The Lord is the King of Kings and he reveals his kingship by his holy, precious, beautiful, relevant law. Let us hear it carefully and then respond with the words of Psalter 7. Psalter 7. And God spoke. all these words saying, I am the Lord, thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day. and hallowed it. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God gives thee. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. ♪ Father and angel, ♪ Lord have mercy on us ♪ ♪ Make all these lands black ♪ ♪ And make all of us white ♪ ♪ Stand in awe and fear us ♪ ♪ In our heart we dwell ♪ O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, And in all things perfect, truth shall find her ease. Anger, then, is very, very wondrous. Our help they may find. Hear our mother whining, Iron and iron meet, ♪ In his care confiding ♪ ♪ I will be pleased ♪ ♪ On the Lord my Savior ♪ ♪ Well in making peace ♪ Please turn in the word of God to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter five. We'll read this chapter, this section in the book of Proverbs, especially chapters five, six and seven speak a great deal to the issue of sin against the seventh commandment. And especially about the themes of bondage and liberty. My son, attend unto my wisdom and bow thine ear to my understanding, that thou may regard discretion and that thy lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman, and strange means someone with whom you're not supposed to be intimate, and in that sense, every other person besides your spouse is supposed to be a stranger to you, drop or drip as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now, therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her. and come not nigh the door of her house, lest thou give thy honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth and thy labours, be in the house of a stranger, and thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, and say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof? and if not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor inclined my ear to those that instructed me, I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. Drink waters out of thy own cistern and running waters out of thy own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thy own and not strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and the pleasant roe. Let her breast satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished, that word means intoxicated always, with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his goings. His own iniquity shall take the wicked himself and he shall be held with the cords of his sin. He shall die without instruction and in the greatness of his falling, he shall go astray. Then we turn to Lord's Day 41 in the catechism one last time, page 78 in the back of your Psalter. Page 78. What does the seventh commandment teach us? That all uncleanness is a curse of God. And that therefore we must with all our hearts detest the same and live chastely and temperately, meaning self-controlled, whether in holy marriage or in single life. Does God forbid in this commandment only adultery and such like severe sins? Since both our body and soul are temples of the Holy Spirit, he commands us to preserve them pure and holy. Therefore, he forbids all unchaste actions, gestures, words, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto. Several things to remember in our prayer, in addition to the things mentioned in the bulletin. Ryan and Elaine Voss were blessed with a healthy daughter, Taylor, early this morning. Case and Arlene Van Beek were also blessed with a daughter this past week. However, the child was born several months too early, weighed only two pounds, and is in the NICU here in Lethbridge. So, the recovery will take some time. Cory Solton still is in the hospital. They're still doing some further testing to try to determine what exactly is wrong. There's some heart rhythm issues that have followed after the surgery. And also Mrs. Rubble's senior mother and grandmother too, a number in the congregation has been diagnosed with cancer as well. Let us pray. Gracious God in heaven, glorious Lord God, we think of the words of the psalmist, Amid the thronging worshipers, Jehovah, I will bless that his praise, stand in awe, be amazed at what the Lord has done. That is the number one reason for gathering for worship, that there's a great God who deserves all that we have and are, our awe, our wonder and amazement and our worship and obedience. every moment of every day, every part of who we are. It's not our own. We think of the words of the Apostle, you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body and your spirit, which are the Lord's. What an amazing thing that is to be doubly thine, not just by creation. But also through salvation. To be redeemed. to stand in the security and in the freedom of Jesus Christ, to be made free from the penalty, the power, the practice, the stain and the ruin of sin. Lord, many of us can say that we were once dead in sin, once rebellious, indifferent, hard-hearted, separated from God, children of wrath, living according to the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, destroying ourselves and in the greatness of our folly, to quote Proverbs 5, going astray until the kindness of the Lord came and through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, old things became new in Jesus Christ. What a stunning redemption that is. Lord, melt our hearts. and especially those of thy children who came to worship this morning overwhelmed with anxious cares, grant that they may stop and consider who the Lord is, what the Lord has promised and done and will do, and be encouraged and strengthened again for a new week in this present world. Lord, we pray this morning that as we consider again the seventh commandment one final time, Lord, show us the wisdom of this commandment. It's right. It's holy. It's good. It's pure. It's beautiful. But it's also wise and good for us. Open our eyes to see that every command of the Lord is that way, that when the Lord forbids, he is not blocking or robbing our fun. But seeking to fence and protect us from misery, from bondage, from shame and emptiness and even ruin. Help us to see the beauty of this commandment. This commandment which has so much depth, so much breadth, so much glorious truth summarized in it. We pray for the forgiveness of our sins, Lord. We humble ourselves in the presence of Thy Divine Majesty. We have sinned. We have grieved thy spirit, insulted thy law, trampled upon thy holiness, and guilty of blindness and pride and hardness of heart. Every one of our sins displays all of these things. Oh, God, cleanse us. Purify our lips, our hearts, our lives. Give us a trembling hope. In mercy this morning, as we confess our sins, we think of the wonderful words. