FLEE!
Job 1:1 “I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I look at a young woman?”
This got me to thinking…just what did Job mean when he said that he made a covenant (an agreement) with his eyes…and followed it up with the question, “How then could I look at a young woman?”
Did this mean Job never looked at young women? What about his own daughters when they were young women? What about young women in the marketplace? How did he avoid them? No, common sense told me that it meant more and yet, less than that.
It could not have meant that he did not ever see any young women. So it meant less than what we see at face value, and yet, the truth is that it means so much more than what we can see at face value. The Hebrew language means much more than just “look” - the word used means (among other things), “to separate mentally, distinguish, look well to, view, think - to get.”
This tells me that Job was saying that he had made an agreement that when he saw a young woman, he would not let what he saw, turn into desire, or let his thoughts dwell on a young woman in a way to get her for himself. In other words - he was avoiding lust and sexual sin - which begins not with an outward act, but with an inward desire.
From here, my mind went naturally to 2 Timothy 2:22 which says, “Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
The Amplified version expands on this by translating the verse in this way: “Shun youthful lusts and flee from them, and aim at and pursue righteousness (all that is virtuous and good, right living, conformity to the will of God in thought, word, and deed); [and aim at and pursue] faith, love, [and] peace (harmony and concord with others) in fellowship with all [Christians], who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart.”
This flies directly in the face of our culture today, where sex is used to sell everything from hamburgers to cars. Our televisions pump sexual situations and sexual immorality straight into our homes on a daily, and often an hourly basis.
Sadly, if you sound the alarm about this in our culture you are labeled old fashioned, unrealistic, or a prude. If you sound the alarm in the church you are told that you are legalistic, or that you are trying to avoid the “real world.”
Funny, Paul instructed Timothy to flee that which would be considered lust, or lustful.
Why do we no longer do this in the church today? I get why the culture no longer does it, but why are you labeled as legalistic if you flee, or run away from nudity, sexual innuendo, scantily clad men & women in advertisements, or others visual forms of lust? Is Paul being legalistic here? Is Paul being unrealistic here? If so, would that not make God a legalistic? Would that not make God unrealistic? After all, the Scriptures re not man-made, but God-breathed.
I think the truth is that too many of us as Christians just don’t want to work as hard as we would need to in order to “flee youthful lusts.” Since our culture is saturated with it, we would have to be always on guard - and plan on taking measures to deal with it…and that takes work.
I would encourage every believer I know to purchase the book, “The Hole In Our Holiness” by Kevin DeYoung, for the chapter titled, “Saints and Sexual Immorality” - it is worth reading and the price of the book for this chapter alone.
Oh be careful little eyes what you see…
It is time for the saints to once again flee.
Making a covenant with my eyes,
Pastor Dave
No comments:
Post a Comment