Now the part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on is beginning in verse number 18
there, where it reads,
And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also?
Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile
him?
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught
purging all meats.
And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy,
pride, foolishness.
All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
What I want to preach about this morning is the subject of evil thoughts, or that which
comes out of the heart of man and defiles the man.
You see, when we look at this list of sins that Jesus gives, it pretty much runs the
gamut of sin.
I mean, we see fornication and adultery, but we also see things like theft and murder.
We see covetousness, wickedness, deceit, you know, lying is covered under deceit, blasphemy,
pride.
I mean, what is it covered in this list?
I mean, there are 13 sins here that he lists that run the spectrum of major sins that people
commit.
Jesus said all of these things come from the heart of man.
And so what I want to show you this morning through the scripture is that sin begins in
our heart, and it begins with evil thoughts in our mind that then lead us to evil actions.
He says in verse number 21, for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts,
and then he lists all those other actions that those evil thoughts lead to.
Go if you would to Proverbs chapter 4.
In the Old Testament, right after Psalms, the book of Proverbs, look at Proverbs chapter
4.
I'll start reading in verse 20 while you turn there.
My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thine heart, for they
are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
Look at verse 23 of Proverbs 4.
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
So again, the Bible is teaching us here to guard our heart, to make sure that our heart
is right, because out of the heart are the issues of life.
Jesus said that all sin is originating in the heart, it comes out of the heart.
He says in verse 24, put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from
thee.
Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.
Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left, remove thy foot from evil.
And here, when God is teaching us that we need to guard our heart and keep our heart
with all diligence, he talks about, you know, hearing the wrong things, listening to the
wrong things, and looking at the wrong things, seeing the wrong things.
Now go over, if you would, to Proverbs 23, because back in the original list in Mark
7, Jesus said that from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, and then
listen to this one, an evil eye.
So one of the sins that's listed there is an evil eye.
And it's interesting, if you look up every time that that term is used, an evil eye,
you'll kind of get an idea for what that term means.
But look at Proverbs 23, first of all, in verse 4.
It says, "...labor not to be rich, cease from thine own wisdom.
Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings, they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
Eat not thou the bread of him that hath an evil eye.
Neither desire thou his dainty meats, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
Eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee.
The more so which thou hast eaten, shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words."
Now flip over to chapter 28.
The one who has an evil eye is one who is greedy.
Even when they give you something, even when they offer you something, they don't really
want you to have it.
They're a greedy, covetous person.
He talks about in that passage also the desire to be rich, those who covet wealth for themselves.
Look at chapter 28 verse 22, it says, "...he that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye,
and considerth not that poverty shall come upon him."
Flip back to Deuteronomy chapter 15.
So so far in these passages about an evil eye, they both had to do with wanting to be
rich, desiring something that does not belong to you.
Look back at Deuteronomy 15.9.
This is actually the first time the term an evil eye is ever used.
It says in Deuteronomy 15.9, "...beware that there be no thought in thy wicked heart..."
Notice that phrase.
"...a thought in your wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is
at hand, and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him not, and
he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee."
Now if we look at an evil eye in this scripture here, it has to do with a greedy person who
doesn't want to help out the poor.
He wants to hang on to all of his money.
In Proverbs it was somebody who really wanted to be rich.
It was somebody who even when they give you something, they begrudge it because they want
to keep it all for themselves.
That is what it means to have an evil eye.
Go to Matthew 6, and I'm going to show you why this is so important to what we're talking
about today.
This is all kind of the foundation for the sermon.
Go to Matthew 6, and we'll see another mention of the evil eye in Matthew 6.
Look at verse 20 of Matthew 6, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
So again, all these scriptures talk a lot about the heart, what we think in our heart,
our attitude, what we believe.
It says in verse 22, the light of the body is the eye.
If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else
he will hold to the one and despise the other.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Now do you think it's a coincidence that every passage about the evil eye that we looked
at there, they all have to do with something about money, something about wanting to be
rich, something about being greedy, do you notice that?
Every single one of them.
That's what it means to have an evil eye, it's the eye that looks at that which does
not belong to you and desires to have that.
You look at the fancy house and you wish that you lived in a fancy house, it's covetousness.
You look at the fancy car, you look at wealth and riches and you desire to be rich.
You desire to have those things and God says that if thine eye be evil, thy whole body
shall be full of darkness.
Do you see how this sin is one that can destroy the whole body?
This one sin of just having an evil eye is enough to destroy your life and to lead you
into all other sin.
That's why the Bible said, for the love of money is the root of all evil.
And it's funny because the modern Bible versions all change that.
You know the New King James, I don't know if the New King James changed that, but the
NIV for sure changes it, the ESV, you know, New Living.
You look it up in these versions and they change it to, well it's a root of many types
of evil.
In fact, the modern version crowd has often mocked the King James for saying that the
love of money is the root of all evil and they say, come on, how could that possibly
be true?
How could it really be the root of all evil?
