I remember the opportunity I had to speak to missionaries living in eastern Africa. They were amazing people but had the habit of sharing stories about snakes and I do not like snakes.
“One night when I couldn’t sleep,” said one, “I slipped into the guest room and knelt in the darkness to pray. I felt something glide over my feet. Jumping up and turning on the light, I found I was sharing the room with a cobra.”
“That’s nothing,” said another. “I walked into my tool shed recently and a cobra that had been nesting in the rafters fell on top of me.”
Another told of preaching in a village church. “Every time I raised my hand in a gesture, I could see the audience pull back in alarm. When I’d lower my arm, they’d all exhale in unison. I thought I was making an impression on them by my sermon until one of them stood up and begged me to stop gesturing. “There’s a cobra coiled in the beams right above the pulpit,” he said. “Every time you lift your arm, we’re afraid he’s going to strike.”
They killed the snake, then resumed the service.
The worst thing about snakes is that you don’t see them until it’s too late. In today’s text, Jesus is warning of a danger that is as close as your breath and promises that if you don’t do something about it, it will get you.
INVOCATION
Heavenly Father, we gather in Your holy presence, seeking wisdom and understanding from Your eternal Word. As we turn our hearts and minds to the teachings of Your Son, we humbly ask for Your Spirit to enlighten us, that we might grasp the profound truths hidden within His words. Lord, teach us to guard our hearts and eyes from the temptations of this world, recognizing the sanctity of the commitments we have made before You. Help us to comprehend the gravity of our thoughts and the impact they have on our spiritual well-being. May Your divine light expose any darkness within us and lead us to true repentance and purity. We ask for Your guidance and strength to live lives that honor You in thought, word, and deed. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, we pray. Amen.
ADULTERY
We all remember the movie where the protagonist (a quiet unassuming hero) has put up with the interference and barbs of the antagonist (the detestable bully) long enough and warns that he will tolerate it no longer.
The bully responds in a mocking tone, “Oh, is that a threat?” To which the hero replies, “No, it’s a promise.”
The irony of that statement is that really is a threat but suddenly carries more weight when considered a promise. Let me explain.
The main difference between a promise and a threat lies in the intention and effect on the person speaking.
A threat reveals the speaker’s desire to dominate or control the other person. It forces the person to choose between two undesirable options: give in to the speaker’s demands or suffer some form of harm. It renders the person’s choice mute because their desires no longer matter.
A promise, on the other hand, is a voluntary commitment by the speaker to grant or give to the other person something good or beneficial. Promises carry the idea that our word is as good as our bond and commits the speaker to that future action.
So, it is not normal for us to associate a promise with a threat, but Jesus poses a problem to that assumption.
He spent the better part of a year explaining to people that He was going to bring the kingdom of heaven to this earth. People liked that!
Then He changed the entire discussion by telling people that the kingdom of heaven is something that occurs inside of you and not outside. Raised on the legalism of the day, people could not grasp such a concept. In their world, you were judged by what you did. What you felt had nothing to do with it.
That’s why the Pharisees could pray on the street corner and then have a widow thrown out of her home for failing to pay the Temple Tax.
We know today that this is possible because we watch the wealthy, powerful and elite sacrifice the state of the common man as long as they get their profit that quarter and don’t even see how they are destroying the future of young people.
If that wasn’t enough, Jesus told them that this new kingdom would make their righteousness better than that of the Pharisees. Again, the people struggled. The Scribes and Pharisees were underwritten by the temple tax, and they would get their share no matter what. They could afford to be fastidious about their righteousness.
But the common man had to put food on the table and do the dirty work that leadership would never even touch lest they become unclean. That was their form of righteousness.
Then Jesus threw all that aside when He said you will see God because you are pure in your heart before God. Why? Because God cares so much more about what you think and feel inside than He does about what you do?
Don’t believe me? Remember last week when He a man as good as commits murder in God’s eyes when he belittles and slanders another out of anger. From God’s perspective, you can have murder in your heart and never show it to anyone but it’s there, inside of you, tearing up any sense of integrity you have before God.
Why does that matter to God, you ask? Because of the priorities that God has set over man. God is the giver of life and only He has the right and authority to take the life of a man and God claims the right to life. Only He can give it and rightly take it away.
But when you rage against another person, vilify them, and call them horrible things, it is a slap in the face of God. They may well be terrible people and as we saw last week, there are times we keep our distance from these people.
We cannot afford to hold these thoughts of anger and hatred in our hearts because they pollute our conscience before God. God is the only one with the authority and right to punish a person and He doesn’t want us to take on that role for it lets the anger and rage rule our lives.
Those listening to Him were a little taken back because they had plenty of reason to say bad things about those in control. Jesus was asking them to step back from the one thing that was still in their power: their voice.
So, Jesus warns them that such behaviors and thought will separate them from God and make them the target of His vengeance and wrath. You don’t have the authority or right to diminish or destroy another person’s life by your actions, your words and, yes, even your thoughts. That life belongs to God and Him alone.
While that was soaking in, Jesus gets personal with the next right of God and responsibility of man. He calls them on the act of adultery, and, like murder, He holds them accountable for the thoughts and feelings they hold in their hearts.
This one stung because they knew they were not likely to kill someone but could not say the same about looking on another with lust. Again, Jesus warns them that they are endangering their soul when they allow these thoughts to rule their minds and heart.
When Jesus calls them out on looking at a woman with lustful intent, He isn’t talking about spying that handsome man or attractive woman. The word that Jesus uses goes way beyond mere noticing but addresses that desire that lurks in the heart. We call it lust. Jesus called it coveting. Wanting that which is not yours nor should be yours.
