The other day I watched some of the PBS television show: “Nova.”
“Nova” is usually about something related to science or discovery.
This one was about a group of mountain climbers who were scaling the highest mountain in Antarctica.
The narrator kept going back the two earlier expeditions of Scott and Amundsen who raced each other to reach the South Pole first.
I didn’t catch the first part of this show, so I’m missing some of the details, but it appeared to me that the purpose of these mountain climbers wasn’t much more important than that of Scott and Amundsen.
for little other purpose than to determine the precise height of that mountain.
It wasn’t enough to know it was over 16,000 feet high, they risked their lives to determine that it is 16,067 feet high.
And now the world is a better place because it knows about that extra 67 feet.
On the way back they starved and froze to death.
When the Lord converted and commissioned Saul to become His Apostle,
He gave his new servant the promise of deliverance from “the people” and from the Gentiles.
Nevertheless, there was pain and danger in what Saul was to do.
Not the least of which was to be stoned to the point of death by a mob outside of Lystra in Galatia.
I know that people do it all the time, but it doesn’t seem reasonable for someone to risk his life for something that isn’t important.
Robert Scott may have thought that the fame of having arrived at the south Pole was important enough to give his life.
But what about the lives of his helpers, whose names would not be remembered?.
And Conrad Anker and Jon Krakauer may have thought that to determine the height of the coldest mountain on earth was important.
But I disagree with them.
The work which was given to the man eventually known as Paul, was infinitely more important than that of Scott, Anker or Amundsen.
And we have it outlined for us here.
These are things which give a person’s life worthwhile meaning.
These are things for which to die.
In fact, these are things for which many men and women have died, the foremost of whom was Jesus of Nazareth.
I believe that there are six very important things mentioned in this single verse.
The Lord Jesus wasn’t talking about the organs over which many of us have to put lenses to use well.
Right now, Janet Pugh, wife of missionary Curtis Pugh is fighting for the last of her sight there in Romania.
But if the worst happens and that is the case, it will not mean the lost of her eternal salvation.
There are a multitude of verses to which we could turn, but one should be sufficient – Ephesians 1:18.
This is not talking about the initial miracle when the spiritually blind are made to see for the first time.
This is talking about the ongoing miracle of spiritual sight.
Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.”
“Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
But if there is some doubt they should be washed away by the words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 4:
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
And whatever strength or success that Paul would have in that work, would actually be the working of the Holy Spirit of God.
And why is this so important?
Because despite our blindness, we who are born sinners, don’t realize that we can’t see.
Some of you remember as a child when your eyes started going bad.
It wasn’t until you got your glasses that you understood that really did need glasses.
And being able to see actually took some of the sting away from the teasing the other kids gave you.
Because we are blind to the sinfulness of our sins and to the necessity of eternal punishment for them.
Because we are blind to the holiness of God and the fact that He must judge our sins.
Because we are blind to our inability to deliver ourselves from our sin.
John 9 is all about blindness.
It begins with the disciples asking Christ about the cause of blindness in a man who had been born blind.
After the Lord cured him, a controversy was begun between the cured man and the priests.
Then in verse 39, “And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”
It’s only when we realize that we are blind that we can have a hope for the ministry that our scripture is talking about.
The Saviour said, “Paul, I am authorizing you and enabling you to open spiritually blinded hearts.”
I know that none of you have ever been blind since birth, so you can’t answer with authority:
For example, would he know whether or not he was facing the sun?
he would know that he was facing the sun, or even an ordinary lamp.
So that blind man has a choice of facing the light or facing the darkness.
What if a blind child was told by his mother that the sun could burn his skin, especially his face, and that he should not face the sun for long periods?
Couldn’t that blind person choose to always face the shades, even though he couldn’t actually see that darkness?
And what if surgically or miraculously that person had his sight restored, couldn’t he still have the option of facing the light or facing the darkness?
I’m not saying that the two things aspects of Jesus’ commission are independent of each other, but they aren’t the same thing.
There is a wonderful little chorus that many of you remember:
“The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin; the Light of the World is Jesus.
Come to the Light, ‘tis shining on thee; Sweetly the light has dawned upon me.
Once I was blind, but now I can see; the Light of the Word is Jesus.”
John 8:12 – “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
And in that chapter about blindness, the Saviour said to his disciples:
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
It would be whatever was the opposite of Christ, and that could be viewed in several ways.
Satan is the opposite to the person of Jesus.
And sin is the opposite to the righteousness of the Son of God.
Ignorance is the opposite of the wisdom that there is in Him.
who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
And Paul’s work and our need is to turn from darkness to this marvelous light.
What is double chocolate cake? Might we say that it’s a cake that is really, really chocolate?
Likewise, the sinner is double blind, triple blind, quadruply blind.
Not only are we spiritually blind by nature, but even if we could see, we’d automatically choose darkness.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
Why do we dare death, dare injury and dare even the wrath of God?
Isn’t because we are double blind?
Is there any hope for people in this condition?
We cannot see, and nothing that we can do for ourselves can change that.
We cannot see, and there is actually nothing that any apostle, priest or preacher can do about that.
We are blind, and it demands nothing less than the miraculous power of the sovereign God to correct.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,
And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”
For example, He said nothing about our spiritual kinship to Satan.
In John 8 Christ Jesus made reference to our spiritual deafness, our spiritual blindness, and our love for spiritual darkness, but what makes it really interesting is an important addendum:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”
We need to become dead to our first spiritual father, and alive to God.
We need to be adopted into the family of the Lord.
Nor did He address the fact that Satan is the Prince of the Power of the Air.
The Lord Jesus didn’t say that we need to be freed from the dominion of Satan, even though that is true.
Every demon-possessed man, woman and child in the Bible is an illustration of the dominion that the Evil One has over all of his children and minions.
“The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
When one of the children of the Wicked One is born again and adopted into the Family of God, he is given freedom from Satan and all that is associated with Satan.
“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
He said, I commission you to work to turn them from the power of Satan unto God.
One of the additional problems that we have with our evil spiritual father and his wicked power over us, is that by nature we have grown to love them.
We’re like battered wife and girl-friends who are horribly abused by the men in their lives, but who are incapable of leaving them or reporting them.
Part of Paul’s ministry, and our great need, is to be turned from the power of Satan unto God.
Before our conversions we live in love with the danger, the darkness and the taste of the poison of sin.
We will never be convinced of the wickedness of that power and poison, until we are given new hearts by the grace of God.
And even after our redemption, it takes time and the on-going work of the men of God and Spirit of God to get us to turn from that power to fully face the Lord and to stare into His eyes only.
Christ said, “Paul, this is going to be your job from now on.”
And through that commission, the Saviour said to all of us, “This YOUR great need.”
We are sinners – dead, deaf, enslaved, blinded – whatever Biblical illustration you wish to use.
And there is nothing that we can do ourselves to affect this condition.
It is essential that we be born again – saved by the grace of the Lord.
Do you need to cast yourself upon the mercy of God today?