Lust, the Heart, and Hell

Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast,

making Theology Central.

Good afternoon everyone, it is Wednesday, March the 4th, 2026.

It is currently 4.43 pm central time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central

Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas.

Now this series has been going on for a little bit of time and we have done a lot of things,

all right?

We've already done a lot, and we've got a long ways to go, and I hope that it's been beneficial.

I know it's been somewhat controversial, but I think we're doing a very important thing,

and so let me try to explain, all right?

The series in question, well it's called The Hell Question, and the reason we're talking

about the question of hell is because of some controversy that kind of erupted all over

the internet, YouTube, and different platforms, and regards to the subject of hell and the

idea of annihilationism, that at some point you're just going to burn up and you're going

to cease to exist versus what would be referred to as eternal conscious torment.

So we jumped, I don't see we jumped, I guess in some ways we jumped right into the middle

of the controversy.

It wasn't really my intention, but we reviewed the original podcast that had sparked this

new debate about annihilationism.

We then reviewed kind of their follow-up to their controversial episode.

We dealt with all of that, but ultimately what I decided to do, because I think it's

important to do, whenever there's a massive theological dispute going on and everyone

yelling and everyone's arguing, they tend to argue from the perspective of their theological

system.

This is my theological system, and I'm just going to throw out some verses that support

my theological system, and I hate people arguing from the perspective of theological

systems.

So what I always try to do is like, hey everyone, let's set aside all of our theological

systems, and let's just go to every verse we can find in the Bible that seems to speak

about judgment after death.

Let's do that.

And that's what we have been working on.

We were in Daniel, then we went to John, because John used Daniel, and now we're back in

the gospel of Matthew, and we're moving very slowly and very systematically.

When you do this, in some ways I should be more disciplined, right?

I should just go to the verse and go, okay guys, what does this say about the subject

of hell?

Let's say about the subject of annihilationism or eternal conscious torment.

Well, that doesn't say anything about annihilationism.

Let's go to the next one.

Does that say anything about annihilationism?

Let's go to the next one.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we looked at 30 verses, 29 of these didn't say anything

about annihilationism.

One left, maybe some possible, maybe open the door for some discussion, but overall these

verses don't say anything about it, case closed, let's move on.

I could do that, but to do that, once again, is not actually treating the scripture the

way they should be treated.

Yes, I want to go through every one of these verses that talk about judgment after death

or refer to hell and try, but I don't want to just go there to try to win a debate.

I don't want to just go there to try to prove, well, 28 of these seem to go against annihilationism

and only two maybe support it.

So eternal conscious torment wins.

Let's move on.

That's what some of you prefer because what typically happens when I start working through

a lot of verses, people tune out because they're like, no, just, just prove the point.

Just win the debate, but I don't want to win a debate.

I want to understand scripture.

So if we start working through scriptures, there are times, I feel like we have to spend

a lot of extra time just trying to know what the verse is actually saying.

Sometimes that may feel like I'm leaving the original intent of this entire series.

But you're not, to me, you're never leaving the original intent and anything I do on

the theology central podcast when we're trying to understand the actual meaning of scripture.

So that's what we're going to do and I'm going to try, I'm going to try my very best to

understand.

But I'm trying to let each scripture speak in its own context before asking what it contributes

to this larger theological debate.

Right.

I mean, again, I can just go and go, well, it doesn't say anything about annihilationism.

Let's move on.

But don't you want to understand what the scriptures are actually saying?

See rarely do scriptures are, think of it this way in our way of thinking.

I can't speak in other countries, but here in America, American Christianity really likes

to think of scriptures just sitting there and they just, they just sit there for a specific

purpose.

One, just to win your theological debate or to prove your theological system, they just

serve as a proof text or they're there to bring you some kind of comfort like they're

about you or they're supposed to do something for you.

And it's like no, scripture doesn't sit there waiting for you to just rip them out of context

for your purpose and your need.

They sit there because they were placed there.

We believe under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but they were written in a specific

purpose and in a specific context for a specific people for a specific reason.

And the first thing you have to do is understand what they're saying, not just use them for

your purpose.

See, what we have a tendency to do is we open the Bible and we want the scriptures to

serve our purpose.

But the scriptures are not there to serve your purpose.

They're not there to serve your purpose that you need a Sunday school lesson or that you

need a sermon or that you need a small group lesson.

The scriptures are there for the original intended purpose that they were put there.

And then what we have to do is try to understand, okay, who was this written to?

Why was this going on?

What was going on?

And then if we want to have them speak of a larger issue, then we can ask ourselves

is that even appropriate?

So you have to kind of go, all right, what is the, what does these scriptures say in their

own context?

And that's what we're, that's what we're trying, that's what we're trying to do.

So think of it this way, I'm not beginning with a system, in other words, I'm not going

to begin, I am on team annihilationism or I'm on team eternal conscious torment.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to begin with a system and then simply

search for verses to support said system.

I am going to go from scripture to scripture, which is what I have been doing.

And I'm going to ask some basic questions.

What does this passage actually say?

Yeah, and I know what you're saying, but no, no, no, no, no, you need to ask what does

it say about hell annihilationism and eternal conscious torment?

No, that is using scripture from my purpose.

I need to first go, what does the passage say and what does it not say?

So today we come to Matthew chapter 5 verses 28 through 30.

Let me just read it.

Matthew chapter 5 verses 28 through 30.

And right before we went live, I realized something.

And I'm going to mention this at the very end, we, I think we've handled some of this

in a kind of a sloppy way within the history of Christianity.

So I'm going to give you kind of an assignment.

I'm going to give you an assignment and I'll save it for the end and it doesn't have anything

to do with hell.

It has something to do with a, even maybe a more controversial subject, all right, but

we'll talk about that in a minute.

First, Matthew, not in a minute and about an hour from now when we get to the end, all

right?

Here we go.

Matthew chapter 5, I'm going to go back to verse 27.

So I just want you to hear quickly because that's where this actually begins.

Matthew 5, 27 through 30, you have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt

not commit adultery.

But I say unto you, all right.

