Would you turn in your bibles to the Gospel of Mathew Chapter five.

We're on Chapter four and made it through a couple of verses of Chapter five.  Then last week we were outside in our expound, exposed, under the stars -- and I didn't want to bite up off too big of a chunk being outside look sort of limited, invisibility in the atmosphere to really understand and dig in so we finished the beatitudes and the similitudes and we're in Verse 17 of Chapter five.

Tonight, it's a lengthy chapter.  There's a lot of mead in it.  We're in the middle of what we call The Sermon on the Mount.  That's what we're most familiar with.  I've told you a couple times that it's really a mountain of a sermon.  It's the sermon of the monarch and we're on a very important junction tonight.

Jesus Christ by this time has gained lots of popularity.  He has multitudes were told in Verse 1, multitudes that are following him.  And those multitudes are impressed by what they have seen so far.  They have seen many miracles and their drawn by the miracles.  This man is like none other they've ever heard or seen.  They know that.  And so it only make sense that multitudes would follow him.

However, no doubt among -- at least some of them there is a concern.  They really like this guy and he's very impressive but what does he say about the Law of Moses?  What does he say about the scriptures that they were raised with?  What is his relationship to the prophets and the Law?  And the reason that some would be worried about that or concerned to any degree is because in their law, in the book of Deuteronomy Chapter 13, God says through Moses "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams," it is called "among you does a sign and a wonder.  'Examine him.  Be careful' Moses said.  'and make sure that he's not leading you away from God.  Examine what he says even if that sign or wonder comes to pass and you see a miracle.  Make sure that he's not leading you away, because the Lord, your God is the one that you should worship.'"

So they would have questions.  What does he say about the Law of Moses?  What does he say about the prophets especially, because he has also garnered a reputation?  Not only as a worker of miracles, not only in their view as a spokesperson of God but he has been called the friend of tax collectors and sinners.  They can already see by the reaction of some of the religious elite that they don't like this guy and he doesn't always say kind things about them either.  He's not really the friend of the religious elite.  He's the friend of tax collectors and sinners so there would be that question mark hanging in their minds as to what he says about what they love.

The Old Testament scriptures, with that in mind, we begin in Verse 17.  "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.  I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill for assuredly I say to you, and until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled.  Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.  But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven."

Jesus speaks about the law and the prophets.  That's his term.  "Don't think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets."  Now, that term "Law and the Prophets" is a synonym for the entirety of the Old Testament scriptures.  It's a nickname for what we call the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi.

Formally, the Jews divided up their scriptures into three sections; what they call the Torah which is the law, the Nevi'im which are the prophets, and the third, the Ketuvim, which are the writings.  The law, the prophets, and the writings, but so often they would simply refer to the Old Testament.  They wouldn't call the Old Testament because it's The Testament to them.  It's the Bible to them but Tanakh, the scriptures.  They would simply refer to it as the Law and the Prophets.

So Jesus said, "I didn't come to destroy that.  If that question is in you minds, put that to rest.  But rather I have come to fulfill."  But what does he mean by that?  Well, he could mean one of two things.  A, he is the fulfillment of all the requirements of the old covenant, the Law of Moses.  The law that nobody could ever truly, totally keep.  He could.  He was the only perfect one.  He came to fulfill.  He was bringing in a new covenant as predicted by the prophets in Jeremiah and in other places, 31, 33, etcetera.  Or he could simply mean, "I'm the center of the Old Testament.  I'm the center of the scriptures.  I am the fulfillment because I am the theme.  I am what they were writing about.  I'm the one they were predicting."

Do you recall when Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You search the scriptures because in them, you think that you have the eternal life but these are they which testify of me.  I'm the subject.  I'm the grand, single subject of the scriptures that you say you searched and that you say you love.  They were written about me."?

In another place, Jesus chided them because they claimed to be one's who loved Moses and kept the Law of Moses.  He said, "If you believe Moses, you would have believed me because Moses wrote about me."  And then you recall after the resurrection when Jesus was walking on that Emmaus Road with a couple of his disciples.  And it says, "Beginning with Moses and all of the Prophets -- the Law and the Prophets, He expounded to them in all of the Scripture the things concerning himself."

