Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery

Introduction and Review of the Sermon on the Mount

0:05 Now we turn again this morning to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 5. Once again, may we look to God in just a moment of prayer, asking Him by His Spirit to open the Word of God to our understanding. Lord Jesus, Thou hast said, apart from me He can do nothing.

0:45 We confess how slow we are to unlearn the ways of self-confidence. We confess that there is in all of us a hard, fibrous core of deceptive self-trust.

1:01 And we cry this morning that Thou wilt wean us from all confidence in the arm of flesh, that we might be taught of Thee. May both preacher and hearers consciously rely upon Thee, blessed Lord, that we might experience the instruction of the Holy Spirit. Find the path. Find the powers of darkness that would distract our minds and dull our spirits.

1:31 And may Thy Word have free course in each of our hearts. For our good and for Thy glory we ask it. Amen. We are considering in these Sunday morning messages the teaching message of our Lord Jesus Christ as embodied in what has commonly been called the Sermon on the Mount.

1:58 The longest of the recorded utterances of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have no indication that this is the longest utterance He ever made. For John tells us, if we were to record all that He said, the world itself could not contain the books. But this is the longest recorded utterance, single utterance of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2:20 In those famous words called the Beatitudes, we have seen a full-orb description of a true child of God. Then we saw the reaction of the world to such a person. It will persecute him and say all manner of evil against him falsely. Then we saw in Matthew 5, verses 13 to 16, the function of that kind of a person in the midst of the world.

2:45 He is light and He is salt. This is His function in the midst of society as one who has been redeemed by the power of Jesus Christ. Then we came to that pivotal section, verses 17 to 19, in which our Lord Jesus, clearly states His relationship to the whole Old Testament revelation. He did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but He came to fill them to the full.

3:14 And He climaxed that pivotal section with those searching words found in verse 20. For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and of the Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. And then from verses 21 to 48, we have really an expansion of the statement of verse 20. Our Lord is going to delineate that righteousness of His own children, which far exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and of the Pharisees.

3:51 And so we have considered the first of these six parallel passages found in verses 21 to 48. And may I say by way of parenthesis, I hope you don't take this review lightly. At the end of this section, I'm going to just buttonhole some of you and ask you, what do verses 1 to 10 tell us in Matthew 5? What about verses 10 to 12 and 13 to 16?

4:17 And hearing this every week for nine months, we ought to absorb something, I trust. It may be very humbling for me as a preacher to ask a few people, but I'm going to run that risk so that we see the interrelationship of these different portions of the Sermon on the Mount. More heresy has been fostered upon people because someone grabbed a phrase from the Sermon on the Mount and began to wave it around as his party platform or his banner. And it's only as we see each segment of truth in relationship to the whole that we can properly interpret it and wisely apply it to our hearts.

4:56 We saw in verses 21 to 48 in the way of general view that our Lord Jesus, is breaking the shackles from off the holy law of God placed there by the scribes and Pharisees. I thought perhaps we could call this section the Emancipation Proclamation of the Holy Law of God. For the Pharisees had chained up God's law into a very narrow and truncated interpretation. And our Lord Jesus comes to break the shackles from off that law that we might see it in all of its exceeding glory.

5:32 It's a very broad and holy searching quality.

5:37 We saw that the sixth commandment, Thou shalt not kill, did not merely forbid the act of murder, but it forbade three distinct things. Unjust anger, whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause. All abusive and derisive speech. The word reka is a word of contempt.

5:59 And the word fool was a word of condemnation. So good. So good. So good.

6:03 So good. So good. So good. The sixth commandment condemns all unjust anger, all abusive and derisive speech, and all condemning speech.

6:13 At the same time, it commands two things in a positive way. Condemning these three things, our Lord Jesus goes on to say in verses 23 to 26 that that law commands that we be right with our brother. God accepts no act of worship heavenward unless the one who...

