I Was Blind, but Now I See

Thank you, Mrs. Paul, for that beautiful music. And good afternoon! It's a pleasure to be here. I've read the announcement Kevin Paul emailed out last night, and I noticed that he said I was coming home today. So I appreciated that. I know I'm in Cincinnati more often than here, but it does feel like coming home to come in here. So I said I'm really glad to be here. And I was a little nervous, maybe still a little lame because I thought, well, my sermon's running a little short. But that's okay. Maybe we'll have a long sermonette to make up for it. So I know every time I say I might let you out early, though, it usually goes the other way. We'll see. But this gives me a little time to answer some of the questions that come up. The first big one is, where are Sue and Connor?

And I pass on apologies. Seriously, we had all plans for all three of us to be here last night. And this morning, Sue came in. Well, I should tell you the story because Connor came in about 1.30 this morning and woke Sue up because he'd had a bad dream. And she had to console him. Then I couldn't get back to sleep for a while. So I'm going to go downstairs and make me some chamomile tea and read.

I've actually been working my way through one of Josephus' books. And that's a great way to get to sleep, normally.

But after I'd been downstairs reading for about an hour, I came back up and Connor was in my place in bed. So I went to his bed. But later this morning, Sue came in and she said, Connor's got the sniffles. And he's sniffling and sneezing. I don't know where that came from. Well, actually, I have an idea where it came from because he had his first day of kindergarten this last week.

So I think we're into that phase where we're going to have a lot of sniffles come up. Sue went out of her way to say, tell everyone she says hi. She wishes she could be here. But we didn't want Connor to come and make all the other kids sick. And I'm sure you'll appreciate that. Some of the other questions I can tell you, people have asked, what have you been doing?

How have you been doing this summer? And it's hard to believe we're near the end of summer. It's been that kind of busy summer. It started off, I think we just finished the school year. I had some things going on that I'm going to mention in my sermon. Then we had the week-long continuing education program and summer camp immediately after that.

And I got to go on three ABC samplers this year, which is really neat. I had the Orlando congregation hosted a two-day one about the same as you did here last year. Darris McNeil and I and our families went down. So that was kind of fun. Sue and I, we took our time driving down. And afterwards, we took the first time we'd had for vacation. I'm not sure if it's two years or three years. They've all been scrunched together.

But we visited St. Augustine afterwards and went to the beach and saw the big stone fort there that was built in the 1500s. We visited the Pirate Museum, which Connor loved that, except that he woke up with scary dreams the next night because of that. So I think there's a theme going here. We did a one-day sampler in London. London, Kentucky, not London, England. I'd like to go there for one someday. And I want to pass on special greetings last Sabbath. We were at the Roanoke Virginia congregation, which actually meets in Christiansburg. So we got to see the Neffs and the Eretz and enjoyed spending time with them.

And a very enthusiastic group. It's interesting. Mrs. Neff told me that... No, I don't... Well, she told me to tell the Home Office that Mike needs help because things are growing there. And some of the others said that after the most recent split we had in the church, there were normally about nine of them there each Sabbath.

And now they're normally about 30. So I'm thinking part of this is because of Mike Eretz's winning personality. But he said he has baptized, I think, five or six people within the last year and a half. It has several people counseling now. So they've got a good thing going there. They're actually looking for a bigger hall. We had a very enjoyable visit.

So that's all been very good. It's been a busy time. The ABC students are coming in next week. A week from tomorrow is our orientation picnic. So we're excited about that.

Although I'm doing so much planning now, I'm losing track of what's what. We had a planning meeting for the orientation picnic Thursday morning just for the picnic. Then Thursday night we had a meeting for people that are helping with the Feast of Tabernacles. We say department heads, but I'm not sure that sounds kind of grandiose.

But people that are doing work, we got together. Then yesterday morning was a faculty meeting for the school year at ABC. Then tomorrow I've got a planning meeting for the Winter Family Weekend. So in my mind, all this stuff is happening in the same week. Fortunately it's not, but there's a lot of planning goes on for things out ahead. I'm very glad I don't have to do all that work.

Other people will. But we do have a class of 24 students coming in, which is about three less than we had last year. But it is going to be a younger group. Last year we had five students who were older than me. I know I look like I'm real young, but that's just because I shaved off my whiskers. Because they're so white, I felt like I was looking really old. But this year we've got mostly 19 and 21, 22 year olds. So it's a slightly younger, more energetic group. Three of them are from Australia, which if it's anything like when I was a student.

When I went down to Big Sandy, we had a big contingent of Australians. And they have a unique sense of humor. I spent more time laughing those first couple years of college. And I'm hoping that will be the case with this group. I Facebook friended all of them as I got their applications. And I noticed the Australians, they came early and they went to the Northwest Camp. And then two of them did the Challenger West Camp. And they've been traveling, making their way across the country, little by little.

And they keep posting these pictures. And I think, man, they're having so much fun. Cincinnati and Ambassador Bible College is going to seem really boring by the time they get here. But we are excited. We've got those. I think one young lady from Chile is going to be able to join us. We had a girl from the Philippines that we had accepted. And she has like a 10 year multiple entry visa because she has family in the U.S.

But apparently she's visited her family more often than they like. She was trying to fly into the country and they said, oh, you're coming too often. Sorry, you can't. So she had a disappointed email like that. We had a fellow about my age from India that we accepted. And he actually was planning to come, but he has a wife and a daughter who were going to stay at home. And it turned out he didn't have as much money saved to support them as he thought.

So he's not going to come this year but is planning for next. But he is going to be visiting in a couple of days. He's going to have a business trip lined up and he's going to stop by. So we're looking forward to meeting him and letting him see what we're like. He sent me an email saying, oh, while we're there, can we run down and see that Noah's Ark thing? I hear it's only an hour away. And I thought, well, when you fly halfway around the world, an hour away is not a big deal.

But I had to write and say, well, I've got a week before school starts. It's a little more of a time crunch for me. But anyways, we're excited about all these things going on. And yeah, I forgot about the picnic. Actually, I thought zip lining sounds like a lot of fun. And I was looking at Sue thinking, hey, maybe we should try to run over the picnic. She said, no, you've got a Winter Family Weekend planning meeting.

