And then I realized that, of those all of us who are really blind to the reality of the spiritual world, there are two kinds. There are the blind who will never see it, and there are the blind who will be made to see it, and in our passage we meet both kinds. There are the blind who will never see, and there are the blind who are made to see.

And the whole world is made up of those kinds of people, the blind who never see and the blind who do see. And the difference between the two is what a person does with Jesus Christ. Because if you follow Jesus Christ and believe in Him, He makes you to see. If you reject Him, you go through life and eternity blind to spiritual reality. That’s what we’re going to learn as we look at this text.

Now, just to reinforce the fact that spiritual blindness is a worldwide malady, let me share with you some Scriptures, and I’ll run by them rather rapidly. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, in verse 5, we read, “And the light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which lights every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, but the world – what? – knew Him not.”

Now, in Romans chapter 1, it says in verse 21, “When men knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became empty in their reasoning, and their foolish heart was darkened.” In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the familiar fourteenth verse says, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They’re foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.”

And verse 8 says, “I hath not seen nor heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.” John says, “Men are blind.” Paul says, “Men are blind. They can’t see.” In Ephesians 4, there’s a wonderful summation of this truth in verses 17 and following where Paul says, “That men walk in the emptiness of their mind, and their understanding is darkened, and their hearts are blinded.” So men do not see.

The psalmist in Psalm 82:5 says, “They walk on in darkness.” Isaiah said, “They have eyes, but they see not.” And Jeremiah said the same thing. In Exodus chapter 5 and verse 2, Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord? I know not the Lord.” Of course he didn’t. No one does on their own. In fact, the psalmist said in Psalm 73, verse 22, “So foolish was I and so ignorant, I was as a beast.”

The Proverbs tell us in chapter 4, verse 19 that “the way of the wicked is darkness.” In Isaiah 5, the prophet says, “My people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge.” And then he cries out in chapter 42 and says, “Look, ye blind, that ye may see.” Jeremiah says, “We are a foolish people without understanding. We have eyes, and we do not see.” And Micah says, “They know not the thoughts of the Lord, and they do not understand His counsel.”

Now, men are blind. We are physical creatures, and we are, in a sense, incarcerated in a physical world of perception and unable to get outside of that to really perceive divine reality. The Bible also says that three things contribute to the totality of this blind darkness. One is sin. We are blind because sin has blinded us. Sin is paralleled in the Scripture very often with darkness, and the Bible says that we walk in darkness. “We walk, who walk in sin, also in darkness.” And it says in John 3 that “men love darkness rather than light because” – what? – “their deeds are evil.” And so we are trapped in the darkness of sin.