turn to Matthew chapter 5, I want us to read verse 17 through verse 20 to give us again Christ's words about His commands and how we live under those commands as a believer. And then we're going to jump up to verse 27. Matthew chapter 5 verse 17, do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, verse 27. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it's better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of those parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. It was said, whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the reason of unchastity makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. May the Lord add his blessing to his word as we look at those two issues of purity and faithfulness. You join me in prayer. Father, what a great joy and privilege to come into your house and to approach your throne and to be able to call you our heavenly father. What a gift that you have given us to be called the children of God. What love you have shown. Oh, God, what an example. to us fallen creatures who you have rescued and placed in Christ, that we have the privilege of following in your footsteps and raising children that you have given us. Lord, we thank you for the gift of life. We thank you for godly wives who come alongside us And Lord, who give us the strength and the wherewithal to, in some small way, emulate our heavenly Father. Lord, we pray this day for fathers all over this world that relationships might be restored. Father, that walls might be broken down. Lord, that the name of Christ might be lifted high. Lord, in this place especially, we pray that you would give us a small glimpse of what we have in Christ, that we might glorify you as we gather together with family, as we hear your word today, Lord. May we know truly what it is to be forgiven, to be in the presence of Almighty God, Father, may your mercy, may your love, may your very presence, Lord, be keenly felt today. We pray that you'd work a mighty work here and, Lord, everywhere that your name is lifted high, that the gospel is preached. Thank you for the gift of this place and this day. Father, we lift up our Brother John, to you today, and we pray that you might fill him, Lord, with your spirit and that as he preaches, Father, that your power and that your unction might be upon him, that again, Lord, we might receive what you have for us and that Christ may be glorified. For we ask it in his name and for his sake. Amen. Well, I want us to turn again to that Sermon on the Mount passage where Christ is going through a series of examples of God's commands. And we have six of them. We're going to take two of them this morning. Six examples of how living under the rule of Christ's grace, living in the realm of grace that Paul speaks of in Romans 5 and 6, how are those who are dead to sin to wake up every day and present themselves alive to God and their bodies as an instrument of righteousness. Well, how does that look specifically? How does the Christian have a righteousness that is far superior to the Pharisees? Because obviously in this passage it's not merely speaking of justification, that we are made right by Christ's death, but also the transformation of our lifestyles, that we live differently than the Pharisee. And in each of these examples, we have some help in knowing how to approach God's commands. Now, I want to just say personally that in this section that we're going to look at today, we're going to look at two areas in which our culture has particularly self-destructed. Sexual purity and marriage, or we would say sexual impurity and frivolous divorce. And at the beginning of the week, looking at the passage and beginning to pray and think about it, really I have not looked forward to this Sunday at all because these themes are so heartbreaking. I can't imagine any family in the church that isn't impacted by some sexual sin, your sexual impurity, your family member's sexual impurity, or by frivolous divorce. And the far-reaching consequences, not just your life, but those that you love that are around you, and not just those that are around you, but those that are watching you as you claim to be a Christian, and not just them, but generation after generation, how these two areas Treated carelessly, even by true Christians, have become what Sinclair Ferguson called a door through which many have walked to their self-destruction. Many of you. are even now devoting a great deal of your life to trying to help repair the destruction that sexual impurity and divorce have wreaked on people that you're caring for. So you've brought people into your home, into your life, and you see that things that happened in their lives as they were growing up or happened in their homes, you see that the constant impact upon them And you labor by the grace of God to be some small part of that healing process. So, all of that to say, it is just such a sad topic in our day because of the prevalence of it. Now, that was the beginning of the week, okay? End of the week. Yesterday, I was reviewing the passage again, and it really just struck me, I've got this all backward as a Christian. Yes, we