So he is the theme.  What an incredible statement to make.  "I didn't come to destroy the law.  I'm the subject.  I'm the fulfillment.  I'm the one that was predicted.  They're fulfilled in me.  For assuredly, I say to you." -- anytime Jesus says those words "assuredly" or if you use the old King Jimmy translation, Verily, verily that's really more literal.  It's Amen, amen or amen, amen, verily, verily most assuredly.  It's a statement of solemnity and gravity.  "I say into you most assuredly, until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled."

Think about what that means.  First of all he mentions that the jot and the tittle, you probably need to know that the jot is the English pronunciation, the English transliteration of one of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet called the "Yod".  And since we don't talk yod, we wouldn't say that very well in America.  We just say jot.  It's the English sized, American way of saying, English way of saying yod.  It's the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Alef Bet.  Alef Bet, Gimel, Dalet, Hei, Vav, Zayin, Cheit, Teit, Yod.  It's number 10.  It's the Y sound.  It's the Y sound in Hebrew, Yod.  It's the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet.  It looks like a little apostrophe.

But then he says the tittle.  Now the tittle is even smaller.  It's the little protrusion or hang-off mark on a Hebrew letters.  Some think it's the pronunciation marks underneath the Hebrew letters, the little dots and the little dashes that tell you the difference between one pronunciation to another.  So understand the implications of what this means.  He's saying, "Don't think that the Law, the scripture, the Old Testament, the Writings of Moses and the Prophets will pass away.  They won't.  They're eternal.  In fact, the Bible is inspired down to the very smallest letter."

So if you're wondering, "Well, should I believe the Bible?  There's some of it I don't know if I can really trust."  Just ask yourself, "Do you love Jesus?"

"Yeah, I love Jesus, but there are other parts of the -- but I don't know if I can trust that the Bible as in there." Well, do you trust Jesus?  Because the Jesus you love and serve is the one who himself said, "Down to the smallest letter of the law and even the pronunciation mark, it's all God's word."

Turn in your bibles for just a moment to John Chapter 10.  You say, "Well we've already covered John on Sunday mornings."  Yeah.  But when is the last time we were in Chapter 10?  Was that about a year ago?  So if you're with us on Sundays, you probably aren't as familiar with it.

Verse 32, "Jesus answered them, 'Many good works I have shown you from my Father for which of those works do you stone me?'  The Jews answered him saying, 'For good work we do not stone you but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself God.'  Jesus answered, 'Isn't not written in your law, I said you are Gods, if he called them Gods to whom the Word of God came -- '" now watch this.  Watch what's in parenthesis, "and the Scripture cannot be --" what?  The scripture cannot be broken.  There is Jesus' view of the Bible.  The Bible is reliable.  The scripture cannot be broken.  Whatever God said, whatever is written, God is big enough to preserve.

Now why is it that we say that the Bible is so impressive and Jesus here says, "Not one shot.  Not one tittle."  Why is it that that we as even Evangelical believers have such a high view of the Scripture?  Is it just because we wanted and we need something as a crutch to hold on to?  No.  There are several objective reasons why.

Reason number one, because of accurate transmission of the scriptures, meaning years of copying and recopying and recopying hundreds and thousands of years of that process has not marred the message of the bible.  I'll give you an example.  We have in existence today about 5,750 -- that's about right, 5,750 manuscripts of the New Testament in other words, in abundance of manuscript to evidence.  Altogether about 24,000 fragments, little tiny fragments and whole manuscripts, but when it comes to manuscripts we have over 5,000 manuscripts, so we're able to look at how things were copied over time and see if there are any differences between those copies.

Not only that, but in recent times, recent being 1947, they made an incredible discovery in a place in Israel called Qumran and they're called the Dead Sea Scrolls.  A little shepherd boy, an Arab boy was throwing a rock up in a cave trying to chase his sheep out one day and he heard a pot crack and he went there and he found these old scrolls and took them to a professor in Bethlehem and they discovered that these things are ancient scrolls.  And they were copies of the books of the Old Testament as well as some of the writings of that community in Qumran.