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What an amazing thing forgiveness is that the inexcusable and the unacceptable can be forgiven. We ask, Lord, for thy grace and thy Holy Spirit, We ask for the pastor that he may be filled with the Holy Spirit this morning and that the glory of the Lord may appear and that we may see it together. We have many reasons to rejoice as we look back on this past week. We rejoice with Tim and Inga, with Ryan and Elaine and Case and Arlene, that they've been blessed with healthy daughters for the most part. And we pray, Lord, bless these families, bless the mothers, enable them to recover. And we pray for these little ones, Lord, that they would know the Lord, that they would be preserved and protected and cared for in a world of sin and craziness. We pray in particular for little Roday, the daughter of Cason Arlene. She's in the NICU, in the incubator for some weeks to come. We're thankful that the technology exists to keep a baby like that in life and that we pray, Lord, help this little one and provide Kaysen and Arlene everything they need to look after their daughter in the hospital. Give them the emotional and the physical energy and strength for these busy and overwhelming weeks. We pray for Mary May as she awaits the test results and goes to the doctor tomorrow. Lord, comfort her and encourage her and help her. We pray for Corys Holton who is still in the hospital, unexpectedly so. Please grant her restoration, not just for her knee, but for the rhythms in her heart. And bear her burden for and with her. We pray for old Mrs. Brubble, having received the news that she has cancer and not much more than a year to live, according to the doctors. Think of the words of that song. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. We pray that that may be fulfilled richly in her life during this time, that this sickness may be deeply sanctified for her and for her whole family circle. We pray for the world in which we live, in its brokenness, in its need, in its devastation, in its wickedness, the nation in which we live. We think of important decisions happening in the Supreme Court about the right to raise children according to conscience and according to our religious convictions. Lord, protect us. Protect our children from being so spiritually abused by the secularization of Canadian law. And turn the hearts of the justices that they would not favor militant, aggressive secularism, but remember freedom of conscience before the Lord. We pray, give us leaders who see that. who hold on to that and who cling to that. We pray, O God, for those in authority over us. We pray as we will face upcoming provincial elections for a new premier. Lord, give us a leader not marred by scandal and corruption, but one of integrity, one who cares for others, one who helps our schools as well. We pray, thanking thee for thy goodness this past week in many other ways. Each of us have tasted and seen that the Lord is good with the sunshine on our bodies and the moisture from the sky. And we rejoice together with Jonathan and Roxanne van Hurk at their wedding this past Friday. And we ask that they may have a rich family life and marriage. And bless our young couples, all of them, that there may be in their homes a stability, the fear of the Lord and tender love. We ask all these things in the Lord who has taught us to pray and who has said of this Sabbath day, it is blessed forever. The Lord's day, the day of spiritual deliverance, food and blessing and open the eyes of the blind Lord and the ears of the deaf spiritually and let thy glory be revealed in Jesus name. Amen. After the preaching of the Word of God, we sing Psalter 83. Psalter 83, the first half of one of the Psalms David wrote after being forgiven of his sin against this commandment. While at the Congregation of the Lord during my studies in the Netherlands, I read an article once in the Dutch newspaper about how things are not always as they are portrayed. The person writing the article had been to a lab associated with a major fast food restaurant chain serving hamburgers. And at one point during the interview, the scientist in the lab took a piece of white ordinary paper and a vial of chemical. He put a few drops on the paper, and he said to the newspaper reporter, smell that. The man smelled it, and it smelled exactly like a delicious, hot hamburger of highest quality beef. And the reporter's mouth started watering, even though he knew it was just a piece of paper. This chemical is then mixed in this restaurant chain with the cheapest beef they can find, and who knows all what else, and mixed with this chemical, and it smells like the best hamburger in town, unless you happen to know why it smells the way it does, and then you never want to eat there again. A similar thing has happened in our culture with regard to the way sexuality is portrayed. The sweeping changes of morality in the last 50 years have been widely and continually advertised as freedom. To use the words of Proverbs 9, stolen waters are sweet, bread eaten in secret is pleasant. That's the message, isn't it? This is fun. You should be doing