Adultery

Hell is a literal place. He's talking about a place where you're going and thrown into. You will be thrown into hell. Your whole body will go into hell. Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say this is a trip to hell with a stopover in purgatory. Doesn't say that. In fact, you'll never find purgatory in the Bible at all. That was a later addition in 1245 at the first Council of Lyon. They made it popular in 1543-ish, 1545 in that period with the Council of Trent. And basically, the reason they doubled down on purgatory is so they could fund the building of the Catholic Church through indulgences. If you don't take my word for it, go look it up. Notice what Jesus doesn't say. It's better for you to lose a member of your family than to spend millions of years in purgatory. Is that what he says? No. He says it's better for you to cut off your hand and enter heaven than to be thrown into hell. So the question for us is this. How do we respond to adultery? How do we respond and keep ourselves from immorality? And the answer is we need to nip it in the bud mentally, attitude, intellect, the way we think.

And the only way we can change our mind is through the reading and meditating of the Lord. Let's go. Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French, here with Robby and Candy. We're excited to dive in today. I was gonna go ahead and let you guys know. We got a couple two big things, but one thing is we have a new family member. Yes. At our house. Yes. A little girl named Cookie. Yes, a four-legged family member. Four-legged family member. That's clarifying, Alan. People got scared for a second. Oh my God. People were like, wait, wait, how is this possible? Little Cookie. We were talking about at the basketball game where when Joe, somehow, I don't know how, somehow I convinced Josie that it was your idea. Cause I think I was trying to get out of trouble. I hope not because she, I think she thinks I'm in on it. I'm an innocent bystander. No, no, no. You're totally in on it. I thought you were in on it. I thought you were in on it too.

I thought y'all were both in on it last night. Moving on, moving on. I was in on praying about it and helping and hoping and believing. Josie's coming up the steps at the basketball game. Robbie takes off his sweatshirt and covers his face with it. I hide under my sweatshirt. And she's walking up, shaking her fist like this. I couldn't even see it. Yeah, I was like, Josie, I'm out of this. But then, so then we thought it was dead in the water. We've been praying about this dog still. I've been praying about this dog. She's one of these dogs. Josie was moving to Florida. I mean, all kinds of stuff. It was over. Got Harry there for a second. Yeah, so yesterday, Candy was at the minister's wife's gathering and I was eating dinner with my son Ryder and we get a call or we get a text from Adam. What'd it say? The eagle has landed. I dropped my fork and texted back immediately and said, I'm on my way. And I said, I'm gonna need pictures. And he showed me a picture and I said, I'm on the way. Can I, I may be coming by after dinner, which we did.

Little did I know, the dog had only been there less than an hour. So I thought Josie had a change of heart. She was all excited. When I pull up to Adam's house at this moment, you can't make this up Vivian. Josie is barreling down the driveway as I'm coming up and I think it's kind of a joke. No, she wasn't joking. It looked like one of those Mad Max movies where she was coming with a hundred and one Mad Max's. I backed her down, got out the way. I hit the horn laughing at her. She hit the horn, not laughing and took off. So I walk in, I didn't think anything of it. So I get home and I sit and Candy said, you didn't tell me. I said, well, I just found out about the dog. Last night during our minister's wife's Christmas party. Cause Josie walked in and I could see the look on her face. And I was like, what has happened? It wasn't roses and she was so like flustered. And I was like, what happened? And she was like, the dog Candy, the dog. And I'm like, what about the dog? And she was like, it's at my house. And I'm like, what? I'm like, no, it's not. I'm like, I thought they bashed out of the dog. Yeah, I thought so too.

Out of his sweat. Out of his sweat. Out of his sweat over here. Wow. You better get him a fan please, get him a fan. When we came in, Jeremy asked a very important question. He said, what happened? What changed it, right? And so I would love to take credit. I would even love to say it's the Lord. Yes. But I will say this. Well, the Lord had a hand in it cause he made the dog so cute and beautiful. He is cute, she is cute. Whenever Josie locked eyes, she refused for a while. She wouldn't even touch the dog. And she locked eyes with Cookie this morning. And that was it. Her heart melted. The Cookie crumble. The Cookie crumble there. The Cookie crumble there. Okay, so. We got one more thing, big, big, you wanna do an announcement? We got a big announcement today. In addition to a new family member. We've got a new person that joined the 50 Club. The 50 Club.

Jeremy Brown. Happy birthday. If you look at our line, we got the big cookie cake. Jeremy hit the big five-oh. That is the biggest cookie cake I've ever seen. I thought they were like. Well, I like to buy. That's a pizza. When I buy a cookie cake for someone else, I'd like to take half home for me. But anyway, sorry Jeremy. This is, Robin tells me a story yesterday. He's supposed to get a mini dog. And he says, yeah, the lady told me we have the largest dog ever. And I was like, that's the robbiest thing I've ever heard. He got the biggest dog. His dog is supposed to be 12 to 15 pounds. It's 30, right? And it's 32 pounds. And his name is Tubby. His name's Tubby because he's a tub. Yeah, yeah, so anyway. OK, we've got a lot of ground to cover, Chris. And Chris is already getting nervous. But calm down, Chris. OK, let's move on. Matthew, chapter 5. Candy, we're not going to get you to quote a lot today, just for time.

