Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Neidert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nyberg. In Matthew chapter 5, in what
is known as the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus Christ
says, beginning in verse 27 of Matthew chapter 5, You have heard
that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Now this is one of the Ten Commandments. God said, Thou shalt not commit
adultery. Now, the Lord says in verse 28,
But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after
her hath committed adultery with her already. For it is possible
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 of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever
shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.
But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving
for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery. And whosoever shall marry her
that is divorced, committeth adultery." Now, those are the
words of the Lord Jesus Christ. I've entitled this message, Adultery. Adultery. Now, what is adultery? God forbids it. What is adultery? It's unlawful intimate relationships
outside of the marriage covenant. Now, let me say at the outset
of this message, my object is not simply to tell what adultery
is and preach against it, although it is a great sin, but I'm going
to preach the gospel from this subject. So I hope you listen
very carefully. The gospel is going to be preached
in this message. Now, within the covenant of marriage,
marriage is God ordained, Adam and Eve were married before the
fall, the man and the wife. Marriage is God's way. Within
the covenant of marriage, intimate relations are wonderful. Hebrews
chapter 13, verse 4 says, marriage is honorable in all, and the
bed undefiled. Who created the intimate act
between a husband and a wife? God did. God is the one who created
this, and it's one of the great blessings of life. It is perfectly
normal to have an appetite and a desire for this relationship
with your spouse. This act is the consummation
of love. Love does not begin with this
act. It ends there. Two people who
love one another and have made a commitment to each other for
the rest of their lives till death alone parts them. That's
what marriage is. It's a commitment all the way
to the end. The Scripture says the two shall
be one flesh. Now there is no adultery without
marriage. You have to be married in order
to commit adultery and be unfaithful toward your spouse. Now, I'm
sure that there are other kinds of sexual sin included in the
command that thou shalt not commit adultery, but he's talking about
marriage. And he goes on to speak of divorce
in this passage of scripture that I just read. When two people
live together without getting married, and that's so rampant
in our society, when two people cohabit and live together without
entering the covenant of marriage. And they say, well, we love each
other. Isn't that all that counts? And they go ahead and live with
each other. All they say by that is they do not love each other
enough to commit themselves to each other for life. That's all
that means. And they also show how hardened
they've become toward sin. Seemingly, no fear of God. Just a brazen attitude toward
sin. The physical intimacy that comes
from marriage is the end of complete commitment to each other all
the way to the end. Faithfulness to a spouse is a
beautiful thing. We admire it when we see it.
In adultery, unfaithfulness to your spouse is such an ugly thing.
It's such an evil thing. And you look at the problems
it's created in our society, the broken homes, the children
that are shattered, the families that are broken up through this
horrible thing called adultery. Now, marriage is God's way. Adam and Eve were married before
the fall, and the primary purpose of marriage is to picture and
illustrate the relationship that the Lord Jesus Christ has with
His church. The church is called His bride.
The church is called His wife. He loved the church and gave
Himself for it. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ also loved the church. and gave himself for it. And
when Paul gave those instructions in Ephesians chapter 5, and he
ends up saying, The two shall be one flesh. For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his
wife, and the two shall be one flesh. He said, This is a great
mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. This act,
this intimate act where the two become one, demonstrates how
Christ becomes one with his church. Both he that sanctifies and they
who are sanctified are all of one, for the which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren. In the covenant of marriage,
your spouse is the only one you look to. You don't look for anything
outside of your relationship with that woman. You don't look
to other women or other men. You look to your spouse only. Anything else is adultery. Now,
it's the same in the marriage of the church to Christ. We're
to look to Him only. We look to Him as everything
in our salvation. And to look anywhere other than
Him is to commit spiritual adultery. It's being unfaithful to Him. And spiritual adultery is worse
than physical adultery. As bad as physical adultery is,
spiritual adultery is worse because of the husband we sin against
in committing such a wicked sin. What do I mean by being faithful
to Christ, being a chaste virgin to Christ, looking to Him only
and not committing spiritual adultery. In 1 Corinthians 1,
verse 30, Paul makes this statement. Of Him, of God, are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us. This is what Christ is made
to every believer as their glorious husband. He's made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Now, here's what
the believer does who's faithful to Christ. Christ is my wisdom. The reason God can embrace me
and have fellowship with me and have communion with me and call
me His friend is because Christ is my wisdom. I'm wise enough
to have fellowship with God because Christ is my wisdom. Christ is
my righteousness. My righteousness is not based
upon His righteousness. My righteousness is His righteousness. He's my righteousness before
God. That's why God can accept me and love me and see me as
beautiful. Christ is made to me sanctification. I'm holy. Every believer is holy. And He
Himself is my holiness before God. Christ is my redemption. I don't redeem myself. He redeemed
me. I look to Him. only in all of
that. And if I would look to myself
or my works or my works of personal obedience or something that I
do as assurance of being saved, that would be committing spiritual
adultery. I'm to look to Christ and Christ
alone. Now, adultery is a great sin,
physical adultery and spiritual adultery. But you think of how
many lives have been ruined through this great sin. You see the mercy
of God in giving us this commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. But let's go on reading what
our Lord says in verse 27. He said, You've heard that it
was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery.