But here's what we had with the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Suddenly, we had a copy of the Old Testament a thousand years older than the oldest manuscript we have up to that time in existence.  The oldest manuscript we were working off of up to that point was from 900 A.D.  Now we have a document written in a 150 BC so a thousand years removed one copy from another copy.  Now here's, what's the most amazing thing about the Dead Sea Scrolls, it's not what they found it's what they didn't find.  What they didn't find were mistakes.  As they compared for instance the scroll of Isaiah from 900 AD, to the oldest one we now have, 150 BC, the Dead Sea Scrolls.  They found they were virtually identical, couple little differences in punctuation or spelling, that's it.

And that is because when it came to copying the scriptures, the scribes, let me just tell you, scribes began their training at age 14 and they weren't done until they were 40.

It was a meticulous process.  The parchments were prepared.  The scribe would begin to write.  He had the space to the letters just so, he got to have 37 letters per line and the spacing had to be exact.  So when it was all done there was a visual inspection.  Letters were counted across.  Letters were counted down.  They had to match the original exactly.  The center letter of each page had to match exactly.  If the spacing wasn't right, if the center letter wasn't right, they would tear it up, destroy it and start all over again.  And that accounts for the reason a document, a thousand years removed can be so accurate exactly the same so we have accurate transmission.

Something else we have.  We have reliable history in the Bible.  The Bible isn't just a religious book.  It's a history book about real people, real events.  Now either it's true history or it's false history.  Now there had been several people who have said, "Well you can't really rely on the history of those guys."  One notable was William Ramsay, a brilliant historian who for many years did his best to prove that Luke, the Gentile doctor who gave us the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts was fraudulent and just not a good historian.  After years of research, William Ramsay said, "I consider him one of the best if not the best historian in antiquity."  And some say he even converted.  We have a reliable history.

Years ago, scholars used to say "Well, you read in the New Testament about this thing in John Chapter 5, the Pool of Bethesda."  They went down to the Pool of Bethesda and they go, "Guess what?  There's no Pool of Bethesda.  We've looked all over Jerusalem.  Not there."  And they published that and they laughed at it until one day they dug in a certain place over by the Antonia Fortress and they found the Pool of Bethesda and it's enormous.  And if you come with us this spring I'll show it to you.  You'll walk in it.

They also said, "Well, you know, you got this guy named Pontius Pilate who never existed in history.  There's no record of Pontius Pilate in any of the Roman annals or history books that he ever existed.  It's only in the bible.  You can't trust the Bible.  It's not collaborated anywhere else."

Then they start digging around the City of Caesarea by the sea.  And they found this huge inscription with the name Pontius Pilatus or Pontius Pilate the governor of Judaea.  I don't know if it was like his office badge or what but -- and if you go to Caesarea, as you enter the city you see this huge inscription plate that is still standing.  Or something else you have.

You have a unified message.  Think of it this way.  You've got 66 books written by about 40 authors over a period of about 1600 years written on three different continents in three different languages by people with a variety of backgrounds, some shepherds, some fishermen, a Gentile doctor, Jewish rabbi, a prime minister, a couple kings, etcetera, etcetera.  And they write about controversial subjects, the destiny of man, the existence of God, the problem of evil and they all agree.  They say, "Oh, it's not a big deal."  Really?

Try and experiment.  Go home, try it this weekend.  Instead of 40 different people, just get 10 people from your neighborhood nevertheless -- don't mind different cultures and different languages just treat 10 people from your neighborhood, same cultural background, same language, same continent, same city and ask them to write a paragraph on just one controversial subject like "What is the meaning of life?"  I'll guarantee you.  You will have ten different opinions.  Or what if you were to take 25 medical books written over 1600 years on three different continents and treat somebody who had a medical condition based upon the information.  You'd certainly kill that poor fellow.

And finally, what makes it so unique and why we taut it is because of prophecy.  You have written in the pages of the scripture events predicted hundreds, sometimes thousands of years before they ever happen.