So once again, we're in this section where it's you have heard, but I say unto you, you

have heard that's referencing to the, the law, the scriptures of the Old Testament,

but I say unto you, that is Jesus speaking, but I say unto you that who so ever look if

on a woman to lust after her have committed adultery with her already in his heart.

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and if cast it far from thee, or cast it

from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not

that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee, for it is profitable

for thee that one, that one of thy members should perish and not that whole body should

be cast into hell.

That's the text of scripture that we are going to look at and we're going to work on,

all right.

Now, this passage obviously clearly belongs in this series about the hell question because

it mentions hell, gahana twice.

Did you see it?

Verse 29.

At the end of verse 29, and not that that whole body should be cast into hell, verse 30,

and not that that whole body should be cast into hell.

Hell is mentioned twice, gahana is mentioned twice, that's the Greek word, gahana.

It's mentioned two times.

So clearly, this serves as a versus that cannot be skipped if we're going to be talking

about all the verses that mention hell and judgment after death.

And clearly, that seems to be possibly referring to judgment after death.

I think anyone could agree with that, all right.

But here's the thing, and I'm going to acknowledge this right from the start because if I don't

as we work through this over the next hour, you're going to be like, well, wait a minute,

this is not really dealing with annihilationism and not really dealing with the eternal conscious

torment.

And I know, I know.

And you know why?

Because we have to admit something.

Although gahana is mentioned twice here, although hell is mentioned, these verses

do not tell us much about hell.

Do they explain the mechanics of hell?

No.

Do they explain the duration of hell or the punishment there?

No.

Do they explain the experience of the wicked in hell?

No.

Do they explain anything to help us about the debate between eternal conscious torment

and annihilationism?

No.

All right.

So if someone comes to these verses, hoping to find a detailed description of hell, they

would either leave disappointed or they would end up reading things into the text that simply

isn't there.

So here's the question.

Why does Jesus even mention gahana here and hell here?

Why does he even mention it?

Now, I know what some of you are going to say because he's warning you of what you

have to do not to go to hell.

Now, if you're not careful, I already want to just go ahead and make sure we see this.

And I'm going to talk about this in greater detail.

The way some pastors approach this is, hey, you must avoid this because if you don't,

you're going to go to hell, which then seems to infer that the idea of going to hell

or not going to hell is dependent on what you do or don't do or what sins you can avoid.

When you take necessary steps to avoid that sin, are you going to go to hell?

That seems to make your avoidance of hell based on what you do and don't do and not on

the finished work of Jesus Christ, which makes it a very works based salvation system.

So already you know you could be walking into a theological landmine if you're not careful

here.

So why does Jesus even mention hell here?

Well, I think we, I think here's the thing.

We cannot isolate the word hell or gahana.

We got to understand the whole passage.

And I think this is where things get very interesting.

I think things get very interesting.

And I think we're only scratching the surface and how interesting this could get.

I think this could get very interesting, all right?

So we're going to work through this.

So let me make it very clear, I, I, I, I, I so love when this happens.

Sometimes I loathe when this happens because it seems to take me further and further away

from my objective and trying to finish the series, trying to get things done.

But and then sometimes it causes me to lose my audience, but I can't worry about that.

Either people want to stick around to really work through things or they just want simple

answers and you want simple answers.

You shouldn't be listening to the theology central podcast.

I can just tell you that right now, right?

I'm not here for simple answers.

I, I'm here to wrestle.

I'm here to struggle.

I always imagine when I open up the Bible, I'm dealing with the things of God and it's

like wrestling with God and I'm going to walk away with a lip because these things are

complicated and difficult and not always easy to understand, all right?

So what I have a tendency to do and I explain this over and over, even though some of you

who email me, you constantly accuse me of things that if you've listened to me, you

know that's not an accurate way of describing me.

I always try to, when we work through a passage, I try to say, I'm putting forth my hermeneutical

hypotheses.

I try to put forth, this is I think is the best way to understand this textually, but

I'm always willing to continue to work on it.

So I like to work through a text and then sometimes we will return to it and build upon

it.

I think we have a lot of work here to do.

So as I work through this, understand, I may not have it all figured out and I say that

every single time, just again, I always have new listeners who don't understand.

Whatever conclusion I come to on a verse today means nothing to me tomorrow because tomorrow

if I was to teach the same text, I would start from scratch.

I never utilize anything I have previously learned.

Look, when we come to the subject of hell or the subject of the gospel of Matthew, do

you know how many classes I've taken on the gospel of Matthew and all of my theological

education working on an associate's degree, bachelor's degree, master's degree, Bible

Institute certificate?

I don't care anything I've ever learned in the past is irrelevant because I approach

the text new.

That's the only way to move forward.

So I always try to approach it not like, oh, I've got it figured out, but I try to approach

it.

This is what I think today, but we're going to continue to work on it always.

I mean, we're, we, we never think we've arrived.

We're always in process of just trying to figure it out if that makes any sense, all right?

So, and this is why I think things get interesting, all right?

I would argue and you can tell me if I'm wrong, if you would like, you can hop on Sermon

Audio tonight and you can do a little bit of research and tell me what you discover, all

do you want to, you want to be my research assistant?

You do hop on Sermon Audio today, start and you can grab all the Sermons, you can grab

the transcripts and give it to, uh, AI and AI can tell you whether it uptakes this approach

or not.

But I will argue that probably most Sermons on Sermon Audio, Matthew 528 through 30, is

going to be preached as if they're offering you practical advice about how to avoid lust,

about trying to protect you so that you will not commit adultery by looking at a woman

with lust.

Therefore, I guess you can avoid hell.

It's going to turn into a practical steps and it's going to turn into filtering software.

Don't look at this, don't watch this, get rid of this, have an accountability partner,

it's going to turn into that.

See, the typical explanation of Matthew 527 through 30, I keep saying 28 through 30,

27 through 30, you cannot forget verse 27, goes something like this, hey, and typically

it's preached more towards guys, hey, guys, come here, come here, right now, lust is dangerous.

So we got to get rid of all the things that causes temptation, right?

Okay, is it Netflix, is it, is it HBO Max, is it, you know, what is it?

What's causing it?

