He claimed to have grown up in wonderful home with two very dedicated and loving parents. Throughout his childhood he shared his parents' affection with his four brothers and two sisters. Together, they were the focus of his parents' lives. He had good parents. His parents didn't drink or smoke or gamble. His parents never physically abused their children or fought with each other. They made sure that the entire family attended Sunday school and church every week. By every measure it is fair to say he grew up in a fine, solid Christian home.
But unfortunately, everything changed for Ted at the age ofthirteen. One day he was in a grocery store and noticed a colorful lingerie catalogue sitting toward the front of the magazine rack. He picked it up. As he flipped through the dozens of airbrushed images, a sense of excitement washed over him. He'd never seen anything like that before! Once the initial shame wore off, he found himself with an insatiable hunger for more.
Several months later, Ted was walking home from school and noticed some magazines of a more explicit nature laying in a trash can near his home. Though he knew he shouldn't, he picked them up and began reading them. As he flipped through the lusty pages, adrenaline surged through his body. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn't stop himself. Ted was beginning to develop an addiction.
With time he graduated to hardcore pornography, the kind that depicts violence. He'd spend hours spinning one fantasy after another in his mind. Often he'd put himself in the middle of the violent scenes the magazines depicted. It seemed that each new experience catapulted him to higher and higher levels of stimulation. Somehow deep down, he knew he would never be satisfied by what he had previously seen or experienced. Over time, Ted Bundy's addiction took on a life of its own until it destroyed his life. He was accused of murdering twenty-eight women with acts too horrible to describe.
In 1989, just hours before his execution, he granted a final interview to James Dobson of Focus on the Family. In that interview Bundy said, "Once you become addicted to [pornography] you look for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder and gives you a greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far-- [you reach] that jumping off point where you begin to think maybe actually doing it will give you that which is just beyond reading about it and looking at it." Though never denying personal responsibility for his actions, Bundy believed that the images he happened across at age thirteen forever and irrevocably changed his life.
We are pounded with visual images thousands of times a day.
If that kind of thing could happen in the 80s, it could certainly happen today. We are a visual people living in a visually lethal culture. Every day we are bombarded by thousands of carefully crafted, seductive, airbrushed advertisements that distort reality and entice us into a life of lust. Every day the television and internet provide an unlimited, all-you-can-see smorgasbord of images for our eyes to feast upon. Every day in the workplace, we interact with members of the opposite sex and are confronted with a broad range of visual temptations and ethical dilemmas.
Visual temptation lurks around every corner. It sells everything from candy to sin. And thanks to advancements in computer and print technology, we are now more vulnerable to visual temptation than ever before in history of world! In Paul's day you had to physically leave your home and walk to the temples to be tempted. In our day you just have to turn on the television or internet or pick up a magazine.
As Christians, we don't have a choice anymore. We need to openly discuss the threat that our visually-lethal culture poses to our children, our marriages, our spiritual lives, and to our wives and daughters. The once forbidden subjects of visual temptation, lust, pornography and sexual sin have to be addressed, albeit with sensitivity, in places like this and in homes like yours.
In Matthew 5:27-30 (NIV) Jesus delivers one of his most powerful teachings. "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." There are several things that we can learn from this passage.
In God's eyes, the lustful look or thought is the same as adultery.
In Matthew 5:27 (NIV) Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
There is a story about two Buddhist monks who were walking in a drenching thunderstorm. As they traveled along, they came to a stream that was flooding over its banks. And there along the bank, they noticed a beautiful young Japanese woman. The woman wanted to get to the other side, but she was afraid of the currents. With characteristic Buddhist compassion one of the monks asked, "Can I help you?" The woman said, "I need to cross the stream." So the monk picked her up, put her on his shoulder, carried her through the water, and put her down on the other side. Afterward, he and his companion traveled on to the monastery. That night his companion confronted him, "I have a bone to pick with you. As Buddhist monks, we have taken vows not to look on a woman, much less touch her body. Back there by the river you did both." To this, the first monk said, "My brother, I put that woman down on the other side of the river. Why are you still carrying her [in your mind]?"
The people of Jesus' day had a conveniently narrow definition of sexual sin. By their definition adultery was confined only to actual acts of sexual immorality. So long as they kept their marriage vows, they assumed they had God's favor. They believed that lusting, fantasizing, and coveting another man's wife was okay! Though they were quick to point a finger of condemnation at those who committed adultery, they were mysteriously silent about the adulterous thoughts they were carrying around in their minds.
Does this sound like anything that happens today? So often we say to ourselves things like, "So what if I look at other women? It doesn't hurt anything! At best, lust is only a misdemeanor in God's eyes. At least I haven't acted out on those thoughts."