OK, perfect. But I'm going to. I hadn't gone over it. She's ready. But I'm going to get you to quote Matthew chapter 5 and 20. I will say, I did finish the Sermon on the Mount. Oh, really? Wow. All? Matthew 5, 6, and 7? Yes, two. Half of them have all 5, 6, and 7. Yeah, I had somebody stop us on the line and say they love these buttons. I said, that's all Adam. Matthew 5, 27, just 27. 5, 27. You've heard that it was said, do not. Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Is that it? Nope. Continue on. Continue on. If your right eye causes you to sin, cut it out, well, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go to hell. OK. That was just smooth. That was pretty smooth. So here's what we have here. Jesus is continuing through, as we're learning, the reinterpretation of the Old Testament law. And what he did is, in Matthew chapter 5, 21, he's addressing, in a sense, the sixth commandment, the sanctity of life. Now he's getting to the seventh commandment of the Old Testament, which protects the sanctity of marriage. So he's going to protect marriage, the sanctity of marriage, by talking about adultery. Now, remember, who is Jesus correcting at this time? What audience does he have in mind? He's speaking to the disciples. But who does he have in mind that misinterpreted the law, put fences around the law, or a lot of extra additions to the law? Who is he going after? The big P. The big P. The Pharisees. The Pharisees, right. And the big S.

Religious leaders, right. The PS. The PS. Just remember it. The scribes. OK. They are missing the heart of the law because they are trying to live out. They're trying to keep the letter. You've heard this before. You keep in the letter of the law, but they're missing the heart of the law, the root of the law. And so let's define a couple of things. What is sexual adultery? What is adultery? Just so we are on the same page. This is a really good question. OK. Because I have, like, I would love to know what your answer is to this. Because I hear people from time to time who are in situations where, you know, they're having issues in their marriage or whatever, and somebody will look at something as adultery, but then the other person does not look at it as adultery. Yeah. OK. So like, and in my mind, now this is just me, because I don't know biblically if this is correct or not, but adultery is like anything where

you are placing your affection or actions, like, with someone that would be other than your spouse. So in my mind, like, kissing, an emotional attachment, you know, it's not just intercourse that would be considered adultery. And so if there's like a situation where somebody has kissed someone else, but they are married, OK, in my mind, that is unfaithful. It's not just that that person didn't sleep with someone else, so therefore they didn't commit adultery. So like, in my mind, when I hear adultery, I'm like, it's any unfaithful or immoral action against that person that you are in a covenant with. Yeah. Now, I don't know if that's right, but that's what I think when I hear of adultery. And obviously, the epitome of that would be if you're having intimacy with someone that's other than your spouse. OK. Yes. Adam, you want to add anything? I think I agree with some of that. And I don't think that I've spent enough time researching this to know exactly from a scriptural standpoint, so I'm glad we're talking about this. I want to hear your Talidas in this. I would say that there are consequences for everything that she just said.

I think that when it comes to physical intercourse outside of your marriage, this is what that is talking about. Because later on in Scripture, there's some, I wouldn't say the only use of justification, but there is talk that you have grounds for divorce because of adultery. Or immorality. That could be a good distinction. I'm curious about where those land, so that's why I say like, and I'll be quick, is that when it talks about physical intimacy, that to me is saying, hey, you have the right to step away from that marriage, or there's instances where that could be. Everything else to me seems like on a different level, but definitely breaks fellowship and lots of issues, lots of problems. That's what I think, but I don't know if that's right or not. Okay, so let's take, yeah, this is a great segue. So let's take the text in context of what Jesus would do. So in your Bible you have, you've heard that was said, do not commit adultery. And it's a direct quotation to where? Where is he quoting from? Exodus 20, 14. That's a direct quotation to the Big Ten. It's called the Decalogue, or it's called, Deca means ten, so it's the Big Ten, the Ten Commandments, okay? Which is basically a summation of the 613 Commandments, okay? In context of the Old Testament, just taking it down to the irreducible minimum, adultery was sexual intercourse back then. That's literally what was in question here. It also refer, so sexual intercourse by someone who either one or both are married. Sexual intercourse, one or both are married. It also refers to sexual intercourse with anyone who is not your spouse through matrimony, right? But Jesus is gonna take that, so that's pretty cut and dry. And what's crazy about this, or what's interesting about this, is that that act of adultery was considered one of the big three serious sins. I told you this before, but the Jewish culture had an allowance or a concession for, if you were in a life-or-death situation, you don't hear this a lot, but this is how the culture, this was the oral culture law. If you were in a life-or-death situation where you're gonna die, it was okay to break God's law, except for the big three. Did you know about this? Never heard this. Is this like a Mishnah thing? Yeah, this is Mishnah. Okay, except for the big three. You

