The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - Men Sin, But Devils Tempt ｜ The 7th Commandment

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00:00:41.700 Series through the gospel according to Matthew.

00:00:44.060 Our text for today will be Matthew chapter 5, verse 27 through 30.

00:00:48.500 Again, that's Matthew chapter 5, verses 27 through 30.

00:00:51.480 I'll read our text for us in its entirety.

00:00:53.900 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the word of the Lord,

00:00:57.160 at which point I would appreciate very much

00:00:59.280 if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.

00:01:02.060 One final time, our text for today is Matthew 5,

00:01:05.520 verses 27 through 30.

00:01:07.560 The Bible says this,

00:01:09.060 You have heard that it was said,

00:01:10.980 You shall not commit adultery. 0.98

00:01:12.700 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman

00:01:15.380 with lustful intent has already committed adultery

00:01:18.080 with her in his heart.

00:01:19.940 If your right eye causes you to sin,

00:01:22.760 tear it out and throw it away. 0.97

00:01:24.480 For it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell. 0.99

00:01:30.380 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. 0.89

00:01:35.600 For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. 0.53

00:01:41.600 This is the word of the Lord.

00:01:44.300 All right, please be seated.

00:01:45.740 We'll go ahead and dive right in.

00:01:47.360 By way of introduction, I've written the following.

00:01:49.460 This is really a continuation of the last three weeks now, as we've been in the Sermon on the Mount.

00:01:55.960 That's Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7.

00:01:59.160 And what Jesus is ultimately doing here is he's helping his disciples and all those who are listening to this sermon

00:02:06.580 for them to properly understand the law of God and the way in which the law of God functions in the life of a believer.

00:02:16.040 I've written by way of introduction the following.

00:02:18.080 Jesus has now finished making it abundantly clear that Moses and the prophets remained

00:02:23.540 authoritative. We saw just a couple weeks ago where Jesus said, not one jot or tittle,

00:02:29.880 not one iota of the law, not one dotted eye, not one cross T, nothing from the law of God,

00:02:36.540 Moses and the prophets will pass away until heaven and earth pass away, that the word of the Lord

00:02:42.500 endures forever. The flower fades, the grass withers, but the word of the Lord is immutable.

00:02:49.780 That means it remains unchanging. So Jesus says explicitly that he did not come to abolish the

00:02:56.540 law of God, but rather he came to fulfill the law. So Jesus upholds a right understanding of the law

00:03:04.760 of God. Jesus, as a second member of the eternal trinity, the son of God himself, Jesus, his

00:03:12.780 disposition towards God's law is simply this. He loves it. Jesus loves God's law. So far be it

00:03:23.260 from for us or any Christian today, any evangelical Christian to say that we don't love God's law,

00:03:30.400 That we think that the law of God is burdensome or that we think that the law of God is legalistic, those who would seek to follow God's law.

00:03:40.140 Legalism as a heresy, which it is, legalism is the attempt or the teaching that man can achieve a right standing with God and therefore eternal salvation by his own obedience to the law.

00:03:58.100 that is legalism and that is rightly condemned as a heresy for anyone to say by your own obedience

00:04:05.100 you can merit the favor of God by your own meticulous observing of the law of God you can

00:04:13.000 achieve reconciliation with God right standing with God and eternal salvation to say that

00:04:18.380 is legalism and it is a false gospel however to say that we are saved by grace and free grace alone

00:04:27.440 which is received by faith

00:04:29.920 and the grace of God is a gift

00:04:32.520 and the faith which lays hold of that grace

00:04:36.420 is also a gift from God

00:04:38.560 and that the object, the sole object

00:04:42.280 of our faith is Jesus.

00:04:44.900 That is to say that we're saved by grace alone,

00:04:47.720 through faith alone, in Christ alone

00:04:49.840 and that all of this is free

00:04:51.620 and the work of God, not our own work

00:04:54.300 so that no man may boast

00:04:55.660 And yet still having been saved freely, we should strive to live obedient lives to the law of God.

00:05:03.940 That's not legalism. That's Bible.

00:05:06.940 That is biblical Christianity. 0.97

00:05:09.160 It always has been for 2000 years.

00:05:13.080 And to think that it's not to think that advocating for obedience to the law of God,

00:05:19.040 not as a means of earning salvation,

00:05:21.120 but as a means of responding in gratitude

00:05:25.120 for the free salvation Christ earned for us,

00:05:29.340 to advocate for obeying God's law as gratitude,

00:05:33.340 to think that that is legalism,

00:05:35.880 which many evangelicals do,

00:05:38.540 is simply a sign and an evidence

00:05:41.160 of how far the evangelical church has fallen,

00:05:45.060 that we don't know the bare minimum,

00:05:47.760 the freshman classes, the 101 Christianity basics anymore.

00:05:53.240 The average Christian has been radically deceived.

00:05:58.600 So we need, by God's grace, to do whatever we can to right the ship.

00:06:02.060 The law of God is good. God loves His gospel, and He loves His law.

00:06:07.400 Both. The law doesn't save us. The gospel saves us.

00:06:12.560 But upon being saved, God points us back to his law as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

00:06:20.260 The law shows us how to live, where to go.

00:06:24.100 It's the path. It shows us where to go.

00:06:27.060 And we we traverse this path so that when we get to the end of it by obeying really, really hard, God might love us and save us.

00:06:35.560 No, no. The start of the path is grace for those that God has already saved.

00:06:42.100 We then are turned back to the law, not as a means of salvation,

00:06:46.200 but as a path to follow, as a response, because we've already received salvation.

00:06:53.320 That's how the law of God works.

00:06:55.180 First, it's a mirror.

00:06:56.740 It reveals to us God's holiness by way of consequence, our sinfulness,

00:07:00.360 and therefore it shows us our massive need for a Savior.

00:07:04.980 Secondly, it's a shield.

00:07:06.620 it restrains outward deeds of lawlessness that make individual lives and families and whole

00:07:12.980 societies a bad place to live. And third, the law of God is a compass. It's a guide. It shows us the

00:07:20.260 path, how to live, not to achieve salvation, but how to respond for the free salvation we already

00:07:26.480 have. Mirror, shield, compass. Mirror, shield, compass. Mirror, oh wow, God's really holy. I'm

00:07:33.880 not? I need Jesus. Shield. Wow. The world is a bad place. And when the law of God is legislated

00:07:40.760 righteously and upheld, it restrains evil of the heart so that people don't outwardly

00:07:46.400 commit heinous acts so that it's a safer and better place to live. Mirror, shield, compass,

00:07:54.320 where to go? Where to go to gain salvation? No, where to go as a response of gratitude for

00:08:00.700 salvation. That's the law of God in its three uses. Jesus has made it abundantly clear that

00:08:07.420 Moses and the prophets remain authoritative for all people and especially his disciples.

00:08:12.540 He is now proceeding to expound upon the law of God. Christ's primary principle was to show that

00:08:20.120 the law did not only prohibit external actions, speech and behavior, those outward actions,

00:08:28.780 But the first use of the law of God was to address the heart.

00:08:34.580 Jesus demonstrates in the Sermon on the Mount and in our text today this overarching principle that he hasn't come to abolish the law and that the law applies inwardly as well as outwardly.

00:08:46.560 Jesus is expounding upon this principle by beginning to offer as specific case studies certain laws.

00:08:57.320 He starts with the Sixth Commandment. That's what we saw last week. Thou shalt not murder.

00:09:02.860 And Jesus shows how that first begins with the heart, that it's not just outward actions that the Sixth Commandment prohibits,

00:09:11.480 but it also prohibits murderous anger internally at the level of the heart.

00:09:17.260 Now Jesus is doing the same thing. He's again articulating, espousing the overarching principle that the law of God is to be upheld.

00:09:26.460 and that the law of God applies internally

00:09:29.760 as well as externally.

00:09:31.340 He did it by then showing an example,

00:09:33.940 the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder.

00:09:36.260 And now today he does it with the seventh commandment,

00:09:39.260 thou shalt not commit adultery.

00:09:41.720 Notice again, I've said it several times.

00:09:43.680 I'm going to say it again this morning.

00:09:44.960 Notice again, if anything,

00:09:47.620 the religious rulers of Jesus' day,

00:09:50.520 the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the lawyers,

00:09:53.520 those religious rulers of Jesus' day

00:09:56.660 were antinomians, not legalists.