When I worked in the mailroom at Lincoln Christian College, I spent the summer forwarding mail. The students would get tons of junk mail. It was almost unbearable at times. Thankfully, the Post Office told me that I didn't need to forward bulk rate mail. So each day I'd sort through all the student mail and set aside all the bulk rate mail.
One day as I was writing addresses on the mail, a young man came in to chat. He immediately noticed that there were several lingerie catalogs laying in the bulk rate mail pile on the floor. "What are all these?" he asked. I explained that they couldn't be forwarded and that they'd be sent back. You can imagine how stunned I was when he reached down and grabbed several of the lingerie catalogs that had been sent to girls on campus. "Hey, what are you doing?" I asked him. And he didn't miss a beat. "I'm just taking these to look at them. It's alright. Don't worry about it. I'm married. I can handle these."
Is lust a petty misdemeanor, or a crime?
You know, we believe that adultery is the crime and that lust is a petty misdemeanor. When it comes to lust, we confidently tell ourselves and others, "I can handle it." We believe that adult-rated content is okay for us adults, but bad for our kids.
Jesus' words ring crystal clear. Adultery goes much deeper than one's physical actions. Adultery includes the heart. Any sexual act that is immoral in deed is also immoral in look and in thought. The lustful look and thought is just as destructive to the marriage relationship as is the final outward act of betrayal. Lust is the prelude, the first step down the path toward marital unfaithfulness. And in God's eyes, the first step of lust is every bit as serious as the final step of adultery. This is why Jesus says, in effect, that lusting is adultery of the heart.
Back in the 1960's, President Jimmy Carter was asked if he'd ever committed adultery. His answer reflected a right understanding of adultery. "I've looked at a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do and I have done it and God forgives me for it." Adultery is more than an act. Adultery includes lusting, fantasizing, visualizing, and rehearsing adulterous and immoral scenarios in our thoughts. Lust is the same as adultery in God's eyes.
All sexual sin begins with an affair of the eyes.
Our eyes leave us terribly vulnerable to sexual sin. For Adam and Eve, temptation came through their eyes. Genesis 3:6 (NIV) says, "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some (fruit) and ate it."
For King David, temptation came through his eyes. In 2 Samuel 11:2-5 (NIV) we read, "One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The main said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" Then David sent messengers to get her. Shecame to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
And let's not forget about the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4. Satan tried to tempt Jesus by showing him stones that looked like bread. Satan tried to tempt Jesus by showing him the magnificent temple in Jerusalem. Satan tried to tempt Jesus by taking him to a very high mountaintop to show him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
The lesson that we learn from David is that his downfall began with a look, with something he saw. The lesson we learn from Adam and Eve is that temptation enters our heart through our eyes. The lesson that we learn from Satan is that visual temptation is one of his primary modes of operation. And the lesson that we learn from Jesus is that visual temptations can be overcome.
Visual temptations are powerful passageways to our hearts.
One of the most important things we can ever learn is that our eyes are the passageways through which temptation enters our hearts. Our eyes are the passageways through which temptation enters our hearts! It is through our eyes that our hearts become enticed into committing sin. What we look upon with our eyes ultimately shapes who we are and what we do.
Advertisers know how compelling and persuasive images are, especially to children. Every year they spend billions of dollars to influence our decisions. They know that images affect our attitudes and thinking. They know that images affect our behavior and choices. They know how susceptible we are to advertising and that's why they do it!
It is foolish to think that what we see on television or in magazines doesn't affect us. How can we be so susceptible and moldable to the images of advertising and yet at the same time be immune to the images of pornography? It's simple. We can't.
Clinical research has shown that whenever we view pornographic images, they are chemically etched in our brain tissue. As one scientist said, "Human memory is formed in part by the release of the chemical epinephrine which, upon emotional arousal, leaves behind an imprint on the brain that lasts well into adulthood." What we see physically and chemically alters our minds.
In Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV) Jesus says, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." Proverbs 23:7 (NASB) says, "For as he thinks within himself, so he is."
Pornography is pervasive.
Did you know that there are an estimated one hundred fifty thousand commercial pornography sites on the internet, with an estimated two hundred new sites being added every day? There are more hardcore pornography outlets (fifteen to twenty thousand)in this country than there are McDonald's restaurants (nine thousand). More families receive a copy of Playboy magazine than receive Time or Newsweek combined. AUSA Today Weekend survey revealed that ninety-six percent of Americans are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about sex on television. The American Family Association revealed that eighty-nine percent of all intimate encounters depicted on prime-time television are depicted outside of marriage.
