In the sermon 'Dissatisfied With God and His Will,' Jason Dohm explores the deeper implications of the seventh commandment, highlighting that adultery represents a broader category of sins stemming from dissatisfaction with God's provisions. He emphasizes the importance of faithfulness, not only in actions but also in thoughts, drawing parallels to Christ's perfect faithfulness. Dohm discusses how believers must actively combat lust by avoiding situations that inflame passion and by taking radical steps like 'amputation' of sinful habits. The sermon also contrasts human unfaithfulness with God's unwavering fidelity, urging believers to emulate Christ's faithfulness and to find complete satisfaction in Him. Practical advice is given on how to avoid traps of lust and maintain spiritual integrity, while reminding that Jesus' perfect obedience to God's commandments is the foundation of believers' salvation.

The title of the sermon today is, Dissatisfied with God and His Will. And this is really what stands behind the seventh commandment not to commit adultery and the other sins that are really part of that is a clamoring for something that God hasn't given you. Being dissatisfied with God and His plans for you. And treating God and His plans for you as if they're not nearly enough. So that you chase after things that he hasn't given to you.

Last week we started our study of the seventh commandment. Today we'll wrap it up. And last week we talked about what that commandment forbids. What is, you shall not commit adultery holding us back from. And the argument I made last week which I think is Very right and important is that adultery named there in the seventh commandment is not an isolated external act.

It actually is representative of a category of sins against God. It isn't just this one external act with a married person that you're not married to. It actually extends into the thoughts of your mind where you let your eyes go. We also talked last week about what the commandment requires. I said if there's a one word summary of what the seventh commandment requires, it's faithfulness.

If you look on the other side of the coin of unfaithfulness, what do you have? Faithfulness. And so this is our growing and learning to be like the Lord Jesus Christ in his complete and utter faithfulness to the people of God. The Seventh Commandment requires that we learn to be faithful like Christ is faithful. And then I said, and then our final point of the sermon was what the Seventh Commandment teaches about God.

It teaches what He's like as the forever faithful husband of His people. However unfaithful husbands are on earth, God in heaven is the forever faithful husband of His people. We should praise God for that. With all the sorrows that we see, know, experience in this world, those sorrows will be done when God is our husband in heaven for all who have trusted in Christ. Praise the Lord for that.

Today we'll finish the fourth and fifth categories that we've been working through with each one of every one of the commandments. How we have failed to obey the seventh commandment. Go Beneath the surface, peel back the layers and consider how we have fallen short. And then finally, to consider how the Lord Jesus Christ has perfectly obeyed this commandment and in obeying it has one salvation for his people. If Jesus has sinned in any way at any time, he is not fit to be the substitute for his people.

So when we watch him obey the commandments, we're watching him win our salvation. As we come to the meat of our time, let's ask the Lord to help us. God, as we work through by commandment, Thinking about how we've fallen short, it's right for us to be brought low, to be humbled. This is good for us. But at the same time, In another sense, we are brought to the heights as we consider Jesus Christ and the beauty of His eternal character and His perfect obedience of each one of these commandments, winning salvation for a people who don't deserve it, but you offer it freely to them anyway.

It is yours to offer. You have won it. Pray that you would bless this time. You would bring us low, humble us. And then you would bring us to the heights of exalting in our Savior.

We ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, one, two, and three was last week, now number four, How we have failed to obey the seventh commandment. We were in this text last week, but let me re-read it. You're very free to go to Matthew chapter 5 if you'd like to go there while I reread it. I'll be reading Matthew chapter 5, 27 through 30.

Here's what Jesus says. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery." He's simply quoting the seventh commandment. But, I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

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 perished than for your whole body to be cast into hell. The key phrase for us in our study of the Seventh Commandment is, Whoever looks at a woman to lust. Jesus identifies a certain kind of looking, a looking with a particular purpose. This is about the direction of the eyes. What sights do you invite into your eyes, into your mind through your eyes?

What happens in the mind with the sights that you acquire with your eyes? This is a person who is acquiring certain sights for a specific reason. And what is that reason? It is to inflame Passions. They're acquiring certain sights to inflame lust, to light on fire passions that are there but lie dormant, to wake them up and feed them.

In Job chapter 1 verse 1, this is remarkable, Job is described in Job chapter 1 verse 1, here's how he is described, Blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. That you should live And at any point here in your lifetime, yourself described that way. One who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shunned evil. That is how Job is described at the beginning, the very first verse of Job. That man, the man who is described that way, felt the inclinations towards looking in that way and for that purpose, to look to lust, To look in order to feed sites, to acquire sites that inflame lusts.

