Sermon on the Mount (Part 6)

Buddy, we're going to go ahead and get started. We'll be in Matthew 5, and looking at verses 27 through 30 this morning will be our focus.

But let's go ahead and begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day. We thank you for the joy of serving you, of knowing you.

We thank you that you give us eternal life, that you give us life by your Son, Jesus Christ, and that we know you as our

Heavenly Father by your Holy Spirit. We thank you for the abundance of grace that you show to us.

We thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you for its treasures and how you bring its riches to bear upon our lives, to bless us and conform us to your

Son, Jesus Christ. We pray now that as we study your word, that you would be honored and glorified by our response to your word, that we would truly have an amen in our lives, an amen of your will expressed from heaven.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so Matthew 5, beginning in verse 27.

This will be the second antithesis out of the six that we have in the

Sermon on the Mount. So verse 27, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you.

For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

So I want to review just a little bit where we've been so far and give an opportunity here at the beginning for any kind of questions or discussion that we need to catch up on.

And then as we did with the previous antithesis, I want to look at the structure of the passage and consider its significance not only to the

Sermon on the Mount, but also to the overall message of Jesus and the message of Holy Scripture.

This is the fifth lesson that we've had so far. And I think we've covered the majority of the interpretive ground, understanding where it's all coming from and how to read the

Sermon on the Mount. So we've had to go over a lot of big concepts, but we've been looking at the

Sermon on the Mount with a great deal of reliance on the buildup in chapters one through four that we of course didn't have time to actually go through together as a class.

But when you do go through chapters one through four, you receive this cadence, this reinforcement, a parade, if you will, of how

Christ has come as the fulfillment of. And remarkable to see the depths and the riches of what

Christ has fulfilled just in the first four chapters. And so in the composition of the

Gospel of Matthew, the apostle accomplishes in four short chapters what was on display in the life of Christ for those 30 some years.

And it's all compressed down for the reader to consider how Jesus of Nazareth indeed is the

Messiah. And he comes as the satisfying fulfillment of all the promises of God, of that which has come before in the old covenant.

And so reading the Sermon on the Mount itself is very dependent on the first four chapters.

Otherwise we might miss the significance of what Jesus is saying. He's not coming to say business as usual, but we're gonna move from a four -star service to five -star.

We're gonna improve the reviews on how things operate. He's coming with a plan of a great deal of change, and the nature of that change is one of fulfillment.

Now, any questions that have been lingering for you as we've been studying the

Sermon on the Mount, anything that you think would be helpful for clarification before we go through verses 27 through 30?

Some of you have already caught me at other times and opportunities, so. Okay, so let's look at how this passage is structured.

We have a antithesis stated in verses 27 and 28, and then it's followed by its application.

That's the way it was with the previous passage, where you have heard it said, but I say to you, and then after you have that established, then comes application.

Here's how we are to think about this. Here's what this wisdom looks like lived out. Here's what this righteousness looks like in real life.

And so, as before, Jesus is not tossing out the old.

He is locating its satisfying conclusion in his own wisdom and righteousness. In other words, we're not standing out in the parking lot at 10 .30

in the afternoon and looking up and pointing at the moon, still visible, and saying, we're not saying that moon doesn't exist, right?

And we're not saying that moon does not have its own light. Everyone can see that it exists and it has its own light.

But with the sun risen, we can clearly see the glory of the sun is far greater than that of the moon.

And we can also say the only reason why there's any light on that moon at all is the reflection it's getting from the sun.

The sun is so much more greater than that moon. Now, of course, I'm thankful for the moon, but let's just be honest, it's of a lesser glory.

And that is the manner in which we handle the old covenant in light of the new.

It's not like we have to say there was no old covenant. It's not that we had to toss it out completely or say that there was no glory or light in it at all.

But when we see from this side of the cross and in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when we see the risen sun in the sky with the old covenant, which again, the old covenant was governed by the lunar cycle, when we see it all in the sky together, we can easily say who has the superior glory and the entire brightness and significance of the old is from Jesus Christ.