If we keep this stuff before our eyes, what will become of our minds? Adultery always begins with an affair of the eyes. Adultery always begins with the lustful look. Lust is every bit as serious as adultery and God looks at the two sins in the same way.
There is so much more that could be said on this subject. Let's hit some application. First, the lustful look or thought is the same as adultery in God's eyes. Second, adultery always begins with an affair of the eyes, with the lustful look.
Radical measures must be taken to eradicate lust from our hearts.
James 1:14 (NIV) says, "Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
It makes sense that the best way to avoid sin is to cut temptation off at its source. In Matthew 5:29-30 (NIV) Jesus says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."
In these verses Jesus is not suggesting that we literally mutilate our bodies. However, everything he suggests is literally true. We must take immediate and drastic action to eradicate sin from our hearts. We cannot afford to keep on looking, to keep on lusting, or to keep on sinning. We must engage in a ruthless, moral self-denial to prevent sin from taking root. Whatever pleasure and excitement we derive from lusting is not worth the spiritual fallout that we experience in isolation from God's presence.
Here are some practical things we can do to attain visual purity in a visually-lethal culture.
We need to discover the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
If you are struggling with sexual sin, the absolute worst thing you can do is to retreat into deeper levels of shame and guilt. When Adam and Eve gave into visual temptation, they hid from God. Hiding from God accomplishes Satan's purposes, not God's. Things are not going to get better so long as you keep hiding in the darkness.
Find someone you can trust and confess your sins. Experience God's forgiveness. This kind of sin is rarely, if ever, conquered alone. Men, you can sit down with any elder of this church or myself and trust that your confession will be heard, understood, forgiven, and kept confidential. God is ready to forgive you. Move out of hiding into accountability and forgiveness.
We need to remove as much visual temptation from our sight as possible.
In Psalm 101:2-3 (NIV) the psalmist makes a pledge to God. "I will walk in my house with a blameless heart. I will set before my eyes no vile thing." In Job 31:1 (NIV), Job says, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl."
To parents-
Your children's eyes are precious and their eyes are very impressionable. Don't leave your kids in front of the internet alone. Put the computer out in the family room where you can see everything your children are doing. Don't leave your children unattended in front of the television set. Instead, watch television together. Cancel all the sexually explicit magazines and catalogues you receive in the mail. Remember, seventy percent of all pornography ends up in the hands of children! Set an example of visual purity for your children. Their little eyes are always watching. I know a Bible College professor who said he will not go near a magazine rack without his wife next to him.
To teenagers and high school students-
You will be tempted to lust and compromise your visual purity every day. Your friends at school and college don't care what you see. They will provide you with materials that no one should ever look at. Your parents won't be around to guard your visual purity. Tell your parents that no software will guard your eyes from the filth on the internet or television. Never forget that the images you see on television and cable will be imprinted on your mind for the rest of your life. Don't fill your mind with trash.
To ladies-
You are responsible for the visual purity of those around you. It is one thing to make yourself attractive, but it's another thing to dress seductively. Don't become a stumbling block to those seeking freedom from sin. Keep in mind that there are movies your boyfriend or husband can't watch with you.
To men-
Take leadership in your own life and in your family. Make a covenant with your eyes to avoid lust, always. Purge your home of sexually explicit materials. Burn your magazines. Format your hard drive. Cancel your subscriptions. Turn off the television. Terminate the cable service. Remove any and all visual temptation from your sight. Get up and walk out of the theater or your living room if necessary. Avoid places where you will be tempted into lust or adultery. Avoid women who dress seductively. Refocus your mind on wholesome thoughts. Pray, read scripture, talk to your wife, exercise, and find accountability in someone you trust.
Billy Graham used to say, "The first look may be beyond my control, but the second look or prolonged look is within my control." Lastly, don't be afraid to get some help. Don't cower in fear. In Jesus Christ, you can find the power you need to gain victory in your life.
I want to close with a quote from James Dobson's interview with Ted Bundy.
"I wasn't some guy hanging out in a park, or a bum. I wasn't a pervert in the sense that people look at somebody and say, 'I know there's something wrong with him.' I was a normal person. I had good friends. I led a normal life, except for this one, small but very potent and destructive segment that I kept very secret and close to myself. Those of us who have been so influenced by violence in the media, particularly pornographic violence, are not some kind of inherent monsters. We are your sons and husbands. We grew up in regular families. Pornography can reach in and snatch a kid out of any house today. As diligent as my parents were, and they were diligent in protecting their children, and as good a Christian home as we had, there is no protection against the kinds of influences that are loose in a society that tolerates pornography."