Dangers of Third Generation Religion — Paris Reidhead

The Third Generation’s Departure from God

I turn to you to Judges chapter 2, one of the most pathetic chapters in the entire Old Testament. I'd like to read several verses, at least down to the 13th verse of this second chapter of the book of Judges.

May I remind us that what we find here is for our instruction. These things were written to be in sample, example, for our warning, for our teaching, for our encouragement. So find yourself in this portion.

Do not allow the historical facts to cloud the personal application. And an angel, a messenger of the Lord, came up from Gilgal to Barchim and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers.

And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. Ye shall throw down their altars, but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this?

Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your side, and their God shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept.

And they called the name of that place Barchim, and they sacrificed there unto the Lord. And when Joshua had let the people go, the children went of Israel, went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land.

And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old.

And they buried him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnah Heres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Geash. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers. And there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Balaam. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger.

And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Asherah. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. And he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them. And he sold them into the hands of their enemies around about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.

Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them. And they were greatly distressed. The tragedy of third generation religion.

Abraham’s Faith and the Promise of a Witness

Joshua outlived a generation that had escaped from Egypt, but refused to be to God the vehicle of blessing that he intended. You remember that God said to Abraham, who was residing in Ur of the Chaldees, an idolatrous nation, Get thee up from thy kindred, from thy father's house, and I will make of thee a great nation.

God wanted to do a new thing. He wanted a witness. He wanted a testimony. And that witness and testimony began with a man. A man who dared to believe him. A man who dared to obey him. A man who counted all that he had possessed, all that he had achieved, all that he had acquired, as being of no value, in terms of that which God held before him as the prospect of his service for the Lord God.

And we see Abraham as he journeyed from Ur of the Chaldees out into that unknown future, walking by faith, becoming thus the father of the faithful. That new thing began with a baby. A baby that had been named years before his birth.

A baby that had been promised. A baby in which the whole hope of Abraham and all the purpose of Jehovah rested. You recall, at the age of seventeen, God said to Abram, Take your son and bring him up to the mount that I'll show you and sacrifice him there.

You remember that Abraham had resurrection faith. The servant said to him, Where will you get the offering? The son said to him, he said, The Lord will provide. And then he turned to the servant and he said, We will come again.

He knew what was expected of him. He bound his son hand and foot and asked him to lie down upon that altar that he'd made. And I can see him as he looks down into the face of bound Isaac and said, Son, be not afraid.

God gave you to your mother and to me when we were as good as dead. It is no harder for him to raise you from the dead after you've been slain and burned than it was for him to give you to us in the first place.

And so relax, son. God has said that in Isaac my seed shall be called. And so I must. And the young man said, it's well, father. And he looks at his father with pity that only you can imagine, raises that right hand and would let the knife descend.

And he consents to it because his father believed God and he had said to the servant, We will come again. Well, you understand, then it was through death and resurrection of the promised son that God would acquire his nation that would be his witness.

Israel’s Deliverance, Unbelief, and the Promised Land

We see Israel, that is, the children of Jacob as they go down into Egypt and abide there for some 400 years. And the time comes when God is going to draw out of the womb where he's been forming this nation, that people which will be a witness for him.

He does it by first causing them to lose confidence in the gods of Egypt. They've labored in Egypt. They've been slaves in Egypt. They've had no testimony of himself. And so there is a contest between Moses and the Egyptians.

And in that contest, God proves his power superior to all of the ten major gods of Egypt and leads them by his right arm and great hand of power out across the Red Sea into the wilderness. You would say that a people so marvelously delivered would be prepared to go anywhere with God, would you not?

But when they came up to Kadesh Barnea and saw their giants in the land, even though the land was filled with milk and honey, they drew back and refused to follow the Lord. They, in other words, would rather preserve their own skin than to give God the vehicle of blessing and witness that he asked for.

And the consequence was that that generation was doomed to have no part with God in the new thing that he was then doing. And Joshua was the one that, with Caleb, had withstood the elders of Israel. And he and Caleb were the only two that survived of that generation and were prepared to go across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land.

