He That Overcometh

The Lust Of The Eye – Part Four

Teaching Notes

 

1 John 2:15-17

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Tonight, I want to talk to you about the lust of the eyes. Last week I addressed the lust of the flesh. Tonight it is the lust of the eyes that we want to focus on. (no pun intended)

How many of you know that your eyes can get you in a lot of trouble!

• Our eyes stimulate the majority of what we think.
• The eye is the pathway the leads to our minds.
• God didn’t warn us about the lust of the ear, or the lust of the nose, or the lust of the mouth…but God warned us about the lust of the eyes.

Of all of the senses that we discussed last week, it is our eyes that draw our minds into captivity more than anything else.

Our eyes are the pre-eminent sense. Our eyes are the number one sense in our bodies.

Ask any person what sense would be the worst to lose, and nine times out of ten they would say their eyesight.

Our own language champions our eyesight above our other senses….

• We don’t say, smell how it smells…we say, see how it smells.
• We don’t say, feel how it feels…we say, see how it feels.
• Nobody says, listen how it sounds…but they say, see how it sounds.
• I don’t tell my boys to taste how the beans taste…but I tell them, why don’t you see how the beans taste.

I don’t know if any of you have ever seen a terrible car accident, but I have.

All of my senses experienced the accident in some form or another…

• I heard the screeching of brakes, the breaking of glass, and the crushing of steel.
• I smelled the burning of rubber, and all of the gasoline that was spilled on the ground.
• I felt the shaking of the ground caused by the impact of the accident.

…Yet I didn’t ask anybody if they heard the accident, or smelled the accident, or if they felt the accident…but I loudly cried out…”Did you see that?”

Our eyes are the primary sense in our bodies, and as such God warned us about the lust that our eyes would bring to our flesh.

I played a lot of sports growing up, and the one thing my coaches always instructed me to do in each and every sport was to keep my eye on the ball.

• That was the first and most important of all their instructions.
• Keep your eye on the ball…know where the puck is at all times.
• I never had one coach tell me to keep my nose on the ball.
• They never told me to keep my mouth on the puck.

…I did hear a few of them say, “keep your mouth shut and your nose to the grindstone.”

But each and every one of them told me to keep my eye on the ball!

• Why? Because the eye is the gateway to our minds…and our minds control our thoughts and our actions.
• If my eye is on the baseball, then all of my thoughts, my actions, and my energy will be focused on that baseball.
• I can transfer all of my energy from the bat to the ball at the exact right time and in the right place. (sweet spot)

That is why David said, I lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.

David knew that when He kept his eyes on God…then His thought and actions would also be focused on God!

That is why David went on to say…

Ps 101:3

3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes:

And later Paul took it a step further, when he said…

1 Thess 5:22

22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.

If it even appears a little bit evil…keep away…don’t look! Once it gets into your eyes…it gets into your head…and once it is in your thoughts…it causes you to think about things that you shouldn’t think about.

God created us, and He warned us about the lust of the eyes, because He knows how our eyes work!

• There is a morbid and evil curiosity about the eyes of mankind.
• It has been in us all since the days of Adam and Eve.

One of the most famous video clips in the world is called, “The battle at Kruger.”  It involves the attack of a pack of lions on a baby water buffalo. It is an amazing video, and it has been viewed on YouTube some fifty million times…Why?

Because it attracts our curious nature.

When we see emergency situations, whether they be accidents, fires, or fights…we automatically stop in our tracks and watch, because we are curious.

• We don’t stop to smell.
• We don’t stop to taste.
• We don’t stop to hear or feel.

….but we stop to see…the curiosity is in our eyes!

Satan focuses his attack on us through the lust of our eyes! Once he has our eyes…he then works on us through the rest of our senses!

That is what he has been doing from the very beginning of time…

Last week we established the biblical definition for lust…the desire for that which is forbidden.

So lust is a step beyond desire in that it is a desire for something that is contrary to the word of God!

In the Garden of Eden, God said that there was only one thing that was forbidden…You cannot eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of that tree, you shall surely die!

It was forbidden by God! It was off limits to Adam and Eve. Don’t eat, don’t touch…in fact it would be better if you didn’t even look at that tree!

As we read the account, watch how her eyes lead Eve into sin….

Gen 3:6

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Satan tempted Eve through her eyes. It was pleasant to look at.

• Eve saw that the tree was good for food, so she ate of the tree. Notice that it started with her eyes and lead to her taste. (lust of the flesh)
• Satan took it a step further and suggested that eating of the fruit of the tree would make one wise like God.
  • It started with the eyes and then appealed to her pride. (pride of life)

Both Adam and Eve discovered that the fruit did not deliver what they thought it would. In fact it delivered many things that they never ever considered…

• Curse of pain and suffering during childbirth.
• Curse of working all the days of their life.
• The ground was cursed to bring forth thorns and thistles.

…and ultimately it brought separation from God.

Separation from God is simply spiritual death…that is where our lusts lead us.

James 1:13-15

13 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:

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Lust is never satisfied, it always craves more and more…

• More pleasure.
• More of the flesh.
• More sin.

…and if lust is never defeated it eventually brings death.

There are many men and women, from the days of the Old Testament till today that started out with a strong spiritual anointing, but got sidetracked by lust.

