She was Built Like a Brick Pizzeria

Matthew 5:27-30

She was built Like a Brick Pizzeria

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.”  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.[1]

ou can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair!  This saying is attributed to Martin Luther, who is said to have recited these words whenever assailed by negative thoughts.  Similarly, a healthy, normal male cannot help but notice a beautiful woman.  However, what he does with the information entering his brain through the channel of the eyes becomes his responsibility.  Especially is this true in the case of any man who is a Christian.

As we continue our study of the application of the law of Christ in the life of the believer, we have come to the second of six specific applications which serve to illustrate the radical transformation which accompanies salvation.  New birth into the Kingdom of God changes the heart of the one so redeemed.  Indeed, the law of God is no longer a series of rules, but it is written in the heart of the saved individual, even as Scripture states: The Holy Spirit also bears witness to us …saying,

“This is the covenant that I will make with them

after those days, declares the Lord:

I will put my laws on their hearts,

and write them on their minds.”

[Hebrews 10:15, 16]

Jesus dealt with the danger of unchecked anger in the heart of a man, and now he deals with the consequence of lust, desire which is permitted to continue unchecked.  The Master is not attempting to steal joy from the heart of His disciples, but He is insuring that joy is their lot.  Join me in exploration of the teaching of the Master concerning the danger of unconfessed lust.

The Seventh Commandment — You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.”  We live in strange days.  Sexual infidelity in particular and sexual looseness in general, has become a major form of contemporary entertainment.  We are informed that those who go to movies, watch television or listen to music demand such immorality.  Society tacitly acknowledges the validity of the seventh commandment, even if we dissent from maintaining its integrity for ourselves.  Moderns still expect their spouse to be chaste, though they are willing to be excused from the same standard.

God anticipates that His people will be a holy people.  This is the consistent teaching of the Word of God.  Listen to a few such instances of this divine instruction.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” [1 Peter 1:14-16]

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.  See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal [Hebrews 12:14-16].

This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honour, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.  For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness [1 Thessalonians 4:3-7].

The seventh commandment [Exodus 20:14], sets a standard which was ignored even by the kings of Israel throughout the years of the Jewish Kingdom.  There is no excuse for multiple marriages (which are tantamount to serial adultery) or for unfaithfulness in the marriage relationship.  There is a strong correlation between unfaithfulness in marriage and idolatry, which is unfaithfulness to the reign of Holy God.

The United States had a President who was able to avoid prosecution as a liar and an adulterer by parsing the word “is.”  Because of this indelible blot on the honour of the American political system, it has become necessary to clearly define terms.  I have had at least one young women attempt to demonstrate to me that immorality is not immoral, just as a young man not so long ago endeavoured to evade responsibility for immorality on the basis of redefining terms.

Adultery [μοιχεύσεις (verb: second person, singular, future, active, indicative)] refers to the violation of the marriage contract through sex with a person other than your spouse.  Sex is not limited to physical copulation, but may include all the variations of achieving sexual gratification with another individual.  This is the general meaning of the term adultery or μοιχεύω as used in the Greek tongue.  On some select occasions, the Greek term could imply seduction or violation.[2]  However, it should be clear that the manner in which Jesus used the word was to imply precisely what we hear—adultery.

I confess that as a pastor I am particular about conducting wedding ceremonies.  The marriage ceremony is an act of worship in the course of which a man and a woman make vows before Holy God.  The two vow their fidelity to one another and to Him.  This is the basis for my refusal to perform a wedding ceremony for those who are unsaved.  Let the couple find life in Christ the Lord, and they have in truth the possibility of building a strong marriage on that foundation.  If they fail to be born into the Kingdom of God, it is impossible for them to maintain a vow before God whom they refuse to acknowledge or worship.  Likewise, the union of a believer to an unbeliever is an affront to Holy God, for there is an unequal yoke which can only ensure that the believer will always be in a position of compromise and which must ultimately lead to spiritual defeat.

In the text is recognition of the sacredness of marriage, through which the race is to be propagated and trained.  Campbell Morgan has well stated that “God’s first circle of society is not the Church, it is the family.  Races are to be made or unmade as the family is made or unmade.  Nations are to rise to progress, to power; or to pass, to perish, in proportion as they obey or break this Divine law.”[3]  Though the entire world ridicule marital fidelity and speak ill of faithfulness to one’s spouse, we who are children of the True and Living God are constrained to hold to this standard of faithfulness.  Our faithfulness in marriage is a reflection of our faithfulness to our God.