You have predicted 400 years of slavery and captivity by the Egyptians to Abraham.  It happened.  You have 70 years captivity of the Judeans by the Babylonians, happened.  You have in Isaiah Chapter 45, "a man by the name of Cyrus mentioned, who will deliver the captive Jews."  Isaiah wrote two centuries before Cyrus was born and yet his name is named in Scripture.  Besides that you have Messianic Prophecies and that would take up the bulk of the night.

So anyway, the scripture cannot be broken and Jesus said, Verse 18, "Not one jot or one tittle or by no means passed from the law until all is fulfilled.  Whoever therefore breaks one of least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom."  So now you have God's opinion and anybody who would shirk the scripture and say, "No big deal."  That's God's opinion of you.  "But whoever does and teaches them he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Let me ask you a question.  Is there somebody in your life that you are influencing, that you are mentoring, that you are teaching, that you are training to obey the Scripture?  Is there somebody that you are catalyst of their spiritual growth?  Are you teaching someone to keep the Scripture?  That's not just something that certain people are gifted to do but we're all called in a spirit of influence to do and to teach them.

You say "Well, I'm busy.  I'm a businessman and I'm a dad."  Then you have a spirit of influence, you have a family to lead.  It's a big task.  You say, "Well, I'm busy.  I'm a mom.  I've got lots of kids."  That's your mission field.  Train those kids, influence those kids.  If you are a business person owner of a business, you have employees perhaps.  Again, you can influence and be a catalyst spiritually for the kingdom of heaven.

For I say to you, Verse 20, "Then unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."  I can only imagine the reaction among the crowd when Jesus said, Verse 20.  "They're listening to him, they love this guy.  He's this guy a breath of fresh air."  And then He says, "Oh by the way, your righteousness has to be better, higher, greater than out of the Scribes and the Pharisees."  And at that point their posture must have just sunk down.  Like, "Okay, church is over.  I'll never make it."

You know, there was a saying going around at that time that if only two people make it to heaven one will be a Scribe and one will be a Pharisee, they were "crème de la crème" of a religious righteous person in the eyes of the average Jewish person.  So Jesus says, "Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and the Pharisees."  Well that makes the question then, how does anybody get to heaven?  If the righteousness that the Scribes and the Pharisees have isn't enough or what is enough?

Now listen carefully those of you who think you have to be a good boy or a good girl to and earn your salvation in order to get to heaven.  Well, if I'm good enough and I'm sincere enough, I'll get to heaven.  Well, think of the Scribes and the Pharisees they gave their entire lives to understanding what it is to be good enough to get into heaven.  So if you say, you get to have and being a good person, you have to then ask "What is a good person?  How good is good enough?"  Because even the good that the Scribes and the Pharisees were producing and pumping out in giving their lives to understand and practice the scripture, it wasn't enough to get them to heaven.

Well, we already know the answer to that.  The answer is back in Verse 3.  Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in Spirit."  And then after that, "Blessed are those who mourn."  It's the person who realizes I'm not good enough, I'm bankrupt.  I'm poor.  I can't get there by anything I can give to God.  It's what God would give to me.

And I recognize that before God I'm poverty stricken and I'm broken up about that, that's the mourning part, that's the repentance part, that's our person and there's the kingdom.

Now think about this, take all of the different ways, all of the different religions, all of the various philosophies, espoused in this world of how a person gets to heaven, all the different religions.  You can boil everything down into two.  There's only two basic approaches to God, two basic religions in all the world.

Number one, the religion of human achievement.  Number two, the religion of divine accomplishment.  Either you do something in order to get to heaven or number two, God does something for you.  That's grace.  The first is work, the second is grace.  Every other system except the one espoused by Jesus falls under that first category the religions of human achievement if I make a hash to Mecca.  If I go to church every Sunday, or if I pray these set of prayers, or if I go on a pilgrimage, or if I do whatever.  It can be self-maintained in your mind.  There's only two, only two.  One is a gift that's grace, that's salvation, that's divine accomplishment, the other you work, you work, you work, you work hard.  One is our work.  The other is his finished work, poor in spirit, those who mourn.

