Are there different degrees of lust?
Hi.
Welcome to today's Little Lesson, and I hope that opening line got your curiosity going.
Are there different degrees of lust?
Perhaps something you've never thought about before.
We've been talking about human sexuality, sexual sin, gradually working our way towards
some more conclusive thoughts about masturbation as we work our way through relevant passages
in scripture.
We've looked at verses in Genesis about Onan, who spilled his seed, and we've looked at
Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 7.
I think this is actually the seventh in this series, and so if you missed the first six,
you missed an awful lot.
So it might be best just to stop right now, and go back and watch those ones first.
But in any case, if you're interested in lust, that's what we're going to talk about here,
because we know that Jesus condemned lust.
Right?
But what is lust?
What is lust?
That's a great question.
Obviously an elicit sexual desire.
But it's not, for example, for a man to look at a woman.
That's not lust, right?
I mean we have to talk to women all the time, and just because we were looking at them doesn't
mean we're lusting after them, so it has to be more than looking.
Of course, women can lust after men too, so it can't just be looking.
Well, how about admiring the attractiveness?
Well, I don't know.
By my definition anyways, you're not into lust yet.
I think that Jesus actually helps define lust in Matthew 5.
Let's see, I have it here.
Yeah.
Over here on my desk.
Matthew Chapter 5: 27-28, he said, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit
adultery', but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has
already committed adultery with her in his heart."
I think there's a lot to unpack from that, but I think one of the things to unpack from
that is that Jesus is helping us to understand exactly what lust is.
He's equating it with adultery, or you of course could say I guess fornication as well.
But you're crossing a line mentally, and it's a line of, "Is it sexual imagery within one's
mind?"
So it's beyond, just looking at a face, or the form of somebody, or admiring their attractiveness
or the beauty, but mentally undressing them and imagining having a sexual relationship
with that person.
Well, there's no doubt.
No one watching is going to disagree with me that that constitutes lust.
Now you might work backwards from there and say, "Well, how much in between," the things
that I've described, just admiring beauty, and then imagining a sexual relationship,
"Where in between does it actually become lust?"
I think it becomes lust at some point in time prior to actually imagining the sexual act.
I think it could become lust at any kind of an imagination that would arouse one sexually.
Again, I don't understand women so much, but I understand men.
Okay?
So you could lust after a woman who has some clothes on, if she's dressed provocatively.
Okay?
Anyways, we're trying to arrive at what is lust?
It also helps to think about God's a loving God.
His commandments are all motivated by his love for us, so what's he trying to do?
If he condemns lust, what's the goal he has in mind?
And he loves us, so he doesn't want us to damage ourselves, or damage others by something
that we do.
That helps to understand where admiring beauty could turn into lust.
Again, I think we could debate this.
Okay?
But it's something worth pondering I think.
But anyways, what I want to talk about in the few minutes that we've got left in this
Little Lesson is, "Are there different degrees of lust?"
Some Christians say, "Well, all sin is the same in God's eyes."
I've never agreed with that because it's not in the Bible.
The Bible never says that.
All sin is grievous in God's eyes, but surely some sins are more grievous than other sins.
Under the Old Covenant, the Law of Moses, some sins were worthy of greater punishment.
Some things were capital offenses, and some things were more minor offenses.
So all sin is not the same in God's eyes.
All right?
Some try to make Jesus say that.
I mean his comments about, "Whoever looks at a woman with lust for her has committed
adultery."
They're saying, "Lust is the same in God's eyes as committing the sin of adultery."
No, it's not.
That's not what Jesus is saying.
That's really a stretch there.
Okay?
That's like saying, "It's just as bad to think about stealing from someone as it is to steal
from them."
No.
Okay.
I pulled something up from The Word of God, and we can say, "These are the words of Jesus
because Jesus inspired the whole Bible.
He's God, and he's the one who gave the Law of Moses.
It's his idea," and so forth.
"He's God, and he's one with the Father, one with the Holy Spirit."
Listen to this from Deuteronomy 22:22.
"If a man is found lying with a married woman," so it doesn't even say, "If he's married or
not," but, "If he's found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die.
The man who laid with the woman, and the woman, thus you shall purge the evil from Israel."
This is classic adultery.
At least one of the parties is married, and they're consensual, and so bam, they both
deserve capital punishment.
Here's the next category.
"If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man," so she's promised, "and another
man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the
gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death."
So this is borderline fornication, adultery.
She's actually not married, but she's engaged to be married, so she is promised.
It kind of leans toward the adultery side.
And he said, "You shall stone them to death.
The girl because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated
his neighbor's wife."
The scripture's already calling her "the neighbor's wife" because she is engaged, and she's going
to be a full-fledged wife.
"And thus you shall purge evil from among you."
But then there's a caveat.
"But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her, and
lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.
But you shall do nothing to the girl.
There is no sin in the girl worthy of death.
For just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so as in this case, when
he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her."
Now, actually we don't even know if she cried out or not.
She may well have not cried out, and it could have been a consensual thing.
She could have been worthy of death, but we're giving her the benefit of the doubt because
it didn't happen in the city where nearby people could have heard her cries.
She's out in the field, and nearby people might not have heard her cries.
We're assuming she cried out, so we're going to show her mercy.
Only the guy dies.
Okay.
The last, but not least, "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin who is not engaged,"
so now this is the third category, "and seizes her, and lies with her, and they are discovered,"
guess what?
There's no death involved in this.
Okay?
It doesn't matter whether it's in a field, or in the city.
"Then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father 50 shekels of silver,
and she shall become his wife because he has violated her.
He cannot divorce her all his days."
We're out of time, but isn't that astounding?
Okay.
In every case we've read about illicit sexual relationship always, of course, preceded by
lust.
You don't have one without the other.
Okay?
But the first lust that resulted in adultery, or semi-adultery, results in the death penalty.
The third lust that's not adultery, but it's more in the fornication category, because
this girl's not married, and she's not engaged to be married, so the penalty is you've got
to take her as your wife.
She got to be your wife.
That does raise some questions, obviously, but I want you to see that God's not looking
at everything exactly the same.
This I think will help set us up for understanding a little bit better Jesus's words in Matthew
5, about, "You have heard it said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'"
The subject is adultery.
Married people involved.
All right.
We are out of time for right now.
We'll come back to this on our next Little Lesson.
Hope you join me.
God bless.