adultery in the heart Archives

Porn and the Penalty for Inaction | Matthew 5:29

by Alan Sharpe August 18, 2022

Achieving sexual purity will cost you plenty. But not as much as you’ll pay by doing nothing.

by Alan Sharpe August 18, 2022

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 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.
Matthew 5:27-29

Will your whole body be cast into hell because you refused to install a porn-blocker on your laptop? Maybe. Will God cast you into hell because you refused to replace your smartphone with a dumbphone that can’t access porn? Perhaps. Will your body be thrown into hell because you scorned this warning of Jesus and never cancelled your subscription to that X-rated website? Maybe.

Jesus teaches you and me that we must deal with the causes of our sexual temptations in this life or pay the penalty for our inaction in the next. That’s the heart of this div

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Lust

Porn is a Heart Problem | Matthew 15:19-20

by Alan Sharpe February 3, 2022

The Bible says pornography and masturbation are heart problems for Christian men. Knowing this truth helps you stay sexually pure today.

by Alan Sharpe February 3, 2022

Porn is a Heart Problem | Matthew 15:19-20

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” Matthew 15:19-20

You can’t be tempted by something you don’t desire. Or, to state the case in the positive, you are tempted only by what you desire. I, for example, have no desire to see anyone dead, so I am not tempted to murder. I don’t long for wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, so I am never tempted to buy Powerball lottery tickets. But I do on occasion desire sexual satisfaction from sinful sources, and so I am tempted to look at porn and to masturbate. I wish this wasn’t so, but it is what it is, as they say. I have a heart problem.

In the Bible, the heart refers to the seat of the affections, desires and passions, as well as of wisdom and understanding. Jesus says the heart, my heart, your heart, is where adultery and

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Prevention

Gouge Out Your Right Eye While Out and About: Part 3 of 3 | Mt 5:27-29

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

Jesus says pluck out your right eye and cast it from you if that eye causes you to commit sexual sin. Here’s how to do this while out and about.

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

Jesus says you are to pluck out your right eye and cast it from you if that eye causes you to commit sexual sin (Matthew 5:27-28). Here’s how to do this while out and about.

Stop eating at restaurants where waitresses wear revealing uniforms
Stop attending strip clubs, massage parlors and so-called men’s clubs
Stop attending theatres to watch movies that are rated NC-17 and R
If your library card causes you to borrow steamy novels or inappropriate movies and TV shows on DVD, cut it up
Stop driving, walking, jogging, cycling or skating through parts of town where you know you will see provocative women or sexually suggestive billboards and storefront displays
If a nearby female colleague dresses provocatively, re-arrange your desk or chair to permanently face the other way
If an immodestly dressed woman sits near you, or vice versa, get up and sit where you can’t ogle her
Don’t walk through the lingerie section at Walmart (or any other store, for that matter)</
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Prevention

Pluck Out Your Right Eye Online: Part 2 of 3 | Matthew 5:27-28

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

Jesus says you are to pluck out your right eye and cast it from you if that eye causes you to commit sexual sin. Here’s how to do this online.

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

Jesus says you are to pluck out your right eye and cast it from you if that eye causes you to commit sexual sin (Matthew 5:27-28). Here’s how to do this online.

If your smartphone causes you to sin, smash it into a thousand pieces and fling the fragments into several dumpsters across town. Then buy a dumb phone that gives you zero access to the internet (recovering heroin addicts don’t carry heroin in their pockets)
Install an internet porn filter, such as Covenant Eyes, on all your devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone) so that you can’t access pornographic websites or apps anymore
Delete your Facebook account if it causes you to look at inappropriate images and videos
Delete your Twitter account if it causes you to watch porn
Delete your Instagram account if it causes you to gape at women
Delete your TikTok account if it tempts you to think sexually immoral thoughts about the women who post there
Use the Site Blocking feature in Covenant Eyes (or the internet fil
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Prevention

Pluck Out Your Right Eye at Home: Part 1 of 3 | Matthew 5:27-29

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

Jesus says you are to pluck out your right eye and cast it from you if that eye causes you to commit sexual sin. Here’s how to do this with the people, places and things in your home.

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

Jesus says you are to pluck out your right eye and cast it from you if that eye causes you to commit sexual sin (Matthew 5:27-29). Here’s how to do this with the people, places and things in your home.