this. And at every turn, we are besieged with the fake chemical smells of immorality. It's presented as mouthwatering fun. Everyone's doing it and everyone who opposes it is labeled as Victorian, prudish, uptight, sour and unenlightened. Satan's tactic is to try to make us jealous of the fun sinners are having. So that we start to want it. In our own hearts, glowing with the coals of lust still in them, try to push the same lie and waft the same appealing smells under our noses. But the goal of the sermon this morning is to expose the allure of this false advertising as cheap, fake chemical junk. The goal is to show you that if you break this commandment of God, You are reaping misery and putting handcuffs on yourself. You are being allured by a lie. An agonizing lie by a master deceiver of false advertising. And you will reap misery. And this is a lie much worse than the lie with which that hamburger joint deceives customers If you swallow this lie, you will discover that sin against this commandment is full of the stench of misery. Sin against this commandment is chocolate-covered dung. It looks good, it smells good, and still you start to chew on it. And unless God rescues you, this real stench of this sin is the putrid, rotting smell of hell. And God says to us this morning, catch a whiff of this. So that when you are faced with this false, lying advertising. You will turn away in horror. But that's only half the story. Over against the fake smells, we must also see the sweet perfume and fragrance of this aspect of our humanity as God intended it. The purpose is that God would let this fragrant perfume drift through the sanctuary so that you would see that in calling you to obey the seventh commandment, this is a privilege. This is a gift. This is a blessing. God isn't taking you something from you. He is protecting and giving you something very precious. So that instead of complaining about God's restrictions and saying with that atheist young man from last week, God asks the impossible of a young person, you would be ready to praise him and to embrace the purity of this commandment as a joy. So that you'll be ready to say, amen, when Jesus Christ says also at this part of his law, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And that's our theme, the pleasant freedom of the seventh commandment. We need to see the heavy yoke which it seeks to break from off our necks and in the easy yoke which it lays upon us. Now, when studying this theme of the bondage of sin and the freedom of obedience against this commandment, no book of the Bible is more helpful than the book of Proverbs, especially chapters five to seven. It's true not only because there's a refreshing honesty and bluntness about this, passage, but also because these chapters model for us how to fight back against the false advertising. That's because. Sensual temptation gains its power by stirring your imagination and through them to dump gasoline on the fires of your desires, and the most important way to resist this temptation is to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that was why last week's sermon was preached first. But having done so, the Book of Proverbs gives some important, beautiful supplemental help in crushing temptation. Notice how Proverbs 5 begins, especially in Chapter 3. We'll spend a lot of our time today on these verses. Notice the attractiveness of temptation. For the lips of a strange woman drip like a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. See the smell? of good hamburger mixed with the rancid, rotten beef of fornication and adultery. The one who gives in to such temptations expects only to taste the honeycomb. It's sweet. Here's only the wily, slippery smoothness of an oily voice and of a teasing invitation. He doesn't imagine it'll go as far as it gets. He thinks he can dabble a little without getting sucked in. He says everyone's doing it. Well, first of all, it's a lie. Secondly, even if it were, it wouldn't make it right. She thinks no one will ever find out. The beginning is sweet, but the end is bitter. In the end, she is bitter as wormwood. We read in the next verse and sharp, not smooth, sharp as a two edged sword. Wormwood was a kind of wood in that part of the world that was so bitter that if you put a little piece of it in your mouth, you would pucker up and you couldn't wash the taste out of your mouth. A graphic way of describing a gnawing conscience and the memory of things you wish you could forget. For after sin, the mental images, especially memories of this kind of activity, are seared onto your mind. And your conscience stabs you with guilt and with memories that often no amount of tears or prayers can wash out of your head. I remember once hearing the story of a sincere, godly, Christian converted man who had been promiscuous with his youth group. This is in one of our congregations, while young, before the Lord changed him. And years later, sometimes he would walk up to the Lord's table and he would sit down and suddenly realize That woman across from me or next to me is one of the people I sinned with. And he said that at times that was so overwhelming that he could hardly concentrate on the sacrament. Someone says the stories like this really need to be told from the pulpit. Yes, they do. Someone has to say it loud and clear. So that you will draw the conclusion sin against this commandment may be advertised as fun. But you are sowing for yourself a harvest of lasting pain if you buy these lies. And praise God, such sins can be forgiven so that you can learn to sing with David, as we will at the end of the sermon. How blessed is he whose trespass has freely been forgiven, whose sin is wholly covered before the sight of heaven. The forgiveness is real and the redemption is real. But forgiveness does not erase your memory. And it does not enable you to listen to sermons on the Seventh Commandment without feeling the knife of guilt and of repentance and grief and remorse twisting in your gut again. That is