Mathew 5:27-37

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Matthew 5:27-37

Ye have heard that is was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if they right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is more profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him write her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: nor by the earth; for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let you communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”

The Most Powerful Sermon in the World, part 2

“We are in Matthew chapter 5. It’s been a couple weeks since we’ve looked at our text together, but we’ve been in the midst of what could be stated as the greatest sermon, certainly from the lips of the greatest preacher, Jesus Christ, the Sermon on the Mount. No doubt, all the words of Jesus could be considered the greatest sermon, if you take all of his words. But there is something about this Sermon on the Mount that has been far-reaching in its effect over the centuries, and it’s so often quoted. We also remind ourselves at times, and let’s just remind ourselves now, Matthew is using, he’s taking parts of the Sermon on the Mount. He hasn’t taken all of it. But he’s taken certain parts and he’s laying them out before us, as he is throughout the Gospel, the different things. He’s demonstrating to us his readers, his audience, that there’s never been anybody like this man Jesus. There’s never been anybody like him. He’s completely unique. In fact, Matthew is showing his audience that this man Jesus is nothing less than the Messiah, the Messiah of the people of Israel. [At the time Matthew wrote this Gospel, the only one written at first in Hebrew, his audience was a predominantly Jewish audience living in Jerusalem and Judea. Matthew at first was written for the Jews.] He is the Son of God. He is very God, very God, very man, very man, he is God the Son, and he is the Saviour of all mankind. So as we’re reading these things, Matthew is also demonstrating to us, reminding us, through all the different things, the miracles, the facts surrounding the life of Jesus, but including his very teachings, all demonstrate this man, there’s never been anybody like him. So, we’ve been in Matthew chapter 5 now for sometime, I think it’s the ninth study. We’ve been looking at Jesus in the sense of through the pen and heart of Matthew. We have also been listening to his exhortations. Remember, he’s on the side of the Mount there in the area of Galilee. There’s a multitude around him we were told early on. We also were told in Luke (6), you get that sense from Matthew too, he’s looking as he’s speaking especially to his disciples. He wants to make contact with them, he’s seeking to drive home truths with his disciples. Yet the multitudes are there, the message is certainly for everybody. But as he’s teaching, and we especially started to note this in the last study, as he’s sharing the things that he is, there are clearly hard hearts around him. I mean, hardness of heart is certainly something that ails man often, and there are hard hearts around him. So as he is teaching, he’s seeking to get through and to penetrate into these hard hearts. There are people, like there are so often today, maybe even here in this room this morning, there are people that are listening to Jesus, and he’s shared beautiful truths. I mean, he is sharing words of life. If anybody will listen closely, and will take hold of what he’s saying, and let it go down into their heart and into their life, they will experience [spiritual] life. In fact, Jesus wanted them, and wants you and I to experience life abundantly. So he’s sharing these things. Yet there are people that are deceived by their own ways and their hard-heartedness. There are those that are there that, because of their own spiritual merit, their own spiritual achievements, they think they’ve got God figured out, so they’re ok in their own minds, they think they certainly know what it’s all about, they know God. They think they have this life of the Spirit, but they’re deceived. There are even some, and it doesn’t say this directly, but no doubt because of what he says, there are people that are around him who not only see themselves that way, but also they are expounding their own self-righteousness and religious methods, and they’re even leading others away from God. So Jesus is seeking to get through to their hearts, saying some things that are very shocking. If you remember, in verse 20, I mean, he’s especially going for the religious elite with some of these things he’s saying, that is the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the scribes. But in verse 20, this we noted last time, just bringing you back and up to speed again, he said, this is shocking as he said this to the crowd that was there, “For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” It was shocking that he would say that. Eyes bulged out, jaws dropped at that statement. But yet he’s stating truths, and he’s also going right for the heart, trying to awaken them, and get their attention. They need to really see their hearts for what they are, and it’s when you see your heart for what it really is, and you see the ugliness that is there, there’s nothing else to do but go to God and say “God, I need your grace, and you’re mercy, I need your grace, your undeserved favor, I need your work in me. Look at the condition of my heart and my life.” But as we studied at the beginning of the chapter, when we are in that place, when a man or woman is in that condition, then that’s called ‘being poor in spirit.’ And that’s the heart that God responds to, the broken, contrite heart. God responds, and he then fills that heart with life, life abundantly [via bestowing the Holy Spirit upon that individual---and that is called becoming ‘converted’, or ‘born-again’]. Jesus is sharing about life, and man, there’s hard hearts, and he’s hammering away at some of that hardness, seeking to get through to them. And so, this is a heart-searching, heart-penetrating text that we’re in. So let’s say a word of prayer, and let the Holy Spirit even work in our hearts as we go through these verses together. ‘Lord, thank you that we can stop again for a moment as a congregation and consider your Word. Amazing, it’s the Word of God, that you would actually, you God, would have your Word recorded and we could then consider it today, the very words of God. And of course, what you say is true, and Lord help us to hear you. Help us to hear your voice, may this not just be a Bible study, or a logical intellectual exercise, truly Lord, speak to our hearts, each and every one of us. May we allow you to examine our hearts and to search our hearts, and to reveal the things that are there. And I thank you Lord, we know your Word says ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’, so all the more may we have that sense in our hearts. Holy Spirit be upon us, and even upon myself now as we go through your Word, in Jesus name, amen.’