6:33 expresses that worship is right with his fellow man. If thou art bringing thy gift to the altar and there remembers that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar first, go thy way, be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift. And then last of all it commands us to be lenient in our dealings with those of the outside world. If thou art on the way to court with an adversary, the Lord Jesus said, come to terms with him, you'll save yourself an awful lot of trouble.

7:08 The law that should govern God's people is not what are my rights, but how may I demonstrate Christian love and graciousness. This is to be the law that governs the child of God. Now we come to the next parallel passage in this general section, beginning with verse 27. Ye have heard that...

The Prevailing Understanding of the Seventh Commandment

7:33 it was said. Each section is introduced by that phrase, so it's very easy to find when a new section is dealt with, for our Lord begins it with that specific phrase, ye have heard that it was said, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you that everyone that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

8:04 Now, one of the virtues of expository preaching, where you take a section of the word of God and preach through verse by verse, paragraph by paragraph, is that you are forced to encounter passages that normally you would never take as a text for a Sunday morning service.

8:26 There are several reasons why most people, and I believe I would be included in that category, would not take this text that I've read to you as the topic, for example, a Sunday morning service. From one standpoint, we'd feel, well, this is not quite perhaps proper for a Sunday morning worship service. Or there may be some fear of its implications and how searchingly it's going to speak to the hearts of people. But whatever our reservations would be, if we were just looking for a text, when in the regular course of ministering through a portion of the Scriptures, we come to a text like this, there's only one thing, there's only one thing we can do.

9:08 Ask God to open our minds and hearts and to dig into that text and see what God the Lord has to say to every one of us. Now notice carefully the words of our Lord Jesus. Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Verse 27 gives us the prevailing understanding of the seventh commandment.

9:31 Verse 28 gives us the true interpretation of the seventh commandment. But I say unto you, Now let's consider it in that particular outline. First of all, the prevailing understanding of the seventh commandment. Ye have heard that it was said.

9:49 Notice our Lord Jesus does not say, Ye have heard or seen that it was written, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Our Lord is not contradicting Moses.

10:02 Our Lord is contradicting the shackled interpretation of Moses, which describes, The scribes and Pharisees had given to Moses. So our Lord is saying, Ye have heard that it was said. Tradition of the scribes and Pharisees, and this is all the people had to go on. The people were speaking Aramaic in our Lord's day, and many of them did not read the Hebrew, and so the scribes and Pharisees, much like the Roman church at the time of the Reformation, where the priests spoke in a dead language, and all the people knew was what the priests told them in their common tongue, all the average Jew, knew about the law was what the scribes, the doctors of the law told them.

10:44 And so our Lord is saying to them, Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery. And the traditional interpretation put upon that commandment, Thou shalt not commit adultery, was simply this, Thou shalt not actually join yourself to another man's wife, or Thou shalt not in actual experience, break the sacred, ties of the marriage bond. And any Jew, the average Jew, as long as he didn't chase off for a weekend with another man's wife, he felt that the seventh commandment had absolutely nothing to say to him. Why, I live with one woman, I am free of all breaches of the seventh commandment.

11:28 Now notice carefully, that they were true as far as they went. The seventh commandment does condemn all breaches of the marriage bond. They went a lot further than a lot of our religionists go today. I was sickened in reading this article in Time magazine on the sex revolution on the American campuses to see quotations by Methodist bishops and other Protestant leaders stating that we must re-evaluate our time-honored standards of morality.

12:02 It may not be right for young people to use their bodies, it may not be wrong for young people to experiment a bit, before marriage. It may not in every case be wrong for a married man, who under certain circumstances is away from home a lot, it may not be wrong for him to break his vows of allegiance to his own wife. These people went further than many of the religionists in our day. At least they believed that the commandment did forbid all actual experience outside of the marriage bonds.

12:36 That's why John the Baptist could say to Herod of his day, when he took his brother's wife, it is not lawful for thee to have her. Period. He didn't say, well I don't think it's lawful, but come let me psychoanalyze you. You just may have deep psychic problems that are just overpowering you and your sin may not be quite as bad as it looks on the surface.