It’s not God’s authority and right to human life that Jesus addresses now. It’s about the covenant that exists between God and man and men and women. It’s not about our rights but about His divine agreement on loyalty and commitment between two people and that covenant goes all the way back to Noah.
After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah, promising (not threatening) never to destroy the earth with water again. That was a unilateral promise to all mankind.
Then God made a covenant with Abraham promising him that he would be the father of a great nation and that this nation would inherit the land of Canaan. This covenant showed a divine promise to establish a chosen relationship with Abraham and his descendants which involved specific land promises.
Then we get to Mt. Sinai, and there, God creates a covenant between God and the Israelites when He gives them the 10 Commandments. But this time, it is a conditional covenant, where the promises of God are contingent upon the Israelites obedience to His laws.
And we cannot forget the David covenant where God promises David that his lineage would endure forever and that his kingdom would never fail. This covenant was literally a royal grant where God promises unconditionally to maintain the dynasty of David.
But I forgot the original covenant that Jesus warns them not betray. That is the marriage covenant which the prophet Malachi called man’s greatest covenant. It is a covenant that involves promises and obligations. You remember when you promised to love, honor and be faithful to one another. They were called vows or oaths of promise.
And remember how you finished those oaths? So, help me God. You made those covenant promises to each other and before God and that company. Pretty binding.
In Ephesians 5, Paul compares the relationship between Christ and the church to the marriage relationship where we are the bride and Jesus is the rightful bridegroom. God was literally the ratifier of that bond and covenant. Remember that last charge from the preacher at the wedding: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Now that was a warning.
So, you can see why Jesus considered the lustful intents of the heart another slap in the face of God and all the covenants that He has established. But what Jesus says next goes way beyond a warning and sounds like a promise.
Jesus says that if your right eye causes you to sin, you should pluck it out and throw it away. Can Jesus be serious? Most of the world would be blind!
First, we need to understand what Jesus means by this offending eye.
Every good Jewish student knew about the ‘evil eye’ mentioned in Proverbs where it is linked with greed, selfishness, and coveting. So what Jesus is saying isn’t anything new. But the penalty sure is.
Remember that Jesus said the eye is the ‘lamp of the body’ and if the eye is bad then the whole body is filled with darkness. There Jesus addressed what we take in through our spiritual eyes. As the phrase goes, “Junk in, Junk out.”
Here Jesus warns that when we do spiritual damage to our souls by what we take in we risk His promise to send us to hell whole if we don’t do something about it. You cannot continually feast on the filth of this world and expect God to ignore it. He won’t.
He went on to warn us about the hypocrisy of judging the splinter in another person’s spiritual eye when there is a 2×4 sticking out of ours. Jesus says it is better to pluck that behavior out of your life completely than risk being separated from God.
Remember the beatitude (promise) that a pure heart will see God. Here that purity is spelled out spiritual focus, moral character, and ethical conduct.
Let me put it this way: what you watch on your phone, your computer screen, and your television feeds into your soul, shapes your moral character and will affect your behavior. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise.
So, stop this in your life, and parents know what your children are watching. A recent federal investigation of Nickelodeon and Disney uncovered behaviors I can’t discuss in polite company.
If that wasn’t enough, Jesus then speaks of cutting off the offending hand. The imagery is clear. My eye may be what I allow to enter my life, but my hand represents what I do in this life. The eye may speak of my motivations, but my hand speaks of my behaviors.
Both are connected and likewise both must be addressed. I may damage my soul by the things I see and pursue but I will damage others when I act on those sinful impulses.
The excuse, “I don’t know what got into me” doesn’t work anymore. Again, Jesus promises that the fires of hell await those who continue to wade in this filth, refuse to stop it and then act on it in the lives of others.
Somewhere we came up with this fallacy that our God is a tolerant God. Understand, He can be a merciful God, but He is not a tolerant God. Every unrepentant sin carried out by man will be addressed for eternity when they are cast into hell.
I do not know how God can make it any clearer. Doing rituals and saying proper prayers will provide you no protection if your soul lives on filth and your life is one sin after another. There will be a reckoning.
Jesus stands ready to free you from that penalty of sin. He offers you a new life in Him and His Spirit to help you sanctify your life. But if you keep playing with snakes, you will get bitten.
In Lou Holtz’ second season as head football coach of the Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish experienced a humiliating loss against Texas A & M in the Cotton Bowl. Holtz slunk into the locker room shaken and depressed, but his blood pressure rose as he noticed that most of his players didn’t seem very distraught.
The only exception was a second-string sub named Chris Zorich who was sitting in front of his locker sobbing. Holtz decided just then that next year’s team would be composed of players who loved football as much as Zorich.
The next season this young man went from sub to starter to team captain and helped the Fighting Irish win a national championship.
Chris Zorich had won the spot on the starting team because of his tears, for some things are worth crying over.
When was the last time you shed some tears over the wicked thoughts of your heart and the sinful deeds against another? I can tell that Jesus has, because He knows where it can lead, and you don’t want to go there.
BENEDICTION
Lord our God, as we conclude our time together, we are thankful for the challenging words we have encountered in Scripture today. You have called us to a life of holiness, not just in our actions but also in our innermost thoughts. We pray for the grace to take these teachings to heart, allowing them to transform us from the inside out.
As we leave this place, may we carry with us a renewed commitment to live according to Your holy standards, keeping our hearts and eyes focused on You. Strengthen us, O God, to resist the enticements of the flesh and the allurements of the world. May we be vigilant in our walk with You, always aware of the higher calling You have placed upon our lives.
Protect us by Your mighty power and lead us in the path of righteousness for Your name’s sake. We ask all these things in the precious name of Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer. Amen.
Matthew 5:27-30
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Intentional Faith 