But yet there are so many other scriptures that teach the exact same thing.
So it's not like that verse in the King James just stands alone by itself.
In fact, there's all this supporting material saying, look, if your eye is evil, your whole
body shall be full of darkness, which supports the fact that if you love money, if you covet
possessions that don't belong to you, that will be the root of other evils in your life.
In fact, all men are evil.
It is the root of all evil.
It's the, it's where it all begins.
It's where it starts.
That's what root means.
Now I'm going to skip the last one for sake of time, but if you would flip over to Joshua
chapter seven, I'll just tell you the last mention of evil eye that I wanted to turn
to while you're turning to Joshua seven was in Matthew 20 and for sake of time, I'll just
quickly tell you that in Matthew 20 there's a parable about a man who hires day laborers
and at the beginning of the day, he hires some day laborers.
You know, sometimes you'll see guys standing outside Home Depot or whatever, you know,
they're just there to be hired for the day and they just want to work and make a living
or maybe at a temp agency or there's even a day laborer place in this parking lot where
people show up and they get hired for the day.
And then he needs more laborers, so he goes out at the third hour.
He goes out at the sixth hour.
He goes out at the ninth hour.
He keeps hiring more workers.
Finally at the eleventh hour, there's only one hour of the workday left, he hires these
guys and the guys at the beginning of the day, he had made a deal with them for one
penny for the whole day's work.
You know, you got to factor inflation folks, but anyway, so you know, he agreed with them
for a penny, but the other people that came at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hour,
he made no agreement with them.
He just said, I'll give you what's right.
I'll give you a fair wage.
Well what he ends up doing is he gives the guys from the beginning of the day the penny
that they earned and deserved and had agreed upon, but then he just gives everyone else
a penny also.
So even the guy who only worked one hour was paid the same amount as the guy who worked
all day.
Now this made them very upset, okay, and God is trying to teach us with that, I mean there's
a lot in that story, but what he's trying to teach, part of it is just that, you know,
we shouldn't worry so much about what other people are receiving.
God's treating us fairly, God's been good to us, if we agreed for a price, we were willing
to work for that price, we worked all day and that's what we got, we shouldn't be looking
at, well what's he getting?
You know, and that's how kids are, aren't they?
Like you know, children, you could give them a slice of cake and they're really happy to
have that piece of cake and they got a glass of milk and they're really happy, but then
they give their brother twice as much.
Now all of a sudden, I got this tiny piece, you know, it's the sinful nature that wants
to begrudge other people from receiving a bonus or receiving extra or receiving more
than we've received.
God's trying to teach us just to worry about ourselves, but when the householder is rebuking
the ones who complained, even though they got exactly what they bargained for, he says
to them, is thine eye evil because I am good?
So again, they're looking at somebody else and murmuring, they're greedy, they wish they
had more, they're coveting these people who had worked one hour and got paid.
So the evil eye is pretty consistent throughout scripture, it's always about money, you know,
it pretty much always has to do with covetousness or greed or wanting something that doesn't
belong to you.
Let me show you the formula for how sin happens in our lives.
Where do these 13 sins come from that Jesus listed?
He said they all come from the heart, they all come out of the heart of man and he listed
off everything from adultery to murder to robbery.
Look down at Joshua 7 verse 21, it says, when I saw, this is Achan speaking, when I saw
among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold
of 50 shekels weight, then I coveted them and took them and behold they are hid in the
earth in the midst of my tent and the silver under it.
And in this one verse, we have the formula here of sin.
He saw, he coveted, he took, okay?
First it started with his eye, his thought, his heart, coveting, then he committed the
act of taking, and then the next thing that happens, he dies.
He's killed.
Now this is exactly what the Bible says in James 1, you don't have to turn there, but
in James 1 it says, let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God, for God cannot
be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man, but every man is tempted when he
is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth
forth death.
That's exactly what we see in the story about Achan.
The Bible is real consistent on this, that all sin begins in our heart, and it all begins
with evil thoughts, or wrong thoughts proceeding out of our heart.
He said, lust conceives and brings forth sin, sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.
The word lust is synonymous with the word covetousness.
As the Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 7, I had not known lust except that the scripture
had said, thou shalt not covet.
He defined lust as being the committing of the sin of covetousness, that's what it is.
Over and over again, the Bible warns us about having evil thoughts, about thinking the wrong
thing, about looking at the wrong thing.
We need to keep our heart with all diligence.
You see a lot of people think that just because their actions are right, it doesn't matter
what they think about.
It doesn't matter what's going on in their mind.
And yet God tells us that the thoughts of our heart are eventually going to destroy
us and lead us into sin.
If we have a corrupt eye, if we have an evil eye, our whole body is going to be filled
with darkness.
If we lust in our heart, lust will bring forth sin.
If we are covetous, that will be the root of all evil in our life.
These are sins that take place in the mind.
So what are the main sins today that take place in people's minds?
Well first of all, we already talked about it, covetousness.
