As most of you are aware, we have been studying the Sermon on the Mount for a few months now.  And we have come to this particular passage today by the providence of God.  However, we must be careful to remember the context of the message, and not take this passage in isolation.  

The context of the Lord’s sermon is that He is presenting the Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus Christ is the Sovereign Lord of the Kingdom of God, in which He reigns on earth in the hearts and minds of His people.  And so far in His message Jesus has described the character and nature of His citizens, the effect of His kingdom upon the world, and the righteousness of His kingdom as defined by the law of God.

In particular, Jesus said that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees then you could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  That is a very significant statement, because the scribes and the Pharisees were considered the most righteous people in Judaism. They prided themselves on strict adherence to the law and being very religious.  And so not only was Jesus saying that they were not righteous enough to enter into His kingdom, but He says in effect that it is virtually impossible for anyone to enter it, if their zealousness was not enough.

So in His sermon, Jesus defines the standard of righteousness that is required, and in so doing  He gives several illustrations in regards to the law to show that the standard of the scribes and Pharisees, and thus the common man as well, is too low.  And He contrasts their interpretation of the law with His own.  We looked last time at the first illustration Jesus gave; the law concerning murder.  In essence Jesus said that simply to avoid the act of murder is not enough, but even if you harbor hatred in your heart then you are guilty enough of the sin of murder  to be thrown into hell.

Today, we have read the next illustration Jesus gives, and that is the sin of adultery. Jesus said in vs 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 we were to make a simple outline of this passage we’re looking at today, we might do so in two points.  The first is the prognosis of sin. And the second point is the prescription for sin.  If you go to the doctor to complain of a pain in your body, something that causes you concern, the doctor will probably run some tests on you and then give you a prognosis.  A prognosis is simply the doctors’s diagnosis of what is ailing you.  And then, if they are a good doctor, hopefully they will give you a prescription that will cure your illness.  Jesus is saying something similar here, as our Great Physician, He has diagnosed our condition, He makes His prognosis, and then He offers a prescription that we might be healed. 

Let’s look then at His prognosis of sin.  Jesus says that the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees concerning the law of adultery was limited to the physical act itself.  They said that if you did not actually physically do the sin then you were not guilty of breaking the law, and therefore you were righteous. But Jesus’s interpretation of the law considers the spirit of the law, not just the letter, and as such He emphasizes the sinfulness of the heart. He says if you look upon a woman and lust after her then you are guilty of adultery in your heart.

They supposed that the purpose of the law was to merely avoid the act.  But as the  apostle Paul explained in Romans 7:13,  the purpose of the law is to show us the utter sinfulness of sin.  So the Pharisees had diminished the scope of the law to just the  physicality.  But Jesus expands the law, showing the full scope of sin in human nature.  

There was a lady once who came to our church for a time.  And one day she very pointedly told me that she had stopped going to her old church because the pastor preached too much about sin.  I understood what she was getting at.  She was hinting that if I kept preaching about sin then she would leave here also.  Well, I haven’t seen her around for about 5 years or so now.  The doctrine of sin is not a popular message in modern churches today.  It’s decidedly not politically correct to talk about sin anymore. 

But without a correct doctrine of sin, then the gospel as it’s presented in the scriptures makes no sense.  You cannot understand the cross without a correct doctrine of sin.  There is no way to understand God sending Jesus to be tortured and crucified, to suffer and die and even to go into Hades.  The cross doesn’t make sense if you don’t have the correct doctrine of sin.  We have to understand that sin is an affront to a holy and righteous God, and He cannot abide with sin and that He will judge sin. 

The only way to understand salvation is from a right understanding of the problem of sin.  The whole idea of being born again, becoming a new creation, is meaningless unless you understand the doctrine of sin.  Then and only then, do you understand that unless you are forgiven, unless the penalty for sin is paid, unless you are given a new nature and a new heart, you cannot possibly be accepted by God.  So if you dislike hearing about the doctrine of sin, then it’s a good chance that you are not a Christian at all. You cannot be saved until you first realize that you are lost.  

And that is the point that Jesus is making, He is showing the exceeding sinfulness of sin.  Not just how bad are those people who commit adultery.  But how corrupted is our sinful human nature.  Your sinfulness is not occasional, it is not just a temporary mistake, but it is inherent to your nature and character.  Proverbs 23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” The gospel teaches us that we are totally, irreparably corrupted and there is no solution but to die and be born again as a different type of person.

The problem with modern religion is,  you invent the kind of god you want, with the kind of standard you can keep, and then you justify yourself.  But that’s not the truth of the gospel. The standard of God is too high.  You fall short. Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  And that is exactly what Jesus is saying here.

