Mike Bickle emphasizes the need for believers to overcome the spirit of immorality as taught in Matthew 5:27-30. He explains that Jesus calls for a radical approach to dealing with lust, highlighting that immorality begins in the heart and is pervasive long before any physical act occurs. Bickle encourages a covenant with our eyes and radical self-denial to combat immorality, linking the seriousness of this issue to eternal judgment. He stresses that this message is rooted in love, aiming to liberate individuals from the destructive nature of immorality and to foster a vibrant relationship with God. Ultimately, he calls for a commitment to uphold biblical standards of morality in a culture that often compromises on these truths.

Thank you, Anna. Thank you, worship team. Turn to Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five. Continuing on our series on the Sermon on the Mount. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We ask you for living understanding. We ask you to come and mark our hearts right now. Lord, give us revelation of the things that this passage talks about that would equip us to love you with loyal love in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, in session eight of this series, we're addressing Matthew chapter five, verse 27 to 30, where Jesus calls his disciples to overcome the spirit of immorality. And I believe that when Jesus gave this message, he was speaking in a very tender way because he was desiring to be helpful to the ones that he loves. The reason I say that is that sometimes we have this false dichotomy between tender and bold. If we're tender, we lower the standards and oh gee, we understand. And if we're bold, we're loyal to the standards and get with it. And so bold sometimes goes with harsh and tender goes with compromise and no, we don't have to pick between the two. We can be bold and tender and uncompromising in this message about overcoming immorality because it's really a message about love. This is really a message about love and it's for everybody in the body of Christ, meaning some of you might be here saying, you know, I'm not really dealing with this issue, but you know, somebody who is, and the Lord wants you to be equipped to counsel them from the biblical perspective. And he wants you equipped to warn them from the biblical perspective. It's not enough just to say, I know immorality is not good. We need to be able to break it down with Bible verses when we're ministering to other people. So this message is for everybody. The whole sermon on the Mount is let's read Matthew chapter five, verse 27 to 30 verse 27. Jesus said, you've heard. It was said to those of old, you should not commit adultery. So he's saying the Pharisees are teaching the 10 commandments and they're teaching the seventh one. The seventh of the 10 commandments is this commandment. Don't commit adultery. He says, you've heard their teaching. He says, but they haven't told you the whole message. They've minimized it. They've reduced it to a bare minimum because they don't understand God's heart or his original attention. So verse 28, he says, I'm going to tell you the bigger message that was intended in the heart of God back in Exodus 20, when the 10 commandments were originally given. I say to you, whoever looks on a woman to lust has already committed adultery in his heart. Now this is a revolutionary idea. He's saying, the Pharisees say that as long as you avoid the physical act of adultery, you're free of immorality. He says, you know, you're not. He goes, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm trying to be helpful. I want to liberate you. I want you to be exhilarated in your spirit. He goes, you have to know that even looking on a woman to lust immorality is working in you long before you do a physical act of adultery. He goes, the problem is there and I want to help you diagnose it so you can get delivered of it so that you could enter into the freedom and the glory of what I've called you to be as my people. Then he goes on and says something even more revolutionary than what he just said in verse 28 verse 29. It's so radical. He goes, if your right eye causes you to sin related to immorality, he's talking about block it out. What is this? Cut your eye out. Now he's not talking about physical mutilation. He's talking about spiritual self-denial. He's not saying cut your eye out. We'll address this in a few moments. He's saying, be radical in your life choices, even though you have to deny yourself in it. He says, what's more profitable for one of your members to perish or your whole body, your whole person to be thrown into hell? Verse 30. He says it again a little different way. He goes, if your right hand causes you to sin related to immorality, cut it off. What's more profitable? He goes, I'm, I'm arguing for your benefit. I want you to see the benefit of embracing this reality in the spirit that I'm, I'm presenting to you now in context, what I mean, what's happening. Jesus is calling his disciples to the importance of resisting the spirit of immorality, not waiting until physical adultery is presented as a temptation, but long before that it's already pervasive and working in people's lives. Now, the Pharisees taught that you didn't have any problems with the spirit of immorality. As long as you avoided the physical act, they were unaware that they had a sickness that they were not addressing. And that sickness was growing in them and it was injuring and defiling them, but they didn't know it. So again, Jesus is talking about love right now. He's not talking about religious, rigid, rigid, strict standards. He's talking about love and liberty in the spirit and how to walk in it. Because remember the context, just a few verses earlier, verse 3 to 12, he gave the eight beatitudes. The blessed are the, if you're pure in heart, he means you can have a vibrant spirit. You can be exhilarated in God. He just laid out 12, I mean, verse 3 to 12, talking about how we can be exhilarated in our walk with God. But he said, this will actually minimize your ability to experience God. And I'm wanting to be helpful to you. And so this idea of the harsh, angry holiness preaching that he's not approaching it this way at all. Paragraph B. Now it's important that we know he's not giving a comprehensive teaching on freedom from sexual addiction. There are other principles involved in the comprehensive