Despising a Holy God — Art Katz

Sin as Evil Against God

The principle text is in Psalm 51 verse 4, against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Verse 3, I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

I acknowledge my transgression, maybe that acknowledge is too contemporary a word, acknowledge sounds like a faint condescension, like how can I not acknowledge, but it's a much deeper thing here. This is something that Israel's great king is feeling in his uttermost deeps.

I acknowledge my transgressions, my sin is ever before me, against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight. So two words that need to be underlined is first sin in verse 3 and evil in verse 4.

Until sin is for you evil, it's not yet likely sin, it's just a boo-boo, or a missed occasion, or some other way in which we dismiss our sin in a way more likely than it should be understood, and every sin, whether it's adultery, or murder, or less, is ever and always a sin against God.

Until we know sin as sin against God, we do not know sin, that's my word this morning. I'll be reading from something that came into my hands yesterday, and occupied me last night, and that has inspired these thoughts in this direction.

An entire sermon predicated on that verse, against thee and thee only have I sinned. Until we know, until it registers upon our deepest consciousness, that however much others may be affected by our misconduct, even violence, murder, rape, it is still not touching the essence of what we need to know as sin, if we have to know sin as evil, and that is that it is against God.

We're even given a little clue here where he says, in thy sight, and done this evil in thy sight. Can you just let me let that sink in? So when David performed, from the very beginning, the sinful contemplation of Bathsheba, from the height that he enjoyed, from his kingly apartment, and the thoughts that seeing her naked beauty stirred in him, God was aware.

God knows our secret hearts, he knows our thoughts, our inward considerations, before they become an act. So instead of being aware that what we're contemplating is already known by God, and ought to embarrass us at the least, we go on and begin to work out those thoughts until the sin itself is consummated.

And once consummated, then it requires the murder of the poor woman's husband. And all of this in God's sight. I don't have a word, somebody has to help me here, I just don't have the language, I don't, maybe it's because I myself am too dull, too dense, in this way, that it has not yet touched my own deepest consciousness, that it's done in God's sight.

Now who is this God that we can take the liberty of violating, contradicting his law that says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, and we perform those things in his sight, unless of course he may be sleeping that day, or he had a speck in his eye, or he was distracted by some other consideration.

You see what I mean? It raises questions about God that are themselves sinful. They are, the unspoken thing is insulting. You don't realize, though you don't think it aloud or speak it, this is necessarily implied, as if he's not present.

As if he doesn't see, or maybe he sees, but he's not really affected. It doesn't really bother him all that much, because after all, he knows you've had a hard day at the office, and you need a little something extra, and you've got it coming.

See how we presume upon God? This is sin, dear saints. So the judgment that came for David's transgressions were no small thing in 2 Samuel 12, verse 10,. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of the sun.

What you did, you did, but what I'm going to do is open and public to your mortification and to your sin. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.

So these are severe judgments that we know from the subsequent history of David in his own house, his own sons, that are the compensation or the restitution or the requirement of God for the offense of the sin against him.

Despising God's Commandments

But the remarkable thing in verse 4 of Psalm 51, after he says, I've done this evil in your sight, that you mightest be justified when you speak and be clear when you judge. There's not a whimper of complaint in David for any of the judgments that have fallen in because he has despised God.

That's God's own statement, it's not Nathan's. You have despised my commandments in verse 9 of 2 Samuel 12. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandments of the Lord to do evil in his sight? If only this much could sink in, I would stop speaking and spare you from going on.

If only this much could sink in, that the word despise. How would you like to be despised? You wouldn't get over it with a month of Sundays. You would continue to pout, you'd be hurt, you'd be wounded in the deep if you're despised.

It's one thing to be ignored or mistreated or slighted, but despised? That's a strong word. It's the word that God chooses, who never chose a word wrongly. He's saying that what you did is a statement that you really despised my commandments.

It's not just that you ignored them, you despised them. And in despising my commandments, you despised me. And you're the king of Israel. What did he withhold from you? What did he not give you? He gave you a kingdom, he gave you wives, he gave you authority.

You're the sweet singer of Israel, you're the great psalmist. After all that he had given you, you despised his commandments in such a way as to violate them even before his face and in his sight? David, you're a fraud.

