In Job 1:8, God tells Satan about His servant Job, “[T]here is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.” In Job 31, Job offers several explanations for how he fulfilled that commendation of God to Satan. It was no accident or coincidence. Right out of the box in verse 1 he explains with the now famous statement:
I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?
In a practical way, Job kept from sin starting with either not looking or by the discontinuation of looking. He doesn’t say, I made a covenant with my will. In other words, he didn’t permit looking with the emphasis of working on his willpower. No, he cut sin off at the looking stage. This is crucial for a man. Obviously for men, there is something to look at out there that isn’t any good.
I’ve looked at bad pictures. I’ve seen nude women in pictures. It seems that there was a temptation for Job to look too. I remember the first time I saw this. It was in jr. high. I wasn’t going out of my way to see anything. The father of a friend of mine was a carpet layer and he was hired to lay carpet at a vacation home on a lake in Wisconsin, when I lived there. We went to help him and also for fishing and other lake activities. While moving furniture and other items in that house to make way for carpet, I picked up a stack of magazines and one fell open and there was my first vision of a naked woman. It is a picture that is impossible then to remove from the mind for a man. I can’t say that I remember it now, but I remember the incident in a very strong way.
Today pornography is worse and easier to be seen than ever. It doesn’t even have to be porn in a technical sense, if one considers this year’s Super Bowl halftime show and still the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. It truly is
“every man’s battle.” Every. Job kept himself from the sexual sin at the vision stage, a step that also leads to further and worse sinning. Accidental seeing isn’t a sin. Choosing to see it and then continuing to see it is a sin, because of what one can read in Colossians 3:5:
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
All of these, which are short of fornication, are also sin: uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness. Someone can commit these sins by just seeing something with his eyes.
Even in Job 31:1, scripture doesn’t expressly forbid looking at a naked person. The Bible is obviously against it, because it is against nakedness itself in Genesis 3. It is against uncovering nakedness in Leviticus 18 and 20. Canaan was cursed because of a wrong relationship to nakedness in Genesis 9:21-25. The lust of the eyes is of the world, not of God (1 John 2:16). Job stopped his lust by not looking. One should assume from Job 31:1, that someone will not retain his practical righteousness when he permits himself to look.
Job’s covenant with his eyes was not to look, and this was his explained means of retaining his righteousness. The eyes are not the only gate through which travels sensual, lustful, fleshly, worldly content to an adverse affect against righteousness, especially in a day of advanced audio technology, availability, and the greatest “influencers” being those of popular music. Half the top ten in instagram followers are musicians.
Job said the way to righteousness was through the elimination of something not required to eliminate. In the New Testament in varied instances, the Apostle Paul commands, “Flee fornication” or “flee idolatry.” Paul commanded, “Abstain from fornication,” but even further, “Flee fornication.” “Flee fornication” is a command. It is a sin, therefore, not to flee fornication. However, how does someone flee it? He flees it in part by not looking on the maid (Job 31:1), or like means to live righteous. In like manner, he retains righteous living, as Job did, by making a covenant not just with his eyes, but today making a covenant with his ears and not listening or not hearing something that is sensual, fleshly, and worldly.
Today men look upon a maid and listen to a maid. Could listening do anything? In Proverbs 5:3, Solomon writes:
For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.
Furthermore, in Proverbs 7:21, Solomon continues on the same theme:
With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.
Kinds of communication are sensual and lead to sexual sin. Proverbs describes it as dropping as a honeycomb, smoother than oil, and fair speech. These are not just words, but styles of communication. Everyone knows this. Popular music doesn’t just tempt toward sexual sin, but also alcohol, rebellion against authority, foul speech, and many other sins that relate to worldly and fleshly lust.
Job explained how he stayed righteous. He said it was making a covenant with his eyes. Believers today need to make a covenant with their ears regarding popular music. It is a pitfall that is the downfall and destruction for the present and the future of someone who should be living a righteous life.
Job 34:3 makes your point about listening, no?
Paul
Anonymous,
It's a good verse. It does make the point in part, but not the main part. What the eyes are looking at in Job 31:1 is not what the ears are hearing in Job 34:3. It is the sensuality, the worldliness, the fleshliness, etc. that is found in pop music that I was heading for. The words alone don't get that done.