The Divine Imperative —I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  “Other Jewish teachers also looked down on lust; some even went as far as Jesus in regarding it as adultery.  The issue is thus not the doctrine of Jesus’ hearers but their heart.  The Greek word here is the same as in the opening line of the tenth commandment in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament): ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife” [Exodus 20:17].’”[4]

Lust is condemned as a terrible sin throughout the Word of God.  The term to which Keener referred is the Greek term ἐπιθυμῆσαι (verb: aorist, active, infinitive)].  The root verb, ἐπιθυμέω, is a rather common verb meaning to desire or to long for.  It is constructed of a word which implies that one is consumed or to burn with desire.

This is not, then, an instance of noticing that an individual is attractive or well-proportioned.  This is a deliberate act in which an individual not only looks, but begins to undress the individual, longing to possess the individual and to gratify the lust which even now consumes the heart.  Dr. Warrn Wiersbe states of this verse, “The man Jesus described looked at the woman for the purpose of feeding his inner sensual appetites as a substitute for the act.  It was not accidental; it was planned.”[5]

Spurgeon, the great Baptist divine of another era, cogently wrote of this verse, “Whereas tradition had confined the prohibition to an overt act of unchastity, the King shows that it forbade the unclean desires of the heart…  What a King is ours, who stretches his sceptre over the realm of our inward lusts!”[6]  Indeed, the Master holds us accountable for what where we permit our mind to rest.

 Spurgeon continues his observations with these words.  “If sin were not allowed in the mind, it would never be manifest in the body: this, therefore, is a very effectual way of dealing with the evil.  But how searching, how condemning!  Irregular looks, unchaste desires, and strong passions are of the very essence of adultery; and who can claim a lifelong freedom from them?  Yet, these are the things which defile a man.”[7]

When I yet lived as part of the world, I was influenced by other sinners such as myself.  We would notice a nice looking woman walk by, and privately we would comment on her attributes.  It was thought to be innocent, until I became a Christian and discovered the mind of the Saviour.  Knowing the will of God, I am ashamed of my past conduct and have since endeavoured to honour God.  There is nothing innocent in lust.

Why is lust so destructive?  Why does God so soundly condemn lust among His people?  First, lust charges God with withholding his best for you.  Whatever you have, you are complaining that God has not given you what is good.  To see another person and to desire to have that person is a complaint against the goodness of God.  As fitting for those who are born from above, we are taught to be content with what we have [Philippians 4:11; Hebrews 13:5], and especially is one to rejoice in the spouse of his youth [Proverbs 5:18].

Lust is destructive because by treasuring our lusts we permit someone other than Christ to become our satisfaction.  We buy into the satanic lie that if only we possessed someone other than the one whom God has given us, we could be happy.  By revelling in our lust, we deny the sufficiency of Christ and deny that we are happy and thus we enthrone someone other than Christ as Master of our life.  At that moment, we have become for all practical purposes an idolater.

Lust is destructive because it reduces a fellow being to a mere object—a piece of meat.  Seldom does one gratify lust except that later that same lust later turns to hatred.  No more pointed example of such lust turned to malice can be afforded than the example found in the Word concerning Amnon following the rape of Tamar.  He lusted after his sister to the point of physical illness, but after he had violated her, he detested her.  The Word of God makes the point powerfully in 2 Samuel 13:15.  After he had ravished her, Amnon hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her.  And Amnon said to her, “Get up!  Go!”

I must make one final observation concerning the lust which contaminates far too many of the hearts of those who profess the name of Christ the Lord.  No woman can live up to the standard of the airbrush.  Therefore, no man will ever be satisfied through viewing pornography.  Likewise, no man can live up to the fiction of imagination which serves as soap operas and romantic novels to dull the minds of multitudes.  Pornography and harlequin novels are thinly disguised means of escape from life which can only tantalise the heart with a reality which can never be attained.  Such ephemeral escapes have no place in the life of the child of God.

We who name the Name of Christ are responsible to see that we do not wrong [our] brothers [or sisters] in the matter of morality, because we know that the Lord is an avenger in all these things [1 Thessalonians 4:6].  This is practical holiness—the standard to which Christ has called us.

Perhaps you will recall the section of Mere Christianity in which the great Christian apologist C. S. Lewis in discussing ethics comes to the Bible’s teaching about sex.  He says that the appetite is in ludicrous excess of its function.  Then he illustrates.

