sermonette: Anointing Our Eyes

Spiritual Blindness
David C. Grabbe
Given 19-Jul-03; Sermon #622s; 13 minutes

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Good afternoon everyone. Please turn with me to Revelation chapter 3. I'm going to begin in verse 14. You can probably recite these verses in your sleep by now, but given that this is the Leod and era, I think it's appropriate that we are familiar with what God writes to us living at the end time. Revelation 3 starting in verse 14. And unto the angel of the church of Laodicea, or of the Laodiceans, right, these things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth because you say I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and know not that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I counsel you to buy of me gold, tried it in the fire, that you may be rich and white raiment that you may be clothed and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear. And anoint your eyes with ISA that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am sat down with my father and his throne. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. Notice God's instructions in verse 18 for overcoming the spiritual condition. He tells us first to go ahead and endure the trials that are set before us. Don't take the easy way out because these trials are what refine us and help us to see things the way God sees them. This is interesting in light of the description of Babylon in Revelation 18, where one of her characteristics is the avoidance of suffering. She says, I sit as a queen and will see no sorrow. But God counsels the church era that is extent of the end time to not back away from adversity by compromising like the rest of the culture does. Second, he tells us to buy white garments which symbolize righteousness, and this is a reference to the righteousness of Christ that covers us. God says the Laodiceans need Christ's righteousness, for they say they are doing just fine. God's third pointed suggestion, which we will be examining today, is annoying our eyes so we can see clearly. ISA is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, but there are enough clus clues here to tie into other established principles in the Bible that we can begin to get an idea of how to apply this command. When you combine this instruction in verse 18 with the Laodicean's own assessment of himself in verse 17, we can see that God is saying that the Laodicean doesn't have the spiritual eyes to see his own condition. The Laodicean suffers from a spiritual blindness that keeps him from honestly evaluating his own condition. And because of that, all of those other spiritual judgments are going to be somewhat twisted as well. If we cannot see ourselves as God sees us, how are we going to be able to see anything else the way that God sees it? In the instructions God gives in Leviticus concerning the sacrifices in the priesthood, physical blindness is a factor of disqualification in a number of ways. For example, if an animal was blind, it was judged to be unfit to be a sacrifice. If we carry this through to the spiritual plain, it gives an indication of why God is so displeased with the Laodiceans. We are called to be living sacrifices and to imitate, imitate Christ in His fulfillment of such things as the burnt offering and the meal offering which symbolize devotion and commitment. If we are spiritually blind, though, our devotion and our commitment to God and to man will suffer, and we will not be qualified to be these sacrifices in type. God also says that physical blindness would disqualify a priest from his duties. The spiritual implication of this is also clear. If we are spiritually blind, we will be unable to perform the duties of the New Covenant priesthood. And to switch right into what God says to Laodicea. If we are spiritually blind, God will cast us aside, and we will not be a part of the holy nation of kings and priests when Christ returns. So what causes us to see things differently from God, to make judgments that are contrary to His own, and to evaluate the world from a perspective that is so anathema to God that He promises to vomit us out of his mouth? The basic answer is sin. That if we shall see, even though all have sinned and all still do sin, there are certain elements that affect our spiritual vision, much more drastically than others. Please turn with me to II Timothy Timothy. II Timothy chapter 3. And starting in verse 1, This also know that in the last days perilous time shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truth breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof and from such turn away. Drop down to verse 7. These same people are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, and this is just another way of describing spiritual blindness. And also in verse 13, Med evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, and self-deception goes hand in hand with spiritual blindness. The context reveals that the perilous times of great stress and trouble is not a reference to the persecution of the fifth seal or the events of Matthew 24. Even though Paul makes references to persecution in the letter to Timothy, the verses preceding and following this passage are all in reference to events within the church. Paul predicts with deadly accuracy that right before the end, the same period of time as the Leo Decene era, that one of the major problems will be self-centeredness. The last days will be perilous to Christians, not necessarily because of persecution, but because Satan will have the entire world imitating him. And exhibiting his own characteristics. The state of man will be so geared toward the self as Satan is that there will not be any room for God or for fellow man. And God's instructions to me mankind, he says, do it my way. It is the only way that's compatible with eternal life. In a contrast, Satan doesn't tell us directly to follow him. He says, do it your own way. Every one of the 19 attributes listed in II Timothy 3 is an indicator of being focused inward rather than upward and outward. Human nature may be neutral at birth, but because of Satan influence, it quickly develops an intrinsic self-focus and self-concern. We all have varying degrees of this Satanic quality, but as Paul shows in II Timothy 3:2, as the end draws near, men will