In other words, This blameless and upright man, this man who feared God and shunned evil, wasn't a foreigner to the experience of feeling an inclination towards that. Rather, He recognized it in himself and he fought against it. That's what made him worthy of this description. Listen to what he says of himself in Job 31.1. Job chapter 31 verse 1.

Job says, I have made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman? I made a covenant with my eyes. He didn't make the covenant with his eyes because he didn't know anything about an inclination towards looking for this Towards this purpose, but because he knew it very well He knew it required radical action in his life It required a covenant with his eyes not to do that. So when we think of those who would look on a woman to lust, don't make this their problem.

Don't make this quote unquote their problem and think only of unbelievers. Unbelievers are inclined towards looking on with lust, but once you're saved, you're done with that. Job didn't think that. None of the New Testament writers thought it was the problem of unbelievers. It is the problem of the human condition.

Believers still have remaining corruptions in their flesh that can be awakened and inflamed by the sights that you inquire. Job knew that, So he made a covenant with his eyes. Now where can you go to acquire those sights, those sights which inflame your lusts? There are places you can go physically. Here's a question.

Are there places you can go where it's almost impossible to awaken and inflame your lusts because of the sights that you see? Are there places you can go where it's almost impossible to keep your lusts quiet, to not inflame them? To put it bluntly, do you go where the people with almost no clothes are? Do you go where the people with almost no clothes are? I have a pastor friend who said that years ago, their family, year after year after year after year, extended family.

Aunts, uncles, grandparents, met at the beach July 4th. They went where the people with no clothes are every year. At the time where the most people with no clothes are there. Because it was their pattern, they just were insensitive to it. They had done it every year, so their sensitivities weren't raised to it until their five-year-old son say, why is everyone wearing their underwear?

Nowhere else? They went nowhere else during the course of the year where people only wore their underwear. Sometimes we need to back up and just see it through the eyes of a five-year-old. You've become insensitive because it's ingrained, it's a pattern of your life, until your five-year-old says, why is everyone walking around in their undies? And truth be told, less.

Less. Told less. Less. There are places you can go virtually. By the way, that back up.

Let me finish that point. I acknowledge you never know what sights you are going to see when you walk out your front door. You might walk out your front door and see people practically in their underwear. I know that. I'm talking about choosing to go to places where the norm, where you can have no expectation other than that the people don't have hardly any clothes on.

That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about making the choice to go where people physically, that is just the expectation. I know you could run into that anywhere. I know that. You can acquire those sites going places virtually.

This makes the age in which we're living different than every other age to this point in human history. Question for you. And history, question for you. Is the media you're consuming helping you or hurting you? Is what you are consuming online helping your soul or hurting your soul?

And if the answer is, it's hurting my soul, Is that just tough luck because you're unwilling to change? It's hurting my soul. It's harming my soul. I don't care! I won't change!

No one would ever admit to that. I certainly wouldn't. What do your patterns say? You know you are harming yourself. If you are harming yourself with your media choices and your online consumption choices, you know that.

If you haven't changed your patterns, what are you saying? Are you willing to change any pattern? Or put in place any safeguard? Or bring anything into the light so that you can be done with this sin? Until you're ready to say that, you'll not be done with this sin.

Until you are ready to say, I will change any pattern, I will put in place any safeguard, no matter what it costs me, I will bring anything into the light, you will not be done with this sin. Paul says this, flee youthful lust. Run! Paul says run, that's 2 Timothy 2 22. 2 Timothy 2 22, flee youthful lust.

Run! Don't linger and prolong the temptation do what Joseph did in Genesis 39 when the temptress had him by the garment, he left the garment. He didn't stay to negotiate, he ran. Peter says this in 1 Peter 2, 11. Listen to this, 1 Peter 2, 11.

Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Peter says, there's a war against your soul. Fleshly lusts are warring against your soul. So he begs his brethren, he says, your sojourners, your pilgrims, you don't belong here, your life's not here, your nation is in heaven. Your home is in heaven.

Engage in the war by abstaining from fleshly lusts. Starve them. You have lusts, corruptions remain in your flesh, starve them! And Jesus is even more severe here in Matthew chapter 5, he says, amputate. Paul says, run, run away.

Peter says, starve your flesh, starve those lusts. Jesus says, amputate. If your eye offends you, pluck it out. Cast it from you. If your hand offends you, cut it off.

Cast it from you. Better to go to heaven with one eye than hell with two. Better to go to heaven with one hand than hell with two. Paul says, run. Peter says, starve.

Jesus says, amputate. That is the radical counsel of Scripture. So often I find myself unwilling to do anything radical. That's too radical. I don't need to go all the way there.

