Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.gracespringfield.com/sermons/43234/sermon-on-the-mount-part-xiv-law-of-adultery-and-divorce/. Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions. Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt. [0:00] is the law of adultery and divorce. If you would please turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, and this morning we'll be looking at Matthew 5, 27 through 32. [0:25] 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 lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [0:42] If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. [0:59] If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. [1:15] It was said, whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery. [1:37] And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. With your attention still focused on the text just read, I want to make what is perhaps a very important connection between what our Lord is saying in a couple of different statements that maybe aren't too obvious on the surface, but they are vitally connected. [2:06] And that has to do with looking on a woman in verse 28 to lust for her. And then verse 29, he's talking about the eye. [2:17] And the reason he's doing that, of course, is because that's what you use for looking upon a woman. So he's talking about the eye and its possibility of being a downfall to the male because he is interested in what he sees with the eye. [2:38] And as he proceeds, it can lead to something that is disastrous and very, very unfortunate. So the idea is that the eye can really get you into difficulty. [2:52] And the same with the hand. In fact, we are dealing with a situation now that has become, I don't know exactly what you'd call it, but it just seems like a real mess has been brewing out there sexually for some time. [3:11] We've got congressmen and, well, recently a governor was involved with a woman in South America and broke up his family. [3:28] And now we've got mayors of cities resigning, women leveling accusations that they have been groped and fondled by this man and there was nothing consensual about it. [3:41] And that's what this passage is about. This is what it means if your right hand makes you stumble. A hand is a thing that a man uses if he gropes a woman. [3:53] And it can have severe repercussions. That's precisely what this text is talking about. So we will be exploring this, and probably end up in more detail than I attend. [4:06] I looked at the bulletin this morning and I even wrote this, but it didn't dawn on me. I think this is, is it number 14 or 17 on the Sermon on the Mount? [4:22] I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but I plan to cover all three chapters in 10 or 12 sessions. And we're on 14 and we haven't gotten out of chapter 5. [4:36] But I just can't resist. I just have to bring what I find. I had another preacher tell me one time, well, Wiseman, you need to move along more rapidly. [4:47] You don't have to tell people everything you learn in a study. I said, no, but I want to. And that's why you get both barrels just about each time. [5:00] So, we are dealing with the second of six areas of life and living that Christ addressed in Matthew chapter 5. And these were areas that the religious establishment had already signed off on and thought they had down pat. [5:15] They included the law of murder, the law of adultery, the law of divorce, the law of oaths, the law of non-retaliation, and the law of neighbor. And these six areas really represent the whole package of life and living. [5:32] And it's no coincidence that Christ targeted those six areas. These were already positions, as I said, that the Pharisees and the scribes of religious establishment had already determined how they were to be administered and followed. [5:48] But Christ, in this key verse, which happens to be verse number 20 to the whole Sermon on the Mount, he says, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. [6:06] So, what Christ is doing, in effect, by the statements that he is making in the Sermon on the Mount, he is contradicting and negating the positions that had traditionally been set forth by the religious establishment. [6:23] And he is saying, they are all wrong. They've got it wrong. You have heard that it was said. You have heard that it was said. He's not talking about what the Old Testament said. [6:35] Christ never contradicted the Old Testament. He affirmed it. What he is contradicting is, you have heard that it has been said. Who said it? The religious establishment. [6:47] The rabbis down through the ages. And then he would counter in each instance, but, I say unto you. In other words, this is the party line that has been promulgated for a long, long time. [7:00] But this is the way it's really supposed to be. And what Christ did was give his interpretation of the law in its spirit and intent as opposed to the letter of the law which the Pharisees and scribes had trafficked in. [7:18] And we are now dealing with the second area of this life-giving issue having to do with adultery and divorce. [7:31] And I want to share something with you because this