We don't know how you got by with those Psalms. Just grace that is totally undeserved. Certainly they couldn't be out of the truth of your life unless it's possible to be a psalmist and to celebrate God out of one side of your mouth and to despise him out of the other.

That such a contradiction is possible in a man like David, whose name means Beloved of God. And that that is a statement of the measure of the depravity of man. That it can go from exalting God to despising him when the issue of his lust is at hand and he desires to be gratified no matter what the consequence to God.

Not only do we not know as we ought to know about God we do not know as we ought to know about ourselves. Because if there's anyone in this room who thinks that they are superior to David and faced with the same temptation of opportunity and impulse, you would never have done that.

You are among all men most deceived. So don't misconstrue what you're hearing from me as being somehow a man speaking out of personal peak or the way often preachers will allow themselves to be relieved through their own messages.

Nothing like that so far as I know it. I even made it an explicit prayer before the Lord as Pearl knows. Keep me Lord from interjecting anything of myself lest these people think well that's just odd.

He's joyless, he's an old crock. You know when you get older they get that way. And that somehow you would lose the input of what God himself is saying. That it's possible to despise God even by a psalmist whose name means beloved and who has given the kingdom and that violating against God in its essence is to despise him.

And until we know that we'll not know sin and we'll not know its terror and we'll not know the heart of its offense. Against thee, here's a man who has committed adultery impregnated a woman, killed her husband and God does not finger those details but gets to the real issue of the offense against me against thee and thee only have I sinned.

And therefore the judgments that you have called for and will perform are perfectly just because to sin against you is utterly atrocious it's unspeakably vile it's one thing to err against men but to violate God there's not a word for it.

And that's what every sin is not just the fierce sins not just adultery, murder but any sin in its essence is against God performed by taking a liberty against him as if he doesn't see as if he is not concerned as if it does not in any way blaspheme him and give his enemies opportunity to blaspheme him.

That's what Nathan said to David by your conduct you have given his enemies opportunity to blaspheme God you have actually disparaged him you've given a testimony of a kind that he will suffer loss in the kind of dignity and prestige and honoring that is appropriate to himself as God that's what your conduct has done and that's what our conduct does.

The Heinousness of Sin and Genuine Repentance

So, I'm reading from a little known classic given to me by Michael yesterday entitled the heinousness of sin. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. H-E-I-N-O-U-S-N-A-S-S. What is heinous? When's the last time you've used that word?

When's the last time you've thought that word? And even now do you understand that word? It's as if the English language has to reach deep to find a word sufficient to reflect the magnitude of the offense and the word is heinous like unspeakably vile, not just vile unspeakably vile, it's heinous because it's against thee and thee alone have I sinned.

And the very first line of this sermon reads, a sense of the great evil of sin is essential to true repentance. If you don't know the essential evil as great your repentance is fraudulent and inadequate and only a little religious condescension but not the kind that occasions what true repentance alone brings and that's why the propensity for future sin or further sin remains.

Repentance is a powerful phenomenon but it requires a profound acknowledgment of sin as evil and until sin is seen as an offense against God the evil is not yet seen. So that's the sense of what we're about this morning as I read certain of these statements which we'll not hear in a million Sundays in our generation.

This kind of preaching and insight is not known in our time and we suffer for the lack of it where he writes, but if the great evil of sin is against God of infinite glory be not seen, they will not mourn for sin on that account.

Yet, if that which constitutes the great evil of sin is not seen, and sin is not hated and mourned for because of its chief and principal malignity, our repentance is not genuine. What is the chief and principal malignity?

It's not who was affected by our sin though no question that they are. Our children are going to bear the crunch of the divorces that we initiate because we lust after someone else and no one to have to suffer through the tedium of working out a difficult marriage.

There's no question of the slight, the offense, the pain psychologically and even spiritually that except for the grace of God will never be remedied. People are affected by our sin. The world is affected by our sin.

But that still falls short of the great malignity that occasions authentic repentance, which is the offense against God himself. It's of importance therefore that we know where in the great evil of sin really consists, for which purpose let us attend to the words of our text.

