Sight in Contrast with Blindness
MATTHEW 13:14-17
14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: (Isaiah 6:9-10)
15 For this people's heart is waxed gross (This word gross means to become calloused – hardened in heart against the things of God), and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart (the purpose for seeing and hearing is to come into an understanding within the heart – an understanding of God), and should be converted, and I should heal them.
16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. (We notice that the scripture is contrasting here a people that have sight verses a people who are blind – and this is such a vast difference, just as it would also be with natural sight verses natural blindness)
17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
(this is a compound scripture that applies to this day of what God has made known to us in this generation by the opening of the sevens seals – many have desired to see the things that we have come to understand in this day also)
ISAIAH 43:8
8 ¶ Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears. (You can have eyes and still not see, and ears and still not hear, because the real seeing and hearing takes place in your understanding)
PSALM 146:8a
8 The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind:
Sight in Contrast with Blindness
We want to a little study on this subject in the light of the message and the scriptures.
*As believers of the message we are called to be a people of sight that have the ability by the Holy Spirit to come into a true understanding of the word that God had opened to us in this generation by the messenger of Malachi 4.
BLIND.BARTIMAEUS_ KLAMATH.FALLS.OR WEDNESDAY_ 60-0713
E-59 ….You don't see with your eyes anyhow; you see with your heart. That's right. You look with your eyes; you see with your heart. It's truly. You don't...
You understand; seeing is understanding. You look right at the thing, and say, "I don't see it." You mean you don't understand it. That's the real word of it.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 61-1015M
692-245 ... You do not see with your eyes anyhow. You know that. You do not see with your eyes. You see with your heart. See? "Seeing" means, "to understand." You understand with your heart; therefore, we look at things that our eyes does not see.
*That’s what real vision is – it is your understanding, blessed is he that understands…
ISAIAH 60:1-2
1 ¶ Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. (Light is an unnegotiable requirement for sight. You need 3 things in order to see – light, eyes, and a brain that can interpret the vision into understanding - first, light must come, then the eyes are required, then the mind can understand…)
2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people (when gross darkness covers people, then one thing is for certain, that they will not be able to see where they are going): but the LORD shall arise upon thee (it is the rising of the SON in this day for the elect of God), and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
**Out of all the senses of the body, we would probably agree that sight is the greatest sense of all the other senses.
A small article about sight states…
Our sense of sight is responsible for most of the information we absorb from our five combined senses. Many of the movements we perform, tasks we complete, and personal interactions we make rely on vision in some way.
Humans in most modern cultures hold their eyesight above all other senses. In one study, 88% of participants ranked vision as their most valued sense.
Vision is a two-part process. The eyes focus on and capture an image, but the image needs to be interpreted by the brain before you can make sense of what you’re seeing.
*Your eyes can take in around 10 million bits of information per second and seamlessly transfer that information to your brain. In fact half of your brain is directly or indirectly devoted to the processing of visual information.
*So your physical eyes capture the image of the light, but then it is in your brain and mind that you then interpret and understand what you see.
**This is why you can be looking at something that is right in front of you with your eyes but still not see it – this especially seems to be a problem that I have when I am looking in the refrigerator.
***We know that in this Laodicean age that we live in, the major problem that is prophesied of this age is that the people would be blind and yet would not know that they are blind.
It is one thing to be blind, and then it is another thing to not know that you are blind, that shows a mental deficiency.
REVELATION 3:17 (Speaking to the Laodicean Age)
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
And so as it is with natural sight - it is the mind that has to interpret and grasp the understanding of what the eyes see, and so when it comes to seeing and understanding the things of God, we know that it takes the spirit of God to open a person’s understanding to the truth of the word and to cause the word of God to become clear to them.
PSALM 146:8a (opening scripture)
8 The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind:
A spoken or written word is simply a thought of the mind expressed into words, and the thoughts of God is what we call the Logos, or the thought of God before it was ever spoken into words.
**But when the word of God is spoken, then in its spoken form it can be interpreted in many ways (denominations are a proof of that – look at all the many ways and opinions of how they can interpret just one verse of scripture) - but that word of God can only become life within you when the Holy Spirit opens your understanding so that the same thought that God had when He that spoke that word becomes the same thought in your understanding, then your thoughts and God’s thoughts have become one and the same thing, then that is the mind of Christ in you.
**That’s why it takes the same spirit of God that thought that word in the beginning to reveal and make clear that same thought to you.
