Three ‘what’s’ Equal Revelation

Three ‘what’s’ equal revelation

JCC 07.03.10 am

Ephesians 1:18-20 “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.”

He is writing to believers alone here

His letter is addressed to the Christians in Ephesus, and since he has prayed that the eyes of their hearts might be enlightened, and since we know that only those regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit can be enlightened, then we also know that when he prays for them to know the hope of His calling, he must be referring to something much more specific than just a general call of God to repent and believe the gospel

Everything depends upon the opened eyes

If the sight is gone or impaired, all is in vain

Jer 39: Zedekiah had his eyes put out by the king of Babylon, then he was taken down to the Imperial city

There were vast halls, palaces, hanging gardens and a city wall which was the wonder of the world at that time

Babylon is called, “the glory of kingdoms and the beauty of the Chaldeans’ Excellency” but the blind King saw nothing of its splendour; the golden city to him and its wealth were as though it was not there

Judges 16:21 Samson, his eyes burned out after he was deceived by Delilah, he saw nothing of the beauty that surrounded him

Blinded by the enemy; the devil wants you in darkness

Yet we see how God wants our eyes to be opened

Like blind Bartimaeus, only the power of Jesus can open up the eyes to see wondrous things Mark 10:46

By nature, we have no knowledge of spiritual things

No power to discern eternal good, our foolish hearts darkened

Only the Lord can enlighten the eyes of our understanding

The precious Truth of God, however clearly spoken to us, we can never see it, unless He Himself gives us spiritual sight

Divine things are only seen by the heart, not with the understanding

Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matt 5

The purifying of the heart is the enlightening of the spiritual eyes

Without this purifying we shall never see Him

We will have a distorted impaired vision

Like a person with cataracts

Unless the surgeon cuts away the cataract, allowing the sight fuller vision, we shall remain in darkness or at the most with a dim brightness

The spiritual eyes of the renewed person are set in the heart and not in the head

Paul’s prayer was to the Lord for Christians; for the converted, for those who had faith in Jesus and a love for the saints; Paul never ceased to pray that their eyes might be enlightened

He who sees most, needs to have his eyes enlightened to see more

How little of the Glory of God have any of us really seen?

If Believers need to have their eyes enlightened, how much more those who are unconverted?

They were born blind and the god of this world seeks to further darken their minds

If you have a longing to see Him and it is turned into a prayer and that prayer is kindled by a spark of faith, that longing shall be the beginning of light to your soul and you shall see the salvation of God

Notice that the text contains three “what’s.”

“The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.”

1. “What is the hope of His calling?”

Many people never think about Christianity because they cannot believe that there is anything of interest to them

They think it is a small and thing, fit only for ministers, women, the weak and the elderly

So, they neglect it, even despise it and look after their own little world

The idea of the text seems to be illustrated well by the mention of Abraham

Abraham was living in his father’s house in Ur of the Chaldeans when a call came to him

That call came from God

He was to separate himself entirely and get away to a land which he had never seen

What was the hope of that calling?

It was the hope that God would give him a seed and give to that seed a land to live in