1. Free to Change
2. Freedom and Responsibility
3. My Kind of People
4. "Come Out And Be Separate"
5. Private Intepretation
6. A "Monkey-Wrench" Scripture
7. The Truth That Frees
8. Literary Devices
9. Fear of God
10. A Love Story
11. The Three Trees In Eden
12. Imputed Righteousness
13. Different Essentials For Different People
14. God's Sons In All Ages
15. Looking To Lust
16. Divorce Her!
17. "While Her Husband Is Alive"
18. "They Won't Let Me Preach!"
19. God's Perplexing Prophets
20. Religous Titles
21. Who Sinned?
22. "I'll Join Your Church"
23. The Church As The Route To Heaven
24. One Hundred Years Old
25. Can Our Churches Unite?
26. Can The Cause Of Sickness Be The Cure?
27. When Life Begins
28. Abortion: Law Or Principle?
29. Human Chattel
30. The Hope of Israel
31. The Great Temptation of Jesus
32. The Rich Man And Lazarus
33. My Hermeneutic
34. Is Immersion Proved By Example?
35. Who Gets The Credit?
36. Hook's Points
37. Heresy
38. I Am A Debtor

Other Books at Freedom's Ring

When I was a teenager, the preachers really laid the guilt on us boys by constantly reminding us that "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5:28 KJV). They would go on to explain that to look upon a woman with sexual desires was lust.

I knew that it was impossible for me or any other normal boy to smother sexual cravings or to look upon an attractive girl without some feelings toward her. Knowing that marriage itself was divinely approved and that a man did not choose and marry a wife without strong sexual desires, I felt that the preachers were either ignorant or sanctimoniously crying "Wolf!". Without help from the preachers, I concluded that lust was more than a strong desire; it had to have the consent of the mind to commit a sinful act. But in this essay, I will modify that further.

Fifty years this side of my teens, I know that the appeal of an attractive woman is not limited to teenagers, and older men are still in this guilt trap. It was lack of understanding of this matter that caused President Jimmy Carter to make his notorious admission to lusting after women.

What was the result of that lust of which Jesus spoke? It was adultery in the heart, not fornication. Adultery involves a married person; fornication does not. One of the parties to adultery must be married.

Who is this woman being looked upon? Jesus did not specify a virgin as the object of the lust. In the Greek language, the word for wife and woman are the same. It is translated wife or woman at the discretion of the translators. Since adultery is involved, Jesus evidently is saying, "Whoever looks upon a wife (of another man)."

Lust and covet are also translated from the same Greek word at the discretion of the translators. The same Ten Commandments which said, "You shall not commit adultery," further explained, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" (Exo. 20:14, 17). Jesus is only explaining that the law forbidding adultery always included the sin of coveting someone's wife. He was not talking about sexual attraction! The contextual statements of Jesus are about marriage, divorce, and remarriage.

Without strong desires to motivate us, we would be indolent and listless. God gave us these energizing forces within us. While we are to make use of them, we are warned repeatedly that we must always control them. It is no more a sin to have feelings for an attractive woman than it is to have a strong desire for the apple pie set before you; yet the reaction to both motivations must be kept in proper control. We must master all feelings rather than stimulating those that cause us to give mental assent to committing the sinful act resulting from unrestrained desires.