Was Blind, But Now I See

9/25/22

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Sermon Transcript

Good morning. One of the most wonderful miracles in the Bible is found in John chapter 9. In verse 1 of that chapter, Jesus meets a man who had been blind from birth. And in verse 7, Jesus opens that man’s eyes so that he can see for the first time in his life.

Can we imagine what that must have been like? To be blind and then to suddenly see. And not only to suddenly see, but to suddenly know what it means to see. To suddenly see light for the first time. To suddenly see everything. To see Jesus. That man experienced all of these things in just a moment. What must it have been like?

Well, we know what it was like. How? Because many of us have experienced it. Those of us who have obeyed the gospel of Christ have experienced spiritually what that man experienced physically. In fact, Jesus said later in that same chapter in John 9:39, “For judgment I am coming to this world that they which see not might see.” That’s us. We weren’t born spiritually blind, but we were all eventually blinded by sin. We were all eventually in need of the cleansing blood of Christ, and our eyes were opened by Christ when we arose the new creature from the watery grave of baptism. We even sing about it. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

And as bad as physical blindness must be, spiritual blindness is infinitely worse. Sadly, so many people today are spiritually blind, they do not see as they should. They have a distorted view of God, they have a distorted view of themselves, they have a distorted view of this world, they have a distorted view of everything. They have been blinded to what really matters. You know, Helen Keller said, “To be blind is bad, but it’s worse to have eyes and not see.” And that is the sad situation of most in this world.

What is the cause of that blindness? Well, we don’t have to wonder about that because Paul has answered that question for us in the scripture that was read a moment ago. 2 Corinthians 4:4, “In whom 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 into them. Satan blinds, but he doesn’t blind eyes. Satan blinds minds.”

Well, how does he do that? Again, we don’t have to wonder about that. Paul answers that question as well in 2 Corinthians 10, starting in verse 3. “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Those verses tell us a great deal about the spiritual blindness in this world. First, they tell us the cause of that spiritual blindness. It’s caused by arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God. That’s how Satan blinds people. That’s what Paul tells us.

Second, those verses tell us our task. We are to destroy those lofty arguments and opinions raised against the knowledge of God, raised against his nature, against his love, against his work, against his plan.

And third, those verses tell us where that happens. It happens in our minds. Paul tells us we are at war and that war is taking place in our minds. Where else can I hold every thought captive to obey Christ but in my mind?

I want us to look this morning at the enemy, at the enemy and that warfare. I want us to consider those arguments and lofty opinions that we’re told to destroy. If the first step in winning a war is to know your enemy, then that’s what I want us to do this morning. Know our enemy.

Now that sounds like a big task. How can we look at all those arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God? There must be thousands of them, right? Well, there are thousands of variations, but when you boil them all down, you know how many you have left? You have three, exactly three, only three. That’s what John tells us. In 1 John 2, starting in verse 15. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the father but is from the world.”

All that is in the world, well that was just John’s first century culture, right? Now we’re very different today, we’re very sophisticated, we’ve got a lot of new opinions and no, we don’t. Verse 16 we just read, “all that is in the world.” John is telling us that whatever we find in this world that is not from the Father falls into one of those three buckets. The desires of the flesh that we call hedonism, the desires of the eye that we call materialism, the pride of life that we call humanism. That’s it and that’s always been it. Hedonism, materialism, and humanism, there is no worldly philosophy different from those three. Those three worldly philosophies describe all that is in the world apart from the Father. They were the worldly philosophies in John’s day and they are the worldly philosophies in our own day. Many things have changed since the first century but human nature is not on that list.

The Apostle Paul described the same three philosophies in 2 Timothy 3, starting in verse 1, “But understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulties for people will be what, lovers of self, lovers of money, skipping to verse 4, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” That’s it, those are our choices, those are our only choices. Will we be lovers of self, the humanist? Will we be lovers of money, the materialist? Will we be lovers of pleasure, the hedonist? Or will we be lovers of God? Those are the choices. They have always been the choices, the only choices.