know what the big three were? You could not murder another human being. That was the big one. Number two is, you could not worship a false God. Life or death, you die on the stake without doing that. And number three is, you could not for any reason engage in adultery. So you think of the big three. Now why is that interesting? Because Jesus starts there. It's interesting. Jesus takes the big ones, and He works His way down. So they would say you would never. Uh-oh. Did you have a button? I have a question. What happened if they did one of those three? Well, according to Deuteron, I'm glad you asked. Next question. Torah Deuteronomy 22, 22. If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die. Well, according to God's Word. The man who lay with the woman and the woman. So shall, you should kill both of them, the man and the woman, or the woman and the man, if it's the other way around. So you shall purge this evil from Israel. If there's a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then he, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city, and you shall stone them both to death with stones. So God didn't play in the Old Testament. Now keep in mind, the reason God has harsh punishment for certain sins. God knew there were certain sins that, like you said, had ramifications that lasted long after the sin was committed. Lying is one thing. Sleeping with a man's wife, there are all kind of issues for that. So God is putting these rules, laws in place, not to hurt them, but to help them. So remember, God puts a punishment attached more to scare them than to, I mean, it's more to help them than hurt them, but it's to scare them. Okay, so then you get to the situation in John chapter 8 verse 4, when the scribes and Pharisees are using the Old Testament law with the woman caught in adultery. So we have a real-world situation where they're coming to Jesus based on the letter of the law, and they are right. They go, you could read it in John 8, they're saying, this woman's caught in adultery. In fact, we caught her, the text implies they caught her in the act. They went into the house and caught this woman and drug her off, you know, half-clothed and threw her in front of Jesus and said, Jesus, and they were always testing Jesus, show us what you do with this case. What do you do with this case? And had

Jesus not forgiven the woman of her sin, what would have happened according to the law? They would have killed her, right there. Okay, the New Testament is also littered with passages prohibiting sexual immorality. So you have two issues here. You have adultery at the top, and then you have sexual immorality below that. Now, what Jesus does here is, Jesus is gonna show us it's not just the action. Jesus is gonna say the sin is also the attraction. Are you gonna define immorality? Yeah, I'm gonna do it as a pornea in a minute. But what Jesus is saying is the adultery is the action. Now remember, what he's doing in this section is he's taking the commandment, which is normally the action or the thing you do, and Jesus is saying that's the letter of the law. Let me give you the heart of the law. And if you protect against the heart of the law, meaning if you don't lust after a woman, if you don't look long enough, if you don't fantasize in your mind, then you're not gonna go and lead to action. You won't act upon a thought you don't have. Does that make sense? Yeah, and James drive this point home as well when he talks about drawing out the sin, luring the sin in us, and then it is birth, or he lures out us in temptation, and then it's birth into sin. So it's not the thought, it's that it's drawn out

and then we take the action. So scripture affirms what you're saying. Yeah, he's getting down from the action to the attitude. And what he's saying is if a man, here's the picture. He's saying if a man cannot keep his commitment of faithfulness to his wife or her husband, then they definitely won't keep their commitment of faith to God. Here's what he's getting at. If you're unfaithful to someone on earth horizontally, then it's a picture of your unfaithfulness to your God vertically. So the horizontal always gives us a look inside, behind the curtain of really what's happening. And so, again, you could go through all these, but basically you could say, you could tell me you love the Lord. You could tell me you serve the Lord. You could tell me you're faithful, but if I watch how you act, I will tell you what you believe, what you worship, what you love. That's good. And it has to be in that order. Because in John, was it John 8? You have to check it on this, Robert. But John says, you honor man, but you don't honor God. Yeah. And I think that's- You got me with your list,

but you're harsh for a fraud. Same idea. Same idea. That's the order. The reason why we probably, I think a lot of times we get off on these trails of sin or fall into sin is because we're more concerned with what? What people think of us. And how they view us and their opinion, all that stuff. And not what God thinks of us. So therefore, you know, we find ourselves doing things that don't honor God. They honor man. Right. Yes. Which, and I think part of the problem with that is, or this is how I've kind of reconciled it in my mind. We all know right from wrong, instinctively. We have a conscience and we know right from wrong. But the problem is, is we don't view wrong as sin. Like, especially- Against God, yeah. Correct. Yeah, like, it's like, I grew up knowing the difference of right and wrong, but it wasn't until I started to understand that the wrong things I was doing, those choices I was making, was actually called sin against a holy God. It wasn't just affecting me, you know?

And I just don't think, I don't know if people grasp that. If they understand that these choices that go against God, there's a name for that, and it's called sin. You see? It's not just, I made a bad choice, or I made a wrong, yeah, you know, correct. This is sin. It's not, you see what I'm saying? And so to me, it just puts it in a whole different category when I, I mean, the Lord kind of woke me up to that, because I just was like, you know, just making just choices, whether it's good or bad, wrong, indifferent, whatever. But the wrong is actually sin. Yeah, exactly. And I developed that holy fear by pursuing holiness, because Robbie and I, you know, we were lost people. We lived the wildlife. You could, anything you could think of, I always tell people, I got a t-shirt for that. Like I've done that, the t-shirt for it, not proud of it. I know the bitterness of sin, but it wasn't until I pursued holiness that I learned the sufficiency of grace and what it's like to be with God. Yeah, that's good. And I think we don't, and I don't think I get, I don't think I can have a,