00:10:00.840 Now, the reality is that

00:10:01.900 in a technical, biblical sense,

00:10:04.200 they were both.

00:10:06.200 However, they certainly were not merely

00:10:09.300 or only legalists.

00:10:11.160 They were at least as antinomian

00:10:15.520 as they were legalistic.

00:10:18.380 What does that mean?

00:10:19.120 Antinomian, nomos, law, anti, against.

00:10:23.520 They were not legalists who overstretched God's law.

00:10:28.540 But if anything, they were antinomian, those who hated God's law,

00:10:32.680 and they actually shrunk God's law.

00:10:35.100 How did the Pharisees and Sadducees and religious rulers of Jesus' day shrink the law?

00:10:41.100 In terms of its application.

00:10:44.640 See, here's the thing.

00:10:45.660 On the one hand, they added new laws.

00:10:48.920 the traditions of men

00:10:51.320 alongside the actual immutable law of God

00:10:55.700 so that ten commandments

00:10:57.500 quickly became 630-something commandments

00:11:01.240 and many of them not actually having

00:11:04.020 a biblical support in Moses and the prophets.

00:11:07.920 So they added new laws

00:11:10.260 which is a form of legalism.

00:11:13.000 So there is a sense in which they were legalists.

00:11:15.220 However, here's the thing.

00:11:17.040 They added more laws

00:11:18.460 But then with all of these laws, both the man-made laws and the divinely inspired laws,

00:11:25.220 they limited, they shrunk the law's application.

00:11:29.520 So they went from 10 commandments to 600 something commandments.

00:11:34.480 But then with all of these commandments, they said, you know what?

00:11:37.840 These commandments only divinely forbid the full extent of the outward behavior.

00:11:45.880 So thou shalt not murder means you cannot kill someone who is innocent.

00:11:52.500 You can't.

00:11:54.720 Anything short of that, you're good.

00:11:58.300 Hating someone without cause, you're good.

00:12:03.840 In murderous hatred internally for that person, 0.99

00:12:06.860 going around and killing them metaphorically, 0.88

00:12:10.540 but still quite literally in a sense, 1.00

00:12:12.580 by killing their livelihood,

00:12:15.180 by killing their reputation,

00:12:17.860 by lying about them, 0.91

00:12:20.000 slandering them.

00:12:21.580 You can metaphorically,

00:12:23.040 you can financially and relationally,

00:12:26.340 through their networks,

00:12:29.560 through their job,

00:12:31.640 in all these ways, 0.99

00:12:32.800 you can kill a man 0.85

00:12:34.540 with a wrongful, unfounded, without cause, 0.99

00:12:38.700 murderous hatred of the heart. 0.69

00:12:41.540 You just can't kill his physical body.

00:12:44.460 That's the Pharisees' position.

00:12:46.620 And not only would it be their position, 0.80

00:12:48.800 it's literally what they did.

00:12:51.400 Why wouldn't they do that?

00:12:53.240 Well, at least one example would be with Jesus.

00:12:57.320 Remember that?

00:12:59.180 They produced false witnesses

00:13:01.120 with a mock trial in the middle of the night

00:13:05.240 with a kangaroo court

00:13:07.560 in order to produce a false narrative

00:13:11.600 that Jesus was guilty of something

00:13:13.520 that he wasn't actually guilty of

00:13:15.520 so that he could be killed by the Romans. 1.00

00:13:20.400 Because the Romans are the ones 0.99

00:13:21.940 who physically drove the nails 1.00

00:13:24.280 through his hands and feet

00:13:25.420 and hung him on a cross. 0.90

00:13:27.400 Why?

00:13:27.760 Because it wasn't lawful 1.00

00:13:28.980 for the Jews to do this. 1.00

00:13:31.680 And this is the perfect example. 1.00

00:13:33.500 The murder, because it is the murder,

00:13:35.920 the murder of Jesus 1.00

00:13:36.900 is the perfect example of the religious Jewish leaders of Jesus' day

00:13:40.700 obeying, according to them, the sixth commandment of not murdering.

00:13:46.080 As far as they were concerned, they didn't murder Jesus.

00:13:49.060 But here's the deal.

00:13:50.380 Pilate didn't want Jesus to die.

00:13:53.900 He's still guilty.

00:13:55.160 He shouldn't have been passive.

00:13:56.400 He should have stood up and said no.

00:13:58.260 Instead, he just washed his hands.

00:13:59.780 And he does bear that guilt.

00:14:02.100 He does.

00:14:03.680 However, Pilate does not bear more guilt than the Jews. 0.99

00:14:09.240 The Jews are the ones who orchestrated the murder of Jesus. 0.97

00:14:14.720 Rome is no picnic. 1.00

00:14:17.060 The Romans weren't great guys. 1.00

00:14:19.340 Nobody's arguing that.

00:14:21.160 But the facts still remain that the Romans would not have killed Jesus 0.99

00:14:24.720 if it hadn't have been for the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day. 1.00

00:14:29.800 They orchestrated the whole thing. 0.99

00:14:31.620 They hated Jesus. They had murderous anger of the heart.

00:14:34.780 And so they they set the stage for someone else to physically murder Jesus.

00:14:40.380 So murder of the heart is bad.

00:14:44.160 Right. Really, you know, technical theological way of arguing a pretty simple point.

00:14:48.780 Murderous anger of the heart is bad.

00:14:52.700 That's what Jesus is getting at in the Sermon on the Mount, pretty much the whole Sermon on the Mount.

00:14:57.360 but especially the latter half of chapter 5 is Jesus simply showing again and again and again

00:15:03.720 with specific case studies. Sixth commandment, today now, seventh commandment, and he goes on,

00:15:10.040 so on and so forth, to argue what? The religious rulers of his day, on one hand, are legalists who

00:15:16.020 produce new laws that are not God's law, but on the other hand, this is what the evangelical church

00:15:21.980 today misses, they're not just legalists, they're actually also antinomian. Ironically, the guys who

00:15:28.100 are separating out a tenth of their spices, right? They're on the salt and pepper rack, and they're

00:15:34.740 cutting off, you know, drawing lines, and separating, measuring it with a ruler, and separating a tenth

00:15:39.540 of their salt to give as a tithe. You don't typically think of those guys as being, you know,

00:15:45.680 antinomian. You think of those guys being legalists, but they were also antinomian. As much as they

00:15:51.760 were legalists, they were as much, and I would argue more, antinomian, those who didn't just

00:15:56.360 create new laws, but actually hated God's law. And how do we argue that? It all comes down. Don't

00:16:03.580 miss this, brothers and sisters. It all comes down to one realm, application.

00:16:11.340 And if you haven't picked that up by now, you need to. You're a little bit behind. The name of the

00:16:17.080 game, as we look at the church in America as a whole and in the world as a whole, there are many

00:16:24.200 things where we've gotten off the rails, many problems, many, many things to write. But a big

00:16:29.420 one, a common denominator is this application, application. How does God's words actually apply

00:16:41.180 in the world around us,

00:16:44.120 in every sphere,

00:16:46.440 and in not just spiritual,

00:16:48.560 pietistic, 17th dimension ways,

00:16:52.240 but actually practical, tangible ways.

00:16:57.300 The law of God applies.

00:17:00.900 The Pharisees of Jesus' day, 0.95

00:17:02.680 and do you see how backwards we have it? 0.91

00:17:05.120 And for the record, this was intentional.

00:17:07.160 It's not an accident.

00:17:08.640 This was intentional.

00:17:09.580 But we have it so backwards today that we look at the Pharisees and we're like, well, Jesus said the Pharisees were the bad guys. 1.00

00:17:17.000 That's true. 1.00

00:17:18.280 And then we think, well, what are the characteristic marks of the bad guys?

00:17:22.460 The bad guys are too big on the law of God.

00:17:26.920 So we're going to be the good guys by not caring about the law of God.

00:17:31.980 And we'll just preach a cheap grace.

00:17:35.500 We're actually doing an injustice to grace.

