Matthew 5: 27-30, September 29, 2024

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Hear our prayer, O, hear our prayer,
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O, In kind thy ear to us, and thus thy peace.
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In my people, which are called by my name,
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Shall humble themselves, shall humble themselves,
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Shall humble themselves at me.
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Now, the more astute of you will notice that I've skipped ahead a few verses from where we were before, and I don't usually, usually,
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I don't like to go out of order like this, but in this case, I felt it was necessary, and I thought that it was necessary for reasons that I'll share with you in just a minute, because there are some things that are going on in the church world that I'm a part of, and some of you may be a part of as well, that give us a very timely warning related to these verses.
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But the first thing I wanna do this morning is briefly refresh our minds regarding a couple of the concepts that we've talked about over the last few weeks.
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So, going back two weeks ago, if you recall, one of the most significant and one of the most important things that we have to remember about this section of verses that we're getting ready to start, it actually begins in verse 21, even though we're starting in verse 27 today, is that we were talking about the concept or the idea of the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.
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This is what we talked about two weeks ago. Because remember, when we talk about the moral law, which includes the
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Ten Commandments, which is still binding on believers today, we have to remember that the big picture purpose of the moral law is not simple obedience to the very specific words, but it's understanding and obedience to the overarching principles that serve as the foundation of the moral law.
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And that's absolutely the case today in our passage, which deals with the concept of adultery.
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It's not enough to read the commandment about adultery and simply not commit adultery.
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And if you're married, it's not even possible, or not married, it's not even possible. And don't take this as me saying that not committing adultery is somehow bad.
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Of course, that's important. We still have to obey the letter of the law. And obviously, something that we're talking about today, something like adultery, is a terrible sin.
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It's bad for society as a whole, not just the family. And remember that this is also one of the very few biblical justifications for a divorce.
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But all that said, there's a larger principle at stake here. And that's what we're gonna see in Jesus's words.
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But before we go there, there's something else important that we have to talk about.
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And because of our sinful nature, it's possible for us to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
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And we talked about that recently too. I heard it put this way. Three categories that we can use to put our behavior in.
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And the categories are this. Bad, bad, good, bad, and good, good. Which means bad, bad, you're doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.
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Good, bad, you're doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. And good, good, you're doing the right thing for the right reasons.
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Good, good is righteousness that we all are to be striving for. Because again, simply obeying a command or obeying the moral law can be done for the wrong reason.
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It can be done because you don't wanna get in trouble, because you don't wanna get caught. Not because the sin offends
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God, which is the entire point. Not because you're desiring to be righteous, but just that you're not, you're desiring that people don't view you as unrighteous.
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And we talked in high level terms about that idea. And in a moment, we're gonna get down a little bit more specific to what this means practically.
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The idea of obeying the letter and the spirit of the law. But before we do that,
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I wanna highlight one more thing. And this is something that I don't think that I gave enough time or emphasis to over the past year or so.
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I don't think that I've said this plainly enough. And that's why
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I wanna do it briefly today. And that's to talk about the importance of our view of scripture. This is foundational for everything.
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So it's one thing for us to say that we believe the Bible. It's even another thing for us to say that yes, we affirm that the
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Bible is God's word. But as it turns out, the whole universe of Christian churches out there all say that.
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Everybody says, yes, the Bible is God's word. If you go on their website, they'll have something that say, we believe that the
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Bible is the word of God. Now, I teach a systematic theology class for high school students in a homeschool type format.
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And I asked all of them to go to their church's website and print out their statement of faith. Because we've been talking about the doctrine of scripture.
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And that's part of what reminded me of this. So they all printed it out. And some of them are good. But some of them say, like we believe that the
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Bible is God's word. And as such, it's reliable. Well, reliable is not nearly strong enough a word for what we need to actually believe about the word of God.
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Because again, all churches that say that have vastly different interpretations of what that means for the
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Bible to be God's word. So in a way, it reminds me of the verse from James 2 .19,
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which says this, you believe that God is one, you do well. The demons also believe in shudder, which means that even demons believe that God is
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God, but they're still demons. They still do demon stuff. You know, they believe it, but it doesn't affect the way they operate.
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And it's the same thing with scripture. And I would suggest to you that you could be putting yourself in a position of great eternal danger if you say that you believe the
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Bible in one moment and in another moment, you're coming up with reasons that the Bible doesn't say what it clearly says.