Is it YouTube, is it, you know, is it your only fan subscription?

Okay, what is causing you temptation?

Well, guess what, you're going to have to take some radical steps guys, you got to take

some radical steps, you're going to have to cut off a hand, you're going to pluck out

an eye because you got to avoid this, you got to get some accountability.

Let's get a filter on your phone, all right?

Let's remove access to things that cause you to stumble.

And many study Bibles will approach this almost in the exact same way.

In fact, I got a study Bible right here, all right?

Here we go.

Now, now, please note this, watch how this works, okay, this is, this is from the foundation

study Bible, page 1,522.

This is the note under Matthew 527, control of the heart and body begins with the control

of the eyes, deeds of shame result from fantasies of shame, Jesus gives this sobering of vice

if I write, I offend they pluck it out and cast it from the, it should be clear that

Jesus is not advocating mold mutilating your bodies or our bodies, but he is using a

strong figure of speech to emphasize removing any temptation for evil, whatever the cost.

So see, this study Bible takes the approach, what should you learn from this?

Find the source of temptation and get rid of it.

Get rid of it and you can control the heart.

Look at this.

You can control the heart with the control of the eyes that you can control the heart

with the control of the eyes.

Now, immediately, theologically, I'm already like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I've got a million

problems here and that's how most churches handle Matthew 527 through 30.

That's how most sermons, again, go to sermon audio today and start looking and let me know

what you find.

I'm curious.

Do I need to do, do we need to go on a pro long marathon of sermon reviews?

By the end of that, I would probably be an alcoholic, okay, a little bit of hyperbole

there, but not much.

So here's the question, since that, that type of interpretation is very, very common,

the question needs to be, well, what, what is the text actually doing?

What does the text actually say?

Because once we read the passage carefully, especially verse 28, but I say unto you that

whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already

in his heart, I think we're going to begin to see that something else may be happening

here, something that may be far more unsettling.

I know it's going to go against all of the porn filtering software, I know it's going

to go against most pastors advice and I know it's going to go against the young people's

sermon about, you know, to the young teenage boys and how to stop lust, I think all of

those sermons missed the point because I think something else is going on here.

And I think somehow this is completely missed because we have a moralistic reading of

scripture as set of like handling it in a correct way.

So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to try to use, once again, our five layers framework, we've been talking about

the five layers of Bible reading over and over and over this year, we're going to continue

to mention it.

I'm going to be at least using the framework of that.

So we're going to start with boundary, structure and genre because that's what we look for.

Boundary, structure and genre, boundary, where does the verse begin, where does the passage

begin, where does it end, structure, how is the passage structured and genre, what genre

of literature are we looking at, all right?

So let me just get the genre one out of the way.

It's simple.

It's a sermon on the mount.

I know this is completely missed by most churches in the United States of America.

Let me explain it again.

The sermon on the mount is Jesus expounding and explaining the true nature of the law.

And let me make it very clear, the law does not provide you steps and how to stop sinning.

The law is not, it's like people have this weird mentality within Christiandom.

Give me the law and then the law will give me spiritual success.

The law only shows your lack of spiritual success.

It reveals your sin.

It condemns you.

It does not fix you.

And so so many pastors go to the sermon on the mount and they turn it into do this, do

this, don't do this.

No, the law says do this and don't do this for what reason to show you that you don't

do it.

You can't do it.

You're incapable of doing it.

You are a sinner.

It is supposed to break you.

It is supposed to cause you to fall on your face, rip off your clothes, throw ash upon

your head and say, I'm a sinner.

But for some weird reason, people read the sermon on the mountain and you walk away.

Every sermon gives you five things to do.

Do this.

No, you're using the law and telling people to get better by doing the law.

The law does not make you better by trying to do the law.

The law will only condemn you and show you that you're incapable of it.

What the law is supposed to do is drive you to the only one who's ever obeyed the law

and that is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ said himself that he did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it.

He came to fulfill every jot and title of the law.

He fulfilled it all on your behalf.

The one who preached the law is the only one who has obeyed the law and by faith in

him, his obedience to that law is imputed to my account.

So I stand as if I'm obedient to the law, but that law condemns me in my thought, word,

practices by what I do and leave undone.

And the church though turns the law into do this and do that and it's it doesn't work.

The law is not there to fix you.

It is there to condemn you and drive you to the only thing that will ultimately fix you

which is Jesus Christ and he fixes you in your positional and legal standing before

God.

You're not going to be fixed practically until glorification.

So the genre is law, but let's look at the boundary and structure, okay?

Now the broader section is Matthew 5, 21 to 48.

If you want the broader section, it's Matthew 5, 21 to 48.

And that's very important to note, all right?

Now I don't have time to get into it now, but it's very important to note that that's

really the broader section is.

And this is where you see over and over, you have heard that it was said, but I say

unto you, you have heard that it was said, but I say unto you.

And these statements, sometimes we call antithesis and they're, they're, yeah, I can get into

further explanation, but that's, I think in some ways that can be misleading.

Think of it this way.

Jesus is not contradicting the law.

Let me, I'll, I'll guess I'll state it this way.

I don't know.

I, I could get into like an entire discussion here, but I don't want to do that.

So let's, let's meet.

Let me say it this way, these statements are not Jesus contradicting the law.

He is revealing its true depth and its intention.

So in this section, Matthew 5, 21 to 48 where Jesus makes these repeated statements,

you have heard that it was said, but I say unto you, he is not contradicting the law.

He is making sure you understand the full depth of the law and its intention there.

I think that's a better way of saying it.

Okay.

So for us, we're a, for this particular episode, we're in Matthew 5, 27 through 30, all right?

It follows a very clear structure, verse 27 is the command that is traditionally heard

and it all, it goes all the way back to the Old Testament.

You have heard the law, right?

That it was said thou shalt not commit adultery.

There's the law thou shalt not commit adultery.

Now, think about it from a kind of a legal framework and the way some people may have understood

the original command, the original, do not commit adultery.

Okay, how can I avoid adultery?

Well, if we understand adultery as physical sexual relationship with someone you're not

married to or with someone else's wife or something along those lines, right?