is, I told you how important it is to understand something about the culture of the day and how it so often radically differed from our culture or our understanding. [7:44] So, one of the surest ways to arrive at a wrong interpretation of scripture is to take our present day culture, manners and customs and read them back into scripture. [7:58] It'll never work. They don't fit. Because these people a couple of thousand years ago and in the Old Testament even longer than that had an entirely different mindset, different culture, different methodology, different customs, different everything. [8:14] So, if you hope to understand what's taking place in scripture and what it means, you've got to study their culture, not ours. And I appeal again to a book that I found very, very valuable. [8:27] It was written by a Syrian Christian, George M. Lamza. I'm sure he's at home with the Lord now. And here is what he says regarding this passage. [8:41] Eastern women have always covered the face with a veil and resent being seen by strange men. Some women are even shy in the presence of their own husbands if they do not have a veil. [8:57] Well, now, this isn't only Eastern women. This can be Western women too. I've heard of instances where American women, because of their shyness, would not even undress themselves in their husband's presence. [9:13] They go into another room and put on their nightie. Ladies, that's not fair. You're not supposed to do that. [9:24] And let me tell you why. This I'm throwing in for extra, okay? There's no extra cost for this. When the two become one, your body becomes his. [9:39] His body becomes yours. And to look upon each other, nakedness is in reality no different than standing in front of a mirror and looking at your own. [9:56] woman. Now, that I don't particularly recommend. It can be a little discouraging. But when you consider that she is yours and you are hers, and you have no more reason to be embarrassed naked before your husband, then you would be embarrassed before yourself. [10:17] self. So, that's what oneness means. That's at least one aspect of oneness. He continues saying, and here again, this is an eastern mindset, but some of the western ladies have obviously picked up on it. [10:31] It would be a disgrace for a woman to dress or undress before her husband or to have any part of her body seen by a stranger. Even in hot weather, men and women have separate bathing places. [10:47] Then, too, men and women seldom meet each other socially. Woman is therefore a mystery to man. [10:58] Boy, if there was ever an understatement, that's one. Woman is therefore a mystery to man, and it is on this account that an eastern man tries to see a woman secretly. [11:16] We call these peeping toms. And you know, it is peculiar to the male of the species. Have you ever heard of a peeping Jane? Now, there may be a woman who isn't quite convinced that she is a woman, and she goes around peeking through keyholes or looking in people's windows or something, but this is a guy thing. [11:40] And the reason it is, is because God has built a mystery into femininity that he has not built into masculinity. [11:52] I'm convinced of that. I remember Barbara telling me years ago about a situation that happened back in the little coal mining town that she grew up in, a population of about 3,000. [12:04] woman. And she and her mother, Barbara at the time was about probably about 15, 16 years old, something like that. This would have been in the 1950s. And she and her mother were just relaxing, watching television one night in the family living room. [12:21] and all at once, Barbara's mother looked over at her and said, don't be scared, but I'm sure there's somebody outside looking in the window. [12:40] don't look that way. So they just sat there continuing to watch television, growing a little more petrified by the moment, wondering what they ought to do. [12:53] And finally, Barbara said she couldn't stand it anymore, and she looked over to the window real quick, and she saw him. His face was right there against the glass peering in the window, and she recognized him. [13:10] Well, she just nonchalantly got up, walked over to the telephone, and called the local police. Well, now, this is just a little cow town like, you know, with probably one cop on duty, and he may have only had one round of ammunition in his shirt pocket, too. [13:31] But anyway, he came out, and by the time he got there, the peeping tom was gone. But Barbara recognized him, and she told her mom who it was, and it was a local guy, and he's probably in his 20s, 30s, something like that. [13:45] So they filed a police report, and sure enough, the police went out and picked him up. And he was to appear before a judge within a couple of days, and Barbara and her mother were to be there. [13:59] And the judge was questioning them, and the guy says, no, it wasn't me. I wasn't out there. I was clear on the other side of town, and they knew it was him. And the judge says, what time did this occur, Mrs. [14:11] Tallarico? And she said, it was about 845 on a Thursday night. And he said, well, how can you be so precise about the