Okay, we're looking in our Bible
now at Luke chapter 11. And I want to bring the message
from what the Lord says here in verse 33, verse 34, 35, and
36. These few verses here. And I'm taking the title for
the message from what the Lord declares in verse 34. The light
of the body is the eye. Therefore when thine eye is single,
The whole body is full of light. When your eye is healthy and
single, it's full of light. But when thy eye is evil, thy
body is also full of darkness. If your eye is diseased and does
not work, your body is full of darkness. So the title of the
message is going to be a single eye or an evil eye. a single eye or an evil eye. We either have one or the other. We're born by nature with an
evil eye, a diseased eye, an eye that is blind, diseased and
dead in sin. We only have a single eye, a
healthy eye, that sees the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of
His grace, by the power of God. This is the single eye, a seeing
eye, which is always and only looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have a single eye, single-eyed
faith, Single-eyed faith looks only to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only object of saving
faith. Our Lord said, look unto Me and
be ye saved. I am God and there is none else. Saving faith always looks to
the Lord Jesus Christ. And I must add this. Alone. For all of salvation, saving
faith looks to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. For all saving
faith, He is the author and finisher of our faith. If we have a single
eye, the eye of faith is because He gave us life in Christ. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ was
and is the Master Teacher. using earthly objects to teach
spiritual truth, spiritual lesson. Plain, simple lesson to teach
profound and weighty truth. Such is the case in these verses
before us today. The Lord talks about, He says,
I am the door. If you would enter in to heaven's
glory, you must come by Me." The Lord talks about the sower
went forth to plant the seed, and we know that sower is the
Lord Jesus Christ who plants the seed of life. Now, look at
verse 33. Luke 11, verse 33, Christ is
the light, set upon the candlestick in this
world. Now, I believe verse 33, the
Lord is describing Himself, describing His ministry. No man, when he
lighted a candle, put it in a secret place, nor does he put it under
a bushel. He doesn't hide it, but he puts
it on a candlestick, that everyone may see the light. Now, when
you think of light, or you think of The sun, S-U-N, or the brilliant
light of any light that radiates from the sun, you must think
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world. Remember
in 1 John, it says that God is light, And in Him is no darkness
whatsoever. He is all light. The Lord Jesus
Christ is that light that's come into this dark world that He
might shine forth. And that's what we do in the
preaching of the Gospel. We hold up Christ, who is the
light, and we put Him on a candlestick, and we say, Here is salvation! Christ is the light! The Lord
Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to shine out the gospel
of God's grace to the guilty. In the forest of time, God sent
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law. God sent Him forth and then He
shows Him forth in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ as He
preaches salvation in Him. The Lord Jesus Christ was sent
by the Father to shine out the lost sinner that He is The only
way of salvation. And this is what He declared
unto us. Turn back to Luke chapter 4.
Remember this verse in our study from verse 18? Luke 4 verse 18,
"...the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor." To shine forth. To shine
forth. And he does that by the way of
preaching the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. He shines forth to the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance, to shine forth as the only deliverer to
the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind. You see,
he is light. By nature, we are blind. By nature, we have nothing but
an evil eye. And to set at liberty those that
are bruised, to preach or to set forth. The acceptable year
of the Lord. Liberty we have in Christ Jesus. He was sent by the Father to
shine out to lost sinners that He is the only way of salvation. There is salvation in no other.
Be sure you understand this. There is salvation in no other
than the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, and
the life. John 14, 6. He said, No man,
no man come to the Father but by and through Me. Neither is
there salvation in any other but the Lord Jesus Christ. In
John 8, 12, the Lord says this, I am the light of the world.
He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness. I'm the light
of the world. He that followeth me, his sheep
hear his voice and follow him. Those who follow me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." We have the
light of life. Salvation in Christ alone. Christ is that light set up in
this world, but men are so dead and so depraved that they cannot
see the light of life when it's right in front of their face.
So dead, so depraved, that light can be standing right in front
of them, and they see nothing but evil. Now, we've seen an
example of that in this chapter. Remember in Luke 11, verse 14? Here's an example of that. Here's
some men that had nothing but an evil eye. You see verse 14,
Luke 11, and he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb, and
it came to pass when the devil was gone out, the dumb man spake,
and the people wondered. But some of them said, now here's
the evil eye, he casted out devils through Beelzebub, the chief
of the devils. And others tempted him, sought
of him a sign from heaven. Show us a sign. Here is light
and life standing right before these men, and they said, you
are evil. Now why did they say that? They
had an evil eye. They had a dead heart. They were
blind. They were blinded by sin. Blinded
and dead in sin. You see, unless the Lord is pleased
to give us sight, to give us light, to give us light, He must
do so by His command, His power, His will. We read just a moment
ago, don't turn, let me just read it to you once again, remember?
