Spiritual Blindness

RIVERSIDE INDONESIAN FELLOWSHIP
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Spiritual Blindness

Riverside Indonesian Fellowship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 27 October 2013

The basic issue in this portion of Matthew's Gospel is the subject of spiritual blindness. Do you know that we spend every year $ 10 billion in the United States on eye care. Seven percent of our population is legally blind, but the most amazing statistic is that 100 percent of our population is spiritually totally blind.

You and I cannot see either, except for the illuminating work of the Spirit of God; because, even though we are redeemed, in our humanness we have no capacity to perceive that. Even redeemed humanness can't perceive it. It is all the result of the illuminating work of the Spirit of God.

The people who are blind to the reality of the spiritual world are divided in two groups. There are the blind who will never see it; and there are the blind who will be made to see it; and in our passage we meet both kinds. And the difference between the two is what a person does with Jesus Christ. If you follow Jesus Christ and believe in Him, He makes you see. If you reject Him, you go through life and eternity blind.

In John 1:5-10 we read, "And the Light shines in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.”

Now, in Romans 1:21 it says, "because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

John says, "Men are blind." Paul says, "Men are blind. They can't see." In Ephesians 4:17-18 Paul says, “you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” So men do not see.

Psalm 82:5 says, “They walk about in darkness." Psalm 115:5 says, “Eyes they have, but they do not see." In Exodus 5:2, Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord? I do not know the Lord." Of course he didn't, no one does by themselves! Proverbs 4:19 says, "The way of the wicked is darkness." And in Isaiah 42:18 he says, "Look you blind, that you may see.”

The Bible says that three things contribute to this total spiritual blindness. One is sin. We are blind, because sin has blinded us. Sin is paralleled in the Scripture very often with darkness, and the Bible says that we walk in darkness. And it says in John 3 that, "Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.”

The second contributor to blindness is Satan. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” So there's the blindness of sin compounded by the blindness caused by Satan.

And, thirdly, there's the blindness because of God’s sovereign judgment. Luke 19:42 says, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace!” In other words, if Jerusalem had only awakened to who it was that was in their midst, “But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Later it says in verse 44, “because you did not know the time of your visitation.” You did not awaken to the Light when light was here, and now I affirm you in your blindness.

And so most people just go through world as if the world was all there ever was. That's all there is, is the perception of the world around them; and they missed the reality of the spiritual dimension. Now, these blind people fall into two categories, the blind who will never see and the blind who will be made to see.

In Matthew 13, the Lord described this age and says, "Here are the parables that explain to you the nature of this mystery time." And He gave seven parables. Now, those parables taught that it is a time where there is mixture of belief and unbelief. And that's the characteristic of this age; and frankly mainly rejection, but there are some who believe.

Now, we are at the last of those illustrations to help us understand this era. Again we see the characteristic of the rejecters, and then we'll get a glimpse of the disciples who portray for us the good soil that received and believed the Word. And it is the last time that He really offers the Pharisees and Sadducees an invitation. From now on when He meets with them, it is condemnation.

Sinful blindness and satanic blindness here become sovereign blindness. So He is turning away from those who have ultimately rejected Him. He focuses on His own; and His ministry priority becomes, not the multitudes, not convincing the skeptics, but teaching and disciplining His own, so they'll be ready for the task at hand when He leaves.

Now, let us look first this evening at the blind who will never see. Matthew 16:1-4, “Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.”

Here we see the rejecters again. They are personally blinded by their own sin, satanically blinded, and now sovereignly blinded by God. Now, the setting is interesting. Verse 1 says, "The Pharisees and the Sadducees came." Now where is Jesus now? Well, verse 39 says, "He came to Magdala." As soon as He gets out of the boat, He's back in Jewish territory.

Now the amazing thing about that is that the Pharisees and the Sadducees could even do anything together. They hated each other. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection but the Sadducees did not. They did not believe in angels, in the Holy Spirit and in immortality. They were the theological liberals and the Pharisees were the theological conservatives.

The Pharisees believed in the literal interpretation of the law. They also believed in the traditions. All of the Talmud, all the rules that had been passed down that they thought was equally binding with the written Word of God. On the other hand, the Sadducees did not accept the traditions of the elders, the traditions of the rabbis. They accepted only the Scripture, but they did not believe it literally.

And the Pharisees were mostly common people while the Sadducees were the aristocrats. There was also another factor. The Pharisees were the sons of what were known as the Hassidic Jews. This was a group of Jews during the Maccabean Period between the New Testament and the Old Testament, who were the pious and holy ones; and they despised the influence of Gentile culture.

