HOW GOD CONVERTS THE LOST Part 3:God Opens The Blind Eyes of Sinners!

I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' Acts 26:17-18

I have been discussing this incredible account of Paul's commissioning by Jesus as an instruction to us on how God converts lost sinners. I mentioned that He uses people:ordinary clay pots sent out for a task; and oh what an extraordinary task it is: "To open their eyes so that they turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins"! We need to understand the fundamental problem in evangelism and conversion: The condition of lost people is Spiritual blindness!

1 John 3:6, "No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him." 3 John 1:11, "Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God." Probably the best description what Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 4:4, "The god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God."

This makes the call of evangelism seem so radical. God is calling you and sending you out to do an utterly impossible task! To open the eyes of blind, lost, hardened sinners. At first glance it seems as if He is sending us out into certain failure and defeat. Yet Christ says it with such certainty, “I send you to open their eyes”.

God’s Himself has a remedy to man’s spiritual blindness-It is a sovereign and supernatural work Christ tells us in this text that He aims for this blindness to be healed and the deception broken. He aims to give sight. That's the goal of evangelism and missions. But we ask; "How can you and I open the eyes of the blind?" The answer of course is that in ourselves we can't.

A work of God is needed in their lives to open their eyes and give them life so they can see and receive Christ as Savior and Lord and Treasure of their lives. Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon in 1734 on this called A Divine and Supernatural Light.He writes, "There is such thing as a spiritual and divine light, immediately imparted to the soul by God, of a different nature from any that is obtained by natural means."

2 Corinthians 4:6 says, "It is God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." It is God who created light in the beginning with an omnipotent, "Let there be light!" And it is God who now can open the eyes of the spiritually blind. The God who created light in the beginning does the same thing in the human heart. Only the light this time is not physical light, but “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Or as verse 4 calls it “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” God does a divine supernatural call, just the same as in the beginning of the world when his call to the light created the light and it is powerful and effective. He causes the human heart to see the truth and beauty and worth of Christ—the glory of Christ.

Edwards says that God gives "a true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the Word of God, and a conviction of the truth and the reality of them." There is "a real sense of the excellency of God, Jesus Christ, and the work of redemption, and the ways and works of God as revealed by the gospel...He that is spiritually enlightened truly apprehends and sees it, or has a sense of it. He doesn't merely believe rationally that God is glorious, but has a sense of the gloriousness of God in his heart.'

Just as God says to the creation "let there be light" so he speaks to blind sinners "let there be light" and "I give you sight" and sinners see the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Jesus prayed and acknowledged that God immediately gives such knowledge, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him "(Matthew 11:25-27). The Psalmist prayed for this in Psalm 119:18, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." Jonathan Edwards writes, "Spiritual wisdom and grace is the highest and most excellent gift that God bestows upon any creature...this light... changes the nature of the soul" 2 Corinthians 3:16-18, "But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. "

Edwards comments, "This knowledge will wean from the world, and raise the inclination to heavenly things. It will turn the heart to God as the fountain of good, and to choose Him for their only portion. This light, and this only , will bring the soul to a saving knowledge of Christ."

And when we see him for who he really is, we receive him for who he is Savior and Lord. John 6:40, "Everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." John 17:6-8, "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. "

This is what true biblical salvation is—having our eyes opened so that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ shines into our hearts, and we see it and savor it and treasure it. This is a glorious and wondrous work of God alone. "The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes!"

Sola Dei Gloria
Pastor Bill