In the sermon 'Jesus’ Exposition of the Seventh Commandment,' Jason Dohm discusses Matthew 5:27-32, focusing on Jesus' interpretation of the commandment against adultery. He contrasts Jesus' teaching with that of the scribes and Pharisees, highlighting how they limited the commandments to external actions, thus promoting a form of self-righteousness. Dohm explains that Jesus emphasizes the spirit of the law, which centers on love and the intentions of the heart rather than mere adherence to rules. The sermon describes how Jesus uses extreme metaphors, such as plucking out an eye, to illustrate the seriousness of sin and the importance of addressing its root causes in the heart. Dohm also explores how Jesus expands the understanding of adultery to include lustful thoughts, arguing that sin begins in the heart and external manifestations are merely symptoms. He warns against self-righteousness that comes from focusing only on the outward observance of the law and underscores the necessity of experiencing the weight of sin to foster genuine love for God. The sermon concludes by reinforcing the idea that true righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and involves a deep understanding and application of God's law motivated by love.

This morning our sermon text is from Matthew 5, 27 through 32. So if you can go to that verse with me and follow along as I read. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And 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 body 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 perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Furthermore, it has been said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery. Please bow your heads with me. Well Lord, we thank you so much for this teaching that we're about to receive.

Lord, for the time that I know that Jason's put into this and we ask that you open our hearts, open our ears this morning to pay close attention Lord to what you have to say to us. Lord for we know that religion is more than just a set of rules and you are showing us that it is a heart issue of all the things that we look at, to truly love You, to have a heart towards You, to live for You. Lord, so we ask that You will help us to soften our hearts and to hear that, and desire to walk with You in love. Verse 19, for I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." Our text today, just like last week, is in the context of this. Jesus has put His finger on the scribes and the Pharisees to say that they're putting forward another kind of righteousness, a different kind of righteousness.

A righteousness from themselves which is all caught up in the law. And Jesus is saying that is a deficient righteousness. That nobody who trusts in that kind of righteousness can actually enter the kingdom of God. And so he's making war on what the scribes and the Pharisees have been teaching. And he is saying things that are completely in line with the Old Testament law.

But he's explaining where the scribes and the Pharisees have gone off the track. And where they've gone off the track was just that, that they had created a righteousness which was external, which was bound up in the letter of the law so that they constructed something that they could say that I have done and feel righteous. When in fact, the whole spirit of the law received no attention, that they were trampling all over the spirit of the law, but because they had tiptoed around the letter of the law in a certain way, They were able to say that I'm righteous and before men they were righteous But before God they weren't righteous at all the point of that verse that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees Wasn't that they were good law keepers, and we need to be even better than them, it's that they were terrible law keepers. They actually weren't law keepers at all. And so Jesus begins to dive into the spirit of the law.

The scribes and the Pharisees had mastered the letter of the law, and they've been applying that. But Jesus says that is not enough. It is the spirit of the law. Because behind every law, there's something lurking. And the thing that is lurking behind every law is love.

And so last week we talked about this, but I'm going to repeat it because this is how we have to view the law. Love is the fulfillment of the law, and there's something that explains that. And that's this. You should love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And then there's a second commandment that's like it.

You should love your neighbor like yourself. That explains what it means that love is the fulfillment of the law. There's love for God, and there's love for neighbor. But there's something that explains those. And there are 10 commandments about loving God and about loving your neighbor that explains that.

And so there's a broadening out there. That love is at the top of the pyramid. And there's two kinds of love. There's love for God and there's love for neighbor. And there's things that explain that.

And it's things like you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness. This is what teaches us how it is exactly that we love our neighbor. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no carved images. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

These are things that teach us what it means to love God. And then there are all manner of other commandments in both the Old and the New Testament. And they fall within these categories. They tell us what it means that you shall not murder and that you shall not commit adultery. So we have to always keep this in view, because if the minute this gets out of sight, we get love wrong.

Our view of love becomes skewed and we don't understand it and we mis-define it and it becomes this very nebulous, very emotion centered thing that God never taught us that it was. Actually, love rightly defined is taught by these laws. But to fixate on these laws as if there was nothing lurking in the background is to completely misunderstand them and misapply them. And so Jesus is looking through the law to this wonderful thing that is behind every law, which is love. He's proposing six representative case studies.

Last week was the first one, and he takes on, you shall not murder. And we found that the scribes and the Pharisees had reduced you shall not murder to a single act that had consequences. And they were teaching that this is what it means, that you shall not murder. And while in a very technical sense, that is true. That is what that means.

That murder is actually a much broader category than just don't stab your neighbor. That there are things wrapped up in murder like, don't be angry with your brother without a cause, or don't say you fool and express with your mouth disdain for your neighbor. Actually, that is part of the category of murder. And this isn't different than the Old Testament. It's easily proven that these are things that ought to have been well understood from the Old Testament.

