Sound The Trumpet : A Pure Heart or Adultery

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“A Pure Heart or Adultery - Matthew 5:27-30”
by Art Sadlier
November 13th, 2016

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” (Matthew 5: 27-30).

In the eight Beatitudes Jesus gives in verses 3-10 He is teaching that righteousness is an issue of the heart. The Priests, Scribes and Pharisees had reversed the purpose of God by making righteousness a simple matter of external practice. Jesus taught that was a perversion of God’s Word.

In verse 21-22 Jesus clearly teaches that murder is not just an outward act but an attitude of the heart. To be angry or bitter in heart is to be guilty of murder. God looks on the heart; it is the heart that matters to God.

Now in verses 27-28 Jesus is saying adultery is also an issue of the heart. Jesus is unmasking the externalism of the Scribes and Pharisees by showing that the only righteousness acceptable to God is purity of heart. Without that inward purity the outward life makes no difference. God’s divine evaluation takes place in the heart. He judges the source and origin of sin, not the outward manifestation.

Proverbs 23:7, “For as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” If we would have a pure life we must deal with our hearts.

1 Samuel 16:7, “But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”

1 - THE DEED

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Jesus begins by quoting the Ten Commandments. The sixth commandment concerning murder protects the sanctity of life. The seventh commandment concerning adultery protects the sanctity of marriage.

Those who rely on external righteousness break both of these commandments, because in their hearts they attack the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage, whether they do so externally or not. When they are angry or hate they commit murder. When they lust sexually they commit adultery.

Anger and lust are two of the most powerful influences on mankind. The person that allows them in his life will soon find that he is controlled by them.

Sexual temptation has been strong since man’s fall. However, our day of permissiveness and perversion has brought an increase of this destructive influence upon our society that perhaps no other society in history has had before.

“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13). That prophetic statement is being fulfilled before our eyes today. People propagate, promote and exploit this temptation through the most powerful and most pervasive media ever known to mankind. It is the uninterrupted theme of society’s entertainment. Our eyes and our ears are bombarded with it constantly.

Mass media uses it to sell its products and to glamorize its programs. Sex crimes are at an all time high. Infidelity, divorce and perversion are justified. Marriage, sexual faithfulness and moral purity are scorned, ridiculed and laughed at.

We are preoccupied with sex to a degree never seen before in a civilized culture.

The philosophy of sexual hedonism is not new to our day. It was a common thing in New Testament life. Paul faced it head on in Corinth. Notice Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 6:13, “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.”

To paraphrase, Paul was saying, foods for the body and the body for foods, Paul was quoting a common Greek notion that biological functions are just biological functions and have no moral significance. It was a belief that many Corinthians had reverted to or had never given up, in order to justify their sexual misconduct.

Apparently they were arguing that sex is simply a biological act. That it was similar to eating and drinking which had no moral aspect. Paul strongly refutes that idea by going on to say, “....God shall destroy both it and them.” God will do away with both of them, the foods and the stomach.

Then Paul states clearly, “Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.” The body is more than biological, the Christian is a member of Christ, his body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Our body is not only a temple of the Holy Ghost but doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to the Lord. It is never to be used for any purpose that dishonours God who made it and indwells it.

The Christians response to sexual temptation should be the same. “Flee fornication.....” (Verse 18). Run – run –run, like Joseph in the Old Testament.

2 – THE DESIRE

Matthew 5:28, “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

“But I say,” Jesus is putting His own words above that of the Rabbi’s and Pharisees. This is the same God speaking who originally gave the Ten Commandments.

“Whosoever looketh,” this is a present participle which refers to the continuous act of looking. Jesus is speaking of the continuous act of looking with the intent to lust.

Now watch this carefully. Looking at a woman lustfully does not cause a man to commit adultery in his thoughts. He has already committed adultery in his heart. His adulterous thoughts came out of an adulterous heart.

It is not lustful looking that causes the sin in the heart, but sin in the heart that causes lustful looking.

Lustful looking is but the expression of the heart that is already immoral and adulterous. The heart is the soil where the seeds of sin are planted and begin to grow. The lustful look comes from an immoral heart which resides in our flesh nature. It is just natural for a man to look with lust, but we are exhorted to live a supernatural life. Galatians 5:16, "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh."

Although Jesus uses the man here as an example, His condemnation of lustful thoughts as well as actions applies equally to women. The following quote is from Arthur Pink and expands this condemnation.

“If lustful looking is so grievous a sin, then those who dress and expose themselves with the desire to be looked at and lusted after....are not less but perhaps more guilty. In this matter it is not only too often the case that men sin but that women tempt them to do so. How great then must be the guilt of the great majority of modern women who deliberately seek to arouse the sexual passions of men.”

