                    [Times Square Church Pulpit Series]

                                Roving Eyes

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By David Wilkerson
November 28, 1988
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          I don't have a television or a VCR, and by God's grace
          I have been kept from all forms of pornography. But
          consider the Christians who have TV -- and cable as
          well. It's after 10 p.m., the kids are in bed, and they
          sit and watch an R- or X- rated movie. Right before
          their eyes they see adults fornicating and performing
          every evil thing from hell. Both spirit and body get
          caught up in it. Or, there might be this scenario: You
          are away from home and nobody knows you. You are
          feeling alone and a curious urge comes over you. The
          enemy of your soul whispers, "Go to such and such a
          movie -- just once -- you can repent later!" So you go
          to an R- or X-rated movie. It is corrupt and makes you
          feel dirty and sinful. You leave the theater empty! Or,
          suppose instead of going out, you simply tune into a
          dirty movie on the motel room TV. Right there in the
          room the Holy Spirit leaves, grieving, as a child of
          God has his eyes glued on a sordid, wicked, sensual
          movie! And here's one last scenario: Walking down the
          street, you stop at a newsstand, gazing over all the
          sex magazines (Playboy, Penthouse, etc.) and a whole
          assortment of other vile magazine! Just looking! But,
          you buy a New York Times and a dirty magazine as well,
          slipping it in between the pages of The Times. You take
          it home and hide it, bringing it out secretly to lust
          over the photos. After a while, you throw it away in
          disgust, saying, "Never again! It's stupid -- silly --
          who needs it?"

          But there's something even more serious: Suppose I walk
          the streets to work or to church, or ride the bus or
          subway, and my eyes are "roving" -- always looking!
          Satan flaunts flesh on every side! Many dress, walk,
          and act as it they are demon-possessed! They're like
          walking pornography, tempting your eyes. Although men
          and women are both guilty of roving eyes, men are
          probably more prone to them. Wives keep watch out of
          the corner of their eyes as their Christian husbands
          turn their heads and follow women with their roving
          eyes -- at restaurants and even in church! Wives watch
          their husbands eyes! Nothing is more disrespectful to a
          wife or more degrading than a husband who roams with
          his eyes right in her presence!

          In the City this is all intensified by the sheer number
          of people, the sensual advertising, and the way the
          wicked dress. Years ago, here in New York, women wore
          dresses down to the ground! They were modest - they
          still blushed. It was a shame to even expose an ankle.
          Today many women dress like prostitutes on the prowl!
          Even fifty years ago, most of them would have been put
          in police cars, wrapped in jackets, and booked for
          indecent exposure! You can be sure the temptations will
          get worse the closer we get to the end of this age. It
          is going to be terrible.

          The question is, why would any true child of God focus
          his or her eyes on such ungodly filth? We know the lust
          of the eyes is one of the biggest battles being waged
          by Christians today. I saw a man carrying his Bible at
          68th Street and Broadway. As a lady wearing a
          mini-skirt passed by him, he crossed the street,
          looking back all the while, endangering his life in the
          traffic. How terrible it seemed! The Bible seemed out
          of place. This is a battle being fought by ministers,
          lawyers, doctors, politicians, people from all walks of
          life and every nationality. There are thousands who
          indulge secretly who would never want anybody to know.
          And thousands of others slip back into it just once in
          a while. But it has a hold on them and they can't seem
          to get completely free.

          I want to speak here only to those who seek to please
          the Lord and to walk in holiness. Why is there this
          evil attraction? Why do some keep doing it? Why the
          roving eyes? Isaiah spoke of the daughters of Zion
          having "wanton eyes" or wandering, roving eyes: "...The
          daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched
          forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as
          they go..." (Isaiah 3:16). David prayed, "Turn away
          mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in
          thy way" (Psalm 119:37). "I will set no wicked thing
          before mine eyes..." (Psalm 101:3). Proverbs 4:25 says,
          "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids
          look straight before thee." Why don't we keep our eye
          looking right on, straight and pure?

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                        Roving Eyes Are Connected to
                      a Troubled, Unsatisfied Heart.