The Seventh Commandment, brought to its full spiritual intent

Verses 27-30, “You have heard that is was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” Now, maybe you remember this, but back in verse 21 last week, Jesus stated the phrase that he repeats then in verse 27, he said exactly these words in verse 21 also, “You have heard that it was said to those of old.” It is the second time he now says that, and he’s going to say that six times. Starting with verse 21 to the end of the chapter he makes that statement six times. And clearly the reason is, he’s trying to get through to their hearts. There are these religious leaders that are there, I mean, they’re the spiritual leaders, and they’re seen in a certain way, they believe a certain way. And people see them a certain way. And yet they have had a misunderstanding of God and of his Word. And because of that, being in the place where they are, they’ve taught the Word inaccurately, they’ve shared things that aren’t true, so the people under them have not had a right understanding of God, and there’s just this cloudiness and confusion. So he is dealing with that. But at the same time, rattling some cages, and dealing with some hearts, he says “You’ve heard that it was said of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’” Now they have heard that a lot of times, that’s one of the Big Ten, that’s the Seventh Commandment in the Ten Commandments, recorded by Moses, Exodus chapter 20, verse 14, Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 18, one of the Ten Commandments so often stated. You’ve heard it said ‘You shall not commit adultery’, they heard these words often. But unfortunately, because of the religious leaders, and in their own hearts, many of them have had a misunderstanding about what the spirit of that meant, and what it all was about. For many, and especially the religious leaders, there was an understanding, a belief that you had to physically, somebody had to physically be married, and to have sexual relationships with somebody who wasn’t their spouse in order to break this commandment. Or in their culture, if you were engaged, it was seen the same way. If you were engaged and had sexual relationships with somebody other than your fiancée, that would also be considered adultery. So you had to physically do this in order to break this commandment. So, many, most in the crowd, religious leaders, would look at this commandment and say ‘I’ve never broken this commandment. I’m innocent before God. I’ve been faithful to this commandment.’ Yet, in their hearts, in their lives, in many instances there was poison and ugliness and lust. So Jesus is addressing the fact that they’ve had a misunderstanding. [Comment: And there is one place in the Old Testament, where one true believer in God had this understanding (not to say the Prophets and other born-again believers, few as they were, didn’t understand as well), but this individual actually made the statement that he made a covenant with his eyes to not look upon a young, pretty maiden. And he was married. This is found in the Book of Job. Job understood what Jesus is bringing out about the 7^th Commandment. The Jewish leaders knew the Book of Job, but totally missed the this spiritual nugget of understanding about God’s Law, that it went to the heart level.] In fact, there are many who have violated this command of God, they are in sin. And so he shares the things that he does. There in verse 28 he says ‘You know, you’ve heard this, but let me tell you, whoever looks at a woman lustfully, has already committed adultery, whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed this sin of adultery.’ Now, I’m sure, you know, in my mind, as I look on the side of the Mount there with this multitude, I can see folks starting to shift, I can hear the rustling in the crowd. That’s making people uncomfortable, ears are perked up. I mean, some people are thinking, ‘Are you saying that I committed adultery?’. There are people thinking that at this moment. It’s kind of stunning. That’s a command where they’ve always said ‘Oh, I’ve not done that one, got that one down alright, man.’ And now they’re like ‘Huh?! I’ve committed adultery?!’ It’s shocking, it’s an attention-getter, no doubt about it. I mean, there’s these religious leaders, they’re thinking ‘I’ve never done that.’ But Jesus knows, I’ve seen the video you play in your head, man, I’ve seen the images, I’ve watched your eyes go where they go. You say ‘I’ve not done that’, but poison, the poison is within you, the lust is there.’ So Jesus is stating here, the reality of sexual sin is this, the reality of sexual sin is more than the physical act. It begins with the desire of the heart, it begins with the lust in the heart, and the thoughts in the mind, that’s where it starts. [Comment: Psychologists have matter of factly stated that the biggest sexual organ is the mind of a person, their brain.] Now by the way, we can state this, and this is a no-brainer for just about all of us, maybe not all of us, but I’ll state this. This is clearly a statement that the Bible says that pornography is clearly sin. Right? Jesus says to look at a woman lustfully is adultery, is sin. So pornography clearly is sin. I only state that to you because there are maybe some present, there are certainly in our culture, there are teachings and understandings in our society that in some instances that’s considered healthy, maybe beneficial for a young person, maybe it’s just normal. And it’s true, we’re designed, man has been designed, woman has been designed for sexual relations, but in a certain context. But very clearly, without a doubt, the Bible comes right out and says, pornography, I mean Jesus says ‘to look at a woman lustfully is sin.’ So if you question that, if you happen to be a young person wondering ‘Well that’s ok’. No, Jesus says it’s sin. It is absolutely, positively, without any doubt, it is sin. Can’t debate it otherwise. If you’re a Christian and you believe that the Bible is the Word of God, there you are. So, don’t let anybody lie to you, or the devil lie to you. But we should also note here, that when Jesus speaks of the lust in the heart, it’s not the same as the physical act, there is a difference. They both are equivalent spiritually, in the sense that they are both sin. But there is a difference between the lust and the act. And so maybe you’re here, and some of you could reason, ‘Well, I’ve had all these passions, so I might as well go do it, what’s the difference.’ No there is a big difference between having the struggle in your heart and actually going and committing the physical act of adultery or fornication, there is a difference in the two, and the fruit of the physical act is very grievous in your life. But yet, that lust, the poison, the stuff that is in there is sin. And that’s what Jesus is saying, making it very clear to us, without a doubt. It is sin, it is wrong, and there’s a danger if allowed to remain in our hearts, because it can lead to the physical act. It can cause us to do that. Now, we should also make the point, it is also possible for a man or a woman to look at somebody of the opposite sex and say ‘Oh, they are very attractive, very beautiful’, and yet not to lust, that’s also possible too. He’s referring to a lust, and there’s a difference between just admiring innocently and lusting. And that’s what, you know the Holy Spirit shows us, that’s lust, that’s the poison that’s in you. We should also note too that Jesus is stating very clearly the truth so that there’s no confusion to us that this lust is sin. We should not try to rationalize it any other way, for our own good, for the good of our families, for the good of the congregation, for the good of the ministry, we should say and look at these things as sin, lust in our heart is sin, and that’s important.