Now listen to the text again. They served the Lord all the days of Joshua. They served the Lord all the days of the elders that had served with and outlived Joshua. That would be that company of people forty years younger than him that had gone across the Jordan River.

What was God's purpose in this people? He wanted a people that would cling to him, that would love him, that would obey him, that would serve him, that would do that which he prescribed for them, in order that in this people Israel he could have his witness to the nations around about.

Now remember, he said, ye shall be witnesses unto me. Even there through Abraham was that promise that in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth, and of course in Abraham's mind were the nations that then existed.

Even as we would apply that promise to the nations that are alive today. Understand then that God's purpose in Israel would be to have a peculiar people, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood that should show forth his praises by means of whom he could have a testimony to these that grovel before he's an idol.

For even though they were wicked, were idolatrous, were immoral, were cruel, he loved them even as he loved you and me when we were equally vile. And God therefore wanted Israel to be his sermon in society.

He wanted the way this people dressed, the food they ate, the kind of homes in which they lived, the manner in which they tilled their fields, as well as their worship on the Sabbath, all to be a testimony to his holiness and to his wisdom, to his righteousness, to his justice, to his mercy, his grace, and his love.

And so he had this people as his witness. Now what were the religions in the land? There were three, and I think it will help you to understand the message of the evening and the burden of my heart if I give you a little background of the development of these three major religious systems.

Ashtaroth and the Religious Rebellion of Babel

The first is the worship of Baal. Pardon me, the first is the worship of Ashtaroth. I think the first organized religious system in human history is this that is called here at this time the worship of Ashtaroth.

If you read carefully the book of Genesis, you will discover a portion that says, And Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord. But the word translated hunter actually means spearsman, or in this case means rebel.

It pictures a man by the name of Nimrod that had unusual leadership qualities and ability, who succeeded in organizing the people of his generation in open revolt against God as they had known him through the testimony conveyed by Noah.

We would therefore conclude that the Tower of Babel was actually a temple that was erected for the worship, as Hyslop tells us in his volume to Babylon, erected for the worship of Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod's father, not his own mother, but nevertheless this was an incestuous relationship.

It was apparently Satan's time to fulfill his promise to Eve. You remember he had said to her, Ye shall be as God. And at this time we find the introduction of that form of worship, which was the deification of woman and of sex.

Now the worship of Semiramis and the Tower of Babel came to a sudden halt when God confused the languages of the people and broke down the temple of the Tower. But it did not exterminate the worship of woman.

For we find very shortly thereafter in archaeological records the arising of this word Ashtaroth, Ashtarte in one of its forms. And it is always associated with the worship of the female. And this then I would say is the first form of organized religious rebellion against God.

It was for a twofold purpose. First to ensure progeny, because in the agricultural economy of the day it was necessary to have a large family if one were to prosper in the tilling of the soil. And it was secondly to give a license for immorality, a religious license that would satisfy and quiet the disturbance of the conscience.

Baal and the Pursuit of Prosperity

And so the worship of Ashtaroth was for this twofold purpose, to ensure children and also to give a license to unbridled lust. Now the second form of idolatry is that of the worship of Baal. This is an ancient Semitic word, Baal.

It does not refer to any particular individual, but the word itself means owner. I believe it refers to the evil spirit that was associated with a particular geographical area in which people resided or worked.

Apparently there was an evil spirit for each community. We find such words as Baal-Kerjath and Baal-Pior. The owner of Kerjath, the owner of Pior. Not referring to any particular personality, but the local evil spirit, evil personality that must be placated if there was to be prosperity in that area.

For instance, every town had its Baal. There would be an altar, some degree of similarity between them, but not enough to ensure that they had reference to the same personality at all. But this was the place to which the owner of the place, namely that evil spirit, had to be served, had to be worshipped, had to be placated.

Now every farmer would have some little altar dedicated to the Baal of the area. Before he would plant his field, he would take whatever offering was prescribed and kill it, sprinkle the blood, in order to satisfy the owner, so as to ensure a good crop.