You've got to go do that. I was going to laugh a little bit. I talked to him about the charity this month. Although before I say that, I noticed a theme in the announcements today. It was making me get hungry. So are we going to have dessert after services if I whack up early?

Now, one of the things I noticed, I can't remember what the name of the charity was, but I noticed it said something about abstinence instruction. Is instruction and abstinence consist of saying, stop? Okay, I'm glad somebody at least chuckled. That ran through my head. I thought that was amusing.

At this point, maybe I should start on my sermon, and you'll be glad when I finally stop talking. I'm going to start off with a question. You can be honest on this one. I'm not writing down notes, but does anybody here really like to listen to bagpipe music? Okay, some people really do. I saw some people go, oh, you know. I think for most people, it's what we would call an acquired taste, and one that many people never quite do acquire. I kind of like it. And I think it's maybe because of my Scots-Irish ancestry. I'm not sure if any of that's genetic, or the years that I got to go to Scotland SEP. I'd like to say if you spend enough time on the Bonnie-Bonnie banks of Wachlomond, it'll make anybody feel Irish, not Irish, Scottish inside. But even I have to admit, there is probably only a small number of songs that really sound good on the bagpipes. Some of them you kind of like the sound, but some of them just were made for that. One of them is called Scotland the Brave. That's the one you might not recognize the title, but it's the one that goes, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah. Makes you want to march and feel real good. But the one that everybody loves is Amazing Grace. You hear that on the pipes? There's something to it. Especially, have you heard of the arrangement where there's one piper? Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. It's going through. And then you hear a chorus of other pipers get ready to come in. And they've got those things called drones. I had to be around them enough to know what they were. You see those bagpipes? You know, they've got the pipe and the thing they blow, and those things sticking up. Those are the drones that when they start pumping the air, it just makes a harmonic, mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm. When you go out, 15 of those pipers, it's like a spaceship's about ready to take off. Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm. And then they start playing, and it's such a beautiful song. It's ah. Now, I can't reproduce that sound even if I try. But it might make you think a little bit of the lyrics. There's one very famous line. It says, I once was lost, but now I'm found. Twas blind, but now I see. It's a song about a man finding religion. It was written by an Englishman named John Newton in the 1700s. I think I had the exact year, but I didn't. I thought, that doesn't matter. But for most of his life, this man was not religious. As a matter of fact, he was involved in the slave trade. Sailing ships, buying and selling human lives. And then he found religion. He became a minister. Not a minister with the understanding of the truth as we do, but he changed his life and he wrote that song to portray that. And there's that wonderful analogy that he used. And today, I don't want to focus on the song, but I do want to focus on that metaphor. I was blind, but now I see. And of course, Newton didn't mean that he lacked an ability to see things with his eyes.

He meant, as almost all of us understand instinctively, that he had been spiritually blind. He hadn't understood anything that's in this book. And then, at least according to his understanding and his writing, he did. He came to see it. He was able to understand. I want to explore that metaphor a bit today. Because relatively recently, I had an experience that made it much more meaningful to me than ever before. Some months ago, it seemed like it just happened, but this spring, or late winter and early spring, I found myself losing my ability to see. And I don't mean spiritually. I wasn't getting confused in my understanding. I mean, my eyes developed an actual physical problem.

And I was facing the rather terrifying prospect of thinking I was going blind. Now, before I proceed, you might notice I'm up here looking at all of you, so you know I didn't go blind. And, in fact, my eyes never got as bad as it sometimes I thought they might. So, as I try to progress through saying these words, I don't want anybody to think that I'm denigrating those who are blind and have learned to live with that disability because I'm just astounded all the more at them being able to do so. Many people live very productive lives, full of meaning, and it just astounds me that they could do that. And I have a much greater appreciation of that. What happened to me was nothing quite so bad. What happened was I developed cataracts in both of my eyes. And I imagine there are some people in the room, as a matter of fact, I'm just curious. Anybody here had cataracts, or perhaps still does? Surgery? Already? Yeah. Okay, so we have some things in common. For me, it was fairly traumatic because I'm just a kid. No, I'm a 52-year-old kid, but I'm too young for that kind of thing. What's interesting is something I learned later. After the surgery, with a follow-up appointment with an eye surgeon, I was talking about how it's unusual at my age, I actually went to the Cincinnati Eye Institute, which is a pretty big operation. I was shocked at these huge buildings and all these doctors in the surgical center. And the doctor said, we have someone your age about once a week. And they have a lot of people go through, so that's not a big percentage.

But what he told me, he said, it's not that common, although it does happen, for people your age. But when it does happen at your age, they tend to develop very rapidly. They come from out of nowhere and suddenly your eyes are all blurry. It's much faster than when you're older. It tends to develop slowly over years. Well, that's very reassuring now because I thought, wow, what kind of freak am I? You know, what else is going to go bad real quickly?

But at the time, I had no idea of this. Matter of fact, it was, I'm trying to think, February or March. I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist thinking I was having a problem with dry eyes. Again, I've had that before. And actually, I had a prescription for rastasis. You've probably seen the commercials with the red-headed eye doctor. So anyways, yeah, but I'd gotten off of it. I thought, maybe I need that again. So I went in, and the doctor treated me for dry eyes. He examined them. He said, yeah, we could do this or that. And he said, well, you might have the beginnings of a cataract.

He said, on a scale of 1 to 10, you're at about a 0.5. Although since then, I've looked back and thought to myself, did I hear 0.5 or was it 5? Because even then, I wish I'd pushed the matter because my right eye was the one where it was going fast. And at that point, it looked like I was looking through a sheer gauze.

You know, if you have, like, a women's scarf that's white, and you can hold it up and you can see, but it's kind of blurry, that's what it was looking like. And my left eye wasn't as bad, but it was coming along. Well, he seemed to think I didn't have a problem with cataracts, but my vision kept getting worse. Matter of fact, I'll mention it, it's funny, I was rubbing the skin raw because I kept feeling like there's something in my eye, so I was doing this all the time.