time? [14:23] And she said, well, I know that that's what the time it was because of the TV program that was on that we were watching. And the judge says, and what program was that? [14:35] And she said, oh, I just can't remember. And this guy, who was the peep, said, it was a western, it was Stoney Burke. [14:53] And the judge goes, guilty. And the man spent something like three or five days in jail. But, you know, what would have really been, really been extraordinary is if the guy had been a gal. [15:14] Now, a gal would say, why would you do that? That's so stupid. Why would anybody do that? Honey, that's because you're not a man. [15:26] You see, this goes all the way back to Adam and Eve and why we wear clothes. You realize out of all of the biological life forms that God created, man is the only one that wears clothes. [15:41] What are you all doing here dressed up like this? Do you realize this is not natural? Natural is naked as a jaybird. That's what's natural. [15:54] But you know what happened? what was natural and began as natural has become unnatural as a result of the fall. [16:05] I don't know, I don't profess to know what it was that took place in the psyche of Adam and Eve when they sinned and realized their nakedness. But it really upset them. [16:19] And they came up with this fig leaf proposition to try and cover up their nakedness. And what they were doing was covering up their reproductive organs. What's that all about? [16:31] Why did they do that? And when they hid from God, they said, we were afraid because we were naked. And God said, who told you you were naked? [16:44] What's that got to do with anything? Now, there's something brewing here, and thousands of years later, we still haven't really put a handle on it, but there is somehow that a sense of shame and modesty was infused in that fall as part of the consequence. [17:07] And now we consider it abnormal to go without clothes. Unless you happen to subscribe to the nudist colony philosophy, which is pretty bizarre. [17:19] But we develop this. We develop this. We have a stage of innocency when we're born so that little boys have no problems at all with Mama giving him a bath in the bathtub and he's all together. [17:36] And he doesn't think a thing about it. But all of us men know, even though we may not be able to remember it, it happened, trust me, there came a point in time as you matured and started growing up as a little boy, you didn't want Mama to give you a bath anymore. [17:55] That was a private thing. You wanted to give yourself a bath. And there is a sense of shame about our nakedness that is developed as we start to mature. [18:08] It is just part of our fallenness and humanity. humanity. And this is one of the reasons we wear clothes. And this is one of the reasons why in the Mideast women are veiled. [18:19] This goes all the way back to the Genesis period. And you know, when the Bible talks about women having their head covered, it's not talking about ladies wearing a hat when they go to church. [18:31] It's talking about wearing a veil. people. And we have become perhaps more aware of that as a result of all the conflicts that's been taking place in the Mideast and 9-11 and an introduction to the Islamic faith and the Mideastern customs, etc. [18:52] Why these women are required to wear burqas. And the burqa will only allow for the women's eyes. She's just got enough vision to see. And some of them even have a screen over the eyes. [19:04] So that she just looks through the screen and she is completely covered. And the rationale for this is very interesting. You can talk to any well-educated Muslim about it and they will tell you. [19:16] The reason for that is they actually believe that women have a mysterious power that men are unable to resist. [19:30] And she communicates it through her physical body cover it up. That's their idea. So that there's nothing that he can see. [19:42] All she needs is just enough space to see where she's going. So she has to wear the burqa. They had a big flap about this when Ayatollah Khomeini, who had been exiled, he had been kicked out of Iran by the Shah for political positions and influence. [20:05] And he was residing in Paris. And during this time when the Shah was in power and on the throne, you remember years ago and he came over here for medical treatment and he had some type of cancer. [20:20] And this is when Jimmy Carter was president and they were holding our hostages at the embassy in Tehran. All of this circulated around that same time. And the Shah had succeeded to a large degree in westernizing Iran. [20:39] I mean, women were wearing blue jeans and they were adopting western clothing and western culture and western music and all the rest. And this made the Ayatollahs under Islam just absolutely livid. [20:53] And they began preaching against it, denouncing it, and holding rallies about it and everything. And finally, the Ayatollah made such an uproar about it that the Shah kicked him out of the country and he had to leave. [21:06] But then when the Shah died and they brought him back, one of the first things they did was they assigned policemen to the decency