But the full interpretation of the law had been abandoned in favor of something that was whittled away, something that was skinned down, something that could be done so that we can say that we're righteous. Another thing that I think was very important coming out of last week, just to finish summarizing where we were last week, was that as we apply the spirit of the law, as we take the letter of the law, you shall not murder, and we watch the ripples go outwards to what happens in our heart and what happens in our choice of words, We can't then take those things that are an application of the spirit of the law and turn them back into the letter of the law, as if now all anger is wrong, and as if all rebuke is wrong. Jesus dealt with anger, and he dealt with rebuke, and he was actually quite harsh against it. But if we take the application of the spirit of the law and then turn that back into the letter of the law, then we wipe out categories that The Bible never wipes out. And here's why that's important.

As we progress through the Sermon on the Mount, we'll come to things like turn the other cheek. And if you turn that back into the letter of the law, what you end up with is wiping out the category of self-defense to say, it's never appropriate to defend yourself under any circumstances. And people have done that. Pacifists have done that in the name of what's being taught on the Sermon on the Mount. But that's actually not what Jesus is teaching.

If that's what Jesus is teaching, then Jesus is a hypocrite because he says you fool three times in the gospel and Paul says it and James says it. So what Jesus, he isn't wiping out righteous anger as a category or righteous rebuke as a category, but he's addressing unrighteous anger and and unrighteous rebuke. And it'll be important as we work through these six representative case studies to keep that on the top of our brains so we don't end up wiping out categories that Jesus just wants to explain. So this week we're starting into our second representative case studies. So Jesus is continuing his assault on the flawed interpretation and teaching about the law that had been put forth by the scribes and the Pharisees, this righteousness of their own that was by the law.

See, the law itself won't actually allow you to be righteous before it. It condemns. And so any time you find yourself acceptable in the sight of the law, this is our red flag that we haven't understood what the law is actually saying to us. And so last week, we had a representative case study about murder. And it's very helpful to help us understand what murder is about, but it wasn't about murder.

It was about how you rightly understand and apply the law. This week, we're in our second representative case study, and it's about adultery. And it's going to help us to think rightly about adultery, but you know what? It's not about adultery. It's about rightly understanding and applying the law.

So that he's teaching us to be mature children. So that it's not all just, do this, do this, don't do that, don't do that. It is we understand the heart of God and we can apply the heart of God to the everyday circumstances of life. So Jesus is using the sixth commandment about murder last week and the seventh commandment about adultery this week. And he's training us to think rightly about the law so that we could go do the same thing to the eighth commandment from the principles that we've learned.

We could do the same thing to the ninth commandment and the tenth commandment and all the commandments that we find in the Bible. We've been trained by Jesus to think rightly about the law. And it will strip away our self-righteousness, and it'll help us to rightly understand what the heart of God is on a matter and how to love God and how to love our neighbor. Because love is what is lurking behind any and every commandment. So now, right to the text.

Beginning in chapter 5 verse 27, We'll read those two verses and then talk just about those two verses. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." The formula this week is exactly like what the formula was last week and then we've got four more weeks of the same formula which is this. You have heard that it was said but I say to you. It's exactly that way that's what last week and that's just what I read.

You have heard that it was said, but I say to you. It's exactly that way last week, and that's just what I read. You have heard that it was said, but I say to you. And again, it is what you hear. It is what is being taught.

This isn't Jesus contradicting what has been written. He doesn't say, it is written, but I say to you, He says, you have heard that it was said to those of old. In other words, What you're hearing is what your teachers are representing the law to be. They're saying, this is what it was said to those of old. This is what the law is.

And Jesus is saying, the law is really this. What is written is really this. And what you're being told is this. The law is broad and widely applicable and has impact for many different areas but what you're hearing is this little piece of the law. And he begins by quoting the sixth commandment directly, word for word, from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.

So no problem there. It is actually what was written. You shall not commit adultery. That is the seventh commandment. But again, the Pharisees have taken the teaching of the law on adultery and they have reduced it to just the act of adultery.

The physical union is what is in view when the scribes and the Pharisees teach on adultery. And here's the thing about that. It is very true. You shall not commit adultery. The physical union is sin.

However, you can refrain from that without any love in your heart at all. You can live all this life long without ever engaging in physical union and committing this act and you can have a lousy marriage, You can have no love in your heart for God or your neighbor and refrain from this. And you would have said, I have obeyed the seventh commandment. And God says, no, you have not obeyed the seventh commandment. So Jesus, just like what he did with murder, He's taking this back into the heart, and he's actually expanding it out.