live in a day where perversity and selfishness and marriage have reached, you know, in a sense, new lows for our nation in some ways. And yes, we see the sad impact of that even in the churches. But what a kindness of God to give us perfect commands, perfect laws, to lay before our feet a path of happiness and really of freedom. And what a kindness of God to send his son, the king, to clarify exactly what God wants and what God commands with regard to purity of heart and mind and faithfulness in our marriages. And how kind it is that God didn't just send his son to clarify that 2,000 years ago, but has recorded that in Scripture for you and me. and given us his spirit to teach us and given us each other to walk alongside one another and to be there to help those that want to be obedient. So I think that the passage really could be approached and actually in a very hopeful way. And it's not just that God has given us this so that we can walk a path of safety and happiness, but think of the impact on our world. If we live in an age where things are growing darker and darker in the area of sexuality and marriage, then you understand that we are living in an age where you ought to shine brighter and brighter, that the happy, satisfied soul turning its back on the lies of temptation waking up each morning and consecrating ourselves if you're married again to this relationship, this commitment of love between the two of you, that clean and happy marriages, clean and happy individual believers. We ought to be what Paul says we ought to be, that we are a light in a crooked and perverse generation. Or as Jesus says earlier in this sermon on the mountain, that you are the light of the world, not just Christ, but you as they see Christ reflected in you. So all that to say, I think this really is, if approached in the right way, it really is a sweet gift of the Lord. And it does give us the right response to the moral drift in our own day, which is alarming. It is so easy to complain that it's getting darker and darker in the room, you know. But as a Christian, you know where the light switch is. As a Christian, you are the light. So to walk so, so closely to this infinitely satisfying king and to trust him enough to lay your personal momentary desires in the dust and follow his desires as expressed in his word. The Christian is the answer to the cultural perversity and the selfishness in marriage. And in case we have any question about that, just think of the New Testament. The Roman culture was rife with sexual perversity, so much so that the Romans would have fully expected men and women to constantly be engaged in extramarital sex and having mistresses and boyfriends on the side. It was just accepted. That's part of marriage, that you're going to be unfaithful. And the Christians saved out of that culture, but left in the middle of that culture, become a bright light to show the people what God really intends. And why is that so much better than what the world promises? So we're going to look at these two things. purity of heart and faithfulness in marriage. And we're going to look at them both this morning for two reasons. Normally, we've been taking one at a time. One reason is there is an obvious link between the breakdown of marriage and the impurity of heart that can get rooted in you if you're not careful. But the second is in dealing with the issues of marriage, frivolous divorce, biblical reasons for divorce, and right and wrong remarriage. A few years ago, the church went through this on a Wednesday evening, through multiple weeks of studying this, and Chuck led us through that, and he put together a document for the church which kind of sums all of what the Bible says about that, and the best understanding we have if you pull all those verses together. So if you want that document, all you have to do is just shoot me a text. And I'll get Chuck to send you that document in an email. But we are not going to spend much time on the issue of the marriage side because of that. So let's look at the question this morning. How does living in the realm of grace transform your choices with regard to purity in your imagination and faithfulness in your marriage. Well, again, in Matthew 5, we find that Christ starts by saying, you have heard that it's been said, and he is not contrasting what he says with what Moses says. He quotes from the Old Testament, he quotes from the Ten Commandments. You've heard that it's been said, you shall not commit adultery. What Christ is doing is contrasting the Jewish traditions that had snuck in under Bible phrases and allowed there to be a misunderstanding of what God really wants from his people. And then he deals with the issue of marriage. And again, he quotes, and here from Deuteronomy 24, when he says, and you've heard that Moses said that if you're going to get a divorce, you need to give a certificate. It needs to be gone about it in a legal way. And you've misunderstood both of these things. Now, since we're not going to be focusing on the marriage part, I do want to stop and just hit a few high points before we go on to the issue of purity in our thought