And so that's what's happening here in the Sermon on the Mount, and it's being dealt with point by point as Jesus selects some very important principles of righteousness and then shows how

He used the satisfying fulfillment of what we have heard from old. So the old saying is in verse 27, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery.

Now, you know that as one of the commandments, it is the seventh commandment, and we have that in Exodus chapter 20, verse 14.

Now, Jesus moves from the sixth commandment right into the seventh commandment in the

Sermon on the Mount, and this is appropriate for a number of reasons, but again, this is very short.

In Exodus 20, verse 13, you shall not murder, verse 14, you shall not commit adultery.

Now, that's not the only place that's said. It's also said in Deuteronomy chapter five, verse 18, same order, comes right after Jesus saying, after Moses commands the people by the word of God, you shall not commit murder, and he says you shall not commit adultery.

Also, there are many other instructions in the Old Testament that are similar.

So for example, in Leviticus chapter 20 and verse 10, we also have this instruction, the man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

And of course, we know what the penalty for murder is even from Genesis chapter nine, but also in the instructions to Israel by way of Moses, the death penalty is not only for murder, but also for adultery.

In the life of Israel, adultery brought the death penalty. Now, I think it might be helpful for us to just stop a moment and think about why is that?

Why is it that the Lord in his wisdom in speaking to Israel puts these two commandments so closely together?

You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery. And then we can think about the fact that they both have the same penalty.

They both have the same judgment, right? The death penalty, okay?

So what connection is the Lord making and why is that connection made, do you think, in the scriptures?

Do we have anything that tells us why that might be? Prior to God making covenants with man, so before Noah, before his covenant with Noah, something was going on in the face of the earth.

There was a whole lot of what? There was a whole lot of polygamy and a whole lot of violence and the two seemed incredibly connected.

And this wasn't a random connection. It wasn't just a interesting juxtaposition in chapter six of Genesis.

First, there was the statement of rampant polygamy as the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and took whoever they wanted.

There was no restriction, no thought to God's design, one man for one woman.

For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, singular, and the two, one two, shall become one flesh.

And then man started rebelling against that design as early as we see in chapter four of Genesis.

And who was that? Lamech, right, who boasts to Ada and Zillah, listen to my voice, and he boasts about his violence to his wives, plural.

And then by the time we get to chapter six, we learn that that wasn't an isolated incident either. The whole earth was filled with polygamy and violence.

And so when we go through the story of Noah, there is an emphasis of one for one, one man for one woman, and then all the animals came in, two by two, two by two, and it's all being underscored and emphasized.

And Noah had one wife, he had three sons, and each one of his sons had one wife. There was eight people, we're told specifically in the text, that means there were eight people, do the math.

And so that's being underscored. Hey, there's an appropriate way that God has designed for this, and also what does

God address in the Noahic covenant other than all the violence, the murder that was going on?

If a man sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. And so both of those issues are addressed, and they were very closely associated from prior to the covenant with Noah.

And so it's closely associated and seen together there in God's covenant with Israel at Sinai.

These things have a natural connection in their fallout, in their disaster, in their corruption.

Example, go over to Proverbs chapter six. In Proverbs chapter six, we see the wisdom of the

Lord in having these two commandments close together and these considerations tied, joined at the hip, okay?

So in Proverbs chapter six, in these warnings against adultery, we can look at, let's start at verse 27 of Proverbs six.

And there's a lot of wisdom here, of course, but let's start at verse 27. Here's a question that the king asks his son,

Solomon is asking his son, can a man take fire to his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

Some young men think that that's possibility on 4th of July. But that's not what

Solomon is talking about. Can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be seared?

These are rhetorical questions. Obviously that's, you know. So verse 29, so is he who goes into his neighbor's wife, whoever touches her shall not be innocent.

So there is a searing that occurs, a burning, a wound, a change that happens that you cannot undo.

And then he goes in through this example, verse 30, people do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving.

Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold. He may have to give up all the substance of his house. And so, yeah, it makes sense if somebody is starving that he's gonna steal some food and try to get some food for his family by theft.

