Adultery and Greed

“…….having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin……having a heart trained in greed,…” 2 Peter 2:14

Reading in 2 Peter this week, I was struck quite hard by verse 14 in the second chapter of this short book of the bible.  The context of this verse from 2 Peter is Peter’s discussion regarding false prophets and teachers.  There is a long list of characteristics of these false prophets and teachers given in 2 Peter.  But this one really jumps out for us today.  In it we see the core of biblical belief, the gospel, and the heart of Christianity.  Before proceeding, please read 2 Peter chapter 2 and 3 so that it will be fresh in your mind, while we look more deeply at this snippet from verse 14 in depth.

First we must begin by noting that when we read of false prophets and teachers, we usually think of a cult leader, or a pastor that is teaching incorrect doctrine, etc.  And certainly that is one of the things this book is addressing.   But on another level, anyone can be a true or a false prophet or teacher.  All of us affect the people around us.  We affect them with our words, with our actions, with how we live our life.  We are all teachers and prophets in the sense that our life affects everyone around us to some degree, for good or for bad.  Whether we are leading or teaching in a church in some capacity, or not, we all need to be concerned with the strong message in this book of the bible.

Looking at the two traits singled out above, we see encapsulated the entirety of the biblical message.  “Eyes full of adultery” hits me like a ton of bricks.  I can barely look at a beautiful woman without lusting after her in some way.  It is my natural reaction, and I have been this way my entire life.  “A heart trained in greed” hits me just as hard.  To this day I constantly struggle to share, to give, to be charitable, to not be greedy.  I am even a greedy driver, always wanting to get in front of the driver ahead of me.  I was born greedy.  I, me, and mine were probably some of my first words, right along with no.  While I see all of the traits in Peter’s list in my life to some degree, I really see these two.  They seem to be behind all of the struggles I face daily.  So am I doomed?  Am I a false prophet and teacher?  At this point, God has gotten my attention.

Starting with “eyes full of adultery”, on face value it simply refers to lusting after every attractive woman we see.  And this is certainly a sin that must be dealt with whenever we face it.  But there is a second level to this verse as well, that is even more profound.  Throughout the Old Testament, God refers to Israel’s wandering from Him as adultery.  In this sense, adultery refers to our looking to anything other than God for our significance, for our identity, for our happiness, etc.  It refers to committing adultery against God, and is idolatry.  It refers to sin.  Sin of any kind.  When we look at a woman, a car, a house, a career, a better job, money, sex, drugs, power, good works, perfect church attendance, a better body, etc., etc., etc.-basically anything in the world, and think that if we had that, then we would be happy, be somebody, be significant, etc., then we have committed adultery against God our creator and that thing is an idol in our life.  We all have a hole in our souls that we all are trying to fill.  When we set our eyes on anything other than God to fill this hole in our life, we have eyes full of adultery.  It goes way beyond lusting after an attractive woman.

This first snippet of verse 14 addresses our relationship with God.  First and foremost, we are to love God above all other things.  He is our life.  He is the only one who can fill the void we feel.  He is the only one who can satisfy our desire, our hunger, our thirst.  He is the only one who can permanently quench the deep longing and desire that we all are born with.  When they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, he replied that it was to love God.  To desire God.  To have eyes for God first and foremost in our life.  If we have set our eyes on anything else to fill the void in our life, to make us whole, to give us significance, to bring meaning to our life, to be our source of identity, security, etc., we have eyes full of adultery.

Looking at “a heart trained in greed”, the first thing we notice is that we can train our hearts.  While we are all born with sinful hearts and desires, the good news is that we can do something about it.  If our hearts can be trained in greed, then that means they can also be trained to love others, to care for them, and to be giving instead of greedy.  This is very encouraging.  It means there is hope.  If we want to compete in sports, we train for that sport.  If we want to play music, we train on a musical instrument.  If we want to become a doctor, we train in medicine.  And if we want to be charitable, we are to train our hearts in giving.  We take advantage of every chance we get to be giving, helpful, merciful, to share with others, etc.  By doing so, we train our hearts not in greed but in loving others.  And this speaks to the second of the greatest commandments, which is to love others as we love ourselves.  To value and care for those around us.  To share with those around us.  In these two tiny pieces of a verse we see the summation of biblical Christianity, to love God and to love others.  To turn from idols to God and to turn from selfishness to loving others.  Our eyes and our heart.  So how do we see the gospel in this snippet?

Our eyes are to be set on God.  Seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness.  Believing in God and believing also in the Son.  God is to be our life.  We are to look to Him and only Him for our life, our salvation, our hope.  If we are looking to anything else, it is adultery (and idolatry), and we must repent.  The eyes represent our relationship to God and repenting from sin.  Eyes full of adultery are seen most clearly in the “bucket list” way of life so popular today.  It is grabbing all of the gusto we can, because we only go around once according to the old beer commercial that many of us grew up hearing.  It is thinking that this world can make us happy, this woman can make us happy, this car or this career or this amount of money or whatever can fulfill us in this life.  And the jury is in…..they cannot.  There is nothing in this world that can fill this void.  Nothing.  Everything has been tried, and everyone agrees that everything they tried did not fill the void. Even winning the Superbowl is not enough.  The only thing that can fill the void we all have is a relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ.  All other things, including religion of any kind, leaves us wanting for more, disappointed, disillusioned, depressed, and exhausted.  It is never enough.