Cancel your subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO and other streaming services that broadcast sexually explicit movies and shows
Cancel your cable television subscription
Cancel your subscriptions to Sports Illustrated, Maxim, GQ and other magazines that show women wearing practically nothing
If your wife subscribes to Cosmopolitan, Shape, Vogue and other print magazines that feature female nudity and articles about sex, ask her to hide them where you won’t find them
If your wife hides her women’s magazines from you, don’t go hunting for them
Stop taking your smartphone into the bathroom with you
Throw away all of your AO-Rated (adults only) video games and any others that feature sexually suggestive characters, images and storylines
Cleanse yo
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Lust

Adultery in the Heart Involves Two People | Matthew 5:27-28

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

When you watch pornography and lust after a woman, you commit adultery with that woman. Where this adultery takes place doesn’t matter

by Alan Sharpe December 20, 2021

Do you miss the entire point of Jesus’ teaching on adultery in the heart by dwelling on the where of adultery and not on the who? Read the verse again. Spot where you misread it.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Matthew 5:27-28

Jesus says, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery WITH HER in his heart.” Where the adultery takes place is immaterial. What is material is with whom the adultery takes place. Adultery, after all, requires two people. You are one of them. The other person is the woman you lust after. When you watch pornography and lust after a woman, you commit adultery with that woman. This is what Jesus is saying. Where this adultery takes place doesn’t matter.

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Obedience

Heaven with a Flip Phone or Hell with a Smartphone. Your Choice. | Mark 9:47-48

by Alan Sharpe November 15, 2021

If your smartphone causes you to sin, why have you not plucked it out of your life? Why have you not replaced it with a dumb phone, a feature phone or a retro flip phone that cannot access the internet? Why are you not obeying Jesus?

by Alan Sharpe November 15, 2021

Jesus teaches that avoiding sins that start with your eyes requires you to take drastic and permanent measures. If you look at women to lust after them, for example, you commit adultery. Jesus says the way to prevent this sin is to tackle it at the source—your eyes:

“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire—where “Their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”
Mark 9:47-48

Jesus is not saying that you should literally pluck out your eye. He is telling you that you must remove from your life anything that causes you to sin. For example, if you are old school and still have so-called adult magazines kicking around your garage, and if those magazines cause you to sin (their primary purpose, after all), get rid of the magazines. If you can’t watch soaps, sitcoms and movies wit

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Obedience

Quitting Free Porn Will Cost You Plenty if You Quit Biblically | Matthew 5:27-29

by Alan Sharpe November 13, 2021

The sure way to quit watching pornography is to quit biblically, starting with obedience to the explicit commands of Jesus. Just prepare yourself for the consequences. Your obedience will cost you plenty.

by Alan Sharpe November 13, 2021

The irony of pornography is that you can watch it for free but you have to pay dearly in order to stop watching. Getting out of the grip of pornography takes effort, and comes at a price that many Christian men seem unwilling to pay. I present as Exhibit A the clear command of Jesus on the subject of lusting at women with your eyes. Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 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.”
Matthew 5:27-29

If you want to be free from your bondage to pornography, you must pluck out your right eye and cast it from you. In other words, you must rid yourself of anything valuable and

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Prevention

To Defeat Porn, Pluck Out Your Right Eye. Then Cast it Away. | Matthew 5:27-29

by Alan Sharpe November 12, 2021

Avoiding the cause of temptation in the moment is not enough if that person, place or thing causes you to sin again. You must pluck it out when tempted, then cast it from you so that it never tempts you again.

by Alan Sharpe November 12, 2021

If you struggle with the sin of watching pornography, Jesus has a remedy for you that is doubly difficult—but effective. You learn of this remedy in the Gospel of Matthew, the fifth chapter, in the passage that recounts the sermon that Jesus delivered to a multitude gathered on a hillside in Galilee.

This is what Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 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.”
Matthew 5:27-29

Notice the double remedy for eliminating the temptation to sin by lusting with your eyes: (1) pluck out your right eye, and (2) cast it from

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Lust
At a Hotel or in Your Heart, It’s Still Adultery | Matthew 5:27-28

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by Alan Sharpe November 8, 2021

When you lust after a woman with your eyes, when you watch pornography, you commit adultery with a person, not an abstraction. You commit adultery with someone in particular, a woman you can describe in intimate detail. Where this happens is irrelevant.

by Alan Sharpe November 8, 2021

Will you commit adultery today? The thought may shock you, but only because you haven’t thought hard enough about what Jesus teaches about looking at women and lusting after them. Or because you have thought about what Jesus says, but think he means something else.

I am referring, of course, to the teaching that Jesus gives on a hillside in Galilee, a teaching that we know as The Sermon on the Mount. This is what Jesus teaches:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Matthew 5:27-28

If you are like many of your brothers in Christ, you think that Jesus is teaching that looking at a woman to lust for her means you commit adultery only in your heart, that you don’t actually commit adultery. You think that look
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