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Because you don't want it to. And maybe that's a little bit confusing and a little bit vague, but some of you may see why
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I say that when we get a little bit further in our verses. And this isn't the topic, so I don't wanna take all the time today talking about this, but I do want you to understand something about how
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I view the Bible, because how I view the Bible informs everything that's in the pages that are up here every
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Sunday when I'm talking to you. And I want you to understand that, yes,
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I affirm that the Bible is God's word, but that said, we have to get more specific.
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For me to say that the Bible is God's word means a few things. And I wanna give you a very brief overview.
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This is the kind of systematic theology stuff that we've been talking about. And it's not anything that's so high level that we're not gonna understand it, but I hope this will help us grasp it a little clearer.
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So Scripture has four attributes. And the first one is that Scripture is authoritative.
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So you can think of that as meaning, authoritative is because it's God's word.
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God is the authority. Because it's authoritative, we know that what it says is right.
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Scripture is the word of God. Yes, it was written by humans, guided by the
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Holy Spirit. But this means some other things as well.
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You have to realize that the Old Testament is every bit as much
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God's word as the New Testament. And God has given us the letters of Paul, which are every bit as much of God's word as the red letters of Jesus in the
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Gospels. You can't pit one against the other. You can't put one over the other.
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They're all equally inspired, equally the word of God. One other thing that falls under the category of authoritative that we have to understand is a belief that the
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Bible is inerrant in its original writings. There are no mistakes in the
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Bible. Everything that it says can be trusted because it's authoritative and because it's the word of God.
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So again, no mistakes were made. Scripture doesn't conflict with itself, ever.
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Our interpretations conflict, but that's our interpretation. So we can't pick and choose sections of the
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Bible that we like. When we say it's authoritative, we take the whole thing. Number two, Scripture is clear. That means
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God gave us Scripture in a way that we are able to understand it. Some parts are easier to understand than others.
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But it's not something that's been shrouded in mystery that you have to have specially trained people to explain to you, you have the capability to understand it.
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We have it in our own language. You can read, and there's tons and tons of resources in addition to the help of the
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Holy Spirit. Now, sometimes the fact that it's clear doesn't mean that you don't need to study, and it doesn't mean that it won't take some effort or it won't take some time.
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You might not understand absolutely every word the second you read it, but come on, you don't understand anything the second you start it for the first time.
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Anything you've ever done has taken time to get better at, taken time to understand fully. Number three,
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Scripture is necessary. What this means is that you must have Scripture for salvation, and Scripture itself tells us this.
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You have to understand and believe the Word of God, and that belief is what leads to salvation.
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But again, how can you believe it if you haven't heard it or if you haven't read it? And that's exactly what
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Romans 10, 13 through 17 tells us. Now, those verses say this, for whoever calls on the name of the
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Lord will be saved. This is a principle that we keep in front of us all the time. But verse 14, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
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And how will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent?
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Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim the good news of good things. However, they did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah says,
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Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the
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Word of Christ. Everything that we need for salvation is in Scripture, but we have to have
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Scripture to have it. The last one, number four, Scripture is sufficient.
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Just like it's necessary for your salvation, sufficiency means that Scripture contains everything that you need for salvation.
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There is nothing outside of God's Word in the Bible that you need to be saved.
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You don't need any special rituals, routines, acts, actions, works, sacraments, anything like that.
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You need repentance and faith, granted to you by the Holy Spirit. All that's in the
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Bible, which means that Scripture itself is sufficient. Some of the external stuff can be helpful, but it's not essential and it's not required.
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Now there's a lot more that we could say about this, but really this is just something that I wanted to make sure that we understand.
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This is something to keep in mind for every week in the future. And it's not our purpose today to talk about Scripture, but again, this is foundational for what we talk about.
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Let me just add a couple things that Scripture is not, because these are misconceptions that we have too. It's not an old book that's irrelevant today because our culture is different.
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We have changed and God's Word has not. And in fact, I mean, technology has changed, but people have not changed.
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People are very much the same. We sin in all the same ways, just we look at it differently in our culture.
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It's not a book of guidelines for living a moral life. It is that, but that's not the point, because simply living a moral life according to guidelines is doing nothing more than abiding by the letter of the law and not necessarily the
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Spirit. Living a moral life or becoming a good person or a better person is not gonna save you.