Covetousness is a major sin that, it's not really an action.
Because if we look at the Ten Commandments or typical lists of sins, a lot of them are
something that you physically do.
Right?
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
You're actually doing some work there, you're building something.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
That's a physical act.
Even the Old Testament command of remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.
There was an action of resting there.
You know, you're actually doing something, or rather not doing something.
And then he says, you know, honor thy father and mother.
That command to honor father and mother is always coupled with actions that we should
and should not do.
Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, honor thy father and mother.
There's an action there of obeying your parents.
There's an action when you steal.
There's an action when you commit murder.
You're actually committing an act.
When you commit adultery, obviously you're committing a physical act there.
But covetousness is the tenth of the Ten Commandments.
Covetousness is the one that takes place in your mind.
It takes place in your heart when you just wish that you had something that you don't
have.
Now, it seems innocent upon the surface.
So what if I just wish that I had something?
Well, I just wish I was married to somebody else.
Or, well, I just wish I had a different job.
Well, I just wish I had a car that I can't afford.
Well, I just wish.
And some people literally would listen to this and say, is that even a sin?
Really?
Because our society is so covetous.
And that's why we see so much other evil in our society.
Because the thoughts of men's hearts have become evil.
Remember when God destroyed the earth with a flood?
Why did he do it?
Because he looked up on the earth and he said that the thoughts of men's hearts were only
evil continually.
And because the thoughts of their heart were evil, because their minds were evil, next
thing you know the whole earth is filled with violence as a result of the evil heart and
the evil thought.
How do we get evil thoughts and how do we get this wicked heart where all these sins
come out?
If we want to live a clean life, if we want to live a Christian life, we must first cleanse
that which is within the cup and the platter that the outside may be clean also.
Isn't that what Jesus said?
I mean, if we're going to clean up our life, if we're going to live a life that's pure
and right and godly, the first thing that has to be cleaned up is our mind.
The first thing that has to be cleaned up is our heart.
The first thing that has to be cleaned is what's on the inside.
We must get control of our thoughts and our heart because that is what's going to defile
us, the heart of man.
Our external circumstances can't destroy us.
It's not the devil that can just destroy, I mean he can try to get into our heart and
he can try to show us things and teach us things and influence us to commit these sins,
but really when we commit sin we can't really blame anyone but ourselves in the end because
the sin came from our own lust.
We can't say, well, God tempted me or well, you know, it was the devil that made me do
it.
No, it says it's from within your heart that these things come from.
That's where sin originates, in the mind, in the heart.
That's why covetousness is so dangerous.
That's why I preach so much against covetousness and people sometimes think, oh, you're just
splitting hairs, you're making a big deal out of nothing, but yet this is the starting
point.
You know, you need to learn, and what's the opposite of covetousness?
Contentment.
Being happy with what you have and you need to learn in whatsoever state you're in therewith
to be content.
You cannot live a godly life.
You cannot live a clean life when you are constantly wanting things that don't belong
to you.
You can't do it.
You'll go into sin if that's your mentality.
You need to every day, the Bible says, give thanks unto the Lord and in everything give
thanks and bless the Lord and be thankful for what you have and content with what you
have.
And the Apostle Paul said, you know, he's in a prison cell or he's thriving, but he
said I've learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.
And you see, when we go to the list of sins, let's go back to the list now, now that we
kind of understand the formula a little bit of where sin comes from, because we've seen
the formula over and over, haven't we?
Evil thoughts, a wicked heart, thinking covetous thoughts, they lead us into all other sins
according to the Bible.
We must keep our heart with all diligence.
We must clean up the inside of the cup in order to have an outside that's clean.
But let's look at the list now in Mark 7.
Mark chapter 7, verse number 20, it says, he said, that which cometh out of the man,
that defileth the man.
For from within, out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, and then what's the next thing
on the list?
Adulteries.
And then we can kind of group that in with the third thing, fornication, right?
Because adultery and fornication are two very similar sins.
The difference between the two is that adultery is one that's committed by someone who is
married.
Someone who is married, who basically goes to bed with someone that's not their spouse,
that is called adultery.
And one who is unmarried, but has a physical relationship, goes to bed with someone that
they're not married to, that is called fornication.
Okay, so those two sins are similar.
And God is telling us here that both adultery and fornication start out in the heart of
man.
And one day, just find yourself in a situation where, boom, you're just committing adultery,
you're just committing fornication.
No, there's a process that leads you to commit adultery.
There's a process that leads you to commit fornication.
You know, if you look at men in the Bible who committed adultery, you could see all
the things that led up to them committing adultery.
They didn't, they weren't just living a godly, righteous life and had a great relationship
with their spouse, and then one day they just were tempted and just committed adultery.
I don't believe that for one second.
People who commit adultery have had a wicked thought life for a very long time before they
just go out and commit adultery.
They've already had covetousness in their heart, they've already had evil thoughts long
before they go out and commit adultery.