a burden from which the Lord wants to save you when he says to you in the words of the Seventh Commandment, don't commit adultery, treat your sexuality as sacred. The one who commits sexual sin, especially adultery, doesn't just invite bitterness, but a sharp sword leading even unless there's redemption to death and hell. And unless God brings such a person to repentance and restoration, that's where these sins too lead. Remember where it leads. And when an adultery and fornication wink and smile and it seems like honey and it sounds so smooth and so pleasant, get a hold of yourself and let the horrifying images of hell which await the unrepentant sinner drown those lusts with a reality check. Notice another consequence of such sin in verse 11. And thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed and say, How have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof? We can interpret this very literally and point to the very many sexually transmitted diseases spreading in a promiscuous society. And they lie to you when they tell you that you can protect yourself with a condom or something else. One of the jobs my mother had as a nurse was to work in a Medicare clinic in Grand Rapids. It was a clinic where those without health insurance could go. It was in a poorer neighborhood of the city. And repeatedly she had to counsel those who had fallen into this sin. And she would tell those stories at the dinner table to show her children the wretchedness of this sin. She told of one young Christian girl who in one moment of weakness allowed herself to be seduced by a guy who had been bugging her for this for six months at work. It only happened once. She ended up with an incurable disease that will cause her physical pain every day for the rest of her life. She will never have children, and she will never get married. The first thing, of course, that comes to mind is AIDS. But the AIDS scare has overshadowed the growing number and the spreading variety There's some diseases of which there's a hundred different strains of the so-called vaccine protects people from three of them. And yet they tell you, you don't have to let these diseases interfere with your life anymore. It is a lie. Do you know how many diseases there are that can slip through the holes in the synthetic barriers they create? Is it freedom to wonder as you drift through a couple of partners? What could happen next? Is it freedom to be so chained to your lusts that not even these facts can give you the power to control yourself? Look at verse nine. Beware of this sin, lest thou give thy honor unto others and thy years unto the cruel. Think of men who have had children with several different women. Think of the child support that's taken out of their paychecks by the government. Strangers are filled with their wealth and their labor literally goes to another home. Is that freedom? Every time you pick up your child for a weekend and every time your ex picks them up, you remember what went wrong and what could have been. Just listen when you run into people in the neighborhood and at work who are in this situation. Listen to the heartache and the misery that it brings. The first words of verse 11 deserve further attention as well. Those who fall into this sin in whatever way, mourn in the end. It seems so fun, perhaps even during the moment. But through the years as pastor, as I've heard the agonizing and usually tear-filled confessions of those who have fallen into sin, without exception, every single one of them has said this, if I had known the price I would have to pay for years, I would never have done it. Let their tears melt your heart this morning. If nothing else that is said to you today gets through to you because you are dabbling on the edge of these sins or are thinking it's harmless and cute and OK and no big deal and you can be forgiven and all will be well, then let the anguish, sobs and the tears of those who have learned the bitterness of sin, expose these foul temptations for the putrid wretchedness that they are. That your imagination may see they are lying deceivers. If you got an email from a scammer saying, I'm going to give you $500 million. God told me to give it to you. Just send me your bank account information. What do you think of a person like that? What should you think of these seductive advertisements and these movies and songs and entertainments that lie to you and would rob you? I remember one woman after her husband had an affair and they did manage to reconcile. She said, I started looking at my entertainment with whole new eyes. And I started seeing, you know, these so-called affairs and people promiscuous in movies. It's not funny at all. And they lie to you. They make it sound fun. They don't tell you about all the consequences later. You'll be plagued by an accusing conscience that will rob you during the moment of that sin, of the joy of it. It won't be innocent, upright pleasure. It'll be secretive, hurried pleasure because you're worried that someone else will find out. You lay awake at night imagining the possible consequences and the thought of conceiving a child will haunt your dreams. Instead of being an exciting possibility, you will mar the joys of your wedding day. Even if you do end up marrying that same person, there will be something precious and beautiful and pure missing on that day. It will still be reason to give thanks. It'll still be a joyful moment, but it'll be bittersweet. For this part of your humanity is like the bananas in your kitchen. If you eat the fruit before it's ripe, it loses the best part of its flavor. The way of transgressors is hard. The Bible says in verse 14 continues, I was almost in all evil in the midst of the assembly. of the congregation and assembly. And here the writer is thinking of the Law of Moses, which required that someone caught in adultery be stoned in the public assembly of the congregation. And this sentence was rarely enforced, but it must have haunted the dreams of those who fell