The scribes and the Pharisees have been trying to contain the law. They've been building up sandbags. They've been building up sandbags to try to preserve a self-righteousness. But the law of God is like a tsunami. It's 15 feet of water coming over their pathetic little sandbags that they've tried to put up to protect themselves from the law.

The basis for what Jesus is teaching is what the Ten Commandments really are. And what the Ten Commandments really are is categories, Not an individual sin that has an individual sanction and herein doth the teaching amen, period. And so that if you just haven't done the act you've obeyed, but it is a category. And that's exactly what we saw last week with murder. That the minute you reduce this to just the act and think you're righteous, well what about anger against your brother without a cause?

What about the way you express disdain for your brother in the words that you choose. And this is exactly what you see in Deuteronomy. The Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5, and then last week when we talked about murder, there were three and a half chapters that Moses gives to explaining what it means to not murder. And that includes what happens when somebody is killed, but it was unintentional. You create cities of refuge so that they don't get treated like a premeditated murderer.

And it had to do all the way to the very end of that section where it says, if you build a new house, put a railing around the roof. So that if somebody fought, so people won't fall off the top of your roof and you'll be guilty of their bloodshed. Moses says that has to do with murder. And that is a far cry from what the scribes and the Pharisees were teaching. Exactly the same thing with the seventh commandment.

The seventh commandment is actually explained by Moses. It's the voice of God, but it's through Moses in Deuteronomy 22, starting in verse 9, and extending through 23, verse 18. So there's more than a chapter that Moses devotes to saying, this is what adultery is all about. And it encompasses things like it actually begins with unequal yoking. For a Christian to marry an unbeliever is actually a violation of the Seventh Commandment according to Deuteronomy.

According to the exposition that is given of the seventh commandment of Deuteronomy starting in Deuteronomy 22.9, that's where it starts, unequal yoking, that's a violation of adultery. So you can see how far and how broad these categories that the Ten Commandments represent are. And yet, they've been whittled down to just the single act. Adultery and Deuteronomy also encompasses all sorts of premarital relationships. And so it's not just union with someone who already has a husband, which is the technical definition of adultery.

But the law actually expands it well beyond that into the premarital years. And it ends with the wages of a harlot. That's part of adultery in the Old Testament. You cannot take the wages of a harlot and give it to the temple. It's not right.

It's dishonest gain. It is unrighteous gain. And so money that comes from that then can't be given back into the work of God. That is part of the exposition of adultery in Deuteronomy. Here's the point of that.

The heart of the matter is just that. It's the heart of the matter that there's something of substance behind the letter of the law that was the original intent of the law, and it was the intent of the law in Deuteronomy, and it was the intent of the law in Jesus' time, and it will be the intent of the law until the end of the age when the heavens and the earth are done away with and are renewed. So for murder we have heart murder and we have tongue murder. And now this week with adultery, we have heart adultery. And what that means is that there are many, many, many, many instances where sin happens in the heart, but it never happens outside the heart.

So you say, was there a violation of adultery? And the real answer is yes, but people looking from the outside would say no. And so because the figurehead sin, you understand what I mean by figurehead sin, The Ten Commandments are categories, not just a single act, but a category that encompasses many different things. But there's a figurehead. And so adultery is the physical act of adultery.

And so man would say, if the figurehead sin isn't in view and hasn't been violated, that you're clean on the seventh commandment. But God, who always sees the heart and who has seen the ten stop signs that were run before you got to the physical union. You thought it in your heart. You cherished it. You nourished it.

You started saying inappropriate things. There started to be inappropriate touching. And then finally, you ended up at the figurehead sin. But God has seen you run 10 stop signs before you got there. And so there's been a trampling of the spirit of the law.

There's been a trampling of the seventh commandment. But someone from the outside could say, no, that's not true. I've never violated the seventh commandment. What I want to show in the next couple of minutes is that what Jesus is teaching in Matthew 5 isn't foreign to the Old Testament at all. And I found many places that would teach this this week, but I'm going to give you what I think are the best three.

The first one comes out of Numbers 1539. Numbers 1539. And it says this, And you shall have the tassel that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them. And that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined." So this is about actually having a tassel on your clothing and the tassel is actually to help you remember the laws of God so that they can be top of mind and you can do them. It's something that represents the law of God.

So when you look at the tassel, you'll see it, and hopefully remember to obey. But then it says, that you may not follow the harlotry. Harlotry is part of adultery. This falls under the seventh commandment. To which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined.

This is the Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Numbers. That an engagement in adultery and a violation of the seventh commandment actually has its roots in an inclination of the hearts and the eyes. That there's something that happens in the heart, and there's something that happens with the eye that is intimately connected with adultery and the seventh commandment, with harlotry. Here's another one. The tenth commandment is, you shall not covet.