that's why I always say, don't ask, I think you said this on, from stage before, we can't expect lost people to act saved. Right. Until we pursue that holiness, we're not going to have a holy fear. That's why the F-260 and the plan that you guys have put together is so important, because it's based on what? The word, and we learn the word, it gets in our heart and we're learning holiness. Then we start pursuing holiness, and then we start learning about a holy God, and we see sin in a totally different light, which is going back to what you're saying. This is what Jesus has said in the playing field. Well, and that's why you have to have a Bible reading plan where you're not cherry picking verses to suit, you know, most people read where they just open the Bible, point, and read. read wherever it lands. That's good for every now and then, but you need a consistent plan so you're not reading in an echo chamber verses to suit your own passions and desires. That's why you wanna read the whole Bible plan. And if you don't have a plan, we have a plan for you, the FT60 plan. Also, we have a prayer book that we're going through at Long Hollow for 30 days

if you haven't started with us. We're gonna go through 30 days praying as a church. You can lock in with us, called The Practice of Prayer. Candy and I just put this book out earlier this year. So anyway, that's another one. It's a journal, and it's not, you said book, but just to make sure, it's really like a guide, an easy way to, people that wanna learn to pray, wanna go deeper in their prayer. I mean, you guys even have the different postures of prayer. It's a one-on-one. It's a great resource, good tool. You can write all in. So sometimes people hear a book, and they're like, oh, I don't want another tool, but it's like, no, this thing is helpful. This is not where we're gonna teach you all of these concepts of prayer. You're going to practice the prayer. That's the goal. I.E., it's called The Practice of Prayer. Come on now. You're gonna practice. It's not called the philosophy of prayer, or the intellect of prayer, or why you need to pray. No, you're gonna do it. It's very little teaching, actually.

It's like us hand-holding you through the journey. All right, let's hurry up, because we've got so much to cover, and we have a little bit of time left. Okay, so the difference between the adultery is the action, whereas Jesus actually backs it up and says, no, the underlying issue is the attitude or the thought life that you have, and so that's equally as sinful to the Lord. And then what he says is the word look. The key word here is look, right? Because what Jesus says is look. When you look at a woman with what? Lustfully. Lustfully. Okay, that word look is not glance or peek. Okay? Okay. It's the present participle in the Greek language, and that's all that means is it's a verb that means continuous looking, gazing, or intentional staring for the purpose of lusting. Here's what I tell my boys. The first look is free, meaning you can't, I mean, it's free, meaning you're freely looking. Okay? Can't help. Can't help the first look. You see something, yeah. But it's the second look that'll get you,

and the third look that's gonna get you in trouble when you start to, and anybody, it can happen to you, it can happen to me, it can happen to Candace. If you look at a guy or a girl long enough, eventually, everybody's susceptible to falling into this. We need to say that, too, because I know that the numbers are pretty similar with men and women. It's going up, yeah. We try to make it, I think it used to be. What is it, 70% men or 80% men in church, and like 50, 40% women now? It's crazy. So it's not just a struggle of men, which we try to paint that way. It's struggles. Well, and it's not just, okay, so let me clarify. It's not just looking at Playboy magazine, because a lot of women listen and say, well, I don't do that. It's more than that. It could be porn on the internet. It could be movies with sexual orientation or things that are appropriate. It could be anything that arouses you sexually or sensually as a woman by someone, not your wife or your husband, i.e. or e.g. magazines, books, Maxim magazine, 50 Sexiest People of, I mean, I'm talking like things that you think, oh, that's benign.

No, no, no. Anything like that. 50 Shades of Grey, romance novels. Ladies are Guilty as Charged of this, where you're just fantasizing about men. Anything like that. John MacArthur said, looking at a woman lustfully does not cause a man to commit adultery in his thoughts. He has already committed adultery in his heart. It is not lustful looking that causes the sin in the heart, but it's the sin in the heart that causes lustful looking. The lustful looking is but the expression of a heart that is already immoral and adulterous. Remember, that was a great quote, by the way, to think about. The example that comes to mind is David and Bathsheba. David is seduced or coerced into calling Bathsheba while she's in the act of doing something. Remember what she's doing? She's bathing, okay? Her name, I've always thought this was funny. It doesn't work in the Hebrew, but I think it's funny. Her name is Bathsheba, and if you reverse the order, you could say she be bathing. But anyway, that's a dad joke. Let's scratch that from the record. It's almost like God gave the man a clue. Don't mess up with the girl, she be bathing. He looks out. I'm gonna give her name, David.

Don't look at the bath. Don't look at the bath, and what does he do? What is her, is that her name in the original language, Bathsheba? Yeah. Oh, it is, okay. That's her name, Bathsheba. But again, you can't, I don't know. But anyway, okay, but here's the point. The point is David, okay, you gotta understand, in David's day, David is not faulted for seeing her bathing, why? Because David's castle was above everybody bathing. He could see the whole kingdom. under his castle, is what I'm saying. So she's not the only one. What he's faulted. I just, can I say why I don't agree with that? Okay, what I'm saying is the sin is not my, let me rephrase. The sin is not looking at her bathing. Right. Because he's looking at a landscape. Right. The sin is he stares and longs and gazes. And in the text it says, if you go back, 2 Samuel 11 too, it happened one late afternoon when David arose from his couch, walking on the roof of the king's house, which is normal.