Everyone's like, I mean, that's wrong, but it's logical. I mean, obviously. But when he's caught, he's got to restore sevenfold.

What does that mean? Well, he can't. Well, that means he has to sell everything and become a slave. It's like, welcome to slavery until, you know, we get to the

Sabbath year. You're just gonna have to work off your debt and then we'll see where you are later on. If you have to sell your whole property, then you're gonna have to wait to the year of jubilee for your family to get your property back.

But this is just the way it's gotta go, okay? That makes some sense in regard to that.

However, verse 32, whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding. This is in contrast to the one who steals bread to feed his belly, right?

He who does so destroys his own soul. So put that into the contrast of having to give up the household and the homestead.

Like, you know, you steal and you can't pay it back, you lose your homestead. But this, like, you lose your life.

You destroy your own life. Verse 33, wounds and dishonor he will get and his reproach will not be wiped away for jealousy is a husband's fury.

Therefore, he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will accept no recompense, nor will he be appeased, though you give many gifts.

And so you can hear in the text how sexual immorality precedes a cycle of violence.

Vengeance is coming, right? Now, that is not something that we have to necessarily look at the

Bible to understand. All you have to do is just kind of look around and watch how people act. Go talk to police officers, go talk to judges, and see how often murder is related to sexual unfaithfulness, okay?

And of course, alcohol is gonna be all through that. But Proverbs also talks about that. So how are we going to understand that connection?

It's because the Lord made us in his image, and then with one violation comes the next violation, and the whole thing is a cascade of failure and sin.

So refraining from committing adultery is right there next to do not murder, because both of them are naturally related in the life of the creature who sins against God.

So Jesus says, you have heard it said of old, you shall not commit adultery, and there's a lot being said in the Old Testament about that, warnings against it, warnings that have to do with losing your life, and the penalty thereof is death.

Now, if somebody in Jesus' audience figured that as long as they refrain from the actual act of adultery, they're good to go,

Jesus has something to say to them. He can't say, well, in all my history of 20, 30, 40, 50 years,

I have never committed adultery. Check. Righteous am I. I am being covenantally faithful.

Jesus says, hang on a second. Remember, because the same thing happened with when he said you shall not murder. Just because you haven't physically murdered someone doesn't mean that you should consider yourself righteous.

Because what is on the path to murder, what was it? It was hatred, anger, the bitterness, the reviling.

That's all on the path to murder, so. Also here, Jesus has a new saying, verse 28.

But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So, if hate is on the road to murder, what is lust on the road to? Right? And you'll notice how much hate sells in our culture today and how much sex sells in our culture today.

What is it that's always being appealed to? If you can get people full of anger and hate, then you'll have a customer for life because you're gonna sell them what they want.

If you can get somebody full of lust and immorality and be okay with it, then you can sell them anything along those lines.

Jesus says, if you look at a woman to lust for her, this is the commission of adultery in his heart.

Now, he clarifies the matter in two ways. First of all, he says, looking at a woman in order to lust for her.

This is not any visual perception of a woman.

There is an intentionality here that has to do with the heart. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart.

What is the intention of the look? Also, this is commission of adultery in his heart.

So, Jesus is not thereby stating that adultery in the heart is the exact same or is as bad as adultery itself.

He's making a correlation and stating that this lust is a sin. It is not to be overlooked.

It is not to be dismissed. That make sense? We have a tendency in our postmodern culture to go with false equivalences, equivocation, where we say things like and hear people say, all sin is as equally bad as all other sin.

Everybody is equally sinful as everybody else. And one sin is as bad before the face of God as another sin.

But well, you're gonna have to take that up with God because he talks about sins in different ways. Some things are called transgressions, other things are not.

Some things are called abominations, other things are not. There are some cities were going to be judged greater than other cities.

Some people judged worse than other people based on the kinds of sins that they committed.

So, to God, he's not painting all sin with a broad brush and saying it's all equally to me, right?

This is not to say the same thing as, well, it's okay to sin if it's not as a bad sin as other sin.