patrol. [21:20] And they went around the city of Tehran and they were literally, and I mean physically, confronting Islamic women who were not wearing a burqa and who were wearing western attire and they were actually flogging them and whipping them on the street in public, driving these women back to the burqa again. [21:45] And this western influence with the TV and the satellites coming into Iran, we were showing the Mideasterners things on our television hookups that they had never seen and that babes frolicking around on beaches in skimpy bikinis and things like that. [22:08] We were transporting all that. And listen, let me tell you something. This too is an aside. One of the great reasons, maybe even the greatest reason, for the militant Islamic position, the jihad and all the rest, it is against the west. [22:25] And it is against the west for a number of reasons. But one of the chief reasons is because the mid-eastern Islamic men are absolutely terrified about losing control over their women and women being influenced by western women in their independence, in their stature of demanding equality, etc. [22:51] There has been a huge thing taking place in the west as regards women. And it all started, you know, with the women's liberation movement, and huge gains have been made on behalf of women that heretofore were just unknown. [23:07] And some think, along with myself, that they have gone too far. They've pushed the envelope too far when it comes to feminism. And I'm all for equality and the equal worth of a woman and all the rest of it. [23:20] But it gets kind of ridiculous. And they are scared to death that this is going to be exported to their women. And many of them have already been influenced and affected by it. [23:34] And if you know anything about the Koran and the position of dominance that it gives to the males over the female, a woman is little more than chattel property. [23:46] the Koran approves of a husband physically beating his wife any time he thinks she needs it. [23:58] And he will not be called on the carpet by anybody for doing it. He can divorce her but she cannot divorce him. He has all kinds of control over her person and her future that she has no say in at all. [24:13] And one of the reasons that they make her wear these things is so that she will not be attracted to another man. In a strict Islamic culture, a woman is not allowed to go out in public and meet a man who is not a family member. [24:31] I mean, it is strictly forbidden. And she's supposed to have someone else with her. I mean, it's very, very restrictive. And when a woman in the Mideast, when a woman has a man's intentions forced upon her and she is raped, she is very likely to be blamed as much or more than he is. [24:52] Because, now this is, I agree, this is completely irrational, but there are a lot of things about Islam that is irrational. They believe that a woman possesses mysterious powers over a man that he finds absolutely irresistible. [25:07] And he cannot help but force his intentions upon her. If she is exposed to the extent that he is excited, he can't help himself. It's not his fault. It's not his responsibility to control himself. [25:20] It's her responsibility to make sure that she doesn't in any way incite him or excite him. Now, that's kind of weird. We look at it here and we say, a man has a responsibility to control himself, a woman has a responsibility to control herself. [25:37] And, you know, this works out so many ways in so many cases. women know, especially when they get to be a certain age, they know how men are attracted to physical beauty. [25:54] And they learn how to display it and how to make the most of it. And sometimes it can be very provocative and alluring, super short skirts, low slung blouses where everything is hanging out and clearly visible. [26:08] women know this excites men. It is supposed to excite men. And if you as a man are not excited about that, you've got a different problem. [26:23] This is the way it works. I think I've probably told you this before, but because of the subject matter, it bears repetition. Zaza Gabor, one of the Gabor sisters, she has a sister called Eva, Eva, Eva, whatever, and she played in a sitcom with Eddie Albert, remember Green Acres? [26:47] She was one of the Gabor girls, and her sister was Zaza. And both of these ladies were just veritable beauty queens, just gorgeous Hungarian gals, and they spoke with a little accent. [26:59] And one time, Zaza, in all her beauty, she was all dolled up, and looked like a real dish, you know. And she was being interviewed by this reporter, and she had for many years been famous for her looks and glamour and all the rest. [27:15] And this reporter said, Miss Gabor, if you had it all to do over again, would you prefer to be born with good looks or brains, a great mind? [27:29] And she said, oh, she called everybody darling. Darling, oh, darling, good looks for sure, good looks. And he says, why is that? [27:41] And she said, because darling, men can see better than they can think. You know, that's great philosophy. I mean, she hit the nail right on the head. [27:52] She is absolutely