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And it's not a set of suggestions which we can pick and choose from. It's not a list of things that we can take what we want and leave other things, take the ones we like, ignore the ones we don't want.
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Because if we go back to the idea of Scripture being authoritative, it means it's God's Word. Therefore, to disobey
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Scripture is to directly disobey God. Now, this is obviously outside of anything that I have the power to accomplish.
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But the one thing I want for all of you, the one thing that I want you to do and to take away from this is that I want you to love the
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Bible. I want you to love, love God's Word. And I don't think that word is too strong.
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Now, we don't worship the Bible. That's wrong. That's something different. But we do love it, because it is truly a gift to us.
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If you don't love the Bible, I suggest, or I beg, honestly,
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I beg you to pray to the Holy Spirit to give you that love. And something that's going to help is just to start digging in.
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As you're praying those, don't wait. Don't wait for the inspiration. If it's not something you enjoy, start slogging your way through it and pray for the inspiration to come as you do it.
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Now, the reason that this is so important is because if you only know the Bible, but you don't truly love the
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Bible, you can give yourself a lot of wiggle room for sin and compromise. Or worse, if you can know it, but don't really trust it and don't consider it authoritative or inerrant or sufficient or necessary or believe that it's true, like the
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Pharisees, that can lead you into bad things as well or something that happened recently that I alluded to a few minutes ago.
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And so this is what I mean. This is what I was talking about. So in the world of church stuff, you might hear the phrase disqualified from ministry.
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And what that is is a euphemism for somebody who has committed a sin that rises to the level that puts them in conflict with the requirements for an elder, the requirements we see in 1
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Timothy and Titus. That means they've done something that has rendered their life no longer above reproach.
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And I say this because this happened recently with a pretty high -profile pastor, somebody that I truly respected.
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So this man, he was a gifted preacher. He wrote a ton of books. I have some of them upstairs.
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He was a great teacher. He taught doctoral -level seminary courses at a seminary that I have a lot of respect for again.
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He guest preached. He filled a lot of high -level pulpits at some very significant churches.
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But this is not why I liked him. I liked him because his theology was sound.
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His doctrine was clear. It was on point. He knew it. He knew church history.
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He knew his theology. He was knowledgeable. And he seemed to have a very lofty view of Scripture.
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So he taught the truths of the Bible, and he taught them well. And he was scheduled to be the main speaker at a conference that I went to just last week.
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I was there on Saturday of last week. He was supposed to be the main speaker. The conference was called
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Men of the Word, and the conference was completely dedicated to boldly proclaiming and living by God's Word.
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It was just a conference for men. And then a few days before the conference, the church where this man was the lead pastor put a statement on their website that he was no longer the pastor because of an inappropriate relationship that he had had.
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Something that had clearly brought reproach upon him and his ministry. And as a result of this inappropriate relationship, he has very likely permanently disqualified himself from ever being in ministry again.
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And while his resources still have value, it's hard to recommend them.
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So he's made all these books, all these classes, all these sermons, all these YouTube videos, almost useless.
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And it's not because he didn't know his Bible, but possibly, and again,
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I'm not qualified to say this authoritatively, it's not because he didn't know his Bible, but it's possibly because he loved his sin more than he ultimately loved what the
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Word said. And that brings us to our passage today.
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Now let me say this too about the situation. We don't all know a lot of details, and we don't need to know a lot of details, but in the statement that was put out, the woman that he was having an inappropriate relationship, they both claimed there was no physical aspect of that relationship.
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No fornication, no adultery. But as we look at our verses today,
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Matthew chapter five, verses 27 through 30, we'll see why that actually doesn't matter.
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All right, so this is what God's Word says, starting in Matthew chapter five, verse 27.
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You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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But 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.
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And 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.
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Now there are some things that should be immediately evident here. And the first is that we now start to see exactly what this distinction between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law is.
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And that'll be the bulk of what we talk about this morning. But just as we spent time already talking about Scripture, we have to remind ourselves that Jesus here in this situation is not taking a new approach to Scripture.
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He's not rewriting Scripture. Remember, Jesus saw Scripture as authoritative as well.
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Jesus knew Scripture was God's word. Jesus didn't doubt any of the prophecies.
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He didn't doubt any of the stories in the Old Testament. He even referenced Jonah. So he even said he wasn't there to abolish
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Scripture but to fulfill it. But what he's doing is he's now correcting a bad interpretation or a wrong application of what those verses said.