teaching. And at the end of page four, I list about seven or eight of them, but that's not the point right now. Jesus is identifying two very significant principles in the pursuit of overcoming the spirit of immorality. He's identifying two of them and he's saying, alert, alert, alert. You won't see these two easily. You will need the revelation of the spirit to grasp what I'm saying. You don't see what I'm saying. These are revolutionary ideas. That's why he isolates these two. Again, he could have easily have added 10 or 12 more points that are important in our quest to walk in total victory over immorality. But these two, he gives particular prominence to, and many times we don't even think of these two in our desire to walk in liberty. The first one, verse 28, he says that, that when you look to lust, it's already working in you. What he's saying is immorality is already powerfully working in you now, long before a physical act. In other words, it's pervasive. Now it's dangerous. Now deal with it. Now you have a disease. You haven't diagnosed and I'm tipping you off because I love you. They're going, oh, that's interesting. He goes, you're already entrenched in it. It's already defiling you, but you're not addressing it because you don't think you have a problem. He goes, I'm shining the light on the pervasive problem already working in you. It's damaging you. It's defiling you. It's hurting you now. And it's one of the keys to addressing, to having a vibrant spirit in God. The good news is what he's saying is this is a treatable sickness, but you have to know you have it and you have to treat it. It's doable. And then the next point he's making in verse 28, he says, it's not only powerfully working in you now and it's pervasive and treatable, but the eye gate is the key because the Pharisees were putting all their attention on avoiding the physical act of adultery. He goes, the eye gate is the key. It's how the spirit of immorality grows in you. But not only that it's the place you begin to overcome it. You overcome immorality by addressing the eye gate. Now that's not really the place we begin. We begin back in the beatitudes by the pure in heart. See God by encountering God and having a vibrant spirit. Now, the second main point he's making is in verse 28 and 29. He goes, now that you've understood you have a big problem and the eye gate is the key issue. He goes, now you have to know verse 29, 30, you have to deal with it in a radical way. You can't be passive about it. It won't go away on its own. You won't just wake up one day and that aggressive spiritual cancer, it just disappears. It doesn't happen that way. He goes, you have to be radical. You have to make radical choices that will involve things that are precious to you, which he calls plucking out the right eye, cutting off the right hand. He goes, and again, he doesn't mean physical mutilation of your body. He means no matter how dear it is to you, make the radical choice now because it won't go away on its own. And then he links getting free from immorality to eternal judgment. Now nobody does that. I mean, that's so old fashioned today in our culture to link being motivated to obey to eternal judgment. That went out of style some years ago, but it didn't with Jesus. Now he doesn't only link it to eternal judgment, but neither is he shy about it. He's bold about it. Actually, Jesus preached more on hell than anybody else. Jesus understood hell more than anybody else because he created it himself. And what he's linking, uh, the motivation to walk for, he links it to our eternal destiny in a negative sense. Now, again, already in the beatitudes, he gave us the big picture, the positive. He gave us first that we could be blessed. We could have a vibrant spirit. We could see God. He goes, blessed are those that see God verse eight. And to see God means to experience him, to feel his presence. He's already given us that primary motivation, paragraph C. So Jesus, in other words, he's teaching how immorality grows through the eye gate, how it's overcome through the eye gate, and also how dangerous it is if it's left to its own. Now the issue of walking free from immorality, it's not a preference issue. Like some ministries go, well, we don't really address the negative stuff. We like to keep it positive. The love of God, beloved, this is a love of God issue. This is about loyal love to Jesus. This is about having the capacity in our spirit to experience Jesus in a greater way. This is about loyal love to people that we might be touching. The whole subject is the subject of love. It's not just that eternal hell is the only motivation, but it is part of the motivation that he gives. Now immorality, the spirit of it, has many different expressions. It's like an aggressive spiritual cancer, meaning it won't go away by itself. It will grow if left to its own. And that's what Jesus is pointing out because these, this crowd, well, the Pharisees that were listening, they didn't even think they had a problem with it, and it was pervasive in their life, and it was hurting them, and they didn't even know it. I mean, it's horrible to have a disease and to not know you have it, and it's treatable if you only knew it. Now paragraph D, the big debate is what is immorality? Immorality includes all sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Now I put about 20 Bible verses together to come up with that definition. Let me say it again. Immorality includes all sexual activity, physical, touching someone in a sexual way, verbal, talking sexually in an inappropriate way, or even in the realm of technology, which is so common today. It's sexual activity in these ways outside of a covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Now people ask, and I understand it, ask all the time, how far can we go? You can't go anywhere sexually until you're married. Zero. Oh, really? Why? That sounds a little rigid, a little strict. No, because of love. Because Jesus wants us to experience Him, to walk in loyal love to Him, and to love our going-to-be partner in the highest way we can. I tell young couples, they go, well, the last few months, I mean, we're going to get married anyway. I go, why would you take the last few months before you're going to make that covenant that day on your wedding day? Why live it defiled? Why not go to your marriage day with a bright spirit? Why go to your marriage day with