Think of Paul the Apostle.  Paul was a Pharisee.  Paul did work really hard, didn't he?  In fact he writes about his past, he gives sort of his pedigree.  In the Book of Philippians he said, "I was a Pharisee, I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews concerning the law.  I was perfect."  And then he said, "But what was gained unto me, I have counted as rubbish that I might be--" listen to this.  "Be found in Him not having my own righteousness which comes from the law but the righteousness which has of faith in Jesus Christ."  He traded the system of human achievement for the approach of divine accomplishment.  So that helps us when we read Verse 20.  "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees you will be by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

Now beginning in Verse 21 -- again, I can plan to go through Chapters 5, 6 and 7.  I can keep going trust me.  I'm like the every ready bunny when it comes to this stuff but I'm looking at the time and so who knows, we'll just play it by ear.

Beginning in Verse 21, we have a series of six statements that finishes up the chapter, six statements.  They are comparative statements.  You have heard that it was said, but I say unto you.  You have heard in times of all but I say unto you or I tell you.  Six of those, six comparisons of truth, they were raised with, things they had heard, things that were passed along to them versus what Jesus declares as being the truth.

Now, all that we read from Verse 21 to the rest, the end of the chapter are illustrations of Verse 20.  Verse 20 is the principle, the rest are illustrations and we have six illustrations.  You can't get to heaven on your own righteousness.  Jesus strips away self-righteousness and the illustrations begin in first 21.  First statement is concerning murder.

You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not murder and whoever murder shall be in danger of judgment but I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.  And whoever says to his brother 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the counsel just when you thought, 'Well, I've never said that before.'"  He says, "But whoever says, you fool will be in anger of hellfire."

Jesus is referencing the sixth commandment.  You shall not murder.  In the list of Ten Commandments, the second table of the law that deals with our relationships with other people and the second on that table of the law or the sixth in the Ten Commandments is, "You shall not murder."

However, Jesus here shows us that obeying God's commandments is not just a matter of outward action but inward attitude.  You can say, "Well, I've never murdered anybody." but I've known people who have been so angry, so bitter, they carry around the pack of grudges all their lives and in their thoughts it's like "I hate that person.  I could -- I wish that person were dead."  That's how angry a person can get sp Jesus goes beyond the venire of the outward action, down to the very heart of the inward attitude and says, "Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."

So in one hand you have Jesus saying, "I agree with the commandment.  God said that.  But I disagree with your definition of murder.  You have defined murder as simply an action.  I define it as an attitude."

Now the word 'Raca' in verse 22, the word Raca is an Aramaic term that refers to an imbecile, an idiot.  It is an arrogant pronouncement that would insult the lack of intelligence of another person.  The word you fool is the Greek word "Moros" we get the term moron from it.  It's having the spite and the despite in your heart toward another person that could if there weren't the laws to keep you from doing it caused you to take that life.  So murder begins in the heart, that's the seed where it all starts.

So Verse 23, "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and there you remember your brother has something against you."  Notice that.  It's not like "Well, I got nothing against the man.  I'm cool with it."  It didn't say if you have anything against him.  "If you know that he has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, go your way.  First be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift.  Agree with your adversary quickly while you're on the way with him unless your adversary deliver you to the judge and the judge hand you over to the officer and you be thrown in the prison.  Assuredly I say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny."

Notice the correspondence between first go and then come.  "Don't just come.  Don't just come before my throne, just don't come before my altar and put your hands up and start worshipping.  First go, reconcile, and then come."

I remember as a kid in class, they taught me that the shortest distance between two points is a what?  That's true but it's not always true spiritually.  Sometimes the shortest distance between you and God is in a direct approach.  It's going through another brother or sister to be reconciled to close the gap.

How would you feel if after church I'm in the parking lot getting in my car and I don't see you, I pull out really fast and I hit you as you're walking in the parking lot.  You fall to the ground and I hear a -- thud.  And I get out and I surveyed the damage.  First of all, I'll look at my car and see if there's a dent in it and I see you lying there bleeding and I just go, "Huh, it's a shame."  And then I kneeled down and I pray something like I guess, "Lord, forgive me and Lord just bless, lead, guide and direct this person and provide all their needs in Jesus name, Amen."  And then I turned and announced to you, "Its okay now." and I speed off.  Would it be okay?  Not at all.  I got to get things right with the one I offended.  I ran over you.