life. John Stott, the commentator, takes this passage, and then he takes the passage in Matthew chapter 19. If you have your Bible, you can turn there. And in Matthew 19, verses 7 through 9, actually verses 3 through 9, we find Christ dealing again with the issue of marriage and divorce and remarriage. as the Pharisees are really pressing him with questions to try to trip him up. So I want to just mention Stott's main points here, okay, to kind of set this picture of how Christ approaches this matter. First main point is this. The Pharisees, in dealing with Christ about marriage and divorce, are always occupied or preoccupied With the question of grounds for divorce, when can I get a divorce? When is it legal? Now, listen, any time you come to the scriptures with the question, how close can I get to what appears to be a sin, but it not to be a sin? You know that something is wrong in your soul. They have, in Matthew 19 and then here in Matthew 5, they have the designer of marriage in the flesh. Thousands of years, millions of human marriages, everyone has their own ideas. God is here. And they could have asked Him anything about marriage. Things like this, Jesus, God-man. creator of marriage. Marriage can be difficult for us as selfish people. Marriage can be difficult for sinners. How does what you're bringing change the way we do marriage? But instead, Matthew 19, they say this, verse 3, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? Later in Matthew 19, verse 7, they say, Why then did Moses, they said to him, why then did Moses command that we should give a certificate of divorce and send the wife away? In both these sets of questions, it's clear that the Pharisees are not asking the God who created marriage, how do you want us to do this? And how does the gospel change the way I treat my spouse? But rather, okay, when it's hard, when do I get to get out? And they misunderstand, and the second thing we notice here is they warp these passages calling Moses' provision in the Old Testament law, saying a man may put a wife away for a very specific reason. They turn that provision into a command. Why does Moses command us to put our wife away for uncleanness? Christ calls it a concession, not a command, but a concession to the hardness of their hearts. In other words, the Pharisees are always preoccupied with when can we get rid of our wives, all right, if we don't like them. And Jesus is preoccupied with how marriage ought to be. The Pharisees are calling divorce a command. Jesus is saying the only reason divorce is allowed is because you have hard hearts. And if God did not restrain your selfish hearts, you would you would terminate your marriages so freely and destroy people. In Matthew 19, Jesus points out, he answers their question about, is it lawful to divorce for any reason at all? You notice that he actually does not answer the question in verses 3 through 6. Instead, he gives them A statement that's related to the question, but doesn't answer the question. And that is, he doesn't answer them the question, so when can we get a divorce? He goes back to the initial plans. Do you not know, he says, why God originally created marriage? And he explains what it really is all about. When they ask about giving a command, he points out that that was given as a concession to the hardness of their heart. Now, let me go back to Deuteronomy 24 quickly. In Deuteronomy 24, where Jesus is talking about in the Sermon on the Mount, you've heard that it was said that you're to give her a certificate of divorce. What in the world was it talking about? In Deuteronomy 24, verses 1 through 4, and you don't have to turn there because we're not going to spend long, Moses gives them certain laws to restrain frivolous divorce. And here's the situation. If a man finds uncleanness, there's the question. If he finds uncleanness in his wife, something that's really offensive, he may put her away for that reason. He may divorce her. But if he divorces her, it has to be done legally and not on the sly. And then he goes on to say that if that woman then remarries, And that next husband also divorces her or he dies. She's not allowed to go back to the original husband. And the whole point is you can't get mad at your wife and break up and kick her out of the house. And then a few months later, bring her back and then get mad at your wife and kick her out. It's meant to restrain this whole issue of divorce. Now, the problem is the Pharisees by this time taught that the right application of Moses's law in Deuteronomy 24, if You see there's a matter of uncleanness. They translated that as if she's displeasing in your eyes, and that came eventually to mean if there is something about your wife that you fundamentally don't like so much so that your heart has grown cold to her, you may legally get rid of her. even to the point that if you did not, don't joke, all right, this is in the early Jewish documents, even if you didn't like her cooking. You know, I suppose that you would give her a few chances, buy her a few cookbooks, but if she didn't get better, out she goes. And you're allowed to do that, they said, because