Because lust conceives, and if you think about a pregnancy, how long does a typical pregnancy
last, you know, my wife and I are asking ourselves that, okay, you know, how long does a typical
pregnancy last?
Nine months.
So is it just, it's not just instantaneous, there's just conception, birth, no.
When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.
Does it bring it forth immediately?
Not necessarily.
The evil thoughts can germinate and gestate and then eventually it brings forth sin, and
sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.
Think about this, you know, in order to commit adultery, first you have to start being discontented
with your spouse.
That's where it starts.
And if we look at David who committed adultery, was he content with his wife, was he content
with his spouse?
Well, if he were, he wouldn't have added a second one, right?
You know, and if you look at Abraham who committed adultery with Hagar, you know, what did he
covet that he didn't have?
He really wanted a son, and God already promised him you're going to have a son, God already
told him, you know, to wait on him and to trust in him and have faith in him, but he
coveted that which did not belong to him, he wanted a son, and then that eventually
led him to commit adultery with Hagar.
You know, we look at other men in the Bible who committed adultery, you're going to see
similar patterns, you're going to see things that led up to it, you can see it coming a
mile away, it doesn't just happen overnight.
And so if we're going to live a clean life, we need to straighten out our thought life.
So if we're going to avoid the first few sins on the list here, we see a couple sins on
the list here, adultery and fornication, if we're going to avoid those sins, we need to
get our thoughts right.
Number one, we must realize of course that lust and covetousness is the root of all evil,
that's where everything starts, that's the beginning point of sin.
And so first of all, you must decide, adultery for example, that you are content with the
spouse that you have, you must love your wife, you must love your husband, and be satisfied
with your wife, or be satisfied with your husband, and not even have the evil thought
that says, I wish my husband were more like so and so, I wish I was married to someone
more like her.
And you know, you might sit there and think, oh well lust, that's looking at a dirty magazine.
You know what, that's true, that is lust, oh that's looking at a filthy movie.
But you know what, it's just as much lust when you have these kind of evil thoughts
in your mind toward your wife that says, oh I just wish I was married to a woman that
would nag me less, more like so and so.
I'd rather be married to someone a little more like so and so, or I'd rather be married
to someone who appreciated me a little more.
Or my wife is this, you know, when we get bitter toward our wife, that is also a seed
in our mind that could lead us to go looking somewhere else, when we ought to be content
with what we have at home.
And then same thing, we could flip around the gender and say, you know, a woman who
wishes that she were married to a guy who made more money.
You don't think a woman has ever had that thought?
I wish I were married to a man who made more money, you know, because this stupid house
I live in and this stupid car and we don't even have a car and we don't even have a house.
You know what, that is a wicked thought, and you say, well what's wrong with just wanting
to live in a nicer house?
It's a sin, that's what's wrong with it.
What's wrong with wishing that we drove a bigger car or a fancier car?
What's wrong with wishing that I was married to a man who made more money?
Because it's sin, and because it will lead you to a bigger sin when you start thinking
those kind of evil thoughts.
We need to take heed onto our thought life.
If you just let your mind just wander, you're going to think stupid thoughts.
I mean, think about it.
We are sinners.
We have a sinful flesh.
The Bible says every day we must put on the new man.
We must deny self and take up the cross daily.
If we just wake up in the morning and walk in the flesh, we're going to think the wrong
types of things, especially because the world around us leads us into a lot of bad thought
life, and they put a lot of ideas into our head that are the wrong ideas.
We need to make sure that when we get up in the morning, we take control of our thoughts
and we make sure that the thoughts that we have toward our spouse are not evil thoughts.
The Bible says husbands love your wives, it says that wives should love their husbands.
We shouldn't even let these thoughts come in of just thinking, oh, I just hate such
and such about my wife.
Oh, I'm just so sick of her doing this.
I'm so sick of her doing that.
Oh, I'm just so sick of him doing this, and I just hate it when he does it, just sitting
and thinking about the things you don't like about your spouse.
That right there is where adultery begins.
Believe it or not, that's where it begins, because if you're in love with your spouse
and you're happy with them and you have good feelings toward them, you're not out looking
for someone else, because your love is directed toward them.
Your desire is unto them, and this is something that we need to be aware of, but also, let's
get off adultery now, fornication, and we can talk about the other aspect of lust, which
would be picking up the magazine, or today probably would be more surfing the internet.
Now somebody recently said to me, I never hear you preach about internet pornography,
and it's so bad, and you need to preach about internet pornography.
But honestly, the reason that you don't hear me preaching a lot about internet pornography
is because of the fact that it's just not a very wholesome subject to talk about.
I try to keep my preaching as clean as the Bible is, so I don't want to go into details
or be graphic of things that are not really covered in the Bible, because I don't want
to defile those that are pure.
There are so many people here, children and even adults, who are pure in many areas.
I don't want to ever expose people to things that would defile them.
I don't want to be the one who puts an idea into their mind through their ears or through
their eyes that would cause them to have evil thoughts, or that would cause their heart
to be defiled or pure.