If we are lovers of God then we are at war with hedonism and materialism and humanism. C.S. Lewis correctly observed. He said Christianity is a fighting religion and that’s true but you know what? Those worldly philosophies are fighting back. They are aggressive. They are relentless. They’re not just trying to blind us. They’re trying to kill us and we’ve been told to fight them, we’ve been told to destroy them. Now at this point some might say, “Well you know they’re just ideas, right, just different viewpoints. How dangerous could they really be?” History teaches us that we ignore them at our peril.

You know we’re hearing a lot these days about nuclear missiles and they are powerful weapons. There is no more powerful weapon than an idea. You know when Karl Marx was buried at London’s Highgate Cemetery, only 11 people attended his graveside service. You know, many observers probably thought, “Well, that’s the end of the story for Karl Marx,” but it was not. His materialistic, humanistic, atheistic philosophy soon rose up from his writings and swept the globe. In fact, people to this very day are suffering persecution because of what Karl Marx thought long ago. Ideas are powerful. We need to know what we’re fighting. We need to know what we’re up against. These three philosophies are Satan’s most effective weapons against the church and we must not be ignorant of his devices. 2 Corinthians 2:11.

So let’s look at them. Hedonism, materialism, and humanism. Let’s look first at hedonism. God says, “Seek ye first his kingdom.” The hedonist says, “Seek ye first your own pleasure.” A hedonist is devoted to earthly sensual pleasure as his way of life. He’s motivated by pleasure. He’s controlled by pleasure, by the pursuit of pleasure, by the love of pleasure. He’s guided by pleasure. His steps are directed by pleasure, by the lust of the flesh, pleasure is what he seeks first.

What does the Bible say about that philosophy? Well we know King Solomon followed it for a while. He described it well, Ecclesiastes 2:10, “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold from my heart any pleasure.” That’s the hedonist. That’s the motto of the hedonist. Solomon denied himself nothing. That’s what he just told us. He lived only to feed his own desires. And that philosophy remains very popular 3,000 years after King Solomon, doesn’t it? And we know it’s the exact opposite of how a Christian must live. Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Paul described the hedonists in Titus 3:3, “For we ourselves were also once foolish and disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures.” That word serving is so important. The hedonist serves his lusts and pleasures. He may think he’s in charge of those lusts. He may think they report to him, but the opposite is true. They are in charge of him. He reports to his own lusts and pleasures. He serves them. He is their slave. Now that doesn’t sound very attractive, But as we look around the world today, isn’t hedonism the dominant philosophy? Why? Why are so many people today living for nothing more than their own pleasures? Why?

Paul again answers that question. 1 Corinthians 15:32. “If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Absent God, hedonism is the most logical philosophy. That’s what Paul tells us there. If there is no God, then why not just live by a beer commercial and go for the gusto? If this is all there is, then why not just eat and drink for tomorrow we die? Why deny myself anything if all that stands before me is the grave? That’s not the only reason it’s popular today. Hedonism has another popular allure that makes it very powerful today, and that is it is a spiritual sedative. Hedonism deadens spiritual nerves. It muffles the spiritual alarm systems. It stifles our spiritual growth. Those who seek only worldly pleasures eventually become unreachable and deadened. They want each new pleasure to be better than the last. And they give themselves over entirely to what becomes an endless spiral of despair and disappointment. We’ve all seen it and others haven’t we? We’ve seen it. We’ve witnessed it. They’re seeking happiness but what they find is emptiness and disappointment and death. “As always, Satan promises much, but he delivers so little. Only the fleeting pleasures of sin,” Hebrews 11:25.

Does that mean it’s wrong to pursue pleasure? No. There is a permanent pleasure that we all must pursue, but that permanent pleasure will not be found where people are looking today, where most people are looking today. And as with many things in the kingdom, there’s a paradox when it comes to pleasure. Permanent pleasure awaits not those who deny themselves nothing, but it awaits those who deny themselves everything as they take up their cross and follow Christ. There’s only one way to permanent pleasure and the psalmist tells us where to look. Psalm 16:11. “You will show me the path of life and your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Hedonism blinds us by taking our eyes away from that goal. Hedonism is trying its best to kill us. We are at war against it.

