"Let
thine eyes look right on, and let thine
eyelids look straight before thee. Make level the path of
thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not
to the right hand nor to the left" (Proverbs
4:25-27).
"Therefore
let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us, looking unto
Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews
12:1,2).
There is
a goal; there is a prize. We have been called with high
purpose - a purpose so great that the Spirit of God has
considered it worthwhile to fill the Bible with the truth
of it and with the continuous urge in relation to it. For
the Bible from beginning to end has to do with a course
in relation to a goal, an end, a prize: it is just
brimful of Divine speaking concerning Divine purpose, a
very great purpose. We find this, of course, in a very
strong way in this letter to the Hebrews, with its
insistent call - "Let us go on". Moreover it
gives us the great ground of confidence that the end can
be reached, the goal attained, the prize received, the
purpose accomplished, in that Christ has got there, Jesus
has already gone this way and is there, and He has gone
the whole way, the same way as you and as all those who
are called according to His purpose are called to go. He
has taken our level, accepted all that we have to know or
may know on the course, and has gone through to the end.
The fact is stated that He is there, and His being there
is a tremendous triumph, for it is the assurance that we
can be there also.
"Looking
unto Jesus". More correctly that would be stated
"looking off unto Jesus". We are coming to that
again in a moment, but there is a ground of confidence.
We can have assurance about this matter of attaining. One
illustration of this is given in this letter to the
Hebrews. It is as though the writer saw a ship out on the
sea, being grievously battered and thrown about by the
storm, in the grip of the wind and the current, and then,
if it were possible, one brave representative taking the
anchor on a long chain and dropping it within the quiet,
peaceful harbour, leaving it there for the ship to pull
on, in the sure knowledge that it will come in because it
has a vital link with something already there. That is
the picture the Apostle presents of this matter. We have
this confidence, this hope, "as an anchor of the
soul, a hope both sure and stedfast and entering into
that which is within the veil" (Heb. 6:19).
There is
confidence to be had, but there is also - and this is
kept continually in view throughout both Old and New
Testaments - there is also the possibility of failing, of
falling short, of missing the mark. Illustrations are
given of this. The possibility is always there - not of
losing our salvation, that is not the point - but of
failing to attain to the full purpose of God in our
salvation.
THE PERILS OF WRONG WAYS OF
LOOKING
This
possibility of failure and missing the mark, of coming
short, is related to our looking. It seems to me that it
is all summed up in that way - looking. This matter of
looking, therefore, is very important. It depends
entirely upon where our eyes are and where they are kept.
In the Word of God there are many directions in which
people are warned against looking, because of the hazards
to the whole progress and course of things toward the
goal; the hazards of a wrong look, of a false direction,
of the eyes getting off the mark.
The Backward Look
There is
the one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back,
and is therefore not fit for the kingdom (Luke 9:62).
That is the backward look. It is the look which Israel
took in the wilderness. "They turned again and
tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel"
(Psa. 78:41). They looked back and spoiled their furrow,
they spoiled their whole course. They failed to enter in
simply because they looked in the wrong direction, that
is, they looked back.
You know
that that was one of the troubles in New Testament times.
The letter to the Galatians was written because of that
peril. They were beginning to look back. There was a
voice from behind; the voice of the Judaizers was calling
them from behind: 'Come back' - not to the world, not to
ungodliness, not to forsake Christ; but to come back to a
religious life which was less than that fullness of
Christ to which they had been called; to a religious life
which was not a spiritual life. They were in danger of
looking back. They had indeed already half looked back
and had come to a standstill. They had been going on, but
now they had stopped going on, and the question was -
would they continue to go on or would they go back? That
letter was written to induce a going on. This letter to
the Hebrews was written for the same purpose. The peril
of a backward look is always there, in some way or
another.
Looking Around
And then
we are told of some people who looked around when they
were commanded not to look around. "Look not around
thee" (Isaiah 41:10, margin). I think that is what
Peter did. When he was beginning to walk on the water he
took his eyes off the Lord and looked around and he went
down (Matthew 14:28-31). His eyes changed their direction
and he began to look around. "WHEN HE SAW the
wind" (verse 30). That is what Israel did when the
spies went out and came back with their wrong report.
They looked around - walled cities, giants, all kinds of
difficulties. They looked around, they got their eyes off
the Lord. Only two of them kept their eyes in the right
direction and they went through eventually to the end.
"Look not around". That is, do not allow
circumstances so to lay hold of your vision and to fasten
upon your outlook that they control your movement.
"Let thine eyes look right on" - not around.
The Too-Near Look
Then
there were some people to whom Paul spoke: he told them
that their look was much too near. He said, 'You only see
what is immediately before your eyes, your vision is
merely of things near you, these are the things that
influence you'. Too short a range of vision leads to your
life becoming smaller than the Lord would have it; you
become far too easily satisfied and contented in the
realm of the things of the Lord; you have a small, narrow
horizon - you are not looking right on. Things near -
that may apply in different ways. The things that are
near are always the things that are most likely to upset
us, to limit us, to disconcert us. We do become so
occupied with the thing that is nearest. When we are
right up against a situation and something is right up
against us, we are in such danger of thinking that is
all, that is everything, that we forget we have
negotiated many such an obstacle before which we thought
was going to be the end of everything for us. We learn
our lesson so slowly. Here is another thing right at
hand, right before our eyes; another mountain, another
hedge, another real difficulty; and again we think -
'This is going to spoil everything, this is going to be
the end of everything'. All we see is the thing near at
hand.