I would add, a woman may say that she does not dress with intent to cause lust, however she is accountable to God for the way she dresses. Ignorance is no excuse; the Word of God is clear in this matter.

From the man's perspective Job said, “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" (Job 31:1).

“Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). The secret is a pure heart.

How do you obtain a pure heart and how do you maintain a pure heart?

I read recently about a man in the middle ages who was a theologian but fell into immorality. He sent his fiance to a convent in France. He himself, in order to escape the possibility of immorality, went to a remote monastery in Egypt where he spent the rest of his life. At the end of his life he confessed that his evil thoughts followed him to the monastery, he had not escaped them.

3 – THE DELIVERANCE

Jesus now teaches the way to deliverance from heart sin. The way to deliverance from a sinful heart is not geographical escapism, not physical mutilation nor forced celibacy. Jesus points the way to deliverance from heart sin. Verses 29-30, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

At first this seems to contradict what Jesus has been saying. If the problem is the heart, what use is it to pluck out the right eye; the heart would still cause the left eye to sin. If the problem is the heart what value is it to cut off your right hand, the heart can still cause your left hand to sin.

Men in the middle ages have done these very things and have testified that it didn`t solve their sin problem. Obviously Jesus is speaking figuratively of those things that cause us to be tempted or that make us more susceptible to temptation. In Jewish culture the right hand or right eye represented a person’s best, most precious faculties.

Jesus was making the point that we ought to be ready and willing to do or to give up whatever is necessary to protect us from evil. He was saying that we must be willing to give up the most cherished things we possess to gain the victory over temptation. Nothing is so valuable as to be worth preserving at the expense of righteousness.

The intent of these words is simply to call for a dramatic severing of the sinful impulses which lead to evil actions.

“Offend” means to scandalize, to lay a snare, to trap, to cause to stumble or fall. It refers to anything that morally or spiritually traps us. We should eliminate such quickly. Anything that could cause us to fall into sin or could cause us to stay in sin should be eliminated quickly. The message of this hyperbolic statement of our Lord is that sin must be dealt with radically.

Paul expressed the same radical idea in 1 Corinthians 9:27a, “But I keep (under) my body under.....” Or literally – I abuse my body – I beat my body – “And bring it into subjection...” or literally – I make it a slave – or I make it subservient. Why? “...lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” Or literally – Be disapproved – lose my reward.

If we do not deliberately control what is around us, those things will control us.

If we do not deliberately control – Where we go – What we do – What we watch – What we read – The company we keep – The conversations we have, then those things will control us. What we cannot control we should discard without hesitation!

Obviously getting rid of harmful influences will not change a corrupt heart into a pure heart. Outward acts cannot produce inner benefits. Matthew 15:18-19, “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”

However, just as the outward act of adultery reflects a heart that is already adulterous within, so the outward act of forsaking whatever is harmful reflects a heart that is hungering and thirsting for righteousness. The outward act is effective protection because it comes from a heart that seeks to do God’s will instead of its own.

4 – THE NEVER ENDING WAREFARE

We have the flesh nature with us until the day we die or until Christ comes for us. We can have victory over the flesh nature but we cannot escape war with it.

“And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovahnissi” (Exodus 17:15). Jehovahnissi means the Lord my Banner or the Lord my Victory. God will provide for our victory over the flesh.

“For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Verse 16). Amalek is a type of the flesh, a type of the flesh nature. Our war with Amalek never ends; our war with the flesh nature never ends.

Notice how we are to wage war with the flesh nature. The instructions are clearly given. 1 Samuel 15:1, “....now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.” Then the instructions are given in verse 3, “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

Take no prisoners. Show no mercy to the flesh nature. That is how you and I are to war against our own flesh nature! Make no compromises!

Paul had no mercy on his flesh nature, he said, “I die daily.” I lay aside all of my own desires, I die to them. I die daily to the flesh nature. Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ,” not physically, but I put death my fleshly desires. That is the way of victory over the flesh nature.

That is exactly what Jesus called for in Luke 9:23-24, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” The way of life is the way of death.

5 – THE VEHICLE OF VICTORY

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). How do we have Christ abide in us? What does it mean to have Christ abide in us?

The answer is given in verse 7, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.” Christ abides in us when we allow His Word to abide in us. We abide in Christ when we obey His Word.

Now that is the secret of a pure heart.

Joshua sums it up best of all in Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”

That is the price of a pure heart! That is the price of spiritual prosperity! That is the price of a victorious life!

We are in a fierce fight to the finish with our own flesh nature and it is a lifelong war.

We read the Word! We study the Word! We memories the Word! We meditate on the Word! We obey the Word! We listen to the teaching and the preaching of the Word! We never quit immersing ourselves in the Word of God.

Every time our flesh nature rears its ugly head, we blast it off with scripture!

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13