13:02 Rubbish. He was joining himself to another man's wife and the law of God said thou shalt not commit adultery. And they were right as far as they went. The prevailing understanding of that commandment was that Almighty God had condemned all such practice.

13:23 But now what was wrong with their prevailing understanding? Simply this, that it only touched the outside of the life. It only touched the external activity. It only touched what the hands did and the other parts of the body engaged in.

13:39 It nowhere in any shape or form touched the heart and the motives and the thoughts of the mind. That's why Jesus could say as he did in Matthew 23 to the very ones who taught this to the people, Ye are like unto whitewashed sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful unto men, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones and all unclean. You see, at least they kept the external requirement and their moral lives from the outside looked beautiful. Jesus said, ye appear beautiful unto men, but inwardly ye are.

14:23 And our Lord was far more concerned with what they were inwardly than what they appeared to be outwardly. You see, these poor folk had completely forgotten what the purpose of the law was. Why did God give the law? Just to give a code of conduct that would touch a few external activities like stabbing a man in the back of the head, or taking another man's wife, or taking another man's cow?

14:48 No. For I read in Romans 7.13 that by the commandments, sin might become exceedingly sinful. God gave the law to reveal to man the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

15:07 To lay bare that his basic problem was a problem of the heart. And any Jew who would read the Ten Commandments could understand this if he wanted to. For the Tenth Commandment said what? Thou shalt not covet another man's wife.

15:23 That touches my attitude, doesn't it? In fact, Paul says in Romans 7 that he never realized he was a sinner until he honestly faced that Tenth Commandment. He said, I have not known sin except the law said, Thou shalt not covet. And he said, when I understood that Tenth Commandment, suddenly I who thought I was blameless, before I was blameless as a Pharisee, he said, I found in me all manner of uncleanness and corruption, and the law which was ordained unto life I found to be unto death.

The True Meaning: Jesus' Authoritative and All-Inclusive Application

15:57 So the prevailing understanding in our Lord's day of the Seventh Commandment was the external act of adultery by a people who had forgotten that the true meaning of the law was to expose the heinousness of sin. Now, what is the true meaning of the Seventh Commandment? We move down to verse 28. The true meaning of the Seventh Commandment, verse 28, but I say unto you, this is an authoritative explanation.

16:30 Who is going to explain to us what the Seventh Commandment really means? The one who says, I say unto you, speaking with all the authority that he who was God's last voice to man, could speak. For we read in Hebrews 1, God who spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in the end of these days spoken unto us in a son. God's last revelation is the person of his son.

17:01 And the Lord Jesus stands as the embodiment of all the types, as the true prophet of God, the true mouthpiece of Jehovah God of Israel. And he says with all the authority of his own glorious presence, glorious person as the God-man, I say unto you. Hence, what he says is final. Matthew 24, 35, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall never pass away.

17:30 What our Lord says is not something that was inserted by the Puritans. We hear much about Puritan morality. We're getting away from the narrowness of Puritan morality. Long before the Puritans came, our Lord said, I say unto you.

17:47 This is the authoritative word of God incarnate. It's not an unreasonable statement. For Jesus said, My commandments are not grievous. My yoke is easy.

17:58 My burden is light. I am come that ye might have life. It's not a relative standard. We're cursed with relativism today.

18:08 Nothing's absolute anymore. What was black in our father's day is gray. And if you look at it long enough, it might be white if you've got the right glasses on. But our Lord's statement is not relative.

18:20 I say unto you, And as long as the word of Christ stands, the true meaning of the seventh commandment will stand. 20th century sex revolution or not, our Lord's word stands. So it's not only an authoritative explanation, but it's an all-inclusive application. Will you notice carefully the next words?

18:44 But I say unto you that whosoever, and it's the same word, and it's the same word used as in John 3.16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever, and we say that word whosoever, is as broad as the whole race of Adam. All right? I read here that whosoever looketh to us.

19:12 This is an all-inclusive application of the seventh commandment regardless of what our temperament is. We're told by psychologists, and it's creeped into the church, and even the evangelical church, that we've got to be understanding. A person may be composed of such factors in his background, and he may be pressured by situations in his environment, that if he gives himself to lust, we're not to look down at this as sin. It certainly just demands our condescension.