of what Moses said, as long as you make it legal. Do you see what Christ is counteracting here? The Jews have, twisted the Word of God so that they have narrowed the description of sexual impurity to mean only physical adultery and not to include your thought life. Just don't get caught physically acting out adultery. And they have broadened the sphere of obedience to include just about anything. As long as you don't, if there's something about your wife you don't really like, you can put her away, and then you can get remarried. In a sense, they dealt with the whole issue of adulterous hearts by making it so easy to get rid of your wife that you could go pick up a girlfriend immediately, and the only reason you had to give was there was something about her you didn't like. So obviously, when Christ talks to the people about this, he deals with the fact that this is completely the wrong approach. In fact, he says, God takes this so seriously that if you are to indulge in your thoughts, sexual, impure thoughts toward another person, God sees it as tantamount, as equal to adultery, even though it was only in your mind. Well, how are we to keep our minds pure, guard our relationships? There's so many things here we could say. Let me just give you a series of principles. And maybe we could say it like this. When the temptation comes. to get you to focus on someone else in a wrong way, in an impure way, to covet someone else's marriage, someone else's spouse. And that doesn't just include physical lust and the act of adultery in your imagination. It could include emotional lust. I mean, sadly, we are seeing as the culture declines that even ladies, which we would have for some time have thought really aren't bothered by this as much as the men, that even ladies are being tempted to look at things and there to be physical, sexual lust. But it does include emotional lust. It includes both. A man may look at someone else and say, I deserve a person that looks like that. And the wife may look at someone else and say, I deserve a husband that would love me like that. And they're both breaking God's command. They're both indulging in the mind thoughts that God doesn't allow outwardly. And if God condemns an activity outwardly, you must understand that He condemns the imagination of it inwardly. So when temptation comes and says, there is something better for you out there, you deserve it, you can have it. You must stop and remember a few things. Let me give you five. First, remember that you are listening to the voice of the King in this passage. That is, this is not a counselor who's giving you advice on how to have a happy marriage or how to have a clean life. It is the co-ruler of the universe, the creator and sustainer, who is now exalted to the right hand of the Father, who is the Lord And what he says in these simple words in this passage, if you allow your eyes to look and your mind to imagine in ways that are sexually impure, then you have sinned against God. Everything he says here overrules anything else that we've ever heard. Years ago, when I first became a Christian, The first summer after my conversion, I was in college, I went on a BSU summer missionary group, Baptist Student Union. So I was part of a traveling team and I was the speaker. And so we had like a singer and a children's events and, you know, and we had like four or five of us. And I remember being at one place in the Northwest and meeting a guy who considered himself as a minister. And he did music. He had albums and CDs. And we were walking along one day together, and there was an attractive woman that walked by, and he was married, and he was an attractive guy, and he just turned and watched her. And then he turned back, and I think he could tell on my face I was a bit shocked. I was a baby Christian. And he said to me, you're allowed to window shop. It's all right. You're not allowed to window shop, are you? I mean, didn't he have Matthew 5? Would you say that? Would you say that to me? Pastor John, it's okay if I window shop. I mean, you don't have to tell my wife. You don't have to tell my husband. We would never say that, but would we do it? Are there the secret glances, the indulged imaginations of if only I had that person, my life would be better? Christ's words here Overrule what any parent has said or pastor or close friend. what any person in the church is actually doing, and by their example they're talking. If their words or examples conflict with Christ's statement about the seriousness of mental purity, heart purity, then you must ignore everything you've heard and seen from them and follow Christ. And it even overrules what you think is your right, your desire. Again, you know that the Jews had Christ there and they ask him all the wrong questions. Christ, God, man inventing marriage. We ought to go to him and ask him, how do I deal with it? I mean, these gifts are from God. Sexuality is a gift from God. Marriage is a gift from God. How do you want me to handle these? There's a marriage book that we often read and read through with young people who are headed to marriage. And it uses a great illustration in