Adultery;
Not Just a Sin of the Flesh II
Matthew 5:27, 28
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
It was during this discourse that Jesus revealed the essence of the Law. His statement showed us how we tend to look at the letter of the commandment to justify our behaviors and actions instead of realizing that the essence of the commandments shows us how we could not possibly stand on our own before God. There is no way that we could ever be seen as righteous without being seen through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It also reveals to us how God looks at not only the outside of the individual but the inside as well. He sees the deepest parts of our heart and knows the darkest secrets of our minds. We may be able to fool those around us regarding our salvation but Christ knows who belong to Him and who do not. I believe that if we are truly His children then we can not stand in sin long. In other words; there is no way that you can accept Christ as your Savior and still be living in habitual sin.
After the city of Jerusalem was taken by King Nebuchadnezzar there was a remnant that was left behind in the city. They had the promise of God that they would be able to stay within their land as long as they obeyed Him, yet they went to Jeremiah after the ruler who was left there by Nebuchadnezzar was killed and asked him for a word from the Lord. They were fearful that Nebuchadnezzar would avenge the death of his ruler but Jeremiah assured them that if they were obedient to God, they would be protected. Instead of heeding this word from God they called Jeremiah a liar and headed to Egypt, taking Jeremiah with them. True to God's word Nebuchadnezzar hunted them down and killed all but those who had escaped to Jerusalem. It was during this time that Jeremiah had found that many of the people had been worshipping the gods of Egypt, instead of the true God and as he warned them about this and the eminent judgment that would come they insisted on continuing their adulterous ways. Case after case is laid out in this awesome book of Jeremiah regarding the warnings of God and the punishments which will follow if these warnings are not heeded, yet time after time regardless of the things that God shows the people, they refuse to obey.
Paul discusses grace in Romans chapter 7. He reviews how we ought to act under grace and that we are to not look at grace as liberty to sin but that we should look at it as liberty to live even more so for Christ. As we look at grace, we claim that we are no longer under the law therefore we are not bound by the law to act any certain way. We begin to justify our lack of service to Christ by looking at the letter of grace and thereby are actually putting ourselves back under the bondage of sin, when the very essence of grace should push us to respond to Christ in such a way that we could not even think about living in a way that would be displeasing to Him. If we looked at it in the context of scripture we would see it like this. If we, being born again are married to Christ by the shedding of His blood on Calvary, which basically bought and paid for us. In essence a dowry was paid for our hand in marriage and after this marriage we begin to look at the world longing after the sinful life we once led; we are committing adultery because as Christ stated if you lust in your heart it is the same as committing the act. So if we are His how can we justify not only lusting after the world but in many cases continuing in the same things that we did prior to our salvation? When we were commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves; how can we justify our actions that we show? We are told that true love is this; that a man lay his life down for his friends and yet many of us wouldn't even cross the road for them. We shake each others hands in church and that is the last we speak to them until next Sunday, and we call this love. We are this way because we can't stand to look them in the face because we know that we are guilty of adultery with the world and we feel that if we let someone get to close they may find out. This is the reason we don't have anyone over to our house for dinner. This is why we don't invite guest over from church and why we are putting guest speakers up in motels when 20 years ago they would have been spending the night in one of the church member's homes. If we had them in our homes they would see the signs of adultery. The soft lights, music, and video of our adulterous affair with the world would be so apparent to others that we determined that no one would come over. Oh there may be those who are in the same worldly affair as we are that we may let in but for the most part it is a very small group and not open for new members.
Like the children of Israel when they confessed to Jeremiah in Egypt of their worship of idols, we will continue to deny the word of God because we were alright when we were doing these worldly things. They told him that until they stopped offering incense to the queen of heaven everything was going good. They had peace and plenty of food and then their wives spoke up and said yes but then we started baking cakes for her in private. We started burning incense and pouring out drink offerings to her and everything was okay but now that we have stopped it has gotten worse and we are going to do it again regardless of what God says. I see people in the church today saying the exact same thing. Preacher, you know everything was okay until you started preaching this way. Business was good and money was coming in and then you started preaching this stuff and I changed the way I did business and it didn't work so I am going back to what I was doing before because then I was profitable. I am going to go back to over charging and looking out for number one; me and my own and I don't care what God has to say about it because He is not paying my bills. It is my actions that put food on my table and without me He can't do it. Meanwhile their wives are sitting back there saying that's right. I told him not to change the way he does business and when he didn't listen I reminded him every day how much less money we had coming in; I mean seriously I had to quit getting my nails done every week and they looked awful. I haven't been able to buy a new outfit in over two weeks and my car has 20,000 miles on it and we really need to trade it in. Honestly pastor if you are going to keep preaching this way we may just have to find a new church and meanwhile God is saying if you do not heed my word I will wipe your memory from the earth with pestilence, famine and the sword. If you are My child I will chastise you until you return or until I have had enough and bring you home and if your not My child I will give you over to your own delusions and let you continue in your way until it consumes you. And we wonder why our children are not in church. We wonder why they deny God's very existence. Beloved, I am telling you that if we do not stop this adulterous affair with the world that we will reap the whirlwind that He has prepared for us. It will cost us! It will cost us our homes, our families, our children and our grandchildren. God tells us in the book of Revelations that because you are lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth. This is no a maybe I will do it or a possibly I will do it; it is a firm promise that you can stand on when all else fails, I WILL spew you out. Yet we continue on day after day in the same manner that we have always done because after all it has been over 2000 years and nothing has happened yet.
Rom 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man, have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Beloved we are not going to be perfect this side of heaven but it can not be an excuse to continue to live in habitual sin. It can not be an excuse to continue an adulterous relationship with the world and the only way that we can break the holds that it has on us is to be in a daily relationship with Christ both in prayer and in reading His word. I don't mean reading it like you would a novel but digesting it word by word and sentence by sentence. It is going to take the complete surrender of your will for His. It's going to take walking away from the things that drag you back into the lust of the flesh and walking towards Jesus Christ.
1Co 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
He makes the way, but it takes action on your part. Are you willing to take that action?
SFT
9/30/08
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