right. it is the male's attraction to the woman by what he sees that stimulates interest. [28:05] I remember when I was in junior high school, I was, I think, like 13 years old. I had five girlfriends all at once. Now, none of them knew that they were my girlfriend, but they were. [28:19] Oh, there was one other. there was a teacher had a terrific crush on. Every boy in school had a crush on this teacher. I can still see her. She was a dish. [28:31] Her name was Dorothy Lewis, and we had another teacher named Dorothy Lewis. Can you beat that? [28:42] Two teachers with the same name. So, this new one was just fresh out of college, and she was teaching in her first year at Snyder Park Junior High. [28:55] And like I said, every boy in the school had a crush on her because she was a real doll. The other Miss Lewis was in her 60s. So, all around school, the distinction was old Miss Lewis and young Miss Lewis. [29:10] And that's how we made the difference. And like I said, all the boys loved young Miss Lewis. And you know, when boys hit that junior high age, this is when they start really getting interested in girls. [29:23] Before that, they don't want anything to do with them because girls are yucky and they're full of cooties. But in junior high, something happens when those hormones start changing and you start developing and things like that. [29:35] And boys come up with all kinds of stupid schemes of finding a way to peek into the girls dressing room, you know, when they're changing clothes for the sports teams or whatever. [29:46] And you never find it the other way around. You never find the girls trying to do that to the boys. They would say, that's so stupid. But it isn't stupid to boys because the curiosity is there. [30:01] And you know something? God uses that. It doesn't have to be a curiosity in a bad way. But it is femininity that is really attractive to masculinity. [30:17] And there is something about the pursuit factor and the way it works. A guy always is interested based first of all on what he sees. [30:31] And I want you to look at some illustrations of that. Let's go for a very famous one to 2 Samuel chapter 11. And this is a passage that everybody is familiar with. [30:45] And boy, did it ever create problems. This is what our Lord was talking about. If your eye offends you, you'd be better off to pluck it out. 2 Samuel 11. [30:57] And verse 2. Now when evening came, David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house. [31:08] This was not unusual because almost all the houses back then. And many of them today have a flat roof. And people engage in all kinds of social activities on the roof. [31:20] Peter was up on the roof when he was praying back in Acts chapter 10 when the sheet was let down from heaven with all manner of forfeet. [31:32] Peter was up on the housetop to pray. And it was about noon. Children go up on the housetop and play games. Women go up and sometimes they'd have meals on the housetop because it was cooler and likely to catch a little breeze. [31:46] And the house next to you had a housetop too. And there was a parapet about two or three feet high that kept people from falling over or kept children from falling over. Remember Jesus said that which you have heard in secret proclaim from the housetops. [32:01] Well the housetop was a way of circulating the word around the village. You go up on the housetop and you tell the person lived there on the housetop and in ten minutes the information would be all over the town because they were proclaiming it from the housetops. [32:16] So it was a very usual kind of setting and we were told that he was walking around on the roof of the king's house and from the roof he saw oh boy here's where it starts he saw eyes glued a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful in appearance so David sent and inquired about the woman and one said is this not Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam the wife of Uriah the Hittite darn wife off limits well maybe ordinarily but not if you're the king because the king can just have whatever the king wants so David sent messengers and took her and when she came to him he lay with her that's just the old shakespearean way old king james english way of saying he had sex with her they didn't lie down together to take a short beauty nap and when she purified herself from her uncleanness she returned to her house now we don't understand the culture of this but you just don't say no to the king about whatever because the king is the king so he had his way with her and she bathed herself of her impurity and you can do that in a physical way but you can't do it in a psychological or spiritual way and she returned to her house and you know the rest of the story but it all began with what he saw in [34:28] Ruth chapter two and we won't turn to it but Ruth was the widowed daughter-in-law of a widowed mother-in-law Naomi and when they get back in the land they go into the field to glean because this was the only way poor people had of sustaining themselves there was no welfare program there were no food stamps you went out and you gleaned and the law of Moses