• There was such a man in the book of Judges, whose birth was announced by an angel just like the birth of Jesus.
• It was prophesied that this man would deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.

This man had a divine calling and purpose to his life.

We read of his birth in…

Judges 13:24-14:3

24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.

25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Samson was a man who was blessed with strength far above any man on the earth.

The Spirit of the Lord was upon Samson!

As we continue to read though, we find out that Samson has a problem with his eyes…He can’t keep his eyes off of strange woman.

Now it is a proven fact that men more than woman are attracted by sight. So men pay attention to this story! I am going to be picking on you!

But before we get into the story, let me say this to the ladies…there is a reason that God called us to be modest, there is a reason that God called us to be separate…and one of the reasons deals with “the lust of the eyes.”

When women wear their tops down to their bosoms, and their skirts up to their ‘whoop whoop whoop’, men can’t help but notice…it simply means they are human.

I serve warning that when you dress like that…God has a problem with it! Is it any wonder that divorce is higher than it has ever been?

Samson sees a girl of the Philistines, and falls in lust with her.

Judges 14:1-3

14 And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.

2 And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.

3 Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.

Notice that it all began with the eyes for Samson. He saw a pretty Philistine girl, he was pleased with her…

These are the same people that Samson has been called to destroy, and now Samson wants to marry one of their daughters.

God still continued to move thru Samson, and maybe that is what fooled him, I don’t know…but now that he has gotten a taste for the world, it all goes downhill very fast.

• Samson loses his wife to a friend.
• And the next place we find Samson is found in….

Judges 16:1

16 Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.

Notice again, it began with the eyes…….he saw her…and then went in to her.

• From a Philistine to a harlot.
• His lust leaves him craving for more…and more.
• He is being fulfilled by the temporary pleasure of sin.

Soon after that he sees a woman in the valley of Sorek, and falls in love with her…her name was Delilah….another woman of the Philistines.

We all know the story, Delilah did not love Samson…but she used his lust for her against him.

The full potential of a God anointed life was never reached because Samson fell to the attack of Satan through the lust of his own eyes!

Samson could not keep his eyes on God. His eyes were focused on this world.

• What is really ironic about Delilah defeating Samson is that her name means feeble.
• Samson’s name in the Hebrew means Sun….as in Sunshine.

Samson, who killed a lion with his bare hands.

Samson, who at one time slew a thousand Philistine warriors.

Samson, who had God’s authority, anointing, and power on his life.

Samson, whose very name symbolized his strength…he was as powerful and bright as the sun.

…was brought to destruction by a feeble, weak, and fragile woman who had dark and evil intentions.

Samson allowed all of this to happen to him through the lust of his own eyes!

I take you now to the New Testament.

Jesus said…

Luke 11:34-35

34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.

35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

If your eye is single, then your whole body is full of light. What does that mean?

• The Greek meaning of the word single is to see clearly or purely…in the right way.
• How many of you know that mankind does not always use his eyes in the right way?
• Jesus was saying that a pure eye lights up your whole being, and a lustful eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness.

Whether we live in darkness or in light all depends on how we use our eyes.

Samson, as great a man as he was, could not keep his eyes on the things of God.

Samson had his eyes on the things of this world.

And Samson was plunged into darkness…both spiritually and literally.

• Now I know that Samson was defeated ‘technically’ because he gave up his secret of his long hair.
• But I believe that the real reason that Samson was defeated, was because he gave in to the lust of his own eyes.
• He should never have been messing around with a Philistine woman in the first place.
• His lust left him craving for more and for more…until it finally came between Delilah and God…who was he going to choose?
  • Samson chose the evil that he could not keep his eyes off of.
  • He chose Delilah.

In another ironic twist of this story, Samson had his eyes burned from his head by the Philistines.

Judg 16:21

21 But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.

We don’t know exactly how long it was that Samson was imprisoned…

• But it was long enough for Samson’s hair to grow back.
• It was long enough for Samson to get right with God again.
• Samson no longer had his eyes to bring him down.
• Samson no longer dealt with the lust of his eyes.
• And he once again had power with God.

Let’s read the account…

Judges 16:28-30

28 And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.

29 And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.

30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Samson asked to be avenged for the sake of his two eyes…the same two evil eyes that caused his defeat.

Could it be that Samson was saying to God, now I can see…I can see that it was the lust of my eyes that defeated me, Lord I am sorry that I have let you down.

Lord in one last mighty act will you forgive me for the sin my eyes caused, and will you avenge me for my eyes…

Lord through my death will you bring the victory that you always wanted Israel to have through me…will you do it Lord, now my lustful eyes are gone…and now I can only see you, I can only see your will, I can only see your way.

God answered his prayer, and in one last mighty act, Samson killed more Philistines than he ever killed in his lifetime…All of the rulers of the Philistines were killed…along with three thousand men and woman.

Israel had their victory!

• Could it be that God allowed Samson to lose his eyesight so that he could use him in one last mighty victory over the Philistines?
• Could it be that God is calling someone to repent of the sins of their eyes so He can use you in His Kingdom?
• Could it be that God is calling the church to overcome the world so He can send one last mighty revival to Valparaiso Indiana?

Samson made things right with God…so can you tonight!