We live in a sex-crazed culture

You know, today we live in a culture that is sex-crazed [pretty much like the Roman Empire was at this time, to the end of it’s existence in 486AD], that is for sure. And it’s easy for a Christian, a Christian family, to start to be effected by that, to let our guard down, because we’re so sex-crazed as a culture, and the TV tube’s on, and whatever, and start listening to the music, we start to change and allow things to slide. But Jesus comes right out here in his Word and says “lust is sin, it’s sin.” I tell you, I wish as a young person I was taught that. Maybe I probably was, but I can’t think of one sermon, I grew up in the Church, but I can’t think of anybody really sitting me down and going ‘This is sin.’ I wish I had heard that. It would have been good for me to hear that, when I heard so many other things. I had people even close to me, they had been encouraging me as a young man, ‘You need to be manly, and this has to be part of your life.’ [On my first cruise across the Atlantic on my submarine, the crew made sure when we hit the first port of call that I, as a virgin was ‘wined, dine and bred’ as the saying goes, them knowing I was a virgin. Their intentions were good, but their understanding of God’s Word, which I was beginning to understand even then, was nil.] But Jesus come out and says ‘Lust is sin.’ Lust is sin, it’s that simple. You know, we’re in a sex-crazed culture, there’s no doubt about it, and God does not want us to be influenced by that, to be deceived by that. You know, I spent two weeks being with family on vacation visiting my in-laws in San Diego, and as you do, when you go on vacation, you tend to watch the TV a little bit more. My in-laws, you know, they have the TV on a lot more than my wife and I and the kids do. They watch the TV, like the typical American family, quite a bit. So when we’re with them, we’re in front of the TV tube a lot more than we normally are. And my father-in-law is into sports and football, so we watched every single bowl game there was, and there’s a lot of them now, so I could tell you the scores if you want to know them. I watched so many football bowl games. But, as you do, and I don’t watch it a lot, and I state this, and you know this, but I’m just amazed by what comes on, but also what really hit me is the time of the day, there’s no really getting away from it anymore. I mean, we had the Discovery station on once, and CNN, and ads coming up, ‘What is that doing on in the middle of this?’ Animal planet, why did we have to see that [sexual] commercial in the middle of Animal Planet? What’s up with that? It’s just amazing to me. This happened to me earlier in the year, going on an airline flight to the West Coast, and this time on Delta Airlines, my wife’s got three children with her, and they’re showing the movies that they do, and I was stunned, not stunned, but grieved by the movie that they were showing, on all the TVs, and you’re stuck there in your seat, you can’t get out of that thing 30,000 feet, I mean, there you are, and there it is! And my wife even complained, my wife is bold, and she complained. And the response was, ‘Well it was edited for TV.’ And I wanted to say, ‘That’s the problem, it was edited for TV.’ [laughter] And here are my three children, you know, that stuff isn’t appropriate for kids. I even thought about emailing Delta Airlines and complaining, ‘Why would you do that, when there’s families sitting in your plane?’. Our culture is sex-crazed, and I guess it’s that people don’t see it that way, because more and more we’re being inundated with it, and inundated with it, and inundated with it. You know, my son, my wife and I, you know, we’re trying to guard our kids and have a burden for our kids in that area, and my heart goes out to the young people that are here, and just where this is all going. But my son and I, and my wife were on top of this. Every time there was a commercial, you know, watching a lot of bowl games with my father-in-law, he’s got the clicker, but every time a commercial came up that was questionable, I’d immediately look at my son, and my son would look at me, and I’d just hold his eyes, right there, we would just look right at each other. And I’d wait till the commercial was gone, and then look back, ‘All right, you can look now.’ I wouldn’t have to say anything, we’d be across the room, but we’d look at each other, trying to teach my son, ‘You don’t want the poison in your life.’ You know, I didn’t have a father that was that way, or even hearing messages like this in the church. And as a result, I was encouraged other ways, and so as a young person I followed the life of a typical young person in society. And at the age of 39 today, I can say to you, maybe you’re a young person here, and you got all this stuff coming at you, you know, you’ve got Brittany Spears, you know, I wish I could have her up here and we could debate this, and I could prove to you this point, she could get up here and tell you ‘This is the way you want to be’, but she could not in any way prove to you that there’s any value in being sexually immoral. There is no value at all in your life, it only hurts you. And I, at 39, could then tell you, and prove to you, that it only hurts your life. And if you’re a young person here today, I encourage you in your life, don’t listen to Brittany Spears and the world, purity, man, is a great life. I wish I could go back and re-live my life. I wish I could erase my young years, and live a pure life, I wish I had had people saying “Purity, purity, purity”, Jesus says lust is sin. And sin only hurts and destroys you. Don’t buy into it, don’t listen to it. Now, at the same time, God is a God of grace, God is a God that forgives, God is a God that heals…This isn’t a message to beat you up either, but truth, lust is sin. And Jesus wants his audience to understand that, to also be able to see in your heart and go ‘Ooh, I got that stuff in there, that’s ugly stuff, I wish it wasn’t there.’ And what it then does [realizing this] is cause us to look to him, Jesus, and to draw near to him, and to ask for his forgiveness and his healing and his touch, and his power in our life. I think of a tape that has been passed around this church, to some of the men, this evangelist, David Hocking, early on in the ministry, he came out and taught in some of our Bible studies, I spent a little bit of time with him, but he was in his day, 20 years ago, was a Charles Swindol, David Jeremiah, he was a large national ministry leader, had planted two huge churches, was on national radio, one of the very big national Christian leaders. But he had a poison in his heart, and he didn’t deal with the poison, and he was deceived about it and brushed it off as this or that. But eventually it bit him, and he fell and had that whole stuff happen as a result. But he had a teaching at a conference after his fall, and exhorting men and women in this conference about purity. And it’s a great tape, and we passed it around with some of the men. But he made this comment on the tape to the listener, he said, “You know, I used to say to myself ‘It’s the second look that’s sin.’ It’s the second look, that’s the lustful look, the second look. You know, if you see something, you look away, and I looked away, then I’m not guilty of that, it’s if I look back, and I gawk and I stare.” So he wouldn’t look the second time. But yet in his heart, there was poison, there was stuff that was there, and he was able to just ignore it because he wasn’t taking the second look. But yet there were things that he had entertained in his mind, there were desires he’d let go in his heart, and eventually it bit him, and it hurt him. And so he shares so passionately, it’s the heart, it’s the heart, it’s the heart. It’s what’s in the heart. You can come up with a little this or that, or if I don’t do that, but it’s the heart, what is in the heart. And Jesus is saying ‘the lust in the heart, this lust in the heart is sin.’ That’s the Word of God, and that’s the truth. It is interesting too, this is the Seventh Commandment, and it’s like the first nine, in the sense that the religious elite at this time, they could look at the first nine commandments, and they could look at it on the outward performance, you know, the nine commands, if you have that bent too, you can do that. And people do that, they can go ‘Oh I’ve not broken those, I’ve honored the Sabbath, I’ve never bowed to an idol, I’ve never therefore broken that commandment, I’ve never taken God’s name in vain, I’ve never committed physical adultery, I am blameless when it comes to the law. Of course, those nine commandments had a heart intent to them that they were missing. But then you get to the Tenth Commandment, it was if God knew that that was the case, he comes out with the Tenth Commandment, and he goes right clearly with a sense of the heart, he says, you know, the Tenth Commandment, “You shall not covet.” I can’t physically show you that I’m coveting, you know what I mean, but it can be right there, you know “I want that car, I want my neighbor’s house” you know, it’s just the heart. And Paul says in Romans 7 and 8, you know, Romans 7 he says “the Law was there to demonstrate to me that I have an ugly heart.” And then he quotes the Tenth Commandment, the Law says “You shall not covet”, and ugh. You know, maybe you slide by the first nine, but ugh…thou shalt not covet! I have this heart problem. And so he goes on into Romans 8, and he ends Romans 7 saying ‘What do I do? I cry out to Jesus.’ It’s basically “I need Jesus”, and then he goes on to the life of the Spirit in Romans chapter 8. That is Jesus here doing the same, stirring the heart rather than the cage. ‘You need me desperately, you need me every hour, you need my power in you all the time, and you need to view sin for what it really is, and see the heart for what it really is.’ That’s what he’s doing and saying.