Now, remember, the worship of Ashtotti had to do with license for immorality. And the worship of Baal had to do with the procuring of things or to ensure prosperity. Now we'll move on to the third type of idolatry of the period, which was the worship of Moloch.

Moloch and the Sacrifice of Children for Status

The word Moloch has the Semitic radicals that you find in the present Arabic word melek. When we were first in Africa, we landed at Port Said in Egypt, went to Cairo, and were there on the day of the opening of Parliament, visiting at the American University, when the then king of Egypt, Baruch, rode by in the beautiful state coach drawn by the magnificent Arabian horses.

And as he passed so near to the fence inside of which we were standing, we could hear the throngs on every side crying out, Melek Kabir, great king! Well, these are the radicals, M-L-K, that are found in the word Moloch, and thus it has reference to king.

Now here again we have certain archaeological remains that have been discovered that enable us to picture the general expression, the usual form of Moloch, as being a majestic figure of a king, usually in a seated position, with his hands folded on his knees in such a way that arms and legs and gilded hands would make a basin.

Many times they would find an air tunnel back from the rear of the statue which would enable air to be forced through so as to cause the grating that was over the hole that held the charcoal to produce a fire of tremendously intense heat.

Thus the worshipper would come, usually the father, often the father and the mother would come with their child, if possible a first-born son, though it's recorded that sometimes they would bring a daughter and call it a son, for Moloch wasn't too able to see, he was a little nearsighted.

At any rate, they were desirous of having the end for which they made the sacrifice and anything would do in their need. And so the parents would come with their child, and though there must have been some measure of parental love, nevertheless the vanity and the ambition and the desire in the hearts of the people was sufficient that they were willing to take their children and make the child pass through the fire.

Can you see a father now moved with desire for honor, for position, for authority over his fellow? For this was the reason for the worship of Moloch, to achieve ascendancy over one's fellow. And so he would stand there, look into the face of his little first-born son, shall we say, and with whatever feelings a father should have, his ambition so much greater than his natural affection, that he would then petition the spirit represented by the statue, and calculating the degree of force necessary to project the little flailing-armed infant into the very center of the fire.

The father would calculate the arc, and then would, as carefully as he could, throw the child up so that it would land directly in the middle of that intense flame and fire. And thus the child would be given as an offering to Moloch.

And the reason being that the beloved of the father, sacrificed, would ensure that the father would secure the honor and the position for which his insatiable, lustful heart craved. After all, there's only so much sexual experience and immoral experience that one can have, only so many things one can acquire, and after that, then what is there left?

The Three Weapons of the God of This World

Well, we find a parallel to these three. John, writing in his first epistle in the second chapter, tells us that we are to love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. And then he uses a strange statement.

For all, all, all that is in the world, and he has emphasized that all, Satan has only three tools in his kit, three weapons in his arsenal, and yet with those three weapons he has damned a race of men.

There's only three. The first is the lust of the eye. Things, things that soon break, things that soon rust,.

Things that soon go out of fashion,.

Things that soon pass away and you have to pay to have them dumped, or carried off somewhere. The only thing that the God of this world can give, or one of the three things he can give, to men in exchange for their soul is pain.

This we call a lust of the eye, the worship of veil. Then the second thing that he can give is experience, illicit experience, illegal experience, forbidden experience, experience outside the will of God.

And so he has said to Eve and to all the daughters and sons of Eve across the centuries, it is worth your soul to be free to have essential experience as you yourself choose. And can you imagine therefore the success of Satan in destroying a numbered millions of men and women simply by offering them sensual experience, glandular experience.

But this is what John said, all that is in the world is the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh. And then the third thing that he tells us about is associated with Moloch. The third thing that he has in his arsenal, the third weapon, the third tool in his kit is the pride of life, namely position of authority, of ascendancy over one's fellow.

And so by the clever intermingling of these three things, by the glamorizing of these three things, by the intensifying of the attraction of these three things, Satan is succeeding in damning generation after generation.