But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after
her hath committed adultery. He didn't say it's almost as
bad or it's just as if he did. The Lord says he hath committed
adultery. He hath committed adultery with
her already in his heart. Now, somebody may be thinking,
well, I've never committed adultery. I've always been faithful to
my spouse. And that's a great blessing if you can say that.
A lot of people can't. But you have committed adultery. You have committed adultery in
your heart. I have committed adultery in
my heart. Somebody says, well, I haven't.
You're a liar if you say that. You have. All men have broken
this commandment All women have broken this commandment over
and over and over again. Our Lord says if we even lust
after someone, we have committed adultery in our heart. Now, I've never committed physical
adultery. Well, you still committed adultery.
That's what our Lord says. All it takes is what He said. Now, this tells me that sin is
not just an act. Somebody says, I've never committed
the act of adultery. Well, sin's more than an act. Sin takes place in the heart.
Now, listen real carefully. You don't become an adulterer
when you commit the physical act. You commit the physical
act because you're already an adulterer in your heart. You
don't become a sinner when you sin. You sin because you already
are a sinner in your heart. You see, sin comes from the heart.
It's a principle. It's a nature. It's a nature. It's a fallen nature. That's
what sin is. Now, it manifests itself in acts
like adultery or fornication or stealing or murder or coveting. It manifests itself that way,
but it's a nature. Now, what's pointed out after
Adam fell, The Scripture says, after they ate the fruit and
their eyes were opened, they knew they were naked. Now, they
were naked before, but it wasn't an issue. They could walk around
naked and no unclean thought, no sinful thought, because they
had innocent natures. But now that they've fallen,
remember God said, in the day you eat thereof, you'll surely
die. They became dead in trespasses and sins. They weren't physically
dead. but they were dead in trespasses and sins, and now the first thing
that's pointed out about them is they were shamed because of
their nakedness. All kinds of sinful thoughts
and desires and feelings were now in them because of this fallen
nature, and they run and try to provide themselves a covering. Now, this is a sin, adultery,
that everyone has committed, and it's impossible to prevent
this from happening. And my inability to prevent this
from happening does not excuse my responsibility in this. I'm still held responsible to
not do this. Now, all we can do before this
sins. And really, before any other
sin, if we have a proper understanding, is plead guilty as charged. Man is an evil, depraved creature,
and that is seen in his unfaithfulness and his sexual perversions. Most
of all, it's seen in what he did to the Lord on the cross. That's where sin is really seen,
but our Lord is using this to teach us something about the
true nature of sin. It comes from the heart. You
may not do it physically, but in your heart, that's where the
sin is. Now, this tells me that I need
to be saved by grace. I need God's grace to be absolutely
free and unmerited toward me. If there's anything I have to
do to merit, grace. If there's anything I have to
do in order to get it, it's over for me. If I'm going to be saved,
it must be by the free grace of God. I love the holy truth
of election that says God chooses who would be saved unconditionally. Not because He saw something
in them, but simply because He would. For the children being
not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of Him that calleth." I need the grace of God in election,
or I won't be saved. I need the free redemption of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I need Him to come and pay for
my sins. I need Him to do everything for
me because I can't do anything for myself. I need His precious
blood. Oh, how I need His righteousness. How I need His intercession.