We read in the beginning, in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, For
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, Go
all the way back to the creation. "...has shined in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of the Lord Jesus Christ." Now, the same way God commanded the
light to shine in the original creation, is the same way God
must command the light to shine when He makes us new creatures
in Christ Jesus. Mark it down. He must call us
out of darkness and make His light to shine within us. Now,
the Apostle Peter put it this way. He said, you are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.
1 Peter 2.9, that you should show forth the praises of Him
who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Now, the only reason that we
have a single eye Not an evil eye is because he's called us
out of darkness into his marvelous light. Peter put it that way,
and then Paul said this in Colossians 1 verse 13. Give me thanks unto
the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light, who had delivered us from the power of
darkness and had translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son. Now, who did that? How do you
get out of the kingdom of darkness and translate it into the kingdom
of righteousness and light? Life! Not by the will of man,
not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. Now, sadly, men By nature, because
of their sin, they love darkness rather than the light of truth
revealed in the gospel. Now, I've seen this and you have
too. Our Lord said this in John 3, 19. This is condemnation. Light is coming to the world.
Now that's Christ, isn't it? He is the light. Light is coming
to this world. And men loved darkness rather
than the light, because their deeds were evil. Everyone that
doeth evil hateth the light. John 3, 19. Neither cometh to
the light. Left alone we'll never see Christ
as all of salvation. Never. Because we're blind. By nature we have an evil eye.
Everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to
the light, lest his deed should be reproved. Now, the carnal
mind. Let's turn and read that. I quote
it all the time, but let's see if we can find it. Romans chapter
8. Turn there. Romans chapter 8,
verse 7. Romans 8, verse 7. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. Do you see that? It doesn't say
the carnal mind is at enmity, the carnal mind is enmity against
God. What is enmity? Deep-seated,
deep-rooted hatred. Look the word out. Against God,
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
be. So then, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. By the deeds of the flesh shall
no man be justified. The carnal mind receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness
unto him." Now there's another reference, you can turn with
me if you want to, you don't have to, I'll read it to you.
But Ephesians chapter 3 verse 18, if you want to make note
of this, It says in verse 17 in Ephesians 3, we'll begin there.
This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth
walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
having the understanding darkened. See, all we have by nature is
an evil eye. Being alienated from the life
of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. Now the reference there on the
word blindness is also rendered because of the hardness of their
heart. You see, by nature what we are, blind and dead, and we'll
never see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
unless God does something for us and in us. He must turn the
light on. He must shine in our hearts and
give us a single eye. A single eye always looks to
Christ for all of salvation. Now, here's a second thing I
want us to look at in verse 34 and verse 36. We'll put these
two verses together. Verse 34 and verse 36. The light
of the body is the eye. Therefore, when the eye is single
or fixed, The whole body also is full of light, full of Christ,
Christ in you. But when thine eye is evil, thy
body also is full of darkness. Now, verse 36. If the whole body
therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall
be full of light. As when the bright shining of
a candle doth give thee light. Now, simple illustration. The light of the body is the
eye. Everything that this mind sees
physically, naturally, everything this eye sees and is reflected
in my mind comes through the eye gate, doesn't it? That comes
through the ear gate. comes through the eye gate. The
light of the body is the eye. Light enters into our body through
this eye, this marvelous thing. It's a marvelous creation of
God, this eye that we see. It's a glorious thing, just even
think about it. I'm looking at you, and you're
looking at me. That's a marvel of God's grace. Now what is true in the physical
world is also true in the spiritual world. When you have total darkness,
what do you see? Have you ever taken one of those
cave tours? When we went on our honeymoon,
you wouldn't believe where we went. When we were married 45
years ago, we went on our honeymoon, we went to Mammoth Cave. That's
a romantic place. You want to take your wife to
Mammoth Cave. And on those cave tours, you
remember what they do? They always turn the lights out. They want you to experience what
total darkness is. And when they turn the lights
out, what do you see? I mean, you see nothing. Your eyes
are wide open. But because there's absolutely
no light, all you see is darkness, right? All you see is darkness.
So, to be enabled to see, you must have light, right? But now, here's the other side
of that coin. What if you have all the light
in the world and you're blind? You see, you must not only have
light, but you must have to have a healthy eye to be enabled to
see. If you have all the light shining
around you, but you have no ability to see, that is you're totally
blind and you cannot see, although the light be brightly shining. So you must have light and a
healthy eye to be enabled to comprehend. What is true there
in the physical world is also true in the spiritual world.