Nobody said that either. It's okay to have this reality that some sins are worse than others.

And at the same time, we ought not do the lesser sins either. We can say both, okay? But a lot of that has been lost in modern biblical teaching.

Now, Jesus is gonna clarify what he means by this new saying in the next couple of verses.

Here comes the application. So, he's gonna apply wisdom now. And again, remember the beginning of the

Sermon on the Mount. Intentionally, Matthew is paralleling, comparing

Jesus up on the mountain, opening his mouth and teaching. And the language is a direct illusion from Proverbs on the high hill, opening the wisdom on the high hill, opening her mouth and spreading wisdom.

And this is a very much a bit of wisdom. If you read verses 29 and 30 in the book of Proverbs, you would say, yeah, that fits.

If you were to find these two verses in Proverbs, you would say, yeah, these are native verses to Proverbs because they read like a proverb.

They read like the kind of thing that Solomon would say to his son. And so, recognize the wisdom of what

Jesus is saying. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

So, the expression of what we have in the previous antithesis,

Jesus led the hearers down a path of greater to lesser to greatest, thinking about the various courts and judgments connected to hatred and reviling and murder.

In this passage, he is challenging his audience to count the cost, to consider the problem of this sin.

When we read that passage out of Proverbs, we notice that the eye in Proverbs 6 .25

says, do not lust after the beauty of a harlot in your heart, nor let her allure you with her eyelids, okay?

So, there's that first, and then later on, he talks about taking fire to the bosom. So, the eye precedes the hand in wicked folly.

The eye precedes the hand in the wicked folly. Of course, we see this in the pattern of sin established from Genesis chapter three.

The eye preceded the hand in the wicked folly of Eve. Notice that Jesus has that same pattern in his wisdom.

He starts with the eye. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. And then he talks about the right hand, the eye before the hand.

So, what is he saying? Well, notice he's speaking metaphorically of repentance.

How do we know he's speaking of it metaphorically? Well, he just had this entire antithesis of where, he says, you have heard it said of old, you should not commit adultery, right?

And adultery, given its definition, is a very physical thing that you do with your bodies, okay?

Then he says, but what I say to you is if you look at a woman to lust after her, you've committed adultery with her in your heart.

So, now he's talking about something going on in the inner man, in the spirit, okay? So, now he's talking about something that is very much about the physical body.

You have two eyes. One of them is your right eye. You have two hands. One of them is your right hand. And we can think of those as your primaries.

But he's saying the way to avoid sin here is to rip your eye out of its socket, get rid of it, right?

Or find some very sharp instrument and cut off your right hand.

Now, we know he's speaking metaphorically, given the context. He's not speaking nonsensically. I think,

I remember correctly, there was a case within the last 50 years of, I think there was some woodworker up in Maine who cut off his hand because he was obeying

Jesus. You know, the problem with that, the problem with that is that you can lust without your right eye.

And you can commit adultery without your right hand. So that's not going to stop it.

Repentance is likened to lopping off appendages and gouging out an eye because the metaphors are getting at the costliness of what it means to deny oneself and following Jesus.

Jesus is saying, count the cost. Now, we live in a time where it might be, and of course we know that the new most famous verse is no longer

John 3 .16, right? What's the most famous verse now? Judge not.

And it's like a half verse, right? So judge not. And of course it is shorter to memorize and so that has that going for it.

But it also is pertained to the new gospel, right?

And the new gospel of salvation is very Freudian. Accept yourself, right?

Know what you're about and honor that. Right?

The thing to do to, you know, in contrast to the Buddhists who say, you know, you're miserable because you have desires, you know, and all of life is an illusion, to escape misery, just recognize that desire is the problem, get rid of all your desires.

In contrast to that is the materialistic mysticism of find out whatever your pleasures are, however you think you're wired, and then just affirm that.

And only be around people who also will affirm that. And that's your identity, whatever that is.