into this sin. And the New Testament church is to apply church discipline so that the sinner who was turned back to repentance can say the same thing. I was on the edge of total ruin in the midst of the assembly of the congregation. They had to pursue me because I was slipping into destruction. And they had to shake me awake and thank God that such discipline exists and that he uses it to rescue people. But oh, the anguish it brings in the family circle and in the church when it becomes necessary. Is God such a mean spirited kill joy? robber of your fun when he says to you, flee immorality. What other forms does this ruin take? If you commit adultery, you could lose everything. Just stop and think a minute about your family. You come home from work. You hear little pattering feet. You hear little cheerful voices of children competing for your attention. Daddy, Daddy! You walk into the kitchen and the fragrance of home cooking fills the air and your wife greets you with a sparkle and a smile. You tumble on the carpet with your little ones. What better therapy is there? You sit on the couch in the evening with your arm around your wife. You share the burdens of the day, dividing them in half, and you delight in each other's joys, multiplying them times two when you fall asleep in the arms of your spouse. That satisfying companionship making you feel full. Just read verses 18 through 20. but five minutes of secretive, hurried pleasure, a few fleeting moments of sin, and you could lose it all. And come home from work to a small apartment where the only sounds besides the ones you're making is the thumping from the radio next door, and you heat up a TV dinner in the microwave hoping that it won't taste again like artificially flavored cardboard. You fall asleep with an aching, lonely heart. a few moments of sin, and you could be on the verge of total ruin in the midst of the congregation. To paraphrase the words of verse 22, His own iniquity traps the wicked man and he is caught in the chains of his own sin. Is God such a mean-spirited, sour prude when He warns us in verse 7 Hear me now, therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Or when he says in verse one, my son, attend to my wisdom, bow thy ear to my understanding that thou mayest regard or preserve discretion and your lips keep knowledge. And at this point, those who are attracted to the so-called smells of freedom in our culture will reply, who's it hurting? It's just clean fun. But listen to that same person talking. When a relationship is broken because they discover that their partner has been spending time in someone else's bedroom. Or if a couple breaks up after they were intimate. What do they call it? Cheating. What do they have? A broken heart. Why? Because God has designed this part of your humanity to create a powerful, intimate, emotional bond between two people. And God's creations do what they're designed to do. It is relationship superglue. And once you've been glued together by this activity, when you rip apart, you're damaged. It's like tape. It sticks the best the first time it's applied. I remember once in one of the catechism rooms that I used as a pastor, someone had taped a poster on the wall and then taken it down after a while, and some of the paint came along with the tape, and that tape would not stick properly again. When there is physical activity between two people, there's an intimate bond. You become one in so many ways. And when that bond is broken, two that have become one, you cannot separate something that's one without ripping it apart. That's why if someone continues to pursue this sin, the more partners they have, the harder their heart becomes, the more calloused, the more self-centered they become. And they start treating other people like things to be used rather than as people to be treated with love and respect. There's a graphic story about this in the Bible, in 2 Samuel, chapter 13. to Samuel chapter 13, the brutal story of how Ammon, one of David's sons, starts to lust after his sister Tamar. Only Ammon thinks his lust is love. He even says in verse four of this chapter, he says, I love Tamar, my sister, my brother Absalom's sister. But then he violates her and look at verse 15, his attitude changes. Then Ammon hated her exceedingly so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Ammon said to her, arise, be gone, get out of here. In verse 17, he even calls his servant and said, put this out from me. Notice the word woman is in italics. It's not there in the Hebrew, basically saying, get this thing out of me here and lock the door. In a graphic confirmation of this, when Bill Clinton, president of the United States, when first accused of infidelity, said, I didn't have relations with that woman. Do you see how up to date the Bible is? Those who engage in intimacy with others, apart from a marriage covenant, start to treat each other like things to be used rather than people to be loved. I read once an article in a magazine called Reform Perspective dealing with how a growing number of people in our culture are sick at heart of the sexual permissiveness of our times, but don't dare to speak up. The article reviewed the results of an anonymous survey in which many young women confessed that they were sick and tired of being used while dated. A surprising number of them said, you know what, we'd rather not sleep with our dates, but They felt they had to because otherwise the culture tells you there's something wrong with you and you won't keep your boyfriend and you're out of step with the times and you're uptight. Those are the chains with which people who promote promiscuity wrap themselves in each other. This is the misery of those who break God's commandments. And if nothing else were said today, wouldn't you have already enough reason to sing the praises of God simply by hearing his warnings in his words, how often God says how bitter it is to reap what you sow when it comes to this sin. And isn't God good in telling us don't do that? But there's another side to this that's just as important. That we need to hear so that we would long and run after this commandment, and that's our second point, the easy yoke which it lays on us. Now, let's be honest. Keeping this commandment is not always easy for sinners. As sinners who carry the glowing coals of lust in our own hearts, especially when you're young and single, it is a daily and can be even an hourly battle to keep your thoughts and actions pure. And yet it is a battle worth fighting. A battle worth winning, because those who win the victory over their sins receive the greatest blessing. And again, Proverbs 5 sparkles here, describing the blessedness of purity. Notice verse 15. Drink waters out of thy own cistern and running waters out of thy own well. Imagine a hot, muggy Ontario summer day where you drip just standing in the shade at eight o'clock in the morning. What do you want? You want some cool water. And in those days in Israel, often many homes would have a cistern beneath the house, trapping rainwater, keeping it cool underground to tell the husband and wife who learn to delight in one another within the biblical boundaries of self-denying committed love will experience God's gift, a cool drink of refreshment. Verse 18 even speaks of rejoicing. With the wife of your youth, verse 19 speaks of being ravished, being intoxicated, thrilled with each other's love. What a contrast that is to the thorns of the agony sown by those who break God's law, and instead of fear, there is joy and instead of shame, there is refreshment. And instead of the emptiness of treating each other as things to be used. There's the satisfaction that comes from the embrace of committed love. And instead of the secret hurry of being caught or a fearsome consequences, instead of wondering what's going to happen to you, there can be an honest, upright delight, thrilled with the other person's love. And rather than having painful memories stirred By seeing others with whom you've sinned, there's the easy yoke of being able to look everyone in the church in the eye when you walk in and wherever you go. There's the easy yoke of not having to wonder every time you go into mixed company, is someone trying to come on to me or flirt with me? Do you realize that that's becoming increasingly rare in the culture in which we live and that the church needs to be a place of utter, total security? in this regard. Maybe you sit listening as someone who, by the grace of God, has been largely kept pure. And although this commandment has forced you to admit, as it has forced all of us to admit, that we've all sinned to some degree in our thoughts, perhaps of words or actions, yet maybe you can say, God has kept me from so much of the sin against this commandment. Do you realize how much reason you have to thank God today? You have every reason to be overwhelmed with his gracious preservation, what freedom that is. You have every reason to bless his spirit for giving you the strength to control yourself and to walk uprightly before him. You have every reason to thank God for this commandment and pray, Lord, give me even more of my of thy spirit so that my ways would be increasingly pleasing in thy sight, that my footsteps would run in the pathway of liberty. But perhaps there are others who listen to this and who feel almost like outsiders. As the bondage of sin against the Seventh Commandment unfolded, you recognized yourself in more than one of these descriptions. And now while others are saying, thank God I was preserved, perhaps for you bitter memories have been stirred and you feel like weeping instead of singing. And you're left with a nagging question. Is the freedom of the seventh commandment totally out of my reach? No. It's available to you as well. For preservation is not the only pathway to this freedom. There's another way, the way of redemption. Sometimes you hear people talk about secondary virginity. In some ways, it's an unfortunate expression. Not because of the intention behind it, which is good. but because it falls short of what scripture teaches. God is not the God of the second chance. You could blow a second chance as easy as you did the first one. God is the God of redeeming grace. God can cleanse you so thoroughly that you are no longer to consider yourself a fornicator or an adulterer, but a new creation in Jesus Christ. Remember how the Apostle Paul speaks so beautifully. It's a passage we used in the first sermon on this. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. He's describing the Corinthian church. Corinth was a nightmare in regards to sins of this kind. And notice what he says. I quote you again. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, that's sexual sin without a marriage bond per se, or idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, that means homosexuals, nor abusers of themselves of mankind, that means sodomites, will inherit the kingdom of God. And in saying this, he doesn't lock and bolt the door to such people. Listen to verse 11. And such were some of you. Did you catch this? Were is in the past, not is, were. Why? How did that happen? But ye are washed. But ye are sanctified. That is made pure and holy by God. But ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. And that washing and redemption does not cancel all the consequences of sin. And that washing does not totally reformat the hard drive of your memory, but it does make you a new creature in Jesus Christ. So much so that it can be said of you, not that you're a recovering fornicator and adulterer, but that you are a new creation in Jesus Christ. That is the most important thing about you. Also, when you look at these memories. And that is the freedom to which the gospel of Jesus Christ calls you this morning. Maybe you're secretly addicted to pornography. Maybe you've fallen into various sexual sins to the point where you can't seem to break loose on your own, or you realize I'm a slave. Sin is a heavy yoke on your