Right. That he saw from the roof a woman bathing. He saw she was beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, is that not Bathsheba? So David sent his messengers, took her, and she came to him and he laid with her. The sin was not in looking, because he looked around the kingdom. It was that he gazed, he stared, he desired. Right. I would also say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time too, because he should have been at war. True. And for whatever reason, he's not at war, he's not where he should be, and therefore he got himself into some trouble. Yeah. Yeah, that's the first thing I thought. When you said that it was the action, when you're talking about defining adultery, and I was thinking, you know, thinking about David, he took the wrong action. So what is, how do you counteract that? By taking the right actions. Yeah. Right, like, let's say a bunch of stuff that you could fall into sin for. Well, we also have like Pure Flix,

you also have time limits on your cell phone, you also can sign a contract with your mom or dad or parent or accountability partner, say I won't look at the Explore page. Bark, or, yeah. There's actions that you can take, hey, when I go to the gym, I don't wear my contacts, or I go, I've told you this before, you know, when I go to the gym, I try to go when nobody's there, you know, at odd times. Don't talk to anybody, not your wife. Yeah, all those things. I don't have a, what do they call it, I don't have a gym crush. Right. I don't have some gym crush, that's a weird word, or a work girlfriend or work wife that they talk about, that's the world. I'm like, people that work out at the gym actually get on my nerves. Well, we both worked at gyms and. But no, I'm saying these people, I go to the gym, okay, but I'm participating like in a class. You and Vivian. This is a whole thing, this is like a whole side note here, but if you have your. Is this a cycling class? No, no, this is like when I'm trying to go and like do some like weights real quick,

but nothing gets on my nerves more. I'm like, why are you even wasting your money when you were sitting there pacing up and down the gym with your cell phone and your headphones in, doing nothing? And I'm like, what is the point of this? Like, if you're doing that, I'm like, and there's guys and girls that do this, and I'm like, what are you doing? Well, some people just don't work out, and like we like to. Another thing is a lot on this subject right here, a lot of people are pushing for a gym attire, like to start having rules for that. And I mean, I think it's a great idea. I think it makes a lot of sense of like, there should be a dress code for the gym, which means cover your body. That means the shape, I should not be able to see the shape of your body, man or woman. Well, and my problem is not just that, it's when they wear those gym clothes to church. Let's just say we're going. Oh, that's true too. I mean, God, or outside the gym. Somebody needs to tell her or him, that is not appropriate. But here's my point with all this. Okay, let's bring it back. But here's the thing about David.

David shows us an interesting insight. David shows us that his true character was revealed by what he did when no one was watching to see who he really was. See, anybody can put on an act when everybody's around, but it's how you respond when you think nobody's gonna catch me, nobody's seeing me, nobody's looking. That's the true measure of a man or a woman is how you act, that's character. Would you do this when no one was looking or when everyone was looking? Okay, so Jesus gets to the heart of the matter, which is a matter of the heart, which is it is a sin of the mind, right? Not just your action, it is a sin of the mind, your attitude. So what do you do? Jesus gives a recommendation. He gives you the recommendation to cut off your right hand if you have a problem with your sin or cut out your right eye. Now, Jesus uses something called hyperbole, which basically is he exaggerates to the extreme something in order to prove a point. And what he's basically saying is, I'm gonna show you how serious sin is. It's so serious that in a right hand, excuse me, dominant world, flipping my mic.

Nice catch, nice save. Right hand dominant world where you needed your right hand to work. The right hand was basically things you engaged in, your skillset, your talent, your ability. And what he said is, sin is so serious, you would cripple yourself. in order to make it to heaven, rather than live in sin on earth and be sent to hell, okay? That's how serious it is. If your right eye, which is basically your vision, how you see, how you perceive the world, right? Basically pull it out. Now, he's not talking about physically doing this. When I was in seminary, I remember reading about a couple guys who actually did this physically. A.J. Gossip, the renowned Scottish preacher I found, told of a brilliant theological student who suddenly went crazy one night when he read this passage and cut off his entire hand with a razor. And when people found him, he laughed uncontrollably and said, I finally did it. I can now look Jesus in the face. That is not what Jesus is saying. Now, let me take it back even further. Origin of Alexandria, many people don't know this. Origin, the early preacher, had such a challenge with sexual desires that he emasculated himself and basically said he's going to create a scenario where he's never tempted again from anything physically.

That is not what Jesus is saying. That is not what Jesus is saying. Jesus actually gives us an insight on where sin comes from. This is a cool passage. Go to Mark chapter seven, candy verse 20, and Jesus gives us a picture of 12 different things in a list. It's a really neat list here. Mark seven, 20 and 22, 20 through 22, read this out loud, watch this. And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. Okay, what Jesus does is he gives us a list of how many? 12, okay? Out of the 12, it's divided into two lists. The first six are plural nouns, meaning these are the acts which are committed. You commit sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery. The second six, watch this, are singular, giving the idea these are the different kind of evils that come out of this. So collectively, here's what he's saying. The action and the attitude are connected. They're both sin. And so if you want to change, this is why we say,

if you want to change your attitude, or you want to change your action, change your mindset. You want to change the way you live, change the way you think. That's why Romans says, do not be conformed to the ways of this world, but be transformed by doing a bunch of good things. No, be transformed by changing your habits. No, be transformed by doing great deeds. No, transformed by the renewing of your mind. My first discipleship book with Platt, this is crazy to think about, but when I was in de-group with Platt early on, I was a Christian for like eight months. This was August. I got accepted to Christ in November 22, or 2002, and I was meeting with Platt August of 2003. So what is that, nine months, 10 months, nine months. And the first book we were gonna read, Ben, you'll love this, was Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards. For those that don't know, Jonathan Edwards is anything but, yeah, Jonathan Edwards is- It's like a little pamphlet. Yeah, a little pamphlet, yeah. Jonathan Edwards is long-winded. If you don't believe me, go look at the titles of his sermons back in the day. I mean, golly, his sermons were a paragraph. Titles, the title.