“You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage.  Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing in a covered plate onto the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?  And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”[8]

Indeed, were any of us to actually witness such a perversion of appetite for food, we would think the inhabitants of that country had taken complete leave of their senses.  At the very least, we would recognise that such a society had utterly perverted the concept of food and the culinary arts.  Yet, we are trained by the world about us to accept that just such a perversion of the sexual appetite is acceptable if nor expected!

Indiscretion and infidelity has become the theme of our love songs, so-called.  Sexual looseness is the accepted norm for much, if not most of the contemporary movie and television entertainment industry.  The novels we read, in no small measure, present as normal the theme of profligacy with an attendant lascivious, lecherous libertinism.

I recall an incident when I ministered in the city of San Francisco.  I was dispatched to visit a needy couple in the Tenderloin district of the city.  As we sought out the seedy hotel in which that couple and their child dwelt, Armando Gonzalez and I walked past one of the multiple “peep” shows which lined the streets in that district.

Walking past one such show, the barker drew back the curtain and smoothly invited us to enter in.  Instead of following the course discretion dictated and simply saying, “No, thank you,” I spun on my heel and accosted the man.  I have no idea what inspired me to do what I did, but I accepted then that God was in the matter, and to this day I accept that He directed me.  The man was big.  Armando weighed well over two hundred fifty pounds, and that man made Armando look small.

I berated the man as a depraved reprobate, Armando all the while pulling on my arm and saying under his breath, “Leave him alone.  Come one, let’s go.”

Nevertheless, I persisted in my anger directed toward that big man.  “Shame on you, you coward.  Shame on you.”

He threw the curtain closed and balled his hands into fists menacingly as he advanced toward me.  At that point, I said, “What if that were your sister in there?  Would you hawk her like a piece of meat?”

It was as though that big man hit a brick wall when he heard that question.  Almost immediately he said, “I’d kill her before I let her do that.”

Pressing the issue, I said again, “Shame on you.  You’ll take another man’s sister and sell her body and soul to every pervert who scurries along these streets.  Shame on you, you coward.”

There are times that we know the presence of the Lord in power; this was such a time for me.  As Armando pulled my arm and urged me to quit the scene, I witnessed that big man drop to his knees and begin to weep like a little child.  Shaking loose of Armando, I dropped to my knees beside that giant of a man and putting my arms around him I said, “Sir, you can do better than this.  You need not live like this.  Have you considered Christ.”  I then presented Christ and prayed that God would open his heart.

I cannot say that that man became a Christian that evening, but I can say that he left his post and to my knowledge did not return.  Oh, that God would break our hearts with the things which break His heart.  That God would give me holy boldness to speak the truth in love.

Uncle Bud Robinson made a trip through the sordid underworld of New York.  There, he saw the many prostitutes plying their trade and advertisements for various degrading sex acts intended to entertain fallen humanity.  At the conclusion of his tour, he spontaneously cried out, “I thank you, O God that I saw nothing that I had need of.”  Oh, that God’s people could cry out precisely such words in this fallen world.

Listen to the late James Boice.  “The common argument … is that sex is a problem but that it has become so only because it has been hushed up, as the Victorians are supposed to have done.  But that was a century ago.  In our day sex and sex-related matters are not hushed up.  Nor have they been hushed up for decades.  They are discussed without end in magazines and on radio and television, not to mention their treatment in movies.  Yet we have more outright perversions, more adultery, more divorce, more illegitimacy, and more downright misery and confusion in this area than at any time in our history.  Hushed up?  …It is probably the other way around.  People hushed up sex originally because it had become such a cesspool.”[9]

Our contemporaries seem to revel in the fact that they are “coming out” of the closets.  Personally, I am of the growing conviction that some things are better off in the closet.  It seems that the more evil that comes out of the closet, the more perverted the next wickedness is.  Perhaps it is time for us to insist that some things be replaced in the closets.  Certainly, Christians need to ensure that they keep the door closed on this business of feeding the lust which lies barely beneath the surface.

Christ’s Exposition —If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Does it matter whether I am pure or whether I indulge my sensual appetite?  According to the Master, purity is of paramount importance.  As Spurgeon observes, “That which is the cause of sin is to be given up as well as the sin itself.  It is not sinful to have an eye, or to cultivate keen perception; but if the eye of speculative knowledge leads us to offend by intellectual sin, it becomes the cause of evil, and must be mortified.  Anything, however harmless, which leads me to do, or think, or feel wrongly, I am to get rid of as much as if it were in itself evil…  Better a blind saint than a quick-sighted sinner.”[10]  Then, the righteous pastor makes the pointed observation, “Right eyes and right hands are no longer right if they lead us wrong!”[11]