this behind you the last few months? I mean, if you're involved in that, repent of it, decide you're going to obey the Lord's leadership, and on your wedding day, have a bright spirit when you make that covenant together. Now, why is Jesus so adamant about this point of immorality? Not because He has some rigid religious standard of strictness, because He's zealous for love. Because He loves so well, and He understands love so well. He knows this, that if we're involved in immorality, we are giving Satan the legal right to oppress and damage our life. See, Satan's like at the door of the house, pounding on the door, trying to get in. And there are various issues of our life. He cannot make entry point in a number of ways, unless we unlock the door and invite him in. And Jesus is saying, you walk in immorality, though you can get a bunch of people to back you up and say it's okay, you are giving the key to the one who will torment you. Why do that? Even a little bit. Keep him out. He will oppress and damage your heart. He will injure your ability to experience God. So there's no angry tone in this. There's no railing against sin. There's no condemnation, but there's a tender beckoning to enter into the highest and the fullness of what God has, like again, the eight beatitudes. He's already told us how to live blessed or exhilarated in our spirit before God. Paragraph G. Now the Lord sets all sexual expression within the covenant of marriage. It's a very important point. He puts sexual expression in the covenant of marriage for a very important point. He knows this. He knows this in a way we don't know it. We sort of know it, but he really knows it. He knows that the only place that sexual activity will enrich your life is in the context of a lifelong covenant. Now, let me just talk to the guys. It goes both ways, but just for time's sake, I'll address the guys. But gals know that all these principles, they go the other way too. So a guy, he's in love with this girl and really likes her. She's so cute. And he just says, you know, I just love her. And, and I just want to go forward in sexual ways. And I, and, and the scripture says, no, not until you've made a lifelong covenant to her life story. I mean, you're going to engage with her story in the past, the good and the bad, her story in the future, her pains, her weaknesses, her strengths, her victories, her joys, the things about her life in the decades to come that are exciting, the things that are boring, the things you understand, the things you don't understand. He says only in a context of that kind of commitment will sexual activity enrich you. If you don't have that covenant for longevity to where you participate in her story all the way, the good, the bad, all of it. I mean, you participate in her family, you participate in her dreams, you participate in her fears. I mean, look, you get the whole package. He says, sexual activity will enrich you, but if you don't, it will injure you. And it will injure her in ways you don't get. Now, a lot of guys, they go, man, I really love her. I'm not interested in a 50 year commitment to hearing her story and figuring out all that's the sound. She's cute. And I think it'd be a fun summer to be with her. The Lord says, don't you dare. It will defile your spirit and hers. It will dull and injure your heart, though. You don't know it. It will injure hers. And look what I have written here, paragraph G, it will increase lust in you. You can't touch lust without it increasing in you. Unless you repent of it, then it can decrease. And it's interesting that when David committed adultery, the prophet Nathan came to him in second Samuel 12 and said, David, yes, you committed adultery. You sinned against your family. You sinned against her and her family. But you what you don't know is the Lord says you despise the Lord and throwing off his leadership in that adultery. A lot of folks don't think about the fact they're despising the Lord and sinning against the person that they love, but they haven't made a lifelong covenant to a public lifelong covenant to top of page two. Well, let's look at these two principles again. Now, these again, red alert. Jesus is saying these two principles, they're not the whole story of how to get victory, but you need revelation from the spirit on these two because you won't naturally understand them yourself. Number one principle is that the spirit of immorality is already working in you. Jesus said, if you look in lust, it's pervasive problem already damaging you now. So red alert, red alert, emergency, let's take this at an emergency level and not be casual about it. He explained that the eye gate is the place immorality grows and is fueled, but the positive, the eye gate is one of the places where immorality is cut off and diminished. If we make a covenant with our eyes now through the eye gate, obviously it's looking at a person in person and lusting after them. That would have been the day, the way they would have understood it in that day. But in today's day with technology and media, that it's far more troublesome what's happening in the media. And we know that one of Satan's main strategies is to use the media in the, to fill the earth with, with a perversion. I mean, imagine how much immorality has increased in the last 10 years. It's remarkable last 20 years. Where is it going to be in 20 years? I mean, I can't imagine what, uh, the perversion industry, I'll call it. That's financing much of the technology, innovative, new ways, the new increases of technology and all coming from the perversion industry. But a lot of it is where will holograms be in the realm of sexual perversion in 20 and 30 years? I can't even fathom or whatever other things they come up with. My point is it's not just a pervasive problem inside of people. Our culture is pervasive is going to be completely inundated. This is not a subject to wait a few years to get serious about. Well, Jesus taught here in verse 28, adultery moves in three stages, begins with I adultery. Then it grows to heart adultery or the imagination, sexual fantasies. Then it moves on to physical adultery. Now the Pharisees, they didn't appreciate this because they thought they could obey the seventh commandment of the 10 commandments. Now should not commit adultery. They just stayed away from a woman. Physically, everything was fine. They had no sickness to address or to pay attention