But what I didn't realize was inside the eyeball, so rubbing your eyes doesn't help. So I did the one thing doctors say don't do. I went to the internet, and you guys do that when you have a symptom, and the scariest stuff in the world is on there. I discovered there are multiple types of what's called corneal dystrophy, and there's one in particular where it seemed to be matching some of my symptoms. It was called Fuchs disease.

The only solution is either you go blind or you can have a corneal transplant. That's probably easier than a heart transplant, but it still seemed pretty scary. So I thought, I need to go get a second opinion. I made another appointment, saw a different ophthalmologist, and I didn't mention anything about dry eyes. I said, look, I'm having trouble seeing. So he examined me very thoroughly. He dilated my pupils. If you know that, it's like where your eyes get this big around, and if you go outside, you feel like you're looking at the sun. I asked him about Fuchs disease.

He said, you don't have Fuchs. He said, your corneals are fine. Your retinas are in good shape. And Frank, you got cataracts. You got cataracts, and you need surgery. Phew! Actually, that was a relief after all the things in my imagination. Fortunately, cataract surgery these days has become pretty routine. And that's kind of astounding to me, because back to even when I was a kid, it was a big deal. And you had weeks of recovery, and if they could correct your vision at all, you had to wear these Coke-bottle glasses and such.

Now, you're in and out of actually spending way more time in the waiting room than you do in surgery. So, it's an outpatient procedure. It's quick. It's effective. And now, I can see. And it's astounding. Wow do I appreciate it. I have some other comments on that reaction. But I will mention, during the time that I was afraid that I was going blind, when one doctor said, no, it's not cataract, you don't have to worry about that.

So, I found my vision was getting worse and worse, and I didn't know why. I didn't know how bad it was going to get. You know, I had time to think. Matter of fact, even after I learned what it was, I got that second opinion. He said, I'm going to refer you to a surgeon. You know, I had to wait like three weeks to get to see the surgeon.

And I was really hoping he'd say, okay, come in tomorrow and we'll fix him. It doesn't work that way. He said, come in in a month and a half and we'll fix it. So, you have time to think. And I thought, there have got to be spiritual lessons in this, which is why I'm talking to you about it so much today.

Plus, we haven't had a chance to catch up in a while, so I thought I'd come and tell you all my problems. I gained a great appreciation for those stories in the Bible where it talks about someone being dim of sight.

You know, especially Isaac. We all know the famous story where he wants to give a blessing to his firstborn son Esau. So Esau, go out and get me some venison and fix it the way I like. I'm going to give you a blessing. And Rachel overhears it and she, Jacob, Jacob, come here.

Go get a goat. I'll fix it the way he likes it. My brother's hairy and I'm smooth. Don't worry. I'll put a goatskin on you. And you're all reading this thinking, how dumb was Isaac that he couldn't tell? But now I know. This shadowy vision appears. Who are you? I'm your son. Well, you sound like Jacob, but you smell like Esau and I can't see well enough to tell the difference.

That's what it looks like when you get cataracts bad enough. I found myself in the ABC classroom. Sometimes I'd go in and sit in the back. And like I said, my left eye was still pretty good, but I do this. And I remember once Mr. Stiver was in visiting, it's like, okay, I know it's him because I know his voice. But if it weren't for that, it's just a figure of a man up there. And as I was considering all this, you know, I thought, there's got to be other lessons.

Matter of fact, I have a feeling I'm going to be thinking back and discovering lessons that I should have already learned by now. But I'm kind of slow on the uptake. Years from now, I'll be figuring some of them out. But besides that, I thought, what's the use of going blind if you can't at least get a little sermon out of it?

I didn't deliver that quite right. I started joking about it once I knew it was something to be fixed. You know, I talk about going blind routinely. Fortunately, I wasn't going blind. But, you know, the obvious analogy, I thought, can I do more than a sermonette on this? Everyone knows it. But with all that time, I started thinking. And actually, I got a prompt from Aaron Dean that really helped me see some things in a different way that I'll describe momentarily. There is more to this. It's worth exploring. So bear with me.

This is a really long introduction. But as I said, since we had extra time today, I want to explore some of these analogies and these lessons that I found in the process of thinking I was going blind. The first one is the obvious analogy that the Apostle Paul used. We refer to it all the time. If you'll turn with me to 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 4. It's a memory scripture. Okay. So now I've got a new Bible that's not falling apart, but the font is smaller, so I've got to put on the glasses to see.

2 Corinthians 4, 4. This is talking about Satan the devil deceiving the world. But the analogy Paul uses, he says, well, backing up, he said, Here we see that the truth is compared to light. Matter of fact, I won't turn there, but in John 8, verse 12, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He described himself as light. And so we see being able to understand the truth compared to being able to see clearly.

Not understanding being deceived is just being blind. So those who don't see the truth of God's world, they're in darkness or blinded. The companion scripture to this is in Ephesians 4 and verse 18. Ephesians 4, 18. Again, still written by the Apostle Paul and using that analogy once again. Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. Again, a very clear analogy. One more scripture before we start to speak more.

It's in 1 John 2 and verse 11. 1 John 2, 11, which is not the same as 2 Peter. It's tough to break in a new Bible. He who hates, he who hates his brother is in darkness, walks in darkness, and does not know where he's going because the darkness is blinded his eyes.

This is describing someone who's not guided by God's spirit. They say the darkness, the lack of that spirit, has blinded their eyes. Now, of course, it's not referring to literal blindness, although there are people who have that, but it's talking about not being able to see the truth. Fortunately, we know that God's plan calls for Jesus Christ to return. He'll return, as we'll picture in the fall Holy Days, and Satan will be bound. He'll no longer be able to blind the eyes of the world.

He'll be restrained, and there will be no more spiritual blindness. And when we think in those terms, it brings a light or a different meaning to several of the millennial scriptures we consider, such as Isaiah 35 and verse 5. I want to turn to a couple in Isaiah to remind us that these scriptures have two meanings. Isaiah 35.5.

This is one I've routinely read at funerals, because many times people have reached the end of their life, and they suffer from crippling debilities. They're not able to walk very well. Their eyes have grown dim, or they have other problems. And here it says, I believe when Christ returns, this is going to be fulfilled in the most literal sense of the word. Jesus Christ is going to heal people. People who went into their grave not able to see are going to be resurrected, and they will see. Those who've lost their hearing, they'll be raised again, and they'll be able to hear. And water will pour forth in the desert.