And this is all he has, absolutely all that he has to work with, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Associated in our minds with the worship of Ashtaroth, the lust of the flesh, the worship of Dale, the lust of the eyes, and worship of Moloch, the pride of life.

God’s Design for Human Appetites

Now, God made us for himself. This is the primary principle of this book. And in making us for himself, he gave us a unique combination of appetites and urges. You have possessed them, you came into the world with them.

God made us finite spirits, and so because we were finite, we could exist in one place, in contrast with his infinity, for he is every place equally intense. We are in one place only, and so God gave us bodies that could be vehicles and houses for our spirits.

And we could abide in that one place. Now joining spirit and soul to body, he gave us an appetite for food because he intended these bodies to be nourished. He gave us taste buds, olfactory nerves, and eyes of distinguished color in order that we might have a certain degree of pleasure in what we see and what we smell and what we taste.

God not only gave us an appetite for food that there should be an inner urge that would drive us to replenish our bodies and keep them nourished, but he gave an abundance of means of satisfying this appetite properly, legitimately, in a good way, and with this abundance of supply he gave a variety of odors and a variety of tastes so that there should be pleasure in eating.

God likewise wanted to complete this family of his by means of natural reproduction, and so he gave to man not only reproductive abilities, but a reproductive urge. The sexual urge was given of God, it was given to the first pair, and God would pronounce it good.

There's nothing wrong with sex, there's nothing wrong with sex. God made us, and God gave the proper, legitimate way by which this, as every need, was to be satisfied. God gave to us an appetite for knowledge.

For we were finite, and we learned in sequence. God is omniscient, he knows everything simultaneously. We have to learn, so God gave us an inner urge, an inner pressure, an inner hunger, an inner incentive to learn.

And this you are now experiencing, many of you, as students. You're learning, you're studying, you have a desire to explore and learn more and further, and this is good. One of the tragedies of our existence is this, that our brains are so much greater than our body's ability to sustain them.

The wisest man that's ever lived has only used 3 of his brain power, and most of us limp along at about 9 tenths of 1%, up to about 1 .6%. This is the average, and so here are our brains with unlimited capacity.

Do you realize that the human brain has been likened to an electronic brain? Someone said, and I don't know whether he's right or not, but he said that if the human brain were put together on the basis of an IBM electronic brain, it would take seven buildings the size of the Empire State Building to house it.

It would take all of the water of the Niagara River to cool it, and all of the power generated by the Niagara River to operate it. The human brain is a magnificently intricate thing. God has established it, apparently intending us to go on indefinitely.

But here we reach the age of 60 or 70, and then the body begins to become frail, and our forms fade, and soon the great potential of every human personality is stopped by death. So it was that God gave to us brains and the capacity to learn, and he put with that an incentive to learn.

In addition to that, God gave to us an appetite for pleasure, that we might enjoy what he's created. He gave to us with that an appetite for security, in order that his providence might be appreciated by us.

The Body, the Gnostics, and the Living Sacrifice

In other words, all the urges and all the drives that God put into human personality were for a purpose. And when he looked at the first pair, with these appetites and urges, he said, It is good. Now remember that there's been a heresy for some centuries.

It began about the time of Plato, it continued on down across the centuries to the time of the Gnostics, and it was a satanic counterfeit. It began, it was stopped by Paul in the Book of Colossians. But there, at the time of Plato, the idea was promulgated and widely accepted that all matter is bad, and then gradually Gnosticism grew up, which said that God created only spirit and Satan created matter, and that the fall of man was forcing him to take on a physical body, and of course this greatly influenced Augustine, for he'd been a Manichaeus, which was the successor to the Gnostics, and so into the Christian faith came, back there in the third, fourth century, the idea that the body is bad, and the appetites and urges are bad, but this is not a scriptural teaching.

The body is the, but we are told that the only thing we have that he asks for is our bodies, and that we are to present them a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. Now the body then was the tabernacle of the human spirit, and it was here that God would meet with man, and here we would dwell, and through this we would have contact with the world that God had made.