So Edwards was, just put it this way, if you don't know Jonathan Edwards, John Piper would say that's his mentor, and most of us have a hard time understanding what John Piper says all the time. So Edwards took it to another level. So Edwards was a genius, okay, really smart. But here's what, and Edwards was, he was the president of Princeton. He was a pastor, theologian. Edwards actually was the one who's credited with starting the first great awakening in America. He was preaching at a church, reading his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. By the way, he did not preach outside of reading his manuscript. He was not a charismatic preacher. He was dull, he was monotone, but God used, just shows you the power of the word of God to the people of God. He's reading this sermon, people said literally they felt like the floor of the worship center had fallen below them into hell, and they were gripping, white knuckling the pews in front of them because they felt like they were hanging as a spider from a string above hell and just dangling there before plummeting. Okay, so this is the sensational moment at that moment. So Edwards was used by God to create the, to use to start the first great awakening.

Watch this, when revival came to America and hundreds and thousands and thousands accepted Christ, he started to see abuses of revival, and he was questioning what is true revival? Better yet, how does revival happen? How does revival come to your life if you're listening? How do I experience revival myself? Is it running around in an auditorium? Is it falling down on you? in your face, is it barking like a dog, is it speaking in tongues, I mean all these things you start to see today. Is it a lot of hype and hoopla, what is it? What is true revival? Yeah, crowds or yelling and screaming and. Followers on. Yeah, okay, so here's what he found. This is the whole book, by the way, you can read it if you want, it's hard to read, but here's the premise of the whole book, and this is the takeaway I took. What Edwards in essence says was this, or said was this, true lasting transformation, true lasting revival always comes when the heart's affection is on God and the mind's affection is on God and his word. No, when the mind's attention is on God and his word, sorry, the heart's affection will follow. Say it again, when the mind's attention is on God and his word, the heart's affection will follow.

Meaning, Romans 12, do not be conformed by the ways of this world. Don't worry about the ways the world's changing you. You are transformed by the renewing of your mind through the washing of the word of God. So that's why we always say, get in the word until the word gets into you. It's a battle of your mind. Yes, you could change your actions, but they'll only be short term. And it's one of the things that happens when you get, except Christ, I tell people, particularly addicts like myself, and you know this, when God saves you, he changes your heart, but he doesn't alter your habits right away. Watch this. God renovates your heart, your heart's changed. You have a new heart, heart of stone, now heart of flesh. But you still have bad habits. You still curse, you still wanna smoke. So over time, sanctifying, God will sanctify you. Well, this is what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, this sin is so serious that it will send you to hell. And by the way, I don't have time, but the word hell here is Gehenna, which is where we get this idea of the burning in the Hinnon Valley in Jerusalem, where human sacrifices and babies are sacrificed. It's a horrible place.

And Jesus uses a real picture of a hell-like Gehenna place as a picture of hell. But notice a couple of things about what Jesus says. Hell is a literal place. He's talking about a place where you're going and thrown into, you will be thrown into hell, your whole body will go into hell. Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say this is a trip to hell with a stopover in purgatory. Doesn't say that. In fact, you'll never find purgatory in the Bible at all. That was a later addition in 1245 at the first Council of Lyon. They made it popular in 1543-ish, 1545, in that period with the Council of Trent. And basically, the reason they doubled down on purgatory is so they could fund the building of the Catholic Church through indulgences. If you don't take my word for it, go look it up. Notice what Jesus doesn't say. It's better for you to lose a member of your family than to spend millions of years in purgatory. Is that what he says? No. He says it's better for you to cut off your hand and enter heaven than to be thrown into hell. So the question for us is this. How do we respond to adultery? How do we respond and keep ourselves from immorality?

And the answer is we need to nip it in the bud mentally, attitude, intellect, the way we think. And the only way we can change our mind is through the reading and meditating of the word, basically. That's good. That's good. I do have a question, though. So when it says in that next verse that whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. We're not there yet. Are we gonna cover that? Yeah, that's next week. Okay, all right. But just to clarify, adultery, the act of adultery is intercourse. According, in the Old Testament, yes. What about the New Testament? Now, Paul, well, Jesus is quoting the Old Testament here and giving an explanation. When we get to the New Testament, the word is broadened to mean, the word that Paul uses is pornea. We'll get to that next week. And this is the idea of attitude and attraction, okay? So, and really acting upon the attraction. You can be attracted to someone of the opposite sex and not act upon it. But it's when you attract and then you act upon it,

