“EYES RIGHT” – Charles Spurgeon
“EYES RIGHT”
“Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you.” Proverbs 4:25.
INTRODUCTION
These words occur in a passage wherein the wise man exhorts us to take care of all parts of our nature, which he indicates by members of the body. “Keep your heart,” says he, “with all diligence. For out of it are the issues of life. Put away from you a disobedient mouth, and perverse lips put far from you. Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove your foot from evil.” It is clear that every part of our nature needs to be carefully watched, lest in any way it should become the cause of sin. Any one member or faculty is readily able to defile all the rest, and therefore, every part must be guarded with care. We have selected for our meditation the verse which deals with the eye. These windows of light need to be watched in their incomings, lest that which we take into our soul should be darkness rather than light. And they need to be watched in their outgoings, lest the glances of the eye should be full of iniquity, or should suggest foolish thoughts. Hence the wise man advises, “Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you.”
THE EYE AND ITS DUTY
Have eyes and use them. Using them, take care to use them honestly. Some persons are always as if they were asleep. They go through the world moping about, seeing nothing or seeing men as if they were trees, with a sight that is not sight but blindness. The shadows of this transient life impress them and that is all—they have never awakened yet to the true life and its solemn realities. They have never seen anything in very truth—for it is faith that sees, and of faith, they have none. That which is apart from faith is not visible to the soul, however clear it may be to the eye.
We have thousands around us who need to be startled out of that slumber in which they see the fabrics of their dreams and the unsubstantial fancies of the hour. They say, “We see,” but scales are on their eyes. I fear we have such in all our congregations, lulled to sleep even by the preacher’s tones, to whom the fact of coming to their accustomed seat and listening to the usual hymns tends rather to confirm them in a sluggard’s slumber than to stir their souls to action. O you Sluggards, may God awaken you by Divine Grace, lest He arouse you by the thunderbolts of His vengeance! It is time that your eyes began to look right on and your eyelids straight before you.
Many others are somewhat awake mentally but they are not looking right on, neither do their eyelids look straight before them. They are staring about them, star-gazing, wondering what will be seen next—always ready, like the Athenians, to hear and see some new thing. They move, it is true, but it is in a labyrinth which leads to nothing—in a circle which ends where it began. They toil and slave but it is all in the shadow land—of substantial work, they do nothing. An active idleness, a diligent laziness, is all that their life is made up of. For, as yet, they have no purpose—no purpose worth being the aim of an immortal soul. An arrow will never strike the mark if it travels in a zigzag direction. And the man whose life has no aim whatever, who pursues this, and then that, and then the other, what will he achieve? Are not many like “dumb driven cattle,” going, they know not where? They have never yet discovered that this life is a preface to a life of a more Divine mold. They do not regard the present as the lowly porch of the glorious edifice of the future. They have not thought that time is but the doorstep of eternity, a thing of small account, save that it is linked with the endless ages. And so they seek after this, and then after that, and then after the other. And always after that which is too poor, too trifling to be the object of a mind capable of fellowship with God. How many there are whose spirit is agitated by a mere nothing, resembling— “Ocean into tempest tossed, To float a feather or to drown a fly”!
To beings who lead such purposeless lives, we would address the words of the wise man, “Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you.” Have something to do and do it. Have something to live for and live for it. Get to know the right way and, knowing the right way, keep to it with full purpose of heart and concentration of faculty. O Man, see where you are going and go that way with your eyes open, resolutely marking every step as you take it. Look where you ought to look and then follow your eyes, which shall thus be useful outriders to your life and help to make your way safe and wise. When you have sent your eyes before you to make sure of the way, it will be safe to follow. Look before you leap and only leap when looking bids you do so.
THE STRAIGHT PATH AND THE WAY OF CHRIST
If a man is to let his eyes look right on and his eyelids straight before him, then he is to have a way, and that way is to be a straight way—and in that straight way, he is to persevere. You cannot see to the end of a crooked way. You can only see a small part of a way that twists and winds. Choose, then, a direct path which has an end which you dare think of and look upon. Some men’s lives are such that they dare not think of what the end of them must be. They would not long pursue their present track if they were forced to gaze into that dread abyss which is the only possible close of an evil course. The way of transgressors is hard in itself but it is hardest of all when we behold their dreadful end. “Surely you have set them in slippery places. You cast them down into destruction.”
You need to have a way and a straight way and a way whose end you dare contemplate or else you cannot carry out the advice of Solomon, “Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you.” Every wise man will conclude that the best way for a man is the way which God has made for him. He that made us knows what He made us for, and He knows by what means we may best arrive at that end. According to Divine teaching, as gracious as it is certain, we learn that the way of eternal life is Jesus Christ. Christ Himself says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” And he that would pursue life after a right fashion must look to Jesus and must continue looking unto Jesus—not only as the Author but as the Finisher of his faith. It shall be to him a golden rule of life, when he has chosen Christ to be his Way, to let his eyes look right on and his eyelids straight before him. He need not be afraid to contemplate the end of that way, for the end of the way of Christ is life and glory with Christ forever. “It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like He. For we shall see Him as He is.”
CHRIST, YOUR WAY, AND THE CHRISTIAN’S PURPOSE
A friend said to me the other day, “How happy are we to know that whatever happens to us in this life it is well!” “Yes,” I added, “and to know that if this life ends, it is equally well, or better.” Then we joined hands in common joy to think that we were equally ready for life or death and did not need five minutes’ anxiety as to whether it should be the one or the other. Brethren, when you are on the King’s Highway—that way which is a perfectly straight one—you may go ahead without fear and sing on the road.
With all my heart, I invite any who have never yet begun to live after a right fashion, to take Christ to be the way of life to them. And then I entreat them to let their eyes look straight on and their eyelids straight before them and to follow Jesus without giving a glance either to the right hand or to the left till it shall be said of them, even in glory, “These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes.”
I. LET CHRIST BE YOUR WAY
I shall make my earnest appeals to the heart and conscience by beginning with this first exhortation—LET CHRIST BE YOUR WAY. You that are young, let Him be your way from your youth. You that have up to now gone the wrong road until your hairs have grown gray in the service of iniquity, turn, I beseech you, and take to the way of salvation. May His Spirit turn you and you will be turned—then will Jesus become your way from henceforth.
If Christ is your way, you will begin first to seek to have Christ. “How shall I have Him?” says one. Do you desire Him? Will you accept Him? He is yours. The act of accepting Christ secures Christ to us. For the Father freely gives Him to all who freely accept Him. Some are troubled through ignorant and unbelieving fears and are saying, “I wish I could lay hold on Jesus! I wish I knew that Christ were mine!” Are you willing to have Him? Who made you willing? Do you desire Him? Who made you desire Him? Who but the Spirit of the Lord? Will you now take Jesus to be your Savior, to save you from your sin? Then depend on it, He is yours. There was never any difficulty with Him to give Himself to you. The difficulty was to bring you to receive Him. And now that you do receIve Him, remember this—“As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” Jesus Himself has said it, “Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.” And therefore, since you come, you shall never be cast out. Jesus has accepted you, for you have accepted Him.
But I pray that none of you will rest until you have Christ. Let your eyes look right on and your eyelids straight before you, till you find Him. Look nowhere else but to Him and after Him. Shut yourself up in your room—determine not to come out again until you have Him and it shall not be long before you find Him. Concentrating all your gaze upon the Crucified, light shall come from Him, causing the scales to fall from your eyes and you shall see Him, even you that could not see. And you shall cry in delight, “He is mine, He is mine.”
II. SET YOUR EYES ON HIM AS YOUR WAY
Following the text again, only working it a little differently, the second exhortation is, SET YOUR EYES ON HIM AS YOUR WAY. If Christ is your way and you follow Him to have Him, to know Him, to obey Him, to be like He, and to glorify Him, then set your eyes on Him as the way. Think of Him, consider Him, study Him and in all things regard Him as first and last to you.
First, that you may know the way of life, let your eyes be fixed on Him. Soul, are you in the dark? Kneel down and pray and look Christ-ward. Saint, are you bewildered? Go by the way of the Cross, the way of the Crucified, for that is the true and sure path.
Sinner, are you burdened? Would you be rid of your burden? Run Christ-ward. Any direction given you to go anywhere else will misdirect you. I say not to anyone I meet tonight, “Go to the wicket-gate.” Neither will I bid you look to any light within and run that way. My only direction is, “Go to Jesus.” You see that Cross and Him who bled thereon! Stand still and look that way and your burden shall fall from your shoulders. Where Jesus died, you shall live. Where Christ was wounded, you shall be healed. “Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you.” Know the road. You will never know it too well—the more you know it, the happier you will be in it. “To Christ!” “To Christ!” “To Christ!” That is the sole inscription upon every sign-post of the road to Heaven. Keep to the King’s Highway.