I need the Lord Jesus Christ, everything about Him. I need
God the Holy Spirit to give me a new heart. I need God the Holy
Spirit to enable me to believe, to repent. I am totally helpless
before sin, and I need God to do that for me which I cannot
do for myself. This is what I learned from this
horrible sin that everybody by nature is guilty of. Now let's
go on reading. Now remember, the Lord is talking
about this thing of sexual sin, adultery, and He says in verse
29, And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast
it from thee. If your right eye causes you
to lust after a woman, pluck it out, throw it away. 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, if it causes you to sin, if it causes
you to stumble, if it's used in some kind of wicked actions,
cut it off, 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." Now, that is powerful language, isn't
it? Now, is the Lord teaching that
if you look at a woman or look at a man, and it causes you to
lust after them, and then you do that, What you ought to do
is go ahead and pull your eyes out and throw them away and pluck
them out. I've heard people say, that's what you ought to do.
That's what you ought to do. Here's my reply to that. You go first.
You go first. You do it, I'll do it. Now, that's
not what the Lord is talking about. He's not talking about
mutilation, self-mutilation. As far as that goes, if you plucked
your eyes out, you'd still have the lust in your heart. If you
cut your hands off, you'd still have the same things in your
heart. That wouldn't do you any good. And the Lord isn't teaching
something like that. But the Lord is showing us the greatness
of this sin. This is how serious, this is
how evil all sin is. And if you want to go the law
route, this is what you need to do. If you want to try to
be saved by your works, if you want to try to be saved by never
committing adultery, this is what you need to do. And the
Lord is showing us the impossibility of keeping the law. No one would
do this. Now, let's go to reading. It
goes on. He says in verse 31, and he's still talking about
adultery. It has been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let
him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you that whosoever
shall put away, divorce his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,
causeth her to commit adultery. And whosoever shall marry her
that's divorced, commiteth adultery. Now, I gave the Lord's words. This is not my opinion. This
is what the Lord says in light of the marriage covenant. He
says there is only one legitimate reason for divorce, adultery,
fornication. That's the only legitimate reason
he gives. And that's why it's better. That's not the best way to put
it. Don't get divorced. don't get
divorced. It's better to forgive. Even
if your spouse has committed sexual sin, I hope you'll forgive
them. And divorce, God says, I hate divorce. Now, when two
people become married, most of them don't intend to commit adultery. They intend to be faithful to
one another, but there's so many things that can happen that make
a bad marriage. so many things, because you have
sinners. Two people who are sinners. Even in a good marriage, there's
going to be all kinds of problems. And in a bad marriage, you feel
sorry for somebody. And you know, sometimes if someone
is unfaithful to their spouse, there's no excuse for it. Don't need to say I'm excusing
it in any way, but maybe their spouse has driven them to it.
I mean, there's so many complications and things involved in bad marriages. But still, God
says marriage is forever. It's not to be dissolved. Christ
will not dissolve his church. He won't divorce his church.
And a man is not or a woman is not to divorce their spouse.
Marriage is forever. But you know, being stuck in
a bad marriage, and there are people who who are in bad marriages. And I admire someone who stays
in a marriage even if it's bad because they know it's the right
thing to do. I admire that. But being in a bad marriage illustrates
being under the law. Now, we're married to the law. And we cannot divorce ourselves
from the law. The law has dominion over a man
as long as he lives. God's requirements. I'd like
to read a passage of scripture from Romans chapter 7 that will
illustrate what I'm trying to say. Paul says, beginning in
verse 1, Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know
the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as
he lives. You can't get out from under
it. You say, well, I won't have that law over me. You don't have
any choice. You may break it, but God will deal with you in
His own time. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the
law to her husband. She can't just up and leave him
even if she considers him to be a bad husband. She can't just
up and leave him. She made a covenant. He made
a covenant before God. For the woman which hath a husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if
the husband be dead, she's loosed from the law of her husband.
She's now free to marry somebody else. So then, if while her husband
lives, she be married to another man, she'll be called an adulteress.