become more and more lovers of self and utterly self-centered, as the amplified Bible has it. This self-centeredness is devastating because it causes an individual to elevate himself above God and above the rest of God's creation. When everyone is only looking out for his own interest and overlooking the interests of God and other people. The result is the very antithesis of eternal life in God's kingdom, and one of the first casualties of self-centeredness is truth, especially the truth about the self. The view of reality is seen through the lens of the self. Perhaps the greatest irony of self-centeredness is that even though a man is focused on himself, he is not really aware of himself. This is similar to the adage of not being able to see the forest because of all of the trees. A self-centered person is so focused on himself that he can't see himself clearly. He considers what is best for him, what he agrees with, how he sees things, how things will affect him or have already affected him, and is quick to shift blame away from himself at every turn. What he doesn't consider is whether his actions are best for everyone else. Whether his point of view is the only valid one, how he is affecting people, how he has affected others in the past, and what he really is to blame for. It's easy for him to recount all the wounds and injustices that he has received, but is oblivious to what pain or damage he has inflicted on others as a result of his self-focused haze. His focus is on what he perceives to be the best for the self, but not the reality of the self. When we sin, when we fall short of the glory of God, or when we miss the mark, it is because our judgment and our perception are not in line with God's. We see things spiritually in a different way than God does. And as a result, we act in ways that are contrary to his character and his standards. Sin begins in the heart or in the mind, and even though there are typically physical consequences of sin, there is always a certain amount of damage done to the mind of the person committing it. Sin destroys innocence by perverting the mind, so one doth not look at life in quite the same way as before. Sin destroys ideals by altering one's outlook. When sin is repeated, it destroys the will, and sin becomes easier and easier to repeat. Sin produces slavery because sin becomes the master over the person, and sin tends to produce more sin, and ultimately it produces death. But the good news in all of this gloom, as we have been called by God, been given understanding, and God has allowed the sacrifice of Christ to cover our sins. He has also given us His Spirit to guide us into all truth and to create a unity with God. When we sin, we can repent because we because we have access to God's throne and can ask for His forgiveness. We can also ask for his healing of the effects of sin, healing that can be physical, spiritual, mental or emotional. So while it is true that the root cause of spiritual blindness is sin, there is more to this equation, as the example of the Latician church shows. The other 6 churches were also composed of human beings, and the law of numbers dictates that those people committed sin as well. And yet God's letter to them did not center around spiritual blindness. So what if the difference in these churches? Please turn with me to Matthew chapter 5. The first of the beatitudes. Which says, Blessed are the horn spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We have the saying you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped, and this is at the root of the problem. The poor in spirit are those who recognize their spiritual poverty for what it is, and they do this by comparing themselves with God and not with their brethren, their family, their neighbors, or the world. We can always elevate ourselves by finding somebody somewhere that we are doing better than in some regard. We know that this is an exercise in futility, but it is exactly what God is describing about the Laodiceum. But the people who will be happy and spiritually prosperous, filled with joy and satisfaction regardless of the outward conditions, and the ones who will receive God's kingdom are those who recognize their own spiritual poverty perpetually and allow that reality to form the basis of their world view. The Laodicean in contrast is afraid to look inside because of what he suspects he will find and so he assumes a sort of infallibility that he is really pretty much OK and only with only an occasional slip up. He doesn't really want to be helped. He doesn't want to see the need, but if this self-centered lie is allowed to continue, it begins to manifest itself in the things that Paul wrote to Timothy about, such as pride, arrogance, abuse, and relationships, debate, murmuring, complaining, seeking a personal advantage, rejection of authority or instruction, unthankfulness, callousness, intemperance. Pursuit of worldly amusements and distractions, a lack of self-control, treachery, rashness, and self-conceit. It may never get to the point of blatant Sabbath breaking or murder or adultery, but if he is unwilling to look inside and make this very painful comparison with God, the end result will be the same. We will not turn to it, but II Thessalonians 2:10 to 12 describes the people who do not love the truth, and once again the context is those that God has given understanding to. The amplified Bible 50 did not welcome the truth and refused to love it, even though it's the truth that leads to salvation. These individuals refuse to adhere to, to trust in, and rely on the truth. And because they chose to be deceived, God allowed them to be deceived even more. As I mentioned before, you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. The sons of God will not back away from the truth, even the truth about their own spiritual condition and their need for the righteousness of Christ. Jesus Christ is standing at the door and knocking. We have only but to tear our eyes away from ourselves, and we can take part in the marriage supper of the Lamb. God has offered to let a fit at his very throne with Him. All we have to do is overcome, and that begins with seeing ourselves in relation to God, obeying His instructions and stirring up the spirit that He has given to aid us. And this is how we can anoint our eyes what eyes have.