made provision for those who were poor to go to the fields of someone who owned property and planted crops and after they had gone through for the first cutting and had gotten the vast majority of the grain out the gleaners were allowed to come through and pick up the leftovers and that would sustain them so that's exactly what Ruth was doing and Boaz the owner came along on his horse and looked over there and did a double take and he turned to one of his servants and said who's that young girl who does she belong to and she was told and [35:36] Boaz called the servant over and said look when she goes into a field of glean you make sure that there's plenty left for her to glean get my drift he was developing a relationship even though it was one sided he liked what he saw and he is interested so you know the rest of the story and how they pursued that and Jacob and Rachel and Leah most of us have been fascinated by that story with the old switcheroo on the night they were supposed to have their honeymoon night and consummate the marriage and Uncle Laban who was as crooked as a dog's hind leg Uncle Laban had Leah go in and present herself as Rachel and some have wondered how in the world could she ever pull that off why wouldn't he know well in the first place it was probably dark in the second place they were probably both nervous in third place she probably wasn't saying anything and he did not have a thing for [36:53] Leah at all Leah was the older daughter but the custom in the Mideast was you marry off your daughters in order of their age you do not marry off a younger daughter before an older daughter and by the way all of these marriages were arranged people usually had nothing to say about it if she had a father who was really sensitive and kind to her and she really didn't want to be married to someone that he had arranged for he might acquiesce and not make her go through with it but by and large the father's wisdom was not to be questioned and if he told his daughter I have arranged for you to marry so and so that was it and that's very often what happened so Jacob had a thing for Rachel but Rachel was younger than Leah so in keeping with their custom the father tried to pass off Leah and we're told that Leah the only thing that we're told about about [37:55] Leah is that Leah had tender eyes some translations render it that she had weak eyes now it doesn't say anything about Rachel's eyes it just says Leah had weak eyes and this doesn't mean that she didn't have 20-20 vision not talking about that it's talking about and I don't know if she was seen through a burka or if she was more exposed than that but let me just run this by you it is possible for a woman or a man for that matter but we're talking about the ladies for a woman to have what you would call very ordinary eyes nothing special not unattractive but not particularly attractive just eyes couple of peepers that's it but I think Rachel had flashing eyes [38:57] I think she had eyes that sparkled eyes that communicated eyes that can even give a come hither look eyes that are more appealing rather than ordinary and Jacob being a man what was he utilizing the eye gate Solomon who is going to be one of the sons of David is going to follow in his daddy's train when it comes to a weakness for women Solomon is going to love many strange women women who were not even Jewish or did not even endorse or support his positions and he was a pushover for a pretty face and obviously there were a lot of them that the king could pick from and he had a huge number of women at his disposal and it was his downfall so our lord could very well have been speaking about the wisest man who ever lived if your eye offends you in other words if you're using your eye causes you to make a real mess of your life and get you into big trouble you'd be better off if you were blind that's what [40:18] Christ is saying and by the way plucking out your eye or cutting off his hand is not anything that was intended to be taken literally and nobody went around with their eyes gouged out that's not what Christ is saying he is saying that these are things that can get you into really serious trouble and he is using a standard kind of way of expressing this in this culture of an extreme solution to the problem your hand offends you in other words we would say it's the same thing as saying if your hand offends you it's the same thing as saying somebody has sticky fingers that means they're a thief they steal things and a man would use a hand to grope a woman with unwanted advances and that's the kind of thing that can get him in trouble and it's gotten some of our present mayors and different people like that in trouble all of this has to do with what this passage is talking about and why we wear clothes we wear clothes to cover up our nakedness and we are the only ones out of all of [41:28] God's biological creation that does this because there is that sense of shame and embarrassment that is connected with it I've never picked up a copy of Playgirl magazine anybody here well you wouldn't admit it if you did I wouldn't blame you you know Playboy with Hugh Hefter became a