The alternative is being careless. But Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, you're being careless with your soul. These are soul-destroying things. Jesus says, Heaven and Hell hang in the balance with these things. Are you willing to take radical action?

Are you taking radical action? The only alternative is carelessness. The only alternative is carelessness. And it's carelessness with your soul. You say, well I'm a believer, my soul doesn't hang in the balance.

Paul says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Let me take you to another text which throws light on the subject. It's 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Paul writing to a church.

I'll be reading 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 3 through 6. Follow along. Paul writes, for This is the will of God, your sanctification. That you should abstain from sexual immorality. That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

Not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and fraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also forewarned you and testified." Paul here tells us that sanctification is the will of God for us. Sanctification is simply becoming more and more and more set apart unto God, for God, over time. Being more consecrated to God, more His, more His special set apart possession. Every day, week, month, year growing in being His. That's what sanctification is.

This is the will of God, that you grow in being consecrated to Him, being His. Living to His honor. It means growing. Growing would be another way to think about it. Growing in your faith.

What's the first thing out of his mouth when he says, it's the will of God that you grow, that you just be more and more set apart unto God over time. The first thing out of his mouth is abstaining from sexual immorality. It heads the list. Then in verse 5 he says, Not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God, to conduct yourself in passion of lust, to be inflaming your lust, to be acquiring sights, either physical or digital, to inflame your lusts, is acting Like the Gentiles who don't know God. That's fitting for people who don't know God, not people who have been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

It's not fitting. Then Paul says something we haven't talked about yet in verse 6. Look back at verse 6. First Thessalonians 4 verse 6. That no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter.

The word rendered brother there is Adelphos, that's the Greek word. And it's not gender specific, so it could be brother or sister, and it doesn't even have to indicate a believer. It can have a very broad meaning, it could be as broad as just another, that we not defraud another in this matter. What is the point that Paul is making? The point is this, there is another person involved in sexual immorality.

Listen to Thomas Watson. Thomas Watson says, He who commits adultery endangers the soul of another and deprives her of salvation so far as in Him lies. Thomas Watson is saying that there is another person in sexual sin. And you are leading that person into destruction. Who knows if that person will ultimately be saved?

Only God knows that. But your Influences are influences of destruction. You're leading them into destruction. Does God sometimes in His mercy intervene in that and bring them to life? Yes, but your influence was in the opposite direction.

It was destruction. You endanger not only your own soul, it's not only soul destroying for you, it is in the soul destroying direction for the other person that you're engaged with in this sin. The laws are summed up in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now think about sexual immorality, sexual sin, and how you endanger the soul of another in it as well as your own. So Paul when he's giving counsel to Timothy about how to relate to various groups in the church says this in 1 Timothy 5 verses 1 and 2.

Listen to this, 1 Timothy 5 verses 1 and 2. Listen to this. 1st Timothy 5 verses 1 and 2. This is Paul writing to Timothy, his son in the faith, saying, To this group, act this way. To this other group act this other way.

Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father. Younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters with all purity. Paul says, Son in the faith, Timothy, my son in the faith, relate with the younger women in the church as sisters with all purity. That's the phrase that matters here the most. As sisters.

Not as potential romantic interests. As sisters with all purity. An implication is this, I believe, that people who are ready for and desire marriage should desire marriage should pursue marriage in a serious, intentional, sober-minded way and that People who are not ready for marriage should get ready for marriage and not pursue emotional entanglements that lead to physical entanglements. I'll say that again. An implication of this, I believe, is that people who are ready for and desire marriage should pursue marriage in a serious, intentional, sober-minded way, a thoughtful way, and that people who are not ready for marriage should not pursue emotional entanglements that lead to physical entanglements.

Emotional entanglements always lead to physical entanglements. Sooner or later. Meaning I don't think we should send our young people, set our young people at liberty to just entangle themselves emotionally for the fun of it in hopes that it won't lead to problems with physical entanglements. That's insanity. When you're ready for marriage you pursue marriage.

When you're not ready for marriage, you get ready for marriage. Paul here calls it defrauding. You shouldn't defraud another. You shouldn't defraud another person, least of all a brother or sister in Christ. Now we've zoomed in and we're looking through a magnifying glass at different elements of this category.

Seventh Commandment is a category that includes what you see, what you think, various kinds of external actions. We've been looking at them. Now let's zoom out and look through the telescope. Look at the big picture. When I acquire sights from my mind to stimulate lust, to inflame lust, either physically going where the people don't have on clothes, Or going digitally where the people don't have on clothes.