19:45 In our understanding, he's a product of his environment. Jesus says, I say unto you, everyone that looketh to lust hath committed adultery. Regardless of his circumstances, regardless of his environment, regardless of his temperament, this is an all-inclusive application. Now, what is the substance of the true meaning of the seventh commandment?

20:08 Let's look at it carefully. I say unto you that everyone that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already, in his heart. May I give you William's translation, which is very clear, and sticks to the sense of the original very closely. Anyone who looks on a woman so as to have an evil desire for her at once has committed adultery with her in his heart.

20:41 Now, our Lord, in giving the true meaning of the seventh commandment, mentions a man in his relationship to a woman, but the converse is true. For we read in Genesis 39.7 that Potiphar's wife looked upon Joseph and then she gave vent to what was already the desire of her heart. And so this is speaking as well of a woman who looks with evil desire upon a man.

Principle 1: Sin Lies in the Consent of the Will to Evil

21:07 And our Lord says in this passage that the moment that look receives the consent of the heart and there is born in the heart desire for that individual, adultery has already been committed in the eye of God. Circumstances, fear of reputation, fear of the consequences, many of these things may keep a man or woman from the actual deed that the heart has conceived, but Jesus said it's not the deed that God judges first, but it's the consent of the heart. So that the true meaning of the seventh commandment is basically this,

21:50 that wherever, the human heart and will consents to the sin of adultery, regardless of what happens in the life, God passes sentence upon that consent of the will. For notice Jesus said he hath committed adultery in his heart. He has broken the holy law. And that law that came thundering from Sinai, thou shalt not commit adultery, passes sentence upon every consent of the heart to impurity.

22:26 And we incur not only the guilt of a broken law, but we are exposed to all the wrath due to sinners who break that law. Now may I, this morning, set before you some basic principles revealed in this statement of our Lord Jesus Christ. And these things are so basic and essential that I trust God the Spirit will speak with such clarity that we'll never forget them. Principle number one, will you listen carefully?

22:58 Sin lies in the consent of the will to the suggestion of evil. Now that's not all that sin is. But sin does involve this. The consent of the will, not to the deed of evil, but to the suggestion of evil.

23:18 You remember in Genesis 3, the tempter came to our first parents, came to Eve and suggested evil. Suggested that she disregard the commandment of God who had said, thou shalt not partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he came saying, oh, thou shalt not surely die. Now, when did Eve sin?

23:38 Oh, you say, she sinned when her hand reached out and took hold of the fruit. No, she didn't. Her hand could never have reached out until first of all what? Until there was a consent of her will to the suggestion of the devil to her mind and to her understanding.

23:54 Right? The reaching out of the hand was merely the fruit of the consent of her will. Right? Think of our Lord Jesus.

24:11 The Bible says he was what? Tempted in all points like as we, yet without sin. What happened when the tempter came to our Lord Jesus in Matthew 4? He said, look, you're hungry.

24:23 Your father loves you. You're the son of God. There's a bond of affection between you and your father. Certainly your father would not be against you having fasted forty days and nights in satisfying the very desire he gave you.

24:34 Since you're the son of God, exercise your right. Bask in the love of your father's heart. Turn these stones into bread. There was the suggestion of evil.

24:46 What was our Lord's response? No consent of his will. Immediately he said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The suggestion to evil is not sin.

25:02 It's the consent of the will to that suggestion which is the essence of sin. For the enemy suggested evil to our Lord. Later on he said, look, why go by way of the cross? That's an awful, bloody, nasty way to become the ruler of the ends of the earth.

25:20 Why don't you just bow down to me just a moment, that's all. I'll give you the kingdoms of the earth. You can bypass the cross. All the nastiness of the blood and gore and suffering and despising and rejection.

25:35 Bypass it all. It's so much more convenient. What did our Lord say? Get thee hence.