Now I want you to see what happens. Here is the man as a triangle, as a pyramid-metter, resting upon his apex, the body touching the earth, then the soul and the spirit, but you see, God made us not to find our fulfillment in the world, simply our sustenance, but not our fulfillment, and so the pyramid rests on its apex, resting on the earth indeed, nourished by it, sustained by it, walking on it, governing it, but all of the powers of the body and the soul and the spirit were plastered toward heaven, and aimed toward God, for with these appetites and urges, God created in man an empty grave that only God can fill.

Solomon’s Vanity and Humanity’s Need for God

Now this is the unique thing about human personality. If you read the book of Ecclesiastes with it in view, you will find that one man has done what every one of us at some point in our pilgrimage would like to do, to try everything that is designed in any way to satisfy human personality, and when Solomon has gotten everything that wealth can bring, the lust of the eye and the accumulation of buildings and possessions has gone to a degree no one else has been able to achieve.

When he has acquired the pride of life to the place where he is the king of all kings and the whole world pays tribute to him, and when he has gone into the experience of the lust of the flesh until he has a thousand wives and concubines and he says there's nothing that anyone ever did that he didn't try and nothing that his eyes saw that he didn't see, when this man has done everything it's possible for human personality to do to try and satisfy himself in the manner in which men were being led by the God of this world to satisfy themselves, he gave an answer with greater authority than anyone else has ever been able to give, and the answer was this, Paul are you satisfied now that you have things beyond any other?

Paul are you satisfied now that you have position beyond any other? Paul are you satisfied now that you have sensual experience beyond any other? And the answer that came from the empty chamber of his spirit was this, vanity, a vanity, all insanity, emptiness, hope bubbles.

In other words, Solomon said there is that which the God of this world offers,.

The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life can't meet the needs of a man, because man was made for God.

So Augustine was influenced by Manichaeism, there came a time when he spoke wisely and well as we hear it today, and it pleads our hearts today because of its undying truth, as we hear him as he swung to every cesspool pit in his world and tried to drink as deeply as he could, as deeply as time and strength allowed, and finally by futility and frustration and by the prayers of his mother, Mona was pressed into the waiting arms of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He then spoke, and we hear that, and he said, O Lord, thou hast so made us,.

That we cannot rest until we reign. My dear, we're made for God.

Nothing can satisfy God, and that's why God got himself a seat, and he came down in the midst of that people, and he dwelt beneath the wings of the cherubim, and he was there under the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire so that he could be in the midst of his people, that he could have a people that would know him, a people that would understand him, a people that would love him, and a people that would serve him, that they could be witnesses, but they needed God.

Third-Generation Compromise and the Return to Idolatry

And what do we find? We find that the third generation, God's wisdom, God's testimony, was obliterated. God. In the saddest words of the Old Testament, it's there in the 13th verse,.

The second chapter of Judgment, and they first spoke the Lord,.

And the third came, and actually they went back to the lust of the eyes. How did this happen? Did they abandon the tabernacle? Did they abandon the church? Did they say, tear down that fence? Oh no, they didn't do that.

You know what they did? Came home at night, he said, you know, my wife, today when I was out in that field, we haven't had very good crops since we've been here. Father's had a better crop. You know, one of the men that used to farm this land before Joshua took it over came by.

He said this was his field, you know, he's still living there in town. Yeah. He asked me how many bushels on an acre I was getting. I told him, he said, oh, we had much better when we were here. I said, what'd you do?

What are you not doing? Well, he said, you see those stones over there that have fallen down? When we had it, those stones were built up. What do you mean? We didn't wonder what those stones were for.

You've got funny foxes all over them. Funny foxes, that's the altar to Baal. Didn't you know there's an evil spirit that controls this farm? And didn't you know that unless you please, you and your crops won't grow, you won't get rain, bugs will eat it?

Is that so? He said, you know, it's been so long since we've had anything more than just this crimp along on. What'd he say they did? He said, well, he said you take a lamb and kill it and sprinkle a bun in those stones.

