Beauty captivates the senses. One is hard pressed to turn away from the beautiful. Having just returned from a vacation on one of the most beautiful beaches in America, I can attest to the arresting power of the seashore. The view from my hotel room was spectacular, but the beach itself was gorgeous. I’ve never seen sand as fine and white, or water as clean and clear. My experience on that lovely Florida beach caused me to ponder the nature of beauty. There are three things to be considered:
1. Beauty astounds.
Normal or average doesn’t astound us. In order for us to be astonished we must encounter the extraordinary, the exceptional, the unusual. No doubt, Moses saw many bushes in the desert, but the one that caught his eye was the one that burned without being consumed. “And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt” (Ex. 3:3). This sight warranted a closer look. The extraordinary causes wonder: “What is going on here? Am I seeing what I’m seeing?” It also causes admiration. The word admire is derived from the Latin admirari which means to “regard with wonder, be astonished.”
The world God has made is full of breathtaking beauty. David was astounded by the glory and beauty of creation. He attributed their excellence to the handiwork of the Creator: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge” (Ps. 19:1,2). The seraphim angels also recognized that the whole earth was filled with tokens of God’s glory. “And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3).
The heavens, the earth, and the seas all reveal God’s glory and are commanded to deflect their praise to Him who made them. “Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moveth therein” (Ps. 69:34). There is something riveting about the ocean that stretches out over the horizon. The endless expanse before our eyes points us to an eternity that eternal souls must face. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” (Eccl. 3:11). To embark on a voyage into this great expanse is only to become more amazed. “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep” (Ps. 107:23,24).
With amazement comes movement, which brings us to the second point:
2. Beauty attracts.
Looking out my hotel window at the majestic sight before me was not enough. Beauty pulls us toward it. We want to be near or connected to the beautiful. We want to fully experience, even possess beauty. I wanted to feel the white sand under my bare feet. I wanted to jump into those inviting waters. When I was there, experiencing it up close, it was wonderful. When I was away, the memory of its embrace lingered. Each new morning, when I reopened the curtains, the beach beckoned me again with its beauty.
I enjoy lakes and rivers, but their glory is not as magnetizing as the glory of the sea. I have visited many seashores, but this seashore was second to none. The more exceptional the beauty, the more powerful the attraction. Like it or not, this is what we experience in the presence of beauty. We get weak-kneed and starry-eyed. We may not want to feel this pull, but we feel it nevertheless. It happens spontaneously. Beauty prompts this automatic reaction, and therein lies its danger, which brings us to the third point:
3. Beauty deceives.
Upfront, beauty appears to have no downside. What’s not to like about the beautiful? But often, there is more there than meets the eye. Beautiful does not necessarily mean good.
What struck me as I enjoyed the charms of the beach was how deceptively dangerous it was. Almost forty years ago, on a different side of the Florida coast, my wife and I almost drowned in a riptide current. The ocean that beckoned us that beautiful evening soon became the arena of a life and death struggle for us. But for the miraculous grace of God we would have perished in those waves.
As we naively wade into waters that appear wonderful, we can be blindly unaware of the dangers lurking beneath the surface. The ocean’s waters are pleasurable to the senses, but they hold a good measure of peril. Right before we went on our vacation, several shark attacks were reported close by our beach. Stingrays and jellyfish pose a lesser risk, but keep smart bathers on their guard.
When God looked upon all He created He pronounced that it was good. But when man left His original goodness, creation itself became corrupted, a place that reflected the pain and violence inherent in man. Nature is beautiful, but dangerous as well. All that is beautiful, even reflecting the glory of God, should not be assumed to be automatically good. Until a new heaven and a new earth comes into existence, all the beauty of this present world is suspect. The prudent know that all that glitters is not gold. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Prov. 22:3).
Wherever beauty resides, seduction is possible. Why? Because man’s nature is to look on the outward appearance. “… For the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). If we are so innately prone to looking on the external is there any hope for us to escape the seductive snare of beauty?
Yes, if we will do these two things:
1. Be sober and vigilant.
Beauty can be intoxicating. It can deprive one of reason and judgment. Solomon, the wisest of men, had much to say about being kept from the seduction of strange women, yet he failed to keep his own advice, and fell into the snare (1 Kings 11:1-5). Such is the deceptive power of beauty. Beauty kindles fire that is very difficult to extinguish. Once Samson fell under Delilah’s spell, this mighty man, was as an ox led to the slaughter. “For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.” (Proverbs 7:26,27).