And so, and if you don't know who you are yet, try everything and figure out what pleases you the most and whatever that is, follow your heart, like a

Disney princess, and whatever you end up as, whatever you look like, it doesn't matter, affirm that.

And only ever listen to people who affirm you in that and if they don't affirm you in what you affirm yourself as, then they're toxic and get rid of them.

Okay, now that's the new gospel, right? That's the gospel of the American dream now. You're here to be you and to affirm you and love you.

Well, that's where judge not comes in real handy, right? Because Jesus wants no one to judge me, no one ought to ever say anything negative to me, about me in any possible way.

But Jesus particularly said, if anyone wants to try to save his life, he'll lose it.

Right, that's what Jesus said. If anyone tries to save his life, he will lose it. You try to preserve your life, package it up, make it really nice, and this is precious to me, affirm, affirm, affirm.

He says, you're gonna lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

And he said, count the cost. He talked about taking up one's cross. And so yes, indeed, the gospel of Jesus Christ is going to point at people and say, repent.

The call, given who Christ is in his person and work, in his death and resurrection, the proper response, yes, indeed, is submission to Christ and repentance of sin.

It's like, you're telling me that I can't be me. You're saying that God doesn't love me just the way

I am. Yes, in fact, Jesus is saying that. If God loved you just the way you were, just the way you were, that addendum, then

Jesus had no reason to come and die on the cross or be raised from the dead. Now, I'm certainly fine to say to a sinner for whom

God sent Christ and say, God loves you in spite of who you are. Now, that'd be a more on point, right?

God loves you because of who he is. Now, there you go. But to say to somebody, God loves you just the way you are is to say, please don't repent, please don't change.

But again, that's back to the modern gospel. And so there is a need to take this idea of costliness to heart.

Yes, the gouging out of the eye and the cutting off of the hand. And we're going to see why that makes sense.

What may seem like unreasonable self -denial in the now makes a whole lot of sense given the hereafter.

If I'm all about the kingdom of heaven and the following Christ, then yes, that makes sense to sacrifice now and to repent now and to deny oneself now.

Jesus is talking about costly repentance. Notice this is not penance.

In order for me to get into heaven, I've got to do things to myself that make me sad, right?

You don't know. You don't have to follow the path of Roman Catholicism. Okay? This is talking about the conversion, the change, the laying down of a life.

So Jesus says a lack of costly repentance shows a nature unchanged in heading for hell.

I think Paul Washer's example was that if he showed up late to the sermon and said,

I'm sorry I'm so late, I was trying to get here, I had to cross a busy road when I did it and an 18 -wheeler just plum ran right over me and that's why

I'm late. And he says, and you can tell from my appearance that I don't look like an 18 -wheeler ran plum over me.

You know, I appear to be unchanged. He's like, are you saying that you have come into contact with Jesus Christ and you remain unchanged?

You're just the same as you were before? Like, no, the new birth, conversion, salvation is a transforming thing.

Now Jesus puts this into perspective by talking about hell. Again, he uses the

Greek word Gehenna to speak of hell. And I think last week we did a very fast overview of the

Old Testament roots of the word, the geographical location of Gehenna, but the metaphorical reality of it.

I think it could help us to be more thorough at this point saying that Jesus has now talked about hell three times in a short amount of space.

It is interesting to note how often that this particular theme is found in the scriptures.

By one count, the New Testament features about 162 references to hell and 70 of those come directly from Christ's own teaching.

Now, if you listen to a lot of current, very popular

Bible teaching today, you will be told in very confident terms that what you've been taught about hell all your life is wrong,

Jesus never talked about hell, there is no place of eternal torment and damnation, Paul didn't even talk about it, it's not there.

And what they're doing is they're double -dog daring you to be diligent and go read your Bible for yourself.

And they're just betting the fact that you're listening to their YouTube channel is probably evidence that you're not interested in reading the

Bible for yourself. So they got themselves a pretty good following. But diligent study,

I think even half a measure of study probably would yield all the results you need to be convinced otherwise.

Okay, now Jesus gives warnings about eternal judgment and the passages are numerous.

