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27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Introduction:
They say that sex is a personal choice and a private matter.
It is a matter between two consenting adults and as long it does not harm anybody, it’s nobody’s business. This is the philosophy of our world. Here are some sex statistics I gathered for a pastors’ conference more than 10 years ago.
1. Pre-marital sex
A 2002 survey found that nearly 20% of Singaporeans aged 13-18 have engaged in sexual intercourse.
In 1999, it was only 3.4. I wonder what it is now?
2. Date rape
AWARE is a women’s group in Singapore. It launched the Blue Ribbon project.
It is to stop “date rapes”. There are no official figures for date rape in Singapore but all concerned think “it is significant”. Most of the girls who get date raped are those between 14-19. And they are raped by friends or worse, family.
3. Adultery
Singapore men are the major patrons of the flesh trade in Batam, Bintan and Kalimantan brides.
Most men do it out of lust. Some do it out of desperation. A few think they are helping women out of poverty.
4. Messed up societies
In 1959, Singapore had the highest birth rate in the world. Kandang Kerbau Hospital was the world’s largest maternity hospital. Today, Singapore has one of the oldest marrying populations, one of the lowest birth rates, and suffers a worrying rise in divorces.
A former Miss Singapore Universe, in her affidavit for divorce alleged that her former husband spat at her, punched her and used a pillow to smother her. She said he also dragged her down the stairs. Her husband also lodged a police report alleging that she slapped him and threatened to cut off his genitals with a pair of scissors.
In short, we could say that sex is not well in all our cities.
What is the Lord Jesus’ teaching on this?
In Matthew 5:32, he continues with the repetition: “You have heard that it was said”.
He is not correcting the Old Testament Law. Rather, Jesus is correcting the misunderstanding of the Law that missed God’s intention. In area after area of life, Israel had gotten so used to forgetting and forsaking God.
Their attitude to sexual sins was the same as anger sins. They reasoned that as long as you did not commit the physical act of adultery, you have kept God’s law. This was clear evidence of their spiritual decay. We all know we can keep God’s Law with no intention to please God.
In that sense, we approach sex the same way we approach all other sins. How?
By belittling what is a major. By making light what is “gravitas”. By rationalising or justifying sin.
By not calling a spade, a spade. By not calling a sin, a sin.
This spiritual truth is so much a part of our fallen world where a “low view of God leads to a low view of sex”. This is totally contrary to God’s glorious purpose of holiness. Sexual holiness is relational holiness. According to Jesus, Israel had thrown God’s glorious design for marriage out of the window.
To understand God’s story of salvation, we need to read Leviticus 18 and 19.
God had warned his people to not follow the Canaanites in their idolatrous way of life and sex.
They engaged in sex in any form and with any being – from strangers, relatives to animals.
This leads us to 2 spiritual truths about sexual moral rot:
a. Sin makes us masters of our own destiny & determiners of our own sexuality.
b. Sin is not just breaking God’s objective Law but us making up new subjective “laws”.
So, we invent new sexual practices – from premarital to extramarital and alternative sex.
If Jesus’ diagnosis of Israel’s lax attitude to adultery was a “low view of God leads to a low view of sex”, then his cure was simple. He said if our right eye causes us to sin, we should gouge it out. If our right hand causes us to sin, we are to cut it off. Does Jesus want dismembered bodies in heaven? Surely not!
More seriously, his point could be that our eyes are the entry point to our bodies.
If this is what Jesus means, then he is warning us that we become what we see!
Or could there be a hint of the character of sin in Genesis 3 where Eve saw that the fruit was good and she took it. It then started a way of proud and autonomous living based on this philosophy: “I see, I like, I take.”
Hands, on the other hand, are the exit points of our body.
It is a short distance between the entry point of our eyes and the exit point of our hands.
Or could it be that the hands are simply an expression of our sin of coveting?
In this case, the wrongness of adultery is that we steal or rob with our eyes and hearts.
We snatch from what is not rightly ours – someone else’s body - and selfishly make it ours.
So, how are to understand Jesus’ teaching on adultery? Whatever we cannot agree on, we can agree on this: The teachers of the Law had put a layer of rust that corroded and prevented the true brilliance of God’s Law to shine through in our fallen world.
We need to repent and get back to God’s high view of marriage and to love, not beggar, our neighbour.
Here are 3 essential ways to repent or change our minds in regards to God, marriage and adulterous living.
Let us play “word association”. When we think of America, we think of freedom.
When we think of Africa, we might think safari. When we think Australia, we might think kangaroos or koalas.
When we think of sex, what do we think of? We might associate it with sin or, worse still, Satan! Why?
This is so wrong because Satan never created anything – let alone create anything good.
Rather, as God’s people whenever we think of sex, we should think of God and thank God! Why?
God is the Creator of everything. This includes beautiful marriage and sex between a husband and wife.
We thus need new gospel spectacles to have a high view of God which will lead to a high view of sex.
The Lord Jesus Christ was the No. 1 preacher of hell in the Bible.
Jesus took sin seriously enough to die in our place to satisfy God’s wrath and grant us new life.
Jesus sends us a chilling message with his teaching adultery and hell.
How we treat others – by lusting after them with our eyes and hearts - affects our eternal destiny.
Jesus exposes our dangerous delusion that we can sin without consequence.
This delusion began with the “first couple” Adam and Eve.
It spread and engulfed the “first family” when Cain killed Abel after asking: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Jesus teaches us that how I handle my anger, my eyes, my heart, my body, my words, respond to my wrongdoers and my enemies all carry not just neighborly duties but have eternal consequences.
So, when we choose a moment vindictive anger that calls a husband or wife, a father or mother, a son or daughter “raca” (a fool) and wish them dead, it affects our eternity.
When we trade a moment of self pleasure – a one night fling or another click of a porn website - for a lifetime of fidelity, we must realize we have chosen a moment of self over a moment for God.
The ultimate question is not what we do to others but what God will do to us?
Mention hell and what comes to mind? It was Mark Twain who said:
“Go to heaven for the weather. Go to hell for the company.”
Our world is always suggesting that hell is a fun place which we will share with friends.
Humor has a way of trivializing the existence of the Evil One, the poison of sin and the destiny of hell.
As one honest writer said: “Hell is the eternal consequence.”
Please notice that Jesus is the No. 1 preacher of hell, seen in the Sermon on the Mount.
Hell is a real place with real persons with real punishment.
Sexual sin is thus NOT simply a matter of personal choice or private preference between two consenting adults.
Because there is a God, what we do with our eyes and hearts, what we do to others in being unfaithful, lustful and adulterous affects others and affects tomorrow.
In a moment of selfish pleasure, what we are actually saying is: “To hell with God!”
Only Jesus can take away our proud and stubborn sinful hearts, offer us forgiveness and grant us new life. Only Jesus can make us delight in the goodness and rightness of faithful marriage and pure sex.
Let us humbly run to Him and find new life to please God. Amen.