When God Removes Your Blindfold

Text Acts: 9:18-19

State Subject: When God Removes your blindfold

A blindfold is a covering over the eyes that will prevent one from being able to see. Church you need to realize that the devil uses blindfolds today to keep the world from seeing the truth. He has the world blinded into thinking that wrong is right and right is wrong. Church once the devil has you blindfolded he will do all in his power to keep you in the dark. The blindfold that the devil uses is sin. And the way he starts the blindfolding process through temptation; for he dangles silver and gold before your eyes and lead you to desire the riches of the world, then as you begin to desire it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death. And only God has the power to save your soul from sin and death. Some of us this morning make be saying, I can see, but church, the blindness we are speaking of this morning is spiritual and the death we are speaking is spiritual death

Moreover church, if God has not removed your blindfolds then you are still walking in darkness. God in his infinite wisdom shows in through the conversion of Paul who is Saul of Tarsus in our text, how we can be in service for the Lord and still be spiritual blind.

Let us look at Saul before God removed his blindfold. Well, Saul was a man who hated the church, He hated Jesus, he hated Christians, and he hated anything that had to do with Christianity. Because of His hatred, he did every thing in his power to destroy it. Church, Satan hates the church and when we speak of the church we are not talking about these walls of bricks, and these seats of wood, we are talking about the body of Christ. We are the members of the body of Christ, therefore the devil hates you this morning and he will do everything in his power to destroy you, for we know he comes only to kill, steal and to destroy. In other words, he wants to blind you and lead you to sin and death today.

The scripture lesson tells us that Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. That is what the devil is still doing today, he is searching for anyone who is “of the Way” You see church, in the first century the Christians was characterized as being different, the lived different, loved different; they gave different, there was something about them that reminded people of Jesus, who himself ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Let us look again at Saul, this man Saul was a Pharisee, so this means he has a deep love and appreciation for his Jewish faith and could easily speak to people who was rooted in Judaism. He was an educated as a rabbi by Gamaliel in Jerusalem. That means he could relate to the educated people. He spoke Aramaic and Greek. That meant that he could speak to people in their own language. He was a Roman citizen through his father. With causes other Roman citizens to listen to him. In other word church, he was not just a go-to church ever week kind of person. He was passionate about what he did. He was serious about his belief in God. He knew the scriptures backward and forward. He studied the Scriptures daily and applied them to his life. You see my brothers and my sisters the Jews of those days knew the Scriptures well, and Saul above average because he was educated by the best professor in the world and even though he believe in God and was active with his faith- he was spiritual blind because he did not know God.

Saul had a religion but he did not have a relationship. Church some of us today, can repeat the Sunday School benediction, we can recite the 23rd Psalm, we can recite the Apostle’s Creed, but we do not really know God, in that we are still spiritual blind. For we are not living in love and harmony with our neighbor, we are still worrying about our health, we are still worry about what we are to wear and what we are to eat, we do not give to the poor, nor do we visit the sick and shut in, we are still hurt and angry we some one who made us mad 10- 15 years ago, in other words we do not forgive those who has hurt us.