The evangelism that says, “Come as you are, God loves you just the way you are,” and does not preach the convicting doctrine of sin that is abhorrent to God and worthy of the judgment of God, is not the gospel.  The person who says, “this is the way I was born” and thus thinks that God is responsible for their condition and therefore they are not guilty of sin, is a person who is outside of the kingdom of God because they have rejected the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed as  payment for their sin.  Listen, we are all born sinners.  We are all natural born sinners. Sin may be natural for us, but that’s our problem, not our excuse. And Christ came to earth and died to deal with our problem.

The Lord makes several points then in HIs message in regards to His prognosis concerning sin.  The first thing He emphasizes is the intrinsic nature of sin.  He says, it’s not just the act of adultery, but the lusting in your heart that is sinful.  Christ’s prognosis is that adultery is the symptom of the disease of the heart which is called sin.  He says it’s not just the symptom that’s the problem, but it’s the disease that kills.

Jesus said in Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” So the intrinsic nature of sin is that it has corrupted the heart which is the source of all our actions. 

In that regard, it’s important to recognize the deceitfulness of sin.  Sin is something that starts in the mind.  It starts in the imagination. You give yourself a pass because you say you would never actually do that sort of thing, of course.  But you think about it. And out of the heart arises lust, and Jesus says the lust of the heart is the equivalent in God’s eyes of acting upon it.

God sees the sins of the heart as damning, because He understands the corrupting nature of sin.  Paul used the illustration of yeast or leaven in dough as a metaphor for the corrupting nature of sin. He said a little leaven soon corrupts the entire loaf. A tiny piece of yeast in a loaf of bread dough soon corrupts the entire loaf. Therefore, Jesus says in this passage, if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off. If there is one part of you that is inclined to sin, then it’s necessary to cut it off to keep it from infecting the rest of your body. Sin causes that which God has given me for good, such as a hand, to be my enemy.  Paul said in Romans 7, that sin has even caused the law of God, which is good, to become something that causes me to sin. The fact that the law tells me not to do it, causes me to want to do it.  It’s not that the law is bad, but the corrupting nature of sin.

The final principle Jesus gives us in HIs prognosis is that sin is destructive and will lead to death.  He says, “if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you, for it is better that one of the parts of your body perish than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”  Sin destroys man. It destroys the soul, and it destroys the body.  It leads to death.  Romans 6:23 says, “for the wages of sin is death.”  Sin leads to the judgment of God, and the penalty for sin is hell.  Sin is incompatible with God, and in eternity, the soul of the sinner will be cast away from God’s presence forever, consigned to hell, which is the eternal abode of the sinner.

Then Christ’s prognosis leads Him to offer a prescription.  Thank God He does not leave us in the condition of sin, consigned to eternal separation from God.  But next Jesus told us how we are to deal with it.

First of all, it’s important to have the right interpretation of Jesus prescription.  Does He mean we should literally tear out our eye, or cut off our hand in order to keep from sin? If that was the right interpretation, then what about the left hand or the other eye?  We still have the same means of sinning.  And according to Jesus’s own interpretation, sin is a matter of the heart.  So how does cutting off the hand or plucking out one’s eyes stop the heart from sinning?

The right interpretation then must be that Jesus is speaking metaphorically in order to make a point. What He is saying in effect is, even if something is the most precious thing you have, even if it is something that it is essential, yet if it causes you to sin, get rid of it.   He is emphasizing the importance of pursuing righteousness at all costs and the terrible danger that comes as a result of sin.

In the Lord’s prescription then He is teaching us how to deal with this problem of sin. The prescription is that we are to die to sin in all areas of our life.  Paul said we do not walk in the flesh, but in the spirit.  We mortify the flesh on a daily, even hourly basis that we may not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  We cut it off in the sense that we do not feed the lusts of the flesh, we do not nourish them. As Rom. 13:14 says,  “make no provision for the flesh in regard to [its] lusts.”

 We do not make room for the lusts of the flesh.  And what is not being feed and nourished will soon be dead. 

Now we do that by first realizing the nature of sin, and it’s consequences.  We have already talked about that inherent nature of sin, and the consequence which is destruction and death.  We must understand that even if we do not physically do something wrong, our nature is sinful. It is something which comes out of our hearts.

And we must understand the consequences of our sin. Sin caused Jesus to sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane.  Sin caused Jesus to be whipped until His back was shredded, to be nailed to a cross, and finally to die upon that cross as the consequence for my sin.  As the song we sing says, “it was my sin which held Him there.”  It was my sin which caused Him to be beaten with a whip until He could hardly stand up. It was my sin which caused His death.

Another thing about sin which we must understand is that it affects the eternal destiny of our soul.  The soul will live forever.   At creation, God breathed into man, Genesis 2:7  says, and he became a living soul.  That eternal aspect of the soul is what Jesus was referring to when He said, “it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”  The soul is going to live in eternity, and Jesus says it’s better to lose a part here than to suffer eternally there.

