Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Have you ever thought about what it's like to be blind?
[00:00:02] Have you ever put on a blindfold or one of those sleep masks and tried to do anything normal besides just sit there?
[00:00:16] Have you ever been deep in a cave, so deep that no light could make it to where you were, and then turned off your flashlights?
[00:00:30] You can bring your hand right up in front of your face, and you might think that you see it, but you're not seeing it.
[00:00:40] You'll feel it before you see it. You'll actually feel the heat from your hand.
[00:00:47] What is it like to be blind?
[00:00:53] Yesterday, my kids were watching videos that were really remarkable. I only watched about five seconds. It was all various amazing skills that people who were disabled in a variety of ways could perform.
[00:01:16] I assumed that there were some blind people, people doing remarkable feats. I don't know. I didn't watch.
[00:01:24] But in a very real sense, if you are blind, you are unable to do what you were made to do.
[00:01:33] There's challenges, of course, that you can overcome, but there's things that you can't ever overcome while being blind.
[00:01:44] You could be walking towards danger or even death, and have no idea that it's coming, like stumbling in the darkness.
[00:01:58] But what if you're spiritually blind?
[00:02:02] What if you have no concept of what's going on around you spiritually? What if you have no idea what it means to see the light?
[00:02:23] You'll be worshiping idols.
[00:02:26] You'll be heading for hell.
[00:02:30] You'll be following anybody and anything that promises to make you feel better, or you'll be refusing to follow anybody, simply doing whatever you want.
[00:02:49] In the beginning of the book of Acts, the apostle Paul was not yet the apostle Paul. He was still known as Saul, and he was spiritually blind.
[00:03:04] And then, on the road to Damascus, Jesus revealed his blindness, his spiritual blindness to him.
[00:03:15] Partly by making him physically blind, Jesus showed Saul that he was spiritually blind. By making him physically blind, Jesus described Saul and the other pharisees, like Matthew 23, you blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
[00:03:42] Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
[00:03:46] For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
[00:04:07] And in Matthew 15, he says, Let them alone.
[00:04:12] They are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.
[00:04:27] Jesus, who gives us these descriptions, very vivid.
[00:04:34] Blind man leading a blind man.
[00:04:37] Both fall into a pit.
[00:04:40] Jesus is the light that shows us how blind we are. Jesus is. It is the light that gives us sight.
[00:04:55] The sad reality is that, as the beginning of John tells us, the light shined into the darkness.
[00:05:08] But the darkness did not comprehend it, did not grasp it, did not understand it, did not know it.
[00:05:20] And so this light of life was rejected. Rejected by his own, rejected by Saul, a Jew. Of Jew.
[00:05:36] Pharisee. Of Pharisee.
[00:05:39] Studied under the best teachers, the most conservative, the most committed to the law of God.
[00:05:48] And yet they were still blind. He was still blind.
[00:05:54] Let's read from Acts, chapter 9 about Saul while he's still Saul, and when he is blind and when he receives sight. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from Acts 9, 17:22.
[00:06:28] So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him, said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:06:51] And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales. And he regained his sight.
[00:06:58] And he got up and was baptized. And he took food and was strengthened.
[00:07:04] Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus. And immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, he is the Son of God.
[00:07:17] All those hearing him continued to be amazed and were saying, is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?
[00:07:33] But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ.
[00:07:44] This is the word of the Lord.
[00:07:58] God uses the idea of restored sight as a metaphor for salvation.
[00:08:10] In Isaiah, there is a prophecy speaking of the Messiah opening blind eyes.
[00:08:20] Isaiah 42.
[00:08:21] Starting in verse 6, it says, I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.
[00:08:48] I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven images.
[00:09:05] What is it like to be blind? To be spiritually blind?
[00:09:13] It's like being a prisoner.
[00:09:19] It's like being in a dungeon.
[00:09:22] It's like being in the Darkness.
[00:09:28] Not the twilight, not the moonlight or the starlight, just darkness.