Through entertainment choices or online consumption. What am I communicating to God? When I dress in a way that entices inappropriate looking, that's really the other side of this, you can be the one with very little clothes, or with clothes that are very form-fitting or very revealing that leave very little to the imagination you can be the one on the other side of this equation enticing inappropriate looking. Yes, the looking is still inappropriate. What does that communicate to God?

When I am totally unguarded in my communications. Let's call it cautiously flirtatious. In what I say or what I text. Not openly flirtatious enough that I could get busted if anyone saw it. But pushing the line, moving the boundary millimeter by millimeter by millimeter by millimeter by millimeter by millimeter.

What am I communicating to God? You are not enough! You haven't given me enough. You haven't given me enough. You're withholding things that I need.

The truth is you don't need more. Your flesh just craves what is bad for you, what will make them distant from God, what might end up taking from them everything that they really value. You either feed or starve that. Either run from that or you linger. You either amputate or you say, It doesn't matter that much.

I just don't feel close to God. I haven't felt close to Him for years. You're careless over these things. And it makes you spiritually impotent and feeling distant from God. Here's what Thomas Watson says, they that sport with harlots, she's talking about engaging in sexual sin and that even includes what's in the mind.

They that sport with harlots have no better pleasures. Have no better pleasures. He that has once tasted Christ in a promise is ravished with delight. And how would he scorn emotion to sin? Thomas Watson is talking about the man or the woman who has had a fresh experience of the beauty and goodness and loveliness of God and their hearts are burning not with lust but with love for God.

How would he scorn emotion to sin? In other words, a person with that fresh experience of the beauty and all worthiness of God can't bear the thought of creating distance by being careless. Have you known a time of your life like that? Where the fellowship with God was so sweet that you didn't dare be careless lest it create distance. Most of us who are in the Lord have a framework for understanding what I'm talking about, but aren't in that spot right now.

The title of the sermon is, dissatisfaction with God and His will. We've given in to the thought that God is withholding because the remaining corruptions in our flesh have craved things that are bad for us, that have made us distant from God and that are endangering everything that we hold dear. And we need to return to our first love and find what we knew back there. That He satisfies the soul. He satisfies the soul.

Like none of these counterfeits ever will. These lusts that we're inflaming are just counterfeits. They're just the cheap imitations of the satisfaction that there is in our God through Christ. If you are distant, I plead with you to troubleshoot that today. God doesn't want you to have, if you're a Christian, if you really have thrown yourself upon His mercy by clinging to Jesus, He does not want your experience of Him to be distant.

Return to your first love and remember how satisfying it was. And it can be. Number five. How the Lord Jesus has perfectly obeyed the seventh commandment. Jesus was perfect and completely undefiled and the gospel accounts make that so plain.

So there isn't much to say about that side of the coin. You shall not commit adultery. Jesus never did that. He never did anything remotely like that. You'll not find any hint of that in any of the gospel accounts.

But I'll say this, I loved studying John chapter 4 when we were in John. Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, a woman with a checkered past in this category. She had had five husbands and the man she was with then, she wasn't even her husband. Jesus knew it. So we get to see Jesus encounter a woman in the danger zone and how he interacts with her and he does interact with her.

He interacts with her tenderly. He is the template for how Christian men should interact with women. Jesus did have wonderful relationships with women in the Gospels, and They were always at every moment totally appropriate. So the message of the sermon isn't men avoid women at all times and in all circumstances. I guess that is the quickest way to get to you shall not commit adultery.

Just don't interact. That's not the message of the sermon and that's not what Jesus did. These are our sisters in Christ. We should have relationships of encouragement. They should be treated as sisters with all purity, as Paul tells Timothy.

But on the other side of the coin, the side of a forever faithful husband, Jesus is the forever faithful husband. He's the forever faithful husband that all other husbands are supposed to be chasing, following, learning to be like. A turn to Ephesians 5. I know this is well-worn territory for us, but we can't Talk about this commandment and Jesus and his obedience to it without going to Ephesians 5 and looking to what kind of a husband he is to his people. Ephesians 5 I'll be reading 25-27.

Follow along. Ephesians 5, 25-27. Paul writes, husbands, love your wives. Lives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word.

That He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. But that she could be holy and without blemish. Skipping down to verse 32, Paul says, this is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Jesus Christ is the forever faithful husband. We thought about adultery as leading someone else into destruction.

Jesus Christ does the exact opposite of that. He lays down his life and then he nourishes and he cherishes. He leads into life. He leads into purity. In Revelation 19, the Bible concludes, there are 22 chapters in Revelation, So this is at the end of the last book of the Bible, all but a few chapters.