There are many things in life which are good in and of themselves.  I think that is illustrated by Jesus referring to the hand or the eye.  They are good physical things that we can use and enjoy the benefits of.  But Jesus is saying that compared to the value of the soul, they are better to be lost here, than to cause you to lose your soul.  

Jesus said in Matt. 16:26  “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  Will you give up whatever it may be, no matter how valuable it may seem, if it means that you gain eternal life with God for your soul?

There is a principle that helps us to understand the relationship of our body and soul and spirit.  Man was made in the image of God, and God made him in three parts; spirit, soul and body.  And in that order.  The spirit was to rule over the soul, and the soul was to rule over the body.  But when man sinned, the spirit died and the order of man was inverted.  The soul, which is the mind and heart and emotions and will of a man, became subservient to the body.  And then the lusts of the body rule the nature of the fallen man or woman. 

But when we are regenerated by the power of God through salvation, the spirit of man is reborn.  We are born again spiritually.  And now the divine order is reestablished.  Our body of flesh, or the lusts of the flesh are considered as dead, subservient to the mind or soul, and our spirit which is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, is to rule over the mind and heart.  That is the order of salvation which is the way we were intended to operate in the kingdom of God.  So this cutting off of the body that Jesus is referring to is a way of speaking of the  death to the flesh that must occur in salvation.  As Paul said in Col. 3:5 “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”

There is another principle which I believe Jesus is prescribing.  And that is the most important thing in life is to prepare for eternity.  I hardly ever hear anyone talking about preparing for heaven.  Most people think of their Christianity in terms of the benefits in  the immediate world we live in.  We are only interested in being blessed physically, materially, and financially because we are Christians. But in reality, Jesus is saying that it’s far better to do without even what’s considered the essentials here, in order to have the blessing of eternal life with God.

Think about it for a moment.  We dress ourselves in fine clothes, with outfits for every possible change in weather or occasion.  We put on gold jewelry, spend tons of money on our hair, or on skin products, or health clubs.  No expense or sacrifice is spared for our physical bodies and yet I cannot help but wonder if spiritually our souls look like they are dressed in rags.  Jesus said later on in this sermon, in chapter 6 vs 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;  for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  As Christians who are becoming remade in the likeness of Christ, we should be dressed in righteousness.

Another principle in Jesus’s prescription is that we must hate sin and destroy it within ourselves. It is what the Puritans called the mortification of sin.  Jesus said, “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you.”  Now as I said earlier, mortification of sin doesn’t mean that we cut off our limbs or mutilate ourselves.  But it’s talking about dying to the flesh, considering your body as dead to sin. 

Romans 8:13 says “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  Paul breaks that down further in 1 Corinthians 9:27 saying, “I buffet or discipline my body and make it my slave.” He’s talking about beating down the lusts of the flesh.  And in one more example, Paul said in Romans 13:14 which we mentioned earlier; “make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.”  

What that means is that we don’t feed the lusts of the flesh.  We recognize that there is a fire within us; the fire of sin in our nature.  And so knowing that, we stay away from things that will encourage or feed that fire. We need to be careful what we look at. We need  to be careful what we touch.  That’s what cutting of the hand or plucking out the eye refers to.  We may need to avoid certain movies, avoid certain television shows.  Don’t listen to certain radio stations. Don’t go to certain places where we might feed the lusts of the flesh.

 I was doing some driving the other day, and I couldn’t get my regular talk radio shows where I was at.  So I turned to some rock station.  And I couldn’t believe my ears.  They were having a poll of peoples sexual eccentricities. People were calling in and saying all kinds of perverse things,  things that  would have shut down the radio station years ago.  Now I guess it’s considered funny or something.  Folks, for the sake of our souls, we may need cut ourselves off from the sin that is so rampant in our culture.  Cut it off and throw it away.

I must close our message for today, but I would hope that the prescription offered here by the Lord would make you realize that you need the supernatural regeneration of the Holy Spirit, if we are going to have the righteousness that God requires.  We must have received a new nature, a pure heart, as the gift of God though Jesus Christ.  We must be born again and have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit if we are going to have power over sin.  And that is why the Holy Spirit was given to us who by repentance of our sins and faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross have been born again.  Through this salvation we are given the Spirit of Christ that He might be our Helper, our strength, our power to live the life which He gives us.  

As Paul said in Phil. 2:12-13 “work out your salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure.” Both sides are absolutely essential; not just in our own strength to mortify the flesh, but in the strength which God supplies, who is at work in us according to the grace of God. Only in HIs power can we walk in the Spirit and put to death the sins of the flesh.  As Paul said in Gal. 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

That new life in Christ is given to all who will call upon Him as their Savior and follow Him as their Lord.  The invitation to the Kingdom is given to all who will by faith surrender their life to Him.  You have have eternal life for your soul, by the righteousness of Jesus Christ by trusting in Him.  Call upon the Lord today and be saved.