A physical sexual relationship, you can say, well, I've never committed adultery.

I've never slept with someone else's wife.

I've never slept with someone while I was married.

I have not committed adultery and you can be like, I am righteous, I am godly, but Jesus

comes along and says, but I say unto you, now he's going to show you the real depth of

the law that whosoever looketh unto a woman to lust after her, have already committed adultery

with her or in his heart.

Jesus, I could say he intensifies the command.

I think what he tries to show you is the true depth of that command.

Now immediately you'll be like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Now the issue is, okay, wait, I've never actually committed a physical adultery.

I have never had sex with someone else's wife.

I have never had sex with someone else while I was married.

I have not committed adultery, but you're telling me, if I even look at a woman with lust,

I've committed adultery.

Oh, whoa, okay, what do I do with this?

Now it's going to get uncomfortable.

Now it's going to get very uncomfortable.

So we go with the command to Jesus really exposing the deeper meaning of the command.

And then we have verses 29 through 30.

We have this language, a very radical language, right?

If I write, I offend the plucket out, cast it from the, and then ultimately it ends with

the whole body should be cast into hell, right?

So this goes, this is kind of like the radical steps.

This involves the eye, the hand, it involves Gehanna, it involves hell.

And this structure is extremely important.

We go from the law, and then we go through just deeper, true meaning of the law.

You can commit this act without ever actually physically doing so.

And then all of these very extreme language about the hand, the eye, cutting off, plucking

out, and then ending up in Gehanna or hell.

Now I think the interpretive key is verse 28, I really do verse 28, I think is the interpretive

key.

And I believe that verse 28 is misunderstood.

Then verse 29 and 30 will never be understood correctly, all right?

So Jesus is teaching publicly.

We know that.

This is the sermon on the Mount.

He's teaching publicly.

He's obviously using a form of rhetorical intensification.

He intensifies.

He says, says one thing and then it gets in more intense, more in depth, more revealing.

So this is, how can I say it?

This is a teaching style that will press moral truth, or yeah, it presses moral truth with

very vivid and maybe even shocking language, all right?

Think of it this way.

Not giving case law, he's not giving surgical instructions.

He's exposing the depth of the law.

He's actually exposing the guilt of the heirs.

If you really want to understand what Jesus is doing here, he's giving you the deeper

meaning of the law, but he's trying to show that everyone listening is condemned.

See, the only correct response to the end of the sermon on the Mount is not we now

have 632 rules that we're going to try to implement so that we will be better husbands,

better fathers, better sons, better daughters, better wives, better girlfriends, better

employment.

No, and so many churches, if you look at their sermon on the Mount series, it just turns

into 500 things you're supposed to do.

If that's what you take away from your church's series on the sermon on the Mount, your

church preached a law to you and I'm sorry, they misrepresented the entire sermon on the

Mount.

The end of the sermon on the Mount, everyone in your church should probably be laying

on their face, crying out, woe is me, I am unclean, I'm around unclean people and we all

deserve hell, we're not worthy of anything.

We need mercy, we need Jesus because we cannot do this, we have not done this and nobody

will do this.

But it never ends that way, it ends with everyone going, I'm going to try this and I'm going

to do this and I'm not going to look at bad things anymore and I'm not going to, you're

missing the entire point.

So if you understand what Jesus is doing here, he's exposing the depth of the law.

What, what should, this is what you should do, right?

Think of it this way, right?

Think of it this way, Jesus walks up to you and go, you've heard, thou shalt not commit

adultery.

Any, especially the original audience, they would have been like, absolutely, do not commit

adultery.

That is really bad.

God hates that.

Praise be to God, praise be to Jehovah, praise be to Yahweh.

I have never touched a woman who I was not married to, I've never touched another woman

while I was married, I have not committed adultery.

Praise God, I, I am righteous, I am upstanding.

I am not like these notorious sinners.

Think the Lord that I'm not like these other people, adulterers, fornicators, I, I'm not

like these people and Jesus is like, oh, wait, wait, wait, but I say unto you, if you've

even looked at a woman with lust, you have committed adultery.

And all of a sudden that self-righteousness goes, all of, all of a sudden that I think

the God that I'm not like, you're like, oh, Lord, have mercy on me, I'm a sinner.

I have sinned against you and thought, word and deed, and I am an adulterer, I am an

adulterer.

Writh.

But for some weird reason, no one walks out of these, sir, the sermon on the mount messages,

saying, I'm an adulterer and adulterer.

It's like, I'm going to work, I'm going to go download a filtering system and I'm going

to stop looking at bad stuff.

I'm going to do this and you're missing the point.

The point is you're already an adulterer, you're already an adulterer.

Do you not see what you are and the sermon on the mount is where Jesus says, be perfect

as your Heavenly Father is perfect and you should be like, well, I'm never going to

get there.

You're not.

The boundary, the structure, the genre shows you what's happening here.

Now, that's kind of a layer one.

I kind of added a lot in layer one, but that's okay.

Layer two in our five layer approach is the voice and the historical situation and the

historical situation is simple.

He's speaking to a Jewish audience.

They know the 10 commandments.

They know Exodus, chapter 20, verse 14, right?

I mean, do I need to look this up?

I probably, I will just verse the, so that you know this, Exodus, chapter 20, verse 14.

You can, I'm assuming you can quote it, Exodus, chapter 20, verse 14, which reads, thou

shall not commit adultery.

Wow, I had to look that one up, right?

Right?

They know the commandment.

They know it.

Deuteronomy 518, I believe, repeats it.

So in the cultural context in which Jesus is speaking and this 1st century AD, adultery

was understood as a physical act.

So all of the listeners would be like, amen, those adulterers are deceiving liars, you

can't trust them, that's vile, that's disgusting, I never would, I never will.

So Jesus removes that self-righteous attitude by moving the command from action to intention.

He relocates the issue from your behavior to your heart.

And once the heart becomes the focus, the entire moral landscape changes.

So the voice in historical situation is very simple.

This is the voice of Jesus going, oh, I know you guys know this commandment.

And they're like, yeah, we do.

And then Jesus is like, okay, well, we're going to move it from the physical act to your

intention.

We're going to move it from the behavior to the heart.

And at that point, everything in the room should get really, really quiet.

And everyone should get a little uncomfortable, maybe some nervous coughing, maybe some moving,

moving around the papers, maybe trying to gather everything up and go, oh, I got to get

out of here.

It's a sermon on the mountain.

Nobody's going to see me exit.

I got to get out of here.

Because immediately you should start thinking of all the times you have committed adultery.

And I bet you it's more than once or twice or three times.

I'm going to quote the Commodores, but I won't.

Four, five, six, seven, six, seven, okay, that's kind of outdated now.

That was so yesterday, but I used to be a big thing.

I don't care what you want to do with the numbers.

It's just going to continue to increase because who knows how many times you have actually

committed adultery in your heart.

Now what?

Well, I don't think I have.

Well, I mean, I can't stop a bird from flying over my head, but I can stop it from building

a nest in my hair.

We'll do everything to play it down.

Well, I mean, I've done pretty good.

I'll play all the games you want.

You are an adulterer just like you are a murderer.

So let's go to layer number three.

Let's do some observation, language, and meaning.

Matthew 528 says, everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed

adultery with her in his heart.

I think we need to notice some things doing some observation work, right?

Now, some will say the issue is not merely seeing, I can agree with that, right?

To lust indicates a purposeful desire, a desire, okay?

The verdict is already rendered though, has committed adultery, all right?

So some people say, well, if I just see the woman, I may just notice her beauty.

I mean, I understand you can draw that distinction.

Just make it very careful.

Just at least be very honest.

She will always try to say, well, I wasn't really thinking the point is you can try to justify

it.

But only God knows really God is the only one who really knows what you were thinking

and desiring and wanting and sometimes we won't even admit it to ourselves.

Sometimes we will play it down, right?

I do understand you can try to draw a distinction between, well, I just looked, I just saw,

I just acknowledged her beauty.

Yeah, you're usually trying to play a very careful game that I think sometimes it's just,

it's more honest to admit, Lord, you know my heart, you know how wicked it is.

You know, look, my heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.

So I don't even know if I can trust when my heart tells me, well, I don't think you

really lusted after her.

I don't think you really lusted after him.

But here's the thing I think you have to get.

The location of the sin is explicitly identified, right?

In his heart.

This is the most important, I'm going to read it from a different translation.

I want you to, this is so important, all right?

I say, I say anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery

with her in his heart, in his heart.

That is like the interpretive stick of dynamite.

This is important.

I believe at this point, once Jesus says the adultery occurs in the heart, I think the

entire interpretation of verses 29 and 30 has to follow that reality.

Because if sin resides in the heart, can external measures remove it?

If the sin happens in the heart, can external measures get rid of it?

That's very serious here.

And I think this leads us to this, because Jesus says immediately, so if your eye, even

your good eye, causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.

Or if your right eye causes you to sin.

Now many people assume Jesus is saying the eye is the source of the sin.

But I will argue verse 28 and the rest of the Bible already has ruled that out.

The source is the heart.

So the eye in the hand cannot be the origin of the problem.

They are instruments.

They are pathways through which the heart maybe expresses itself.

So I think if we begin to acknowledge that, then interpreting verse 29 through 30 as behavioral

advice falls completely apart.

And I cannot stress this enough.

The problem is the heart.

It's not the hand or the eyes.

Some people say, well, the hands and the eyes feed the heart.

But the Bible says the heart is the source of the problem.

Now, I will go ahead and deal with this, because in 29 and 30, I'm going to go from this

translation to King James.

If you're right, I offend.

They pluck it out, cast it far from the, and if I right hand offend, they cut it off.

Now we have to deal, we'll just deal with this briefly, I don't want to spend a lot of

time.

Jesus says, if you're right, I causes you to sin, tear it out.

If you're right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

Now we, church plays a lot of games here, right?

Oh, no, no, no, no, Jesus doesn't mean to actually cut it off.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, he just means whatever the source is.

So they'll say, it's not the hand, it's not the eye, it's rock and roll, it's dancing,

it's Netflix, it's movie theaters, it's mixed bathing, in other words, going to a swimming

pool with men and women in the same pool, it's on the beach and women wearing a bikini.

In fact, it's women's fault because of how they dress.

It's, they will say, Jesus didn't actually mean hand or eye, he means these other things,

which is kind of weird because you think Jesus could have said, hmm, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no.

I mean, this, whatever is causing you to sin, get rid of it.

I don't really mean my, your hand or your eye.

Why does Jesus say hand or eye if he really meant other things that you can cut out?

So a lot of people would immediately say, well, no, no, no, no, no, this is not literal.

Now other people throughout church history, some have insisted on reading kind of a mutilation

language, literally.

And then this, this gets all confusing because if then if we read it literally, right,

if we read it literally, well, then I can cut out my, I can, I can pluck out my eye

or cut off my hand.

That's literal.

Well, then the whole body being thrown into hell would be literal.

So if the eye removal is literal, then the body being thrown into hell must be literal.

But that's, that doesn't make any sense because we know the whole body is not thrown into

hell, right?

The body goes into the ground, the body doesn't go into hell unless you're going to say

get Hannah here is only the grave.

Well, then now we end up with all kinds of other problems.

But here's the thing.

If, now think about this, let's be honest here, if it is the hand, if it is the eye and

that's really what's causing the problem, there wouldn't be okay to rip out the eye and

cut off the hand in order to avoid going to hell in order to avoid sin.

Now what's weird is what Christians will say, well, it's not the hand, it's not the eye,

it's what the eye looks at.

So they will say it's not the hand or the eye, but they'll just then replace it with something

else external.

Maybe the whole point Jesus is saying is, hey, if it is an external thing, it would be

better to get rid of the external thing than to end up in hell.

But maybe what Jesus is trying to show by using such excessive language is that guess

what?

Getting rid of the hand, getting rid of the eye is not going to fix it because the problem

is actually in the heart where he already identified it in verse 28 and where the rest

of the Bible identifies it.