Against thee and thee only have I sinned. Then he goes on to develop that theme that David had despised the Lord and the commandment of the Lord. The commandment thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

But David had said by what he did I will commit adultery with Bathsheba and gratify my lust. Despite all that God says I will murder her innocent husband Uriah that I may hide my sin and shame by this wicked means, notwithstanding the divine prohibition.

You know what this says? This is preaching. This is incisive. He's spelling out in so many words what David maybe never articulated to himself but in fact agreed. What we need to see also in any act of sin.

What did David really say by his acts not verbally but in his conduct that is the offense against God that even though you command it thou shalt not commit adultery. I will gratify my lust despite all that God says.

Remember the first temptation to God? Has God said? That's always the point of assault to depreciate God and nullify God as God. Has God said? And even if he has, did he really mean it? And even if he really meant it how seriously ought we to take it?

There's always the question of God because what God says is what God is. His character is in the issue of his speaking. Isn't that true for you? That your speaking reflects your character. What you say is what you are.

And if you're not conscious of that, you ought to be because we're made in his image and we have the privilege of speech and speech out of the heart proceeds the words. So if that's true for us, is it not true for him?

That his speaking reveals his heart. And though he has spoken, we ignore that because our lust has a greater priority. The fulfillment and the gratification of our lust is more important than the integrity and the honor of a God that is at stake by honoring what he has said.

I'm apologizing while I'm speaking to the Lord. Lord, this is so beneath the quality of address that this topic deserves. Pity that you have to have no better instrument than what's available to you now that we could get the full measure of what we ought to understand by this.

And if we miss this, you guys, where then do we connect? Where do we make it? Where do we succeed in anything? If we miss this. If we miss this, we miss the knowledge of God as God. If we miss this, we miss the knowledge of ourselves as man.

If we miss this, we miss the issue of sin of justification, of atonement. We miss the issue of Jesus. His death is not all that necessary. Everything collapses if we miss it here. Against thee and thee only.

Our problem is we don't know the thee. We don't know thee as thee. We have an inward image of a lesser God who can be offended against. Or there's not all that much concern that looks the other way. That's why David's sin is so much more grievous because his knowledge of God was so much deeper.

And yet even in that death as the sweet psalmist he still did not refrain himself from despising God by despising his commandments. If David were here before us this morning he'd be flat out of his face, sobbing like a baby.

Because I don't think that his sin ever left him. He says, my sin is ever before me. He had a perpetual consciousness. Once you fall into this deep. Once you willfully negate God and despise him and his commandments.

Can you ever recover? Yes, though you are forgiven. Yes, though the child that was conceived in that adultery must die. Can you ever forget in your deeps the heinousness of your sin. It has got to haunt you.

That once capable, you're ever capable. That lust should have such priority. Isn't that remarkable? Gratification. So this was the language of David's conduct. This is the language of every sin. Thus he despised the commandments of God and despised God himself.

And this was with good reason charged him as the great evil of his sin of which God would severely punish him. Seeing this, with broken heart he cries out Against thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.

Wherefore thou art just when you speak and clear when you judge. Thus we see wherein the great evil of David's sins did consist both in the sight of God and his own sense after he became a sincere penitent.

Because every sin is as really committed against God as those were. And as what was true in this case will hold true in all other cases. Therefore from these words we may take make the following observations.

And it goes on to a whole logical unfolding of what is revealed in David's failing that deserves to be read. But time in the morning doesn't permit. So I'm just touching a few highlights. The sinner comes and descends from his whole constitution.

Sin as a Condition of the Heart

A sin like David's against God is not some superficial external moment's lapse. It's a statement out of a man's entire constitution. That's what sin is, it's not a little boo-boo. That just had a moment to be expressed.

It issues out of how we are constituted and made up inwardly and before God in heart and in life. Therefore keep your heart with all diligence. Therefore see to your constitution. Therefore walk before me blamelessly.

Therefore don't think that that moment of lapse is just the thing of itself. No, what happened in that moment is a statement of a much longer condition that you have allowed to be nurtured and to constitute the reality of your life that will surface in a moment that will be given but is much lighter than the moment.

