SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/19/2020 8:15 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Deed”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 5:27
Message of the
verse: “27
"You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit
adultery’” (NKJV).
Let
us look at Proverbs 5:15-19 as we begin this Spiritual Diary: “15 Drink water from your own cistern And
fresh water from your own well. 16 Should your springs be dispersed abroad,
Streams of water in the streets? 17 Let them be yours alone And not for
strangers with you. 18 Let
your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 As a loving
hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be
exhilarated always with her love.”
Now as we look at some of the things that men have had done to
themselves in order to control their passions, things that we looked at in our
last SD we can see from the verses above, especially the highlighted ones, that
God has a design for marriage, something that can be seen in the wonderful
little book of “Song of Solomon, and that includes proper sexual relations with
one woman for life. Again the Bible is a
book of balance and the kind of sexual instructions that God gives in His Word
are the balance that everyone, especially believers need to practice in their
lives.
The
solution to sexual impurity cannot be external, and the reason is the cause is
not external. Job had the answer in his
book where he writes the following in Job 31:9-11 “9 "If my heart has been
enticed by a woman, Or I have lurked at my neighbor’s doorway, 10 May my wife grind for another, And let others kneel
down over her. 11 “For that would be a lustful crime; Moreover, it would be an
iniquity punishable by judges.”
MacArthur adds “The ancient saint knew that physical infidelity is first
of all a matter of the heart, and that lusting is just as sinful in God’s eyes
as the act of adultery.” I want to
include one more verse from the book of Job that helps us understand that adultery
begins in the mind: "I have made a covenant with my
eyes; How then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1).
In
the OT Law adultery is one of the worst kind of sin and is punishable by death
as seen in Lev. 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22.
John MacArthur comments on the woman caught in adultery found in John
8:4-5 as he writes “When the scribes and Pharisees told Jesus that Moses
commanded them to stone the woman caught in the act of adultery; they were
correct (John 8:4-5). Had not Jesus
forgiven her of her sin she would have deserved stoning.” (This section of John’s gospel is not in all
of the best manuscripts.)
As
the OT talks much about adultery, so does the NT and I will give a short list
of where one can find these verses: 1
Cor. 6:9; Gal. 5:19-21; Rev. 2:22; Heb. 13:4 are just some of the verses that
talk about sexual sins.
MacArthur
concludes his comments on this section by writing: “In its most technical sense, committing ‘adultery’
(from moichao) refers to sexual
intercourse between a man and a woman when one or both of them is married. In both the Old and New Testaments the word
relates to sexual intercourse with anyone other than one’s marriage
partner. That Jesus here implies that
the principle of sexual purity can be seen in a wider sense than adultery
(though adultery is His point here) seems clear from the fact that ‘everyone’
and ‘a woman’ are comprehensive terms that could also apply to the unmarried.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Remember that all sin begins in the mind and
then goes to the body so I desire to keep my thoughts pure.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord’s help to keep my mind on Him and His ways.
8/19/2020 9:17 AM
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