appearances. Look at 1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (NASB).

In our passage today, Jesus focuses on the sin of adultery, the lust behind it and how to be free of it. When we look at the Ten Commandments, the sixth commandment protects the sanctity of life and the seventh commandment protects the sanctity of marriage whether or not it is actual or in the mind. If we are married and we lust about another person, we have committed adultery in God’s eyes. In the Old Testament, committing adultery was a capital offense. Look at Leviticus 20:10, “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (NASB). Can you imagine if that was still true today? Probably would be less of the actual physical adultery. But adultery of the heart is not as obvious or public. 

My observation is that both anger and lust are probably the two most powerful influences on us. If we give into them, we will quickly learn they control us, not the other way around. The truth is this. Every single person, even the most righteous, holy and godly person have murdered in their heart and committed adultery in their heart. No one is immune from these two. 

In a culture where anything goes, people’s inhibitions are less and their willingness to cross the line is greater. Our culture uses sex to sell everything. This is why our western culture is being possessed and swallowed up by sexual sins. In the past, some have resorted to monasticism, castration or self-mutilation, but these are worthless. Until we can master our mind and thoughts, we will have to deal with these temptations.

This means that the solution to sexual sins of any kind cannot come from external sources because the problem is internal. Sexual sins are first heinous and second, increase due to our thoughts, feelings and desires – all which are not evil and sinful in themselves unless they are directed to another person we are not married to in life. Both the Old and New Testament have prohibitions against sexual sins such as premarital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, incest, being effeminate, and bestiality just to name a few.

In case you are wondering, such people will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Look at:

• 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, (10) nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God” (NASB).
• Galatians 5:19-21, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, (20) idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, (21) envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (NASB).
• Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (NASB).

This means when it comes to sexual desire, any time we lust after another person, we have committed a sexual sin in the eyes of God. So, Jesus expands sexual sin to any sexual thought or desire towards another person in which we are not married. Jesus uses hyperbole to make His point. He is not actually suggesting self-mutilation as a form to deal with uncontrolled sexual desires and thoughts. Consider the words of pastor and author Chuck Swindoll:

“However, the hyperbolic figure of speech does point to a severe, uncompromising moral self-control and self-denial. Lust enters through the eyes and sends a message to the mind, where the imagination takes over. So we shouldn’t look at things we know are treacherous, like pornographic images, and we shouldn’t stare at people as if they are merely objects of physical attraction. We should, to interpret Jesus’ figure of speech, be “blind” to them! Likewise, through the act of touching, lust is stimulated. If your hands go where they shouldn’t, then you have ignited your imagination and poured gasoline on the fire. Keep your hands to yourself!” (Source: Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary, “Matthew 1:15,” Vol. 1A, p. 101).

The Greek New Testament word Jesus uses for “look” is [βλέπω, blepo]. The grammatical structure and syntax of this verb implies this is not some casual glance, but staring or continually looking using one’s imagination to enhance or increase lustful thoughts, feelings and the imagination. The reason Jesus resorts to talking about eyes and hands is because lust starts in the eyes and commits with the hands. Actual physical adultery by Christians is scandalous and this includes adultery of the heart.

Questions To Consider

1. What for you is the most challenging or difficult part to Jesus’ words on this subject and why?
2. When you get lustful thoughts, how do you handle them?
3. Since Jesus did not limit adultery to actual physical adultery, but adultery of the heart and since according to the New Testament, adulterers will not inherit or enter the Kingdom of God, how do you suppose anyone gets to heaven then?
4. In using metaphor and hyperbolic speech, Jesus means that we must take extreme measures at times to limit and to establish controls over our sexual lusts. What are those for you? Are they effective? Why or why not? If you do not have any, why?

Scripture To Meditate On: Job 31:1, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, sexual lust is not something most people, including Christians talk about today. I want to honor You with my eyes, my heart, my thoughts, my feelings, my desires and my actions. Please give me the self-control to do this. If necessary, please send me a godly Christian I can trust to be my accountability partner. I love you Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly