Adultery and Kingdom Citizens

Introduction: I want to begin this message by reminding all of us that there is only one unforgivable sin, and that sin is the rejection of Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. That is the sin that will bring about an eternal separation – that is the sin that will keep you from heaven. Every other sin that mankind commits is forgivable! Now, please keep that in mind as we look at this section of the Sermon on the Mount that deals with adultery.

In 1623, Baker and Lukas published a Bible in England called “The Wicked Bible,” because the little word “not” was omitted in the seventh commandment: It read, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The printers were heavily fined by the High Commission and the whole edition was destroyed.[1]

Today in Jesus’ sermon He wants to have a Word with us about Adultery. He will provide us with the traditional understanding of adultery, and then He will explain how Kingdom Citizens are to understand the seventh commandment.

The word adultery is related to the word adulterate, which means “to render something poorer in quality by adding another substance.” Adultery is the adulteration of marriage by the addition of a third person. Adultery is voluntary sexual activity between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse. (Got Questions).

Several years back, my family and I visited the Old Idaho State Prison in Boise, Idaho. As we walked through the buildings, I noticed the pictures of former inmates and the crimes that brought them there. One sign read,

Cora Stanfield, 36 Crime: Adultery

In 1908, Cora Stanfield pleaded guilty to adultery despite the fact that she was legally separated from her husband. Stanfield received a sentence of nine months in prison and in 1908, a full pardon. As of 2016, adultery is still a crime in Idaho, though rarely enforced.

Adultery is not enforced because if it was our prisons would be overflowing with adulterers and adulteress. Very sad, but also very true. We are a land without morals today.

What does our Lord teach us about adultery? We discover the following…

I. Physical Adultery is forbidden – 5:27

27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

Where does that commandment originate? With God. Mankind’s ultimate authority! It was a part of the law that God revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai. And what Moses revealed to the people of God in the wilderness.

This seventh commandment is found in Exodus 20:14 and in Deuteronomy 5:18. It again reads,

You shall not commit adultery.

In the same way, that murder was off the table (Matthew 5:21), so adultery was to be off the table (Matthew 5:27). Adultery is morally WRONG – there is never a legitimate occasion to commit adultery. What part of “not” do we “not” get?

There was a couple in Spirit Lake and the man committed adultery on his wife. They struggled to keep their marriage together, but they did, that is, until the woman decided that she was going to “get even” with her husband (her words), and she committed adultery. “Get-even adultery” is morally WRONG! Kingdom Citizens are NOT to go there. The story didn’t end there. Both lived together with other people. Their kids began to be in trouble with the law. One son blew his hand off with fireworks. And on an Easter Sunday, the man who had committed adultery killed himself.

What a tragic story!

How many of you have heard the statement: The grass is greener on the other side of the fence?

Are you aware that there is a website called, Ashley Madison, and it promotes adultery? Their tagline is “Life is short. Have an affair.” Notice that they don’t call it adultery. They call it an affair. Ashley Madison has an estimated 60 million users. (About five years ago they had 37 million users).

According to the infidelity statistics, about 40% of unmarried relationships and 25% of marriages see at least one incident of infidelity. An issue of Marriage and Divorce journal also stated that 70% of all Americans engage in some kind of affair sometime during their marital life.

Christians are not exempt. I’m not naive enough to think that adultery doesn’t affect the people of God. It shouldn’t, but it does. But it doesn’t have to happen to you.

One Christian guy who committed adultery said to his wife, “It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t love her. I love you.” That man had a very destructive way of showing his love for his wife. Love does not harm another person (1 Corinthians 13:4-6).

In Proverbs 6:18 we read, “Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul.” (also read 1 Corinthians 6:18; Hebrews 13:4).

Have you committed adultery? You will no doubt answer, No! But before you answer, let’s move along in our text. The context before us may better help us to answer that question more honestly. Jesus is going to take the seventh commandment and he is going to tell us how as Kingdom Citizens to fully understand it. Jesus teaches us that…

II. Mental Adultery is forbidden – 5:28

28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Everyone listens to someone. Whom do you listen to? Will you listen to Jesus Christ? He says, “But I say to you…” Then He continued,

Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her…

In Greek, the word “woman” generally refers to a married woman. So then, adultery is having sexual relations with another person’s spouse.

Women reading this might be thinking, way to go Pastor Kim – sock it to the men – they need to hear this. It’s true, they do. But we live in a crazy mixed-up sexual world today. Some women lust after other women – who may be married women. Scripture calls this an abomination, but it's happening! And we all know that there are a lot of men who lust toward other women, women that are not their wives. This scripture is for everyone! This chapter is for you who are reading it.

When I worked for a company in the Spokane Industrial Park back in the late 70s, I heard a lot of men talk about women. In some very degrading ways. It was sick the way men (and even married men) talked about women, and even about their wives. It was downright filthy! They laughed it off.

The word “lust” here means, desire, covet, and set one's heart upon. We must understand that lust is the ROOT of adultery.

One guy I heard said, “I look but I don’t touch.” Isn’t that lust? We need to understand that a fantasy world is a sinful world. If the act of adultery is wrong, so is the mental intention. Someone wrote, “To be faithful with your body but not your mind is to break the trust so vital to a strong marriage.”

Proverbs 6:23-24 read,

23 For the commandment is a lamp, And the law a light; Reproofs of instruction are the way of life, 24 To keep you from the evil woman, From the flattering tongue of a seductress.

These words are written to keep us from our neighbor’s wife. To keep us from committing adultery. Kingdom Citizens don’t go there. Are you getting this?

Solomon continued in Proverbs 6:25-29,

“Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. . . Another man’s wife preys on your very life. Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished”

Jesus tells us here in Matthew 5:28, that adultery is another sin that originates in the heart. You see, all the issues of life do flow from the human heart. We read in Proverbs 4:23,

Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.

Tony Evans wrote, “Sexual purity involves more than avoiding a physical act. It too involves the heart. Immoral actions, then, begin with immoral thoughts – and immoral thoughts are evil too.”

Adultery doesn’t have to be a physical action; it can be something that occurs in the heart (where the real us resides).

If lust is a problem for you – it’s a heart problem. You better take care of what is going on in your heart. The Psalmist prayed in Psalm 139:23-24,

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; 24 And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

III. How to deal with both Physical and Mental Adultery – 5:29-30

Jesus is going to provide a radical approach to dealing with the sins that flow from the human heart. There are some important words found in our text. In verse 29, the words are, “pluck” and “cast” – underline those words. These words mean that we must detach from sin, and we must remove that sin. Once it is out of the human heart it dies for lack of being fed. Sin must be starved to death. The other words are found in verse 30, and they are, “cut” and “cast” (underline them) and again the idea is the same. Sin must be dealt with immediately.

How does a person lose weight? They eat less and exercise. For the Kingdom Citizens, we remove the sin (eat less), and we practice spiritual exercise – prayer, Bible reading, fasting, confession, and being connected with a small group for accountability. We all need godly people to speak into our lives.

Jesus deals with two areas where sin is played out from within the human heart – our eyes and our hands.

A. If your right eye causes you to sin – 5:29

29 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.

If you have wondering eyes, you MUST do something about it.

Our High School Youth Pastor when he took us on road trips and some pretty girls were crossing in front of our van at a stop light, would yell out, “Look for quarters.” This was his way of telling us High school boys to keep our hearts in check.

Jesus tells us what to do:

· Pluck it out – “tear it out” is the meaning in Greek.

· Cast it from you – throw it aside, like dung.

· For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish.

It is better for you to deal with the sin before you than to ignore it and face something worse – something eternal. Jesus said,

· Than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

I remind you that the Greek word “hell” in this verse is “gehenna” (gheh’-en-nah). In 2 Chronicles 28:3, it is called, “the Valley of the Son of Hinnom”. It was a place where child sacrifice and incense were burned to the Molech. This is a good visual picture of what hell will be like. A place of eternal punishment.

B. And if your right hand causes you to sin – 5:30

30 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.

How can our hand's sin in this area of lust and adultery? We’ll we can thumb through a pornographic magazine. And in our culture, we can use our hands to search the internet or push and swipe through pictures on our dumb phones. We can’t call them “smart phones” when they allow us to ruin our lives by looking at pornography, can we?

Jesus once again tells us how to deal with our hands when they are causing us to sin. He says,

· Cut it off – cut down. Deal with it.

· Cast it from you – throw it aside, like dung.

· For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish.

You see, again it is better for you to deal with the sin at hand than to ignore it and face something worse – something eternal. Jesus said,

· Than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

I can tell you that people may joke about hell today, but on that day, it will be no joking matter.

Literal or Symbolic?

Now, is Jesus teaching that we are to gouge out our eye, and cut off our hand? The answer is No! However, He is telling us that we must not be easy on our sins. We should care enough to deal with our lust. We must take sin seriously enough to do some major business with it. We either deal with our sin or it will destroy us.

Man Cuts His Hand Off

There will always be people who read their Bible incorrectly. This story comes out of Greenwood, S.C. -- A man who cut off his hand with a kitchen knife told police that God had instructed him to do so.

A witness who was working in the street nearby told Greenwood police that he heard the man scream, and then saw him standing in the doorway of his home holding a knife while he recited Bible verses.

Greenwood police and emergency medical services responded to the 48-year-old man’s home at about 10 a.m. Officers found the man lying in the threshold of his apartment with a knife on the steps nearby. Police said when they asked the man why he cut off his hand he said that God had told him to do so.

Emergency responders preserved the man’s hand, but there was no immediate word if doctors were able to reattach it.

Greenwood police said that the man didn’t have "all of his faculties," and because it was a self-inflicted wound, they would be treating it as they would a suicide and would not be releasing any further information.” (hmpgloballearningnetwork.com).

Bible theologians tell us that Jesus was using hyperboles in verses 29 and 30 – deliberate exaggerations to make a point. The SIN of adultery and lust is so serious that must be dealt with by extreme measures.

Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Right eyes and right hands are no longer right if they lead us wrong.”

How many of us know of someone whose marriage was destroyed because of lust? We all do. Adultery begins in the heart, is played out in the mind, and eventually in the theatre of one's life.

The brother of Jesus wrote in James 1:15,

Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

The KJV reads,

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (The LSD of the Bible).

Kingdom Citizens, it doesn’t have to be. No follower of Christ needs to allow lust to cause them to commit adultery. The Apostle Peter wrote to Christians the following,

1 Peter 2:11–12 - 11 Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, 12 having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Conclusion: What have we learned from the words of Jesus?

1. That the physical act of adultery is a sin.

2. That adultery can occur in the human heart without the physical act.

3. That we must deal radically with sin by discovering its source – heart, eye, hand, and then sever the sin!

4. That if you are involved in the initial steps of adultery – you STOP now!

5. That you understand that Kingdom Citizens don’t practice adultery.

6. That hell is a real place. It stinks, it’s hot, and it’s nasty. It’s eternal. (I want to add that many people face hell in their minds because they committed adultery).

7. That forgiveness is available both with God and your spouse. Repent and be delivered.

[1] Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 114). Bible Communications, Inc.