And that you were responsible for allowing yourself to fall into a condition that permitted that moment to take place. You have despised God far longer than you know. You have been indifferent to his commandments and what he says much longer than you realize that what takes place in the moment is the sum of all the moments that have preceded it and not just a momentary impulse by which you lost it for the moment.

We like to think it like that so that we are not convicted we are not burdened with how grievous a thing sin is as evil. But if we see it as issuing out of our constitution out of failed attendance at prayer meetings out of indifference to the body of Christ out of taking our liberty to stay home because, well, there's a nice video on or to choose to go to a movie it's the sum of moments a history of choice in which we have indulged our satisfaction not in some egregious a word I dislike but I can't think of another word like it.

Not some in-your-face, ugly, vile murder, adultery thing but just a slight condescension to me rather than to God in which I allow other priorities to preempt him namely, my flesh, my family my enjoyment, my satisfaction over as against my obligation my responsibility to be in the house of God to be with the saints of God in prayer to be faithful in obedience.

Sin has a history. I haven't even thought these things until I'm hearing myself speak them now because the word constitution hit home with a certain power this guy knows his subject. Sin is not a momentary mishap.

Sin in a moment expresses a much longer condition of what we have allowed ourselves inwardly in heart and life to be. Even David did not guard himself and proceed to a walk in a way in which he would have honored God rather than despising Him.

Despising is a strong word. You don't come to it in a moment it requires a history of neglect and indifference. And that is our great sin. Since I don't think there's an adulterer in the house today. Certainly not a murderer.

But I think there's a house full of indifference and neglect of God that has allowed other priorities that have to do with our satisfaction our convenience, our importance our delight to preempt him. We're laying the grounds for sin.

And that indifference and neglect is in fact sin. The neglect of God is an act of despising. Indifference to God is a statement of an attitude that does not esteem Him His whole constitution both in heart and life.

As for His law. I don't like it, I will not obey it as for His authority. I do not submit to it, I will not regard it as for His government and His glorious kingdom. It's not to my liking, I revolt. I will not have Him to reign over me.

I can prescribe better rules for His life. I will not be dependent upon Him nor be in subjection to Him. Thus the sinner revolts from his government casts off his authority, breaks his law. And in the language of scripture rebels against the Lord.

Every act of sin is considered an act of rebellion in scripture against the Lord. Sinners have the character of rebels to despise is to rebel. It's rebelling against God's law against His commandments, against His authority against His rule, against His kingdom.

All of that constitutes sin. What God is going to give us is an anatomy of sin. It needs to be open to our consideration that in the last analysis, what it is and it's rightly identified in scripture as rebellion it refuses to obey God.

He said thou shalt not, but I will. Thus God in every point is disesteemed disrespected, despised and even treated with contempt in the common conduct of the sinner. If God were not God, if He were not holy then sin would not be sin.

It would just be some misdemeanor. It's because God is God as God holy, that everything is compounded and made heinous. It's a sin against a holy God. That's why when we talk about the cross the man benefits by the atonement which was obtained.

The Cross and the Honor of God

The first purpose of the son was not man but his father. His father's honor was at stake. Something had to be rectified that was taking place in the earth by man created in his image by which God was continually being slighted.

And his name and reputation and honor was being debased. And God had not acted as if He didn't care. So something had to take place in history and in time in which God showed His wrath His righteous wrath against sin the malignity, the evil that it is.

And it required a demonstration as great as the terrible execution of His own son. And the son was willing to bear that not only for our sake, that was secondary but primarily for the father's sake for the father's name, for the father's honor because his judgment is his righteousness and he can't allow sin to go unjudged it's a slight against him.

Any vile lust is preferred before all the fullness of God. These things and ways which please the devil God's inveterate enemy the most malicious and hateful being in the universe are chosen before those things and ways which please Jehovah.

When we condescend to lust to flesh, to self-gratification to ease, to comfort, to flesh and blood over and against God whose wisdom and will and mind are we not only reflecting but in fact obeying. What an insult to God that we who purport to be believers are more responsive to His enemy than to Himself.

What a slight His authority is trampled on. At whose presence the mountains melt and the earth trembles. A worm of the dust sets up Himself above the Most High God His will above God's and His interest above God's glory.