So I always want to keep my preaching clean, but at the same time, I do have to preach
against sin.
And so where I draw the line is I preach in words that the Bible uses, and I use terminology
that, because I know that the Bible is clean and right, and I know that the Bible will
lead no one astray.
We read our children the Bible from the time they're born, and when they're two, three,
four, we read them the Bible.
We don't skip certain parts of the Bible and say, well, this part isn't for kids.
It's all good for kids.
God's Word is clean and pure.
The Bible says every word of God is pure.
So that's why you're not going to hear me go into great detail about the evils of Internet
pornography.
But let me tell you something.
The Bible makes it clear.
It says that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery
with her already in his heart.
And there is an abundance of pornography on the Internet today, and it is a major problem.
You can look up statistics on this and see, I think like 30 percent of all Internet traffic
goes to pornographic websites.
I mean, that's just a pretty staggering number.
You know, there are all kinds of statistics about, you know, 25 percent of people who
have a work computer use it to look at.
So I mean, this is a big problem, it is a major problem.
And it does need to be preached against.
Let me just say it to you this way.
If you're married, you know, and you're going on the computer and looking at Internet pornography,
I mean, that is such a hurtful thing to your spouse.
I mean, and you have to remember that Jesus said, all things whatsoever you would that
men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.
For this is the law and the prophets known as the golden rule.
You know, you wouldn't want your spouse on the Internet lusting after someone else.
Why would you do that then?
You know, it's a two-way street.
You need to be respectful of your spouse and keep yourself only unto her or only unto him
so long as you both shall live.
And you know, when it comes to Internet pornography, it's probably more men that fall into this
trap or are guilty of this sin.
I don't know, but that would seem to, you know, you'd seem to think so.
Women have their own sins that they're, you know, have a tendency to fall into.
This is one that maybe is a little more targeted toward men.
And let me say this, it is something that will easily destroy your marriage.
Now I know people, I could tell you about people, and I'm not going to of course, but
I could tell you people who, the man went on the computer, looked at Internet pornography,
and as soon as his wife found out, she divorced him and had nothing to do with, never wanted
anything to do with, no matter how much he apologized, no matter how much he said he
was sorry, no matter how much he repented, she just said, no, I want nothing.
Now look, that isn't right.
Obviously the Bible teaches that we should forgive and so forth, and she should have
forgiven him.
But I'm just telling you the realities of how hurtful this can be to a relationship.
That I could give you specific examples of people that I know, multiple examples of where
a wife found her husband, looked at pornography, and just could never forgive that, never get
over that.
Now look, the wife was wrong to do that, because we should forgive our spouse, we should be
with our spouse until death, but that shows you how damaging this can be.
It's not a little thing, it's not a small thing.
Today in our society, it has become acceptable in our culture for men to just put posters
up in the garage of women in bikinis, and you know, that is so hurtful, and even wives
might even say, oh it doesn't bother me, I'm okay with that.
She's lying, because no wife is okay with that.
No wife wants to think that her husband gets more enjoyment out of looking at someone else
than her.
It's wicked, it's ungodly, if you have that type of poster in your garage, you need to
go home and tear it off the wall and get rid of all the magazines, even the so-called milder,
you know, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, needs to go in the trash.
That stuff needs to go in the, you don't need that stuff.
You need to make sure that you're not lusting, and you say, well I can handle it, it doesn't
affect me.
You know what, you're playing with fire, and that lust is going to conceive, and it's going
to bring forth sin, and out of a wicked heart, proceeds adultery.
And so you need to make sure, but listen to the single man as well, internet pornography
is also very dangerous, and the magazines, all the same preaching applies to fornication,
because the single young man is even more, is even more likely to commit fornication
than the married man is to commit adultery, if you think about it.
Because the Bible even says that to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife,
and let every woman have her own husband.
So the single man, okay, because he is not active in that area, because he is, hopefully,
you know, as the Bible commands him to be, virgin and clean and pure, he is at an even
greater temptation, and is even more likely to commit fornication, and to go into that
grievous sin.
You say, well what's the big deal about fornication?
Fornication is a major sin.
God killed 23,000 people in one day because of fornication, according to 1 Corinthians
chapter 10.
Fornication is a sin, the Bible tells us to flee it.
I mean, almost every chapter that the Apostle Paul wrote, he's preaching against fornication.
I mean, almost more than any other sin, it's a huge sin.
And a lot of young men get sucked into this, and it starts out milder.
But sin always takes you further than you wanted to go, it always keeps you longer than
you wanted to stay, and it always costs you more than you were willing to pay.
You know, it reminds me of a guy that I knew that, you know, smoked pot.
Eh, just smoking pot, no big deal.
Except one day, the pot that he was given from his dealer was laced with something other
than pot.
And he ended up being on some kind of a crazy trip for days and days from some hardcore
drugs that were put into his pot.
Now that's not what he signed on for when he decided to smoke pot, did he?
