The first wrong attitude Jesus ever spoke about was anger. We must get rid of anger from our life. The second one, which is another major problem with all Christians (even all human beings), is sexually lustful thinking – such as when a man looks at a woman to lust for her. Matthew 5:27-28 says that the Old Testament standard was “Do not commit physical adultery.” As long as you don't touch a woman who is not your wife, and you don't commit adultery with her, you are alright. That was the Old Testament standard.
But Jesus raised the standard. Just like Moses went up to the mountain and came down with Ten Commandments, Jesus went up to the mountain and preached the Sermon on the Mount. He raised the level of those Ten Commandments to the spirit of those commandments. He showed that murder was like anger, and adultery was the same as lusting with your eyes - in other words, you are committing adultery with that woman in your mind. Jesus said that in God's eyes, that was adultery because your inner life was impure.
The mark of the Pharisees was that they kept their external life pure - the outside of the cup. A Christian who keeps his outer life clean but his inner thought life impure is a Pharisee, and he is on his way to hell, whether he knows it or not. Many of us don't understand the seriousness of this.
During the last (35) years I have preached the most against a handful of sins, but two sins particularly - anger and sexually sinful, lustful thoughts. People have asked me why I speak so much against them. I tell them it’s because Jesus referred to these two sins when He first said that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Immediately after saying that your righteousness must be higher than the righteousness of all the Pharisees around you (who are very religious people), the first two sins Jesus mentioned were in the area of anger, and in the area of sexually lustful thinking. That’s the first reason why I preach against them the most.
The second reason why I preach against these two sins is that these are the only two sins that Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount where He said the danger of indulging in them was going to hell. Most people don't believe that. The only two times where Jesus spoke about hell in the Sermon on the Mount were in relation to these two sins (Matthew 5:22b, 29-30), so this tells us that these two sins must be very serious.
It is very significant that the only two times Jesus spoke about hell in the Sermon on the Mount were in relation to anger, and to sexually lustful thinking. So these must be very serious sins in God's eyes and there is not sufficient preaching against them today. Can you think of the last time you heard a message on overcoming anger? I don't think I’ve heard a message on that in my whole life. In the 50+ years I've been moving around Christendom, I've heard a lot of preachers on television, tapes, CDs, and in many churches. Yet I've hardly ever heard a message on overcoming sexually lustful patterns of thinking. Why is it that the devil has prevented preachers from preaching on these two areas?
The number one reason is that the preachers themselves haven't got victory. How can they speak about it if they’re still enslaved themselves? Secondly, the preachers are very often more interested in making people look nice on the outside in their churches and collecting their money. So there's a great need to emphasize these two things, which Jesus spoke about so much. These are the two sins that Jesus said would lead a person finally to hell and that is a very serious thing.
Jesus took the Ten Commandments and showed the people what was behind those commands.
You don't have to come to Matthew 5 to understand that lusting after a woman who is not your wife is a sin. Jesus said that everyone (and it doesn't matter if the person is a believer or unbeliever) who looks on a woman to desire her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. Lust means a strong desire. He said it is so serious that if your right eye makes you to stumble in this area then you must tear it out! You must be radical when you're tempted to lust with your eyes. You must act as if you're a blind man. That is the only way to overcome it. You shouldn't take it lightly and say, “Well, I'm just admiring the beauty that God has created.” There are so many ways we can justify this sin, and a lot of people do. It's when a person is careless in this area that over a period of time he will even fall into physical adultery, like a lot of pastors have throughout the world.
What Jesus taught in Matthew 5 was not something new that God-fearing men did not know. I'm sure John the Baptist knew it even before Jesus spoke it. Job knew it (Job 31:1, 4, 11). Anyone who reveres God, even if he doesn't have a Bible like Job, will conclude that if I look with sexual lust at a woman who is not my wife, it is a sin before God. There is something within us that tells us that it is wrong. It is like stealing what God hasn't given to you. Even if you don't have a Bible, your conscience will tell you that when you steal something that doesn't belong to you, it is a sin. You don't need a commandment to tell you that. Reverence for God itself will tell you that. That is a wonderful thing to remember as we see what Jesus taught.
How is it that so many believers today take this matter of sexually lusting with their eyes so lightly? It is because there is a fundamental lack of reverence for God, which Job had. Today’s Christians have Bible knowledge, but no reverence for God. There are people who go to Bible schools and get doctorates in theology studying the Bible, yet still lust after women. What does that teach us? It teaches us that head knowledge of Scripture and “getting a degree” from a Bible seminary does not make you holy. There is so much Bible knowledge today with the abundance of translations and concordances. We even have the Bible on our mobile phones and on CDs, which people can listen to when they drive in their cars, etc. Yet in spite of all this abundance of knowledge, there is very little reverence for God.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught many things that we could know even without reading the Sermon on the Mount, as long as we have reverence for God. Some of these things are very clear to us: anger is sin, lusting after women is sin, and many other things written here. Therefore, it is not because of a lack of knowledge that you continue in sin; it is because of lack of reverence for God. Reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom. It is the “ABC” of the Christian life and if we don't have that, there is no amount of Bible study or listening to messages that is going to make us holy.