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          We are not recognizing that the eye problem reflects a
          deeper heart problem. God must get us to see that
          something is not yet settled in our hearts, that there
          is a root cause for roving, lustful eyes. "Keep thy
          heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues
          of life" (Proverbs 4:23). We are not taking the matter
          as seriously as Jesus does. He makes this eye matter an
          issue of life or death. It is not something we outgrow.
          Rather, it mut be dealt with in the fear of God,
          decisively and unsparingly. We must recognize that
          Jesus said it could damn us to hell if it is not dealt
          with once and for all. Jesus said that an evil eye must
          be plucked out!

          Let me tell you how this message came about. I
          mentioned earlier of seeing a Bible-toting man eyeing a
          mini-skirted woman, and how badly I felt about him. In
          fact, I thought, "You dirty old man!" But God's Spirit
          lovingly rebuked me, saying, "He is your mirror. You
          have been doing the same thing! Perhaps not with a
          Bible in hand, but you have not been guarding your eyes
          as you ought." That night, and to this very moment, the
          Holy Spirit put a godly fear in me, warning me that
          what I look at is very serious business with the Lord.
          It is not a legalistic trip of bondage. It is life and
          death. It is impossible to have a pure heart and
          undisciplined eyes. The lust of the eye is an extension
          of the lust of the heart.

          The Bible says there are some who "feast with you;
          having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease
          from sin..." (2 Peter 2:13-14). They come to God's
          house to feast with us. They listen and enjoy the Word,
          but they are full of lust. This includes women as well
          as men. They pretend to want Jesus  they say all the
          right words  but they have one thing uppermost in
          their minds. They are man-crazy or woman-crazy! With
          roving eyes! I've had many of these come to me for
          prayer, saying, "I can't help myself. Something comes
          over me. Lust sweeps over me! It's got to be demonic!"
          A minister who got caught with eight women in his
          church told me, "It started when I was fifteen with the
          maid in our house. It became a habit and I saw nothing
          evil about it."

          In all of these, it is the flesh  not demons 
          reigning. "The Lord knoweth how to... reserve the
          unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished: but
          chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of
          uncleanness.... self-willed..." (2 Peter 2:9-10). Peter
          says, "... An heart they have exercised with covetous
          practices..." (2 Peter 2:14). The word "exercised" has
          to do with nudity! They have been obsessed with nudity!
          They coveted it  practiced it  lusted after it with
          their eyes! Of them, Peter says, "The dog is turned to
          his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her
          wallowing in the mire" (2 Peter 2:22). These are
          sweet-talkers on the prowl. What a line they've got.
          Lairs International! With all the right answers! "For
          when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they
          allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much
          wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who
          live in error" (2 Peter 2:18). This is one of the most
          powerful, significant warnings in God's Word for the
          church today.

          To all of you who have escaped false teachers, who have
          come out of error and made a clean escape from
          doctrines of demons, who have escaped the corruption of
          a church or leader who was false  beware of another
          trap: a high-sounding, spiritual, double-talking
          seducer sent to you by the devil just when you are most
          vulnerable. To all married women, heed this message! If
          you have been spiritually awakened and are hungry for
          God  if you've been turned around and want nothing now
          but Jesus  but your marriage is not what it should be,
          if there's turmoil and trouble, if things have gone
          sour and he doesn't share your deepest longings, if
          you're growing apart  watch out! The devil will put
          right in your path a man who seems so spiritual, so
          wise, so understanding. This man will seem to read your
          mind. He will talk like no one you've ever heard! It
          will be high-sounding and appealing to your vanity!
          Your husband will seem so bland by comparison.

          There was a minister in Canada who met a "prophetess."
          How she did prophesy  telling him his ministry would
          shake nations. She could read him, understand him.
          Compared to this woman, his wife was "materialistic and
          unspiritual," so he said. They ended up in an affair
          with the woman prophesying the whole time, saying,
          "Thus saith the Lord..." while committing fornication!
          Another man and his wife, now attending Times Square
          Church, had belonged to a shepherding fellowship where
          he had been told he was not spiritually in tune with
          her. The fellowship forced the wife to divorce her
          husband and then brought in another man [some spiritual
          spook] to marry her.

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                             Servants of Sin.

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          "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are
          the servants of corruption..." (2 Peter 2:19). Heed the
          warning of the apostle. Guard yourself! These who have
          eyes full of adultery can spot the troubled ones. They
          lay a sympathetic hand on you or call you, saying,
          "I've got a burden for you. The Lord woke me up and
          told me about you. I've got a good ear. Tell me all
          about it." If you are married and you are on the phone
          (or in person) pouring out your heart to someone other
          than your mate  then you are sinning and playing with
          fire! You are in the very trap of which Peter warns.