If God offers heaven, sin despises it. If He threatens hell, sin disregards it. If He pleads the dying love of His Son the riches of His grace and beseeches sinners to be reconciled sin slights it all.

If He commanded men to do their duty one to another sin regards it not. And all this notwithstanding His right to us as His creatures or authority over us as His subjects our obligation to Him as the Lord our God.

Thus the Most High is by worms of the dust treated with disrespect and contempt. You worm Jacob you worm whatever your name is we're worm saints and you of a holy God. How dare we worms to contradict and offend the Most High by choices and decisions and acts and speaks that is an offense to Him being worms that compounds the evil.

It wouldn't be as bad if we were in a place of equality and we're taking issue with Him. But as worms how dare we even so much as lift our heads raise our voices let alone to wickedly perform that which is offensive to Him right in His face and in His teeth.

Human-Centered Religion and the Fear of God

You worm. This preacher is saying why don't we hear talk like that now. Because this is a humanistic man-honoring, man-placating man-centered age that infects our churches. Man-pleasing. You don't want to insult your congregation.

Tell them that they're a worm. Forget about their coming back next Sunday or their tithes will be gone with them. You better speak in such ways that you're not too offensive. And that's why we have very light regard for sin and the holiness of God against whom it is performed.

For sin is against the honor of God and brings everlasting reproach to His great name. If we are but really convinced that God is infinitely great and glorious it will be to us self-evident that He is infinitely worthy of all our love, honor, and obedience.

And that consequently to disesteem, despise, and disobey Him is infinitely vile. What we're suffering from is an inadequate knowledge of God as holy. If we knew your majesty. If we knew your greatness and your holiness we would not think as worms to lift ourselves up before you.

We may ruin ourselves by our own sin. We may plunge ourselves headlong into destruction. But what are we compared to the great Jehovah. The issue of sin is not how we will be affected though it would be tragic both in this life and eternally.

But what is that compared to the great Jehovah. What is the effect upon us compared to the effect upon Him. That's where the evil is really evil. We may ruin ourselves by sin but that's nothing. It's less than nothing in vanity.

What is a guilty rebel worth compared with the majesty of heaven. To rise up in rebellion against the great God not to go contrary to Him, to affront Him to treat Him with contempt is evidently the most wicked and heinous thing that can possibly be done.

For here the greatest and best of beings is insulted a being who is so infinitely better than all other beings put together. This therefore is the greatest evil there is in sin by infinite parts against Thee and Thee only have I sinned.

So they turned their backs upon the heavenly Canaan and lust after leeks and onions of Egypt the pleasures of sin not with any desire to affront God but from self-love and to gratify the desires of their hearts in pursuit of happiness.

But yet in fact they really turned their backs upon the Almighty and despised His commands. A remarkable judgment that came upon the evil witnesses. Those that were sent in to spy out Canaan and came back with an evil report.

We're grasshoppers in their sight, these guys are giants and powerful. And there's no way that we could take this land, though the Lord said I've already given it to you and I'll be with you. They brought back an evil report that the nation believed and were ready to go back to Egypt.

Let's appoint captains and go back because we're brought to an insurmountable impasse here of a people who are already in the land who are infinitely larger and more powerful than we. So even though God said I have given you this land and I will be with you.

What we see with our eyes and the threat to our flesh is more formidable than what He has said. And therefore our report is evil. That whole generation died in the wilderness. God was ready to blot out the entire nation.

Just on that basis Moses had to plead and intercede. And in the end, if you're over 20 you'll never make it into the land, you'll perish. Your cadaver will be in the wilderness but there will be a remnant that the Lord will allow.

I'm talking about a Caleb and a Joshua. Caleb means wholehearted because they did not believe me, they despised me. They refused to consider my word. They allowed themselves to judge by what they saw although I had said I will give you the land.

Self-Love Versus God's Glory

If God is despised, affronted and abused. The sinner's heart is a heart of stone. He cannot feel it for he does not care for God but let it come to his own taste. And his heart is a heart of flesh, very tender.

Everything touches him to the quick for he loves himself dearly. If God is abused and injured an apostate world cares little about it. But if they themselves are wronged it is highly resented. Hence this is the doctrine of ungodly selfish hearts.