And here's the very first, after it says you shall not covet, it says you shall not covet What? Your neighbor's wife. That's the start of a long list. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And here we see how related the commandments often are.

There's overlap between the commandments. They're not completely separate, but a lot of times they have a close relationship to each other. Adultery is closely related to coveting. So that when we get to the 10th commandment, it says, you shall not covet, and it starts the list. It starts with your neighbor's wife, which goes right to the heart of adultery.

It is a heart condition of desiring something that God has not given you. It's a heart condition. And it is a dissatisfaction with what God has given you and chosen to withhold from you. And it is a desire to actually be your own God and to determine that you will overthrow what God has decided to withhold from you because you want what you want. That is the heart of adultery.

And we find it right there in the 10th commandment. That the heart of the matter really is the heart of the matter is actually right there in the 10 commandments. It wasn't waiting for Jesus to say it for the first time in Matthew 5. Far from it. And this has to do with sinning in proxy.

Not actually doing the physical act because there are all sorts of barriers that might keep us from the physical act. We might be too ashamed of what our parents would think. We might be too ashamed of what our friends and our neighbors would think. So instead of following through with the act, we'll just cherish it in our hearts. We'll sin in our imaginations, We'll sin in proxy, but we want the shame that would accompany it.

So we'll just do it in our heart. And this is exactly what the expanding of the law forbids. Here's the last one. Proverbs 6.25. Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, nor let her allure you with her eyelids.

Do not lust after her beauty in your heart. It's a sermon on the Mount in Proverbs, nor let her allure you with your eyelids." You see, the sinfulness of lust was lavishly established in the Old Testament. Wasn't waiting for Jesus to say it for the first time in Matthew 5. You can find it over and over and over again. Lust was sinful then.

It was simple in the time of Jesus. And it'll be sinful forever because it's cherishing something in the heart that God does not desire for you. Here's the point. Here's the point. God is the offended party by sin.

There may be consequences for your neighbor. It may actually be a sin against your wife or your friend or your neighbor, but ultimately God is the law giver. And so sins are against God. This is what David says. David has murdered a man.

David has committed adultery. And he says, oh God, my sin is only against you. Because the man he murdered wasn't the lawgiver, and the woman that he committed adultery with wasn't the lawgiver, and so he did sin against them, but ultimately he broke the law of God. It was God's law that was broken. And God is offended actually long before the act.

If God is ultimately the offended party, He's not waiting to be the offended party until the actual physical thing gets done. Like I said, many stop signs had been run by the time the physical act takes place. And so God sees into the heart, and He sees that look and that lust, and that it is entertained and nurtured in the heart, And it dishonors him. And it is a sin against him. And the great men of the Old Testament understood that.

I want to just bring to you two. Job understood that. Job was a man who was blameless in his generation. And in Job 31, we read, I have made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman?

Job understood how many stop signs you could run before the actual physical act of adultery was committed. And so he actually cut a deal with his eyes. He made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully at a woman. He put his eyes on a strict diet so that he wouldn't find himself cherishing things in his heart that dishonored God. David did this.

He didn't do it early enough in his life. One of the most striking examples of lust and where it will take you happens when David is on a rooftop looking down at a woman who's bathing. And the tragedy that ensued from that, and the tragedy in his life personally, the carnage that resulted from that should all just give us pause. But David says this in Psalms 101, verse 3. I will set nothing wicked before my eyes.

David having tasted the bite of sin, having experienced the bite of sin, having expected something sweet and found it to be so bitter, then says, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones says this, if we do not feel unclean at this moment, God have mercy upon us. Unless we feel that we are vile and foul and need to be washed and cleansed unless we feel utterly helpless with a terrible poverty of spirit, and unless we are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, I say God have mercy upon us. I thank God that I have a gospel which tells me that another who is spotless and pure and utterly holy has taken my sin and my guilt upon himself.

I am washed in his precious blood. In His precious blood. Jesus desires to look right in the eyeballs of men and women and children who have assumed, presumed, based on their own rules that they've set up, that they're righteous. And He wants to pile up the guilt for their sins. Because they're already that guilty.

It's just an Awareness of sin. It's not new sin, it's just an awareness of the sin that has already been there. And so when Jesus is eyeball to eyeball with the scribes and the Pharisees, He wants to Break down the wall of self-righteousness that has been built up so they'll see the sin that is already there. Verses 29 and 30. 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.

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." Jesus moves from the sin itself into the actual causes of the sin. And one thing really needs to be said here, and that comes out of Matthew 15-19, where Jesus is also teaching and he says, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. So the teaching of Jesus is that the real problems are in our heart. That it's out of the heart, proceed all of these things, including evil thoughts, including adulteries, the things that are in view today, they proceed out of the heart.

So when we look at what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5, we dare not confuse that and say that what is before us is a devil made me do it theology. It's not. When Jesus talks about the causes, He's not exempting our heart from this and saying that the causes are external. What Jesus actually teaches with great clarity is it's out of the heart proceed all of these things. And yet, there are external things that prey upon the existing bent in our heart.

That's what happened in Genesis 3. Man's sin and his nature was bent in a way that will forever change the way we live as long as we're in this world. And it gives us an appetite for things that we never should have an appetite for. That are actually in rebellion to God. And there are things that can inflame those appetites, but the appetites were already there.

It doesn't create the problems in the heart. It inflames the problems in the heart. And so in our minds, we need to have a distinction between sin and sins. Sins are those things that are actually the manifestations, the actual outward things that get done. And when I say outward, even including the thoughts.

Those are just manifestations. But the root of all that is sin. And you were born with it. Before you ever had one thought, before you ever said one word, before you ever did one action, you had this bent. You were born with it because you're part of a race that is in rebellion to God.

The whole race is. The whole race just wants to throw off the government of God and be God themselves. And that's how you were born. That's how I was born. And so there's sin, and out of that sin bubbles up all sorts of outgrowths from that.

All sorts of words that we shouldn't say and thoughts that we shouldn't think and actions that we shouldn't do. Now think about what Jesus is saying here. It's easy for us to just read this and kind of move on. Jesus is actually setting before our eyes a very grotesque image of someone who finds that their eye brings them into sin and so they actually claw out their own eye. And someone who finds that their hand causes them to sin and so they actually cut it off, and they put it from us.

This is shocking. This is startling. This is grotesque. But this is the image that Jesus puts before us. Here's what John Calvin says.

Christ employs an exaggerated form of speech to show that whatever hinders us from yielding that obedience to God which He requires in His law ought to be cut off. But here we are deeply to blame. We are so far from being as careful as we ought to be to avoid allurements that we rather provoke our senses to wickedness by allowing them unbounded liberty. This is actually what Jesus is talking about. He's talking about provoking our senses to wickedness by allowing them unbounded liberty.

By allowing our ears to hear whatever it is that we want to hear, our eyes to see whatever it is that we want to see, including our mind's eye. Our mind to think on whatever it is that is put before it. And it's a provoking of our senses to wickedness. Calvin is exactly right. He's right because he's explaining what Jesus said.

Jesus is the originator of this idea and Calvin is just commenting on it. But it's a liberty that we take, and it ends in a provoking of our senses to wickedness. And what is involved here is things that are literally near and dear to us. It's our eyes. It's our hands.

And these are significant, because the eyes have to do with the lust of the flesh, and the hands have to do with feeding that as well. It's about seeing things. It's about touching things. And could it be any closer to us than our eyes and our hands? Could it be more integral to our life than our eyes and our hands?

Do we need any members more than we need our eyes and our hands. And it's not just our eye, it's our right eye. It's our best eye. It's not just our hand, but it's our right hand. It's our best hand.

It's significant when Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. That's the best seat. Jesus gets the best seat. So when Jesus here talks about our right eye and our right hand, He's talking about the best of our most precious members. And he repeats the sequence.

He starts out with the eye. And then he goes to our hands. So he's talking about the most precious things. And he's talking about the best of our most precious things. And he's actually repeating it so that this image is going to be harder to purge from our mind.

And He's using everything at His disposal to see how urgent the appeal that He's making is. And it's because Jesus understands the terrible nature of sin. Oh, Oh, how careless we are with sin. Jesus understands sin because he doesn't have sin. He's sinless.

But Jesus came into the world, and he understands the penalty of sin because he had to suffer and lay down his life for sin. So this is not a matter inconsequential to Jesus. We treat sin very lightly, but Jesus doesn't think of it that way because he had to come and die because of sin. So Jesus understands sin. And so a grotesque image for Jesus is nothing because the cross is a grotesque image.

Jesus understands the terrible nature of sin and where it will take us because He bore the weight of that sin. How can we be so flippant about sin, so careless about what our eyes see and our ears hear and our hands touch when Jesus Christ came and suffered and died for our sins. So no matter what it is, no matter how dear to us it may be, it's to be plucked out and it's to be cut off and it's to be cast from us. Could that be a family relationship that causes you to sin? Jesus says explicitly that we should not spare family relationships that cause us to sin.

He actually lays claim to the right to upset that apple cart in our lives. Could it be a friendship? Long standing friendship and yet it always ends up leading into sin. Could that be a certain book or certain songs or certain TV shows or certain movies that we've made peace with and we never should have made peace with it because they're warring against our souls? Could it be places on the internet?

It could be in any category. Do you know how lawful an eyeball is? An eyeball is so lawful. A hand is so lawful. In fact, it's needed.