[00:09:36] Paul describes.
[00:09:38] He was blinded like this.
[00:09:46] He says in Acts 26, get up and stand on your feet. For this purpose, I have appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness, not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you.
[00:10:02] This is Jesus speaking to Paul when he was on the road to Damascus, rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.
[00:10:39] What a beautiful thing.
[00:10:41] As Paul is being blinded, He is being given a mission to unblind others, to open their eyes. Even his eyes are closed.
[00:11:11] Ananias is the man that was sent to lay hands on him.
[00:11:19] He says that he was sent so that Paul may regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:11:29] So you've got the physical blindness and the spiritual blindness, both being resolved at the same time.
[00:11:39] To be filled with the Spirit is to be saved, is to have Jesus Christ as your eternal light.
[00:11:50] What more could you ask for?
[00:11:55] Well, you could ask to not be physically blind, too, right? But isn't his physical restoration, his regaining of his sight, isn't that precisely the proof of the power, the healing light of Jesus Christ?
[00:12:21] It's a beautiful picture of his blindness being removed in that he was baptized.
[00:12:32] And immediately what does he do? He begins the work he was made for.
[00:12:39] Remember, being blind, you can't do the work that you're made for. But when he received his sight, he began doing the work of an apostle and missionary, which is precisely what he was made for.
[00:12:52] Much of the rest of the Book of Acts is about that work that he's doing.
[00:13:07] What if you are blind?
[00:13:13] What if you can't see?
[00:13:22] Often I think that we are like the man who was blind. And Jesus spit into the ground and made mud and put it on his eyes. And.
[00:13:44] Yes, he was healed.
[00:13:48] But wasn't it the guy with the mud on his eyes who. It took two steps.
[00:13:56] First he saw people walking around as though trees.
[00:14:04] If you squint really, really tight sometimes, you know, you just can't see very well. Or if you first wake up in the morning and everything's super blurry, or maybe if your eyes are that bad, you just take off your glasses and everything's just.
[00:14:18] You can kind of see.
[00:14:27] Sometimes we can kind of see spiritually.
[00:14:32] We know that we need to be able to see.
[00:14:38] We can grope around some in the dark, some.
[00:14:45] There are problems with being able to tell precisely what we're reaching towards.
[00:14:56] But what happens when we are healed completely, when we receive the Holy Spirit?
[00:15:10] In John 9, Jesus says, For judgment, I came into this world so that those who do not see may see and that those who see may become blind. Now, that's a strange one.
[00:15:31] Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and said to him, we are not blind too, are we? Of course. This is Saul, right? The Pharisees.
[00:15:42] Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin. But since you say, we see, your sin remains.
[00:15:53] This is a warning to those who think they see but have never been healed.
[00:15:59] It's a call to be healed from your blindness. What does it mean to actually see, to actually know?
[00:16:09] Paul thought he was doing the Lord's work while he was persecuting Christians.
[00:16:15] He did not think that he was blind. He thought he saw perfectly clearly.
[00:16:24] And yet when he was struck blind, suddenly he realized how blind he really.
[00:16:41] Are you able to see now?
[00:16:46] Do you have the light of life living within you?
[00:16:53] If you don't seek the Lord while he may be found, come to his light. Recognize that it has shined in the darkness. And you want to do more than see men walking about as though trees.
[00:17:12] When the light shines into the darkness, you want perfect sight.
[00:17:21] You want to know the path.
[00:17:23] Walk. You want it to be laid before you. Clearly.
[00:17:30] The word of the Lord will be a light unto your path.
[00:17:43] If you think you see like the Pharisees did, ask yourself what you're seeing.
[00:17:52] Are you seeing Jesus Christ?
[00:17:56] Because this is the light that we are called to. This is the light that. That heals. This is the light of salvation. This is the light of heaven.
[00:18:08] He is.
[00:18:10] There's no need for the sun there to see.
[00:18:17] There's perfect light there.