But there's that double meaning. We know often in the Bible, water pictures the Holy Spirit. It's funny, it just popped into my head. I make this reference in classes so often. John 7, verses 37-39. I won't turn there. That's where Jesus Christ said, So there's a double meaning here. Yes, literal water will change a literal desert into a fertile place. But God's Spirit, when Christ returns, is going to flow freely. And people who have spiritually been blind will have their eyes opened. People who spiritually have been deaf will be able to hear the truth and completely understand it with no ambiguity, no confusion. What a wonderful world that's going to be. And as I said, it gives every one of these scriptures this great meaning. There's going to be the physical reality and the spiritual. We look forward to that a great deal. While we're in Isaiah, we'll note Isaiah 9, verse 2. Isaiah 9, 2 is a prophecy of Jesus Christ coming, which we know because in Matthew 4, 16 it quotes it and says, This was about Jesus Christ coming. But it says, This was fulfilled in a preliminary way in ancient Palestine when Christ came the first time. As I said in Matthew, he quotes it to say that that's what it means. And of course, it's referring to him shining a light spiritually. I don't think Christ came to Galilee and he brought a great flashlight. Although that'd be kind of cool if he did, because people would be saying, What's that?

But it was fulfilled in some ways when Christ came, but how much more when he comes again, not as a meek sacrifice to pay for man's sins, but when he comes again, he'll come as King of Kings, Lord of Lords with power to rule the nations, but to rule them in love and kindness for their good, and to open their eyes, to turn on the light. That's going to be a fantastic thing.

But again, I realize this is such a common metaphor. I've probably spent about as much time explaining it as I can. It doesn't need much more explanation. Matter of fact, it interested me when I was going through this, as I said, and thinking about vision and sight much more than I normally would, I started realizing that this metaphor has permeated our language. We use it all the time. That's something that really became clear while I was contemplating, hey, I can't see very well, how bad is this going to get? Pleading to God for intervention, I kept praying, please make this go away. I don't want to have to go to have a doctor cut on my eyes. He didn't take that route, but it made me think about it. And I thought about the words I was using. I just said it became clear to me. Now, we use that, like these words become clear when I put these on, I can see better. But I was thinking about being able to understand better. I looked back as I was writing this at my introduction, and I said, I don't want to focus on the origin of the song, Amazing Grace. And I used that term focus just without even giving a second thought. As a matter of fact, that's one of the things that occurred to me, because sometimes I would be praying, and as I said, I pray to God about my vision. Because if you have your eyes open, you can't help but notice if you can see or not. So I'd sometimes ask God, please help me to not focus on my eyesight. And I'd say, oh, focus. I'm thinking about that. So, you know, anytime we focus our thoughts, we think of vision. When we understand something, we say, oh, yes, I see. Or if that opened my eyes, that's what the way the Bible describes it for Adam and Eve in Genesis. After they ate of the forbidden fruits, it says their eyes were opened, and they noticed they were naked. It doesn't mean that they couldn't see before then, but they weren't seeing things. They weren't thinking things the same way.

A person who has a specific plan for the future is said to have, what? Vision. A vision of the future. And we see that reflected in Proverbs 29, 18. I won't turn there, but where there is no vision, the people perish. Especially if they're trying to drive. Actually, that's not in my notes. It's funny, when I got my eyes fixed afterwards, I said, how did I keep driving back and forth to work?

I used to joke and say, well, I can drive by braille. You know, you feel the bumps? Like I said, the left eye was good enough I could see where the road was, but I still sometimes think, maybe I probably should have been letting... Well, I did let Sue drive any time we went together for a while. As a matter of fact, she said that's when she knew I really was having a problem when I started insisting she drive. Because I love to drive. You know, I always tell people, if I'm in the car, I'd just as soon be behind the wheel.

So, you know, I said, without vision, the people perish. When we want to go experience something, we see what it's like. So, as I said, there are so many figures of speech that are based on this metaphor. I got to thinking that unless we use very precise, sometimes even scientific language, it's hard to talk about thinking or about understanding without using a metaphor that refers to vision. It's just the way we perceive the world. As a matter of fact, I think God made it that way so that vision is our predominant sense.

Most of us are visual learners. He made us to be visually oriented. And that's what makes it all the more astounding for people who lack physical vision, how well they function. It shows you don't have to have it. There are people who are blind that function very well, and as I said, they have meaningful lives. But I'm still kind of astounded.

And that sort of relates to that vision again, in a sense. As I said, I would joke about, oh, I've been going blind, but sometimes around the house, I would do this and try to practice just in case. And I realize, no, it's way different. Seeing outlines and shadows and stuff of glory is not the same as not being able to see it all. So I wasn't even close to really being blind.

It makes me think, I referred to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they took of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. There were good and evil both in that. And it occurred to me, if we say that the world is blinded, as the Apostle Paul did, those people aren't blind in that sense. In the same sense, they see some. And some people more than others. And I don't want to put myself in a position to judge how much someone understands or how much someone doesn't.

But it did make me think, in the Church over the years, we've sometimes looked at people who we say are not now called and say, oh, they're blind, they don't know anything. Sometimes it's surprising how much they do know and they do see. They're not in complete darkness, but as Paul wrote, they were looking through a glass darkly. But that's sort of a side like the things I want to talk about today.

And as I said, I think I've said about as much as I can on this analogy. And I've been taking it slow and fleshing it out. And still don't have a full sermon. But as I said, I wanted, I thought, there's got to be something more to this. And then, as I said, Aaron Dean said something that made me think about some other things that really struck me. So if you bear with me, I want to look at some of these other things from the perspective of a cataract patient.

Not necessarily just the metaphor of being blind, but what happens when you experience the cataract, you have the surgery, or you're getting ready to. And one of the reasons, well, I'll build up to what Mr. Dean said. Because I was surprised when I got the diagnosis. Okay, you got a cataract, you need to have surgery. Because people had been saying, a lot of people in the office knew I was having some problems. So I'd go in and I'd tell people, I found out I got cataracts, I got to have surgery.

