SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS

Some claim that they are following the Lord by having an abortion or by changing their sex. Could they be serious? It doesn’t seem possible that they could be so self-deluded, or could they be?

The Bible gives a number of examples of people who actually come to inquire of the Lord but do not have a heart or a mind for Him and have no intention to obey Him if they don’t like His instructions. For example, a group of men came to the Prophet Zechariah to inquire of the Lord and to seek His blessings. They asked:

• “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?” Then came the word of Jehovah of hosts unto me, saying, “Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month, even these seventy years [during the Babylonian exile], did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?’” (Zechariah 7:3-5 ASV)

These men didn’t fast and weep for the Lord. They did it for themselves, perhaps so that they might feel morally superior. God subsequently exposed the fact that they were hypocrites and reprimanded them along with the rest of nation of Israel:

• “and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the sojourner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which Jehovah of hosts had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets: therefore there came great wrath from Jehovah of hosts. And it is come to pass that, as he cried, and they would not hear, so they shall cry, and I will not hear, said Jehovah of hosts.” (Zechariah 7:10-13)

How could these petitioners have been so blind and hypocritical to think that God would bless them while they uttered not a word of confession or repentance? How could they believe that their ritualistic offerings would be acceptable as long as they were oppressing others? Instead, they serve as a poignant example of what happens to our minds when we harden them against God:

• “And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved. But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)

Unless we confess our sins, when we do evil, we run from the light so that we will not be exposed. We not only run from God - think Adam and Eve once they ate the forbidden fruit - we also abandon common sense, as we cloth ourselves with the darkness.

In the case of the men who came to the Prophet Zechariah, it seems likely that they had another defense against the light. They came adorned in the armor of self-righteousness, which made them impervious to the light of wisdom. This seems to have been Paul’s understanding:

• Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:14-16; Luke 16:15)

To have such wisdom is to love wisdom above all else, even when it hurts (Proverbs 1:20-32). However, the world lacks this wisdom because they reject it. How else to explain their pursuit of transgenderism and the many other forms of ignorance springing up like weeds:

• This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart; who being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. (Ephesians 4:17-19)

Where darkness is loved, no light can penetrate and prayer becomes our only recourse.