this book. It says, imagine a man comes up to you, a stranger, and he hands you a small little wooden box. And he says to you, inside this box is something. that can either bring amazing happiness or, if misused, it will destroy you. And he hands you the box and walks away. What would you do? And the only sensible thing to do is to chase after the guy that handed it to you and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean it could destroy me or bring happiness? Please explain. What am I supposed to do? What's in there? How am I supposed to do it? When God has given us sexuality and marriage, we ought to run to Him and say, whoa, God, wait. These gifts are wonderful, but the abuse of these gifts is destroying our whole world. How do you want us, how do you want us to respond to this? How do we use these gifts? So remember, you're listening to the voice of the King, second principle. Remember, when the temptation comes, stop, remember. that God's rule, God's command touches the thoughts and desires of your heart as much as your activity. We've mentioned this before. If it is wrong for you to do a thing, it is wrong for you to imagine doing a thing. Have you ever considered the gift of imagination? I mean, I don't see that God has given this to anything else in this earthly creation. In imagination, you have the ability effortlessly to create things and think on them and kind of in your mind, you can make them and you can turn them and consider them. You can make plans. You can consider the future and make wise choices. But because of that and sin entering in, your mind, your imagination can either be a golden cabinet or a filthy jail cell. Now, that's not original to me, but a writer in the 1700s talked about this. He said, your imagination is like a cabinet on the wall, a little wall cabinet, and it's made of pure gold. And you open it up and you only put in this cabinet your most precious things. And then at times you come, you know, and you get them out. And it's a delight to you. You look at the things that are in there, then you put them back. Is that your mind? your imagination, when you are left to yourself, left to your thoughts, your memories, your imagination, when you are lying in bed and between, I don't know how long, it always takes me a long time to fall asleep, but between the moment you put your head on the pillow and the moment you're asleep and it's just kind of quiet and you're left with your thoughts, Are your thoughts like a golden cabinet in which you have stored beautiful things from Christ and it's a joy? Or is it a prison cell where you have stored foul things? And even though now you do belong to Christ, you've stored up these foul things. And to be alone with your thoughts is torment. Because you're not only imprisoned, but you're surrounded by things that you don't want to touch you anymore. And you just keep avoiding them. And everything foul and befouling is there. Be careful with your imagination. It can either be a golden cabinet or a foul prison. Now, let me stop and say, Christ gives two pictures regarding how serious it is that we are careful with our thoughts. Just like with murder and harsh words, it would be easy to say murder is a pretty serious matter, but harsh words, come on, it's not that big a deal. Adultery is a serious matter, but a wrong glance A wrong imagination, that's not a big deal. So Christ gives, as with last week's principle, he gives illustrations to drive home the point of seriousness, he does in this week. He says, imagine two things. Now, for our purpose, and I don't want to be shocking for the purpose of being shocking, but I just don't know how to get it across to us without this. I want you to imagine the scene. Imagine that at the end of the service, everyone's going into the lunch line, and you make a beeline to the bathroom. And as you go in the bathroom, you hear someone in a stall. And they're in pain. And you walk by and the stall door is open. And there you see, in the men's bathroom, men, there you see one of your friends and he has something and he's jamming it up into his eye and he's gouging his eye out. And there's blood everywhere. And what would you do? You would say, what are you doing? And you'd call the ambulance and you'd grab his hand. Ladies, what if you went into the bathroom? Same kind of a scene. You hear someone in pain. You walk by, the door is open to the stall. You look down, there's blood all over the floor. And she has a knife and she's trying to cut her arm off. And every cut, she's crying out in pain. What would you do? Wash your hands and go out? You'd say, what are you doing? You'd call the ambulance. You'd grab the knife. The point Christ is making here is not self-mutilation. You can cut your hand off. You can cut both your hands off and take out both your eyes and you still have a sinful heart. The point is this. Sexual impurity, even in the imagination, is so serious that your response to it should be equally serious. It should appear extreme to those who don't understand the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of sin. who don't understand how dangerous it is to indulge