The great evil of sin consists in it being an injurious thing to us. We wince if we are offended against. But if God is offended against it's only a small thing. Who then is really God in such a case.

So are you convinced of these truths. Do you look upon sin in this light. Are you sensible that all sin is thus against God against his nature, law, authority and honor. Do you know that this is God's world.

That you are his creatures and subjects. That he is your Lord and owner. That he has an entire right to you and an absolute authority over you. That you are entirely dependent upon him infinitely indebted to him.

Do you know that the Lord your God is a great God and a great King infinitely worthy of all love, honor and obedience. Do you see what a great evil it is to rise in rebellion against the Most High to slight his authority, throw off his government break his laws, go contrary to him and do the abominable things which his soul hates.

Do you see what contempt is cast upon God and how it tends to grieve his heart for a worm to set up himself against the Almighty for a creature absolutely dependent to turn his back upon his creator in whose hands are his life and breath.

Do you see the grievous error of loving sin more than an infinitely glorious God of delighting in earthly pleasure more than in the supreme fountain of all good. Of being more concerned to please fellow rebels and secure their favor than to please the sovereign Lord of the universe and to secure his favor.

Do you see the infinite malignity of such conduct. Do you see it? O sinner, if you never saw the great evil of sin you are to this day a stranger to God and blind to the infinite beauty of his nature and are to this day under the power of sin and in an impenitent and unparted state.

Maybe why it is that we have not seen God as God is not that he has withheld the revelation but that our sin obscures it. It blinds us to his glory. It blinds us to his majesty. We cannot see, we cannot appreciate our sin to the degree that we condescend to it has this consequence.

It blots out the reality of God as holy. And therefore because he is diminished we are released more and more to act out this despising. Never was a sinner pardoned while impenitent never was a sinner truly penitent while insensible of the great evil of sin.

Never did a sinner see the great evil of sin before he was first acquainted with the infinitely great and glorious God. It's all connected. If he is no longer great and glorious perhaps never was but is in our image then the transgressions against him follow.

We do not see sin as exceedingly sinful. We are not in any case able to become penitent, remorseful or repentant. And therefore it's a good question of whether the relationship with God has actually been established.

And if it has, can it be maintained. If our attitude sinks into something like this if you never saw the great evil of sin as it is against God, who is infinitely glorious in himself, your repentance was never genuine and you are yet unpardoned.

That's a hard word for the many thousands who have made a decision for Christ. Sign on the dotted line and look at all the benefits that you'll receive. That's the tenor of our present evangelism. That's why a word like this is anarchic and anachronistic, out of tune.

Because we have never truly seen the great evil of sin. For men grow in the knowledge of God and sense of his glory and of their obligation to him. So proportionately will they see more and more of the infinite evil that there is in sin as it is against him.

A wonderful case for this is Paul who saw himself as chief of sinners. And he's not talking about his pre-christian life. He's talking about his present life. Chief apostle, well if David as king could be capable of such grievous conduct how about Paul, chief of sinners.

Because as he grows in the knowledge of God as holy, he grows in the knowledge of the revelation of the truth of his own conviction. What would modern psychology say about such attitudes. They're negative and you need self-esteem.

If you're going to succeed in life you certainly don't want to see yourself as a base sinner a worm offending against the holy God. So what's the language of your heart. Do you approve God's government or are you an enemy to it.

The Lord said, cursed is everyone that continues not in all things written in the book of the Lord to do them. Do you heartily approve as strictly just the Lord that threatens damnation for the least sin.

Does sin appear so great an evil as to deserve severe punishment. But in your own case can you justify God and his laws. What's your heart, what's your attitude. Has it become natural to you to be afraid of sin.

The Fear of Sin and Spiritual Vigilance

Do you fear sin. The greatest fear that this believer had was that he would fear that he would not adequately fear sin. That sin is to be feared. And if it's feared, you're not going to let your eyes linger a moment longer on that seabird than the accidental moment has provided.

When you allow your eyes to linger and thoughts to be conjured by dwelling upon what is already evil you'll find yourself necessarily doing that. So your eyes will linger. If you don't think it evil you'll indulge your senses and finally act in a way to gratify the lust that it generates because you're not afraid of it.