It's profitable in some ways. And yet Jesus says, if it causes to sin, cut it off and put it away. And we say, no, that's lawful. I can do that. That's lawful.

That's in bounds. And yet it's causing you to sin and you won't cut it off and cast it from you. Brothers and sisters, it is the little compromises in life that put our feet on a wide path. It's just the littlest compromises. It's the allowed sins that serve to be the little breaches in the dam that will bring down the whole dam.

And so Jesus is teaching us to be ruthless with our sin. To be unapologetically ruthless with the things that we find leading us into sin. And his argument is this. If you think that is hard, wait till you see hell. If you think it's hard not to go to that spot on the internet or not to watch that movie or that TV show or not to listen to that kind of music.

Just wait for hell. Hell's harder. It's better to lop that thing off and cast it from you than to endanger your soul and to risk hell. Psalm 97, you who love the Lord hate evil. Hate evil.

You who love the Lord hate evil so that you won't countenance the things, you won't nurture and coddle the things that actually make war on your soul. The word for hell here is actually a picture of hell that often gets used in the New Testament. And the actual Greek word is valley of Hinnom. And the valley of Hinnom has a long history in the life of Israel. And it begins with wicked kings leading the people in child sacrifices.

Some of the most disgraceful things ever done in the history of Israel were done in the Valley of Hinnom. And so when the reformer Josiah comes onto the scene, he wants to desecrate this wicked place because he's a righteous king. And so he turns it into a trash heap where they put all the worst garbage, they put all their carcasses, and there's always a fire burning there. Always smoke rising from the Valley of Hinnom. Always a fire.

And the people knew it as this stinking place of perpetual fire. And so that's what often gets used in the New Testament to describe, because it's a picture. It's a picture of hell. In the parallel passage to this in Mark, it's Mark 9, 43, Jesus says, instead of the valley of Hinnom, He says, into the fire that shall never be quenched. And this is what the Valley of Hinnom is a picture of, the fire that will never be quenched.

The torment of hell will never end. To cut off the thing that seems so precious to you, your right eye, to pluck that out or to cut off the thing that seems so precious to your right hand right now is nothing compared to an eternity of torment in hell. It's where the fire never goes out. So Jesus last week says, they're teaching you that if you say, Raka, you could be sued. You could be sued for libel, for calling your brother an empty head.

And they'll take you in front of the council. And Jesus says, forget the council. If you say you fool, you're in danger of hell. And this week, he says, adultery, this outward act, this thing that you can be judged for. Forget your precious members.

Forget your right eye. Forget your right hand. Cut it off and cast it from you rather than to risk the dangers of hell. Please turn your Bibles to Colossians 3. Colossians 3.

Paul teaches us something in Colossians 3 that really helps us to understand what Jesus is teaching. It's an expansion on this teaching. Colossians 3, 1-3-5. Colossians 3, verse 1. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry." So Paul here starts with a repeated exhortation to seek the things that are above. He actually says it twice.

Seek the things that are above. That's where our citizenship is. Our citizenship isn't here. There's a better country than the one we're in. Praise the Lord and we should seek the things that are from where our citizenship is.

And then he says, for you died. And when he says you died, this is actually the act of justification. This is our union with Christ where we die with Him. And as a result of that, as a consequence of that, we actually are raised with Him as well. We're given new life.

We're born again. But then he says, after being United with Christ so that we might be raised with Him. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth." And then he lists things. And fornication and uncleanness and passion and evil desire. All the things that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5 are here in His list.

And He ends with this phrase, which is idolatry. Friends, this is the point. When we spare our eye and we spare our hands so that we look at the wrong things and we touch the wrong things. We have elevated something above God and here we are worshiping at the altar of it. At the heart of this is idolatry.

Is pushing God aside and giving our worship to something else. And so it begs the question, what is it that needs to be put to death, that needs to be plucked out, that needs to be cast from us. Is there anything you would spare? Is your right eye too precious? Is your right hand too precious?

Or do you realize that heaven and hell are in the balance and that when we say we'd rather have our right eye than to have God, what that means. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16, 26. It's the allowed sins.

It's the little ones that we allow the enemies that we call our friends and we keep around. And the person to the right of us doesn't know about it. The person to the left doesn't know about it. But God has identified it to us many times. And we've counted it too precious to be cut off and to be cast from us.

We should fear for our souls, friends. Verses 31 and 32. Furthermore, it has been said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, for any reason except sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery." This actually goes hand in hand with what's been taught to this point.

It's an expansion of adultery. Normally when we get to these verses, we're thinking about what? We're thinking about divorce. These verses aren't about divorce. Now it touches on divorce.