Of course, there's the passage in Revelation 14, nine through 11, where it talks about those who are in torment, in fire, in brimstone, in the presence of the holy angels, in the presence of the lamb, in the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever.

They have no rest day or night, who worship the beast in his image, whoever receives the mark of his name. So describing the penalty for sin in that particular case about eternal torment.

Also, Jesus speaks about this in Matthew 25, verse 41. He says, then he will say to those on the left hand, depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

So we observe an everlasting fire, which is a great definition for hell, but it's been prepared.

Somebody prepared it, somebody got it ready. It was not prepared by the devil and the angels. So again, if you read a lot of Scott Adams, you know,

Dilbert, it looks like devil's in charge of hell. And he's like, you know, this is my place and I do what I like to the people who show up here.

It's my domain. But no, it was prepared by God for the devil and his angels.

And we might rightly wonder what good is fire to punish creatures who have no bodies, right?

The devil and his angels are spirits, right? But we recall fire as the expression of God's perfect judgment.

And also we have a theme of the exile and banishment, depart from me, right? So there's an exile and banishment that is also part of the language of God's perfect judgment and hell.

So men and their wickedness, they do not prepare hell. The devil does not prepare hell.

God does in his holiness. And so when

Jesus comes to the end of Matthew 25, he makes a comparison and contrast with the sheep and the goats on both sides.

He says in verse 46, and these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

And as quick as we are to understand eternal life and our time in heaven as being without end,

Jesus certainly affirms that, but he affirms that right alongside, in parallel with the idea of everlasting judgment and torment, which is why for centuries,

Christians have affirmed eternal life in heaven, eternity of reward and blessing in heaven.

Also there's an eternity of damnation in hell. The one is without end and the other is without end.

And this is just coming from observing the things that Jesus said.

He often said to count the cost, right? Now in the moment, as we can see from the passages in Proverbs, and we have plenty of stories to show us that throughout the scriptures, there is an overwhelming sense of temptation and urgency regarding sexual temptation.

But Jesus, the way he counters this and teaches about it is count the cost. Think about what's at stake.

And this of course is to be applied to all matters of sin. In Mark's account, in Mark 9, verse 42,

Jesus says, but whoever causes one of these little ones to believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Wow, so one wonders, what would be worse than being drowned in that dramatic fashion?

How is that kind of death better than giving such offense?

That's the question we should ask at that. That's a very stunning image. And so then we just keep reading to see

Jesus answer his own question. So we discover a fate worse than death in the poetic description of hell in Mark 9, verse 43.

And this of course is what we read in the Sermon on the Mount. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go to hell into the fire that shall never be quenched.

Where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. It's a quote from Isaiah. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life lame rather than having two feet to be cast into hell into the fire that should never be quenched.

Where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye rather than having two eyes and be cast into hell fire where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

it seems that Jesus is trying to say something. Parents generally repeat something that they want to make sure is heard.

Teachers generally repeat something they want to make sure gets across. Jesus is repeating something here, and in this case in Mark, you'll notice how he goes from something that's within arm's reach, the hand, and then something that you have to walk to, and then something that you saw with your eye.

So he's got a different order here, but he's still teaching the same principle in a different teaching opportunity.

And so when we read about severing limbs and gouging out eyes, when we read about maggots that never stop eating, even though they apparently exist within a fire that never fully consumes the material that it burns, we know that we're in the metaphor zone.

Not to say that there is no real fire, there is, but to say, what is he getting at? Are we going to limit it to the physical, or is he trying to get something across that is, even more importantly, spiritually?

And so the metaphors of repentance are laid alongside the metaphors of hell, and they are metaphors because we can't possibly imagine the realities of it.

They point to something that is far more difficult for us to wrap our heads around. You'll see this as an example when you read descriptions of judgment and destruction in the

Bible. Descriptions are, you know, mountains melting, and, you know, no one left alive, jackals, and there's a description about death and destruction that doesn't tell you the exact information, but tells you more accurately what happened than the exact information could.