          Here is a word to singles. If you are set on God and
          determined to follow Jesus at any cost, you will be a
          target of Satan. He will send your way somebody who has
          what I call "honeymoon religion"; that is, just enough
          spiritual sweet talk to get you to the altar! A young
          wife confessed, "He sounded so spiritual! All he talked
          about was the Lord. He told me Jesus was everything,
          but the day we got married he changed." No! He did not
          change. His true colors just came out. She remembers
          that all the time they dated, he had a spiritual tongue
          but grubby hands! That's the test. Deny his animal
          lusts and see how spiritual he is!

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                     Others Refuse to Allow Their Eyes
                       to Offend the Christ in Them.

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          There is a Scripture that has troubled me for years:
          "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast
          it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of
          thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body
          should be cast into hell" (Matthew 5:29). This is a
          person who is under the absolute Lordship of Christ. If
          the flesh or self were on the throne, what could offend
          us? It is because Christ rules supreme that the eyes
          offend  anything unlike Jesus becomes offensive! These
          words of Jesus show us how seriously He takes this
          matter of roving eyes. He also mentions the same
          message again in Matthew 18. Twice in one book! If
          Christ rules and reigns in your heart, you will
          experience His grief everytime you look lingeringly at
          any man or woman, or pick up a porno magazine, or sit
          and watch even five minutes of a filthy film, or buy or
          rent an off-color movie! Your spirit will cry out, "O
          Lord, I am offending You with my eyes!"

          "If your right eye offend you...." Why does Jesus speak
          of the right eye? Can't the left eye see the same? The
          right eye represents overpowering authority. Jesus sits
          at the right hand of the Father. Since God is a Spirit,
          there could not be a literal right or left hand.
          Rather, it represents our Lord's all-powerful position
          of authority, the right hand representing power. So
          your right eye is any lust that has assumed
          overwhelming power or authority in your body. Right-eye
          sins are those which have roots  those which so easily
          beset us. It becomes the right eye of flesh, the
          overpowering eye, when it is yielded as "instruments of
          unrighteousness unto sin..." (Romans 6:13).

          For some it is an overpowering right eye of fantasy.
          This is the curse of marriages: husbands or wives
          daydreaming of something better, with an evil eye that
          is blind to reality and fixed on some fantasy. They
          can't believe God for a miracle of healing because they
          live with a false vision that somewhere there is a Mr.
          or Mrs. Perfect! Years ago, I was on a TV program with
          a comedian who had been married over eight times and
          who was about to marry again. I told him, "I think I've
          just met the saddest man in America." Later he
          confessed, "Eight women couldn't be wrong! I expected
          them to bring me happiness  I was married to one of
          them only one week!" Since none could make him happy,
          he would leave. If you are one of these daydreamers,
          you need some Holy Ghost eye salve to clean up your
          vision! Those fantasies can destroy what is left of
          your marriage.

          Jesus said to pluck it out and cast it from you! He is
          saying plainly and simply: "That's enough! Stop it 
          cut it out  no more! No more evil fantasizing! No more
          dirty magazines and movies! No more roving eyes! Cast
          that right eye away! Do not let that lust have sway
          anymore. Pluck that lust out of your heart!" Jesus
          makes no excuses for you; He simply says give it up or
          be lost: "for it is profitable for thee that one of
          they members should perish, and not that thy whole body
          should be cast into hell." You can pray, cry mercy,
          plead grace, excuse it as weakness, plead helplessness,
          even say it is God's work to do and not yours. But
          Jesus said, "You pluck it out  you cast it from you!"
          We would not be commanded to do what is impossible; it
          has to be possible because He told us to do it. But we
          just don't want to strive against sin. Instead, we will
          plop down in front of a TV movie, turn on something
          vile, and pray, "God, where is Your power? Deliver me!"
          We will walk into a newsstand, pick up a filthy
          magazine, and whisper,"Lord, where are You?"