So Jesus says -- you come into worship, stop right there.  "First go and be reconciled and then come and offer your gift.  Agree with your adversary quickly while you were on the way with him."  Well, how quickly is quickly?  I'd say pretty quickly.  In fact, if you were to go by Paul's writing in Ephesians 4, he would give it a 24-hour period.  He said, "Don't let the sun go down on your wrath."  In other words, clear your accounts with other people everyday.  Clear the accounts daily.  It could be a phone call.  It could be an email.  If you can't physically go to that person, clear the accounts clear the debts, do it quickly.

Unless your adversary deliver you to the judge the judge hand you over to the officer and you'll be thrown into prison that it might escalate into a lawsuit, etcetera.  "Assuredly I say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny."

Now that could be seen as some I've interpreted.  If you refuse to reconcile, if you refuse to forgive, if you refuse to deal with it, what's going to happen is you're going to find yourself in a prison.  You're the one caught in that prison, you're the one caught in that jail and you're the one that will be tormented and you won't get out until you pay.  And that payment sometimes is a lifetime until you paid the very last penny or farthing.

So, he deals with murder all illustrating.  Again, the principle in Verse 20, the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees who he's scripting away self-righteousness.  It's not just about the outward action it's about the inward attitude.  Now he covers adultery.

You've heard that it was said to those of old "You shall not commit adultery."  Now adultery is the seventh commandment.  If the sixth commandment, "You shall not murder." protects the sanctity of life and the seventh commandment, "Thou shall not commit adultery." protects the sanctity of relationships.  Marriage was the first relationship God established.  So to protect that, the commandment was put in order.

But I say to you, that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her already has committed adultery with her in his heart.  I bet there were a lot of fellows in the crowd that they're shuffling their feet right about now like looking around, "What time is it?  It's just getting a little bit long."  Again it's not external, it's internal.  The problem is always in the heart.  That's where it begins.  The heart is the soil for the seed of sin to germinate and to grow.  It begins -- adultery always begins first with lust.  Lust is generated typically for men visually by what we see.  We are stimulated visually.

David one night went out on his rooftop.  And because Jerusalem is on an incline, he could see -- in a house nearby there was a beautiful young woman named Bathsheba who was bathing.  He couldn't help but noticing that.  That wasn't a sin for him to just notice, to just get the glance.  It wasn't the glance that ruined him, it was the gaze.  It's in the present part of whoever looks and keeps looking.  It's not like, "Ooh!"  It's like, "Whoa!" because the glance led to the gaze which led to the getting of Bathsheba which led to the fall, the adultery which led to many other sins.  It begins in the heart.  It's the internal issue of the heart.

Verse 29, "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."  I never understood when I heard from people, when I would witness to him and asked him about their relationship with God, "Do you believe in Jesus?"  Here's one of the typical answers I got, "Dude, I just lived by the Sermon On The Mount."  "You do?  Really, like all of it?"  And when I hear that and I'm thinking, "This dude never read the Sermon On The Mount for him to say that.  He thinks the Ten Commandments are stiff, he never read these babies."  "And if your right hand caused you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you for it is more profitable for you that on of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell."

We read this and we go, "Man, that is gross."  Yup that's the intension of the words of Jesus.  He intended people to have that kind of reaction to what he said.  It was done for the sake of shock because that is the reaction we should to the sin that separates us from God -- shocking, horrible.  But we do have to understand what Jesus means by this because some people have read this and they have taken drastic measures in their own physical body.

For instance, one of the Early Church Fathers' origin had himself castrated to deal with the lust that mounted up within him because based upon the verse that we just read.  Now obviously this is figurative and I'm sure you believe that.  If you believed it's not figurative, we expect to see physical changes in the near future so I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that it is figurative.

