This will be in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 5 and I'll begin reading at verse 27 to 32. Verse 27, you have heard that it was said by them of old, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whoever looketh on a woman to lust after her have committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that only one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you, whoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, commiteth adultery. Shall we pray? Loving Father, we do ask your blessing upon your word this morning, and as we look at this topic, And of the words which Jesus says concerning this very serious matter, we pray, Father, that you will help us to understand those things that relate to our own lives, as well as the people around us in this area of marriage. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, as we look at this passage this morning, I'm first of all entitled it Living the Mind of Christ. But since I've had a chance to think about it, perhaps we should add another subtitle to this. And I'm calling it Secularization Leads to an Indulgent Society. Secularization Leads to an Indulgent Society. I think that's what we see when we consider where we are in the world today. Of course, we know that the society in which Jesus was talking to the people around him, the Judaistic people, They were very familiar with the law of God, the Ten Commandments, if you will, the Mosaic Covenant. They knew what it was to break the commandments of God. And yet we find, of course, that the ruling religious people of the day, namely the Pharisees and Sadducees and Yes, we suppose even the political element, the Herodians and the various other groups which had some political say on things. We know that there was a great deal of discrepancy between the letter of the law and what actually took place. That is, the Pharisees may have believed very ardently that it was wrong to commit the literal act of adultery, that is, to commit the overact. But of course we find that in Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, he goes beyond just simply the literal, and he says, well, what is it that applies to the heart of man? And how is it that man is carrying out those things in his heart? And so we find that here in this passage, Jesus says, but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And so Jesus goes beyond simply the external act and says, therefore, thoughts lead to deeds. And so we find that the ministry of which Jesus decidedly wanted to teach to the people on the Sermon on the Mount was that it wasn't enough simply to obey the law in the literal sense. one must believe the law of God, in other words, the word of God, and seek to live out the word of God in one's heart and life. And this is more to the intent to which Jesus wanted to teach. Where are we today in the world? Well, we find there is a secularization or humanization of society which is going on. which it seems that even in our short lifespan to which you and I have lived, we find that there's been a diverse and great cultural change in our society. We've already alluded to that because we have many times referred to the fact that things have changed, and they change quite dramatically. And in that change of our secularization of society, we find with it comes a great deal of baggage. And one of the things that we of course see is that the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh seems to be a very prominent thing in our society today. Whereas modesty might have curtailed much of that in time past, we find that we live in a very immodest society today. And so with that secularization, which has taken place, we find there is no lack of the lust of the eyes or the lust of the flesh, which seems to permeate our society. And so how difficult is it for people to keep from looking and wanting the very thing that they see, which of course leads them down a path which can cause a great deal of trouble for them personally. An example of that in our society, of course, is that today we have lists of people which is mandated by the court system who have in some way sexually assaulted or committed some kind of abuse to others. And this is on public record. By the way, I've never gone to the website to look up anybody's name, nor do I care to. But if you wanted to do that, you could go to a website someplace, some government website, I suppose, and there you could run down perhaps a whole list of people in various counties or towns or states, wherever you wanted to look them up, and you could find who was living where, and perhaps even they say what crimes they committed, I don't know. But this is most unusual, and it is part of our society today. And I don't know about you, but I'm greatly appalled by the whole issue, to tell you the truth. And we see this taking place at an alarming rate, it appears. And we wonder why all of these people have perpetrated these crimes. Not to say that, of course, this is anything brand new. I mean, certainly sexual crimes have been going on for a very long time. whether they be abuses or molestation or rape or something else. We know that this has gone on for many years. But in our society today, it appears that there is no restraint other than the law which says you cannot commit these kinds of crimes. And if you do, you'll either be imprisoned or you will have some kind of probationary term or community service or you will find your name on some kind of a list somewhere. And so it is a great concern in our society. The word phrase here in this passage, verse 28, but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her. That whole phrase has to do with this word which is given here in the original language and what it means is this, to set the heart upon and to long for, to covet, to desire, and to lust after. Now that pretty much covers it and probably if we would be honest about this this morning we would say it probably would cover just about every commercial that is on television today. that commercials and public advertising, the kinds of media which are used to sell products and things, all centered upon to set your heart upon something, to long for something, to covet something, to desire something, or to lust after something. Whether they come right out and name the very thing which is the greatest violation, perhaps, of somebody's personal right, such as some kind of a sexual sin, is beside the point. We find that lust and desire is used to sell most everything today. And so here it is, the