It explains some things about divorce. But The core of these verses is about adultery. It's about just what we've been talking about. It's about the Pharisees having teachings and practices which have inordinately restricted adultery down way, way down to be a much smaller thing than the law taught and that God intended. And so Jesus here again is expanding out adultery in these verses.

And here's His argument. Your practice of divorce is encouraging adultery. This is what Jesus is saying in these two verses. Your practices of divorce are causing people to commit adultery. And you say it's not adultery, but in the eyes of God, it is adultery.

At the time, there were two schools of theology who had radically different beliefs on divorce. There was the school of Hillel, and these are schools of theology like we would have today. I'm reformed, I'm Arminian, I line up with John Piper on these things. That's maybe a better example because they were fashioned after famous rabbis. So famous rabbis would have their disciples who thought that they had the right interpretation of the law.

So the school of Hillel was fashioned after a famous rabbi, and they taught the most liberal practices regarding divorce. They taught that if your wife burns your dinner, you could use that as a grounds for divorce. So the first time she burns your dinner, you just give her that certificate and you send her on her way. And the school that stood in opposition to that was the school of Shemai. Again, fashion after a famous rabbi.

And they said, no, no, no, adultery must be the basis for divorce. Only adultery can be the basis for it. But the practice of the day, there were competing theologies, but the practice of the day was the school of Hillel. That any little thing could serve as an acceptable grounds for divorce. And so when we come across this topic again in Matthew 19, The topic will actually be triggered by a question.

Here's the trigger. Here's the question. The Pharisees also came to him testing him and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? That was the question that triggered when we get to this again in Matthew 19. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason, just any old reason?

And that was the question of the day. That was these two competing schools, Hillel and Shammai. And the thrust of the teaching on the scribes, of the scribes and the Pharisees, was about the paperwork. The central tenet of their teaching on divorce was about the paperwork. Make sure you give her a certificate of divorce.

And their teaching was centered around the mechanics, not on the basis. So I want you to turn to what this is all about in the law to Deuteronomy 24. That's where we find the teaching in the law about divorce. Deuteronomy 24. Deuteronomy 24, I'll read the first four verses.

Deuteronomy 24, 1. When a man takes a wife and marries her, And it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her. And he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house. When she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house. When she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled.

For that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. So the common practice in the day of Jesus was actually making divorce permanent, but marriage transient. So you could divorce for any reason and be considered religious, be considered to still be part of the people of God. But now, you couldn't go back on that divorce and remarry. So divorce is permanent.

Now, realize how on its head this is. Divorce is permanent, but marriage can just be cast off for anything. This is madness. The key phrase in verse 1 is found some uncleanness in her, not write her a certificate of divorce. Write her certificate of divorce is just about the mechanics of the thing.

The basis must be found some uncleanness in her. When you look at the word uncleanness, that's the key word in Deuteronomy 24.1. When you look at that word, the Hebrew literally means nakedness. It's actually referring to private parts. That's the uncleanness that's there.

And when you look at the usage of that Hebrew word, you find that it is the word in Leviticus 18. Unless you're really familiar with the law, you don't know what's there. But Leviticus 18 is the Old Testament passage defining sexual impurity, sexual immorality. And it talks about all the kinds of sexual immorality that you can imagine and some that you never would have imagined if Leviticus 18 wasn't there. And it talks about every manner under the sun of sexual immorality.

And it uses this word that's translated uncleanness. Not sure about that translation. I wish however they translated it in Leviticus 18, They would translate it the same way in Deuteronomy 24, so you didn't have to go uncover a lot of stuff to find out. It's actually the same word. And in Leviticus 18, it's used 24 times.

So we might say, well, uncleanness, that means she's not tidy around the house. No. It is sexual immorality, That the divorce of the Old Testament is the divorce of the New Testament, and they're not any different. The basis of it is uncleanness. If you want to know what that uncleanness means, go to Leviticus 18.

And it'll give you seven ways to Sunday of what it means. And the point of what Jesus is teaching here is that God only recognizes a divorce on one set of grounds. Ever. Then in Jesus' time, now to the end of the age, God only recognizes one kind of divorce. And it's divorce that is based on sexual immorality, fornication, adultery.

So that divorces that are not based on those grounds are not recognized by God. So when you then go marry someone else, it's actually adultery. And by saying you can get divorced if your wife burns your dinner. So you send her on her way with her piece of paper. And so she doesn't starve in the street, she remarries.

You're actually causing her to commit adultery. So they've set aside the commandment of God and they've put in its place a tradition of men and they've nullified the law as a result of their tradition. That's what Jesus is teaching here in Matthew 5. It's about adultery. It's about how they actually were creating cases of adultery because of their practices, their unlawful practices on divorce.