In Judaism, the right hand the right of anything was considered the best not because right handed people are better than left handed people because I have a left-handed wife.  She's a way smarter than I am.  It's usually the left-handed are more depth and more depth and brighter typically.  But, the right hand since most people are right handed and that's the arm of strength and that's usually the dominant area of the physique, it was considered the very best.

So to say if you're right-handed or you're right-eyed, if anything in your life is causing you to sin even if it's precious to you, you need to deal with it.  You need to cut it out of your life.  It could be things that you watch or it could be places that you go.  It could be magazines that come into mail.  It could be where you walk in the store.  It could be certain behaviors you cut out of your life, cut off from your life.  It could be a relationship.

I maybe speaking to someone tonight who's having an emotional relationship with somebody or hasn't gotten into an affair.  There's no adultery yet, no problem there but there's an attraction.  You're getting some kind of lift from being around that person emotionally, "Oh, they make me feel so good.  They say nice things to me."  So, you're drawn in.

You need to cut that relationship off, "Oh, but it's good."  If your right hand cause you to sin, cut it off.  Cast it from me because of the results if you don't.  And there is Jesus said, "It's more profitable for you that one of your members perished than for your whole body to be cast into hell."

Think back in your mind to a young man by the name of Joseph, handsome, young, strong and Mrs.  Potiphar.  When Joseph was brought in as slave to her house because she didn't have a great relationship with her husband, who was a lonely housewife, she was a "desperate housewife" cast longing eyes at Joseph and made favorable remarks to him which I'm sure made Joseph feel really good.  And then one day, she said just frankly, just blazingly, "Let's go to bed."

Now I wonder if Joseph would have said, "Well, she's my boss' wife.  I do need to respect her.  I want to be a good witness.  I just can't like walk away.  That'd be disrespectful.  And I'm representing God so I have to say something."  You know what he did?  He ran the other direction.  I don't care what you think and just -- literally he streaked in the other direction because she held his robe and he left his robe and just ran away.  Better lose your robe than lose your character Joseph, he knew that, walked the other direction.

Furthermore, Verse 31.  Now again all these are harkening back to the principle in Verse 20, the righteousness aspect.  Now he's speaking about divorce.  Furthermore, it has been said, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce."

But I say to you whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery.  And whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

Ideally, formally, the Jews hated divorce.  Their own scripture said God hates divorce.  So on paper, the average Jewish person would have said, "Like we're so not into divorce.  It's such a travesty against God."  And yet in Judaism 2000 years ago, women had no right.  They were considered things to be owned.

There was also a problem, scripture and I say it was a problem scripture because it's a scripture with a little bit of information the only scripture we have in the Old Testament that speaks about the actual divorce proceedings and that is Deuteronomy Chapter 24.  And let me just tell you what it says.  It opens up by saying, when a man finds a wife and marries her but she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her and he gives her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of the house.  And then goes on to say that later on if -- after that he gets married and then decides to leave that wife, he can't go back to first one.  There's that's scripture, Deuteronomy 24.

Well, I say it's a problem because the Rabbis interpreted it differently.  Some were very conservative in their interpretation.  Some are very liberal in their interpretation.  One Rabbi by the name of Rabbi Shammai was very conservative.  He said, "A man finding uncleanness in his wife can only refer to sexual uncleanness.  She is immoral.  She has committed adultery."  If a man finds his wife as an adulterous, well then that's the only cause for a divorce.

A different Rabbi by the name of Rabbi Hillel widened out the definition for a man finding something unclean in his wife.  For example Rabbi Hillel said, "If in preparing her husband's food, she puts too much spice in it.  She over salts the food." Technically that's an uncleanness, that's grounds for divorce.  I kid you not.

If the woman goes out in public with her head uncovered that's uncleanness cause for divorce.  If she speaks to a man publicly, that's not her husband, divorce.  If she's a brawling woman, divorce.  If that woman speaks ill of her husband's parents, uncleanness baby, hit the road.  That was Rabbi Hillel.

Which do you think was the more popular interpretation among men?  Hillel.  That was the problem.  At the time of Jesus, many of these people who were saying, "We keep the law."  They said, "We really like Rabbi Hillel."  And that guys are like, "Really a godly guy."