this thing. So there ought to be in you a determination No matter how extreme it has to be, God, I will close down all avenues through which temptation comes to my soul, the eye, and I will close off all ways that I have in the past been known to express this hands, the deeds. So whether it's the way that temptation comes in through a glance or whether it's the way you act it out. Will you be as serious about it as Christ wants you to be? Now, think about it. If he would have said, all right, cut off an ear and a pinky toe. Well, I don't want to. I don't want to cut off an ear. And I don't think I could cut an ear or a pinky toe. I just couldn't do it. But an eye and the right hand, not the left hand, the right hand. These are things that we generally think of as, look, I really can't have a full life without these things. I kind of need my right hand. Left hand, OK, but I'm right handed. The point, I think, is this. When the world looks at the Christian. And you find that there are ways that the lies of lust are coming into your heart, into your marriage. Remove those open channels, those gates that are open, even if you have to have a life that the worldling looks at and says, how can you live without that? Man, you need that to be happy. Simple illustration. We have devices that we can see things that in previous generations, it would have been very difficult to see. pollute the imagination. And if you don't have them filtered or guarded in some way, because, how many times have I heard someone say, well, it slows my device down. Then it's like the world saying, man, how do you live with a phone that's slow? How do you live with a computer that's slow? How do you live with a computer that blocks those sites? I mean, I can't even do anything, we say. Pluck out your eye, cut off your hand if it's in any area that sin is making an inroad. Now, if we were to give a list of things that you're supposed to do, don't own a television, don't own internet access. If we gave this long list, it would be worthless. Lists like that are worthless if your heart's not in it. You go to the Lord Christian and ask him, help me to be, you know, painfully honest with you, God. What are the areas? What are the channels? What are the relationships? What are the events? What are the places that I find the old sin meeting me so frequently? And how can I deal with those decisively so as to guard my thoughts? Are you as serious about that as Christ? Well, let's go on. Next third principle, remember that Jesus' commands always include more than avoiding the really bad stuff. It includes really pursuing the good stuff. John Stott, who was a pastor in England, passed away a number of years ago, 20th century pastor, friend of Martin Lloyd-Jones. Stott is not a perfect commentator, but he is a really good commentator in some places. But in his book on the Sermon on the Mount, his chapter title for this section was this, Christians Avoiding Adultery and Divorce. And I think that that is a perfect picture of how not to approach it. Now, the rest of this stuff in this chapter was really good. Title stunk. Why? Is that all Christ came to give us? To make us a group of people who like the Pharisees? Hey, I never committed adultery. Outwardly. Hey, I'm still with the same person. When God gives us commands, they don't just point out what we're to avoid. They also point the path that we're to pursue. In other words, don't just avoid polluting things. Pursue pure things. Don't just avoid divorce. Pursue the cultivation of an intimate friendship with your spouse, no matter how long you've been married. When you look at the Bible, there are so many passages that deal with both of those, put away and grab hold of, and it takes both to resist temptation. I want to read you just a couple. I've only chosen a few for the sake of time. Romans 13, if you have your Bible, you can turn there. Romans 13, verse 12. Romans 13, verse 12. The night is almost gone. The day is near. Talking about the spiritual day, Christ's return. Therefore, now here comes the advice, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Now that sounds very spiritual. What does it mean? Next verse, Romans 13, 13. Let us behave properly as in the day, like you would out in public. not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust. You see both sides. Since Christ is coming and his coming is nearer now like a dawn look the night is almost gone Christ will return and he's closer now than he was yesterday Therefore Christian put away the stuff the of shameful conduct put away sensuality and lust but put on Christ So throw away this empty sin and take hold of Christ. Let me get you to look at Job 22, Job 22 verse 23. Job writes this, well we read this in Job, if you return to the Almighty. You will be restored if you remove unrighteousness far from your tent. OK, so whatever the sin is, don't set it right outside the tent door so you could get it later if you wanted it. Chunk it far. And you place your gold in the dust and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. All right. So things that you think are precious, lay them down. Next verse, then, only