So what Jesus is doing is He's expanding adultery. He's greatly expanding adultery, just like He greatly expanded murder, and He's contracting divorce. So we may end up saying that this is a part of our case to legitimize divorce, and I actually think that's the case. This is a placeholder. This text is not about divorce, but we need to talk about divorce and remarriage.

And we're going to take a whole Sunday, whenever it is that we get to Matthew 19, and we'll take a whole Sunday and talk about the implications because it's a difficult subject and it needs an entire sermon. So there's lots of things we'll just set aside today. But whatever we arrive at then, we should say that right now, Jesus is actually contracting divorce. It gets used today in the case for divorce. But Jesus, What he's teaching is he's taking a broad practice of divorce and bringing it down to just one instance.

So he's expanding adultery and he's contracting divorce. Turning your Bibles to Luke 7. Luke 7 tells us why this matters. Luke 7 tells us why this matters. Luke 7 makes it plain the difference between knowing your sin and being oblivious to your sin.

And the impact that has on your life and your worship. Did you catch that? Luke 7 is about why it matters that we know our sin. And we feel our sin. And we are aware of it.

We have it pressed on us. The overwhelming guilt that arises from these thoughts that war against God and these words that do and also these actions that do. Beginning in verse 36, Luke 7, 36. Then one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him. And he went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat.

And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask and a fragrant oil, and stood at his feet behind him weeping. And she began to wash his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. And she kissed his feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, spoke to him saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.

So he said, teacher, say it. There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him more?" Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more.

And he said to him, you have rightly judged. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but this woman has anointed my feet with fragrant oil.

Therefore I say to you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven. See, it matters if we know the weight of sin. His host was a great and mighty sinner.

His host might actually have been a greater sinner than the woman who came and wept on his feet. And yet he felt righteous. And so he ended up with no love for Jesus in his heart. But here's this woman who the weight of her sin has been pressed upon her so that she shall come. And she never says anything in the text, but she's just weeping because of her sin.

And she's ministering to Jesus because there's a sense that He can forgive her of this great weight of sin. And when we construct something that is just about the external manifestation, and then when we don't do the external manifestation, we feel righteous, we end up with no love for God in our hearts. Because we've been forgiven little, and so we deserve the favor of God. What foolishness. And so here's why it matters that we see the law rightly and that we understand that the Ten Commandments are actually a category.

And that while we may not have violated the figurehead sin, that our sins are mighty. Our sins are many. And we must have a Savior who will come. And though we are like scarlet, make us as white as snow. This is why it matters that we see the law rightly, so that we don't end up saying, I'm righteous, when our sins are many and our sins are mighty.

But that we would feel the weight of them, that we would know the number of them, and it would cause us to weep at the feet of Jesus because we're happy, because we've been forgiven much. And there's love in our heart that is rising up for a mighty Redeemer. This is why it matters. This is why These words in the Sermon on the Mount ought to be so precious because it relieves us from a self-righteousness that was promoted by the scribes and the Pharisees where they thought that the Seventh Commandment had nothing to say to them. They thought that there was no message in the seventh commandment for them because they had never joined themselves in physical union with another man's wife.

How far from the truth. Here in this woman we see the beatitudes. It takes us right back to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. We see that she's poor in spirit. There's not an ounce of haughtiness in this woman.

But she knows that she has nothing to bring to Jesus. And we see her mourning, weeping for the sinful life. And we see her meekness and we see a hungering and a thirsting for righteousness that the Pharisee as host never really had or understood. This is what it means to repent of your sins, because the Kingdom of God is at hand. This is what it means to repent and to turn.

It's that we feel the weight of them, and we turn from them to a mighty Redeemer. Let's pray. Father, thank You for this exposition of the law from the lips of Your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for piling up the sinfulness of sin, making it utterly sinful, so that we could be saved through the othermost, so that we would feel the weight of them, the crushing weight of our own sin, and it would cause us to love much. God we feel in our hearts this same inclination to justify ourselves and create something that makes us acceptable in the eyes of our neighbors while our sin against you is as mighty as ever as many as ever.

God how we have trampled all over the spirit of the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery by loving things more than loving you. So God, I pray for us that all the law and the prophets would hang on loving you with all our heart, our soul, and our mind, and on loving our neighbor as ourselves. That we would always be enabled to look through these laws that you've given us to the spirit of that law. And that you'd find us mightily keeping the letter of the law, but filled with hearts. I know that we have transgressed the Spirit of them.

God, we pray for your continued help. God, I pray that you would help us to put our finger on the things that ought to be cut off and cast from us. God, I pray for everyone in the room that there would be something put to death this week because of your Word, because we're convinced by it and we say it's true and we go on the look for you go hunting for the thing that ought to be put to death that has caused us to sin against you. Lord please preside over the remaining minutes of our time together that it would be acceptable in your sight in Jesus name. Amen.