THE DEADLY LURE OF LUST
Matt
5:27-30
The puritan John Owen wrote a book called “The Mortification of Sin” that challenges the child of God to radically exam one’s life in light of God’s Word. It’s a book that talks about the dangers of sin and how we are to avoid such acts of the flesh. Owen, got the title for his book by preaching a number of messages on Romans 8:13 “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death (mortify) the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Sin is deadly and it kills
and John Owen said
in his book “Be killing sin
or it will be killing you.”
What Jesus addresses next in His sermon is ruthless, chilling, it’s demanding and it should cause our hearts to take sin seriously. (v27-v30) Unfortunately we often reduce sin to what we do, but Jesus says if that is our thinking we approach our sin incorrectly. Sin begins at the heart, the very core of our being. Sin is absolutely deadly and demanding and it leads to death.
Sin is deceitful….“but exhort one another daily, while it is called "TODAY," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Heb 3:13
Sin is dehumanizing……sin dismantles relationships and corrupts the human soul. The less we bear the image of God due to the presence of sin, the less human we really are. ( I think this past week has demonstrated that very clearly )
Sin is damning…..the
greatest threat to the soul is sin. Sin threatens the eternal soul of the
unsaved. Sin leads to death and judgement and eternal punishment in Hell.
What Jesus addresses here is exactly why John Owen wrote his book. We need to be killing daily sin in our lives, before it kills us. We must intentionally restrain the flesh and deal with the sin that ensnares us so easily. But sadly! Many people, even Christians, approach the issue of lust with little, to no regard, of its danger.
We treat our sin like
a pet we can control.
What do I mean?
A man named Cory Byrne, 34 years old, died in 2010, at a local hospital after
being strangled by his 9-foot, 25-pound pet boa constrictor. Byrne had been
showing the snake to a friend as he had the snake draped on his shoulders. An
officer was called to Byrne's apartment around 5:40 p.m. The officer found
Byrne on the ground with the snake still around his neck. Paramedics soon
arrived and helped get the snake off Byrne and into a cage. The Nebraska Humane
Society in Omaha has taken custody of the male red-tailed boa constrictor.
Spokesman Mark Langan said “The snake appears to have been well-fed, added he
did not know what might have led the snake to strangle its owner. “The sad
reality is, whether it’s a dog or a cat or snake, no matter how much you trust
an animal, they react unpredictably in certain situations," Langan said. "Once
a snake clamps down like that, they're extremely strong. It would have been
very difficult for one person to remove that snake."
I share this example because this is how we treat our sin whether private or public. You might call a snake your pet and give it a cute name, but it doesn’t take the wild out of it. This very much the same with sin. You may cuddle sin like a pet. But it doesn’t take the wild out of it
or make it less dangerous. Sin and evil cannot be domesticated, sin poises to attack your faith at all cost and at all times.
Let me ask you something that only you can answer! But first put your hands in front of your face. Have you used these hands in private that you would be ashamed if it was shown on a screen in front of your parents, church family, and community? The same question applies to your feet, eyes. Have you walked and been somewhere that you would be ashamed
if others knew? Would you be ashamed if others knew what you were watching, viewing, clicking while in the privacy amongst others? What Jesus says here is ruthless, demanding and radical and it should break our hearts in light of the gospel.
Remember the children’s Sunday School song!
be
careful little eyes
what you see
be
careful little eyes what you see
For
the Father up above
Is
looking down in love
So,
be careful little eyes what you see
be
careful little hands
what you do
be
careful little hands what you do
For
the Father up above
Is
looking down in love
So,
be careful little hands what you do
be
careful little feet where
you go
be
careful little feet where you go
For
the Father up above
Is
looking down in love
So,
be careful little feet where you go
be
careful little mind
what you think
be
careful little mind what you think
For
the Father up above
Is
looking down in love
So,
be careful little mind what you think
So,
be careful little mind what you think
Why are we to be careful? Because Paul said “the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” Gal 5:17. Sin is a lot like leprosy…..because Leprosy affects the nervous system. It gradually numbs the person’s extremities to the point at which pain is no longer felt. And in this case to be numb about our sin has eternal implications. Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said.” Then He quotes the seventh commandment. The Scriptures take every iota and dot seriously and so should we. Jesus takes the listeners down a path that they never saw coming, but that’s the point. Because according to Jesus we are all guilty of adultery. What Jesus says here is that, “thinking and doing is the same thing and the person stands guilty before a holy God.” The act of adultery is serious business; and so is the heart of adultery whether you have acted upon it, or thought about acting upon it.
Adultery is not limited to the act.
