“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28)
The thoughts of a man can be a sin against the Lord, no action in the physical world need occur. “But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7) There is no place to hide from God, David made this quite clear in Psalm 139:7, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?”
The pretense of many, if not most of the wicked, their thoughts in this matter are, “So what, I haven’t been that bad of a person,” the scales that weigh good and bad they have envisioned. All works-based churches have exactly the same demeanor, they attempt to deceive those in their congregations with a religious set of scales, and if one will simply adhere to their tenets, traditions and prescribed doctrines, entrance into the Kingdom of God is assured. “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
Jesus did not need to say. “If a woman looks on a man,” or “If a woman looks on a woman,” these truths are self-evident as much as the words that He spoke were, they are common knowledge and need no explanation even to those who have never seen a Bible. “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” (Romans 2:14)
Why forty years in the wilderness, why four hundred years in the house of bondage, or seventy under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar and the Medes and Persians? So that the evil generation will know that there is a God in heaven, and so the sins of those in those far away lands will come to a conclusion.
The Lord offers time and knowledge to all men in every age, yet their thoughts rarely revolve around Him, but upon the lust of their own desires. No one with free will, and that is every soul created by the Lord, wants to be in submission and subjection to anyone, it is not the nature of free will. We want to do what we want to do, and if it is made available, many will do so. If you do not get caught, there are no consequences for your actions.
Because of those invisible things, because the Lord has written the knowledge of eternity in the hearts of all men, (Eccl. 3:11) all men in some way understand that there are eternal consequences for their actions here in this life, unseen, unwritten in their minds, yet nevertheless known by them as truth. It is the foundation of every moral concept ever created by mankind, the knowledge of the difference between what is right and acceptable, and what is not.
Every generation of mankind in every civilization has attempted and succeeded in part to push the boundaries of those inlaid truths the furthest away from what was considered acceptable by those who came before them. The account of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:16-19:29) becomes nothing more than a fable after a certain time, the acceptable limits of the lust of the flesh are expanded, and becomes acceptable after a short period of time, and as is the case in the days we live in, if one does not accept these sins against the Most High as the normal course of mankind, not only will one be ostracized, but punished in one form or another for their outdated views.
Sin is being allowed to expand upon the planet because that is what God has always allowed His created souls to do, make up their own minds, do as they will, live the life they choose. The Lord forces none to submit to His Sovereign authority.
Nothing new is occurring, all is once again as it always has been, “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen. 6:5) The end of Sodom and Gomorrah is once again approaching, “The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth,” (Gen. 6:13) is here again, yet this time, as it was for those that the Lord hid in the ark, “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.” (Mark 13:20) The Most High has looked on the heart of man and has found once again that it has strayed from Him. That will be corrected soon.