Knowing that lust is wrong, I become responsible to refuse to feed my lust.  Perhaps you recall a news item which appeared on provincial television some time ago.  Kerry Ann Koop, a Kelowna woman, kept a five-meter Burmese python which she named Boaz.  Human resources became aware of the pet when Mrs. Koop asked the SPCA for help in securing goats to feed the python, which led to a television interview.  In that initial televised interview, her nine-month-old toddler was shown chewing on the tail of the serpent.[12]

Accompanying this story were numerous stories from the previous eight years relating accounts of people who were attacked and either injured or killed by pythons or boas kept as pets.  On the authority of Christ’s Word, I contend that it is safer to permit a child to play with a loathsome serpent such as that snake than it is to pamper your lust.

Long years before Jesus spoke, Job set a standard which would be wise for each of us to adopt.

I have made a covenant with my eyes;

how then could I gaze at a virgin?

[Job 31:1]

Men, if you will honour Christ the Lord, you would do well to adopt this view as your own.  Dear ladies, you, also, need to cease thinking of what might have been or of how your life might have been better if only another had swept you off your feet.  Resolve that you will be content with the spouse whom God has given to you.  Determine that before God you will rejoice in the marriage relationship you now enjoy.

Each of us would be wise to weigh the wisdom of Solomon as recorded in Proverbs 5:3-6, 15-22.

The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,

and her speech is smoother than oil,

but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword.

Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to Sheol;

she does not ponder the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well.

Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?

Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you.

Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated always in her love.

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,

and he ponders all his paths.

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,

and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

God holds us accountable for the manner of our lives.  We who name the Name of Christ are held to a higher standard than is the world.  This is fitting since we are born from above and into the Kingdom of God.  We are children of the Heavenly King, and thus our conduct reflects on Him and on His character.  If we demonstrate that there is no essential difference in our conduct and that of the world about us, it is likely because there is no difference.  We are revealed in that instance to be mere pretenders to grace.

Jesus is not here presenting a case for self-mutilation.  He is, however, making the strongest possible case that we each ensure that we are saved.  If you are surrendered to any particular sin, better to lose that member of your body which permits you to continue the sin than to experience the decree of eternal death pronounced by the Great Judge of all mankind.  Permit me to be more pointed still by pointing you to the Word of God.

Consider the strong warning presented in 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10.  Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

If you are addicted to pornography and say you cannot turn your eye away, better to tear out your eye than to be condemned to the hell of fire.  If you are plead that you are a kleptomaniac and unable to cease stealing from others, better to hew off your hand than to permit yourself to be condemned to hell.  If you are a slanderer and argue that you are unable to cease destroying others with your tongue, better to rip out your tongue than to permit yourself to be condemned to hell.

What is not being taught is that through self-denial, an individual may secure the promise of heaven.  Instead, “the antithesis presented is between the loss of one eye, with salvation or admission into heaven, and the use of two eyes, with perdition or the everlasting pains of hell.”[13]

The anointed Baptist commentator, John Broadus, has provided insight on this verse.  “The appeal is to a man’s own higher interest, which is really promoted by all the self-sacrifice and self-denial required by the Word of God.”[14]

Roland Bingham has well stated concerning the teaching of the Master, “If the Psalmist could say, The Law of the Lord is perfect [Psalm 19:7], surely here the greater than Moses introduces the essence of the perfect law, not in death-dealing potency but in life-giving relationship, as He opens the Kingdom of Heaven to all who are poor in spirit as distinguished from the proud in heart.”[15]

The call of Christ is the call to life.  Would you be free of all condemnation?  Come, believe this message of grace and be set at liberty.  Would you be free of all guilt?  Come, receive the grace of God revealed in the Son of God and be free.

As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.  The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, that all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father.  Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him.  Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.  He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life.

Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.  For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.  And he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement [John 5:21-29].

This is the message of life, then.  Hear the Word of the Master.  Believe the testimony which is presented concerning Him.  Receive the life which He offers.  As we close the service we also press the appeal, that, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.  For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.  For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [Romans 10:9-13].

Campbell Morgan has well stated that “God’s first circle of society is not the Church, it is the family.  Races are to be made or unmade as the family is made or unmade.  Nations are to rise to progress, to power; or to pass, to perish, in proportion as they obey or break this Divine law.”

“Other Jewish teachers also looked down on lust; some even went as far as Jesus in regarding it as adultery.  The issue is thus not the doctrine of Jesus’ hearers but their heart.  The Greek word here is the same as in the opening line of the tenth commandment in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament): ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife” [Exodus 20:17].’”