You know, he decided to smoke pot, he just wanted to smoke a little pot, whatever.
But you know what, he ended up frying his brain majorly with something else.
Because you know what, God is not going to bless you when you're committing sin, and
when you commit a small sin, it always leads to a bigger sin, and it escalates.
And you know, you start out, you know, just looking at the lingerie ad, or you start out
just looking at the swimsuit edition or whatever, and you're just curious, and you're a young
man.
Pretty soon, you're going to look at more, you're going to look at more, you're going
to justify it more and more, and you're going to get into worse and worse and worse things.
And look, this is the way internet pornography is set up.
You go to look at one thing, and then all of a sudden it hits you with a bunch of other
stuff.
I mean, think about it.
Do you think that people who run internet pornography sites are godly people?
Or do you think that they're honest businessmen?
Do you think that they have any integrity whatsoever?
So therefore, and again, I don't want to spend too much time on this because it's not a very
wholesome subject, but the thing is, you'll go on there expecting to look at something
that you're comfortable with, you know, just a little sin.
You know, you're just going to play around with a little sin.
You know, you just want to look at, you know, the bikini babe or the underwear, you know.
But what happens is, they'll escalate it for you, because other stuff will start popping
up and other windows will start opening, and they'll start emailing you, whatever.
And you'll get into stuff that was way worse and way weirder than you ever bargained.
Just talk to anybody who's been involved in it, that's what they'll tell you.
And it gets you sucked in to worse and bigger sins.
This is why we need to just nip it in the bud and just not even have the covetousness
and evil thoughts in the first place, not even look upon a woman to lust after in the
first place.
And look, I know it's hard in the day that we live in for a young man.
I was a teenager once, I know what it's like, and you know why it's so hard for teenagers?
Because of the fact that it's everywhere you go, it's being crammed down your throat.
See out of sight, out of mind.
You know, back in the old days, if you're a teenage boy, you weren't just constantly
having these images and having just scantily clad women around you in billboards and magazines
and TV and movies, just bombarding you with it.
Like obviously it's going to be hard to keep yourself pure when you're being bombarded
with all this stuff, but God demands you to be pure.
And your life depends upon it.
It will destroy your life if you commit fornication.
There will be consequences that you will live with for the rest of your life.
Now obviously you should try to limit your exposure to this garbage as much as you can.
But some of it you can't escape, because we live in a society where in the summertime
women are going to dress scantily clad, you know, and there's nothing you can do about
that.
Okay, but you can avoid watching it on TV by not having a TV, by not watching TV.
And you know what?
Think about this.
Let me just explain it to you this way.
If you were fasting from food, right, where do you think the best place would be to be
fasting from food?
In a kitchen?
In a restaurant?
I remember one time I was a teenager, I was fasting, I worked at Round Table Pizza.
You know, I'm cooking food and I was fasting, you know, that doesn't work very well.
Because you're just, you're smelling the food, you're looking for, it'd be a lot easier if
you weren't around food, if you were busy with other things.
So obviously, if you're just going to sit there and just watch TV, and what's TV going
to constantly bring up to you?
The bedroom, the bedroom, the bedroom, the bedroom, indecently dressed women, indecently
dressed women.
Showing you it, showing you, showing you, showing you.
It's going to be harder to stay pure than if you had hobbies and work to do and things
to do with your time that would not constantly remind you of something that is unavailable
to you.
Because that, you know, that act is unavailable to you until you get married.
Then you can enjoy it legitimately, but until then, you want to try to not just be bombarded
with it by looking at TV and movies and advertising that's just constantly pushing that on you.
I mean, doesn't this just make sense, just common sense?
That's why the Bible says, make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.
You can't just surround yourself with all this stuff and then just hope to keep a pure
mind.
Hope to, you know, that's why you shouldn't live in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Good night.
That, it's impossible to keep a pure mind in that place.
But everywhere you look, it's just filth and smut and wickedness.
You know, and thank God, you know, Phoenix isn't as bad, but still, there is a lot of
sin, there is a lot of wickedness, and we need to try to limit our exposure and keep
our mind as pure as we can.
Otherwise it's just going to be harder to stay pure.
But we need to keep a pure mind and, you know, if a man is going to keep himself pure until
he's married, or if a woman is going to keep herself pure until she's married, it starts
with the thought life.
And you need to realize that God expects you not only to abstain from fornication, but
to abstain from thinking about committing fornication and looking upon a woman to lust
after her in your heart.
God says you've committed the act in your heart.
You're guilty before God just for having those thoughts, just for looking.
The Bible calls the lust of the eyes.
He talks about having an evil eye.
Even if you would to 2 Peter chapter 2, 2 Peter chapter 2, toward the end of the New
Testament.
And you know, this is the thing that's dangerous about the internet too, is that it's anonymous,
meaning that it used to be, if you're a teenager and you wanted to be curious about things
that you need to, you know, not be curious about, you'd have to go somewhere, you know,
and go find this stuff, and you know, you're probably not going to find it, or it's going
to be difficult to find.