I was surprised at the reaction. Because most of the times, if you tell someone, oh, I have to have surgery, like if you need a heart valve replacement, they go, oh, I'm sorry, I hope it goes okay.

I mean, that's the norm, right? Or I've got to have whatever it is. I told, there's a matter of fact, many of you get to Cincinnati often enough. I'll mention Janet Treadway works in the mail room, very cheerful, happy person. And I told her, well, I found out I'm going to have to have cataract surgery. She said, that's wonderful! Oh, you're going to love it! And I'm sort of surprised. I just told you I'm going to have surgery and you're talking about how wonderful it was. Well, I didn't know that she'd had cataract surgery not long before. And she said, you have to ask for my doctor. I love him, he's so great. And I found out several people there in the home office or the Cincinnati congregation have had the surgery. And none of them said anything negative about it. Matter of fact, most of them said, ask for my doctor. And that's what I did. Actually, the same doctors treated me and at least five other people there in Cincinnati.

And I remember I was talking to Mr. Dean about how people are so happy about this. They love this doctor. I like him, too. Very professional, down to business. And he said, well, of course people like their eye surgeon. You go to him, you can't see, he treats you, you walk out and you can see. Well, what's not to like? That's wonderful!

And I thought in this analogy, that could portray how we feel about God and about his laws. Because at one point, we're kind of blinded. Like I said, things are real blurry and then God opens our eyes. Matter of fact, I want to turn to Psalm 119, verse 18. I think it portrays this to some degree. Psalm 119 and 118... Oh, 119, 18. There's only 100 in there.

And we believe this was probably written by David, or almost certain, but he says, Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law. Wondrous things! Open my eyes that I can see it. That's the way people feel when they suddenly see the truth. That's why we have songs like, Oh, How Love I Thy Law.

And it struck me when you grow up in the church, as we've got a number of us here, where you've kind of always known, it's not as striking. I'll say, I took vision for granted. Of course you can see. You know, as I was getting older, I found I needed glasses, or I'd have to hold things further away to read them. But, you know, you take for granted being able to see. But then when you can't, and you can, you go, Wow! I love it! This is wonderful! As I said, I talked to Mrs. Treadway, she said, I just drive to work, and I look out and say, Look at the trees, how beautiful they are!

And I found myself doing that. The first Sabbath after it had the surgery, Sue was still driving, I said, Wow! I can see leaves on the trees! I'd never been so happy to see leaves on trees before.

But, as I said, I was loving seeing that. Seeing the truth is like you love it. And you love God so much for what He's done. Much more than I love my eye doctor. I like my eye doctor, but I love God and love His truth.

There's a story in the Gospel of John that I think mixes those together. In John 9, it's a famous story of Jesus Christ healing a blind man. As a matter of fact, I wasn't going to read... Well, I'm not going to read any of it if I can't find it, but here it is. At the beginning of John 9, Jesus passed by. He saw a man who was blind from birth. His disciples asked Him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents? He was born blind. They're sort of making that assumption, which we sometimes do. This guy's got a problem. Somebody sins. Jesus said, neither this man nor his parents sin, but that the works of God should be revealed in Him. So, no, there's no sin involved in this. Which is a relief to me. When I found myself going blind, I did wonder, what did I do wrong? Well, I don't have Jesus coming and saying, no, you didn't do anything wrong. But the doctor gave me assurance that I didn't necessarily do anything wrong. He said, this just happens sometimes. And this fellow was born blind. He said, you know, that the works of God should be revealed. And there in verse 5, he said, as long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. So, we're going to see a physical healing of blindness, but the analogy somewhat of what happens spiritually. And that's what happened. I won't read all through it, but Jesus Christ brought him and he made some clay, spat on the soil, wiped it on his eyes, said, go wash this off. And he went, he either knew the way or he had somebody lead him, because he's blind. But he goes, he washes his eyes and suddenly he can see. And the people that know him are astounded. They know he'd been blind all of his life, but this is great. And who could do this? It raises this ruckus and stir. And of course, the Pharisees aren't very happy about it. They don't like this Jesus guy getting all this attention and casting a spursian on them. So, they've got to find a way to discredit this miracle. And they try to say, oh, this guy is doing bad things. He can't be of God. As a matter of fact, if we look down at verse 29, the Pharisees are saying, we know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, we don't know where he's from. The man who'd been healed, that man answered and said to them, well, this is a marvelous thing that you don't know where he's from. Yet he has opened my eyes. Basically, he's saying, yum, okay, you don't understand it. But he did this great miracle. Now, we know that God does not hear sinners. But if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, he hears him.

Since the world began, it's been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. This man were not from God. He could do nothing.

So he's saying, hey, this guy opened my eyes. He's got something going on. He loves whoever did this. I didn't read the part. I've always found it kind of amusing because early on, the Pharisees asked him to tell the story. They said, well, he did this. He put clay on my eyes, told me to go wash, and then I could see. And they said, well, where is he now? The funny question to ask is someone who was blind. He goes, I don't know. He says, I don't know. I always thought he should say, I don't know. I was blind. Last time I saw him, some people, it's a mixed thing. When I tell that story, some people laugh and some people don't. Anyways, it's sort of, yeah. Well, let's move on. It's not going to get any funnier.

But this man was convinced. Jesus opened my eyes. He healed me. He must be doing something right. He must be from God. So now we're going to move to the other side of the analogy. Down in verse, well, let's go to 35. Jesus heard they cast him out. They just fellowshiped him. When he found him, he said, do you believe in the Son of God? Now he's asking about spiritual matters. And he said, well, who is he, Lord, that I may believe in?

He said, you've both seen him, which is pretty good, because in the morning he couldn't see anything. But you've seen him, it's he who's talking to you. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.

And Jesus said, for judgment I've come into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind.

Jesus turned the metaphor back again, again using the miracle of sight as a type for the miracle of spiritual understanding. Both are miracles. And Jesus managed to work both at once. He was using this physical healing as a lesson, because he made the point, the Pharisees, they were blind, even though they could see. This man had been blind, but Jesus was able to open his eyes physically and then spiritually.

And of course, both the physical sight and the spiritual vision, both are things that bring utter joy.