neck. Oh, don't despair. The Lord Jesus comes to you this morning in the preaching of the word through this law in the light of his gospel. And he says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I, will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly at heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls. And if you need to, blow the whistle on yourself. Find someone to hold you accountable. These sins flourish in the dark, but they hide in the light. Get godly counsel. It's hard, but it's so liberating. And this is the first step in Christ easing your burden and giving you rest. You can find the necessary grace and power to keep this commandment and to walk in liberty. It doesn't matter what you may have lost. God can give you a church family to replace everything you've lost. God can redeem your bitter memories. God can use you in the lives of others, making you a fruitful and useful in His kingdom as you tell others your story and say, don't do the things that I did. God can make you a trophy of His grace and a lasting monument to the power of Christ's Spirit and blood. God can wash your soul from the inside out. Learn of Christ. Find rest and freedom. Maybe there's someone listening who struggles with homosexuality. Don't say it could never happen in a church. In a church of this size, there's probably some. And such people often feel like they have nowhere to go and nowhere to turn. Because the first reaction of many who hear about it is, this is abomination and perversion. And it is. But so are fornication and adultery. The Bible uses the exact same words to describe those sins too. And such people can feel so trapped and so stuck and so utterly alone. And yet there is help available also for someone like this. And those feelings can be so deeply rooted in you and take years to develop. that you've come to the mistaken conclusion that you were born this way and that there is no liberation possible. But there can be. Do you know how many ex-gays there are who have found that the gospel of Jesus Christ has rewired their sexuality? I just got some new books this week and one of them was a lady named Rosario Butterfield. She has YouTube clips as well. She was a lesbian activist married to another woman. until the gospel of Jesus Christ changed her. And now she's married to a Presbyterian minister. She writes in her book that beautiful story of how Christ set her free. And by the way, if someone comes to you and confesses an attraction or struggle with this, don't start by trying to fix them. Just start by listening. By caring for them. By bearing their burden with them. The church must become a place where people struggling with homosexual attractions can find compassion, grace, sympathy, and help, as well as the truth spoken in love. I never forget going to a Christian conference put on by Focus on the Family some years ago in Ontario with another pastor. And one of the conference speakers was A lesbian who told the story of being transformed into a new creation in Jesus Christ. And this was probably the hundredth time she told her testimony at a conference. Yet she couldn't tell it without emotion. She used Wesley's beautiful hymn. She talked about herself before conversion as fast bound in sin and nature's night. But then God had mercy on her. She quoted those beautiful lines. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed thee. And she's been following Christ ever since. Or if you're carrying that heavy yoke, you need rest. And I'd be glad to walk with you and to keep your struggle utterly confidential. Christ says to you, come and learn from me. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And you will find rest for your souls. So far we've seen that there are two parts to the freedom of the Seventh Commandment. There's the freedom of God preserving you from sin. There's the freedom of God redeeming you from sin. And there's one more angle, the freedom of God healing you from being sinned against. The power of God's grace and compassion also reaches the person who's been abused by others. And when you are taken advantage of, those wounds can go so very deep. Such people feel often so ashamed and dirty as if they are somehow to blame. And you confuse the shame of being sinned against with the shame of being a sinner in God's presence because they feel the same to you, but they're not in the eyes of God. Perhaps the person who took advantage of you in a sneaky way tried to put the blame back on you. That is the twisted, sick logic of abuse, and it is a lie. Maybe you've carried this burden for years without ever going to anyone for help. Maybe you didn't even realize that there's confidential, compassionate, Christ-centered help available. And some of the ladies of our Family Resource Committee would love to walk with you in this regard. and the liberating power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed also to such people this morning. You don't have to carry your burden alone. Jesus Christ says, Come and learn from me. Come all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls. Don't carry that burden alone. Find someone to walk with you. and to show you how Christ can redeem your painful memories and wipe away your shame. Do you know how often the Bible describes God as the one who heals the brokenhearted, as the one who comforts those who grieve? And don't stay silent if you've been sinned against either. Find someone you can trust. You know, that's so important to liberty, not just for yourself, but also for the person who's abusing you, because almost always someone who abuses someone is going to take advantage of others. and is a repeat offender. And unless he or she is held accountable and stopped, in most cases it will happen to someone else too. We need to thank God that we live in a country where abuse is against the law and we should honor that law by reporting those who abuse and by saying it's godly to do that. It is right. And if someone says, then you're ripping apart the