But now with computers and internet, people can just, in the privacy of their home, just
completely anonymously, they can just go on the computer and look at this stuff.
And this is why, listen to me now, you should not give your teenagers or children unfettered
access to the internet.
I mean, think about it, you understand that a child is foolish.
The Bible says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child.
We all started out simple and foolish and ignorant.
Nobody was just born with wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
We all started out foolish and as we get older we learn things.
As we get older we get smarter, we get more intelligent, we get wiser, hopefully.
But a child cannot be expected to have the same level of wisdom and knowledge and restraint
about the internet as an adult.
Now look, I've heard some people say the internet's evil, don't even use the internet.
There are legitimate uses for the internet.
You know, I do my banking on the internet.
You know, you can research things on the internet, you can get a lot of great knowledge.
You can listen to preaching off the internet, you can go to Bible software on the internet.
There's a lot of business use, there's a lot of communication you can do through emails
and through going to legitimate websites and godly websites.
And a lot of people, they protect their computer with anti-virus software.
And I'm not against it.
I'm not really a super-duper computer expert, but I do know something about computers.
And people are going to correct me about this after the service, I'm sure.
But my thought was, you know, usually you get computer viruses usually from going to
sites that are questionable.
Now I'm sure that you can go to normal sites and do perfectly normal activities and pick
up a virus.
I'm sure people will tell me that after the service.
But I'll tell you this though, going to questionable sites is where most viruses are going to be.
When you go to ungodly websites, that's where you're going to get infected.
Because the people who are running a site like that, they don't have integrity.
See what I mean?
So that's where a lot of the viruses and things get picked up is through a lot of wicked websites.
But let me say this.
And I want to teach you something about computers, because like I said, I'm not a super-duper
computer expert.
But there are many computer experts in the room today that could probably verify that
what I'm about to say is true, because I do know something about computers.
But most people don't know what I'm about to tell you.
And what I'm about to tell you is a very interesting piece of information that I would say 99% of
people don't know.
And that is this.
Every image that you ever look at on your computer, are you listening?
I'm not saying you downloaded it, I'm not saying you saved it to your hard drive, I'm
saying every image that you've ever seen on your computer is stored on your computer.
And you say that's not true, Pastor Anderson, you're wrong, my computer doesn't even have
enough memory for that, you're wrong, you're wrong, I'm right, and I'll prove it to you.
Now who here is a computer professional?
Put up your hand if you are a computer professional, meaning your job is a computer job.
Okay, who have we got here?
Sean Fairchild, we've got Brother Tom, we've got the Jordans over here.
Yeah, so we've got four or five computer guys.
The reason that I know this for a fact is because I have retrieved successfully every
picture that anyone has ever looked at from a computer, and here's why.
And I'm going to use this whiteboard as an illustration, okay?
This whiteboard right here, it would probably be even more of an illustration if we were
to use a chalkboard, right?
Because when you write something on the chalkboard, okay, and then you erase it, it's gone, right?
But you can still kind of see it, right?
And you know, with a chalkboard, you can kind of see everything that's ever been written
a little bit, even though it's been erased.
It's sort of like when you used to have a cassette tape back in the old days, and you'd
record over, but didn't you kind of still hear what used to be on it, real quiet?
You remember that?
You had that experience.
Well, this is how I learned this, okay?
I had a computer hard drive that failed, and computer hard drives always fail.
Every computer I've ever had that broke is because the hard drive failed, okay?
So then I bought a computer that didn't have a hard drive, it had a solid state memory,
and then it failed.
What in the world?
It's always the memory that fails.
But I had a hard drive, and this thing had failed, and I wanted to retrieve the data
off this thing, okay?
But it wouldn't mount with the operating system, so I got one of those external plug-in kits
where you can just take the hard drive and just plug it in and wire it through to the
USB, and you know, I hook it up to the thing, and it's not being recognized by the computer.
You know, the computer just can't see it, it won't respond.
Well I bought a software called Disk Drill.
You know, I think it was like 60 bucks or 100 bucks, but I bought this software called
Disk Drill, and it said that you could do, you know, a scan of the hard drive, or you
could do a deep scan, okay?
And this Disk Drill, even if it's not seeing the hard drive, it could still go in and see
it.
So I hooked this thing up to Disk Drill Pro, and I did a deep scan, and it's like 57 hours
remaining or whatever, okay, you know, so I just left, days and days went by doing the
deep scan.
And all of a sudden, it comes back, it's like, okay, we've scanned your hard drive, and these
are the files we found, and it was more files than could even fit on my computer.
It was like, you know, let's say the hard drive is a 100 gig hard drive, you know, and
there's like 10 times that much data on this hard drive, and I'm thinking, how does that
work?
This thing has a capacity of, you know, x, and yet there's 10 times as much on this hard
drive.
And then I went to photos, and it was like, instead of just showing me the typical photos
that I would have had on my computer, it was just tens of thousands of photos, okay?