Jesus gives practical counsel

Verses 29-30, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” Well he goes on from there in verses 29 to 30, to then give practical counsel. In these words he yet also is saying again, you need to hate your sin, that’s clearly in these words that follow, you need to look at it, there’s ugliness in your heart, but don’t brush it off. You need to deal with this sin. You know, sexual sin, if there’s lust, it’s sin, but you don’t just leave it there, it needs to be dealt with, that’s what he’s saying in verse 29 and 30, deal with it violently, deal with it brutally if you need to deal with the issue. That’s the way we need to look at sin in our lives. But at the same time, he gives practical counsel, that can be a real help and aid to you. Now, there are folks and there’s young believers that have looked at this verse and taken it in the wrong way, and you can easily do that. And he doesn’t want us to get off course. He’s making a heart point here, there’s a principle that’s very valuable, and it’s important that we don’t miss it. You know there are people, Joe Focht, listening to one of his sermons he gave on this, and in the sermon he mentions early on in the Jesus Movement days, he had a friend named Bob Hope, and he’s not the Bob Hope that you know of. Maybe you know this Bob Hope, but it’s not the comedian out there in Palm Springs [now six feet under]. But he had this friend Bob Hope, young believer, and he actually, and this is not to be gross, but he actually took a fork and he removed his eye, because he read this. Then he mentions on the same study, Chuck Smith actually had a guy in his church, because of verse 30 take his hand across a band-saw, and removed his hand. Now, not to be morbid, but we’ll state that just in case maybe this tape will be given to somebody later, and we want everybody to understand that it’s not what he saying, that’s not what he’s saying. In fact, somebody was mentioning to me, Ray Charles, there was a special on TV recently, and he was blind, and they were mentioning to me after the first service, Ray Charles had all these kids by all these women. Sounds like maybe he had a lust problem, you know what I mean? And Jon Courson, if you read his Commentary, I was reading it, I have it from a long time ago, he makes the point that he has a really close friend whose blind, and his number one struggle is lust. So taking your eye out ain’t going to cure you lust problem. [chuckles] It’s not. Joe Focht in his study makes mention of an older guy that’s blind in his church, that leaders actually had to sit down with this older guy, because he was hitting on the gals. But he’s blind. So, don’t miss the point, he’s kind of exaggerating in a sense, he’s making a dramatic point to say “Be so passionate about dealing with the sin in your life! Hate the sin! Hate it! Don’t allow it to stay there! It’s ugly, it’s awful, it hurts you, it’ll hurt others, deal with the sin!” That’s what he’s doing. And there are practical things you can do, to deal with sin in your life, too. Ultimately it’s through the Spirit, it’s the only way I have victory. You know, I read these things, read the Sermon on the Mount, and I go, “Oh Lord, boy Lord, I’m a mess Lord, and what do I do? I can’t do anything Lord, I just can’t get it right. But what I need is your grace, and I know you’re a gracious God, and touch my life. I’ve seen you give me victory in so many ways, I’ve seen you empower me, and do a work in me. I need the grace and favor Lord.” That’s what this causes me to say, “I need you Jesus, in every aspect of my life, I need your healing.” But it’s true, if you hate your sin, there’s practical things that you do too. And that’s what he’s noting here. You know, be very vehement, you can even say, brutal about your sin, and put it away, get it out of your life, and do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to do that. Now, again, it’s not cutting off your hand or pocking out your eye. You know, I think of the technology today in the hospitals, you can have a surgery today, there are folks that have had surgeries recently in our church, from heart surgery to extensive back surgery, whatever it might be, and it’s amazing to me, and I’m sure you’re amazed, but today somebody can have a heart surgery that’s very complicated, and they can be out of the hospital in a day. And you’re like, ‘Wow!’ It’s the technology, things like laser. Whereas before when they did the operation they didn’t know, they’d take half your arm, pectoral muscle to get at the heart. And at that time you’d be in recovery for months. Now they go in with a little laser, and they’re so precise, make a little dinky hole, and they perform this complicated surgery, very precise. And that’s what the Holy Spirit is saying here too, ‘Don’t pluck out your eye, or cut off your hand, but God wants to deal with the very issue, and it’s the issue in your heart.’ And it’s a spiritual surgery that needs to take place, and that’s the intent here, no doubt about it. Well, it’s possible though for somebody to get a little bit off course, but be brutal about your sin. Do what you need to do, there’s practical things you can do. You know, if there’s fire burning in your heart, the principle is, don’t let the oil near it. You can have a little flicker that comes on, and you know it’s there. You bring oil near it though, Wooosh! Now and then you have found that, you know, you look over your life over the last year…[tape switchover, some text lost]…but if that be the case, it is amazing what happens when you remove that oil. It really is amazing what happens, it gives a real strength to you, and it just removes the weapon out of the hand of the devil, that that route of, path of temptation is removed. Maybe it’s not that, it’s a certain relationship, you know, you have this great friend, they’re not a Christian, you just are so much fun together, you’re so much alike in personalities, but when you’re together you find you’re always in gossip and you walk away from the relationship always feeling dirty. ‘I always say things and get into conversations…’ and you find that pattern repeating itself over and over again. Maybe what you need to do is end the relationship. And yet it will be hurtful. Maybe