So if it's the heart cutting off the hand, cutting, plucking out the eye is not going

to fix it, getting rid of Netflix is not going to fix it, having a filter on your phone

is not going to fix it.

So if it's not the hand in the eye, replacing it with other external things is missing

the whole point.

I think the whole point Jesus is saying is none of these external things, no matter how

severe, how costly is going to fix the problem.

Removing the eye does not remove the heart, removing the hand does not remove the heart,

removing Netflix does not remove the heart, removing rock and roll does not remove the

heart.

So if the sin remains in the heart, mutilation does not solve the problem or cutting off

all of the supposed stuff that church has blamed for 2,000 years of causing the problem.

And just remember, all of those horrible sins that take place in Genesis and you've got

everything from homosexuality, you've got rape, you've got incest, you've got a man offering

up his daughter to all the men's of the sea, you've got adultery, you've got polygamy,

you've got it all in Genesis and all of that occurs before rock and roll, before pornography,

or Netflix.

Why?

You've got murder happening right after the garden before a violent video game because

the problem is in the stinking heart and the church for some weird reason is a clueless

to that being the problem.

We always put the problem as some external thing as they cut it off, pluck it out and you'll

fix the problem.

But yet 2,000 years later, everyone from pastors to deacons, to elders, to Sunday school teachers,

to people in the pew, are involved in pornography, lust, fornication, and then I wonder why?

See the fact that almost every Christian tradition instinctively reads the mutilation language.

No, no, no, no, no, don't actually cut off your hand, don't actually cut off your

eye.

They know something that it's not actually giving instructions.

It's trying to press the seriousness of sin, but for some weird reason, we just say, well,

it's not the hand in the eye.

I mean, Jesus didn't really mean that, he means get rid of Netflix, oh yeah, yeah, that's

what Jesus meant.

No, that's not what he's saying.

If we understand Matthew 528 showing that the problem is the heart, then this fits perfectly

with the rest of the Bible.

Matthew 1519, let me see how it reads in this translation, since it just happens to be

the Bible closest to me, Matthew 1519, Jesus says these words, right?

For from the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual and morality theft,

lying and slander.

These are what defiles you.

All these things come from the heart.

They don't see Christians constantly say this stupid statement, maybe they don't say it

so much in 2026, but there was a time they said this all the time, especially in the

90s, garbage in, garbage out.

And I always wanted to say, you people are clueless.

The garbage is already in.

It's not that if I put garbage in me, garbage is going to come out.

I'm already garbage.

Garbage is what comes out of me naturally because I was conceived in sin.

I was born a sinner.

I sinned because I was a sinner.

I did not become a sinner by sinning.

Jeremiah 179, the heart, the human heart, your heart is deceitful above all things.

It is desperately wicked.

Oh, Jesus is not introducing a new idea here, right?

He's pressing a truth that is embedded in Scripture.

Sin begins internally.

Think of it this way.

Once sin is located in the heart, are you ready?

No.

Zero.

External solution can remove it.

That's what makes the passage so uniquely severe.

Cut everything off.

It's not going to fix the problem.

He's using such an extreme thing to make you go, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a

minute.

It's not going to fix it.

It's not, Jesus is not giving you an extreme thing so that you can go soften it going,

okay, good.

I don't have to get rid of my hand, but I do have to get rid of my Netflix subscription.

He's not doing that.

He's trying to make you go, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute.

This is so severe.

Sin is so severe.

I'm in trouble.

Jesus, ultimately, you'll realize either you can cut off your hand, you're still going

to sin.

You can pluck out your eye.

You're still going to sin.

At some point, you're not going to have anything else to mutilate.

You're not going to have any more organs to cut out.

All your hands are going to be gone.

Your feet are going to be gone.

Your legs are going to be gone.

Your elbows are going to be gone.

Your ears are going to be gone.

Your eyes are going to be gone.

At this point, you just, well, you know, swallow a bullet and end it.

That's the point.

You can't fix it.

Now, this leads to the question, then why does Jesus mention hell here?

Now, you've got to notice that he doesn't describe hell.

He doesn't explain the duration.

He doesn't even define its nature.

What he's trying to say is that hell is the ultimate consequence of unresolved sin.

The point here is not to describe hell.

The point is to show that if righteousness, and this is very important, and you definitely

need to see this, that if right, let me say it this way, the point is to show that if

righteousness depends on eliminating sin, then the stakes are ultimate.

And that leads to a very important attention.

If the reality is the only way I'm going to avoid hell is eliminating all sin that I'm

going to hell.

And so are you.

Now, this is what happens.

Many churches will affirm, no, we're saved by grace alone through faith because of Jesus

and they'll have it in their doctrinal statement.

But the way they typically interpret this passage almost creates a problem.

It almost becomes, you better remove lust, so you will not face judgment.

So then it almost becomes avoid lust, then you avoid hell.

And then that turns the passage functionally into a works based system, even if you try

to say, no, no, no, you're saved by grace.

And so what others will say, see, if you keep looking at a woman with lust, it may prove

that you were never saved.

They'll turn it into a works based test system.

So the point is our heart is wicked and therefore we are all condemned and we would all end

up in hell even if we start chopping off all of our body parts because the problem is inside

of us because the law exposed its law, it's exposing the problem.

It's not showing you try to come up with 32 ways to defeat it.

The only way it can do is like, I'm a sinner, I'm an adulterer, I'm a murderer, I need

Jesus, who wasn't a murderer, who wasn't an adulterer and who obeyed the law perfectly

on my behalf.

Instead of presenting this as a technique to be good or to be saved or to prove your

save, Jesus is exposing the impossibility of self-righteousness.

So now we come to layer five here, application and misuse.

We've already talked a lot about the misuse but if we turn, so the first, I think common

way, this is misuse, is you turn Matthew 5, 27 through 30 and to kind of a strategy for

managing temptation, hey, this, you got to manage temptation, cut off this and again, it's

convenient.

Well, no, no, Jesus can't mean cut off the hand and cut off the eye or pluck out the eye.

No, he's got to mean something beyond the hand and the eye, which again makes no sense.