Dr. Warrn Wiersbe states of this verse, “The man Jesus described looked at the woman for the purpose of feeding his inner sensual appetites as a substitute for the act.  It was not accidental; it was planned.”

Spurgeon, the great Baptist divine of another era, cogently wrote of this verse, “Whereas tradition had confined the prohibition to an overt act of unchastity, the King shows that it forbade the unclean desires of the heart…  What a King is ours, who stretches his sceptre over the realm of our inward lusts!”

 Spurgeon continues his observations with these words.  “If sin were not allowed in the mind, it would never be manifest in the body: this, therefore, is a very effectual way of dealing with the evil.  But how searching, how condemning!  Irregular looks, unchaste desires, and strong passions are of the very essence of adultery; and who can claim a lifelong freedom from them?  Yet, these are the things which defile a man.”

“You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage.  Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing in a covered plate onto the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?  And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”

Listen to the late James Boice.  “The common argument … is that sex is a problem but that it has become so only because it has been hushed up, as the Victorians are supposed to have done.  But that was a century ago.  In our day sex and sex-related matters are not hushed up.  Nor have they been hushed up for decades.  They are discussed without end in magazines and on radio and television, not to mention their treatment in movies.  Yet we have more outright perversions, more adultery, more divorce, more illegitimacy, and more downright misery and confusion in this area than at any time in our history.  Hushed up?  …It is probably the other way around.  People hushed up sex originally because it had become such a cesspool.”

As Spurgeon observes, “That which is the cause of sin is to be given up as well as the sin itself.  It is not sinful to have an eye, or to cultivate keen perception; but if the eye of speculative knowledge leads us to offend by intellectual sin, it becomes the cause of evil, and must be mortified.  Anything, however harmless, which leads me to do, or think, or feel wrongly, I am to get rid of as much as if it were in itself evil…  Better a blind saint than a quick-sighted sinner.”  Then, the righteous pastor makes the pointed observation, “Right eyes and right hands are no longer right if they lead us wrong!”

Knowing that lust is wrong, I become responsible to refuse to feed my lust.  Perhaps you recall a news item which appeared on provincial television some time ago.  Kerry Ann Koop, a Kelowna woman, kept a five-meter Burmese python which she named Boaz.  Human resources became aware of the pet when Mrs. Koop asked the SPCA for help in securing goats to feed the python, which led to a television interview.  In that initial televised interview, her nine-month-old toddler was shown chewing on the tail of the serpent.

“The antithesis presented is between the loss of one eye, with salvation or admission into heaven, and the use of two eyes, with perdition or the everlasting pains of hell.”

The anointed Baptist commentator, John Broadus, has provided insight on this verse.  “The appeal is to a man’s own higher interest, which is really promoted by all the self-sacrifice and self-denial required by the Word of God.”

Roland Bingham has well stated concerning the teaching of the Master, “If the Psalmist could say, The Law of the Lord is perfect [Psalm 19:7], surely here the greater than Moses introduces the essence of the perfect law, not in death-dealing potency but in life-giving relationship, as He opens the Kingdom of Heaven to all who are poor in spirit as distinguished from the proud in heart.”

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[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Ó 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] see H. Reisser, μοιχεύω [moicheuo4] (art.) in Colin Brown, Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 2 (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI 1976) 582-4

[3] G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to Matthew (Marshall, Morgan & Scott, London, UK 1976) 55

[4] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 1993) 59

[5] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Volume 1 (Victor Books, Wheaton, IL 1989) 24

[6] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The King Has Come (Fleming H. Revell Company, Old Tappan, NJ 1987) 57

[7] Spurgeon, op. cit.

[8] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Macmillan, New York, NY 1958) 75

[9] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1: The King and His Kingdom, Matthew 1-17 (Baker, Grand Rapids, MI 2001) 90

[10] Spurgeon, op. cit., 58

[11] Spurgeon, op. cit.

[12] see Marnie Ko, The Snake Stays, But Not the Bunny, Report Newsmagazine, November 19, 2001, http://report.ca/archive/report/20011119/p42i011119f.html

[13] Joseph Addison Alexander, The Gospel According to Matthew (James Nisbet & Co., London, UK 1861) 142

[14] John A. Broadus, An American Commentary on the New Testament: Volume 1, Matthew (Judson Press, Valley Forge, PA 1886) 110

[15] Roland V. Bingham, Matthew the Publican and His Gospel (Evangelical Publishers, Toronto, ON nd) 57