secularization of our society leads to an indulgent society. It leads to an indulgent society. And we have a very indulgent society, of course. And as we consider that, we find that Jesus said that that is not the avenue we are to pursue. We are not to pursue that. And Christians are affected by this kind of thing just as much as anybody else in the world, at least on the surface. And now the struggle, of course, comes in what happens internally. And we find that that is a struggle for everybody, whether one is a Christian or one is not a Christian. Thomas Hewis made this comment, he says, quote, every unchaste desire in the heart is adultery in the sight of God, unquote. Adam Clarke made this comment, quote, the verb epinudo is undoubtedly used here by our Lord in the sense of coveting through the influence of impure desire. Well, of course, there are many people who comment upon these various subjects, but What does the Bible say about the whole subject of coveting? Well, of course we know that the word of God says thou shall not covet. And we find that there are other passages which give us a true sense of how we are to respond to these kinds of things. And so secondly, the offense of sin should cause us to sanctify our body and our heart unto God. The offense of sin should cause us to sanctify our body and heart unto God. Now, how do we go about doing that? You say, well, I haven't really considered adultery, and I didn't know that to think about something was to do the thing that I'm thinking about. But I guess perhaps when it hits really home to us is when we find that the thing becomes uncontrollable. There's a lot said today about addictions, and addictions seem to be in just about every facet of our life. Whether it's food, or whether it's a physical addiction, or whether it's drug addiction, or sexual addictions, everything can carry with it some sense of addiction. And remember, I'm talking about the secularization of society that leads to an indulgent society. what has caused so many addictions in our society, but it has to be traced back to some extent to society itself and what it covets, what it lusts after, what it wants to enjoy, if you will, and to take in as something that they, quote unquote, deserve. I mean, that seems to be one of the driving forces behind much of the advertising, too, or as well, is to say, well, you deserve this. And so they'll tell you, you deserve a new car, you deserve a new house, you deserve this beautiful dessert to eat, you deserve this luscious looking hamburger that never looks the same when you come to buy it, you deserve a big plate of fries, you deserve a cup of coffee, and the most decadent cup of coffee that you can possibly get. We won't go into women's apparel and men's clothing and stuff like that because we know, well, that's another whole issue. But you deserve something, you see. And when people seem to grab a hold of that and think, well, this is my right, this is something I really am supposed to have, then it opens up a avenue for people to be addicted to something. and they begin to indulge themselves in that something. Secularization leads to an indulgent society. What was they doing in the day which Jesus was speaking to the people on the Sermon on the Mount. But we can only imagine what kind of indulgence they found in that society and culture. We'd have to do a little bit of research on customs and manners in the Bible to find that out. But you can believe that there was plenty to indulge in, even in that society as well. And of course Jesus picked these two topics which became very much important to the people of his own day because they were part of the commandments of God. As Eric has informed us, the commandments of God were thrown out of the school a long time ago now. And so society has tossed out the window much of what was in itself a restraint. the restraint of sin is due to the ministry or teaching or preaching or proclamation or public awareness of what the Word of God has to say about subjects. about how we live. That is, of course, what the whole Ten Commandments was all about. I recently saw an article, I think it was in Arkansas, that they had recently put a large Ten Commandments monument on a public ground. This was put up by the government, I assume, in Arkansas. And it was just erected not too long ago, according to the article. And somebody came along and somehow toppled the marble monument over and it would shatter it in pieces. And of course, they wrote up an article how this was just done. Well, the public has a great disdain and hatred for the word of God, for the commandments of God. And whether this person is just a random act or whether there is a great deal, a number of people who also hate the idea of the Ten Commandments being on public grounds, I can't fully say, but there seems to be a great deal of of hatred toward the commandments of God. For them to be ripped out of the public school, to be taken out of public grounds, and of course we've all heard various reports of how that they've taken them out of courts and those kinds of things. So it causes us to be reminded that the secularization of society leads to an indulgence society. The restraints are being removed. And the restraint is the preaching and teaching of the word of God. That is the restraint, as God's Word is allowed to be preached. Remember, God's Word civilizes people, it moralizes people, and it saves people. But wherever the Gospel isn't allowed to be preached, we find the restraint is removed, and people in society tend to live out their lives without any restraint except as the consciousness of God may be upon their hearts. And we find this true. In the second area, the offense of sin should cause us to sanctify our body and our heart to God. In Romans chapter 8 and verse 13 it says, For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify or kill or destroy the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live. Now, of course, it's teaching a contrast between one and the other. To live after the flesh is to destroy the body. And spiritually, one could lead to spiritual death as well, spiritual destruction. And Jesus himself pointed this out. He said, it's better that you cut off your hand if it truly is going to lead you to hell than to go to hell, basically. And he would say, well, it's better that you lose an eye than that you go to hell. I mean, hell is not a very good place to go. And he is using an extreme, of course, extreme example to say, if you don't change your ways, you're going to