[00:18:22] So whatever light you think you have, if it's not Jesus Christ, it is perfect and utter darkness.
[00:18:31] It is hopeless.
[00:18:36] But if the light that you have that you. That you throw yourself at and say, this is the only thing that I can live by. This is my only hope. If that light is Jesus Christ, you're safe.
[00:18:55] You have found a solid stone.
[00:19:03] You have found a way to live so that your life will have not just meaning, but the very meaning, the very purpose that God made you for. Think about how different Saul's life looked when he became the Apostle Paul.
[00:19:21] From persecuting the church to being the persecuted church. Jesus said, I will show you how much you have to suffer.
[00:19:30] Amazing.
[00:19:34] And everybody thought the apostle Paul had gone mad.
[00:19:40] Saul has gone mad, right?
[00:19:45] Even the Romans, who weren't Pharisees.
[00:19:50] Your great learning has driven you mad.
[00:19:58] But no, what had happened was he was no longer blind.
[00:20:03] He now saw Jesus Christ.
[00:20:07] And that's what happened. He encountered Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.
[00:20:15] He ran into him like a brick wall, like a light beam.
[00:20:27] I know Rob really likes bright flashlights. There's something really amazing about a good LED light. But, man, have you ever had one of those things just go from off to, like full on your face?
[00:20:41] You can't do anything but stand there completely blinded. Right? That's what happened to Paul. He hit light and he was blinded by it.
[00:20:55] And it made him see how very blind he was. Now, what is the thing that you will hit?
[00:21:01] If you haven't seen Jesus Christ yet, your goal is to run into Him.
[00:21:10] Now, it might be like on the road to Damascus, some stumbling, some suffering that will cause you finally to open your eyes.
[00:21:25] Well, praise God for that.
[00:21:29] If it takes a broken leg or going broke or almost dying for you to suddenly realize how blind you've been, how you've been living in opposition to Jesus Christ, how you've been fleeing him and his kingdom, how you've been wandering around in the darkness, stumbling with no idea what you're doing.
[00:21:57] Anything that will shake you out of that and turn you to Jesus Christ is a gift from Tim Bayly physical blindness was a gift from God.
[00:22:10] And then his healing was also a gift from God.
[00:22:17] You remember the Old Testament?
[00:22:21] Locust?
[00:22:24] Not on the Egyptians, on God's people.
[00:22:28] The swarming locusts, the gnawing locusts, the eating locusts, they keep coming and coming. The locusts were a gift from God.
[00:22:44] They took everything away. They ate all the food. And that was a gift from God to his people. Why?
[00:22:51] How can you call that a gift? Because it was by that gift that he drove them back to himself.
[00:23:00] And then when the years that the locusts have eaten have been restored, that also is a gift from him, isn't it?
[00:23:17] Don't fight against God leading you towards the light.
[00:23:26] Come to him.
[00:23:30] Live in his light.
[00:23:36] Receive the healing that comes.
[00:23:42] Like the apostle Paul received his sight back and received baptism and received the Holy Spirit so you can receive healing and the Holy Spirit so that you are able to see. Now, if you do see, if you have Jesus Christ living within you, you will live according to his commands. You will live loving him. You will live loving your neighbor. You will live producing the fruit of the Spirit because you have the Spirit in you, if you have his light.
[00:24:21] In fact, the church is called a city set on a hill to be a light to all the nations.
[00:24:31] The way you live is shining light into the darkness.
[00:24:39] That is a call to the world to repent. It's a call to receive this same light, to come into the kingdom of light, out of the kingdom of darkness and death and destruction and hell.
[00:24:58] So don't be ashamed of your light.
[00:25:02] Remember, don't hide it under a bushel.
[00:25:05] No, I'm going to let it shine.
[00:25:12] Why is it that we shine?
[00:25:15] Because Christ is within us.
[00:25:19] What a joy. What a gift that is.
[00:25:25] May the whole world see and be blessed.
