A SINGLE EYE
In the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, "Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" So David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her uncleanness.)Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am with child." II Samuel 11:1-5
It doesn't matter whether we're male or female, 25 or 95, rich or poor, we all know what it is to look out over the rooftops and see something we want.
"If only I had that, my life would be fulfilled."
There is something off to the side of our path that grabs our attention and feeds our fantasy, something we covet, something we lust after, a person who seems to understand us so much better than our mate, a compromising financial opportunity, even something that looks like a spiritual adventure ... though we can see that it goes way off on a tangent.
The fact that we can be so easily distracted is a symptom of an inner vacuum ... a sign that the God who was once our everything is no longer the life of our inmost being.
If God had been the life of David's inmost being that day as he gazed at the beauty of Bathsheba, an alarm would have gone off in his heart and he would have pulled out the offending eye, cut off the offending hand.
Perhaps you're saying, "Oh well, David sinned, but he was forgiven. And even this sin was made to serve the purpose of God. Didn't David give us the 51st Psalm out of the agony of his repentance? Didn't Bathsheba later become the mother of Solomon?"
Very well, but remember, a marriage was destroyed,
Bathsheba's husband Uriah was murdered by David.
David's kingdom and his house and his very life were scarred by war and strife from that point on.
All consequences of David looking out over the rooftops with an unsound eye.
But something greater than David has come ... the Son of David, the Messiah. And he teaches that there is no need for us to be bumbling through our lives, sidetracked by illusions which promise to fulfill and never do.
"Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is single, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light."
Luke 11:34-36
Jesus gives us this teaching about the eye as the lamp of the body because it is our responsibility to make sure our eye is single so that our body is full of light. How do we make our eye single?
1. Our eye will be single when, by the Spirit, we teach our eye to delight in God.
Eve's eye delighted in the forbidden fruit. They ate.... their eyes were open and the human eye has been delighting in vanity ever since. The way back into Paradise is to train the eye to delight in the one thing for which it was made above all others: the glory of God.
0 God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee.... to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.... Psalm 63
This is the testimony of a man who is training his eye to be single --- he's bringing it back to God and finding tremendous fulfillment in what he sees.
Blessed is the man.... his delight is in the law of the Lord.... Psalm 1
So, how do we train our eye to delight in God? By taking time to turn the eye toward God daily.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning;
I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Psalm 130
We turn our eyes toward the unseen glory of the unseen God. We look beyond the bread we eat and we see our Savior. We look beyond the cup we drink and we see his life poured out as blood. We see God because we train our eye at the beginning of the day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, to wait upon God and to delight in him above all things.
2. Our eye will be single when, by the Spirit, we teach our eye to see through illusion.
And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!" And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down." Mark 13:1-2
Those stones and those buildings looked so permanent. They were the glory of Israel - the pride of the nation. Look at this temple!
But the glory of the temple was illusion. Any eye which was trained to see reality could see that those stones would soon be lying in disarray. The temple would be in ruins. The city reduced to ash because the nation was already under judgment.
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! for it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'"
Matthew 4:8-10
Satan showed Jesus the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. What kind of glory? .... illusion. It looks like glory but it's nothing but dust.
And the glory we see, in the kingdoms of the world, in Bathsheba,
God help us to train our eyes to see through the illusion, whether it's a grandiose dream or a Cadillac commercial, and say to Satan,
"Begone Satan! You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."
3. We will have a single eye when, by the Spirit, we teach the eye to be responsible.
David's eye was irresponsible when he looked at Bathsheba, and kept looking. The servant who was given the one talent looked for a place to bury it with a shifty, irresponsible eye.
If I'm driving my car down the Boulevard and my eye scans every porch, watches the squirrels chasing each other around the trees, I'll soon be wrapped around one of those trees, because my eye is irresponsible. To be responsible is to watch the road.
When Peter asked the Lord,
"What about John? What's he going to do.... will he be crucified too?"
Jesus answered,
"If it is my will that he remains until I come, what is that to you? Follow me."
Don't be looking at everyone else's trip. Keep your eye on the road.
- You're not responsible for your wife's prayer life,
you're responsible for your prayer life.
- You're not responsible for your brother's lack of discipline,
you answer for your own discipline, or lack of it.
God help us to teach our eye to be responsible ... to keep our eye on the road.
Our eye will become single when, by the Spirit, we teach our eye to see with mercy.
And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."… When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
The whole 9th chapter of Matthew is a study in how Jesus saw with an eye of mercy, and how he calls us to do the same.
"Go, learn what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'"
If David had looked at Bathsheba with an eye of mercy he would have looked away and there would have been no adultery that day.
We can look at our boss,
our employee, our mate, our child,
our parent, with an astute penetrating eye.
We can see every flaw. How often we pride ourselves on our penetrating eye, which can see through people to their flaws. But a penetrating eye is not single. It does not fill our body with light but with darkness.
What a difference it makes when we see our wife, our husband, our child, our parent, our enemy, our roommate, our boss, with an eye of mercy.
- When a mercy eye sees a flaw in someone, it doesn't criticize .... it intercedes.
- When a mercy eye sees a need, it doesn't turn and walk away .... it stops to help.
- When a mercy eye sees injustice and evil, it brings it to the cross.... it overcomes evil
with good.
"Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light."
Luke 11:34-36
It is possible for our body to be full of light, having no part dark, wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives us light.
It is possible for us to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.
God help us, by his Spirit, and by the blood of the Lamb, to teach our eye to be single, that our body may be full of light now and forever.