25:43 No consent of his will to the suggestion of evil. Now do you see the principle? That's why Jesus said, when a man looks on a woman, as Williams translates it, so as to have an evil desire, he's already committed adultery. Why?

26:02 Because there's been the consent of his will. He said, yes, I would like to have that woman. Whether he ever has her or not is not the issue. He's consented to the suggestion of evil.

26:12 Now the suggestion of evil is not sin. Don't any sensitive soul be overburdened with the terrible thought that the suggestion of evil is sin. The suggestion of evil is not sin, for the devil suggested evil to our Lord. But he found no consent to evil from our Lord.

26:40 Whenever the human heart looks upon an object, man to woman, woman to man, and that look becomes desire and the will consents, adultery has been committed in the heart. For sin lies in the consent of the will to the suggestion of evil. Young people, listen to me. You sit in that class and you're not doing so well on that exam and you say, boy, I know Susie across the aisle, she always does well.

27:17 I think maybe I get a little help if I just look over there. There's a suggestion to evil. There's a suggestion to cheat, which is evil, it's stealing. Now what are you going to do?

27:27 The moment in your heart you say, all right, it's worth it to me to break God's law to get a good grade, even before you put your eyes on Susie's paper and get the answer. The minute your will consents to cheat, you've cheated in your heart and you've sinned against God. And even if you turn and at that time, Susie turns her back and you can't get her answers and you never see an answer on her paper, you've still cheated in your heart and you've been guilty of stealing before God. Because your heart has already consented to the deed, even though you couldn't accomplish the deed.

28:03 See it? Suppose you need some money, you fellows and girls. There's something you want real bad. All the neighbor kids are getting a certain trinket or a certain kind of toy or something.

28:12 And mom and dad don't have the money for it. But you know that when mom and dad are gone, dad keeps some change in a certain place at the top drawer in the dresser. You say, well, I'd like to have that. I shall not steal.

28:23 Ah, yes, I know what God says, but I want that thing so bad I'm going to get it. And in your heart, you consent to steal. You walk up the stairs and when you go to open your dad's drawer, it's locked. You've still been guilty of stealing.

28:36 Why? Because you consented to the evil in your heart. And it's the consent of the will to sin which is the essence of sin. Young people, you're out on a date.

28:56 Sure, you stop at the goodnight kiss, but where does your heart go? You can be guilty of adultery in your heart, though you may be pure in the outward actions of your life. If our Lord's words mean anything, they mean that. Whoso looketh so as to have an evil desire hath committed adultery.

29:23 There's been the consent of the will to sin. Beloved, if that's true, some of you are in bad shape, terribly bad shape, because you're living in sin day after day in the murky regions of your heart, though your life may appear beautiful unto men. But there's a second principle that flows out of this, and our Lord states it so clearly in this passage, that the source of sin lies in the human heart. Notice,

Principle 2: The Source of Sin is the Human Heart

30:04 Whoso looketh to lust hath committed adultery already in his heart. There are three or four verses that I want all of you in this congregation to know and to know well. They're not pleasant verses, but they are three or four verses that are key verses on understanding the Bible doctrine of sin. The first one is Mark 7, 21, which is one of the best commentaries on our passage this morning.

30:33 Mark 7, 21. Mark 7, 21. Our Lord Jesus says, For from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, and evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness. All these things proceed from within.

31:15 I beg to differ with the sociologists of our day and those grappling and thank God at least there are some people concerned enough who are grappling with the problems of delinquency and moral laxness. And they say, if only we can clean up the slum areas and get people in a good environment, all will be well. No, beloved, it won't be well, for from within, out of the heart, proceed adulteries and fornications and thefts. And the poor sociologists have no answer.

31:44 And the psychologists, why should the young people from the upper middle class of our residential areas right here in this county, be giving themselves over to weekend sex and dope parties? What's the answer? And they have no answer. But Jesus gave the answer many hundred years ago.

32:03 Within, out of the heart, proceed adulteries. And as long as man's got his own unregenerate heart within his breast, adultery's going to come out in the slums or in the swanky sections of town. For man has an adulterous heart. That's the teaching of the Bible.