So, for example, if you were to look at the stats of, you know, 1 ,012 people died, you know, 5 ,024 people were wounded, and you just kind of go through the stats, you don't understand the horror of it.

But then, in the Scriptures, when you're given the metaphors of destruction and violence and disaster, you're like, oh, it's that bad.

It's that bad. And that's what we're dealing with in the metaphors of hell. So, at first reading, we are amply helped to see that denying fleshly lust, although painful, is far to be preferred to the never -ending punishment of hell fire.

So, Jesus' teaching here in the Sermon on the Mount, again, just like the previous one, redirects the attention of His hearers from, you know, maybe getting into trouble with the law, having some difficulty with the

Sanhedrin. But what about God? In the previous antithesis, He said, but whoever says, you fool, right, shall be in danger of hellfire.

And in this case, He's saying, you know, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you should not commit adultery.

And, of course, they would all know what the proper penalty was for adultery. It was the death sentence. But now, what

Jesus is starting to say is that, but I say to you, don't lust after a woman in your heart.

This puts you in the danger of the judgment of God, and you need to repent.

And if you do not repent, then you are going to be under the judgment of God. This is going to naturally lead into the next section, where Jesus starts to talk about the the way that His audience looked at marriage and divorce, right?

It's going to lead into that. And the way that they spoke to one another about marriage and divorce,

He additionally then supports that with the way that they deal with oaths and promises and the things that they say.

But at this point, there's a relation to this teaching and what comes next, because He's saying, you think that you're being righteous by not physically committing adultery, that you are currently married with this person, so husband and wife, and you're married to this wife, and you think it's fine to look at another woman and lust after her until...

what was the pattern? They would divorce their current wife over some reason so that they could go have that other woman, right?

And then they would say, check, I'm righteous. I did everything by the book, right?

And that was a growing cultural problem in Jesus's day, and He addresses it here.

He'll address it later on in Matthew 19, and we've got plenty of material to talk about that.

But you'll see where that's going. Their lust in their heart, unchecked, led them to commit certain actions that were displeasing to God.

And so, Jesus is saying, if you want to be in the kingdom of heaven, blessed are the pure in spirit.

Blessed are the pure in heart. Why? For they shall see God. The identity of those in the kingdom is different than those who are on the outside of the kingdom.

Those who have been changed by the grace of God are in the kingdom, and this is what it looks like, and those who remain outside of the kingdom are those who are in danger of hellfire.

There's also another significant change in the understanding of the covenants.

It was one thing to be in the Old Covenant, to be a part of Israel, to recognize that I am a part of this people, but even with being a part of Israel didn't mean that you were going to be eternally blessed.

All right? There were a lot of people who were a part of the Old Covenant who died and went to hell.

We can read about that in, for instance, the first generation up out of Egypt, the very first generation with whom

God made the Old Covenant. How many of those died under the judgment of God, high -handed sins, throwing their fist at God, right?

And He judged them, and they all perished, and yet there was a remnant who believed.

There was a remnant who had been changed. There was a remnant of those who were of true faith, and those are the ones that we are time and again looking to as they put their trust in God's promises in the coming

Messiah. We'll leave it there for now. Any questions or thoughts as we close? Yes, so that was the instruction in Leviticus chapter 20 verse 10.

It very particularly stated that both parties involved in adultery were to be executed, and there were instructions given in Mosaic case law about how that was to be prosecuted and understood given certain evidence.

Yeah. That doesn't fit very well in our culture today, does it? But it also didn't fit very well with the entrapment, remember the story in John, where they only brought the woman.

And we don't know what Jesus wrote in the dust, but I wonder if he was writing the name of the man. I have no idea. Invites speculation.

Okay, let's close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for the time you've given us in your Word. We thank you for the wisdom of Christ as he shows what righteousness looks like in his kingdom, and we thank you that you have given us your

Son, Jesus Christ, and given us your Spirit, that we would know you and rejoice in your truth, that you would change us from the inside out, and that our righteousness before your face is in Christ, and that he is born, our judgment upon the cross, and that we may live in confidence before you because of him.