family. No, you're blaming the wrong person. The person who ripped apart the family was the person who did it in the first place. Don't start with putting a guilt trip on the abused. It's 100% the responsibility of the abuser. And I thank God that we live in a nation where abusers are put in jail. And don't think you're the only one. Because you're probably not. And if you get that person reported, they can be stopped from doing to others what they have done to you. That is our liberty congregation. We need to see that the seventh commandment is full of this liberty as proclaimed in Jesus Christ. There's another beautiful example of this in Luke 7. Jesus is eating in the house of a Pharisee named Simon, and there they are laying on couches with their feet away from the dinner table, laying on their sides. And during the meal, a woman known in the whole city for being a sinner, which in those days meant to sin against the seventh commandment, comes in and she'd heard the preaching of the gospel from the lips of Jesus Christ. about the sinfulness of sin and the necessity of repentance and the rich provisions of mercy and comfort for the brokenhearted. And her heart has been transformed by the gospel. And as always. Those who experience the redeeming grace of God love Christ in return. She's so overwhelmed with the glorious liberating power of the gospel that she breaks a costly alabaster flask of fragrant oil and anoints the feet of Jesus and wipes it clean with her hair. And Jesus' response illustrates just how true his words are. Come learn of me, for I am meek and lowly and you will find rest for your souls. He says to her, your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. And that is how we can conclude this treatment of the seventh commandment. And it's possible because Jesus Christ is central to this commandment. The sinfulness of sin against this commandment is that it abuses the temple and body of Christ. The beauty of the Seventh Commandment is that it is meant to be a vivid parable illustrating the glory of knowing God through Jesus Christ. The solution to repenting of sin against this commandment is to put on Jesus Christ. And the liberty of the Seventh Commandment, when Christ proclaims this, is that His blood and spirit can preserve you, redeem you, and heal you, and tell you, Go in peace. When you think of all of this, how can you do anything else and sing? Isn't this why David wrote a number of Psalms after his sins with Bathsheba? Think of Psalm 32. There again, the compassion and grace of Jesus Christ sparkles. It sparkles in the heavy hand of David as long as he refused to confess. It sparkles in the gracious forgiveness when he did come clean. It sparkles in the instruction that God promises to protect and guide David in the future. It sparkles with the eye of God on David, with my eye upon you. God says, I will make you know my counsel. That is what God says to you at the conclusion of this series. If you have found freedom at the feet of Jesus Christ, then remember his eye is on you. To the sinner, that's a terror and an irritation. It's as if, to use George Orwell's words, the ultimate example of big brother watching. But after tasting mercy, how can you see it as anything less than joy? Because Christ's eye is on you, for they are the eyes of a saint. He who bled and died on the cross to save me from my sins, who watches over me to preserve, redeem, and heal me in the future. And if that's who He's become to you through these sermons, you have reason to sing about how blessed you are to have such a Savior. Let us do that now together. Amen. you. ♪ And pray before Him ♪ ♪ Who prayed holy hour ♪ ♪ Before the final day ♪ ♪ And He, through the hour of deliverance ♪ I am ill, beguiled. I pray for heaven's peace. ♪ And when I hold my head up high ♪ ♪ My name up above the earth ♪ ♪ When I confess my sin ♪ The world, if one shall reason, Nor God their heart do fear. How great Thou art. Let us pray. How beautiful, O Lord, that the Psalms use the very same word, illustrating again how sexuality is a parable of grace. When the very same word is used, let your wife enrapture you. And then it says, Psalms of thy salvation, my heart with rapture, thrill, greatest joy. How desperately we need that as sinners in a world that has completely lost it. in our culture when it comes to this subject. A world of bondage and misery and heartbreak. How much thy law is designed to save us from ourselves and from each other. Lord, we give thanks for the glory of thy word and its power. And we pray, Lord, that each one of us may know that freedom, whether it needs to come by preservation, redemption, or healing, that each one of us may find the freedom in Jesus Christ that we need with our hearts in this present world. We pray in particular for our singles and our young people. The time of life when temptation is the hardest to defeat in a world that tells them that there's no need to defeat it, to just go ahead and do it. Oh God, preserve them. redeem them, heal them, purify their thinking and their hearts from out of this passage, out of thy word. And Lord, we pray for that young person who perhaps has continually thought that God is just being mean and sour and too strict and robbing us of our pleasures. Open their eyes that they may see that nothing could be further from the truth. that God gives his law to guard our pleasures. We pray, guard our hearts and our homes. Some of us have a heavy heart when we think of a family member who has declared themselves to be gay or lesbian. What a heartbreak that can be, too, for a family circle. Lord, give wisdom and insight and compassion to know how to speak the truth and yet to do so with a gentle, kind heart and tone. Granted, in our congregation, too, there would be found people liberated to give a testimony like Joe Dallas and Rosario Butterfield and many others. We pray, glorify Thy grace in us as a congregation. in the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We ask it in His name.