Again, where I started, it makes you so happy to love the person that opened your eyes. It's a wondrous thing.

And we don't want to forget and start taking it for granted.

You know, if once we've been seeing spiritually for years, for decades, we could go, oh, yeah, of course I can see.

We need to remember that's a miracle. It's not something to take lightly or for granted. It's a very special thing when God opens your eyes. And he usually works through men and women, your parents, teachers, sometimes neighbors. Someone's helping you to see what the words in this book are and what they mean. But it's God's miracle.

I'm pausing because my notes say to take a pause.

Because I want to look at some other aspects of the analogy that I think might be instructive. As I said, when Mr. Dean got me thinking of different things besides the main analogy, some others became clear to me. And one is that I noticed that after I had the surgery, my vision became clear again, which is sort of astounding because when one eye is way worse than the other, it's sort of like something's pushing in and suddenly that was gone.

But following the surgery, I had a regimen of eye drops. I brought the chart. Those of you who had the surgery, did you get one of these? They give you this color-coded chart. I had three different types of medicated drops, and you have to take them on a schedule. What's funny is I had to take this to summer camp with me. So I'm at camp three times a day. I've got to put in the drops. And of course, they serve the purpose. You've got antibiotics because they actually cut open your eyeball and they say if you get an infection in your eye, you're going blind. So I said I'm taking those eye drops very seriously. And then you've got anti-inflammatory, some for pain. And what's interesting, with any medicine, you get the list of don't take this with this and that and here are possible side effects. You know what a common side effect for these eye drops is? Blurry vision. Who would thought?

But that helped me remember. It's like, okay, my vision is cleared, but it can get blurred again temporarily. Sometimes the drop makes your vision get a little blurry, but that doesn't last. It clears up again. The reason it was so outstanding was I'd just gone through months of my eyes being really blurry. And so you go through a surgery and think, okay, is it going to work? I think I can see better. Now I put this in. Now it's bad again. Is it going to stay bad? Am I not going to be able to see clearly? It makes you a little bit worried.

I described this as having your vision waver. And I wanted to use that terminology because I'm going to refer to the scripture in James 1. James 1 and verse 5.

I thought it was really clever, and I wrote it down, and then I noticed I was thinking of the word that's in the original King James, and it's written different in the New King James. So the New King James says, doubts, but I might use the word waver because this is talking about our faith. James 1 and verse 5, it says, If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But let him ask in faith with no doubting. The original said, With no wavering. He who wavers is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. Don't let that mean suppose he'll receive anything. And I thought, when my vision temporarily blurred, like after putting in the medicine, I had to be calm.

I had to tell myself, it's going to come back to normal. Frank, you got to blink and let it take its time. The same goes true with our spiritual vision. There's times when your understanding of the truth could temporarily blur. Now, what can make your vision blur spiritually? Well, that's easy. Most of us have had it happen. A severe trial. You lose a loved one and you're not sure why. And you start wondering, does this really matter?

Is what I understand here true? Or you're going through a severe trial. Your health is really bad. And you start thinking, maybe I don't get it. Times like that, you need to remember, just like your vision can clear up if you blink. Spiritually, sometimes you got to blink and wait and trust that God is going to clear it up again.

What's interesting is I thought, with my vision, that's happened before the medicated drops. If you've been outside, like I was yesterday, I hadn't been able to mow my lawn in the backyard for a week and a half or two weeks because it kept raining. So I was out there in the hot sun and I got sweat running down in my eyes. And boy, that makes some blurry. Hands sting. So I didn't have to have cataract surgery to get blurry eyes for that, but you blink and you can see again.

When your spiritual vision gets kind of blurry, you're going through something horrific, it'll clear up. You don't have to think, oh, I'm blind. I'll never understand again. But we do have to be patient. Trust that it's temporary. Remember, God is still God. The truth is still the truth, even if it seems blurry momentarily. I've got my notes. Blink. Patience. We know these things. Now I move on and tell you about something that I'd never heard of before I developed cataracts. And that's what they call secondary cataracts.

I don't know if any of you had this heard you're familiar with those. Hopefully not. And I first heard of it. John McLean is an elder in Cincinnati and he told me he got secondary cataracts. I was like, so what? This can happen again? What's that? Well, to understand what that is, you need to understand what cataracts are in the first place. And I had a misunderstanding. Maybe I should slow down and say that more clearly. I'm not sure if I understood completely because they describe it as though something's building up on the lens of your eye.

And then other times they say, no, it's something within your lens. But it is, you know, within your eyeball, you've got a very clear little lens that focuses. It's like one of these, only way smaller. And it's suspended right behind your pupil inside a clear capsule. And that's what holds the lens in place. But the lens, as you get older, if you have cataracts, it's either enzymes or some type of amino acids or something starts building up.

Protein. One medical description I said, said it's like when you have cells die. You know, the outer layer of your skin is cells that aren't alive anymore. But they rub off eventually and new ones come. But they say your eyeball, if there's cells that die, they don't have any place to go. And so they build up and it becomes more opaque and you can't see through it.

So what they do to correct it with cataract surgery is they have this tiny little incision. And they go in and they cut into that capsule. And this is the gross part. They squirt in something that makes your lens dissolve. They use the fancy word emulsify.

So basically they dissolve your lens and suck it out. And then they stick in a new one that's all folded up and it unfolds. And it's got these little wires that hold it in place that attach to that capsule. And it works just like your original. Well, not just like. Because I learned the original one, you know, when you're young, you can focus. You can see something close and see something far. And as you get older, you have trouble focusing. That's why you need reading glasses.

Well, the lenses I got, they're monofocal. So something at a certain distance, I can see perfect. But closer gets blurrier, further gets blurrier. And that has nothing to do with the lesson I'm making now, except that that lens is now, they put it into that capsule. Okay. In a secondary cataract, the clear thing that holds your lens can start to get that cloud in. Oh, man! And the symptoms are the exact same. Things start looking blurry. They start looking opaque. Colors aren't quite the same.