i.e. with text messages, with phone calls, and let me just back this up. So, the root of every sin, this is my perspective, all these sins, all these issues, the root of all of them is idolatry. Every one of them, okay? This is my perspective. Every sin in life, the root you could trace back to idolatry. Because, for example, adultery or pornography. Pornography, the sin of pornography is idolatry. Why? Because you are idolizing a picture and you're getting pleasure from something other than God or your spouse, what God gave you as a good gift from God. And so you're worshiping an image. I'll be it on your phone, in a magazine. seen in a text cred or a relationship or whatever. So that's why it's a sin, even though you don't physically act upon it, because you're getting affection and attention and joy and satisfaction from an image, which is idolatry, something other than God. So that's kind of the base of it right there. We're gonna talk about immorality next week, so. Well, that's good. I think, too, that's why Jesus starts with the Old Testament because what were the Pharisees focused on? Their actions. And what he's trying to say is,

you can have a lot of good acts or good deeds, but it's not gonna cover a greedy heart. It's not gonna cover an idolatry heart, like a heart that is away from God. So we have to be careful with having a form of godliness, because by the time you become an adult, or you know, you don't have to go to, you can go to church for a year, listen to a few sermons, and you can start to learn, like, okay, this is how I should behave. But it's not a behavioral modification thing, right? It's an internal change. I will say, it gets a little fuzzy for me, and we can, maybe this is another podcast for another day, because like, when I read the Word, it does change my actions, you know what I mean? So it's like, because I can't think, I was trying to think of anything, because I always say, like, I can't think my way into new living, right? I don't wanna be, you know, if I got myself into this problem, I ain't gonna be able to get myself out with my thinking. But when you add in the Word of God, which in turn doesn't just come with truth, it becomes with what? Power. So like, you were talking about this in the very beginning, like, we know the difference between right and wrong, but when I didn't have the power of God in my,

I didn't have the Holy Spirit, I wasn't saved, I wasn't following the Word of God. So when we read the Word of God, and I know the truth, and I have the power of the Holy Spirit, then I start to say, well, I'm not gonna look at that. We gotta change some actions here. But that's not, that shouldn't be the premise of it. Like, they were changing actions so that people could view them from the outside. Jesus is saying, we have to go on the inside and get the why right. And then when you get the why right, everything else. Well, he's coming to legalism too, by the way. Well, and he says, you know, not everybody who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. And he lists three things, which would on the surface be like, these people are doing good things. You know, they're driving out demons, they're doing miracles, you know, they're prophesying. They're doing good things, but what? But he said, I will announce to them, I never knew you. He didn't know him. They were doing it for the wrong reasons. Right. But I have to agree, you know, I wanna, I think because of what you said, I can't wait till we get to this other part,

but it does, this leads me to believe that he is literally saying it's more than sexual intercourse. He is saying that, hey, it is more. And I would like to recant my statement now after learning from my pastor. But I do, I think it's, I think there's a lot more that can be considered adulterous. Y'all both right, because adultery in and of itself, the act, what they thought it meant was physical action. That was his audience, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you gotta remember, the Jewish culture doesn't have, I mean, they don't have like strip mall, strip, strip malls, they didn't. Strip clubs or pornography to the level we have. So they were just basically saying, I didn't do anything. Look at me, I'm clean, my conscience is clean. My conscience is clean. I would say, to your point, you were saying something earlier that I thought was good. About the actions and the thoughts? Yeah, okay, so there's two trains of thought here. John Wesley on one hand, and then you have kind of Calvin and Edwards on the other. So on one hand, you have Edwards who would say, belief drives behavior. And we believe that, and I agree with that, and I think that's pretty much it. Right belief drives behavior. And the two go in connection.

Reading the word, let me clarify, it's not gonna just change your life alone. Yes, it will, but it's engaging the word of God. That's where the statistics say. It's reading and then applying. That's why we always say, if you read, do a hear journal. You want to hear from God and apply it to your life, not just reading to check boxes and move on. So you should never read the Bible without engaging, and the way you engage is to do a hear journal. If you want more information, you gotta replicate and find that out. Information plus application equals transformation. Because if you only are reading for information, it's an intellectual thing, but you have to get to a point where you somehow take it and apply it, and that process happens, which is one of the reasons you created journaling, is for that process, but also just that meditation and pondering upon what it is that you're learning. Like all of that is an engagement process where we're going back and forth with the text through the power of the Holy Spirit, and then when we take that and then we apply it to our life and therefore live differently because of it, that is transformation. Wesley actually said, no, he gets belief drives behavior. But Wesley actually said, start acting or living like a Christian,

and it will actually change your lifestyle. So if you just say, I'm gonna put, and we do this in addiction, I'm gonna put on my schedule, Sunday morning I'm at church, Sunday night I'm at church, Wednesday night I'm at church, Tuesday a Bible study, Thursday. So what you do is, that's how AA has built their whole ministry, 90 meetings, 90 days. Dr. Bachman, the Oxford group who basically started AA from Matthew chapter five, six, and seven. It all came from a Christian pastor. You can research this. AA came from a Christian ministry. But yeah, they would say, they would take that biblical stance of, if you take the right action, it will change your thinking. And I think what you always tell us, what's the answer? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think what we're trying to do is just put a period on this. We're trying to kill, destroy sin actively. So we're actively, most people succumb to blind spot sins in their life they don't even know, or attacking them. And so I think the best thing you could do is one, be aware of the sin in your life.