He said, you know dear, I wouldn't want anybody to find out about it. But if you could just sort of accidentally kill a lamb when you got near those stones and then pick it up there so that it was Friday's attendant, nobody would know.

And the Baal might be, they might be pleased. I wouldn't want you to know. I don't want anybody down at the tabernacle to find out about it. And we won't, we won't make a break. We'll go down and do everything we can.

We've just got to get a good crop. Oh, I don't know. Well, Joshua's dead and all those dogs that live in there are gone. After all, God isn't as real to us as he was to them. We've just got to get a good crop.

How are we ever going to get, look at my blanket, it's just worn out. And look at those pans over there, they're just gone. And the clay pot, every pot we've got's been broken. It's been so long since I've had any new clothes.

And those fellas in town, you know, they've got some wonderful things. Every time I go to the market, I just come home, I'm all torn up inside. And I just don't have enough. Well, I don't know. I can't tell you, you're the farmer, I just do the cooking.

But I sure like to have a little extra sugar in the dish, you know. So, accidentally, he kills the lamb before he plants it. Someone comes along, oh, is it I? Just so sorry, but I hurt the lamb. Here, help me lift him up.

And so they put him up, and only he knows what he's doing. The blood man, sure enough, he gets a good crop. How come your crop is better? Well, the first thing you know, just a little compromise for things.

And then they say, a little compromise for a position, and a little for sensual experience. Oh, it wasn't an open break.

You see, they feared the Lord, and they served the gods of the land. They still were afraid of God,.

But they were so amused. It was more pain, it was more perception, a little more sensual experience. And it didn't mean, after all, they had to renounce. After all, it didn't mean a break. They still went every Sabbath day to the tabernacle, and they still prayed, they still said the blessing before meals.

But it was not that only God.

It didn't affect their social standing at all. Do you see what's happening? Do you see what's taking place? And where God had a people that had seen in miracles power, men that had stood by when the walls of Jericho cracked down, men that had seen the armies put to flight, men that had been there when God's power had been unleashed.

Now they're starting. They are subtly going out and building a stone.

For the altar today after our memorial. And it's necessary for God.

To turn His anger upon His own people. Oh, dear hearts of men, do you recognize the danger in which always the people of God stand? Do you recognize the danger in which we stand? Do you realize what is involved in this business of belonging to Jehovah?

Repentance: Turning from Self-Worship to the Living God

Let's bring it down to the present time. Before Jesus Christ found you, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. What does this mean? You served yourself. You were the God in your own life. You did what pleased you.

What did you do? In some manner, in some direction, to some degree, you served the lusts of the eye, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life. You worshiped Zeus, Ashtoreth, and Molas. What does this mean to repent?

Repentance means a change of mind, a change of direction, a change of intention and purpose. Previously, you said, I am the God of my life. If I want to satisfy my appetite for honor, by cheating in school, I'll cheat.

If I want to satisfy my appetite for things, by stealing a little money, I'll steal. If I want to satisfy my appetite for experience, by being immoral, I'll be immoral. This was the attitude of the sinner.

God in his own life, ruling his own life, he was serving Zeus, Ashtoreth, and Molas, even though he never had carved a figure and never built an altar. Nevertheless, the very principle had become operative in the life of the sinner.

And so when the call of Jesus Christ came, it was what? It was to turn to God from idols. To turn to living and true God. And this is the essence of repentance. To turn to God. What does it mean to turn to God?

God made me. God knows my appetite. God knows my urges. God knows my needs. And God has the right and proper way for all of these to be satisfied.

And I'll turn to God for rule. God to govern.

God to give his deems right to him.

And I'll renounce my own deity and the idols that I've erected. And I'll submit myself to his sovereignty. So no one can faintly know Jesus Christ until he has turned to God to govern.

From idols which he's turned.

And this is what you did if you stayed in repentance. You renounced your own deity. You renounced your right to rule. You renounced the God of this world and the gods that he's called to discern. You no longer were living to gratify the lusts of the eyes.