Well, for a patient that has those symptoms, it can come on gradually, you might not notice. Now, I would think a person who had that would see it right away. But, you know, as I said, for me, my cataracts developed real quickly. As I said, back in January, I'm at the Winter Family Weekend, everything's fine. By late March, you know, the eye chart's getting real blurry.

But if it happened real slowly, say if I got secondary cataracts over years, would I notice? Now, I wonder, or is there a danger of the secondary cataract? You know, the person saying, well, okay, this must be normal. I've had it so long. That short time where I could see clearly was the aberration. It's hard to imagine, but think of that spiritual analogy. You have this clarity, but then you go back to blurriness. I see that as what Peter was describing in 2 Peter 2 and verse 20.

I'm making the analogy where the vision isn't perfect, but the reaction to it is what I want to get to. Because he says here, if after they've escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that means you had been spiritually blind, but now you've got the knowledge. You can see it clearly. If after that, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the Holy Commandment that had been given to them. Is this saying it would have been better to have stayed blind in the first place than to have been given sight and then gone back to blindness?

I think this seems to be what it's saying, but as I said, the analogy to cataract surgery doesn't stack up completely. Because with cataract surgery, you originally can see, then you lose your vision, you get it fixed, and if you get a secondary cataract, you start losing it again. But I want to talk about the part that does hold up is your reaction. Because I'm very happy to say if I get a secondary cataract, it's easily treated. As a matter of fact, I was surprised the doctor said, hey, it's a laser procedure. I was going to say laser surgery. Basically, he said, just come to the office. You don't have to go to the surgical center. Make an appointment. Come in. What they do is they actually blast off part of that capsule and the lens is still intact.

And you can see again. He said, it's very quick. It's 100% effective. They'll never come back again. Hey, that's all right. The only hassle is getting in to see the doctor. Specialists can take some time. But I have to be willing to do it. And that's where I thought there's an analogy there.

If any of us start to have a blurring in our spiritual vision and we realize it, we can go see the doctor. We can go to God. He is easy to get an appointment with. He will treat it. He can. We have to take the step, though. We have to think, okay, I'm going to go through repentance. I've got to do prayer, perhaps fasting.

It's not falling off a log easy, but like I said, easier than getting eye surgery scheduled.

He's always available for an appointment.

And to me, that makes it all the more incomprehensible that a person could ever have spiritual vision and then tolerate losing it.

But as I said, if it happens very slowly over the years, maybe like a cataract patient, you don't realize how bad it's gotten.

But the good news is most people who get secondary cataracts, they don't just let it go. They go to their doctor and say, hey, can you fix this? I want to be able to see. And I believe that does fit my analogy.

Because all Christians do fall into sin at times. That's just the way it is. We make mistakes.

But almost all of them realize it and repent. We go to God and say, hey, I need to get back straight again.

Have you noticed in 2 Peter 2 verse 20, it doesn't say if after they've escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Lord and Savior and Jesus Christ, they again sin?

No, because everyone does that. It says if they again become entangled and overcome, then it's better to have never known Christ.

I think of entangled and overcome as being equal to saying, I want to stay blind. Getting in and saying I'm not going to repent.

I choose blindness permanently. And we call that the unpardonable sin. It's the sin that's not repented of by choice of the sinner.

It's not surprising to think that very few would ever choose physical blindness oversight. I wonder, maybe someone would.

But I think even fewer would choose spiritual blindness. I'm amazed to think would anybody make that choice?

The Bible indicates that some few will. I think it's very few. And I know I've heard many ministers say the same thing, so it's not just me.

But as I said, I used the term early, I think in my introduction, when I faced what I called the terrifying prospect of going blind. To me, that was scary. But I think the idea of choosing spiritual blindness, of choosing the lake of fire, that's far more terrifying.

And I think almost nobody's going to choose that. As I said, secondary cataracts are a rare occurrence.

I think somebody going away from God permanently and on purpose is even more rare. Very rare.

So I'm going to stop talking about it.

Taking another break here, but I want to consider another side effect from the surgery that I learned is actually much more common.

It kind of scared me too, because I had one eye done and then two weeks later the second eye, which usually they make it several months.

It shows you how blind I was going. But I had the eye surgery done one morning and I was going to go to the doctor's office the next day so we could get that bright light and look at it and make sure everything's going okay.

Which it was. But I noticed that morning, it's like, hmm, over here I'm not seeing things as well.

Is something bad? Is my retina coming detached or something like that? No, it wasn't anything like that.

And the doctor said it's fairly common. He said it's just inflammation. Because when they do it, it's a very tiny incision.

We said we actually, they cut into the eyeball and what's amazing to me is they don't have to stitch it closed or anything. They say it's kind of like a self-sealing tire. The skin is thick enough and there's enough pressure. It just goes, you know, holds the stuff in, which is kind of amazing.

I see the looks on people's faces. I hope we're not having lunch too soon after this.

But what was happening is because of the incision, there's some slight bit of swelling. It's very slight, but it's right there on your eyeball and it's near the pupil. So it's literally blocking your vision from the side. You can't see as well on your peripheral vision. Then I got the other one done and both sides were kind of like that.

Doctors said, be patient. For almost everyone, the swelling goes down and it comes back to normal.

I thought of my analogy, though. I said I could see that with Christians because, you know, most people are going through life. You know, they're things are blurry. They don't understand what's in here real well. But then it's open and they see it. I understand God's plan. I understand the commandments.

But for almost all of us, there's some stuff on the side.

I'm trying to see. There. Now I can see it. See? I used to be able to see it back here. There's some stuff on the side that's not so clear.

Smaller matters. They say, okay, I understand Christ's sacrifice. I understand his kingdom coming, but there's stuff I don't quite get.

And some people have a hard time dealing with not understanding or not knowing. And they stand to focus. I got to see what's over there and start ignoring what's in front of them.

You know, I'm not sure. Well, I think there's a danger. If you want to concentrate only on the periphery, you can stop paying attention to those big important things that you can see and you don't focus. Well, we're back here near the back of the Bible. I wanted to read Titus chapter 3 and verse 9. Titus, just before Hebrews.

I think the sword of the scribes, Paul, he wasn't using the same analogy, but he's saying this is the phenomenon. Titus 3 and verse 9, he says, Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, strivings about the law. They're unprofitable and useless. Another way he could have been saying is stick to the trunk of the tree. You've probably heard that analogy.