Either Jesus meant hand and eye or he didn't mean hand and eye and I think he meant hand

and eye to demonstrate to you the utter will then I'm not going to have any parts left.

Exactly.

So then he's showing the complete and he's trying to show you the impossibility how you cannot

even come close to following this or obeying this.

Nobody will have any body parts left.

Someone will be dead.

That's the problem because the sin is so rooted in our heart.

There is no hope.

But we somehow say, no, no, no, Jesus didn't really mean it that way.

He just said stop watching Netflix.

That is so ridiculous that the church plays such a ridiculous game with the text.

Jesus is not saying, hey, this is how you save yourself.

Jesus is how you fix yourself.

He's trying to show you that if righteousness requires eliminating sin at the heart, no external

action can achieve it even extreme measures fail.

So I believe Matthew 528 through 30 is showing you sin resides in the heart, which is

consistent with the rest of the Bible.

I think Matthew 528 through 30 is showing you that external righteousness cannot remove

internal corruption.

I don't care how good you think you are.

Your internal corruption is there and so many times I've heard godly parents say, I'm

going to keep my son, my children away from the world.

I'm going to keep them away from sin.

I'm not going to let the world corrupt them.

I'm not going to let the world.

I remember riding in a car with a very godly man who was in the military with me.

We didn't work together.

He worked somewhere else on base, but he was a member of my church and I remember him telling

me that then I'm going to keep my kids away from the world.

I'm not going to let the world get to my kids.

I'm not going to let them work at Burger King so they can be corrupted by some pagan.

I'm not going to let them do this.

I'm not going to let them do that.

I'm not going to let them do this and guess what?

His kids grew up and guess what?

They were corrupt and they were sinful.

I wonder why?

Because you can't keep sin from a kid who's already a sinner because the sin is already

inside of them.

The sin is not found and them working at Burger King.

The sin is not found and them hanging out with some corrupt kid because your kid is

the corrupt kid.

The hell is mentioned here to show you how serious all of this is.

So where does this leave us?

Because I want to get this done before an hour is up.

Matthew 528 through 30.

It doesn't answer any big questions about hell.

It doesn't explain the mechanics as I've already said.

It doesn't explain the duration.

It does not in any way settle some debate between eternal conscious torment or annihilationism.

So in this sense, the verse tells us or the passage tells us very little about hell.

But I think it tells us something that may be far more unsettling and I think sometimes

the church misses this.

Well Jesus is not describing hell here because he's not.

He speaks about hell, I think, in a way that leaves no doubt about one thing.

You don't want to go there.

Right?

I mean, I think we can at least take that away.

You don't want to go there.

I mean, if it's possible to cut off your hand and pluck out your eye to keep you from

hell, then you should do that.

Nobody wants to go there.

I think he's really saying judgment is serious and you don't want to go there.

See, the language is pretty severe.

It would be better to lose an eye, it would be better to lose a hand, it would be better

to suffer the loss of something very precious to you than to have your body thrown into hell.

The warning is unmistakable.

Now I will argue, it seems kind of weird that if all you're going to do is go there and

just cease to exist, I don't know.

It's like, hey, it would be better to chop off your hand and rip out your eye than to

go into some place where you're just going to cease to exist.

It sounds like whatever is there is pretty bad and you want to avoid it.

But I think if you really look at the passage, I think something more disturbing is there.

Because the solution Jesus describes, tearing out the eye, cutting off the hand, it doesn't

solve the problem because Jesus is already identified.

What the problem is, the adultery, the corruption, the sin is in the heart.

And if the problem is the heart, removing the eye will not remove it.

Cutting off the hand will not remove it.

You may be able to eliminate, well, maybe you can, I'll say it this way, you can eliminate

every external trigger.

You can remove every temptation.

You can take radical steps, extreme measures, dramatic actions, and the heart will still

be right there.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Now I'm using the idea of a physical heart, but it's right there.

And guess what the heart produces, lust, sin, adultery without any external source trying

to get it to do that.

In fact, the only reason the external source has any temptation at all is because your heart

is sinful and desire sin.

So maybe the passage is exposing something terrifying about us.

If righteousness required eliminating sin from the heart, then no amount of external

effort can achieve it, no strategy, no discipline, no filter, no accountability partner, no

accountability system, no radical act of self-denial.

Because the problem is not just what you see, it's not just what you touch, it's not

just what you encounter, it's what we are.

The corruption is internal.

So Matthew 528-30 functions far less like a manual for avoiding hell, and more like

a mirror revealing why human beings cannot escape judgment through their own righteous efforts.

Think of it this way, Jesus is raising the stakes to the highest possible level.

Hell itself, while at the same time showing that the real issue lies beyond human effort.

And once you see that, the passage becomes a warning and a revelation.

The warning is real.

Hell is real.

And Jesus clearly says it's something to be avoided at all cost.

But then here's the revelation.

The very passage that warns us, Matthew 527-30, that warns us about judgment, it's revealing

that the solution cannot come from tearing out your eye or cutting out your hand.

The solution has to go deeper than that.

It has to go deeper than behavior.

It has to go deeper than discipline.

It has to go deeper than external righteousness.

It would have to reach the heart itself.

And so what is the solution?

It's Jesus Christ who then obeys the law and his perfection is imputed to my account.

If the heart is the problem, you can't change it and I can't change it.

And the only way it's ever going to truly be changed is when finally in glorification

I am freed from this sinful body and this sinful nature.

And I know some will go to Ezekiel and go and you get a new heart.

That is for Israel when God is going to restore and regenerate Israel.

And some future system of eschatology, we would have to figure it out there.

Look at the passage in Ezekiel, it's not us.

Because if we had a new heart, we could stop sinning.

But we can't stop sinning because we still have a corrupt heart.

And here's the real question.

Almost everyone handles Matthew 5, 27 through 30 as its own individual section.

And they leave out this.

Heath been said,

whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.

But I see into you that whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication,

cause a third to commit adultery and whosoever marry her that his divorce committed adultery.

Now we just had a verse about not committing adultery and the fact that,

well, you can be an adulterer without ever doing anything.

So then how does that impact verses 31 and 32?