then, then. The Almighty will be your gold and choice silver to you. Then you will delight in the Almighty, both sides. Lay aside the emptiness of the world's lies, especially with regard to sexuality, and then God fills the heart and becomes the delight. One more, 2 Timothy chapter two. Second Timothy chapter 2, verse 22. I want you to notice two verbs here. First verb, flee. Second verb, pursue. Pretty simple picture, isn't it? Paul tells Timothy, look, flee, run like crazy from one thing. Pursue, chase down another thing. Both are required. Now, he says, flee from youthful lust and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Timothy, you're a young man. You're going to have to guard your heart. Flee, run from those temptations and doggedly pursue the things of God. In other words, It is not enough to put bad stuff away and try to live a really clean, sterile life. It doesn't work. You must also fill up on what's best. So much so that when the temptation does return, and it will, the heart has very little interest because it is so satisfied with Christ. Let me give you two illustrations from two of my favorite old writers. Robert Murray McShane said this, and I'll just have to summarize it. He said, we are like gunpowder on the inside. Sin or temptation is always a spark, okay? Those two things don't change on planet Earth. You're always gunpowder, sin is always the spark. How do you keep from blowing up? Because you say, well, don't let sin get anywhere near you. But you live in a world where there's sin everywhere and you have enough on the inside to blow you up. How do you not self-destruct? McShane said this. So make sure you keep the powder of your soul damp, unignitable, damp with Christ. so, walk so closely to Him, fill the mind so continually with the treasures of Christ, with all that He is, that it's as if the powder's wet. And when sin does find you, or temptation does find you on the path, you just really aren't that interested because Christ is already satisfying. Edward Pasing gives another illustration. He says this, he says, imagine a man who walks outside, noonday sun, looks up, and without sunglasses, okay guys, he just stares at the sun as much as he can, and then he looks away. What happens? He says. as the eye which has gazed at the sun cannot immediately focus on any other object." You know what he means. You look at the sun for a minute, you look at the person right next to you, in full daylight, you can't see him. It's just all, you know, the vision's shot. So he says, the Christian mind which contemplates the beauties of Christ cannot easily or quickly see anything of worth in sin. What if we lived so consistently directing our thoughts toward the perfections of Christ that it's like turning from the sun when a temptation comes and you think, I can't really even see what you're offering me. Or my heart is already satisfied and I have nothing in me that really wants you. It takes both. Fourth principle, and we're getting close to the end. Remember the true nature of sin and the true nature of God's gifts. In James 1, James talks about the fact that when we're tempted from sinful desires that come from within you and as well as without, if we grab hold of those and cultivate those, those desires are like a seed that gets planted and what comes is destruction. Jesus Christ made it clear. Temptation or sin only comes to do three things, never four. It comes to steal from you, kill you, and destroy what's precious to you. It never comes to satisfy you. Not once in all of human history has the fourth thing ever been there. James then goes on to say, but God, the Father of lights, is like light. He doesn't change. He's not like a shifting shadow. And his gifts are good. He is the only one that gives good gifts. So if it doesn't come from him, don't trust it. It shifts and changes. But if it comes from him, it's good and it's enduringly good. It is such a help to come to God when you feel temptations, even if it's old sins that have tripped you up in the past and say to him, this temptation comes promising me life and happiness and fulfillment. But I know that you told me it's come to steal and to kill and destroy. This tells me that it will remain good if I grab hold of it. You tell me it will change. You tell me that you satisfy and your gifts remain good. Lay those things before the Lord. When I first became a Christian, before the trip, the summer trip, so this was in the fall of college and I was 20 years old, I came across a poem that described the impact of sin, the true nature of sin. You probably have heard it before. It was a famous poem years ago. Let me read it to you. This is the price I pay just for one riotous day, years of regret and grief and sorrow without relief. Suffer it, I will, my friend. Suffer it until the end, until the grave will give me relief. Small was the thing I bought. Small was the thing at best, small was the debt I thought, but oh God, the interest. Can I give you one more thing to remember before we leave? Because everything up to this point is worthless without the last one. When sin comes, don't just remember the real