16-1 THE.REVELATION.OF.JESUS.CHRIST - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.1
You will recall that I mentioned at the beginning of this message that this Book we are studying is the actual revelation of Jesus, Himself, in the church and His work in the future ages. Then I mentioned that it takes the Holy Spirit to give us revelation or we will fail to get it. Bringing these two thoughts together you will see that it won't take just ordinary study and thinking to make this Book real. It is going to take the operation of the Holy Ghost. That means this Book can't be revealed to anyone but a special class of people. It will take one with prophetic insight. It will require the ability to hear from God. It will require supernatural instruction, not just a student comparing verse with verse, though that is good. But a mystery requires the teaching of the Spirit or it never becomes clear.
II KINGS 6:8-20
8 ¶ Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp.
9 And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down.
10 And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice.
11 Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel?
12 And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.
13 ¶ And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan.
14 Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about.
15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?
16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
(Notice how that God opened the eyes of this servant who was under the instruction of the ministry of Elisha, and Elisha is a type of the fivefold ministry who are under the Elijah ministry of this day – it wasn’t that this servant of the man of God didn’t have eyes, but it was that he could not see because this was a greater seeing that he needed the help of God to open up his understanding to see the same thing as the ministry of that hour was seeing – and that is the purpose of God in this hour also, is to open our eyes to see what the true Elisha ministry of this hour is also seeing)
18 And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. (The same one that by his word and prayer opened the eyes of the one that was with him, was the same one that caused the blindness to the eyes of them that were against him)
19 And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. But he led them to Samaria.
20 And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said, LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see. And the LORD opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.
**So we see here that it was blindness that led them directly into captivity. So is it blindness that will lead an individual, or a church, or a nation, or an entire generation into captivity – Blindness leads to captivity.
*These Syrians could see with their physical eyes, but their understanding was blinded by God at the time of this Elisha ministry, and they were led into complete captivity because of this blindness.
**God is able to blind a person’s understanding, and he is also able to open their understanding.
*We know how that God blinded the Jews from recognising their day and its message in order to make a way for the gentiles to come in.
Sight in Contrast with Blindness – it is such a contrast.
GENESIS 19:10-11
10 But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.
11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
While Abraham and his group were having fellowship with God, and God was revealing all the secret things of truth and light to Abraham regarding their body change and the coming of the promised son Isaac - down in Sodom there were others being blinded at the same time.
Sight in Contrast with Blindness - as we said at the beginning, you need 3 things in order to see – light, eyes, and a brain that can interpret the vision into understanding.
Another small part of an article
It is said that more than 50 percent of the cortex (the surface of the brain), is devoted to processing visual information, understanding how vision works may be a key to understanding how the brain as a whole works. More of our neurons are dedicated to vision than the other four senses combined.
What researchers now know is that human vision is incredibly complicated. While we’ve developed software that can easily beat the best chess master, computer models have barely scratched the surface of human vision.
THY.SEED.SHALL.POSSESS.THE.GATE.OF.HIS.ENEMY_ SAN.JOSE.CA SATURDAY_ 59-1121
E-14 Notice. Just before that took place there was three Messengers came from heaven. And They came first to Abraham, the church elect, and set down, and talked with him. And two of them got up and started on down to Sodom to bring the church formal out, the church denominational, a form, ritualistic church. But One stayed behind to talk to the church elect, the seed of Abraham.
And They that went down and talked to Sodom, to Lot and to his children, and to his grandchildren, and his son-in-laws, and so forth, they preached the Gospel of judgment coming. That isn't a perfect type of a modern Billy Graham, I don't know it. And did you notice, it blinded the eyes of the people. And the preaching of the Gospel, if it's not received, blinds the unbeliever.
When God sends his word to a certain people of a certain time or generation, if that word is rejected, then blindness and captivity directly follows that visitation because of the people rejection of the light for their time – and so when light is rejected, then you have no choice but to walk in darkness, and that is exactly the same condition as being blind.
QUEEN.OF.SHEBA_ BEAUMONT.TX THURSDAY_ 61-0119E
E-17 Jesus had been upbraiding the people and--because that they had misunderstood His message. And they was trying to make it out something that it wasn't. He had been in their cities, and had been performing miracles, and showing His Messiahic sign to the people, as we talked of last night.
And we find that those who were ordained to Life saw it. Those who were not ordained to Life did not see it. The Gospel blinds those who are--are not willing to accept it, and it'll give sight to those who are willing to accept it. And that's the way it was in His days, when the Scripture plainly stated exactly the things that He did, and said He would do it, and how they missed it, it showed that they had to be blinded.
And to think of it, them poor Jews were blinded that our eyes might have a chance to be opened. And now, the same Gospel that blinded the Jews is blinding the church: same thing, promised exactly. And it goes a million miles over their heads. I'm glad you're recording that.
E-18 I know that's THUS SAITH THE LORD, that the--the Gospel... The same Gospel that blinded the Jews is now blinding the Gentiles, because it is the same Gospel, for there's no other Gospel but the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To be continued - the Lord willing