“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 26:18
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!
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
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
So how does God accomplish this amazing work of opening the eyes of the spiritually blind? He uses means. In Acts 26:18 says that Christ sends Paul to do it: "I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God." “So the exact reversal of satanic blindness and spiritual darkness comes from Christ’s messengers.
God alone says to the dead and dark human heart: Let there be light! And there is light. God alone can raise the dead. God alone gives spiritual light. God alone makes Christ appear true and beautiful and desirable. But God wants us to be His agents. Paul talked about this in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth”. Seed must be planted, cultivated, watered, and protected. But the miracle of life is God’s alone to give.
In the moment of our greatest sense of helplessness, we must remember that God sends messengers “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.” God does not look at the inner city, Europe, and Orange County, and wring His hands in defeat. He sends us to do what only he can do and He intends to do it. This is a very high and a very humbling calling. One night when Paul was discouraged about the seemingly close door to preach in pagan Corinth, God came to visit him with a word of great encouragement for evangelism in Acts 18:9-10, The Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, "Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people." Do you hear that? God says “I HAVE MANY WHO ARE PRESENTLY BLIND IN THAT PAGAN CITY WHO ARE MY ELECT. GO PAUL, PREACH THE GOSPEL AND I WILL OPEN THEIR EYES TO SEE AND WILL BRING IN MY ELECT.”
What did Paul do to bring them in? What are we to do that will cause people to see and be born again?” Tell them the good news of Christ. Proclaim the gospel. When you do that, 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. Just as when He called Lazarus to rise out of the tomb. He causes the human heart to see the truth and beauty and worth of Christ—the glory of Christ through the proclamation of the gospel. Christ will no longer be a stumbling block or foolishness. He will be to us "the power of God and the wisdom of God." And we will come to him and cleave to him and love him and trust him.
1 Peter 1:23, 25, “You have been born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God…This word is the good news that was preached to you.” James 1:18, “God brought us forth through the word of truth”.
People see and are born again through hearing that news, and never born again without it. “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? …Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:14-15, 17). The preaching of the gospel is God’s the work of missions for you. It is the means that God uses through each one of you to penetrate the kingdom of darkness and give sight to the spiritually blind.
I say to you what Jesus said to Paul in Acts 26:18: "I send you to open their eyes." Don’t stop because you can’t. Of course you can’t. John Piper says, But the fact that you can’t make electricity or create light never stops you from flipping light switches. The fact that you can’t create fire in cylinders never stops you from turning the car key. The fact that you can’t create cell tissue never stops you from eating your meals. So don’t let the fact that you can’t cause the new birth stop you from telling the gospel. That is how people are born again—through the living and abiding word, the good news of Jesus Christ proclaimed by those He sends out.
That is what I am pray for you. Lord, fill us with a passion to open the eyes of the blind. Fill us with faith to believe that God saves sinners and that He desires to use us and His gospel as the means to save. Give us faith in the power of your gospel. O what great, eternal things God aims to do through you us as you go and tell about the truth of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Bill
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