00:17:37.880 it minimizes the grace of God, because if the law of God is puny, then the sin of man, which the law

00:17:43.760 reveals, is puny, which means the gospel that covers man's sin is puny. So it actually is an

00:17:49.740 insult to the gospel, an insult to grace and mercy of God, but that's what modern evangelicals, that's

00:17:55.220 what we do. So we say the Pharisees were the bad guys. What was their chief mistake? Caring too much 0.82

00:18:00.500 for the law of God. No, the Pharisees, brothers and sisters, hated the law of God, and although

00:18:06.860 they stretched it in one sense, creating new laws, they shrunk it in the only sense that really

00:18:14.240 mattered, its application. And you can do the same thing as the church today. We can be modern

00:18:21.800 Pharisees by saying, we care very much for the law of God. Very, very much. Meanwhile,

00:18:29.100 Well, by vocation, you're in the realm of finance

00:18:33.720 and you're charging 18% interest

00:18:36.880 to the poorest of the poor with credit card loans.

00:18:42.120 You're committing usury.

00:18:44.500 And it is a sin.

00:18:47.280 And you can do that even as a theonomist.

00:18:49.700 In fact, many theonomists do.

00:18:53.360 If there's any sin of choice for the theonomist,

00:18:55.700 usury would probably be it.

00:18:59.920 And so you can be theonomy, which theonomy is law.

00:19:04.380 So you can literally be the guy who claims to love law and yet be lawless.

00:19:12.720 There's a lot to learn from the Sermon on the Mount.

00:19:15.340 There's a lot to learn from the religious rulers of Jesus' day

00:19:18.900 who pretended to be all about the moral code. 0.81

00:19:24.500 But they rendered it all moot.

00:19:28.200 it became a moot point. How? How can you actually add laws, have more laws, and yet at the same time

00:19:35.020 strip all the teeth of the law in the realm of application? In the realm of application,

00:19:42.780 the law of God doesn't really, at the end of the day, there are many laws, and we care so much

00:19:47.840 about it, and we wear special robes, and we have tassels, and the law of God, but at the end of the

00:19:52.700 day, it doesn't really apply. Not in any practical sense. That's antinomian, not just legalistic,

00:20:01.100 but antinomian against law. Okay, so Jesus is making that overarching point. And the biggest

00:20:07.840 idea that Jesus is bringing forth, if we go to his 30,000 foot principle, get the big view,

00:20:14.120 is the law of God first begins with addressing the heart. It addresses outward speech and actions,

00:20:21.700 But first it addresses inward heart at the level of thought, intent, desire, motives.

00:20:31.580 The law of God first addresses the inward man.

00:20:35.780 It addresses their heart.

00:20:37.320 Sixth commandment, it's not enough to just not stab someone to death.

00:20:42.680 It also is important that you don't want to stab someone to death.

00:20:48.060 speaking of stabbing someone to death

00:20:51.840 BLM made a mistake

00:20:54.260 by saying that police officers 1.00

00:20:57.200 should have body cams

00:20:58.740 they thought that that was going to hold

00:21:02.020 police officers accountable

00:21:03.260 and instead

00:21:05.340 it has simply exonerated many police officers

00:21:08.500 by proving

00:21:09.240 that

00:21:12.080 you know

00:21:13.040 sometimes police officers have to defend

00:21:16.160 their own life because somebody

00:21:17.780 is running down the hallway with a knife 0.98

00:21:19.960 trying to kill them. 0.98

00:21:23.540 It is unfortunate, the world that we live in. 0.99

00:21:26.740 It is really unfortunate.

00:21:30.040 I would like to see us as a culture,

00:21:33.220 as a nation, dial back racist thoughts,

00:21:39.700 racist rhetoric,

00:21:41.640 but body cans for police officers

00:21:45.780 are not going to help towards that end.

00:21:47.180 I'll tell you that right now.

00:21:50.860 Because there is a disparity

00:21:52.360 when it comes to crying.

00:21:55.420 Now we can answer the question why

00:21:57.560 and I think there are a lot of good reasons for why.

00:22:01.000 A lot of good reasons for why.

00:22:02.800 And I'm very sympathetic.

00:22:04.940 But there is a disparity.

00:22:07.340 And for us to just pretend that there's not

00:22:09.980 in order to assuage our consciences

00:22:13.460 of the guilt of rape

00:22:16.860 is not going to solve the problem.

00:22:20.180 The problem will only be solved

00:22:21.640 when we believe our lying eyes,

00:22:24.200 admit the problem right in front of our face,

00:22:26.300 and then try to do something about it.

00:22:29.620 And one of the things that you do about it

00:22:31.380 is you have to uphold justice.

00:22:34.280 And justice is impartial.

00:22:38.000 It doesn't matter what color. 0.98

00:22:41.000 The first report with that instance

00:22:42.620 that I just mentioned was

00:22:43.960 this person of color,

00:22:47.200 this minority was wrongfully oppressed.

00:22:50.060 Then you get the footage

00:22:51.120 and it looks like

00:22:52.920 a Friday the 13th horror movie.

00:22:56.320 It looked like a shot out of The Shining.

00:22:59.420 You know, like someone's running down the hallway

00:23:01.120 stabbing and this guy's like,

00:23:02.740 please stop, please stop. 0.92

00:23:03.800 And then has to shoot 0.90

00:23:05.720 in order to save his own life.

00:23:08.520 We have to be,

00:23:10.800 if we love God and we love truth

00:23:12.960 and we love our nation

00:23:13.820 and we love our children,

00:23:14.760 we have to admit what's going on

00:23:16.500 and then we have to actually address the real world.

00:23:20.740 We can't address the pretend world that we made up.

00:23:24.380 And guess what?

00:23:24.920 The real world, here's the reality,

00:23:26.940 the real world is not an egalitarian world.

00:23:30.500 It's not.

00:23:31.980 The real world is not a world in which everyone is equal.

00:23:36.380 Every human being is made in the image of God

00:23:38.900 and is equal in terms of eternal dignity and value.

00:23:42.200 Of course. But not everyone is equal in temporal regard.

00:23:50.360 And not just equal outcomes, but even in terms of equal opportunity.

00:23:56.420 Guys, I don't know what to tell you, but I was not born with equal opportunity to Elon Musk. 0.98

00:24:04.600 I'm dumb. He's smart. 0.97

00:24:09.300 Life's not fair.

00:24:10.460 I was not born with equal opportunity

00:24:13.740 to play in the NBA to Michael Jordan.

00:24:16.820 It's like, well, no, Joel,

00:24:18.140 it's just because he worked really hard.

00:24:19.980 He did work hard.

00:24:21.460 I don't want to steal that credit from him.

00:24:23.280 But if I had done all the same routines

00:24:25.300 and clocked in the same number of hours,

00:24:27.820 do you think I'd be able to beat Michael Jordan

00:24:29.740 one-on-one in basketball?

00:24:34.440 Being 6'11", 6'9", also tends to help.

00:24:38.680 and I don't really have much control over that.

00:24:43.240 It's like, well, just practice harder.

00:24:46.380 But practice what? Practice growing?

00:24:51.720 So we live in God's world.

00:24:54.380 We don't live in the communist world.

00:24:56.740 They want us to, but that's a made-up world.

00:24:58.620 It doesn't exist.

00:24:59.500 We live in God's world.

00:25:00.420 And here's the thing about God's world.

00:25:02.060 God's world has hierarchy.

00:25:04.940 Not egalitarian, steamrolled,

00:25:06.860 everyone's equal by making everyone

00:25:09.040 the same. Because you know that's the

00:25:10.940 only way to achieve equality

00:25:12.580 is you can't actually

00:25:15.000 take the bottom and raise it

00:25:17.000 up. You know this, right? Have you learned

00:25:18.900 this? Have you experienced

00:25:20.720 enough time after 2020

00:25:22.960 to realize this? You can't raise the

00:25:24.980 bottom. There will always be

00:25:27.000 Jesus said you will always have the poor

00:25:28.840 among you. You know why you'll always have the poor?

00:25:31.080 Because until Jesus' final

00:25:32.880 physical return, you'll always have sin.

00:25:34.720 Are you saying that the poor are poor because of sin?

00:25:39.120 Yes.

00:25:40.580 Now, but here's a clarification.

00:25:42.120 I'm not saying that in every case it's because of their sin.

00:25:45.800 Sometimes it's their sin.