go to hell. Because the teaching of the commandments of God was to correct the sin of the people and teach them. In other words, it was given as a restraint from sin. Yes, it was to teach them the holy law of God, but it was to restrain them from acts of sin. And he says, you can't do that just by saying, oh, I'm OK. I go to church, so that must mean I'm going to go to heaven. That doesn't quite work. Because God says that you must worship him in spirit and in truth. you must know God by faith. And so it isn't enough just to go to church. Well, it isn't enough just to say, I've never committed adultery. That isn't enough because you see, the heart is capable of doing the thing that you haven't done by overact. And so Jesus says, you got to consider the heart condition. Your heart condition is important. And so he brings that out here. And so if one lives after the flesh, and we find people in our society today living after the flesh in great droves. Everybody wants to experience everything they can experience after the flesh. And so we find people doing that. But it leads to spiritual death. at least a spiritual death and the wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life, but the wages of sin is death. Ephesians 4.22 says that she put off concerning the former manner of life the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts. Again, the passage is saying, in effect, he says, the manner of life to which an indulgent society gravitates The secularization of an indulgent society feeds the old person, the old sinful part of our nature. It feeds it. That's where people are today. They're feeding the old sinful part of the nature. In fact, many psychologists say, oh well, an affair or two is good for the marriage. Psychologists, well, what do they know? Well, they are part of the secularization that leads to an indulgent society. All we have to do is pick up some of these psychologists and read them, some of these humanistic psychologists, and you will find out very quickly what they are purporting. And so it is that society is headed in that direction at an alarming rate. And it is because of deceitful lust. Now, let us remember what Jesus said about that. To look on a woman and to lust after her is to commit the very thing. See, that is deceitful lust. The lusts are then deceitful. To lust after something in this sense is deceitful. It deceives us. Remember Eve in the Garden of Eden? We do remember her, don't we? And she was somehow affected by the serpent, as it is referred to there in the Bible, as the serpent. And what happened? Well, it says that the serpent beguiled her, beguiled her. And another word for beguiling there is to seduce her. The serpent seduced her in the sense of portraying to her that to partake of what God said she should not partake of was okay. And to feed her that information, you deserve it. This is something you can enjoy. Don't you desire this? Let's see, it must be something like that in a commercial today. And they continue to use these words which tempt and test the mind and heart of people that they will become more indulgent. to buy and to consume the thing that they are selling. And so Eve was beguiled by Satan. In other words, deceitful lusts were stirred up in her thinking and in her heart. And she also said to her husband, well, I was told that this was okay, we should eat it, we should enjoy it. It's something that is good for food, that it is good to look at, and why shouldn't we then take one of these forbidden fruit and eat it, try it? And Adam says, yeah, let's go ahead. Let's do that. So we can't let Adam off the hook, can we? We can't blame everything on Eve. So it is that the deceitful lusts are very much a part of what's going on here in the world today. Ephesians 4.23 says, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is kind of getting back to the original topic here, which is living the mind of Christ. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Well, as believers we know that we are to be renewed in the spirit of the mind. The mind that is in Christ. And so, to be renewed is, we get that sense, well, it's somehow that it's happening all over again. Yes, I was renewed, but now I need to be renewed in it. I need to have a new infusion of this truth of the Word of God. Well, you know, as far as Christians are concerned, we can't just read the verse once and never go back to it. We have a problem. We have something called Alzheimer's of the Bible. We forget it too quick. You know, we commonly think about Alzheimer's and people kind of lose their memory, don't know who the people are around them, or certain events or activities, they live in the past and so forth. Well, as far as Christians are concerned, we need to have a renewing of the mind, a constant renewing of the mind. And so it is, we are told to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, the mind that God has given to us in Christ. And the next verse says, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. So what is the spirit of the mind? Righteousness and true holiness. the righteousness and true holiness of God in our hearts. That's Ephesians 4, 22 to 24. And so that's how we can combat it. But how can the world combat something that they cannot know unless they know Christ themselves? It's very difficult, isn't it? especially when the secularization of society is pushing it, is just feeding it to people constantly. People are very vulnerable. As is often said, man is his own worst enemy. We find that the thing that man, in this case, government, or the law, says you need to be criminalized for if you do it, is the very thing that secularization of society pushes. That's why we see the legalization of marijuana when the law has for so long said, oh no, this is against the law. But now society, you see the secularization of society says, well, let's make it legal. Because then the government gets a hold of that and says, well, we can tax it. And the government said, well, we can regulate it. And of course, nobody is going to smoke it and drive down the road, are they? Oh, no, they would never do that. And then, of course, we really don't see state-run liquor stores beside the highway, do we? Selling liquor all week long, and then saying, well, You need to be put in jail because you had your blood alcohol level too high after you got done drinking. And you violated somebody else's right by driving down the road and maybe endangering others or yourself. Oh, now we got to put you in jail. I'm sorry. The secularization