And here when God is teaching us that we need to guard our heart and keep our heart with
all diligence, He talks about, you know, hearing the wrong things, listening to the wrong things,
and looking at the wrong things, seeing the wrong things.
Now go over, if you would, to Proverbs 23.
Because back in the original list in Mark 7, Jesus said that from within, out of the
heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, and then listen to this one, an evil eye.
So one of the sins that's listed there is an evil eye.
And it's interesting, if you look up every time that that term is used, an evil eye,
you'll kind of get an idea for what that term means.
But look at Proverbs 23, first of all, in verse 4.
It says, "Labor not to be rich.
Cease from thine own wisdom.
Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings.
They fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
Eat not thou the bread of him that hath an evil eye.
Neither desire thou his dainty meats.
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
Eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee.
The morsel which thou hast eaten, shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words."
Now flip over to chapter 28.
The passage, the one who has an evil eye is one who is greedy.
Even when they give you something, even when they offer you something, they don't really
want you to have it.
They're a greedy, covetous person.
He talks about in that passage also the desire to be rich, those who covet wealth for themselves.
Look at chapter 28 verse 22.
It says, "He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty
shall come upon him."
Flip back to Deuteronomy chapter 15.
So so far in these passages about an evil eye, they both had to do with wanting to be
rich, desiring something that does not belong to you.
Look back at Deuteronomy 15.9.
This is actually the first time the term "an evil eye" is ever used.
It says in Deuteronomy 15.9, "Beware that there be no thought in thy wicked heart,"
notice that phrase, "a thought in your wicked heart, saying the seventh year, the year of
release is at hand, and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest
him not, and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee."
Now, if we look at an evil eye in this scripture here, it has to do with a greedy person who
doesn't want to help out the poor, he wants to hang on to all of his money.
In Proverbs, it was somebody who really wanted to be rich, it was somebody who even when
they give you something, they begrudge it because they want to keep it all for themselves.
That is what it means to have an evil eye.
Go to Matthew 6, and I'm going to show you why this is so important to what we're talking
about today.
This is all kind of the foundation for the sermon.
Go to Matthew 6, and we'll see another mention of the evil eye in Matthew 6.
Look at verse 20 of Matthew 6, "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
So again, all these scriptures talk a lot about the heart, what we think in our heart,
our attitude, what we believe.
It says in verse 22, "The light of the body is the eye.
If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else
he will hold to the one and despise the other; ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Now, do you think it's a coincidence that every passage about the evil eye that we looked
at there, they all have to do with something about money, something about wanting to be
rich, something about being greedy?
Do you notice that?
Every single one of them.
That's what it means to have an evil eye.
It's the eye that looks at that which does not belong to you and desires to have that.
You look at the fancy house and you wish that you lived in a fancy house.
It's covetousness.
You look at the fancy car.
You look at wealth and riches and you desire to be rich.
You desire to have those things.
And God says, "That if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness."
Do you see how this sin is one that can destroy the whole body?