00:25:48.140 Laziness.

00:25:49.480 And in this country, I would argue most of the time, it's their sin. 0.86

00:25:53.280 Laziness.

00:25:54.480 But I would never say of the poor in North Korea, 1.00

00:25:57.960 you know, those North Koreans are just not working hard enough. 1.00

00:26:01.100 Now, you can be poor also because of other people's sin. 1.00

00:26:05.360 But here's the deal.

00:26:06.840 At the end of the day, whether it's your sin or another's,

00:26:10.920 poverty can always be traced to sin.

00:26:13.400 Poverty is simply lack.

00:26:15.860 And the only reason there's a lack is not because God failed in his role of provision,

00:26:21.880 but because man failed in our role of living upright lives according to his law.

00:26:28.700 To say that poverty doesn't track back in one way or another to sin

00:26:32.620 is ultimately to indict God as having failed.

00:26:37.040 That God has done something wrong.

00:26:39.780 But not all people are equally rich.

00:26:41.640 Not all people are equally poor.

00:26:43.080 Not all people are equally strong.

00:26:45.100 Not all people are equally intelligent.

00:26:48.240 Not everyone has the same IQ. 1.00

00:26:51.100 And so then what is the Christian obligation 0.70

00:26:55.880 to make everyone equal by making everyone the same?

00:27:00.840 You can't bring up certain people on the bottom.

00:27:02.700 So what you have to do is strip people at the top.

00:27:05.160 You're producing too much. 1.00

00:27:07.860 And so we're going to have to tie your hands behind your back.

00:27:12.060 The only way to get equality is to go down to the lowest common denominator.

00:27:16.780 It's never to go up.

00:27:18.360 That's what you have to do.

00:27:21.080 Equality is a recipe for universal mediocrity.

00:27:27.260 And America is striving hard.

00:27:28.900 Do you know that in the last two generations, for the first time in American history, IQ is going down.

00:27:37.620 Lifespan is going down.

00:27:41.600 That we have, millennials, are the first generation in American history that on average, financially, will make less than their parents.

00:27:50.660 In terms of real wealth.

00:27:53.940 It's like, oh yeah, but we had 17% interest rates in the 70s.

00:27:58.660 Yeah, on your $35,000 house. 0.99

00:28:00.820 Shut up. 0.99

00:28:02.600 I don't want to hear it. 0.99

00:28:04.440 I'm sorry.

00:28:06.120 No, the actual real wages

00:28:07.920 of a percentage of the average income today

00:28:11.200 to buy a house

00:28:12.160 is astronomically higher

00:28:14.480 than it was before.

00:28:17.180 So at every level,

00:28:18.820 lifespan,

00:28:20.720 IQ,

00:28:22.720 financially,

00:28:23.800 everything is going down.

00:28:25.920 How? Why?

00:28:27.500 Equality. 1.00

00:28:29.160 That's why.

00:28:31.400 If you love your neighbor, hate equality.

00:28:36.240 If you love your neighbor, hate equality.

00:28:40.300 And not tying the most gifted people's hands behind their back,

00:28:44.880 you know what that does for even those on the bottom of the totem pole?

00:28:48.820 It allows that person to soar and to thrive in such a way

00:28:52.480 that they're able to boost the welfare, not state welfare,

00:28:57.280 but the benevolence, the benefit of the whole,

00:29:01.640 of everybody creating new job opportunities,

00:29:04.140 creating new resources,

00:29:06.040 bringing down certain costs lower and lower

00:29:08.840 to where it becomes affordable

00:29:10.220 for more impoverished people.

00:29:14.000 But you have to embrace the world as it is.

00:29:16.820 You can't live in never, ever land with Peter Pan.

00:29:20.560 You have to look at the real world,

00:29:22.220 look at disparities, look at inequality,

00:29:24.560 and then say, like Francis Schaeffer did once upon,

00:29:27.860 how then shall we live?

00:29:29.600 This is God's world.

00:29:31.600 Maybe it's not the world that people want,

00:29:33.920 but it is God's world.

00:29:35.960 This is the way that it works.

00:29:37.320 This is the way that it is.

00:29:38.480 Now, how can I live as a hardworking,

00:29:42.160 wise, and also generous individual?

00:29:45.160 Did you know that generosity,

00:29:49.140 or maybe I should say it like this, gratitude,

00:29:52.960 Gratitude will always produce more generosity than guilt.

00:29:58.400 Guilting everybody will not ultimately lend towards generosity

00:30:03.480 the way that gratitude will.

00:30:08.160 And the position, the disposition that we should have

00:30:12.460 towards our fathers who built this country

00:30:16.940 is a position of gratitude.

00:30:19.000 They're fallen men, fallible men, but they were also better men, better than us.

00:30:26.120 We should be grateful for what they've done.

00:30:28.400 We should work hard for the good of our posterity, our children, just as they did.

00:30:33.540 And by God's grace, as we're able to accumulate wealth and resources and these things and lay up an inheritance for our children's children, as the Bible says,

00:30:43.320 then with the excess, we can also be generous to our neighbors.

00:30:49.000 And the world becomes a better place.

00:30:53.760 The law of God applies.

00:30:56.400 It applies.

00:30:57.580 It applies financially, economically, politically, culturally.

00:31:01.240 It applies judicially, legislatively.

00:31:05.440 The law of God applies.

00:31:07.560 Don't be a Pharisee.

00:31:08.900 That's the point.

00:31:10.520 The Pharisees are those who want to ultimately shrink the law of God

00:31:16.300 by defanging it,

00:31:19.820 by stripping it of its power.

00:31:23.000 On one hand, it's like a magic trick.

00:31:25.860 It's sleight of hand.

00:31:29.140 Look, we've added even more laws.

00:31:30.680 We care very much for the law of God.

00:31:32.440 And then with the other hand,

00:31:33.620 you take away the whole point of God's law,

00:31:37.340 its application.

00:31:38.640 And how do you do this?

00:31:40.220 By taking away the application of God's law

00:31:43.660 at the realm of the heart.

00:31:45.520 Thou shalt not murder now only means

00:31:48.100 that you cannot physically, literally kill

00:31:50.980 with your hand an innocent man.

00:31:54.680 But what does that allow for?

00:31:56.500 If you limit the law that narrow in its application, 1.00

00:31:59.800 well, it allows for the Jews to kill Jesus 0.98

00:32:02.280 because they never lifted a hand to do it. 0.99

00:32:07.000 But we all know, but wait a second.

00:32:09.780 You still did it.

00:32:11.180 You produced false witnesses.

00:32:13.460 You rigged the courts.

00:32:14.860 And you pressured Pilate, who was up for re-election in your jurisdiction. 0.83

00:32:20.700 You pressured him in order to get his goonies, the Roman centurions,

00:32:25.920 to do something that later on, not years later, but just the next day,

00:32:31.440 one of those Romans says, I think we messed up.

00:32:35.560 Surely this was the Son of God.

00:32:39.200 The law of God is useless if we limit its application.

00:32:43.380 and one of its chief realms of application is the heart.

00:32:48.120 Matthew Henry says this, getting to the seventh commandment.

00:32:50.600 Now, we have here an exposition of the seventh commandment

00:32:53.860 given us by the same hand that made the law, Jesus, God.

00:32:58.720 And therefore, he's fittest to be interpreter of it.

00:33:01.860 The command is here laid down, thou shalt not commit adultery,

00:33:05.420 which includes a prohibition of all other acts of uncleanness

00:33:10.020 and the desire of them.

00:33:12.340 We'll get to that in a moment. Concupiscence is the theological word.

00:33:17.140 But the Pharisees, in their expositions of this command, made it to extend no further than the act of adultery,

00:33:23.960 suggesting that if the iniquity was only regarded in the heart and went no further, then God could not hear it.

00:33:32.400 That God would not regard it. The iniquity, the sin.

00:33:35.660 So if you have an adulterous heart, if you're sinning with lust in the heart, the Pharisees would insist that God had no regard for sin at the level of the heart.

00:33:46.100 He couldn't see it.

00:33:46.940 He couldn't hear it.

00:33:47.980 He did not regard it.

00:33:52.320 And therefore, they thought it enough to be able to say that they were not adulterous, which is what they said in Luke chapter 18, verse 11.

00:34:01.220 Continuing one more quote from Matthew Henry.

00:34:03.140 We are here taught that there is such a thing as heart adultery, adulterous thoughts and dispositions, which never proceed to the act of adultery or fornication, and perhaps the defilement which these give to the soul.

00:34:19.160 This command, the seventh commandment, forbids not only the acts of fornication and adultery, but all appetites.

00:34:26.860 There it is again. Desire, appetite, affection, want, all appetites to them, all lusting after the forbidden object.

00:34:37.120 This is the beginning of the sin, lust conceiving.

00:34:40.600 Now, I want to give you guys real quick, I'll do my best to briefly exegete, but a string of cross references to make a whole biblical argument.

00:34:49.160 So we're going to do a lot of Bible real quick.

00:34:51.080 James chapter 1, verse 14 through 15 says this.

00:34:53.780 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

00:34:58.120 There it is.

00:34:59.080 Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin.

00:35:01.840 And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

00:35:04.620 What James is saying is that there is actually a process to sin.

00:35:08.540 A progression, I should say.

00:35:10.680 What is the biblical progression of sin?

00:35:13.340 The Bible tells us it begins in the heart with desire.

00:35:16.140 desire is like desire eventually conceives and gives birth to sin so so desire is like sin in

00:35:27.400 utero but it's still sin it's still sin at the level of desire and it needs to be combated

00:35:33.120 it needs to be mortified before it conceives to sin so at the beginning sinful desire which is

00:35:41.880 a sin in and of itself. Desire. Desire conceives, gives birth to sinful actions, speech and actions,

00:35:51.020 word and deed. And then if these go unchecked, eventually that sin will bring forth death

00:35:57.440 in a spiritual sense, but also quite literally in a physical sense. Sin, unchecked, unrestrained

00:36:07.300 by any mechanism whatsoever

00:36:09.020 eventually does bring forth

00:36:11.120 literal death.

00:36:13.600 It does.

00:36:14.640 It brings forth murders. 0.72

00:36:16.340 It brings forth anarchy.

00:36:17.520 It brings forth lawless men

00:36:19.500 who kill lots of people.

00:36:22.580 And this has happened

00:36:23.420 throughout human history

00:36:24.740 time and time again.

00:36:26.440 Sin unchecked.

00:36:28.020 Its ultimate end

00:36:30.820 is that people die.

00:36:33.020 That people's lives

00:36:34.400 are on the line.

00:36:35.700 Okay, now Romans chapter 13, verse 12 through 14 says this,

00:36:39.880 The night is far gone, the day is at hand, so then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

00:36:47.660 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy,

00:36:56.820 but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its, there's the word again, desires.

00:37:06.340 So here, and John Owen famously, he wrote on this in The Mortification of Sin,

00:37:11.720 which is one of his famous books.

00:37:13.620 He also preached whole volumes, whole sermons on this one concept.

00:37:19.460 And the concept is this, make no provision for the flesh. 0.86

00:37:24.180 And here's the idea.

00:37:26.620 Allowing provision for the flesh doesn't just allow opportunity for sin,

00:37:31.880 but allowing provision for the flesh is already a sin.

00:37:38.140 This is what the church has argued down through the ages

00:37:41.300 for 2,000 years of church history.

00:37:43.740 The doctrine of concupiscence,

00:37:46.960 which it gets to the base origin,

00:37:52.580 the lowest level, the beginning of sin.

00:37:56.740 When does something become sin?

00:37:58.920 What is sin?

00:38:00.360 Is it only sin when it comes out of our mouth in word?

00:38:04.560 Is it only sin when it comes out of our hands and feet in the realm of deed and actions?

00:38:10.360 Or is there a way to sin even at the level of desire?

00:38:16.400 And the church in exegeting texts like these, Romans 13, 12 through 14,

00:38:22.380 it says make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

00:38:26.720 or texts like James chapter 1, 14 through 15.

00:38:30.300 What is the source of temptation?

00:38:32.720 If we were to back up just a little bit in verse 13,

00:38:35.120 it says, let no man when he is tempted say,

00:38:37.360 I'm being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted,

00:38:41.340 nor does he tempt others.

00:38:43.160 Now, why is that?

00:38:44.200 Real quick, why is that?

00:38:46.500 The preceding verse for this verse on temptation.

00:38:50.760 Well, because James knew that people in his day 0.90

00:38:52.980 And also, sadly, a bunch of idiots today on Twitter as well would argue that Calvinism and a high view of the sovereignty of God somehow indicts God as being morally culpable for the sins of men. 0.99

00:39:06.960 James is basically just making a theological argument and hedging against stupid Arminians. 1.00

00:39:12.440 That's what he's doing. 0.99

00:39:13.520 God bless James.

00:39:14.920 It's good work.

00:39:15.980 Good work on James' part.

00:39:17.660 Because that's what you will hear again and again.

00:39:19.620 And that's what James and the apostles heard again and again.

00:39:21.720 Read Romans chapter three. This is what Paul hears again. Paul says we are being slanderously

00:39:26.860 set of. Why not do evil so that God might bring about good? Their condemnation is just and

00:39:33.340 deserved. What is Paul saying? He's saying there are people 2000 years ago who thought that this

00:39:37.980 was a good line and 2000 years later, nothing has changed. They still think it's brilliant.

00:39:42.740 It's cute that they think that, but they do. They think that the line is this. If God is sovereign

00:39:47.400 over all things, then when people sin, you must be, God must be responsible rather than the people.

00:39:55.460 That's not what the Bible teaches. Now, the Bible also does not teach that people are robots and

00:40:00.300 that they have no human agency whatsoever. Here's the deal. When it comes to moral culpability,

00:40:05.340 people are free. This is the line of argumentation. You cannot be morally culpable unless you are

00:40:11.740 freely making the choice that you're making. But then the question becomes this, what constitutes

00:40:17.900 freedom? There is the view of libertarian free will. Libertarian free will ultimately asserts,

00:40:24.100 this is where the midwits come in, libertarian free will ultimately asserts that you cannot

00:40:29.380 freely make any decision unless there is a viable alternative. So unless you are capable

00:40:35.480 of choosing something else, and there's another choice that could be chosen, then you cannot be

00:40:41.640 held morally responsible for the choice that you made. There has to be a viable alternative.

00:40:47.960 That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible doesn't teach that the linchpin for moral

00:40:52.760 culpability, why we're held responsible. The Bible does not teach that the linchpin for moral

00:40:58.680 culpability is libertarian free will, an alternative choice. Instead, what the Bible teaches

00:41:05.220 is that the key ingredient that makes man morally culpable for his sin is not that he could do

00:41:10.480 otherwise, but that he is doing precisely what he wants. The key ingredient is not alternative

00:41:17.600 choices, libertarian free will. The key ingredient is desire. And that's what the root of sin is,

00:41:25.120 desire. That's where temptation begins in its origin, desire, meaning that you are freely doing

00:41:32.240 whatever it is that you happen to be doing, so long as what you're doing is the thing you want

00:41:36.840 to do. It does not matter at the end of the day if you were able to do otherwise. All that matters

00:41:44.080 is that you're doing what you want. And because you are doing precisely what you want, you are

00:41:50.680 morally responsible for that which you are doing. You are guilty for doing sinful things because

00:41:58.860 sin is, at that given moment, your chief desire. You may be a Christian in your heart of hearts.

00:42:06.860 You delight in the law of God.

00:42:08.440 This is Romans 7.

00:42:09.700 But you find this law at work within the members of your being.

00:42:13.680 That when you want to do good, evil is right there present.

00:42:16.340 So that the good that you want to do, this you cannot carry out.

00:42:19.480 But why?

00:42:20.820 Because in the moment of sin, although you want to do good, you want sin more.

00:42:27.300 At any moment, you and I are only ever doing that which we want to do most.

00:42:34.040 That's all our lives are.

00:42:36.100 Our life is simply 85 years of a compilation

00:42:39.800 of your strongest desire at any given moment winning out.

00:42:44.860 That's your life.

00:42:47.200 Say, well, I don't like that that represents me.

00:42:49.020 That's not really who I am.

00:42:50.360 Yes, it is.

00:42:52.380 Everything you have ever done is precisely who you are.