32:22 That the source of sin is the corruption of the human heart. Now I know that's not pleasant in our day, but beloved, anyone who denies it or won't face it runs headlong into the statements of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who said, these things that proceed from within, they defile the man. Not his environment, but his own wicked heart. Environment may contribute to bringing what's in the heart out.

32:51 We all acknowledge that. But the basic problem is, the heart. A second verse, Romans 8, 7. May I just quote it?

33:00 Let's turn to it. Let's turn to it. Perhaps it will help us to remember it. Romans 8 and verse 7.

33:14 Because the carnal mind, the word mind here is used in the same sense that our Lord Jesus used the word heart. It's the governing principle of life. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. What a picture!

33:35 The human heart, the principle which governs my life, the carnal mind by nature is such a rebel, it is not subject to God and it will not and cannot be subject to God. It's pretty strong language, isn't it? Then I give you one other verse in the New Testament, James 1 and verse 14. Shall we look at it together?

33:59 James 1 and verse 14. Perhaps we could begin with verse 13. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempteth no man.

34:18 But each man is tempted, notice now, when he is drawn away by the devil, no, when he is drawn away by his own lust. Man is tempted because there is something in him that will respond to temptation and the word of God calls it the lust of his own heart. Now do you see why Jeremiah said in that famous verse in chapter 17 of his prophecy, the heart is deceitful above all things and what? Desperately wicked.

34:55 What do we mean when we say something is desperate? We say the situation is out of hand. Can't do a thing about it. It's a desperate situation.

35:02 God says the human heart is desperately wicked. Desperately. If sin is the consent of the will to evil, whether the deed is ever committed or not, what a wicked thing is the human heart that is consenting to evil a hundred times a day. If the essence of sin or the source of sin is the human heart, one from within, precede adultery, fornication, do you see now why we need to be saved by grace?

35:35 Oh, what a grace, what a mountain of grace it must take for God to provide forgiveness for not just the outward deeds of sin, all that He judges as sin. If I'm ever to be forgiven, I must have all of my sin blotted out every time I've consented to cheat with my heart, whether I've ever cheated with my hand and my eyes, every time I've lusted with my heart, whether or not the deed of adultery has been committed. If Almighty God, who knows the thoughts of men, knows the infinite mountain of iniquity laid to my account, oh, what grace is needed to bring me to the place

36:19 where I can look up into the face of this God and say, my sins are gone. Beloved, grace is not just a word. It's a miracle that Almighty God, who knows all this about me, should say, if you'll repent and flee to my Son, your sins and iniquities I'll remember no more. You know why there's not more reason to repent and flee to my Son?

36:40 You know why there's not more reason to repent and flee to my Son? You know why there's not more reason to repent and flee to my Son? You know why there's not more real white-hot love for Jesus in our assemblies? We don't have too many people who've ever seen the mountain of sin that was laid to their charge.

37:00 You thought your sin was just that little bit of cheating you did in grade school and that little bit of cheating on your income tax and a little bit of cheating on your wife. And so when you came to make the profession of faith in Christ for the life of you, you couldn't get too enthused about it. But oh, when the Holy Spirit tells to me that my sin is everything where I've consented to evil in the heart, and I flee to Christ and realize that He'll forgive even that, then I'm astounded and amazed and I sing from my heart amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

37:41 But God who knows my heart knows that I was a wretch. That's why we need grace to forgive. And that's why I submit to you the Holy Spirit to regenerate us. If everything within my human heart is opposed to God and won't be subject to God, how in the world can I ever please Him unless He performs a miracle and gives me a new heart?

38:11 Listen to me, parents. The heart I've described this morning is the heart of that sweet little baby that you hold in your arms and don't you forget it. You passed on to that child an Adam heart. Oh, not my little darling.

38:27 All right, let him live to see Adam revealing himself. Where did this come from? Out of his heart. The heart that you and I gave him by being his parent.