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And make no mistake, there are wrong interpretations. There are wrong interpretations.
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It can't mean whatever we want it to mean. It can't mean something different for me and something different for you.
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And understand also, we don't ask the question here, what does this verse mean to you?
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Because that verse meant something before you were ever born. And it's gonna mean exactly that same thing long after you're gone.
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So it doesn't matter what it means to you. It only matters what it means. So what was the misinterpretation of the scribes and the
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Pharisees? What was Jesus correcting as he taught in this particular instance?
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And I think it's pretty obvious for all of us that now we're back to the letter versus the spirit of the law.
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So in question today is the seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. You shall not commit adultery.
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They're taking this commandment literally. And again, obviously that's good. Not committing the act of adultery is good.
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Good for everyone. But there was and there is a failure to recognize something deeper.
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And maybe it's not even a failure to recognize it so much as it is a willful desire to not recognize it.
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But we judge the Pharisees and we criticize the Pharisees and we say, how could they be so foolish? And then we fall into the same kind of traps and we fall into the same kind of errors that they do all the time.
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But we excuse it in our minds so that we don't have to feel guilty. We'll ignore things that we don't wanna see.
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We'll pretend that the things that we do are somehow okay if we sort of look at them in a very specific way.
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But notice what Jesus says. Again, we go back to simply the act. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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And this is shocking to our sensibilities and we want to argue about this. Because what
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Jesus is telling us here is that you're not innocent simply because you didn't commit an act.
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You're not innocent just because you didn't act on a sinful desire. Even having the desire is sin.
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I know that sounds extreme. But it only takes a little bit of additional thought, a little bit of additional logic to see how true it is.
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Now we're gonna stick with the adultery issue because that's what Jesus, our Lord, has put in front of us here.
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So you may never cheat on your spouse. But if you spend a whole bunch of time thinking about it and fantasizing about it or dwelling on what could be with someone else, are you truly honoring your marriage before God?
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Of course you're not. And I think it's fair to draw a line between appreciating beauty and lust.
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But that line is different for everyone. And you have to be very honest with yourself about where that line is.
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Because our sinful nature makes it very difficult to be honest about that line.
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And it allows us to justify erasing it right here and moving it just a little bit farther ahead so that we can take just one more step.
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We still haven't done it. So you have to be careful with that. Now, back to the idea of sinful desires being sin.
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This is very controversial today. Because a lot of people use the same arguments that the
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Pharisees used to justify things like maintaining homosexual attraction without actually committing a physical act.
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There's a big debate as to whether having a sinful desire is a sin if you don't act on it.
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But we clearly see from these verses that it is. And it doesn't matter if it's homosexuality. It doesn't matter if it's adultery or any other violation of God's moral law.
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You can't have the sinful desire in your heart. You can't think about it, dwell on it, and still be pure before God, no matter what excuses you make for it.
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And we always excuse our sin. We excuse our sin. Proverbs 21 .2
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says, every man's way is right in his own eyes, but Yahweh weighs the heart.
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But you might be thinking to yourself, we know all this. This is not the first time, Maddie, that you have talked at great length, longer than we wanted to sit and listen to about it.
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But God knows the heart. But it goes deeper than that. And this is what
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I mean. Proverbs 23 .7 says, for as he calculates in his soul, so he is.
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Now you may, that's the LSB translation, you may remember hearing this as, as a man thinks, so he is.
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Or as a man thinketh. King James. And there's a passage that I think really clarifies this idea.
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It's James 1, verses 13 through 16. And I'm gonna give enough of a pause for anybody to turn in their
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Bible that wants to turn to James 1, chapter 13 through 16. This says, in verse 13, let no one say when he is tempted,
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I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil.
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And he himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
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Then when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is fully matured, it brings forth death.
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Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of heights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
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And I went ahead one more verse. But this idea, now we can say
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God does not tempt, and I think that that shouldn't be something we argue about. But it does say, each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
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Then when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin. When sin is fully matured, it brings forth death.
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Even those lustings can lead to sin. So the point is, you can't allow sin to take hold in your mind and your heart.
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It doesn't matter what sin it is. Some people don't struggle with lust, but they struggle with something else. Because it's probably gonna manifest in your actions somehow eventually.