Like, what's his name? Mortification of sin. John Owen said, you be killing sin, or sin will what? Be killing you. Be killing you. Come on now. Yeah, and so what Jesus is saying is, you have to get to the source. If you want to stop a hose leak, you have to get to the source. You don't just put something on the end of the hose, you get to the source. I remember years ago, we're not gonna talk about who did this, but one of our boys were saying, it's a funny story, I've never said this publicly, because I don't, there's both sides, you'll see why. But we were a little, Rigg and Ryder were really little, and Rigg, if you're trying to wonder, was me, basically. He's me, he's a curious kid. Ryder and I literally talked about this story yesterday at dinner. He said, how did he even do that? And I said, because the guy who let us stay at his place, by the way, came to church Sunday. So I told Ryder, I said, that guy you met was the guy who let us stay at his, now he knows about this, if he's listening, but you talk about, you talk about, you talk about, you talk about. We called him.

Yeah, we called him. And we had to pay for SerPro and all that, but anyway. He leave the water running? Bro, we were staying on the 11th floor of this huge condo place in Florida, you know, Navarre Beach, Destin. And we went to get ice cream, I think, with some friends, and we took Ryder as a baby. Rig was probably six, seven. I don't know. No, he wasn't six, seven. He was probably like four. Three or four, it was three or four. Sorry, six or seven. You see what I said there? Stop, stop. I didn't even mean to do it. I saw Robert. I didn't even mean to do it. It was six, seven. Josie's here, she hates that. Yeah. No, I don't like that. I think he was probably more like. He was probably like three or four. Four or five. But I told Ryder, Rig was a very curious kid. He's really curious. Get his hands in everything.

So my mom, bless her heart, she's in there watching TV, and she's, you know, Rig's somewhere. Or Rig goes and he says, Granny, I washed my hands and I went to the bathroom. I said, all right, good, Rig. Well, she's sitting. I'm not making this up. She's sitting there in the living room. He had done the right thing. Eleventh floor. He did the right thing. But, you know, some sinks actually don't have a hole. Like, some sinks have a hole. You ever see that little hole in the sink? Where they'll, yeah, they'll flood, yeah. So if it floods, by the way, the water won't go everywhere. It'll go back. It's a drain, yeah. It's a drain. You didn't know this, okay? Well, this one didn't have it. And Rig decided, he just forgot, Daddy. He forgot to turn off the sink. My mom figured it out when she was in the, this was the back bedroom. So you hear the water. When water starts hitting her bare feet in the living room. Vivi, you can't make this up. When I say the whole place flooded.

She thought it was a hurricane. I don't think it was, was it that bad? She thought it was a hurricane. Every room but one, I remember it like it was yesterday. That was a mom comment. That's all I gotta call. I gotta call from my mom. We're eating, we're eating our ice cream, yep. Robbie, get home now. What happened, Mom? Get home now. Okay, we went home and you can imagine. So here's the point. Let's say that water's running, okay? Do we go to the living room and try to stop the door with towels? No, we don't. Do we go to a hose? No, we go to the source of the problem and we turn the water off. Then you can start playing. Would you ever keep the water on? Right, watch this. While you're doing all that. And then take the towels and then mop them up and then wring them out and go back in. You would take the, no. That's strong. That's a good illustration. Yeah, because what you do is you're mopping up a mess

with towels, the towels are getting wet, and you wring them out and you keep going back. That's the dumbest thing in the world. What you do is you go to the source and you cut the source off. You pinch off the source and you end the leak. Watch this. That's what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying many of you are trying to deal with the symptom of the problem and you're not dealing with the root of the problem and the root of the problem is your heart. We might have to end on the money shot. That was good. That was powerful. I think that's a great way to end. Well, let me give you, let me give you practice. One more thing, one more thing. Nope, we got more. Because that was a home run right there. Okay, well here's the ending. All right, here we go. So how do we cleanse? Our life and heart look at a couple of things here a couple categories. Look at your hands the things you engage in the place The the things you do the hobbies you partake in the athletic things You're a part of your eyes the things you see the movies you watch The people that walk by your ears the things you hear the music you listen to the movies You put in your your feet the places you go the people you hang with the scenarios you find yourself in your heart the things Cherish your affection where you find your heart being pulled and then finally your mind What do you think about when you have nothing to think about?

That's a big one What do you think about when you have nothing to think about? Because that shows you the propensity of your heart What do you think about in the quietness of your own soul? You know, I got a book. I'm working on on the revival It should be out next year. Hopefully in the next year beginning in next again the following year But it's basically on what I've learned from sitting for now five years But ten months on the porch and silence and solitude and one of the one of the quotes that just I mean It is the quote of the whole book By Francis Bacon who was a mathematician and a believer. I think was big. No. No, I'm sorry It was Blaise Pascal not France bigger Blaise Pascal scientist believer He said all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit in a room Quietly alone by himself All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit alone quietly in a room by himself. Why with his own thoughts? Nobody wants to do that. Why because you're face to face with your own mortality You're face to faith with your own sin and a lot of people say I can't handle it But that's where healing comes from because awareness leads to repentance and repentance leads to transformation. So, all right, I'm done. It's powerful It's a health healthy to continue to inventory your heart and see where you're at That's good. Love it. Love it. Listen, if you're enjoying this content, if you're such if you're listening to it now Please like and hit the subscribe button and share that with anybody that you can We're so thankful that you joined us today and look forward to being with you again the future You