38:43 That's why I continually seek under God to get across from this pulpit I'm sure inadequately but at least earnestly that we must be content with nothing less than a mighty work of regeneration in our children lest they make a profession and a decision and appear beautiful unto men and then ten years down the road that old wicked heart begins to reveal itself in rebellion to God and to Christ and to truth and we say oh, how did this happen? I'll tell you how it happened. We were content with something less than the mighty operation of regeneration by the power of God the Holy Ghost.

The Need for Grace, Regeneration, and Preservation

39:27 We were content to decision them instead of seeing them born from above. That's the curse of modern evangelism. Content of the Holy Spirit that has been brought into our inquiry rooms and prayed a little prayer and signed no evidence that the heart has been brought and made new. It's because we've got a defective view of sin that's why we need the power of God to regenerate and that's why we need not only grace to forgive and power to regenerate but we need grace and power to keep us

40:12 because though the heart is broken that wicked heart would rise up and betray you. My dear brother Riesinger said and I'll never forget as we prayed together in one morning he said oh God don't take your hand off me for a moment today for the moment you did Lord I'd go back to the hand pens. He recognized that principle. That's why the Bible says kept in the realm of evil.

40:48 Why? Because Lord I acknowledge that my heart is a tinder box of evil and if you bring me too close to it some sparks will alight upon that tinder box and Lord I don't trust myself. You see that's why Christ taught us to pray every day after this manner pray ye lead us not into temptation of evil. And there's a third principle that I want to deal with this morning that our

Principle 3: True Character Revealed by the Heart's State

41:33 true character is revealed now listen carefully our true character is revealed by the state of our hearts not the activity of our lives. Now the Bible does teach we'll be judged according to our works I realize that. The Bible says that if you have disobedience to the laws of God in men I can know that that man's not saved. But dear ones it's only

42:17 in cases where the disobedience to the laws of God are open and those are few comparatively few that we can see in our lives. The Bible says that if a person in question has actually been guilty of adultery in practice but Jesus said he's an adulterer because of the state of his heart. Jesus said in one place that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination

43:02 in the sight of men and the state of their hearts not by the outward condition of our lives. And this principle is laid out in our text and then also in this parallel passage Matthew 23 and verse 28. Notice what Christ said. Even so ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

43:39 Now let's drop out a couple of the words and read it this way. Even so ye outwardly appear but inwardly ye are. Now he says you are what you are within. You merely appear and your true character is not revealed by your outward conduct but by the state

44:23 of your heart. And I say to every man or woman fellow or girl in this assembly your true character is not what I see. It's what God sees in you. And I don't think that you're living a scandalous life, an immoral life, a wicked life, a thieving life.

45:02 But I ask you what is the state of your heart this morning? You see when we stand before God in judgment my Bible will make manifest the counsels of men's hearts. You see that's why I am concerned as a pastor about the state of your heart. Some of you say Pastor why don't you just leave us alone and tell us nice things.

45:43 Aren't you content we're here. We're here to hear you say

46:14 that's how God's going to judge me.

46:17 If this were not true I know what to preach to fill a church.

46:21 I know what to preach to become a popular expositor of the word.

46:28 Beloved but I'm going to stand before Almighty God and so are you. And your heart is going to be the basis upon which God judges you.

46:47 Outwardly you appear, but inwardly you are. This is a frightful thing, because my Bible says no adulterer shall enter the kingdom of heaven. What must a man do to become an adulterer? Must he actually live in outward adultery? No.

47:04 Jesus said, Whoso looketh so as to have an evil desire hath committed adultery. Listen to me. There may be some of you men, unless you repent, you're going to go to an adulterer's hell, though you were never untrue to your wife in your actual experience,

47:21 because you give your heart to adulterous desires. I'm not talking about the earnest Christian, and all of us are plagued with impurities of thought and suggestions by the devil, and we may occasionally consent to that suggestion, and we have to go before God and plead for mercy, and cry for cleansing. I stand among such today as one who daily needs his mercy. Beloved, I'm talking about the man or woman who's content that because your outward life is free of scandalous sin, you willfully, deliberately, and delightfully give your heart to adultery.

