Exposition by Max A Forsythe
The Reformer's
Fire
Exposition by Max A Forsythe
- Question 72:
- What is forbidden in the seventh commandment?
- Answer 72:
- The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.
Earlier this week my student webmaster and another teacher were working on a page from my government course which is being posted to the web. This was to be the main page containing links to the essential government sources. The team had three computers going so that they could arrange, search and post their findings. My student entered a Universal Resource Locator code and without thinking typed in the final three letters as something other than .gov! Then while the computer was searching went on to another task. Looking back at the same time both people suddenly realized that the source was not the White House they were expecting!
They had virtually wandered into someone else's imaginary reality which our software failed to censor! How easy it is to fall into the wrong place through virtual reality in our time and place. I do believe that the general public with access to the web has a better understanding of the total depravity of mankind than any other generation. Even innocent web searches can lead people astray. I was once asked how quickly should one hit the back button to remain sinless in regard to the commandment before us today. PDQ some theologians would insist, "pretty darn quick" we could translate that learnable immediate reaction.
As we have seen in our passage from Matthew, the attitude of the heart is just as serious as what people would do were the able to be all they wanna be! Despite the testimony of convicted rapists and serial murders we are unable to apply any reasonable form of censorship in our day and time. Even the last frontier of pornography banned by the United States Mail is being challenged in the Barnes & Noble Bookstores. From what I have seen and read, there is nothing noble about the corporate greed that insists that every tawdry artist should have a right to expose anything the camera can capture. At least a couple of states are moving to quash the latest trend to total degeneracy. And providentially the most degenerate television star's series has been canceled.
However, the perverted American appetite for virtual sin or eye candy as some of the connoisseurs call it is growing by leaps and bounds. The advertising media is full of exploitation and any public complaints only serve to make the awfulness even more popular. Of course it would be good to have a president with the character of James Earl Carter who well understood the verses before us today. A better example might help society to actually do something about the increasing sites and sights of sin that so easily entangles.
In this regard, I believe that one of the greatest tragedies of this whole area of study is that children of all ages are forced to consider adult perversities at far younger ages than any logical person could have imagined fifty or even ten years ago. Restraint and censorship are not bad words us use and apply. We may certainly praise and pray for the prosecutors in Cincinnati who have chosen to stand against the tide and take on legally one of the flintiest purveyors of filth in America. And yet, the country is so polluted that even small successes fail to make a dent. When acknowledged criminal perverts can move into any community and the local citizens cannot decide who may live in their midst - these problems will continue.
Time was, when local communities could and did run prostitutes, perverts and abortionists out of their incorporated village legally and fairly. In the twenties a local town in my area noticed a red light at a local house along a major highway. Out of town guests called at all hours of the day and night. Once the local people were certain what was happening they stopped selling groceries and services to her. Once the town constable began parking out in front of her house randomly and questioning her guests she decided to move. She went to the bank and closed her last savings account. The banker asked her if she was leaving, and she said as soon as she could sell the house. He called her into his office and asked what she had paid, she was able to produce a deed and he wrote her a check on the spot and she got on the Interurban and left! Yes the problem of perverse behavior is easy to police when laws are locally applied with a sense of fair play. Yet, how far more difficult it is to deal with the virtual imagination of sin in our own minds and hearts.
In a remote religious community, where there was no opportunity for anyone to learn about any perversions we might mention in connection with this commandment, there was still a young man whose own imagination was perverse enough to commit the crime of rape. You see, even if we were totally able to cleanse the media of every type of perversity, the human heart is inventive enough to take a perverted attitude and commit a crime against nature and nature's God.
As we look at these tough teachings of Jesus here in Matthew, let us not like a young man in the Army actually take a bayonet and cut off the hand that sins, but learn to guard our hearts and cut off from memory all those vain things that would lead us astray. As King David once said if I cherished sin in my heart God would know it and it would be enough to condemn one to hell for all eternity. As we look closely at this commandment and realize how easily it is to appreciate the created human form and to cherish that material object more than the God of heaven, let us be convicted of our incredible tendency to sin and learn to come before our Father on our knees begging His forgiveness for our sinfulness. Then let as all the more appreciate that Christ has died for those sins, then rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and even now He is praying for us that we might better reflect His greater glory in our hearts, minds and bodies.
Amen.
Resources Used: Douma, J. The Ten Commandments: Manual for the Christian Life. Green, James B. A Harmony of the Westminster Presbyterian Standards. (PCA) The Confession of Faith: The Shorter Catechism. Watson, Thomas. The Ten Commandments. Places Preached: Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America) Box 132049 -- Columbus, OH 43213-8049 WSC0721 10 May 98
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