OPEN YOUR EYES AND YOUR EARS
ISAIAH 42:14-20
INTRODUCTION: An elderly woman stood on a busy street corner, hesitant to cross because there was no traffic signal. As she waited, a gentleman came up beside her and asked, "May I cross over with you?" Relieved, she thanked him and took his arm. The path they took was anything but safe. The man seemed to be confused as they dodged traffic and walked in a zigzag pattern across the street. "You almost got us killed!" the woman exclaimed in anger when they finally reached the curb. "You walk like you’re blind!" "I am," he replied. "That’s why I asked if I could cross with you." Jesus Christ asked in Luke 6:39 “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?” Normally when we think of spiritual blindness in the Word of God we equate it with the lost or the hypocritical Pharisees, but in our text God lays out a charge of unparalleled spiritual blindness on the part of God’s people.
I. A Charge of Blindness on the Part of God’s People
A. Isaiah 42:19 (MKJV) Who is blind but My servant? Or deaf, as My messenger whom I sent? Who is blind as he who is perfect (at shalom), and blind as Jehovah’s servant?
B. My servant – refers to professed true worshippers (Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible), My Messenger – referring to Israel as those called to deliver God’s message to the world, perfect – those allied in peace and friendship, the confidant of God. (Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament)
C. God’s children are said to have been enlightened - Ephesians 5:8 MKJV For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.
D. Can there be any sadder charge leveled than when God asks “Who is as blind as my servants?”
E. Matthew 6:23 (MKJV) … If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
II. Looking they see not – Listening they hear not
A. Isaiah 42:20 (MKJV) You see many things, but do not pay attention. Your ears are open, but not any hears.
B. We look at our community but fail to see people, our friends, our neighbors, and our relatives on their way to hell without Christ.
· John 4: 35 Do you not say, There are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!
· John 3:36 He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.
C. We see the need in the church to utilize our talents and spiritual gifts but pay no attention to the opportunity and blessing resulting from surrendering to serve.
· 1 Peter 4:10 As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
D. We listen to the appeals to get involved in ministry but fail to hear the Spirit’s call.
E. We see God’s blessings on those that live for Him and His chastisement of those who live for the world and pay no attention.
· Proverbs 12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
F. We are diseased with the blindness of indifference and inattention.
G. Ezekiel 12:2 Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see and see not. They have ears to hear and hear not, for they are a rebellious house.
H. Robert Bellah, a sociologist who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, is extremely interested in the influence of religion on the community. In an interview in Psychology Today he said, "We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a culture may be changed when 2 percent of its people have a new vision." There are significantly more than 2 percent Christians in our country and community. Then why aren’t we having more effect? Why aren’t we having more influence? We have lost our vision – adapted from John Stott, "Christians: Salt and Light," Preaching Today, Tape No. 109.
I. Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he who keeps the law, he is blessed.
III. The Cause of Spiritual Blindness and Deafness on the Part of God’s Servants
A. What is significant is that this blindness and deafness is voluntary and self-inflicted.
B. Isaiah 42:18 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see! – implied in this verse is the fact that if they chose to they could hear and see if they wanted to. It is a choice.
C. Sgt. Shultz, the German prison guard on the old {Hogan’s Heroes} television show, used to bellow, "I see nothing, Nothing!" He didn’t see because he did not want to see. 1 Many of us do not see what God is doing around and through our lives, not because we can’t see but because we choose not to see the hand of God. (Matt Neace, Jr., The Southeast Outlook, 26 Sept, 1997, p. A-12)
D. A man was walking down a busy New York sidewalk with a companion. Buses and trucks were roaring by on the street, taxis were honking, the roar of a jack-hammer could be heard in the distance. Suddenly he stopped and said, "Do you hear the cricket?" His companion gaped at him in astonishment. The man, however, walked over to a potted shrub and parted the leaves. Sure enough -- there among the branches was a little cricket. Continuing down the sidewalk, his companion asked him, "How could you possibly have heard the cricket in all this noise?" "Because I listened for it," said the man. "Here, let me demonstrate." Having said that, he reached into his pocket for a handful of coins and let them all to the sidewalk. At the sound of the dropping/rolling coins every head within a block swiveled around. "See," he said, "it depends on what you are listening for.
E. It is caused by spiritual neglect.
F. 2 Peter 1:5-9 (MKJV) But also in this very thing, bringing in all diligence, filling out your faith with virtue, and with virtue, knowledge; and with knowledge self-control, and with self-control, patience, and with patience, godliness, and with godliness, brotherly kindness, and with brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are in you and abound, they make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he in whom these things are not present is blind and cannot see afar off and has forgotten that he was purged from his sins in the past.
IV. A Call to Open Your Eyes and Ears – to See and Hear
A. Isaiah 42:18 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.
B. A woman named Rose Crawford had been blind for 50 years. "I just can’t believe it!" she gasped as the doctor lifted the bandages from her eyes after her recovery from delicate surgery in an Ontario hospital. She wept for joy when for the first time in her life a dazzling and beautiful world of form and color greeted eyes that now were able to see. The amazing thing about the story, however, is that 20 years of her blindness had been unnecessary. She didn’t know that surgical techniques had been developed, and that an operation could have restored her vision at the age of 30. The doctor said, "She just figured there was nothing that could be done about her condition. Much of her life could have been different." As one considers the account of her case, some questions came to mind. Why did she continue to assume that her situation was hopeless? Why was she content to settle for less than she could have had? Why are you settling for less?
C. Realize your spiritual condition
· Revelation 3:17 Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
D. The captain of the Titanic refused to believe the ship was in trouble until water was ankle deep in the mail room. Only then was it apparent the multi-layered hull had been pierced and the unsinkable ship was going to sink. Ships that could have arrived before the great ocean liner went down weren’t summoned until it was too late. - Leadership, Volume 10, no. 3 (Summer, 1989), p. 27
E. Repent of your spiritual condition
· Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
F. Call on God for spiritual vision.
1. 2 Kings 6:17 And Elisha prayed and said, I pray You, Jehovah, open his eyes so that he may see. And Jehovah 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.
2. Psalms 119:18 Open my eyes, so that I may behold wonderful things out of Your Law.
G. Act upon what God reveals and declares
1. Hebrews 11:27 MKJV By faith he (Moses) left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
2. Moses is list in the heroes of faith because he acted upon that which God revealed. He had no more doubt that God had called him to this work, and that he would sustain him, than if he saw him with his physical eyes.