00:42:56.540 You have only ever done exactly what you wanted to do.

00:43:02.420 And that's why you're responsible for it.

00:43:05.520 because you wanted it, you desired it.

00:43:11.720 And that's what the Bible teaches.

00:43:14.640 Human agency and freedom, yes,

00:43:18.380 but not a libertarian freedom

00:43:21.240 in the way that the modern philosophers would like to think.

00:43:26.240 No, the absolute sovereignty of God

00:43:29.920 and His meticulous sovereignty

00:43:32.420 over every single molecule in the universe

00:43:35.520 and the absolute moral human agency

00:43:40.840 and freedom of individual people,

00:43:43.080 the Bible teaches that both of these things

00:43:45.700 are simultaneously true.

00:43:48.640 God is in control.

00:43:51.540 And you are free, in the sense, free enough

00:43:55.220 to remain morally responsible

00:43:57.400 for the things that you do.

00:43:59.520 God is in control.

00:44:00.540 and you are also responsible.

00:44:04.720 Well, that's a paradox.

00:44:06.240 No, that's what we would call

00:44:07.320 in philosophical terms

00:44:08.340 an apparent paradox.

00:44:10.660 That is something that appears to be,

00:44:12.460 it seems like a paradox,

00:44:14.040 but there is no scriptural

00:44:15.960 or logical contradiction.

00:44:19.480 And in those times

00:44:20.600 when we're tempted to think

00:44:21.560 that there is a contradiction,

00:44:24.300 verses elsewhere in the scripture

00:44:26.040 prove to be incredibly helpful,

00:44:29.060 such as,

00:44:29.700 let God be true, and every man a liar. Or, who are you, O man, to talk back to God?

00:44:38.440 Does the clay have the right to say to the potter, why did you make me like this?

00:44:44.600 The Bible sees well ahead of time. It predicts this common objection, and it addresses this

00:44:52.320 common objection. Sin begins at the level of desire. And you and I are morally responsible

00:45:00.300 for every sin we've ever committed. And at the same time, God is sovereign over all of it.

00:45:07.280 All of this is biblically true. So make no provision for the flesh. Fight sin before it's 0.67

00:45:17.580 fully conceived and certainly before it grows up and springs forth to death fight sin inwardly

00:45:24.860 fight sin at the heart fight sin at the realm of desire making no provision for the flesh

00:45:32.320 genesis 3 6 now so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and catch this a delight

00:45:39.440 to the eyes the eyes and that the tree was to be desired there it is to make one wise she took of

00:45:46.720 its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was there with her, and he ate. Going

00:45:52.840 on, 2 Peter 2, verse 14, they have eyes. There it is. So there's a threefold temptation in the garden.

00:46:00.880 1 John addresses the same thing. It's the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful

00:46:05.820 pride of life. All three of those were present in the garden with Eve on that fateful day. She saw

00:46:11.460 the fruit and it looked pleasing to the eyes, lust of the eyes. Also, she was convinced that it would

00:46:17.240 be good to the taste. It would taste good. It would satisfy the lust of the flesh. And it was useful

00:46:23.120 for making one wise, exalting oneself, the boastful pride of life. All three. And this is what John

00:46:29.940 in his first epistle defines as the three characteristics of one word, namely worldliness.

00:46:36.960 What is it to be worldly?

00:46:38.920 To work a job at a big company?

00:46:41.000 No, not necessarily.

00:46:44.160 To live in town in a subdivision next to other people?

00:46:49.400 Does that make you worldly?

00:46:50.500 Not inherently.

00:46:52.200 You need to be careful.

00:46:55.080 But no, to be worldly, according to Scripture,

00:46:57.420 according namely to 1 John, John says this.

00:46:59.460 There are three key characteristics.

00:47:01.600 It's the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh,

00:47:04.060 and the boastful pride of life.

00:47:05.260 And all three of those characteristics, those types of temptations were present in the garden with man's original fall into sin.

00:47:13.880 Eve saw the fruit. She's like, that looks tasty. Lust of the flesh.

00:47:18.100 She also saw the fruit. That looks pretty. Looks shiny.

00:47:22.100 I don't know what the fruit looked like.

00:47:24.880 Nowhere in Scripture does it say it was an apple. We always imagine an apple.

00:47:28.100 This is an antediluvian world, pre-flood, before sin has entered the world.

00:47:32.960 this piece of fruit, it could have had glitter. I don't know. It could have been shiny. It could

00:47:38.260 have been shooting off lights and glowed in the dark. And I mean, it was obviously a tempting

00:47:44.580 piece of fruit. And not just because it made one wise, but it apparently tasted good and it looked

00:47:51.760 good. So the lust of the eyes is present right there in the garden. Genesis 3, verse 6. Now look

00:47:57.980 Back to adultery, 7th commandment, 2 Peter 2, verse 14.

00:48:03.300 They have, speaking of the wicked, they have eyes full of adultery.

00:48:07.380 What does that mean?

00:48:08.300 Because you would think they have bodies, flesh, that engages in adultery.

00:48:14.000 But no, it's beyond just that.

00:48:16.460 They have eyes.

00:48:19.040 At the level of sight, at the level of temptation,

00:48:22.480 There is a way of having not just adulterous hands, but adulterous eyes.

00:48:28.960 Adulterous eyes.

00:48:30.620 And those eyes, if they go unchecked without fighting diligently, vigently to make no provision for the flesh,

00:48:38.040 those adulterous eyes will quickly, quickly continue to feed and grow an adulterous heart.

00:48:44.480 And that adulterous heart, fueled by those adulterous eyes, will eventually land you in a situation with adulterous hands.

00:48:55.440 This is the way that sin progresses.

00:48:58.260 Desire, when conceived, gives birth to sin.

00:49:00.960 And sin, when fully grown, brings forth death.

00:49:06.020 Sin works at multiple levels of the heart.

00:49:08.760 And one is the eyes.

00:49:10.300 And elsewhere in Scripture, 2 Peter 2, verse 14, adultery is specifically named as one of those propensities of the eyes.

00:49:20.900 Eyes full of adultery.

00:49:23.500 Now, on the flip side, as a counter, what does Job say?

00:49:26.980 Chapter 31, verses 1-4, I have made a covenant with my eyes. 0.71

00:49:31.940 How then could I gaze at a virgin?

00:49:34.060 What would be my portion from God above and my heritage from the Almighty on high?

00:49:40.300 Is not calamity for the unrighteous 0.99

00:49:42.900 and disaster for the workers of iniquity? 1.00

00:49:45.980 Does not he see my ways and number all my steps?

00:49:50.420 Men and women, but see point A, we're not.

00:49:54.940 It's not this universal egalitarianism.

00:49:58.060 Guess what?

00:49:58.640 We're all different.

00:50:00.140 And men and women especially are different. 1.00

00:50:03.280 Women, you need to guard your eyes. 0.98

00:50:05.520 Men, you need to guard your eyes a hundred times more. 1.00

00:50:09.040 You are not the same as your wife. 0.93

00:50:12.060 You're not. 0.99

00:50:13.380 You are different.

00:50:16.080 You are different.

00:50:19.640 When I'm kind to my wife,

00:50:22.980 she wants to be romantic and intimate with me.

00:50:28.120 My wife could not be kind to me at all, 1.00

00:50:31.840 but she could just be getting ready for bed,

00:50:33.600 and that's enough.

00:50:35.540 we are not the same can be we have children i feel that was pretty good right i just

00:50:44.140 but that's enough and that's the difference there are other differences of course but that

00:50:50.680 is one of the differences so women sure but men certainly making a covenant with your eyes

00:50:57.580 is guarding the windows of the soul the intake the door that allows adultery to come in and

00:51:04.780 fill the heart that later would conceive sin and come out in action and that action if unchecked

00:51:13.040 eventually will bring forth spiritual death if it's ongoing unrepentant sin spiritual death you

00:51:19.560 will go to hell that's how that our chapter or our text ends i'm going to get there in a moment

00:51:24.380 literally ends warning about hell but also it can bring forth physical death 0.69

00:51:31.340 how many diseases that bring forth literal death ultimately stem from adulterous lifestyles

00:51:42.460 we can pretend that's not a thing like oh there's an epidemic and like oh what do you have to do to

00:51:49.120 to make sure that you're you and your kids and family are safe uh just live completely normal

00:51:54.460 lives and maybe maybe don't visit san francisco what why san francisco i don't get like

00:52:00.080 Yeah, it turns out living like a degenerate heathen

00:52:07.220 has temporal consequences as well as eternal consequences.