of society leads to an indulgent society. Now, you know, it's, I know perhaps it's kind of, well, to bring out all the negatives, you know, I suppose, you know, that's really not fair. There must be something good about this picture. But since I am here to preach what the Bible is saying and compare this whole scenario to what Jesus said to those on the Sermon on the Mount, I don't have to bring out the other side. I'm just trying to point out here that Jesus was telling the people of his own day, there is a problem here. The law is there. God's law is higher than man's law. And you must pay attention to God's law. Because if you do not pay attention to God's law, then you may violate God's law in your heart. And when you do, you may be so desperate that you may have to cut off your hand or you may have to pluck out an eye. Otherwise, you're going to go to hell. In other words, you may have to treat your condition in a very serious manner or else the consequences are going to catch up with you. And only God can fix the consequences. Only a true and right relationship with God is going to fix the consequences. Because hell is a very hot place. And it's a place of judgment. And it's not some place we want to go. In 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19 says, What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and you are not your own? And of course the next verse says, You are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which belong to God. In other words, we are told that the body needs to be sanctified by effort. Yes, through the word of God and prayer, through the renewing of our mind after righteousness and true holiness, but we need to look away from much of what is the world is selling us. In other words, the secularization of society leads to an indulgent society. And the more that we allow that in our own lives, the more we will allow the liberty to think what we want to think. And what is it they usually say, what you eat is what you will become. Well, what you think is what you'll become as well. In that sense, if you think on those things which are impure and unholy, which are lustful and given over to sinful desires, eventually they'll come out somewhere. Jesus teaches, secondly here, and I only have a couple of minutes left to touch upon it. He teaches against divorce as a violation against marriage. Here in verse 20, actually verse 30, Excuse me, verse 31. It hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her, that is divorce committed adultery. Now, what was the problem during the day in which Jesus was living? Again, they were taking the law and they were using it to their own advantage. And a couple of examples of this. I'll begin by reading the passage in Deuteronomy 24.1. It says, When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find No favor in his eyes, because he had found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house. Moses allowed the writing of the divorcement because of the hardness of their hearts. But what were they doing in Jesus' day? Rabbi, a certain rabbi wrote these words concerning the excess and abuse. He says, quote, if any man saw a woman handsomer or more beautiful than his own wife, he might put his wife away, because it is said in the law, if she find not favor in his eyes." In other words, they were using the very law that God intended for good, and they were using it to create an abuse against their wife if they didn't particularly like her for some reason. Josephus, who was a historian of, I'm not sure just exactly, probably sometime after the time of Christ, I'm not sure that he was at the time of Christ, but he was in that vicinity. Josephus, a celebrated Jewish historian, in his life tells us, with the most coolness and indifference, quote, About this time, I put away my wife who had borne me three children, not being pleased with her manners." I only give those examples to show the mindset of a culture which does not take seriously the thing that God has given to guide morally, spiritually, and ethically the people of God. Well, I don't know, I don't think people even bother to get divorces today because they don't even bother to get married to begin with. And if they do, they usually wait five years and have three children and then they may decide to get married. So I don't know, I guess maybe things have changed. Not to say that everybody follows that pattern but, We know that it is a popular trend in our society. But Jesus said, I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife's saving for the cause of fornication, in other words, he must have just cause, and it can't just be any cause, it must be for infidelity. Cause is her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commit adultery. And so, saving for the cause of fornication, Jesus says, no. You're all wrong, he says. What you're doing is wrong. Who is Jesus talking to? Well, he was talking to the secularized, religious, though it be, albeit religious, society of his own day. which didn't mind bending the Mosaic law to suit its own rule. And I think perhaps we can see enough application of that in our own time. There is enough people who are willing to bend the moral law of God and say, oh, well, that's old hat, that's old fashioned, doesn't matter anymore. We can live any way we want to. I don't have to have a piece of paper, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so what do they do through the secularization of their own thinking toward God and in society? It leads to an indulgent society and one which desires and lusts after things which create problems. Well, I don't have time to read the passage and I'll just give it to you this way. Let the husband love his wife as Christ loved the church and see that the wife reverence her husband. That is the upshot of Ephesians chapter 5 in that passage that has to do with husbands and wives love your wives. husband, love your wives. Husbands love your wives and wives see that they reverence their husband. But you can read the passage and you can see very easily that for the believer there is to be a true sense of relationship in the marriage and one which was to love and to care for the spouse. Let us look to the Lord in prayer. Loving Father, we thank you for your thoughts this morning on this subject and how the Lord Jesus even touched upon these things. Push the boundary and let them know that the literal law must be upheld by the true heart which believes and trusts in God. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.