Spiritual blindness

Isaiah 42:16 (NIV)

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.  

Who are the blind in the Scriptures?  Well, they do include physically blind people, but they also include spiritually blind people and this verse is speaking about the spiritually blind.  Jesus called the spiritually blind those who “loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19).  There are some other very interesting descriptions of spiritual blindness:

·  “…foolish people, without understand who have eyes and see not….” Jeremiah 5:21

·  “…I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see….nor do they understand.”  Matthew 13:13

·  “…the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it”  John 1:5

·  "..if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe.”  II Corinthians 4:3

Yet, there is always hope for the spiritually blind.  Isaiah says here that God will lead the blind by ways that heretofore they have not known.  God will guide them along the unfamiliar paths that heretofore they have not taken.  God will turn their darkness into light and such light will lead them.  God’s light will smooth out the rough places in their lives. 

Does this describe you?  Might it describe someone close to you?  Only by the Spirit of God can you see again.  That is, you can see the truth, you can see the ways in which God wishes you to go, that you can understand Him and His ways.  Meditate carefully on these verses:

·  "He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures” Luke 24:45

·  "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” I Corinthians 2:12

·  "Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:17

Do you remember the words from “Amazing Grace”………”was blind, but now I see”?  John Newton was referring to spiritual blindness.  David Watson shares the following story from his book My God Is Real (Kingsway Publications, revision, 1978) --- “A man once stood on a soap-box at Hyde Park Corner, pouring scorn on Christianity. ‘People tell me that God exists; but I can't see Him. People tell me that there is a life after death; but I can't see it. People tell me that there is a judgment to come; but I can't see it. People tell me that there is a heaven and a hell; but I can't see them’.  He won cheap applause and climbed down from his ‘pulpit’.  Another struggled on to the soap-box. ‘People tell me that there is green grass all around, but I can't see it. People tell me that there is blue sky above, but I can't see it. People tell me that there are trees nearby, but I can't see them. You see, I'm blind.’” 

Do you “see” the point?  The truth is out there, it is real, but do you see it?  Or, are you spiritually blind?  If so, pray for the Lord to do for you what He promises to do from this verse (Isaiah 42:16) if you will let Him.