Christ is that shining light, but we're blind. He must give
us eyes to see Him. That's why the Lord said to those
disciples, blessed are your eyes, for they see. Blessed are your
ears, for they hear. When the eye, spiritual eye,
is single, this is the eye that has life, when the spiritual
eye is single, that eye is the eye of faith. And it is fixed
upon the object of faith, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, and
then the whole body is full of light. The whole body, our whole
person, is full of light and life. Saving faith always looks
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here's a good example of
looking to Christ with a single eye of faith, found in Numbers
21. Remember when the Israelites
were in the wilderness, and the Lord sent fiery serpents among
them, and many of the people were bitten, and many of the
people died? God instructed Moses to make
a serpent of brass, likened to that fiery serpent, and put it
up upon a pole, and they were instructed, not to inspect the
brazen serpent, not to do this or to do that to the brazen serpent,
not to touch it, not to feel it. They were to do one thing.
You remember what the word was? Look. Look and be healed. Look and be healed. The single
eye of faith always looks to the Lord Jesus Christ. In John
3, verse 14, the Lord says this, As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
that whosoever looketh or believeth on Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. A single eye is a clear understanding. A single eye and a clear understanding
of the gospel of Christ is the sovereign gift of God. A single
eye and a blessed eye come from having a heart and mind fixed
upon the Lord Jesus Christ only. A single eye and a simple eye
of faith sees the Lord Jesus Christ as all of our salvation. All of our salvation. The Lord
says this, "...the hearing ear and the seeing eye are of the
Lord. He hath made both of them." our
seeing eye, our ears, that here the Lord hath made both of them."
That's true in the physical sense. or the creation of God, but also
in the spiritual sense. He must give us eyes to see Him
and ears to hear Him, and this is the Lord's doing, and it's
marvelous in our eyes. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
a single eye, sees in the Lord Jesus Christ the only reason
for these five things. A single eye, that is the eye
of faith, sees the Lord Jesus Christ as the only remedy, the
only reason for, number one, what is the reason for forgiveness
of sin? A single eye, an eye of faith,
looks to the Lord Jesus Christ alone for all the forgiveness
of our sin. Your sins are forgiven for His
sake, John said. I write unto you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. in whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of
His grace. The only reason, secondly, the only reason for our salvation,
a single eye, the eye that is fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
that single eye, that blessed eye, sees the only reason for
salvation is in Christ alone. In Christ alone. Now, it's not
Christ and. We're going to talk about that
in just a minute. Christ and is an evil eye. Christ only,
a single eye, sees the only reason for salvation in the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. That is, He purposed it. He accomplish
it, He applies it, He sustains us, He keeps us by His grace. Thirdly, a single eye, that is
the eye of faith that is blessed of God, sees the only reason
for righteousness. You've heard these things before,
haven't you? The only reason for righteousness is found, you
see, a single eye sees all of righteousness fulfilled and freely
given to you in the Lord Jesus Christ who is called the Lord
our righteousness. You see that, don't you? That's
what a seeing eye sees. You see, this hand and this hand
and this mind and these feet, all they produce is sin. That's
right. Everything I think, do, or say
is full of S-I-N. The only righteousness we have
is Christ. Never mistake morality for righteousness. Now, I'm all for morality. I'd
be a fool if I didn't say so. But morality is not righteousness.
Christ is our righteousness. Do you see that? A single eye
and a blessed eye sees the Lord Jesus Christ as all of our righteousness. That's why Paul said, I count
everything else lost, dung, and ruined, that I may win Christ
and be found in Him who is my righteousness. Fourthly, a single
eye, the eye that is blessed of God, sees the only reason
for election and acceptance with God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It all gets back to Him, doesn't
it? We are accepted in the Beloved, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 6.
Fifthly, the only reason for our hope and comfort is the Lord
Jesus Christ alone. We have a good hope through grace. Right? A good hope through grace
alone. Now, Paul didn't fear many things,
but he did fear this. We read it a moment ago, but
I fear, lest by any means there's a serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity,
and that word can be also translated, the singleness. that is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. You see, saving faith has a fixed
eye upon Christ. Saving faith sees all of salvation
in Christ and accomplished by Him. Now, if you see salvation
somewhere else, you don't have a single eye. You have the reverse
of that, and that is the evil eye. Verse 34 and verse 35, the second
part, the whole body is also full of light. But now, when
thy eye is evil, thy body is also full of darkness. Darkness. Take heed, verse 35, therefore,
that the light which is in thee be not darkness. Now, when the eye is evil, the
whole body is full of darkness. full of darkness. Now, how can
I, you know, I sit in my study and I think about these things
and I ask myself these questions. How can men turn light into darkness? By covering up the light. By
covering up the light. By false doctrines and false
ideas. How can men turn light into darkness? Truth into lies. By covering
up the light, by false doctrine and false ideas. Is that not
so? Now, we've all went through this, this right here I'm going
to talk about right now. Recently, we had that solar eclipse,
right? August 21st. August 21st. What was that, three weeks ago?