But to
look right on means surely to say this - 'Yes, this is a
difficulty, but there is another side to it, it is not
going to be the end'. It is one of the things that is
included in 'laying aside every weight and the sin which
doth so easily beset'. What is "the sin which doth
so easily beset"? It is this, that the big
difficulty of today blots out tomorrow, seems to get
right in the way of any future at all. That is the easily
besetting sin. Do not have too near a view, do not have
too small an horizon. "Let thine eyes look right
on". There is something very much more than the
difficulty of the day, the very present thing, the near
thing. The Lord will teach us as we go on that we can
reckon on very much more than the things which are up
against us now. We shall go on and leave them behind. Do
not let us take them as the limit. Whatever they are,
they are not the end.
The Selfish Look
Again
the Apostle said, speaking to some believers,
"...not looking each of you to his own things, but
each of you also to the things of others" (Phil.
2:4). What did he mean by that? Here, surely, is the
selfish look. I think perhaps he meant this, amongst
other things: 'Do not be always affected in your lives by
how things touch you, whether you stand to gain or lose
by this or that; do not all the time be looking at
everything in the light of how it affects you'. "Not
looking each of you to his own things". That is the
wrong kind of looking, the wrong direction. It will limit
us, and make us small and self-centred.
The Inward Look
And how much the Apostle had to write
about another kind of looking, the inward look. A very
great deal of his writing was with the object of getting
people to stop looking inside. I think there is nothing
more calculated to arrest progress than looking inside.
What are we looking for inside, at any rate? Well, of
course, we are looking to find something that will
satisfy the Lord and give us encouragement, make us feel
good, and we never find it. There is nothing more
discouraging than this looking inside. It is the wrong
kind of looking.
THE SALVATION OF LOOKING UNTO
JESUS
It is
clear, then, that much is dependent upon our looking, and
the Apostle was right when, after writing this long
letter so fully bringing into view the great object -
partnership with Christ - and urging to go on, he summed
it all up in this fragment: "Looking off unto Jesus
the author and perfecter of our faith". Looking away
from the things behind, looking away from those around,
looking off from the self-matters altogether, looking
beyond the things that are so near, obsessing us now;
looking off from ourselves unto Jesus. This is a theme
touched upon in our recent book, Pioneers of the Heavenly Way. "He
looked for the city" (Heb. 11:10); 'They looked for
a country' (Heb. 11:14). How much was bound up with the
look! How they had to battle with this matter of where
the eyes wanted to rest, a too early satisfaction of the
eyes, a wrong satisfaction of the eyes, a substitute for
what God was after. But the Lord was constantly drawing
their eyes away from lesser things, causing them to look
and look, and that look led them on. As we said in the
book (page 36), they thought from time to
time that now they had found it - but they found that it
was not so. The eyes of their heart were not satisfied
and they had to move on a bit further. The look kept them
on the move. It was a look which was heavenly and not
earthly.
Now the
passage from Proverbs that we have placed at the head of
this article says this - "Let thine eyes look right
on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Make
level the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be
established (ordered aright)". There is a great deal
packed into that, but it just means this: Get God's
purpose clearly and fully in view - nothing less, nothing
other - and adjust the whole of your life to it; adjust
your life to the ultimate.
KEEP GOD'S END IN VIEW
One of
our words recently to a friend in baptism was the word
'eternal'. I pondered it during the day before passing it
on. It took hold of me in this very connection. "Our
light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us
more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at
the things which are not seen: for the things which are
seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are
eternal" (2 Cor. 4:17,18). The eternal is kept in
view, and life is adjusted in every way to God's end. How
busy the enemy is to circumvent the onward movement and
the final attainment, by getting us entangled and
compromised in this earth, somehow to slip in something
that will be a check, an arrest, a hold-up. Oh, the
spiritual tragedies all around by some foolish
relationship, some entanglement, some consideration of
convenience, some pandering to the satisfaction of the
flesh, something somehow slipped in by the enemy; and
there it is - you just cannot go right on to God's end.
Something is holding you back, some relationship is
keeping you tied up, something has come in.
Now this
word is - adjust everything to the end, have all your
affairs in life brought into line with God's end. When
you are considering a relationship, have God's end in
view. When you are considering the next step in your
life, have God's end in view. When you are deciding where
you are going to live and do your work, have God's end in
view. When you are deciding what your business is going
to be, have God's end in view. Everything brought into
line - that is the meaning of this "Make level the
path of thy feet" or "Weigh carefully the path
of thy feet". We have to say to ourselves, 'Now
then, this is an opportunity, a prospect, that seems to
hold a lot of good; but first of all, what is this going
to mean for the Lord, how does this relate to the full
end of God?' Nothing less than that must weigh with us.
"Let thine eyes look right on" - not just at
this thing, not even at what it seems to promise, but
right on. How does it relate to the end? In all things,
look beyond; see what is the relation to the full end of
God; and adjust accordingly. Get the vision, and adjust
life as far as possible in relation to it. "Weigh
carefully the paths of thy feet and order them aright.
Turn not to the right hand nor to the left".
"Let thine eyes look right on".
Some of
you may find yourselves in spheres and conditions where
perhaps you will have many a temptation to accept
something less, where it seems impossible to have all
that you would like to have, where it seems that God's
full purpose cannot be realized: therefore you will
settle down to something less and other. You may meet all
kinds of things to divert you from the course of the
on-high calling. The word to you is: "Let thine eyes
look right on". Remember your Lord, offered the
kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof: He refused
them and looked right on. Yes, He was offered an easy way
out, a way out of the Cross; but no, He let His eyes look
right on, He set His face as a flint. His eyes looked
right on, and here it is recorded, as we read in the next
part of the verse from Hebrews: "Looking off unto
Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the
joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God". He set His eyes on God's end. May we have
grace to do the same.
Originally published in "A Witness and A Testimony" Magazine, Jul-Aug 1954, Vol. 32-4. This version taken from "The Work
of the Ministry" - Volume 3, 1964.