If you get out there on the twigs, you'll get on a branch that won't hold your weight and you'll eventually fall.

I was trying to think of examples of trivial matters that people could pay too much attention to. The biggest thing I think of is it's always some matter of prophecy.

I'm going to figure out who the two witnesses are and where they come from. I'm going to see if I can get their mailing address or something like that.

There could be a lot of things. It doesn't have to be a bad issue, by the way. People have devoted a lot of time to mapping out where the twelve tribes were located in the Holy Land.

Where are they going to be when Christ returns? Will it be the same? Who's descended from them now and where are they?

Not silly matters, not unimportant, but still kind of on the periphery to the main plan.

Studying the temple. I've seen very detailed drawings of what Solomon's temple must have looked like and how does it compare to the one that Zerubbabel built.

And then the one that you see in Ezekiel that will be in the millennium. Or genealogies.

I was surprised there's a fellow in Cincinnati that he almost has memorized the book of Chronicles.

And he can tell you, oh, this person's related to that person, and I'm like, wow. I'm supposedly a minister. I couldn't tell you who all these people are related to.

And I want to say there's nothing wrong with any of those things. I've benefited from it.

If someone goes to that much trouble to outline what the temple will look like in Ezekiel, I'll bring the model into class and show the students so I don't have to create it myself.

It's if a person focuses on those issues so much that they stop seeing the central aspects of God's law. That's a danger.

What are those central aspects? What did Christ say? He said, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might.

And the second commandment is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

I think if we get those things, you know, the stuff on the periphery will come clear later. It's OK for something to be blurry out here as long as I'm seeing what's in front of me and I'm focusing on that.

But I did think there's another side of that that can be dangerous because, as I said, a lot of times the inflammation finally goes down and suddenly, hey, I see something out there. I didn't see it before, but now I do.

There's a danger. I don't think this happens with cataract patients, but I've seen it with Christians where now I see something out there. What else have I not been seeing clearly?

And I want to start reinterpreting everything else. That can be a little bit dangerous.

You know, have we heard of people who've discovered some new understanding of a peripheral matter? It's almost that's most often some prophetic interpretation. Now I understand the way the three and a half years are going to happen in this plague and that plague, and they start reinterpreting everything in light of that understanding, supposedly.

And they don't want to be told otherwise. That fits while we're near there. 2 Timothy 4. 2 Timothy 4, verse 3.

Paul wrote, The time will come when they won't endure sound doctrine. I think of the sound doctrine of this stuff here, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they'll heap up for themselves teachers and turn their ears away from the truth. We turn to fables. I so much wish Paul had said they'll turn their eyes rather than their ears. That would have just fit my sermon so much better.

Either way, we don't want to do that. We do want to see clearly everything we do, but keep in mind what's the central issues as opposed to periphery. Which leads to the question, what are those central points? Is it worth spending some time on them? What are the things we have to see clearly?

Well, again, those two great commandments I think we should focus on.

Which, I thought I'd give the scriptural reference. I know there's one in Matthew.

This is one of those things I'm supposed to have memorized, and then I don't want to know it.

Oh well, I'll come to it later, because I wanted to make a different reference. Actually, in Hebrews, chapter 6.

What I was talking about in Matthew is the two great commandments. Somebody came and asked Christ, what's the greatest commandment?

What do you think? Well, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.

Jesus said, you're right. The second one's just like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

That also fits with Matthew 19, verse 16, one of my favorite stories, where a young Lord came to Jesus and said, what do I have to do to have eternal life?

Well, what are you reading? Basically, he says, keep the commandments.

Which commandments? Well, he starts listing off the ten commandments. He said, do this and you'll live.

He didn't say, you've got to understand the 70 weeks prophecy, and you've got to be able to figure out what type of bread Ezekiel made when he was laying on his side for half a year.

Keep the commandments. And I was going to turn to Hebrews, chapter 6. I think I said that already. Hebrews 6 and verse 1.

Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection.

So, going on to perfection is our goal, but there are elementary principles.

They include the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards God, the doctrine of baptism, laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

And these are things we don't ever want to leave behind. And that doesn't mean we should never study them, but we don't have to redefine them.

It's interesting, there are six of those fundamental principles, and then we often say that the going on to perfection is number seven, the seven basic doctrines that we want to have.

We could spend all of our time on those things and be doing pretty well.

And in case we're looking for something else to focus on, we want to remember God's plan that's outlined in the annual Holy Days.

Every year, He draws our attention to them and focuses on what He's doing with mankind.

The Holy Days typify Jesus Christ's sacrifice that helps us to overcome sin through His Holy Spirit.

And in the fall, we look at the fact that Jesus Christ will return. He will establish His Kingdom on earth. He's going to banish Satan.

And He's going to give all mankind an opportunity to live His way, an opportunity to have sins forgiven, have animosity put away, to be healed.

If we focus on all that, if we understand clearly what God is doing and what He wants us to be doing, we won't get distracted by peripheral matters.

We'll keep the truth plainly in sight.

And I'm turning to the last page of my notes.

And I stand here before you as someone who was blind, sort of, but now I see.

And I said, thanks to the wonders of medical science, I had my vision corrected.

Which is a pretty cool thing. You think of, you know, in Genesis, where before the Tower of Babel, God came down and said, they're doing this.

Nothing is going to be withheld from them. And maybe He had things in mind, like supercomputers and electric cars and even eye surgery.

But more important than just me having my vision corrected, all of us were formally blind spiritually, to some degree or another.

You know, if you've known the truth most of your life, it might be when you were four years old and you were a little blurry on some things.

But God has miraculously granted us clear understanding. He's given us spiritual vision of His plan and His purpose for life.

Let's never lose sight of those truths. Let's endure any temporary setbacks, any momentary loss of clarity.

We can wait for things on the periphery to come in focus in God's time.

And as a last note, we want to remember, I've been making an analogy.

We also want to remember what the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 7. I won't turn there, but he said simply, we walk by faith, not by sight.

We want to have spiritual vision, but we need to have faith. We walk by faith.

Let's all maintain that walk.