Song of Songs, Chapter 8. Will you need me to give you the page number? Yes, Song of Songs. It's on page 564. I'm going to read just two verses from Song of Songs, Chapter 8, verses 6 and 7, and then turn over to Matthew, Chapter 5. Song of Songs, chapter 8, verses 6 and 7. Please give your attention to the Word of God. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave. It's flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. Let's turn over now to Matthew chapter 5, on page 810, Matthew 5. I'm going to read from verse 27 to verse 32. So Matthew chapter 5, reading from 27 to 32. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. What runs hot inside your veins? What threatens to blow up your life? First is probably anger. So we discussed that last week. It's the sixth commandment. And Jesus addresses it first when he comes to specifics in the Sermon on the Mount. But second is probably lust. And so that is the seventh commandment. And Jesus addresses it here, second, as He gets to the particulars in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus wants to warn you against the things that run hot and threaten your life. He wants to rescue you from them. He wants to warn you about the dangers here. And of course, he assures us that when you have these commandments, it is not a matter of simply avoiding the specific mentioned in the short commandment, the two-word commandment. Rather, by forbidding the worst, he forbids a whole class of sins. By forbidding the endpoint action, he forbids all the interior causes that lead up to it. So we have this simple commandment, you shall not commit adultery. That is, you shall not sleep with another person's husband or with another person's wife. I'm calling that the worst of sexual sins because that's the one that breaks a covenant. That's the one that breaks trust. I was talking to someone recently who described the Old Testament attitude towards marriage as being something like property. And that's why this is a commandment. I said, that's ridiculous. The reason this stands out here is not because of viewing a wife as property. It's because there's a covenant here, a covenant of faithfulness, a one-flesh relationship that then is broken when there is adultery. We could also mention the consequence of this. Adultery can blow up families. So you are not to go and sleep with someone who goes with somebody else. you to respect that they are in a one-flesh relationship, and you're not to interfere. But does that mean that you're okay if you stick with single people? Well, no. In Leviticus 18, there's a whole chapter devoted to those who are off-limits for each one of us. And most of the chapter is actually devoted to the family members that you are not to lie down with. Because that also is an area of great damage, great sin sometimes. We are to learn self-control beginning at home. So there's a whole list of various family relationships that you're not to reach out and go with. Also on that list is you're not to lie with someone of the same sex as yourself, or an animal. And God goes on to say, this is why I drive out the Canaanites. Because they do these things, and you are to be different from them. And to show his seriousness, two chapters later, he reviews the sins, this time giving the penalties that in ancient Israel were to apply to them. For some of them, it's the penalty of death. For some of them, it's a less clear they are to be cut off. For others, he promises his own action. They will die childless. Now, when it comes to single people being together, the penalties are gentle. But there's still penalties. It is still viewed as a sin that needs to be addressed. So someone might say, well, OK, suppose I simply want to gratify my lust by myself. Am I on safe grounds then? Well, take heed to verse 28 here. And it speaks of lustful intent and looking with that way. Also consider that with sexuality, there's something that God means to push us out of ourselves towards another person, not something that's meant to turn us inward on ourselves. The two are to become one flesh. One is not to become unreachable. So with sex, we're called to know another person and not to use another person, not to be self-centered, but to push ourselves out towards another. So, so far I've been explaining the contours of you shall not commit adultery, and some of you might be getting a little frustrated with me. I've been saying don't this, don't that, and don't the other. And you say, I know, but what am I supposed to do with these powerful feelings circling around me, circling inside of me? Am I supposed to do something positive other than simply squelch it? The answer is yes. And I began doing a sort of a biblical study of sex in the Bible and discovered that I will not be completing such a study tonight. We'd be here all night. Let's just cover a little bit of the beginning of Genesis, in which there's a lot of sex in Genesis, which should not surprise you. What's the first four letters of Genesis? Gene. And you know how you got your genes. All righty. What do we see about sex in the Word of God? Well, in Genesis 1, the first thing God says to Adam and Eve is He blesses them, and then He tells them to be fruitful and multiply. And we know how that works. So married sex immediately appears in the Bible as a good thing, as a good means to a good end. And in Genesis 2, we're told that Adam had a most exuberant reaction when he first saw Eve. Saw her naked, I might add. He rejoices that she's bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. There's a joy and a gladness as we get poetry suddenly, I believe, for the first time there, maybe the second time, right there in Genesis, which shows that married sex is not just a good means to the good end of children, but is itself a source of pleasure. We're told that they're naked and not ashamed, powerfully reiterating that this is good in its proper place. And we're given the moral. The moral that, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother, striking in a family-centered culture. Striking in a Torah that has a fifth commandment. Nonetheless, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And then, of course, you hit the fall, where disobedience to God leads to shame and hiding between people. Kindly notice that. How a problem with this relationship instantly comes to a problem with the horizontal, personal relationships. Even when there's only one personal relationship, Adam and Eve. They themselves are instantly broken and trying to hide from each other, trying to cover themselves up. Afraid, because they are in fact, he at least, is about to blame her. And for her, instantly she's told there'll be pain and childbearing, which will obviously make sex a more fraught kind of thing. God gives them clothing to underline that, yes, this is now what you need. This is now appropriate. And yet, as you read carefully, children, therefore sex, are still the way forward for humanity, because it's the woman's offspring who will crush the head of the serpent. Now, there's a twist at the end of that story, a virgin birth. But before you get to that twist, of course, there is a long line to bearing children. And then in Genesis 4, you come to a euphemism. Adam knew his wife, and she conceived. And so we know what no means in that context. But the word is not just a euphemism. It's a call for how to view this kind of relationship as a knowing. It is to be a positive knowing. a knowing of a whole person, not simply a knowing of a part of a person, but knowing the whole person, the inside and the outside. We then see that beauty can tempt us to sin, tempt us to go in the wrong direction. Genesis 6, you get one of the strangest little chapters in the Bible. And it's hard to know what it means, but it says, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive, and they chose for themselves whomever they wanted. And it's very shortly thereafter, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth. Being told that the same dynamic as with Samson was already at work before the flood, seeing, wanting, taking. where this should not have been. And then we notice that in the life of Abraham and Isaac, when others are not restraining their lust, life becomes threatening. Abraham is getting his wife to lie because he's scared of what a king with a harem is going to do. And in fact, she is taken away from him. And she does go into the harem, twice, because the king is not restraining himself. And life has become dangerous. And of course, we see other dangers of the sexual nature in the rest of Genesis. At the same time, of course, noticing beauty and being attracted is normally how things work. And so when we're told that Rebecca was very attractive, we're not surprised to see where the story goes after that. When we're told that Rachel was very attractive, we know where this is going. There's one more thing to notice. That is, when you come to the book of Exodus, There's a lot less sex in Exodus. Because when life is hard enough, when you're enslaved and oppressed, well, then you have other things to take care of first. In other words, before you get through the first book of the Bible, you see that we're talking about a God-given means to filling the earth, to bring joyful knowledge and attraction between people, something that is warped by sin, that threatens others. They can bring down God's wrath on the earth. And then you come to the Song of Songs. Song of Songs, in which particularly sexual love is exalted, right there in scripture. As the shepherd and the girl come to us as happier than Solomon. As they experience this powerful passion that is being celebrated in scripture. Well, we are warned not to bring this to life sooner than it desires. And we ought to notice this, husbands and wives, and future husbands and wives, there's a lot of praise in the book. The two praise each other to each other quite lavishly. And the two also praise each other to other people. Keep an eye out for my man. Why should we keep an eye out for your man? Oh, because he is the best. And I want you to tell me where he is. Read the book, you'll see that's not an inaccurate paraphrase. We also see this, that God uses sexual language to communicate his own fierce love for his people. One prophet is told to marry a prostitute. Why? Well, so that her unfaithfulness will become a metaphor and a picture of Israel's unfaithfulness, and his faithfulness will become a picture of God's faithfulness. And the prophet Ezekiel, God says, I brought you up. When you were ready, I married you. What are you doing? Going off to other lovers. He means to say, Israel, you're going off to worship other gods. Why are you doing this? Don't you understand how upset I am with you? And when you come to the New Testament, you see in Ephesians 5, you see the Lord comparing marriage to Jesus in the church. And indeed, at the final climax of the story, in Revelation 19, the prophet is invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And so he sees a new city coming down out of heaven. What is that but the home to which Jesus will bring us, his bride. The New Testament continues the same message as the Old. Marriage is to be held in honor and the bed is to be undefiled. Sex is a good thing and a dangerous thing. There are many sins to avoid in connection. So how is it in 2020 that we are not to commit adultery and to keep this commandment? Well, first of all, you are not to make an idol or an identity out of your sexual passions. And if you make an identity out of it, this is who I am, then you've made an idol out of it. You're identifying yourself most closely with your sexual passions. That is a category mistake. Because that is not what is most primary or the starting point of your human existence. Who gave you your body? Who gave you your life? Who told you to rule over all of your faculties and devote them to his glory? As we consider ourselves before God, we see that this is the number one relationship, the relationship with God, who gave us all things, who gave us every gift, and directs us in how to use every gift. We can also look around in our society and see the harm that's done when people do not obey God's commands. And seeing that harm, we should say, oh yes, this is a commandment to take seriously. These things ruin lives very