there’s a hobby or an activity that you really enjoy, but as you go down that road, if you’re honest about it, you find often it will lead you to a trap in the end. Maybe it’s a job, I can think of people who have had jobs, that needed to change their jobs. That’s not easy. We need to be salt and light, and be around and have relationships with the people of the world so we can share the love of Christ and be the example of Christ to the world. But yet at the same time, there are times where it’s a real stumbling-block for some people because they’re in a certain set of circumstances, and man, the flesh just goes. And you think, man, if I leave that career, I’m really going to take a pay cut. But maybe that’s what you need to do. It’s a sacrifice. [Coming from a Sabbatarian Church of God background, I have had to quit a job over the Sabbath, and have lost jobs over Sabbath observance, and I learned quickly that God always lined up another job for me, because I had to quit, or was fired by following him or in order to follow one of his laws. God respects it when you have to quit a job in order to better obey him, whether it be over the Sabbath for Sabbatarians, or for reasons of obedience in other areas. God is totally faithful in these matters.] But look what he says, “If your right eyes causes you to sin, pluck it out. It’s more profitable for you to that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” It’s better for you to go without that [whatever that symbolic right hand might be] than the destruction that will come if it remains. So at some times, yeah, I leave the job, some times I cut the cable or whatever it is. It’s better to go without, if you’re worried about that, than to have the destruction, much greater destruction coming into my life later. It’s a great principle. I’ve used it in my life, I pray that you do too, and it’s a statement of saying “I really do hate sin and I love God, and I’m going to go away from this, I’m not going to let that be a path of temptation anymore. I’m not giving the devil that opportunity, it’s gone from my life.” I think of Ezra, Ezra and Nehemiah. You know, you look at these men and the way they looked at sin, really beautiful. But yet in a brutal way, too. I mean, Ezra, the Jews come back to the city of Jerusalem [after the Babylonian captivity], God is so gracious to them, restored them, and there’s the temple. But Ezra then realizes that as he’s there, some of the Jewish men, and some of the men in prominent places have actually taken on pagan wives, and at this point have children by those wives. And if you read Ezra, Ezra isn’t like ‘Oh well..’. Ezra falls on his face and he weeps and he mourns and he cries out to God for a whole day. And then he gathers the nation of Judah together and he makes these men make a vow. Now this isn’t easy. I think about this when I read through Ezra. He says ‘You have wives and these children that are from these marriages. That is wrong, that is against the Law of God for the Jew and the Israelite. You put away these wives, and put away these children, and we’re going to be a holy people set apart for God.’ And you read that, like, that’s radical, man. But that’s what he says to them. Nehemiah, he’s no different. Nehemiah is even more radical, because what he does, when it happens, same thing, he plucks out hair, he slaps them around as he does it too. I mean, Ezra weeps, Nehemiah, you know, roughs them up a little, he is so ticked by it, so angry. And sin works its way in a number of ways. Later at the end of Nehemiah, this Tobias shows up again and is sitting there in part of the temple court area, and he’s so angry about it, so miffed at this stuff, and he cleans out the house [this pagan had built onto the side of the temple or something like that]. Folk are outside the gate wanting to bring in goods to sell on the Sabbath, and he warns them from the wall ‘I’m going to deal with you if you don’t get out of here.’ He’s just brutal about it. But there’s a holiness in his life. There was a holiness in the life of Ezra and Nehemiah, and there was a holiness in the nation of Judah as a result. And that’s the attitude that Jesus is sharing here in our life, and I pray it’s true in your life too. And it’s not a bad thing to be that way. You want to be gracious and kind too, I mean, don’t pluck people’s hair out and slap them around or anything like that. [Comment: We have to put Ezra and Nehemiah into historic context too. The nation of Judah, the Jewish people, had just recently returned from 70 years of Babylonian captivity, and that captivity was due to their idolatry worship, and marriage to pagans would bring that sin right smack dab into the nation of Judah again. So this was a real danger and threat that the godly rulers Ezra and Nehemiah feared most, that of angering God again for the same reason they had been allowed by God to be taken into captivity in the first place. When you’re dealing with your friends, or other Christians, the context isn’t the same. But when dealing with your own personal sins, you can and should emulate the attitude toward sin that Ezra and Nehemiah had.] But yet, seeing sin in the same heart. Sin just hurts our lives, and hurts our marriages and families. I can tell you today, if I had Brittany Spears up here, she’d give her little speech, and I could just come back and say ‘Hear the foolishness of it, I’ll tell you my stories and the scars I have, because I listened to that nonsense when I was younger. Wish I hadn’t. Satan is deceptive, and maybe you’ve given into deceptive tactics, and you go down the road going ‘Oh that’s not reasonable, that’s too much of a sacrifice, no, that’s going to cost my life too much, I got to allow this’, and that’s the way Satan deceives. Charles Spurgeon says this, “If abstaining from alcohol causes weakness of the body” (if you thought that ‘Well I gotta drink because I’ll get weak if I don’t) “it would be better to be weak than to be strong and fall into drunkenness. Since vain speculations and reasonings land men in unbelief, we will have none of them. Holiness is to be our first object, everything else must take a very secondary place. Right eyes and right hands are no longer right if they lead us to wrong.” I think that says it pretty well.