Let’s look next at materialism. God says, “Seek ye first his kingdom.” The materialist says, “Seek ye first money.” Money, a controlled by things by the pursuit of money by the love of money his steps are directed by the lust of his eyes. That is what he seeks first. He seeks only to consume. Whatever he has he always wants more and more and more. If earthly pleasure can’t provide happiness and meaning then money must be the answer, right? After all whoever said money can’t buy happiness just didn’t know where to shop, right? Money must be the answer to all of man’s questions because money is the answer to everything, right? Wrong. So many people believe otherwise and have been blinded by money.

One of the very first skeletons uncovered in the ruins of Pompeii had its outstretched skeletal hands reaching for a pile of silver coins. Those coins were the first thing that person thought of when his world was literally collapsing around him. It was the last thing he sought in this life. And is modern man any different from that? You know, it’s been said correctly that most people today are frantically fighting for first-class cabin space on the Titanic. They grasp, they covet, they obtain, and then they sit at home feeling lost and disappointed amid their own abundance.

Let’s consider what the Bible has to say about materialism. Paul describes its great danger and damage in 1 Timothy 6, starting in verse 9. “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Well, that’s just a danger for rich people, right? No, that’s not at all what he said. Paul said those who desire to be rich. The danger of materialism, no one is immune from it, not rich, not poor.

The prophet Haggai dealt with the same philosophy. Haggai 1:5, “Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and bring in little. You eat but do not have enough. You drink, but you’re not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves but no one is warm and he who earns wages earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” That verse was written 2500 years ago can any right one write a better description of modern man than that? A bag with holes. They eat, but they never have enough.

And once again, we find King Solomon is someone who experimented with this same philosophy. Ecclesiastes 2:7, “I made my works great. I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards. I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees to the grove. I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possession of herds and flocks than all were who were in Jerusalem before me.”

Does that description remind you of anybody? Listen as Jesus describes the rich fool in Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 16. “Then he spoke a parable to them, saying, 'The ground of a certain man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do? I have no room to store my crops.’ I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build greater. I will store all my crops and all my goods and I will say to my soul, ‘So you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’”

The personal pronoun “I” occurs seven times in Solomon’s description of himself and six times in that rich fool’s description of what he was doing. I. You know, we’re talking about blindness but there’s another kind of eye disease, isn’t there, the personal pronoun “I”? And both of them had it. No one who is focused on his own possessions can be focused on God and their love of money shows not only in their values and in their priorities but it shows in their language and how they describe what they’re doing. “I doing this and I’m doing that.”

And when is enough enough? Never. That’s what Solomon soon discovered. Ecclesiastes 5:10. “He who loves silver will never be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase.” The materialist never has enough. Never. Their discontentment leads to their pursuit of money, but they never find contentment no matter how much wealth they accumulate. They never, never have enough.

And one of the most insidious characteristics of materialism is that it is a flattener. Money flattens. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that money puts everything on the same level with the only difference being the price tag. And materialism ignores and dismisses anything that can’t be bought and sold. The materialist has everything that money can buy and nothing that it can’t. The materialist trusts only in what he can see, but there’s a big problem with that. And again, it’s Paul that tells us about it. 2 Corinthians 4:18, “For the things which are seen are temporary. Things which are not seen are eternal.” The big problem in trusting only what is seen is that what is seen is temporary. I may lean on my money for a while, but I will not lean on my money forever. One day it will vanish beneath me, and on that day, on what will I be leaning? Materialism blinds people to God by directing their focus away from the unseen, away from the permanent, away from the truly valuable.

The Bible takes the love of money very seriously, and so must we. According to one estimate, there are 2,000 verses in the Bible dealing with money and position. One in 10 verses in the gospel accounts deals with money. Jesus spoke about money in 17 of his 37 parables. Money was involved in the only instance we know in which Jesus was moved to violence. Even Jesus himself was sold for 30 pieces of silver by someone devoted to the love of money.