Jesus addresses the issue of a deep-seated lust which consumes and devours our sinful appetite. D. A. Carson said this in reference to (v28). “I write this line with shame. Which one of us is not guilty of adultery? Honesty before God in these matters may bring us the poverty of spirit which our triumphs never will, and prompt us to cry with the hymn writer ‘One thing I of the Lord desire…For all my way has darksome been….Be it by earthquake, wind or fire, Lord, make me clean, Lord, make me clean!’” Jesus isn’t addressing the normal attraction that we would have between a man and woman. Otherwise there would be no beginning to a relationship that leads to the covenant of marriage.
What do I mean by this? Jesus says “Looks” which a present participle and this would be better translated “Keeps on looking”. This is what we would call “gazing; this is a gaze, not a glance.” See the “gaze” excites sexual imaginations in the heart and you mentally engage in an act reserved for a man and women in the confines of marriage. This also includes a lingering look that objectifies another person to whom you are not married too in a covenant relationship.
This has damming consequences
if
we don’t deal with the sin of
the flesh.
The Hebrew writer said “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled (polluted by acts of formication), for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Heb 13:4. We need to be like Job and say “I have made a covenant with my eyes;” Job 31:1. Why? I want to see Jesus in His glory. “Blessed (Approved) are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” (v8)
Kevin DeYoung said “The biggest threat to the church in any generation is not the government, not some other religion, nor enemies of the faith. It's us with our own waywardness, our own wandering, our own hard heartedness, and our own love affair with sin.”
We are to be on guard at all times of that gazing, and lingering look of sexual gratification because it leads to disaster. “It could and does lead many to Hell.” Jesus takes this very seriously! How serious? Serious enough to use graphic imagery to make His point. Jesus says something that must certainly have seized His hearers’ attention. So serious….that Jesus points to two blessed areas of the human body; and this is only a portion among other parts that Jesus mentions. Because in Marks gospel Jesus points out a third. “And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched” Mark 9:45
Protect Your Eyes (V29)
Understand! You can have lust
in your heart without eyes,
but your eyes make sinful
lust easier.
James talked about this as you see the progression of the
flesh and sin. “But
each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then,
when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is
full-grown, brings forth death.” James 1:14-15
Remember when Adam and Eve sinned, when the Deceiver said . “For God knows that in the
day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she
took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked;
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” Gen 3:5-7
Jesus says we are to perform radical surgery on our eyes, radical surgery so that it doesn’t cause us to be cut off from eternal life.
Does Jesus really want us
to gouge out our eye?
This passage and others like this portion certainly got the attention of one of the early church fathers by the name of Origen of Alexandria. It is said in the time period of AD 185-254 “That he would roll naked over sharp briars. However, when this failed to cure him of sexual lust, he took the drastic step of castrating himself. He would later regret this decision and conclude that he may have misinterpreted what Jesus meant.” See the problem doesn’t lie with the eye, or in this case, his privates. The problem lies within the heart. The eye can certainly help the issue along but you do not need to see to have adulteries and impure thoughts.
Adultery of the heart comes
from our thoughts and imagination,
even when the outward conduct is normal.
When
Jesus advises us to pluck out a sinful eye or cut off an unruly hand as we will
see in a few minutes, He is employing a figure of speech known as hyperbole.
Sin is a cruel beast and it
seeks to enslave you
if you do not deal with it.
Watch
Your Hands (v30)
The same rule applies to this verse as well. Jesus says it’s better to lose a member of your body than for the whole body be put in Hell. The hands act in response to the attitude and direction of the heart. So the same conclusion applies to this member, as it does the eye.
You don’t need hands to commit adultery but they make it easier. We are to take what Jesus says here seriously because it requires radical surgery and examination over one’s life. We must realize the importance of our soul and our eternal destination. And heed the warnings that Jesus expounds in His sermon. We are to put to death the sin that so easily ensnares us.
We need to do as Sinclair Ferguson said….
1. Realize
where yielding to sinful lust lead you. Hell!! Plant that in your mind and
recall it again and again.
2. Deal
with the real cause of your sin. It is an impure heart that settles for God
substitutes.
3. Act
decisively and immediately, even if it must be painful. Obedience cannot be
negotiated, nor can Heaven and Hell.
4. Realize
your lust is not the whole of your life, even the main or most important part
of your life. Think and understand what you gain by abandoning it. You get
Christ and heaven thrown in.
The graphic “pluck and cut off” from your member means?
“We are to take sin seriously
because sin is serious
business.”
Which means….
We
don’t cover it up
Rationalize
it
Excuse
it
Deny
it
Try
and forget it, hoping that it will go away
Blame
it
Flirt
with it or enjoy it.
We
are to be confessing and killing our
sin.
We
are to hate it with a holy hate.
We
are to crush it with holy anger.
We
are to put it away from us because I
want to see Jesus.