On the other hand, the Sadducees loved to mingle politically with the Gentile culture. In fact, one of their daughters married Herod, and they even got mingled up with the Herodians. They were the compromisers and the politicians. So the Pharisees come together with the Sadducees; the blind leading the blind. They both believed you were saved by works, self-righteousness; and so they came to attack Jesus.

The second characteristic is that they curse the light. Matthew 16:1 says these guys came, and they were testing Him, hoping He would fail. They were trying to discredit Him publicly. They were trying to They were trying to discredit Him publicly. They were trying to make Him look bad and "they desired that He'd show them a sign from Heaven.

Jesus Himself was a sign from heaven, and where did they think He got all that food to feed the 50,000 people that must have been in those two feedings? And where did those limbs come from that He reattached, and those eyes, and that life that He breathed into those who were dead? No, they wanted only to curse the Light of the World, that's all.

The Jews had a superstition that demons could do earthly miracles, but only God could do heavenly ones. So they said, "Hey, what You have done You did by the power of Beelzebub," in Matthew 12. So they are now saying, "Now do a heavenly one," and they could have said, “Joshua made the moon and the sun stand still. Elijah made fire come out of Heaven. Now do something up there like a sign from Heaven.”

This shows that they had rejected every single miracle Jesus had done before as evidence of His being the Messiah. Even Nicodemus, who was a lot smarter and a lot more pious had said in John 3:2, "We know that no man can do what You do except God be with him." So they had ignored all of that. Of course they couldn't understand anything spiritual.

This is the same as with Pharaoh. God kept demonstrating His power to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh kept hardening his heart. He didn't want to acknowledge any signs; and finally God just devastated the whole Kingdom. Voltaire, the French atheist, summed it up when he said, and I quote, "Even if a miracle should be done in the open market place before a thousand witnesses, I would rather mistrust my senses than admit a miracle.”

Now, that's a man who is blind and will never see. Woody Allen said, "I would believe if only God would give me some clear sign, like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank." That's mocking God, isn't it? You see liberal critics of Scripture only want to deny the truth of God. They want to run to human intellect, to rationalism, to skepticism, to their own ego and all they are showing is that they seek darkness and not light.

Now, look at our Lord's reply in verse 2-3, “He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.”

What He is saying to them is simply this, "Your sensitivity to weather is strange since you are so insensitive toward the things related to God's Kingdom. You pass yourself of as theologians; but you are much better at the weather than you are at theology." They could see physical signs, but not the spiritual.

They were the theological experts, the experts on the Kingdom movements of God, but Jesus said, "You have no clue. You don't even know what's going on. You didn't recognize John the Baptist. You didn't recognize the Messiah. You didn't know what the miracles meant. You didn't know what My teachings meant. You missed it all." In Matthew 23, Jesus calls them "blind guides."

That is a judgment on those who reject the Word of God and call themselves religious leaders, and call themselves theologians. They do not know what time it is. They don't see God's Kingdom. They can't read the realities. Our world is full of them. They can teach you everything, except what is most important, which is about Jesus.

There are signs everywhere that Jesus is coming back. The disciples in Matthew 24:3 said to Him, "Lord, what will be the signs of Your coming at the end of the age?” And He said to them in verse 6, "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars." We see that. Verse 7, “And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.” We have got a world hunger problem and an increase in earthquakes”, then He continues in verse 11, "Many false prophets will rise up,” and the world is full of false religious leaders.

Ezekiel said, near the end God is going restore His people Israel. And now Israel has become a nation. And then the Bible tells us there will be a unifying of the world. They will all come to one great spiritual union. And in the end time, it is the antichrist who will fill the role of the leader.

The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 2, "There will be an increase of lawlessness," and we see that in our society. First Timothy 4:1 says, "A rise in seducing spirits and doctrine of demons," and it also says in 2 Peter 2, there will be apostasy, denying the faith, denying the Lord, denying the Second Coming. This all is happening in the time we live now. This is the end of the age; and I hope you see the signs of the times.

People who are blind and will never see finally are abandoned by God. Matthew 16:4, “A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And He left them and departed.” The point is that God doesn't try to convince the heart that seeks the darkness, curses the light, and plunges deeper and deeper into the pit. That is not the heart that God responds to.

What is the sign of the prophet Jonah? Back in Matthew 12:40-41 Jesus says, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 And the men of Nineveh shall arise in Judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here.”

The only sign you are going to see is the resurrection. Only Jonah's generation is better off than you are, because Jonah's generation repented, and you won't. In fact, these same religious leaders, when they knew of the resurrection, took money and bribed the soldiers not to say anything about Him rising. That's how they cursed the Light.

And what happens as a result? The end of verse 4, "He left them and departed." When God abandons somebody, that is the most severe of all acts; and that's what happens to people who are blind, who curse the Light and plunge deeper. If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, then you are always in danger of God abandoning you to your darkness. Let's pray.



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