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But even if it doesn't manifest in your actions, hear the point of these verses. It affects your very core to keep it inside of you, to allow it to stay, to dwell on it.
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And you certainly can't say, well, that's just how God made me. The passage from James already told us that God doesn't tempt.
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God doesn't lead anyone into sin. Also, 1
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John 2 .16 tells us this. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the
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Father, but is from the world. So consider this. We'll work the takeaways into the message today.
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Sin in your heart is sin in your life. And that's what
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Jesus is addressing here. Charles Spurgeon said, if sin were not allowed in the mind, it would never be made manifest in the body.
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And this, this is the essence of Jesus' teaching here on the letter versus the spirit of the law.
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Literal obedience to the law can happen while you are still committing the very sin that the law is intended to address.
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Lust is a sin, just like adultery is a sin before God. And don't make the mistake of elevating your own opinion or your own interpretation of Scripture above God's.
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God's word is clear. And there's another profound truth that we have to understand about this, and it relates to this very same idea that Martin Lloyd -Jones put it this way.
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Sins are not the problem. Sin is. And I know that might be a little confusing because we're using the same word twice, right?
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But it's really two different things. Sins, plural, with the S on the end of it, the actions you take, the feelings, the desires that you have, what these are are symptoms.
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They're symptoms of a bigger problem, which is the sin nature that's dwelling inside of each of us.
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This is the disease that manifests itself with the outward symptom of sins.
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And I'm not a medical doctor, but I know that if you only treat the symptoms of something without treating the underlying cause of those symptoms, you won't get any better.
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And worse, you may die. Just to make this hopefully crystal clear, let's take the analogy one step further.
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Let's say you have two patients right next to each other, two patients with lung cancer eating away at their insides every day, destroying them from inside, metastasizing, growing, consuming.
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One of them has constant coughing fits. This lung cancer has just created great discomfort.
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They're coughing, they're hacking up stuff. You can't even be in the same room with them because it's so noisy. And the other one doesn't have a cough.
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The other one doesn't have any symptoms of lung cancer. They may not even know that this person has lung cancer.
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But they're both dying. They're both rapidly dying. The person with no symptoms could expire before the person with loud, noisy, obvious presentations of something.
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So the appropriate treatment is literally vital. Now, the other problem that we have is when someone comes out with something or they present with something like a bad cough, well, we might give them a cough suppressant to stop the cough and treat the symptom without considering what the underlying disease is.
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And this is how it is with sin. Only believe it or not, it's more serious than cancer.
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If you know the Lord and you die of cancer, you're going to see him. If you die of sin, you're going to hell.
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But in all cases, the patient, the person, is suffering from a disease that's gonna lead to the eternal damnation of their soul.
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But the symptoms of various types of bad behavior, impure thoughts, those are the symptoms, particularly in the case of outward bad behavior.
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Because you can trust or you can treat the symptoms while the disease still continues to destroy you inside.
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We're talking about sin now. You can stop or not ever commit the bad behavior while sin still destroys your heart.
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And now we've come back full circle to this idea that you have to grasp and live by, that it's the spirit of the law as well as the letter that you have to live by.
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Otherwise, you never get all the way down to the true problem that we have. But we still think that it's okay just to stop the external outworking of the sin.
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But stopping there isn't good enough. And why do we do that? Why do we stop there? I would suggest because it's, we don't truly grasp the seriousness, the gravity of sin.
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And first, we don't like to talk about it. We don't wanna talk about it because we don't wanna be confronted by the sin in our life.
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Maybe it's because we don't wanna feel bad or maybe it's because we don't wanna stop. We ignore it at church because nobody's gonna come and sit and listen to some guy tell them they're a sinner.
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That's not positive. That's not affirming. So we're afraid people won't like us or they'll think we're judgmental.
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Those Christians are always talking about the things we can't do. It's no fun. Or they'll think we're obsessed with the negative stuff and that it's weird that we bring it up all the time.
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Maybe we don't actually believe that it's that big of a deal. And maybe we don't actually believe what the
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Bible says about it. And that's significant.
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And it's a sign that we don't take the Bible as seriously as we should. So buckle up for just a second.
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We're gonna take a moment to do a very brief overview of some of the things the Bible has to say about sin before we continue.
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In just a few, not a ton. Ezekiel 18 .20 starts off this way. It says, the soul who sins shall die.