What about the church? What should the church’s attitude be toward money? We know Acts 19 answers that question. Acts 19 gives us two examples. Acts 19 gives us an example of how we should consider money and an example of how we should not consider money. Let’s look first at how we should consider money. 19, starting in verse 18. “And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. And many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of God prevailed, grew mightily.” One silver coin was an average daily wage. 50,000 silver coins was an enormous amount of money. Just think about all the good the church could have accomplished with that much money. Think about all the poor they could have fed. Think about all the missionaries they could have funded. All the church needed to do was to price and then sell those demonic books. But they didn’t do that, did they? Instead, they burned them. God told us how much those books cost for one reason, so that we would know that the enormous monetary value of those books did not enter at all into the church’s decision to destroy them. Something infinitely more important was at stake here. The message of Acts 19 is that there is not enough silver in this world to overcome the evil represented those demonic books that would have been spread by those books. Those books did not contain the words the church was told to proclaim. The church burned them. The early church was not motivated by the love of money.

But if we keep reading in Acts chapter 19, we’ll find someone who was. Verse 24, “For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana brought no small profit to the craftsmen. He called them together with the workers of similar occupation and said, ‘Men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. Moreover, you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are not gods, but which are made with hands. Not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed.’” Demetrius mentions his business three times before he gets around to mentioning Diana. His concern was for his money. His supposed concern for the temple of Diana, that’s just a pretense. We can see what Demetrius was concerned about. The gospel was damaging his business. You know, sadly, I suspect we could all give examples from our past of congregations that tolerated sin or error because of the contribution plate. Let me ask you, which example from Acts 19 is such a congregation following? The contrast in Acts 19 is stark, and the contrast in our lives must be stark. The contrast in the church must be stark when it comes to the love of money.

Man looks to money for permanence. Man looks to money for security. It offers neither. I don’t know about you, but I have never seen a U-Haul trailer attached to a hearse. And the answer to the question, how much did he leave? It’s always the same. He left all of it. Paul told us in 1 Timothy 6:17, we must not trust in uncertain riches, and Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:19-20 that all earthly riches are corrupt. They’ll be corrupted by rust and moth. The only permanent riches are the ones we lay up in heaven. In Luke 12:15, Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Matthew 6:24, Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters. He will hate the one and love the other. He will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Not that we must not serve them both. We’re told we cannot serve them both. It is an impossibility. If I serve money, then I despise God. That’s what Jesus says. The world has made its choice. What is our choice? Materialism blinds, materialism kills. It causes me to take my eyes off what is truly valuable, what is permanent. We are at war against materialism.

Let’s look finally at humanism. God says, “Seek ye first his kingdom.” The humanist says, “Seek ye first yourself.” A humanist is devoted to himself in particular and to mankind in general. He is motivated by human pride. He is controlled by human pride, by human achievements, and by human wisdom. His steps are directed by the pride of life. His man-made religion is a religion of self-glorification. His commitment is to human potential, and to human development, and to human effort. God is not considered by the humanist because God is not needed, they think. The humanist does not need God to explain how we got here. The humanist does not need God to explain what we should be doing while we are here. The humanist does not need God to explain where we’re going. Mankind can answer with its own power every question and supply its every need. The humanist is supremely confident in his own goodness, in his own power, in his own accomplishments.

If the hedonist has a lust for pleasure and the materialist has a lust for money, the humanist has a lust for power, for power. According to this philosophy, there is no problem that mankind cannot solve on its own. Disease, death, war, poverty, ignorance, the weather, the mysteries of time and space, we can solve them all, we can answer them all, we can understand them all. Nothing is hidden from us. Nothing is impossible to us. That is the pride of life. And woe to those who stand in its way. Is littered with the bodies of those who stood in the way of the humanist.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, perhaps the most influential and most vocal humanistic opponent of Christ in the last few centuries. He was born in 1844, he died in 1900. But as with Marx, Nietzsche’s ideas lived long after him. We can still see their impact to this day. Who was he? Well, he was a son and grandson of Lutheran preachers, but very early in his life he rejected everything about Christianity. He wrote a book entitled The Antichrist, in which he defined good as all that heightens the feeling of power, and he defined bad as everything that proceeds from weakness. As for Christianity, Nietzsche called it the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one immortal blemish on the human race. And in his most well-known book, Nietzsche called for the entire world to re-evaluate its values. Well, you know what? About 50 years later after he wrote that, someone took him up on that suggestion. Adolf Hitler passed a copy of that book out every soldier in his Nazi army. As I said, history is littered with the bodies of those who stood in the way of the humanists. You know, they will tell you that they have mankind’s interest at heart. Do not believe them. They are pursuing only power and pride and woe to those who get in their way. They are still trampling people to this day.