big thing he built a virtual empire over scanty clothed women and it's very predictable that it would be successful because men are given to utilizing the eye gate they like what they see and they buy Playboy magazine and do you realize the pornographic industry if you take if you take all of the money earned now we're talking major dollars you take all of the money earned by the [42:30] NFL and all its teams and all the money earned by the NBA professional basketball and all its teams and all the money earned by professional golf and all the money earned by NASCAR and you put all of those monies together you will not equal the money earned by pornography in the United States it is rampant it is everywhere it is where you don't even want to find it it is on the internet it's on magazines that won't quit it's in films it's in all kinds of venues and there's all kinds of stuff portrayed there is sexual activity by children sexual predators abusing babies and this stuff commands high dollar money on the internet and every now and then somebody we had a case just recently [43:38] I won't mention his name because I don't even remember it but he was a highly respected educator and had devoted his life of service to education and academics for like 40 years and they end up finding all kinds of child pornography on his computer and the man's career is down the tubes his reputation is gone it's shot everything there's no way of regaining it this stuff is epidemic it's just everywhere out there it's flooding the community but it is primarily a male thing very few women involved in this and I don't know if Playgirl magazine is still even in existence but it was started up because some of the women were saying well why should men have a corner on this with Playboy magazine with all of the girly pictures in it why don't we because we are equal you know why don't we publish our own magazine and depict all of these scantily clad hunks in it and call it [44:38] Playgirl and the thing got launched and I don't know what it's doing today I don't even know if it's still in business but I know one thing the number of men who by Playboy and all of the other pornographic stuff is probably a hundred fold as opposed to the women who do that because that's not women's thing you know what women's thing is women's thing is not looking on the nakedness of a man women's thing is relational psychological women's thing is tenderness kindness thoughtfulness and these are things that she feels and enters into with her heart and her spirit but man doesn't work that way man's he he has an appreciation for those things also but his big thing is the eye gate and originally I am convinced that that was instituted by [45:39] God as a good thing because that's what enables man to be the initiator in a boy girl relationship it usually starts with what he sees he sees this woman Samson back in the book of Judges Samson went down to Timnath which was an area of Philistines and he saw this girl and he says to himself wow who is that and he found out and he goes home and he tells his mom and dad now here he's a grown man we don't know exactly how old he is but he tells his mother and father because they would be the ones to arrange marriage he says mom dad I went down to Timnath and saw a girl of the Philistines he says I saw her get her therefore to me to wife and his mom and dad says a Philistine what's wrong with all these nice [46:48] Jewish girls hey guys did this happen at your high school that all of the cute girls were from neighboring high schools of course they thought that the cute girls were at your school but there's something about another school another venue and she's a Philistine and of course she turned out to be Delilah and you see what trouble Samson's eye got him into the eyes are used to arrest interest and that's a good thing but there has to be a legitimate venue for it because there are a lot of illegitimate venues for it and when a man or a boy looks at a girl and he likes what he sees he wants to know more he wants to know her name he wants to know where she lives he wants to know what she's like he wants to meet her and after he does it may be all off because there may be no mutual attraction there at all but it all began with a look and usually the look sometimes progresses into something that is more serious this author goes on to say about plucking out the eye that we've talked about the eye is the symbol of desire and envy it is the unspoken but understood language of the east the eye with its varying shades of light gives expression to the countenance which in turn is influenced by the heart and the eye is just so critical and so much involved in all that we are talking about here and it is part and parcel of the issue relating to divorce because it's the eye that leads to the marriage and the involvement that surrounds that we went through a period here in the [48:48] United States well actually the whole western world kind of went through it it was called the Victorian Age and it was given that name because of the spiritual revivals that had taken place actually even prior to Victoria coming to the throne and when Queen Victoria ruled in England she was on the throne for 58 years and by the way our present Queen Elizabeth has surpassed that and she is now the longest living monarch that ever lived as a monarch of Great Britain but in the 1700s with the successes of the Great Awakenings and revivals that took place under George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley England was pulled back from the brink of utter moral collapse and the debauchery and the depravity was just sickening and the awakening really stirred things up and a lot of people came to faith in [50:03] Christ and new morals and new standards and new attitudes were developed and that ushered in what came to be known as the Victorian Age and women responded by covering themselves up and by wearing long dresses etc. [50:18] and this went all over the world all over the western world and eventually of course it got over the United States and we picked up on it and the Victorian Age was very much responsible for the way women dressed and they started wearing clothing that was clear down to the floor I mean floor length dresses and gowns and things like that so there wasn't hardly anything for a man to see and they covered their arms and they just covered everything you see this all the time in old movies when they bring out the costumes the way that they wore them that day and if you ever we're all too young for this but there was an expression that went around back in those days that a man would say to a friend of his maybe maybe at a dance or a ball where beautiful ladies were out there with their gowns and their hairdo and all the stuff that went with it and the music and everything and one of them would turn to the other and say hey you see that that's about the most well-turned ankle I've ever seen and you know why he called it a well-turned ankle because that's all he could see that's all it was showing was the ankle and that expression caught hold a well-turned ankle meant a good-looking woman now I suspect there are probably some unattractive ankles too but you know what men aren't given to looking at ankles playboy magazine wouldn't have an audience if every page had pictures of the most beautiful ankles in the world this is marilyn monroe's ankle doesn't that turn you on guys well not really no we need to see more than that but the more man sees the more interested he is and this is what starts a thing the world going around and this is what ultimately produces the babies and it's all part and parcel of it and these are things that God has gifted us with sexuality is a gift of God but it's just like anything else that is good it can be terribly distorted and abused there's nothing more wonderful than water when it's where it is supposed to be but if it is 18 inches in your basement it is not wonderful if it is a flood ravaging the whole community water out of control is terrible fire is a wonderful thing when it's where it's supposed to be but we know right now that California is reeling under massive and I kept hearing after three days this thing is still two percent contained and it's just gobbling up thousands and thousands of acres fire out of control and sex is a wonderful thing it is a gift of [53:20] God it is not only for begetting children it is for the mutual pleasure of the husband and wife and expresses the tenderest way of them giving themselves to each other but like everything else God is given it can be used in a very ugly way God hasn't given us anything that man is not capable of abusing isn't that something that just indicates and and reinforces the idea of human fallenness and it explains why people are the way they are so our Lord said hey you know what you would be better if you didn't have an eye than to use your eye in a wrong way and for it to result in all kinds of catastrophe and you'd be better off if you didn't even have a hand if the use of your hand is such that it brings heartache or poverty or dissolution to you by the way you use it so each of us by way of application which is cross dispensational and applies to every culture everywhere the application is there is a judicious and an injudicious use of all that God has given and we need to be wise in our use of it would you pray with me please father we are grateful for every provision you've made for us and as a humanity we owe you an apology for often abuse and misuse of good things that you've given but you did so with the full knowledge that there was a risk because along with the gifts you gave us you gave us the power of volition the power of saying yes or no to whatever temptation confronts us and we are accountable under you for those decisions that we make we are grateful that you were pleased to entrust them to us but we are sometimes embarrassed for our use of them thank you for the principles contained in this passage thank you for the way that you have constructed femininity and masculinity how that they complement each other it's a marvelous thing that you have come up with our world of creation and we want to live our lives in such a way as to reflect our gratitude to you for it thank you for it in Christ's name amen amen