Secondly, our heart must be trained in loving others – in doing good, in charity, in giving, in caring for others out of our love and God’s love for them.  While the first snippet refers to our relationship with God, this refers to our relationship with others.  Our natural born tendency is to be greedy and to think only of ourselves.  Parents spend an enormous amount of time teaching their children to share, primarily because we are all born greedy.  There is a false charity that we often fall into that is a charity we perform to make ourselves feel good.  Psychiatrists have conducted in-depth studies and have proven that the primary reason that most people do acts of kindness is to make themselves feel good about themselves. It tricks us into feeling better about ourselves.  This is apparently a scientifically proven fact now.  To do charity in a biblical way is to do it out of love for others, not out of love for ourselves.  That is why Jesus said to “love” others, not “give” to others or serve others, etc., but to love them. Interesting.

Dr. Henry Cloud (occasional preacher at Willow Creek and author of many books) often asks his patients a question.  He asks them if he gave them a shotgun and told them to shoot him, why would they not do it?  If they answer that it is wrong, or that life is sacred, it is against the law, or any answer like that, he tells them that is not enough.  That given the right circumstances, they would shoot him, if that is the reason they have for not doing it.  But if they say because it would hurt him, or because they care about him, or an answer along those lines, then they have answered correctly.  We all know that smoking is bad for us, yet many of us continue to choose to smoke.  We all know that eating certain foods is bad for us, yet many of us continue to eat poorly.  It is not enough for something to be wrong.  But when we care about someone, when we love someone, we would shoot ourselves before we would shoot them.  When we give because it is the right thing to do, we are giving to ourselves.  This is typified in our day by the “to do list” life. It is being a do-gooder to make ourselves feel worthy, to feel good, to feel approved by ourselves, by others and by God.  Only when we give out of love and caring for others are we truly giving in the biblical sense of the word.  We must train our hearts to love others.  And to do so we must repent of the dead works of giving for the wrong reason, namely repent of doing it because it is the right thing to do.  We must give out of love.  By loving others as we love ourselves, essentially putting ourselves in their shoes, which is the second greatest commandment according to Jesus, we are able to do this.

The gospel, simply stated, is to repent and to believe.  It is that simple.  Repent of sin, repent of dead works, believe in God, and believe in his Son.  That is the essence of the gospel.  Everything else for salvation has been done.  We see how the repent part of the gospel is in the two snippets from verse 14, repent from sin (eyes full of adultery) and repent from dead works (hearts trained in greed), but where is the ‘believe’ part of the gospel to be found?

In order to truly repent from sin and dead works, we must be born again.  It is the only way.  There is no other way to accomplish it.  And that is where belief in God and belief in His Son comes in.  It causes the new birth that enables us to actually love God and love others.  Until we have been born again, all efforts to love God and love others is in reality self-serving.  It often elevates itself to religion, but it is still ultimately driven by a desire to feel good about ourselves.  To earn our way to heaven so to speak.  Until the new birth occurs and the Holy Spirit moves into our lives, we are not capable of truly loving God and loving others.  Until we accept the fact that in the cross it has been done, that it is finished, that Jesus did everything necessary for us to feel good about ourselves, to be accepted by God, to gain entry into heaven, we cannot truly love God and others, because the desire for acceptance by God, ourselves, and others is so strong that we cannot break free from it.  Only the new birth sets us free.  And the only way to gain the new birth is to believe in God and believe in Jesus.  That is it, it is that simple.  There is no other name given in heaven or on earth by which men can be saved, but the name of Jesus.  What is he saving us from?  Among many things, he is saving us from a life of “eyes filled with adultery” and “a heart trained in greed”.  Turn to Jesus now, ask him to set you free from adultery and greed.  Ask him to fill you with his love.  His love for God and his love for others.  And He will do it.

Lord God almighty, ruler of heaven and earth, I confess to You now that I have “eyes full of adultery” and “a heart trained in greed”.  I pray that you would deliver me from these two things.  That you would teach me to set my eyes on You and You alone to be my hope, my life, my main desire.  I pray that I would love You with all of my heart, soul and might, and that You would train my heart to love others as I love myself.  Teach me to care for others as I care for myself.  Set me free from these sinful ways.  I repent here and now from the sin of seeking my joy and significance in the things of this world.  And I repent here and now of doing things because they are the right thing to do rather than out of love and care for others.  I pray that I would set my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, and that I would love others as I love myself.  Help me to do this by the power of Your Holy Spirit who lives in me now.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen.