The Beginning of Lust

The command against adultery goes much deeper than the physical act. Today, Sinclair Ferguson warns of the subtle ways impurity can take hold of our hearts and the lasting repercussions it may have.

I said that there are one or two of the Ten Commandments we know just by their number. We talked together about number four last week, the Sabbath commandment, and now we’ve come to number seven. I hardly need to say it, do I? “No adultery.” And if you remember how Jesus taught us to understand these commandments, you know that this goes much deeper than the physical act. “ ‘I say to you,’ Jesus said, ‘that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ ” That’s Matthew 5:28. Now, I know what people say: “There are other sins. Why do you Christians obsess on sexual ones?”

I wonder if you know the famous Latin expression corruptio optimi pessima: the worst is the corruption of the best. That’s not only morally true; it’s theologically true. Once God had finished His creating work by making man and woman as His image, everything was said to be “very good.” So, since Satan knew he could not overcome the Creator, he simply moved on to the next stage. He would seek to destroy what God had made really good and for our blessing. It’s illuminating to see the pattern. First, he spoiled the marriage. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve have started a blame game. Then, Satan moved on to the family and incited Cain to slay his brother Abel. And before we’ve reached the end of Genesis 4, we’re hearing Lamech serenading his wives (plural) with tales of his murdering vengeance. He must have made an intimidating sort of husband. But the point to notice is that now we have a further attack on marriage and family life in his adultery. If we’re inclined to say, “But don’t we have to wait until Moses before the law condemns it?” the answer is surely to think the way the Lord Jesus thought and ask the question, “What did God intend at the beginning?”

The answer to that is found at the beginning in Genesis 2. A man leaves his family home, marries one woman and holds fast to his wife, and they become one flesh. The real truth is that adultery is destructive of God’s best purposes. It’s as simple as that. In the nature of the case, it isn’t a private matter. Whatever people say, it destroys at least one relationship, one marriage, and perhaps two. It inevitably has an effect on any children, on parents, on friends. It has financial repercussions as well as familial ones. It strikes at the very fabric of society, which as pastors often see at wedding services, can be strong and happy only when the marriage bond is held in honor. Yes, there can be forgiveness even for this, but in God’s economy, forgiveness isn’t like the program in your computer that can switch everything back to an earlier date so that you can begin again. There will be lasting repercussions for the rest of our lives and perhaps for the rest of others’ lives too.

Jesus says, “It all begins, and always begins, with a look.” It does, doesn’t it? Yes, there may be many other dimensions, but it begins with a look. That’s why the next verse in the Sermon on the Mount records Jesus saying, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” Of course, He doesn’t mean that literally. What He’s saying is that so long as my eye lingers, my heart will yearn and not be satisfied until I have what my eye sees, so you need to begin there and then work backwards to your heart.

In this connection, I’m often reminded of a little verse of a helpful poem that John Bunyan wrote that goes like this:

Sin rather than ‘twill out of action be,
Will pray to stay, though in a short space, with thee: One night, one hour, one moment, will it cry,
Embrace me in thy bosom, or I die.
Time to repent (saith it) I will allow,
And help if to repent thou know’st not how. But if you give it entrance at the door,
It will come in, and may go out no more.

Wise words in this context, don’t you think? And yes, in many other contexts too. May God keep us all safe today.