Almost three weeks ago. We had that solar eclipse on
August 21st. I'm going to remember that day
distinctly because we were driving across Arkansas when that eclipse
started to occur and right in that area was almost that zone
for the full eclipse and we pulled into a parking lot into a grocery
store, and I took my, when I left the house, Freddy, I took my
lens out of my welding helmet, so when that eclipse occurred,
I didn't want to look at it with just the plain eyes, so I held
my welding glass up there, and I watched that eclipse. And then
You had people in the parking lot, they were all getting excited
and they were all looking up there and it was a big doings. It was a big doings. There are
some places where that eclipse came across and it was a full
eclipse, some little towns out west, there was hundreds of thousands
of people went to those little towns from everywhere, all over,
just to see that eclipse. You stop and look at it, you
see the moon. coming in front of the sun, and
it blots out, not totally, but it blots out the sun. Now, so
much so that as we were driving down the road, we could take
our sunglasses off, even though it was a blue sky, and it just
looked eerie and hazy. It may not have been that way
here, but it was where we were at there in Arkansas. Now, here's
what I'm thinking about. Now, a preacher is going out
on a limb, but now listen to me. Spiritually speaking, We
see this happening all the time in religious circles. False preachers,
like the moon, trying to cover up the sun. They cover up the
sun. When they try to cover up the
sun of righteousness by adding something of human merit, human
value, to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's like an eclipse
of the moon trying to cover up the sun. Forest preachers have
their own version of what I call the solar eclipse or eclipse
preaching. That's a new term. You can quote
me on that. Eclipse preaching. Like the moon,
they try to cover up the sun. Now, here's the problem. Here's what they do. They make
the blessed atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ for sin only
effectual by adding their merit or their faith to it." In other
words, they say, the Eclipse preacher would say this, the
Lord Jesus Christ died for all of the sins of all men and He
made salvation a possibility if you add something to it to
make it effectual for you. Now that's Eclipse preaching.
That's not true preaching. They tried to eclipse and cover
up the beauty and glory of the Son of Righteousness, who made
effectual atonement for the sin of His covenant people, and they
cannot perish because He accomplished their salvation. Secondly, the
eclipsed preacher, the false preacher, they make his salvation
for sinners only effectual by adding their obedience to it,
right? They say, well, God's done all
He can do. Poor God, He's done all He can do. Now, the rest
is really up to you. That's eclipse preaching. They
try to cover up the truth by the moon of their lie. You see
what I'm trying to say? They make His salvation for sinners
only effectual by adding their obedience to it. And we know
this, it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He saved me. So He saved His people. Thirdly,
and I could go on and on with this, but I know I don't want
to wear you out, the false preacher would make the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ only affects you by adding their doing
or their works or their merit to it. Now, anytime you add something
to Christ to make salvation complete, that's an evil eye, not a single
eye. Do you understand what I'm trying
to say? I hope you do. Now, here's a
strong warning for us. Two things, I'll let you go.
Here's a strong warning for us, verse 35. Take heed therefore,
that the light which is in thee is not darkness. Now I want nothing
to do, I mean absolutely nothing to do with that gospel that's
the false gospel that does not give the Lord Jesus Christ all
the honor and glory for salvation alone. Take heed therefore, that
the light which is in you be not the darkness of a false gospel."
The Apostle put it this way in Galatians chapter 1. Turn there
and let us read this one more time. Galatians chapter 1 verse 6. Galatians 1, I marvel
that you are so soon removed from him that called you into
the grace of Christ unto another gospel. Galatians 1, 6. You got
it? which is not another, but there
be some that trouble you that would pervert the gospel of Christ."
Now, how would you pervert the gospel of Christ? Try to eclipse
the sun by holding forth the moon of man's doing, which is
not another, but there be some that trouble you that would pervert
the gospel of Christ. Though we or an angel preach
from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which
we have preached, let him be accursed. What did Paul preach? Look at verse 3 and 5 of Galatians
chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1 verse 4,
"...who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us
from this present evil world, according to the will of God
our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." Preach
anything else than that, you've perverted the gospel and you've
believed another gospel. As we said before, so say now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
which you have received, that which we have preached, let him
be accursed." Now that's a strong word. Let him be damned. It's a serious thing to believe
something other than the truth of the gospel. Here's a blessed
promise. Verse 36, "...if the whole body
therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall
be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth
give thee light." A blessed promise from God who can not lie. Christ is all and in all. He is all of our salvation.