III. LOOK DISTINCTLY AND DIRECTLY TO CHRIST ALONE
But my time has almost expired and I have only to lay emphasis on one more matter. LET YOUR EYES DISTINCTLY AND DIRECTLY LOOK TO CHRIST ALONE. I have gone over this before, but I need to hammer at it again in order to clench the nail. Look not to any human guide but look to Christ Jesus alone. We have no faith in priests. But it is a very easy thing to fix your faith upon a minister and hear what he says and believe it because he says it. I charge you, believe nothing that I tell you if it cannot be supported by the Word of God. I am content to stand or to fall by this—“To the Law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, there is no light in them.” I will quote the authority of no other book, whoever may have composed it—no ancient book—let it belong even to the earliest days of the Church. This one inspired volume is the text-book of our religion. Follow Holy Scripture and you have an infallible chart.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one Apostle and High Priest of our profession—follow Him. Not even mother or father, or the brightest saint that ever lived must divide you from your perfect Guide. “Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you,” and hear the gracious words of Him who bought you with His blood as He cries, “Follow Me.”
Then, again, look to Christ directly and distinctly for yourself. I warn you against putting any trust in national religion, or in family and birthright godliness. A personal Christ must be laid hold of by a personal faith. You must yourself repent, yourself believe, yourself get a grip of Him and of none but Him. You must use your own eyes—“Let your eyes look right on, and let your eyelids look straight before you.”
Again—look not to any secondary aims. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. In seeking Christ make no bargain with gain or reputation. Be content to lose all gold and all honor if you may but win Christ. To follow religion for self would be a mean act of hypocrisy and to leave it for the same reason is equally vile. Let your eyes be fixed on following your Lord and as to any worldly consequences, bring your eyelids into use, keep them fast closed and go right on in implicit obedience to your Lord. Forget all things else when seeking Christ and when you have found Christ.
It is no ill thing for a man, when he is under concern of soul, to let his business and everything go till he finds his Savior. I urge no one to such a course but I have noticed many converts who have done this who have soon found rest. If a captain were busy about the comfort of his passengers in their cabins but all the while knew that there was a great leak in the ship and it would soon go down and to this he paid no heed whatever, you would say to him, “How foolish you are to mind the little and neglect the great!” But if he told the passengers, “Breakfast cannot be prepared with our usual care, for all hands are pumping or repairing the vessel,” you could not blame him when you knew that every man’s help was needed to save the ship from going down. In times of extreme danger, secondary things must give place to the main thing. If this house were to take fire, you would not stay to sing the last hymn, even if I gave it out.
May the Holy Spirit lead some of you to feel that you must be saved! You must be saved, and therefore you must put other things into a second place. Remember how Bunyan pictures the man running for his life—when his neighbors called to him to stop—he put his fingers in his ears and as he ran he shouted, “Eternal life! Eternal life! Eternal life!” That man was a wise man. Imitate him. If you have not found eternal life, run for it, with your “eyes right on and your eyelids straight before you.” And, lastly, take care that you continue gazing upon Christ until you have faith in Him. “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Go on hearing the Word of God till faith comes. Do you ask me how faith comes? It is the gift of God but it usually comes in a certain way. Thinking of Jesus and meditating upon Jesus, will breed faith in Jesus.
I was struck with what one said the other day of a certain preacher. The hearer was in deep concern of soul and the minister preached a very pretty sermon indeed, decorated abundantly with word-painting. I scarcely know any Brother who can paint so daintily as this good minister can. But this poor soul, under a sense of sin, said, “There was too much landscape, Sir. I did not want landscape. I wanted salvation.” Dear Friend, never crave word-painting when you attend a sermon. But crave Christ. You must have Christ to be your own by faith, or you are a lost man. When I was seeking the Savior I remember hearing a very good doctrinal sermon. But when it was over I longed to tell the minister that there was a poor lad there who wanted to know how he could be saved. How I wished he had given half a minute to that subject! Dr. Manton, who was usually a clear and full preacher of the Gospel, when he preached before the Lord Mayor, gave his lordship something a cut above the common citizens and so the poorer folk missed their portion. After he had done preaching his sermon, an aged woman cried, “Dr. Manton, I came here this morning under concern of soul, wanting a blessing and I have not got it, for I could not understand you.” The preacher meekly replied, “The Lord forgive me! I will not so offend again.” He had overlooked the poor and had thought mainly of my Lord Mayor. Special sermons before Mayors and Queens and assemblies are seldom worth a penny a thousand. The Gospel does not lend itself to show performances. I am not here to give you intellectual treats—my eyes look right on to your salvation. Oh that yours may look that way! Go after Christ, dear Friend. Seek after Christ with your whole heart and soul. Feel that the one thing you must have is to be reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Keep on with that cry, “None but Christ—none but Christ.” Make this your continual litany— “Give me Christ, or else I die; Give me Christ, or else I die.” Then you will soon find Him. “Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you,” and you shall see the Lord of Grace appearing to you through the mist and through the cloud—that same Savior who stands in the midst of us even now and cries, “Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God and there is none else.”