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Isaiah 59 .2 says this. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your
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God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. And of course
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Romans 6 .23 begins this way. The wages of sin is death. And lest we think we can hide our sin or somehow sneak it past God and he won't see it or maybe he'll say, nah, it's not that big a deal.
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I won't pay attention to this one. That's not the case. Galatians 6 .7 says, do not be deceived.
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God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Now could
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I go on and on and on? Yeah, you know that I could. You all know that I could. But we have more to cover.
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And I wanna highlight just one more consequence of sin. I wanna read to you 2 Corinthians 5 .21
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a verse that many of you are undoubtedly familiar with. 2
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Corinthians 5 .21. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
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So never forget that it was the sin of Adam and Eve which passed all the way down to the entire human race culminating now in you and your sin that caused the death of Jesus.
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It was the reason Jesus died on a cross. It was the sin of mankind that necessitated that sacrifice to justify us before God.
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There's a school of theology that says how could a loving God kill his own son? It's because he loves everyone enough to make that sacrifice happen.
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But you made it happen. You haven't broken the cycle because you can't.
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We still continue to sin to this day. And even if you could stop it, you may still love your sin and figure out ways to justify it.
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Or maybe you just don't think it's a big enough deal. We already read some verses about sin, but I wanna read one more.
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Some words that I found very powerful about those who sin by persecuting the church, but they apply to all unrepentant sinners.
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If you'd like, turn in your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians chapter one. We'll just read very briefly verses eight and nine.
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Again, this is talking about people who are persecuting the church. It talks about what
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God is doing. Verse eight. Executing vengeance on those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our
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Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the
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Lord and from the glory of his might. And you don't have to take my word for it.
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You can take God's word for it, that sin is something serious. It's something that we're not to dabble in.
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It's something that we're not to play with. It's something that we're not to see how far we can push it. So one of the worst questions you could ever ask is, how much of this can
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I do before it's a sin? Because the simple fact that you've asked that question means you're already gone in your heart, gone.
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You're not gone in your behavior, but you're gone in your heart. So these verses, especially the ones in Matthew, is what
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I'm referring to. Verses 29 and 30 in our passage today say, but if your 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.
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And 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.
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These verses have been subject to all kinds of questions about what it is that Jesus is saying.
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Is this literal? Are we literally to rip our eyes out or chop our hands off?
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Well, if we were literally to do that, every single one of us would look like that. We'd be a strange looking group of people, but you would know that we were real
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Christians. Look at that guy. He's only got one eye. He loves God. So no, obviously this is not something that we take literally.
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So if we can't take it literally, then the next thing we're gonna do is take it logically. And think about this.
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If we've been talking all this time about the letter and the spirit of the law, if your eye causes you to sin and you take it out, well, guess what?
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You're still not getting to the root of the issue. You're just making a superficial change to try to address this.
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So obviously he's not telling us to literally mutilate your body.
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Because if he did that, you'd be doing the same thing as the Pharisees. So John MacArthur says this.
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Jesus's point is that we should be willing to give up whatever is necessary, even the most cherished things we possess.
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If doing so will help protect us from evil. Nothing is so valuable as to be worth preserving at the expense of righteousness.
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And when I say possessions, it doesn't stop at stuff. It goes to people.
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It goes to other places. He said that you can't love your mother and your father more than me.
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So nothing that prevents you from righteousness or nothing that tempts you to sin is something that you should keep around you.
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What does this mean? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9 27. But I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others,
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I myself will not be disqualified. And practically what this means for us is that we have to do whatever we can to cut ties with or eliminate anything that has the potential to lead us into sin.
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Scripture tells us in several places to flee from such things. 2 Timothy 2 22.
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Flee youthful passions. 1 Corinthians 6 18. Flee sexual immorality.
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James 4 7. Resist the devil. But let's be logically consistent too.
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Simply eliminating a temptation, eliminating something that leads you into sin or causes you to sin is not enough all by itself.
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It's still just treating the symptom. This is the same error that those ascetic monks that mutilated themselves did.
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Or the same thing that people who isolated themselves from society to avoid temptation did.
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Because if you simply isolate yourself, then you're just all alone with your sinful thoughts.
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So there's no place to act them out, but they're still there. So what do you have to do?
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You have to replace temptations with things that help you grow in righteousness. Things of God.
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And these are the things that we always talk about. Guess what? There's no new information here. Prayer.