Revelation 19, the Bible concludes with the marriage supper of the Lamb. Here's my question for you. Who pays for the marriage supper? Well, in our culture, usually the bride's family. Revelation 19, Jesus has paid for the marriage supper.

He's paid with His own blood. He bought that supper. He bought that supper with His own life, with His own blood, His own cleansing blood to make Himself a spotless bride. Not spotless in herself, spotless with His own righteousness. He paid for that.

He is the forever faithful husband. Jesus only has eyes for his bride. We should learn to only have eyes for him. He saved himself for his bride. We should learn to save ourselves for him, to consecrate ourselves to Him.

This is the will of God, your sanctification, being set apart to Him, says Paul. Let me close with a few applications. Number one, two. Let me close with two applications. Number one, consider Ephesians 5 verse 3.

So if you're still in Ephesians 5, back up to verse 3, Paul says, this is Paul writing to a young church, meaning they haven't been Christians that long, they're just, they're fresh out of paganism. And all the sexuality, sexual immorality, all the sexual immorality that came with living in pagan Ephesus. Ephesians 5.3, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness. Let it not even be named among you as is fitting for the saints. I think it's the ESV that renders it.

Not even a hint. Not even a hint of sexual immorality or uncleanness. Let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints. It's fitting for saints if these things that are tough to speak about, shameful to speak about aren't even named among you because they don't exist. That's what's fitting for saints.

Here's the application. So that's the verse. Don't let any sexual immorality or uncleanness, it's the whole category, uncleanness can happen in your mind when nothing is happening externally. Here's the application, It comes in the form of a question. What overdue steps do I need to take?

Have you been careless? Then you're overdue. What overdue steps do I need to take to run, to starve, to amputate? I have a couple. I have a couple.

Heads of households. What do you need to do to head off problems? What do you need to do? God hasn't made you king of the world, but He's made you the head of a household. What do you need to do to head off problems.

I can't do that because I'm living in hypocrisy. I can't require that of my household because I know the state of my own heart. To everyone I would say this, strike while the iron is hot. Today we are talking about it. You are hearing the preaching of the word of God, the iron's hot now.

What does that even mean, strike while the iron's hot? It's a smithing. It's a blacksmith term. You heat the iron until it's red hot because only when it's red hot can you hammer it into a new shape. Once it starts to cool, you can't reshape it anymore.

So you have to strike while the iron's hot because when the iron cools you can't you can't change it so there's a little opportunity while the iron's hot you Strike then or don't bother striking at all. You won't strike. Many good sermons have been preached on this topic. People were convicted but they didn't strike while the iron was hot and it won't be hot a week from now We'll be talking about stealing a week from now We'll be I've moved on to the eighth commandment a week from now strike now do those things today Number two. Rejoice in the groom.

Sort of strange as a man to think about having a groom, but I'm a Christian man, so I'm part of the bride. I'm a groom at my house. I'm the bride in the things that matter, the eternal things, things that matter most. Rejoice in the groom. He is all satisfying.

He is the pearl of great prize so that when you really see him as he is, you'll go away, you'll sell everything that you have to have him. And think that you got the better part of the bargain. Go back to your first love. Rejoice in Him. Find Him to be all satisfying.

Listen, If you don't find him to be all satisfying, you're going to go do something else with your life sooner or later. You'll stop playing at being Christian. He is all lovely. My Bible reading plan had me in Song of Solomon this week. It's quite steamy reading actually.

Ultimately, I do believe it is about Christ and His passionate love for the church. It either is directly or indirectly. You can't get away from the implications of it. Either track you take pretty much lands you in the same spot. In one point, the friends of the Shunammite woman, the bride of the husband of the Song of Solomon, her friends say, what's so great about your beloved?

And she says, he's the fairest of ten thousand. He's the fairest of ten thousand. You line up ten thousand? I'll say, I want that one. Jesus Christ is the fairest of 10, 000.

You line up the competing suitors and someone who sees Him really sees Him as He is, that God has given the grace. Eyes to see and ears to hear, they'll say, I want that one. God, I pray that this would be our experience. That if 10, 000 objects of desire would be lined up before us that you would have given us eyes to see Jesus Christ in all of his beauty in all of his worthiness and our hearts would leap I want that one for those who who For those of us who find ourselves distant Because of carelessness in our lives, oh God, have mercy on us. Draw us near to you.

Give us a fresh vision so that we can see you're worth selling all for and the bargain is still in our favor we want to know you we want to do so much more than just not cheat on our spouse let us know you Lord. I pray in Jesus name, amen.