to. And Jesus said, wrong. He says, view, you've got a problem now. And I love you so much. I'm pointing it out. Beloved. It's a lot easier to correct the eye gate than it is to put out the raging fires of growing, uh, uh, uh, immoral, uh, passions. Now Job 31 says it so clearly Job 31. He said, I made a covenant with my eyes and we're going to end this in a few moments. And we're going to make a covenant with our eyes or reestablish a covenant with our eyes. He said, I won't look on anything that stirs lust up in my heart. And beloved, this is a covenant that will greatly enrich our spiritual life. This is what Jesus is saying in verse 28. He goes, you have a pervasive problem. It's already working in you long before you touch anybody, but you can correct it. It's treatable. If you put a focus and attention on the eye gate, don't ignore the eye gate and expect this cancer to go away on its own. This spiritual cancer, David affirmed the same truth. Psalm 101 verse two and three. He said, I'll walk within my house with a perfect heart and I will set nothing before nothing wicked before my eyes. Now this is a big statement. This is, I will walk within my house. Now our house is the place where we have most familiarity and most privacy. Our house, because we're most familiar and our guard is down, our house is typically where we are the most selfish, the most carnal, the most unguarded, the most lazy. That's where we can say the most degrading things and we can, our anger can express itself again out in public. It's, oh yes, everything's respectful and protocols and we're an obedient, godly man and we're going strong. But David said in my house, nobody can see me where I'm most unguarded and most familiar. I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. Nothing. Lord, I commit to you. This is a commitment he's making to God. Paragraph two, I mean principle number two. Now Jesus is talking about this, this principle number two, about how to deal with lust. He goes, now that you've decided how important the eye gate is, you've concluded it and you know that you have a problem that's growing, it's already working in you. So you're alerted, you got a problem and you know the eye gate's key to it. The eye gate's not the whole issue, but it's key. He goes, now let's take it up a notch. Principle number two, he goes, now you've got to make radical decisions to alter situations in your life in order to remove things that are inflaming less than you. And he ties it together. He says, and you make these radical decisions knowing that lust won't go away by itself, but you make these radical decisions knowing there's a certainty of judgment for people who cast off God's way in this realm of morality. Now this is a pretty intense approach. Verse 29, Jesus says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, cast it from you. That's better than going to hell. Verse 30, if your right hand causes you to sin, cast it off, cut it off, cast it from you. That's better than going to hell. Again, it's not popular to tie motivation to obedience to going to hell because, you know, that's just not how people are motivated. Jesus is your own. That is part of the motivation. It's not the whole motivation. It needs to, I know how the human heart works and it's true. They will go to hell. It's real. It's not a tactic. That's really where they will go if they disregard me in this area. That's pretty intense, Lord. Now, the eye and the hand, they are symbols of that which is most precious and most useful in a person's life. Let's take the eye for a moment. The eye speaks of that which is the dearest and the most precious to your life. I mean, if somebody had the option to lose one of the faculties of their body, their eye would be one of the last ones they would lose. It's very, very dear, very cherished, and that's the point. Well, in the ancient world, and like today in many places as well, the hand was the symbol of the workforce. The hand was where people made their money. So the hand relates to that which has economic increase to it. He said, I want you to understand that if it comes to removing something precious, not your physical eye, but something as precious as your eye, not very many things that precious, because even if it comes to that, move it. Move that person out of your life, that adulterous situation. Move that situation. Well, I work at a place, and they're really into stuff, and he says, cut your right hand off. Even if you lose economic advantage, lose it. He says, because you have to understand that your eternal destiny is far more important than that precious relationship or that well-paying job or anything else that's near and dear to you. The man says about the adulterous relationship, I love her. She means everything to me. I go, does she mean your eternal destiny to you? Well, I mean, what about grace? You know, we just cast off God's leadership and claim grace later. You know, that's just a dangerous non-biblical approach to sinning. I said, you can't have his leadership over your life and the adulterous relationship. Break it. Well, that'd be like losing my eye. There's the point. He said exactly what Jesus was saying here. Well, let's go to paragraph E. Now, many in the church, they have a low view of hell, but Jesus doesn't. Again, he created it. He taught more on hell than anybody else. When we believe in what Jesus taught about hell and we really believe the unrepentant immoral person, that's the key unrepentant, because you can stubble an immorality, but if you call it sin, call it sin, and then you declare war on it, the Lord will be with you in your sincerity every step of the way, because you won't get free from the practices in one moment. I mean, you might, that's a rare that happens sometimes, but typically the freedom comes over time, but you can enjoy the Lord even while you're walking in freedom. I mean, in your pathway of freedom, even though you're stumbling because you're declaring war on it, you're calling it sin. And in other words, you have an honest, sincere heart and the Lord says, I can enjoy my relationship with you and I can help you in that context. So my point being, don't approach this and go, oh my gosh, this is either all or none. No, it's repent of it and continue to work through it, though you're struggling, but you're warring against it each step of the way. But a lot of people who are in the church