00:52:12.580 And God gives us his law to say that same statement

00:52:15.780 in the positive direction.

00:52:17.960 God gives us his law not only for eternal blessing,

00:52:20.580 but also blessings in this life as well.

00:52:23.600 Obedience to God's law brings forth blessing.

00:52:27.720 It does.

00:52:28.320 not as a prosperity gospel

00:52:30.460 but for the record here's the deal

00:52:32.840 you gotta get this the prosperity gospel

00:52:35.000 never taught that obedience

00:52:36.940 to God's law would make you a millionaire

00:52:38.900 did you know that

00:52:40.520 prosperity preachers don't care about

00:52:42.840 God's law they break it all the time

00:52:44.540 no prosperity gospel

00:52:46.620 which is a heresy it never taught obedience

00:52:48.820 to the law of God would bring temporal earthly

00:52:50.780 blessing that's not

00:52:51.860 the prosperity gospel the prosperity gospel

00:52:54.840 said you can actually live however you

00:52:56.760 want. You don't need to obey God's law at all. You just need to believe faith. Faith. Name it and

00:53:03.780 claim it. Right? Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Tap your ruby slippers three times and say,

00:53:08.840 there's no place like a Ferrari. There's no place like a Ferrari. No place like a Ferrari. And if

00:53:13.840 you believe hard enough and you manifest strong enough, then God will function as a genie in a

00:53:19.300 bottle and do exactly what you command. God works for you. And you just name it and claim it. That's

00:53:24.640 a prosperity gospel what the bible teaches though see and here's the problem anti-prosperity guys

00:53:30.680 which is good to be an anti-prosperity guy because it's a heresy but we went too far didn't we so

00:53:36.260 what we started saying is you know what there's no there's no quid pro quo whatsoever in the

00:53:41.260 entire bible really like there's never a principle in the bible ever ever that says that walking in

00:53:50.640 faith and in obedience to the Lord and loving Him and living in fidelity to Him, that that never

00:53:58.640 produces any earthly blessings ever? Like, go home and feel free. Take 50 years. Grab your Bible. Take

00:54:08.680 50 years and try to make me that argument. You can't. Of course, obedience to God's law brings

00:54:16.520 blessing. Not always, not as a guarantee, you can obey God and get hit by a truck. God is sovereign.

00:54:24.680 But ordinarily, lives of obedience bring forth more temporal blessing in this life than not,

00:54:33.080 than lives of rebellion. Ordinarily, lives of obedience to God's law bring forth more

00:54:40.320 temporal, not only eternal, that too, but also

00:54:44.060 temporal blessing than lives of utter rebellion. 0.96

00:54:48.160 Now to speak to women for just a moment. 0.97

00:54:52.600 This is a quote. Believe it or not, I didn't make it up.

00:54:56.240 But I did select it.

00:54:59.500 It's pretty good. Men sin, but devils

00:55:03.640 tempt. Quote Matthew Henry. Quote

00:55:07.660 Joel Webbing. It's like a Michael Scott kind of thing, if you ever, if you know what I'm talking

00:55:12.220 about. Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott. Here we go. This forbids also the using the seventh commandment.

00:55:19.140 So it forbids lust at the level of the heart. It forbids wandering eyes for men, for women too,

00:55:25.880 but especially men. But it also, if it forbids the wandering eyes of men, then it certainly also

00:55:31.560 forbids women dressing and behaving in such a way that would attract the eyes of men. It's a two-way 0.89

00:55:39.540 street, okay? So this forbids also the using of any other of our senses to stir up lust. If ensnaring

00:55:48.020 looks are forbidden fruit, then much more unclean discourses. He's talking about flirtatious

00:55:54.400 conversation with someone who is not your spouse, and wanton dalliances, that is a casual romantic

00:56:03.080 relationship with someone who is not your spouse, the fuel and bellows of this hellish fire.

00:56:12.020 And if looking be lust, they who dress and deck and expose themselves with design to be looked 0.50

00:56:20.020 at and lusted after, like Jezebel, who painted her face and tired her head and looked out 0.72

00:56:27.200 at the window, not to see what she could see, but rather to be seen and to tempt.

00:56:35.680 And those who do that, if lusting be sin, then those who are stirring up lust are no

00:56:42.500 less guilty.

00:56:44.000 And then Matthew Henry says, men sin, but devils tempt to sin.

00:56:49.600 Matthew Henry, there you have it.

00:56:50.880 He called every woman a devil.

00:56:52.120 No, I'm joking.

00:56:55.020 He did not call every woman a devil.

00:56:58.100 Instead, he lovingly and pastorally

00:57:00.060 warned every woman not to behave like a devil.

00:57:03.760 Don't act like a devil.

00:57:06.100 That's what he's saying.

00:57:09.100 If I was to sum up,

00:57:10.580 I've done this before,

00:57:11.400 and we're going to land the plane,

00:57:13.160 biblically looking at all the different texts

00:57:15.300 specifically to men

00:57:16.300 and all the different texts

00:57:17.240 specifically to women,

00:57:18.220 For men, the Bible seems to say this, if we were to sum it up into two words, one word for men, one word for women. 0.50

00:57:25.260 For men, the word that men should avoid at all costs, with every single breath and every fiber of their being,

00:57:33.740 the thing that they should avoid in a single word, if you're a man, is this, weakness.

00:57:38.900 Don't be weak.

00:57:40.620 The full thrust of Scripture is on strength for men.

00:57:43.980 Be strong, spiritually strong, physically strong.

00:57:48.220 In every way, be strong, strong for the Lord and strong for your wife and strong for your children.

00:57:54.360 So if there's one word that a man should avoid, it would be the antithesis of what the Bible says 0.86

00:57:59.860 as it speaks to men. It would be weakness. If there were one word that women should avoid,

00:58:05.000 it's the antithesis of what a woman should be as the Bible speaks to women. The word would be this 0.97

00:58:10.000 loud. For men, don't be weak. For women, don't be loud. A woman, now you might say, well, wait a

00:58:20.260 second, strength for men, to state it in the positive, and beauty for women. Doesn't the Bible?

00:58:24.280 Yes. And the opposite of strength is weakness. So I see how you got there, Joel, but the opposite

00:58:28.740 of beauty is ugliness. You could say ugly is the one word for women to avoid. However, I think that 1.00

00:58:35.540 it's helpful so that people don't miss the point to define ugly in biblical terms. And we can do

00:58:41.260 that by looking at the opposite of how the Bible defines beauty for women in biblical terms.

00:58:47.200 First Peter chapter three says this, do not seek imperishable beauty that fades, right? Beauty is 0.59

00:58:53.860 deceptive or charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting. But a woman who fears the Lord is to 0.99

00:58:58.160 be praised. First Peter three says, don't, don't concern yourself. Don't obsess, overly obsess 0.99

00:59:03.660 about outward beauty that is perishable, but rather the imperishable beauty of the heart.

00:59:09.280 And then it goes further to define that inward beauty, and it says, which is pleasing in the

00:59:15.180 sight of God. So what is the inward, true, imperishable beauty of the heart that God

00:59:20.440 calls subjectively beautiful, that God sees? It is this, a quiet, see there's the opposite of loud,

00:59:27.400 quiet and gentle spirit. 1.00

00:59:31.200 There is a way for a woman 1.00

00:59:32.760 to talk in her speech loudly. 1.00

00:59:36.860 There is a way for a woman 1.00

00:59:38.460 in her life with her deeds 1.00

00:59:41.220 and actions to behave

00:59:43.000 and live loudly.

00:59:46.200 And everything in our culture today, 0.99

00:59:48.540 women, they want you to be men. 1.00

00:59:53.000 Be aggressive. 1.00

00:59:54.140 Be aggressive.

00:59:55.160 if you want, if you're a young man

00:59:57.460 and you're looking for good advice

00:59:59.180 on how to be masculine, just look

01:00:01.420 at what our culture writes for 0.98

01:00:03.380 women.