nature of temptation and don't just remember that Christ rules the heart. Don't just remember it's a king that's talking to you, etc. Remember Christ himself. That he has come to save his people from their sin. If you can't look at Christ through the fog of shame when you do sin. When you look back and remember old sins or when the temptation is there and it seems so bright and Christ seems like the dim thing and the temptation looks like the sun. If you don't turn your heart's gaze upon Jesus Christ, you will surely despair. Do you remember the picture in the Pilgrim's Progress that bothers everyone and raises the most questions? I mean, you may have a different picture in mind. But everyone asks me the same question. What does the man in the cage say? Do you remember? Christian starts out the journey. He goes to interpreter's house, and interpreter's job is to show Christian scenes in different rooms of his house that will teach Christian, this young Christian, what he needs to know to live the Christian life. And there's so many wonderful things until you come to the man in the cage, and then everybody gets bothered. The man in the cage, what's this man in the cage? He's there, he's groaning and crying and he's breaking his heart because he's stuck in the cage forever. And the interpreter says that man let go the reins of his heart and handed his heart over to lust. A life lived pursuing lust, imagining doing wrong things. And the question that comes is, are you saying that if a person does that, there's no hope, not even in Christ? And I don't think that's what Bunyan's saying. I think there's another thing there as well. The man is also despairing. He's in the thing and he's saying, oh, there's no hope for me, there's nothing. And a life lived in lust has created a cage. But instead of crying out to Christ and saying, you could break even this cage, he just despairs. And if you despair, you're dead. And it is easy to despair with sexual sin, isn't it? Because it's so shameful. It's easy to spare with frivolous divorce because you destroy lives of people you love. Little did you consider it, but now you see it. So don't forget Christ. Isaiah 45, 22, when God says to Israel, look unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and there is none other. Don't just apply that to conversion. I remember when I looked. Why not do that every day? Look to him in the midst of temptation and be saved. For he is God and there isn't any other. But be specific, remember the cross, where Jesus of Nazareth, who never cultivated one foul imaginary deed, and never looked at a woman in a wrong way, on the cross, every immoral thought of every believer from beginning to the end of history is placed on him, and the father crushes the son, and turns away from the son, and turns toward you. You. Who did the deed? You, who repeated it, who cherished it in your thoughts, and you come to the point where you see the foulness of it, and you wonder if God would ever embrace you, and He looks at you and washes you clean as He covers the sun in shame? Remember the cross when the temptation comes? Remember the empty grave? How do you know that even this sin can be forgiven? because the grave is empty. And for everyone who belongs to Christ, that is the outward demonstration that the Father accepted the penalty and the offensiveness of your sin has been removed and you have been declared right. Look at the occupied throne. Christ empowered with infinite power to continue to save you from your sin. Look at the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, God in us, not just with us, changing us, awakening us, empowering us, creating in you a desire for holiness that is stronger than your desire for sin and making it so you can never be OK to live like that again. And even when the sin comes, and if by carelessness you embrace its lie again, the Spirit bringing you back to the mercy seat. And if you think, well, that's nice for other people, but not for a person as bad as me, just give the Bible a quick read, and see how many of those who were closest to God, at some point in their life were caught in the sin. Walk the path. Do you see the cliff edge and you see David's footprints as they went over the edge and David fell terribly? And yet, you know, that God restored him and brought him back. And again, David was taught to sing. Christian, find practical ways when temptation comes to remind yourself of these things. You can have the notes to the sermon if you want. You can gather Bible verses through the week. Be practical, simple things. But do not aim at just keeping your outward life clean, or just not thinking wrong things, or just not looking at wrong things, or not being selfish in your marriage. Aim at walking so close to the King that the purity, the cleanness, and the happiness of Christ is yours. And the marriage is all that it could be for His honor. Our God, we've just sung it, a guilty, weak, and helpless wretch, on Thy kind arms we fall. Be Thou our strength. our righteousness, our Jesus, and our all. We ask that you would help these to be more than words, but our life. In Christ's name, amen.