world, they're very lackadaisical about immorality. They go, no, I'm not gonna repent of it. It's okay. I mean, that other church says it's okay. That view is disastrous. Now, because we believe that people really will go to hell for denying Jesus's leadership in their life in this area, they don't go to hell because of immorality. They go to hell because of refusing Jesus's leadership. Because we believe it, we speak out boldly, tenderly, but boldly, not with a harsh tone, because we love, we're fighting for love. This is a message about love. You know, I've used the same analogy over the years of the doctor and the lady visits his office and gets a checkup and he diagnoses she has aggressive I mean, a cancer. It's growing fast, but it's treatable. If she takes instant measures, immediate. And it's aggressive. I mean, radical decisions. The doctor says, you can treat it. You got to act now and you have to act radical. Well, he diagnosed her. She's got cancer that's growing fast, but he goes, I know her. I want to stay positive. We're friends. I want to affirm her. So he comes back and gives her the, the report. She goes, how am I? Well, you're okay. You know, I want to keep this positive and upbeat. I want you to feel affirmed. I want you to invite me to the barbecue next week. Everything's fine. And the lady dies of cancer. Now that's not love. And of course that doctor would be charged with malpractice, but beloved by that same distorted non-biblical perverse definition of love. We, we are operating in malpractice as citizens of the kingdom of the Bible. We cannot redefine love on our terms and affirm immorality because we value the person. See, there's a real, uh, manipulative rhetoric out in the culture today. It's called tolerance. And people say it mean different things when they use the word tolerance, but there's a very manipulative way that the word tolerance is used. And the word tolerance means we value the individual and we see their dignity. That's awesome. So we tolerate, they have different views because we value them. Excellent. But that's not the same thing as agreeing with their destructive behavior. See, if we value somebody and we tolerate, they have different views, but we value them and we celebrate their humanity, but we love them so much. We will address the destructive behavior when it's appropriate to address it. So we don't have to choose between valuing them and being straightforward with them. We can do both, but in the right time, in a tone of love, we'll look at what the Bible says here in first Corinthians six, it's very clear about judgment. It says, don't be deceived. First Corinthians six, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, none of them. If they, if they don't repent, they repent, they get the kingdom for free, fully get the kingdom. But if they don't repent, they will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now people say, uh, okay, I get the sodomites and the homosexuals and adulterers, but what's this fornicator thing? What, who are they? That's the single people in the church world. There's no marriage of a covenant marriage. They're violating, but they're involving their lives in immorality, sexual immorality, and they're not repenting of it. Well, we're single, we're not married, we're claiming grace. He goes, I want you to know this, that group of people, if they don't repent, no matter how much they hang out in the church world, they are not in the kingdom. That's not very popular, but he warned them. Verse nine, don't be deceived on this. He goes, a lot of popular sentiment out there. They're lying to you. They're not telling you the truth. Ephesians five says the same thing. This you know, he goes, when I was with you at Ephesus, the city of Ephesus, he's writing to the Ephesians. I made this crystal clear. Paul would say no fornicator has any inheritance of the kingdom. No, not one of them. Again, the fornicators are the single people that are not violating any marriage covenant adultery. At least one of the people are married and the covenant is being violated. He goes, don't let anybody deceive you with their empty words. They're just empty words. It's not a truth, faithful, true witness of the Bible of God's heart. He goes, the wrath of God comes on these people. He goes, if you love them, be straightforward. Well, the young guy says, well, nobody in the church I grew up with is dresses this. Well, you've been in deception. The key to being in deception for years isn't to stay in it. It's to get out of it. Well, where I came from, this doesn't make any difference. What we care about is God who loves us so much is fighting for our ability to walk in love towards him, to walk, to receive love from him, walk in love toward the person we're touching. Paragraph eight, top of page three, the danger of lust is it grows. That's a big danger. It's unbiased. Lust doesn't care who you are. The most dignified person, the most intelligent triple PhD at Harvard head of the space department, world banking system, the most powerful personality with the strongest mind, lust will hold them captive with no biased. Does it matter what position or what kind of personality they have? Lust has a power of its own. That's bigger than them. Paragraph D immorality is so dangerous because it grows. It becomes uncontrollable. Now, younger people, they don't think that's true because they're so young. They haven't experienced that. It's uncontrollable. And they haven't seen them maybe a little bit here and there. They imagine I'll dabble with immorality in my twenties, you know, let boys be boys in college and kind of sow their wild oats. And how do we make light of it? And then when they get in their thirties, they'll control it. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Take a little injection of, of a real aggressive type of cancer. And then in a few years, we'll get rid of the cancer. No, that doesn't make any sense physically. Well, it's the same logic spiritually. Here's what they don't know. Here's what they don't know. Lost is more powerful and more dangerous and more. And it grows faster than they know. They have no idea what they're touching. They just are having a good time. You know, they're in their college years. They're in their twenties. They haven't put together the power of the combination of these four things. Let me tell you these four things. Number one, their heart gets colder. So they're in their twenties. Now they're in their thirties, but their heart is colder than it was in their twenties spiritually. Their mind is darker. They have more perversion in their memory. They were not counting on that. They just thought the perversion would go away. It doesn't. It's actually got a bigger stronghold. Their conscience is hardened. It's defiled. It's not as responsive as in their twenties. And they have more demonic activity in their life. The guy goes, man, in my twenties, I just, you know, thought I'd play around. And then my thirties, I'd get serious and I have a family, be a man of God, but it's harder. My heart's not moving. I thought it would just move. I mean, like, you know, I just assumed their heart's colder. The mind is more perverse. Their conscience is more defiled and they have more demonic activity. Then when they're in their forties, it's worse than their thirties. Then their fifties is worse than their forties. It keeps getting worse. But with repentance and radical decisions, cut off the eye and the hand. I mean, make, remove the most cherished and even the most costly financially situations, no matter what it costs you, be radical and be sure of this. If you don't come under his leadership, no matter what they told you in your Sunday school class, you will end up in the lake of fire. You really will. Some guy goes, well, I thought that if I prayed the prayer, I was okay. No, they told you a lie. This is real. The guy goes, wow, this is pretty intense. You know, I'm in my thirties. My heart isn't moving towards God. Like I thought it would. Well, you're in a lot worse condition on the inside. Well, I just thought, you know, I'm done with college days your forties will be worse. I mean, demonic activity. You know, we invite demons into our life by our activities. They can't get in except we open the door and this sounds cute, but demons are expensive. They cost some cases money to get. I mean, you got to pay money to do some of these things to get those demons. Then you've got to feed your pet demon for years because you've got habits now and they do get tired of it. And it costs a lot of money to get rid of those demons. I mean, the whole thing is expensive, costs a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of relationships. Demons are destructive. A lot of people can pick up a lot of demons in their twenties in this realm, kind of being casual and claiming the grace of God in a false way. Paragraph C Paul says, first Corinthians six, he goes, I urge you. This is a very important passage. Flee it, flee immorality. Like your life is in the balance. Imagine that you're in a park and you look across the way and a wild lion escaped from the zoo and there it is chasing you. Paul says, flee it like a lion's coming after you because first Peter five, eight, the devil is compared to a devouring lion. So you're in the park, the lion. I mean, he's coming. He's aggressive. Well, I think I'll just chill out and finish my lunch. And maybe when he comes, I'll invite him to participate. He'll have you for lunch. He's wild. He has no reason, no reasoning, no mercy. He will destroy you. You better flee. People don't flee immorality. They kind of avoid it. Occasionally he says, don't avoid it. Run for your life from immorality. And then he gives the reason and it's an unusual reason or it's a reason that surprises us at first. He goes, let me tell you why you better run for your life. Not just kind of not go to that one party. I mean, turn off the internet stuff related to it. Don't talk sexually to, to the gals. Don't touch them. Don't go see the movies. Flee this thing like you're running for your life because this lion is truly chasing you. It's not a game. He says, let me tell you why he goes to every sin that a man does is outside of his body. Like when he steals money, that's outside of his body. But a man that commits immorality, he sins against his own body. That's an unusual concept. What do you mean he sins against his body? That's the only sin that we sin against our body. That's an interesting thing. Or it's the only one that Paul identifies is probably a more accurate way to say it. Well, paragraph D, we understand a little bit in Romans one, Paul elaborates. He develops what he means by sinning against your own body by immorality. Now look at verse 24 to 28. This is a very, this is a very sobering, I mean, even a bit terrifying passage. Verse 24, God gave them up to uncleanness. Now you'll notice three times God gave them up and he's giving them up in a greater measure, in a greater way, he's giving them up to greater perversion. Now he, first he gives them up and he says, are you going to repent? They go, no. Then he gives them up in a greater sphere of perversion. Are you repenting? No. Then he gives them up to a final sphere of perversion. And so follow this. It's talking about immorality here. He says God gave them up to their uncleanness. They wouldn't repent of it. Again, in our church world, we have Bible verses to back up the grace of God. It's okay to do it. God will give a person up to their uncleanness in the lust of their hearts and they will continue to dishonor their body. That's like a terrifying concept. Verse 26, if they don't repent, they do repent, they get totally forgiven and there it reverses the process and they begin to get delivered. Fantastic. But they don't, we're talking about the negative here, and this works for guys or gals, old or young. He says, God gave them up to vile passions for their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Talking about sexually here, talking about homosexuality, verse 27, likewise, men, they leave the natural use of the woman sexually, and they burn in their last one man after another man committing what is shameful before God. But here's the point that I want to highlight. Paul is saying they receive in their body in themselves. That means their body and their soul, a penalty that's working and the penalty increases if they don't repent. Oh, this is terrifying. This is what Paul means when he says they sit against their body. He says they open the door for a penalty to begin to operate inside of their body and inside of their soul and their spirit. Then if they still don't repent and it gets worse and worse, verse 28, God will give them over to a debased mind, a depraved mind. So let's look at number one underneath. Now, what does it