What does the Bible say about humanism? Psalm 10:3-4, “For the wicked boast of his heart’s desire, he blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God. God is in none of his thoughts.” That is the humanist. Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory his might nor let the rich man glory in his riches but let him glory in this that he understands and knows me.’” 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, “But God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen and things which are not to bring to nothing the things there are that no one of glory in his presence, pride of life.”

The humanist thinks he can solve every problem by himself, but there is one problem he will never solve on his own. Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed once for all men to die, and then comes the judgment.” Psalm 22:29, “No one can keep his own soul alive.” Humanists will never solve that problem. The path of the humanist is the same as the path of the hedonist. It’s the same as the path of the materialist. Blindness and death are at the end of that path.

We’ve now looked at each of these philosophies against which we must fight. Against which we’re commanded to fight. The hedonist says to God, “I can’t escape you.” The materialist says to God, “I can replace you.” The humanist says to God, “I don’t need you.” What do we say? The hedonist pursues pleasure, the materialist pursues money, the materialist, the humanist pursues power. What do we pursue? The hedonist serves his own pleasures, the materialist serves his own possessions, the humanist serves his own pride. Whom do we serve? In short, are we any different? Our question this morning. Are we swimming upstream or downstream when it comes to the philosophies of this world?

You know of all the things that could be said to me the most hurtful words I could ever hear from anyone would be these. “You’re no different than anybody else. You do the same thing, you go to the same places, you talk the same way, you have the same values, you have the same priorities. You’re no different than anybody else.” That would be the worst thing I could ever hear. Why? Because I know full well that anyone who follows the teachings of Christ will never hear that. Never. And so if I heard that and if it was true, that would mean I’m not following Christ. I’m not walking as He walked. If I walk with Christ, then my values will be different. My priorities will be different. My actions will be different. My attitudes will be different. My responses will be different. My relationships will be different. I will be nothing like this world. And that must not just be true of me. True of you. Must it must be true of us. Must be true of the church. Why? Because a worldly church will never reach the world. Never. The church must be different from the world to reach the world. We cannot be like the world and be a light to the world.

If we’re to help those who are slave to pleasure and to money and to human pride, then we cannot ourselves be their slaves. We cannot reach those driven by pleasure if we’re driven by pleasure. We cannot reach those who serve money if we serve money. We can’t reach those who are trusting in the arm of man if we’re trusting in the arm of man. We must be different. God’s command is clear, “Come ye out from among them and be ye separate, do not touch what is unclean.” 2 Corinthians 6:16-18. And we must open our eyes to the light of God. Paul tells us that just two verses after our scripture reading this morning earlier. We read 2 Corinthians 4:4. If you go two verses ahead of that, 2 Corinthians 4:6, here’s what Paul tells us, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We must fight these worldly philosophies. We must see the light of Christ. We cannot be blinded by these false philosophies of this world and there is something you need to do before you can be different. There is something you need to do before you can see the light of God. There is something you need to do before you can step out onto that battlefield that Paul tells us about. You can’t fight the good fight of faith if you’re not in the Lord’s army. And the only way to enlist in that army is to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ and be added to the church by God. That is the only way. You must hear, believe it. You must repent. You must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. You must be baptized for remission of your sins. You must continue to live faithfully unto death. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see. We can help in any way. Please come while we stand, while we sing.