The next subject in our series, The Seven Deadly Sins, is LUST.
The Bible text is from Matthew five:
27 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
From the sermon:
The disciple of Jesus doesn’t disconnect the body from the mind. We realize, as taught in our text that what we allow to filter in and settle in the contours and crevices of the psyche eventually affects our bodies. In Matthew, Jesus radically re-defines adultery and gives much stricter dimensions to lustful thinking. Christ teaches it isn’t enough to refrain from the overt act but that the battle begins in the imagination. As someone said, “It isn’t a sin to look once, it is to look twice”. Or in other words, to let the dangerous thoughts multiply. Frederick Beuchner describes it this way, “after a while, x-rated titillations tend to turn tawdry and tedious, even days later, they keep flickering away somewhere in the back of the mind to a captive audience of one.”
Title: The Seven Deadly Sins: Lust
Bible Passage: Matthew 5:27-30