She's committing adultery. But if her husband be dead, she
is free from that law so that she's no adulterer, so she be
married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another, even to him who is raised from
the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Married
to the Lord Jesus Christ. One time we were married to the
law. And the law was not a good husband. Stern. Unmerciful. Unbending. Now, the problem's
not with the law. The problem's with me. My sinfulness. If I wasn't a sinner, there wouldn't
be any problem with the law. The problem's with me. But the
law does not make a good husband. It's like a woman being married
to a man who's utterly unmerciful and harsh and rules things with
an iron hand. Not with thoughtfulness and love and responsibility and
gentleness. Now, I've become dead to the
law. Christ died and the law has nothing
to say to me. I'm no longer married to that
law. I'm married to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what about
the adulterer? What about the one who has committed
this sin? How can an adulterer be forgiven?
In John chapter 8, we read, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives,
and early in the morning, He came again to the temple, and
all the people came unto him, and he sat down and taught them.
And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken
in adultery. She was caught in the very act. Was this a setup? I don't know.
One wonders why they didn't bring the man. He was just as guilty
as she was, and both were required under the law to be stoned, but
they just bring this woman. And when they had set her in
the midst, they said unto him, Master, this woman was taken
in adultery in the very act. She's guilty. Many witnesses.
There's no doubt about this. She committed this great sin. And indeed, it was a great sin.
Now Moses, verse 5, in the law commanded us that such should
be stoned. But what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him
that they might have to accuse him. They thought, we've got
him trapped. If he says, let her go, we can say, where's your
respect for God's law? If he says stoner, we can say,
what about the mercy and grace you say you have for sinners?
You're called the friend of publicans and sinners. That's all talk,
isn't it? If you say stoner, they thought they had the Lord
in a place where he would be condemned whatever he said. But
Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as
though he heard them not. What was he writing? We don't
know, but I know there's two times in the Bible where the
finger of God is said to write. One, the law in Exodus, and another
time in Daniel chapter five, when a hand appeared and there
was writing going on the wall. In both of those instances, it
was the finger of God writing. And I believe this first time
he was writing, thou shalt not commit adultery. You see, the
Bible doesn't tell other people what to do. It tells me what
to do. It tells you what to do. And
he says, thou shalt not commit adultery. And I don't have any
doubt that every one of these men were adulterers themselves. I know they were in their heart.
And so the stone ought to be thrown at them just as much as
it should be at her. So these men were practicing
great hypocrisy, as religious people generally do. What are
you going to do with her? Verse 7, So when they continued
asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And
I don't have any doubt that he meant this particular sin. And again, he stooped down and
wrote on the ground. You know what was in the writing
the second time the finger of God is said to write something?
Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting." I believe
that's what he wrote. And again, he stooped down and
wrote on the ground, and when they heard it, being convicted
by their own conscience, went out by one, beginning at the
eldest, even unto the last. They weren't convicted by the
Holy Spirit, or they would have come to Christ and confessed their
sins. But they just wanted to get away from it. They were convicted
by their own conscience. They knew that they had been
guilty of this sin, and they saw their hypocrisy. So they
left Him alone, and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing
in the midst. What a place to be, alone with
the Lord Jesus Christ. And when Jesus had lifted up
Himself and saw none but the woman, He said unto her, Woman,
where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She
said, No man, Lord. And He said unto her, Neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Now how is
it that the Lord could not condemn her when she was guilty? He took
two stoops in this story, stooped down twice, and our Lord had
two great stoops. When He became a man, when He
became flesh, and then when He was made sin on the cross. What
a stoop it was when God was manifest in the flesh. And what a stoop
it was when God manifest in the flesh, was made sin, who His
own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree. And now
he's raised up again, and he speaks to this woman on resurrection
ground. You see, the reason he said,
I don't continue, is because there was nothing there for him
to condemn. Her sin was placed upon Christ.
Christ bore it. Christ was punished for it. Christ
put it away. And now he can look at this woman
and say, I don't continue. Go and sin no more. He's standing
on resurrection ground. Yes, there is forgiveness. There
is salvation for everyone that the Lord is pleased to save.
And adulterers need this kind of salvation. And we have this
message on DVD or CD. If you call the church or write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Nigert praying that
God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's our prayer. To request a copy of the sermon
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