          Listen to Christ's warning: "I say unto you, that
          whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
          committed adultery with her already in his heart"
          (Matthew 5:28). Most would acknowledge that a secret
          affair breaks trust and ruins marriage, and that
          outside of God's grace it is never the same. But
          looking at pornographic materials, whether male or
          female, lusting after images, has the same effect. You
          are just as unfaithful! You might as well have been
          physically with a prostitute. Your mental adultery will
          kill your relationship with your spouse. It hurts
          marriages because the husband or wife cannot measure up
          to what you saw. The devil says, "He or she is too fat!
          Look what you're married to!" The comparisons are made
          and what you have seems so far from your fantasy! Now
          you look, your eyes rove, because he or she cannot
          satisfy you. Satan has polluted your mind, making you
          feel cheated.

          On the subject of masturbation, even Christian writers
          have written, that it is a legitimate way to relieve
          tension, that it is not fornication. Now single
          Christians don't consider it sin to indulge in it, as
          long as it's all in the mind. But God's Word calls it
          self-abuse. Paul, a single himself, said: "But I keep
          under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that
          by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself
          should be a castaway" (I Corinthians 9:27). Paul said,
          "I will not be brought under the power of any" (I
          Corinthians 6:12). The danger to singles, as well as to
          the married, is that these lusts and habits begin to
          control and take power over the body. "Flee
          fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the
          body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth
          against his own body. What? know ye not that your body
          is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which
          ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are
          bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your
          body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (I
          Corinthians 6:18-20).

          Can God keep singles pure? Can He give them pure eyes?
          "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling,
          and to present you faultless before the presence of his
          glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 24). To the single or
          divorced woman He says, "Fear not" for thou shalt not
          be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt
          not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of
          thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy
          widowhood anymore. For thy Maker is thine husband; the
          Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy
          One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be
          called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman
          forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth,
          when thou wast refused, saith thy God" (Isaiah 54:4-6).
          For young men, David says through the Holy Ghost, "Thou
          are my portion, O Lord" (Psalm 119:57).

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                         If the Evil Thing Your Eye
                     Is Focused on Is Not Plucked out,
                      Everything in You Becomes Evil!

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          "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. Take heed therefore that the light which is
          in thee be not darkness" (Luke 11"34-35).

          There was an article in a recent Sunday newspaper that
          aptly illustrated these verses. It concerned a lady
          film star who fell in love with her co-star. But it was
          all one-sided  he was nice to her and she mistook it
          for love. He, in fact, had another girlfriend. She
          became so obsessed that she lost all rationality,
          sending him a disfigured doll left on his doorstep,
          hounding him by phone and letters. The police took her
          in for questioning. It destroyed her life!

          This is what the Word is speaking of  that evil thing
          the eye won't let go of, that becomes an obsession. It
          begins to take over. All common sense goes 
          intelligent people start to do stupid and dangerous
          things. The mind, body, soul, and spirit all become
          filled with evil darkness.

          A young lady told me of how her love for a young man
          was destroying her. She felt she was losing her mind,
          always fantasizing about what life would be like with
          him. I talked to him and he was shocked: I've never
          once given her reason to think I loved her. We've never
          dated! I met her twice." She is now on the verge of
          suicide, obsessed with him, and he is hurt because it
          wasn't his fault. It was her evil eye!

          Why is Jesus so insistent, so commanding, that this
          evil thing be plucked out, ended, and cast away?
          Because He knows the horrible darkness and confusion
          that floods in. Everything you do will be tainted with
          evil. You will not be able to hear God's Word. The
          light you'll think is in you will be darkness. Horribly
          evil thoughts will enter your mind. You will become
          capable of lying, cheating, and conniving  calling
          evil good and becoming perverted in all your ways! You
          say, "Yes there is something overpowering my eyes. I do
          have my eye on someone or something. But I can't stop 
          I can't let go." Jesus did not say it would be easy,
          but that it was possible. "...It is better for thee to
          enter into life halt or maimed, rather than... to be
          cast into everlasting fire" (Matthew 18:8). It may mean
          you end up broken-hearted or emotionally lame. But it
          is either that or hell! Yes, it may be like dying.
          Something will die in you, but it has to go or it will
          damn your soul.

          I read a sermon by a famous preacher here in New York
          given in an uptown cathedral. He said, "Don't suppress
          those deep feelings. Let go! Give yourself over to it,
          otherwise you'll destroy your personality." That
          preacher is going to face an army of damned souls in
          hell who won't let him rest for all eternity for lying
          to them!

          Jesus said, "Pluck it out  cast it from you!"

          ---
          Used with permission granted by World Challenge, P. O.
          Box 260, Lindale, TX 75771 USA.

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