01:00:05.900 The advice that our

01:00:07.360 culture everywhere gives to women

01:00:09.160 is great advice for men. 1.00

01:00:12.540 Be more domineering.

01:00:13.540 Be more assertive. Be more

01:00:15.400 confident. Be more this. Be more...

01:00:17.000 What it's saying is be loud.

01:00:19.160 Be loud. But what God's Word

01:00:21.260 says is be quiet. You can live

01:00:23.160 quietly. You can speak with a quiet way. This doesn't mean that women don't talk.

01:00:29.280 There's a way of talking and asking questions and being a social butterfly, and yet at the same time 1.00

01:00:35.460 not having a loud spirit. The last thing that I want to get to as it pertains to the seventh

01:00:40.560 commandment, our text today, is this. There's a way not only of living loudly, talking loudly, but also

01:00:46.740 dressing loudly. Loud dress. Loud apparel. Like a golden ring in the snout of a pig, 0.68

01:00:56.180 so too it is with a woman who is not modest. There's a way of dressing loudly. A way that 1.00

01:01:05.700 Jezebel painted her face and said, look at me. Look at me. She is being loud. But the Bible says 1.00

01:01:15.740 that men should be strong, not weak.

01:01:18.060 Women should be beautiful, not ugly.

01:01:20.400 And beauty is defined 1.00

01:01:21.700 as the imperishable beauty of the heart,

01:01:23.640 which is quiet and gentle, not loud. 0.99

01:01:28.720 Okay, last thing, don't go to hell. 0.98

01:01:31.920 Here we go. 0.97

01:01:34.240 Matthew Henry, he says this,

01:01:36.460 that such looks and such dalliances

01:01:39.620 are so very dangerous and destructive to the soul

01:01:42.240 that it is better to lose the eye

01:01:44.320 and the hand that thus offend

01:01:46.680 and to give way to the sin

01:01:48.240 and perish eternally in it.

01:01:50.260 Such pretenses as these

01:01:51.900 will scarcely be overcome by reason.

01:01:55.320 That's key.

01:01:56.580 Will scarcely be overcome by reason

01:01:58.400 and therefore must be argued against

01:02:00.740 with the terrors of the Lord.

01:02:02.560 This is so, so important, guys.

01:02:05.500 With the terrors of the Lord.

01:02:06.680 And so they are here argued against.

01:02:10.580 Elsewhere in the gospel,

01:02:11.740 according to Matthew,

01:02:12.440 Matthew chapter 10, verse 28,

01:02:14.120 Jesus says this, do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather,

01:02:19.100 fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Here's the idea. I remember once upon a time

01:02:26.340 I was a gospel-centered man. And to be fair, in the technical, biblical, theological sense,

01:02:33.700 in an objective sense, I'm still a gospel-centered man. But what I refuse to be is a gospel myoptic

01:02:39.560 man, a gospel exclusivist man. The Bible does not just talk about the gospel, what God has done

01:02:46.580 for us through Christ Jesus. It also talks about the law, what God demands and requires of his

01:02:53.080 people. And for that matter, the moral obligation to God of all people. And what the Bible does is

01:02:59.520 this. The Bible, it pushes us towards righteousness, both with promises of glory and with threats of

01:03:08.360 terror. The Bible does both. So, you can be, here's a gospel-centered mechanism, and it's biblical,

01:03:15.000 it's faithful, and it's perfectly legitimate. And we should use it, and think of it, and hide this

01:03:19.220 in our hearts. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, you were bought with a price. Your body is not your own.

01:03:27.180 You were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. What is the indicative,

01:03:32.600 the mechanism for motivation to live a pure life with your body.

01:03:39.780 Your body is not your own.

01:03:41.160 You were bought with a price.

01:03:42.600 Jesus died to purchase not only your soul, but your whole being.

01:03:47.720 Jesus died for you.

01:03:49.140 Therefore, live a pure life.

01:03:51.660 Amen.

01:03:52.700 That's good motivation.

01:03:55.060 And also, not as a substitute, not either or, but both and.

01:04:00.180 Jesus died for you.

01:04:01.960 He cleansed not only soul, but also body.

01:04:04.420 Therefore, live righteous, upstanding lives.

01:04:07.640 Amen.

01:04:08.120 Good motivation.

01:04:08.880 Here's another one. 1.00

01:04:10.600 If you don't, God will throw you in hell. 0.94

01:04:14.640 That's also thoroughly biblical. 0.72

01:04:17.360 That's a great motivation, right?

01:04:19.640 When Jesus is trying to help people not fear man,

01:04:22.080 he could have said this,

01:04:22.960 the opinions of man and living for the praise of man,

01:04:26.300 the opinions of man.

01:04:27.300 Jesus could have said this,

01:04:28.500 don't care about what men think.

01:04:30.020 your father in heaven loves you

01:04:31.800 and his opinion matters more.

01:04:34.080 And that would be theologically true

01:04:35.820 and that's a great motivation.

01:04:37.320 But that's not the argument he makes.

01:04:39.340 Instead he says this,

01:04:41.180 well, there's some temporal reasons to fear man. 0.99

01:04:43.780 They can beat you with sticks and kill you. 0.97

01:04:48.560 But that's it. 0.99

01:04:49.820 After that, they can do no more.

01:04:52.000 But here's the deal.

01:04:53.060 Probably shouldn't fear man

01:04:54.400 because God loves you

01:04:56.280 and his opinion outweighs him, right?

01:04:57.760 Yes, and also, 1.00

01:05:00.020 God can kill you and cast your soul into hell. 1.00

01:05:03.880 Really, Jesus? That's the sermon? 1.00

01:05:06.240 That's the motivation?

01:05:08.440 Don't be a slave to the opinions of man 0.95

01:05:10.300 because God can kill you like man 0.99

01:05:12.420 but then also send you to hell? 0.99

01:05:13.720 Uh-huh, that's the sermon. Let's pray. 0.90

01:05:16.800 Gospel-centered folks don't know what to do

01:05:18.940 with Jesus' sermons.

01:05:20.760 They want to center on Jesus,

01:05:23.200 just not his preaching.

01:05:25.640 They want to preach sermons about Jesus

01:05:27.900 where they condemn every sermon that Jesus preached.

01:05:32.020 Isn't that a little weird?

01:05:34.300 Let's not do that.

01:05:37.000 Live pure lives.

01:05:39.760 Because Jesus died for you

01:05:41.680 to purchase your soul and also your body.

01:05:45.140 He loves you.

01:05:46.180 He really does.

01:05:47.620 And He's worthy of your purity.

01:05:50.700 And live pure lives.

01:05:52.800 Because if you don't,

01:05:54.240 and you continue in that sin, 0.90

01:05:56.560 unrepentant and you will go to hell. 0.86

01:06:02.060 Both are true. 0.98

01:06:04.080 God will not be mocked.

01:06:05.360 Man will reap what he sows.

01:06:06.940 If you are living in sexual impurity

01:06:09.940 and you are not confessing that sin

01:06:12.500 and you are not seeking to mortify it

01:06:15.760 at the level of the heart, desire,

01:06:17.520 making a covenant with your eyes

01:06:19.120 and as a woman trying not to dress loudly, 0.96

01:06:22.960 not to behave like a devil that tempts

01:06:25.580 or a man that sins,

01:06:27.620 if you're not working against this,

01:06:29.240 you will fall.

01:06:30.600 But if you're not learning to hate the sin,

01:06:33.580 confessing the sin,

01:06:34.740 and striving to repent of the sin,

01:06:37.000 imperfectly, albeit, but striving,

01:06:41.040 then you need to hear two things.

01:06:43.000 One, you should do better

01:06:45.000 as a response of gratitude

01:06:47.040 because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:06:49.380 He died on a tree,

01:06:51.680 bled and died for you.

01:06:53.460 And you should do better 0.99

01:06:54.540 because hell is hot

01:06:56.580 and Jesus promised you would go there.

01:07:00.680 Both are true.

01:07:01.840 Let's pray.

01:07:02.800 Father, thank you for your word.

01:07:04.080 Bless it to your people.

01:07:05.080 All for your glory.

01:07:06.020 Amen.

The NXR Podcast - October 20, 2024

THE SERMON - Men Sin, But Devils Tempt ｜ The 7th Commandment

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