quickly. Let me bring these feelings to God. And you know, as you do this, there is a school of thought that's becoming so dominant that you can't even see it as a school of thought. So I'm going to bring it out of the shadows for you. Ready? You are not to follow German Romanticism. You're like, oh, that's helpful. Hang on. German Romanticism is about 200 years old. And it says, the way you know truth is through your feelings. I want to tell you, yeah, your feelings can tell you the truth about what you are feeling. And they may occasionally give you some intuition into something beyond that. But for the most part, no, you don't know truth through your feelings. You're going to know truth from God. He communicates to you primarily through your mind, to your mind, with words. With your feelings, you are to say, huh, here I am having feelings. What do I make of that? The world, at a certain point, will say, ah, you have feelings. From that, you learn your identity. From your identity, you learn who you are and, therefore, what you ought to do. No. That is German Romanticism. Rather from the word of God, you will learn who you are and what you are to do. And when you have various feelings, say of a sexual nature, you are to say, ah, I am being tempted. A more straightforward approach and understanding of the feeling. Once you identify a temptation as such, you know what to do with it, what you ought to do with it. You ought to resist it. And you ought to channel it. You ought to make an idol of it. Now, of course, the reason you have to stress that, the sexual passion, is because you certainly can make an idol of it. And so I read those verses from Song of Songs that talks about how powerful these passions can be. Here is something that many people do make an idol of, because you can. It lends itself to idolatry much more than, say, disc golf. You may have a new hobby of disc golf, but you won't make an idol of disc golf, I hope. I hope you'll aim higher than that. But the sexual passion, well, people make an idol of that. And so what are you to do with those passions? Well, you can let the desire propel you to get to know someone else, to get to love someone else. But with your mind guiding you, as Solomon speaks of wisdom, with my wisdom guiding me, to know and to love a godly person, a godly woman, men, or a godly man, women, If there was no place for desire, we wouldn't have Song of Songs. We wouldn't have Proverbs 5. We wouldn't have Genesis 2.23. If there was no place for passion, God would have no hook with which to use the language he uses. But we're to use that passion to help us to get to know a whole person, not just a part of a person. To seek to love a mind and a body, a character and a physique. And of course, we express love through our words and through our bodies. And we're to obey God in this. Malachi talks about this, says that the one God has a share in our union. And what is the one seeking but godly offspring? And we know how we most reliably produce godly offspring, through the commitment of two godly parents, father and mother. So what are you to do with this desire? Let it propel you towards another godly person of the opposite sex, having not just eyes for who is good in your eyes, but having eyes for and who has the character that I am called to seek. And during our seeking and after our finding, we are to preserve our own and our neighbor's chastity. This commandment is an implication for how we dress and why we're dressing that way. It has implication for our words, what we're saying and why we're saying it. It has implication for our eyes, what they are dwelling on and why. And as we preserve our own and our neighbor's chastity, we're to know that some people in God's plan are going to remain single. We may not know that of ourselves for some time, and we are to be chased the whole time. We know that God's purpose in creating us this way is twofold. For one, he aims to spread his image throughout the earth, just as an ancient king would spread images of himself, statues, throughout his territory. In a similar way, the Almighty God spreads his image throughout all the earth. And we're to be willing participants with him in this plan. Notice his first command, be fruitful and multiply. And the second purpose is to teach us the fierceness of his love, that his love is steady, and long-lasting, that He is faithful, that He is jealous for our affections, that we are to worship no one but Him alone. This is what we are to learn, to learn from sexual love. So, you are not to commit adultery, you are not to get lost in lust. If you have been lost in lust, you are to repent of it, and come out of it, and come back to yourself. You've made an idol of passions, understandable but sinful. Come out of it. You're not to make a woman the object of your devouring eye. Rather, be propelled to find a godly mate. Be propelled towards another person, towards someone that you can be one flesh with. For then you participate in our first assignment, be fruitful and multiply. And you participate, you could say, in giving an earthly picture of our final hope. the marriage supper of the Lamb, Jesus who loved us and gave himself for us. This is a good commandment. Happy the person who keeps it. Happy the family that keeps it. Happy the society that keeps it. Unhappy our society that does not. If you want America to get in a better place, this is a major place that needs to be cleaned up. And this is what you are to do with those powerful feelings. The feelings that you have, or perhaps children, that you will have. Let us pray together. Heavenly Father, help us to know and to follow You in all that we do, in all that we have, and in all that we are. Heavenly Father, help us not to make an idol of anything, not an experience, not a form of worship, not the money or things of this world. Help us, Heavenly Father, to bring all that You have given us back to You, and to obediently and reverently ask, Lord, what shall I do with this? Lord, help us to repent of our sins that we have been convicted of tonight, and help us to return from them to You. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.