Okay, let me make things a little bit worse there was another Rabbi called Rabbi Akiva.  Rabbi Akiva even said, "If a man finds another woman that he finds more attractive than his wife that's uncleanness in his wife, he can divorce his wife."  So, you start seeing the problem that was going on 2000 years ago among Judaism when Jesus was mentioning these things.

Now, there's a very key important thing to understand because Jesus said "Whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery."  If you go back to Verse 27, Jesus says you've heard it said "Those of all you shall not commit adultery."  So, there were these guys, lots of them thinking, "I have never committed adultery."  And Jesus said, "Well actually, if you've looked longingly at a woman in your heart and you played out what you'd want to do to her and she's not your wife, you've already committed adultery in thought form."  Number one.

Number two, "If you divorce your wife for any reason except for sexual immorality, you are perpetuating adultery all over the place."

And because these men were freely divorcing their wives in a no fault divorce, you know, "We're just mutually incompatible" and dumping their wives and getting other wives, Jesus is saying "You don't understand do you?  You are spreading adultery all over the land."  And the only cause the scripture gives for divorce is porneia(ph) is the Greek word.  It's a broad term sexual immorality, any kind of illicit sexual intercourse.

So by now, he's really got the crowd quieted down and thinking twice about, "I'm a good person man.  I work my way to God.  I'm a righteous dude."  When he said "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, you won't make it."  And then he gives these examples.

Now, he speaks about what we say, promises, oaths that we give.  Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not swear falsely but you shall perform oaths to the Lord.  But I say to you, do not swear at all neither by heaven for it is God's throne, nor by the earth for it is footstool nor by Jerusalem for it is the city of the Great King nor shall you swear by your head because you cannot make one hair white or black."  This is way before the days of modern hair dye.  Let your yes be yes and your no, no for whatever it is more than these is from the evil one.  Great stuff there, but we're out of time.

Always want to be faithful to time commitments, always want to be faithful to the teachers that watch our kids.  We have a question though that has come and then we'll throw that up on the screen in closing.  It was texted in, we thank you for that, we love having questions that come by text or by email and then we like to discuss them or answer them and then we cannot talk about once we dismissed.

It says, "The man could divorce the woman but could a woman divorce a man?"  That's an excellent question.  It brings up the whole issue I was touching on.  Women were considered things.  Women didn't divorce husbands.  Husbands had sole rights over the wife.  And so unless it was under extreme conditions, women were not allowed to divorce their husband only it was a one way street.

Now here's just an interesting little tidbit on this.  For the first 520 years of Roman history, there's not a single recorded instance of a divorce among any of the Romans.  They esteem marriage highly, they esteem the covenant.  But 520 years after the empire began and spread, that's when we start reading a divorce and divorce proceedings and it got to be so rampant that some women were not only divorcing their husbands but it was said that some women would mark their years by the number of husbands they had and divorced.

In one Roman writer named Seneca a historian said, "Women marry to divorce and divorce to marry."  So among pagans divorce was rampant after history went on in the Roman Empire.  But among Jews it was considered so sacred that a woman could not divorce her husband but a husband could divorce his wife depending on how you interpret the uncleanness issue.  So anyway, I hope that answers that question.  We have more to say but we have to go so let's pray.

Father we thank you that we sit here before you as recipients of unmerited favor.  Grace, we do not deserve the salvation you have given.  We do not deserve the care you lavish, the promises you give but you give them.  Our approach to you is not one of human accomplishment, human achievement.  We trust in the already finished, already accomplished work of Christ on our behalf and we're learning Lord, we're learning how to relate to you.

We think of the words of David, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Lord, do a work beyond just cleaning up the actions that we produce but the attitudes, the anger, the idea of revenge, the words, the lust.

You know our frame Lord that we are dust, we take comfort in that.  We also take courage and the work of your Holy Spirit to be persistent to make us mature to grow us up.  More and more into the image of your Son the Lord Jesus Christ, it's in His Name we pray, Amen.