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Scripture. There's other things you can read that are edifying. And on that topic, let me just briefly give a commercial for the fact that I am starting, and it's very, very, very, very, very small right now, a library of these types of materials.
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It's upstairs on the shelf next to the door of my office. There's only a few books there right now.
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They will be carefully curated. So no offense to you if you give me something that came from a
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Christian bookstore that I don't think belongs there. I won't put it there. It's not just for anything.
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Purpose -driven life's not gonna show up there. But there's plenty of writings that are.
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So I'm working on putting stuff up there right now that anybody can go up and check out, take home and read, and be edified.
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Because just like a desire for sinful things reveals a sinful heart, the desire for righteous things reveals, at the very least, the pursuit of righteousness.
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Again, none of us will be perfect, but desiring the right things is going to help you go in the right direction.
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Delight yourself in Yahweh, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Remember, we read that psalm very recently.
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And as I wrap this up, I'll bring it back to the example of the pastor that I mentioned earlier.
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And again, I make no claim to know his heart, but the circumstances seem to point to one, or maybe even a combination of things that we talked about.
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We had a couple of different threads going. We had what we believe about the Bible is one thread.
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We had what we believe about sin is another. We had the Spirit and the law, the Spirit and the letter of the law is another.
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And all of these come together in these type of situations. Because whether he didn't believe what
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Scripture said about sin, or simply didn't think his sin was that serious, if no physical thing had happened, he clearly opted not to heed the advice of Jesus in this passage that we looked at, which
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I guarantee you he knew, because he willingly, and probably even purposefully placed himself in a position to commit this sin.
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And whether he thought he wouldn't get caught or whatever it was, he's now disqualified from ministry. I mean, you know, this is an easy leap in a passage about adultery, but if there's a person that tempts you, don't ever put yourself in a position to be alone with them.
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Be smart. Again, some of these things you can take care of, you can start to address in the most basic and common sense of ways.
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But let me close by telling you this, this thing. While he may be out of ministry, he's not so far gone that he can't repent and he can't still return to what
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I believe he at one time believed about Jesus. Even an act like this, even a willful disobedience that destroys a ministry career is not necessarily evidence that he wasn't saved.
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God can still redeem him and God can still redeem you.
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There's literally nothing, literally nothing that you can do or have done that can't be forgiven.
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Like not a single thing. And I mean, you can go to the darkest places that your mind can conceive of.
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And if the Holy Spirit has truly changed you and you repent and you believe in Jesus, you are forgiven.
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And it doesn't matter what you feel about that sin. And it doesn't matter what somebody else feels about it, even the victim of it.
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I mean, it does matter what they feel, but as far as God and the forgiveness is concerned, none of that is the issue.
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First John 1 .9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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And we think about these terrible things and we say, how is that even possible? And Ephesians 1 .7
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says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions according to the riches of his grace.
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So again, let me tell you, it doesn't matter what you've done. What matters for you, each person in this room,
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I'm talking to all of you, it matters that you repent and that you believe in the work of Jesus.
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For scripture tells us, again, we already read this, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved because that is the wonder, the power, the grace, the mercy of God in the gospel is that Jesus' sacrifice, which was necessary and out of love, is sufficient for you.
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Now that's why we gather and we worship each week and hopefully other times as well.
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Now earlier, we read part of Romans 6 .23. So let's read the whole thing as we close.
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Romans 6 .23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, as always, we thank you for what your word means to us.
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We thank you for what your word says to us and what it gives to us, God. We see a picture of a loving father.
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We see a picture of a father that we can return to. No matter what kind of things we've done or awful mistakes that we've made in our lives, you still love us.
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You've provided a way for us to return to you and to remain under that grace, under that mercy, forgiveness, and salvation.
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And despite all that, there will still be people who don't believe this. Lord, I pray for those people today.
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I pray for anyone who believes that they have committed a sin that cannot be forgiven, that the
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Holy Spirit would change their heart. I pray that they would call on the name of the
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Lord to be saved, God, because we know that you've done it. Your word tells us that you've done it.
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Jesus tells us that you've done it, God. So help us all to flee from sin.
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Help us all to turn from the things that cause us to stumble, the things that cause us difficulty in our lives, and help us to repent, which is a turning to you, and to believe in the work of Jesus on the cross,
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Lord. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy, and thank you for your love. And we pray all this in the name of your