So I hooked it up to a bigger hard drive, and I dumped everything that it had found
through drilling it, I dumped it all onto the big hard drive.
And so I have this folder of 10,000 some photos, and I'm like, what are these photos?
I did not have 10,000 photos on my computer.
So I started just looking through them, just clicking on them, just going through them,
going through them, going through them, going through them, and it was just like every picture
that you'd ever seen on the internet, just any, because a lot of that stuff goes temporarily
onto your machine, because if you think about it, in order for you to see a picture on the
screen, it, you know, it really, it downloads that picture into a temporary folder where
it displays it for you to look at it, right?
And then when you click out of it, it deletes it out of that temporary folder.
But for you to be looking at it, it has to be on your computer, or else how are you looking
at it?
Does everybody understand?
So this folder of pictures was like every picture that had ever been on your computer,
including just anything that you just looked at on the internet, okay?
Now, this is why you'll sometimes hear people say, hey, the FBI got this guy's computer,
right?
And it was his work computer, and they found 5,000 pictures of, you know, indecency, or
5,000 pictures of pornography, and you're thinking to yourself, why is this guy storing
5,000, you know, filthy pictures on his work computer at a Christian school?
Is it, you know, what in the world?
But now do you understand where they got those 5,000 pictures?
Now who already knew that?
Put up your hand if you already knew that.
Can you verify that what I'm saying is true?
Yeah, for the most part, what do you disagree with me?
I'm just, I'm just telling you, there's more on your hard drive than you think is on that
hard drive.
Because of the fact that when you erase the chalkboard, you write over it, you erase it,
if you really did a deep scan of that chalkboard, you're going to find everything that's ever
been written on that chalkboard.
And so what I'm trying to say is that, what am I trying to say?
Don't look at weird stuff on your computer, you might get busted for stuff that you thought
you could get away with.
And the Bible says, be sure your sin will find you out.
So that should just be a sobering thought where you think, oh yeah, I can look at all
this stuff and get away with it.
You might not even get away with it because of the fact that stuff's being stored on your
computer that you don't even know about.
That should make you think twice before looking at this filth.
But not only that, God knows, even if you never get caught, even if nobody ever takes
a disc drill pro to your computer and figures out what you've been doing, God knows what
you're doing.
And by the way, your mind, here's where it ties in with the sermon, your mind is the
same way as that hard drive.
You see stuff, you hear stuff, and then you forget about it, right?
But it's still there though.
Because have you ever forgot about something for years and years and years, but then someone
will remind you of it?
Hey, you remember that?
And it was something you had forgotten.
You had deleted from your mental hard drive, hey, remember that?
And then you're like, oh yeah, and then boom, the whole image comes back.
The whole story comes back.
All the details come back.
Why?
Because everything that goes into your mind remains.
Things go in, but they don't go out.
Now that should be a sobering thought, that's why God said, keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life.
When we just are constantly allowing bad things to come in, and when he said nothing coming
into the man can defile him, he's talking about eating food, he's talking about unsanitary.
But look, what can defile the man is what comes into the eyes, what comes into the ears.
That's what he brings up as being the things that defile your heart.
And once wicked things come into your eyes and ears, they go into your heart, and then
out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
Out of the heart come the issues of life.
Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts.
Out of the heart proceed adulteries, fornication.
If you're a young man and you want to stay pure and you don't want to commit fornication,
you need to stop looking at this garbage, you need to stop getting as close to sin as
you can without going all the way over the cliff.
You're just making it harder on yourself, you're just making it more difficult to abstain
from that.
You just need to get it out of sight, out of mind.
That's the best way to abstain from that.
Get yourself busy with other things, other productive work to do than to just sit there
and watch the world's filth, which is going to remind you of that.
There's statistics about it.
Every seven seconds, not seven seconds, every seven minutes there's a reference to it on
TV.
You can find the statistics on that.
But we need to realize that we need to get our thoughts under control if we're going
to live a clean life.
We need to get the lust out of our heart, get the covetousness out of our heart, not
look at pornography, whether it's on the television or on the internet, not look at it, not think
about it, not ponder it, and to be content with such things as we have.
And to be happy with what we have and not always wishing that we had something that
we don't have.
Let's bow our eyes and have a word of prayer.
Father, please just help this message to sink down into our ears, Lord.
Please just help us to stay as far away from sin as we can.
We don't want to go into these things like theft and murder and robbery and adultery
and fornication, blasphemy.
Lord, help us not to even start the decline toward these things by having a filthy mind.
Help us to keep our minds pure.
Help us to read your word every day and think about your word, meditate on it.
Help us to think good, positive thoughts toward our wives or husbands, Lord.
Help us to think godly thoughts and fill our minds with scripture and good things so that
we don't just have this cesspool of iniquity in our mind that will lead us into all manner
of sin, if not sooner than later, Lord.
Please just help us to take this message to heart and in Jesus' name we pray.