What is the key to being kept? To be sober and vigilant enough not to let a spark turn into a consuming fire. Yes, we can recognize beauty. That is not the problem. The problem is when we choose to lust after that beauty. In the words of Jesus: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Mt. 5:28). This commandment and counsel holds for every object of beauty that has the power to attract. Will we set such an object before our eyes? Will we let our eyes gaze upon it and our minds meditate upon it? With all good conscience Job testified: “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” (Job 31:1) The evidence that Job feared the Lord was that he departed from evil. “… By the fear of the LORD men depart from evil” (Prov. 16:6). Such departure cannot be delayed. The longer we linger where we should not be, the greater the risk of being pulled into a dangerous trap by a powerful riptide of lust.
So the simple word we need to heed is: “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids” (Prov. 7:25). The problem is not so much without us. The problem is within us when let something get started. Be vigilant enough to recognize when you’re being tempted by beauty, and make a firm decision to not let your heart and affection land in the wrong place. To do so is to invite into our bosom a fire we will be hard-pressed to put out. “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?” (Prov. 7:27,28).
None of us can avoid temptation in this world, but all who are in Christ can say no to sin. Such denial becomes impossible though when our heart is hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. God doesn’t want us to hate anyone, but He does want us to hate sin. He wants us to be renewed in our minds so that we are not eating the “bread of deceit.” We must see things the way God does, not as man does. What man calls good, God calls evil. What man calls sweet, God calls evil. We don’t want to find this out too late, as Samson or Solomon did. “And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her” (Eccl. 7:26).
Evil can come in a pretty package. “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion” (Prov. 11:22). According to Jesus we are to: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24). This means we are to make all our decisions based upon clear and correct sight, unclouded by desire which interferes with wisdom. “Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom” (Prov. 18:1).
The sober minded know where true beauty is found. “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised” (Prov. 31:30). As long as we worship at the altar of outward beauty, we will be vulnerable to the seductive power of beauty.
2. Love and worship God more than anything else.
When Jesus was asked: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” He answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matt. 22:36,37) Jesus equated Himself with God when He said: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). The greatest natural love we have should not be greater than the love we have for God, the Father, and God, the Son.
Love for God is a commitment that is tried and proven when the god of this world sends his most enticing bait to entrap us. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him” (James 1:12). Some would blame God for creating a world filled with such beauty and allurement, but scripture tells us: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). God made every tree in the garden of Eden, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fruit on each tree was “pleasant to the sight.” (Gen. 2:9; 3:6) But as good as the fruit looked on that one tree, God said it was “off limits.” Certainly there would have been no test if the forbidden fruit was ugly. Likewise, the temptation for David on the rooftop would not have been there except “the woman was very beautiful to look upon” (2 Sam. 11:2).
Did David love the person of Bathsheba, or was he entranced by her beauty? Did Eve love the forbidden fruit, or did she love the beauty of it? The pleasures of sin are for a season, but the consequences of sin can last a lifetime. Once we start down the path toward gaining what our eyes desire we are in line to reap what we have sown. An older man, burned by his bad choices, could only warn younger men: “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment” (Eccl. 11:9).
In a world where there is so much to catch our eye, we should know where lust leads. Attraction toward an object of beauty is always accompanied by a desire for possession of it. When a beautiful Philistine woman caught Samson’s eye, he told his father: “Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes” (Judges 14:3). Beauty cannot be indefinitely concealed from our eyes. Sooner or later, we will have to face our own desires. God did not tempt Eve by placing a desirable tree in the middle of the garden. Nor did He tempt Samson or David by creating beautiful women. Beauty, in itself, is not evil. What is evil is elevating anything good to the status of an idol, that we choose to bow down to. It is our own misplaced, misguided desire that is at fault. “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14,15). The progression here moves from an innate love for beauty, to a seduction by beauty, to a death by our going after it.
What is the remedy? Our love for God must then be greater than our love for the beautiful things found in the world around us. John wrote:
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15-17)
The very essence of the lust of the eyes is an admiration, even an adoration, of the beautiful. Possessing earthly treasure is more important than possessing heavenly treasure. Instead of declaring: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,” we envy the prosperity of the wicked. Our values are misplaced and set upon things below. And where our treasure is our heart is also. If God is not loved above all else, we will surely betray our Creator for the beauty of His creation.
Love for God and the worship of God are one and the same. The first commandment is: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Nothing else is to take God’s place as the object of our greatest love and devotion. And knowing how our eyes can erect an image of a created thing to love, the second commandment is: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments” (Ex. 20:4-6).
From the beginning of time, man has let the creation be more lovely and worthy of his worship than his Creator. “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” (Rom. 1:25). Falling in love is the easiest thing to do – all it takes is something beautiful to come our way. But falling in love with the wrong person or thing can be the worst decision you will ever make. Live to love God above all else. Worship Him and have no idol that you bow down to. God has given us richly all things to enjoy, but none of them to worship. Go to the beach, enjoy the beauty of creation, but keep close enough to God to steer clear of harm’s way.