mean for God to give them over? It means that he lifts the natural restraints that he designed the human frame with. Every person, believer and unbeliever, we have natural restraints built in us that repel perversion at the beginning. Something in us says, oh, I don't think this is right. When they're real young, they go, oh, somebody touches them. They go, this doesn't seem right. If there's a natural restraint, he says, but if they don't obey that restraint, they don't have the power to in the full sense. So they cry out for God's salvation. That's part of their, their journey to the Lord. But if they give themselves to it, the Lord says, I will lift the restraint in a greater measure. They'll go from uncleanness to vile passion. If they don't yield and repent to me, I will give them a depraved mind. Now God's not giving them the depraved mind. I said it wrong. What it really, the penalty is this simply put he's letting them have what they choose. That's the penalty. The penalty isn't that he's doing something to them. He's simply lifting the restraint off. And he says, you want lust. You can have more of it, but you will have it in a measure that you don't understand. And you won't like it. You want lust and you don't want my leadership here, take the last. So they're released at one level and some people repent and others go, Oh, I can't get satisfaction. I got to have more. And he says, you better back off of this. Then he releases them and gives them over. He lifts the restraint at a greater measure. Finally, it's a debased mind. I mean, the most terrifying measure. Now there's a very important verse that describes this. I just want to give it to you. It's not on the notes. It's a second Peter two 19. Here's what Paul said is talking about Bible teachers, false ones, but they're teaching the Bible. He goes, they promise Liberty. And he's talking about in the realm of morality, second Peter two 19, he goes, they promise Liberty in sexual experience, and they're going to be satisfied and get Liberty. People say, I want Liberty in my sexuality, but they end up in bondage with cravings. They can never satisfy. The cravings get deeper, darker, more perverse, and less satisfying. The more they go on, they're looking for Liberty and satisfaction. They get bondage and I'm satisfiable cravings that never ever stop. That's what they get. Well, so much for the Liberty message because that's what they want. Our nation's crying out for sexual Liberty. They will walk straight into horrific bondage with cravings that will be deeper and darker and less satisfied. The further they get from God. Oh, it's terrifying. Paragraph three, when they're finally given over to debase mind, all the restraints are lifted. They are in total bondage. Every literally their thoughts all day long. They don't go two minutes without thinking perverse thoughts. They could be the leader of a great financial empire, but even in the midst of their business meetings, there's immoral thoughts in their mind. They are depraved. They think it's Liberty. They have no satisfaction. They're pushing new boundaries and getting more demons. Top of page four. Now I'm gonna bring this to an end. I'm gonna let you read page four on your own, but I'll just mention a point or two. The danger of lust is God judges it in this age is what I mean. I've already talked about. He judges it eternally. A few minutes ago, he judges it now, but here that's good news. That's that that's a love message. You can read these verses on your own. This is Jesus here in Revelation chapter two, paragraph eight. This is Jesus talking about his commitment to judge his people. He's talking about Jesus judging Christians. Why is he judging them? Because of love. He says, I'm going to wake them up. I am not going to let them go in this spiritual cancer without an intervention. I love them so much. I'm going to remove their options and put them against the wall and ambush them and see if they'll say yes to me. And a lot of times they do it. A lot of times they don't. He wants to stop the progression that's working in them. So he judges. Some people say, well, God of the Old Testament judges God of the New Testament. Jesus doesn't. That is absolute biblical confusion. The God of the Old and the New Testament is identically the same God. He loves and judges in both testaments, and he only judges for the sake of love to remove the things that hinder love. So read that those verses, and I want to urge you to read them carefully because you need to be equipped in these verses for yourself so that when some well-meaning distorted believer comes and tells you it's okay to live in immorality in the name of grace because everything's fine, you will have a way to stand and say, no, that's not what the Bible says. Well, our church says it's okay. It doesn't matter what your church says. Jesus loves me, and I love his leadership, and I want you to be able to know these verses. But if it's not even personal for you, but it's somebody you're ministering to, and they said, well, I heard that it's okay now, and nobody's preaching on sin anymore, you say, well, Jesus is. And then you can add, and so am I. I'm going to talk about you. Say, I'm with Jesus, and then give them these verses, and there's a bunch more besides. Romans 5, we have to operate in the opposite spirit of immorality, and progressively we get free. Now, we get forgiven instantaneously, and we can have a first-class standing before God. I mean, the moment we repent, we can stand with confidence. First-class, they said, I don't mean that the bondage is done. We're still stumbling, but we're warring against it so we have integrity and sincerity in our relationship with them. And he smiles at us. He says, I delighted you. Keep warring, and I'm with you. Cry out to me. Never, ever let go of the battle. And I tell you, there's an integrity, and there's a sincerity in your relationship with them. Even though you're in weakness, he can, he will help you. Now, here's just one verse I want to give you. James 1. I've used this verse a lot over the years. I love this one. James said, lay aside all filthiness. Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Now, he's not talking about able to forgive you right now. He's talking about save or deliver your soul, to heal your soul. Now, first, we have to lay aside all filthiness. Now, some guys hope that they go to bed one night, and they wake up, and Jesus laid aside their filthiness. He won't decide this for you. You have to say no to immorality at the eyes, and when it requires the hand, and the cutting off the hand, the plucking of the eye, meaning cherished and even costly financial decisions, you're going to make them. You're going to make them. And he says, okay, you've laid aside filthiness. Now, your heart's still raw. Your heart's still under the power of the sin, but you've made the choices, so now we're in the right position together. He says, receive the word implanted. Now, the word implanted is more than a Bible study. It's more than just hearing a Sunday morning sermon, taking some notes, and talking about it with a friend afterwards. The word implanted means the word becomes personal as part of your conversation with Jesus, and the seed is growing, and it takes time for it to grow as an implanted seed, but it's in you. It's not Bible information. It's part of your dialogue with God. I'm going to mention one little thing here, into paragraph 8, Proverbs 5-7. Young man, old man, read this. Some guy told me when I was 20 years old about to read Proverbs 5-7 every day. I said, okay. Didn't even know what it was, and I read it, and it is the most descriptive three chapters. All three chapters are not just this, but mostly this subject, how costly adultery is, and what Proverbs says is, if you do this, you go this direction, you'll lose your money. You'll lose everything you've worked for. You'll lose your job. You'll lose your family. You'll lose your reputation. You'll lose your destiny. You'll lose your children. You'll lose everything. It says it over and over like a hard-hitting hammer. I urge you, read Proverbs 5-7 regularly. In my early days, in my 20s and 30s, I preached on these chapters. I told man to go for it, and I want to really stir people up to these chapters again. Well, paragraph B, I'm not going to go through B, but I just wanted you to know it's there, meaning the two principles Jesus addressed, they were not comprehensive, how to get free. They were the two that were alerted that are very necessary that we need revelation, but there's more besides those two principles. I just listed a few there. Amen. Let's stand. Well, that's a good day at the office. You preach on sin, self-denial, and hell, and you get clapped for it. Yeah, that's a good day at the office. No, I'm with the right company of people. I want to lead you in prayer. Here's what you're praying. First, we're going to repent of immorality. And even some married couples, you've never repented of it before. You were immoral before you were married to each other, I'm talking about. I'm talking about to your relationship. You said, we've never called it sin. Let's just clear the deck and say, Jesus, that really was sin. Forgive me. Forgive us. It's important to do those things. You don't have to do those right now, but if it's unrepentant, I've just go ahead and get it clear. Or maybe you're involved in looking or doing today. We're going to repent. And beloved, we can, before we leave this building, we can have the confidence that God is smiling on us, even though our hearts are stuck, but he delights in us because we have sincerity and integrity in the relationship. Then we're going to make a covenant with our eyes. And then I'm going to ask people to come forward that went prayer to be messengers of this message, because there's so little being said about this. I mean, there's thousands of groups that are talking about it, but there's tens of thousands of groups that aren't, or hundreds of thousands. And we need messengers. It's part of the intimacy with God message. It's not the whole message, but it's part of it. So let me lead you in prayer. Just to encourage you just for a moment, just to close your eyes. So just talk to the Lord for a moment or two. Father, we come to you. We're talking about today's sin, or maybe issues yesterday that we haven't actually said to God. You don't have to tell them to people, but say them to God. That was sin Lord. And I ask you to forgive me. I ask you to forgive me. And I'm dressed it up as something else. It was sinful. Let's just leave it here. I receive forgiveness. The Lord will never bring it up again to you. You don't have to go tell a bunch of people, just tell him, but call it what it is. He loves it. When you do that, it moves his heart. The Lord says, receive my forgiveness. No sin is too big to forgive. And no sin is too powerful to overcome. I'll help you. I love you. Now let's go to the second point. Let's make a covenant with our eyes. Job 31, one Lord, we make a covenant or we reestablish one. We're not going to look at things that stir lust up in us. Just give it 30 seconds. Talk to him for a moment. I'm not, not going to. And if I do, I will call it sin and I will recommit the covenant because you may stumble, but recommit and you won't keep stumbling and recommitting. You'll eventually stop stumbling. You really will, or you'll stop recommitting, but say, no, I'm not going to stop recommitting. I'm going to keep signing up no matter how much I stumble. Now, Lord, I just say, release grace on that covenant in this community. We want to be a covenant, a community that keeps the covenant with our eyes that contends for the covenant. At least help us contend and keep this covenant. Let's teach our children about this covenant. Our friends. Now I want to invite anybody that wants to come up that says, I want to be a messenger. Now it doesn't mean you'll be a preacher on a microphone. Maybe you'll write, maybe you'll sing. Maybe you'll lead a small group. Maybe you'll counsel people one-on-one. Tell your children, tell your grandchildren. You're saying, no, I, this is part of the intimacy message. I'm saying yes to this. Now you don't have to come forward for prayer for that. You can do that in your chair, but if you'd like to, you're saying, Lord, help me see this more clearly. Anoint me to communicate it. Lord, we thank you. Oh, we love your leadership, Jesus. We love your leadership. We love you, Jesus. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for your word that instructs us, that warns us. You can lead a lost, broken-hearted one to the cross where deepest joy is found. Lord, release your glory upon these messengers. All over the room, release your glory on messengers, upon people that want to walk with you with all their heart.