48:04 You'll perish in hell as much as the man or woman who gives her body to adultery. You fellows and girls who, because of the restraints of your Christian home, your moral life is quite respectable. But where is your heart? That's the issue.

Application: Heart Purity and Hindrances to Revival

48:24 That's the issue. And I would say to you as God's people, those of you who love the Lord Jesus and have been born of His Spirit, what hinders revival? Oh, you say, unconfessed sin in God's people. That's right.

48:39 And what is unconfessed sin? Well, you say, if we've spoken evil, as we heard last week, we ought to make it right. Yes. If we haven't been honest in our business, well, yes.

48:51 But how about adulterous, impure thoughts? Are they sin? Yes, they are. Sins that no one knows but you and God, but they hold back revival.

49:02 My Bible says in 2 Corinthians 7, 1, Let us cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit. Not only the sins of the flesh, but of the spirit. You dear students who are with us, Northeastern, our visitors from Niamh, I exhort you as a servant of God, be content with nothing less than heart purity. Don't just take the regulations of the school and let them chain up your outward lust and have a heart that's given over to uncleanness.

49:40 Whereas one who not too long ago was a student and then in some responsibility of administration in the school, I know how many young men and young women are utterly defeated by the sins of the heart. Anybody here? Anybody want to claim he sins? Anybody want to claim that you've attained a degree of sanctification upon which there's no room for improvement?

50:08 If what Christ said is true, that sin lies in the consent of the will to the suggestion of evil, then daily I must cry to God for mercy and for forgiveness and cleansing. If the source of sin is the human heart, then daily I must learn to rest upon the Lord to keep me from the betrayal of my own heart and to keep me in the ways of righteousness. If my true character is known by the state of my heart, then I must continually remember that only the pure in heart will see God. And then the last principle, and with this I close this morning.

Principle 4: God's Law Condemns What Leads to Adultery

50:47 God's law condemns the act of adultery, yes, but it also condemns anything that leads to it. When Jesus said, Whoso looketh to lust hath committed adultery, he says that the seventh commandment that forbids the act, forbids the desire that leads to the act. And may I say, by way of application, it forbids anything that provokes that desire. Jesus said in Matthew 18, 7, It's necessary that occasions of stumbling come, but woe unto them by whom they come.

51:20 May I speak very frankly this morning? God will hold every woman accountable who by her thoughtlessness or by her deliberate consent has so adorned herself as to provoke unnecessary lustful thoughts from men. God will hold you accountable before him. Woe be unto him by whom the sin cometh.

51:42 Some men are so perverted that they'll lust after women if they dressed in gunny sacks, and I realize that. But there are some of you who are not careful and may even deliberately adorn yourselves so as to provoke those looks from men. Listen to me, women, you'll stand accountable before all men. You'll stand accountable before almighty God.

52:05 Dress is not our moral. For my Bible says my dress should reflect my profession of godliness. 1 Peter. And either my adornment reflects the desire of the heart to be holy, or it reflects a desire to be a fashion and fad conscious individual.

52:31 I know this won't fill the church, beloved, but it's Bible. And I don't hammer away on externals, for the externals touch the principle of abiding eternal truth. And all those who by their dress, men or women, provoke impurity of thought will be held accountable. All those who by their failure to render proper due to their husbands or wives and thereby cause the mate to seek elsewhere for satisfaction, they'll be held accountable before God.

53:05 You read 1 Corinthians 7, verses 2 to 5, on your knees, you husbands and wives, where God tells you, you have a mutual responsibility to one another. And if some of you, through failure to obey that command, have caused your husband or wife to go seeking other pastures, you'll be held accountable before God for being the occasion of their sin. The Bible speaks clearly on all of these issues. And I trust that we've heard the voice of God today.

53:31 The prevailing understanding of the seventh commandment, all they thought it touched was outward conduct. Our Lord shows us that it touches the desire and the attitudes and the consent of the heart. May we never forget what God the Lord has said to our hearts today. Shall we pray?