As Paul said, “Therefore
put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness,
passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these
things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,” Col 3:5-6
The problem we face, and even the church is that we make light of sin, where Jesus makes “much of sin.” The Bible says sin leads to Hell and if that doesn’t motivate you to repentance and seeking Him for restoration. I don’t know what will!
As Christians we are never to think that we are immune to this sexual sin. You might be happily married or in a serious relationship that is leading to covenant of marriage, but you always need to proceed with caution. I’ve seen and witnessed some great men, some solid Christians, falling in this area of sin. It’s not something that happens in a day; it happens over a period of time, many conversations, and meals together, chatting on Snap-Chat or whatever app that is out there. It starts subtlety and one day you’re waking up, our doing things you thought you would never do, because you have already succumb to the flesh first in the heart.
But understand! Just because it starts there, this doesn’t mean you are free to physically act upon it because you’re already guilty. What we think about and what we physically commit are two different things, though Jesus sees them both guilty before the court in Heaven.
What do I mean? The act of adultery breaks the marriage covenant, where adulterous thoughts do not. The act of adultery is grounds for divorce, but adulterous thoughts are not. The act of adultery leads to sexually transmitted diseases, where the mind does not.
Adultery of the heart is not
grounds for divorce,
where the physical act is;
even though God hates both.
That also doesn’t mean the one who thinks about it all time is off the hook either when it comes to covenant of marriage. This heart gazing is something that is of the heart and it leads to what we would call a “slow to fade” or like the frog in the warm water. We don’t see the damage its doing until it’s possibly too late. The flesh becomes numb to God’s holy truth and standard.
We live in a highly sexualized
culture and it’s more
open today than it has ever
been.
Thanks to the…. internet, smart phones, You Tube & Twitch creators, online Apps and computers, music artists, magazines, commercials, Hollywood, the Porn Industry and so on. These social outlets lead the way to a highly polarized society when it comes to sexuality and sensuality. And sadly this culture celebrates these two things with outright rebellion, because its goes completely contrary to God and His word and the blessing that are given to the marriage covenant between a man and a woman.
We are to strive for purity whether you’re married, engaged or single; we are to walk carefully and under high alert. Because Paul said “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed (beware of the lie) lest he fall.” 1 Cor 10:12. We are to realize the heart is sinful and deceiving above all else. And the lie is…. that we won’t fall prey to the flesh in this area, just because we claim Christianity.
To help prevent such disastrous outcomes we need to…
1. Practice
the presence of God in our lives. Understand what the Gospel did to reconcile
us back into His holy and loving arms.
2. Know
that the Great Shepherd leads and provides for us to godly choices.
3. Memorize
the word of God. Keep it close and fill your heart with His Words.
As in Psalm 119:11 says “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” Stick closely with the people of God…..
4. Find biblical accountability and encouragement to help you through the battle of the heart.
Jesus’ sermon scares me to death because it demands complete honesty and an honest evaluation of our own heart before Christ. This sermon demands that we should be more like Joseph and not like David. For David it brought much pain and anguish of heart….Read Psalm 51. We are to be killing sin as Joseph did. Because if we don’t it will be killing you. As it is written, “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" Genesis 39:9. Paul wrote, “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” 1 Cor 6:18
It damages every part of your being. It wastes the bodily energies; produces feebleness, weakness, and disease; it impairs the strength, depletes the man,
You might hear this message and say to yourself “I‘ve done all of this and I’m completely lost.” To where I would say that is exactly what Satan wants you to believe. See what Jesus says here, points out that we desperately need Him because we are all guilty from one degree to the next. Now! This doesn’t mean we continue down this road as I said about the “Antinomianism person”…and say “it’s all about grace and no Law.” No! We are to do what John Owen said “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
The Gospel delivers us from our sin; but we cannot mortify our sin on our own. As Paul said, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out (a deep seated affection from the heart), "Abba, Father." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Rom 8:13-17. We can only overcome this by His power though the gospel that set us free. He died for our impure thought life, so that we could be filled with holy thoughts.
What is God revealing in your heart this morning?
Is there repentance in your
future for the sins of the flesh?
Possibly a thought, a
one-time event, a relationship,
which God is not pleased
with?
Is there something you have
to remove from your life?
If so! I “beseech you” I beg you by the mercies of God, to seek God, through Christ and the gospel, and put to death, kill, that sin; that keeps you from Him and His fellowship. Seek God and ask Him, “To forgive you and strengthen you, to do what He says according to His holy Law.” Why? We are to hate our sin of the flesh because it breaks the very Law that God said we are never to break. And He proved that by crushing His Son for our comic treason. But to hate our sin we have to remind ourselves of the gospel. And it’s only there; we radically begin, to hate our sin as God hates our sin. Because the redeemed child of God desires this eternal promise that the gospel delivers. “Blessed/approved are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” (v8)
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