31 and 32 is almost always taught, separate from 27 through 30.

But remember, the Bible was not written in this nice little verses.

It was all one long manuscript, basically like a run on sentence.

So do we, does the truth of 27 through 30 impact your interpretation of 31 through 32?

Have you ever heard any teaching that even raises that possibility?

Now 31 and 32 doesn't have anything to do about hell.

So see, it kind of goes beyond the scope of what we're trying to do in this series.

But trust me, we're going to have to do something.

I don't know where we're going to put it, but we can't, we can't just skip that, right?

I mean, come on, the subject, if the subject of hell is controversy,

the subject of divorce, give me a break.

I mean, you can split a church in five seconds if you teach on that subject.

I mean, if you even try to find a biblical understanding of divorce and remarriage,

you're going to end your church.

Remember, I went to a Bible college where the professor said,

look, just hate these verses about divorce and remarriage.

Just rip them out of your Bible.

Because if you even try to apply them even remotely correctly,

you're going to lose half your church because half your church is going to be

divorced and remarried.

So you're going to possibly be calling half of them adulterers,

but you're not going to treat them as adulterers.

You're going to treat them as good standing people who you let them come to the Lord's table

and you may let them serve in the church.

You're not going to treat them as adulterers.

At the same time, there's other people in your church who may commit adultery

and you'll be ready to excommunicate them and remove them from everything.

But wait a minute, you got people in your church possibly living in adultery.

No one's even going to try to handle this in a correct way.

So why do we play games?

Just rip it out of the Bible and forget about it.

And I was like, whoa, that's very negative.

You're kind of cynical.

And then once you get into ministry, you kind of go, yeah, this is kind of a problem.

You got people sitting in your church most likely living in adultery

from a biblical definition.

You're not going to treat them that way, but you're right.

If two teenagers get caught having pre-marital sex,

you're going to treat them as fornicators and want to punish them.

But wait a minute, you got two adults up three pews in front of those two teenagers

who are committing adultery, but yet nothing happens to them.

If someone gets caught in the church in a homosexual relationship,

oh, we're going to get rid of them, but you got adulterers in your church.

If someone actually commits physical adultery, you're going to be like,

oh, we got to remove them.

That's the end of them.

But wait a minute, you got people in your church who are literally living

in adultery.

How come they can live in adultery and it's okay, but nobody else can.

Who made those rules?

Well, considering the very versus that come right before this discussion about divorce

and adultery and actually the word of porneia, fornication, sexual immorality,

it doesn't even use the word adultery there.

Everyone says, no, you can get, you can get divorced if someone commits adultery,

but it says fornication.

What does it not say adultery?

Well, now we get into a whole different discussion, right?

Everyone, but nobody wants to say, well, wait a minute,

what is the versus that come before I'd have to say?

So what do you think?

Do the versus about adultery and committing adultery in the heart

and not being able to remove it?

And 27th through 30, does it have any bearing on how you impact the next part?

Because maybe the next part is saying, well, everyone's committed adultery.

So then does that mean everyone can get a divorce?

Everyone is committed fornication because you can commit it in the heart.

Well, no, no, no, no, no.

It's the only way you can get a divorce is if it's physical, the text doesn't say that.

The versus right before just shows that you can commit it in the heart.

In fact, before that shows you can commit murder in the heart.

So can you commit?

So I don't know.

Again, I think the whole point of the sermon on them out,

it's not to us to figure out what we can do to obey it.

I think it's to demonstrate that we're not going to obey one thing in the sermon on them out.

We're going to be guilty of all of it because it's law.

So hell seems to be like a place you do not want to go.

And that you would want to do anything to avoid it.

The only problem is those things to try to avoid hell would mean that it's a workspace system.

I think what Jesus is simply trying to show is hell is bad.

And you don't want to go there and you should do anything you possibly can to avoid it.

But guess what, you can't avoid hell by simply trying to stop this external stuff

because the problem is internal.

So internally, we're going to end up in hell because we're sinners.

And so we're going to need a different solution.

And that point is the law does not give you the answer.

The law gives you the condemnation so that you go seek the answer, which is Jesus Christ.

All right, so I don't know, where do we put, how many want would like to see if Matthew 5,

27, 230 has any textual, theological bearing on the subject of divorce, adultery,

remarriage that shows up in the next verses?

If it does, where do we put it?

Do we put it in this series?

Do we make it a separate one?

I don't know where we put it.

We could put it under the sermon on the Mount series.

I don't know, do you think it's worth, I think it's worth discussing?

Because I've always traded them as separate issues.

But you almost have to put these together, don't you?

I don't know.

All right, thanks for listening.

Everyone have a great evening.

I think we did pretty good on that, don't you?

I think I'm going to give the first two messages today, thumbs down, trash garbage.

Someone did send me a nice email showing me that they took their notes, put their notes

into AI and AI gave a great, I mean, I almost wanted to do an episode just reading their

notes on my first two episodes that I did today.

I'm grateful someone took notes and gave it to AI and came up with a really good explanation

of what I was trying to say.

I was like, your notes are better than what I came up with.

So I'm very frustrated with, I wasted, I mean, that was about, you know, total about

five hours worth of work and I'm so angry.

This has been a lot of work building up to this, but I think this episode went a little

bit better, at least I hope so.

I think it's going to lead to a lot of misunderstanding, but we'll just work through that later on,

right?

In the meantime, it is now 5.54 p.m., I have been speaking for well over three hours today.

And I don't know if I'm going to end this day feeling better about all of my work or

feeling worse, but I do know this much.

No matter how I feel, I'm a sinner inside.

And I think that's the message we have to take away from us, you know, our weird, depraved

sinners.

And we can't fix it.

No matter how many external things I get right today, I'm still going to be in that

a weird plan.

Man, illogically, that is such a hard thing to comprehend, no matter how good I am externally,

I'm still a sinner inside.

And so therefore, I'm still guilty of all, if you're guilty at one point of the law, guilty

of all, I mean, that man leaves you hopeless and helpless and that's what the law is intended

to do.

All right.

Just remember, your hope is in Christ.

It's not in you trying to do better.

All right.

God bless.