What Jesus says about divorce

Well verses 31-32, “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.” So, third time he says ‘It’s been said, it’s been said’, now referring back to Deuteronomy chapter 24, Moses said “if a man finds uncleanness in his wife, he can write her a certificate of divorce and divorce her. If she goes out and marries another man, and then divorces that man, it is an abomination for her now to come back to him.” And that’s what it says there in those first few verses of Deuteronomy 24. Now, it’s interesting this follows. We’re going to go more into marriage and remarriage and divorce later, Matthew 19, Jesus goes into that. And we’ll deal with it extensively, and that’s not what we’re going to do this morning. [Comment: Paul passed on legislation for the Church based on this and other Biblical principles in 1^st Corinthians 7. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/corinthians/cor7.htm for a balanced Biblical teaching on this subject by this same pastor. But for the short of it, if a believer is married to a non-believer, and the non-believer decides to leave, divorce, the believer is free to remarry again, he or she is not bound in such cases. But two believers must not divorce and remarry, they are bound. That’s the bottom line on what the Bible has to say about Divorce & Remarriage.] We’ll just use it briefly to note a few things. It’s interesting to me what follows. He’s speaking about lust and adultery, he’s speaking to hard hearts here in his Sermon on the Mount. And there’s no doubt, in the religious camps at the times, there were two main camps. There was a guy named Shimei, a rabbi, he was very conservative. And he interpreted Deuteronomy 24 in a manner that when it says uncleanness, if a man finds uncleanness in his wife, that uncleanness was sexual sin. He especially took it in the sense that in the time of Christ, when you were engaged, that betrothal was essentially a marriage, and so then on your marriage night, a man and woman now come together to consummate their marriage, if the man discovers that his wife was not a virgin, she was guilty of adultery, meaning she had been unfaithful to him before, had lost her virginity, she was considered “unclean.” And so Shimei took it in that context, that when that happened, then you could write that certificate of divorce. On the other side, there was a guy, Hillel who was very liberal. He took that statement of uncleanness and he interpreted it in all kinds of different ways, from you know, you put too much salt and pepper on the eggs, you know, she does that, he gets angry, he’s now committed sin, she’s caused him to sin, so she’s unclean, he can divorce her. He went on and on, you can read some of them, speaking of ‘she burned the meal, she could be considered unclean, he could divorce her, he’d write that certificate of divorce. If she snored, or nagged, he could say “unclean”, you snore, you’re done, gone. If he met a woman that was more righteous than his wife, she was now in comparison unclean, so he could write the certificate of divorce. Very wide liberal interpretation, so you have people around Jesus, religious leaders who think they’re holy, who have had a second wife, they had a wife that snored, got rid of her, third wife. And they’re thinking ‘I live a holy life, the Law says I can do that.’ They’ve misinterpreted and made this game out of it. And Jesus comes, he’s speaking about sexual sin and adultery, he says “If you have divorced your wife for these other reasons, and you have remarried, you’ve committed adultery.” So he nails them there. And now these religious leaders, Hillel, they’ve been teaching this stuff and doing this stuff. I mean, if they’re in the crowd, you can just imagine, they’re a little miffed at this. ‘You’ve committed adultery if you’ve done that.’ Now of course, that’s a strong statement even today in our culture, right. We look at marriage in such a low way, not the way God intended. I mean, he is sharing here, and we’ll get to this more in Matthew 19, marriage, God has designed it, and a man and wife, it’s forever in the eyes of God, he’s joined the two, the two shall become one. And that is the way marriage needs to be viewed as forever, and to not do that, and to just take a spouse, and say ‘We don’t get along anymore, we’re not in love’ and divorce, to be a Christian and divorce them and go marry somebody else, Jesus says you’re committing adultery. Now we should note, it doesn’t state in the tense that ‘you’ll remain in adultery’, but that you’ve committed adultery. There’s sin, a sin that has to be acknowledged and repented of. He’s not saying divorce again. Now I’ve heard that twisted teaching, even once from a Calvary pastor, he said, ‘You know, if you’ve divorced and remarried for the wrong reasons, then you need to divorce that spouse, because that’s wrong, man.’ And that would be going back to verse 29 and 30, doing something radical that isn’t what Jesus is saying. Jesus is dealing with the heart. But if you have divorced and remarried for reasons other than sexual sin because your spouse was unfaithful, and that’s the reason, other than that, Jesus says you’ve committed adultery, and that is the truth of the Word of God. And today maybe there are people here today, and you’ve never seen it that way, now this isn’t to condemn you, this is the Word of God, and what you should do then, is if you’ve never seen it that way, is to repent of the fact that you saw it the wrong way. You’ve not viewed marriage the way God has intended for you to do it, and you need to repent of it and see it for what it really is. But then receive the grace of God where you’re at, and honor the marriage that you have now, and honor it in a way that is intended, that this is forever, this is forever. Well, of course, God allowed divorce, God never intended it, the Bible says God hates divorce. God allowed it because of the hardness of people’s hearts, and he allowed it for this one exception. Now this particular verse, you know just as Hillel and Shimei interpreted it differently, people do the same today. It’s amazing, there are people who will even say the phrase, the exception for immorality, they’ll even reinterpret that, you know the NIV says, when you read the NIV it says “except for marital unfaithfulness”, and then people will say ‘“Unfaithfulness”, you know, they haven’t been faithful, they haven’t provided, haven’t loved’, and they interpret that as marital unfaithfulness. You know, the truth of the context, if you’re honest with the context, he’s referring to sexual sin, and that’s the exception, sexual sin, and that’s the only exception [for two believers who are married]. And it’s because of what sexual sin does. The two shall become one, somebody has now had sexual intercourse with another person [and the spirit in man within the man, and the spirit in man within the woman actually intertwine when they have sex together, so that in a psychological sense, they have become one in spirit. This is a little understood Biblical truth.] Paul says in 1^stCorinthians that they’ve been joined to that person. And it’s the same words used for the marriage back in Genesis chapter 2. It really is significant that that’s happened. Yet, at the same time, God can forgive, God can heal. But it’s for that reason, that if somebody chooses, they then can divorce and remarry. We’ll go into this more, and if you have questions, and you want to look at that, we can talk about that. But we’ll get into this much more extensively. The intent is he’s showing the heart of people, and the hearts of the people around him, and stirring things up. There are people thinking they are in one place, and they really aren’t, they’re guilty of sin, and they need to experience his grace and seek his face.

