BLIND GUIDES

"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matt. 5:22-23 NKJV)

Jesus said some pretty funny stuff at times--with a serious point, mind you--but comical, nonetheless.  For instance, He called the Pharisees “blind guides leading the blind” with the consequence of both falling into a ditch!  Seeing a blind man trying to lead another one and both of them winding up in a ditch is the kind of stuff the Three Stooges made a living on.

Though the illustration is ludicrous, the implications are deadly serious.  Vision--spiritual vision--is vital.  Jesus said that apart from the new birth, we cannot “see the Kingdom of God.”  We stumble along in darkness without Christ, the Light of Life.  We think we are on the right road, but with every step walk closer to the Abyss.  Paul declared, ^"But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 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." (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).  It takes a miracle work of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to God’s truth.

Churches, who claim to have the light, may actually be blind and not realize it.  The Great Physician, Jesus, examined the church at Laodecia, and concluded that despite their boasting, they were blind!  How can this happen?  Look into the light of the sun long enough and eventually the very thing God put in place to enable you to see, will make you blind!  God has given His Word as a light to us.  As that Word is set forth in faithfulness, when the people simply stare at it, and never look around them to apply its truth, it has a blinding effect--gradually, imperceptibly it brings judgment.  God has decreed that His Word always brings results.  When someone asks me if there was any response to my preaching, the answer is always, “Yes, some responded positively, some negatively. Some are better off for hearing it and some worse, but all have been changed.”  Jesus said to those who have, more will be given.  That is, if we obey His light, more light will fill us.  But if we reject that light, even the light we have will be taken away.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish..." (Proverbs 29:18a KJV).  What we see in churches today--churches blind to the truth--is a casting off of the restraint of the Word of God.  They are not anchored to Scripture and are blown around, like spiritual tumbleweeds by every wind of false doctrine.  These cast off moral restraint--awash in a sea of relativism, swept along by the tide of current culture.  There is no fixed reference point--no true North--no guiding light since they have no prophetic vision.

What does Jesus do with such a church?  He vomits them up; their toxic brand of “Christianity” nauseates Him.  Holman Hunt has a famous painting based on this text of Revelation 3:20, depicting Christ as the Light of the World.  But He is shut out of His people’s hearts.  He is knocking, wanting in.

Will you open the door?  Will you receive the Light?  He can open the eyes of the blind with one touch of His omnipotent hand.

In His Light,

Dennis Thurman, Mission Strategist