Jesus expounds on the spirit of the Ninth Commandment

Now verses 33-37, “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes.’ and your ‘No’, ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” It’s interesting to me that this follows the previous verses, because you know, divorce, people are not being faithful to their word. They’ve stood before God, and they’ve stood there with a person and before a community of people and said ‘We are going to be married until we die, and yet they have not been faithful to their very word. It’s interesting to me, to me it’s almost logical, he’s covering different bases as he goes. But in their time, the Law had certain commands, verse 33, when he says, ‘You’ve heard that it was said You shall not swear falsely but shall perform your oaths to the Lord’, that particular phrase isn’t exactly in the Old Testament. Although it’s implied in the 3^rd Commandment, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy, and Leviticus 19, verse 12. And there are certainly oaths and vows given, if you look in the Old Testament, there are times, in fact, if a woman was perceived as being unfaithful to her husband, and the husband thought she was being unfaithful, he could take her to the priest, and it says there that the priest would have her make an oath, a vow, and there was this whole ritual that they would then go through. So there are times in the Old Testament that vows and oaths were actually even commanded as part of the Law. So, with that, the religious leaders would try to understand ‘When is it proper to do this, when is it not proper to do this?’ and they had this whole system, and so they had these teachings [that derived from the simple OT Law of God]. You can read in the Mishna now, long essays where they would try to discern what is proper, what is improper. And they got really silly about it, and that’s what he’s addressing here. But what he’s really going for, he’s putting aside their silliness and their reasoning, and he’s coming back to the main point, and the main point, the focus and heart of the command is “Be true to what you say.” [These verses also, probably more so, tie directly into the 9^th Commandment, which is basically ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness, lie.’] ‘May your yes be yes, and your no be no.’ And he’s not saying there aren’t, that you should never, you know the Quakers take verse 33 and say, ‘Well, we can’t take an oath, we can’t ever state an oath’, when they’re in court they won’t state the oath. But that’s not what he’s doing. [And the U.S. Constitution and court system has made allowance for that. You can state, instead of swearing on the Bible, you can state “I do so affirm” without placing you hand on a Bible. And today, in the court system, they don’t even have a Bible in the courtroom to swear on.] You follow the rest of the New Testament, in fact by the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus himself, the high priest puts him under the oath, he doesn’t say anything about that. There are a number of times Paul in Galatians, 1^st Corinthians he’ll say “I call God as my witness”, essentially making an oath. So Jesus isn’t saying, when he says “Do not swear at all”, he’s not saying you’re not to have an oath or a vow, that there isn’t a time to do that. His point is the heart, the heart is to be true to your word. If you say you are going to do something, go and do it. You don’t have to go, ‘I swear I will do this, I swear I will do this’, if you say that a lot, it’s probably because you lack character and integrity, and you’re probably not trustworthy. But may your yes be yes, and your no be no. If I’m in a courtroom, and I was just called to jury duty, but if I ever did, I would do it, I don’t believe that’s a violation of what he’s saying here. [But if your Christian conscience does believe that is a violation of what he’s saying here, the US court system has made allowance for that. In which case, you do not place your hand on the Bible and swear, but when they ask you ‘Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?’ you keep your hand behind your back and state, “I do so affirm.” This is the legal precedent and allowance made for those who believed these verses were meant for a believer not to swear or take oaths of any kind.] But he’s speaking to the heart, to the heart of what’s going on in the people’s lives. And so they’re not being true to their word. Literally verse 37 is ‘Your yes, yes, your no, no, and just what you say may be true, and may you stick to it.’ So, man, there are people that are there, that have played games, and that’s what he goes on to. I mean, the religious leaders, you can read this in the other Gospels, but they said ‘Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain, so you can’t swear by the name of the Father, but you could swear by heaven. Don’t swear by the Temple, but you could swear by the altar.’ They had different teachings, you know, it was just silliness. It was weird, you could do this and not do that. But Jesus says, no, be true to your word, be true to your word, and stand for what is right. You know, when he says, ‘Don’t swear by your head’, you know, you could swear by your head in certain instances, but you head, God created your head, why would you reason you can’t swear by the name of God, but you could swear by your head. He’s the Creator of all things. That’s not the point, the point is to be truthful, and let your yes be yes and your no be no. Maybe you’re here and you have made certain promises to certain people, maybe you’re here and your marriage is really struggling, and there’s that real temptation, man, things are struggling, and I don’t want to be with this person anymore. But haven’t you made a vow, haven’t you said, for better or for worse? May your yes be yes, and your no be no. Maybe you’ve made promises to other people in different context, and God’s just saying ‘It’s holiness and it’s my heart, living the life of Christ and being true to what your word is.’

We’ll pick up next week

Well we’ll pick up next week with verse 38 as we’ve come to the end of our time. And man, it’s heart penetrating, it’s heart searching. I read these things, I’m like, ouch, ooh, I mean, that’s the intent. The point is, is that we would realize that we are sinners, and we need the grace of God. It isn’t to condemn us, it isn’t to make us feel bad, it’s to draw us to him, that we would be people that cling to him. But yet, it is so vital that I see sin for what it is, that I acknowledge that this is sin and I repent of it, and I let God heal my heart. That’s the only way I get healing and I get cleansing. Jesus has shared, this is the reality of sexual sin, it’s the lust. It’s not the act only, it is the poison and the lust itself. And when it comes to that sin and any other sin, we need to look at it a certain way, we need to put it away. We need to be brutal about it. We need to deal with it. But it’s his surgery we need, we need spiritual surgery from God ultimately, to go in and remove the cancer in our hearts. He also states that divorce and remarriage can lead to sexual sin, it can be sexual sin, meaning it can be adultery, and it’s something to be repented of. Not that we should end that marriage, but I should at least in my heart realize that I have sinned, and now in the position I am in, receive his grace and mercy. And then we need to be true to our word, let our yes being yes, and our no be no [and continuing in that new marriage faithfully]. Let’s close in prayer…[expository sermon on Matthew 5:27-37, given somewhere in New England.]